Living Spiritually
by Allie Rowbottom
Somewhere around the Second Century B.C., the Indian poet Patanjali wrote of inspiration, "dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be." Wise words and ones that make me wonder about the difference between religion, inspiration, spirituality, and our thoughts.
I spent the past weekend at the Kripalu center of western Massachusetts. The place is primarily a Yoga retreat but my mother and I attended specifically for a workshop with Byron Katie, a renowned author and teacher. Sitting in a large and light filled room in the presence of Katie, a woman who exudes the same inspired energy referred to by Patanjali, I felt myself the equivalent of a spiritual sponge, eager to soak up every last bit of enlightened material available.
The work we did over the weekend focused on our thoughts--constructions of our minds that are often deep-seated and central to the ways in which we live our lives. It may seem that this kind of work has little to do with spirituality or religious practice, but if you think about it, organized religion depends on its followers adhering to certain ideas or beliefs. So in essence, regardless of our respective faiths, we all follow religions of thought.
I wonder, be they religious or otherwise, how many of our thoughts are destructive to our own inner peace? Who would we be without the upsetting and self-doubting beliefs that color our lives? "I'm not good enough", "he didn't call, he must think I'm too loud", "my parents never loved me," and so forth. Oftentimes thoughts like these drive us to join a religion as a means of finding peace, and sometimes that very religion requires some sort of investment in ideas of past suffering, thereby perpetuating the same sad thoughts which encouraged their thinker to seek peace in the first place. It's a complicated and vicious cycle to be sure and one that can be stopped by one person only, and it isn't a priest, a rabbi, a monk, God, your mother, husband or friend. A peaceful mind and freedom from victimized thinking can come from only one source: the thinkers themselves.
These days, in the arena of spiritual practice, the focus seems to have been turned primarily to its organized form. It is in no way deconstructive, but can have the affect of skewing the focus away from what religion is meant to affect in the first place. I turn again to the quote that opened this piece and ask readers to think of a moment of inspiration. Isn't that what all this devout thought is meant to create? Peace and positive energy, a personhood who is living fully in tune with spirit; oftentimes, it seems to have the opposite affect.
The things which prove inspiring to individuals will inevitably be different; we are each unique, thus our points of pleasure and excitement will be as well. There are, however, certain universals which I have come to see as manifestations of spirituality themselves rather than simply expressions of it or sentiments of how spiritual thought makes one feel. Over time, cross-culturally and without limitation, the written word, art, literature, and music have unified us through their collective inspirational energy. They are by no means the only avenues of spirituality, but they are certainly well-worn roads. I write this segment from Italy, a country where inspiration flows like wine and shows itself through the magnificent artwork and architecture which colors the cities and by extension, the lives of the people as well. Everyday acts of creation are plentiful here and I completely understand why. Standing in front of the Duomo in Firenze, or gazing up at
Michelangelo's David, I feel in my own heart an inkling of the very flow of energy experienced by the artists themselves so many centuries ago.
I find that in the presence of these great works I am a woman renewed, awash in a sense of my own self, a Spiritual awareness of my place amongst great art and beautiful thought. I feel unified by the congruence of my beliefs with the beauty of other people's expressions of their own. Perhaps we do follow a spirituality of thought, expressed through disparate avenues and explored along different paths. Where some end up at Church, others find themselves at a yoga retreat and still others find themselves sitting in the subway, smiling at the simple joy found in watching the lives of others. We are all spiritual beings having a human experience, each of us expressing it through different avenues, unified by our common thoughts and perceptions.
