Seven Pillars of Authentic Spirituality

• Authentic Spirituality
  • Physical Unit
  • Connection
  • Toxic Socialization
  • Disconnection
  • Healing
  • Authentic Spirituality
  • The Work
  • The System
• Seven Pillars
• Healing
• Connection

The Seven Pillars of Authentic Spirituality are seven characteristics that all authentic spiritualities and religions should have. As outlined in the book Rocket Scientists' Guide to Authentic Spirituality, for a spirituality to be considered authentic it needs to be fruitful, accessible and inclusive, grounded and embodied, responsible and non-judgmental, empowering, fruitful, logical and consistent, and empirical and verifiable.

Notes

For a spirituality to be authentic, all pillars must be present.

The Buddha speaks of pillar five, the accessibility of authentic spirituality when he says "I have preached the truth without making any distinction between exoteric and esoteric doctrine: for in respect of the truths, Ananda, the Tathagata has no such thing as the closed fist of a teacher, who keeps some things back."

The Buddha alludes to pillar four, empowering, when he encourages his buddy Ananda to be an independent and empowered truth seeker: "'Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge to any one besides yourselves.

Wild Fox Koan...

Empirical

Marilyn Schlitz, Eugene Taylor, and Nola Lewis call for an expanded epistemology, a "radically empirical" epistemology, after William James. "A noetic sciences epistemology would focus on open inquiry and public (intersubjective) validation of knowledge, even while recognizing that these goals may be met only incompletely at any particular time. This epistemology would be "radically empirical" in the sense urged by William James: It would be phenomenological or experiential in a broad sense, including subjective experience as primary data in addition to physical-sense data. And it would address the totality of human experience -- reported phenomena would not be dismissed because they "violate known scientific laws."

Further Reading

Sosteric, Mike. (RSGAS). The Rocket Scientists' Guide to Authentic Spirituality. St. Albert, Alberta: Lightning Path.

Footnotes

References