A Spiritual Compass

5 minute read

According to the Pew Research Center 1 in 4 Americans describe themselves as being ‘spiritual but not religious.’ Couple this with the fact that ‘being more spiritual’ placed in the top 10 New Year’s Resolutions of 2020 and it’s hard not to conclude that spirituality seems to be a hot ticket these days.

Knocking around the yoga world for as long as I have, I’ve observed that ‘spiritual not religious’ is the dominant ethos there too and I must confess that I’m not altogether sure what that means. This seems a little weird as I consider myself a spiritual person, but when I stop and think about what THAT means, it turns out I’m not quite certain.

I think that many people would say that spirituality has to do with God, or a higher power but if like me, you don’t believe in God, that’s not particularly helpful. Coming up in Ireland in the 1980’s I’m not sure that I really questioned my (not strict) Catholic upbringing but as I got older the cracks started to appear until I reached a point where I concluded I could no longer profess to believe in God. But I still felt, and feel, a connection to something bigger than me, a sense that there is a deeper meaning and order to the world we live in, something that supersedes the mundane.

As I understand it spirituality has to do with reverence, and wonder, and a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, be it the exquisite grandeur of a Beethoven symphony, the impenetrability of the star-studded night sky, or the immensity of the oceans. It’s the domain of the extraordinary, or maybe even finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. As the Zen saying goes before enlightenment, chop wood carry water; after enlightenment chop wood, carry water.

You know how some people seem to be resolutely calm and serene, whether they are taking care of a baby, or doing dishes, or driving in gnarly traffic. These folks are spirituality superstars in my book. They seem to infuse their good vibe into everything they do and so everything becomes spiritual practice. I wish I could include myself as one of these people but alas I can be kinda tetchy. And impatient. Did I mention the blood sugar meltdowns?

Maybe we can’t all ascend the lofty heights of spiritual attainment but that doesn’t mean banishment from the community of aspirants. Perfection is not the goal; learning and doing better is.

Spirituality has to do with values, with things like love and truth that, though instantiated in the physical world, transcend the merely physical. You can point to many instances of things that are true, but not to truth itself. Just as you can think of all the people you love and not have a definition of what exactly love is. But we know it when we feel it and maybe the same goes for spirituality, which has to do with commitment to those values like love and truth and doing the right thing; it is more about behavior than belief, more about who I am being, than what I profess to believe.

At its core, spirituality has to do with practice, with the cultivation of certain types of attitudes and behaviours that reflect those attitudes. Making this effort and doing this work might be arduous and even tiresome, but it enhances the meaning in our lives and this itself is worth the effort.

Many philosophers describe a meaningful life as one motivated by the realisation of our individual goals and projects. Given the awareness that at any time the fulfillment of those goals and projects may be thwarted by random events outside our control, we must rise above this radical uncertainty and cultivate an attitude of hopefulness.

I like this approach because it emphasises action: we choose hopefulness in the face of uncertainty, we choose to follow our dreams, our passions, because in so doing we invest our lives with meaning and purpose. And this hopefulness in the face of radical uncertainty is both a surrender to our inability to control external events and a commitment to keep on going, to pursue our goals and projects with integrity as if they were the most important things in the world while humbly acknowledging that, in the grand scheme of things given our place in the cosmos, they matter not at all.

Maybe this radical uncertainty engenders a certain type of spirituality because there is so much surrender. Belief in a higher power, or an invisible order to things, makes it easier to embrace the unknown and the lack of control. You don’t have to posit the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent God, just some concept of a higher power or force that is somehow managing things will do.

More than anything else the spiritual life is defined by love in action, love as a practice. When we relate to love as a practice, we choose to love even when it’s difficult to do so.

We de-link love and loving from mere feelings. Our emotions are fickle, changing from happy to sad, to angry, jealous, resentful, excited, and so forth. When we choose to love someone, we do so regardless of our current emotional state, we practice loving them, even when we don’t feel like it. And we do so because this reflects a value we’re committed to: this is spirituality in action. It’s not always easy, but it’s definitely rewarding.

Nobody said that being spiritual would be easy. In fact it might be harder than being committed to religious dogma because arguably choosing a spiritual path outside of religion may involve more personal responsibility and growth. After all, if you can’t rely on God to exculpate you for your transgressions and you can’t take refuge in dogma, you have to be responsible for your actions and your evolution in a different way. This is hard work, some folks say that the spiritual path is a razor’s edge.

Some things make your life better but not easier. Commitment to living an extraordinary loving life is like that. Not for the lazy and those resistant to digging deep. But for those who enjoy the excavation, it’s a path of challenge but nonetheless one strewn with jewels.

Dearbhla Kelly, September 2021