Meaning – Spirituality 2 (#12)

Posted by on July 6, 2014 in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

In order to make sense to me, spirituality has to integrate (versus segregate or even negate) many levels of reality conceptualization. In my life, physics, biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology have been the most significant ones.

Thus, you can’t change or erase your emotions, feelings, thoughts, and biological needs from the sole power of your will. But this was exactly what the Catholicism of my childhood was asking for: for example you shouldn’t have bad thoughts (sexual ones being particularly chased after), or you shouldn’t harbour envy or jealousy (tell me how, please).

Unrealistic expectations make you feel bad and may even induce important problems (somatization, impulsive loss of control, etc.).

So, we can’t disregard our biology, our psychology, and our sociality. A sound spiritual system should take account of those dimensions.

The paradigm that is the most familiar to me is, you already know, psychology. So here are some fundamental psychological issues that, from my point of view, a spiritual system wouldn’t be able to bypass.

1) It is very important for human beings to be connected to significant others; it is an important source of soothing and contentment. Consequently, being alone is not an easy position and it is associated with higher odds of physical and mental problems – Human beings are symbolic beings (a consequence of language): being connected is often attributed to “I am a lovable and interesting person”, not being connected to “I am an unlovable and uninteresting person”.

2) The mastering dimension of our exploration system (go and get) may result in success or in failure – here again success may facilitate the story that “I am a competent person” and failure the story that “I am an incompetent person”.

3) Being connected, feeling lovable, succeeding, feeling competent are most of the time linked to a sensation of expansion, associated with a level of euphoria. Being rejected, feeling unlovable, failing, feeling incompetent, are most of the time linked to a sensation of contraction, restriction, associated with a level of dysphoria.

In order to make my point, let me create a simple psychological model (it is more complex than that, you shouldn’t be surprised) with the following variables:

Being connected – Being disconnected – Succeeding – Failing

Feeling lovable – Feeling unlovable – Feeling competent – Feeling incompetent

Our mood will vary along those dimensions. For example:

Our mood will probably move downward if a lover abandons us and it will be aggravated if it confirms the self-representation that we are unlovable. The impact would be alleviated if the loss doesn’t entail that I am unlovable (I am simply rejected by that specific person).

Our mood will probably move upward if we finish first in a sport competition and if it results in getting a lot of praises, which may lift up our self-representation. The mood ascent would be more intense if it is experienced as important self-image reparation; conversely, the mood could be dropping dramatically if this “occasion” to repair is lost.

Let’s call this LIVING. Most of the time we intent (consciously or not) to regulate our mood: we don’t like to experience dysphoria; we are looking for means to induce euphoria.

As to LIVING, I like to use the analogy of a ball in a pinball machine. We are very often pushed around by our automatic mood regulation habits (behaviors, thoughts).

Like a ball in a pinball machine: The speaker says something that means to me that I think right; I feel good and I praise the speaker. – The speakers says something that confronts my personal coherence; I feel angry and aggress verbally the speaker… Then I feel guilty for what I have said, and I beg forgiveness.

Automatic mood regulation habits aren’t linked to any specific content. They may be interpreted as a religious or spiritual experience.

When I was young, catholic priests would often use the analogy of a never-ending fire (hell) in which sinners would burn forever. This was scary to many children (and adults!), including myself – simple avoidance principles would suffice to explain part of our religious fervour of the time.

In my experience, I have seen many persons abandon Mindfulness meditation because they constructed the expectation that they should be in a void for most of their 10, 20, 30, 45, 60 minutes meditative session. Not surprisingly, they often don’t succeed, which is an unpleasant experience that fosters avoidance (stop doing it).

Pinball machine!

The first condition I would put to spirituality is to get at least some degree of freedom from our mood regulation habits. We can’t stop acting human (why would we do it anyway?), but we have the option of looking at our human acting (versus being a blind actor of our life).

Do you know or remember this famous Shakespearian quote from Macbeth?

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”[1]

Pinball machine?

Magnificent image, isn’t… Great writers have this astonishing capacity to encapsulate in a few words profound reflections about human beings and human life.

So, while being partially aware of it, my choice of psychology was at some level a spiritual choice. If you want to get out of the pinball machine, you have to understand its functioning; there is no way around. And even if you succeed to get an outside look at the machine, it will never be possible to get the ball out of the pinball machine. This is the reason why in your praying or meditating session, the ball will still move in your mind (a thought, a subjective state, an urge…). But I came to the conclusion that this isn’t a problem. Spirituality doesn’t mean getting out of our humane nature; why would we have to do so anyway?

“Hands off – leave your experience alone”[2]

Not more than two years ago, a friend told me I could be interested by a spiritual teacher that has been writing under the name of Almaas. I have been fascinated by his writings since. Almaas developed a spiritual path that meets my criteria for a sound spirituality; no intellectual or emotional knowledge has to be segregated from your experience and you don’t have to quit your humane nature in order to get the “Saint-Graal” (this is my personal metaphor for finally getting to what is really true).

Almaas suggests the simple presence to which is your actual experience; if you don’t know where you are, you’ll never get to what you are. Where is the actual position of the ball in your pinball machine?

I’ll conclude this post by another quote from Almaas. In fact, I read this extract every day before my morning mindful session.

“True Nature shows us that to be where we are means having an awareness that embraces whatever is – whatever our perceptions are, at whatever level, in whatever condition or state we are in. That awareness embraces our experience completely, with immediate feeling, with as much understanding as possible. The awareness contacts the experience, holds it, embraces it – just by being there, by being with it, around it.”[3]

 

pcousineau

 

P. – S.                  As you noticed, there has been a long time between my precedent post and the present one. As mentioned in my first post, I have a very busy life. Also, my good friend Philippe from Nîmes, France (where I gave a workshop lately), convinced me to write a book in French with him (you notice that decisions may change; I started this blog after I had dropped a writing project).

So, if you remain interested in my writing the best way to follow it is to register your email at the bottom right of my blog Home page – you only have to click on “Follow” and write your email when asked to do so. You’ll receive any new post that I add to my site.

 

 

 

[1]Shakespeare, Tragédies (Œuvres complètes, II), Éditions Gallimard 2002.

[2] A.H. Almaas (2012) The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence. Boston & London: Shambhala. Kindle Book, Empl. 599)

[3] Idem, Empl. 651