I am my own guinea pig

• Changed my approach
• Applying First principles, and systems thinking to spiritual beliefs

Revisit the first principles of this course

• Based on what is usually done
  • Script
  • Stories
  • Is that enough? Can listening be enough?
• Need to shake you! Not be passive in my teaching
  • Need more than knowledge and examples.
  • I need to inspire.
  • Speak from the heart
    • No script
• Why this shift?
  • To invoke your spirit

What is spirit?

• You have mind and body
  • Connected (yoga, Thai chi)
  • Spirit
• What is someone who has a good spirit?
  • Motivation, purpose, self-assurance
• Things that exists for thousands of years, they work
  • Like Chinese traditional medicine
  • Spiritual is important for humans
    • Spiritual beliefs is human nature
    • Ever felt disconnected? Something missing?
  • Example: primitive society spiritual values exposed to modern civilization?
    • People lose the meaning of their lives
    • Social cohesion
    • Loose their morals

Why do we need spiritual

• Social cohesion
  • Shared morals, values and purpose
• Ways of thinking
  • But how to put into practice?
  • Spiritual is the link between thinking and action. It's motivation, purpose.
• Spiritual beliefs help us connect with
  • Ourselves
  • Others
  • The world
• Want to change the world, we need to reconnect
  • It's our path to change the world
  • Not a one off, but a journey
    • Path to organize ourselves is through reconnecting with ourselves and gaining implicit knowledge
• We're not ready
  • Spirituality is rejected in this society
    • For some, It's something we haven't lost, we just never got
  • Massive rejection of religions over the past century

What are religions

• First, what do they do
  • Brings people together. Organizes them
    • Important!
    • society is organization
  • Shared way of thinking
• But religions have failed us
  • Still many religious people, and the world is in the state it is

Why we reject spirituality - reason 1

• Stories we tell
  • Stories of religion

Stories we've heard about Christianity

• Bad face of Christianity - Stories we've heard
  • History of converting people
    • Pushing the beliefs
  • Name of God was used to commit atrocities - Genocides
    • Crusades, witch hunt, residential school system
  • Uses fear - Sent to hell
    • Japan, they criminalized saying that to children as a form of abuse
  • The promise of paradise is a selfish one
    • It's black or white
  • Priests raping children
    • Fucked up that representants of God are raping

The failings of religions

• Religions are institution
  • Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha did not create a religion. The religion came after their death
  • Spiritual leaders to protect the institution
  • Self-serving and power hungry
    • Benefits from
      • Having more followers
      • Followers that don't question
• Religions were guides to good living
  • Became a battle of which one is "right"
  • More about convincing people than practicing
    • Religions, which are aimed to give sense to our lives have lost their own meaning.
• We think religions, driven by a divine mandate
  • No, driven by the wishes of a few organized powerful
  • Policies on contraception, abortion, homosexuality
    • Have more babies. More Christians
• Now, Christmas, Easter, have become an consumption fest
  • Maybe our new religion?
    • It's our purpose in this society of consumption
    • Make us feel good - what we're told

Distinction between spiritual and religion

• Spiritual beliefs
  • Personal
    • Flexible
  • Meaning of life
  • How you explain the world
  • Questioning is being human
    • Ask hard questions
    • Question your own beliefs, adapt them
    • Question religions too
• Religion is a hierarchal institution to spread a set of spiritual beliefs
  • It's standardization of beliefs
  • Standardization does not work for humans
    • Too different

Why we reject spirituality - reason 2

• How we think
  • Spirituality is woohoo, not scientific
    • What if it can give your life a meaning?
    • Matter if scientific?
    • Can the meaning of life be scientific?

Religion and science

• No God until proven true (unknown until proven true)
  • Spot the error?
  • Man-made religions are not true
  • God may be an hypothesis. Like the big bang.
  • There are suggestions from people's experience
• Nothing has mystery
  • Assumes we can know everything
  • Nothing is sacred anymore
• Spiritual is the boundary of our knowledge
  • Unaware of atoms, black holes, etc.
  • Developed when people didn't know things
    • Lightning, why sky is blue, rainbow
    • Explained by Gods
• But religion pretends it knows it all
  • God, if ever, is beyond human understanding
  • No way to prove

Limitation of religions

• Specific time
• Specific location
• Different interpretation
• If you believe in one God, you are one step away to not believing in any God.
• Sacred texts are stories
  • Made to be interpretated
  • How many interpretation of the bible?
  • Which one is true? false?
  • People not the problem - never taught better
• What you chose to believe to be true becomes true - for you
  • Up to you to interpret stories, including everything that I'm saying
  • No absolute truth

Golden rules to most religions

• Treat people how you want to be treated.
• Respect
• Play nice if you want people to play with you
• These things are contagious.
  • Anger brings anger
  • Patience bring patience
  • So display what you want to see in the world.
  • Be the example
• These golden rules embedded within the 10 commandments

New religion?

• Adaptable to people and time
• Should be rational.
• Is a belief system... Complex network
  • Network of beliefs
  • Yet still organized
• Systems emerges from the bottom.
  • Need to start from each one of us.
    • Need to feel it
    • Energy within you
    • What is that energy telling you?
  • Doesn't matter what you believe
    • No need for proof for God
      • Need for a proof that you need to exercise?
      • Experience for yourself and see if it works
      • Maybe helpful in crisis to give meaning to existence
      • Don't need proof - known to be useful
      • Have been used as far as we know
• Spiritual to find your place in the universe
  • Make sense of hardships
  • shared with other people - belonging
  • Collective beliefs guide our behavior
  • Community - create resilience
• If someone no meaning
  • No difference what society he lives in
  • Society is as good as the individual to find meaning within
  • Reverse this
    • Inner meaning is the most important
    • creating this new society
• Not everything can be understood, but everything can have meaning.
• Based on interconnection
  • Land as alive. Reciprocal.
  • Carl Sagan
    • “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
  • Like waves in the ocean
    • Part of something much bigger

Question them

• If you do self-select
  • Why not contributed to discussion online?
  • Why not exercise?
  • Told two friends?
  • What is holding you back?
  • You don't believe?

Power of belief

• Placebo - scientific term for magic
• What we believe influences us to levels we don't understand
  • Example of the machine with sleep
  • Example of placebo effect getting stronger. Painkiller
• Miracle
  • Man being cured from being unable to walk
    • Priest hand on your head
    • People cheering you
• We reject belief as something unscientific
  • You telling me something makes it true.
• In this society, we believe some things so strongly, they become true
  • Story of someone's aunt
    • They have a watch to monitor sleep
    • Look at the watch to explain their fatigue
    • Too much belief in technology

Exercise

• What is your belief system
  • List of rituals that you need to do
  • Purpose of life, death
  • What are your morals and values
    • What is the distinction between those for you?
  • Believe in
    • Soul
    • Ghosts?
  • What is real, and what is not
  • What are humans? Why different than animals?

Spiritual thinking in lecture

• Obvious
  • Not starting a religion
  • Trying to shake you to start being spiritual
    • Important
• How to apply to your life?
  • Be aware of your own beliefs
  • Create beliefs that support you
• From now on, spiritual thinking will be embedded
  • Now, remain aware
• Don't hold your beliefs too tightly
• Being spiritual is believing in yourself
  • Maybe release my spiritual beliefs sometimes soon
  • Reminder: Don't have to believe literally
    • believe spiritually
      • When you need it

Your belief as a handful of sand

• Hold it loosely
  • Hold to tight, it escapes
• Open your hand once in a while to see what's still there
  • You might realize that there's no sand anymore, or filled with rocks
• Need to get more sand once in a while

Belief starts from within.

Believe and the world will be yours

5 - Why beliefs are stronger than we imagine