What do we do with the things we don’t understand?

If it seems mysterious and important enough, we have traditionally explained it through God and religion. There is lightning and thunder, so perhaps a thunder god is behind it. We die and don’t know what is after death, so create mythologies to fill in the gap.  We live a life, but don’t quite know what it is for or how we fit into the larger whole, so we create religions to give us a sense of meaning.

And I see that every time I create a belief for myself, I do the same. I don’t know, am uncomfortable with that not-knowing for whatever reason, so create a belief to explain the mysterious and give me a sense of somewhere to stand, a viewpoint I can identify with.

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Spirituality can easily be an escape. In fact, it often is.

And yet, when I tell myself that is wrong, and take it as true, that too is an escape. There is nothing wrong with escapes. It is a stepping stone. An expression of human life. A safety valve when no other option is open to us.  (Because other options are not familiar to us, or do not appear to us.) One of the ways the universe is exploring itself. A part of the terrain we humans can explore and become familiar with. An invitation for others to notice and inquire into their beliefs about escapes. And it can be an invitation for us to take a closer look at what is going on.

That said, here are some ways spirituality can be an escape:

Spirituality can mean many different things: Belief in religion. Participation in religious institutions. Genuine glimpses and opening experiences. Airy-fairy sentimentality. Hard-nosed testing and application of pointers from spiritual teachings. The world as it appears when reality notices itself.

In each of these, apart from perhaps the last, spirituality can be an escape. It can be made into a belief, and any belief is an escape. It is an escape from allowing experience as is. (Taking a story as true is a distraction.) And it is an escape from what is more honest for us.

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Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow now have a series of podcasts. You can listen online or subscribe.

There is a huge amount of possible relationships between science and spirituality.

The most obvious one in our science-based culture is to explore spirituality through science. For instance, we can explore the effects of different practices. How do they show up in how people experience and live their lives? What bodily changes correlate with practices, regular long-term practice, different states, and a genuine Ground awakening? How does it show up in the structure and activity of the brain, the nervous system, endocrine system, muscles and so on? Also, we can explore the science of spiritual practices on their own terms. What works and how? What are the dynamics and mechanisms behind practices from the different traditions? How similar are the ones that appear quite similar?

We can also explore science through spirituality, especially and most productively from within reality awake to itself. For instance, how do current models and views in science correspond to reality as it appears to a mystic? How can they be rephrased so they are better aligned while still staying true to current science?

Equally interesting is how we can use current stories from science as fodder for practices.

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February 12th is Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. While reflecting on the life and legacy of this great scientist and devoted husband and father, I’ve been struck by how an evolutionary understanding of the universe has, in fact, REALized my religious faith. I now enjoy all the benefits and blessings of religion from a place of knowledge rather than belief. When I look to the past, I am filled with awe and gratitude. When I look around me in the present, I feel love, compassion, and a desire to do everything I can to ensure a healthy world. And when I look to the future, including a future without me, I feel a deep and all-embracing trust….
- from a post by Michael Dowd on Darwin.

I am enjoying reading Evolutionary Times, and can highly recommend it for anyone interested in science and spirituality. Each post is a gem.

More than 700,000 have signed up for the Tolle/Oprah 10 week course, and it is also the most popular podcast on iTunes. Very impressive in terms of numbers alone, and even more impressive considering that Tolle is a genuine a mystic as any. His namesake had only a handful of listeners, at most.

I watched the first episode, and thought it was well worth it. I found it especially interesting to see how Tolle and Oprah helped bridge the gap between fundamentalism and a more open approach, and also between traditional religion and spirituality.

Sign up at the Oprah Book Club website and watch it there, or download the free podcasts.

Looking at knots is one way to show how psychology and spirituality are intertwined.

A knot is any hangup we have, and is a belief and its corresponding emotions and behavioral patterns.

It is usually experienced as stressful, as something being off, and gives a sense of separation. And it gives a sense of I and Other (which is what gives rise to the stress and a sense of something being off and separation), and distracts us from seeing what we really are.

So from the context of taking ourselves as this human self, it is uncomfortable and disatisfactory. And from the context of Big Mind, it distracts Big Mind from noticing itself.

A knot comes from an identification with a story, so we can work with it through releasing identification.

For instance, we can be with the experience of it, allowing it fully, in a wholehearted way. We allow whatever content of awareness, including the resistance to whatever comes up, so there is a release from identification with content in general.

We can explore the different voices or subpersonalities involved, and see that there is no “I” in any of them.

Or we can inquire into the belief itself and find the truth in each of its reversals, which released exclusive identification with any of them - the initial story and its reversals.

Disidentification with the knot complex allows us to find more peace with it at our human level, through seeing it more clearly - finding what is more true for us than our initial belief, and fully feeling whatever comes up in our experiences without getting caught up in resistance. And it also makes it easier for Big Mind to notice itself.

We can also work more actively with owning, at our human level, what is left out from the initial belief and identity.

Through Voice Dialog, or the Big Mind process, we can shift into whatever voices are disowned by the initial belief and identity. We can try it on, see how the world looks from that perspective, explore what the voice offers to our human self, how it would be to bring it into our life more, and so on. We can also explore our human self’s relationship to the voice, and how that relationship can shift to allow the voice in more.

And the same can happen through Process Work, and by bringing the turnarounds of The Work into our daily life.

Owning disowned parts of our human self makes it easier, and more fun, to be who we take ourselves to be. And when what we are awakens to itself, it allows this awakening to be expressed through our human self in a richer and more fluid way. In either case, there is a new richness and fluidity there, a wider terrain that is expressed fluidly in the daily life of this human self. It is more fully and richly human.

Actively owning disowned parts also allows for a shift of identification out of our human self. On the one hand, we are more free to shift into the different voices and actively use them in our daily life. And on the other hand, it releases identification out of our human self in general. Which, as before, makes it easier for Big Mind to notice itself.

These are just a couple of ways working on who and what we are are intertwined, and one invites and encourages the other, using just a few approaches as examples.

We can also bring in the soul level, this alive presence which is timeless yet also within time, spaceless yet also within space, impersonal yet also personal, rich and substantial yet also simple and emptiness itself. When we shift into, become more familiar with, and find ourselves as this alive presence, it allows our human self to reorganize within itself. Our human self heals, matures, finds itself more in the fullness of itself. And it shifts identification out of our human self, which makes it easier for Big Mind to notice itself.

Shifting into our soul level brings a sense of richness, fullness, nurturing, trust, and of being home, which helps our human self to relax, and again shift identification out of it. We are less caught up in the usual beliefs, identities, fears, hopes and so on of our human self.

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Michael Dowd’s new book, Thank God for Evolution, is available for pre-order. Also check out the book’s website which has articles as well as audio and video samples.

He does a great job of providing bridges from the traditionalist/fundamentalist to the rational/scientific perspectives, and between science and spirituality, all within an integrally informed framework.

(Not sure how much the book goes into the integral maps, but his talks often do.)

I have enjoyed listening to the very well produced (as always) episodes on spirituality and science from To The Best of Our Knowledge.

As much as I have enjoyed the programs, it also strikes me how the discussions and interviews almost entirely leaves out an developmental approach and understanding of religious views and values in general. This is especially curious considering how many these days reads Ken Wilber’s books, which do an excellent job popularizing much of the research in that area, and also puts it into a larger framework.

Why do so many in mainstream media talk about the relationship between religion and science, and leave out that - crucial - aspect of it? Maybe they are just concerned about offending someone. (It cannot only be explained by journalists not being at a stage that “gets” the stage view, because they can know about it and decide to cover it even if they are not there themselves.)

It also strikes me that the topic is sometimes approached in a way that is both overly complicated and superficial at the same time, even by people who have explored it to some extent.

For instance, one person talking about the Kaballah talks about how God is the energy that animates the world. But if we look here and now, we find that what everything arises out of, within and to is the stainless awakeness, independent of any content, and that any form of energy is part of content itself. Of course, energy here may be used in a poetic way, referring to something that is not content.

And then the other person talking about how the timeless nirvana of Buddhism is incompatible with creations stories in general, as for instance Genesis in Christianity. But again, if we look here now, we find that the timeless Buddha mind is this crystal clear awakeness within which all forms arise, including the unfolding of the world of form, which in turn includes any stories overlaid upon it such as creation stories from religions and science.

By looking here now, we can find them completely compatible. One is about this timeless awakeness all form arises within, from and to, and the other about the world of form itself. Cleanly divided, yet both the play of the awakeness and not two.

Draft: 

In terms of exploring ourselves as Big Mind, there is a nice alignment of psychology and spirituality.

We find ourselves as awareness, and any content of awareness as awareness itself. (Content of awareness includes this human self and anything associated with it.)

Even in conventional psychology, that is how it is already seen. We find ourselves as awareness, and whatever is the content of awareness (perceptions, thoughts) is also awareness. It can be no other way. That is how it is, in our own immediate experience. We can explore how sensory inputs are processed and channeled to the brain, and then arises in awareness, but that does not touch how it is in our own immediate experience: it all as awareness and awareness taking always fluid forms as its own content.

So even if we have strong beliefs in the views of conventional psychology, and a separate I as this human self, we can still find and explore ourselves as Big Mind. We can allow ourselves to explore what is alive in immediate awareness, and be naive as a very young child. What remains, is an idea of this human self experiencing itself as awareness, and the whole world as awareness and the content of awareness.

From here, there is a small step into noticing that this too is a story. This whole sense of a separate self too is content of awareness, and comes only from a story. When this is seen, there is an inevitable slipping more fully into ourselves as Big Mind, as this awakeness inherently absent of I and Other, arising as whatever is arising to this human self.

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A video snippet of a friend and hero of mine, Michael Dowd (2), on one of my old passions, evolutionary spirituality. Here he explains how he became an evolutionary evangelist, and why God must have a sense of humor.

I am in Kirkenes in Northern Norway, north of the arctic circle. I am shown that I am to be the guide on a pilgrim circuit, linking together several new churches and science centers. Everything has a sense of clarity, luminosity and beauty… the landscape, the wildlife, the people, the buildings. There is a sense of new inner clarity, maturity, depth and responsibility, reflected in my new outer role as a guide for those in the region, as well as visitors from other areas.

The name Kirkenes means Church peninsula. And while I have rarely been in the arctic regions, I have always been attracted to the stark beauty and the clear light.

In the dream, I lead groups on a pilgrimage circuit connecting several new churches and science centers, the two main realms of human knowing… spirituality and science. There is a sense of the seamlessness of the two… a church, then a science center, then a church.. as beads on a string. Exploring existence from different angles, informing each other, applying scientific methods in spiritual practice, studying the effects of spiritual practice through science.

There is also a sense of it all being new, unspoiled, virgin… the buildings, the settlements, the landscape, the climate. All new, luminous, clear. And with it, this sense of new depth, solidity, maturity, responsibilities… emerging from the inside, reflected in my role in the outside.