I am, we are,
so too are you.

I'm a member of a fellowship that places a heavy emphasis on seeking a spiritual experience as the solution to all of my problems. Periodically, within this fellowship, I've encountered the idea that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, yet rather, spiritual beings having a human experience. I find comfort and curiosity in consideration of that suggestion.

Once upon a time, it was not uncommon to identify this concept of Spirit with the concept of Will. Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and John Powell's Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am, in addition to the work of Gottlob Frege, collectively suggest that there is something other than the mind which is the will. Whereas the mind is the theater of propositions, thoughts and feelings, it is the will — i.e., the spirit — that is the audience.

It is only in the moments when we act in opposition and defiance of our training, and act contrary to the habits that have been reinforced, that our will is displayed. These are the moments when we discover our agency, our will, our spirit.

The human experience seems characteristically distinct in the awareness of death. Heidegger's principle of Dasein is an excellent analysis of this condition. The awareness of the inevitability of not only our own death, but the death of those around us, highlights the importance of time as a precious commodity.

But what if I am more than my mind and my body? What if I am atman, or God-consciousness, or Will, or Spirit — what Ram Dass refers to as loving awareness?

Perhaps — I am, we are, so too are you — that underlying force, the true fabric of reality, caught in a dream of being a human animal. If I am you and you are me, what could I tell you other than "I see you"? How could I fight you without fighting myself?

And here is where I find Spirit — in the connection between you and me — in the identification with something beyond my own mind and body, something that already is, and always was, and will always continue to be.

Living with purpose and living on purpose. The force of habit is so often stronger than the force of reason.

A good friend of mine and I often reflect on the awareness that the difficult thing and the right thing are often the same thing. It's only when the difficult thing and the right thing are the same thing that we experience anything resembling conflict. That there is conflict, however, reveals that we are interested in orienting toward doing the right thing — what an opportunity to become grateful for the struggle.

Kairos overcomes Kronos.

If you've yet to discover your purpose, there's more than minimal benefit to living your life on purpose. Doing anything differently than the force of habit reveals that I can change any part of my destiny. If my measure is the effort that I am expending, then the outcome is either irrelevant or a bonus. To thy own self be true.

When I was something like five years old, I plugged in a Mickey Mouse nightlight by holding the two metal prongs between my thumb and index finger. That electrified feeling makes an impression — baked into my concept of plugging in appliances is this experience. It would have been quite debilitating, indeed, had I stopped plugging in things altogether. It was much better to learn that, when done correctly, it was quite safe.

In a similar way, I've betrayed my own values. My brain is a meaning-making machine and a meaning-testing machine. As I internalize the results of my efforts, a moral of the story is proposed — a rule to guide future action. The problem is that these rules, if not revised, can have the functional impact of superstition.