The End of Spirituality
Posted on May 3rd, 2007
by 
Sandra
Sandra
And just when I thought I'd 'got' it...
Along comes Steven Harrison.
Steven has written a number of books with provocative titles: "Doing Nothing - Coming to the End of the Spiritual Search" - here is a quote from it:
Steven is worth reading, worth listening to. Have a look at his website 'DoingNothing.com". Read a book of his.
To entice you, here is an excerpt from "What's Next After Now? - Post-spirituality and the Creative Life". It may seem depressing or even nihilistic, but - to me at least - it's not. It's deeply exciting, and all about one of my favourite things: creativity.
(Any typo's are mine).
"Whats Next after Now?
Through all of the spiritual indoctrination, benign or manipulative, we became convinced that there was a kind of liberating experience in the moment. If we could simply force ourselves, surrender ourselves, or simply find ourselves consistently in the present moment, we would find passion or peace or whatever we were driven to acquire.
Unfortunately for our pursuit of liberation there is nothing to find in the moment other than the projective capacity of mind. What is next after now eludes the mind entirely; it cannot be captured in this or any moment. Trying to be in the moment is a pointless exercise in futility. We obviously are in the moment to begin with, generating all kinds of conceptual realities, including the concept of a thoughtless mind. We have been sold on the moment, but the moment is no more alive than any other thought, what is truly alive is what is next.
What is next is a fluid intelligence, taking form but not holding the form beyond that singularity. This is a foreign quality from the perspective of the conceptual mind, which is entirely reliant upon the past and the rote repetition of of historic phenomena. Fluid intelligence relies on destruction as much as creation; it creates acausally and spontaneously, smashing its creation simultaneously. This is quantum mind not conceptual mind - higher only in the respect that it is intelligent and the conceptual mind is not.
We can understand the lack of intelligence of the conceptual mind easily enough - the fixed nature of a concept, the mimetic replication of thought, the quasi-religious quality with which we believe in the collection of ideas we carry around, even though tey leave us with no flexibility in encountering life. It is true enough that these fixed templates we view life through give us the sense of location and stability, illusion though that may be. We do not need to discard such useful tools nor can we anyway, but we can see their disutility. Fluid intelligence utilizes everything and believes in nothing.
The quantum mind expresses fluid intelligence as a tool to manifest and apprehend. Quantum mind holds all possibilities and all potentials unrestrained by the past or conditioned by any expectation of the future. This absolute freedom exists as an acausal energy, and while we may attempt to assign it the quality of a higher intelligence, it is intelligence unlike anything we can ideate. It is not the wrathful God of the Old Testament, nor is it the loving God of the new Testament. It is neither a prophet nor a dispassionate observer.
The clues to the nature of this quantum mind are found in the subtle experiments and theories of quantum physics, in which the elemental energetic world is acting without predictability or pattern, other than the actual manifestation....
... Similarly, we can find hints in the unrelenting contact with each our lives when we strip away the conceptual reside in the actual. Without belief in concept, there is no causation, no meaning, no purpose.
At the core of the religious-spiritual search is the attempt of the fragmented center to find resolution, to transcend its own divided nature. the perspective from this center is impossible to resolve - the perspective itself obscures what is whole. The best that spirituality can offer is an experience of expansion, of peace of connection this is a lovely offering and it is accepted gladly by most of us. But imbedded in these experiences remains the perspective of the fragmented center, still clinging, still searching, still wanting.
The end of spirituality is simply the realization that the perspective that seeks resolution is the problem, and this cannot be solved, created as it is by the illusion of separation, which is thought itself.
Without the fragmented perspective that searches, there is no spirituality. The end of spirituality leaves the looking, without the looker. Post-spirituality is the perspective of the looking, a movement without an organizing center, without thought as the perspective. But this is not the absence of perspective nor is it the absence of thought.
Spirituality has claimed a variety of omega points, places of meeting godhead, where the me touches transcendence. Post-spirituality recognizes nothing as the meeting point - the perspective is not from the fragment seeking the whole, but rather of the whole expressing as the fragment-in-the-whole.
Spirituality in all its forms, including non-duality, is dualistic; it is a fragment looking for unity. Post-spirituality is non-dualistic, evidenced by the reversal of perspective; the whole is expressing actuality. There is nothing to acquire, there is only the dynamic of creation-imbedded-in-destruction as an unknowable manifestation.
Spirituality has created the idea and the experience of the present, with with that creation has crated the past and the future as equal but opposite ideas and experiences.
Post-spirituality does not concern itself with any division of time and does not care about maintaining contact with the present moment or any other constructed idea or experience.
... time is an experience constructed in thought, and the present is one of a multitude of such sub-constructions. The present is neither good nor bad. The past and future are neither good nor bad. Post-spirituality does not try to collect ay particular construction or maintain any particular experience of time or timelessness.
... Spirituality builds itself around self-location, the seeker who attempts to transcend, and the transcendent one who attempts to return to chopping wood and carrying cappuccino. Post-spirituality abandons the myths of self in all its forms and deals directly with the actual self, the manifest self just as it is, giving up all sense of improvement. The actual self is the precise manifestation of the whole.
Personal improvement is like sitting in a movie theater, arguing with the villain projected on the screen, and feeling wonderful that at least we have tried to make things better. We may feel connected to the character in the movie but we are actually feeling connected to an idea; or most precisely the feeling of connection is an idea.
...Spirituality has no creative expression. As a conditioned expression of our sense of lack, it is caught in its own promise of fulfillment.
Post-spirituality is without promise; pain and pleasure are phenomenologically identical or aqualitative; fulfillment is a constructed experience; and there are no predictable structures to rely on. The post-spiritual life is entirely creative, because it lives in the unknown. Just as quantum physics has demonstrated the unpredictability of actuality, the post-spiritual sensibility is uncertainty, chaos and confusion. This is a tremendously vital dynamic, reliant on no particular state, believing in no particular description, and moving as an expression of life."
Along comes Steven Harrison.
Steven has written a number of books with provocative titles: "Doing Nothing - Coming to the End of the Spiritual Search" - here is a quote from it:
"At a young age I was moved by the pain and discord around me and inside me. I sought to find a complete, final and universal answer to this pain. For 25 years I studied the world's philosophies and religions. I sought out every mystic, seer and magician I could find throughout the world.
It was all useless.
Somewhere in all of this, the discovery occurred that pain and discord were not the problem, but the seeker was. The very grasping for an answer, for a response, for a solution that relieved me of the burden of feeling, was the problem. Without the grasping of the seeker; the nature of the problem fundamentally changes."
Another book is titled "The Question to Life's Answers - Spirituality Beyond Belief"It was all useless.
Somewhere in all of this, the discovery occurred that pain and discord were not the problem, but the seeker was. The very grasping for an answer, for a response, for a solution that relieved me of the burden of feeling, was the problem. Without the grasping of the seeker; the nature of the problem fundamentally changes."
Steven is worth reading, worth listening to. Have a look at his website 'DoingNothing.com". Read a book of his.
To entice you, here is an excerpt from "What's Next After Now? - Post-spirituality and the Creative Life". It may seem depressing or even nihilistic, but - to me at least - it's not. It's deeply exciting, and all about one of my favourite things: creativity.
(Any typo's are mine).
don't give up yet...
"Whats Next after Now?
Through all of the spiritual indoctrination, benign or manipulative, we became convinced that there was a kind of liberating experience in the moment. If we could simply force ourselves, surrender ourselves, or simply find ourselves consistently in the present moment, we would find passion or peace or whatever we were driven to acquire.
Unfortunately for our pursuit of liberation there is nothing to find in the moment other than the projective capacity of mind. What is next after now eludes the mind entirely; it cannot be captured in this or any moment. Trying to be in the moment is a pointless exercise in futility. We obviously are in the moment to begin with, generating all kinds of conceptual realities, including the concept of a thoughtless mind. We have been sold on the moment, but the moment is no more alive than any other thought, what is truly alive is what is next.
fluid intelligence
We can understand the lack of intelligence of the conceptual mind easily enough - the fixed nature of a concept, the mimetic replication of thought, the quasi-religious quality with which we believe in the collection of ideas we carry around, even though tey leave us with no flexibility in encountering life. It is true enough that these fixed templates we view life through give us the sense of location and stability, illusion though that may be. We do not need to discard such useful tools nor can we anyway, but we can see their disutility. Fluid intelligence utilizes everything and believes in nothing.
The quantum mind expresses fluid intelligence as a tool to manifest and apprehend. Quantum mind holds all possibilities and all potentials unrestrained by the past or conditioned by any expectation of the future. This absolute freedom exists as an acausal energy, and while we may attempt to assign it the quality of a higher intelligence, it is intelligence unlike anything we can ideate. It is not the wrathful God of the Old Testament, nor is it the loving God of the new Testament. It is neither a prophet nor a dispassionate observer.
The clues to the nature of this quantum mind are found in the subtle experiments and theories of quantum physics, in which the elemental energetic world is acting without predictability or pattern, other than the actual manifestation....
... Similarly, we can find hints in the unrelenting contact with each our lives when we strip away the conceptual reside in the actual. Without belief in concept, there is no causation, no meaning, no purpose.
Doing Nothing...
The end of spirituality is simply the realization that the perspective that seeks resolution is the problem, and this cannot be solved, created as it is by the illusion of separation, which is thought itself.
Without the fragmented perspective that searches, there is no spirituality. The end of spirituality leaves the looking, without the looker. Post-spirituality is the perspective of the looking, a movement without an organizing center, without thought as the perspective. But this is not the absence of perspective nor is it the absence of thought.
Spirituality has claimed a variety of omega points, places of meeting godhead, where the me touches transcendence. Post-spirituality recognizes nothing as the meeting point - the perspective is not from the fragment seeking the whole, but rather of the whole expressing as the fragment-in-the-whole.
Spirituality in all its forms, including non-duality, is dualistic; it is a fragment looking for unity. Post-spirituality is non-dualistic, evidenced by the reversal of perspective; the whole is expressing actuality. There is nothing to acquire, there is only the dynamic of creation-imbedded-in-destruction as an unknowable manifestation.
Spirituality has created the idea and the experience of the present, with with that creation has crated the past and the future as equal but opposite ideas and experiences.
Post-spirituality does not concern itself with any division of time and does not care about maintaining contact with the present moment or any other constructed idea or experience.
... time is an experience constructed in thought, and the present is one of a multitude of such sub-constructions. The present is neither good nor bad. The past and future are neither good nor bad. Post-spirituality does not try to collect ay particular construction or maintain any particular experience of time or timelessness.
chop wood, carry water..
Personal improvement is like sitting in a movie theater, arguing with the villain projected on the screen, and feeling wonderful that at least we have tried to make things better. We may feel connected to the character in the movie but we are actually feeling connected to an idea; or most precisely the feeling of connection is an idea.
...Spirituality has no creative expression. As a conditioned expression of our sense of lack, it is caught in its own promise of fulfillment.
Post-spirituality is without promise; pain and pleasure are phenomenologically identical or aqualitative; fulfillment is a constructed experience; and there are no predictable structures to rely on. The post-spiritual life is entirely creative, because it lives in the unknown. Just as quantum physics has demonstrated the unpredictability of actuality, the post-spiritual sensibility is uncertainty, chaos and confusion. This is a tremendously vital dynamic, reliant on no particular state, believing in no particular description, and moving as an expression of life."
Access: PublicTagged with: Steven Harrison, Doing Nothing, What's Next After Now, spirituality, belief, thought, quantum physics, post-spirituality, time, locality
belief
August 2008 
believe it or not…Steve and I have written notes to each other after I read his book Doing Nothing.Unfortunately…..all the people I meet via print, live way too far away from me. I’d love to sit down with him one day and do nothing more than sit down and enjoy a few beers in conversation.
Why do I always feel like the actual essay or article is a function of the photocats? somehow I always end up reading the cats for the thread- which is obviously there? Do you realize you have raised this to an artform Sandra? I await a presentation of just a series of cats in action as commentary , a story board if you will. No words. Rebus.
As much as I like the guy I find it hard to follow his line of thought… a but then, it isn't linear, is it? It's chaotic… clearly chaotic, sir cat!
As the full moon is now penetrating the gray leaves which I remember to have been a tender green during the day under the sun, shining pale white over the ebony white of my computer screen, as the last drops of beer - Staropramen; a nice tasting Czech product - still have me tasting the light bitterness of hop, and as slow trickles of silent delight (a asure you, it aint spiritual even though it can be cleverly placed in a spiritual context to mean some mystic thing) slowly move through my body…
as all of this is happening and I'm considering Sir Stevens post-spiritual insights - a bit dry to my taste, but certainly lovely, lovely - I wonder:
What if post-spirituality and its quantum mode of pondering reality was a plant in my garden, what would it be? A shrub with thorns, sometimes blooming lovely and with pleasing scents? A tree on whose branches birds would like to build a nest? A sturdy cactus, flowering once evry two years?
And where would the cats go inthe garden?
And would we lay down in the tall grass, the world too full to speak about?
Yes the cats are uh, too sweetly mixed. PhotoCats, love it Ron.
Two thoughts came to mind as I worked through the reading. And yes, with my IQ, it was work!
One, a favorite quote from a friend of mine: “Do nothing and achieve all things.”
The next, from Rumi: The Worms' Waking.
This is how a human being can change:
there's a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up, call it grace, whatever, something wakes him, and he's no longer a worm.
He's the entire vineyard, and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks, a growing wisdom and joy that doesn't need to devour.
Alan Watts gets into this a bit too. And myself. I keep feeling that after “seeking” for 32 years that there's got to be something to what Mr. Harrison has to say here. El stoppo the searcho comes to mind.
I'm often accused of doing nothing. I think doing something is pretty much overrated!
Mushin, I would say that all the cats are strays, disowned by Mr Schrodinger. Where would the cats go in the garden? We couldn't be sure because we can't locate them with any certainty. Right about now they should be here. Where? here. All of those plant possibilities speak to me Mushin and I would choose the sturdy cactus but the others may be there as well. Maybe I just can't see them. Like the deep forest folks' inability to see the horizon or that spanish galleon in the bay. Just my habit. Harrison's vision has a holographic feel to it for me. And it seems to remind me of that 70's book, The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas Mr Harrison's ideas appear to be smoke free as well. I guess to fully embrace Harrison's vision is to reach for that last chakra there above the crown. right about where a beanie propeller would be…
Yes, Ron, Schrödingers cats are on the loose in the garden, those that quantum jumped out of the box. And now they come bi-located towards us, all purrs and spinning.
I guess it is them that make my state collapse so that I turn into leaves waving in the wind.and into grains of sand around sturdy cactusses bristling with clear joys.
O to bee-come and float from flower to flower with little pollinating feet.
Fantasy at times, if it is lucky, turns into imagination, the sister of our soul. We see with the eyes of imagination, the horizon and the Spanish galleon as well.
Instead of calling it constructed, whatever it is we see or not see, I call it imagination. Fantasy being a loose form of the same.
Spirituality is it still dealing with what they imagine to be reality, and post-spirituality is replacing that with quantum ideas – another beautiful imagination.
What if we stopped asking what the garden is or means? Just strolling around feeling the wind in our twigs and leaves, caring for the flowers calling out for water.
The phenomenology that I imagine respects the image so much that it is open for many interpretations, and it also always knows that we can be touched by both.
The image of the thousand petalled lotus on top of the head is beautiful, I see and feel something different though. For me it is the sun shining like water accompanied by the feeling of the fine bubbles of champagne…
Oh, Maze, Ron, Mushin, bobJuan,
What poetry What delight as I wander about, here and not-there amongst your comments, going nowhere but here and not even that, I am a sprite in the champagne bottle, a lazy faerie cat with my mischievous wand, where all is neither good nor bad, and I can wave my wand about in the un-manifest/manifest, and the sun shines, water falls, cactus plants grow chocolate spikes tender and inviting, my feet are clad in a thousand petalled lotus, the stars in their midnight foreverness are my wings.
Back to Steven Harrison. Yes he's a bit cool, yes he's a bit spikey even and YES even quantum ideas are just another imagination. And, like bobJuan, I sense, smell there is something here beneath the scratchy exterior of his words.
Steven on Love:
”
…The beloved is already in your life, right now. It's the person you are looking at right now. It's the person you are going to see on the street. It's the person you will see whey you walk through the door of your home. The beloved is you and what you see is what you are. It's the depth of your own heart.
…We can fall crushingly in love throughout each day with everyone we meet, because it is a constant in life that is there occurring. it's an evanescent energetic state in which we do not have to do anything in particular. There is no requirement of me. I don't have to express it or suppress it. It's just simple, beautiful movement of energy in stillness. When we are at a loss for words, that must be the silence speaking.
..Loving is the radical abandonment of my construction, my ideas- the total acceptance of life just as it is, unknowing, undivided.”
excerpts from: What is Love? From What's Next After Now by Steven Harrison
and… here are a few cats in the Garden :-)
What is Bliss, Alex. And the poet, Metta, is tirelessly saying this in so many beautiful ways as well.
Oh Sandra, )))))) the cat in the ceiling fan was my morning yoga. All glands are firing
Alex? whose Alex? Which Alex?
Are you trying to mind-bend me here, dear Ron?!
& I’d love a favourite quote from Metta..
:-)
Alex Trebek, from Jeopardy. You answer the questions with another question. Sadly it just tv noodle. Metta? Many of her poems fall under “friends only” especially the one's I like. But I don't think she would mind if I gave a fragment from the poem “if everything were holy”:
…”in the courtyard there are birds, such gentle birds,
with intricate black and white designs woven in feathers.
When her eyes close she becomes the land birds' journey too.
A sudden sidelong glance and she becomes a feeder-
her gaze teeming with life.”
Yup.
Uhum, Nothing makes sense to me. This is great.
Sandra have you studied A course in miracles? This Steven Harrison sounds like something I need to read. And The Dissappearence of the Universe is also corresponding to our illusion of separation. These thoughts I regognize.
Tnak you very much Sandra!
Ron - Tv? What's that??? ;-)
Nothing, this is just perfect , to have you here, or was that after here… hmmm…
Hi, Sandra,
Thanks for pointing me to your most recent blog entry! I hadn't heard of Steven Harrison before, but I resonate with his approach. As I think you know, way in the wayback of time, I used to be a student of Krishnamurti's works, and I see what he's doing in that vein – calling organized religion into question, trying to encourage us into seeing the dynamics of, and dropping, our various projects of “seeking” and “becoming.”
I see his discussion of post-spirituality as a particular language, or perhaps a skillful pedagogical device, rather than a “fact.” What I mean by that is that I believe he is trying to encourage a particular insight into ego-driven becoming, rather than describing a movement which goes beyond all forms of spirituality that have existed to date. Because there are a number of “spiritual traditions” which describe the same thing – which call into question the seeking mind, the goal-orientation, the chasing after special experiences, the reliance on thought and its alluring constructs, etc. Zen, Dzogchen, Krishnamurti, and TSK are just a few.
I like what he says about the liveliness of the future. That's close to what TSK describes as dynamic time or “the future infinitive”: that frothy crest of the moment at which the new is constantly unfolding, the boundless open energy of the Kosmos. It is lively and spontaneously creative.
Best wishes,
Balder
Balder, thank you so much for your input. It lands with me as absolutely spot on.
~Sandra
I have to wonder about someone who coins a term as grandiose as “post-spirituality”. He's taking a lot on himself by individually superceding millennia of humanity's spiritual strivings. And I agree with Balder about the language. Mr. Harrison defines what spirituality is, and then presto chango he's got something better. I love the idea of living in the unknown, at least theoretically, but evangelism tends to leave me cold, because it always includes preaching against something.
Ornery as ever,
Tom