Experiment #6: Engaging with Spiritual Teachings

How two neuroscientists and a neuroscience researcher shaped my spiritual path and helped me make sense of 9/11

If reading time is hard to come by or you’re interested in a more human experience, there is a “Read-to-You” version of this article.

[Read-to-You Version] Experiment #6: Engaging with Spiritual Teachings

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It was early for me. I was a sophomore at New York University and liked to sleep in when I didn’t have a class or a shift at work.

My roommate, who had been up for a while, opened the door to our bedroom where I was still fast asleep on the bottom bunk, and said, “Get up, a plane just flew into the World Trade Center.”

What my roommate had said didn’t quite register as something serious. His gruff voice gave him the perfect delivery for his dry sense of humor. Jokes — often crude — were delivered with sharp comedic timing in absolute, perfect deadpan.

“JON!” Okay, he was serious. I was up.

As we stepped outside of our dorm on Greenwich Street that September morning in 2001, we saw smoke coming from one of the World Trade Center towers where four months before I had worked as an hourly employee at the Gap in the basement. On this day, we were standing just 30 blocks north.

I can’t remember if we watched one tower fall or both, but I remember seeing hundreds of people with dust all over their clothes walk up our street in shock.

I remember how kind New Yorkers were to each other in the weeks that followed as we collectively tried to give each other space and support to make sense of what had just happened.

And I remember the anger that came later. Anger towards Islamic extremists and anyone who might resemble them. Anger that became a “war on terror.” Anger that allowed the definition of terrorist to keep expanding to anyone who got in the way of carrying out “justice” for what had been done.

I remember reading a book by a neuroscientist named Sam Harris called The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason and being influenced by his scathing criticism of not just religious extremists, who were blamed for 9/11, but religious moderates — perhaps someone like me — who he argued gave cover to extremists for committing terrorist attacks. He criticized:

“While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence. From the perspective of those seeking to live by the letter of the texts, the religious moderate is nothing more than a failed fundamentalist. He is, in all likelihood, going to wind up in hell with the rest of the unbelievers. The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism.”

While Harris doesn’t go as far as to say that religious moderates are terrorists, he all but says they are complicit because of their insistence on continuing to use the word ‘God’:

“Moderates do not want to kill anyone in the name of God, but they want us to keep using the word ‘God’ as though we [know] what we [are] talking about.”

In the aftermath of 9/11, the last thing I wanted to be was religious.

The world’s most powerful word

God.

It might be the world’s most powerful word.

Invoking it has inspired billions of people towards greater love, joy, and peace in their lives. It has also been used to persuade countless others to exclude, condemn, and kill.

For most of my life, it’s been a word I’ve tried to keep out of my mouth and away from my heart. I didn’t trust it. I could not reconcile the love that so many religions preach in the name of God with the abuses and hatred I saw come from those same religions. I saw much more downside than upside to engaging with ‘God.’

As Harris says:

“It seems that if our species ever eradicates itself through war, it will not be because it was written in the stars but because it was written in our books; it is what we do with words like ‘God’… in the present that will determine our future.”

So you might ask, with good reason, why would I choose to engage with spiritual teachings that talk of ‘God’ and spend time encouraging others to do so as well?

Experimenting with ‘God’

As I explained in Experiment #1: Sharing the Top Ten Things I Do Regularly to Create a Happier Life, I became much more open to experimenting with ‘God’ when my mental health hit a rough patch and I began learning about new — or in this case, very ancient — ideas. I noticed these experiments were bringing me comfort, making me feel more loving towards myself and others, and making me feel happier in my life.

Following the advice of my spiritual teacher, Swami Nityananda, and her teacher, Swami Shankarananda, I started evaluating spiritual practices by whether they made me feel more expansive, more loving, more compassionate, more caring, more peaceful, and more joyful.

They taught that these qualities were divine qualities and that they were always present within us. Spirit-depleting qualities like anger and others only blocked these divine qualities temporarily in the way a cloud blocks the light from the sun.

Photo by Ava Sombrero on Unsplash

Right or wrong, a distinction I began to make for myself was that ‘God’ was different from religion.

Religions are created by humans. They are a human attempt to understand and codify God, which most traditions say is beyond human understanding. Given this, it’s almost inevitable that these human systems experience some form of corruption.

But that doesn’t mean that religious texts and leaders have nothing to offer. And it doesn’t mean that I have to accept everything a religion preaches in order to learn from it. Holding religions to this standard feels like the cruelest kind of perfectionism — one by which I hope I am never judged.

Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Newberg, M.D. and neuroscience researcher Mark Robert Waldman agree. They challenge Harris’s conclusions about religion in their book, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist. They synthesize brain-scan studies and a wide-reaching survey of people’s religious and spiritual experiences to conclude:

“The majority of religious leaders in America encourage interfaith dialogue and exchange, and some of the fastest-growing churches embrace a multi-denominational spirituality that blends Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Eastern religious philosophies.”

The latter is what I ended up finding in my spiritual home, Awake Yoga Meditation.

They go on to say:

“What strikes me the most about these contemporary places of worship is the warmth and friendship extended to every participant, regardless of one's race, ethnicity, or faith. But some writers — like… Sam Harris — make little distinction between fundamentalist and liberal theologies, arguing that religion as a whole presents a primary threat to the world. The evidence is not there, however, and in America, only a small percentage of groups use religion to foster discriminatory political agendas. In fact, as we will highlight throughout this book, most research conducted in psychology and the social sciences finds religion either neutral or beneficial when it comes to physical and emotional health.”

I agree with their conclusion that:

“The enemy is not religion; the enemy is anger, hostility, intolerance, separatism, extreme idealism, and prejudicial fear — be it secular, religious, or political.”

Holding onto concepts

It seems plausible to me that spiritually-advanced people who had achieved (or were born with) a high level of ability or talent to cultivate inner peace, love, joy, compassion, etc, tried their best to teach those who strived for those qualities. These spiritual masters met people where they were. They used the technologies of story and metaphor and concept to aid in their teaching. They grounded the stories in specific details that would have meaning to their students.

But these masters were trying to describe the blissful sweetness of what a strawberry tastes like to people who have never tasted one. Stories and metaphors and concepts only get us so far — especially when we are engaging with them centuries or millenia after they were written.

Photo by Henry & Co. on Unsplash

In Experiment #1, I referenced the Yogic teaching:

“Truth is one, we call it by various names.”

It seems relevant here as well. The Truth of strawberries is the taste, but there are various ways to describe it.

My spiritual teacher, Swami Nityananda, in her book Awake: The Yoga of Pure Awareness, says:

"Keep going, keep letting go of all the stories, frameworks, terminology... Open to any insights they make possible, and then let go of them, too. Let go of any scaffolding you have ever held onto."

And her teacher’s teacher, Swami Premananda, said this in his translation of the Upanishads:

“Hymns, sacrifices, ceremonies, religious ordinances, and other rituals of all times, are merely outer forms to awaken love of God in man.”

Once we know what the strawberry tastes like, we don’t need the frameworks and scaffolding anymore. In fact, it can be fun to experiment with different frameworks and scaffolding!

When we are too literal and hang too tightly to the rituals and details of scripture, we risk falling into the “shadow side” of religion that Newberg and Waldman describe:

“There is… a shadow side to religious and political organizations, especially when their tenets stipulate that there is only one absolute and undeniable truth. When such individuals band together, they unconsciously foster an ‘us versus them’ mentality that neurologically generates fear and hostility toward people who hold different beliefs.”

When I have experimented with “us versus them” mentalities whether it’s in religion, sports, the music business, or elsewhere, I almost always end up feeling spirit-depleting emotions like:

• Fear

• Anger

• Annoyance

• Irritability

• Stress

• Jealousy

• Frustration

• Sadness

• Self-criticism

• Resentment

• Envy

• Etc.

The Buddha can teach, “Hatred does not cease by hatred; hatred ceases by love,” and his students can create a religion around it. Jesus can teach “Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” And his students can create a religion around it. And spiritual leaders around the world can go to great lengths to encourage their students to choose love over fear, anger, and hatred, but at the end of the day, the student must make the choice — whether that student is in the congregation or in the pulpit.

How ‘God’ changes our brain

Newberg and Waldman walk through absolutely fascinating research into how even just contemplating spiritual questions can have significant positive effects in our lives:

“If you contemplate the Big Bang, or immerse yourself in the study of evolution — or choose to play a musical instrument, for that matter — you'll change the neural circuitry in ways that enhance your cognitive health. But religious and spiritual contemplation changes your brain in a profoundly different way because it strengthens a unique neural circuit that specifically enhances social awareness and empathy while subduing destructive feelings and emotions.”

What I have experienced is like what Newberg and Waldman describe. As they go on to say, my experience will almost certainly be different from yours because:

“Our data suggests that… nearly everyone’s spiritual experience is unique.”

But spending time reflecting, considering, pondering, or engaging with spiritual teachings about what God is, is time well spent. I agree with the participants in Newberg’s and Waldman’s studies who find that:

“…these experiences often generate long-lasting states of unity, peacefulness, and love.”

I have felt this myself and continue to feel it daily.

How I’m currently experimenting with it

Currently, the way I am experimenting with this is by trying to read or listen or watch or attend something spiritually uplifting first thing in the morning (or as close to first thing as I can get).

Before I started doing this, I noticed that many of my mornings started off with an “ugh” as I looked at email, scrolled some social media, and reminded myself of the things on the to-do list. It wasn’t an uplifting way for me to start the day.

Even if I only have ten minutes, I find that engaging with spiritual teachings help me orient to the day’s events with much more gratitude, love, generosity, and excitement. This helps me bring those qualities out in my day — in my meetings, in my conversations, and in my projects.

How do I pick what to engage with? I let my instincts point the way. One of my favorite pieces of advice I’ve gotten from my spiritual teacher, Swami Nityananda, is:

“There will be guidance.”

I imagine I’ll write more about this in a future article, but the essence of it is that we know when we are drawn to something. We know what that feels like. So as you look at options of what to engage with, pay attention to what your intuition is telling you.

I also love lists and try to keep a list going of things I’d like to engage with in the future. This has made it easier to maintain the practice because it helps me choose what to engage with more easily.

Have you experimented with engaging with spiritual teachings? How do you go about it? When do you like to do it in your day? Have you noticed any effects in your life? I’d love to hear about and learn from your experiences. If you’re open to it, share them in a comment below so we can all benefit.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a very happy day!

With love,
Jonathan

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