One of my boyfriends’ spiritual experience and the subsequent dialogue with him prompted me to try and put my thoughts into better words – i.e. written ones. I have trouble finding the right terms and expressions while speaking, “on the go”, so to say, but when I’m writing my brain seems to work more efficiently in conveying what I want to express.
The seminar – contemplation – was something that seemed to have left a lasting impression within him and I’m happy for that. I did notice he seemed increasingly restless and … lost … I guess, and if this is something that he can use to show himself the way, I’m grateful he found it (I might not have been very good in expressing that at that moment – my curiosity sometimes usually takes over and pushes my empathy aside). I’m also not good at just unquestioningly accepting other people’s viewpoints without having them explained to me; not out of critique or doubt but out of curiosity. But I do know that, I make people think they need to defend themselves when I ask questions about what they say – despite my best efforts to express my judgement-free interest and probably due to my lacking sense of when to stop probing. However, I mainly just want to compare viewpoints to my own and see how they differ. Scientific interest, so to say.
What he told me about his experience made me think about how I see/sense/feel the world around me, because much of what he said he’s searching/trying to get closer to are impressions (for the lack of a better word) that I just experience as integrated within my being/experience. Maybe that is why I don’t have the feeling of missing something in a spiritual sense. To me, what he described as the view behind the scene, the experience of what is behind the existence you just see and feel every day, is like.. spiritual gravity (is that then… spirity?). I don’t always consciously think about this spiritual gravity but I sense/feel it and some experiences make me focus on it – but it’s nonetheless always there, surrounding and permeating. And from what I know, it’s always been like that. I’ve never felt that there’s something missing in my existence or that there has to be “more”. To me, I know that there is “more”; I feel it every day. (Reminding me of the “Agents of Shield” episode with the berserker staff…).
Thus, it’s not something.. special, in that sense. It’s not something I have to talk about or feel the need to share with others. You wouldn’t have the urge to share with your neighbors how you felt gravity today, would you? Besides, I’m not a very extrovertedly oriented person – in this case, socially-spiritually, not emotionally; feeling the need to connect with others through spirituality. That is why I don’t understand the need of people to convince others about their beliefs. Isn’t that something.. internal? My beliefs, this (sub)conscious sense for – I can’t think of a better term – spiritual gravity, is a part of my being, my soul, if you will. I don’t have to find a group of people to have it confirmed, strengthened or reinforced, much less feel the urge to throw it at other people. Just spiritually, I know sense my place in this universe with all its connections, layers and complexity and it feels awesomely beautiful – it also makes me feel amazingly tiny and paradoxically totally insignificant and hugely significant at the same time. Does that sound presumptuous? I don’t know. I never thought myself better than anyone else just because I don’t need a religious construct to feel like that. Actually, I’ve never thought about that this might be what other people are searching for their entire life – and maybe it isn’t after all. I just know that it makes me feel … in safe hands.
Just without the personification. To me, that … gravity… doesn’t have a consciousness. I don’t say it’s like a physical force that follows fixed, mathematical rules, or so, but it doesn’t have a true consciousness, something that thinks and observes. Maybe it senses… I should call it semi-conscious, I guess. It’s hard to explain; I think it can be attracted and influenced but it doesn’t “think”.
I think an inherit trait of consciousness is to reflect, to question, to develop, to decide in one way and not the other, to feel. And to me, it’s a strange thought that the upmost, supreme .. existence/force/power is “someone”, rather than “something”. I understand that people feel safer then, taken care of. But I also see it as very… human, this need ( I always said, I don’t feel like one ;) ). It’s a little hard to describe but when my mind looks at religion, it’s a wonderfully complex, elaborate, sometimes beautiful and sometimes ugly construct (still in progress) but it’s very plainly (being) constructed by humans. And even this construct and its builders are, to me, permeated by this spiritual gravity and if I want to engage with it, I do that on a curious, analytical level, because spiritually/emotionally I already feel myself sensing the underlying force itself. It’s just interesting to see what other people/cultures make out of it – and sometimes it’s horrifying, too…
I do understand the social aspect and its importance, especially for whole cultures as humans seem to need these guidelines to feel safe, protected, connected and also to look after each other. I just.. don’t. I observe these needs and know where they come from but, spiritually, I don’t feel that. I do need connections. I don’t think I’d be able to live in isolation, although I believe I’d be better with that than many, but I have my connections to special people, people I love, and those are perfect. If the world was empty but for those few, I’d be just as happy as I am now (and sometimes happier) – obviously at an emotional level, not counting the material inconveniences like no internet or new video games (*gasp*). And I don’t say that in arrogance or think that my “way” is better. I just don’t function like that and thus occasionally clash with cultural/religious/social human behaviour and opinions (but at least the world would be more peaceful if more people felt like me).
A rather daring theory would be now that I am good at “touching”/comforting people emotionally because I sense and/or focus this gravity. I’ve always wondered how it is that I seem to be able to make the people I care for comforted and calmed even though I can’t relate to many things on an emotional level. I can either analyse the issue or try to … softly stroke their agitated souls, so to speak. It much feels like comforting a hurt animal, to me, something fragile and fluttering that is injured. I want to wrap a protective and healing gravity cloak around it and the words I say are usually just secondary – it’s actually much like what everyone else would say in this situation, I think. But as I said, that’s a very colourful interpretation. It was fun thinking about it, though.
PS. I chose gravity because it is something that is all-permeating. There’s no way to shield off gravity. But it could also be described as a kind of spiritual cosmic background radiation, of course. Furthermore, my choice was inspired by watching “Interstellar” recently (a very long but also very good film that is less a science-fiction and more a story about .. exactly this kind of spiritual search). There, all these basic questions are touched in connection with time – and a human life span – and one of the lasting answers is that there is only one thing that can permeate time and space: gravity. But then, they find a second one: Love. :)
Lost in Thought 