Authentic Spirituality

Authentic Spirituality is spirituality rooted in, but not exclusively focused on, Connection Experiences. Authentic spirituality is free of elite influence. Authentic Spirituality encourages, supports, and facilitates Healing and Connection, which necessarily will lead to happiness, contentment, and the full development of the Physical Unit. An authentic spirituality can be recognized by the presence of all Seven Pillars of Authentic Spirituality

Syncretic Terms

Authentic Spirituality > Cosmic Religion, Identity Consistent Spirituality, Mysticism, Perennial Philosophy, Positive Religion, Progressive Spirituality, Pure Religion, Right Path, The Path, The Way, True Path

Related LP Terms

Authentic Spirituality > Authentic Core, Authentic Religion, Authentic Spirituality, Bridge Metaphor, Colonized Spirituality, Elite Religion, Elite Spirituality, Esoteric Religion, Five Barriers, Mainstream Spirituality, Seven Pillars of Authenticity, Spirituality, The Great Work, The Work

Non-LP Related Terms

Authentic Spirituality > Authentic Institution, Religion

Notes

Proudfootstates that, “Religion has always been an experiential matter. It is not just a set of creedal statements or a collection of rites.”

Heriot-Maitland notes mystical experience constitutes the very essence of religion, “such that the origin of a given tradition can often be traced to an initial transcendent encounter, moment of revelation, salvation, or enlightenment.”

Ramakrishna: "True religion, then, is not necessarily what goes on in the name of religion. Institutionalized religion is often a mistranslation of higher truths experienced by the truly religious, the founders of various religions. Religion in its basic connotation is a means of experiencing a higher level of consciousness. Religion, therefore, may not be considered as a body of sacred truths, but rather a method or a set of practices believed to achieve a state of awareness and feelings that takes us beyond the normal states of awareness and being, and to stand in a special relationship to something considered divine."

William James: James argues the roots of authentic spirituality are to be find no in "second-hand" religous life but in the Connection Experiences ("original experiences") of the "pattern-setters" " I speak not now of your ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances of his country, whether it be Buddhist, Christian, or Mohammedan. His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to study this second-hand religious life. We must make search rather for the original experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct." James uses the example of George Fox and the Quaker religion to illustrate. He also provides a wealth of case-study examples of people's individual mystical experiences.

Stanislav Grof says

Authentic spiritual systems are based on ... systematic exploration of the psyche using well-defined mind-altering technologies. They are results of a process that in many ways resembles the scientific method.

Authentic religion is religion that "nurtures people's relationship with whatever they hold sacred."

Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You provides an extended discussion of the difference between an authentic understanding of Christ's teachings, and an unaligned, hypocritical, an inauthentic reading used to justify the status quo, rather than emancipate humanity, as Christ had intended. As with Einstein, Tolstoy felt that an authentic spirituality provided a ready-made solution to humanity's ills. It "solves all the contradictions and all his sufferings."

Authentic spirituality makes a difference, not within the extended time frames of Old World Spirituality(i.e. years, decades, and lifetimes), but within short, workable, and verifiable time frames of days, weeks, and months. In other words, techniques and principles provided by an authentic spirituality will have an immediate and discernible positive impact.

Wicca and Pagan Spiritualities

Wicca and pagan religions are an attempt to develop/reclaim an authenticity lost in traditional mainstream elite exoteric religion. "The Pagan vision is one which says that neither doctrine nor dogma nor asceticism nor rule by masters is necessary for the visionary experience, and that ecstasy and freedom are both possible."

"A common phrase you hear is "I've come home," or, as one woman told me excitedly after a lecture, "I always knew I had a religion, I just never knew it had a name."

Margot Adler's discovery of wicca was the culmination of a search for authenticity, a "ecological-religious framework compatible with my own politics and commitment to the world." Adler had a Connection Experience whereafter listening to a tape of some Wiccan rituals. "A feeling of power and emotion came over me." (p. 20).

Non repressive, general. "Many people said that they become Pagans because they could be themselves and act as they chose, without what they felt were medieval notions of sin and guilt."

Non repressive, feminism. A spirituality that honoured women, outside of the patriarchal mainstream.

Footnotes

References

Spirituality