Spiritual Motivations
Thus far, we’ve developed a spiritual scaffolding that includes religious naturalism, allegoricalism, and progressivism. This results in a movement blueprint that denies supernatural explanations of reality and instead recognizes a sacredness in the natural world as it is, including humankind’s place within it. At the same time, there is value in wonder and reverence, and these can be realized through religious objects, such as texts, ceremonies, and icons, even while knowing that these objects are merely symbols. Finally, there is the optimism in the possibility of a better future, both for individuals and society, resulting in the impetus to improve, grow, and mature.
There are many ways to gauge if working within such a context is successful. I have suggested that one model of success is if spiritual efforts result in increased joy, meaning, and fulfillment. As a reminder, this generally means that one feels such things as gratitude, pleasure, harmony, wonder, and humor; that one has a sense of being connected to something larger than the self while also developing one’s own system of values and purpose in life; and that one has an increasing sense of genuineness and integrity, of moving ever closer to one’s deepest, most ideal self.
There are, of course, many other motivating factors for spiritual pursuits. These can include (but are not limited to) the desire for an increased feeling of safety or control; ego gratification from feeling spiritually superior to others; relief from anxiety or suffering; pleasure derived from consciousness-altering experiences; or to conform with social or familial expectations (or to fulfill the affiliative instinct). It is important to note that, in any given case, any of these can be mixed in with the three items I mentioned above. It is valuable to explore one’s own motivations that underlie their spiritual lives.
The reason for this is simple—if one really understands what they are trying to accomplish, they might find better ways to accomplish it. One example of this, which I have briefly covered, is spiritual bypassing, the engaging in spiritual pursuits for the purpose of avoiding dealing with personal or psychological problems. A simplistic example: a person who prays to God for relief from tooth pain instead of seeking medical help because he is afraid of dentists. In more realistic cases, spiritual bypassing usually involves problems that are either misunderstood, very complex, seemingly intractable, or otherwise too unpalatable to face. While religious practices might offer an affective band aid for their problems, they will nevertheless persist until they are directly dealt with, generally with secular solutions (e.g. employment, education, psychotherapy, exercise, diet, social skills, etc).
A simple way of looking at this is that spiritual motivations can be split into two basic categories: those that are expansive and those that are relieving. Expansive motivations seek to add to one’s life, to improve the self and/or society, to make life more worthwhile. Relieving motivations seek to address life’s natural anxieties and pains, such as fear of death, emotional problems, discrimination, poverty, powerlessness, ignorance, disease, et cetera. One is not inherently better than the other, although it can be said that the former is representative of greater maturity than the latter. It is important to know which are at play in a person’s life, especially when secular solutions would be more effective, either in conjunction with or replacement of the spiritual. There is also a way to bridge these two categories—some people might have an expansive motivation to help those who are at a relieving motive stage or state of being. For example, it is possible to affect things like poverty and ignorance, and by reducing those conditions, more people might be able to adopt expansive motivations. In fact, this can be seen as one of the central components of progressive thinking.
What lies at the foundation of all of this is the human power of intention. When we are motivated by things we do not see or understand (and this is, to some degree, true of all of us), then our intentions become less effective, more out of focus. We think and act in ways that are not in alignment with our deeper needs; we have less integrity. The key is self knowledge, accompanied by the willingness to look at and attend to our less attractive issues. I have a lot to say about human intention, and I will continue this conversation in a future post. For now, I will leave you with this food for thought. What motivates you to pursue a spiritual path? Which motivations are expansive and which are relieving? Might there be areas where you are spiritually bypassing? How do you know if your intentions are in alignment with your deeper self? ‘Til the next post, I bid you clarity and the courage to explore your inner world.
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