Spirituality For All
I have for sometime now been exploring how to express a spirituality that is free from dogma yet still retain a powerful structure to liberate our freedom.
If I had an intention, it was to ask the question: What might under-labour for an expression of spirituality that is both serious, and accessible to all?
In looking, to free spirituality from dogma might mean explaining how I understand dogma. Dogma is a power structure that leads to a lack of critical freedom, I take up the act of practice of my chosen religion without first questioning the validly of the practice. Such as doing mindfulness practice because I am told that it will lead to a feeling of relaxation and openness, or accepting Christ as my savour and being free of sin, or praying 5 times a day because this brings me closer to an authentic life.
Which of course the practices do, if we recognise that we have to put the work in, that practice is hard, difficult and demanding, doing something because we think we will get what we want without any hard work makes religion nothing more than take away food.
I might go even further, and say that if at the centre of all the spiritual traditions from pre to post modern is non duality, then we could free spirituality from teachings that block and occlude freedom. Suggesting that all we need to flourish as beings guided by our spirituality is to create practices that lead to greater awareness, that lead to agreement, which are under-laboured by creativity.
Absence of awareness leads to Absence of agreement, which leads to Absence of creativity, which leads to Absence of freedom.
Awareness is the recognition of the concrete universal, we are all the same, Agreement is the recognition of the singular concrete, you and I have a personal identity. Creativity is a process in which we explore the best ways of living a life through identity over difference unity over split. This makes creativity the emergent property of the dialectic of awareness and agreement
We have an experience, or better we search for an experience of oneness. We look to the traditions or spiritual institutions for guidance but the guidance they are giving is a judgement on the experience, and we are told that to keep getting that experience of oneness you need to follow this practice; rather then saying it is our judgement that to get more of the experience you need to follow this practice.
All this says nothing about what kind of things are existing that inform the experience. And because I assume that it is the judgemental form of meditation I am told to do, I am trapped or become a slave both to the traditions and the practices because I am told that they are judged to be the best way of having the experience.
However, if we ask an alethic question and looked for the truth of our experience, we would see that, we could do any practice, as long as we ask how would this practice reveal the truth of my experience.
We could be open to the creation of multitude ways of creating the space in which we can access the experience of oneness. This might mean there is no need to enter the spiritual market, buy the course that tell me I can become free, happy or superhuman, if I follow this practice, method or theory. There is no need for them or there is no need to think that the course or book will set you free. You are all ready free, just take a moment to realise your own freedom.
The first break with dogma is to collapse the market place, throw over the tables. Wake up to the realisation that we are free to fully connect to the pulse of freedom, in new and yet to emerge ways.
We become free of the guru, free of the teacher, free of the market place, as we refocus them as tools to use to know your own understanding. No longer do we have to feel that we have to follow the leader, or stop vicariously experience oneness, through our guru/teacher.
We can begin to recognise that all spiritual experience are unique, and when we apply the under-labour creative principle of unity over split, identify over difference, we are invited to recognise that all spirituality is awareness, agreement, and creativity, it is so simple that right now we could all become beings living in the right action of spirit.