Spirituality from the ground up

In my last post I spoke about words and ideas and how they point to the experience of life, rather than being the thing itself. I hope to expand on that, but I would like to first try and explain the way I approach these things.

Wearing different hats

Edward de Bono has a book entitled "Six Thinking Hats". The idea is that you put a different thinking hat on, and approach things in different ways. I find it really helpful not to commit myself to looking at things only one way, but try a number of approaches - looking at the same thing or subject matter from different angles. We can be so dogmatic about some things, and often all it takes is to look at it from a different angle and then we see it differently.

The thing to learn is that we don't need to commit ourselves to viewing things one way. For instance, in my last post I argued against a sort of platonic way of approaching various subjects. That doesn't mean that I need to identify myself with that argument, it is simply another way of looking at things that allows me to see the bigger picture better. It also gives me more freedom in writing my thoughts. I don't need to hold myself only to that which I've written and I have the freedom to contradict myself.

Starting with experience

Much of what we call 'beliefs' has a top down approach. What I mean by this is that we're taught something, or read something about God, or about life and we start with that idea. Ideas like fate, destiny, reincarnation, heaven, hell, spirit, angels, ghosts, demons, etc.
We then assimilate that idea into our belief system, and then, when challenged, we argue for its existence. We possibly then see that what we understood the idea to mean doesn't fit into our experience of living and so we reject the idea.

I came to a point in my life where I wasn't sure if I really believed all the stuff I claimed to believe. So, I made the decision to start from scratch and get rid of all my ideas and look at what I experience in life without being influenced by what I'm supposed to believe. (Now I know this is practically impossible - we always carry some beliefs with us, but I find that the exercise is very useful).
What I discovered doing this, was that there are experiences that do fit into some of the ideas and beliefs that I once held, but that the words used to describe the experience was never quite enough. It's the same as if we had to try and explain experiences like bungee jumping or making love to someone who hadn't had the experience. Words never fully capture the experience. To fully understand it, you need to experience it.

So - to summarize:

Spirituality, for me, is about living - experiencing life, and then finding ways to share that with others, as well as trying to understand what it is that others experience.

In the next few weeks I would like to look at a few of the things that didn't initially make sense to me from an idea point of view, but when I looked at them from an experience point of view I was able to make space for them in my mind.

Please feel free to comment ;)

I know more than I know I know

I had a discussion recently that went something along the line of "I know a lot more than I know I know". What I mean is that I have limited knowledge - understanding stuff, but my body has an immense amount of knowledge. Thousands of years of evolution has taught this body of mine how to heal itself, how to think, how to transform light into meaning. While I ('me' - the Ego?) have only had 36 years to accumulate 'knowledge' - my body (which is me actually) is the accumulation of thousands of years of knowledge. If I cut myself - I essentially know how to heal myself. While I have very little idea of how it actually works - I know how to do it because a few days later I look and the cut is gone.

So I thought perhaps I need to refine my definition of knowledge - this is what I was told by the great oracle known as wikipedia:

"There is however no single agreed definition of knowledge presently, nor any prospect of one, and there remain numerous competing theories."

hmm - so no-one really knows..

Perhaps the key then is to not rely so much on what 'I' know and try and uncover what I really do know - I just don't know it

Keeping an open mind

If I look at a object, for instance a coin, I can only see one side, unless I turn it over. Then I can see the other side. If it was impossible for me to turn the coin over , and the only way I could see the other side was by talking to someone else who could - my knowledge of the coin would only grow by listening to the other person - by trying to "see it" through their eyes.

I think life is like this. It is impossible for one person to know everything because we can really only see and experience life through our eyes, and our body. To grow, then, I need to listen to others and open my mind to their point of view. The more different their point of view is to mine - the more it will stretch me. I don't need to agree with them - just try and see what they see and experience what they do. Truth is often found in the middle of two opposite points of view.

Some more thoughts on words and communication

I'm not sure who originally said it - but I love the statement "words don't have meaning, meaning has words".I find this is so true in communication, especially when one moves into the realm of beliefs.
Someone asked me the other day what I believe in. I asked them what they meant by belief - it's a very loaded word. From their answer I learnt more about them. They asked me if I believed in a higher power. Now what does one mean by "higher" and "power"?
I think that when you move away from the "correct" answer to these questions and start looking deeper - honestly, you find "something" that is beyond words. The challenge is then to put "that" in words so that "it" can be communicated. But can it really be communicated, other than encouraging others to do the same, and to figure it out for themselves?