Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

It's very subjective but would like to know if some of you are sharing this feeling around you:

In the modern occidental society, Christianity, which was the spiritual tradition, was abandoned and rejected by almost all the teenagers and young adults at the end of the '60s and by the following generations.

All the next generations until now, in its majority, were declaring to be atheist and rejecting all spiritual side of life.

I don't know if all the Covid related situation changed something but, around me (25-30 years old), a non-negligible part of them started to gain an interest in spirituality (mainly Catholicism here).

I meditate, usually an hour of sitting practice, and then through the day.

Practicing more felt really urgent after a couple of big psychedelic trips, and I've found getting into contact with a source of fundamental unconditional love hugely helpful. I feel very in touch with the sacred, despite being agnostic at best.

I'm not a huge fan of the mainstream concentration work stuff; I've been influenced by Rob Burbea's jazzy, improvisational approach.

Also, currently I'm working on the jhanas, which are a lot of fun, and I'm excited to work on them at a 10-day retreat starting in a week. Leigh Brasington's Right Concentration is the best intro, or for a thread see https://twitter.com/nickcammarata/status/1471300341232668679

I agree with you, and I don't think that's the assertion that Harari makes in his book. He first widens the definition of religion to include other belief systems such as money, commercial organisations, economic systems, and polytheistic religions, and acknowledges that many of these aren't directly bound to any sense of morality (which isn't to say they're immoral either).

How is this as a definition of spiritual? “The practice of engaging with the unknown for practical effect.”

If that serves as a higher power enough to stop you stepping into God-mode yourself and childishly assigning yourself powers far beyond your actual reach, it'd be a higher power enough to work if you were recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction.

That would make it a higher power powerful enough to legit save your life, whether or not you ever refined the concept further.

I do wonder to what extent God is defined as negative space (or, if you like, you can call your human-centered drives and selfish whims 'negative space' and define God as 'positive space', that which is not you and never will be)

If you're into stuff like chaos theory, Godel et al (I grew up reading Godel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter) it's really not a big jump to conclude that 'not-me' is not only powerful and meaningful beyond your comprehension, but knowingly or unknowingly has motivation and intentionality.

We often 'humanize' this intentionality. We make it act like a toy human in our minds. My own spirituality is in trying to remember that this God, this coherence of systems that are not me, exists: but also in trying to recognize when there's a harmony and synthesis beyond what I would expect of callous randomness. I don't know how it works but I get reminded that the energies I put out, come back favorably to me… or, indeed, to others who are not me but who need a break.

I'm happier living my life in that mode, especially when I'm able to receive this process as a gift. If I put out 120% and feel like I'm getting back 70% I'll be very bitter and cranky, even if half my effort is waste and wheel-spinning and second guessing. If I put out 60% and get back 70% it feels like a gift.

I can control how I orient myself to all this, but I don't know how my 60% turns into 70%, any more than I understand how artificial life ants learn to traverse the John Muir trail. I'm just a little piece of it and now and then I get glimpses of the bigger picture. I'm not meant to stay there, but I get a peek.

I'd call that spiritual practice. It's stepping outside cold rationality and mastery of all abstraction, and letting a big chunk of 'not-me' into my world.