Dutch spiritual writer Lisette Thooft wrote an outstanding article in the May / June 2013 edition of The Intelligent Optimist magazine in which she succinctly summed up the core principles of the New Spiritualist movement. This grouping is often identified with the phrase “Spiritual but not Religious”. The basis of the article is that an increasing number of people over the last 30 years have moved beyond organized religion into a realm where they believe that there is “something” beyond our ordinary reality. This “something” points to a more inward and direct connection with the divine:
Some say we have reached the end of the “grand narrative”: Not only is Christianity passe, but the meta-stories that tell us science or socialism will bring ultimate salvation have also failed to pan out. In the meantime, a new grand narrative is being created: a hopeful and uplifting story, one more and more people are starting to believe and from which we can derive inspiration and vitality. This is the narrative of the new spirituality. Our era is perhaps comparable to the first centuries of Christianity. A kind of fragmentation is underway, and a new spiritual paradigm is arising. Right now, things seem confusing and kaleidoscopic, without a core, without a leader. But those who look carefully will discover a common thread. The new grand narrative presents itself as a quest, upon which each of us individually embarks…If we take a closer look, we see that is new meta-story is anything but noncommittal: It make a strong moral appeal to our sense of personal responsibility.
With this as a foundation, Ms. Thooft outlines 7 core principles of the New Spiritualist Narrative.
1. All Religions tell the Same Story
First and foremost is the conviction that all religious traditions have a universal core. Their external trappings differ, their rituals differ, their commandments can even be diametrically opposed, the core belief is the same.
At their core all religions are trying to make it clear that there is a divine link to humanity. Where things get tripped up is when man inserts his own distorted view of reality in between the divine and other humans. Therefore, the human ego’s need to control and direct gets in the way of true understanding.
2. God Resides Within Us
God lives inside man. There is something sacred hidden in our deepest selves. In theosophy, that is the higher self; in anthrosophy, it’s the Christ within; in gnosticism, the divine spark; in Buddhism, the Buddha nature, in the human potential movement, the inner child – but whatever the term, they all point to the same thing: that which links us to the divine.
If the divinity lives within us, then we don’t need a middle man, we can make a direct connection as the divine itself is looking to experience life through us. The more we open ourselves up to that internal divine presence, to listen to our intuition and higher self, the more strongly we connect to divine source energy.
3. Only as an Individual Can We Find Harmony with Others
Because God lives within us and not in the church, the new spirituality is by definition an individual affair. We all make our own pilgrim’s journey to our own inner world. Because we are unique individuals that journey is different for each of us. We can travel a while along the path of a particular school, guru or teacher, but we are always free to develop our own variant on their teachings.
All the various new spirituality schools and teachers are providing guidance on how the individual him or herself can make the divine connection. They come in different flavors but they aim to do the same thing – to empower the individual to gain direct connection and guidance on what their personal purpose is in this life time. Each person is here to learn something different. For sure there are some common “truths” in terms of how best to live in society and what constitutes good and bad Karma as an example, but aside from those, each individual has different things to experience and learn based on their current level of consciousness. As individuals awaken to the divine core within them, they are able to achieve a new level of individual harmony, rising consciousness, and thus better able to harmonize with others.
4. Live in your Body, Not in Your Head
Because all feelings (fear, frustration, traumatic experience) are physical processes inside the body, the new spirituality is deeply involved with the physical experience, on and within one’s own body. “Navel-gazing” critics call it, and that’s exactly with it is: It’s about what you feel in your own gut. Most people start living in their heads at a young age: The way we raise and educate our chidren lends itself to that. For many people, there comes a moment, often through illness or overexertion, then they realize it: I’m in my head too much; I’ve lost the connection with my body, my heart, my feelings, my whole being, my ‘me’. They attend therapy or start mediating an rediscover their bodies. Body work is an important component of the new spirituality.
Every year more people are experiencing the benefits of meditation, yoga, and mindfulness practices. These Eastern origin tools have been around for thousands of years but especially in the West, we have so strongly moved in the direction of logic and intellect that we’ve forgotten that the body and mind are highly inter-connected.
For a deeper look into how to make a stronger connection between Mind and Body see – In Touch: How to Tune in to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself by John Prendergast
5. We Must let the Ego Die
Ultimately we must experience “ego death”. We must transcend ourselves. Then we are our true selves; without masks, without survival mechanisms, without armor.
I actually believe that we don’t necessarily want the Ego to die but we want it to revert back to its rightful place as a servant of the Soul. The Ego’s original role was to protect us in terms of bodily harm while our soul incarnates in each life time to experience material reality. The Soul in this arrangement is directly connected to Source energy and receives guidance which the Ego can then translate into action in the material world. What’s happened in recent human history is that the Ego has completely taken over and cut itself off from the Soul and Divine Source. With the Ego fully in charge, we risk becoming entangled in its fear based approach to living and need for separation from others. When we reconnect to Divine Source, we can then make the Ego smaller and softer and put it into its rightful role of service to our Divine Intent.
6. Humanity Evolves through Our Individual Development
Each person is traveling toward a complete union with the Source or God in a long series of lives that enable us to keep learning. Everything that happens in our lives can be used for spiritual development, even (or particularly) setbacks, illnesses, poverty, lack of recognition, loneliness and so on. None of it is an accident; it falls to us because we need, or are able, to use it at that moment. The people we have a problem with are mirrors in which we can see our own shadows, our doppelgängers.
The world around us is our personal mirror. We create the reality we experience with our thoughts and emotions. Everything that arises in our life is meant to teach us how to attain the ultimate lesson of this school called Earth – that we are all connected and the same, from the same Divine Source, and that learning to unconditionally love everyone and everything is our one and only goal. If we create everything in our reality with the intent of love, compassion, and a deep understanding of interconnectedness of all existence, then we are headed in the right direction. We come back life time after life time in an attempt to fully learn this one lesson. All our various lives, in various roles and their associated experiences are meant to show us what we think “the other” really is – it is ourselves, just wearing a different disguise. All our lives are provided for us to awaken at the deepest level to the reality that everything in our world is the same one thing – Divine Consciousness. We are Mini-Gods in training.
7. Everything is Connected
Everyone is traveling to God, and everyone is part of the whole, because – and this is perhaps the most comforting and uplifting thing – everything is connected to everything else. The entire universe is a single, infinite web of vibrating connections between everything and everyone. Science is well on its way to discovering this: Everything is immediately connected to everything else. That’s why everything that happens is seen, is known, in the farthest corners of the universe. Theosophists and anthrosophists call it the akashic records. And that seeing – that cosmic involvement, that omniscient and omnipresent intelligence that wishes us well – is God’s love.
For a deeper overview of our inherent interconnectedness, read my previous post series – Seeing the Oneness of our Reality
Ms. Thoost wraps up her article with a concise and striking metaphor of our human journey over many millennia to our current point:
These are the major hallmarks of the new spirituality. Many people today are talking about humanity’s U-shaped development. We originate at the top left corner of the “U” where primitive man had completely intuitive and natural contact with the spiritual world. Over the millennia, we descended to ground, to the materialistic world view currently in vogue, at the bottom of the U. Today’s world view is materialistic through and through. The existence of everything beyond man is denied. And even man is made smaller than he is, for he no longer has a Soul or Spirit. According to Science, we are an incidental mix of genes, hormones and other substances in the brain that determine our behavior. We are our brains. But many of us are already climbing up the right leg of the “U”, Upward, toward un-impeded contact with the Spiritual World – but bringing with us all the experience, knowledge, and awareness we’ve gathered along the way. When we arrive, we will no longer be babies but adults, with a free will and the associated responsibility for creation, for the cosmos. We’re not there, by any stretch of the imagination – but we’re all on our way.
Amen.
Jay Kshatri
www.ThinkSmarterWorld.com
Additional Resources to Explore:
The Path to Enlightenment – A Guide to the Soul’s Ascension Journey: This comprehensive guide is to assist those seeking to accelerate their ascension to higher levels of consciousness. Complete with extensive recommended resources in each section for deeper exploration.
