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We present interactive workshops on
systemic coaching, relationship happiness, resolving family
chaos and relationship bonds. Email us if you would like a
workshop in your area.
Science, Happiness & Spiritual Development
People in our scientific society read and write more
about spiritual life, spiritual growth and spiritual development than about
science. Yet, although most people consider spiritual development to be
important, our definitions of spirituality, spiritual practices and spiritual
relationships are often dramatically different.
Our spirituality strongly affects how we express love. Our
relationship behavior most strongly reveals our spiritual development. We show our
spirituality in our happiness, fulfillment and integrity. These are relationship
qualities - not individual traits.
A spiritual path requires spiritual coaching; with mentors and
teachers. As spiritual coaches can only assist people who know less than they do
- some guidelines about how to recognize who is spiritually advanced or
spiritually developed or even spiritually healthy would be useful.
Let's start with spirituality.
[ Spiritual Coaching for Soul Mates
. Is Soulwork "New
Age"? ]
What is Spirituality?
Spirituality appears to be an integral
part of all human cultures. Spiritual development may be regarded as
connection to something external to the self, or as an internal experience,
or both.
At its most basic it can be called
luck or coincidence. A spiritual person is lucky
- a single survivor of a disaster may be considered
holy or chosen.
Spirituality is often defined as reverence for
sacred objects, learning holy chants and songs, repeating body movements and
reciting dogma. If so, spirituality can then be measured in terms of "ability
to repeat chants, body movements or dogma".
Spirituality may be perceived as "success
without effort", in which unseen forces are assumed to cluster around
certain blessed individuals. Some people measure spirituality by unearned material
success.
Spirituality includes unusual varieties of human experience,
including an ability to create relationships with what are perceived to be
gods, spirits, ancestors, or other non-physical realities. Spiritual
evolution can then be assessed as "ability to channel esoteric
information".
Spirituality may include approaching external
spiritual agencies through their symbolic manifestations - interacting with
perceived spiritual agencies with fear, respect, gratitude, or reverence.
Spirituality may be assessed in terms of "ability to bribe spiritual agencies",
as evidenced by good fortune for the community.
Spiritual Experience
Spirituality also includes descriptions of experiences.
Obsession with sacred images, chants, mythic language, incense and ritual
can provide religious experiences.
Shared experiences both prove a dogma and form community bonds.
The validity of spiritual experience
is easily questioned. Similar experiences of a
relationship with an esoteric agency may indicate a saint in one culture -
and a schizophrenic in another. Experiences following the ingestion of psychotropic
substances may indicate the presence of the spiritual in one
culture - and the absence of spirituality in another.
The qualities of a spiritual experience vary
between cultures. It appears that many practices taken for
granted in Western civilization were once "spiritual experiences" of the
highest order. These once-spiritual experiences include: writing,
spelling, mental arithmetic, planning and guesstimating.
Dr William James, in his lectures:
Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), described
four qualities of mystical experiences. Dr. James said that: "These
four characteristics are sufficient to mark out a
group of states of consciousness peculiar enough to ... be called the
mystical group."
- Ineffable: cannot be described or
appropriately verbalized
- Noetic: deep insights into
non-intellectual truth or reality
- Transient: short-term - not all-of-life
- Passive: not willfully created
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