Relationship PIES - Spiritual

This is the fifth in a multi-part series of articles.

Last time, I talked about the emotional and how emotions are given to us. That they are instinctive. This time, we go to the other extreme and talk about the thing that most uniquely defines who we are - our spiritual side.

For most people, this immediately means God, religion and prayer. When I speak of spirituality, I'm talking about something that is the common denominator of all spirituality, and that is the ethics and mnrality that someone practices. You may choose not to steal, and your rationale may be that it is in violation of a Holy Commandment. You may choose not to steal, and your reationale may be that it's against the law. Either way, you are making ethical and moral choices, and they are based on some view of reality that influences everything that you do. That is your spirituality.

In the context of relationships, this is the most critical aspect of relating. Two people can have an incredibly deep relationship if they are compatible in their spirituality. They may not be attracted to each other physically, emotionally or intellectually, but if they share a spiritual connection, there is something deep within each of them that will draw them towards each other. Quite likely, they will find common ground in the other aspects of their lives. This is called "learning to love each other", and people have done it for generations after finding themselves married to each other.

I want to present a warning here about relationships that are predominantly spiritual becuase I'm sure that some readers mentally skipped the "not prayer" statements, while greedily absorbing the "spirituality lets you go deep". Depth of a spiritual relationship comes from sharing the same core values, not just the same church or the same prayers. If two people can pray a Catholic rosary together, but differ over the morality of homosexuality, or the legitimacy of the war in Iraq, then any spiritual connection that they have is tenuous at best.

Another important thing to consider here is that many people don't even have a formed notion of their spirituality, of their ethics and morality. They just live life one challenge at a time, without thinking about the big picture. Yet, when the time comes, everyone makes a decision. If faced with a decision to have an abortion, a decision will have to be made. If faced with a decision to tell that little white lie, a decision will have to be made. We have an ethical and moral structure within us, and it's up to us to explore it and refine it. If we don't do that, then we will fall back on our instincts and simply do whatever our instincts (our emotional side) tells us to do. We will be at the mercy of whatever emotions we have, and uninformed choices are not always the best ones.

If you want to develop your ability to spiritually relate to others, be sure to develop your spirituality. If you don't know how, look into some formulated packages of spirituality. Religions are just that. Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, and many more besides. They all entail rules of conduct that are consistent with the ethics and morality that come from the basic notions of the faiths - the beliefs. And be sure to look at the ideals of the faith more than the actions of those who claim to be the faithful. Sometimes, extremists can misinterpret the ideal ethical and moral structure espoused by a faith into something that is fundamentally inconsistent with it. This is true of all faiths because it is true of people. Sometimes I wonder whether that has happened with the American constitution. How many of our laws are fundamentally at odds with what the original writers had in mind?

To relate to others spiritually takes little more than a conversation or some simple actions. When a man opens a door for a woman - or doesn't open it - he is declaring a little bit of his spirituality to her. When a woman dresses in the sexy dress versus the frumpy dress, she is displaying a little bit of her spirituality to the world. These are tiny glimpses of the ethical and moral structure that each holds within them. Explore the small and the large when you want to pursue a relationship. You never know something until you ask. Indeed, the very act of asking may help someone to spend the time to figure out why they believe what they believe.

Unless practiced, it can be very difficult to distill the ethical and moral situation. Consider that the large organized religions are the distillation of hundreds or even thousands of years of people looking hard at ethics and morality. There must be something to the religions. They have motivated people do some very good things. It is that understanding that we should be looking to gain, because our relationships will be that much more easily understood, ultimately leading to the best relationships possible.

Next time, dating.

Studying Love

You love someone. They're very special to you. It might be your boyfriend or girlfriend, but it can just as easily be your brother, your mother or your child. Your love of them is so strong that anything that happens to them happens to you. As a result, you have an innate desire for good things to happen for them, just as much as you'd want good things to happen to yourself.

That begs one question to be asked: what is good?

That question must be asked because if the natural expression of love is to encourage good things for those that we love, then we need to figure out what's good and what's bad. If I draw someone that I love into a life of crime with me, am I loving them or despising them? My intention might be good, believing that we will have great wealth as a result of our life of crime, able to enjoy life to the fullest, but the intrinsic character of a life of crime is that it is bad.

Inviting one that we love into a life of crime is an extreme example, used to illustrate a point. Most everyone will agree that a life of crime is not a good thing. That's because few people's instincts and environment draw them towards it. But what about some more modest examples? Beating children that we love because we believe that they need discipline. Drinking heavily with those that we love because we believe it enriches the experiences of our lives. Dressing in an overtly sexy way and then dancing suggestively in public because we believe that our date enjoys it. Those acts are called "discipline", "partying" and "clubbing". We grant them innocent appellations so that we can avoid making any moral or ethical judgements about them.

Yet ethical and moral judgements are exactly what is needed if we're going to express love to others. We need to know that drinking heavily is a bad thing. That very knowledge will help us to resist the instinctive temptation to drink heavily - and to help others to resist their temptation. Nobody is perfect and able to resist every temptation to do something foolish or harmful to themselves or others. That doesn't mean that we can't learn what is foolish or harmful. The very fact that we know is what permits us to choose to love or to turn our back on someone.

I'm a lazy, greedy man. I'm lazy because I want to follow the most efficient path to the greatest happiness in life. I'm greedy because I want that greatest happiness. Because I'm reasonably bright, I know that learning what will bring true, lasting happiness is critical to my avoiding false paths that will waste my time and won't bring me true happiness.

Alas, today, we have many philosophies of life. We are immersed in them without even being aware of it. There is the Political philosophy, the Capitalist philosophy, the philosophy of the Better Home, the philosophy of Being Right, the philosophy of the Better Party and so on. These are relatively new philosophies of life that invite us to focus our attention on certain specific aspects of life. The Capitalist philosophy tells us that what we own is the best path to true happiness. The Political philosophy tells us that our political beliefs are the key to happiness.

You can tell what a person's philosophy of life is by discussing various topics with them. The ones that they become most emotional about are the ones that are linked most closely to their philosophy of life. That's because when a person's philosophy of life is asaulted, things get serious. If I sincerely believed that the planet was flat, that belief would be ingrained in everything I believe. It's an axiom of my world view. To show me a picture of a spherical planet would shake that, and I would reel from the impact. Likely I would reject it out of hand. So it is with any philosophy. We don't abandon them casually, even when they're wrong.

With so many philosophies of life telling us what is good and what is not, how are we to know what is really good and bad? By studying. A significant element of your life should be to study right and wrong. It's a bit like studying how to drive a car when you know that you're going to be driving one soon. Here we are, driving our lives, yet we don't really study life. We just live our lives. Using the driving analogy, we're casually turning the wheel and pushing various buttons, only to find that we keep smashing into obstacles, or overshooting our destinations, or arriving late, or breaking down. All because we haven't studied. Learn how life operates and you will know what is good and what is bad. Only then will you be able to love.