A journey from religion to atheism to “spirituality”

My journey began with religion (dogma), transitioned through atheism (ideology), and landed in a form of “spirituality”.

Let’s create a shared alignment on these definitions:

• Dogma — a principle laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true
• Ideology — an idea laid down as incontrovertibly true

Dogma came in the form of Christianity. Adhere to the doctrine, I was taught and feared, or you will pay the consequences. During this era of my life, you believed in God, otherwise, you were a weirdo or an outcast.

Ideology came in the form of Agnosticism and then Atheism and then it came in the form of Science and other strongly held beliefs. Ideology was just the religious version of dogma.

During this era of no religion, I wasn’t much different than I was before, I just believed in one less God than any monotheistic religion.

But, whatever it was that so easily influenced my mind to religion, showed its ugly head when religion was gone. My internal desire to hold strong beliefs continued to manifest itself to external things and ideas.

Carl Sagan saw similar behavior across human history and eloquently elucidated this phenomenon, in a quote from the best-selling book The Demon-Haunted World:

“Is there any real alternative besides a shared brain wiring and chemistry? Is it possible that people’s experiences in all times and places are filled in by the prevailing cultural idioms sucked out of the Zeitgeist?”

If you look at the history of humans, our belief systems share many commonalities. The most common characteristic is a belief system. Early European explorers described individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Then, there are indigenous communities that each have their own localized belief systems.

Below, I share a visualization of the many belief systems and their many influences with each other across millennia. In the visualization, a dotted line means it was influenced and a solid line means it was adapted from another belief system.

Today, it is said that there are 4,200 religions (belief systems). How many ideologies are there? You don’t have to look far to rack up the count; identity politics, oppression Olympics, virtue signaling, political correctness, veganism, carnivore diet, vaccinators or anti vaccinators, or the entire 20th century as Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes in the Gulag Archipelago:

“Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions.”

Based on this premise I’ve established above, my brain can’t help but draw a strong association with the rapid decline of Religiosity in America to the rapid increase in ideologies. The world seems to be going through the same journey I went through.

What does this mean and where do we go from here?

To quote the Gospel of Matthew,

“Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need.”

I believe the path out of Dogma and Ideology is a path inward towards true spirituality.

The word “Spirit” comes from the Latin word “to breathe.” This is why we are taught to breathe when we need to relax. It quiets our external world and brings awareness to what’s happening within.

Joseph Goldstein shared a quote that more eloquently describes this:

“If you want to understand your mind, sit down and observe it”

And the late Ram Dass shared his perspective:

“I view spiritual practice as the freeing of awareness from identification with anything.”

To free yourself from ideas and identities that can turn dogmatic and ideological, the journey is inward not outward.

Take this journey inward, and over time you begin to see that your anxieties, stressors, fears, and neuroticisms come from identification. Identification with identities, ideas, beliefs, groups, emotions, thoughts, and on and on and on and on.

The goal isn’t to remove these identifications, it is to become aware of their unintended consequences. If you’ve ever been in an argument, you understand. An argument is divisive and it stems from the unintended consequences of your identifications (ego).

2,000 years ago, Seneca hit the nail on the head:

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

With immense brevity, he said to become aware of all the identifications and you can begin finding yourself (reality). That’s where I am now. I am on a continuous path of staying aware of my beliefs and identities. James Clear does a great job of explaining the process:

“Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.”

Nowadays, I approach all belief systems with an open mind. Each has its own unique values worth learning from. Just like every person has a unique perspective, every religion or non-religion does too.

I’ve left beliefs behind and have found faith. Not the faith you are thinking of. Faith as an opening of the mind instead of closing of the mind. Alan Watts explains the difference between belief and faith:

“Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “lief” or wish it to be. The believer will open their mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with their preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go.”

What is the truth?

It’s that long journey inward to discover the true nature of your reality, way beyond all of your identifications.

Most of you are probably needing a more comprehensive answer to the true nature of reality. To me, after many years down this path, everything above is clear-cut, but here is an attempt to meet your curiosity.

Before I do, I’ll share my favorite Carl Sagan quote,

“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.”

[I won’t go down this rabbit hole today, but get lost in our observable universe, it will humble anyone.]

Now, a more comprehensive answer to the true nature of reality as of 2/27/2020. I state the date because this will evolve, as all beliefs should.

The more I learn about astrophysics and quantum mechanics the more I realize the unlikeliness of a personal god exists but almost counterintuitively it gives me a sense that there is some sort of universal oneness we (all matter) share. I clarify “we” to include all matter because it seems all living things, plants included, operate on some sort of consciousness.

The late greats Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert describe this more eloquently,

“In the state of radiant unity, one senses that there is only one network of energy in the universe and that all things and all sentient beings are momentary manifestations of the single pattern.”

Now, if you are religious and have read to this point, you may be thinking, “yeah, that’s God.” But, if we all think this, and all our definitions are different, then this is where it can become divisive instead of the radiant unity that Metzner and Alpert describe. There’s a term for this divisiveness and it’s called the narcissism of small differences. It’s the reason why we have so many denominations within each religion (e.g Hinduism, Christianity).

I think the way out of divisiveness is to realize our deep interconnectedness. This interconnectedness comes to light the more you learn about human nature. For example, 90% of the enzymatic work done in the human body is not done by a human cell but by bacteria and fungi.

Lawrence M. Krauss explains the interconnectedness of all living and nonliving things,

“The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars had not exploded, because the elements — the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron — weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode.”

This interconnectedness was made even more clear to me when I started a meditation practice and other altered states of consciousness. These practices removed my sense of self by turning off “myself” via the default mode network in my brain and allowed me to observe this universal oneness without a filtered lens. Michael Pollan articulates this in his new book How to Change Your Mind:

“It appears that when activity in the default mode network falls off precipitously, the ego temporarily vanishes, and the usual boundaries we experience between self and world, subject and object, all melt away.”

This is where the difference between “spirituality” and religion starts to show itself. Modern religions have been separated so much from their original principles that we can get lost in doctrine and forget to love your neighbor as yourself.

It is our human egos (identifications) that get involved, and as we have discussed, egos begin to divide us instead of bringing us together.

In summary, no matter where you are at in your journey, just become aware of your breath (Spirit) and travel inward toward interconnectedness (Reality).