Religion and spirituality

It is generally understood in our contemporary world that spirituality is a personal affair, where religion is a question of society. Let’s start with that.

Spirituality

A number of people have a certain idea that there is more to this universe than meets the eye (the I?). This idea can come from a walk in the forest, from studying modern physics (like string theory), from feeling the sudden pang of love, or, more commonly, from the sense of loss when someone close to us dies. This last occurrence leaves us generally with the feeling that it is impossible for a consciousness (such as our parent’s, children’s loved one’s) to just vanish.

Numerous attempts have been made to explain this phenomenon away, particularly this last instance, with various ideas: fear of death, a desire to climb back into the womb and merge with the universe, or a need to feel that we are not entirely responsible for our actions, or that a better fate awaits us. These explanations are very cute, but they do not explain much. The claim here is that mankind has a very vivid imagination. Good. But then what. Let’s try to look at it from a different perspective. Let’s pretend that if a large number of people perceive something, then maybe there is something there.

You can call it a feeling, an emotion, a sentiment, a perception, a hunch, or whatever. It doesn’t matter.

The main problem with this feeling is that it is very vague, and most honestly defined by its imprecision. “I know there is something more, but I don’t know what it is”. To try to define this with language (and therefore with organized thought) is generally as successful as trying to capture water with bare hands (poetry has a different approach). Say you see a body of water, the ocean for instance, and you try to convince someone who lives some distance away of the existence of saltwater. All you have is your hands. You can get some of that water in your hands, but not much, you can’t carry it very far, and it is very difficult to give it to someone else. In any instance, chances are that you will lose most of it. This feeling that there is more to the universe is like that. You can get some, but not much, you can’t carry it very far, and it is very difficult to give it to someone else. In any instance, chances are that you will lose most of it. But that does not mean that there is no water.

The poet, I think, manages to get his or her hands wet and sprinkle you with it, startling you into thinking that there is more.

A more efficient way to transport the water and to deliver it to someone else is the use of a vessel. That is where religion comes in.

Religion

Religion gives a vocabulary, a system, a container to talk about and display the spiritual feeling that you may or may not have. It is a bowl to contain the water. But it is not the water. It is possible for you to have a strong desire to go to the ocean from looking at this bowl of water. But it is not the water. And it is very possible that looking at this bowl of water will do nothing for you. Or you might think it betrays the ocean.

Religion attempts to convey the ocean in a bowl. That is why it often seems small, and it very often seems to be concerned with the bowl. The bowl becomes the way in which the ocean is presented; it has to be very carefully crafted in order to show of the water what one wants to show. To present the water in a certain light, and so on…

Of course there are different bowls in which you can carry water.

The problem is though, that no bowl can carry the ocean.

Of course, this is a metaphor. It hints at something, but it does not prove anything. Its intention is not to prove, but to enrich thought.