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Spirituality 1: What Is Spirituality?

Writer's picture: Chris SparkChris Spark

Updated: Jul 25, 2024

This is part 1 of a longer essay I recently wrote about spirituality, which I'll be posting here in installments. Subscribe to be notified when the next section is posted. Please like, leave comments, and wire money.


 

The foundational insight of spiritual wisdom is that you are not your thoughts, feelings, body, role, or situation in life. You are not your opinion about politics, your hard work, your generosity, or your logic; you are not your anger or sadness, or your arms, legs, eyes, or ears; you’re not your accomplishments or your failures; you’re not a dentist, a truck-driver, a writer, a bum, a senator, a divorcee, a Puerto-Rican, a German, a Christian, a man, a woman, a trans, a mother, father, son, or daughter. You are not anything anyone has told you you are, nor anything you think you are. You are not, in other words, your conditions.[1]

 

This can make spirituality seem like something radically divorced from our lives. Some who call themselves “spiritual” reinforce this idea by affecting a kind of wispiness, as if they’re floating above everything. But paradoxically, true spirituality manifests itself powerfully in our tie-our-shoelaces, wipe-our-noses, everyday reality. Otherwise, why should we care?

 

This separation of some essential “you” from all your conditions is often called detachment. In its everyday usage, that word suggests a lack of emotion, which we also call denial. But true spiritual detachment is not denial. We could even say they are opposites. Denial condemns; detachment accepts. Denial resists; detachment allows. Denial closes our eyes; detachment opens them.

 

More fundamentally though, spiritual detachment isn’t the opposite of anything. It steps away even from the concept of “opposite.” It accepts, allows, and sees everything, including denial itself.

 

This can make spirituality seem amoral. It sounds like detachment says “fine” to everything, even murder. In a way, it does. But truly accepting something we deem negative—along with all the feelings that come with it—does not perpetuate harmful actions. It’s denial that perpetuates harmful actions.


 

 


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Footnotes

[1] Who you are is a much bigger question—as big as the universe—and more challenging to discuss.



 
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© 2018 by Chris Dingman
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