Reality vs. Spirituality
Do we really have to choose?
I was on Reddit the other day and came across this post:
“Spirituality is so difficult in the real world. All these concepts of awakening and become spiritual, restraining desires, anger, feelings etc. seem so impractical in the real world, which is filled with materialism, anxiety, noise pollution etc. The world is so consuming with jobs, taxes, constant stress about inflation, money, survival, etc. It's like everything to do with the spiritual is unrealistic and only works in theory, like in a pre-industrial world where people lived one with nature without all the modern-day burdens.”
There were almost 100 responses to this genuinely common complaint, and they were divided between, “All that stuff isn’t real. Only spirituality is real” and “Spirituality isn’t real. Only the world’s stuff is real.” It seems that many people believe there are only two options: real or unreal. You are either in the real world or the spiritual one, the ways of the world or the ways of God, and they aren’t compatible.
There’s a third option: it’s both. The world is both spiritual and material. Life IS your spiritual path, and, whether you know it or not, you are already on it.
One of my favorite contemporary teachers, Adyashanti, once said something like, “OK, sure, all this is all Maya, an illusion, not real. But it’s as real as it gets.” I agree completely. According to Buddhism, Daoism, and Vedantic Hinduism (and contemporary consciousness studies), everything in the material world only exists in our minds, which means it is not “real,” but simply the process and content of consciousness, AND, at the same time, it’s all completely real to us. The dent in my car is real. The hunger in my belly is real. The bills on my desk are real. While any anxiety or anger I might feel about those things may be in my head, much of the stuff I feel anxiety ABOUT is rock solid. After all, if I can’t put food on the table, that’s a real problem. I can’t just “illusion” that away.
So, the world is neither real nor unreal. Or it's both real and unreal. Whoa. But what do you do with that? How does it help you live a radically spiritual life in the real world today?
All the world’s religions and spiritual traditions teach us that there is something beyond this material plane, a oneness, a consciousness, God, Ultimate Reality, the Divine, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it, that is the underlying fabric of this universe, and can be experienced. However, all traditions also teach us that Ultimate Reality and the “real” world aren’t separate. They are integrally connected. Here and There. God is everything and everything is God. Or, as I like to say it, “The Divine is in the details.”
When we realize that, it is the mystical experience of awakening or enlightenment. The Christian mystic, Mechtild of Magdeburg, said, “The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw – and knew I saw – all things in God and God in all things.” We can all have glimpses of that Divine reality, and that’s what much of modern spirituality emphasizes and tries to teach.
But these days, enlightenment - or some kind of transcendent experience of pure awareness or oneness - is promoted as the only goal of a spiritual life. It’s the carrot and the gold medal, and many people reach for it thinking that enlightenment is the answer to all their problems (while feeling badly because they haven’t attained it). It’s as if when you are enlightened, the real world, “fake” stuff will cease to exist and you don’t have to deal with it.
On a certain level, that’s true. When you are in the actual state of union with the Divine or pure consciousness, nothing else seems to exist, including your “self.” But that’s momentary. For 99.99 percent of us, that experience doesn’t last more than a few minutes at a time, if you’re lucky. It’s often just a few seconds. As soon as you click back into “reality,” there is a dog to walk and bills to pay. Reality doesn’t go away.
It’s also true that if you spend time in meditation or do your yoga or nature walks, you might be in better condition to deal with the stuff that comes at you in real life. You might be less stressed or anxious. You might calm down before you road rage. But, just like enlightenment, it doesn’t make it all go away. The Buddha never said shit wouldn’t happen. He just said you can change how you experience it by not being attached to your desires, and then it won’t hurt so much. But it’s still real. That’s what he meant by “Noble.”
What is missing in most modern spirituality is the nuts and bolts of how to deal with the real details of life. Not to transcend reality, but to get fully into it AND also not be derailed by it. That’s why many of us still think that reality and spirituality are incompatible. We’re all focused on enlightenment but are tripping over the reality of our lives.
My teacher used to say, “The boulder is the path.” That means that all the stuff we have to deal with as an embodied being in this world --or “real” life -- is our spiritual path. We can’t avoid it. How we deal with the hard-core reality of our daily lives is informed by our spiritual practice AND is also a direct reflection of it.
It doesn’t do us any good to be awake and enlightened, if our relationships are a mess, we are mean to the kid at the checkout counter or can’t stay focused at work. There’s an old spiritual joke: “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend the weekend with your parents.” Our spiritual practice must help us live in this world, with all its messy stuff, not just in some ethereal “elsewhere.” We must be able to be spiritual on the cushion AND off it.
A radical spiritual life must be committed to all of reality. That means the Reality that is greater than us AND the reality that is right in front of us. Yeah, the world is a mess and life is hard, but if we are trying to escape it by bypassing it and claiming it’s not real, not only do we miss the juicy parts, but we won’t be able to do anything to change it. Likewise, if we eschew spirituality and focus entirely on the drama and trauma of the real world, we end up in despair and depression. It can be ugly out there.
The most spiritual people I know have their hands in the dirt. They are figuring out how to bring their spirituality to the dishes, the board meeting, a screaming toddler, and the slow checkout line. They fail at it, repeatedly, but they keep trying, and bit by bit, they get better at it. No one said real spirituality was easy or that it always makes you feel good. If they did, they were lying. But, what other choice do we have if we want to live truly happy, peaceful, connected lives in the “real” world?
Let’s get real and spiritual. We can do both. We have to.