Today,
we often come across people who say they are spiritual but not religious, and
it looks an agreed line of thought in the post-modern Christianity. Religion
has become an emotive and sentimental, and many are misusing religious
ideologies and religious fundamentalism to justify their intolerance towards
other religions. On the other hand Spirituality gives a sense of open
mindedness for it’s free from rules and judgments, while religion tend to be
dogmatic and restrictive. The spiritual person seems to have reached a state of
humility in recognizing the sameness of all religions, while the religious
person seems to operate on pride rigidity of doctrine and morality.
Therefore
we need to know exactly what terms we use and their meaning when we refer to
spirituality and religion. The word Spirituality can have two meaning: To the
spiritual part of reality, the soul as opposed to physical reality where we
come to the reality, that as human beings are made up of body and soul. The two
have to go hand in hand, they can’t be separated. In this case spirituality can
refer to that given sense of consciousness and wellness that here is something
more than my own self which awakens something in a person, hence driving the
person to something powerful.
Spiritual
can also relate to religion and religious belief. One comes to realize that
there is a religion that helps one to rediscover the self to believe in something
because one has been taught, preached to, encouraged, or shared with in the
religious sense of reality. This will drive us into prayer, mediation,
practices of prayers that shapes ones religious and spiritual paradigm shifts.
This will drive one into mysterious realism, transcendence and metaphysical
realities. As one acquires a certain mode of living and behaviour towards a
spiritual discipline and religious lifestyle.
These
realities once subjected to serious scrutiny can lead to crisis of identity or
belonging to some it may be a moment of growth, to others a complete doubt in
faith, where one enters into a swing of questions: whether there is really a
God or not. Spirituality seems not to be really in any doubt over these
questions, it doesn’t care what is really true, or it is like saying I love
trains, so long as they are not on tracks. Religion without spirituality on the
other hand is like tracks without the trains. This means that one goes nowhere,
you need to enter the train one has to buy a ticket, validate it enter into the
class of ticket and enjoy the travel.
While
“religion” comes from the prefix re-, which means “again” and “ligare” which
means “to bind” or “connect”. Religion is a bout binding ourselves to God
again, it recognizes that something is not right, we are disconnected from God
in a fundamental way, where we need to reconnect, a religion of getting back to
an encounter with God. If there are rituals or practices in a religion it is
because they are part of the process God has ordained for relationship with
Him. If there are doctrines and statements of faith, they are meant to be
expressions of the truth God has communicated to us. The biggest difference is
that religious persons has discovered a truth, while the merely spiritual
person tries to create his own truth or doesn’t care.
At the end of the day, it
comes down to what is true and a religion is for those who recognize that they
do not have the spiritual insight to invent their own spiritual dogmas and
practices. A merely a spiritual person claims to have the wisdom to determine
his own path, often regardless of the logic or the full counsel of many of the
people from whom he pulls his ideas.
In
the original understanding of “mystic” as explained by M. Delahoutre states
that “mystic” was simply an adjective that we would say “hidden” or simply a
mystery. He continues by saying that from the 17th Cent the word
“mystic” indicates the dominion of mystic facts. Mystics are those who are able
by experience become mystics, building a deep common sense. This at times may
involve natural realities, possessed, one that is “imminent” and also
“transcendence”[1]
This can be found among Hebrews, Christians, and Muslims. The experience
flourishes at the internal and not outside the theological faith. The Spiritual
man has to ask himself whether that reality in which coincides is a cause of
transcendence to all that others, or it’s simply a transcription to the earthly
domain.
Man
has always to find a unifying need for his challenges of existence as an
individual in the society, more so in his sociological transactions and
satisfactions. Lackmann says that “the problem of existence of each individual
in the society is a problem of religion”[2]. This
means that the daily experiences which are sometimes extraordinary that keep
swinging between “diverse” and “sacred” realities. All in all religion as
Taylor could state “religion for our intent is able defining in terms of
transcendence”.[3]
This will call upon leitmotiv of all new sciences in an interdisciplinary
approach in branding and understanding of mysticism today as missiologists and
agents of the Kingdom of God, where men and women do virtuous works them to
transformation. As Feuerbach in his anthropological approach to religion states
that “to be human is not an abstract imminence to the individual, but a social
relationship. A personal religious experience that is rooted in the center of
mystical of conscience”[4]. This
creates respect to the existence of other forms of pre-religion and once it is
not balanced can lead to fanaticism which sometimes goes to the extreme where
the individual idealizes the same devotion. But one has to have a proper
prayer, a sort of interior oneness, the conversation with the divine, this can
only be actualized in true should and essence of religion.
Therefore
mysticism as a new religion that makes a connection where divine meets the
human. A new outlook of self-awareness of the world and the absolute reworking
on the elements of self, world and the absolute. As man searches for answers he
has to strike a balance or equilibrium. Man is trying to construct his world
without God, man is trying to find purity and healing more so as man confronts
modern sickness and needs to complete therapy focused process of healing, hence
getting himself into Yoga and Zen Spiritual exercises. Religion is able to
offer existence. Relieving oneself to full freedom without reference to any
dogma. Man wants to live in happiness, this happiness man doesn’t feel he needs
an intermediary. G. May states:
We
cannot make ourselves into the ancient Hebrews who understood soul as personal
essence; we are simply too far removed from their time, place and culture. Some
of us may be able to become Buddhists, learning and finally adopting their
unseparated vision of consciousness and manifestation, but most of us are
unable and probably not called to do so[5].
Mysticism
today is a religion that doesn’t need God. As Viktor Frank talks about “God in
the Conscience” this has to fine tune us transcendence that God has put in each
human being, it becomes an ocean of emotions, signs of the times, strong
explosions. Mysticism is a critical approach, for if people don’t find therapy
in the church, they will look for it elsewhere. This will drive us into healing
ministry. Bertrand Russel in his philosophical exploration through Ancient
philosophy states that:
Philosophically
inclined mysytics, unable to deny that whatever is in time is transitory, have
invented a conception of eternity as not persistence through endless time, but
existence outside the whole temporal process. Eternal life, according to some
theologians, for example, Dean Inge, doesn’t mean existence throughout every
moment of future time, but a mode of being wholly independent of time, in which
there is no before and after, and therefore no logical possibility of change. This
view has been poetically expressed by Vaugham in his poem of eternity without
ultimate time but a vast shadow moved in which the world like a train hurled[6].
Christianity
has to create a God of happiness that opens an encounter with others. A
Christian experience produces a crisis, this has to make us to be respectful,
open ourselves to new realities to a God who is concrete. The fruits of the
Spirit lead to mindfulness, rediscovering the most important roots that are
concretely real that has to lead to a road of conversion. This will mean entering
into a spiritual mediation between the absolute and the subject in searching
and knowing the secrets of the heart, a high faculty of intuition, a place that
anchors the human subject in the presence of God, the breath of the Holy
Spirit. Today theological studies in the Christian mysticism basing its
foundation on scripture. Mysticism and religion go hand in hand, for a religion
without mysticism is nothing else but an ideology, but every Christian who
lives in his faith has to capture a bit of that mysticism, living a proper
faith, being human, discretely seeking God first who is revealed in Jesus
Christ in Glory.
Bibliography
Cipriani. R., Nuovo
Manuale di Sociologia della Religione, Borla, Roma 2009.
Delahourte. M., “Mistica”, in Dizionario delle Religioni, Le Grandi Religioni del Mondo,
Mondadori, (ed.,) Arnaldo Mondadori, Milano 2007, 1483.
May. G.G., Care of the Mind, Care of the Spirit, A Psychiatrist Explores Spiritual
Direction, Harper Collins Publishers, New York 1982.
Russell.
B., A History of Western Philosophy, and Its
Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to
the Present Day, Simon and Schuster, New York 1945.
[1] Cf. M. Delahourte,
“Mistica”, In Dizionario delle Religioni,
Le Grandi Religioni del Mondo, Mondadori, (ed.,) Arnaldo Mondadori, Milano
2007, 1483.
[2] Cf. R. Cipriani, Nuovo Manuale di Sociologia della Religione,
Borla, Roma 2009, 218.
[3] Cf. R. Cipriani, Nuovo Manuale di Sociologia Religione, 351.
[4] R. Cipriani, Nuovo Manuale di Sociologia Religione, 131.
[5] G. G. May, Care of the Mind, Care of the Spirit, A
Psychiatrist Explores Spiritual Direction, Harper Collins Publishers, New
York 1982, 199.
[6] B. Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, and Its
Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to
the Present Day, Simon and Schuster, New York 1945, 46.
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