Originally Posted by
bluerose
Now my point is… Am I deluding myself? Is it possible to be spiritual (as in having a belief in things metaphysical) without being religious, and without being a Christian and without believing in God?
I've spent a good part of my life peeling away and discarding beliefs. I've come to think that in most cases, they do more harm than good because they make us blind and deaf to anything that doesn't fit within them. The few beliefs that I still have I regard more as "models" in the sense that scientists use the term. I don't regard them as complete and perfectly accurate descriptions of reality, just useful approximations and simplified representations of the way things appear to work in my vicinity in time and space. Moving very far into the past or future, or very much larger or smaller in size, such approximations are quite likely to be both less accurate and less useful.
I like the "four-layer" model of being--Spirit (ineffable), Mind (intellectual), Heart (emotional), Body (physical). You can think of these as concentric spheres or stages of causation in the process of manifestation. Within this framework, it isn't even possible to be alive without being spiritual, because without the action of spirit, nothing happens or is made manifest. Of course, it is possible to deny (with the intellect) that there
is any spiritual realm antecedent and superior to the mental sphere, but there can be neither proof nor disproof of the spiritual realm, since these are logical concepts, i.e. products of the mind.
Self-delusion, of course, is always possible, whatever you believe or whichever model of reality you prefer.