Is a connection to the feeling of spirituality the natural state of humankind?

[Xorkoth]

I was just thinking about this because of a post in another thread, so I decided to make this one to create a new topic since it didn't fit with the other thread. It seems to me as I look at indigenous cultures, the cultures which have existed in a similar form since time immemorial, that I see a common pattern: they all have a strong connection to their version of spirituality that pervades their everyday life and vastly colors their experience of life. It appeared to bring great richness and meaning into their lives, as I know my own does for me. I also notice that all of these people live or lived entirely side-by-side with nature.

I find what is, to me, a disturbing trend among many modern people today, which is the idea that spirituality is silly and not a real thing. And beyond that, even for those who believe in ideas of spirituality, our cultures often place little real emphasis on them, instead putting focus on functional, material goals, and in general quite ego-based goals. And so many people live in cities, nearly cut off from nature entirely. Some people really never even leave. And it is certainly true to claim that we have a high incidence of various emotional problems today, from depression to anxiety to chronic rage and anger and frustration, lack of fulfillment in life. Though I can't say for sure, admittedly, it seems to me that in observing still-existing indigenous cultures, these problems do not seem nearly as prevalent.

So what is the link between these observations? To me it seems like feelings of connectedness to spirituality both personally and culturally is something that humans have evolved to have, that it's something our organism really wants. If so, then what are the ramifications of our own culture's lack of emphasis on these things (spirituality and nature)? And what is the connection between human spirituality and nature?

 

[herbavore]

I think that the connection to nature is a basic human need, as basic as intimacy, nutrition, sleep etc. We all know humans can exist without it but at what cost? And I think that the aspect of that connection that is our understanding of our own place in the web of life and on the wheel of time is the source of spirituality. I guess I define that as my own spirituality and it may be a pretty simplistic concept but it rings true in my life. I have never been failed by placing myself alone in nature for healing my very human angst.

In comparing industrialized modern culture to indigenous cultures it gets complex because two things have been lost: a reverence for nature and a smaller community that relies on traditions that are still agreed upon to be meaningful by those practicing them. In our modern culture we are a stew of many cultures intersecting, absorbing, refusing absorption, assimilating or otherwise reacting to each other in ways that even vary neighborhood to neighborhood, let alone by country. We not only do not agree about any traditions, we feel threatened by most of them. I have an optimistic view that I can sometimes dredge up from my tendency towards pessimism however that says that leaving rituals and traditions behind is not a bad thing at all. We are just struggling in the free fall but hopefully we are re-mapping our species' trajectory up to now and leaving behind much of what has been destructive (to us and the planet and everything else on it) behind.

I feel sad sometimes when I see the cynicism and pessimism that exists in the youngest children. They have absorbed all of our worry and fear and the greed and me-me-me-cultures that have grown from that and they espouse complete fatalism when throughout our history we have always looked to the young for the faith and hopefulness that things can be changed. This is one of the reasons that I try to tone down my own fatalistic thinking when it arises in me--I feel I owe it to the next generations to create hope because without it we cannot reverse all the damage we have inflicted upon ourselves and everything else. I used to teach in middle schools and though I love that age, I find that being in an elementary school helps me regain my own sense of what is possible because I am around 6 year olds that have not yet succumbed to either the numbness nor the fatalistic angst that surrounds them.

People get really funny about the word spiritual IME. They insist that you define it so that they can argue it away. I get that from my religious relatives and my atheist friends. I have called myself an atheist because it is closest to what I can articulate but really it only means that I don't believe in a creator or anything with a giant plan. What I do believe is that I am small, my life is small, this planet's life (even without our destruction) is brief and small and that the entire web of life that I came from and will continue to be a part of in very mysterious ways is enough comfort for me so that I can get on with the daily grind here and now, made so much more enjoyable by my appreciation for it.

I was very young when John Lennon wrote his iconic song, Imagine. For me it articulated everything I thought, everything I wanted to live for. To me that song is a hymn. Our imaginations are so powerful. They have given us the intellectual powers to invent bombs and concrete jungles and genetically modified crops and convoluted fairy-tale religions but they have also given us the free playgrounds of music and science and art. It seems to me that having a connection to our individual imaginations is as necessary as our connections to nature, but it is imperative that we aim it towards creation rather than destruction.

 

[swilow]

^John Lennon is an absolute idol of mine, warts and all. I actaully like his failings

I feel sad sometimes when I see the cynicism and pessimism that exists in the youngest children. They have absorbed all of our worry and fear and the greed and me-me-me-cultures that have grown from that and they espouse complete fatalism when throughout our history we have always looked to the young for the faith and hopefulness that things can be changed.

Its quite horrifying to see. I don't have children yet though we certainly plan on doing so soon and I worry about how difficult it is becoming to just be an average individual, let alone a true cosmic citizen. I just put faith in the idea that knoweldege and awareness of which our society actually DOES have (I don't say wisdom) will allow us to rise up so to speak. Our inheritance isn't fucking facebook and instagram. Its so much deeper. The magical weirdness of what being alive actually is. I worry that its becoming too hard to live a meaningful life.

So what is the link between these observations? To me it seems like feelings of connectedness to spirituality both personally and culturally is something that humans have evolved to have, that it's something our organism really wants. If so, then what are the ramifications of our own culture's lack of emphasis on these things (spirituality and nature)? And what is the connection between human spirituality and nature?

I remember watching a documentary of a scientist who was spending time with some sort of primate (I forget which). She observed their reactions to an odd little partially-underground mysterious waterfall. They would gather around it solemnly/quietly and rock gently back and forth. They seemed awe-struck at the ramifications of the physical place they were in. She suggested that they were expressing some sort of spirituality; I don't know about that, but perhaps they were feeling that wonder we get when we see a strange place, an old place or an obscure place, an unlikely structure. In Australia, I've had a similarly raw experience of ancient awe at Uluru. The entire central Australia is vast, empty, featureless by-and-large, and then there is this out of place huge structure in the middle of the plain. Look on that at sunset with the milky way unfurling above- you cannot doubt that you are looking at something bigger then what you see. You can see time out there...

I think spirituality is as much part of our heritage and thirst and hunger. I think parts of the natural world somehow reflect the timescale of earth, and we become insignificant, a part of something much greater then the limitations of our short temporal life. I don't think we can derive much spiritual nourishment from man-made hyper-impermanence, and I fear that our destruction of the natural world may remove the great sources of nourishment that have been developing and changing on earth for millennia. For so many reasons, I think the current epoch is vital to fostering true guardianship of the natural world when recongised as the sacred force that it actually is. I can't see the need for any god but earth- and me/you/us a part of it

 

[Xorkoth]

Nice replies, thanks. It would be cool if anyone else had something to say about it too.

 

[Foreigner]

I go back and forth about this. One part of me wants to reduce it to biology and say that spirituality is a survival / stress relief mechanism that helps us cope with extreme adversity. Spiritual explanations are comforting, provide familiar structures and traditions, help link us together as a social species, and furnish us with purpose. I remember reading about this magnetic helmet experiment that scientists did on a sample group. The helmet used a high powered magnet to bombard known areas of the brain that have to do with feeling a sense of individuality. The magnetic resonance disrupted this part of the brain. In people with a spiritual core, another part of the brain would activate to compensate, and they would feel a sense of oneness, and togetherness. The people with no spiritual concept went into full on panic mode during the experiment. Their concept of reality became incoherent because there was no overriding protective force to comfort them. So I think the spiritual aspects of our being are meant to cushion our individual ego from total overwhelm, or trauma that is so great that it causes personal oblivion.

On the other hand, I've had so many experiences that people would consider "out there" that I firmly disagree we can boil this all down to biology. It's possible that the biology evolved to accommodate a spiritual reality which is real and tangible. Just like we evolved to experience the 5 basic senses as a reality, there many be other spiritual realities we are only just beginning to broach. The pineal gland, for example, is a highly mysterious part of the body that has a great deal of mysticism about it. There are so many recordings of spiritual and psychic experiences in human history, that it makes me wonder if we are in the middle of evolving into a kind of sentience that transcends our former animal reality. Humans have always straddled the animal and the transcendent. Carl Jung talks a lot about that in his works.

As for modern culture... life in the developed world is so cushy that there is insufficient adversity to trigger the spiritual search in most people. That, and spirituality has been replaced by material worship. Human comfort and security comes from knowing that there's food in the fridge, the bills are paid, and that they can watch their favorite TV show on schedule. It's just a different version of the same security requirements we've always had. And frankly, even before modern times, the religious sheep-dom kept people in line too. Some people are just born to seek, while others never do. Don't ask me why.

For me, since day one, I have always been seeking... since I was a toddler.

 

[Xorkoth]

Great post jammin, very well articulated and I vibe with it a lot. I absolutely thing that our recent (in evolutionary time) switch from living in harmony with the land and each other in small groups (I think the small group thing is very important is the larger the amount of people packed in, the more you tend to feel like other people are competition and potential enemies rather than people you know and love), is the main cause of our society's frightening degree of mental and emotional issues. People, in my opinion, are programmed to seek to feel a connection with something greater, and nature is the absolute best way to experience this. And plus, we only delude ourselves to think we're somehow above nature or that we have it controlled. We are a part of it like every other life form and to deny this I feel just must be causing a great degree of cognitive dissonance and deep, subconscious (or conscious) sense of lacking that people can't explain why they feel. For me, I moved my life to a place surrounded by nature that has a great sense of loving community, a town of about 74k people, combines the best of as city and small town. Now that I spend so much time outdoors being part of nature, and experiencing a community that cares about its other members, my level of fulfillment has gone so far up, and my sense of weird, seemingly sourceless anxiety and depression has all but disappeared. I finally feel like I'm living the way I'm supposed to.

 

[Samulson]

I believe that spirituality is a natural occurrence stemming from the personal quest of the individual for answers to questions that are not satisfied through conventional or mundane means. For describing a connection to something that lies beyond self and objective reality. Ultimately, a connection to something that lies beyond mortal life, to something that can satisfy the ego's need for continuation of it's existence, and justify that existence in the first place.

Of course, then you start running into non-linear time, infinite parallel dimensions, and all sorts of other space/time shenanigans .

 

[CosmicG]

So many interesting connections and theories brought up in this thread The more answers we have, the more questions we seem to come up with. In my opinion one of the main things pulling the human race away from spiritual connection is technology. Humans are a social species, and most of us depend on others for support during times of crisis and just generally speaking. So of course we would develop something like the Internet with the intentions of bringing us closer to everyone and everything. But is that really what technology has done? Was this even the true motive to begin with speaking of the development of technology and communications? I think not.

Nature brings us closer to who/what we are as a living organism, and connects us with Mother Earth, the creator of everything. We all come from the same matter, therefore we are all one. Technology does nothing but distract us from these facts. Society keeps us busy working like slaves in order to make sure the wheels keep turning, feeding the machines ran by the rich. There is no room to think, to breathe, to create. By the end of a long day you are to exhausted to. Drink coffee in the morning to wake up, work, drink alcohol/take prescription medications to sleep, maybe an Anti-depressant to help you learn how to accept this meaningless existence, repeat.

Of course mental illness will strike those not blind to the true reality of the world. It has me. I work a job I hate every day to continue to survive and live the comfortable lifestyle desired by myself and loved ones because there are no other options. Kids are born into these types of environments and are infected by this sick world consumed by consumerism.

Indigenous cultures have far less then other more technologically advanced ones, yet seem much more happy and content with their lives and the way things are. They have less to worry of think about. Just living. They appreciate the simple things, living life without the mindless interruption of things such as the Internet, media, and brainwashed culture which really isn't even a culture at all, at least not where I live. Just a mix of everyone doing their own things with no interest in anything but themselves and their interests.

Perhaps I will have more to say on this subject later. Their certainly is quite a bit to think about.

 

[explodinguniverse]

Science is a way of understanding the world we live in, and is also a way of connecting with nature via observation. I think for many people that this faith in science fulfills the need to understand the world in much the same way as spirituality or religion.

I'm both spiritual and scientific. I'm happy to have faith in things either with or without evidence, but both those sides of me are fulfilling a very similar need, to make sense of my surroundings and create meaning (however incorrect i am) to describe my conscious state.

 

[Xorkoth]

Science is certainly taking the place of religion in some... it has its own dogmas for sure. For me, I always try to keep in mind that we could be totally wrong about anything we think we know. If you look back in history we've been wrong about so many "facts", so many times. It would be arrogant to think we have it all figured out now. At the same time though, science has been used in reliable, practical ways to bring us so much.

So many interesting connections and theories brought up in this thread The more answers we have, the more questions we seem to come up with. In my opinion one of the main things pulling the human race away from spiritual connection is technology. Humans are a social species, and most of us depend on others for support during times of crisis and just generally speaking. So of course we would develop something like the Internet with the intentions of bringing us closer to everyone and everything. But is that really what technology has done? Was this even the true motive to begin with speaking of the development of technology and communications? I think not.

Nature brings us closer to who/what we are as a living organism, and connects us with Mother Earth, the creator of everything. We all come from the same matter, therefore we are all one. Technology does nothing but distract us from these facts. Society keeps us busy working like slaves in order to make sure the wheels keep turning, feeding the machines ran by the rich. There is no room to think, to breathe, to create. By the end of a long day you are to exhausted to. Drink coffee in the morning to wake up, work, drink alcohol/take prescription medications to sleep, maybe an Anti-depressant to help you learn how to accept this meaningless existence, repeat.

Of course mental illness will strike those not blind to the true reality of the world. It has me. I work a job I hate every day to continue to survive and live the comfortable lifestyle desired by myself and loved ones because there are no other options. Kids are born into these types of environments and are infected by this sick world consumed by consumerism.

Indigenous cultures have far less then other more technologically advanced ones, yet seem much more happy and content with their lives and the way things are. They have less to worry of think about. Just living. They appreciate the simple things, living life without the mindless interruption of things such as the Internet, media, and brainwashed culture which really isn't even a culture at all, at least not where I live. Just a mix of everyone doing their own things with no interest in anything but themselves and their interests.

Perhaps I will have more to say on this subject later. Their certainly is quite a bit to think about.

I think technology CAN cause a decline in connection to other people and to nature, but it doesn't in and of itself do that. It seems to me that the decline in connection comes more from the culture that has sprung up around technology... for example, kids buried in their phones all the time, texting through family dinner, and so forth. I use technology, the Internet in particular, in a way that enriches my connections. Bluelight is a great example, through here I know so many like-minded people I wouldn't known otherwise. I use it to forge personal connections. Most of my best friends I have where I have settled I met first and got to know over the course of years on this forum, and now they're some of the most important people in my life. I simply have no interest in immersing myself in technology to the detriment of human connection. I spend as much time in nature as possible (and that's a lot since I live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth). I use technology as a tool but I'm always aware of the core of what life is. I think it should be possible to shift to using it that way as a culture too.

 

[-=SS=-]

The issue with technology is that it has advanced exponentially whilst our social and moral evolution has continued to develop at a more human pace. Advances in technology generally had a buffer of time to allow more gentle dissemination and integration into our human fabric, whereas today technology is rapidly evolving and being introduced with little time buffer at all. If you look back towards the Victorian era and the industrial revolution when all of this began to kick off (prior to electricity) we had scholars and men of insight writing, debating, talking about the pros and cons of these advances.. today we have them too but they're completely drowned out. Unfortunately it all happened so fast the insights of these men were lost against the tide of technological advancement, and now we are paying the price.

Im eagerly awaiting the introduction of better outdoor lighting technologies so that we may once again all enjoy the full night sky in our towns and cities. That disconnect from nature alone costs children quite dearly.

 

[Xorkoth]

Indeed. Also, a propensity to attempt to consciously separate from nature has been present in our culture for a very long time, well before the technological boom. It's partly religious (an attempt to separate ourselves from nature) and partly from fear, and likely other reasons I won't try to think of right now. Not all cultures are like that, but western culture seems to have that streak in it. We (as a culture, not as individuals necessarily) think of nature as our god-given resource to do what we want with. We cluster together in cities and attempt to "civilize" our environment. I think that the people who allow technology to further separate them from this are the people who were already doing that.

 

[Solitude_within]

Doesn't add much to the discussion.....but I used to have a book called 'The God Part of the Brain' by Matthew Alper. It's not the most technical or innovative text, but it gives a pretty decent overview of how and why humans are hard-wired to recognize the infinite and how we therefore have spiritual and religious experiences and outlooks. For me, it was a pretty enlightening text to read some 10 or so years ago. Just thought I'd mention it

 

[Ninae]

Yes, this subject is also quite well covered in Theosophy.

I've read there are some old souls who have more or less completed their personality development, and are very advanced on those levels, but haven't awakened spiritually yet. They are very intelligent and powerful and can become dangerous political leaders and do a lot of harm in this world. Then there are those who are more high-consciousness but unable to be successful in this world and have many problems, like social problems, etc.

They also say you bring with you what you have achieved into the next incarnation, so if you've achieved some intellectual development you will start out with the same mental body you leave this life with, but you can also regress or be led astray and forget about what you have learnt (well, not really, it just gets pushed into the back of your consciousness for some time).

 

[ForEverAfter]

I haven't read the thread, but I thought I'd add some thoughts.

I believe spirituality kick-started our species.

We can observe it being a more important element in primitive societies, and less important in developed societies...
So, I assume that we don't "need" it anymore.

It isn't sad that people aren't spiritual, IMO.
It's a bit lonely, being a spiritual person in a world largely absent of spirituality.
But, we - drug users - are the modern equivalent of shamans.
If there was no need for spirituality, then we wouldn't be here.

Drugs created religion.
Time destroyed religion.
Yet, drugs keep showing us a path to God (or whatever you want to call it).

Modern drugs, though, I'm not sure they show us God anymore.
The popular drugs, these days, aren't spiritual.
Because, I guess, we can pick and choose...
And most people don't want God.

The ancient drugs - Amanita Muscaria, Iboga, Ayahuasca - they are unavoidably spiritual.
I've never head of anyone abusing them.

MDMA is closer to alcohol, than (it is to) God.
It used to bother me that the popular drugs were indulgent / "God-less".
But, that's just the way shit is.

God, I think, shows himself only when necessary.
(Everything is precisely as it should be.)

That begs the question: why me?
Why did fate deliver me here?

Am I a prophet? Are you?
Is that why we're here?
(I don't know...)

 

[Xorkoth]

I've often thought that if I lived in a culture with the role equivalent to a shaman, that it would be what I did. Prophet? No, I think it's being an inquisitive person able to see things in a different way than most and communicate that to others. For me I had an intense spiritual awakening from mushrooms and it led to a great amount of understanding and unfolding of changes in myself. Since then I've done a lot more psychedelics, sometimes for spirituality, sometimes for fun, for a period of time I abused them... I was addicted to opiates for 10 years too. Now I feel like, whether I continue to use psychedelics or not, my perspective and mind have changed as a result of those experiences and the subsequent efforts I put in. It's just the way I always experience life now, and I feel like it helps me to have a lot of insight into ideas and people and be in tune with myself and passionate about my life. And I try to help others gain understanding as well.

Incidentally, what got me out of my long addiction/shitty life rut was ibogaine. There is something special about the plants that are psychedelic. There are also a number of really beautiful synthetics.