Spirituality and Values

Values are broad or fundamental preferences that form the basis for ethical action. For example, the scientific method is based on values that say, “Knowledge is better than ignorance. Developing a hypothesis, performing experiments, and subjecting the findings to peer review and objective verification is superior to taking evidence on faith.” Values, whether stated or left unstated, are always present, but what about spirituality? Wilber (2006) differentiates four different definitions of spirituality. First, we can think of spirituality as a separate line of personal development alongside cognition, empathy, ethical, kinesthetic, our sense of self, musical, and so forth. Development along this or that line would move in stages from unawareness of all things spiritual to oneness with the divine. For example, Saul of Tarsus, when he was persecuting followers of Jesus, would be considered less developed spiritually than Paul, who Saul became after having a vision of Jesus, being struck blind on the road to Damascus and then going on to create a major world religion. Second, we can think of spirituality as the highest level of development of any line, such as divinely inspired music, or a spiritual identity, or godly ethics. The word “transpersonal,” for example, implies a consciousness that transcends and includes both a prepersonal, faith-based, irrational approach to spirituality and a personal, rational one. Third, we can think of spirituality as a state, such as a Near Death Experience or a mystical experience of oneness with nature or with the divine. Hinduism defines spirituality as a state exemplified by sat, cit, and ananda: being, consciousness, and bliss. Fourth, by “spirituality” we can refer to an attitude that can be present in any state, on any line or at any stage of development. For example, we might define spirituality as a loving attitude. However, this fourth definition generally collapses into one of the previous three, because we can discern different stages in the expression of love (sexual passion is not the same as divine bliss) and different states in which that attitude appears.  In any discussion about spirituality or its relationship with some other subject we need to specify which of these meanings of spirituality we are dealing with if we do not want to talk past one another and become hopelessly confused.

These few introductory comments already cause us to grapple with the relationship between spirituality and values. We ask, “Do I agree with these distinctions?” “Do they make sense to me?” Do I prefer one usage over another?” “Do I normally confuse these definitions or not?” “Are they meaningful to me or not?”  These are all value questions, and the way you answer them says a great deal about the relationship between your values and your experience of spirituality.  Notice that your answers to the above questions are on a cognitive level. However, you may answer them on an affective level, in terms of your emotional preferences. You can tell if you are doing this if you have thoughts like, “Thinking about this is too hard! It makes my brain ache!” You may feel a deep longing for simplicity, an aesthetic sense that you know what feels good, true, and beautiful, and that’s all you need to know about the relationship between values and spirituality. This is valuation of spirituality as an emotional preference, or an attitude.  In this instance, we can tell when we have the right relationship between our values and spirituality because it feels right. A rational answer, on the other hand. asks not, “What feels right?” but “What makes sense?”  A transpersonal answer asks, “What experientially integrates these two realms?” To that answer we will turn momentarily

The Good, the True, and the Beautiful are of course the Socratic definition of spirituality. If we put Socrates’ formulation into Wilber’s definition, spirituality involves the maximization of a balanced combination of these three core values. You might say that we have three fundamental lines of development, ethical, cognitive, and our aesthetic sense, and that spirituality involves the balanced perfection of all three.  If we maximize this balance in all states, then whatever level of development we are at right now can be one of spiritual completion.  On the other hand, the absence of these three values would be a state of spiritual alienation. Instead of truth we would have ignorance and the abuse of self and others that it causes. It would be a state of self-induced karmic persecution. Instead of beauty we would have the disharmony of confusion, helplessness, and powerlessness, or a state of victimization. Instead of goodness we would have the phony goodness of rescuing, in which we impose our definition of spirituality on others because we are only trying to help. Spirituality would then be the evolutionary development from persecution to wisdom, from victimization to harmony, and from rescuing to goodness.  For those readers that are familiar with Transactional Analysis, we have just described Karpman’s Drama Triangle (1968).  According to the adaptation of that model here, drama is life experience defined in terms of the three roles of victim, rescuer, and persecutor while spirituality is the antithesis of drama, or life experience defined in terms of harmony, goodness, and wisdom. Because spirituality exists to one degree or another in all states, this movement from drama to spirituality occurs in the three major states of waking, dream, and deep sleep. If spirituality is a core value for psychotherapy, it is not enough to eliminate drama from waking relationships. It must also be eliminated from the cognitive realm of self talk and the image/emotive realm of dreaming.  This is because dream drama generates waking drama and vice versa, as is clearly seen in the nightmare-plagued condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

A transpersonal definition of the relationship between spirituality and values is not based on belief or reason but is an experiential integration of the two. What would such an experience look like? What do we get when we combine a belief in goodness, truth, and beauty with one or more of the rational definitions of spirituality we have explored above?  I would submit that such a definition would exist at the intersection of the secular and the sacred in the present moment, at the convergence of the mundane and the divine now. Take a moment to observe your breath right now. Notice that it is moving in harmony and balance. Notice that it is good, in that it provides life. Notice that it is wise, in that it gives you what you need moment to moment whether you are awake or asleep, aware or unaware. Take a breath and experience those qualities in it now.  Notice that your breath is free of drama.  It is good, beautiful, and wise. It transcends belief in these qualities and in this moment you are doing more than reasoning; you are combining your belief in those core values and what you know about your breath and about spirituality. The integration is a transpersonal integration of values and spirituality.

Wilber, Ken. Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World, 2006.

Karpman, S. (1968). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 7(26), 39-43.