The Spiritual Life - Spiritual health: Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy

The ninth component of spiritual health is self-efficacy. What is “efficacy”? Efficacy is the combination of effectiveness and efficiency. It is the ability to produce the desired result in an elegant and gracious fashion. In everyday language, the person knows what they are doing. As we used to say back in the 60s, the person has their shit together.

Self-efficacy depends on certain knowledge, skills, and values. First the person must know themselves and know what makes them tick. Second the person has developed a higher degree of self knowledge and self awareness that contributes to successful self management. The person has effective emotional, cognitive and behavior management skills. Thirdly, the person has healthy and beneficial values that allows them to discern what matters and focus with intention, motivation, and integrity on their self development and the growth and development of other people and other things.

Self-efficacy develops from curiosity, honesty, and openness to feedback and learning. It also develops from courage, bravery, and initiative. The person who manifests self-efficacy is goal directed and has a sense of purpose and meaning in their life usually supported by an intuitive sense of the transcendent of which they feel themselves to be a part.

The person manifesting self-efficacy is able to tap inner resources which fuel their functioning. They often have a rich interior spiritual life which is the bedrock of their awareness and functioning.

In what does a person with self-efficacy put their faith? It is not in the superficial rewards of the ego but the interior rewards of the spirit which provide a sense of wholeness (holiness), peace, and bliss.

The Spiritual life - Spiritual health: Freedom from and freedom to

Freedom from and freedom to

The eighth component of spiritual health is freedom. Freedom is one of those words like “justice,” “beauty,” “goodness,” that can mean very different things depending on the perspective and the context. Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher, described freedom from and freedom to.

There is freedom from constraint and restraint which is probably the more common meaning of the term, but then there is freedom to meaning that people have knowledge, skills, resources, and opportunities. In our American declaration of independence there is a statement that citizens are free to pursue happiness, but whether they can and will attain it is left to the individual and the community.

In the era of rugged individualism, individuals are left to their own resources to “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.” This idea is nonsensical and blames the victim of social circumstances over which the individual has little or no control.

It is not until a person gains some maturity that they understand that the ways of the ego are an illusion and what Holden Caulfield called, in The Catcher In The Rye, the “big lie.” Once a person begins to see through the deceit and delusionary world of the ego, they begin to understand that they do have a choice, the freedom to choose between the world of the ego and the world of the spirit. Once awareness of this choice occurs, the decision is simple. Would we live with unconditional love, our natural inheritance, or in the world of the ego with its false promises of happiness? Will romance, money, status, power, material things really make a person happy and if so, for how long?

It is not until we begin to free ourselves from the blocks and obstacles to our awareness of Love’s presence, our natural inheritance, that we become essentially free. We liberate ourselves from desires, attachments, motivations, and dependencies on the illusions of the ego. We finally become free merging with the non dualistic Oneness from which we separated ourselves to begin with thinking that we could become the king and queen of our small world of the ego rather than the emperors of the Universe of which we are a part.

The freedom from is the attempt to purify, to eschew false promises and attachments. We need to free ourselves from the things of the ego in order to be free to attain the things of the spirit.

This freeing from takes consistent effort and a giving up of the things of the ego and surrendering, in the best sense of the word, to the things of the spirit. This desire and attempts to free ourselves from the things of the ego takes periodic review with a growing awareness of our attachments. In A Course Of Miracles this activity is called “forgiveness” which means being willing to give up making other people and circumstances responsible for our unhappiness. Gary Renard, a teacher of the Course, calls these instances “forgiveness opportunities” and he looks forward to many forgiveness opportunities throughout his day. Being aware and taking advantage of forgiveness opportunities makes us free to enjoy the peace and comfort of the Unconditional Love of the Universe.

To be spiritually healthy we have to decide in what we will place our faith: is it the world of the ego or the world of the Spirit? Do we believe that the things of the ego will make us happy or the things of the spirit? We come to realize that until we can free ourselves from the things of the ego we are not able to be free to enjoy the things of the spirit which are peace and bliss.

The Spiritual Life - Spiritual health: A felt connection with the interdependent web of existence

A felt connection with the interdependent web of existence.

The seventh component of spiritual health is a felt connection with the interdependent web of existence. This component is referred to in the joke about the Buddhist monk who asked the hot dog vendor to “make me one with everything.”

The felt connection with the interdependent web is similar to the attunement to the non dualistic Oneness but a bit different in our cognitive models. The attunement to the non dualistic Oneness is the clearing the mind of all thoughts and arriving at awareness of pure being and thinking of “no thing,” nothing. The felt connection with the interdependent web is paradoxically the opposite when we feel a part of all existence. This component of a felt connection to the interdependent web of existence is a significant feature of Earth Centered Spiritualities.
This feature of Earth Centered Spiritualities is centered around the idea that we are part of everything and everything is a part of us. Our atoms intermingle and our energy which animates life is eternal and infinite. This idea is stated in physics as the law of conservation.

The everyday practice of this component is captured in the slogan of the Golden Rule which is “do unto others as you would have then do unto you.” However the felt connection of the interdependent web is not a matter of altruism or a transactional interaction, but an existential awareness that the others are us is a systemic way.

This component of spiritual health is glimpsed momentarily but rarely as an ongoing conscious part of our spirituality because it seems paradoxical to the ego mind. However, this component is captured in sayings such as “we learn what we teach,” “we get what we give,” “if you would get love then give love,” etc. Sometimes people refer to this component as “karma,” what goes around comes around.

The skills involved to further develop this component of  spiritual health are based on systems thinking. Systems thinking requires a distance which allows perspective and objectivity. It requires emotional distance so a person can be responsive and not reactive. It requires a “big picture” apprehension and not knee jerk reactions in the here and now. The felt connection to the interdependent web is probably based more in the prefrontal cortex of the brain rather than in the amygdala.

The felt connection to the interdependent web requires reflection and a centered appreciation which flows from mindfulness and forgiveness. People who have nurtured a felt connection to the interdependent web are naturally kind and compassionate. This felt connection with the interdependent web fills one with peace and joy.

In our busy, competitive, status and success conscious world of the ego, we are taught to put our faith in “getting ahead” and becoming “successful” rather than being sensitive and responsive to the welfare of the whole. In our capitalistic society our values have become perverted to enhance the ego rather than nourish the spiritual. We put our faith in money and success rather than in Love, appreciation, and gratitude. The love and respect for the interdependent web of existence is an essential component of spiritual health.

The Spiritual Life - Spiritual health: Living the examined life

Living the examined life.

The mission of UU A Way of Life is to improve spiritual health, reduce immoral and sinful behavior, and work across systems for positive social change. Over the last several weeks, there have been several articles defining spiritual health, its components,  and some activities which can enhance and improve those components. To date we have described six of these components and this article will provide a review before we go on to the remaining components.

The components of spiritual health which we have covered so far are: peace and joy, kindness, forgiveness, attunement with the non dualistic Oneness, Unconditional Love, and mindfulness. These components are not in any particular order. The components interact with one another in an oscillating way to invigorate and enhance one’s experience of an interior spiritual life.

Religion should nurture one’s spiritual life, but so often it doesn’t. Religion and spirituality can overlap somewhat in a venn diagram. Some people are religious but not spiritual, and some people are spiritual but not religious and some people are, to some extent, both. The idea that religion inherently nurtures spirituality is mistaken as well as the idea that spirituality enhances religious belief.

Spirituality is about experience and not about belief. As Francis David, the Unitarian pioneer, said, “We need not think alike to love alike.” The Beatles had a song with a lyric which said, “Love is all there is.” The fundamental component of spiritual health is Unconditional Love and Unconditional Love comes from forgiveness which is the activity of giving up making other people and circumstances responsible for one’s unhappiness. Forgiveness comes from mindfulness which is an awareness of one’s attunement with the non dualistic Oneness and the indicator of this attunement is kindness. When one is kind, one experiences peace and joy.

As with our physical health, it is helpful to find a spiritual director with whom to do a check up. The components can be thought of as being present in a person’s life 100% of the time, 50% or the time, or 0% of the time. Pick a time frame, for example, over the last six months, and give the component a rating from 0 - 10 in terms of its presence in your life. Once you have given yourself a rating, consider how you might increase that component in your life in the coming six months.

Spiritual health takes deliberate practice which involves daily review and reflection. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” To what extent have you been living an examined life? Would living an examined life be helpful in enhancing your spiritual health?

It is part of our faith here at UU A Way Of Life that living an examined life is the best life to live.

The Spiritual life - Spiritual health: mindfulness

Mindfulness

The sixth component of spiritual health is mindfulness. Mindfulness has become a buzzword and there are many books in the self help section of the bookstore on the topic. Mindfulness is a fuzzy idea and it seems that every author, teacher, and practitioner has a different definition of what the term refers to and how one can apply it.

Mindfulness is often equated with meditation. Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all thoughts and going inward the practitioner strives to arrive at a place of peaceful “no-mind.” It sometimes has been called “centering.”

Perhaps the best definition when it comes to thinking of mindfulness as a component of spiritual health is to call it “the witness.” The witness is that part of ourselves that simply, nonjudgmentally, observes our cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and psychological functioning. Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. How does one examine their life? They simply watch it and go below the surface.

Does a person love themselves? Do they love what they are? Do they know what they are, not who they are but what they are? Who they are refers to the world of the ego and what they are refers to the existential awareness of their eternal being.

To be mindful and develop this component of spiritual health, a person needs to take time to reflect and quiet their mind, what the Buddhists call the “monkey mind,” the constant chatter that seems to be incessant. As the poet suggests, take time to smell the roses. Some teachers encourage their students to be aware. Jesus encouraged His disciples to be watchful. In Christian monasticism this is called “recollection.” Take time every day or several times every day to recollect, to meditate, to go inward and simply watch one’s breath emptying the mind of all the monkeys chattering away.

People put their faith in the things of the external world to make them happy. People are acquisitive and desiring and striving for external objects and experiences when heaven is already within them if they would only turn inward and become mindful of their natural inheritance.

The moral Unitarian Univeralist - MAGA values and beliefs are in direct contradiction with UU principles

Donald J. Trump and his supporters advocate for white supremist ideas of authoritarian dominance of one race and nationality over another. This is a violation of Unitarian Univeralist principles which affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

MAGA values and beliefs are in direct contradiction to UU principles.

The Spiritual Life - Unconditional love

The fifth component of spiritual health is unconditional love.

There are two kinds of love: conditional and unconditional. Conditional love says, “I will love you if ___________” Conditional love is based on the principle of “give to get.” “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Aristotle described these kinds of friendship as based on utility and pleasure.  A Course in Miracles calls relationships based on conditional love as “special relationships.”

Conditional love is useful and normal in society. It is what it is, but do not confuse conditional love which is based on the ego with unconditional love which is based on the Spirit.

Unconditional love is freely given with no strings attached, with no expectations. Unconditional love is given just because the lover wants to give it. Unconditional love enriches the giver not necessarily the receiver. Unconditional flows from the awareness of the non dualistic Oneness in which the lover and the loved are experienced as the same. With unconditional love the lover gets what is given and receives what is extended because the loved is experienced as part of oneself. This is how God loves us and intends for us to extend this love creating a heaven on earth by displacing the world of the ego with the world of the spirit.

Unconditional love flows from meditation. Unconditional love flows from the first component of spiritual health, peace and joy, which was achieved through kindness and forgiveness based on an attunement with the non dualistic Oneness.

In the above paragraph we find a description of how the components of spiritual health interact in a resonating system in which we can put our faith.