Read an Excerpt
The Power of the New Spirituality
How to Live a Life of Compassion and Personal Fulfillment
By William Bloom Theosophical Publishing House
Copyright © 2011 William Bloom
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8356-3046-7
CHAPTER 1
YOUR CONNECTION WITH THE WONDER AND ENERGY OF LIFE
* * *
Out of everything in this book and of all the strategies and concepts of the new spirituality, these are perhaps the five most important words: What works best for you? What kinds of situation and circumstances most easily melt your boundaries, make you more permeable, touch your heart, open your awareness, and connect you with the hum, the wonder and energy of life? Particular environments and circumstances affect you, touch and open you, awaken your spiritual knowing and intuition—and you need to recognize and know what these circumstances are that work for you.
One possible example is the way you might respond to landscape, nature, or water. The ambience of these situations may take you into a different mood—moderately different, but an altered state of consciousness nonetheless. In a quiet and discreet way there is a subtle shift in your awareness and the quality of your experience as you connect with the hum of existence. It feels good. You regain some sanity, some harmony, some focus, some trust. Some of your concerns melt away or are placed in perspective. You have softly and instinctively switched channels and moved into connection.
This is normal spiritual experience. A sense of connection. A change in ambience. A healthy and natural shift in your consciousness and mood. Perhaps very subtle. Perhaps just a whisper.
This minor shift may just seem to be something ordinary to you, like a brief period of relaxation or a lifting of your mood, but ponder more carefully what happens within in those circumstances. Why is there this shift? What has actually happened within you? Surely your heart has been touched and your consciousness expanded, a slight nuance of greater compassion and awareness. More soulful.
Occasionally, people protest to me that they never have experiences like this, but then I ask them if they have experienced special moments of knowing that there is something essentially good and wonderful about life, perhaps, for example, when they have been in a friendly crowd when their football team has won, or lovemaking with their beloved, or lost in a hobby, or with a team of colleagues in full and creative flow, or with a glass of wine and a wonderful book. Finally, they hear something that does indeed work for them—and they smile with recognition.
WHEN DOES IT HAPPEN FOR YOU?
Creation, existence, the cosmos, the natural world—all this is stunning and awesome. It is sensational. I use the word sensational here in its true meaning—there are sensations and feelings when you experience your connection with all that is. No wonder, for you are part of it. Every cell in your body is alive with it.
But the volume and amplitude of this sense of connection varies. Sometimes the experience may not be there at all for you. At other times it is subtle. And sometimes this sensational experience is obvious, even rapturous and ecstatic.
The difficulty, of course, is that we are human and forget that we live in this extraordinary cosmos; or we ignore it or are too numb to feel it. We are so caught up in the stimulation of our daily lives, so engaged in our immediate circumstances of family, relationships, career, health, and media that we stop noticing the magic of existence. We may also be deadened by the noise and pollution of our urban environments, the endless information, and the drudge of work. There may too be so much stuff in our lives that we simply cannot see beyond it. And of course we may also suffer bad moods that may last far too long, even denying that life and creation are in any way good.
All this is not an intellectual issue such as "Do you believe in God?" It is simply about remembering and coming home to your awareness that there is a wonder to life. But people have this awareness in different ways and in different circumstances, and it is important that we understand what the pioneering psychologist and student of religious experience William James a hundred years ago called the "varieties of religious experience."
The most crucial thing I have learned in all my classes and research is that everyone without exception has these experiences, but you may not recognize you are having them. There has surely been a moment, or moments, when you have been caught by the beauty or wonder or magic of life. This moment may have been a quiet time alone in landscape or watching your children or being caught by the poignancy and emotion of music. There are a thousand different times when you may have sensed and intuited and felt and thought that there is something more to life than just surface appearances.
When has your heart moved? When have you felt an inner knowing, a haunting or even a wild ecstatic inspiration that there is a marvel and vitality to all life and creation?
These are important experiences. These are the times when, even if you do not know it, you are in a state of connection with the underlying mystery and brilliance of creation, when the usual boundaries of your sense of self become more relaxed and permeable and you feel your relationship with all that is.
Most of the formal research from institutions such as the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre, the UK's major academic research body studying spiritual experiences, suggests that nature is the major environment in which people have a sense of spiritual connection. But I have found that if the question is asked in a very open way—especially if we start with the proposition that spiritual connection is natural—then the list is far longer and more varied. I have asked this question in hundreds of classes and conversations and these are the kinds of response I have heard:
• I thought that kind of connection only happens to saints in caves. But it happens for me when I'm playing football with my son. And when I'm cooking. I kind of knew something was happening when I went walking by the sea or in the hills. I felt something special. I couldn't put it in words.
• I just need to get away from everyone and everything. I need a completely quiet space. I just sit and wait. I pray that the children leave me alone! And then slowly I begin to feel like myself again and something shifts and I feel all right and that the world is good. I like gardening, too.
• Mad dance! I have to dance. I love raving. It takes me into a state of being completely ecstatic and connected with spirit.
• Reading is very important to me. I also like puzzles. Sitting there, pencil in my mouth, I go into a sort of reverie. The world feels good.
• It doesn't matter what I'm doing. It comes over me unexpectedly. Suddenly I'm just aware of everything, and my breathing is very calm. Is this what they call mindfulness?
• With my animals. I love them.
• I am most deeply in my experience of connection when I'm caring for someone who is in pain. When I witness suffering something moves in my heart, and, it's strange, I can feel the beauty of life too.
Now we'll look at the first of several exercises that will appear regularly throughout the book. You have several choices as you encounter them. You may just read them as part of the ongoing flow of the text. You may choose also to pause for a couple of minutes and give them full attention. Or you may prefer just to read them and come back to them later at your leisure.
Exercise when does it happen for you?
Pause for a few moments and look back over your life.
There have been times and circumstances when you have felt a sense of life's magic.
This experience may have been very obvious or very subtle.
It may have lasted a while or touched you for only a few seconds.
Notice and be aware of when this has happened for you.
GATEWAYS TO CONNECTION
What follows now is a list I have put together of the different "Gateways" and circumstances in which many people most easily experience their spiritual connection. They appear in no particular order, except alphabetical. You may not relate to them all.
Look through the entries and see which of them resonates with your own experience. Do not be concerned about whether or not your sense of connection with the magic of life is loud and obvious. Your heart and consciousness may be touched only lightly. The experience may be very subtle.
As you remember which circumstances work for you, pause and remember your feelings and thoughts at the time.
WHAT IS YOUR SPIRITUAL STYLE?
You can see here that we are liberating spiritual experience and spirituality from the idea that it happens only in religious or sacred circumstances. It may indeed be the case that prayer or religious singing touches your heart and opens you to the wonder of creation, but it may equally be the case that just sitting there watching television is also a circumstance that works as a helpful gateway for you. Certainly in my life I experience moments of connection and heartfelt awareness when I am watching television with my family.
I am not here promoting television as a spiritual practice, but I am saying that it is useful to liberate ourselves from fixed ideas about what is and what is not spiritual. It is not the thing in itself that matters—prayer or television, temple or shopping mall—it is what happens in our hearts and awareness that is important.
But not only are there many different circumstances in which we may experience spirituality, there are also different styles, and we need to be aware of them because these differences can sometimes create confusion and conflict.
You may be moved by music or dance, but what is the style of music you enjoy and in what way do you engage with it? Singing Gregorian chants has a very different contemplative style from emotional gospel singing or tribal chanting. A Tibetan Buddhist monk might be very comfortable with the atmosphere of Christian monastic chant, and vice versa, but neither of these contemplative styles might be comfortable with the noise of a more exuberant form of worship, whether it be Christian, Jewish, or Hare Krishna.
I have not developed a classification of different spiritual styles, but it is obvious that there are different styles and it is good to be aware of them, because otherwise they may stimulate cultural prejudices and personality clashes. Meditators may be wary of the noisy and joyful. If you prefer a physical style, such as dance or martial arts, you may dislike the more studious approaches, just as people who connect through service and healing may distrust those who prefer isolation.
It is also good for us to stretch our repertoire and taste different styles. It might be useful for a dignified meditator to try out wild dancing, just as it might be good for a wild dancer to experiment with being still.
Exercise spiritual styles
In the list below are some of the different styles and temperaments in which you may practice your spirituality and spiritual connection. It is useful to review them and notice the ones that match your character and temperament.
It is also useful to notice the styles that you feel you might like to explore. Notice too the ones you may have a prejudice against and therefore need perhaps to develop some knowledge and tolerance.
THE ONGOING BACKGROUND HUM
Traditionally, religions tend to suggest that spiritual experience is rare and only for a special few, but here we are reversing that approach. The new spirituality, along with many mystical and shamanic traditions, reframes the idea and suggests that we are perpetually inside a spiritual experience, and all that ever changes is whether or not we are conscious of it. We are like fish in water. But are we aware that we are in it? We hardly notice, for example, the air we breathe or the force of gravity that holds us to the earth, yet they are constantly there. We are also, just because we exist, part of the wonder.
In every new group I teach, I ask whether there are people there who, from childhood, have always been conscious of the fact that there is something special and magical about life—and never lost that knowing. Always several people nod and raise their hands.
There are also other people in these groups who have a moment of revelation as they realize they too have always sensed the spiritual dimension of life, but had never consciously acknowledged it. They just took their experience for granted and did not think it was anything special. They certainly did not label it as "spiritual," but they always had a certain trust in the beauty and magic of creation. They could always feel, despite the challenges and troubles of daily life, this sense of a wider context. There is a simplicity and purity to their experience. Their spiritual experience is also calm, like a subtle but consistent background hum.
You may also be one of those people who have never lost their sense of connection and have felt it, like a soft and ongoing hum in the background, for the whole of your life. I have one friend, Karen, who has always been interested in personal development and spirituality, but, for years, every time she heard people getting excited about their spiritual breakthroughs she did not understand their excitement. This was because from childhood she had always known and felt there was something magical and benevolent about life. For her, it was the most obvious thing in the world. She just could not imagine that other people did not have that same sense. She had maintained her sense of connection despite life's usual challenges—an errant husband, single parenting two boys, financial anxiety.
"But what happens," I asked, "when you've had a row or the boys are playing up or you're exhausted? Surely you forget about the benevolent hum of life then?"
"Of course I do," she agreed, "but, as soon as things are settled, it all comes back to me. I mean, how can I avoid it? It's everything really, isn't it?"
THE NATURE AND DEPTH OF THE EXPERIENCE
If we use food and nourishment as a metaphor, there is often a false expectation that the meal—spirituality—needs always to be some kind of banquet or high cuisine. But meals and food come in many forms: a cup of tea, a raw carrot, beans on toast, nibbling throughout the day, chocolates, and ice cream. And then there are sit-down cooked meals and visits to restaurants and Sunday lunches. Not to mention the cuisines of different regions, from Yorkshire bangers and mash to Tokyo sushi.
It is obvious that food comes in different forms. So too do spirituality and spiritual experience. Our spiritual connections, as I described above, may come in any number of different circumstances and styles, colored and formed by culture and temperament.
But, as well as these different circumstances and styles, spiritual experiences also vary in their duration, volume, and quality. The most highly profiled spiritual experiences are dramatic and peak moments such as Paul meeting God on the road to Damascus or Buddha achieving full enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. The academic literature on religious experience is nearly always focused on these intense and life-changing encounters with the numinous.
But there are also many people who do not have these intense moments of numinous awakening but, as I described above, live with an ongoing background hum of the magic, their hearts almost permanently in a gentle space of compassion. Brian Thorne, a leading professor of spiritual counseling, describes, for example, how, since he was a child, he always knew that he was loved and in a universe that was benevolent.
Others of us, however, may be touched intermittently and only subtly with just a fleeting moment of recognition, a subtle intimation. In a bad mood, for instance, you may glimpse something that momentarily touches your heart and connects you with the magic of life. For just a brushing second you are reminded of life's beauty. You may too, for example, be in the middle of a busy office job and someone cracks a wry joke or says something insightful; or you see a cloud against blue sky through the window; or you hear a bar of music. In the midst of that hectic day, a gap opens up in the momentum and a knowing that there is a wonder to life flickers within you. Your soul lights up. And then you get on with your work.
You can see then that there are several different aspects to anyone's experience of spiritual connection and that each of these aspects will vary greatly. For the sake of clarity, we can summarize them:
Your gateways: the kind of circumstances and triggers, such as landscape, dance, prayer, and so on.
Your style: the type of character and mood, such as fiery, contemplative, devotional, and so on.
The volume: the power and intensity of the experience, ranging from an ecstatic meltdown to a soft brush of knowing.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Power of the New Spirituality by William Bloom. Copyright © 2011 William Bloom. Excerpted by permission of Theosophical Publishing House.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
