Wholeness implies being in line with what is.
What can you know of this? A world that exists through your senses, in unimaginable complexity; an implicit domain you can sense without reason; intellect to abstract and make sense of it all; and feeling to know it and guide you in the direction of good. All of these functions of mind are essential to making sense of yourself and the world.
The word ‘spiritual’ at essence leaves out none of these. Even though, because spirituality implies engaging with the unseen, the ‘look’ of spiritual gets conflated with what looks like ‘intuitive.’ The intuitive person often looks and appears ‘spiritual’ to others, or presents this way on purpose to play up to their projections.
But ‘spiritual’ is surely not the same as ‘intuitive.’ The inflated intuitive feels superior to the sensory type who does not understand the ‘deeper truths,’ all the while not realising their feelings betray a discomfort with a particularly deep truth they avoid.
Although non-intuitives will no less often allow their own self-concept to inflate through their own particular flavour of greatness. An athlete may just as readily project wholeness into their heroism. The very success of which is measured by how much outside of itself it doesn’t have to go to the trouble of dealing with.
The caregiver who cares only for harmony amongst her people, believes that her half of doing things is the whole and only way. She herself judges the analyst as judging. Meanwhile her husband argues passionately for why emotions aren’t important.
The efficient business leader who believes that if they can drive the number up all will be saved will achieve nothing if they cannot enjoy and appreciate the value of what they have built.
The artist who believes they are gifted will achieve nothing unless they are willing to set limitations, respect schedules and concede in part to the needs of the world.
Entire movements, industries, traditions and even religions have been built—and continue to be built everywhere—based off the denials of duality, energy and wholeness—over-representing either expansion or contraction, Eros or Thanatos, and proclaiming it to be the whole. Invariably they must resort to rationalisations and wordplay to maintain some semblance of sense as their systems wash up against the shores of reality (“It’s not nihilism, it’s just the end of becoming!”). All contradictions first reveal themselves implicitly, not explicitly, but many don’t even seem to have gotten this far.
The point is that a half, representing only one side of life, does seem convincingly like the whole and absolute from a certain perspective. Especially when it solves an unbearable problem. This results from a natural function of our minds and it has to be this way to a point. A human has to hang out with ideas for as long as they work and carry them to their full realisation.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter what the flavour of power or conceit is. What matters is whether empathy is happening or inflation instead—whether there is a dialectic actually unfolding, or whether it’s just nonetheless-useful half truths posturing as wholes.
