RE:Spirituality

• Spirituality and Mental Health by James W. Patterson, Ph.D., 5/7/98
  • What is spirituality by Claire Salisbury, 5/12/98
    
    

Hiya,

Funny isn't it? Billions of us on this lovable mudball flying thru space day after day, and we are still asking the same questions humankind has for thousands of years now asked. In this way we keep searching for that total gestalt that can finally satisfy the quest.

I understand my own questions and answers of spirituality best, as do you yours. We have spirits, but we are not spirit beings. We are flesh and blood. Mortal. Our spirituality exists only in the sharing of our spirits. Our human spirits. I am also naive enough to think and hope that other's stand fast and well enough within their own spirit to understand themselves as having a concrete and authentic awareness of their own participation in the quest.

And yet, after years of being a gestalt therapist, I am still moved to find myself in a very self-reflective (and therefor mildly defensive) mode when I make contact with others who will themselves to ask such an age old question and thus entice me to answer in my own way.

Spirituality is not in itself an experience to me. Humanity is my experience. I am human. All of my experiences are then by default human. And so are yours. All of them. They can be labelled and spelled out and defined and discussed and whatever, but the simple truth is that human beings only have and can only have human experiences. A simple concept that can get quite lost and forgotten in all the intellectual fields.

My spiritualty is not of me. And yours is not of you. It is when we make contact that we have sprituality. Our contact creates a living force/power that did not exist before our contact, and will not survive should our contact not survive. When contact is steady and strong, we are moved by the sharing of this immense lifeforce. Our mutal agreement to such sharing keeps the lifeforce "GOOD", for lack of a better concept. Our mutual disagreement to the sharing keeps our lifeforce "EVIL". And finally one side agreeing to the sharing and one side not keeps the lifeforce struggling with the age old battle of "GOOD vs EVIL".

Fairly easy when only two or a small group of humans share humanity. Gets really incredibly intense and out of control when millions and billions share humanity on this little mudball.

Good spirits and evil spirits sounds kinda childish and immature and VERY unscientific and quite useless I am sure. Nevetheless, the facts remain that humanity always has and always will share the one thing that all humans can share regardless of color, race, creed, sex, beauty, ugliness, love, hate, politics, science, religion, health, intelligence, money and .... the list is forever unending.

My point is that every human being can share something of being a human with any other human AND be understood by any other human on a HUMAN LEVEL. This sharing is what I am aware of as manifesting a new energy and this energy is sprituality.

This post in fact proves it. This whole forum does. All our sharing created it and sustains it. This same force brings wonders of the gift of life into the world anew each day, and can just as forcefully brings death anew each day.

It is a wonderous ommipotent force. So powerful that it MUST be shared. It cannot be contained. Life finds a way. Even in death it is not contained.

And now something personal. I am a Christian. No big deal in this. I am simply be specific of what I am sharing. I could have said anything and then shared that. It is of no great matter. Anyways, that means that the Father of Jesus Christ is also my Father. My Father says of Himself "I AM THAT I AM". Jesus is my brother. Jesus says that all humans are my brothers and sisters. It does not matter what their own personal stance is ... we all have free choice, and it is to be used, well, freely of course. He also said that not all my brothers and sisters will agree to being in the "FAMILY". He is right, we all do not agree to such sharing. But the disagreement is shared nonetheless. And sprituality is then here and now.

From my point of view I can not but be satisfied cuzz whatever a persons choice on the matter; pro,con, or otherwise, the moment their stance is shared, spirituality is born. I then am able to understand the message without killing the messenger.

When I am just a little thirsty, I like to drink from grand goblets. When I am deathly thirsty, I will drink from a toilet bowl to sustain myself. It is the message which is in the sharing, and not the messenger which makes the moment of spirituality manifest. Christ knew this, and so He did nothing but what the Father bid Him do.

I follow Christ not because He is Christ, but because His Father is my Father, and my Father has no more perfect son then Jesus. Jesus is perfect to my Father cuzz He died so that our sharing is not in vain, not lost, not stillborn, not dead. Jesus had a perfect sharing with my Father. So perfect, that when He gave His life, all of us can now in some simple and small ways of our own make contact with the perfection that Jesus shared with His Father and by dying, He shared with us the way to share such perfection with my (and anybody else's) Father, and each other. Our simple humanity shared one to another among billions of individuals is spirituality to me.

A bit rambling, but spontanaity is a precious resource, and a child of this forum.

Any comments?

Regards

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