You had it when you were younger, and then you outgrew it.
Or you never had it, and you never wanted it, but you’re starting to think maybe now you do. Something terrible happened and you’re trying to deal with it.
Or nothing terrible happened but nothing great is happening, either.
You feel a kind of restlessness or emptiness or dissatisfaction with your usual pleasures and treasures — the sex, the drugs, the music, the dancing, the travel, the boyfriend, the shopping, the house, TiVo. You have a sense that there’s something more to life than this. You’re right. Congratulations! You’re probably ready to delve into spirituality.
Sure, it’s fun to be young and gay and fabulous, but sooner or later — and that could be age 12 or 25 or 50 — you start to realize the advantages of having an inner life.
With the demands of everyday life and work and family and advertising constantly pulling at you, it’s easy to forget who you are. Spirituality provides a navigational system through the mysteries of existence — what is my purpose here? What was I born to do? What is my connection to other people, to nature, to the universe? What is the meaning of suffering? How can I live all of who I am? It’s about living deeper. It’s about happiness that can’t be found in things. It’s about knowing yourself.
But where to begin?
Part of me is highly resistant to being told what to do, and therefore I resist telling others what to do, especially in the realm of spirituality, which is so personal and where there is a long history of shepherds leading the flock astray. But then I think it’s about simple sharing of knowledge. If you don’t have the first clue how to make a vegetable frittata, and I make it all the time, is it better for me to let you fumble around in the kitchen by yourself or should I just give you the fucking recipe? You’ll adapt it to your own purposes and pantry anyway. So here’s how it works for me.
I think I was always a spiritual kid. I was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy, but not because I believed any of the dogma – I was in it for the theater, mostly. I wanted to be part of the show, not sit in the audience. Still, I was curious about spirituality and precociously read William James‘ The Varieties of Religious Experience and The Bhagavad-Gita when I was 12 or 13. I was probably influenced by the Beatles and other rock groups who went to India and studied meditation (when they weren’t blowing their minds on pot and acid). I used to burn incense and sit cross-legged and adopt a pose of meditation, which allowed me to think of myself as a hippie fellow traveler instead of a nerdy crew-cutted military dependent living on an Air Force base in San Antonio.
All that fell away as adolescence set in. College had its own absorptions, including coming out as a gay man. And then my twenties were all about working and getting ahead and building a career and making a name for myself. They say that most people don’t really start developing a serious inner life, whether that means therapy or spiritual practice or philosophical inquiry, until around age 35, by which time life has knocked some of the youthful cockiness and sense of immortality out of you.
For me, it happened like clockwork. Four days after I turned 35, my best friend died of AIDS. I’d been the primary organizer of his health care, especially in the last couple of months when he developed a brain tumor and lost the ability to walk, talk, or feed himself. His parents were freaked out and complete basket cases, so it was left to me to attend to him and them and the home care nurses and hospitals and funeral arrangements. It was a heart-wrenching experience, and yet I discovered something about myself in the process: that I had some reservoir of inner strength and love that the rest of my life wasn’t using, and it came in handy taking care of my sick friend. After he was gone, I was left to ponder what all that was about.
That led me to do some of the things I’d recommend to you: have a daily practice (such as meditation), read, take a class.
Learning to meditate is all about getting quiet and going inside to see who’s home. It really helps to start your day with a structured way of slowing down and remembering who you are, before the world starts making its daily demands. Meditation is an essential spiritual practice. Having a daily practice is so important. It can look any number of ways — it might mean burning incense and sitting cross-legged and emptying your mind and looking beatific, but it doesn’t have to look like that. Whatever it is, it helps to do it every day. It’s not an easy habit to form, but it’s like playing a sport or a musical instrument — it’s about practice, not about instant mastery.
Some people can learn to meditate from reading books or listening to audiotapes, and there are some good ones. My favorite teacher is Jack Kornfield, who is one of the foremost teachers of the Buddhist practice known as vipassana, or mindfulness meditation. He has a great book called A Path with Heart that I would recommend to anyone starting out on a spiritual journey. He is associated with the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, and he has a bunch of audio courses on meditation that you can order from Amazon.
But I sampled a lot of different things before I ended up with Jack Kornfield and vipassana. I read a lot of books, because I’m a reader. Spiritual memoirs were especially intriguing to me. Some that really spoke to me were: Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda (a classic in this genre, though it takes about 50 pages to get used to the long Sanskrit names — just ignore them and keep plowing), Christopher Isherwood‘s My Guru and His Disciple (excellent tale of a gay Quaker’s initiation into the Vedanta branch of Hinduism), and Andrew Harvey‘s A Journey in Ladakh (mystic travels to Tibet).
When it came time to get serious about having a practice, I started by taking a correspondence course with the Self-Realization Fellowship, an organization in California set up to continue the teachings of Yogananda. But after a while, all this reading was just too heady for me. I needed presence, direct transmission of teaching. So I took an introductory meditation class at the Integral Yoga center in New York. It was a really simple class, and the instructions were really simple, and they serve me to this day:
Create an altar for yourself as a focus for reverence (it can be a tiny tabletop somewhere in your house), light a candle, put something beautiful next to it or a picture of somebody you love, and start small by sitting for five minutes. Use a kitchen timer, and sit no more than five minutes. When the timer goes ding, get up and go about your day. Do the same thing every day for a week. After that, add one minute to your routine, and sit for six minutes a day. Do that for a week. Add a minute each week until you get to the length of time that feels right for you. Mine is about 20 minutes. Some people have time and leisure enough to sit for 45 minutes every day. You may only have 12 minutes. Do it every day. It’ll change your life.
Okay, that’s some preliminary information. I sense some questions and objections being raised. Let’s deal with a few of those:
Why do I have to be a spiritual person?
You don’t have to. It’s not something to beat yourself up about or turn into another occasion for run-with-the-pack conformity. You’ll come to it when you need to. I love the Mary Oliver poem that begins:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
I can’t help equating spirituality with churches, many of which preach against homosexuality. Why would I want to have anything to do with religions that revile gay people?
It’s definitely true that almost no one gay grows up without being scarred somehow by homophobic religious teachings, which most of us encountered when we were too young to shield ourselves from their onslaught. For gay people especially, an important part of developing a rich and healthy inner life is learning to separate religion from spirituality. Churches are institutions organized around religious doctrines, many of which offer beautiful instructions for living a good life. But churches and organizations are run by human beings, which means they’re flawed. The biggest flaw among religious people is a narrow-minded attitude toward those who don’t think and act exactly like them.
There are gay churches, most notably the Metropolitan Community Church, which has branches in most North American cities. And virtually every denomination of Christian religions has churches or groups that are gay or gay-friendly. It takes a lot of courage and determination for gay people to stay in the church — organizations like Dignity and Integrity exist for gay Christians to support one another. There are gay synagogues in a lot of big cities as well.
Staying in the church means you have to do some serious work on yourself healing homophobia, and healing doesn’t happen on its own. (People who call themselves “recovering Catholics” aren’t kidding!) You need a support system, though reading always helps. A book I recommend is an anthology called Wrestling With the Angel: Faith and Religion in the Lives of Gay Men, edited by Brian Bouldrey. Another good one is Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey by Fenton Johnson.
Churches like Unity and the Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to be much more gay-friendly than traditional Christian denominations. Same goes for Buddhist communities, since Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a dogmatic religion. That hasn’t stopped the Dalai Lama, of all people, from making remarkably ignorant comments about gay people. But there are plenty of Buddhist groups that are welcoming. Winston Leyland‘s anthology Queer Dharma is a good introduction to gay Buddhist thought.
But church is only one door into the world of spirituality. You can also go the route of exploring inner life from a mythological point of view. Mark Thompson‘s ground-breaking 1987 anthology Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning turned a lot of people on to the spiritual impulses that run through Walt Whitman‘s ecstatic poetry, the Native American two-spirit tradition, the quest for transcendence underlying leather sexuality, and the gender-consciousness-raising of the pagan Radical Faeries.
There are also non-denominational, non-church movements devoted to gay spirituality, such as the Q-Spirit movement launched by Christian de la Huerta, author of the influential book Coming Out Spiritually. David Nimmons wrote a wonderful book called The Soul Beneath the Skin to launch his own movement called Manifest Love, devoted to developing a culture of affirmation among gay men and promoting loving challenges to mainstream stereotypes of gay behavior.
White Crane Journal is a magazine about gay spirituality whose website has an exhaustive list of links to resources on the subject.
I have a practice but it’s feeling stale — how do I take it deeper?
Most people who have a spiritual practice find it helpful every year or two to go on retreat. Carve time out of your life to go away for a week or ten days or two weeks or a month or three months to practice meditation or yoga or whatever it is you do. Arduous as it may seem in advance to find the time and resources to do it, the rewards are immeasurable. Away from the distractions and daily demands of your life at home, in some beautiful natural environment under the leadership of skilled facilitators, you can really deepen your practice and come home refreshed and reinvigorated.
Especially when you’re new to a spiritual journey, you find yourself getting on the workshop circuit and diving into a lot of week-long adventures. It’s a great way to explore different forms of spiritual practice. One of my first big retreats was a vision quest in Wyoming, a Native American ritual that involves a three-day solo fast in the desert — intense and life-changing! Another good one was a week-long workshop that combined Buddhist meditation led by Jack Kornfield with holotropic breathwork led by Stanislav Grof (a pioneer in studying “non-ordinary states of being” whose original work was in LSD and, after it was outlawed, switched to breathwork and found similar results). Little by little, I built up to what is now my preferred retreat mode, which is a ten-day silent vipassana retreat, which I do every couple of years at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.
I’m not good at joining groups. How can I pursue a spiritual path on my own?
For many people, being in community is a key part of developing spiritually. As a young gay rabbi recently told me, “In the Jewish tradition, belonging comes before believing.” That’s challenging to gay people who’ve been made to feel like outsiders in their families, their churches, their communities. You get to a point of not knowing how to belong, even where you’re welcome. It’s worth it to make an effort to find kindred spirits, but don’t expect to get all your needs met in a spiritual community.
While some of the spiritual journey is communal, a big piece of it is learning to validate your own experience, to be the master of your own domain, so to speak. Here are some spiritual practices you can try on your own: Sing. Dance. Commune with nature. Turn off your TV. Give things away. Forgive yourself. Make a pilgrimage. Go to a funeral. Start over. Let go of your judgments of other people and yourself. Let go. Let go.
I’ve tried to meditate, but I can’t sit still, and I can’t do yoga — I’m not supple enough, and I can’t stand the thought of being a clod in a roomful of preening perfect yogis. I resist organized religion, and new age woo-woo stuff just seems silly. Plus, I don’t have time.
If you’re interested in developing an inner life but you find fault with every possibility, you end up isolated or alienated from something you say you want. Consider that you may be suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). You might seek professional help (therapy) to reduce stress and heal trauma.
It’s not just that religions are anti-gay — they also tend to be anti-sex or anti-body. How can I be a spiritual person and not deny physical pleasure and the life of the body?
Good question! A very important part of any spiritual journey is uncovering the sacred in your sexuality. A good place to explore that is to sign up for Celebrating the Body Erotic, a workshop created by the Body Electric School, which is based in California and teaches workshops all over the country. It’s a two-day class in combining touch, breath, and erotic energy that goes a long way toward healing the split between sexuality and spirituality. A good book on this subject is David Guy‘s The Red Thread of Passion: Spirituality and the Paradox of Sex. And a good daily practice is to spend some time every day (even if it’s only five or ten minutes) massaging yourself from head to toe, including your genitals, to honor and bless every part of your physical being.
I’m obsessed with sex to the point of compulsiveness, incessantly surfing for porn and Internet hookups. Where does spirituality fit into all this?
A big reason to cultivate an inner life is to get support and experience in the spiritual practice of discernment — telling one thing apart from the other. A lot of us live with intense shame about our desires. But is it a healthy form of shame — feeling bad about having sex in a way that’s harmful to ourselves or others (being abusive or coercive, infecting others with diseases, focusing on sexual pickups to the point of neglecting our own health and responsibilities)? Or is it a toxic form of shame based on religious teachings that have implanted prohibitions about any kind of sexual passion, especially same-sex? It is your spiritual challenge as a human being to learn to decide that for yourself. Spiritual practice and guidance can help you work through murky questions like: am I having a lot of sex because I want to, or am I having sex that I don’t really enjoy? Sometimes we feel something lacking inside ourselves and we want a sexual encounter to fill up the hole. Does that really work? Unless you dismantle the voice inside that constantly screams “You’re no good,” no amount of validation from outside will ever be enough.
Desire is a major realm for spiritual investigation. I love something that the great gay poet Allen Ginsberg once said: “Desires are the natural product of the heart, just as thoughts are the natural product of the mind.” Acceptance of your desires in a kind and loving way –– rather than judging them or suppressing them — is a first step toward discernment, then you can have the clarity to decide which desires to act on and which to leave as desires.
West African teacher Malidoma Some once said, “Desire is a horse that wants to take you on a journey to spirit” — a saying I liked so much that I painted it on the mantle of my fireplace. Where is the vehicle of desire taking you? Toward pleasure? That’s fine — often a short trip. Toward connection with others? Toward connection with source of life? Toward communion with the divine? Again, it’s your call.
Sometimes our obsession with sex represents a powerful longing for the mythological Beloved or a wish to dwell in an oceanic state of being one with God. If you’re obsessed with cock to the point of religious fervor, why not make a conscious ritual out of it? Hindus pray to and pour libations over phallic-shaped stones representing the Shiva lingam — literally, the dick of God. One more quote from a poet on this subject and then I’ll stop: James Broughton said, “The body is a temple, and the only proper activity in a temple is worship.”
There seem to be too many choices. How do I know where to go or who to trust?
The main thing to know is that there are many spiritual traditions (Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, pagan, Afro-Caribbean, Native American, etc.) and there are many spiritual practices (meditation, chanting, going to church, observing religious holidays, breathing, hatha yoga, dancing, walking, selfless service). Give yourself permission to explore. If there’s something that really draws you in, commit to spending a year exploring that practice or studying that tradition. If nothing really grabs you, spend a month doing some research and inquiring about three or four different spiritual practices. And then commit to one for six months or a year. Evaluate at the end of that time, and then switch or go deeper. Be open to what happens along the way.
The 12th century ecstatic Sufi poet Rumi has some words on that subject (as translated by Coleman Barks) that I’ll end with:
These spiritual windowshoppers,
who idly ask, How much is that? Oh, I’m just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.
What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.
Where did you go? “Nowhere.”
What did you have to eat? “Nothing much.”
Even if you don’t know what you want, buy something,
to be part of the general exchange.
Start a huge, foolish, project,
like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.
Don Shewey is a writer, therapist, and pleasure activist in New York City.
He has published three books about theater and writes articles and reviews about theater for The New York Times, American Theater, The Advocate, and other publications. He has written extensively about men, sex, and spirituality for the Village Voice, Genre, The Sun, Nightcharm and the late Scott O’Hara‘s sex journal Steam, and RFD. He contributed the chapter on spirituality and community to Men Like Us: The GMHC Guide to Gay Men’s Health.
An archive of his writing is available online at donshewey.com. He maintains a private therapy practice in Manhattan specializing in erotic mentoring and intimacy coaching.
© 2009 – 2011, Don Shewey. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com
Thanks Don. Like you I started in Christianity, but unlike you, that is where I returned and inspite of the bumpy ride have stayed. The Metropolitan Community Church (Sydney, Australia) was a significant part of my journey of self discovery but the 800 Km round trip made attending an unsustainable monthly practice. I continued worshipping in the small rural community (5,000) where I live but then in 1992 someone decided to make an issue of my gay relationship. By the time they decided what to do about it, I had worked out thet it didn’t matter really and I was kind of looking forward to being kicked out. That didn’t happen and I am still there and most of those who saw it as their job to control and condemn left and the rest have changed. Now when new people arrive and find they can’t cope with a gay couple in their church, they are told (not by me) that there are other churches in town where they might be more comfortable. A gay group in my denomination has put together a list of open and affirming congregations so there is a growing number like ours.
I have come to believe that the truth of Christianity is not in the church’s doctrines (Which are probably mostly wrong) but in the stories, so there’s a bit of mine.
Nightcharm continues to amaze me with the sometimes shocking diversity of material gathered together in one website. I’m still spinning from the photographs accompanying the Treasure Island video feature, that shows up further down the page; and then to take all of Mr. Shewey’s article in, right on the remininents of that libidinous afterimage … well, it’s quite the leap. But I’m seeing that that’s the ‘point’. Yes? And this attitude is echoed in the author’s excellent presentation above. Is there really a gap between sex and spirit? And if there is, why is that so? And who or what is it that keeps confirming it? And why, as gay men, do we keep buying into the shame and the ostracism? Good questions, yes?
Great feature.
Thank you!
Absolutely one of the best, useful, thought provoking, deep, and relevant articles here. I actually stopped to read this before jerking off.
As long as Nightcharm continues to produce articles like this ill be coming back day after day.
i have spent the last fourty five minutes reading your view on spirituality, yet i feel i have been here a lifetime. I have always felt like i was a part of something more than what i am, and now i realize that i have not let myself be what i am. I have tried to transform myself into what everyone else wanted me to be. I know you have changed my life forever, I just have to make the change now. I feel as is I have a reason to live again. That im not crazy becouse of the things I feel, like being conected to people and things in a way that most people would call you a witch for and burn you at the stake. I now that I must do something now. I must become what I have always held back and become more than people want you to beleive you ever can be. I know that I can do things that other people can not becouse I never let go of the power inside me, I just hid it from the world, but I dont care anymore what people think. I have got to let my power out and learn to control it even if people think I’m crazy for believing in it. I believe in angles, and demon’s in more than just than christian faith and I have never felt comfortable persuing my feelings becouse of how it made other people feel. I know that there is a world hidden behind this life we are shown and I know that the rest of the world has turned its back on it becouse they can’t control it. I wish not to control it only to take my place in it. I will become better, I will become stronger, and I WILL take my place in this world and the next. I think you for proving to me that the feelings I have are not wrong, and the inhabitens of the inner world think you to. In the end you will be greatlt reworded for not letting that world fade. I do not wish to sound strange, but I love you, for everything you taught me and for everything you have sacrifised to keep the forgotten world alive.
Truly saved and understading
Hunter
I grew up Roman Catholic. My mom was a sort of cafeteria Catholic and my dad was anti-Catholic, so I had kind of a liberal, wishy-washy upbringing, but when I started getting called “fag” at school and was known as the skinny weak boy, it was like a home for me. I wanted to become a priest and I thought Jesus would take my side against the bullies.
I also hoped that God would find ways to turn me straight – something that obviously never happened, and instead, faith became a huge burden when I joined a rather fanatical youth group at my otherwise liberal church, and got old enough to read ecclesiastical documents on my own and encounter the homophobia therein.
Nightmare! I probably lost ten pounds when I was 16 when most people that age were gaining weight. I was so terrified of going to hell that I was afraid of campfires and ovens. And not only that, but my investigation of other religions – Protestant groups, Islam and the Baha’i Faith – led to more condemnation of homosexuality. I was a nervous wreck now, not only wondering if there was any religious place safe to be gay, but if any religious place where God didn’t condemn people just for being devout members of a different religion.
I figured it out with Unitarian Universalism, which, at its core, rejects a belief in Hell, but doesn’t require any spiritual beliefs whatsoever (half are more or less agnostic/atheist and the rest have some sort of spiritualistic wiccan, buddhist or deist belief system) so when I became more of a skeptic in my college years I didn’t have any qualms staying under the same religious identity. Being in a group of like-minded, welcoming people has an amazing effect on someone even if they aren’t promising an afterlife or any supernatural authority.
It was great, but random things in my life give me flashbacks to good ol’ Catholic Guilt. The movie Drag Me to Hell, for example, made me sick to my stomach. A psychologist once told me it was essentially post-traumatic-stress disorder that came on over a longer period of time. But one of the awful side effects is that praying to God doesn’t feel the same way than it did when I was a kid. It’s not like I’m a believer anyway, but I have a theory that no one completely believes or completely disbelieves in any religion he or she was taught – maybe 10% of your mind says yes even while 90% is rational and holds out for evidence. So even if I was an atheist 99% of the time, when I’m in an airplane that hits a bumpy spot, I might whisper a prayer in my head. Or even if I was a devout believer in front of hundreds of people, I might get a little nervous finding out I have cancer, rather than looking forward to the Life to Come.
So a lot of that spirituality is lost now, which is something I’ve longed for. I was a Religious Studies minor in college – with a lot of research into Buddhism and Hinduism, and that brought me comfort. I’m glad that’s on the table now.
Call me cynical, but as lovely and well-intentioned as all this is, it’s ultimately for naught in the harsh light of day. My inner Penn & Teller are calling bullshit.
Souls, third eyes, vision quests, astrological signs, crystals, spiritual retreats, gods — they’re all just products (some of them invisible ones) that may provide a brief “peace”, but I can’t believe they have any true long-lasting benefits or any real power. Like any religion — which promise everything but deliver nothing — they’re just means that people use to attempt to bargain with a cruelly random universe. It’s turning objects into fetishes, convincing yourself that there’s some guiding force that will protect you, and buying into the idea that there’s some sort of mystical potential you can self-actualize if can only tap into it. I’ll admit it all sounds fine on paper, but it’s still the equivalent of a placebo. It’s a false hope to cast a magical or benevolent essence on a world that is anything but.
nice to read about the spiritual side of life on a website full of hot man pics.
i’ve always been interested in spirituality from high school on.
the shakers, quakers, yoga, zen, etc., have all entered my life.
but none have really clicked for me, which resulted in a persistent longing on my part for my place in all this.
i picked a book a month ago at the library, just published, i don’t remember the author or title.
it was a book about the stoic philosophers, epictetus et al, and i felt like i was home.
check it out.
Right on, Gry.
I have to say, Gry has summed it up very nicely. Thank you for that.
Gry’s spin is a weak, hackneyed one, a cliche actually, espoused by individuals who haven’t devoted any time or effort to trying or exploring the subjects they speak on as if ‘experts.’ It’s the fundamental nature of spirituality that opens it to such slack and lazy attacks (and conversely allows any kook in the world to claim themselves a devotee or avatar). One wouldn’t do this with offering an opinion on the particulars of, say, playing a Mozart piano piece, without having some development and skill as a pianist. Has Gry meditated? Has he studied and worked with astrology? Has he committed to long term process with a psychotherapist? Has he talked with a quantum physicist who might inform him about current discoveries in this science that, oddly, mirror the tenets of Sufic mysticism? After he’s done some empirical investigation, then he should share his judgements. Meanwhile I’ll give him his post’s salvo, and say, “Yes you are cynical.” And I’d add bitter too. Penn and Teller as inner guides? Talk about blowhards leading the blowhards.
as far as books go I’d have to recommend “It’s Easier than you Think” by Sylvia Boorstein as far as practical spiritual lessons to deal with life and “Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds” by Judy Grahn which is really more of a history book but reading about queer history really made me feel like I had more of a connection to these queer groups of people in the past that have been whitewashed. And then for fiction- “Cat’s Cradle” by Vonnegut was really revelatory for me.
Anyway, I’ve always been spiritual since a young age. I too was a religious studies minor and ended up with a life philosophy that combined Taoism, Buddhism, the Catholicism I had grown up with, some Thoreau, sprinkled with the occasional introspective psychedelic journey. I still am shaping and changing it, but it works for me and I’ve been generally fulfilled. And my spiritual view isn’t about trying to “bargain with a cruelly random universe”- it recognizes that and says “well here we are, what can we do about it?” It’s less about asking the choppy ocean waters to calm themselves with magic and more about learning to steer the boat into the waves so you don’t capsize.
As a footnote of sorts:
Nightcharm visitors interested in joining a spiritual online social network that isn’t primarily involved with hookups or White Party announcements, might explore MyOutSpirit.com. Good peeps. Check it.
David/Publisher/Nightcharm.com
Gry is obviously correct, but spirituality has nothing to do with truth, and everything to do with providing whatever comfort is needed, when it’s needed. On those occasions when you don’t need your gods or crystals, they stay in the drawer.
Comfort is usually irrational and false, but people still need it.
I think it’s a fallacy when we continuously derride spirituality as a beleif in the supernatural.
Spirituality is more of an open perspective at looking at things than an affirmation that life exists after death or that one can use powers unexplainable by material science. I can meditate and pray without beleiving in souls or spirits.
Some people do beleive in the supernatural and I do not discredit them for that. I tend to be a very skeptical person and may not be won over by their willingness to clean my aura or predict my future with Tarot cards, but it doesn’t hurt me any that they try. Others have a more poetic or imaginative sense of spirituality, in which a ritual or activity can have a deep meaning or give insightful cues about one’s own psyche without having actual supernatural power.
^ Re the tarot and Matt’s statement: “…but it doesn’t hurt me any that they try.”
Why don’t you try it out for yourself and see if there’s ‘anything’ to it? I’ve worked with the cards for over 35 years. The tarot’s ability to mirror and display synchronistic patterns is a fact, not a fantasy. Not because I ‘believe’ in them but because, like the multiplication table, it works. It’s factual. Though, god forbid you end up with someone who has no idea what a card reading is actually revealing. Meaning, they’ve an inability to actually discern the symbols and how they are arranged in a pattern.
People’s ignorance and prejudice shows the greatest around all things metaphysical. Like Bert T. said above, and I’m paraphrasing — simply put: people are lazy. Their mother told them that astrology was bullshit so they repeat that and feel proud that they too have an opinion. Like they’ve stated their case, when in fact they’ve done no objective exploration or inquiry on their own. People fear spirituality because it points to a world, a universe, that is humming along with them as just a small cloud of opinion fogging up what little of their brain is open and curious. Oh and there’s the problem of all of those clocks ticking off the moments till their demise. All of this distored by the ‘truths’ mommy and daddy or someone on television imparted. In short, isolated frightened robots. And in ‘longer’, the ones most in need of some kind of spiritual or philosophical alignment.
“Has Gry meditated? Has he studied and worked with astrology? Has he committed to long term process with a psychotherapist? Has he talked with a quantum physicist who might inform him about current discoveries in this science that, oddly, mirror the tenets of Sufic mysticism?”
I haven’t tried fad diets, gimmicky exercise equipment, get rich quick systems, anti-aging creams, or detox plans either. Ultimately, they offer the same life-altering, void-filling promises, and at best provide a fleeting glimmer of exuberance that quickly fades. In the same way that I doubt that a computer can find me a mate, how are tarot cards or astrological signs supposed to determine someone’s path?
The constraints placed upon us are societal and worldly, not astral. There’s a cosmic arrogance in wanting to humanize the universe by turning it into some benevolent father or mother figure. The Free Market was treated as a god too by its acolytes, the idea being that if it was fed, left unfettered, and never questioned, then it would always provide for the faithful. It failed them just the same. I imagine a great many people who die randomly and cruelly call out to their gods or the universe to save them, all in vain.
We’re conditioned from a young age to put our faith in gods, guardian angels, soul mates, spirit guides etc., but who do they really protect, much less benefit? We have to give ourselves over wholly to some force, but this is exactly why AA works for so few people. Some of us just don’t want to surrender. The idea that I’m somehow unmoored because I don’t have a guru, priest, televangelist, yogi, spiritual adviser, or “inner guide” to lead me by the hand is just as infantilizing. Just how does contorting your body, reading esoteric texts full of vague suppositions about the universe, using horoscopes, and sitting quietly make you privy to mysteries that I’m not? Could there be anything more passive than prayer?
If someone is lonely and hurting inside, what good does it do them to be even more alone with their thoughts in deadening silence? Does stretching really open up new planes of existence? How can constellations that don’t even look like the mythical figures they’ve been contrived to resemble determine the fates for billions of humans? Why would I look for answers from ancient people who didn’t understand phenomena like the phases of the moon, tides, and menstruation? Why is that anyone who’s ever been reincarnated was always a major historical player and never just a lowly peon?
But, if you can recommend a source (Sufism seems very “Circle of Iron” to me, though) that can explain — and more importantly, justify — why mystical beings and forces sit by impotently or indifferently while horrors like child armies, animal abuse, plagues, natural disasters, wars, and all many of suffering occur unabated, then that would change my mind. Without that, I’m convinced only that the true vision and bravery comes from confronting the pain and bitterness that the world foments without relying on mystical wish fulfillment to somehow make it all meaningful and part of some grand design.
Well said, Gry.
I’m always amused by religionists, spiritualists, etc. who claim that only someone who has studied these subjects can pass judgment on them. That’s like saying I would have to immerse myself in a deep, intense study of Tolkien’s mythology in order to know that “The Hobbit” never really happened.
I’m loving this lively response to my essay — like Mintz, I got a kick out of the juxtaposition of my article with the current NC banner graphics. After all, phallic worship is one of my regular spiritual practices….
Gry does a good job of playing provocateur in this discussion. He has an admirably independent mind — which means he’s spent some time making meaning of the universe, which requires having some kind of inner life (whether you call that spiritual or philosophical makes no difference to me).
Nihilism and existentialism to my mind are akin to Buddhism — they’re not religious dogmas, they present a point of view on life. And I don’t know if Buddhism provides the explanation Gry is wondering about…but the First Noble Truth of Buddhism is “All life contains suffering.” No sugar-coating. Shit happens. Deal with it.
But some of what Gry has to say is just sheer contrarianism. “AA works for so few people?” Really?
There is a word for the attitude that your way is the only right way and all others are worthy only of scorn and contempt. That word is fundamentalism, and you can almost predict that traces of it will show up anywhere there is a lively discussion of spiritual practice.
“But some of what Gry has to say is just sheer contrarianism. “AA works for so few people?†Really?”
It has a massive drop-out and relapse rate, and its success rate when stripped of all the PR and hand-holding is less than 5%. By “fundamental” (as in “objective”) standards, that’s not a resounding triumph by any measure I can name. And why would people even be seeking out drugs if life was so fulfilling and magical in the first place? Doesn’t the reality of despair conflict with the notion of kindly mysticism and worldly order?
I don’t necessarily claim to be right, but am I wrong for not wanting to throw away time, effort, and money on mythical and intangible cure-alls? How is all of this really any different from Self-Help, which promises life-altering changes and purports that we have some grandiose control over the course of our lives and that we must be lacking if we can’t make it work? I’m sorry, but a mantra like “suffering exists” just doesn’t persuade. Isn’t that just the glossy equivalent of “shit happens”? It’s a truism.
Just how many spiritual retreats (and how much do they go for?) would I have to go on to become enlightened? Mankind has been able to form relationships for millennia, yet why do we need intimacy therapists and sex gurus to teach us something that’s apparently instinctual? Why is it every time a plane crashes or a mass disaster occurs, I can time to the second exactly how long it will take someone to misuse the word “tragedy” and then invoke God reverentially? Sample dialogue: “God called the doomed passengers of Flight 3407 into his heart.” In a hurtling fireball of death and terror.
If there is Karma, how can so many horrible people continue to thrive unscathed, while kind genius is tossed into the gutter? I actually shudder at the thought of how many people bought into “The Spirit” hoping that if they just visualized hard enough things would change for them or a Ferrari would materialize in their driveways.
Aren’t truth and reality themselves fundamental, as in being elementary, critical, and prone to cutting a swath through even the most well-meaning-if-futile forms of anodyne? Has it ever occurred to anyone else here that beautiful sentiments like hope, faith, and yes, belief can be misleading, damaging, and addictive?
The Spirit? I think he means ‘The Secret.’
i think it has alot to do with what one is looking for in the first place. every spiritual path on the planet, including the 12 steps, shares the notion that if one is get beyond suffering, it is necessary to work with the ego. these paths each have their version of the ‘passions’ which are the qualities of ego and the ‘virtues’ which are the qualities of being and presence which underlie and permeate the ego. ego wants what it wants, wants it now and wants just the way it conceives things should be. that in itself is the root of suffering- wanting things to be other than what they are. maybe gry IS enlightened and totally accepts things as they are, but i dont think so – his comments mask massive disappointment, restlessness and discontent. the work of any spiritual path is to keep looking at yourself, working with your ego, facing your demons, your shadow in a way that allows these structures to be metabolized, integrated and in the process dissolved – this is NOT an easy task and few people can sustain it on any path without acting out – its one step forward and two steps back and there is no pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. but it does work if you work it and are willing to do whatever it takes and then maybe you can taste the true sobriety of freedom, freedom from your own bullshit/suffering and the acceptance that things are just what they are, shit happens and you still have to get on with it, without acting out and fucking with other people, some of whom are trying to do the same as you, some who are totally clueless and some who just want what they want right now and dont stand in their way. if you can find a path that will help you do that – great. unfortunately most people are looking for ways to polish their ego and make it better – a course that only ends in more chaos. ultimately its a very private affair and it will ultimately put you in touch with just how empty everything and everybody really is and how connected everything is at the same time – a true mind fuck, but it really can help you get on with it and see what is real- which will most likely never be the way your ego thought it was or should be. ultimately a private affair but one that benefits from the support of others on the path with you and from those that have gone before. acceptance brings serenity, it works if you work it.
So Passion is in the negative energy spectrum, while Virtue is in the positive energy spectrum, and by metabolizing my shadow Ego, I can be released from suffering? I know I’ve heard this before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_puc8ojNctA&NR=1
Hmmmm, what I’m curious about is Gry’s source for this tidbit regarding AA: “It has a massive drop-out and relapse rate, and its success rate when stripped of all the PR and hand-holding is less than 5%. ”
I sense this is not correct.
Until about ten years ago, the program — which essentially is more of a religion or faith-based “cure” than it is a behavior-based aversion therapy — was thought to be highly effective, but serious doubts have come into the fore as of late. The basic problem is that asking someone in the grips of despair to turn themselves over to a higher power while admitting their own powerlessness may not be such a fab prescription.
You can find data to the contrary if you want (this may reflect the program’s long reach), but as with Scientology’s claims of treating mental illness, I’d be wary of them. Critics like me have picked up on the futile revolving door effect of the program, and also factor in that many people are court- or family-mandated to attend against their own wishes. Again, those would be major stumbling blocks from the get-go for a system that runs on faith and surrender. Personally, I’d try the route of cognitive therapy first before turning to AA’s disease model wherein I have to surrender to a higher power and grovel at my loved one’s feet:
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/1587/1/Estimates-of-AAs-Effectiveness/Page1.html
http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Articles/FO3020630004/
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=490
http://www.articlealley.com/article_916001_24.html
http://www.helium.com/items/1503098-effectiveness-of-aa
http://newrecovery.blogspot.com/2006/10/aa-obstacle-to-effective-treatment.html
I’m an authority on various spiritual paths and metaphysical studies; I’ve been involved with both for over 35 years. I think that qualifies me to speak in a personal, detailed way about both.
Meaning, I’ve actually immersed myself in the nonsecular — originally out of curiosity and whimsy — and then, later, out of a deeper commitment that involved time, energy, travel and money. Why? Because there is something substantial — albeit ineffable — and satisfying about aligning with, and fleshing out, a particular cosmology. But not in a namby-pamby way. I’m talking about really digging in and making the effort, making the commitment, like a real man. If one is sane, it’s the only courageous thing one can do with their allotted time on this very curious place called earth.
Why?
I decided many years ago that when I got to my deathbed I wanted to know that I’d done everything I could do, in my humble way, to understand and have a visceral connection with this wondrous, bizarre, horrifying and beautiful thing called life. Keyword: Understand.
And, well, so far so good, as the journey has progressed. Though proving the substantiality, the viability of this to a ‘non believer’ is an impossibility. It would be like trying to describe the color red to someone who is blind. And why would I try? And more importantly: why the pressing need to do so?
Now, all of that said, I’ll speak about my understanding of spirituality (and in some way this applies to metaphysics, as I am a longtime practicing astrologer).
My fascination with reality began in childhood and was rooted in my love of beauty. Nature, animals, art, poetry, music, astronomy, on and on — a chain of beauty that led up to (what the Catholic church told me was) God. That was fine with me at the time (a child’s mind and all), but then I discovered sex.
The God thing became difficult as I hit puberty and claimed my rightful place in the Greater Chain of Homosexual Being-ness. The Church of course didn’t condone this so I suffered a mini-crisis (sucking cock or loving god…hmmmm, which would it be?). I chose cock.
I left the church, which saddened me — as I enjoyed the spectacle of mass, and, too, I did feel my love affair with The Mystery fostered in the church — but I also intuited that the church didn’t have the corner on that particular experience. The simplicity of that reasoning was quite comforting; and emboldening.
The shortfalls of orthodoxy were screamingly loud. The ridiculous answers given to “the big questions” were embarrassing. It was clear to me that religion, of all sorts, was for individuals with (sad to say) limited minds. But that was fine with me; I actually came to appreciate religion too, and its role. The way it helps keep the lid on crazy behavior, guiding the lost souls and all of that; keeping the violent types in check (Ten Commandments, etc). Harmful sometimes, yes? — but more often than not it’s safer to walk the streets at night because the churchgoer’s id has been tamed a bit.
I came to see that the further one goes on a non-orthodox spiritual path, the further he moves away from absolutes and conclusive answers. I liked the adventure of that.
This led to Buddhism for me because there, as Mr. Shewey tried to point out, dogma is non-existent (as far as making requirements for faith are concerned) and the teaching is simple (well, one thinks it is simple in the beginning), namely: Life is suffering. Suffering is caused by craving. I don’t want to suffer. So how do I deal with the craving? Which helps ease the suffering. That is the basic ground of the teaching. Nothing to argue or prove. One starts there.
Yes, Buddhism branches out into different theories and schools, but the core tenet remains the same, and it’s a good one to devote time to, to practice with, flesh out, let the mind chew on. Over time this deepens, one confronts emptiness (because, like suffering that is part and parcel of the whole existence thing too), meaninglessness as well, etc. Meeting all of this, tussling with all of this is incredibly invigorating, satisfying — and the Buddhists have taken this level of inquiry way beyond religion, into a new kind of physics I’d say.
Over time (after many different studies and paths and explorations and years of meditation and retreats and questions questions questions always more questions) I came to see that I was a mystic on a mystical path.
A mystic doesn’t care so much about the scientific approach to the world — “Prove it to me godamnit!” I mean, why bother (I’m being flip of course) — science is such a wobbly field of knowledge. What’s scientifically verified this year will be defunct and invalid twenty years from now. What Einstein decreed is already dissolving into a very different matrix to understand the universe through, and no doubt that view will change in twenty years too. Meanwhile snowfall this winter is just as beautiful as snowfall ten centuries ago. Meaning:
What doesn’t change is awe. To register awe, to revel in the beauty of the ocean, or the moon, to be moved by a Beethoven symphony, to fall in love and be dazzled by the touch of your lover, all of these are a kind of spiritual reverence. Without calling “God” into the equation one can still acknowledge thankfulness for his allotment of experiencing beauty — all of the ‘gifts’ of being human. To me, that acknowledgment is what spirituality is about. It’s enough to feel that, concede the wonder of that, without having the mind climb all over it and say, “OK, well, WHO OR WHAT made all of this? Does God exist? Can you prove it?” Ugh.
For me, a spiritual orientation is one where a kind of innocent wisdom is aligned with the heart. This sounds New Age-y but it’s a very difficult state to discover and then, finally, abide in. Only after much effort, I’d say. It’s like the mind has to be worn down, but only after it has been given its due. So one studies, reads, meditates, looks, digs, probes, argues, doubts, challenges, twists and turns on the “BIG QUESTIONS” and then, slowly, over time, begins to settle. I’ve found this is the only way the mind will let go its hegemony on defining what is and isn’t real. What is or isn’t fancy. What is or isn’t spiritual.
The wisdom part involves allowing for the mystery, the big questions; to be able to entertain them with dignity and with silence without censoring them or cutting oneself away from them because there is no easy answer — caving in to nihilism (which is the only path left the mind when it runs, unfettered, unattended by the heart). The innocence part means all the bitchy, jaded, cynical postures and positions and convictions of one’s nature have been burnt out and fried. Exhausted. But again, only after one gives that part of one’s nature its due, along the path. Exercises all of that out with experience.
I’ve discovered, and this has taken many years to unravel, that there IS a quality of understanding that quells the mind, but this is a kind of understanding born of the heart. And then honed through spiritual practice. Contemplation, meditation, inquiry that isn’t cynical. Out of those practices a quality of understanding, a kind of abiding peacefully in silence (in the unknown) is transmitted over to the mind. The results of this are quite pleasing, soothing, beyond words. But this takes time, and this is the essence of real spiritual practice. Quelling the mind truthfully, with wisdom from the heart.
But here’s the sorta bad news: In the end it’s all about talent. One is born with a talent for art, or a genius for the piano, or commanding a business or whatever. We can study these things, analyze and dissect how someone writes a great book, or paints or manages a business — but we can’t really OWN those talents with the sort of certainty, gravity and felicity that someone who is talented commands. It’s a mystery. And a talent for embracing mystery is required for journeying on a genuine spiritual path. One either has it or they don’t. “Godbless the child that’s got his own.”
David K.
Publisher/Nightcharm.com
Oh, dear…
Well, let’s just not sit up all night ranting about this. I love spirituality, in an aesthetic sense, not when people actually start to believe in their fiction. When spiritual expressions become too serious, or turn to actual religions, you’ll find me on the side of the opposition. To me philosophy is more attractive.
And I’m quite fierce about this.
“Hmmmm, what I’m curious about is Gry’s source for this tidbit regarding AA: “It has a massive drop-out and relapse rate, and its success rate when stripped of all the PR and hand-holding is less than 5%. â€
I could list numerous sources that cast serious and legitimate doubt on the program, but you can get the same just by searching with terms like “effectiveness” and “success rate”. Rather tellingly, you’re likely to find the term “cult” will come up with some frequency also. Just how on-the-level and sane its two founders were is also much murkier when stripped of the group’s rhetoric.
For many, it’s just a revolving door of relapse. Also consider that program has become court-mandated, meaning many are effectively strong-armed into it against their will. Are these people really that likely to “surrender” themselves to a group setting and its corresponding higher power? I’d seek out cognitive or aversion therapy before I ever went this route.
I do think a fair amount of the program’s power can also be attributed to it becoming a timeworn TV cliche. Doesn’t just about every legal drama feature some emotionally weathered police officer or lawyer whose been sober for X number of years and drinks club soda without telling partners or co-workers about his or her problem? Even “Dexter” tried a similar setting.
My, my. This the first time I’ve come across this site and was directed here from a very differnt sort of place. Might I suggest that we all meet at Club Zeno, to stoicaly embrace awe, emptiness, meaninglesness, and wonder over a cup of communal good cheer?
Gry, you are just GREAT, so clear headed and articulate. If people want to delude themselves in order to deal with some of life’s knocks, that’s up to them. However, the whole idea of a spiritual ie mystic aspect to our existence needs to explain why with over 98% of our DNA shared with chimps, they don’t also have the benefit of a spirit. In our arrogance, we believe that we are apart from nature. If there is no “meaning” to the life of a chimp, then neither is there for us. If I rail against man’s inhumanity to man, it is not because some text of dubious provenance instructs me to, but because we are in this together, and our one chance at life should be the happiest that we can grant one another.
an important and thought provoking article…
i suspect the distance between the other posters and gry’s POV is in means and ends – all would agree that, regardless of faith, it’s what we do here and now to ease suffering, to help others, to manage this world – those are things we have in common, at least…
camus’s work in myth of sisyphus and other books such as the rebel are good points of reference here – not in the existential or nihilist sense of filling the void or doing anything we please, but in understanding that through our actions in this world we build/create meaning and we have a choice in how we live our lives through that meaning.
great having this article here, great having the replies to ponder over – thank you
I agree, gry is great! I completely agree with everything he has brought to the table. It is all worded in the best way possible and everything! Keep it up gry.