THE SPIRIT DIMENSION OF META

PART IV

In the current Meta Reflections I’ve been attempting to answer the question about the relationship of Neuro-Semantics to “spirituality” and “religion.” As most people notice in Neuro-Semantic trainings, because we invite people to rise up above and beyond the primary state to their higher mental-and-emotional states, many of the processes feel like a “spiritual” activity. This is especially true of the intentionality pattern, but equally true of meta-pleasure, exploring a matrix, meaning enrichment, opening-up a belief system, etc.

I’ve been referring to this as the spirit dimension of meta (Reflection #15). It is the dimension of in-spir-ation—passion, hope, dreams, purpose, destiny, direction, intentionality, etc. It is also the dimension of “beliefs”— those mental maps that we map about the meaning and purpose of life, who we are, what we’re up to, etc. And it is in this sense that in the dimension of spirit, it is beliefs all the way up.

Now in this dimension of spirit, intention, and belief, there’s another factor at work—valuing. That’s because at the heart of the good life, the “spiritual” life, is “values.” Why? Because it is in valuing or having values that we become “spiritual” persons. Recognizing and living by values raises our lives above the lowest levels of just surviving to living for something more, for something higher. Here we map out “the good life” and how to create a life well lived.

Of course, this sounds like “values” are things when they are not. The false-noun of “values” is actually a nominalization and is derived from the verb, to value, to treat as important, as meaningful, to see the worth and significance of something. So what we label as “values” actually is a state— a state of mind, of emotion, and even of body. Consider that. If it speaks about a particular state of mind, what is the mental state of valuing?

If it speaks about a sate of emotion, then what is that emotional state? And if it speaks about a state of body, what is the physiology and neurology when we are valuing?

The answer may seem strange at first, but that’s only because we so overuse the vague nominalization “values” and don’t map valuing as a dynamic and living process. The answer is that the mental, emotional, and neurological state is that of appreciating, sacralizing, seeing and feeling the everyday world in the aspect of eternity and so, seeing and feel gratitude.

How about that? Actually this gives us a way to find our true values. What do you appreciate?

What does your mind and heart feel grateful for? Where do you invest your time, energy, and money in? What do you treat as significant and important? What do you sacralize? What do you worship? Is it money, sex, power, things, status, approval, acceptance, no conflict, health, fitness, superiority, being ‘right,’ putting others down, growing, seeing others grow, etc.?

Values are not things, but processes. Given that, where does the process of seeing and investing with significance show up in your life? What magazines do you spend money on? What television shows do you invest time in? What activities?

It is in valuing that we express ourselves as “spiritual” beings. It is in seeing wonder and worth that we are inevitably worshiping beings. Worship doesn’t just occur in Churches and Mosques. It occurs wherever a human heart admires, adores, appreciates, and feels the joy of significance. So we worship leaders, movie stars, athletes, the rich and famous. So we worship money, status, and power.

We even “worship” models, beliefs, and ideas. We are a worshiping species. That’s because we inevitably look around to search for value, importance, and significance. It is part and parcel of our passion for meaning. If nothing meant anything, if we didn’t need to do what’s meaningful, we would not feel the call to the special, the sacred, the holy, the glorious, the admirable, and the awesome.

Valuing then is the heart of spirituality. It is the essence spiritual thing you do. When you value, you look to find what matters, what makes a difference, what makes life and experiences special. And this is what drives every form of celebration. The heart pulse of celebrating is that of acknowledging value. It happens whenever we acknowledge, complement, and praise someone. It happens when we throw a party for winning, returning home, having a birthday, and just about any other occasion we can invent!

And if valuing, seeing value, adding value lies at the heart of spirituality, then even business, enterprise, and commerce can be spiritual. After all, what creates “wealth” other than adding value? It is when we create something that solves a problem, adds a benefit, invents a new tool or process, gives a service, etc. that we are doing what builds a successful business. Here, even capitalism, as an economic process, can be performed as a spiritual act. If we are adding value through our products and services, through the information, innovations, and experiences that we are offering— we are doing something spiritual— adding value to people and making the world a better place.

How then does Neuro-Semantics relate to “spirit, spiritual, and spirituality?” We do so by de- nominalizing what actually occurs in our mind-body-emotion system when we believe, value, intend, that builds up our sense of inspiration and that addresses our higher self-actualization needs for hoping, believing, intending, contributing, making a difference, creating value, etc.