Spiritual Prompt for the Week of May 8th through 15th
Multiple choices to spark your spiritual creativity regarding what spirituality means to you — atheists and agnostics please participate
Prompt
Here are a few quotes/definitions/thoughts regarding spirituality. Create an essay or fiction or poem inspired by any or all or a combination of them:
- “We just can’t stay in the kingdom of ideas, knowledge has to be incarnated to exist. We need to be involved in the affairs of the world otherwise the vacancy is dangerous and may be used by malevolents. This is why I don’t like the word Spirituality, this word is a way to park us in the domain of the spiritual only and leave the space for beings with hidden agendas. Those who don’t live their values are liars, cheaters and demagogues, they don’t represent us, we need to incarnate our values and give power to real representatives.” — Jean Carfantan (sorry Jean I don’t have a record of which piece of yours it’s from)
- “Being religious involves having faith in God (however named and defined) and signing up to a basic set of beliefs — technically a credo — that define what a worshipper needs to accept to become a member of that religious community. In contrast, being spiritual is experientially focused, with seekers and worshippers preferring to ground their spiritual outlook in personal experience, and to express using a range of sacred world texts, rather than by referring to a credo drawn from a single holy scripture…Spirituality is equally difficult to pin down, given people have different aims and accordingly embrace diverse forms of spiritual practice, including psychospiritual self-transformative processes, meditation, yoga, fasting, praying, going on retreats, out-of-body experiences, and so on.” — Keith Hill in his story
- “When I use the term spiritual, I use it in a manner that transcends the binary of theism versus atheism. One can act entirely spiritual with or without a belief in “god” however one understands that term. Spirituality only requires love, empathy, compassion, humility, honesty and courage. As I define spirituality, there is a flip side to the coin and all those positive feelings — accountability, both personally and holding others accountable for their words and deeds.” — Marcus aka Gregory Maidman
- “No, I do not believe my spirit is my soul. I believe they are separate yet necessary aspects. Allow me to clarify. For me, spirit is more closely connected to the heart rather than the soul.” — Arthur G. Hernandez in his story
I commented in Arthur’s essay:
I like your definition of spirit and how you distinguish it from other words. This also highlights why English is an inferior language. Take the word love for example, for which my favorite dictionary provides at least 18 different definitions for this word which we use in so many different ways, whereas Greek, has 8 differnt words for love. https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/02/14/the-8-ancient-greek-words-for-love/ Just now on a hunch I Googled greek words for spirit. The spellings came up in greek so I can’t type them, but I see one word, tied for second most commonly used, that means “soul, psyche, spirit;” another word, the most commonly used, that means “spirit, wit, ghost, esprit, humor, humour,” which is not ideal as it seems to be used for two distinctly different meanings; another distinct word has these definitions, “disposal, mood, disposition, attitude, spirit, temper;” another distinct word has these definitions, “spirit, conviction, view;” another word means “energy, vigor, spirit, zip, vigour;” and Greek has a couple of other words as well https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=el&text=spirit&op=translate&hl=en
and Arthur replied:
This is good stuff. These definitions imply not only connectedness but also hint at the variety in aspects of how we connect.
Oh, How I Love When a Plan Comes Together that I Didn’t Quite Plan!!!
I had been considering this prompt, paraphrasing Pierre Tielhard de Chardin and probably others:
Are we human beings having a spiritual experience or spiritual beings having a human experience
and combining that with this quote from my lord Rama to me from a channeled conversation through Ane:
There will be times when the needs of my soul and the needs of my human/animus would conflict.
I chose the terms animus and human over the term ego because of the tendency among people on a spiritual journey not to think in terms of dualities, fall into the binary/label trap, and deride the ego and thus aver that the soul is always correct.
Of this, I have written in prior essays:
There are human wants and soul wants. A life will be harmonious when those two are aligned. Life’s purpose is to learn and one aspect is learning how to satisfy the human wants while not offending the soul’s spirituality.
I have since discerned a more nuanced reaction to Rama’s statement that reflects Arthur’s “I believe they are separate yet necessary aspects.” We are neither humans seeking spiritual experience nor spirits seeking human experiences. We are simultaneously and inseparably both.
I am sick and tired of this nonsense about “ego death.” Greg’s experiences are very much imprinted upon the soul of Marcus. We are the same being. The ego does not die. It evolves. I evolve. I integrate and align.
Moreover, the goals of the human and the goals of the soul may be, from the human perspective, irreconcilable. Humans want nothing but happiness but perhaps the soul came here to experience the opposite so that it can learn to guide other humans when it is not incarnated and is assigned as a spirit guide or to some other heaven-work. (Jodie Helm this is a realization I have been working on articulating)
I will close with this passage of mine:
Religions have been designed to be believed and thus construct God as a deliverer of human wants if we do as we are told, which God is not. So people either blindly believe in God because the lie of what God is is believable, or reject God because the God defined by religions cannot co-exist with the reality that most people do not get what they want, or are not actually happy, and a world full of seemingly senseless tragedy and really bad things happening to good people. So my view, which I shall deliver as a truth but the fact is it would be hubris for me to proclaim that I can actually understand the Universe: “God” does not care anything about money, politics, war, famine, or even who lives or dies, and to the extent God affects any such outcomes it is only to keep things from going too far off the improv-script. Nor do the Gods give a hoot about religions, as religions arise from the human-need to construct a controlling mechanism.
[edit] Upon reading this a few hours later, I should add that paradoxically to how that last passage might come across, God loves each and every one of us unconditionally
For your further reading, here is a key channeled archangel message and essay from Jodie Helm
and these essays of mine from which I pulled the above
Reminder: You can use these prompts here on PW or anywhere else on Medium (which I strongly encourage as it builds a wider audience and I believe in cross-pollination between and among publications). Regardless of where you publish, please tag me, and Ravyne and use “promptly written” as one of your reader interest tags, and include a link to this prompt. Also, if you use the prompt in another publication, please come back here and drop a link to your story in the comments as the tag notification system is notoriously unreliable.
In Rama I create, with soul-energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,
