No spirituality without integrity

I had spent most of my life lying. For as long as I have memories, I can remember lying.

Like many kids, the truth was unsafe when I was growing up. So, I used lies as a shield for my vulnerability. I used lies to make sure the people around me were calm and pleased with me. I tried (in vain) to use them to feel better about myself.

Lying helped me feel safe, and I became an expert at it.

When I was a small child, I would steal money from adults. I would use it to go to the milk bar every morning and eat mixed lollies for breakfast and lie about that. I would make up stories about my life to tell other children. I would tell adults my home life was different to the reality.

In my teenage years I would try to impress people by lying about what I liked and what I knew. I would lie to my parents about where I was going, what I was doing, and who I was. In my relationship I would lie about my feelings or gaslight.

I would lie to cover up mistakes and avoid accountability. I would lie when I told people what they wanted to hear. I would lie about substance use. I told big lies and small lies. And I would lie to myself constantly, often about how I was behaving. I lied to myself about what I was truly passionate about. I told myself I was passionate about the things culture told me I should be.

Lying resulted in actual physical illness. I gave myself a gastrointestinal disease – my stomach twisting in pain and nausea with the fear of exposure. Martha Beck noted in ‘The Way of Integrity’; “studies have linked deception and secret-keeping to elevated heart rate and blood pressure, increased stress hormones, high bad cholesterol and glucose levels, and reduced immune responses. The more significant our deceptive behaviour, the worse the effect on health.”

The more we lie, the further we get from our True nature – the infinite Oneness that connects all things and is the foundation of all spirituality. The closer we are to integrity, the closer we are to the fabric of reality. This is why truth telling and integrity is at the heart of all spiritual traditions. Indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people view truth-telling as a collective social responsibility.   Some religions refer to lying as sin. When we lie, we create suffering for ourselves and others. We create hell on earth.

Our thoughts are great at creating this suffering. Our thoughts lie to us all the time (another good reason not to identify with them). The teachings of spiritual teacher Byron Katie can be summed up as truth telling about our thoughts. She teaches that whenever you have a thought you ask, ‘is this true?’ and then ‘can I absolutely know this is true?’ She wrote: “I discovered when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always.”

When we live in integrity, we help ourselves and the world by relieving suffering. We are healthier, happier and free from fear and shame. Vulnerability helps us to connect, creating stronger relationships. It can create systems change when we tell the truth about the harms of past policies.

After reading ‘The Way of Integrity’ I tried Martha’s experiment to never tell a lie. Not even a little one, or a white one. No lies, ever. It was incredibly hard, particularly in the beginning. It is an ongoing process, particularly with lies of omission. This self-destructive pattern has been one of the hardest things to heal, and I am still human. But I now consider myself a recovering addict of lying. I am hundreds of days sober from lying, and it is a spiritual practice for me. Living in integrity has improved my life in every possible way. But most importantly I am finally living a life that feels true for me. I now have solid spiritual foundation to stand on, and there would be no spirituality without my integrity.

“I spent a lot of my life lying to get what I thought I wanted. Until you’ve stolen money from your father’s wallet to buy heroin while he was sick in a hospital bed, you don’t know what it feels like to need to be forgiven. Here’s what I found out: if I live in the truth, I’ll always come out okay. The truth has legs. It always stands. When everything else has blown up or dissolved away, the only thing left standing will be the truth. You might as well just start there.”

The late Rayya Elias

Director, writer, musician and twice-recovered addict

Spirituality to change the world

Humans have not really changed. Our culture and systems have been made up of the same essential things since humans first appeared as a species - relationships, community, learning, work, entertainment, food, chores, raising children, hardships and the occasional adventure.

Except now we are facing an existential crisis. After a huge period in humanity’s evolution, we’ve made everything faster and more efficient, even profitable. But meaning, peace, and joy often feel out of reach.  There is no substance. We are grasping and wanting and consuming but there is nothing there. We are not finding the meaning, peace, or joy we were promised.

The poet John O'Donohue wrote in Anam Ċara “We need to remain in rhythm with our inner voice and longing. Yet this voice is no longer audible in the modern world. We are not even aware of our loss, consequently, the pain of our spiritual exile is more intense in being largely unintelligible.”

In humanity’s spiritual exile, we have developed an addiction, and it is slowly killing the species.

St. Thomas Aquinas was a little more blunt; “Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.”

Do we want to be the ones who, as Professor Bryan Cox asks, eliminate the only source of meaning for 40 billion light years? Loathe am I to be in the generation that sees the beginning of the end for our species.

Researchers at the University of Maine suggest humanity is in the middle of an evolutionary change, where culture is shaping us more than genetics.  One of the authors (Timothy M. Waring, associate professor of economics and sustainability) says “Human evolution seems to be changing gears. On reviewing the evidence, we find that culture solves problems much more rapidly than genetic evolution."

Our existential crisis isn’t a single-issue problem we can fix with one solution. It is a multi-dimensional change. It requires a deep cultural shift—a new way of being human. Cultural evolution is all good and well, but how? It doesn’t feel like ‘cultural evolution’ is going all that well for us right now.

All change hinges on the quality of the future vision, and the extent to which people buy-in to that vision. Humanity and world-changes require extraordinary vision, if we want to affect how we engage with the future. So, what kind of culture do we want to build next? What do we want the next evolution of humanity to look like?

Spirituality has always given us that vision by pointing us to universal truths.

Perennial wisdom (or perennial philosophy) says that all religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions tell us the same universal truths about existence, humanity, and the divine. These universal truths are what make up our spirituality, regardless of our personal spiritual beliefs. These universal truths inform human culture and how we structure our systems.

Across traditions, there’s a shared universal truth of Oneness: that everything is interconnected. Science and math are compatible with this understanding. Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli said “The idea that the world is made by objects, it’s wrong, according to contemporary physics. The world is made by relations. The world is a network of relation.”   Writer Virginia Woolf, and some who work on ‘the hard problem of consciousness’, refer to the Oneness as mind “Our minds are all threaded together…Any live mind today is of the very same stuff as Plato’s and Euripides. It is only a continuation and development of the same thing. It is this common mind that binds the whole world together; and all the world is mind.”

If we see ourselves as part of one whole, we can reshape our culture and systems with that truth at the core. If we can start from this first universal truth, we are well on our way to an extraordinary vision for humanity.

When we have spirituality as a foundation for culture (and therefore our systems) humans and the planet thrive. We build stronger communities. We care for each other, and that improves our well-being by reducing stress, and increasing happiness and social connectedness. We support equitable access to our abundant resources – we understand that each part needs resources in its turn. We care about communities, so capital tends to flow locally. Ownership of enterprises is closer to those who are workers, suppliers, customers, or other members of the community where the enterprises are located. The spiritual dimensions of existence (meaning, purpose, Love, connection, joy) are valued more than capital.

The future might look like ancient wisdom made new.  It might look like every human living with ‘the peace that passes all understanding’, regardless of their possessions. It might look like protecting meaning over money. Schools and universities might teach an integrated view of economics, jurisprudence, and philosophy. The quality of our questions would improve – ‘What is the role of capital in driving positive change? What feels nice, what do we intuit? What is the kindest, wisest option? When we are creating in any setting – what of the spiritual, the imaginative, intellectual, or aesthetic experience?

But spirituality can’t stay abstract—it must be lived. Spiritual practice, in service of a better world, is also political action. It’s how we create systems that support human flourishing and a higher level of consciousness. Spirituality in action is how we create the changes we wish to see.

I want to be in service of creating a more meaningful and beautiful world for people. I want my work to help embed spirituality not only in our everyday lives, but also in our systems and culture. I believe spirituality is the bridge we need for humanity to step into its next evolution.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Socrates

Presence is the key to spirituality

“Remember that there is only one important time and it is Now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.”

Leo Tolstoy, The Emperor’s Three Questions

Presence is the core of my spirituality. There are many other parts, but presence is the foundation. All the teachings of the modern spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, can be summed up by the idea of staying fully present in each moment. He says we don’t need a lifetime of study to reach enlightenment; we just need to practice staying present.

One way to describe ‘God’ (or the divine) is ‘Absolute Presence’. Other descriptions include energy, space, or consciousness. These terms help us see ‘God’ as a unified whole. They express the idea of a single field as being the source of all things, which aligns with scientific ideas. ‘Absolute Presence’ also hints at how we access the divine: through our own presence.

Presence is the most vital spiritual practice because it is the only way to fully experience life. Our lives happen only in the present moment. Life is always happening NOW. It is an ongoing series of small moments we call now. Presence brings joy as we experience life more fully, engaging with life as it happens. Wishing moments away, or living in constant anticipation of some future moment, is a waste of life. Because then you are never here, now, with life as it is happening.  

Everything passes, including our bodies, so we can't find our true selves in things. The only constant is the present moment. When we are fully present, we free ourselves from ego (identification with thought). Presence allows us to observe our thoughts. When we do this, we stop identifying with them. Our true nature is the observer (or consciousness). Christian mystics call this the ‘Christ within’. Buddhists refer to it as Buddha nature. Hindus call it Atman, the in-dwelling God.

Moving away from our identification with thought brings peace. Eckhart Tolle says, “the primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but the thoughts about it.” A difficult moment feels even worse when we resist it rather than accept it. Research by Dr. Fred Luskin from Stanford shows that a person can have about 60,000 thoughts a day, with 90% being repetitive. Focusing on the past or future (instead of the present moment) keeps us trapped in our thoughts. Ruminating on the past - or thinking that we will only be happy in some future scenario - are rich sources of suffering.

For example, if you argue with your partner, your mind fills with thoughts about their motivations, past mistakes, and the future of your relationship. If you pause and observe your thoughts instead of identifying with them, you create space that can prevent the argument from escalating. However, this is easier said than done. We must practice presence in all moments to improve our response in these tough situations.

Being fully present makes me better at providing spiritual care. When I am working with clients my primary objective is the quality of presence that I bring to the encounter.  This presence helps me connect with the extreme forms of suffering that some of my clients are experiencing. From that place of presence, I am better able to give them the support they need in that moment. Carl Rogers said “When I am at my best, as a group facilitator or as a therapist, I discover another characteristic. I find that when I am closest to my inner, intuitive self, when I am in touch with the unknown in me, when perhaps I am in a slightly altered state of consciousness, then whatever I do seems to be healing. Then my presence is releasing and helpful to the other.”

Presence also helps us with change and growth as we learn to sit with difficult emotions rather than looking to some external source to escape them. Trying to escape difficult emotions only causes more pain. It is only when we are present with them - when we welcome them and learn what they are trying to say - that we can move through them.

Presence improves how we show up in the world and how we experience it. Consciously bringing the energy of Love and attention to the time we spend with people makes our relationships better. Think how the quality of the parent-child relationship improves when the parent is fully present with the child. Presence creates a flow state (the state when we are completely immersed in an activity). The flow state brings enjoyment, mastery, and intrinsic reward. It makes experience itself worthwhile, regardless of the outcome. The Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer said of the flow state; “The absolute simplicity. That's what I love. When you're climbing your mind is clear and free from all confusions. You have focus. And suddenly the light becomes sharper, the sounds are richer and you're filled with the deep, powerful presence of life.” Presence opens the door to joy, revelation and Love.

Eckhart Tolle says the only thing that ultimately matters is “Can I sense my essential Beingness in the background of my life at all times? At this moment? Can I sense my essential identity as consciousness itself? Or am I losing myself in what happens, losing myself in the mind, in the world?”

In presence we find joy, peace, acceptance, equanimity, and surrender to the flow of life. Hannah Arendt says; “Fearlessness is what love seeks…Such fearlessness exists only in the complete calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future…It is only by calling past and future into the present of remembrance and expectation that time exists at all. Hence the only valid tense is the present, the Now.”

Live your life moment to moment. Be fully present, even when the moment is about planning for the future. By improving your present state, the quality of your life will improve overall.

There are many ways to access presence. Focus on the task at hand, fully engage your senses, exercise, meditate, or spend time in nature. Notice thoughts without being swept away by them. When it is dinner time, bringing presence to cooking and eating will help bring divine disclosures of taste. In all moments, large or small, bring your full presence to them.

It takes practice to access presence and trust in the power of the present moment, and I would love to help you with that.

How spirituality gives us hope

When I was at my lowest point the most dangerous moments were when I felt hopeless. When we feel hopeless the parts of our brains that help us make good choices get turned off. We ‘go mad.’ We have all seen this end in the most devastating consequences. For me it meant escaping life through substances, not wanting to engage in anything meaningful, bitterness and anger, and suicidal ideation. Hopelessness kept me stuck, unable to move forward, and in an endless spiral of pain.

We can see this playing out in the collective too. If you look at what is happening in the world and feel like you are on an unreal ‘alternative timeline’, you are not alone. In the absence of any beautiful vision for humanity we are acting out of desperation. An ‘insanity of humanity’.

Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler noted in their book ‘Abundance: The Future is Better than you Think’; “Over the last few hundred years, we humans have covered a considerable stretch of ground. We’re living longer, wealthier, healthier, safer lives. We have massively increased access to goods, services, transportation, information, education, medicines, means of communication, human rights, democratic institutions, durable shelter, and on and on.”

So why are we more scared than ever before?

We are biologically primed for pessimism. From the earliest days of our existence this is what kept us safe. Assuming the worst helped protect us from danger, so this response is buried deeply in our brains. As Dr. Marc Siegel noted in ‘False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear’; “Statistically, the world has never been safer. Many of us are living longer and more uneventfully. Nevertheless, we live in worst-case fear scenarios. We worry more than ever before. The natural dangers are no longer there, but the response measures are still in place, and now they are turned on much of the time. We implode, turning our adaptive fear mechanism into a maladaptive panicked response.”

Spirituality is how we change this response. The ‘spiritual emotions’ are found in the same part of the brain as our fear response. Things like love and compassion. And hope. Spirituality is also about how we experience connection with all other things. Unity consciousness is term used to describe this. Unity consciousness gives us our internal motivation to do good, strive for universal justice, and practice respect. These internal motivations are an antidote to fear.  And they can exist even when we don’t know if things will be ok.

Czech statesman, author, and dissident Václav Havel wrote “Hope is a state of mind. Either we have hope, or we don’t. It is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some observation of the world or estimate of the situation. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced …Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success. Hope is rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”

Havel’s definition points to the idea that hope is not a belief that something will turn out well. But the certainty (and peace) that comes with doing something good regardless of how it turns out. An ‘orientation of the spirit.’

This orientation is what gives us meaning. Research shows that people who have meaning in their life report more of the ‘spiritual emotions’ that can be found in the deep parts of our brain. They report higher levels of satisfaction and happiness. The research showed meaningfulness helps older adults in residential care settings or people that are grieving. I have seen this in action when I work with clients in aged care or prisons. This research even showed that meaning in life can help us adapt to medical conditions like chronic pain.

“The human brain cannot sustain purposeless living. It is not designed for that. Its systems are designed for purposive action. When that is blocked, its systems deteriorate, and the emotional feedback from idling these systems signals extreme discomfort and motivates the search for renewed purpose, renewed meaning.”

Eric Klinger, 2013

Hope is essential, and meaning gives us hope. Spirituality was the pathway out of my own hopelessness and fear, towards meaning. It was a long journey of small hand holds that helped me climb from the bottom of the hole I had put myself in.

I would love to help you find hope through spirituality. The handholds include acceptance of change and impermanence, connection, acting based on what is important to us and so much more.

The purpose of suffering

A classic ‘gotcha’ question for religious people is to ask ‘if God is so loving, why do small children get cancer? Why is there war?’

If we think of ‘God’ in the way that Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) often portray ‘it’, then there is no satisfying answer to that question. If you are a parent who has buried a child, hearing ‘God works in mysterious ways’ will bring no comfort.

Abrahamic religions are monotheistic, which means they believe there is one all-powerful deity (God). In these traditions God is also omniscient (all knowing), and the creator of the universe. Ancient and Indo-Iranian (or ‘Eastern’) religions are polytheistic. In these traditions there are many gods or goddesses each with their own powers, knowledge and creation stories. All these religions give their God/s human-like characteristics. They judge ‘good’ and ‘bad’ like we do in a court. They ‘make decisions’ about our actions in the form of blessings and punishments. They pull metaphorical ‘levers’ to ‘make the world work’. Only in the mystical forms of these religions do we see the original teachings untouched by human bias.

One way to approach the ‘unsolvable problem of suffering’ is to see this bias. To see the flaws in giving human-like characteristics to our understanding of ‘God’. Or in seeing God/s as a separate thing, controlling us, ‘out there somewhere’.

Monism is the theory that all things are One thing. A singularity. We actually most often see this in science. Scientists devote their lives to explaining this One thing. Like the idea that there is a ‘God equation’ or ‘Theory of Everything’ that can explain the entire universe. Perhaps it is energy, or dark matter, or quantum fields, or more recently Unity Consciousness. We may never know. But if our spirituality rests on the idea that all things are One interconnected whole, then that One thing loses its human-like qualities.

Humans are only a tiny fraction of the One thing. It is also everything else. It is the child with cancer, and it is also the cancer trying to survive. It is the lion, and the gazelle dying a violent death so the lion cubs can eat. It is the rock under your foot and the exploding star. It is infinite forms and experiences. It is mostly empty space. It is timeless. It is something beyond comprehension. Human concepts of ‘right and wrong’ or ‘good and bad’ or ‘reward and punishment’ quickly dissolve in the face of this idea. Even animals and plants do not have these concepts. They are concepts of human thought only.

Suffering and violence are also inherent properties of the physical universe. Our known universe started with an explosion so violent we can still measure its effects today. Challenge is how life developed and evolved. The earth faces catastrophic damage and new species emerge. A man spends four years in Nazi concentration camps and devotes himself to exploring the meaning of life. He changes the world. Another man close to suicide thinks ‘I cannot live with myself anymore’ and has a spiritual awakening. He also changes the world. A caterpillar dissolves into mush and then struggles out of a cocoon to become a butterfly. We tear our muscles to make them stronger. We say ‘I don’t regret anything, even the terrible things, because they lead me here.’ In big ways and small, suffering helps everything grow and evolve. The Chinese farmer parable captures this idea beautifully.

But we must be careful not to minimise suffering or use spirituality to cover it up. That is spiritual bypassing. Spirituality is not only ‘love and light’. If all things are One thing, if suffering is fundamental, then spirituality is also ‘pain and darkness’. The compassionate space we hold for people in their darkest moments is spirituality in action. It is only once we accept pain as fundamental, only when we stop fighting it and are brave enough to dive into it, that we can begin to move through it. The writer and spiritual guide Elizabeth Gilbert says “Ruin is a gift. Ruin is a road to transformation.” That suffering may be something we carry along with us throughout our lives, even as it transforms us. It may be a long time before we find any meaning in it. We may never find meaning in it. It might remain a violent explosion we can still measure in the present.

Suffering can also be seen as the result of how far we are from our own spiritual foundation. How identified we are with thought, with the stories we tell ourselves. Examples of this kind of suffering are wars and other violent crime. They are committed by people who are divorced from their spiritualty (no matter how religious they are) and completely identified with their grievances (their thoughts). It can also be found in the ‘poisons’ of humanity, like greed – where we think getting more is superior to our own internal peace. Native Americans call this ‘wetiko’. Paul Levy, author of Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World writes “Wetiko is a cannibalizing force driven by insatiable greed, appetite without satisfaction, consumption as an end in itself, and war for its own sake, against other tribes, species, and nature, and even against the individual’s own humanity. It is a disease of the soul, and being a disease of the soul, we all potentially have wetiko, as it pervades and “in-forms” the underlying field of consciousness. Any one of us at any moment can fall into our unconscious and unwittingly become an instrument for the evil of wetiko to act itself out through us and incarnate in our world. Wetiko feeds off of polarization and fear—and terror—of “the other.” Seeing the world through a wetiko-inspired lens of separation/otherness enlivens what Jung calls “the God of Terror who dwells in the human soul,” and simultaneously plays itself out both within our soul and in the world at large.”

Benefits of spirituality

Thought (or ‘ego’) can be considered the opposite of spirituality. It’s only in the last few thousand years that humanity has become completely identified with thought. Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers set up ‘schools of thought’. In the seventeenth century, Rene Descartes declared “I think, therefore I am", and developed the scientific method. He separated the spiritual and material worlds, and the dominance of materialism began. Newton confirmed the mechanistic view of the world, and this idea has continued to today.

This has driven huge advances in technology, science, and commerce.  But it has also gradually eroded the importance of spirituality in our lives. Greater identification with thought meant losing sight of Being.  As a result, we have also lost the benefits of spirituality. And spirituality can improve our lives on pretty much every measure you can think of.

A more complete understanding of life

In western culture we still believe that science and thinking are primary. Spirituality, or the idea that there is ‘something more’ to human experience, are taboo. They must stay separate to science, reason and materialism.  

But science and thinking cannot explain all things. Reading about the science of sexual reproduction will never be the same as the experience of sex. Spirituality can add depth to what is logical and rational. Spirituality is ‘gnosis’: an intuitive knowledge that goes beyond thinking. William James proposed including a wider range of evidence such as introspection, intuition, values and meaning. These things, combined with measurable data, can give us a clearer picture of our universe.

After all, Professor Brian Cox is not as famous for his physics as he is for the meaning he brings to our understanding of physics.

Meaning and purpose in our existence

Existential philosophy considers our existence across four dimensions:

• physical or material (health, safety, comfort)

• social (our self in relation to others)

• personal (autonomy, freedom, knowledge)

• spiritual (our place in the universe).

We achieve existential wellbeing when we have balance across these dimensions. In the physical, social and personal dimensions our minds are fixed on “I am, have, can, want…” etc. In the spiritual dimensions this focus shifts to “Who am I meant to be? What can my existence contribute to life?”.

It can be argued that spiritual wellness is the foundation for the other dimensions. Similarly, loving connections with the physical, social and personal aspects of existence lead us to the spiritual dimension.

If spirituality is the foundation of existential wellbeing, this reverses Abraham Maslow’s famous ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ which prioritises our physical needs. But Viktor Frankl (psychologist, philosopher and Holocaust survivor) famously showed that our most important human need is to find meaning. It was purpose and meaning he turned to as he endured the most inhumane conditions. It was purpose and meaning that supported him when none of his needs for safety, food and shelter were being met. It was purpose and meaning that gave him hope.

We can see this every day around the world. Where people are experiencing significant existential challenges, it is often spirituality (in whatever form) that sustains them.

Lasting joy

Despite our huge advances in wealth and comfort, we are arguably more unhappy than ever. This can be explained by our focus on the physical or material dimension of existence.

This dimension is described as hedonic (what gives us pleasure). But pleasure is fleeting. The next pay rise, or meal, or overseas trip (while important and wonderful) cannot give us lasting joy. Whereas eudaimonic dimensions (our relationships, self-development and spirituality) have been shown to lead to more anti-viral cells being present in the body. They can literally arm us against the attacks of life.

While happiness comes from pleasure, joy comes from eudaimonic dimensions. The scientist George E. Vaillant refers to emotions such as love, compassion, gratitude, hope and joy as ‘spiritual emotions’. These emotions are deeply embedded in human biology. They are found in our brain stem (the earliest part of our brains to develop). Whereas happiness lives in the smaller ‘fight or flight’ part of our brain. Having a beer gives us pleasure, but sharing that drink with a friend gives us joy. Joy is more significant and stable. It goes to the very core of our being.

Healthier minds and bodies

Dr Lisa Miller is a psychology professor and founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute. Her extensive research spans over 200 publications. It looks at the neuroscience of spirituality and its benefits for health, mental wellness, treating addiction, community engagement, and developing resilience (something that improves outcomes in most areas of our life).

The research of psychology and neuroscience professor Barbara L. Fredrickson also shows that that our capacity for experiencing love (central to spirituality) can be measured and strengthened in ways that improve our health and longevity.

Spirituality makes us healthier.

A more beautiful world

Science also tells us that spirituality can help us build not only healthier people, but a healthier planet. This is not new. Humanity thrived in Indigenous cultures with deep spiritual foundations.

‘Unity consciousness’ is a term to describe the experience of being inter-connected. Some people use this term in place of ‘God’. Dr. Miller said, ‘When we (develop our spirituality)…we begin to live beyond…a splintered and fragmented view of who we are to one another, and to cultivate a way of being built on core awareness of love, interconnection …It gives us a new paradigm for being, leading, and relating that can help us act with greater clarity and capability…We can evolve our work and school culture toward greater purpose and meaning. We can revise our governments and health and social service institutions to better support and serve all. We can see our choices and the consequences of our actions through a lens of interconnectedness and shared responsibility.’

What is spirituality?

“Unless our knowledge of the soul is rooted in personal experience, our abstract definitions simply hang in space, devoid of meaning and rooted in nothing” (David N. Elkins, 2005).

People tend to have fixed ideas about what spirituality is. Many think spirituality only means religion, or the beliefs of people who own crystal shops. Either/or understandings of spirituality are also common. For example – the way we position science and spirituality as two opposing sides. Or the idea you can be either spiritual or an atheist, but not both. There was international uproar when the Harvard Chaplains Organisation chose an atheist to lead them.

It's also common to feel an internal wall go up when we come across anything religious. And that would be understandable. The dogma of organised religion has much to answer for. You might feel this wall when you hear the word ‘God’. Or the wall could be about spirituality. Maybe you picture cult-leading, conspiracy theory grifters. Also understandable. Social media spirituality also has a lot to answer for.

But spirituality is not one set of beliefs. It is about how we experience life. It is any experience of value, depth, awe, peace and reverence.  It is inward (how we feel inside) and outward (how we act). In spirituality we can find; a sense of identity, wellbeing, comfort, meaning and purpose. We can transcend our individual selves and connect to each other and to a larger whole. This is all possible even when you believe nothing happens after you die.

We know that spirituality has been foundational to ‘what it means to be human’ for millennia. Spiritual teachings vary across traditions and cultures but share a common goal. Spirituality guides us toward a deeper understanding of ourselves, our relationship with the universe, and our place in the world.

Mia Leijssen (Emeritus Professor in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the University of Leuven, Belgium) says ‘The mystical can be considered a transformation from a limited ‘I-reality’ to the experience of a more encompassing reality. It considers that a personal experience of belonging to a greater whole is the most important experience. Since we live in a multicultural world, we are introduced to a multitude of representations of the ‘greater whole’. Terms such as: Soul, Ātman, Spirit, Tao, Buddha, Allah, Brahman, Yahweh, God, Goddess, Divine Essence, the Higher Self, Unity Consciousness, Love, (energy, nature) etc.’ In this definition you can find people from Indigenous or religious communities, to scientists, and even atheists. Humanists build meaningful, ethical lives that consider the greater whole without a belief in any god.

Spirituality cannot be contained to definitions or specific words. For one person spiritual or mystical experience might be when they gaze at stars, when they are in nature, or when they meet their newborn child. For another it might be when they are deep in mediation, or when they dance, or help someone in need. For others it might be when they take action to improve the world, when they are in church, or when they develop a mathematical proof. It might be all these things. There is no limit to spirituality.

Albert Einstein said about his own spirituality “the scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of (the scientist’s) life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.” Einstein used the phrase ‘God's thoughts’ as a metaphor for the underlying order of the universe. For Einstein God was not a divine form of a person ‘out there’ but found in the structure of the universe itself. In this way he can be considered a Deist – someone with a natural theology (‘study of God’) where ‘God’ is revealed through nature. It can be argued that it was this mystical view that made Einstein such an extraordinary scientist.

In the quote Einstein suggests that the questions that ‘possessed’ him, were the same questions that consumed the prophets of all religions. But in contrast to Einstein, the prophets spoke of how that same concept of Oneness can inform our everyday lives. This can be seen in the common values we find in all major systems of meaning. Things like love, compassion, goodness, kindness, selflessness. Or forgiveness, gratitude, discipline, truth and justice. Or creativity, beauty in art or nature, mindfulness and contemplation.

Our individual spirituality is both extremely broad, and extremely personal. It includes any practice or belief that helps you live a connected, meaningful, peaceful and joyful life. Jo Philips (participant in the Existential Wellbeing Counselling course, KU Leuven University, 2011-2012) captured this when reflecting on her own spirituality, based on the Celtic tradition: “It is almost as if the inner and outer landscape, my soul and nature, are one and the same. The divine is therefore in me as well as around me. There is this inner core and this immeasurable wealth outside it. And perhaps they are identical? This greatly involves the experience in the moment, there here and now. Thus my bible is nature and my belief the (inner) experience of it, with a great many layers and symbols, in the here and now.”

Spirituality is about how we each uniquely choose to play the adventure of life.

My journey to Spiritual Support

“When you begin to nurture spirit…social constructions fall to the wayside.”

Reverend Otis Moss III

I’m in a gym. The air feels raspy. The air conditioning is always at the wrong temperature. I am meditating during a yoga class and up comes the truth. My life has been a waste of ego and fear. I have lacked compassion, acted selfishly, lied, stolen, and manipulated. I have abused my body. I’m a narcissist. Every day there is the person I want to be, who I feel inside. Every day I’m not that.

My sins are legion.

I lay on my mat and cry. At the end of the meditation the yoga instructor misunderstands someone and says, ‘who is Laura?’ Exactly.

We are the post-enlightenment, industrial revolution human

We are between the first humans, and the humans that might survive

Humanity has languished in the selva oscura, and we are journeying through the Inferno

We are facing our death

To avoid our doom, to get to Paradiso, we must climb the mountain of our sins

I finally lay in that truth and realised there is no other path forward. Not for me, and not for humanity. But before Paradiso is the in-between. Purgatorio.

I watch a moth outside my window

It’s desperately trying to get to the light

Helplessly fluttering and banging against an invisible barrier

Getting nowhere

It looks exhausting

I'm exhausted

It’s the exhaustion of the in-between.

I crave solitude, silence, nature, reading, writing, deep thinking and conversations. I also feel deeply connected - that all things are just one infinite thing. I am this human, but also that rock, and that bit of stardust. I am as moved by a Yirritja song about rain as I am watching a documentary about new physics beyond the Standard Model. I wish I could know it all.

I want to connect the dots of seemingly disparate things. Those patterns are the infinite consciousness some call God. It is my driving curiosity. I want to smash the systems. All the systems. Patriarchy yes. But also class systems, economic systems, nationalism. Anything corrupt, that shows the worst parts of humanity. Anything that tells us our only value is found in how much we can produce, where we come from, or what club we belong to. I fantasise about living the life of a contemplative.

This is the secret me. The me that I mask and compartmentalise.

There is a different me that I show to the world - the people-pleasing me. I do what I think is expected of me. I have found validation through achievement and success. I have worked stupid hours in underpaid jobs to avoid disappointing people. I pursued money because I was told that was where I would find my own value. I am expert in telling people what they want to hear. I’m bad at setting boundaries and saying no.

In my bath I clumsily try to move foam icebergs with my forearms to stop my hands getting wet. The picture is comical as I slide around. It is our ‘perfect’ bath. It looks like something from a magazine, and it has an even better view. Except I’m too short to lie in it without my head going under the water. Instead, I sit squashed up at one end, with my back to the side and my legs bent in front of me. Not luxuriating, not even comfortable. But the bath looks good, and I’ve been led to believe that is what counts.

Sitting in an office I look down on myself pretending to be a person society expects me to be. Someone who goes to an office, and meetings, and gets a regular paycheck (preferably large). But I don’t really want any of it. I hate the surface; I want to dive in the deep end.

My fear speaks in the language of ego. It is fear of telling the truth about the secret me. Being misunderstood and dismissed. Being embarrassed and humiliated. I’m scared of my full humanity being revealed. Jim Carrey says, “Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world.’ In the in-between we are invisible.

In real life sharing my true self meant anxiety – a racing heart, shaking hands and voice, a ducked head and avoiding eye contact. But substances became ways to access my true self without anxiety. Being high allowed me to access those parts of my brain I was too afraid to share. Pondering the mysteries of the universe while high was liberating and addictive. Eventually my body grew a fatty tumour – initially a small lump and eventually something the size of my fist. I imagined my body using this space as a place to store all the damage. The doctors were amazed by the lump, they had never seen one so big. My substance abuse was like a spiral, going round and round. Dante would describe these circles as violent sins against myself, and that is certainly true. But at the heart of these errors is a fight against change. These substances kept me small, keep us all small.

A miracle arrived in the form of a zygote, saving me from myself. Cells divided, organs and functional systems developed, and my body experienced health. I began to climb out of the spiral. Exactly nine months to the day perfection arrived and I finally understood what unconditional love meant. And I felt a new kind of terror about the world this tiny miracle was entering.

I remember the day when President of the United States was elected in 2016. It seemed as if humanity, in the form of voting Americans, had suddenly wrenched open its scared, nasty, small side. But the post-modern developed world has worshipped that President, and everything he stands for, for a long time. We like a show, dominance, power, money, ‘me first, me only’, success at any cost, white people. This story was sold to us for centuries. Ego, greed, hate, envy, abuse, overconsumption. We appear to destroy everything. Nature, compassion, ancient wisdom, love. The feminine. Hope.

Our sins are legion.

Then a microscopic organism infected the human world wide web and brought us to our collective knees. The symptoms and consequences of the virus feel like a message. Breathing (our lack of presence), hair loss (our obsession with the physical), no travel (our excess), lockdown (our fear of solitude and quiet), the end to the standard work from an office model (our systems). A forced hard stop requiring us to evolve and find new ways of doing things.

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

Arundhati Roy

The pandemic was devastating. And maybe the pandemic was nature’s last chance for humanity. Maybe it was the start of our evolution.

My own last chance came in the form of spiritual evolution. It was all I had left.

The religious scholar Huston Smith describes a ‘spiritually realised being’ as a person with ‘an acute sense of the astonishing mystery of everything.’ I think this describes the great scientist Albert Einstein as much as it does any person of faith.

Long before language existed, the universe communicated in patterns. Language calls these patterns mathematics or science. Patterns show us all things are One. The Golden Ratio, Benfords Law, Cymatics, fractals. The ‘Universal Archetype’ refers to universal patterns in mycelium, the roots of trees, neurons, the networks of our human nervous system and brains, the Internet, and even dark matter. These can teach us as much as the great spiritual truths as a religious text. Lothar Schafer says, “Quantum physics gave us a way for science and spirituality to make logical sense”.

The wind, like love, like breath, is a no-thing and yet we can feel it, see it, hear it

It is immensely powerful while also being gentle and joyful

It can be hot or cold

Move up or down or in a spiral

Be magical and devastating.

Some believe the wind is the universal consciousness playing with us and being with us. In a children’s movie a little cartoon snowman calls the wind Gale and says hello whenever she comes by. Now I also call her Gale and I say hello whenever she comes by.

I have beliefs about the world, the universe, ‘God’, and existence that are completely outside of the scientific method to explain.  Spirituality is a big ask for someone like me who can be infuriated simply because a decision is not evidence-based. For someone who can be suspicious of organised religion. Someone who, by my very nature, questions every aspect of dogma. This led me to consider what areas I do put blind faith in. Eventually the only thing I could come up with is love.

Hear me out. Love is felt in a great many, varied ways. Sometimes it feels like wonder and awe. Maybe it is an orgasm, or hiking in nature. Maybe it is a divine amuse-bouche. Maybe it's your favourite book, or a song, or a painting. Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek said, “there’s a remarkable overlap between the concepts of beauty that you find in art and literature and music, and things that you find as the deepest themes of our understanding of the physical world.” It is all Love. Capital L love. There is no scientific explanation for it, or way to measure it. It’s not the same as measuring arousal or our body’s biological response to connection. There is a way I feel about my children that is unconditional and infinite and that I know to be truth. It may be the closest expression to 'God' that I will ever know.

Love might not encompass all of spirituality, but it is the doorway to it. Thinking deeply about what it is we truly Love, how we experience Love, is the first step.

Shavasana is the most difficult and most important of all the yoga poses. The cycle, the return. Sink, and then a thought enters your mind, start again. On and on and on to awakening. Just like the patterns in the universe. Just like facing my truth that day in the gym. Just like my own spiritual journey to get to Spiritual Support.

Being brave and opening our minds to whole new way of looking at, and approaching, things is key to our climb through purgatory. Our bridge between two worlds. I want to help people, and the world, to walk that bridge.

‘Creating a better world within and without is a work in progress. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it feels hopeless. Sometimes it’s a big experiment. Sometimes it doesn’t quite work out and it collapses and falls apart. But I’m showing up, I’m participating. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll start again.’

 Ronni Kahn