Not right now, coz I can’t afford any journey right now other than anything business related , , , but I may be taking one sometime in the future, and I hope it’s soon.

More like a spiralitial journey. Going nowhere with good intentions.

I’m not religious.
I’m one of those people who would think our “journey” is whatever we want it to be.
I want mine to be as smile-filled, surrounded by family, Hug-filled, friendly and worthwhile – so that’s how I try to live my life. Some days I fail miserably but in the main, I’m doing pretty good.

The only spiritual journey I’m ever on is the journey home from work on a Friday, I pop into my local super market & pick up one of the many different single malt whiskeys they have to offer, I like to try a new one every week, I’ll enjoy it at my leisure over the weekend, That’s my religion in a nut shell!! Well, maybe a bottle… :-/ however, it’s starting to get a little repetitive, they only stock around ten brands!! Lol….

I’m agnostic. I’d just like to know if all this is random events or some sick cosmic joke. If there is some great “Cosmic Designer”, she/he/it has a sick sense of humor. Like Loki.

Yes I am.

once these stupid ‘shrooms kick in. . .

I’m on a lifelong epic quest to become as rational a person as humanly possible. Expunging personal biases, facing unpleasant truths about myself, overcoming the temptation to verbally beat those with certain ideas on the skull with a sledgehammer of condescending ire for being so bloody stupid.
The quest has its ups and downs.

I think that’s more or less the same thing as what you’re talking about. It’s a sort of mental self-improvement anyway.

I’m not sure if the journey I’m currently on is spiritual or not but I’d like to think it is. That lends a more appealing and intriguing aspect to the partially mundane life I’m currently living now. I suppose I could make it more spiritual if I was influenced by outside sources or I took steps (as long as they were legal) to introduce new and exciting elements into what I could call my “evolving dreamscape”.

Several years ago, I worked as a government scientist developing risk assessment protocols for clinical psychologists to use in predicting which prisoners coming out of prison were likely to commit certain kinds of serious crimes. However, I found out that my research was being misused for political purposes; that instead of being used to detect those rare individuals who are truly dangerous, it was being used to put away hundreds of low risk, non-dangerous persons in violation of their constitutional rights. It was even worse than that, the department was deliberately using methods that had no predictive value, was steering cases to psychologists who had known biases against the people they were interviewing, all to keep their $100 per hour gravy-train going.

I collected statistical data, documented the whole sordid business, and basically blew the whistle on the irregularities of the program. They put pressure on me to shut up, and when that didn’t work, they put pressure on my colleagues to say that my work wasn’t any good. And when that didn’t work, the agency got rid of the whole research section, claiming budgetary necessity. I found out that the much-touted protections for government whistle-blowers are non-existent. Instead of protecting people who come forward with evidence of wrong-doing, they take the side of those doing what is wrong, and they do their best to undermine, discredit and silence you.

The stress was more than I could bear, so I took early retirement. I got into drugs; I got busted; and despite the fact that it was in my late 50s, it was my first offense, and it was drug possession charge, I got sent to prison. (Basically, they threw the book at me because I refused to betray my friends.) In prison I found callous indifference to suffering, corruption, bad faith, and outright cruelty on a truly monumental scale. The experience so sickened and disgusted me, I that I decided to make no further contribution to society until it something was done address this crime against humanity.

Since getting out, I have spent my time researching the American criminal justice system, and I have found that the United States is the most punitive society on earth. It has 6% of the world’s population, but between 26% and 30% of the world’s prisoners. Not only does the U.S. imprison 5–12 times more people than other industrial democracies, it also punishes them much more severely. We are one of the few developed nations in the world that still has the death penalty; indeed, we are one of 6 countries that executes children—and in fact, we actually execute more children than all other countries combined. We are the only country that sentences children to life in prison without possibility of parole. We are the only country in the world that sends mentally ill people to prison rather than treatment, and the whole system is shot through with racism and cruelty. For every white man in prison there are 7 blacks, even though whites and blacks commit the same amount of time on a per capita basis.

Overt torture and medical neglect amounting to cruel and unusual punishment are commonplace. On any given day, 44,000 prisoners in America are subject to “solitary confinement,” most of them for lengths of time that drive them mad.

The problem, however, is not with the prison system per se, but with the society that allows human beings to be degraded and dehumanized out of an emotional fit of vengeance. There is a king of spiritual crisis in America, where one one-third to one-half of the population don’t believe the remainder to be “real Americans” and so is not willing to grant them the same rights of personhood. We seem to be a society that no longer believes that every human being has intrinsic worth, and that people who go astray are not worth redeeming. I encounter them in forums (not so much here) advocating the most extreme acts of brutality and sadism toward “criminals”—advocating things like the mass murder of prisoners to save themselves from the expense of having to feed them. This is the spiritual rot that gives rise to the politics of resentment, scapegoating, and fascism. It is a society that openly questions whether empathy is a good quality in a judge, and which puts “principle” over people’s welfare. It is a society in deep spiritual crisis which has grown steadily more punitive and unjust—as I have written elsewhere at length.

We have become a society where empathy and human solidarity is under strident attack—an uncivil society where people undermine and betray one another, and abuse each other for sport. It is a society which has lost the capacity for generosity, forgiveness and mercy, but instead, devalues people’s lives and thinks it can “save money” by disinvesting in human capital; denying people the means to make a legitimate living and driving them to crime and other forms of desperation, and then degrading them further; pushing people down and holding them down, if not crushing them utterly.

If we do not heal this spiritual sickness, we will be consumed as a society. We will not be able to pull ourselves together to act in our own interest. And we may set off a conflagration that could destroy the whole world, if not directly, but by crippling ourselves so that we are simply unable to do what is necessary to save ourselves from climate change (or some other impending crisis).

When I look around, I see plenty of reasons to feel disgusted and cynical. So, my spiritual journey is a constant struggle to affirm people’s humanity and their faith in humanity in the face of so much damning evidence. I think people are basically altruistic and desirous of serving humanity, but they are so often betrayed by their leaders and by one another. Nonetheless, one must do what one can. One person, one community at a time.

God and religion have nothing to do with it. We all partake of the human spirit, and as a consequence, we know full well when we are acting to suport it, as opposed to being simply just out for ourselves.

I never looked at my life as a spiritual journey, its more like a wild strange trip. My belief system would disallow that self-indulgent judgment.

I believe in life long learning and separating truth from fiction and mythology.

I believe I am. I’m not even going to be careful about this and risk being accussed of ignoring the possibility of no self, as in Zen. Personally, we are universal. I can’t help but experience life. Distinguishing between life/death, spiritual/corporeal becomes blurred. I so disregard the policy of a dispassionate existence when all I want to do is stare directly into the Sun and come out for the better

@Zuma HS! My spiritual journey just hit a huge pothole and blew a tire thanks to your frank assessment of society chock full of interesting, bold and yet sad statistics. I am not sure I would ascribe your statements so much to the spiritual nature of our society but more towards the moral fabric make up of our society. A moral fabric which seems to continue to be depleted further on a daily basis by societies acceptance and tolerance of decrepit depictions of sexual and violent behaviors bombarding our youth of today in all forms of media we permit even encourage to exist. Until we say enough is enough this will continue to erode our moral code till it ceases to exist at all.

That is why my spiritual journey is my own where I seek out a connection to something greater…a universal power that exists all around us… a power of good…a peaceful nurturing power that rejuvenates my spirit. A non judgmental power which is why I abandoned religion all together as religion supports and encourages guilt and the punishment of evil doers. Evil will continue to exist because we do so little to stop it or eliminate the elements of our society that support and even encourage immoral behavior.

Having grown up on a farm in the Bible Belt, grew up going to church! Over the years, my views have changed. Still believe strongly, but my views of an organized religion has changed. Today, more spiritual than religious. The hypocrisy of the Church has changed those views. Too much is directed at money….sure, there is a need for money in the Church, but, too many evangelists, preachers, etc have way too much money to be a humble servant of God. When see their lifestyle, jets, huge homes, etc…and you see the children of Haiti without anything…it opens your eyes. Rather pick a person or organization that really does some good. Those are hard to find these days!

But, having said that, very thankful too God as my life has been blessed. My children are all doing good with college educations, healthy, etc…that is very humbling and know that did not happen without some help from somewhere!

@Zuma. I’ve got some ideas about your research, and I believe I’ve actually read some of those numbers in an article. You’re coming at it from a slightly different angle than I did.
But you’re right. Convicted felons are the most marginalized group inour country. They have almost no options but to retuyrn to a life of crime when they are released from prison. I know personally of a man who was put in with a “crazy”. they nut broke the mans leg. The doctors installed a rod and sent him back to his cell the next day with a pair of crutches. He has had pain in that leg ever since. They don’t get their medication as prescribed, they are kept cold…. It’s brutal.
We should talk off line. I’m interested.

I don’t really know how to define ‘spiritual’. I am always on a journey as one should never stop learning.

The “journey” metaphor no longer seems to fit. It’s not that I feel I’ve “arrived”; far from it. It’s more an intuition that I never left, and that there’s nowhere else to go. If there’s a journey, then it’s in the sense that a dream is a journey: the dreamer has the illusion now of chasing and now of being chased, now of flying and now of being unable to run, but in reality the dreamer has never left his bed.

@Zuma I want to acknowledge the suffering and passion that has been woven into your life. I commend you for holding on to a voice of compassion and speaking for those who often go unheard. I realize that this is probably not what you are looking for by sharing, yet I would feel remiss if I didn’t share my response.

In a way, I am member of the Harp camp. I have a sense of becoming who I have always been, like waking up from a dream. As if I am accepting an invitation to be awake and alive.

@liminal love the username

@Simone_De_Beauvoir thank you. I sent you a PM.

Kudos to @Zuma and @Harp for great posts, and I second Harp’s notion that there’s no place to get to—the “journey” involves, at least in part, the recognition that here-and-now is the context for all of life… and of course we needn’t move an inch to get to here-and-now.

But I wanna whack on the word “spiritual”. This is a word I used to use a lot, in the context “spiritual development has to do with the evolution of the whole person”. But I found that after about 10 jillion conversations with people on the topic, the word “spiritual” was the source of more problems than it was worth, so I dropped it. The problem is that it just carries too much supernatural connotation with it, which is not ever what I meant by it. There’s a presumption that you’re talking about gods and souls and spirits in a metaphysical sense, instead of the “enwholement” of the individual.

So while I agree with Harp that there’s no place to get to, at the same time the journey is endless… there is no end-point to refining those aspects of myself that don’t work, or to understanding myself better, or to expanding my capacity for compassion, etc.—those character-and-awareness-oriented efforts are certainly not wasted, nor will they ever be done.

But I need a replacement word for ‘spiritual’, having worn it out. Open for suggestions :)

I have been on somewhat of a spiritual journey ever sence I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda…. that book changed my life

@Ruallreb8ters heh Bikram raves about Yogananda in his book

@Ruallreb8ters : I’m currently reading Parmahansa Yogananda’s Divine Romance. It’s not teaching me anything new yet, but it is a wonderful book. He was many decades ahead of his time.

@HasntBeen : As for a replacement word, may I suggest self-realization, self-awareness, or just awareness. The latter is often used by Buddhists to mean an understanding of the here and now.

My quest to understand where I fit in the scheme of things, in light of what @Harp said, is somewhat misleading. Where I fit is where I am—at this moment.

There’s this idea that I start in one place and I end in another place, metaphorically speaking. What I know now is much different than what I knew fifty years ago. How I think now is much different from how I thought 40 years ago. My sense of who I am is much different from my sense of who I was thirty years ago. My connection to other people is different from what it was twenty years ago. My ability to smudge the boundaries between myself and other beings and things around me is different than it was ten years ago.

All the moments are different and all are snapshots of me, and I don’t know where I’m going, nor do I remember where I’ve been very well. When I try to make sense of it all, I know I’m just telling a story, and setting arbitrary beginning and end points. But if understanding is part of the spiritual quest, then I am farther from it than ever. I feel as if my understanding of myself is waning, sinking below the horizon.

I know I am connected to everything, but the strings connecting me are loose, and it is hard for me to feel the impact I have. All I want to do is help others, so they will feel good about me (and not provide that stony silence I grew up with). I know that if I keep on doing what I do; if I do it because I enjoy it (and I do); then that is enough, and people will find me if they need me or want me or like me or just for kicks. But I also know my need is greater than my will. I don’t know how that fits in with everything.

There is so much to know. So many ways to adjust my relationship to the world. I dance along these strings that tie me to everyone and everything, and sometimes I bounce up to another one, or fall far down, and then the world turns and down is sideways and sideways is up. I skim past many strings, touching some lightly and some with more force. It has always been like this. There is really no place that I am or have stayed in or have never been. I am the electron whose position you can never know at the same time as you know it’s velocity.

And I don’t know what any of it means. I don’t think I ever will. All I want is to come to accept myself as whole and complete. Because I think it is a joyful thing to bounce in that five dimensional web that is the human consciousness, but the way I bounce now is… well, more dangerous.

@HasntBeen Agreed, spiritual is an awful word. It can’t be used without evoking duality: “spiritual” as opposed to…what, exactly? Material? Some notions of spirituality are happy to make that distinction, but certainly not all. But if you don’t exclude anything from the spiritual, then it ceases to mean anything. So as soon as you say it, you’re implicitly excluding something. How sure are we that we can do that?

Your word “enwholement” gets at the root of it, I think. “Spiritual” quests are driven by a sense that we’re incomplete or broken in some fundamental way, and the various forms these quests take all reflect a different conception of what is required to make one whole. To Deists, the sense of lack is due to our separation from God (sin), and only a removal of sin can heal that rift and restore wholeness. To Buddhists, the sense of incompleteness is a nasty side-effect brought on by our persistent habit of looking at the world only through the eye that sees the world conceptually, and the solution is to bring online the eye that doesn’t discriminate, that sees the Whole that has always been our fundamental nature.

So yes, I’d say that what we call the “spiritual” is our drive to get in touch with wholeness.

@Harp, @HasntBeen, @hawaii_jake
I agree with you that what we call the “spiritual” is our drive to get in touch with wholeness; “wholeness” in this instance being our Humanity; that cultural inheritance which defines us individually and collectively as moral beings.

I am not shy about using the word “spiritual” for something so natural, because in doing so, I am affirming something shared by both religious people and atheists alike: that as human beings we share certain rights and moral obligations—we all have the right to life, liberty, growth, and dignity, and we are obliged to assist our fellow man in the realization of these ends. Spirituality, in this scheme of things, is not awareness per se, but awareness of one’s connectedness with one’s fellow man, and all that implies.

For me the implications are clear. We live in a world where Humanity is in desperate need of healing. For me, my “journey” has been like waking up in a burning building; trying to awaken others and get them to safety, all the while having to contend with the confusion and stupidity of people trying to save themselves at the expense of others, or who, instead of saving themselves and others are trying to place blame, or otherwise acting in bad faith.

In my view, the complications of the word “spirituality” are to be embraced rather than avoided, because in doing so, one keeps faith with the millions upon millions of people who understand their humanity in supernatural terms. It does not matter whether someone has a natural or a supernatural interpretation of their spirituality so long as they are awake and responsive to the moral claims of their fellow man, and they are willing to be drawn into a dialogue about how they too can help heal the world. To that end, I have started a blog called Spirituality for Non-believers which you are all welcome to visit.

As I see it, Humanity is in a race against time. As human technology becomes more powerful and we all become dependent on it, the easier it becomes for a relative handful of people to set off a chain of events that brings the whole of human civilization crashing down. Unless and until we begin affirming one another’s humanity, we run the risk of polarizing factions actively causing an apocalypse.

Life is complicated enough, just trying to earn a living, being independent & just paying my way through this obstacle course of a life, when I do get time to sit & think, mostly I wonder where my youth went & all the lost opportunities I put aside for another day! I’ve come to realise I work & work & work, I have very little time for myself & the reason being, when I do give myself a break I dwell on the what might have been.
Too much time to think about what is wrong with this world cripples my mind, @Zuma put it far better than I ever could, the injustice to humanity is going to destroy us if we don’t pull together as a species, I don’t know what the answers are, I wish I did, if I did would I be heard? Or would I just become another statistic or victim of malicious gossip a target of injustice? I’ve been in the struggle of combating unfairness throughout my life & it’s taken the best out of me emotionally, to the point where I don’t know who the hell I am anymore, I’ve wasted too many hours on hopeless cases (not professionally) in my time & MY life just seems to have been whittled away without me noticing, this “Game of life” just isn’t fun anymore & whats left of it I really need to get grip of & find some direction to make what’s left worth while….
So if I am on a spiritual journey (finding myself) I haven’t even really started yet I guess.

Acknowledgements to all above, thanks for the food for thought!

@Zuma : I can’t really find anything to argue with in your post, which annoys me because I like to argue :)

And @Harp wins the “Best Short Description of Enlightenment” for “the sense of incompleteness is a nasty side-effect brought on by our persistent habit of looking at the world only through the eye that sees the world conceptually, and the solution is to bring online the eye that doesn’t discriminate, that sees the Whole that has always been our fundamental nature”

So the point that I think isn’t getting enough attention is this: the journey is the destination. It’s true that, in one sense, “it’s all over before it starts”, because we are already whole and the sense of incompleteness is an illusion of discrimination. On the other hand, the journey is endless because there is always a mismatch between the possibility of wholeness and the actuality thereof.

An example to make that less abstract: I haul around a bunch of resentments regarding things that happened in the past. (I’m sure I’m not unique in that regard.) In the domain of “wholeness is a journey”, my journey is incomplete because these resentments limit my capacity to be free and self-expressed and compassionate and yadayada. There’s a fragmentedness in my relationship with whomever or whatever I am resenting still. So its entirely appropriate for me to chip away at those resentments in meditation, reflection, communication, etc.

But, I’m already whole, yes? It’s not like I have to wait until all those resentments are resolved before I finally get to be. The point of the “already whole” aspect of this is that no amount of change or progress is required to achieve one’s “true nature”, as the Buddhists say. The point of “it’s a journey” is that, even if you see the wholeness, there’s always a ton of work to be done in the fulfillment and expression of that wholeness, and in resolving the fragmentation produced by being a human being living a life in the real world.

So there’s nothing to do, and there’s an unlimited pile of work. Simultaneously.

@hawaii_jake : I’m not satisfied with self-awareness as a replacement for “spiritual development”. What I used to mean by ‘spiritual development’ includes more than that. “Enwholement” comes close, but if you say that in the sports bar you’ll get your ass kicked, which I don’t care for. I want a word that is already in common use and can be tweaked for a different purpose. Preferably something from the fields of heavy drink or sex, where it won’t be missed :)

@HasntBeen Very well said.

Well let me pull out the rug and sit in seiza, I have nothing better to do. @Harp @HasntBeen I see a myriad of possibilities in mysticism, it acknowledges we are individual souls and either we conform to it or it conforms to use. and is a choice. Harp you were more than abrupt when I left earlier, no apologies, in fact I should thank you from placing me off balance. but talking behind someones back while they are standing there is rude. I’m curious to hear from you in a succinct manner. No worries if it’s critical, I think I know what you’re about, maybe you have my number too. The worst is I will quote my suttra “It is better to be enemies with a wise man, than friends with a fool. Good day! remember to eat breakfast even some tea cookies. The ultimate goal is to see things as they really are not about self-realization, improvement, spiritual development.

@12_func_multi_tool “The ultimate goal is to see things as they really are not about self-realization, improvement, spiritual development.”

They’re all hooked together. Seeing things as they are is self-realization, because the nature of things is also your nature. See that clearly and old behaviors change, because we’re no longer bound up in this skin bag; what hurts the world hurts us, and the healing of the world becomes our business. Seeing things as they are also makes our own defilements stand out in sharp relief, because we can see that they no longer accord with reality, as we once thought. They gradually lose their ability to drive our behavior, as we understand how they feed the cycle of suffering.

Are you familiar with the technique in the Dalai Lamas famous and popular book “The Art of Happiness”? I learned the greatest technique for developing empathy. Accordingly, one takes imagines the hurt the hate the terrible things in others lives, realize that they suffer too, then to take that pain and make it your own. I’ve brought myself to my knees doing that but it works. More info if you please, your school your status and emphasized philosophy, I’m curious. I can tell much thought is there considering your words and their syntax and composition. If it is too much, ignore and I will understand. How does it prepare you for death or how does it prepare you for life? You are contemplating the spit, bile, decay of the end of life in your meditations, yes?

Those are fine practices, but they’re not typically part of Zen practice, which is what I do. If you’re drawn to these kinds of visualization meditations, you’ll find them more in Vajrayana or Theravadan or Vipassana practice than in Zen. Zen tends to be a bit more “militant”, as you put it elsewhere. But that’s not about being badass. It’s because cutting through all our layers of crap is pretty much the hardest thing one is ever called upon to do. Deep down, we love all our crap, and don’t want to take a knife to it. But that’s what it takes. When you see clearly enough how the crap shackles you to suffering, you’ll pick up the knife.

Zen prepares for death by making us let go of self over and over again, until we can just hold it ever so lightly. And it prepares us for life by making us let go of self over and over again, until we can just hold it ever so lightly.

Another way to cut through all the crap is to find your self in a 9’ x 5’ cell with some stir-crazy, swastika-splashed skinhead who has never really been listened to his entire life, and so, has never really learned listen to anyone else.

You will find out quite quickly how such people see through your spirituality and peg it for what it is: a kind of self-indulgent luxury; an effete pretension; a form of retreat from the human condition; and, ultimately, a kind of inauthenticity and an implicit put-down of them. Spirituality is not about the supernatural; it is not about correct posture or correct thinking; it is not about achieving serenity or the comforts of personal happiness or even reconciling with death. It is about putting yourself at risk for the sake of others; it is about baring yourself to others in the raw here and now, and respectfully affirming the humanity of even the most despicable, unworthy, and desperate of men.

Man’s legacy of bad faith threatens to destroy human civilization. This is not the time for stoic resignation, or meditative introspection; this is the time for putting oneself on the line. It is a time for insisting that we are all in the same lifeboat and that it is no longer acceptable to throw people overboard. This is a time for repairing human solidarity; for ameliorating inequities of race and class; for healing the empathic divides, and reclaiming our society’s throw-aways and outcasts. This is a time for insisting that every human being has worth, and that social justice really matters.

@Zuma Very thought provoking challenge to say the least and worthy of further thought. But in the meantime I will continue to search inward to first and foremost clean house in my soul as I strongly believe you can’t help others and affirm humanity in such a pure sense until you affirm and acknowledge what it is that makes you yourself tick. My whole life I was told what to learn, what to believe in only to come to realize it was all their view of how the world should be with heaven as the reward for blind faith! That view was tainted by hidden agendas and bills that needed to be paid to support these myths of humanity thrown my way. What does it all mean when life may cease for me in the next 5 minutes or 5 years if I have not yet determined for myself what life is truly meant to be?? Anything less than at least a glimpse inside that tells me this is “WHY” I am here and I am merely a servant to yours or anyone else’s definition of worthy human being and not my own self.

@Cruiser Certainly, take time to smell the roses, to gather your wits, and reflect on what you are doing. But don’t make that your entire spirituality.

Things fall quickly into place when you find love in your heart. When you see someone struggling in a ditch, don’t pass them by. Acts are what define and clarify you. Heaven and the rest of it take care of themselves.

@Zuma
here here!! :-/

@Zuma can’t give you enough lurve for all you’ve said…great answers xxxxxx

When I asked this question, I had no idea it was going to draw forth such good discussion. I am frankly humbled by the writing here. At the same time, I suddenly feel the need to express my own thoughts on the subject.

The first definition my dictionary gives to spiritual is “of or concerning the spirit as opposed to matter.” Under journey, it says “an act of going from one place to another.” I personally believe in spirit. For me, there is something out there. And I believe that I am moving from one place to another in my life. Now that I think about it, I wonder if growth wouldn’t have been a better term.

As for spirit, I can only say that there is a yearning in me unsatisfied by anything I find in the material world. In meditation, however, I come close to fulfilling it. In those quiet times, I honestly believe I am connecting to something outside the world of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. I am building a relationship with a source of life defying simple definition.

And my experience with that source—that one—has been a process or movement. I am not in the same place I was even a year ago in regards to my relationship with it. I have moved closer to it. I am nearer, and I find it difficult to explain the peace and serenity and joy it brings me.

Spirit is, and I am compelled to search it out.

@hawaii_jake I could have written those same exact words…thanks for sharing.

spiritual journeys are personal and as varied as the amount of stars in the heavens – as for mine, I keep falling off the train and then running after it…