Intro: Spirituality & Enlightenment

A fast-moving world often stirs a desire to go ‘inward’ or gain knowledge of the diverse paths to spirituality. Life’s challenges (heck, world, and social challenges) create the desire to contemplate and explore something ‘other.’ As a result, this necessitates dialogue regarding the nature of individual enlightenment. Whether a nature enthusiast pondering the cosmos or someone leading an evangelical life more religious, an individual’s spiritual growth has many looks.

Most begin a spiritual mission without anticipating the results. The only thing guiding them is a strong ‘feeling’ termed a ‘calling.’ Inspiration comes from teachers of varied persuasions. It also comes from peers on a similar journey or even information from books. The goals of spiritual missions are quite diverse, too. For example, there are those hoping for mystical connections with results like reading minds and other mystifying powers. Others want more mellow states of spirit with a desire of simply being at peace.

Enlighten Me

When it comes to spiritual pursuits, schools of thought run the gamut. Here are three examples of beliefs:

• Life itself is spiritual. Through nature or design, humans are essentially spiritual beings. The ‘spirit’ is what makes us. It’s a power distributed to everything throughout the world. It’s a simple (but heavy) concept.
• All life is unstable forms of mystical powers. Upon death, a piece of us returns to a dimension embodying these powers. From another perspective, the human spirit is made up of super life power derived from all power found in the world. Philosophies on the subject abound, both well-known and anonymous.
• An extension of one and two above: the spirit is limitless. There exists ‘additional capacity’ beyond mere thought. Traditional spiritualists believe and teach enlightenment comes with the normal-balanced personality. Extremes in personality interfere with accessing that ‘additional capacity.’ Moreover, enlightenment isn’t elusive. It’s even attainable through a course of study.

Life, with all its challenges and opportunities, is full of many fluctuations. Through our daily activities, humans respond mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically to meet them. Spirituality and/or enlightenment doesn’t negate or relieve us of our humanity. Rather, these states aid us by increasing a level of capability for humans to rise above the normal consciousness.

Spirituality is expressed in many ways. I discuss the concept of meditation in my SFPB newsletter, Tranquill at Twilight …