Subjectively spiritual

“The word 'spirituality' has become unusably embarrassing for many people, either because it's so imprecise or because it carries cultural baggage.” Sam Harris is trying to rehabilitate it. https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom/videos/10153232398983527/

Here is my contribution to the rescue bid.

Spirituality is a way of thinking and feeling which is sometimes realised spontaneously but is more often reached through taming and training the mind. It's names include in flow, in the zone, in the groove, and being attended by the muse. There is also the notion of release or liberation from bondage, and of enlightenment. Common to them all is a delightful, non-egoic state that is out of space and time.

The following table sets out some features of the frame of mind before and after spiritual awakening. The content is partly based on my subjective experience and understanding.

BEFORE - normal people (religious or atheist)	AFTER - abnormal people (spiritual)
are captured by a cultural world view which provides them with intuitions and common sense	are released from their natal, cultural world view. This allows them to be counter intuitive and to display uncommon sense
have world views which are parochial, xenophobic, superficial and unenlightened (myth and magic)	have world views that are global (cosmic), open-ended, deep and enlightened (evidence-based science)
are nurtured, using words, to be egoic and self-conscious	are wordlessly aware of being hard wired to operate non-egoically in unconscious flow

Points to ponder

• Evolutionary psychology has shown how we have a stone age brain in the computer age.
• Neuroscience shows the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) and has identified many specialist modules.
• Experimental psychology has demonstrated many subtle quirks in the way that decisions are made in the mindbrain – we are not as clever and rational as we like to think we are.
• There is no need for all the unconscious activity to be available to the self-conscious.
• The unconscious has been around for a long time; self-consciousness is recent.
• The idea of an abiding self is an illusion. It is constantly being re-created.
• We have evolved rules of thumb to react fast and respond more slowly – using reflex, instinct, bias, intuition.
• Once separated from its historical, eastern roots mindfulness meditation is seen to be a psychology of perception.

Be still and know the peace that passes all understanding

Just sit, dropping off body and mind – stillness speaks