Business Fit Magazine November 2018 Issue 1 | Page 34

Spirituality
Why?
As humans we are hardwired in our neuro-
biology to experience…
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What is
Spiritual
Practice?
Christopher Gladwell
To begin with, let’s define what on earth spiritual
actually means. A lot of people use the word and
often never understand the real definition of this
elusive term.
It is often used, even in modern spirituality
and yoga, to define the elusive stuff that joins
everything together, stuff that is somehow
different to all that is matter. This kind of
dualistic vision presents matter and its opposite
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as spirit. Sometimes the word spiritual is used
to define the source of matter. There is matter
and there is that which makes it and holds it all
together and this is spirit.
Sometimes the word is used to define
whatever is unseen. So, I suggest we use this
medieval word simply to define our subjective
experience of connectivity if at all.
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comparison and difference
separateness and then from this base -
connection
solidity
a sense of permanence
definition
self as a separate thing from the rest of the
universe
relationship as a process of self as subject
and other as the object to our gaze
If we look through the lens of evolutionary
biology we find that this sense-of-self and its
self-construct is something that has evolved
to assist intra-species socialisation and
reproduction of our genetic material. This
process has taken around 500 million years
to evolve and is, to say the least, a robust
experience.
If we look through the lens of neuro-biology
we find parts of the brain such as the medial
pre-prefrontal cortex, the insula, the parietal
and cingulate, amongst others, that build this
subjective experience of being a separate self-
thing - in the face of a vast universe.
If we look through the lens of chemistry we
find that the majority of our structure is made
of water and gases, and that even this water
is made of two gases. We are mostly made of
hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. A lot of the
rest of us is made of carbon which in the form
of carbon bound with oxygen, carbon-dioxide,
is also a gas. The bits of us that aren’t these
gases are mostly made of earth minerals.
If we look through the lens of physics, we
find that every particle that makes up our
structure is made of spinning energy. When
we go deeper into this energy it is hard to
locate and also define. When we get down to
a quantum level it even appears that a lot of
what appears as solid is flickering into and out
of existence. There are many theories about
what this quantum level experience is, one by
David Bohm suggests that all appearances, all
vibrations and movements of energy (out of
which matter is constructed) are scintillating
into and out of existence as expressions of
one unified field.
So, everything that our nervous system
says about what is solid, real and defined is
inaccurate as there is nothing that is solid,
permanent or truly defined. These are the
appearances, what appears real to our
nervous system. The reality is that there is no
real solidity, no defined, inherent or separate
existence to anything. It is all a seamless flow
of energy that is most probably an underlying
unified field sparkling into and out of existence
as the appearances.
The interesting correlation with the majority
of the reported experience and arising yogic
philosophies from deep meditators is that
this formless base to all arising appearances
has qualities. The key quality is awareness.
The feeling side to this awareness is love or
compassion. We find this in our own body as
we go deep in the yogic practice of meditation.
We find the constituents of our body as gases
and appearances of solidity created by the
energetic binding between these gases and
earth minerals as an expression of space-time.
We find this whole experience to be replete
with awareness and love. In our own structure
we find spacious-awareness as aware space. In
yogic philosophy this formlessness is variously
called avyakta or shunyata.
Then comes the beauty, this formlessness is
none other than the form. The appearances
and the root of all the appearances, the unified
field are one and the same, always as what
some call brahman.
One of the ways we begin the subjective
deconstruction of this in the laboratory of our
own experience is to engage in practices which
retrain our brain to be able to step beyond the
dualizing mechanisms of comparative mind.
We do this by cultivating the observing self, the
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