I am a materialist, I don't believe in anything beyond the physical as much as I do a god (I am 99.9% sure there is no more). In all practical senses I am an atheist.

In a very material sense I have firm Ideas of life and death and what happens after. The physical universe is my spirituality - am I misinterpreting spirituality? Am I not spiritual at all?

Is spirituality dependent on something numinous or is it something you find inherently full of wonder or awe, or something that somehow justifies your life or makes it fulfilling or interesting? Does it need something more than just this physical realm?

What do you think ?

i think spiritual is inherently NOT physical, just going by the consensus definition.
"of, relating to, or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things."
though there is a certain spirituality when you wax poetic about star-dust coagulating into sentient life.

but if you defined yourself as a spiritual atheist, only the the vast minority, fixated on semantics would have a problem with it (probably).

i don't think you're misinterpreting it , you're just looking at one of its aspect , i love nature too ,

my spirituality is basicly to enjoy the moment and have fun - no doubt this sounds way hippy yet i try to look at it this way

what can we do for the universe ?, what can we do for God ? what can we do for the Supreme Spirit ?

well the universe has given us life , a beautiful planet to live on , food and fruits to eat and plants and animals/birds as our companions and friends on the planet

what can we give back to the universe ? what does it need from us it as everything already ,

so try imagining the universe is a body just like ours and we are like a cell in it super body , when this cell starts enjoying itself what happens is the universe starts feeling the enjoyment , i think all we can do is enjoy ourselves each and every moment to spread happiness in the universe , when we listen to music and dance the whole universe dances along with us yet if we cause ourselves any pain we are just causing pain to the universe as we are a part of it , if one part of a body is in pain the whole body suffers too and we do feel the pain even if its just a cut on our little finger

i have found listening to music can cut through years of psychotherapy and help us let go of pain that we hold all to easily , don't hold on to anything just let go and enjoy the moment that has been given to us ........that is it .......that is what my Guru taught me ........serve the Supreme Spirit by enjoying the moment as the Supreme Spirit resides in all of us , serve it by having fun , dont let sadness , despair and confusion ever overwhelm you , just let go and start dancing to the madness , enjoy this very moment for it might never happen again , its just not enough to be in the moment we need to enjoy it

Art and music is my shortcut to all this i guess , just enjoy as much as possible , that is the path to salvation, the path of enjoyment will lead to more enjoyment , if one enjoys each and every moment of their lives , even death as its only a part of life as there is no death after death , than life/death which i believe is the same thing as death only exists as a concept in our minds , life is death and living is dying , that which is never born will never die

so enjoying all of it means that life/death becomes a super moment of enjoyment lightning the entire universe , releasing joy and permeating the boundries of the cosmos with happiness , gratitude and fun

lets give back to the universe what we can people , lets enjoy ourselves and send the love back to the source let us spread joy throught ourselves as then we can help others find joy within themselves

i guess this is the philosophy of enjoyment , i understand this is way different than much organised religions where life is defined to be suffering , yet in my experience life is Art , music and fun , life is not suffering we are the ones suffering and destroying nature not realizing we are already in heaven , making the whole planet suffer with us , its time to cut that crap and enjoy ourselves ,

I respect your stance very much. Those who believe what they have not experienced directly themselves, are placing their attention and basing their cosmology upon a kind of blind faith, and I just don't really understand how this is ever a worthwhile thing.

Some of us voyaging within our Hyperspacial travels, encounter another side to reality and concrete physicality, as with an inter-phase with non-material paradigms and alternate frequencies of consciousness. These shifts in awareness open new doors of perception, whereby the witness of self, peeks into other more ethereal or transcendent dimensions (or heretofore hidden strata of reality).

This reveals an altogether different picture of life and living; revealing the essential, underlying interior presence of an immaterial realm, itself existent apart from and within, this physical plane... thus, our prior perceptual structures become most shattered by this counterpoint of the matter which creates our bodies and manifests itself through the ceaseless change of life on this "third stone from the sun", our planet earth.

The epiphany that most moves me to enrapturement, is the perspective that they are each, on both sides of the looking glass, the very same quintessential energy. It's more a feeling than any type of conceptual formatting. And this has a profound way of dramatically shifting one's focus of attention and one's intent, towards altogether, alternate frequencies and vibratory rates of the inherent patterns of existential being (and yes, many of these are wholly non-physical in nature).

Belief itself, at least ideally, ought to be symbiotic with immediate perception and a meaningful depth of direct understanding. Why believe anything you haven't yourself discovered by yourself, for yourself? This non-ordinary vista should reasonably be based on self-discovery and a perpetual bloom in awakening to interior within interiors... and the immediacy of a direct insight of the aforementioned, immaterial realities available to perceive.

Than being said, we often perceive illusions upon mirages in perception and so, one cannot feasibly always believe what one sees, thinks or intuits... and to some extent, we are forever searching for the truth behind the curtain. The mind is a nearly limitless expanse of potentiality.

But either through cultivation or a natural predisposition, one may intuit a great deal about non-physical states of reality and/or planes of existential being, themselves "spiritual" in their subtle frequency of form and substance. So, in the strictest definition of Spiritus, or Divine Breath... some would argue that you are not spiritually observant until a mystical or religious experience is had.

But IMO, your personal cosmology seems quite "spiritual" to me, as it is all about harmony and balance, two major aspects of what spirituality and it's qualities really mean to the human experience.


Again, yes, of course you are... but you may or may not be perceiving the mystical aspect of spirituality. The ineffable, insubstantial and formless aspect of the Godhead. You certainly don't have to believe in God to be a spiritual person. Jains and Buddhists have no conceptual systems of stratified beliefs about a single, Supreme Deity and they are surely spiritual adherents and meditative practitioners. They do, however, believe in largely imperceptible, esoteric levels and degrees of existential being, which can be labeled as nothing short of "spiritual". The same can be said for Taoists and Pantheists.

Admittedly, I say this with the cravat that any ists and isms are wholly man-made structures of human belief and not the reality they aim towards. And any theologies are essentially theoretical and are as such, are still an hypothesis. So what's in a name? If one feels a need to label systematic beliefs into definitive, delineated categories, there are huge differences in spiritual cosmology and conceptual context.


I don't personally believe that one necessarily needs "more than just the physical realm"... there simply are other planes and levels of existence and they are not material in their reality. Even within the gross appearance of materiality, there exists an infinity of empty space... just refer to any pragmatic and procedural field of modern science and this is wholly validated. And as such, if we greatly magnify or reduce our view of the appearance of the physical realm, just enough, we discover other degrees of reality within the paradigm, ordinarily perceivable with the 5 senses and reason.


I honestly think that without a mystical or deeply transcendental experience, one does not get the full range of what the "Spiritus" is really all about, multidimensionally. But I maintain that one can surely be spiritual in mindset and in heart, without astral-traveling into alternative planes and parallel dimensions. This can be discovered by simply gazing into the star-filled night skies and observing the beatifically intelligent, galactic splendor of the Milky Way, by standing before the flowing movement and sheer power of the vast ocean, gloriously rhythmical, witness the radiant color-show of sunrise and sunset... or by just quietly watching a mountain brook escalate in it's meandering momentum, until is drops-off suddenly, to morph into a cascading waterfall, rainbows dancing in it's misty spray.

All of this and so much more, creating the most harmonious and beautiful visions for us to see. Spirit surely inhabits all of these miracles and dances throughout their forms as the Tao flows ceaselessly and in ever-changing ways. Invisible perhaps, but immanent and palpable to those who listen and look for it's enigmatic presence.

So, while there is an outer and an inner aspect to "spirituality", I feel spirituality per se, is more an awe-struck attitude of appreciation, it's an attunement in our range of reception. It seems to be more one's own deep appreciation and soulful reflection about the majesty and magnificence of the titanic intelligence and sublime grandeur of the material plane's laws of harmonious continuum, than it is being so much of an ideology about immateriality. Albeit, this is prevalent within most religious and/or philosophical stances.

Again, I believe it it is not a conceptual projection or fixed mind-set, rather, tis quite a cosmic instinct at that, functioning ever-spontaneously through the conscious-awareness of the dynamic subjectivity of the observer. Overall, I proclaim that life is a wholly Sacred phenomenon, in-and-of itself... and so, by way of following through with such clear logic, it is also quite "spiritual".

^^Thank you