Spirituality and Logic

I’ve set myself a very ambitious goal for this blog, dear reader. I want to look, in simple terms, at spirituality and logic: what they are, how they differ, and what “spiritual logic” is.

Why is this goal so ambitious? Because when you attempt to look at two such subjects and connect them in layperson’s terms, you quickly realize how vast and complicated they are. It’s like trying to tidy a room, but the more you tidy, the more stuff you find, and the messier the room gets!

With that in mind, we’ll start with basic definitions. Spirituality can be defined as “the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.” Meanwhile, logic can be defined as “reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.” Okay, there are other definitions and versions of both, but these are good starting points for us because we can immediately see the potential for conflict.

With spirituality, we’re dealing with the unseen, and to skeptics, unproven: the spirit and the soul. With logic, we’re dealing with strict, factual reasoning, which suggests the need for hard, physical evidence and results.

If we begin to look around for ways to reconcile these two things, we quickly find something called “spiritual logic.” This is where the room gets really messy because ironically given our definition of logic, there is no one hard-and-fast definition of what spiritual logic is.

However, there are some beautiful definitions out there to help get us started. One, which I read on Quora, defined it as the point where a human finger pointing up to the Divine touches the finger of the Divine reaching down, like Michelangelo’s beautiful painting, The Creation of Adam. I love that description because it points to a middle-ground between two arguably very different sides. Finding the middle-ground in anything requires compassion and understanding, which are wonderful qualities in anyone.

Another definition that resonated with me, and echoed some of the things I wrote about in Meditations with Grandma, appeared in this old post on the Abundant Good blog. To me, its author Joselito defines spiritual logic as an essential part of the process of realizing the potential that exists within you. By using this kind of logic, you come to see yourself as made from the same essence as our universe, not as an isolated being within the universe.

The result of this logic is that you open your heart to the idea that the universe inherently loves you and wants the best for you because you are part of it and it is part of you! You are not an isolated event that needs to fight against a hostile universe. This is very similar to the ancient Vedic notion of Brahman and Atman, which shows how deeply rooted the idea of spiritual logic is within humanity.

This is only the start of what spiritual logic and its potential areal, but as you can see, we have already waded into the deep, but safe and welcoming waters of the very soul of humanity.