Not OP but as an atheist for me spiritualism was made concrete when after a meditation session I intuitively knew and felt that myself and the world were the same. I watched at some familiar trees through my windows and felt I and them were the same and actually existed. This sensation brought me great joy and calmness. And then it passed, I was myself again, and the world was again separate from me.
This was some two decades ago. I've never felt anything like that after that, but the memory of the sensation is still very strong.
No drugs. Just the most basic 'lie-down-relaxed-and-watch-at-a-dot' exercise. And wham.
It was pretty cool. I was an adolescent back then and I had decided several years before that logically religion was total BS. Had I been religious I'm sure I would have interpreted my experience as being in direct communion with God. But, I interpreted it as a neurological response to my meditation - which did not make the experience any less spiritual.
The experience did not reveal anything new to me, but it made me feel the truth that we all are one and connected, philosophically speaking.
Feeling is something purely logical discourse seldom provides. This experience was pure feeling. Like, I intuitively feel my legs are part of me. I felt the whole world was part of me. Now, this is at the same time true - or - false. We are made of the same atoms and are interconnected through our actions and the laws of physics. At the same time, it's a bit silly to describe oneself extending beyond ones body. So, one can choose was I enlightened by a fundamental truth or was I just a bit silly after a brief session of neurohacking.
Well, people used to interpret experiences with hallucinogenic substances as religious/spiritual (some still do). Would you say that your own experience fundamentally differs? Obviously you didn't ingest chemicals but other than that, is the end result substantially different?
The original question, to which I answered, was, that what does non-religious spirituality mean? I described what a spiritual experience felt like to me.
So, I suppose the key here is the personal experience.
I'm sure there are a lot of ways people can have deep spiritual experiences without them interpreting it as communicating with divine forces.
I didn't mean to try to belittle you experience in any way.
The one thing I am tying to validate / invalidate is weather "spiritual" as used by non religious people, is mere hacking of our delicate physical and chemical machinery.
Uh, no, I didn't understand it as belitteling. I think you raised a fair point in the context of this discussion. I don't think we have very good syntax yet to discuss these things.
I don't know, but I have a gut feeling the spiritual awe one gets from one religious sacrament or another and getting it through other means are the same thing.
Effectively, the way I see it, religions claim something that is universal and publicly available as under their domain. It's like a guy came and wanted to resell the air you breath back at you.
Similarly I feel drug afficionados are sometimes overselling their hobby as the one key to the mysteries of the universe.
I don't mind if someone is religious or likes to do drugs. What I don't like, is that one or another claims something that can gained by other means as belonging to their dominion.
The major religions are especially intransigent and arrogant about this in their creed - claiming things that belong to all men and women to belong only to one sect or another - thus poisoning themselves doubly by first trying to fool those outside of their creed, and then being intellectually dishonest of their own experiences.
> The one thing I am tying to validate / invalidate is weather "spiritual" as used by non religious people, is mere hacking of our delicate physical and chemical machinery.
It really is, if our minds are entirely a manifestation of the brain.
We all carry around a default metaphysics -- a deep belief structure about the nature of reality. It is possible to transcend these beliefs in a way that allows you to grok (not just understand) that they're not supported in the way we normally assume. That transcendence is often accompanied by an overwhelming gratitude, joy, awe, and wonder that are normally inaccessible.
Of course, our belief structures almost always come rushing right back, and so we interpret the experience in terms of our metaphysics ("oh, it was just brain chemicals"), but part of us understands the sense in which this is just a story.
Do you think humans are exclusively entitled to "grok"? Can ants transcend as well or was reallity waiting for us to come along and access the normally inaccessible?
I honestly have no idea whether ants are conscious let alone can become enlightened. I try to treat them well but I'm not planning on teaching them to meditate any time soon :)
During "the inaccessible," assumptions about an objective or pre-existing reality fall apart as well. From within the standard materialist metaphysics it seems rather unlikely that we're special (or that meditation even does anything "transcendent" besides jiggling around some neurotransmitters).
Its basically about why spiritual things are good for you, and how the feelings you experience during such spiritual things do not need religious / supernatural explanations.
It's different from psychology as it doesn't try to explain / cure things like child development, depression, bipolar disorders or most of the other multitude of subjects that psychology works with.
I would say its an inquiry into the nature of your conscious experience, using meditation. Most meditation seems tied up with religion to greater or lesses extents. Sam Harris tries to do away with that.
Some people have already posted his insight meditation which is worth trying. (Maybe try a bit of more basic breathing meditation first so you realize how distracted you are getting with your thoughts before trying - you will likely get a lot more out of it if you can keep your mind from jumping around).
I would say the difference with psychology is that psychology is based on external observations and predictions, while "spirituality" is your own internal experience. They are completely different.
