Your Band Sucks

Even if you don’t have a band, and most of us don’t, there are individual components that make up who you are, and if they aren’t playing in concert together, your band sucks. To clarify, let me begin by defining a word that bothers me, then I’ll get back to how your own personal one-man-band sucks (hopefully not). There is one word I dislike as much as the word Yoga because of its connotations. I may dislike it more, but not by enough to discern at this point, and that word is spirituality. Yoga and spirituality go together, and in one subjective viewpoint they can be obvious and beautiful; but in another, the skeptic, doubtful, close-minded viewpoint, a misguided or misunderstanding one, the two words together are ugly and laughable, a point of embarrassment for anyone who dares use them without joking. So which is correct? Probably neither, and it is irrelevant. It is the differing comprehension of the meanings of these words that is at fault, much like when using the word God.

So, onward we proceed to discuss not God, not the creation of the universe nor the creation of the creation of the universe of the universe. Let us first agree that the human body is a thing, much like all things are things, but the human body has the appearance of a unique identity through a complex collaboration among different areas of that body, performing specialized tasks. To be a person, with a name, and unique identifiers to be singled out from any other similar other human being, even a genetic clone like a twin, is the result of a whole that is clearly greater than the sum of its parts.

We can compartmentalize these parts into three categories, thereby simply adding the sum of only three parts, and coming up with one whole that is greater than the sum of these three parts. This whole we will call the fourth part, slightly greater than any human body, yet fully containing the whole human being. This fourth part is the right of every person, the skill of utilizing these three parts of the human body no matter if your body feels lacking in some way, and this fourth part is also absent from many people who do not understand how to be alive in the sense of making themselves whole. The three parts identified are the Intellect (the mind), the Body (the entire physical mass of your living flesh that occupies space), and the Heart (the emotions that are felt). We can say Mind, Body, and Heart while understanding the delineations of how these three do not overlap each other even though the words can be confusing if we think the mind is the brain which is part of the body and the heart is in the body so it is all body. But, just as the mind is separate from the brain, and emotions are separate from the heart itself, these assumptions are misleading and the delineations should be recounted or simply different words used.

Now with these three parts defined, dwell on your own experience of owning and using them. Confirm that you have them and define them within you. See that they are separate and individual. Also see them in the next closest people in your life and think about how they are expressed so that you perceive them. Think of every human being on this planet as owning, using, and expressing these three aspects of their being that contain everything that is who they are. That’s right, now back to you, everything about who you are is contained in these three categories independently expressed by you out in the world.

Now if these three things that make up all of you are used together, sympathetically, they resonate into something bigger and greater and unexpected, a greater whole. What this means is that when using the Mind and being aware of the Body and Emotions, not just being all-Mind, or all-Body, or all-Emotion, all three aspects of you are included in everything you do or don’t do. When you live this way, a greater whole emerges in a wisdom state, a knowing that is mind-knowing, body-knowing, and heart-knowing, so you KNOW with not just your little 3 pound brain and your Mind, but you know completely, with your whole self. This knowing which is still you, not God or even a god, not the universe or any universe, but you. This “you” is spirituality.

Now look up the definition of spirituality as all popular dictionaries define it. Here is an example, and see how wrong, confusing, and lacking of explanation the definitions are in comparison to the above:

World English Dictionary

spirituality  (ˌspɪrɪtjʊˈælɪtɪ)
— n  , pl -ties
1.	the state or quality of being dedicated to God, religion, or spiritual things or values, esp as contrasted with material or temporal ones
2.	the condition or quality of being spiritual
3.	a distinctive approach to religion or prayer: the spirituality of the desert Fathers
4.	( often plural ) Church property or revenue or a Church benefice

spir·it·u·al·i·ty [spir-i-choo-al-i-tee] Show IPA

noun, plural spir·it·u·al·i·ties.

1.

the quality or fact of being spiritual.

2.

incorporeal or immaterial nature.

3.

predominantly spiritual character as shown in thought, life, etc.; spiritual tendency or tone.

4.

Often, spiritualities. property or revenue of the church or of an ecclesiastic in his or her official capacity.

It really is no wonder that the word spirituality makes people like me cringe and the misuse of the word, or should I say the disuse of spirituality as the fourth sum of everyone’s three parts, is ruining its own chances. One very welcome benefit of living with spirituality realized within yourself is the independence of the self. Many people without understanding spirituality are too dependent on one or more of other people’s three parts, pulling and draining from them what their own body craves naturally, the greater sympathetic resonance of all three categories of self. In using the word resonance, it applies to the way sound energy resonates objects and causes them to ring at their resonant frequencies. Your three parts can be focused to ring at their resonant frequencies to the highest extent of their amplitude like three notes being played on an instrument, or like three instruments being played together in concert. Within each of us is a trio of musicians dying to play together the most beautiful music imaginable at the loudest volume. When they don’t it’s like your band sucks because they’re each only interested in their own terrible solo projects. So when you see somebody lacking in spirituality, don’t even try to talk new-age mumbo jumbo, just know that their band sucks, and no one is coming to their shows.