I'm Sincere When I Ask This: What is Spiritual?

[_Philo Sofee]

What does it mean to be spiritual? Do any of you people feel like you are spiritual or that there is such a thing as spirituality?

The reason I ask is this. Writing my book (actually just still researching) has led me back to the Kabbalah. Now as an apologist I never felt more spiritual, gain more insights, and was more thrilled to learn new material than when I was reading the Kabbalah and working with what is dubbed "Sacred Geometry" but is actually more philosophical Geometry. Now that I am getting into it again, re-reading some materials because of what some apologists have noted (and I am writing to refute them as well as inform a general audience), I am getting hyped up again. I am doing some geometry with a straight edge and compass, and today I actually learned something incredibly fascinating to me and some pieces clicked for me. This had stopped happening to me in apologetics years ago and I more or less staled out as it were. But now its happening again, and it feels GOOD! Is that spiritual? I am seriously wondering if its worth my effort to just simply show why apologists are wrong and Mormonism is stale. Hell everyone can already see that, my book won't contribute a damn thing along that line that hasn't already been read.

But doing something that is actually useful for personal meditation and intellectual growth, learning a little more about math, and contemplating and learning about the cosmos.... I mean DAMN! That is just ENJOYABLE as all get out. Why shouldn't I write about that instead? Anyway, I'm just musing.

Just what is it to be spiritual anyway?

[_Quasimodo]

There was a time long ago (in my late teens) when I thought of myself as not religious, but spiritual. I believe that there are many people these days that self identify that way.

That's when I was doing some serious reading about religions world wide. I learned a lot from that time. I can't say that I am spiritual now. I am 98% sure that the world we live in is all we have. The other 2% is an admission that I can't know for sure. That makes me an agnostic (I think). I believe that the only intellectually honest position to take is agnostic. None of us really know.

[_Jersey Girl]

What does it mean to be spiritual?

To be aware of what impacts your spirit or soul, and seek out that which feeds it.

Do any of you people feel like you are spiritual or that there is such a thing as spirituality?

Yes.

The reason I ask is this. Writing my book (actually just still researching) has led me back to the Kabbalah. Now as an apologist I never felt more spiritual, gain more insights, and was more thrilled to learn new material than when I was reading the Kabbalah and working with what is dubbed "Sacred Geometry" but is actually more philosophical Geometry.

Gematria revisited. :-)

Now that I am getting into it again, re-reading some materials because of what some apologists have noted (and I am writing to refute them as well as inform a general audience), I am getting hyped up again.

You're binge thinking. Just an observation.

I am doing some geometry with a straight edge and compass, and today I actually learned something incredibly fascinating to me and some pieces clicked for me. This had stopped happening to me in apologetics years ago and I more or less staled out as it were. But now its happening again, and it feels GOOD! Is that spiritual?

It's possible.

I am seriously wondering if its worth my effort to just simply show why apologists are wrong and Mormonism is stale. Hell everyone can already see that, my book won't contribute a damn thing along that line that hasn't already been read.

You could be right.

But doing something that is actually useful for personal meditation and intellectual growth, learning a little more about math, and contemplating and learning about the cosmos.... I mean DAMN! That is just ENJOYABLE as all get out. Why shouldn't I write about that instead? Anyway, I'm just musing.

I don't know. Why don't you?

Just what is it to be spiritual anyway?

I already said what I think it is. You're binge thinking right now. I think I said that already, too.

[_zerinus]

What does it mean to be spiritual? Do any of you people feel like you are spiritual or that there is such a thing as spirituality?

The reason I ask is this. Writing my book (actually just still researching) has led me back to the Kabbalah. Now as an apologist I never felt more spiritual, gain more insights, and was more thrilled to learn new material than when I was reading the Kabbalah and working with what is dubbed "Sacred Geometry" but is actually more philosophical Geometry. Now that I am getting into it again, re-reading some materials because of what some apologists have noted (and I am writing to refute them as well as inform a general audience), I am getting hyped up again. I am doing some geometry with a straight edge and compass, and today I actually learned something incredibly fascinating to me and some pieces clicked for me. This had stopped happening to me in apologetics years ago and I more or less staled out as it were. But now its happening again, and it feels GOOD! Is that spiritual? I am seriously wondering if its worth my effort to just simply show why apologists are wrong and Mormonism is stale. Hell everyone can already see that, my book won't contribute a damn thing along that line that hasn't already been read.

But doing something that is actually useful for personal meditation and intellectual growth, learning a little more about math, and contemplating and learning about the cosmos.... I mean DAMN! That is just ENJOYABLE as all get out. Why shouldn't I write about that instead? Anyway, I'm just musing.

Just what is it to be spiritual anyway?

The word "spiritual" in and of itself does not mean much. The devil is also "spiritual". He is entirely made of spirit, and no flesh; whereas we are both spirit and flesh. In that sense of the term, he is more "spiritual" than we are. In the Bible, the word "spiritual" is often set in contrast to carnal, natural, or of the flesh, as Paul says in these verses:

Romans 8:

4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

To be "spiritual" in that sense of the term means to mind the things of the spirit rather than the things of the flesh. It is part of the attributes of holiness and righteousness. Paul again refers to the same kind of thing here:

1 Corinthians 2:

11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

That is what is meant to be "spiritual" in the biblical or theological sense of the term. It means to have the Spirit of God by which to receive and comprehend the things of God, because they are "spiritually discerned". It entails holiness, righteousness, and faith. It means to "mortify the flesh" so we can receive the things of the Spirit. It doesn't mean "warm fuzzy". It means more than just "feelin good". It means minding the things of the spirit rather than the things of the flesh, because "to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace" (Rom. 8:6). Doing geometry or Kabbalah does not make anybody "spiritual".

[_RockSlider]

I dabbled in kabbala and wanted to consider myself a mystic Mormon.

Why are us Mormons so susceptible to the magical world view?

Is not 'spirituality' just a longing after the supernatural, a desire to actually ascend that Sephardic tree?

Hell who knows perhaps we could create a gnome along the way!

I.e. earth to kerry, come in kerry

[_honorentheos]

I tend to think of it as stemming from our material, biological condition rather than there being a sharp barrier between spiritual and material. By that I mean that whatever it is that drives human beings towards seeking hidden meanings, reconciling the seeming absurdity of an arbitrary universe too indifferent to humanity to seek to kill us but so vast and sublime that the most insignificant of events at the cosmic scale could wipe us out - that thing, whatever it is, comes from the structure of our brain which if we could gain a perfect understanding of it would make it scientifically explicable. But the brain being one of the amazingly complex cooperative networks of biological cells that possibly transcends it's own ability to comprehend itself, this may forever remain a mystery to us.

With that, I think everyone is spiritual in the sense that our brain actually IS dualistic in a different sense. One part being the executive functioning and aware aspects of it that are compelled to find meaning and reason things through being the part we think of as "us" but being very young on the timetable of evolutionary development. It's practically still in beta testing. The other part being those hidden but incredibly developed subconscious mechanisms that we have incommon with other organisms with advanced neural networks that have hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary processes behind their development and function. The later being stronger, knowing what it's doing, and most of the time taking the executive functioning part of the brain along for the ride it thinks it controls like a very young naïve kid thinking it's driving the car because it's got a steering wheel attached to it's car seat.

So human history includes what seem like ancient wisdoms but on an evolutionary scale are really quite new. And I think of them as the documented attempts of various people to figure out meaning in the universe, reconcile the state of the universe to this sense we have of our own importance, and figure out what exactly is going on with this inner self that we perceive as having one voice/one mind but only if we ignore the strong, persistent undercurrent that really seems to be motivating things in there.

In that context, perhaps spirituality is the personal quest for the above. If a person is seeking to understand their own mind, to seek inner peace, to listen to what the subconscious is saying at that interface of stream of conscious thought (meditation) and really truly hear it, to find meaning that has to transcend the material "get stuff, “F”, give me respect!" then they are doing something that I think of as spiritual. It goes hand-in-hand with the other ways we tap into our inner self, through the arts, companionship, service, experiencing reality in scales larger than the human scale, anything that hits us in the feels as the kiddies say.

And I think it's a good thing. Practically necessary. Because it's honestly irrational to pretend we are only this rational, controlled, gonna-figure-it-all-out-someday, science is KING! animal. That's appealing to supernatural, too, because it's ignoring aspects of nature or reality.

That's my take on it, anyway.

[_Philo Sofee]

Thanks for all the responses. It's been fun to read.

[_Nightlion]

Just what is it to be spiritual anyway?

Faith
Hope
Love
and or actual contact experience with a viable nonterrestrial response. There is no such thing as one sided spirituality. Not really.

Could be good or evil responses. Both are spiritual.

What passes for spiritual is usually not genuine concern about something extra-worldly. A worldly group or thought or organization or purpose seeks to expand in complete disregard for God and might still be spiritual but not as most people think.

(Like using the Book of Mormon to convert while trampling upon what is commanded of God in the same book. Example: Christ forbid any who have NOT taken upon them the name of Jesus Christ, the truth of which is manifest by Christ's healing of them in the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. See 3 Nephi 18. The LDS willfully ignore this and willfully fail to see that people take the name of Christ acceptably.)

Even an originally true connection like the Restoration will slough off into a worldly order almost immediately. And that worldly order will continue off the strength of that original spark through generations of apostasy and hypocrisy. And just as soon what counts for spirituality will be allegiance to the worldly order.

In the strictest sense the Mormons are only a spiritual organization in that they serve the devil.

Education is NOT spirituality.

The innocence of a child's need to believe is greater spirituality than the entire collection of works by doctors of religion.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Just what is it to be spiritual anyway?

you make your own definition, but it has to be a bad and useless definition.

[_Jersey Girl]

The reason that I noted you were binge thinking is because I think it will take you away from writing your book. I think that you can write a book and I think that it's a worthy occupation, but only if it feeds you to do it. I have a feeling that you've already jumped the fence and that's okay. ;-) In any case, I wanted to answer your question again. Because I didn't even try to do justice to it before. Here is my serious answer.

What is Spiritual?

Spiritual is what happens when leave your books, your bills, your worries and your concerns, and all the trappings of the material world behind. It is cellular, systemic and it is transcendent. Spiritual is what you drink in with the roots of your senses and the feelings of exhilaration, delight, and wonderment that fill you up.

It's when you walk into the mountains and suddenly see a falcon soaring overhead and wish that you could do it. It's when you come upon a field of Indian Paintbrush, Lamberts Loco, Lupine, Pentstemon, and if you're lucky, spicy blue Columbine planted by no one and feel like it exists just for you. It's the sound that the wind makes when it rushes through the Aspens in Fall. It's the sweet smell of pines when the sun hits them.

It's sitting on the beach after the crowds go home. Where the only sounds you hear are the sounds of the waves and gulls looking for left overs and the only smell is the smell of salt. It's when you immerse your body in the ocean and baptize yourself in it's waters. It's when you walk along the shoreline and the excitement you feel when the ocean delivers it's treasures right to your feet, and you stuff your pockets full of them to take home so you never forget the fullness of the experience.

It's when you stand outside at night far away from city lights and look up. It's that moment when you forget what stars are made of and the sight of the Milky Way takes your breath away and you stand there for hours waiting for the next meteor to race across the night sky again. It's when you wait for August to come so you can see the Perseid Meteor Shower because you know you're going to get the show of your life and how you feel when you get it.

It's the anticipation of the waiting game that begins when the first snows come and put Earth to sleep. It's how you drive down a country on what feels like the coldest most desolate night of the year and your eyes light up when you catch sight of the Northern Lights dancing on the horizon. It's how you wait as patiently as you can for Earth to wake up again and the exhilarating sense of hope you feel when you see the snow melt to reveal the greened landscape that you waited so long for.

Spiritual is what you take in with your senses and lands in the place where your heart and your mind meet, to grow your soul.

Spiritual is feeling you have when look into the sparkling blue eyes of a little girl and being determined to give her all of these things before you leave because you know you will leave. To put her in dirt, in water, to let her run wild in the forest, to show her how to plant seeds, smell trees and sea shells, to know the birds by their calls and how to tell what they eat by their beaks and where they live, that wildflowers planted by no one have names, and teach her remember to always look up until she does it without thinking. Because you know that if she has that, you have given her everything she needs to grow her soul.

It's a sense that something is bigger than you are.

And it feels like you feel when you see this: