November 7, 2009 event

This looks neat. I think that it is good to be open to new events and experiences.

Part 2 of article

This is the second part of an article from the Vancouver Sun, talking about the 'war' between spirituality and religion. The author purports that spirituality is a personal thing while religion relates to the corporate nature of spiritual practice.

While it is difficult to find a balance between the personal and the corporate, Todd puts forth that a "good" religion is one that allows for growth and movements within the personal/corporate sphere. Humanity is constantly changing and growing and hence religion as one main structure of the human expression of Self needs to be able to change and grow with people. I wonder at the persons who do identify themselves as "not religious, but spiritual". Often when this statement is made to me, it is a defense mechanism usually meaning "don't shove your beliefs and judgments on me. That is the last thing that I need." I have always thought that those persons who have an aversion to "organized religion" are reacted to either a bad experience, misconceptions, or both. Often people attend worship services, but aren't educated about the practices that follow. It is not like someone says " we will now sing this song, or pray this prayer for reason 'X', " but rather, after someone has attended for a while, it is understood," this is just how we do this". However, along with the need for structure, it should not be so rigid that it staganates growth of the worshipper, but it should also not be so flexible that there is an "anything goes" thinking. This is the difficulty of defining worship and spiritual practices -- they do change as our understanding changes. But one must consider "what am I doing this for? or who? " and "does this practice help me to grow and challenge my understanding of the world?" If the answer is "I don't know" to the first questions, and "no" to the second... then maybe we need to think about why something isn't working for us or others and to discuss this with someone we trust.

SECOND OF TWO PARTS

Which is better: Religion or spirituality? Many people, especially on the West Coast of North America, now firmly believe that it's much better to be "spiritual" rather than "religious."

Before offering my answer to the question, however, it's crucial to explain the common definitions going round today of "religion" and "spirituality," plus a few of the widespread complaints against both.

Some of the many, many people today who stress "I'm spiritual, but not religious" feel strongly about defining religion as an absolutistic and dogmatic belief system locked up in an institution.

Their condemnation has some validity, even though they're not correct in portraying ALL religion as doctrinaire.

There can be no doubt that institutional religion frequently regresses to blind obedience and self-righteousness.

That's the assertion, for instance, of Vancouver's world-famous spiritual writer, Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now. The people who champion "spirituality" generally use the term to refer to the private and free development of a person's private inner life.

Tolle, for instance, is typical of many in the way he describes spirituality as personal "transformation" to an "awakened" state, detached from one's ego and even from "belief" itself .

The main charges against Tolle's popular form of self-spirituality are that it can become privatistic, leading to self-absorption, narcissism, naivety, anti-intellectualism and an anything-goes moral relativism. Critics say those who follow private spirituality are often unwilling to engage wider society and, in failing to do so, support the social status quo.

Just as there is something to the prevailing attack on "religion," there is also some truth to this critique of "spirituality."

But the mutual bombardments do not at all comprise the whole story of "spirituality" and "religion."

There are more comprehensive ways of looking at both, which will expand the debate far beyond a simplistic argument that one is good and the other is bad.

There are many valid definitions of "spirituality," a term that has only become hot in the past decade.

But I think one of the best and broadest definitions of "spirituality" is that it is "the ways humans have sought to find meaning in the world." However, I have to immediately add that I join the renowned American sociologist of religion, Robert Bellah, in suggesting that religion, at its deepest level, is about the same process -- forming human meaning.

In today's religion-wary culture, many won't like this overlapping definition of "spirituality" and "religion." But if you accept it, you would have to conclude that, at least in their ideal form, both can be beneficial.

There is another link between the two terms. Even though "spirituality" is now used to refer exclusively to a human's inner life, many private spiritualities, if they prove persuasive to enough people, eventually develop into more structured communal worldviews.

That is what happened with the experiences and teachings of Moses, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed and Baha'u'llah.

It's also what is happening with some best-selling contemporary spiritual teachers, as their thinking becomes more formalized through study groups and inter-connected communities.

In other words, it appears that the thing Western society is really debating these days is the difference in value between private spirituality and community-based spirituality, which is also sometimes known as institutional religion.

Contrary to what many people like to believe, I am not convinced personal spirituality and communal religion are mutually exclusive. They are complementary.

And both need to be approached in a self-critical way.

Any institutional religion that is habitually dogmatic and that fails to nurture a sense of personal spirituality, of personal choice and transformation, is empty.

And any personal spirituality that remains merely private, that doesn't make an effort to directly connect with others, with the real world, with community life, is trivial.

So where does that leave us with the question: Which is better: Spirituality or religion?

The short answer is they are both important.

However, I will go out on an unpopular limb for the longer answer.

I would suggest that institutional religion - when it is truly self-correcting, non-authoritarian and encouraging of authenticity (which it often, admittedly, is not) -- is more complete than private spirituality.

Let me briefly make my case for the value of religion in institutional form:

• Institutional religion, at its best, can be open, evolving and self- reforming -- even while attempting to define and remain true to core values, beliefs and practices.

• A religious institution can incorporate a multitude of personal spiritual practices, including the self-spirituality and nature spirituality that are popular today.

• Religious institutions, ideally, create a sense of community, which often contribute to the well-being of individuals.

• Religious institutions can offer checks and balances on private belief and practice. They can help isolated individuals avoid going off on unhealthy, wrong-headed or dangerous spiritual tangents.

• As a community, a religion can accomplish things that isolated individuals cannot. Institutions can plan and strategize, creating force fields for positive transition, both within individuals and in the wider society.

Ultimately, I like the way that Washington state scholar Patricia O'Connell Killen talks about the value of religions, which she also calls "wisdom traditions."

Unlike private spiritualities, community-based religions can, at their optimum, help people realize they're not the centre of the universe, Killen says. They can also, through their collected knowledge, historical perspective and shared values, be invaluable in helping people face life's inevitable suffering. In doing so, they can renew personal and public hope.

In the end, I don't believe we need to buy into the current nasty war between (personal) spirituality and (community-based) religion.

After all, that creates a false either/or choice.

What we can do instead is foster more interaction between spirituality and religion, since they are simply different aspects of the same thing: Humans' eternal search for meaning.

Quote -- cleaning files from my desk

Learning a language
is learning what people are really saying.
The non-verbal as well as the verbal language...
You must go deeper...
And discover what it means
To listen deeply to another...
In order to understand people in both their pain and in their grief, to
Understand what they are really asking so you can hold their wound,
Their pain and that flows from it...
You must go deeper and discover what it means to see another-
To see the light shining in the darkness..
To give hope and trust.

Jean Vanier-the Broken Body

Column from Vancouver Sun

Has 'religion' outlived its usefulness?

Despite the arguments that spirituality is somehow better, both seek to bring people together

Douglas Todd

Vancouver Sun

Saturday, August 29, 2009

CREDIT: Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun, Files Eckhart Tolle is a New Age teacher who blends elements of Buddhism and Hinduism into his philosophy.

'Many people are already aware of the difference between spirituality and religion. They realize that having a belief system -- a set of thoughts that you regard as the absolute truth -- does not make you spiritual no matter what the nature of those beliefs is."

That's the influential opinion of one of the world's most famous living spiritual teachers. Vancouver-based Eckhart Tolle, promoted by Oprah Winfrey, has sold millions of copies of his books, including The Power of Now.

His repeated message is "religion" is bad (oppressive) and "spirituality" is good (liberating).

As Tolle writes in his latest mega-seller, A New Earth: Awakening to Life's Purpose, religious people are convinced "unless you believe exactly as they do, you are wrong in their eyes, and in the not-too-distant past, they would have felt justified in killing you for that. And some still do, even now."

Tolle is promoting what is fast becoming conventional wisdom in the western world: "Religion" is institutional, almost always authoritarian. "Religion" is equated with the Crusades, terrorism and judgmental U.S. televangelists.

"Religion," in the mind of Tolle and those who read his books in more than 30 languages, is rigid and divisive and absolutistic.

This same anti-religion message is being advanced by spiritual authors such as Neale Donald Walsch, author of the best-selling Conversations with God, and a host of other New Age teachers. To them "religion" is "fundamentalism."

In contrast, Tolle prefers the term "spiritual," which he describes as "the transformation of consciousness" -- to a state of "awakening."

In line with Tolle, many people in Canada, perhaps even most, now find it necessary to tell anyone who cares to listen: "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual."

The conviction that "religion" is essentially evil is now so pervasive in our culture that I am having even observant evangelical Christians, Jews and Muslims also tell me: "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual."

How did western society get to this point, where religion has become a dirty word?

Much of it has to do with shifting definitions.

What, after all, is "spiritual?"

What is "religious?"

Unless these important words are defined, people can spend a lot of time going round in conversational circles.

Let's start with "religion."

The Oxford Dictionary defines "religion" as "the belief in and worship of a superhuman power, esp. a personal God or gods." Oxford adds that religion is "a particular system of faith and worship." Most interesting is that the Latin root of "religion" is "to bind together."

Even though I quibble with this Oxford definition of religion, I accept it's relatively straightforward compared to the ever-evolving meanings of the amazingly popular and vague word, "spiritual."

American philosopher Ken Wilber is highly aware of the problems that occur when people don't nail down what they mean by "spiritual." He cites several usages.

One common understanding of "spiritual" is that it's a state of consciousness, such as those achieved through meditation, he says. Another definition of "spiritual" refers to embodying an attitude, such as love or wisdom.

A third use of "spiritual" restricts it to higher states of consciousness or maturity. I'll add a fourth definition of "spiritual" -- how a person finds ultimate meaning.

Although it's hard to tell with Tolle, since he's not overly systematic, he seems to basically define "spiritual" in line with Wilber's first definition -- as a state of mind, as the state of being detached from one's ego.

Mark Shibley, of Southern Oregon University, suggests there are two major types of alternative spiritualities (as distinct from organized religions) operating in North America, which often overlap.

The first type most fits Tolle and Walsch. Shibley calls what they promote "self-spirituality."

They focus on the self as sacred. Tolle and Walsch, both of whom live in the Pacific Northwest, or Cascadia, where self-spirituality is commonplace, emphasize private psychological practice over doctrine.

The second major spiritual group adheres to Earth reverence. They stress that nature is divine. They tend to have mystical moments not in churches or temples, but in the wilderness.

Now that we've fleshed out the terms, religious and spiritual, let's get down to the big question.

Which is better?

Spiritual or religious?

If you define "religion" as Tolle and Walsch do -- as rigidly institutional, fundamentalist and self-righteous -- you would have to opt for "spiritual." After all, personal "transformation" seems more authentic than this harsh, top-down religion.

But if you keep in mind the dictionary definition of "religion" -- that it's a "system of faith" that may serve to "bind together" humans with each other, the world and a transcendent reality -- the rivalry between the two becomes not so clear-cut.

Is it not possible to be "spiritual," to practise inner transformation, at the same time one is "religious," that is, working to bond with a higher power and wider community through shared beliefs?

The great sociologist, Robert Bellah, in a recent article in the Buddhist magazine, Tricycle, writes that making a sharp distinction between religion and spirituality creates a false dichotomy. And that's what Tolle does.

The author of ground-breaking books, such as Habits of the Heart, helpfully broadens the definition of religion to, "the many ways humans have sought to find meaning, to make sense of their lives."

I find Bellah's definition better than even the one supplied by the Oxford Dictionary, since it can include religions that posit no God or gods, such as forms of Buddhism.

It's also close to the definition I tend to use most for "spiritual." And, in many ways, the definitions are interchangeable.

Bellah also persuasively maintains that trying to rid the world of religion -- since it's often corrupted -- would be absurd.

It would be like saying, "Let's get rid of the economy," because it often does harmful things.

"Religion meets a human need, and if you get rid of it in one form, it will come back in another," Bellah says.

That, indeed, is what is happening with contemporary "spirituality."

Even though Tolle's promoters always stress that he is "not aligned with any particular religion or tradition," his teachings are dependent on ideas that have emerged over the millennia from Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and western philosophy.

And try as Tolle and many others might to emphasize that "spirituality" is only an inner, private experience, the hundreds of spiritual groups that are forming around Tolle's work, at his encouragement, are developing their own shared beliefs, thoughts, practices, orthodoxies and sense of community.

Just like a religion.

- - -

Read Douglas Todd's blog at www.vancouversun.com/

thesearch

Next week: What it takes for "religion" and "spirituality" to be healthy.

© The Vancouver Sun 2009