Spirituality - Turn Experiences into Beliefs

In my previous piece, I explored a curious phenomenon, some people reject the specific gods described in mythology, yet continue to believe in something they call “spirituality.”

They sound rational while rejecting the supernatural in mythology?m, but somehow accept the interpretation/ stories from their Guru’s

Why does this happen?

The brain constantly fills gaps, connects patterns, and creates explanations. This helps us understand the world, but can also make us see meaning where doesn’t exists.

When we encounter something unexplained, the brain tries to make sense of it using whatever information is already available.

Our beliefs are shaped long before we learn to question them, by family, culture, stories, films, religion, personal experiences, and people we trust.

By the time we encounter science and rational inquiry, our minds may already be filled with stories of gods, ghosts, heaven, hell, karma, rebirth, miracles, and life after death.

Those stories become part of our mental framework.

Later, when we encounter an unusual experience, the brain does not interpret it in complete isolation. It compares the new experience with information already stored in memory.

This is where confirmation bias can shape how we interpret that experience, making information that fits our existing beliefs feel more convincing.

I recently met someone who was deeply curious about the ultimate nature of reality.

He enjoys movies, asks philosophical questions, and has travelled to different places searching for God, miracles and answers to questions about existence. Yet he did not find explanations that satisfied him.

During this search, he encountered a spiritual teacher.

At this point, a spiritual teacher provides an interpretive framework that connects apparently unrelated experiences religious scriptures, personal experiences, near-death stories, miracles and philosophical questions into one coherent narrative.

The narrative feel convincing because it explains many things at once.

But a coherent story is not necessarily evidence that the story is true.

Think about the stories we consume throughout our lives.

A person may have watched films depicting hell, divine punishment, supernatural experiences or people returning from death. They may have heard relatives describe miraculous incidents. They may have encountered religious stories explaining what supposedly happens after death.

These memories can remain available for decades.

When something unusual happens later, the brain may retrieve these familiar narratives and use them to interpret the experience.

This does not mean the person is deliberately lying or imagining everything.

It means that perception and memory are constructive processes.

Human memory is not like a video recording stored perfectly in the brain. Memories are reconstructed and influenced by later information, expectations and interpretation.

Consider another story: a person was reportedly declared dead for several hours, later revived, and described experiences that appeared to match descriptions found in Indian scriptures.

Such a story may sound extraordinary, but medically and scientifically, “declared dead” does not necessarily mean irreversible death or complete cessation of brain function. The person may have experienced cardiac arrest, unconsciousness, or severely altered brain activity.

The experience itself can be genuine without its supernatural interpretation being established. Memory can also be reconstructed after the event and influenced by prior knowledge, expectations, cultural beliefs, and later conversations.

Therefore, describing such an experience as evidence of an afterlife requires more than the experience itself, it requires independent evidence that rules out known neurological, psychological, and memory-related explanations.

It simply prevent us from jumping from “something unusual happened” to “therefore this supernatural explanation must be true.”

Often a pattern recognised becomes a pattern creation.

The human brain is exceptionally good at detecting patterns.

That ability allows us to recognize faces, predict danger, understand language and learn from experience.

But the same machinery can sometimes detect meaningful patterns in randomness.

Like faces in clouds or we remember the prediction that came true and forget the dozens that did not.

Psychologists use concepts such as "apophenia" to describe the perception of meaningful connections or patterns where the evidence for such a connection may be weak or absent.

This becomes particularly powerful when combined with confirmation bias.

An unusual dream, coincidence, medical experience or story about a deceased person may then become evidence supporting that belief.

But an equally important question is, what evidence would make the person change their mind?

Take an example of mythology to personal mythology.

There is another fascinating psychological transition.

A person may reject the traditional gods of mythology because the stories seem outdated, contradictory or scientifically implausible.

Yet instead of abandoning supernatural explanations altogether, they replace the traditional mythology with a more personalised version of spirituality.

And this have been observed all the spiritual guru’s.

They reject the gods created by mythology. Then they create their own mythology, invent their own version of God.

When a spiritual guru becomes the interpreter.

Ancient scriptures are selectively reinterpreted.

Personal experiences become evidence.

And uncertainty is transformed into a story about an “ultimate reality.”

In a provocative sense, the mythology has not necessarily disappeared, it may simply have been redesigned.

Sometimes the new God looks remarkably similar to the beliefs, expectations and worldview of the person who discovered Him.

The most important question is not: “Which God is the real God?”

It is: “How does my brain decide that something is true?”

That question must force us to examine ourselves.

Do we actively search for evidence against our belief? 

Are we comfortable saying “I don't know” when the evidence is insufficient?

Science begins with that last sentence.

“I don't know” is not a failure of human intelligence.

It is an acknowledgement of the limits of our current knowledge.

And that is where genuine curiosity begins.

Just relying on guru and his interpretation through a video is not enough, one must read our own scriptures.

Because the brain's ability to create explanations is extraordinary.

But our ability to question those explanations is even more important.