Spirituality in the everyday: Contemporary understandings MARIAN DE SOUZA

The fourth Carmelite Lecture for 2017 was delivered on the evening of Tuesday the 24^th of October by Dr Marian de Souza.  Here are the key points from her powerpoint slides.

The use of the word ‘spirituality’ is used with much frequency in today’s world.

The phrase ‘I’m spiritual but not religious’ had 79,900,000 hits on Google in October 2015. 

However, the wide usage has led to problematic understandings of the concept of spirituality today.

Findings from a project to examine how people from different disciplines and worldviews understood spirituality:

There were two distinct concepts which we termed traditional and contemporary understandings of spirituality. The first originated in religious frameworks and was God related.

However, as other disciplines and professions started looking at the word, the understanding and therefore, the application changed. Spirituality was recognized as a distinct human trait.

If we examine spiritual characteristics such as truth, justice, beauty, freedom, caring, joyfulness, mystery, awe, wonder, empathy and compassion, we find these traits in many non-religious people.

More importantly, every one of these words is generated by the relational dimension of Being. 

They all indicate that something other than the self has prompted the particular experience in the self. 

In other words, it is the self’s awareness of its own response, through the senses, to something other which triggers the perceptions, sensations, experiences or emotions that are captured by the words associated with spirituality.

My original research built on Nye’s theory of relational consciousness and generated the concept of a relational continuum, along which the movement reflects the growth of human spirituality in terms of having a raised awareness/consciousness of oneself as a relational Being. 

The end of the continuum leads to the realm of Ultimate Unity where awareness of Self is that Self is part of the Whole which also comprises Other.

Thus, I would argue, human relationality is the essence of spirituality.

If we translate this understanding to practice it would require that

 - we live our lives with an awareness of our connectedness to everything other than self – we live as a relational Beings.

- developing empathy for the Other who is different from ourselves

- recognizing that deep connectedness can lead us past the point of relationality – where Self becomes one with other.

- nurturing our spiritual selves by finding moments of transcendence in the everyday.

Mirror neurons help us to read the facial expression and actually feel the suffering or the pain of the other person. Iacoboni argues that this is the foundation of empathy and possibly of morality, a morality that is deeply rooted in our biology (2008, p. 5).

Keysers (2011) contends that: ‘Mirror neurons ‘mirror’ the behaviour and emotions of the people surrounding us in such a way that the others become part of us’.

Ramachandran calls them ‘Gandhi neurons’ because they blur the boundary between self and others (2011, p. 124).

Australia Today

The diversity of Australian society in the 21st century has created some wonderful opportunities for intercultural and interreligious activity with many efforts at communal and governing levels to maintain and promote social cohesion. 

However, these significant changes have led to some tensions associated with religious and cultural differences, largely due to the rise of Terrorism and Islamophobia, where there is a fear of the Other who is different.

The security associated with belonging and being accepted invariably inculcates a sense of self/identity and place which constitutes the spiritual wellbeing of an individual or community. 

When this is suddenly removed, it has a detrimental effect on the individual’s self-assurance, self-confidence and, therefore, his/her spiritual wellbeing.

Many young people experience this loss of belonging and identity.

In  a plural world where media exposure enables individuals to view many ways of being, multiple identities have become the norm, more consistently than in the past.

Tensions can arise when one identity construct conflicts with another.

Nonconscious learning which can be an impediment to our spiritual nurturing

The parallel information processes of the brain lead to conscious and non-conscious learning. Most social and education systems have ignored the role of nonconscious learning in encouraging the development of stereotypes which can lead to hidden prejudices and biases (Myers, 2002; Wilson, 2002). 

Needless to say, this is a significant factor in pluralist societies where ‘them and us’ scenarios often arise.

A common human element is the fear of the otherness of other which is often a result of socialization? 

Until our fears are brought to light and a person acknowledges its residence within the dark shades of his/her nonconscious mind, it remains out of sight but continues to project its negativity onto the Other.

It is only by facing up to that which we fear or which provokes in us a sense of unease that we may realize it is much less significant than we had made it out to be; the tiger’s growl becomes a kitten’s purr and the threat of the unknown becomes safe because it is familiar.

A way forward 

Australians need to have knowledge and empathetic understanding about the different religions and cultures that have become part of society. Without such learning, the religiously and culturally different Other will remain ‘them’ and it will take, at least, another generation before they will become ‘us’. 

Therefore, we need to encourage children to recognize that a world view that is different from their own is not wrong or something to be feared. Instead, all the different world views and belief systems complement each other to make up the whole.

Acceptance, empathy and compassion for the Other who is different should, potentially, promote social cohesion and nurture spiritual wellbeing for individuals and their communities.