EL - The Seeker's Guide - Spirituality

I've had Elizabeth Lesser's book The Seeker's Guide since I became aware of her thanks to the Oprah / Eckhart Tolle - A New Earth webclass.   Since I have signed up for her workshop at Celebrate Your Life in Chicago (and hope to attend the panel discussion with her as well), I thought I ought to read her book and get a sense of her in advance.  At 401 pages, I won't get through it all, before I get there.  It does not disappoint so far.   She is much my contemporary in age and also in her perspective on spirituality and so, I will be sharing bits and pieces of her insights in this thread, as I have the time to do so.
 
This morning, I share a bit about Spirituality from the chapter “What Is
Spirituality ?”. 

I also began a bit of discussion in  Nicole's God Pod regarding Spirituality and/or Religion.  I really need to go back in there as well and catch up with the discussion a bit.  So much to do, so little time to do it all in.
 
I begin on p 37 as she puts into words, some of what I try to put in of myself to this group. 
 
Opening up the secret of our human nature, revealing to ourselves and to each other our deep and soulful longings, our fear and sadness, our joy and wonder, is the critical step on the spiritual path.  It is the step that makes the
difference between living our own, real spirituality and just acquiring someone
else's beliefs.  Particularly in our own times, when guarded cynicism is seen as a sign of intelligence, revealing our spiritual longing is a brave act.   (deb's note - this is the kind of energy that I feel in Mike's Fully Engaged group.  It is a cynicism towards spirituality, a disbelief, and it is a brave soul who reveals the kind of spiritual interest that I have long encouraged here.)
 
We could say that the history of human suffering is our inability to come to terms with spiritual hunger.  Like one big cosmic joke, humans were born yearning for a home of tranquil abiding, yet without the map to get there.  In every age some
people seem to know more than others about the way home.  They have been
called shamans, prophets, and messiahs, monks and gurus, poet and philosophers, scientists and psychologists.  They spend their time contemplating the way home and reporting their findings.  Religions and big bang theories are attributed to their wisdom.  Yet when all is said and done, each one of us is left abiding in the mystery, longing for the tranquility that is whispered about in the depths of our own hearts.  Thus a critical step on the spiritual path, and one that we will take over and over, is to let ourselves experience spiritual hunger long enough and deep enough to follow it to its source.  Unless we do that, we will never get the chance to taste the true nourishment that is indeed available, closer to us than we think.
 
Take a minute now to make contact with your own spiritual hunger.  Put your hand on the spot at the center of your chest where your ribs join together.  It is the same spot called the heart center in some spiritual traditions.  It's the place in your body you can feel when you quickly inhale in fear, or when you speak of an aching heart or a heart overflowing with joy.  When you gently touch that
spot and breathe quietly, concentrating with eyes closed for a few minutes,
what do you sense?  If we allow ourselves to rest in the quiet recesses of the heart, most of us will feel a gentle tugging, a sense of longing.   Humming softly in the background of our daily life, this is the call we answer when we journey on a spiritual path.  
 
(deb's note - as I read this, I thought of being in the womb, of hearing my mother's heart beating, yet not able to find the source or know its reality, apart from the sound which would have filled my days and nights in that limited and confined space.  I thought of how, when I discipline my children, I later follow that, once the energy has settled, with a hug, heart space to heart space, with mine fully open for their own hearts to reach out and connect with me, as purely
almost as when they were inside my body.  It always seems so welcomed by
them and soothing of some longing they feel.   It is the melting hug that Carla has sent flying all around Gaia.)

 
What is this longing?   Neither a feeling nor a thought, it is more like a gravitational pull in the direction of wholeness, enlightenment, truth - what some call God.   There are some people who know from an early age how to follow their heart's longing with grace and sureness.  Others feel it as strongly and
fill it with anything they can to dull the longing.  Alcohol, drugs, materialism, work - many of our excesses can be traced to the spiritual longing that dwells in our hearts.
 
Unchanneled spiritual longing is a powerful force.  It has been successfully manipulated throughout history in ways so hypocritical and repressive that religion has earned a bad name.  But spiritual longing came before religion.  Step
into a limestone cave in France where Cro-Magnon people left their paintings
and ritual markings, and you will find your own questions and yearnings
engraved on the walls.  The need to understand our place within the mystery of the universe is as ancient and instinctual as our other basic human needs.  Creation stories, religions, prophetic philosophies, and scientific explanations rise and fall within cultures and throughout eras.  Spiritual longing remains constant in the human heart.
 
The source of our spiritual longing resides in a place deep within us.  It is a quiet and faithful place and if we learn how to access its powerful wisdom, it can become our most dependable friend.  (deb's note - I hvae put her meditation  in our meditation thread, it is called “Connecting With Your Spiritual Longing” you may follow this link to there, if you should wish to consider and contemplate that.)
 
RELAXING INTO THE MYSTERY
 
Late in his life, Max Planck, the Nobel laureate and father of quantum physics, wrote, ”Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature.  And it is because in the last analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.” Planck had mastered every aspect of physics when he wrote this, from thermodynamics and electrodynamics to relativity.  Albert Einstein echoed Planck when he wrote, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science … I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world.”
 
Here, then, is another way to define spirituality.  It is a mystery, the mystery behind the ”marvelous structure of the existing world”.  Through my work
and travels, I have met many of the Eastern gurus of our times, those who have
brought Buddhism, Yoga, Taoism, and ancient shamanic wisdom to the West.
 I have studied with Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mystics, worked with
the founders of new psychological schools of thought, and experimented with the methods of maverick American spiritual teachers who combine Eastern mysticism with psychology.  The wisest, sanest, and happiest of these people are not those who profess a complicated and rigid spiritual doctrine.  Rather, I
have gained the most from those whose paths lead them and their students
gently, humorously, and fearlessly into the very mystery that Planck and
Einstein are talking about.  The most useful spiritual techniques are those that have taught me how to relax into the mystery.  Once there, the path home lights up from within.
 
The spiritual path is the process of fearlessly peering into the mysterious nature of life and relaxing our mental and emotional grip on our own place within it.  (deb's note - that is what I try to do by sharing my stories here.  Fearlessness is
still an aspect I must “work at” to achieve, I have to challenge myself to jump into the fear and see that it has been so far, nothing to fear at all, never so bad as my imagination would build it up to be.) Learning how to do this opens the way to a kind of wisdom that answers our own questions and touches the deepest strands of our longing.  This kind of spirituality makes it marvelously OK to long for something that we do not fully understand; to be aware of its presence, even if we cannot describe what it is; to merge with its powerful truth without having to buy into an “ism” that demands we dress a certain way, talk a certain way, behave a certain way.
 
Ultimately, you are the only one who can answer the question, “What is spirituality?”   All of the suggestions made so far should be used only if they ring true to you.  If fearlessness, Beginner's Mind, and Open Secret (deb's
note - This refers to writings of Rumi and I found this excellent link, that synchronistically ties this to Lesser - Open Secret in the Women & Power section at the Women's Institute at Omega - which Lesser co-founded) move you closer to a working definition of spirituality, then make them your own.  Zen master Thich
Nhat Hanh gives us yet another clue:  ”All spiritual seeking is aimed at awakening us in order to know one and only one thing: birth and death can never touch us in any way whatsoever”.  When we ask the question ”Who is the us that cannot be touched by birth and death?” we invite spirituality to define itself.  How we search for this place or this being, how we learn to relax into its mystery, and how we share its gifts of peace, love, and fearlessness is as good a definition of
the spiritual path as I have found.  God's name and ways may be different in different religions, but this human longing - to know and revere the ”us that cannot be touched by birth and death” - is shared by all of us.
 
Peace & the blessings
of Love & Fearlessness -
Deb

Re: EL - The Seeker's Guide - Spirituality

I wanted to share with you a section in The Seeker's Guide that I read today.  It begins -

We are witnessing the birth of a wisdom tradition that is uniquely American.  Within traditional organized religions, as well as in the hybrid creations of our times, the stamp of American thinking is plain.  We see the American spirit in the proliferation of nonaffliliated Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Islamic churches, and also in the profound changes within sanctioned denominations.

This spirit values independence from religious hierarchy.  It crosses religious and social boundaries, telling the tale of a diverse people, gathered in close proximity, and absorbing each other's ways of worshipping, ritualizing, and mythologizing the great mysteries of life.  It contains the nature-centered traditions of the original peoples of the Americas.  It is part science, which has underscored, for most of the twentieth century, our unspoken collective philosophy.  It respects both a mistrust of heavy-handed authority and the willing surrender to a greater power.  It draws from the religious teachings of the past: from the biblical traditions; from the spiritual roots of Africa; from the meditative schools of Asia; and from other diverse mythic and religious worldviews.  And it draws from our own times, from the wisdom of psychology, democracy, and feminism.

Comparing Old Spirituality to the New, Elizabeth highlights the following, to show what we have outgrown and what is emerging (noting that it is an oversimplified outline and that it omits until later in her book - the best of the old that we must safeguard and the worst of the new that we need to be aware of and counter) - 

[1]  Who Has Authority ?

Old - The hierarchy has the authority.  Church authorities tell you how to worship in church and how to behave outside of church.

New - You are your own best authority.  As you work to know and love yourself, you discover how to live a spiritual life.

[2]  What Is Spirituality ?

Old - God, and the path to worship Him, have already been defined.  All you need to do is follow the directions.

New - You listen within for your own definition of spirituality.  Your deeper longings are your compass on the search.

[3]  What Is The Path To God ?

Old - There is only one path.  It is the right way and all other ways are wrong.

New - Many paths lead to spiritual freedom and peace.  You have a rich array of gems from which to draw illumination: the world's religious traditions; mythology; philosophy; psychology; healing methods; scientific wisdom; your own experience.  String a necklace all your own.

[4]  What Is Sacred ?

Old - Parts of yourself - like the body, or ego, or emotions - are evil.  Deny or transcend or sublimate them or they will lead you astray.

New - Everything is sacred - your body, mind, psyche, heart, and soul.  The world is sacred, too, with all of its light and darkness.  Bring the exiled and unloved parts of yourself back into the fold. 

[5]  What Is The Truth ?

Old - The truth is like a rock.  Your understanding of it should never waver.  Therefore ask the same questions and receive the same answers at all stages of life.

New - The truth is like the horizon - forever ahead of you, forever changing its shape and color.  Let your spiritual path change and diverge as you journey toward it.  You live many lives in one lifetime.  The truth accomodates your growth.

Lesser goes on to add -

What was needed to uphold the old spirituality and to educate its followers is quite different from what we need now to guide us on a spiritual path.  To forge our own way through life's deeper terrain requires different perceptions and skills than what it took to follow someone else's directives.  To pursue personal happiness here on earth, and to sanctify the human body, is a different sort of quest than the search for redemption in an afterlife.  And to understand and heal the troublesome parts of our own self and the world, as opposed to punishing or repressing the darker parts of human nature, asks us to do something for which few of us have been trained.

She ends this section with some paradoxical questions -

> If I focus too much on the self, won't I end up drowning in Narcissus' pool?

>But if I neglect myself, what will I really have of value to give to others?

> If I turn my attention to my body, what will keep me from becoming vain, or materialistic, or obsessed with the body's inevitable demise?

> But isn't the body the temple of the soul?

> If I work on opening my heart, what's to stop me from becoming an emotional mess?

> Conversely, won't I dry up, if I concentrate exclusively on spirit?

> With so many ways to worship, seek, and heal, what will prevent me from flitting like a butterfly from fad to fad to fad, never landing long enough to settle into wisdom and health ?

Lesser says that it is important to swing back and forth between these questions.  The goal is to become more and more geniune, fearless, and free.  Somewhere in the middle, between the old homogenized, autocratic ways and the new diverse and individualistic ways, is a clear middle path.

Re: EL - The Seeker's Guide - Spirituality

I am enjoying Elizabeth Lesser's book.  I feel like I've found a kindred spirit in her.  I can't wait to see her in person - in the discussion panel and then, again in the more intimate setting of a workshop.  The next section I want to share (I highly recommend her book, there is no way I can share more than snippets with you here) has to do with what she calls “Spiritual Materialism”.  She did not coin that term, she credits a Tibetan scholar and meditation teacher, Chogyam Trungpa with that when he arrived in the US in the 1960s to be Tibetan Buddhism to “the West”.

In Trungpa's classic “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism” she quotes him identifying that we are “deceiving ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques.”  Wow, did that ever have me doing reality checks.  Lesser shares an example, a funny situation that occured in the early days of the Omega Institute.  More than a 100 people had come to study with a Native American teacher.  He was wrapped in a blanket and smelled of soil and sage and smoke.  He was telling the group that until they knew the direction they faced, they would never get where they wanted to go.  He intones “Now we will pray to the east, the direction of beginnings, the sun bearer, the white shell dawn”.  With one hand he held a drum, he pulled Elizabeth close to whisper in her ear, “Hey, which way is east?”.

Chogyam Trungpa says “Ego is able to convert everything to its own use, even spirituality.”  He means the part of ourselves that feels separate from everything else.  The part that struggles and fears.  Ego is the part of ourself that wants to be unique, unchanging and solid.  Trungpa wrote “The ego tries as hard as it can to shield us from the direct perception of what is.”

Here is Elizabeth Lesser's Top 10 List of Spiritual Materialism

[1]  Narcissism
She says there is a thin line between narcissism and “following your bliss”.  Without some degree of sacrifice for the greater good, self-discovery eventually leads to plain old self-indulgence.  There is a danger that we will use spiritual teachings to perpetuate childhood or conclude that constant fulfillment is a God-given right.  Teachers can also get trapped in narcissism.  They become less like wise guides and more like lawyers - advocates of the self, devoted solely to the advancement of their client's self-gratification.

[2]  Superficiality
When spirituality veers from being a calm quest for fearlessness and begins to resemble sentimentality or superstition, then we are in shallow water.  America's new forms of spirituality are often accused of selling superficial and sunny answers to life's complexity and pain.  Spirituality does not work if we use it to protect ourselves from the rough-and-tumble of real life.

The tendency to surround ourselves with pat explanations, special prayers, or ritual objects is sometimes termed spiritual by-pass.  It can result in disorders that range from silly to serious.  How do we know when we are using spirituality to skim the surface of life, instead of plunging deeper into reality?  While obvious kinds of superficiality include dressing or speaking a new way, rather than real transformation; it is the more subtle kinds that can be harder to spot - hiding behind the safety of a concept instead of going deeper into our own fears or ignorance or using fancy terms to explain away the need for simple behavior change.  Also, buying into a system that suggests thinking positively always protects you from harm or that there is something wrong with you, if you suffer or fail, or that healing isn't often complex - these are unrealistic promises for daily life.

[3]  The Never-Ending Process of Self-Improvement
There is an insatiability to the quest for self-improvment.  It can become one's main activity in life and that presents a few problems.  You can become obsessed with your own story - your victimization, your faults, your fears.  Second, it a myth that we can ever change ourselves enough to escape from the gene pool.  If we expect a tidy wrap-up of our childhood wounds, it may be discovered to be an exercise in futility.

A myopic focus on the self leads to social apathy.  It just isn't true that your self-empowerment and self-healing will lead to the health and happiness of others or of society.  We have to participate in the improvement of more than just ourselves.

[4]  Instant Transformation
Just as some people get seduced by the never-ending process of self-examination, some are disappointed when they don't achieve “understanding” and “inner peace” after reading a book, or in a daylong workshop.  She quotes a philosopher, Paul Valery, “Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh”.  Spiritual awakening takes patience, hard work, and the grace of God.

[5]  Desire for Magic
Perhaps in direct reaction to the Western reign of rational thinking, some of the new American spirituality throws common sense out the window and pursues a search for magic cures and miraculous people.  The need to believe in all-powerful teachers, angelic visitations, UFOs, and other unexplained mysteries can obscure the ordinary magic of everyday life, proof enough of God and the miracle of life.  It can also allow spiritual teachers who claim magical powers to justify abusive behavior.

[6]  Grandiosity
One of the best aspects of the new American spirituality is also one of its dangers.  In democratizing spirituality and bringing it to the daily life of each person, each one of us risks becoming a messianic little pope, or a humorless saint, or just an unbearably profound person, grander or better than others.

[7]  Romanticizing Indigenous Cultures
There exists a kind of reverse prejudice in our politcally correct times that just because something or someone is from another culture, especially an indigenous or minority culture, that it / he / she is somehow more valuable, spiritual, or wise.  Some spiritual teachings rewrite history by harking back to mythic eras when human beings lived in peace and harmony on lost continents under the wise counsel of native shamans.  ”Whenever teachings come to a country from abroad the problem of spiritual materialism is intensified” writes Chogyam Trungpa.

[8]  The Inner Child Tantrum
As the writer Nelia Gardner White says, “Some people just don't seem to realize, when they're moaning about not getting prayers answered, that NO is the answer”.  Some spiritual schools of thought teach that if you learn to pray to God for what you need, you will necessarily get it.  It just doesn't work that way.  Learning to know what we want and then to honestly ask for it is a monumental achievement.  But so is learning to gracefully accept all that is given and taken away.  Spirituality should awaken within us both the wonderous child and the mature adult.

[9]  Ripping Off the Traditions
Elizabeth has a lot of sympathy for devout followers of established religions, from Christians to Native Americans to Tibetan Buddhists, who feel that the renewed interest in their teachings is insincere.  Many modern seekers skim off the ritual trappings of a tradition with little respect for the depth behind it.  This trivializes powerful and elegant systems of spiritual growth.  The same can be said for the way people pick and choose elements of a complex healing method and fashion a piece of the whole to fit the needs of the moment.  There is a difference between carefully creating a spiritual path that includes genuine practices from a variety of traditions, and flitting from flower to flower like a drunk honeybee.

[10]  The Guru Trip
Harry S Truman lamented “Memories are short; appetites for power and glory are insatiable.  Old tyrants depart.  New ones take their place.  It is all very baffling and trying.”  Perhaps the most baffling and trying aspect of the new American spirituality is the disparity between spiritual teachings and the behavior of teachers.  While I am aware that inconsistencies abound in what I say and what I do, and while I have compassion for the conflicts inherent in leadership, I have been appalled by the ironic behavior disorders that have shadowed spiritual leaders.  Men, women, Western, Eastern, fundamentalist, New Age, modern, or indigenous - none have escaped the temptation to abuse power.

Things to be wary of - extravagant claims of enlightenment or healing; the minimizing of the hard work that accompanies any true spiritual or healing path; the excessive commercialism that betrays the deeper spiritual message; and the blind adherence of followers to charlatans (be they gurus, therapists, preachers, healers, or teachers).  With their deceitful double standards, some gurus, therapists, and teachers have given mentorship a bad name and tarnished the image of humbling oneself to a wiser and more experienced guide.

There is both wisdom and folly in American spirituality.  She says, soon enough you will stumble upon the folly, even as you become wiser and happier.  Your best guides through the morass will be your own alert mind and sensitive heart, and perhaps most important, your sense of humor.  Being awake to the folly is quite different from being a cynic.  A healthy blend of skepticism, humor, and mysticism is the best brew for the journey.

If any of the above “trigger” strong feelings, especially of denial, it is time to take another look at your “beliefs” - why do you believe it?, on what authority?, why does it interest you?, how do you use it?  Growing up spiritually is as hard as growing up to be an adult from the sheltered days of childhood (realizing not all childhoods are sheltered, though I am a big believer that they should be, in an “ideal” world).

I felt alot of triggers reading through this.  Believe this, I am going to be searching my own actions, beliefs and reasons for a very long time, just from reading this short selection.

Deb