Showing posts with label The Presence Of The Infinite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Presence Of The Infinite. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

What social institutions are now nurturing spiritual intelligence?




As mentioned above, I was not raised in a religious family and I have never subscribed to any organized religion, but I have been on a personal spiritual path since adolescence. As a result of this background, my spiritual convictions are eclectic; I eschew exclusivism and try to appreciate spiritual truth wherever I find it. And throughout my life I have found it abundantly in the wisdom of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Taoism, and in indigenous forms of spirituality as well. Further, I have found spiritual truth in nontraditional sources and unaffiliated teachings and even in spontaneous realizations that seemed to come from the very source of my self. 

Moreover, I have also found significant spiritual truth in science. Indeed, the stupendous discoveries of the physical sciences serve as an important foundation for evolutionary spirituality, which recognizes that the structure, function, and order of nature is a spiritual teaching in itself. As discussed at the end of chapter 4, evolutionary spirituality seeks to develop a unified understanding of physics and metaphysics through which science and spirituality may become harmonized and increasingly seen as complementary.


McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. pp.12-13. 


Steve McIntosh describes a religious worldview that might be called “interreligious.” Steve writes that his religious convictions are “eclectic” and that he eschews exclusivism. Steve’s statement reminds me of Unitarian Universalism’s statement that it considers itself a “living tradition” which draws from many sources of which six are articulated. It is worthy of note that Steve not only draws on religious traditions but on science which is the basis for Unitarian dependence on reasoning.


Steve is in a minority of the population of the United States. This minority is growing with 33%  of the American population stating on the Pew Research Religious survey that they do not have any one religious affiliation..


This sociological trend indicates that the U.S. population is probably shifting from a traditional ethnocentric worldview to a modernistic and postmodern  worldcentric worldview. There are many implications of this shift for the evolutionary development of human cultures on the planet. However, it does raise questions about what institutional structures, if any, nurture spiritual intelligence if religious institutions are no longer playing this role. It may be that this role of nurturing spiritual intelligence is increasingly falling to the arts and science.


Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Loving kindness among people with different worldviews

Steve McIntosh’s book, The Presence Of The Infinite was published in 2015. This is the image that appears in the book depicting the percentages of Americans at each worldview stage. It may have changed slightly since then because of various factors but the essential estimates are probably still accurate.


From an Integral perspective the estimates of percentage of the population at the various worldviews is not a value judgment but merely a description. Within an evolutionary context every person and cultures  pass through these stages of worldviews on their way to maturity. Understanding the worldview of persons and cultures helps one adjust one’s style and approach of communication so that the interaction can be more effective, efficient, satisfying, and fulfilling for the participants and others in the environment of the participants.


Unitarian Universalists tend to appear more frequently within the modernist and postmodern worldview while many in the surrounding society are still at a traditional worldview although the percentage are declining.


Given this frame of reference, it is no wonder that Unitarian Universalism is such a small religious denomination in the United States. One might predict that as society matures the denomination will grow except that currently we are seeing the worst characteristics of the postmodern worldview with its emphasis on political correctness and its judgmental attitudes towards others with different worldviews disrupting the sharing of loving kindness. The move to strident social justice agendas is alienating and polarizing leading to increased separateness and divisiveness rather than collaborative efforts to build a better world based on spiritual understanding of what all humans have in common.


Monday, January 24, 2022

Stages of worldview development


A key concept in the model of Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) is the stages of worldviews that people and cultures pass through on their way to maturity. McIntosh’s model has five stages: pretraditional, traditional, modern, postmodern, and post-postmodern.


McIntosh writes that about 30% of the American population are ensconced in the traditional worldview while about 50% are in the modern, and 20% in postmodern. Probably the percentages of Unitarian Universalists are skewed upward with larger percentages in the modern and postmodern and a small percentage in the post postmodern. If you are reading this you are more likely to be post postmodern.


Sunday, January 23, 2022

The purpose of life is to make the world a better place.


Moreover, through the practice of evolutionary spirituality we become agents of evolution—emissaries of the future—whose mission is the improvement of the human condition. And the experience and creation of that which is spiritually real—that which is beautiful, true, and good—is ultimately how we make things genuinely better. In other words, we become direct participants in evolution’s unfolding—the process by which something more keeps coming from something less—as we work to increasingly perfect ourselves and our world. Thus, those who are on an evolutionary spiritual path recognize that their purpose in life is to participate in the gradual perfection of the evolving universe of nature, culture, and self.


McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. P.6


The three big existential questions we all face as human beings are : Why was I born?  What is the purpose of my life? What happens to me when I die?. 


The purpose of every person’s life is to make the world a better place than they found it. As Steve McIntosh puts it, “Thus, those who are on an evolutionary spiritual path recognize that their purpose in life is to participate in the gradual perfection of the evolving universe of nature, culture, and self.”


This desire to make the world a better place is what psychologists call “generativity.” The opposite of “generativity” is stagnation and despair.


The further question when one recognizes and acknowledges the fact that they were born to make the world a better place is how? The grand answer is by using their talents and abilities engaging in activities which provide satisfaction and fulfillment. For every person these talents and abilities are a little bit different so the contribution is both unique but also contributes to the whole: that is, the contribution is holy.


Knowing that the purpose of life is to make the world a better place is a foundational building block of spiritual intelligence. Knowing how one is called to do this is another.


Sunday, December 5, 2021

Evolutionary spirituality - a model for our UU faith.



Evolutionary spirituality, as I understand it, transcends previous forms of spirituality through two crucial insights that serve as its foundation. The first insight comes from an enhanced recognition of the spiritual nature and behavior of the intrinsic values of beauty, truth, and goodness. And the second insight involves what is coming to be known as the “spiritual teachings” of evolution itself.

………………………….

Properly interpreted, the evolutionary unfolding of nature and history, as well as the evolution of human consciousness itself, represents a kind of revelation that serves as a useful criterion for evaluation—a reliable standard of measurement—for practically all spiritual truth claims.


McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. p.6 


Evolutionary spirituality rests on the idea that the universe is pursuing perfection. It is on a trajectory which Teilhard de Chardin called from “alpha to omega.”


Each of us, personally, is called to become our better selves. Every society and culture is called to become its better collective. The people on the earth, homo sapiens,  are on the path of perfecting itself. This is based on faith and is a grand narrative.


Evolutionary spirituality believes in continuous quality improvement in the realm of the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is in this development that our hopes as individuals and as a species here on earth arise.


Unitarian Universalism is poised to be a facilitative factor for this spiritual evolution if it can clarify its mission to utilize activities to achieve this vision of universal enlightenment. What are the practices that nurture this kind of spiritual development? Implementation of our seven principles in our daily lives in the life of our church in the world is a good place to start.


Sunday, November 14, 2021

Are UUs the yeast in the dough rising to a better society?


In fact, history reveals that increasing the quantity and quality of spiritual experience in a given social context results in cultural evolution. In other words, spiritual experience, broadly understood, is what causes consciousness to evolve. And when consciousness evolves among a critical mass of people, their larger culture also evolves in the process. Our personal encounters with a transcendent or infinite dimension of reality can therefore have indirect political implications. Accordingly, as I will argue, deepening our understanding of what spiritual experience is and how it can be fostered in ourselves and others is one of the most direct ways we can make the world a better place.


McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. P.2


Stephen Gaskin said one time that the only thing we have to give to another human being is our own state of being. And what happens when we share our best selves with one another? Does this happen in our Unitarian Universalist congregations? 


The sharing of our best selves seems rare in UU as compared to other religious institutions, traditions, and practices. Why?


There are many reasons. Perhaps one of the most fundamental is the lack of mission and vision. From where will a clarity of mission and vision come?


Sunday, September 12, 2021

Book discussion, The Presence Of The Infinite, Where are you in your spiritual development?




 Where are you in your spiritual development?

The experience of spirit evolves our consciousness, develops our character, and makes us more real. Our experiences of spirit, however, are not only personally beneficial; they can also benefit others by inspiring us to share our gifts and bring spiritual experience into the lives of our fellows.


McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. p.2 


Unitarian Universalism seems to have forgotten its mission and vision. It has become hung up on social justice and forgotten its primary mission which is to facilitate spiritual development. Most UUs don’t even know what spiritual development is let alone how to facilitate it, nurture it, and guide it.


Steve McIntosh in his book, The Presence Of The Infinite, provides excellent definitions and ideas about how to develop our spirituality. His overall approach is what is called “evolutionary spirituality.”


The point of pursuing a path of evolutionary spirituality is to facilitate one’s own spiritual development, that of one’s associates, and the world.


How can a person “bring spiritual experience into the lives of our fellows” if we aren’t even consciously aware of our own spiritual experience and have a map for its development?


If you were asked, “Where are you in your spiritual development” what would you say? Do you even have a way of thinking about this question, let alone answering it?


Stick with us for the next month or two as we explore The Presence Of The Infinite on UU A Way Of Life.


Friday, September 3, 2021

Book Discussion - The Presence Of The Infinite, How do people practice their "spirituality"?


How do people practice their “spirituality”?


Everyone who has felt the power of truth, the kindness of goodness, or the loveliness of beauty has had an experience of spirit. The only reason such common yet profound experiences are not universally identified as spiritual is that our collective understanding of spiritual experience remains underdeveloped.


McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. P.2


People who report that they are “spiritual” but not “religious” usually have no articulate answer when asked what their statement means. What does it mean to say that one is “spiritual”?


It usually means that the person has some sort of apprehension of a Higher Power of some sort but this apprehension does not lead to any deliberate, purposeful, and intentional practice to cultivate more of the spiritual in their lives.


Steve McIntosh suggests in the passage above that people who seek the truth, do good things, and pause to savor beauty when they see it are practicing spirituality.


  1. What do you think of these ideas about seeking truth, doing good, and savoring beauty as being spiritual practices?

  2. When and how do you engage in these practices and what are the benefits you have experienced from doing so?

Thursday, September 2, 2021

Book discussion - The Presence Of The Infinite, Infinite Transcendent Source


Infinite Transcendent Source


But as we will explore, what all authentic spiritual experiences have in common is this connection to a quality of being that is best described as infinite. Within the context of spiritual experience, the idea of the infinite includes not only a mathematical infinity of quantity—boundless, endless, unlimited, immeasurable, and eternal—but also a metaphysical infinity of quality—unified, whole, complete, perfect, self-sufficient, and largely beyond definition or conception. Yet even though the infinite is largely transconceptual and elusive, it can be directly experienced by humans.


McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. P. 1-2


Simply put, spirituality is our experience of our Transcendent Source. It is what UUs call the interdependent web of all existence.


  1. When have you experienced your oneness with the Ground of Being?
  2. How can you best describe it?
  3. While this experience is personal, sometimes we share it with others. This experience has been called “empathic reverberation.” Jesus said, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be.” Jesus is not talking about Jesus the person, Jesus is talking about Spirit as when He said, “I and the Father are One.” Have you experienced Oneness with others?


Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Book Discussion - The Presence Of The Infinite, What is spiritual?



What is spiritual?


But the idea that spiritual experience is—actually and literally—an experience of that which is infinite or transcendent may find agreement among many who are open-minded about the possibility of some kind of spiritual reality.


McIntosh, Steve. The Presence of the Infinite . Quest Books. p.1


More and more people say these days when asked about an affiliation with a religious denomination that they are not “religious” but they are “spiritual.” What is the meaning of this word “spiritual”?


Steve McIntosh suggests that the experience of “spiritual” is an experience of the Transcendent or the Infinite. It is the experience of something greater than oneself. It is the experience of what Twelve Step programs like AA call the “Higher Power.”


The next question might be “How do you practice or implement your experience of the “spiritual’? Is there is a spiritual intelligence, and if so, how does one develop it?


The first step in developing one’s spiritual intelligence is coming to know that there is such a thing and that it can be enhanced. The second step is to find someone to share this discovery with to explore the idea. The third step is to develop a map or a curriculum to increase one’s spiritual intelligence. The fourth step is to engage in regular study and practice.


  1. How do you practice your spirituality?
  2. What practices do you engage in to enhance your spiritual intelligence?


Thursday, August 19, 2021

UU A Way Of Life book for discussion September, 2021 - The Presence Of The Infinite

 The UU A Way Of Life book for discussion beginning on September 1, 2021, will be "The Presence Of The Infinite: The Spiritual Experience Of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness by Steve McIntosh.



From the Amazon Web Site

Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2015
Verified Purchase
Every once in awhile, I read or hear something that creates a whole new space of possibility for myself. This is always a thrilling and Grace-full experience. Not only did this book do that for me ... It is also an extremely deep and thoughtful work that provides powerful direction to the inquiry and potential application for this new space.

WARNING! ... Do NOT speed-read this book. Each sentence is powerful. Let it in ... BE vulnerable, and ALLOW it to permeate not only your Mind ... but your Heart and Body as well.

I sense that Steve's destiny was to write this book. I don't know anyone else that could have done it ... and we are all richer for it.

I look forward to co-creating the UNFOLDING of the SUBSTANTIATION of the possibilities.

(I recommend reading the many other excellent reviews here for more content detail.)

Gratefully,

Dr. David Kamnitzer: Holistic Doctor and Ontological Coach

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