On Tuesday evenings, the Alumni room in the SUB is filled with
prayer, dance and song. But this isn’t church, synagogue or meditation. It’s a hybrid of all three and then some.
Cofounder of the UNM Spiritual Seekers Club Melissa Hobbs said
the group’s mission is to provide a space for people to learn about, share and experience different spiritual practices. The club welcomes even those who don’t consider themselves particularly religious, Hobbs said.
“We use the term ‘spiritual’ because it’s not specifically religious,” she said.
The group begins the meeting seated in a circle facing inward. They turn on a plastic votive candleand place it on a circular platform in the middle of the circle. “We light each candle to represent the presence of our individuality that we bring to the group,” Hobbs said. After some progressive muscle relaxation led by a YouTube video — it is only their second meeting, after all — the meeting begins. UNM student Elvis Recinos said spiritual seeking is more than learning about different belief systems.
“A lot of it is not necessarily spiritual in nature,” he said. “I’ve always been on a path of seeking knowledge, and that’s what spiritual seeking is to me.”
At one point in the meeting,they engage in “Heart Talks.” This
is when members of the club share their experiences with religion
and spirituality. Jonathan Baca, cofounder of the club, said that as a teenager he rebelled against his Catholic upbringing. He used drugs in college as a way to gain deeper understanding of the world around him, but he said eventually they took over his life.
“It got to the point where I was so screwed up by the drugs that I had no connection with any sort of spirituality,” he said. “I just could not have spiritual experiences or feelings or anything.” He said taking on a spiritual 12-step program helped him work through his addictions, but it also forced him be honest with what he did to himself and other people.
“What I’m trying to do right now is look outside myself,” he said. “With my addictions, it had been all about me; I was my higher power.”
Hobbs said she was raised in a Christian family and was very devout. She said she remembers attending Bible study and feeling like there was an “us against them” attitude. She said she wasn’t able to reconcile her feelings with what her church said was correct. “It just didn’t fit any longer,” she said. “I couldn’t continue looking at the world in such black and whites.”
Recinios said he used to be a dedicated Muslim, but now he self identifies as a cultural Muslim. This means he identifies with the culture but not the religion, he said. “I really do not believe that my life should be dictated by what I see as this mode of social control,” he said. Club member Ronnie Garduño said that he doesn’t seek for just his own benefit.
“A major reason I learn different faiths and philosophies is to communicate with people,” he said. “It seems like if you don’t understand someone’s ideology, their actions are indistinguishable from those of a crazy person.”Hobbs said her reason for starting the Spiritual Seekers Club was to gain a sense of the community she lost when she stopped attending her church.
“It’s a really powerful and uplifting experience to meet other people who can understand where you’re at, even if they are not the same religion as you, or even if their life story is completely different than yours,” she said.
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The meeting ends with a Navajo dance that Hobbs said blesses the Earth, and they sing, “We are all one with the infinite sun forever and ever and ever.”
Spiritual Seekers Club
Next meeting Tuesday, Feb. 21
6-7 p.m.
SUB Alumni room
