31.5.16

Connectivity

We need to have a talk about spirituality. No, I don't mean religion. I don't mean where we go when we cease to be living (Rodney Dangerfield on mortality). Those conversations are awkward too but usually forced because of inevitability; we will all die someday.

But what makes us while we are living - rarely discussed.

Some spiritualists talk first with the body, it being a temple or a house to the soul or something deeper than that while others speak of the connectivity of the body, mind and soul. Matthew Sanford, a yoga instructor who was paralyzed at age 13, speaks of the boy as having memories that the consciousness does not.

I'm not attempting to give a philosophy or tell what is right, partially right or sometimes right nor am I trying to say that something in physics like light being both a particle and wave depending on the observer fits our human spiritual condition. I just want to open the dialogue. I age, I am imperfect. I have flaws that slow me down, that keep me from what I want to accomplish but also define who I am to others.

We can start with connectivity again - not just our own bodies and minds but the collective existences of all things, of all beings. There is no metric on how we can "relate" or "empathize" with others yet it is something we can all innately do. And thanks to things like art, we can exist beyond our simple language and memories and can experience through observation. A shared symbol, image or sound can create a collective connection.

I've always hated the description of karma as a revenge factor because it's not true. The world is an open system and an infinite amount of good or bad can be put out into the collective. Those who choose evil or negative, rather, gravitate toward the bad things and a choice can be made to move toward the good and accept it in. Seeing the good in others that you want to see in yourself.

But this isn't a monologue. What are your thoughts on spirituality? What have you read, heard... experienced.. that's given you further spiritual awareness. What's brought you connectivity with all the entities within and outside of your own being?