Defending Spirit - Beware of Ridicule (essay)

[Bill Huston]

We have so totally missed the idea of spirit in the West!

Anything SPIRITUAL is "new age(*) BS" or a false religion.

I'm here to suggest a different perspective.

We deny the spiritual traditions of more
nature-based societies, and worse!
we have destroyed them as being
lunatics, heretics, witches, pagans,
evil, devil-worshiping occultists
practicing a false religion.

And I hear a few atheists out there.
(you might also be a humanist, a dualist, a skeptic,
   rationalist, reductionist, agnostic, analyzer, denier,
   contrarian, logician, person-of-science,
   the most general category I'd call "materialist")

I know what you all are thinking.

You are thinking I am referring to something
SUPERNATURAL!

i.e, a primitive and false belief
   --whether theology or spiritism--
   an unprovable and useless fairy tale
    which is told to comfort children
      but which no sane adult would believe

Spirit is not supernatural.
Spirit is perfectly natural!
Spirit is truth.
Spirit is the animating force,
   which distinguishes living things from rocks
Spirit is thus plain view for all to see (even materialists!)
Spirit is Breath

Look at the word itself:

To ASPIRE is to live, to dream or imagine, to strive for one's best
To ASPIRE is also to breathe.

Breath is spirit is life is dream/imagination.

Part of Yoga is Pranayama -- breath-awareness.

Vipassana is a form of meditation
called insight -- looking within, or getting a new idea or perspective.
It also uses breath-focus, breath-awareness.
It was developed by Siddhartha Gautama
   (a/k/a, The Buddha... perhaps you have heard of him :)

Breath-awareness is extremely important, empowering, and useful!
Because breath itself is life-giving, empowering, etc.

The Rishis (enlightened person) have shown us
the entire sum of universal knowledge
can be found with insight
   -- quietly sitting, breathing, looking within.

And the most marvelous thing about breath-awareness:
You don't need a degree,
you don't need any machines, devices or instruments,
you don't need to spend money,
you don't need any books or a guru
   (although they can help you learn the technique).
You don't need someone to give it to you.
And no one can take it away.
You don't need to wait.
You can do it right now and gain immediate benefits.
You can use breath-focus meditation anywhere,
   even in prison.

Breath connects the material aspect of the body
with ....      

... well, with something else.
Naming this else can be problematic :)

There are some who would call this SPIRIT.

Spirit and Aspire have common word roots.

So, a study of our own language tells us:

Living is Dreaming, Hoping, Striving, Achieving
Living is Breathing
Living is Spiritual

And we all organically understand this,
because we come from spirit!
We are made of spirit.

The Vedics call it Prakriti:
undifferentiated God-stuff
feminine in it's nature
because of it's creative potential
containing both the male and female aspects
containing both form and substance,
body and spirit.

So we understand this organically
because we are naturally made of spirit.

And once you understand this
you begin to approach life differently.

Western Culture has denied spirit,
is they have imposed various certain false-beliefs:

• The Universe is a clockwork machine,
  perfectly predictable and understandable
  with the aid of measuring devices.
  
  
• Science/Rationalism is complete and infallible.
  
  ...and, here's the kicker
  
  
• Commodity Fetishism : (as defined by Sut Jhally)
  a belief system (embodied in advertising) which
  claims magical powers can be achieved through
    monetary transactions and consumption of
  market commodities.
  

So be careful of consuming ADVERTISING of any kind,
and especially avoid TELEVISION..
It is a devious form of PROGRAMMING (mind control)

The Commercial Media (corporate media / mainstream media)
first attempts to strip you of your natural organic powers of life,
   by imposed ignorance, propaganda, censorship,
   denial and ridicule of the truth,

then, by imposing their false beliefs in
the magical powers of brands, and consumption of commodities,
   the sanctity of marketplace to dictate all human affairs,
and in the completeness and inerrancy of the scientific world view.



NOTE: This essay was partly inspired by a
Myspace user named "Corporations Ate My Baby"
who claims to be a rational progressive,
who in many ways seems to think like I do
   and who reads the same authors as I do...

...but who admits to using "ridicule"
   against people with "supernatural belief".

   I understand this well because I am am a former
   hard-core athiest, rationalist, skeptic myself.

   Someone who has a correct position, TRUTH
   simply needs to invoke logical argument to persuade,
   or simply live by example -- for the truth is self-evident
   and does not need to resort to ridicule.

   In fact, ridicule weakens the position.
   Ridicule is a tool of deception
   and is often used by people in power to maintain it.
 
   So, Beware of ridicule when you see it!
  

(* Note on the term "New Age":
My friend Amanda points out the misnomer:
what we call "new age" is really "old age"
because many of the concepts
from Yoga, Buddhism, Astrology, Taoism, Spiritism, Shamanism,
are thousands of years old,
and predate both Scientific Materialism [Bacon, Descartes, Newton]
    and Abrahamic religions [Islam, Christianity, Judaism])

--
Bill Huston
Binghamton NY
607-321-7846 c

email: WilliamAHuston at gmail
http://binghamtonpmc.org/bio.html
http://myspace.com/MrMouthyMan