Spirituality Without Religion, A How-To Book
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| How To? | 1 |
  Experiment: The Structure of Experience | 1 | |
|   | |
| PART I: THE BIG PICTURE |
|
1. | Why Investigate Spirituality? | 6 |
- | Starting Practice | 9 |
2. | A Rough Map of the Work | 11 |
- | How is it going? | 14 |
3. | The Practice of Gratitude | 15 |
  Getting started | 16 | |
  Gratitude in place of clinging | 17 | |
  Blessings aren't always in disguise | 17 | |
  Gratitude and values | 17 | |
4. | Spirituality in Action: An Example | 19 |
5. | What, Why, and How | 25 |
  Just What is Spirituality? | 25 | |
  Behavior | 28 | |
  Why Follow a Spiritual Path? | 29 | |
  How to Develop a Spiritual Life | 31 | |
6. | Spirit | 38 |
   Experiments in perceiving spirit | 39 | |
  Guided Meditation: A Peaceful Place | 39 | |
  Contemplation: the feeling behind reading | 40 | |
  Guided Meditation: Interconnection | 40 | |
  Giving | 42 | |
   Well-being | 42 | |
7. | Spiritual Thought | 43 |
 Viewpoint | 43 | |
 Beliefs | 45 | |
 Understanding | 46 | |
8. | Spirituality versus Reason | 49 |
 Universality test | 53 | |
- | Miracles | 57 |
9. | The Practice of Embracing | 64 |
 Embracing and satisfaction | 65 | |
  To Do: Mindfulness | 69 | |
  To Do: Embracing pain | 69 | |
 Embracing resistance | 70 | |
 Embracing desire | 70 | |
 Effects of embracing | 72 | |
10. | The Practice of Meditation | 77 |
 Training the attention and mapping the internal topography | 78 | |
  To Do: Counting breaths | 78 | |
  To Do: Noting perceptions meditation | 79 | |
  To Do: Noting thoughts and perceptions meditation | 79 | |
 Star Wars versus the Garden | 81 | |
 Cross-level learning | 83 | |
  To Do: Try Regular Meditation | 84 | |
|   | |
| PART II: LETTING VALUES GUIDE BEHAVIOR | |
11. | We're Born with Values | 87 |
  To Do: Articulating Values | 89 | |
12. | Human Topography | 93 |
  The Source of Values | 93 | |
  Emotions | 95 | |
  Experiment on the Components of Emotions | 95 | |
  Exploring Emotions | 98 | |
  The structure of emotion | 98 | |
  Inner versus outer divinity | 99 | |
  Domains | 101 | |
  To Do: Inside or Out | 104 | |
  Where Meaning Comes From | 104 | |
  Mapping thought structures | 105 | |
13. | War | 108 |
14. | There May Not Be a God, But There is Definitely a Choice | 112 |
  Investigating Will | 114 | |
  What I want guiding me | 115 | |
15. | The Practice of Prayer | 116 |
  Praying for someone you resent | 117 | |
  To Do: Experiment in praying for someone else | 119 | |
  Praying with another person | 119 | |
  Prayer versus petition | 120 | |
  What you pray to | 120 | |
  Getting started | 120 | |
16. | Beings and Devices | 122 |
17. | Consciousness and Awareness | 127 |
  The relationship of conscious to unconscious | 129 | |
  Exploring the unconscious | 132 | |
  Remember your dreams | 132 | |
  Listen to your feelings | 133 | |
  A Journal of feelings | 133 | |
  Attending without controlling | 133 | |
  Choice, control, and the unconscious | 133 | |
18. | Examining the Old Way | 136 |
19. | Theorems | 138 |
  Giving it away increases it | 138 | |
  Using it increases it | 138 | |
  Harmony is satisfying | 139 | |
  Letting it go lets it grow | 140 | |
  Spiritually sound outcomes are win-win | 141 | |
  Mistakes will masquerade as truth | 142 | |
  Some problems can be prevented, but not solved, ethically | 143 | |
  Thought is creative | 144 | |
  Spirit is indestructible | 145 | |
  Grace is always available | 146 | |
  Deeds shape the doer | 147 | |
20. | Faith, Lack of | 148 |
21. | Power | 150 |
22. | Spirituality and Conflict | 155 |
  Remembering the spiritual viewpoint | 157 | |
  Exploring Criticism Experiment | 158 | |
- | Win-win | 160 |
23. | Beliefs | 161 |
24. | Spirituality versus Religion | 162 |
  Why we adopt religion uncritically | 163 | |
  Difficulties and abuses | 165 | |
  To Do: For those who believe in God | 169 | |
  Translating religious jargon into spiritual ideas | 169 | |
  To Do: Review old ideas | 170 | |
25. | Evil | 171 |
  "Some People Don't Deserve Good Treatment" | 171 | |
  To Do: Pin down what you mean by evil | 172 | |
  Taking it personally | 174 | |
26. | Fear | 177 |
  To Do: Taming fear | 178 | |
  Divine versus human authority | 179 | |
  Experiments with fear | 181 | |
  Unwitting allegiance to human authority | 181 | |
27. | Spirituality versus Psychology | 184 |
28. | Coping, Healing and Indulging | 188 |
  The relationship of spiritual practice to emotional healing | 194 | |
  Therapeutic approaches | 196 | |
29. | Spiritually-Based Healing | 199 |
  Wholeness | 199 | |
  Integrity | 203 | |
  How spiritually-based healing differs from materially-based healing | 204 | |
  Doing consciously what one would otherwise do unconsciously | 209 | |
  Healing is hard but divinely supported | 210 | |
  Getting started | 211 | |
  Scanning the past | 211 | |
  Tell a friend | 211 | |
  Vent | 211 | |
  Alternating bilateral stimulation | 211 | |
  Controlling the attention | 212 | |
  Live as you wish to | 212 | |
  Say "I love you." | 212 | |
  Talk to feelings | 212 | |
  Make up a story | 213 | |
  Enjoy! | 213 | |
30. | Symbols | 214 |
31. | Obstacles to healing | 217 |
  Coping as an obstacle to healing | 218 | |
  Co-optation | 220 | |
  Spiritual Materialism | 222 | |
32. | Commitment? | 225 |
  To Do: Relinquish Material Means | 225 | |
  Decide whether to commit | 225 | |
33. | Gentle Lessons | 228 |
34. | Surrendering Obstacles | 230 |
  List Obstacles | 233 | |
35. | The Practice of Correcting Mistakes | 236 |
  To Do: Repairs | 238 | |
  Daily Review | 239 | |
  To Do: Nightly Review | 240 | |
36. | Attachment | 243 |
  Sometimes It's Given and Sometimes It's Not | 246 | |
37. | The Practice of Letting Go | 248 |
  Cross-level Learning | 249 | |
  T o Do: Start where you're motivated | 250 | |
  T o Do: Letting go of the breath | 250 | |
  Letting Go of Judgment | 251 | |
  To Do: Letting go of judgment | 251 | |
  To Do: I statements | 252 | |
  To Do: Replace judgment with statement of needs | 252 | |
  Letting Go, Pushing Away, Holding On, Embracing | 253 | |
38. | Be Where Now? | 256 |
  To Do: It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your attention is? | 259 | |
  To Do: Do it consciously | 259 | |
39. | Compassion and Devotion as Practices | 260 |
  Compassion | 260 | |
  To Do: Contemplation of compassion | 262 | |
  To Do: Guided meditation on compassion | 262 | |
  To Do: Compassion in daily life | 263 | |
  Devotion | 264 | |
  To Do: Experiment with devotion | 265 | |
|   | |
PART III: WITNESSING CREATION | ||
40. | The Source of Experience | 268 |
  To Do: Meditation on the innermost request | 269 | |
41. | I am the Seeker. I am the Sought. | 270 |
  To Do: Who am I? | 272 | |
42. | The Dream Called Life | 274 |
  To Do: Meditation on nothing | 279 | |
|   | |
PART IV: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS | ||
43. | Visions | 281 |
44. | Popular Notions | 284 |
  Abundance | 284 | |
  Acceptance | 284 | |
  Anger | 287 | |
  Atheism | 288 | |
  Attraction, Law of | 288 | |
  Chanting, drumming, dancing | 289 | |
  Co-dependence | 290 | |
  Commandments and Precepts | 292 | |
  Confession and Penance | 293 | |
  Control | 293 | |
  Creating what you fear | 293 | |
  Denial | 294 | |
  Desire | 295 | |
  Drugs | 295 | |
  Duty | 296 | |
  Ego | 297 | |
  Enlightenment, Nirvana | 297 | |
  Equanimity and stoicism | 299 | |
  Forgiveness | 299 | |
  Giving | 302 | |
  Goddesses and Gods | 302 | |
  Gossip, slander, and lies | 303 | |
  Guidance | 303 | |
  Heaven and Hell | 306 | |
  Honesty | 307 | |
  Inferior People | 307 | |
  Joy | 308 | |
  Judging | 308 | |
  Karma | 309 | |
  Killing animals and plants | 310 | |
  Life after death | 311 | |
  Love | 312 | |
  Mercy | 312 | |
  Mystery | 312 | |
  Needs | 313 | |
  Paranormal | 314 | |
  Preaching | 314 | |
  Punishment | 315 | |
  Reincarnation | 315 | |
  Sacrifice and courage | 316 | |
  Self Esteem | 318 | |
  Service | 318 | |
  Sex | 319 | |
  Sin | 319 | |
  Sloth | 320 | |
  Soul | 321 | |
  Suffering | 321 | |
  Transpersonal Forces | 323 | |
  Truth | 323 | |
  Visualizing the Positive | 325 | |
|   | |
SUMMARY | ||
45. | Meditation and World Peace | 327 |
Index | 329 |