We at SHARANYA are planting seeds for conversations about all aspects of human engagement in and with life when visited through the lens of deep spirituality and our heart-felt love of Maa.
Deep spirituality is a term we use in our tradition to highlight a recognition that inner and outer worlds inform and create reality; that the whole of the cosmos is interrelated, that sustainability is the heart of our soul’s yearning, and that social justice is the result of a heightened spiritual awareness. This concept is ancient at the same time that it is new; and our intention is to connect old wisdom with new manifestations and get us conjuring together in community.
Is what you practice a form of deep spirituality?
We know and experience ourselves the challenges of how to be spiritual in the mundane world; how to be fully who we are during our day job; how to show up as someone who practices choice spirituality, a path that is a luxury to discover and not marginalizing in its characteristics or connotations. Can deep spirituality help us with these challenges? Can community? Can our individual practice, especially when offered and undertaken from a place of deep spirituality?
No matter what your spiritual inspiration or longing, deep spirituality recognizes the need for individual change, the reconciling of worlds, the opening of hearts, and the surrendering of egos. In doing so, we individually and collectively affirm that life-affirming change in the world is possible, and moreover, real. At SHARANYA, this is at the heart of our tradition, Sha’can, a Western Shakta Tantra. It is much of what our committed practice with one another cultivates, and we invite you to journey with us in your own way!
Proponents of deep spirituality understand that being deeply spiritual is not enough. Deep spirituality says that we each have a sacred charge to take that spirituality out into the world, again, in our own unique way–even if that is by virtue of merely living from a place of authenticity, as a willing participant in life with commitment to a transforming self/Self and honoring that which we are and that which we are becoming. Deep spirituality is in this way an evolving (r)evolution of thought and practice set in the contexts we individually and collectively inhabit. It is inspired and informed by transpersonal psychology, various wisdom traditions, ancient truths and mysticisms, and other “deep” movements (for example, deep ecology, deep ecumenism and depth psychology, et al.).
What resonates with your own engagement of deep spirituality? We welcome your thoughts and assistance in helping to crystalize more concretely ideas about what deep spirituality is and does while at the same time instigating insights and potentially the impetus for more pathways to living life in integrity and with respect.
Well said, Sanatani – I agree with you that balance, nonjudgment, compassion, our personal integrity…that is what matters. Sometimes it is difficult to determine ‘active’ and ‘passive’, particularly in spiritual terms; for here, it is difficult to see the impact of contemplation, meditation, and other more internal practices that do have tremendous ripple effects in the worlds of inner and outer spaces.
I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately. On one hand, I want an engaged, embodied spirituality, one that doesn’t fall into a totally passive space in dealing with the world. I’ve seen too many people shrug off someone else’s suffering as “Oh, must be your karma” for my comfort.
On the other hand, I’ve also seen people show an extreme disregard bordering on hatred toward anyone who is more contemplative by nature than active, and that doesn’t feel appropriate to me either. We are all different people: we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and our own approach to the world even/especially when we are being our most genuine. The important thing is not the approach but the attitude behind it – and that is what deep spirituality means to me. It means that whether we are, at that moment, engaged with the world or only with our own hearts, we are moving from a place of calm and compassion rather than fear or anger.