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My fiancé is religious, but I’m not.  I think of myself as spiritual, but not religious in the way I grew up with.  She tells me that she is not trying to change me, but that my life would be better (fuller) if I was like her.  I’m not sure what to tell her, but I just know I’m happy to be alive every day and to be a good friend to other people, including her.  Am I wrong?”

Special Report on the Psychology of Spirituality:

Or, “I think I’m spiritual but not religious”

This conversation you two are having can be a very loaded conversation, overflowing with both emotion and meaning.  Perhaps if you can begin with a similar understanding of what you each mean by “spirituality” and the psychological difference between that and religion, i t will ease your struggle in this area.  I’ve provided a special report below, because of my respect for this sincere and common dilemma. 

Some People are More Naturally Awake to the Moment

When it comes to spirituality, some people seem to be “naturals.”  If you are, it is probably easy to tell.  You look around the world, and you are sometimes astonished that all of this exists, beginning with yourself.  You are fascinated that, of all the things in the world, you somehow managed to appear in a form that gets to wonder about stuff like this.  You are grateful for the opportunity of being conscious, alive, and subtle.  Further, you are deeply appreciative of finding yourself in possession of some delightful talents, which can easily take a lifetime to explore.  You probably take very little credit for the existence of these talents, but you experience a sense of inner mandate to develop them as gifts.  Most important, despite the temporary nature of all that you see, you feel an intrinsic passion to deliver the fruits of these talents to everyone who might make use of them.  It is just your nature. 

            Some people who fit this description participate in some kind of tradition that expresses similar sentiments.   Others do not, but find that their nature tends in this direction even without the structure of a religious or philosophical system.

            If you think that you have never felt even an ounce of this sense of wonder, I doubt that you would still be reading this page.  On the other hand, if you are like most of us, you occasionally experience feelings of awe, but only in the form of infrequent lightning bolts.  If so, you have an opportunity to expand and extend this capacity.   Like all abilities, the tendency to experience grateful amazement is a gift that you can enhance. 

What and Why is the Spiritual Dimension?

            Why should we develop this?  First, let’s define it, so we’re on the same page.  You could define spirituality as “the sense of a grateful connection to that outside oneself, beyond personal, ethnic, and national identity.”   Defined that way, research shows that it is central to a sense of satisfaction, especially in the second half of life.  When spirituality is the connection to all humanity, we commonly call it universal love.  Like a continuum, people can experience a spiritual connection as specific as a reverence for Mother Earth or as abstract as feeling connected to the vast something-nothing of the Cosmos.  Defining it as “self-transcendence,” some psychologists (Cloninger and his colleagues) have established a strong connection between spirituality and satisfaction once people exceed 40 years of age.  Given a hopefully long life, this is helpful to know.    

            Second, since it is a form of love, it is indispensable.  Love is the chief source of joy.  While we do not always have somebody to love, everybody has the “Everything” available to love if only we know how.   When we do have close family or friends to love, the ability to transcend ourselves helps us achieve the kind of intimacy that makes love more than a fun but fleeting feeling. 

            Finally, don’t forget those lightning bolts.   It would be sweet to spend more time amazed at being alive and filled with a sense of purpose. 

           Here is where the religion question comes up.  Can the symbols and practices of a religion help us to capture more spirituality within our lives? 

There Are Teachings  to Guide Our Way.

            Psychologically speaking, religions can be viewed as symbol systems.  They can seem very unscientific, but there is a good reason for that.  Metaphors can come in very handy at times.  You see, it is at the precise point where the direct language of scientific terminology starts to tremble beneath the weight of the profound, that the suggestive language of the metaphor begins to ascend.  Therapists already know that certain insights can be more easily spoken of figuratively than literally.  Moments of awesome communion, of liberating self-insight, of impossibly ambiguous emotions depend upon figurative expression for us to converse directly with experience.  Symbols speak most audibly when concrete terms fall silent. 

            As a psychologist I often notice that powerful insights are usually conveyed more effectively with metaphors than with experimental data.  Scientific terminology and traditional symbols each have their own type of clarity and concreteness.  One cannot replace the other. 

I have heard this difference discussed as the difference between symbols and signs.  The usefulness of signs requires a one-to-one correspondence between the sign and that which is signified.  For instance, we don’t want a stop sign to be ambiguous.   For this reason, signs are useful in science.  Symbols, on the other hand, owe their power to their ability to convey one-to-many correspondences, so crucial for the metaphoric expression of intuitive insights.

            As one psychologist stated it (Royce), “The multiple meanings of the symbol make the task of empirical analysis extremely difficult, but they open up dimensions of reality which remain unavailable to sign language.”  (Psychology would ideally incorporate both, according to Royce.  Symbols would reveal insights that would be cleverly tapped for specific scientific formulations, which would then be tested in the form of signs.)

The Search for a Personal Set of Symbols

            Inside every mystical or religious system are subtle teachings that interpret the content of the system in symbols rather than signs.   This is not intellectualization.  As Martin Buber wrote, the knack is to look at the religious symbols neither literally nor literarily, but as vehicles of insight.  Sometimes these teachings are called the “wisdom literature.”  In some religions, especially several Eastern systems, these transformational strategies are right there, on the surface.  These traditions can emphasize their mystical side because their goal is transcendence of material life, and their most ideal setting consists of serene monks in secluded monasteries.  In Western traditions, because their first goal is to provide meaning, comfort, and direction to householders (people living non-monastic lives), this deeper layer is often hidden.  It is never missing, though. 

            Today, one ready source of information about these levels of meaning is by using the Internet, as you just did.  Sometimes, the easiest way to learn how to connect to the essential web of your existence may be by connecting your computer to the Web of cyberspace.  A few minutes of searching will often reveal both sources and seekers, which will lead to a more symbolic dimension within any tradition that you wish to explore.  A search I just made on www.ask.com (of “ask Jeeves” fame) yielded 3.4 million hits in half a second for “Christian spirituality.”  Meanwhile, the “related topics” frame offered to take me to Christian mysticism, Jewish mysticism, and others. 

Of course, you may include the traditional browsing domains, such as bookstores and libraries.  Local clergy may be helpful or disappointing.  Nonetheless, many of the guides to spiritual development, including Carl Jung, suggest that we find our teachers within the tradition of our youth, the tradition that planted its symbols in our developing bones.

               Each tradition has produced brilliant guides who either wrote or whose teachings were transcribed.  Catholics can begin with Meister Eckhart and Thomas Merton.  Protestants can read Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr.  Jews can learn from A. J. Heschel and Zalman Schacter-Shalomi for a renovating perspective.   For a traditional viewpoint with a vibrant and mystical element, look up Tzvi Freeman or Simon Jacobson.  First, you can engage your mind in study, then you can engage your awareness in an experience of that which you study, and finally you can engage your heart in love with the source of that study. 

Leaps of  Faith Not Necessary

You may have a completely rational understanding of the source of your being alive, and it still compels love.  As therapists know, gratitude and love are natural reactions to even the smallest streams of help that we receive.  How much more psychologically natural for people to feel deep appreciation for the River of Energy that comprises and sustains our existence?  Various traditions use very different symbols for this Source and for the relationship that is possible with It.  At the same time, you will note that they all agree about three things: 

·        All the major traditional systems of transformation agree that there is a unifying principle to existence, a Ground of Being.  If theistic, the image will be personal; if philosophical or mystical, it may sound a bit more like theoretical physics.  The symbolism may place this principle as separate from the world and in charge of it, it may be a Force that is active within the world, or it may in fact be described as the only true reality that exists.  At times (such as in Jewish mysticism), these three can be stated as simultaneously true, because the symbols speak on different levels at once. 

·        Second, all traditions agree that awareness of this Source of the world is the key to a full and meaningful life.  We learn that isolation from the unifying principle is a causative factor in cruel behavior, addictive compulsions, and emotional despair.  Similarly, when the Unifying Essence is symbolized as a personal and involved potter, molding the world, the sacred writings are clear that we need Him emotionally more than He needs us. 

·        Third, all of the systems agree that the experience of this Essential Source is naturally planted inside each person.  Even very narrow-minded religious sects, those that teach that anyone with the wrong name for God and the wrong story will go to Hell, even those that say all the other churches in the same religion are also escorting their believers directly into damnation, still agree that they themselves do not give you the spiritual gift.  They may believe that only they have the story right, but they also believe that the source of the spiritual experience is a gift of grace, freely given by the Higher Power.  Of course, this is more explicit in the philosophically oriented traditions, yet absolutely no one is willing to take credit for owning the Spirit.  So, it is inside everyone for the partaking.

             Some people have theological beliefs and others don’t.  Either way, you are not excluded from the same transforming experience.  Why?  Because we know that the experience exists and is readily accessible to everyone, in any tradition.

            William James, the first person to write about this as a psychologist, first described the innate psychological capacity for this type of consciousness.  So, people who believe that they are filled with the spirit of God have this experience.   At the same time, people who believe that they have overcome the bounds of the ego and are unified with the cosmos experience it, too.  Then again, people who say that they have surpassed the limited conceptual frames that keep people away from direct life experience will report similar states of mind.  The truth is that the experience of cosmic perspective, release, and love is available to all.  The choice of metaphor is up to you. 

If William James got the ball rolling by explaining the psychology of spirituality, brain researchers like Andrew Newberg have now painted a picture for us.   SPECT images literally show how self-transcendence works for people who develop those skills, and skills they truly are. 

Your Brain High on Love

Most likely what happens when we feel spiritually moved is that two important areas of the brain are dampened.  The quieting down is probably prompted by the brain’s switchboard/filing system, which is called the hippocampus.  When the brain is stimulated by the repetitive and intense focus of prayer, meditation, or spiritual study, the switchboard turns down the noise in other areas.  One of the subdued regions observed during brain imaging is the parietal lobe, which has the job of locating us in space and marking the separation between us and everything else.  With a quieter parietal lobe, we start to feel an increased connection to the outside.  Also quieter is the amygdala, which is the brain’s alarm system.  A soothed amygdala quells fear, so we feel unafraid as we emerge to an unfamiliar sense of reconnection.

            Meanwhile, with the boundary system and the alarm center resting, what is perking up?  Well, the areas most sensitive to activity during a spiritual experience are the parts of the brain near the temples, the temporal lobes, which are where sound and speech arise and where our self-image evidently forms, especially on the left side.  Among the evidence for this area as central to spiritual awakening is the long-known hyper-religiosity of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. 

            Because the left temporal area is the area where sense of self takes form, external stimulation at such a time creates a strong experience of a hovering presence.  Suppose the cognitive content of this external presence is spiritually oriented.  Also suppose that this happens while our awareness of personal boundaries is dissolving, as mentioned previously.  Explaining the physiology of any experience neither proves nor invalidates the object of the experience.  We can similarly describe the brain’s way of processing the experience of eating your favorite meal or of falling in love.  Just as with such events, the potential for our having spiritual experience appears to be wired into the “original equipment.”

            So, if we suppose that an individual’s metaphor is “scientistic” (faith in scientific method as the ultimate source of truth), all of this can still work since gratitude springs up spontaneously from the healthy human psyche.  Achieving this experience only requires permission from the rational mind for a person to accept it.  This permission can certainly be obtained by an individual’s having childlike faith.  But i t c an equally be gained in a state of mature unknowing, the humility of emptying oneself of certainty and conceptions. 

            Unknowing, which the philosophers call “negative theology,” is just as effective and is consonant with a scientific outlook.  In other words, I can affirm my inability to define the essence of this universe and this life, yet I can gratefully love it.  As soon as I let go of the need to define it, I am filled by a deep sense of it, as a lover is filled by a beloved’s embrace. 

A Big Enough Room

            So, the bottom line in resolving your question may be this:  your fiancé can learn to see the meaning in your “natural” spirituality, while you could appreciate the assistance that religious symbols can provide her.  Tha t c an enlarge the space of mutual regard in your relationship, making room for each of your choices as you build your lives together.