Spirituality without metaphysics.

[Society]

I for one, find more spirituality in the notion of meaning and the psychology of being then metaphysics ever offered me.

A notion I have not shared with others in a long time, and I am curious...

Does anyone else relate to this (non-theistic or otherwise)?
If so, in what ways can you say to have experienced spirituality without metaphysics?
Is it even possible? Can the definition and notion of spirituality can sustain this and still be meaningful?

 

[sprinkles]

What are we calling metaphysical?

Some people like to throw just about everything under that label.

 

[Society]

What are we calling metaphysical?

Some people like to throw just about everything under that label.

deities, spirits, realms, magical energies, divinations... if you want to throw in the big bang theory we can. any spirituality which depends upon a specific description, idea or belief towards the nature of the universe.

 

[sprinkles]

deities, spirits, realms, magical energies, divinations... if you want to throw in the big bang theory we can. any spirituality which depends upon a specific description, idea or belief towards the nature of the universe.

Ah, ok.

In that case I can say that I've experienced it without those things.

Describing it in certain terms is another story all together, though. Some derivatives of Zen observe this through quietism - or shikantaza - a resting state of illuminated alertness that attaches to nothing. The practitioner achieves oneness through this without all the other stuff, because without attachment there's nothing to tag mystical energies or spirits or any explanations onto. It's just being.

 

[UniqueMixture]

yeah, just make it about real time being which is in constant flux as we move in and out of various affective states (shifted by our environment and our own chemical workings) and the synchronous connection it seems to have to arbitrary processes within reality

 

[RaptorWizard]

Metaphysics seems to be based more on rationality, and spirituality seems more based upon feeling.

Although both have their values, metaphysics could give us more knowledge, and spirituality more meaning.

Of course, a thing must first be known before it can mean anything, hence the metaphysics comes first.

 

[sprinkles]

Metaphysics seems to be based more on rationality, and spirituality seems more based upon feeling.

Although both have their values, metaphysics could give us more knowledge, and spirituality more meaning.

Of course, a thing must first be known before it can mean anything, hence the metaphysics comes first.

It took me a minute to figure out what you actually said here.

I'd say that metaphysics comes from a need to rationalize - not necessarily based on rationality.

It's often used as an attempt to explain feelings, and one might say that metaphysical things are not even knowledge (well, I say they aren't)

Yes a thing needs to be known before it means anything, but some things don't need to mean anything and some things don't need to be known. Other things are not even known, they're just made up.

 

[Lark]

I for one, find more spirituality in the notion of meaning and the psychology of being then metaphysics ever offered me.

A notion I have not shared with others in a long time, and I am curious...

Does anyone else relate to this (non-theistic or otherwise)?
If so, in what ways can you say to have experienced spirituality without metaphysics?
Is it even possible? Can the definition and notion of spirituality can sustain this and still be meaningful?

I've known people who discussed a dichotomy between spirituality and religion years ago, some of them were actually priests, and it related to the seperation between what they felt, practiced and believed usually and history, legacies or politics which they were estranged from or alienated by.

I've also known of some atheists who professed this dichotomy too for the reason of rejecting supernatural beliefs or order and affirming naturalistic wonders and beliefs, although sometimes it was connected with things like a western, secularised, "celebrity" buddhism too. This would be close to what you've described as a seperation between metaphysics and spirituality.

I dont really believe in these dichotomies to be honest, myself, personally, reading some of Erich Fromm's books and trying to figure out once and for all his own thinking, being a confirmed materialist and non-believer but also affirmer of traditional religion, including eastern buddhism and traditional Judahism, was pretty rewarding when thinking about this. Perhaps it shouldnt surprise me given that Fromm was a marxist and believed in the basic idea of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, new thesis but he does seem to have been able to reconcile some opposites. While firmly rejecting supernatural believes, which he thought were idolatrous and illusion, he seemed also to reject atheism.

Instead talking about non-theism and affirming an interpretation of Mohamides (spelling) teaching about God being non-corporeal as a kind of suggestion not to speculate about "that" any further and focus instead on the business of ethics, how to live and creating the kingdom of God as an actual existing social order in historical time as the culmination of human history.

I do believe in a lot of metaphysics, I do believe in a lot of things, without fear or favour though, which some people dismiss as nonsense or superstition because life is better that way. There are a lot, in my opinion, of alienated and estranged people out there who'll attack it and perhaps they have reason in their personal history or find rationales from human history and politics for feeling that way too but that's fine, everyone should so far as possible without interference with anyone else live after their own fashion, breath after their own fashion, think after their own fashion. Truth cant be harmed by that.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=7280]Lark[/MENTION]

In regards to deities and natural wonders and other 'religious' items, I have this to say:

That which interacts with matter is physical.

The end.

 

[Lark]

[MENTION=7280]Lark[/MENTION]

In regards to deities and natural wonders and other 'religious' items, I have this to say:

That which interacts with matter is physical.

The end.

I do not follow, do you mean that the dichotomy between supernatural and naturalistic is a false dichotomy?

 

[sprinkles]

I do not follow, do you mean that the dichotomy between supernatural and naturalistic is a false dichotomy?

I think so. It's like saying that something is 'more than real'.

Supernatural would just be our perspective from inside the fishbowl.

 

[Lark]

I think so. It's like saying that something is 'more than real'.

Supernatural would just be our perspective from inside the fishbowl.

Perhaps I agree with you, at least I do believe the saying, attributed to Tolkein or Asimov I'm not sure which, about any insufficiently understood technology would appear as magic.

 

[sprinkles]

Perhaps I agree with you, at least I do believe the saying, attributed to Tolkein or Asimov I'm not sure which, about any insufficiently understood technology would appear as magic.

Yup. That's kind of it I think.

I mean maybe there are what we'd like to call spirits and mystical energies and such. But, I think the important distinction to make is that to us this may seem 'magical', but to these luminous ones, this is just normal for them.

 

[INTP]

this explains my opinion pretty well

 

[RaptorWizard]

Spirituality gives an extra energy to the stuctures of metaphysics. Without energy, it lacks force, and without structure, it lacks foundations.

 

[Typh0n]

I think I once adhered to this - belief in the spiritual, such as belief there are hidden forces at work in the cosmos, but the belief these forces are not transcendental, or that they are part of what we call nature just that they are not "material" in the plain sense of the word. I then rejected this notion for a more dichotomised model of the spiritual vs material, but now, Im thinking this belief in the spiritual as something rather cosmic might not be so bad. Im not sure.