The first two years of my asana practice were about going ever deeper into the altered state that was the two hours on the mat. Adorning and becoming addicted to a dreamstate I understood as spirituality. Thus, this idea of a post-Christian spirituality, something based in bodily experience, suddenly became fascinating early in my practice.
The word spirituality is what I hung on my ecstasy and my dream. Seems pretty common. This spirituality is a refuge or escape from daily troubles, and it feels nice. Spirituality as “me time.” Spirit as the source of wish-fulfillment and the place for hopes-against-hope framed in angeli mudra. If you don’t get your fix at regular intervals, you feel off. Disoriented. Locked in a too-concrete reality and a too-concrete body.
I’ve rarely gone more than a day without trance in the last five years, so I don’t know how I would deal, now, with a life in solid beta state. Without time every day in altered states, I might actually lose my shit. But are altered states spiritual? Is writing-mind unspiritual?
I look at this “spirituality” tag on this blog and realize I don’t have a good use for it right now. It is not a dreamstate, and it's also not the dream of wishes fulfilled. Time in altered states doesn’t by itself frame my moral life (though it's true that I do draw moral sentiments out of those states, in a lot of ways), nor does it make me feel that beta state is vulgar. The easier altered states are to access, and the more different forms the take, the less holy it all feels. And the less I experience my own consciousness as a mystery to toss in to the placeholder category of "spirit." Consciousness is a variable, but so are introversion, hunger, weather, relationship, whatever. Spirituality doesn't seem like a category I can use right now.
Unless… I'm using, in a way, around the idea of interconnection. My schtick in the sociology classroom is that everything is connected. It’s a hypothesis I urge students to test in their investigations of society and economy. But, mostly this is still a proposition, still something I can only see on network graphs, Facebook sidebars and accidentally meaningful collapses of the degrees of separation. If there’s something that induces wonderment in me, it is the possibilities for intersubjectivity among beings and immediate experiences of radical interdependence. I wonder if connection feels like spirituality because it is what is sometimes but not always true for me. It’s the new fever-dream.
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“Time in altered states doesn’t by itself frame my moral life (though it’s true that I do draw moral sentiments out of those states, in a lot of ways)…
Well, there it is, right? That’s how it is for me. Practicing asana and learning to move into a meditative mind hasn’t informed my opinions about anything, hasn’t shaped my moral life. I happen to have had a worldview and opinions that nestle in pretty comfortably with most of what’s in the 8 limbs.
Maybe for me, the spiritual part of the practice is cultivating the calmer, more patient, and less melancholy mind that asana and mediatation help me find. But there’s nothing very supernatural in all that, is there? I don’t know where the “spirit” comes into it. The practice helps me live in the world with the ideals that I have, and not lay down and cry because the world is peopled with such buttholes who don’t care about anybody/thing else but themselves. And republicans.
Getting into that altered state lets me feel a kind of blurring of self that helps me be more peaceful, and less reactive during the rest of my day. When it isn’t just asana, bringing out frustrations about limitations, of course.
Getting into the spirit of things!
I liked my Tango class the other evening, I cannot say it was spiritual, but they were all beginners and the mood was so joyful and i felt that it filled our combined sense of ‘we are crap but we love it’. was beautiful.
That’s delightful, G. Damn cold, but life in Toronto always sounds so civic and full of sensory happiness. Last week I could not stop listening to tango music. Astor Piazzola. Highly recommended.
Joy, I like what you said here… esp about the experience of interconnection is a big part of what happns in altered states. Probably, I’m making a false distinction above. I don’t know what I’m talking about.
But it’s intriguing. What is it, actually, that people deem spiritual? Is it always something that is not-quite-always-already “real” to us? (Even in advaita, come on.) Is spirituality the label we give to whatever we’re trying to make real? I’m not saying that’s at all problematic or bad, if it’s the case.
Just puzzling over the relationship of spirituality and uncertainty…
I like the old derivation of Spirit, BREATH…..
applied to us and how we focus on the breath, ride the breath, collocate as you will. Also ANIMATE which reminds me of ARISTOTLE’S De anima, his idea of actuality….. now if we view the breath as actualizing……..and consider Spirit in this way…..Hmmmmmmm
it’s that perceived separation of mind and body that cauases us to debate our own experiences. label them with such terms as quasi or not real or imagined. as though they were the enemy – taking us outstide our “real” selves and dumping us in some panacea of doubt and fear and rebellion. taoism says the way that can be shown is not the way. that’s what drew me to ashtanga. it seemd so simple. emperically speaking. just follow the rules and go where the road leads. and walla! truth in the form of the practice itself. not as it’s taught, or shown, or spoken of. but as a source of knowledge itself. the difference between spirituality and uncertainty is interpretation. just depends on the color of your glasses.
wow, girlfriend, I love you!
Perhaps the other ‘thing’ is that spirit seems to be what brings ‘life’ to mind and body, and in that sense is incredible in all its aspects. Incredible is not even close though is it.
The uncertainty, I dunno. Uncertainty is a word, it means not to know, and how can we know spirit, it is um, unknowable to our certainty grabbing minds…
I know I certainly want to grab it!
yeah gregor, but we do know spirit. teh act of knowing means to have knowledge of. if we had no knowledge of the psirit, then it wouldn’t exist for us. yet we know that it does. how else to explain those glimpes of absolute freedom when we find ourselves flying of the mat. where does hte mind go? guess what i’m trying to say is that the mind is not an enemy to be vanquished for certainty sake. i think it’s rather like a river. and the sprit is the source of that river.
Well.. I think it’s certainly part of the experience of ‘spirituality’ that a lot of it is groping around in the dark. I think there are levels that we can attune to, and once they become part of our experience, yes they become totally demysitified and we are drawn deeper. For me the spiritual element of the practice comes in seeing the people around me as energetic nodes rather than smelly bodies jostling against me in the tube (makes all the difference); allowing more spontaneity, shedding preconceptions (as a result of coming to the mat with no expectations); contentment when circumstances/practice are/is shit; etc. All this through awareness of the mechanisms of ujjayi breath and mula bandha (I practise this on my commute). Practice balances out my mind and body and only when that peaceful balance exists can we be receptive to whatever else is offering itself.
You’ve been digging some fertile ground lately, Owl..
I love Astor Piazzola and tango!! Gregor, you are in Toronto? I’m from Oakvile, but live in London (UK).
hey! i’ve just been listening to Joanna MacGregor play ‘Libertango’.
Interconnection played with here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Play-Joanna-MacGregor/dp/B00005QJVT
“Are altered states spiritual? Is writing-mind unspiritual?”
No. And no.
This conversation reminds me of the 10 ox herding pictures:
http://www.buddhanet.net/oxherd1.htm
http://zen.thetao.info/perceive/10oxen.htm
Um, charusheela, I meant that spirit is VAST. Not that we don’t have knowledge of the experience, when we tip our toe into it. We may call it the source of the river, but do we know the source? But hey, if you do, send me the map!
Susananda, yes, but I am from Glasgow!
I just bought Astor and Joanna, they are amazing, its now my weekend music!
So nice. I am going to dance now, with tango en route.
Spirituality means different things at different times… not always mindbody, not always breath (or am I mistaken?)… but I’m not sure it’s separaboe from the idea of becoming. Even for the nondualist teachers.
Ok. Dance now.
Dance more.
We can dance if we want to, we’ve got all your life and mine
As long as we abuse it, never gonna lose it
Everything’ll work out right.
I say, we can dance if we want to we can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance
Well they’re no friends of mine
I say we can dance, we can dance everything out of control
We can dance, we can dance were doing it wall to wall
We can dance, we can dance everybody look at your hands
We can dance, we can dance everybody’s taking the chance
Energetic nodes in the tube…
Yes, that is pretty much what I am going for. To be brutally honest.
These ox pictures are great! For some reason I love art about the via dolorosa or stations of the cross and this seems like a non-masochistic version. At least until the ox poof disappears. Those tricksters. The slide says: “Drawing a picture would be a contradiction of ‘no thing.”’
Why does Zen get all the smartasses? Other religions need them too. Badly.
About animate, I’ve thought before that this is one of the best words that there is. It comes through as the Spanish word for ghost (anima), Jung’s word for the psyche (also anima—right G?), and my word for my feeling toward neoclassical economists (animus). I think the paradoxes are present in the Latin as well—where it’s not only a word for psyche or mind, but also for breath and for that which is life in the body.
Anyway. About spirituality and uncertainty… Susan don’t be mad at me—you know I’m pulled to Sri Nisargadatta like moth to flame—but isn’t Advaita the best proof that “spirituality” is the basket we fill with that which eludes us? Advaita is an entire, brilliant anti-spirituality based on… shouting down uncertainty. Stop being uncertain! It has a million ways to say this. Over and over. Why are all the Advaitites still coming up with new aphorisms? Are they uncertain?
For the world I grew up in (my dad is a Christian fundamentalist preacher in the middle of nowhere), spirituality concerns the notion of the afterlife. Really spiritual moments are when you feel certain that God will save you and take you to heaven. I don’t have uncertainty about death—I’m certain I will die, boom—but I have had uncertainty about the nature of my consciousness and the nature of Being. If there’s something “spiritual” in any of that, in my experience, it’s in the play with that which is partially not known. The sense that there is something there and sometimes I can dwell within it. And the curiosity or faith or fear or equanimity or whatever other human emotion that not knowing creates.
hey guys. all i was saying is that spirituality is not something out there – unattainable by all but the perfected few. we talk about spirituality as though it were some kind of a commodity. reducing it to our own cravenous needs to understand and control. i mean, is that really why we do yoga – for the promise of someday salvation? or do we do yoga because it takes us outside the barriers erected by our own minds. we think we can know god with the mind. but the mind is god. and gregor, to know the river IS to know the source of the river. how’s that for dualism.
Salvation? Yes, i think that’s probably why.
To salvage some sense of the soteriological in this workaday life; to be saved from the quiet sadness of familial dislocation by joining this kukku’ clan ; to flash a secret stash of ‘what I REALLY am’ to our high-achieving fellows; sparing the spine the indignity crumbling into a pizza box.
Charging plenty for the above and saving up for a sun-kissed retirement.
Get mad at you! That is funny.
Advaitans are not uncertain, they keep repeating themselves so that we will finally get it. Like Jesus or Buddha. Maybe they just needed big sticks to beat us all over the heads with instead?
But let’s see, a spiritual basket we try to fill up, how about we think we have an empty basket we are trying to fill with spirituality? A basket we are trying to fill that is already full and we just can’t see that it is….like pouring water in an already full glass.
But aside from my smart ass safety dance, how about those moments of stillness and quietude you experience in your sitting practice, those moments will burn away all of the uncertainty and doubts, if you let them.
Stop doubting!
xo
Susan
To know the source is also to know it is unknowable. Is all I am saying… I think we can agree on that life is dualistic and non-dualistic? i dont wanna disagree on something I know I dont know, now do i! LOL
Oh and Anima is the female contra-sexual attitude of a male (usually represented by one female in the male dream), Animus is the male contra-sexual attitude of a female (represented by many men in a females dream). In Jungs theory when our egos are in sync, and we have connected to our anima/animus, then it is those two that fall in love, not the egos. This is where it all gets tricky, because projection is still part of this. So its the female character in me that connects to the male character(s) in a female that I have fallen for, and vice versa…. all unconscious and all very delicious!
But the point of spirit as anima/animus, it brings us into life, if we connect to anima/animus, we are animated. We are in life. Its probably inaccurate what I just simplified, but thats the feel!
wow. You all are so deep! Coming from a background in evangelical Christianity, I too had a hard time shedding the old definition of spirituality (as refuge and feeling “nice”). Then I went into phase 2: needing to be in the right “setting” to feel it… peaceful places, nature, etc. But again: off the mark. Now I think of spirituality in a very loose definition: learning more about how to be a better person, how to find compassion even for people I find so easy to want to hate (Palin, Rove, Cheney, Republicans, fundamentalist anything, etc). Spirituality is self study (getting still, learning my own hang ups, broadening perspective) so that I can get over myself, then be more open to loving kindness- or quicker to get there. Yes, that’s the goal- learning to switch off the negative and the judging that comes with that, in order to navigate life with more love.
It’s hard.
re-reading my comment, I realized it didn’t make much sense. I think I’m actually still confused about what “spirituality” is… I mean, really is. I find that when I’m trying to make connections in this world, in ways where I’m trying to look beyond the things that bug me about everyone and everything, is when I feel like spirituality is being realized. Not to be all Pollyanna about it, but it’s basically seeking to find the good in everyone. All the while learning to find and emphasize the good in myself.
That Jung was one twisted sister. I don’t know if I approve of his use of our animal roots.
Liz, hey, who you calling deep?
This is an amazing little thread….
We don’t get Pollyanna when we talk about this topic so much as we all get a tinge more honest about ourselves. It’s wonderful. The human capacity for awe, and (if I may say so) wonderment, is a very good feature of our species. I hope we make it.
Late for pranayam,
XOXOVO
Oh my gosh, everyone, this post is pissing Zee off so much! He is sending me the most HILARIOUS and awesome emails! Too bad you all cannot share them because he is banned from leaving comments here (which doesn’t stop him from trying… doesn’t it suck to be outsmarted by my software, Zee?)
He says we don’t even know what we are talking about. We don’t have a fucking clue what spirituality is. (To be fair, he didn’t say fucking.)
Wrong! I’m looking for the suspension of subjectivity, or maybe the bounding of subjectivity, for a knowledge-experience of union that isn’t limited to trance states or moments of nonfunctional advaita bliss! Peace that passeth understanding, baby. Back to mother Jesus.
Pardon me for not stating it more smartassedly the first time, offering the flow of this inquiry together with the snakeoil of certainty. I know that’s what I’m SUPPOSED to do in the ZeeAdvaidaZEN method of fake it til you make it.
Thanks Zee. You still light me up, you shit.
I forgot he was banned…
I can only imagine his responses. He’s already called me out as a fraud, he’s already tried to give everyone the smack down, he’s already screamed at us all for being wrong, he’s already promised to leave. We don’t need his regurgitated diatribe. For someone who professes to know everything, he comes across as a sad, miserable person. Thank you for sparing us, Owl.
It was the Editor. He has existential editing powers. And it’s true, Zee, you do have some anger management issues in addition to sex issues.
But to be brutally honest, I like smackdowns. But I have a tendency to bullshit (strangely and luckily, ashtanga and grad school have curtailed my bullshit… it was far worse when I was younger), so I use the smackdowns. Smackdown practice.
That said, Zee has been a LOT softer the past year. Sometimes we read anger into his words on the basis of his earlier remarks. Or we read cruelty where there’s just him saying, albeit awkwardly, “you’re lost, you dumb human.”
[BTW Is my love of feeling clueless, which used to cause too much talking out of my ass, the reason I’ve never had so much fun in ashtanga as I am now? Being really bad at tocking is the best. Playful but also full of new understanding.]
Not that I am playing with you Zee! Grrrr!
Ok I really have to work. Bad owl.
If he’s telling us all to shut up already, I guess it’s probably good advice.
So the person we want to shut up wants us to shut up? ha!
If we’re so bothersome, then why spend the energy engaging in our wrongness?
That’s all I’m sayin’
(this is the last of my comments on this topic… I’m not calm and thoughtful like you, Owl, and you, Susan… Zee gives me the willies.)
Zee once called me a German! Whatevah. Good morning HibouHibou…
xoxo
Is Zee one of us in disguise?
Thoughtful? Jeeze, such a fun word…but diatribe! Even better! Just talking about that last night. Is there such a thing as thoughtful diatribe?
Oh, and if you want to get all yogi woowoo just for shits and giggles, Zee is all of us.
Liz, my darling, we did not even start… and you get “willies†(what a word, never heard before, what it means?)… Anyway, No and no, you have not been called fraud. Don’t give wrong information to these cultural democratic voters. I’m working hard to improve my “visual†representation… I never called you fraud! OMG Fraud? What will others think? I called you fake. It is said that we are both fakes… and that is what we really are. I like your fakeness… we ‘re going to work on it… with willies or not.
Whatevah Joy… what is wrong being German?
I AM ZEE is fraud. I am Zee.
Hahahahahaha
Fraud.
Oh Zee. If you’re ever in Austin, we’ll go eat some Texas BBQ, we’ll take a cold swim in Barton Springs, we’ll listen to some Willie Nelson, we’ll hang out in my backyard, we’ll enjoy the green grass and play with my cat, Henry. You’ll really like my fakeness.
(“the willies” means… you give me the creeps) It’s not your ideas that do this, it’s your presentation. Lecturing us makes me turn a deaf ear to what you’re saying- you never present ways of getting to the place of understanding where you seem to want us all to be. You just TELL us to do it. And then you mock and act creepy. If you’re in the role of teacher, maybe you should investigate a better format for presenting your knowledge. maybe these “teachings of Zee” could be on your own blog??
just a thought.
Nothing wrong with being German! Apart from wearing socks with their sandals…
Why do they do this, anyone know?
Liz, could I listen to some Willie Nelson with you, in your backyard, overlooking the spot where the yee-haw shed used to be? I’ll bring some tofurkey dogs for the BBQ. I just know already that I LOVE your fake ass. Smoooches, dahlink!!
Joy Suzanne, you are definitely invited for some yee-haw good times out by the shed. But ONLY if you wear socks with your sandals. You know you want to.