An Atheist’s Guide to Spirituality - Issue 16: Nothingness
▻http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/an-atheists-guide-to-spirituality
I once spent an afternoon on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, atop the mount where Jesus is believed to have preached his most famous sermon. It was an infernally hot day, and the sanctuary where I sat was crowded with Christian pilgrims from many continents. Some gathered silently in the shade, while others staggered about in the sun, taking photographs. As I gazed at the surrounding hills, a feeling of peace came over me. It soon grew to a blissful stillness that silenced my thoughts. In an instant, the sense of being a separate self—an “I” or a “me”—vanished. Everything was as it had been—the cloudless sky, the brown hills sloping to an inland sea, the pilgrims clutching their bottles of water—but I no longer felt separate from the scene, peering out at the world from behind (...)