So far I have shared with you the results of some of the research, or rather let's say “learnings”, that I have accumulated from the point of view of science, trying to find a balance between two topics that have always fascinated me: formal science and the world of the intangible, what is inside the mind and perhaps beyond matter.
But today we're going to talk about Spirituality, or rather, I'm going to share my vision of what spirituality is and how I believe it relates to science. I don't pretend to give absolute answers and, of course, it's worth clarifying that unlike the previous topics, where there are theories formally accepted as true, in the matters of the soul there are no absolute truths.
The word Spirituality comes from the Latin spiritus, which means soul, vigor, breath, and the suffix “lity”, which means “related to”, so Spirituality means “that which concerns the soul or spirit”. It can also be translated as “that which concerns the essence”, since, as you know, the word spirit is also used to refer to alcoholic beverages that contain no sugar and have at least 20% alcohol. As a curious fact, drinks that have sugar and flavors are called liqueur. Therefore, if the drink contains only the essence of the plant from which it is extracted, then it is a spirit.
That's as far as we can go when it comes to defining Spirituality. Anything additional that we add already becomes personal appreciation or the definition created by some particular group. However, the definition, or rather the semiology of the term, is already telling us something important: if it refers to the intangible, to the internal, it is spirituality. If it has added flavors, well then it's already a different liqueur!
From here on, then, I have to share my personal construction of what Spirituality is, based on my personal experience and, above all, what I consider spirituality is NOT. So I'm going to start there.
What is most commonly confused with spirituality is religion. Religion, according to Wikipedia, is a sociocultural system of moral behaviors and practices, cosmogonies, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics and organizations related to supernatural, transcendental or spiritual elements. Starting from this definition we can observe that spirituality is usually a part of religion, but depending on each religion, it can be a more or less important or more or less large part in the context of the other elements.
Religions are very well structured and defined systems with behavior guides, bodies of knowledge like the Bible or the Quran, or a certain version of those books, and usually with a canonical hierarchy of community leaders. Usually religions proclaim that their main foundation is spirituality as a way of approaching divinity, improving as a person or achieving happiness either here on Earth or in some kind of existence beyond death. However, I consider that in most cases spirituality is not the center but rather the main attraction for the faithful, but other elements tend to be more important, like doctrine or the practice of certain behaviors, as well as the prohibition of others.
This doesn't mean that spirituality can't be found in a religion. In fact, one of the probable origins of religion, according to Saint Augustine, is the Latin re-ligare, which means “to reunite”. Therefore, religion would be the tool with which one wants to reunite the human being with his essence. However, there is another probable origin of the term, coming from the Roman philosopher Cicero, who spoke of religio, which would be translated as “obligation to vows”. See how interesting it is that religion has those two facets so marked, like the two sides of a coin: on the one hand, the connection with something sublime, but on the other hand, the fulfillment of a series of obligations toward an organization, even if it's as an intermediary of divinity.
On the other hand we have metaphysics, which is a branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality and tries to connect mind and matter in some way. Metaphysics literally means “beyond the physical”. In a way, what I intend to do in this space is metaphysics, since I deal with that connection between mind and matter. However, metaphysics also moves away from spirituality because its essence is very phenomenological, that is, it is more concerned with explaining the phenomena we perceive in our mind and how they can be evidence of a reality beyond the physical. I believe that spirituality isn't really concerned with these topics because they have no relevance to the ultimate goal of finding individual and collective happiness. But well, I'm getting ahead of myself; at the end of this episode I'll complete my definition of spirituality.
Metaphysics was the origin of science because it got us thinking about the phenomena we perceived and trying to understand the nature of reality. What happens is that, as I narrated in another episode, this exercise was carried out without many means of experimentation and therefore was limited by the capacity of our senses and our mind. However, we shouldn't underestimate this capacity; even great discoveries like Archimedes' hydrostatics, Newton's mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity started from those existential musings and were then perfected thanks to mathematics, to finally be confirmed with experimentation. In any case, the field of human behavior, the search for happiness or love, continue to fall outside the possibilities of mathematics and, to a large extent, also of the scientific method, so both Science and metaphysics fall short of being considered spirituality.
There have been modern currents of metaphysics that promise to dedicate themselves fully to the development of the Self, like Connie Mendez's 4-in-1 metaphysics, the Gnosis, which I'll talk about in detail in another episode, and more recently “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, which was in fashion around 2006 and 2010. However, even though these movements could be classified as metaphysical, I personally consider them part of the next group I'll talk about: Esotericism.
Like all the previous definitions, there is no consensus on what esotericism exactly is, so it's usually used as a term that groups ideas and movements that have emerged throughout history, specifically in Western societies. The term esoteric comes from the Greek esôterikós and means “that which belongs to an inner circle”. This can give us an idea of what it's about. Esoteric cults are generally organized systems defined as concentric circles where there is an external group of sympathizers and visitors, a more internal circle of students and apprentices, an even more internal one of postulants and a private circle of initiates. Many times they also have hierarchies or scales of initiation that are earned with time, loyalty and merits, and that give access to higher or more restricted levels of knowledge and often power as well. This is the main difference between esotericism and metaphysics. Metaphysicians don't usually have that hierarchical organization or the levels of knowledge. They limit themselves to sharing knowledge and, through it, fostering an “awakening”.
Some famous esoteric groups are the Gnosis, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, the Kabbalah, Sufism and various movements that could be classified as occultism. They have existed forever and they will surely keep existing forever because they are super attractive. Not only do they offer a magical vision of the world, but they promise the deepest knowledge of reality, the revelation of the secrets of nature and frequently supernatural powers like, and I'm not exaggerating, flying, walking through walls, teleportation, omnipresence, telepathy, material riches, longevity, reincarnation, seeing the future and, as dessert, the possibility of having many sexual partners, because of course, almost all esoteric cults are extremely misogynistic.
We're going to talk quite a bit about esotericism on this podcast because it's a topic I knew quite closely, particularly the Gnosis, and there's a lot I want to share about that.
There's an additional classification for the esoteric and metaphysical movements that have emerged in the last 50 years, more or less since the 70s, and that try to modernize the terminology and practices of classical esotericism, adding ideas, terms or concepts from science, like for example quantum terminology, Eastern practices like yoga, tantra or zen, or mixing ancestral knowledge of sacred plants and rituals with nature. All of this is what is known as New Age.
Speaking of Ancestral knowledge, we would also have to mention Ancestrality as a form of religiosity or spirituality, which comes from the cosmogony of the indigenous peoples of America. It encompasses their way of seeing reality, life, relationships, community, even everyday things like food, clothing, medicine and even language.
There are many more classifications and also movements that perhaps don't fit into a single classification; in fact, most internal knowledge systems belong to more than one category. There are religions with ancestrality like Santo Daime in Brazil, esoteric-metaphysical religions like the Gnosis and New Age metaphysics like Scientology.
All of these bodies of knowledge have their merits and their dangers, and in all of them one can find a path to spirituality, but none of them is spirituality.
Because spirituality is something much simpler: it is the sense of connection with something bigger than ourselves, that transcends mortal existence but doesn't necessarily pretend to understand what lies beyond. Spirituality starts from deep knowledge of oneself and comprises the capacity to transform ourselves, to grow as human beings and give a purpose to our existence. (Repeat)
No dogmas are needed, nor creeds, nor gods, nor an afterlife. But one can be spiritual even while holding any belief or disbelief, as long as there is a connection with something superior, which can be knowledge, humanity, world peace, as long as it is based on the objective and methodical observation of oneself and the possibility of improving oneself to achieve a positive change in oneself and others.
And it is for this reason that science is a vehicle as powerful or more powerful for spirituality than the others we have talked about: science is based on observation, experimentation, the search for truth, and its goal is to improve one's own life and the lives of other beings. True spirituality resembles science and differs from religion or esotericism in that there is no easy path, no shortcuts or magic recipes, but practical and coherent methods to develop our potential based on hard work and constancy.
In fact, some of the most inspiring and spiritual phrases I have heard in my life come not only from spiritual teachers but from scientific professors.
With my Muisca friends we repeated in the ceremonies: “We are children of the Stars, children of the cosmos and of the central sun…” And Carl Sagan, the astrophysicist I've already talked about on this podcast, once said: “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our skin were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
In fact, on another occasion he referred specifically to spirituality saying: “The very fact of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
Also Spirituality is the life experience of any person who, regardless of their beliefs, or as I said before, without any belief, strives to be better every day, to help those around them and contribute so that the world is a little bit better every day.
The practice of spirituality leads us to understand better and better the truth of ourselves, of those around us, of the society we live in and of the world that surrounds us. It is the path to get out of the matrix I talked about in the first episodes. But it's not a magical process; or well, we can choose to see it as the true magic of internal transmutation. What I mean is that it's not an automatic process nor can it be given from the outside in. No master, no sacred book, no technique or sacred plant can push you through the spiritual path. Masters, methods and schools are more like lamps that light the way, but in any case, true spirituality implies a conscious and constant individual effort.
Being spiritual comes naturally to some people who, for some reason, were born with the right genetic inheritance, grew up in a family with love and were lucky enough to learn at an early age to know and control their emotions. You might know someone like that in your family. I know a couple in mine!
Other people go through what is known as the dark night of the soul and face very hard tragedies that shake them, and they discover in spirituality the way to heal and rebuild their life.
Others of us are at an intermediate point and fortunately haven't had to live through true tragedies, but we have gone through difficult situations, hopelessness and inner emptiness. This is my case, as I narrated in the previous episode, and I found in spirituality my way of building a life with meaning, purpose and harmony.
But there are also many for whom spirituality is not the path and who find their balance in contemplation, work, family, sports, art, nature or, of course, science.
The important thing in whatever path you choose is that you fall in love with it, that you enjoy it and feel that every day it makes you a better person than the day before, that it takes you one step closer to the happiness you seek.