Engaging with something bigger than ourselves
Much of the time the focus on life is ourselves, protecting what we have, looking to achieve more and shifting our priorities to advance what is best for us personally. But from time to time, we also experience those moments of wonder, awe and mystery. Faced with something of outstanding beauty, excellence or goodness, we identify something outside of ourselves and our personal concerns to experience a sense of the universal and ideal. This insight – there is something bigger - moves us towards the challenge of finding a deeper meaning in the midst of what can often seem arbitrary, random and pointless.
This challenge is not simply the “contemplation of the infinite”. It is the ongoing task to find a spiritual purpose and live an authentic life based on enduring values and ethical principles. It is not the theoretical acknowledgement of the “cosmos”; it is the need to connect with deeper values personally and directly.
No challenge in life is easy. But this task represents perhaps the most difficult. On the one hand, the challenge can be met through a commitment to a belief system, the acceptance of an established orthodoxy and the observance of specific religious practices. Fulfilling for many, for others this represents a step towards dogma that can become blind faith and the intolerance of others’ beliefs. For others “the divine” is dismissed quickly through an appeal to the power of reason and scientific progress.
Meeting and overcoming this life challenge:
Experiencing a Sense of Wonder |
The spiritual dimension |
Developing moral character and integrity |
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Experiencing a Sense of Wonder
Are you ever surprised? Are you ever struck by the sheer marvel and
mystery of this planet in which we find ourselves? Of our past, the
extraordinary story of our evolutionary process and how we came to
be who we are? Our present and the richness and diversity of our
civilisation? And our future and how our ingenuity might create a
world we cannot now envision?
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
History, Myths and Legends
The study of history is as old as history itself. We look to the past
for answers about the present and the future. And the study of our
history takes us out of our immediate day to day concerns to connect
us to the broader sweep of mankind.
“A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.”
James Feibleman
www.britannia.com: a vast body of national mythology and local legend
www.thinkquest.org: superb site with masses of stuff, including myths in various cultures and from different parts of the world.
The Beauty of the World, Science
and the Universe
“My suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose,
but queerer than we can suppose.” There may come a time when
we know everything. In the meantime, there is much to astonish us, not least
the fact that we can make any sense at all out of how the universe works. And
the more we discover, the more astonishing things become.
“The more we learn, the more we are – or ought to be dumfounded. Our proper business is to learn more and more and separate our mere ignorance from genuine mystery.”
Lewis Thomas
“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Douglas Adams
www.scirus.com: the most comprehensive science-specific search engine on the Internet
www.nhm.ac.uk: the site of the Natural History museum
www.francisfrith.com: archive containing over 330,000 photographs of some 7,000 towns and villages throughout Britain with facility to purchase prints
www.scicentral.com: the gateway to the best scientific research news sources
The Spiritual Dimension
Are we living in a “material world”, a world governed by
the laws of physics, full stop? Is that it? Or is there something else;
a realm of mystery and miracle and ultimate “truth” which
is unknowable to science?
“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
Martin Luther King, Jr
Reconciling Faith and Dogma
“Faith is the assurance of what we hope for; it is our conviction about
things we cannot see.” Faith and the religious impulse are made up three
components, a cosmology (a story of the universe and our place within it);
spirituality (our personal response to the mystery of the world); and a liturgy
(the practices and rituals which express our sense of awe). The challenge:
selecting a faith with the right mix of the three that doesn’t become
dogma.
“Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve.”
Lillian Smith
“Every dogma has its day, but ideals are eternal.”
Israel Zangwill
www.valuesofthewise.com: bridging the gap between the spiritual and the worldly by bringing to life the timeless wisdom of the great thinkers
www.buzzle.com: articles and links around spirituality
Prayer and Meditation
There are different kinds of prayer (request, praise, thanks, forgiveness)
and many forms of meditation. Fundamental to both is the willingness
to step out of personal and immediate concerns to connect to something
bigger than us.
“Do you wish to find out the really sublime? Repeat the Lord's Prayer.”
Napoleon Bonaparte
“To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying.”
W H Auden
www.worldprayers.org: a listing of prayers by category and tradition
meditation-techniques.org: set of links and articles covering meditation
www.worldprayers.org: prayers written by the spiritual visionaries from all traditions
Choosing a Religion
Are some religious belief systems “better” than others?
What criteria do you use to find that faith which satisfies your spiritual
needs?
“Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're just making him madder and madder.”
Homer Simpson
“If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?”
Graham Greene
“A religion without the element of mystery would not be a religion at all.”
Edwin Lewis
www.meta-religion.com: every religion, sect and group you could ever imagine
www.buzzle.com: directories that list links to a broad range of resources on several religions, cults, sects, and other religious movements and organizations
www.beliefnet.com: teachers, guides and gurus
Developing Moral Character and Integrity
Are there any moral standards, norms for right and wrong that apply
anywhere and everywhere? Or are good and bad relative, only meaningful
when judged within a specific time and situation? Is there any “ought”?
“The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay
“It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.”
Alfred Adler
“If... you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.”
Catherine Aird
www.spiritualityhealth.com: people, practices, and the ideas of the current spiritual renaissance
www.thevirtues.org: a series of paintings embodying the essence of virtues with the world’s great spiritual and philosophical teachings.
www.josephsoninstitute.org: links to ethics centres, academic, business and work-place