Can you have a spiritual experience without religion?

[Khatru]

Despite what many believers will tell you, religion has no monopoly on this and you certainly don't need to invoke the supernatural in order to have a spiritual experience.

When you experience feelings of awe, mystery, connection, gratitude, etc, you have a psychological state that satisfies the definition of spiritual.  No gods required.

[Shaker]

By a total coincidence about an hour ago I finished reading Sam Harris's Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion. (Clue is in the sub-title).

[Nearly Sane]

Sorry, that seems like the same definition pish we get about god is love, Carter USM and moral shininess. Gratitude is spirituality? My hairy arse is too then.

[Samuel]

Sorry, that seems like the same definition pish we get about god is love, Carter USM and moral shininess. Gratitude is spirituality? My hairy arse is too then.

I often have spiritual feelings about your hairy arse 

[Nearly Sane]

I often have spiritual feelings about your hairy arse 

'I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon'

[wigginhall]

It might be easier to say that religion is not theism.    There are tons of religions and religious practices which are not theistic in intention or result.  Whether or not they end up with NS's hairy arse, is an exciting question to contemplate.   

I have done Zen meditation for decades, and it is definitely not God-oriented.   Well, it is not anything oriented actually.   One of my favourite Zen sayings is 'no path'. 

[Maeght]

Despite what many believers will tell you, religion has no monopoly on this and you certainly don't need to invoke the supernatural in order to have a spiritual experience.

When you experience feelings of awe, mystery, connection, gratitude, etc, you have a psychological state that satisfies the definition of spiritual.  No gods required.

I wouldn't consider awe etc as spiritual. I think spiritual carries with it ideas of gods or something 'beyond' so wouldn't use it for things like that.

[Shaker]

I wouldn't consider awe etc as spiritual. I think spiritual carries with it ideas of gods or something 'beyond' so wouldn't use it for things like that.

Buddhists and Jains wouldn't agree with you there on the god bit.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Khatru,

Who are these many believers? my only argument is that those experiences are God.

Gonnagle.

[Maeght]

Buddhists and Jains wouldn't agree with you there on the god bit.

What about the 'or something 'beyond''?

[Shaker]

What about the 'or something 'beyond''?

Possibly not that bit, though even there it depends on the individual.

[Rhiannon]

I've just come back from town via a stupidly long route through the countryside. It's a tricky route so there's something meditative about it, but it also affords some of the most beautiful views of the local landscape. There's always big skies here - today we drove through a hail storm, and then as we cleared the crest of the last hill the sun burst through the clouds and in front of us were the gently unfolding East Anglian hills criss crossed with hedges and the odd farm building.

That to me is the essence of spirituality - it's the things that we feel we don't need to do but in reality need as much as food and drink. They are the things that give life meaning, keep us in the moment, give us perspective. The things that feed the part of us that loves the smell of rosemary and the touch of a dog's soft head, a walk in drizzle and laughing til our sides hurt. No need for gods, the supernatural or religion.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

By a total coincidence about an hour ago I finished reading Sam Harris's Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion. (Clue is in the sub-title).

It's a blooming miracle.

[Bubbles]

I like this definition best, so I'd say yes to the op.

A spiritual person is one who seeks to elevate himself, to connect with a higher power, or simply his higher self. He believes there is more to the world than what is easily seen, than what is merely physical. He will have certain guidelines of behavior and diet that he will go by, but all in the name of properly attuning with the infinite and entering some higher state of consciousness. Tibetan monks are the best example of the spiritual.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-baksa/has-anyone-ever-told-you-_b_5587762.html

Although I'd say the diet and guidelines of the behaviour may not exist or differ greatly.

Basically I think it is something which is felt, a connected ness.

Like an astronomer looking at the stars and feeling a sense of wonder.

Or looking at a beautiful flower and admiring it's beauty.

The spiritual side can be the feeling you get looking past something's physical function and seeing something greater, or more than.

It's hard to define, because it's different and individual to each person.

It can happen to anyone.

Thinking we are all made of stardust,  is sort of spiritual.

[Shaker]

A spiritual person is one who seeks to elevate himself, to connect with a higher power, or simply his higher self. He believes there is more to the world than what is easily seen, than what is merely physical. He will have certain guidelines of behavior and diet that he will go by, but all in the name of properly attuning with the infinite and entering some higher state of consciousness.

That seems to knock me out of the spirituality business, then.

"Properly attuning with the infinite" comes over as pseudo-profound wibble designed to sound impressive but which actually conveys no informational content whatever.

My guidelines for behaviour and diet are: try not to be a dick (the Atheist's Commandment), and eat whatever tastes nice without robbing another sentient creature of its existence, respectively.

Whether there is anything that is more than merely physical I don't know. I don't know how it would be possible to know. I do know that I've never been furnished with any reason to think so. The very physical world and the experience of being in it seem inexhaustibly marvellous to me as they are, without add-ons.

Perhaps this is a definition of the fundamental difference between believers and non-believers - the former are the ones for whom the world as it is is never enough, and who want to pile on that extra layer of gods and devils, angels and demons and whatnot.

[Rhiannon]

Yes, as soon as 'higher states' and 'attuning to the infinite' gets mentioned you are heading for the kind of thinking that sees spirituality as something that proclaims one's superiority rather than as something that simply nourishes the needs we have that go beyond the physical. And language like that excludes people who don't see any need for layers of woo, and there's no need for it.

[Bubbles]

That seems to knock me out of the spirituality business, then.

"Properly attuning with the infinite" comes over as pseudo-profound wibble designed to sound impressive but which actually conveys no informational content whatever.

My guidelines for behaviour and diet are: try not to be a dick (the Atheist's Commandment), and eat whatever tastes nice without robbing another sentient creature of its existence, respectively.

Whether there is anything that is more than merely physical I don't know. I don't know how it would be possible to know. I do know that I've never been furnished with any reason to think so. The very physical world and the experience of being in it seem inexhaustibly marvellous to me as they are, without add-ons.

Perhaps this is a definition of the fundamental difference between believers and non-believers - the former are the ones for whom the world as it is is never enough, and who want to pile on that extra layer of gods and devils, angels and demons and whatnot.

"Properly attuning to the infinite" could just mean feeling awe at how small you are, in comparison to the rest of it.

I find the sound of waves striking a beach spiritual, thinking they have been doing that for an age, even when different creatures roamed the earth.

That's a sort of connectedness in that the waves were the same for you as they were then.
A sort of rhythm.
You don't need Gods or Demons to feel that.

The more than there,  is the connectedness of the waves now, and the waves then.

It doesn't have to be a supernatural " more than"

[Shaker]

Yes, very true.

I really must get my finger out and do that thread on pantheism I've been planning ...

[Rhiannon]

Yes, for me it's clouds. Feeling small's good.

[Bubbles]

Yes, as soon as 'higher states' and 'attuning to the infinite' gets mentioned you are heading for the kind of thinking that sees spirituality as something that proclaims one's superiority rather than as something that simply nourishes the needs we have that go beyond the physical. And language like that excludes people who don't see any need for layers of woo, and there's no need for it.

I wasn't excluding anyone.

Different things trigger spirituality in different people, no matter what language you use, it's somehow inadequate.

[Bubbles]

Yes, for me it's clouds. Feeling small's good.

Waves and clouds 

Two aspects of nature.

[Nearly Sane]

And 'properly attuning to the infinite' could mean that feeling you get when there is one slice less of bacon than needed on the sandwich. It's a deepity, it appears to have no meaning at all and yet, there is the straight idea that you can attune to the infinite improperly. What might that involve? Is that Jimmy Savile feeling up the infinite?


What is 'the infinite' that we are supposed to attune to properly? What if you added 1 to it, would one need to re-attune? What if an infinite number of infinites  turned up? Would there by multiple infinites, an infinity of them, or is that just the hotel bar bill?

[Shaker]

I wasn't excluding anyone.

No, not you - I think Rhiannon was referring to the fact that sometimes that kind of language can turn into a pissing contest about who is more spiritually advanced than somebody else. Properly attuning to the infinite already implies that there's an improper way to do it - i.e. move out of the way, you're doing it wrong.

[wigginhall]

Yes, as soon as 'higher states' and 'attuning to the infinite' gets mentioned you are heading for the kind of thinking that sees spirituality as something that proclaims one's superiority rather than as something that simply nourishes the needs we have that go beyond the physical. And language like that excludes people who don't see any need for layers of woo, and there's no need for it.

I do wonder if the term 'spirituality' is losing all meaning.   I get the idea of beyond the physical, so looking at a painting does that, but then if I enjoy a meal, I am not simply registering taste and texture.   

[Shaker]

I do wonder if the term 'spirituality' is losing all meaning.   I get the idea of beyond the physical, so looking at a painting does that, but then if I enjoy a meal, I am not simply registering taste and texture.

Tricky, wiggy, tricky. I know what I mean when I use the term, but it has become so comprehensively privatised that in a sense it has become a sort of private language, population 1, and that's never good for communication.