Recently, my mother was accused of not fostering enough spirituality into her children. (meaning myself and my twin sister) She had posted on Facebook about how she was going to Midnight Mass for the first time because of her admiration of the new Pope. You mind that she is NOT Catholic and grew up on the Church of England because she is originally from there. So one would think people would use their logic here and assume that therefore, since she is a born and raised Brit, that, technically speaking is the denomination and Church that she belongs to, despite her actual beliefs and practices. She does not practice Catholicism or even Christianity. So, why criticize someone in that manner? Why say, that the only reason my sister and I had ever suffered from bouts of depression was purely (or even at all) because of our lack and deprivation of spirituality. I have bipolar disorder, which is intrinsically biochemical to some extent, no if, ands, or buts about it. How is one supposed to be the judge of another's spiritual "thermometer" just by there attendance (or lack of attendance) at Mass? Even so, in my opinion, not having any spiritual path is perfectly okay with me, personally.
I, as a matter of fact, have plenty of spiritual outlets, but I like to keep them on the down-low and tucked under my sleeve. This is due to some reasons: I don't believe in one practice or Faith over another and like and dislike parts and "snag" the parts that I like, so therefore, I don't want a full-fledged someone to come and spout off on Faith with me if I don't believe in all of what it stands for. The second reason being is that I had a very personal, intense, and direct spiritual experience.
Long story short, I died when I was a premature baby in the neonatal intensive care unit. I have a very vague, mysterious, and foggy "memory" of an out-of-body experience. I saw my soul come up and out of my frail little body and up towards, what I believe to be Heaven in a sense. God was like fog, barely humanoid, and indistinct. I still debate whether He (or even it) was in fact a person or just a "force" if you will. He promised me He would always look out for me whenever I needed Him, but solely when I solicited it. That's just my personal belief. Nonetheless, it is ALSO my personal belief that everyone has the chance to experience the ultimate being of their Faith. In other words, only people who believe in Heaven go to Heaven and only Buddhists can attain Nirvana and so on and so on.
Me? Well, as for me, I'm kinda stuck in the middle. One could possibly in theory that is, hypothesize that if I believe in God and Heaven that I must be Christian. False. In reality, I personally do not choose to identify as ANY religion, Faith, practice, or ideology as a matter of fact, simply because I have too much of a hodge podge of spiritual beliefs that I don't fall under any one "category." I believe in God, but not Creationism, I believe that He does not intervene unless you want Him to and that His intervention is honestly and subconsciously me trying to "fix MY mind" instead of Him trying to do so for me; that all in all, God does exist, but it's almost as if God were my mind on a deeper level of Being for me. That God was my mind at its Highest Level of Being, which is my philosophy with my relationship with the Buddha. That my psyche is so chaotic sometimes that the only possible way to end the cycle of chaos is to find ultimate inner power and to call it God or The Buddha or both. It is my only way of attaining the most enlightened part of my mind. So I guess God is half imagination, half real to me.
Through discussion of religion or practice of Faith, I think I agree on equal amounts of what my atheist friends have to say, my agnostic friends have to say, my Christian friends have to say, what my Deist friends have to say, and what my Buddhist friends have to say and in my worldview, I like it that way. It gives me richness. A lot of my friends are very surprised about my belief in God and Heaven and angels because I am a liberal, bisexual, pro-choice feminist who swears in front of a few choice people that I deeply trust. In a sort of idiosyncratic way, I like to keep people guessing.
The type of therapy I'm doing is a million dollar word called dialectical behavioral therapy, DBT for short. The best and most succinct way to explain it is if standard cognitive behavioral therapy and Buddhist ideologies had a baby. Therefore, I pray to God while listening to Buddhist chants and listen to Flyleaf while chanting in Sanskrit. And it is that combination that gets me to the deepest level of Being that I can possibly ever get to, and that is My Own Faith; it can be yours, but it doesn't have to be.
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