Spiritual Evolution

From "Walking the Bible", page 335

. . . there is a physical world and a spiritual world, and I am saddened that our perception of the spiritual world is very primitive. It hasn't evolved at the same rate as our perception of the physical world. - David Faiman

I find that science, and our relationship with the world around us, tends to look forward. The next great discovery, the next way to adapt our environment, or to adapt to our environment; the next step in using energy better, in protecting the environment more, the next great medicine. Its always discussing the future, and things to come. I'm not sure if I would use the word primitive, but religion and spirituality seems, at least in some level of individual perception, is to look backward in time. Its attempting to find a relationship with a God that is described, through stories and doctrine, years upon years ago. Its looking for a relationship with the divine as that divine is defined by individuals writing anywhere from over a thousand years to three thousand years ago, depending on the particular religious tradition.

Again, not sure I would describe this as primitive, but I do find parts of it troubling. In particular, I have always thought that such perspective tends to (not inherently) lead people to only focus on the past. To only think that the divine talked and communicated with prophets and communities in ancient history, and not today. In so doing, when we look at other products of ancient civilization, and how misinformed or ignorant or misguided or barbaric it might have been, it allows us to distrust the spirituality that comes from the ancient world as well. At some point, it seems we have failed to evolve our understanding of spirituality in the same way that our understanding of science and nature has evolve significantly over the last few hundred years. Its curious to ask why and attempt to understand the answers.

But mostly, why have so many of us believe that the communication between the human and the divine, that takes place so frequently in all ancient civilizations spanning thousands of years; that is documented so frequently across the globe and across time in the ancient world, stopped. A cynical and quick response might be that people outgrew such superstitions, or that truth did not need to be expanded upon, or people aren't spiritual anymore. I'm sure these responses have kernels of validity that make them appealing to people. I tend to think they're a tad over-simplistic. I think there's something to our failure to evolve our understanding of the spiritual world, and our general perception of all things spiritual.

How do we explore and take an evolutionary step in our spiritual world.