Spirituality of the senses

[_Quasimodo]

Smell - a newborn babies skin

This so much!!! OMG, I always tell people to smell their babies for me. Literally, best scent EVER.

Their diapers are not as good (personal experience). Once you're passed the meconium phase, it's all down hill.

[_honorentheos]

Hi Zeez,

Nice OP.

I think one of the reasons people often view spirituality as being outside the five senses is that there is more to us as human beings than our senses. Using a computer analogy, I think the senses are better seen as input devices to our very complex mental operating systems that include much that takes place far below the surface of conscious thought. It's easy to confuse divine inspiration with the "click" that comes when one's insight brings something into focus.

Quas - You may be interested in this video : Science and Art. Warning - it's long. Ramachandran begins speaking at 3:12. Not definative, but it gives you a flavor of some of the thoughts about why we may have evolved to appreciate art. In 2004, He had suggested he was going to publish a book about this subject, including a chapter in his book A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness where I first became aware of his views.

Beautiful picture, by the way.

[_zeezrom]

Honor and Just Me,

Let's talk about emotions and complex workings of the brain and nervous system for a sec.

Might we put that in a different category than senses? The inner workings of our bodies is reacting to things we sense and things we remember that originated from something we sensed, right?

Aren't emotions more of a process involving reactions to stimuli?

The reason I am focusing on stimuli is because that is how someone that is not us would communicate with us. This would be God speaking to us. How we internalize it, is up to us.

Why wouldn't God want us to use our basic, human functions to find her? Sometimes, simpler is more profound, right?

What do you think?

[_just me]

Zee, I do not believe that the Goddess is outside of myself. That is the difference I see in how we view spiritual experiences. You view them as coming from an outside source, if I'm reading you correctly, and I do not.

I can sit alone with my eyes closed and feel overwhelming emotions based on thoughts I might have. Are the thoughts based on past outside stimuli? Is the experience coming from outside myself or is it an inner one?
Is a being "out there" communicating with me or am I communicating with myself-or the divine within?

Great topic, Zee.

[_honorentheos]

It's an interesting thought, Zeez. But maybe I can persuade you that the most important aspect of sensory input is perception rather than the act of receiving the data itself?

Let's take sight. As a child, many of us were probably taught about the mechanics of the eye and how the lense of the eye first takes the image which is actual upside down but then this upside-down image is reprojected as right-side up when viewed by the mind. Yet what would we really mean by the idea the mind is viewing the image seen using the eyes? That there is a little man in our heads "watching" the movie captured by our eyes? Then how does the mind perceive the data without having a similar problem? At some point, the data has to become something other than mere object - it has to be converted to something that can be internalized - perceived.

If you watch the video I linked to for Quasimodo, Ramachandran actually does a very good job explaining this, using the example of optical illusions. For example, he shows us a skeleton drawing of a cube and then asks how many people can make the image project outward, inward, up, down, depending on how they choose to perceive it? This wouldn't be possible if there wasn't some interaction with the raw data by the brain, creating mind. He shows other famous illusions such as the young lady/old lady painting, below, and asks if the operation doesn't involve the mind why can many of us see both images, though some of us may need it pointed out to us?



I think the same can be said for sounds. Have you ever had a strange sound startle you and you swear it was a dog bark or growl, only to hear it again and realize it was something else entirely? I think this is our evolutionary roots showing - the brain that quickly identified a threat and acted to remove itself from the threat survived while those who failed to do so didn't. So we have this vestigial tendancy to quickly interpret input as something threatening. I think this plays into haunted house phenomena for example.

Anyway, what do you think? Is perception so critical to the senses that to separate it would be to do damage to the discussion? Or am I forgetting something?

[_zeezrom]

I can sit alone with my eyes closed and feel overwhelming emotions based on thoughts I might have. Are the thoughts based on past outside stimuli? Is the experience coming from outside myself or is it an inner one?
Is a being "out there" communicating with me or am I communicating with myself-or the divine within?

Thank you for the questions!

Yes, I think the thoughts you have do indeed come from some outside stimuli. It's very likely that your body has done things with the memories over time, but the original source is something that stimulated one/many of your senses. I also like the thought of having "divine within". I believe it. Is there a being "out there" communicating with you? Why not?

I suppose a very good "why not" might be that it is potentially irrational.

Let me ask you: If you are able to believe there is "divine" within a person, why not "divine" without?

[Guest]

Just Me,

I really liked your last points. I chose my screen name eons ago as I was leaving Mormonism but struggling with where this left me as a human being. My own interpretation of it is a directive - Honor Entheos. Or, Live Honorably in respect to my own God-Within.

One of the few things I found remarkably inspiring within LDS theology as well athat has subsequently remained as I moved away from it into unknown lands, was the idea that each of us had within us a God in Embryo as Goethe said. It is essentially the purpose of life to awaken, nurture, and mature this divine "me" to the greatest extent possible.

Personally, I enjoy all of the things that Zeez and others have shared in the thread. But I think the question of their "value" becomes difficult if we try to remove ourselves from the equation. In a sense, I see Zee asking us to consider that there is an intentionality in these things being either present or being brought into our awareness. Perhaps so. I am given to consider that the world is full of marvelous opportunites for experience/sensing and each is a gift. I guess if some wish to see this as an intentional gift of an external God, that's cool. But in all cases, the valuation of the gift relies on our valuing it, or perceiving it at it's value. In my mind, as you said or at least how I interpret what you said, this is a function of our own inner divine apprehending the Good, Beautiful, and the True when it presents itself.

[_zeezrom]

Anyway, what do you think? Is perception so critical to the senses that to separate it would be to do damage to the discussion? Or am I forgetting something?

Thanks Honor. No damage done. Thanks for taking the time. I think your points are valid and important for the thread.

At one time, I considered throwing the idea of "spirituality" out into the wind. It seemed nonsense to me. The ideas in this thread help me begin to salvage the idea.

Everyone: thanks for contributing. I love what everyone has said on here. Hopefully more people will share what they find to be spirituality of the senses!

[_just me]

I can sit alone with my eyes closed and feel overwhelming emotions based on thoughts I might have. Are the thoughts based on past outside stimuli? Is the experience coming from outside myself or is it an inner one?
Is a being "out there" communicating with me or am I communicating with myself-or the divine within?

Thank you for the questions!

Yes, I think the thoughts you have do indeed come from some outside stimuli. It's very likely that your body has done things with the memories over time, but the original source is something that stimulated one/many of your senses. I also like the thought of having "divine within". I believe it. Is there a being "out there" communicating with you? Why not?

I suppose a very good "why not" might be that it is potentially irrational.

Let me ask you: If you are able to believe there is "divine" within a person, why not "divine" without?

Oh, I would say the divine is within and throughout all things. So, technically it is also without. I just don't believe that there are any embodied deities. I believe that gods and goddesses are archtypes or symbolic. I also don't believe in spirits. I think the body and soul are one...that what we are is what we are. Since I don't believe that there are spirits or deities that communicate with us directly, that leaves me with my brain functions.

I just don't see any evidence for an outside source other than the stimuli provided by nature which then must be interpreted.

Hopefully that made sense. :D

Oooh, just saw Honor's new post. Yes, I agree and love how you put that. I also really like the god potential theology of the LDS religion...I just don't put it on an afterlife.

[_zeezrom]

OK, I see your points.

When I was coming home from Las Vegas on Friday when I posted this, I was primed for a spiritual tea drinking experience. After a week in a land full of partying and lights and craziness, I really needed a moment to stand in cold, quiet parking garage and drink hot tea. Drinking tea at any other time would have been just ho hum.

So yeah, a lot of that was just me, Just Me.