Spirituality Practice - Practices of Interiority

Introduction

A crucial emphasis of spirituality irrespective of religious or non-religious connection is practice. Practice gives voice to the making of human lived experience. As human actions it reflects principles working together operationally in complex relationships with each other as core requirements for authentic spiritual journeys and growth of consciousness. It involves repetition of actions over time towards mastery for growth in authenticity. Practice usually impose a healthy demand for further insight from seamless encounters with other sources of new knowledge and reflection points for improvement. It is connected to movements of the spirit in relationships, speak deeply to and derive their meanings in relationships. For this introduction we focus only on four practices/principles include attention, silence, listening and presence without suggesting a particular order.

Attention

Attention usually occurs between two entities which could be two persons or one person and another thing including animate objects, inanimate objects and spirits or disembodied beings. Prior to attention and in the perspective of the observer, the person who is attending is the subject while the attended person or thing is the usually the object.[1] The subject is normally active, alert and aware of the object with full consciousness. All the data and information the subject gains of the object through the senses are usually gleaned externally about the object. The attended object usually doesn’t speak as it were. When full attention occurs for the attending subject, there is an involuntary suspension of all possible physical and non-physical activities and movements.

Furthermore there is a free and uncoerced self-surrender of the attending subject to the attended object or the object of attention which suddenly becomes present and is specially transformed into an attended subject momentarily disclosing data and information about itself to the fully attentive subject. The attended subject of its own will precisely self-disclose itself, revealing its truth, integrity and authenticity. The former attended object begins to "speak" usually wordless of itself, himself or herself undiluted and directly to the observer as it were in a transformative experiential form for the attending subject where both subjects mutually recognise each other as active and living subjects. The observer suddenly discover that the erstwhile object fully exists in its separateness and otherness. This occurrence is termed encounter in many places because the space of incident is recognised as sacred or numinous.

As Taylor alluded, in this state one see “with new eyes. For now this other being meets me in its own authenticity, and I am face to face with the truth of it, not merely the truth about it.”[2] Something profound happens in this communication between subjects or co-equals as the previous boundary separating them seamlessly dissolves triggering on the one hand mutual awareness and on the other hand wonder, numinous disposition and ineffable joy in the attending subject. Apparently the implications of full attention as expressed by such result verifies that the mutual communication of both subjects is underpinned by mutual meetings of truth,  integrity and authenticity. [3]

Silence

Silence is the deliberate self-permission to cease active generation of sound through speech, songs and interior noise, and withdrawal from surrounding sound, sight and movements save for heartbeats and pulse movements at a given time or over a period of time. This can occur for various reasons including direct personal introspection and deep dive interiority or indirectly for an empathic necessity of another person. Silence equally has a bilateral footprint for inter-human interaction, s/Spirit relationship and human/sound source interaction. The goal resides in the deliberate giving up of one’s ability to create and generate sounds probably in a sacrificial manner in other to offer space and/or exchange presence with another which may demand or invite the subject to listen to the s/Spirit, another person, things or nothing.

Silence is required to fund vibrancy of presence, expansion of serenity and creation of conducive sacred space for further movements including increased hearing within and beyond the subject. There is more to silence than being quiet. As Dom Augustin Guillerand observed, “in order to re-enter silence, it is not enough to stop the movement of one’s lips and the movement of one’s thoughts. That is only being quiet. Being quiet is a condition for silence, but it is not silence. Silence is a word, silence is a thought. It is a word and a thought in which all words and all thoughts are concentrated.”[4] Therefore silence carry greater weight with implicit outline of processes preceding it in the grand scheme of things.

Hence parallel to its purpose is the evident character, form and quality of silence. The quality of silence is not just relational in essence but connects strongly with the form of silence. There is the character of external silence triggered by the withdrawal of elemental forces in their clamour and the reduction of noise in particular places at a given time. This could also be man-made artificial items floating directly to the senses through the air or electronic gadgets and equipment permeating every aspect of modern life in private and public spaces. On the other hand it could be the silence floating and growing within the human person confronted by the cultivation of healthy interiority.

In the human interior, a similar process under a different set of operations enable the subject to account for limitation of external noise while simultaneously staying in place through the dissolution of interior noise usually generated by the mind and spirit. Therefore an investor in silence in a given situation and time must engage in a simultaneous operation of shutting out external sounds or noise and containing inner sounds and noise. We can affirm that silence is a form of self-surrender for a seamless prompt to connect, participate, partake and share in a wordless manner at a given time for mutual but unequal benefit for the subject and object respectively.

Listening

Listening occurs in a space when there is a deeper release in a person that enables one to increase his/her access by hearing to syllables, words and sounds on their merit and authority towards obtaining their true meaning and extracting genuine information. Through listening a person is empowered to differentiate, capture and retain sound data (object) from a variety of sources. This operation implies that a number of elements are involved including a subject (listener), an object (sound) and an object source (a person, animate or inanimate thing, s/Spirit). A simple listening structure consist of a listener, a speaker and a speaker’s words or lack of words. This means that listening is non-trivial and does make tremendous demands on the listener particularly.

So for full listening to occur, it must be active through an unconstrained access to the source/speaker. It must be accurate in the filtering of all noise for the preferred content, signature and sounds. Listening must extract meaning by grounding the relationship between the listener and the source/speaker. This is followed by the construction of useful patterns of exchange based on previous contents or in the making of a new content. 

We are aware that listening can occur in an exchange between two person physically sharing the same space and time or sharing different spaces at relatively different times. Listening can also occur in an exchange between a person and a ‘live’ radio or between a person and an interior voice within oneself. Listening occurring in an exchange between a person and a spirit or the Spirit external to the listener is deemed as interior listening except where the s/Spirit institutes external manifestations of s/Spiritself as the source is (not necessarily) validated empirically. Regardless of the speaker and speaker quality, full listening is only possible when it is effective.

Effective listening demands listening actively, listening accurately and listening for meaning. Hugh Lagan declares that “active listening requires intention and reciprocity.”[5] These demands present clarity of listening as a non-trivial operation. Hartley recognised that it is a serious, complex and a delicate self-implicating activity for parties.[6] Therefore effective listening is an activity that requires allocation of time, adequate preparations of the place and the listener, and a conducive place/(sacred) space. 

Parties to listening especially the listener must be self-present without distraction, the listener must be in full control of the activity, put the human speaker at ease, be limited in speech and interruptions, the listener must be aware of the speaker’s body language (where applicable) and maintain the correct posture throughout the duration of engagement, and be fully engaged or connected with the listener. The essential values of effective listening including respect, empathy, genuineness and bias for action. For effective listening to occur there must be agreement and understanding. The speaker agrees to the listener who accepts to listen. The listener's objective is to be present, to go with the speaker with love. The listener becomes the speaker's companion. Maximum help is derived from undiluted presence, total being and unalloyed commitment to listen in presence.[7] 

Presence

Presence occurs in a space when a person deliberately or involuntarily with self-permission appropriates a place including its characteristics and qualities over a period of time and becomes absorbed by the place or is dissolved momentarily into a holistic experience despite surrounding pulls of distraction. A single word captures the essence of presence, be. Presence is the goal of being (i.e. to be). Presence therefore is evident when a person is at one or present with oneself, united holistically at a single point or moment. It is useful to clarify an important point. The person who is present with oneself is not the presence, rather the person is present with the primary objective of benefiting from presence. One cannot make presence occur but can execute processes towards its realisation. Presence comes to those who pursue the path of being authentically present. A person doesn’t determine the outcome of being present rather is more or less gifted with presence as a result of effort.

Conclusion

The above is an introductory outline of interiority practices or principles. These practices are the foundational equipment for seekers and those desiring authentic spirituality. There is no way of getting around it. However, for anyone with interest in such investment, any decision in this regard should be part of a broader view firmly anchored in a strong commitment to one’s life purpose.

Life is beautiful!

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[1] For simplicity observer and attending (subject), and observed and attended (object) are used interchangeably.

[2] John V Taylor, The Go-Between God – The Holy Spirit & the Christian Mission (London: SCM Press, 1995), 12 – 13.

[3] Ibid., 15.

[4] Robert Cardinal Sarah with Nicolas Diat, The Power of Silence – Against the Dictatorship of Noise (San Franscisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), 20.

[5] Hugh Lagan, “Listening to Hear.” The Furrow 68, no. 7/8 (2017): 389. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44738582.

[6] Mary Hartley, How to Listen (London: Sheldon, 2006), 1.

[7] Thomas N Hart, The Art of Christian Listening (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 16 – 20.