Last updated 2.18.26. If you have not read the introductory description page for the Way of the Universe, we recommend you do this before reading this page to give you some valuable context.

What is the Metaphysics of Personal Spirituality?

Personal spirituality can have many, many different definitions to different people. To clarify what we mean by the term Personal Spirituality as a form of metaphysics, we provide the following.

Why does the very science-grounded Way of the Universe also include the option for personal spiritual exploration? 

Roy Bhaskar, the famous Oxford "philosopher of science," stated in his breakthrough work on Critical Realism that, in numerous ways, science would be far better served by adopting an "open systems" approach toward new areas of exploration that do not yet yield themselves to scientific experimentation, methodology, and falsification.

The new "Way of the Universe" on this website values Bhaskar's valid metaphysical insights on open-system science. Therefore, as a science-grounded philosophy, The Way of the Universe must also honor personal, open-system inquiries into spiritual possibilities as a domain of inquiry that current science cannot yet prove or disprove. We hold this position to celebrate and reflect the truth of the open-system Critical Realism that Roy Bhaskar demonstrated was essential to all rational scientific inquiry and factual presentation.

Being an open system does not mean everything is the same or accepted without reality testing. Testing begins by determining whether the new spiritual information, ideas, or processes are life-affirming, rather than being rooted in past spiritual or religious pathologies, destructive contradictions, outdated dogma, or abuse. (We have lots of tools to help you do this.)

Science, Personalized Spirituality, and the Way of the Universe

Science and a personal metaphysical-spiritual philosophy can coexist and mutually empower one another. When a person's spirituality is firmly grounded in the realities of the universe and science, and in the sound metaphysics of an accurate philosophy, it offers benefits that surpass those of traditional religious beliefs, ideologies, and dogmas. The new manifestation of science-grounded spirituality, which we call Universe Spirituality, transcends and includes the best of previous spiritual and religious movements while avoiding the worst.

The new Universe Spirituality conscientiously and initially avoids current spiritual and religious pathologies, contradictions, outdated or unhealthy dogma, and the many abuses of religion and spirituality, while yet preserving the best values and wisdom from those traditions.

"The Way of the Universe" provides a universal, science-grounded, and metaphysically sound and balanced life-affirming set of values and practices. It also draws on Open Source Spirituality, Eco-Spirituality, and Meta-Spirituality. Universe Spirituality and these other influences reflect the growing global movement toward developing a personalized spirituality through personal study of diverse spiritual traditions and life experiences, rather than through the dictation of beliefs and practices by organized, dogmatic, authoritarian religions.

When personalize spirituality is achieved in self-chosen healthy ways, the benefits of a science-grounded and rational spiritual life can profoundly contribute to furthering one's search for the best answers to life's most important questions, such as one's place in the universe, one's, one's purpose in life, one's identity, and the optimal way to live successfully with others and in community.

A Universe Scaled, Science-grounded Personal Spirituality 

The science-grounded principles of Progressive Evolution (which are the core of both the Way of the Universe and the personalized Universe Spirituality) work to help "guide" and align your life with the great evolutionary flow --- the deepest success patterns of the universe. This Great Evolutionary Flow continually benefits the entire universe while striving to enhance the well-being of individuals and those most aligned with these deep patterns.

When recognized, valued, and aligned with the universe's natural evolutionary processes, guidance from alignment with those processes will help you develop the most essential values, virtues, and qualities within your character, leading to the success that those values and qualities naturally bring.

When you read and begin practicing the Universe Principles of right action and right attitude (derived from the principles of progressive evolution), you will understand precisely how the deep success patterns within the science of evolution can serve as guiding values for your life.

The personal Universe-scaled spirituality within the Way of the Universe should be considered an applied spiritual philosophy. This is accurate because it supports the individual in learning about and exploring the most profound questions of life surrounding the universe's origin (what we call the Great Mystery), the individual's life purpose and meaning, and the individual's highest and deepest core identity, and it also addresses how the individual should act in a balanced and ethical way in relationship to the human, animal, biological, and natural communities.

You will learn four essential things for a healthy, meaningful, and effective spirituality within the personalized Universe Spirituality:

a. The abuses and the pathologies of organized religion. This will help you create a healthy spirituality and spot and avoid unhealthy spiritual or religious organizations, individuals, or cults.

b. What rational science says about the universe's origin, including what it is doing and where it is going (Progressive Evolution). You'll also learn what Progressive Evolution says about an individual's life purpose, meaning in the universe, and their highest and deepest core identity. The deep patterns of the universe can also tell you how to best act with other individuals and in the community. 

Progressive Evolution is essential to spirituality because, when viewed from a spiritual and scientific perspective (the largest possible temporal and spatial perspective), it may be rationally considered humanity's best non-revelatory and nonsectarian example of "the will of God." The logic and reason behind that statement is that if God created the universe as almost all religions believe, then it stands to reason that the most often repeated, largest-scale evolutionary processes of the universe, which create, maintain, and evolve life successfully from the individual to collective areas, and have done so for eons, must also logically reflect the will of God.

Better yet, these largest-scale evolutionary processes can be observed scientifically, repeated, and independently demonstrated to be physically accurate. As such, these time-tested and successful evolutionary processes may well be far more reliable as reflections of the actual "will of God" than the traditional declarations of ever-changing religions and religious authorities, or the endless religious revelations, which cannot be independently tested or proven through scientific or rational examination.

Not surprisingly, the deep evolutionary processes of Progressive Evolution, which reflect a more accurate view of God's will, also encompass most of the traditional religious and humanitarian virtues and values of ethical living when viewed from a broad, comprehensive perspective that encompasses all of humanity, Earth, and the universe.

c. You will also learn about what rational science says about how individuals should act in a balanced and ethical way in relation to the human, animal, biological, and natural communities. (This is made simple through the daily practice of the Universe Principles of right action and right attitude.)

Once you have completed the above three items,

d. You will be guided through the core messages of humanity's greatest life-affirming spiritual traditions to explore how their information and metaphoric insights might also enrich your understanding of life's most essential and fundamental questions, as discussed above.

e. If you are of a spiritual nature, the rational and science-grounded spirituality that you will find in the Universe Spirituality of Way of the Universe will help you reach the highest levels of Fowler's seven stages of faith.

To begin exploring this new vision for a healthy, science-grounded, and personally chosen and created Universe Spirituality, start here.

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Important upgrade note: We are still migrating 25 years' worth of materials from the older Universe Spirit website (about 1,000 pages) to this new Universe Spirit website. During this upgrade process, we will eventually move all new Way of the Universe philosophy materials still on the newer Universe Spirit website to its own site.

For all important information relating to this massive Universe Spirit upgrade, click here. We strongly recommend reading this detailed explanation of the massive upgrade underway, so you also understand our strategy and the reason for any confusion that you might experience with our ongoing edits on unedited pages transfered to our new website, remaining broken links, links still going to our old website, and sometimes conflicting terminology still found on pages at the new Universe Spirit website where we have not yet completed our editing upgrades. We hope to be fully done with this massive upgrade by January 2027.