Is spirituality innate?

[terrya]

That is, is spirtuality something you're born with?

I'm not sure I'm a spiritual person.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

1. Spirituality takes many forms

I believe it is innate but can be something someone doesn't even realize they have

[Kolesar]

2. When I found another tumor on my dog's leg, I started contemplating God

After a period of time, I snapped out of it. Even we skeptics have moments that challenge our faith.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. Is spirituality an inmate? What?

Oh... my bad... :evilgrin:

[noonwitch]

4. Yes, but we make a choice about whether to acknowledge it or not

Spirituality is not religion. A lot of people do things that may be spiritual in nature without thinking of them that way.

[sui generis]

5. probably a little from column a and column b

I'm an atheist but I'm also "spiritual" (there isn't a good analogous word).

I think that there is so much wonder and beauty if you only have eyes to see, and the heart to cherish it -- but maybe that's also attitude (learned) and big sweeping "gestalts".

Whatever this meta-perception/contemplation is that we call "spirituality", I do believe you have to have the genetic wiring upstairs for it, whether you contemplate "god" or "nature".

[Beware the Beast Man]

6. sounds almost agnostic-

you acknowledge that there may be a higher order, whether it be "God" or "nature", yet you're not so sure. In my mind, atheism is the denial of any spiritual influence behind the universe.

[sui generis]

10. have to correct you

I am most definitely NOT agnostic.

That's why I said there really isn't a good word for it. If you were going to say I was anything I would say closer to Tao. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to portray atheism as brittle. We like clear cut categories but in the real world people aren't defined by their faith (or lack of it). Faith for some, and the real world are defined by people.

[Lady Effingbroke]

7. I think spirituality is innate, although many are unconscious or

indifferent to its existence (said of society in general, not you specifically, terrya). I believe we (and all life forms) are spiritual entities who have volunteered to experience life in a three-dimensional world in order to learn and advance in knowledge and wisdom.

That being said, the distractions and demands of life in this world, existing in an animal body, cause many people to become focused on survival in the here and now, and less aware or uncaring of their essential spiritual nature. This is completely understandable!

For the record, I don't consider myself to be an inordinately spiritual person, either.


Just my 2¢.

[sam sarrha]

8. I believe you are referring to one word of a 'subset' of terms that attempt

to define something that our Physical or Conventional mind is not capable of understanding.

Spiritual can refer to religion or the soul or disembodied entities.

Buddhism is postulated on the premise that Nothing Inherently Exists. that the concept and dynamics of the 'self' is impermanent and the cause of all sufferings

The Buddha Shakyamuni postulated the Four Noble Truths

1/That the life involves suffering, of various kinds; dissatisfaction, attachment, aversion, anger, greed, fear, worry, even happiness can be a source of pain when we grasp impermanent things in order to acquire happiness resulting in the suffering of loss.

2/suffering is caused by desire/grasping/attachment, anger of not getting what you want, the delusions that are the ignorance that causes the karma which aversion is the carrot on the stick which is the cause of the object of avoidance and grasping.
The process is convoluted, and what appears to be the solution is actually the cause..that is what is meant by 'ignorance'

3/since there is a cause to suffering.. there is a solution. and the solution is

4/the Noble Eight Fold Path.... you can look this up on the web if you are interested, www.buddhanet.net is a good source.
actually it is a lot like the Ten Commandments except more like the 8 suggestions.. Buddhists believe it is all up to you, you decide to try it if it works, then good, if not you will find another Noble path that works for your personal disposition. Once you are 'Awake' enough to realize the "Noble" nature of Sentient Beings, you are on the 'Path'. There are many paths.

Meditation is the major factor in Buddhism, it is a method to train the conventional mind to reside in its proper place. It is the way to realize ones Buddha Nature. Buddha is a term that describes when one becomes "AWAKE". This is said to mean that one is free of not only the suffering of ignorance.. but also rebirth, suffering and Death. But there is a lot more to it than that..

to answer your question...

Samsara, which is described in the 'Wheel of Life' is an Evolution back to what we actually ARE, to begin with. However if you don't make the necessary effort in all aspects of life, your miss it, and have to go back around.. or maybe back and forth again and again. Till you get it right. it isn't punishment by a supreme being or god, they actually have their own 'realm' in samsara and their own particular problems that bind them also cyclical suffering.. but samsara is just the way it works, it isn't cruel or punishment.

Spirituality involves the soul, in Buddhism there is no soul, but there is something better.. you are not something to be gathered up to worship a god in his place and the only option for failure is burning in hell forever.. I had a Buddhist Friend that thought that Christians practiced Christianity so that they could be reborn into the god realm as a god so that they could be with them there as 'Equals'.

there are Buddha realms.. i guess like parallel universes.. some are exclusively training institutions for Bodhisattva's, who vow to return here and help all those left behind that are suffering.. they see all sentient being as though they were their own mothers suffering horribly. They take a vow to not cease rebirth until all beings are liberated form the suffering of samsara. they will be the last to leave, they will leave no sentient being behind.

this is all based on compassion, I was really amazed when i discovered it. to me it explained all the questions i had all my life about injustice and suffering.

The Four immeasurable

May all beings have happiness and its causes

May all beings be free of suffering and its causes

May all beings never be separated from the happiness that knows no suffering

May all beings live in Equanimity free of the attachment, anger and aversion that causes us to hold some beings near and others distant.

[johnnie]

9. I believe so..yes

Of course that's basing it on my own personal beliefs in reincarnation and a continuous existence.

[Phillycat]

11. I don't think so.

I've never felt like a spiritual person. I think it's something that has to be ingrained in someone while they're growing up.

[redqueen]

12. Yes