Spirituality is an AWARENESS

In my first article I said that spirituality is :

an AWARENESS of depth, complexity & time in everything,
an ATTENTION to that which is inside me, around me, beyond me,
a MOVEMENT of meaning making beyond the ego to the eternal and ultimate,
A PRACTICE of doing, being and belonging

So I will begin to unpack the first of these.

Spirituality is about an AWARENESS of depth, complexity & time in everything.

DEPTH – nothing is as it seems, there is always a different dimension, another corner I cannot see around, a deeper meaning, perspective, experience, understanding, moment. I cannot say “I have the truth, I understand or have attained it all”. This is spirituality. But strangely spirituality is immediate, available and readily ‘here’.

A spiritual response to this profundity could be wonder or fear.

COMPLEXITY – everything is more complex than it first appears. Nothing is ordinary or straight forward or easily accessible. Although the complexity can never be unravelled we try to find understanding but it will take effort and patience. Spirituality as complexity (especially linked with depth) is also simple and straightforward.

A spiritual response to this mystery could be happy to be lost or attempts to control.

TIME – Time seems to stand still and also rush by in a moment. Often, time seems to be linear – to move in a straight line, from ‘then’ till ‘now’. Some say time in cyclical (not sure what they mean about that – does time travel in a circle? We do not go back to the beginning surely?). But I do think often in the world of spirituality, the past (and people from the past) can seems to be so much in the present and sometimes it seems that eternity brushes up close to the present. So I think I am saying that awareness to the ‘present’ is the most important – but in this moment we know ourselves shaped and accompanied by the past and urged into an eternity. In my spirituality the awareness of time is an awareness that there is an eternity. There will be many who cannot accept the idea of eternity. But I ‘know’ there is an eternity because everything around me in the cycle of death and life speaks to me of eternity. I have seen so many people die and leave their bodies. And I look around and see values and virtues which most surely are eternal, I mean they are so powerful they have an existence beyond this time and this world – like love and courage.

A spiritual response to this rhythm of time and eternity is stillness or panic.