A prefatory remark is called for here: In this paper, despite talk of spirituality and religion, I will have little to say about God. This is not to deny the haunting presence of that Ultimate Mystery as to why there is something instead of nothing.
It is to affirm that I personally am an "atheist," insofar as I see no evidence of a theistic God, who is the omnipotent, omniscient and beneficent Creator and Personal Ruler of this universe. But there are other concepts of God to which I would subscribe.
I admit that there could be in another world (of which there is no empirical evidence) an All-Powerful, impersonal Creator of this world, who does not intrude in this world after its Creation. This would be a deistic God, about whom I can observe no ongoing activity. This would make me an "agnostic deist."
My assumption here, however, is that the word "God"represents, as described by the theologian Paul Tillich, not a being, but Being Itself. Or, as some process theology assumes, God or Being is the constant Becoming, the impersonal and irreversible Process of Creation, of this world. God the Creator or Inventor is also known as Time. Indeed, it was Henri Bergson who said that "Time is invention, or it is nothing."
Beyond that, this paper will have little more to say on the subject of God, in obedience to the eloquent 14th century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart. He admonished us to: "Quit flapping your gums about God. . . '' I kid you not! Those are his words. And Eckhart goes on to state that "The most beautiful thing a person can say about God would be for that person to remain silent from the wisdom of an inner wealth." The Buddhist Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh agrees, remarking that "It's very wise not to say anything about God." (1) So be it!
It is timely here to distinguish between spirituality and religion. First, however, we must distinguish between personal and organized religion. Our personal religion, I take to be the philosophy and ethics we actually live by; whereas, our public and organized religion is the religion we profess to live by. We know only too well that these are not always the same. Yet, it is the various organized religions that we are discussing here.
To quote the eminent philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, "The Process of Creation is the form of unity of the universe." And it is precisely the sense of this unity and inter-connectedness of our world, including our Earth, that many of us mean by the terms "spiritual" and "spirituality." Furthermore, this unity is the spirituality which we affirm in the Seventh Principle of our Unitarian Universalist Association, namely, to have "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."
Needless to say "all existence" includes much, much more than our Earth, or even our solar system; as even our own bodies should remind us. For our bodies are literally made of stardust, from the much earlier explosion of stars known as supernovae in this same universe..
While religion tends to be fairly well defined and exclusive, spirituality tends to be ineffable and inclusive. Prof. Martin Marty, a widely published theologian at the University of Chicago, gave this not entirely facetious definition: "Spirituality is what you have when you take out everything you don't like about religion." Religion, for its part, has been defined as "the organized celebration of spirituality."
Here, we shall attempt to grapple with a two-fold controversy that came into focus toward the latter part of the 20th century, regarding our spiritual and religious condition.
First, there is the current complaint often heard in this prosperous society regarding a pervasive spiritual impoverishment today. Some people speak of being "spiritually hungry." And some even fulminate about a "spiritual famine" in our contemporary society.
And, second, there is the on-going question of the relationship between religion and science, largely between the "why' and the "how." Some people feel that religion and science are essentially opposed. Some, that they are entirely unrelated. Others, like myself, that they are basically complementary, and, if contradictory, it is only because something has gone awry; for example, the growing disconnect between the picture of the natural world presented by our latest science, and the largely out-dated assumptions regarding the natural world presented by traditional organized religions.
How, then, is spiritual hunger today related to an incongruity between our mainstream religion and our mainstream science? And is there a solution that could help nourish us spiritually?
To understand this problem, let's go back and have a look at its likely origin: And that is the sense of separation which the evolution of human self-consciousness appears to create between the human self and the surrounding world of nature from which it emerged. Indeed, humans are described as "self-conscious beings."
Self-consciousness, by its nature, takes on an increasing feeling of my "self" as being distinctly separate from the "not-self," from the "outside," from the "other." And this means to feel personally separate from the whole, "external," natural world in which the self-conscious person lives, but which exists beyond the boundary of "me." And, since spirituality is itself a sense of incorporeal interconnectedness within the whole natural world, this sense of separation and disconnectedness from the natural world can lead to spiritual loneliness, and to a hunger for a healing sense of wholeness.
To help overcome a feeling of separation and anxiety, early humans often imagined connections to a mythological cosmos of their own creation, as well as to the fertility cycles of nature. Their consciousness has been well described as "cosmic, collective, tribal, mythic, and ritualistic." (5)
It appears natural that human beings who become conscious of their "self" as separate from the surrounding world, would also become aware, and fearful, of their own mortality. And, so, there would be strong survival pressures to overcome a fear and anxiety about one's own disconnectedness and death by resorting to a belief in the continuity of the "self" in a more permanent and transcendent form, in an other world. Indeed, there are those who argue that this belief, and the relief from stressful anxiety which it could provide, has such survival value that there is now genetically a part of the human brain devoted to the spiritual experience of a cosmic consciousness. An example is Matthew Alper's book entitled The 'God' Part of the Brain. (4)
In the second millennium before the Christian Era, there was a significant expan-ion of power and influence by China, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, which crossed tribal boundaries and exposed their peoples to other and different cultural insights.
Consequently, we see in the next millennium, in the time period roughly between 800 and 200 B.C.E.., the emergence of a distinctive human consciousness with a stronger sense of self or subjectivity. Whereas the earlier primal consciousness was largely tribal, the emerging consciousness was increasingly individual. The first "world religions" emerged, featuring the emphasis by Jewish prophets on individual moral responsibility; the Buddhist emphasis on individual enlightenment; the Taoist emphasis on individual withdrawal; and, subsequently, the Christian and Muslim emphasis on individual subjective immortality. And there arose the Greek motto, "To Know Thyself."
Karl Jaspers, a German philosopher, gave to this intellectual and religious watershed of the last millennium (namely, 800 to 200) before the Christian Era the name of " Axial Period," because, as he said, "it gave birth to everything which, since then, man has been able to be." Furthermore, he remarked, it is in that last millennium before the Christian era, "that we meet with the most deepcut dividing line in history. Man, as we know him today [i.e., in 1953], came into being. In short, we may style this the 'Axial Period.' " (7)
The Axial consciousness was no longer tribal, but individual, subjective, reflective, critical, and analytic. This tended to reflect the growing separation of the self-conscious individual from identification with external nature. And, so, there was a dual response: On the one hand, some peoples, to achieve more spiritual connectedness and meaningfulness, developed more and more other-worldly religions.
On the other hand, some of those more intellectually inclined began to exercise their new-found analytic powers and objective perspective on nature by observing, analyzing and manipulating that external natural world, from which they felt separated. For example, in Greece, they began to develop mathematics and geometry, and to treat the gods on Mt. Olympus as the fiction that they were, as well as to erect in Athens an altar to "The Unknown God." Later, from the time of Galileo in the 16th century, the facts and methodologies cited in this way by science began to differ at an increasing rate from those cited by traditional religion.
The religious paradigm for human meaningfulness in the West today still dates largely from that early Axial Period, based on the knowledge of cultures long before modern science and the knowledge of evolution. It is still an other-worldly paradigm tending to divorce us from nature, and generating such religious attitudes as that expressed by a notable Christian apologist, Malcolm Muggeridge, who said, "The only ultimate disaster that can befall us . . . is to feel ourselves to be at home here on earth." This is quoted by Sister Melannie Svoboda in her 1996 book Traits of a Healthy Spirituality, and to which she adds, "Earthly coziness can kill the spiritual life." (8)
Since the latter part of the 20th century, however, and escalating in the 21st, the beginning of a sea change from the culture of that Axial Period can be observed. A truly global culture is emerging. Largely as a consequence of technological advances, especially in telecommunications, there is occurring what some call the 2nd Axial Period. Where there has been in the past a great diversity of national cultures, compounded of earlier tribal cultures, we increasingly see a spill-over of cultures from their area of origin into other nations. What has been culturally a divergent world, is becoming a more convergent world.
There is, however, a notable exception to this cultural convergence; namely, Fundamentalist religions. In this regard, at a conference a few years ago in Cairo on population, a Muslim cleric remarked to a Catholic cleric that "The weapon in the competition between us for world-wide domination is no longer the firearm, but the cradle." Speaking for two world religions which reject contraception, he was right; for, as has been remarked, "Demography is destiny."
On the other hand, we see successful efforts in convergence, today, such as those of the Institute of Religion in the Age of Science (IRAS), to reconcile not only many of the world religions, East and West, but also to reconcile religion and science, demonstrating that they can be complementary, while not contradictory. And such success as there has been to date has helped to assuage somewhat the widespread spiritual hunger for a world view that is both scientifically credible and emotionally satisfying.
As mentioned earlier, spirituality is a sense of unity, a sense of inter-connectedness within a larger whole, such as the whole of the natural world. This is Earth-based Spirituality. Similar to the call of the human conscience, spirituality tends to be the call of the whole to the part. And therein lies our immortality - in the whole.
This point has been made charmingly, and succinctly, in the bestseller: Tuesdays With Morrie. Mitch Albom's book was on the bestseller's list for nearly three years. And here is one of Morrie's stories:
The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air - until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.
"My God, this is terrible," the little wave says. "Look what's going to happen to me!"
Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?"
The first wave says, "You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?"
The second wave says, "No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean." (9)
And it's true: We are all part of the ocean, a part of the whole. The sense of "self" can rise above the ego, beyond attachment to the temporary part; it can rise to a spiritual sense of interconnectedness with the larger and more enduring whole of the natural world.. Teilhard de Chardin and Julian Huxley, amongst others, have insisted that we humans are evolution becoming conscious of itself. Huxley, some time ago, laid out the challenge with these words:
It is as if man had been suddenly appointed managing director of the biggest business of all, the business of evolution - appointed without being asked if he wanted it, and without proper warning and preparation. What is more, he can't refuse the job. Whether he wants it or no, whether he is conscious of what he is doing or not, he is in point of fact determining the future direction on this Earth. That is his inescapable destiny, and the sooner he realizes it and starts believing in it, the better for all concerned. (11)
The question remains, of course, whether we are up to the job. Unless we relate more closely to the Earthly whole than we have generally done in modern times, we may turn out to have been responsible for another mass extinction, brought on by our environmentally greedy and short-sighted selfishness. It is heart-rending to believe that we will insist on continuing to consume thoughtlessly our children's rightful inheritance - as well as that of our fellow creatures. On the other hand, we could help make meaningful our evolution and the nature from which we all emerged, by taking on the role of stewards, and not destroyers, of Earth's precious habitat.
The astrophysicist John A. Wheeler states the evolutionary mission most succinctly: "The universe gave birth to consciousness; and consciousness gives meaning to the universe." Clearly, we humans are parts of the consciousness to which Wheeler refers; and as the only self-conscious beings on this particular planet, we alone on Earth have the high responsibility to help give meaning to this world. As self-conscious beings, we have the greatest purpose and meaning imaginable, precisely because we are not - I repeat not - the pre-designed products of an Intelligent Design, but have ourselves this high responsibility and capacity, by evolution, to create purpose and meaning for, at least, this portion of the universe.
In thus relating constructively to the gloriously interdependent web of nature, we would experience a meaningful, Earth-based spiritual connection with the larger whole.
And, in this regard, Hindus have long taught that, in fact, we have no other self than this whole universe. Tat tvam asi: meaning "That Thou Art."
Personal experience of this larger Spiritual Consciousness or Soul can be facilitated by a regimen of meditation. As Henry David Thoreau remarked, "drifting idly on Walden Pond, I cease to live, and begin to be." To be aware of being part of pure Being, that is the spiritual experience which Buddhhists call "mindfulness."
There was the day a Buddhist Zen master was just about to give a sermon, when a bird nearby started to sing. The master said nothing, and everyone listened to the bird. When the song ended, and the bird flew away, the master announced that the sermon had ended. And he went his way.
Moreover, who would know more about this connection of the natural and the spiritual than Albert Schweitzer: who remarked that "By having reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world." (10) This is Earth-based spirituality.
Finally, one of the glories of the new Axial Age is the global rapprochement between many of the mainstream religions - as well as their recent recognition of their environmental responsibilities. And I could not do better than to conclude with the conclusion of the interfaith declaration, titled "Towards a Global Ethic," issued by the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions, meeting in Chicago. The approximately two hundred theologians and scholars from many of the world's communities of faith had this to say - at long last, encouraging humans to feel truly at home again on planet Earth:
In conclusion, we appeal to all the inhabitants of this planet. Earth cannot be changed for the better unless the consciousness of individuals is changed. We pledge to work for such transformation in individual and collective consciousness, for the awakening of our spiritual powers through reflection, meditation, prayer, or positive thinking, for a conversion of the heart. Together we can move mountains! Without a willingness to take risks and a readiness to sacrifice there can be no fundamental change in our situation! Therefore we commit ourselves to a common global ethic, to better mutual understanding, as well as to socially beneficial, peace-fostering, and Earth-friendly ways of life. (12)
This is, indeed, most welcome! This Earth-friendly pronouncement is the current, official view of the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions! Amen!
Bibliography:
(This paper was presented before the Torch Club, Winchester, VA, on December 6, 2000 )