“I believe in the essential unity of all that lives. Therefore, I believe that if one person gains spiritually, the whole world gains, and that if one person falls, the whole world falls to that extent.” - Mohandas Gandhi
The spiritual-emotional awareness and perception of the unity, harmony of life and the unity and nondualism (the undifferentiated oneness of the All)of universe is another illustration of a type of spirituality. The oneness of life and energy within the All - and the idea of collective consciousness - can be found in all the major religions. Within Hinduism, there is a tradition, and spirit, of inclusiveness.
Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, who was an activist in the civil rights struggle in South Africa, along with Nelson Mandela, stated, " The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated." The Hindu Radhanath Swami observed: "In Sanatan Dharma, or what is commonly called Hinduism, I discovered the basic truths of all religions in a way that the oneness of God and religion is comprehensively understood." Along those same lines, Einstein stated unequivocally: “A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
When you look at different spiritual experiences, the spirituality of Martin
Luther King Jr., Gandhi, or Tolstoy - which would be different from a
transcendental spiritual-psychic experience - which would be different from the
Hari-Krishna monks chanting mantras - which would be different from Christians speaking in tongues - which would be different from the spirituality of a person gaining comfort through spirituality in grieving for the loss of a loved one who has passed on - and so on! Furthermore, it would seem likely that different regions of the brain would be involved in many of the different types of spirituality.
One type of spirituality, for instance, would be the spirituality in the beauty and harmony of nature. You see Spirit and spirituality in "the perfection of a flower, the intelligence of a tree, the majesty of a waterfall and in the eyes of a baby." (Natalie) The beauty and wonder of nature is a common feeling felt by many. In fact, many, many centuries earlier, the early Christian mystic, St. Gregory of Nyssa, explained it this way: "For when one considers the universe, can anyone be so simple-minded as not to believe that the Divine is present in everything, pervading, embracing and penetrating it."
Rachel Carson in her book Silent spring, writes:
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” The famous theologian, Abraham Joshua Heschel argues that, "Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed." St Gregory of Nyssa, an early Christian mystic, puts a di
fferent twist with a nondualism spin on wonder and its role in human consciousness: "Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees." It is true that historically ideologies - 'conceptual idols' - have in fact been responsible for killing millions and millions of people. St. Gregory of Nyssa, also, stated: "That we may merge into the deep and dazzling darkness, vanish into it, dissolve in it forever in an unbelievable bliss beyond imagination, for absolute nothingness represents absolute bliss."
Scientists and astronomers frequently express the most eloquent, and, at times, even ecstatic praise, for the universe - for "creation" - speaking in awe and wonder of the incredible miracle and mystery of life and the universe. In the World as I see it, Albert Einstein profoundly observed, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” In speaking about beauty St. Gregory of Nyssa observed: "Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived. Therefore, the ardent lover of beauty, although receiving what is always visible as an image of what he desires, yet longs to be filled with the very stamp of the archetype." Carl Sagan, somewhat ironically, in light of the parallels to how the theologian Schliermacher spoke about the "sense of infinity," often spoke eloquently of his wonder at the sheer "immensity" of the universe. In an almost gushing poetic description of the universe, Carl Sagan said, "There is a wide, yawning black infinity. In every direction, the extension is endless; the sensation of depth is overwhelming. And the darkness is immortal. Where light exists, it is pure, blazing, fierce; but light exists almost nowhere, and the blackness itself is also pure and blazing and fierce." Carl Sagan was a vocal and harsh critic of the idea of a 'supernatural Being' - yet Sagan, in theThe Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark,also stated unequivocally “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
This spiritual awareness of oneness and connectivity has some solid foundation in mainstream psychology. Carl Jung's major concept in his 'psychology' or theory would be the concept of collective unconscious - a 'shared-communcal' unconscious with universal archetypes (predispositions) and scripts or narratives. Even before Carl Jung, William McDougall (1871– 1938) was a 'social' psychologist who argued that “We must recognize……the existence in a certain sense of over-individual or collective minds." (1921, p.9) William James, in describing his personal sense of human consciousness, employed the metaphor of a man (or woman) as an island in a vast sea, which, however, would still be connected to the continental land masses which lie under the sea. Roy Baumeister, a mainstream social psychologist, advances the concept of sharedness. Baumeister argues that without at least a minimal foundation of "sharedness," or common understanding, society would simply be utterly unable to function at all. I should mention in passing that my own personal spiritual experiences conveyed a sense of "connectivity" and "sharedness." A significant aspect of spirituality, then, would appear simply to be an "awareness," a mindset, or perspective.
As we have seen already, great minds like Einstein clearly perceived that humans are inextricably connected. William James, the Father of American Psychology, also unequivocally stated: "This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed." Strict materialist psychology completely excludes not only "meaning" altogether, but spirituality totally, as well. Perhaps it is the anti-spirituality drive in materialist orientated psychologists which drives them to the extreme - and rather untenable - position that the human mind is a separate and isolated "mechanism" much reminiscent of the mechanistic-materialist position alluded to by the French philosopher Rene Guenon, who believed materialism began with Descartes.
This is an excerpt from a longer essay-blog about Hardwired Unconscious Spiritual Processes as explained by William James, Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Emile Durkheim and Clifford Geertz.
Here is a link if you are interested: https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/unconscious-spiritual-processes
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