What is spirituality?

 

The ancients got it right.

Priests get it right their way, and which is wrong for everyone else.

 

 

Christians revert back to archaic Israelite tribal mythology, specifically to Genesis 2:7, to get an initial understanding of the notion of spirituality.

 

The verse (i.e. a fictional datum), in part deliberately mistranslated, reads:

 

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (body).”

 

Elaborated:  And the LORD (Yehovah, originally El, Eli (later Allah) or Elia, formerly El-Shadai, the God of the Mountain) of the Gods (to wit, ‘the Elohim’, possibly meaning: ‘the Powers’) formed the adam (i.e. the (m) ruddy or red (portion)) of the dust of the ground (i.e. of adamah (f)), and breathed into his nostrils the breath (Hebrew: nĕshamah ( not ruach), Latin: spiritus, Greek: pneuma) of life; and the ruddy (one) became a living body (possibly ‘living being’, but certainly not ‘soul’, the latter (Greek: psyche, originally possibly also meaning breath, Latin: anima) being interpolated (i.e. mistranslated) later when the text was translated into Greek, the Greeks having recently invented the notion of ‘soul’).”

 

In short, originally spiritual meant either to be alive (i.e. animated) curtesy of the breath of God (or the ‘Powers’): or, to breathe life into (i.e. animate) the non-living (i.e. as inanimate hardware) or new life into the dying.

 

A similar notion was developed in the creation myth of the early Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad (ca. 600 BC), namely that creative activity in/as the world is equated with spirituality (Sanskrit: prana). In other words, spirituality, meaning creation, was primarily thought of as realizing (i.e. making real) living/breathing hardware, to wit, the everyday world.

 

Enter the priest, always (as predator, and all biological units are both predators and prey) active as political agent and, as history shows, ever greedy for power and wealth (so said the ancient Indian Carvakas (or Lokayatas). The priest deliberately reverses the notion of what is spiritual (meaning: sacred (i.e. ‘set apart’ because pertaining to the gods), and what is worldly or mundane (i.e. profane (not religious, i.e. unclean), Latin: pro fanum, i.e. outside or before the temple). (As predator) He falsely declares that a) his domain, namely his temple (i.e. territory) as Air B&B of the source of the life giving breath (meaning his God/theos), is sacred (obviously only to him), and b) that the outcome of breathing, namely the actual spiritual act, is profane (i.e. not sacred).*

 

In other words, the priest commits a red card offence by deliberately lying about the basic function of spirituality. It is the self-serving priest/predator who falsely claims that the capacity for spiritual action, in his understanding merely the worship or adoration of the source of worldly creation** (namely the content of his job), can only be gained via him as local God representative. By so swindling his dependents he gains unlimited power over them and can exact a hefty tribute for his service.

 

The interesting thing is that the priest’s (of any and all religious phantasies) swindle (namely that software (i.e. the Turing Machine) trumps hardware (i.e. the Turing Machines elaboration as local hardware copy)) serves as sine qua non of ordinary mundane, meaning biological survival (indeed of Darwinian selection).

 

But that’s a story for another day!

Biology vers. spirituality

 

 

*In that (to wit, my life (or life function) – but not yours – is sacred to me) he is no different from any other predator-cum-prey.

** Prayer, mediation, adoration, all religious rituals and rites, Yoga, shamanism, angel worship and so on are fake spirituality, to wit, an escape from or avoidance of true spirituality. True spirituality is perfect biological function. Fake spirituality merely serves as preparation for true spirituality, namely the function of giving (or breathing) life into the inanimate.