Where did Spirituality come from?

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http://www.ecophilosophy.org/articles/cosmos.html

Spirituality is a late acquisition of evolution. It represents a new level of consciousness of the human species and of evolution. We are the articulating edge of evolution, its sensitive extensions, its powerful antennae through which new sensitivities and new powers are brought into being. Spirituality is quintessentially a new form of seeing and through its prism the whole universe and we ourselves acquire a new depth and meaning. It is a new refinement through which we not only gain a new understanding but the whole universe changes its nature. The creation of spirituality in the life of the universe was perhaps as important as the creation of life. Through the existence of spirituality the universe is much more alive. We might ask a naive but perhaps an important question: Why has the universe done it? Did it have to do it? And if so, why? The simple answer is: because it is in the nature of the universe to transcend and transcend. Why didn’t amoebae stay where they were? Because they were a part of the evolutionary process which had to move on, further and further. The force of transcendence is relentless and irresistible.

What kind of evolutionary advantages, if any, does spirituality offer to human beings? This question could be expressed in simpler terms: why is it important to us? What does it do for us? Spirituality is important to us for many reasons. It is important for our happiness. Spiritual bliss is the highest form of happiness. Other forms of happiness are pale in comparison. All-fulfilling happiness has spiritual roots and dimensions. Other forms of happiness, such as sensuous satisfaction or earthly fame, are really superficial, are substitute forms of happiness. True happiness is to possess what is the deepest and most precious in the human. A comparison with non-human forms of life may be illuminating. “Spiritual bliss” for the pig is to eat so much that it finally cannot walk any more. This is not the form of happiness evolution designed for us.

Spirituality is very important for our survival and well-being in these turbulent and fractured times. It may be contended that evolution is the survival of the fittest. To survive well in our times, full of stresses and tensions, requires psychic resilience and inner peace. These qualities are an outgrowth of our spiritual qualities. Thus, in our times only spiritually strong people have a chance to survive, for they have the requisite resilience and distance, while others, sucked into the whirl, break like match sticks in spite of their apparent toughness which may only be superficial. In the third millennium human beings will have to be spiritually strong. Dwelling in the spiritual space of our own being has a distinctive evolutionary advantage. It enables us to bear the mundane, the silly and the oppressive magnanimously and compassionately.

The possession of a spiritual dimension is important for every human in his/her own quest of self-realization. The process of self-realization is the actualization of our deepest potential, our deepest nature. After it had articulated life, after it had articulated consciousness and self-consciousness, the universe had nowhere to go but upward — toward articulating spirituality. Such is the path of self-actualization of the universe, and within it, such is our own path. The spiritual matrix within which we live is also important for our sense of connection with others, for our sense of belonging, for our sense of empathy with others, for our sense of participation in joint projects which are important to us all. This spiritual matrix is not a luxury which a chosen few can afford but the ground of our social being.

Finally, if we contemplate the possibility of the thermal death on our planet, the result of the sun exhausting its energy in some five billion years, then the question is: how can we “survive” and continue our evolutionary saga? Certainly not through developing more resilient and tougher bodies, for all biological bodies will perish. The way is exactly through articulating new domains of spirituality whereby life, and certainly consciousness, can survive and continue in trans-biological conditions. Thus by evolving spirituality on this globe and within human beings (and perhaps other beings), “life” may have been already preparing itself for its post-biological stage; which in a curious sense will be a post-life stage. Certainly biological survival is a necessary condition — to start the process going. But the real game of evolutionary flowering starts after this condition is satisfied. Biology is only a vessel within which the spiritual evolves and flourishes.

Thus spirituality is a natural extension and continuation of our evolutionary journey, and it is a collective term covering a large range of human sensitivities. Spirituality includes a well evolved ethical sensitivity, the sense of the right and of the wrong and a determination to pursue and implement the right. It includes aesthetic sensitivity, and particularly a highly developed sense of inner beauty. When this sense of appreciation of inner beauty and of the beauty of the entire cosmos becomes overwhelming, it manifests itself as awe, or the sense of the sacred. Thus spirituality includes the sensitivity for the sacred. On its highest level this sensitivity manifests itself as the identification with the ultimate transcendent reality, which goes beyond all human senses and precepts and which is sometimes described as dwelling in God. This indwelling is a rare capacity. It is the attribute of the saints whom we so much admire. We inwardly know that they symbolize the highest attainments of humankind and show us the road to our own destiny.

What is the place of spirituality in the field of transcendence-participation-creativity? Spirituality is the daughter of creativity, one of the highest forms of its flowering. Yet, at the same time, it is the result of the inexorable process of transcendence, which, while transcending all the earlier attainments, was bound to upgrade itself by going to a higher realm, precisely to spirituality. Yet spirituality is not merely a resultant which just happened as a consequence of the combined pressure of creativity and transcendence. Viewed in a more subtle light, with a true empathy for all evolutionary process, spirituality can be seen as a mini-omega point, the point which was inexorably pulling the whole development toward itself. The universe had nowhere to go but to the spiritual realm. In this sense spirituality is an inevitable consequence of evolution as we know it. The universe had to develop God for God (or the divine) was in the bowels of the universe to become its crowning glory,

Transcendence and creativity connect all processes of life, including human life. They enable the processes of healing, as well as the creation of all art forms which have been so powerful and important in the ascent of life combating entropy. Art has not only been a realm of human delight but a healer, an articulator of spirituality, a luminous force in the self-realization of the cosmos and ourselves. In the rituals of many traditional cultures, we seem to be presented with the stage on which unique cosmic dramas are taking place. In the physical space, which at the same time is trans-physical, a unique enactment of energy is taking place — through dance, song and other rituals — which ultimately heal, re-energize, renew, reaffirm — both the community and the individuals — and reconnect them with heaven and other important forces of the Cosmos. In the aura of total participation, creativity and transcendence, healing and self-healing occur. These rituals, particularly at their best, may be seen as groping expressions of the existence and of the glory of the field of Transcendence/Creativity/Participation — which we laboriously attempt to put in words, while traditional cultures attempted to express through jubilant, ecstatic and orgiastic cosmo-dramas in which the whole cosmos participated while human beings were its denizens.