Abandoning spirituality in your spiritual navigation

2 Main Groups

As I have observed, read and talked with folks who have been re-inventing the spiritual paths of their lives (or possibly having a spiritual awakening or epiphany), I think there are usually 2 categories of people who experience this. They are:

1. People going up
2. People going down

I realize this is simplistic & cliché. I say it with some good humor and no offense intended.

Going up refers to those with commonalities such as:

• increasing their realization of relationship to deity (whatever their understanding of deity may be).
• daily walk with God (whatever theirs may be).
• typically increased spiritual manifestations.
• frequently religion is involved, or study and discipleship with adherence to some other "theme", "group" or "movement" that essentially plays a similar role as religion.
• increased commitment to virtuous standards & principles.
• spiritual identity.
• choice to prioritize the spiritual over the temporal, physical, carnal, while also realizing that the physical and spiritual are interlinked and fairly interdependent. But the physical being the means to the spiritual's end.
• increased desire to daily selfless service to those around them.

Going down refers to those with commonalities such as:

• decreased feeling of affection and devotion to God.
• decreased moral standards (less virtuous standards).
• more focus on here and now.
• sometimes complete abandonment of confidence in an after-life.
• attempts to replace religion or other spiritual systems with increased focus on humanity, education, knowledge, thought, etc.

Those are the 2 main groups. There is a third group who makes somewhat of a lateral hop from one system to another. But I think those are a small minority. I think most are either going up or going down.

Going down "a little" is harder

This would seem to be an oxymoron. Why wouldn't it be easier to go down? You technically decrease your responsibilities by self-absolving your duties to self, others & God to some extent. And very likely you have more time one your hands, due to decreased religious obligations. I think the hard part is only partially going down (but not all the way down). The justification for going down can seem to be a double-standard. The same logic that is used as rationale for going down, never really ends, if you are being fair.

You start off using logic to determine that the level you were at spiritually and in relationship to deity is not necessary or not completely true. Or by some series of events you simply chose to go down a level without strong rationale (perhaps as a reaction to an emotional situation or social reason).

You then unexpectedly find yourself realizing that if you don't hold your new (slightly lower) position, standards, and virtue-system to the same logical criteria, you are not being honest. So you start analyzing it through the same critical rule-set.

Before you know it, you discover your new place is just as riddled as the prior higher level. Now what can you do? It is an unexpected quandary.

If you stay where you are, you may view yourself as a hypocrite (even if only in your private thoughts). You tell yourself that if you climb back up to the higher level, you compromise your integrity of using logic, reason and reality to judge the correct path for your life. This may also bring feelings of hypocrisy because although it may "feel good" or "feel right" (perhaps even inexplicably), you've already concluded through reason, hard fact and plausibility that your prior spiritual system with the higher standards of virtue, etc. really isn't correct, true, necessary, etc.

So what can you do? Unfortunately, logically it may seem the only reasonable path is to continue going down.

I think this is a major reason we sometimes see people migrate from religions with high virtuous standards, down to the bottom being either agnostic or atheist.

(Note to reader: I realize that some may take offense to equating agnosticism or atheism to "the bottom", when in reality there are many awesomely fantastic people there. And often many principles espoused by these groups are extremely similar to those at the top, such as "seeking truth", "enlightening their fellow-man", "living a purposeful life to its fullest", etc. However, their definitions of these things & the way they go about them is often drastically different, and I don't think they often end up in similar places at all, except on few very fundamental principles.

I simply am using the above-mentioned criteria to define these two groups for the purpose of this article. So again no offense is intended here.)

So the hard part is going down a little and staying there. I'm not saying people don't do it. But I think those who go down a notch out of "reason" often have a very hard time staying there.

Spirituality as an agnostic or atheist

So here's the kicker:

If you decrease your standards of morality and virtue, and perhaps your commitment to religious tenants or principles, does that mean you inherently decrease your spirituality in the process? That is a fantastic question. I think there are many who would like to say "no". I believe that most humans believe in the "human spirit" and that there is a spiritual element that is a part of our makeup. I think many agnostics and atheists have determined through reason that they either can't figure out how to define human spirituality, or that whatever it is, it doesn't necessarily mean there is God (a spiritual atheistic view).

My chat with an "agnostic atheist" friend about spirituality

There seems to be a fad among some people to abandon their higher spiritual path as they become enlightened, and land in an agnostic or atheist position. I recently had a chat with someone who has been somewhat of a leader of this movement among certain groups of people. He went from being a full-time evangelist in the mission-field, then returning & marrying in the holiest place his religion offered, making vows of Eternal fidelity and devotion to his wife, and God, to eventually becoming an agnostic atheist. I believe this all happened within 10 years. But in between his highest devotions to God and eventual agnostic atheism, there was a period of a few years of attempted Christianity, followed by basic belief in Deity without specific religious definition of that Deity.

His elaboration to me of his current status was that he doesn't know if there is a higher power or not, but currently sees no evidence of one. But he absolutely accepts the possibility that there is a higher power and afterlife. He just wants evidence, and currently believes that we as humanity realistically don't know beans about this, despite so many professing to know.

When I asked how he reconciles his past spiritual experiences with his current position, he equates them to similar feelings he's had in watching movies, special family events, etc. He says the ones perceived as "the Spirit" were essentially the same thing, just framed in the religious context he had been raised and brainwashed to believe.

His conclusion is that the spiritual experiences are self-created and self-interpreted.

He did share some stimulating ideas and media created to demonstrate this.

He later added that he gets his spirituality from love, nature, his wife, children, achieving goals, reading, hiking, meditation, living in the present, serving others with no strings. Simple things. But no need for dogma or rules. He feels those get in the way.

However, he groups love and emotions into "spirituality". And although important, does not consider spiritual manifestations to be a valid method to learn objective truth and reality. For that, evidence and scientific method are the winners.

Respect for my friend

I may not fully agree with everything he shared, but I am profoundly appreciative of him taking time with me for multiple lengthy chats. I respect him and appreciate his genuineness.

I really wonder whether the things he told me are essentially the same he shares with most others as he promotes his ideals and has become somewhat of a poster-boy.

I'm curious, because I believe he has been quite influential with many people. And if they generally agree with him in these areas, it would make the following & final section of this article applicable to them (from my vantage point).

The irony of leaving spiritual manifestations out of spiritual path navigation

The crux:

If in fact his thoughts and decisions in this area are consistent with many who he has influenced, I find it highly ironic.

We each choose our own spiritual path (to an extent, and not counting those born and trained into something that they may never leave either due to oblivion or inability to break out of their comfort-zone).

But what is the purpose of that spiritual path? Is it not "spirituality"? I would say that spirituality is something that humanity doesn't really understand (at least not in science books). However, we all (mostly) agree that it exists and is inherent in our makeup, and an important part of being happy and healthy.

When being truly honest, I think these groups acknowledge the reality that we don't really scientifically understand spirituality, at least not in a way that humanity can consistently agree to any extent to qualify for even the remotest inclusion in our science books. That being said, we all have an innate recognition of our need for this thing that we don't understand scientifically. I think it is safe to say that many (probably the majority) who agree with the prior two sentences, would also agree that it is unlikely that humanity may ever make it much closer to understanding it scientifically (at least in their lifetime). And that being true, how can we also confidently remove the spiritual manifestations from decisions about the spirituality we don't even understand in the first place? Where is the spiritual measuring stick of clarity and fact, with which to judge the validity of the spiritual manifestations? I think there is none based on this criteria.

In reality it is just as unreasonable as it is reasonable, to exclude spiritual manifestations from the navigation of one's spiritual journey. We don't understand it at all in the same level as science, to be able to conclude that the spiritual manifestations should be disqualified.

I would argue (if only for the sake of argument) that it makes more sense to include the spiritual manifestations in one's spiritual navigation, than to exclude them. They may in fact be paramount to our spiritual navigation of this spirituality that we don't scientifically understand. And perhaps our best clues.

We can't say (scientifically), or at least certainly can't all agree. But I think it makes sense to say spiritual=spiritual. Grouping the spiritual things together.

So you either consider your spiritual experiences for navigational purposes, or you don't. But might you be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, simply because you don't understand human spirituality in the same way you understand science?

Is this discussion amusing to anyone else?

To be continued in smaller topical segments...