"Spirituality"

Apropos of our discussion of the term "spiritual" and "spirituality" the other day -- kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/49...of+Human+Development -- I'm x-posting this blog entry by Sam Harris:

www.samharris.org/blog/item/a-plea-for-spirituality

'Of course, 'spiritual' and its cognates have some unfortunate associations unrelated to their etymology'”and I will do my best to cut those ties as well. But there seems to be no other term (apart from the even more problematic 'mystical' or the more restrictive 'contemplative') with which to discuss the deliberate efforts some people make to overcome their feeling of separateness'”through meditation, psychedelics, or other means of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness. And I find neologisms pretentious and annoying. Hence, I appear to have no choice: 'Spiritual' it is.'

I'm perfectly at ease with the term "spiritual." I also don't mind the word "religious." When I think or use these terms in the affirmative I mean them in very specific ways. Spiritual or religious practices are the work of the inner journey (meditation, yoga, etc.) that should become the basis for skillful attitudes and action. But I concede that both those words have their problems. Spirituality too often refers to an airy-fairy, mystical-schmystical nonsense that muddies rather than clarifies. "The Secret" and teachings of that ilk come to mind. And need I explicate the problems with the word religious? Probably not on this forum.

Yeah well, "fooling myself" sounds a lot less glitzy compared to "spirituality", "mysticism", "contemplation" or "religion".

All those refined ways of fooling myself - if only I could find a good name for this activity, it would be even easier to fool myself. Yes, that's it, the right word for it will make that nagging sense of me fooling myself go away.

Actually, I think the discomfort with these words is a pretty strong indicator that something's wrong. Which is why we're here in this forum, presumably, because that sense of something weird going on is getting hard to bear. Ultimately, what we're looking for here is to get to the bottom of such nagging doubts as what to call what we're doing here, rather than find a way to dispel the doubt.

In the meantime, I agree with Alvaro: just pick a word and keep going.

Cheers,
Florian

If "fooling myself" is a path I'd be an Arahant by now.