Its a great thread to resurrect and a valid point.
Can someone help me understand the difference between spirituality and the subconscious, or just thoughts in the brain? There are times I look in awe at the vastness of space or the intricate detail of a flower, and I know that I am connected to it all. It feels special, it moves me. We are all made of star dust, as Carl Sagan said.
But doesn't all that come from the way the human mind is, from the physical electrons/neurons/whatever firing off in our brains, our own thoughts and feelings about what we sense with our physical five senses? If I watch a powerful film or read a powerful book it may make me see the world differently or think in a way I've never thought before, but how is it anything more than physical reactions? Sam Harris wrote about how it's just out of view most of the time, like the blind spot in the eye. It's always there but unless we focus on it we're usually unaware of it. Is it more than just looking at life from a different angle and in an unconventional way?
Can someone help me out in a way that doesn't sound too vague like 'Well you will know when it happens to you, it is a spiritual freshness that washes over you and lifts you up higher than your highest point.'
I know I am approaching this from a strictly Druidic point of view but I think spirituality is personal and depends on the individual - your feelings of interconnectedness are not rare and due to the fact that we are connected to the universe and everything in it. Its the movement or inspiration you describe that is often the first manifestation of a physical expression of spirituality. That inspiration can then often drive you forward in various ways, it can drive an innate creative sense so that you express yourself outwardly. It can also give you strength in adversity, it can open up new solutions to problems that you had previously not thought possible, it can be any one of these things, it can all of them together or more.
I know you may say that I have been vague here but in truth spirituality is impossible to quantify and is wide in its very nature.
Our spirituality should move us to think, to search, to appreciate, to develop a sense of wonder, to relentlessly pursue goals, to worship or to revere what we personally hold as sacred and it should move us to question, and personally I think it should push us to live in the now rather than seek forms of escapism that many 'religions' adhere to or promote. If your spirituality does all this and more, then it is doing its job!
G /|\
