NATURE-SPIRITUALITY FLOWCHART

A NATURE-STUDY / SPIRITUALITY FLOWCHART

"Spirituality": What is it? Thoughts about it here.

NOTE: The spiritual path outlined below is that taken by me, Naturalist Jim Conrad, since I was about 13 years old, and I'm still following it at age 77. People are amazingly different from one another, so what worked for me may not work for you. The Flowchart is just to help you start thinking about the matter.

LEVEL #1: HAVING A REASON TO STUDY NATURE

But, what IS Nature? Thoughts about that here.

to satisfy curiosity
to heal spiritual wounds

societal demands often run counter to our natural predispositions and our natural talents are wasted

other good reasons are outlined on our Why Bother with Nature? page

LEVEL #2: NATURE STUDY AS MEDITATION

Nature study IS meditation.

The learning process is peaceful and fulfilling
As more and more insight into Nature is gained, one feels more "rooted" in something beautiful, solid and perfect
At a certain point of understanding, your spiritual state begins blossoming

For a general introduction to nature study, see the BackyardNature.Net website, especially these sections:

LEVEL #3: KNOW YOURSELF

Now we must face the fact that the behavior, thought and feelings of us humans is largely programmed into us, making us robot-like. Realizing that, the idea occurs that our quest for a higher spirituality is precisely what takes us beyond what's programmed into us.

Until now in our search for higher spirituality we've done little more than pay attention. Now we must assert more effort and self discipline, mainly by organizing our thoughts better and systematically making more effort to analyze what we're seeing and feeling during our experiences with Nature. The first step in this more serious effort toward a higher spirituality is to know yourself. This is such an important process that we have a special Know Yourself page

Below, the green zigzag between this and the next level indicates a fundamental breakage point reached during self-deprogramming. The zigzag signifies this:

Until now we've been "mental"; now we must become both mental and abstract.
Now we must feel as much as think, and intuit as much as learn.

LEVEL #4: SENSITIZATION/ REORIENTATION

At this point, the Wheel of Awakening at the right can be useful. The Wheel reminds us of these three insights:

INSIGHT #1: To glimpse higher truths, mere words are inadequate, and often misleading
INSIGHT #2: Remembering that everything in the Universe -- including humans, thought and feeling -- is a manifestation of Nature, we can accept that Nature's fundamental patterns may serve as metaphors and allegories that teach us by suggesting how to structure our thoughts wordlessly

For example, we can say that Nature is like a musical symphony in which each of us is a musical note. Humanity in general constitues a certain melody, and the Earth is a movement within the Universal Symphony...
Similarly, the Phylogenetic Tree of Life reminds us of our connections with all the Earth's things

INSIGHT #3: Being sensitized by the previous two insights and others, spontaneously we feel ourselves awakening to the Universe around us, and wanting to know more about it. Our curiosity might lead us into such mind-boggling topics as these:

New insights in the field of Quantum Mechanics that twist, break and make us want to dance and sing
Advances in Artificial Intelligence make us wonder where consciousness ends and begins
Studies of the Human Triune Brain cast doubt on but also maybe intensify what we see, feel and think

The golden rim of the Wheel of Awakening is there to remind us to be ready to experience a powerful surge within us of spontaneous, transformational empathy for all things.

In referring to The Wheel of Awakening, keep in mind that, despite the numbered parts, the Wheel is hardly a one-two-three kind of thing; It's more an all-at-once thing, each part providing positive feedback to all the others. The numbers only help us at first to get going.

Also, be prepared for new insights to spontaneously arise within you, that help you reach higher levels. For example, during Jim Conrad's passage these concepts arose, helping with wordless thinking.

One was what came to be called The Six Miracles of Nature
Insights from that led to the concept of The One Thing

LEVEL #5: SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

Each of us will experience spiritual awakening differently, so no description is given here. You will know it when you have it. However, if you are like Jim Conrad, at every new level of being awake, you'll always expect that there's yet a higher level, and there always will be.

NOTE: In western society, even if we don't consider ourselves to be religious, a certain presumption about life permeates our thinking on spiritual matters. It's that we must behave ourselves or we'll go to hell, or otherwise somehow be judged and punished. Hell, judgment and punishment are missing in the above flowchart, so what's to keep us from becoming "bad"?

Jim Conrad's experience has been that the whole process described above sensitizes us so that an intense empathy with other features of the Great Spirit/One Thing spontaneously blossom forth within us. When we feel such empathy, the mistreatment or hurting of other creations simply becomes unthinkable. We are helpful and generous to others just because it feels good to be so. To glimpse what a transcendent moment of empathy-based spiritual joy feels like, you might take a look at the essay Honeybees & Φ.