Why Religion and Spirituality Matter as Part of One’s Education

Why not Take a Course on Religion-Spirituality?

[#1] The Meaning of Key Terms and Expressions Here

[A] When I mention religion here, I do not primarily mean <participating in an "organized religious tradition"> (such as being a member of Roman Catholicism or Islam - although that might be good for some people). By “religion” I refer, first of all, to what is the heart of all religion: spirituality. "Spirituality" is basically what is in our deepest core: it is the life-force that animates and drives us; it is not scientifically quantifiable. It is from one's spirituality that we draw the energy (“the spirit”) to pursue meaning in life. It is also in spirituality where—the great Traditions point out—we can find our fundamental goodness as humans. This is expressed for example as Imago Dei [Image of God] in Judaism and Christianity or “Buddha Nature” in Buddhism”. I will, therefore, use the term "religion-spirituality" (taken as one, singular entity) to emphasize all the things mentioned above.

[B] To explain further, by spirituality, I also mean the deep drive--hardwired in humans--to search for MEANING. There is a very strong drive found in humans to search for their deepest, most genuine, and authentically good desires (I’ll call this "Depth") and, at the same time, there is also an equally strong drive to pursue something bigger than themselves, something beyond our small and (often) selfish EGOs. I’ll refer to this as "Self-Transcendence." Spirituality then is: the human quest for meaning by acquiring greater depth and transcendence. That is actually also my working definition for “religion” itself because that could be a description of the heart and core of any authentic religion. This quest for meaning, depth and transcendence has been engaged in for most of human history within the context of concrete religious traditions, such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc. Today, however, more and more people do not feel the need to belong to a religious tradition to be on a spiritual quest.

[C] The “Open-Mindedness” I suggest for Studying Religion.  I think it would be optimal if a person who wants to study religion-spirituality is also a “seeker.” A seeker—we can say—is someone who seeks to live life not superficially (as many do) but at a deeper, more authentic level. In effect, that would mean—at the minimum level—not accepting an uncritical scientific dogmatism (the idea that “only what can be scientifically proven is true”) but instead being open to at least the possibility that there is Something Bigger (or Greater) than what conventional science can verify. I think that this is the best attitude to have as one takes a course on religion…

In other words, this is a position that deeply values modern science but rejects “scientism” (the quasi-dogmatic belief that the only truly real things are what science can prove). More proactively, it means making the effort to cultivate some kind of "spirituality" in oneself. For some, it means considering oneself an active adherent of a religious tradition.

If that is not possible for you, then, at the very minimum, I suggest a healthy curiosity and openness to study human religiosity and what positive and negative roles it has and continues to play in human society, culture, and civilization.

Resource: See Huston Smith’s thoughts on “the religious sense”

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[#2] Our Primary Question: Why Does Religion-Spirituality Matter?

With that we can now ask: Why does religion-spirituality still matter? In a learning environment such as the university, this is connected with the question: Why is it good to study religion-spirituality or even, why is it beneficial to be religiously "literate"?

To make that more existential or more applicable to concrete life itself, we can also ask at a deeper level: Why is it a positive thing to have a "religious-spiritual" sense or a “religious outlook” on life? Why is it good to cultivate some kind of "spirituality" in oneself? Below are some responses to those key questions as we start this course in religious studies.

Let’s start with a sociological, historical, and cultural reason for studying religion.

[#3] Religion-Spirituality has been a vital and integral part of human reality for most of humanity’s history and across all human cultures. It continues to be so for the majority of people in the world today.

A religious outlook on life has been the standard worldview of almost everyone for most of human history in all human civilizations. It continues to be so today for most of the world’s population (according to some estimates, at least 70% of the world's inhabitants still consider themselves “religious”). However, it is in the so-called "developed" countries that religion is widely considered "unenlightened" or “backward” by an increasing number of people. Nevertheless, if one seeks to understand how almost all people who have lived in the past and how most people even in the present, think and view the world, one definitely has to study religion. So, do you want to understand the foundations of your culture and civilization (yes, that includes this supposedly “enlightened” Western culture and civilization!)? Studying religion and being religiously “literate” about the great world religions and their positive as well as negative effects on human civilizations, cultures, and societies is an essential task.

Resources: Former US Secretary of State John Kerry famously said that if he went back to College today, he would major in comparative religions. (In this LINK, it is found around the 10th minute mark) 

Let’s go now to a deeper, existential reason for pursuing a more serious engagement with religion-spirituality.

[#4] It is Religion-Spirituality (taken here as a single, holistic, and integral area) that can more adequately deal with the questions that are most important for humans, namely: What would
enable me/us to find higher meaning, genuine non-egocentric self-fulfillment, depth and transcendence?

In psychologist Abraham Maslow's widely used "hierarchy of needs,” (School of Life version) the more basic needs of humans (such as physiological and safety needs) are located at the lower levels of the pyramid. This is not to say that they are unimportant. In fact, they are supremely important as a foundation because if these primary needs are not met, humans will not even realize that they have “higher” and more noble needs.

It is seldom mentioned that for all the importance given to the so-called STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) in higher education today, these fields are meant to meet areas of human life that belong to the more basic, “lower” human needs in Maslow’s scheme. The fact of the matter is that science (and related areas) is largely incapable of responding to “higher” human needs such as love and belonging, emotional maturity, self-actualization (the highest need), as well as the deepest existential questions of life.

What then can respond more adequately to these “higher” or “deeper” perplexing issues? I must say that it is the humanities (philosophy, literature, history, art, psychology, etc.) that could deal in a better way with these questions. And within the humanities, it is obviously religion-spirituality as a more integral discipline that is—one can say—most capable of responding to humanity’s higher and deeper questions, needs, and aspirations.

 

[#5] Know the Limits of Science!  One important skill to learn at the university is how to more clearly discern different “domains” -- such as which domains of life are more proper to science (and related areas) and which ones are more proper to Religion-Spirituality and other fields in the humanities.  Although we live in a world that prioritizes empirical science (and its applications such as technology and engineering) above all else, it is rarely acknowledged that although science works wonderfully with the things that properly belong to its domain, it has severe limitations in areas beyond its domains, such as existential and ultimate meanings, purpose, values, etc. These questions are normally "beyond" science and "more properly" religious-spiritual and philosophical. 

The late scholar of religion, Huston Smith frequently decried "scientism" (not science itself!). Scientism is the intellectual position that holds that the only truly valuable things to learn and know in life can ONLY be taught by science. In other words, scientism is the fallacious thinking that what science has turned up or can turn up is the sum of all that is. That is simply not true, as any true scientist will admit.

Smith, for example, clarified that science cannot handle some of the following, crucially important matters for human life:

1. Values in their final and proper sense, for example, Why should we have integrity?
2. Existential and global meanings: for example, Why am I depressed? What is the meaning of life?;
3. Final causes: for example, What is the ultimate meaning of it all?;
4. The “Invisible”: We're not talking of "invisibles" that can affect matter (e.g., magnetism) but invisible entities such as thoughts, love, even spirits, ghosts, etc. (if those things exist). These are outside of the realm of science
5. Quality (not quantifiable quality such as the material indicators of the quality of life but ...) = spiritual, philosophical and existential "quality”, such as, the quality of my life in terms of love, contentment, happiness, purpose or meaning
6. Our "superiors" – this refers to anything superior to our material reality (no offence to materialists but it is considered the "inferior" realm in this scheme) that cannot be measured by our conventional scientific methods at this point (if such things exist) such as angels, God, non-bodily beings, etc. 

In another place, Smith clearly points out: "We have not discovered anything that conclusively proves that beings greater than us [our “superiors”] do not exist." This illustrates the principle that science cannot deal with its "superiors" – that is, possible realities that are greater than material reality. These beings (if they exist) are, at this point, beyond conventional scientific methods and even if they do exist, science cannot discover them at this point.

 

[#6] Epistemic Humility. One clear mark that someone has integrity is that they are aware of their limitations. That can be called “epistemic humility” – a humble acknowledgement of the limits of one’s knowledge. A true scientist is well aware of the limits of science. When someone claims that the only real things are limited to what we can see and touch, there is no epistemic humility there and, therefore, no integrity as well.

What field can handle the things that conventional science cannot deal with? Again, it is religion-spirituality taken as an integral discipline that includes not only religion in the narrow sense but also disciplines such as philosophy, art, literature, history, and psychology practiced within a worldview that is open to the possibility that the TOTALITY of REALITY is so much bigger and greater than the material realm.

 

[#7] The God Question.  The Abrahamic religions that we are more familiar with in the West (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) have historically given a central place to the question of “God”—believed to be an Omnipotent Being who created everything and continues to sustain them. When religion is discussed here in the West, therefore, foremost in people’s minds is usually the burning question: Does God really exist? 

It is noteworthy, however, that the discipline called the philosophy of religion teaches us that there is no 100% perfect or conclusive way to convince everyone about the reality of God’s existence. In fact, the plain truth is that, from a philosophical standpoint, although there are seemingly valid reasons for continued belief in God (for religious faith), there are also sufficient reasons for agnosticism and even atheism.

Agnosticism (the position that says: No one really knows for certain that God exists)—I personally think—can be a position of integrity. Moreover, a sincere “open to listen to different positions” kind of atheism can likewise be a standpoint of integrity. However, a vicious and intolerant atheism that is ironically "dogmatically held" goes against "epistemic humility" (Recall that this means: I am aware of the limits of my knowledge). I consider epistemic humility as a crucial indication of integrity in those seeking for truth and knowledge. I therefore consider this kind of atheism an unhelpful and even dishonest position.

At the other end of the spectrum, a vicious, blind, "too convinced," and equally intolerant "faith stance" is also unhelpful and dishonest because it likewise goes against--the abovementioned--epistemic humility.

 

[#8] Religion and the human quest to understand the TOTALITY of things, “the Big Picture”

Personally, and as a scholar of religion and theology, I do not think that the question “Does God really exist?” is the most important issue in the study of religion. It is—I suggest—a secondary question in terms of importance. Besides, since there can be no conclusive way to answer this question, pursuing it endlessly is, in a sense, a futile endeavour.

Rather, the more helpful approach for me is studying the concept of “god” (or similar expressions such as “Spirit,” “the Real,” “the Holy,” “Nirvana,” etc.) as an important and key symbol of humanity’s ongoing effort to “relate to the total scheme of things” which—according to religion scholar Huston Smith—is the heart of the religious problem. In short, the idea of “god” (and parallel notions) is a crucial key to understanding the ways by which humans throughout history and in every milieu have tried to cope with, make sense of, shed light on, maintain hope and positivity about LIFE and EXISTENCE which nevertheless remain ultimately mysterious. In this sense, “god” (and parallel notions) is a crucially important theme to examine. It also follows that the human “faith in God” (or some other ultimate factor) that religion-spirituality examines is actually a study of one of the most important aspects of humanity.

Religion-spirituality is important because it studies this human quest to understand the “totality of things” by utilizing the idea of “god” (and parallel ideas). Huston Smith calls “God” the one who completes the jigsaw puzzle and shows the whole of reality to be a “panorama.” (in an interview with Robert Kuhn - Closer to Truth)

This, however, is being severely challenged in our postmodern world. The postmodern world dislikes “metanarratives” and religion is as perfect a metanarrative as one can get. We will deal with this theme in another essay on contemporary forms of religion-spirituality.

 

[#9] Theology Gives a Glimpse of a Believer's “Insider-Perspectives”   The main difference between two related fields of study, "Religious Studies" and "Theology" is this: "Religious Studies" aims to eplore religions and spiritualities from a humanistic standpoint and does not require religious faith. Theology, on the other hand, is based on religious faith but endeavours to support that faith by using various university disciplines such as history, literary criticism, philosophy, etc. 

If you go on further to study "Theology", you'll even be able to see history or religious belief systems, as it were, "from the inside" or from an "insider's perspective."  You'll come to understand better how believers' minds work, what makes them tick.

One good resource for this is this article by Tara Burton in The Atlantic titled "Study Theology, Even If You Don't Believe in God".

Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/study-theology-even-if-you-dont-believe-in-god/280999/

 

[#10] The Religion of Life.  In our postmodern world, believing according to how the traditional religions define belief, is becoming increasingly difficult for more and more people. There seems to be a new kind of "religion" (or “spirituality”) that is arising and becoming dominant in the West today. The philosopher of religion Don Cupitt calls this "the Religion of Life." Its main point is that nowadays more and more people make "life" itself as the supreme value instead of "God." 

This is a fascinating development of people's religiosity/spirituality and many of you (I'm sure) identify with it already, whether you are conscious of it or not. To learn more about this, please refer to: Don Cupitt's thoughts on "The Religion of Life" and this youtube lecture about this titled "Don Cupitt and the Religion of Life." I have also written a summary-essay of Don Cupitt's 'Religion of Life' HERE. To be honest, I do not completely agree with Don Cupitt when he claims that there is nothing else than this life here and now. I think that is a lack of epistemic humility! But I agree that life here and now should be our main focus. This is my position: If there is something else beyond this life, living this life well will be our best preparation for it!

You can also refer also to my essay titled, The Secularized West - Source of Immorality and Godlessness or (Flawed) Embodiment of the "Kingdom of God"? .

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Resources:

Huston Smith, Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief. Harper, 2001.

_____, The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition. Harper, 2005.

John Cottingham. Why Believe? Continuum, 2009.

Alain de Botton. “TED talk: Atheism 2.0.” January 17, 2012. https://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0

Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind. Wiley, 1999.

_____, The World’s Great Wisdom: Timeless Teachings from Religions and Philosophies. SUNY Press, 2014.

University of Northern Iowa. “Why Should I Study Religion?” Accessed December 29, 2020. https://philrel.uni.edu/why-should-i-study-religion

Dale Tuggy. “Why Study Religion?” Published: February 17, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmEWtEl0oPo&list=PLMCt15e8gG-j3nRRZlmhltadY8XDn4KAH

“Why Study Religion?” Accessed December 29, 2020.   http://www.studyreligion.org/why/leads.html

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Why Believe? The Moral-Ethical Ground of Belief in a Transcendent Being

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTxFrxmY9dg&t=1222s  / Accessed 2020-04-15

(These are my notes [jkk's] on a lecture given by British philosopher of religion John Cottingham. It summarizes important arguments he makes in his book Why Believe [2009].)

The Fundamental Impetus of Belief 

The fundamental impetus or motor of belief in God in the tradition (particularly, in the Scriptures) is not in theoretical arguments or proofs about an omnipotent Being (although that is how it is usually discussed in the discipline called the philosophy of religion). The question of belief in the tradition is actually grounded first and foremost in morality,  in the question of 'how to live?'.

We can say then that the belief or faith is rooted in the moral and the experiential dimensions. The way we experience moral requirements and the way we experience, for example, the wonders of the natural world draw us to something beyond ourselves, to values that suggest the existence of something greater than ourselves. This can be a reason for why someone would choose to believe in a "Greater Something" commonly known as "God". 

Moral Values Make a Demand on Us

We can say that moral values make a "demand" on us: they require us to act in certain ways. For example, the goodness of compassion or the wrongness of cruelty makes a demand on us to be compassionate or to avoid  cruelty. That demand--we can say--suggests that certain things are inherently or even objectively good or evil, independently of our personal likes or dislikes. The demand that moral values make on us takes the general form 'do good and avoid evil'. 

What is the Ground of Morality Then?

One often hears these following questions that deal with the ground of morality. 

One is: Is morality a mere opinion or a "value judgment" of certain people? Is it just a question of certain people's opinion of how we should act in certain ways but without any objective ground for them? That kind of subjectivism was popular in the past. Now (according to John Cottingham) there is a preponderance among philosophers of a certain kind of objectivism which holds that there is a certain objective ground for why human beings should act in certain ways.

John Cottingham (JC) believes that this objectivism would be most "at home" in a belief in God, In other words, the best grounding of this objectivism would be the existence of a Transcencent Being, a kind of divine law-giver that has established objective moral principles. 

Are there other alternative sources for objectivity and morality? Human nature perhaps? This position would say that human nature itself is the source for why certain things are considered ethically right or wrong. That is certainly possible. But JC points out that human nature is not only good; it can be very imperfect or even downright evil. As the philosopher David Hume pointed out, "a particle of the dove is kneaded into our frame alongside elements of the wolf and serpent." JC therefore thinks that it can't be human nature alone that gives authority to certain moral principles. Traditional theism is a better option for giving us that objective authority. 

Some others may say moral values are just like mathematical values: they are simply true. JC finds the thought uninspiring that the basis for morality is like floating in an objective theoretical limbo. Again, he thinks that morality is better grounded in something such as traditional theism. 

And then there is an aesthetic component to this discussion. According to Immanuel Kant there are two things that inspire awe in us: the authority of the moral law and the starry heavens (the beauty of nature). That kind of "aesthetic" dimension (that elicits powerful human emotions) puts us in touch with a goodness that seems to be not merely a product of human nature but is grounded in a "Greater Something", a transcencent dimension that is the source of both the glory of the moral law and the wonders of nature.

So Why Believe Then?

So, why believe in a transcendent being? Why believe in God? We have seen that if we try to trace the possible source of why we humans are compelled to act and live in certain ways (i.e., avoiding evil and doing good - this is the moral-ethical dimension of life), we can glimpse that there might be a transcendent Being that is itself the objective source of all morality and ethics. Moreover, maintaining this moral order is itself a beautiful and glorious thing. This Transcendent Source of morality beckons us to trusting belief in it.

Of course, this does not prove God such as a mathematical proof would demonstrate some scientific principle. But John Cottingham thinks that it does support a belief in God/a Transcendent Being. 

**this summarizes John Cottingham's talk up 15:30***

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The Perennial Philosophy – Its Main Contours (acc to Roger Walsh)

Source: Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind (Wiley, 1999), pp. 6-9.

[This is how spirituality teacher Roger Walsh MD, PhD explains the so-called "Perennial Philosophy." The main text is from Roger Walsh; my annotations (jkk) are found in brackets.]

The Perennial Philosophy

Thanks to global communication, for the first time in history, we have all the world's religions, their wisdom and their practices, available to us.  ... What do the different traditions have in common?

Beneath the hundreds of different cultures, claims, and customs, there lies a common core of both wisdom and practice at the heart of each authentic tradition. By "authentic tradition," I mean one capable of offering a direct experience of the sacred, and of fostering true spiritual growth and maturity in its practitioners. 

[The "direct experience of the sacred" is Roger Walsh's definition of spirituality. This is opposed to just believing in some teachings and doctrines because they were taught to you by some religious authorities. So if "a tradition" can offer a direct experience of the sacred, it can be considered an "authentic" (spiritual) tradition in Walsh's mind.]

Scholars called the essential common core of religious wisdom "the perennial wisdom" or "perennial philosophy." Why "perennial"? Because these profound insights into life have endured across centuries and cultures and have been taught by the great sages of all time

Developed over thousands of years, the perennial philosophy is a treasure house of humankind's curated wisdom. Vast in scope, profound in depth, it offers numberless insights into the nature of life and love, health and happiness, suffering and salvation.

At its heart lie four crucial claims--actually observations, since they are based on direct insights by advanced spiritual practitioners about reality and human nature.

[#1]  One. There are two realms of reality. The first is the every day realm with which we are all familiar, the world of physical objects and living creatures. This is the realm accessible to us via sight and sound and studied by sciences such as physics and biology.

But beneath these familiar phenomena lies another realm far more subtle and profound: a realm of consciousness, spirit, Mind or Tao (Way 道). This world cannot be known through the physical senses and only indirectly through the physical instruments of science. Moreover, this realm creates and embraces the physical realm and is its source. This domain is not limited by space or time or physical laws, and hence it is unbounded and infinite, timeless and eternal.

[This worldview was standard and widely accepted in practically all cultures of the world before the European Enlightenment. It is still the default worldview in traditional cultures and communities. Since the Enlightenment, the rational and scientific worldview has become standard in the West and in other parts of the world.]

[#2] Two. Human Beings partake of both realms. We are not only physical but also spiritual beings. We have bodies but we also have at the core of our being, in the depths of our minds a centre of transcendent awareness. This centre is described as pure consciousness, mind, spirit or Self and is known by such names as the neshamah  of Judaism, the soul or “divine spark” of Christianity, the atman of Hinduism or the "Buddha nature" of Buddhism. This divine spark is intimately related to--some traditions even say inseparable from and identical with--the sacred ground or foundation of all reality. We are not divorced from the sacred but eternally and intimately linked to it.

[#3] Three. Human beings can recognize their divine spark and the secret ground that is its source. What this implies--this is absolutely crucial--is that the claims of the perennial philosophy do not have to be accepted blindly. Rather each of us can test them for ourselves and decide their validity based on our direct experience.  Although the soul or innermost Self, being non-physical, cannot be known by the senses or the instruments of science, it can be known by careful introspection.

[Related to claim #3 is philosopher Ken Wilber's claim that the spiritual dimension can be experienced, and even validated through a process that is akin to what we know as a "scientific" method. See: http://spiritual-notandyet-religious-jkk.blogspot.com/2020/10/can-we-prove-existence-of-god-or-realm.html ]

This is not necessarily easy. Although anyone can be graced with spontaneous glimpses, clear sustained vision of our sacred depths usually requires significant practice to clarify awareness sufficiently. This is the purpose of spiritual practice. When the mind is still and clear, we can have a direct experience of our “Self.” This is not a concept of, nor an intellectual theory about, the Self. Rather, it is an immediate knowing, a direct intuition in which one not only sees the divine spark but also identifies with and recognizes that one is the spark. Sages from Judaism and Sufism, from Plato to Buddha, from Eckhart to Lao Tsu have agreed on this. 

…  Compared to this direct realization of the sacred, mere book learning and theoretical knowledge are very poor substitutes, as far removed from direct experience as a text on human reproduction is from the embrace of a lover. 

[#4] Four. The perennial philosophy's fourth claim is that realizing our spiritual nature is the summum bonum: the highest goal and greatest good of human existence. Beside this, all other goals pale; all other delights only partly satisfy. No other experience is so ecstatic, no other attainment so rewarding, no other goal so beneficial to oneself or others.  ...

Again this is not wild dogma to be accepted merely on the word of others or on blind faith. Rather, it is an expression of the direct experience of those who have tasted these fruits for themselves. Most importantly, it is an invitation to all of us to test and taste for ourselves.

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If we distill these four claims down to their essential essence, what do we find? The central ringing cry of the perennial philsophy is this: We have underestimated ourselves tragically. We are sadly mistaken when we see ourselves as merely temporary bodies instead of timeless spirit; as separate, suffering selves instead of blissful Buddhas; as meaningless blobs of matter instead of blessed children of God. 

The words differ from one tradition to another but their central message is the same: You are more than you think! Look deep within, and you will find that your ego is only a tiny wave atop the vast ocean that is your real Self. Look deep within, and you will find that your ego is only a tiny wave atop the vast ocean that is your real Self. Look within, and at the center of your mind, in the depths of your soul, you will find your true Self, that this Self is intimately linked to the sacred, and that you share in the unbounded bliss of the sacred. 

This recognition is the goal of the great religions and it is known by names such as salvation and satori, enlightenment and liberation, fana and nirvana, awakening and Ruach Ha-qodesh. But whatever the name, the great religions all exist to help us discover our true Self and our true relationship to the sacred. This discovery, they agree, is the supreme joy and greatest goal of human life. 

The Perennial Practices

How to achieve this discovery of our true self is the central question of life, and it is here that the great religions offer their greatest gift. Each of them contains a set of practices designed to help us reach this goal. Whether they be the commandments and contemplations of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, the yogas of Hinduism, or the disciplines of Taoism, each tradition offers spiritual practices that awaken. 

Among the many spiritual practices, there are seven that are common to authentic religions and that we can therefore call perennial practices. These perennial practices were discovered by the religious founders and have been used by millions of men and women around the world. Now their universal nature can be recognized. Essential Spirituality (Walsh’s book) explains the seven perennial practices and offers exercises for applying them in all aspects of life so that you , too, can enjoy the many benefits they offer. 

[The heart of Roger Walsh's book 'Essential Spirituality' is to introduce readers to seven central practices to awaken mind and heart. For a summary of these practices, see: http://spiritual-notandyet-religious-jkk.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-seven-practices-that-awaken-heart.html  ]

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The "Religious Sense" as Described by Prof. Huston Smith

 

"The Religious Sense" according to Prof. Huston Smith

(with annotations by Julius-Kei Kato)

[Source]  Huston Smith, Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief (New York: Harper, 2001), 274.

(The main text is from Huston Smith. Sub-section titles, emphases, and annotations are my own -jkk)

 

[jkk] This is how the great teacher of world religions, the late Huston Smith, explained what he called the "religious sense." It is framed in an imagined letter that he writes to his colleagues who are
scientists and who tend to dismiss too easily the spiritual and religious dimensions of life in favour of a materialistic view of the universe.

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Most simply stated, to be religiously "musical" ... is to possess a distinctive sensibility that I shall call the "religious sense." It has four parts that lock together into a single whole. 

[jkk] When you say, “Someone is musical,” that means: This person has a “sense for music.” This is applied by Huston Smith to a person’s “sense for religion.” I just want to observe here that, it seems, Huston Smith thinks that this “sense for religion” is not an accident but a fundamental characteristic of being human, hence, it is present in every single human being (see his remarks below). One just has to become more aware of it.

[#1] Ultimate Questions   The religious sense recognizes instinctively that the ultimate questions human beings ask--What is the meaning of existence? Why are there pain and death? Why, in the end, is life worth living? What does reality consist of and what is its object?--are the defining essence of our humanity. They are not just speculative imponderables that certain people of inquisitive bent get around to asking after they have attended to the serious business of working out strategies for survival (jkk-confer for example Maslowe’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’). They are the determining substance of what makes human beings human. This religious definition of human beings delves deeper than Aristotle's definition of man as a rational animal. In the religious definition, man is the animal whose rationality leads him to ask ultimate questions of the sort just mentioned. It is the intrusion of these questions into our consciousness that tells us most precisely and definitively the kind of creature we are. Our humanness flourishes to the extent that we steep ourselves in these questions--ponder them, circle them, obsess over them, and in the end allow the obsession to consume us.

[jkk] Asking ultimate questions is “the defining essence of our humanity.” Humans are, in Augustine's words, "restless until they rest in God." This is the "capax Dei" (“capability for God”) that the same Augustine refers to. There is a theory that <it is precisely because we can begin to imagine what the Ultimate is and that we strongly tend toward that Ultimate> that actually proves there is an ultimate. It is like the innate tendency of a sunflower to face the sun. This "tendency" somehow proves that there is a great source of light and heat. Do you agree or disagree?

[#2] The Ultimate Mysteriousness of Life   Following on the heels of the above, the religious sense is visited by a desperate, at times frightening, realization of the distance between these questions and their answers. As the urgency of the questions increases, we see with alarming finality that our finitude precludes all possibility of our answering them.

[jkk] ‘God’ and ‘the Meaning of It All’ remain, in the final analysis, profound “mysteries” because although we passionately search to understand these matters deeply, we will never succeed in answering them fully this side of the grave. They are the ultimate “limit” questions – questions that show us how limited we are in our ability to answer the profound mysteries of life.  Here the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner’s image (which could be applied to the human quest for God) comes in useful (Geist in Welt 1939. Smith also uses it in section #3 below). The human spirit, in its relentless pursuit of a greater something that could fulfill its most profound desires, can be described using the image of a quest to reach an ever-receding horizon: humans are continually drawn to search for the ultimate/the divine like one is drawn towards a beautiful horizon. However, one never actually reaches the horizon. This is symbolic of the fact that, on this side of life, humans will never fully comprehend the ultimate/the divine. The horizon that draws humans is, of course, the gracious mystery that Christianity calls “God”: mysterious because God is ultimately unfathomable, yet gracious because it is full of love

[#3] Continually Seeking for Answers to the Ultimate Questions   The conviction that the questions have answers never wavers, however, and this keeps us from giving up on them. Though final answers are unattainable, we can advance toward them as we advance toward horizons that recede with our every step. In our faltering steps toward the horizon we need all the help we can get, so we school ourselves to the myriad of seekers who have pondered the ultimate questions before us.  ... (there is a part here where he addresses scientists about their precursors) ... But it is easier in science to see what should be retained and what retired, for scientific truths are cumulative whereas religious truth is not. (jkk: I don't exactly understand what he means by that. I think it means: in every valid and up-to-date scientific statement, all the valid, past results of science are already implicitly presupposed and included. That is not true for religious statements.)  This requires that we keep dialoguing with our past as seriously as this book has tried to do, while also dialoguing expectantly with our present (which this book has also tried to do).

[jkk] Here we see why continuing to ask “perplexing questions” (even the ultimately unanswerable ‘ultimate’ questions) is important. <“Asking” and “Living” these perplexing existential questions> is a fundamental part of being human and the sure way to go deeper into the human spiritual journey. 

In a letter written to a young protégé, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, “I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer” (Letters to a Young Poet).

[#4] A Communal Effort to Pursue the Ultimate Questions   Finally, we conduct our search together--collectively, in congregations as you do in your laboratories and professional societies. Emile Durkheim, the nineteenth century sociologist, thought religion was entirely a social affair, a reification of the shared values of the tribe. Today our individualistic society comes close to assuming the opposite, that religion is altogether an individual affair. ... As usual the Buddha walked the middle path. "Be ye lamps unto yourselves," for sure; but do not forget that the sangha (the monastic community, and by extension the company of the holy) is one of the Three Jewels of Buddhism.

[jkk] “Community” is an integral part of all religious and spiritual paths because <sharing one’s life and experiences with others> is essential to realizing our true nature. That “true nature” is -- that we are all interconnected and one with Spirit. Conducting the search together is also a means to verify and authenticate one’s religious or spiritual experience – it is, moreover, a means to guard against being self-deluded in our efforts to touch Spirit. Just as in science, an experiment conducted in one center should be replicated in other centers in order to confirm the validity of the original results; so too in spirituality, we have to verify our experiences of Spirit with other spiritual practitioners so as to see the validity of our own experiences.

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The Seven Practices that Awaken Heart and Mind - Roger Walsh (Summary)

 

Sources

·         Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality [ES] (Wiley, 1999).

·         What do religions have in common? (interview with Roger Walsh): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45zKtNpQPz4&list=WL&index=35&t=149s

Roger Walsh was trained in medicine and psychotherapy. At a certain point in his psychotherapeutical training, he was astounded to discover a fascinating interior world that exists within himself, something he wasn’t much aware of before like many people in the contemporary world who live superficially at the level of the exterior. This intrigued him and prompted him to explore the world’s religious and spiritual-wisdom traditions because they have offered the world time-tested methods to deal with this important interior dimension.

As a result of his research he published Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind in 1999. Here he distills the practical wisdom offered by various spiritual-wisdom traditions in order to live life fully and realize our full nature into seven central practices. The book explains these practices extensively in the different chapters with various helpful and practical suggestions to apply each practice more concretely into daily life in the form of “exercises.”  

The seven perennial practices are:

(1) transform your motivation: reduce craving and find your soul's desire;

(2) cultivate emotional wisdom: heal your heart and learn to love;

(3) live ethically: feel good by doing good;

(4) concentrate and calm your mind;

(5) awaken your spiritual vision: see clearly and recognize the sacred in all things;

(6) cultivate spiritual intelligence: develop wisdom and understand life; and

(7) express spirit in action: embrace generosity and the joy of service.

 

Further Elaboration on the Seven Practices 

(descriptions are by jkk-click the description of each practice for a more detailed summary)

[1] Motivation: Transform yourmotivation: Reduce craving and find your soul's desire

Keywords: desire, craving, attachment 

Humans have many "wants," "desires," and "cravings." Many times, these are for things that do not bring authentic happiness and deep meaning in life. The first practice consists in the effort to reduce and eliminate "lower" desires. It then continues to enable one to search for one’s deeper, nobler and higher desires—the ones that bring us genuine meaning and authentic happiness. 

Sample Exercises: Frustrate an addiction; Recognize pain as feedback; Dedicate an activity to a higher purpose

[2] Emotional Wisdom: Cultivate emotional wisdom: Heal your heart and learn to love

Keywords: emotional wisdom, healing, "love"

Acquiring "emotional wisdom" refers to: knowing how to deal with difficult emotions (fear, anxiety, etc.), processing shadows and hurts (through acceptance and forgiveness) and, more positively, acquiring good emotional virtues such as compassion and gratitude.

Sample Exercises: Heal an emotional hurt; Give a gift to someone you don’t like; Say grace; Spend a day of thankfulness

 

[3] Ethics: Live ethically: Feel [genuinely] good by doing good

Keywords: Ethical living

Living ethically is the concrete fruit that spirituality produces. It does not only benefit others - it benefits yourself as well. It will make you experience a genuine and deep peace and happiness.

Sample Exercises: Give up gossip; Communicate to heal; Right a wrong

 

[4] Mindfulness: Concentrate and calm your mind

Keywords: Calming the mind, Concentration

The focus of this practice is taming the "monkey mind" - that is, our distracted, wandering, restless minds and hearts. This is an absolute condition for developing spirituality. I understand “spirituality” to be: paying attention to the "scientifically non-quantifiable" aspects of ourselves and engaging seriously in the human quest for meaning, depth and transcendence. Walsh describes “spirituality” as “a direct experience of the Sacred.”

Sample Exercises: Do one thing at a time with mindfulness; Take regular breath meditations; Transform interruptions into wakeup calls

 

[5] Awakening: Awaken your spiritual vision: see clearly and recognize the sacred in all things

Keywords: Vision, seeing, the Sacred

When you're able to be calm and concentrate, it's time to acquire a new way of viewing and understanding the world - this is the way by which you can see that the "Sacred" is what holds the whole world. The Sacred (Spirit, the Greater Power, the Numinous, God) is actually the core and ground of everything; it also encompasses all things.

Sample Exercises: Eat mindfully; Become a good listener; See teachers everywhere; Recognize the sacred in nature

[6] Wisdom: Cultivate spiritual intelligence: develop wisdom and understand life

Keywords: spiritual intelligence, wisdom

I consider this the effort to "take practice #5 a notch higher." We don't stop at having new eyes to view the world. We go further on our spiritual quest and strive to acquire wisdom to understand more deeply the true nature and meaning of life, of humanity, of the world, of reality.

Sample Exercises: Commit time to silence and solitude; Practice spiritual reading; Enjoy the company of the wise 

 

[7] Service: Express spirit in action: embrace generosity and the joy of service

Keywords: action, service

Our transformed heart and mind; our new vision, our deepening wisdom - all of these bear concrete fruit not only in ethical living but in various forms of compassionate service for our fellow humans. Again, this does not only benefit others; it actually benefits ourselves first.

Sample Exercises: Turn work into service; Change pain into compassion; Pay something forward; Give anonymously

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Can We Prove the Existence of God? [or the Realm of Spirit?]

This is Part 2 of a series in Patheos.com in which Philosopher Ken Wilber tries to answer some "Big Questions" of Life. The annotations are by Julius-Kei Kato 

(The main text is of Ken Wilber. The subheadings, emboldened and underlined parts are added by the annotator. My (jkk) further reflections and observations are in italicized form.)

Source in the public domain (accessed 2020-10-08): https://www.patheos.com/blogs/kenwilberwakeupgrowup/2014/04/can-we-prove-the-existence-of-god-the-big-question-series-question-2/  

It always comes down to that: “How can you prove the existence of Spirit or God if you’re so convinced that it exists?” Part of the problem is that we tend to try to prove Sprit’s existence with tools that can’t actually do the job. And we tend to be unaware of the type of tools that can prove Spirit’s existence. So I’ll run through what some of those are, and give an example of what’s involved.

[jkk] This is especially fascinating for me because it is usually said, “we cannot prove the existence of Spirit (or of God).” I myself also say this and I still maintain that there is no direct, empirical way to “prove God” such as can be done in empirical experiments. However, here Ken Wilber claims that there is a “kind of” scientific way to prove the “greater reality” (the realm that transcends our physical reality). I encourage you to reflect on whether this proposed method is “scientific”for you.  After all, in our secularized age, the “scientific” way of making one’s points is deemed to be the best way.

The Method to Access the Spirit-Dimension

So it’s actually very experimental and very scientific. It rests on the fact that there is a scientific method, and this method can be applied to any number of domains. It can be applied to the eye of flesh, the eye of mind, and the eye of contemplation.

So what is this method? Very briefly, it has three major components. [#1 “Injunction” or “Eperiment”] It has an injunction or experiment or exemplar, which is always in the form of “if you want to know this, do this.” And once you do that, it results in an experience, or what William James called a datum, or an illumination—some sort of [#2 Experience] direct immediate experience. And that’s the second strand. And then that experience or data is [#3 Verification] checked with others to make sure that they get the same results, to make sure that you’re not hallucinating or getting it wrong or somehow confused.

So let’s say, using the eye of flesh, we want to know if it’s raining outside. Very simply, we go to the window and look. That’s the injunction—if you want to know if it’s raining outside, go to the window and look. We look, and yes it does indeed seem to be raining. That’s our experience, our data, our illumination. We do the injunction and we have an experience, we see the data. To make sure that we’re not hallucinating or otherwise mistaken, we ask someone else to take a look as well. They go to the window and yup, they see it raining too. So that’s our confirmation or verification, our third major strand.

[jkk] Remember the three phases: #1 Experiment - #2 Experience - #3 Verification of the Experience (with others who are having the same or similar experiences). That does seem like a “scientific” way to prove something, right?

Further Elaboration

All science has those three strands. When applied to the eye of flesh we get physics, chemistry, biology, and so on. When applied to the eye of mind we get things like logic and mathematics. But what’s not often understood is that it can be applied to the eye of contemplation as well. And here it offers proof of the existence of Spirit, every bit as real as rain or mathematics.

So what we’re talking about is that there’s sensory experience, there’s mental experience, and there’s spiritual experience, and each of these experiences give particular types of data or information or knowledge. Too often we have attempted to try to prove the existence of Spirit by using the eye of flesh and the eye of mind. Aristotle’s proof of God, he gave five proofs, and they were all logical. But that won’t get it—it doesn’t touch Spirit, it doesn’t activate the spiritual dimension in us.

So if we want to see how it can operate in a spiritual practice, we can take Zen as an example. The injunction here, the practice or exemplar, is zazen or meditation or contemplation. You’re taught to sit in a relaxed position, rest the mind, and focus it on one item. It could be following the breath, or it might be an inquiry like “who am I?” And this is the first strand, the injunction or activity or exemplar—if you want to know whether Spirit is real, do this.

After anywhere from several months to a year or two, you will start having a series of experiences, interior data or illuminations. These profound experieces or experieces of a spiritual nature are called kensho, which means “seeing into true nature.” This is strand two, the direct experience Spirit itself—naked, unmediated, real, and direct. This direct religious experience is said to be of Spirit itself. Even in the case of individuals who have a Ph.D in science and who experience kensho, over 95% report that kensho is as real as anything that they study in conventional science. It’s a very powerful, convincing experience.

And just recently someone had an experience that for some reason made all the news, a neuroscientist who had a near death experience, but it was so real to him that he was simply, absolutely, 100% convinced that this was a real experience, as real as anything he had ever experienced. That’s exactly the same kind of feeling that mystics have when they have a kensho, or a mystical experience, or an experience of oneness or unity. And he said he couldn’t find it described anywhere until he was looking through some Christian mysticism books and he found an explanation that spoke of infinite darkness suffused with luminosity. And he said that was it exactly! Anyone who knows the stages of meditation will recognize that as a causal state, it’s described that way in every major meditative tradition the world over. But of course we’ve so forgotten about this in the West that we just don’t know where to look. So he was completely confused until he found that one particular explanation.

Check with the Community of Practitioners

After the individual has had their unity experience, their awakening experience, just to make sure, they check with a spiritual teacher and a community of practitioners. Now this means all those who have completed the first two strands. If you want to vote on whether the Pythagorean theory is real, you have to learn mathematics, and then learn the Pythagorean theorem, and once you have completed the injunction and have had the experience of looking at the triangle and looking at the Pythagorean theorem, then you’re allowed to vote and confirm or not confirm whether it’s real. Most people who do that report that the Pythagorean Theorem is real.

     But the same thing is true in any other scientific experiment, and it’s true for this interior science of contemplation. So you check it with a spiritual teacher and a community of practitioners, all those who have completed the first two strands of injunction and illumination, just to make sure you’re not hallucinating or otherwise confused, just like in all the other sciences. If their illumination, the discovery of their own True Self that is one with Spirit, matches those in a larger community of knowledge-holders, then their kensho (見性 Japanese, “seeing the true nature of things”) is passed and their realization is confirmed.

[jkk] I want to underline the fact that Wilber calls the study of the transcendent realm the “interior science of contemplation.” By that, he implies that there is this realm of Spirit, this transcendent dimension that we can directly know, experience, and validate (the existence of) through methods and a process that are quite scientific. What is “the community of practitioners” anyway? In practically every religious tradition (Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc.), there are groups of people (both in the past and in the present) who have had direct, religious-spiritual experiences of the Sacred and the Transcendent. These people were/are able to have these spiritual experiences through methods of spiritual practice such as meditation, service, ethical living, training in compassion, etc. that are time-tested and proven in these religious traditions to effectively transform people and lead them to wisdom, peace, compassion and authentic happiness.

Direct Experience – Public Knowledge

So notice this is a real science, a direct and immediate 1^st-person experience. It’s not anything taken on faith or mere belief, but a direct realization. And this is true whether the contemplation is Christian, or Buddhist, or Jewish, or Islamic, or Hindu, and so on. And this realization proves that Spirit is just as real as mathematics, or logic, or rain, or rocks. And those who have had that experience, even if they have Ph.Ds in science, take it as being as real as anything that they know. So it’s as real as “real” has any meaning. It’s a direct injunction, giving immediate data or illumination, and checked with a community of the adequate.

This is why contemplative knowledge is public knowledge, in both the East and the West it has been passed down for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. That’s not private knowledge. Anything that can be trained and passed down is public, and it all reaches that same conclusion: God is real, and tat tvam asi—you are that.

[jkk] Let me continue to comment on the nature of the time-tested spiritual practices of the world’s religious-spiritual traditions. Studies have been done of these spiritual practices and one can say that across the various religious-spiritual traditions of the world, there are striking commonalities in the spiritual practices that are encouraged and taught in order to be spiritually transformed. One notable study is Roger Walsh, M.D. Ph.D.’s Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind. There Walsh distills many of the practices from various religious-spiritual traditions into seven general principles that spiritual practitioners across the ages have observed to be continually transformed and renewed.

Wilber and Walsh also emphasize that spiritual transformation and direct experience of the Sacred NEED NOT BE just taken on faith or believed in blindly (as is often encouraged by religious institutions) without proof. Wilber and Walsh encourage people to, as it were, “check it out for themselves” by actually engaging in the time-tested spiritual practices because if they do, the practitioners will in time experience for themselves the truth that there is indeed a spiritual realm and that realm will transform the person who wakes up to it and continually grows more fully into it.  

 

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