It is the unanimous testimony of countless sincere men and women - often the most revered and honored of people in a community (saints, heroes) - since Neolithic times at least, that the common human experience of life (the human predicament) is limited, illusory and in some ways founded upon error and mistaken perception, but that it is (theoretically) possible for everyone (as a birth right) to go beyond this mode of experience, to resolve the human predicament and in doing so recontextualize (transcend) pain, suffering, meaninglessness and the limitations, contradictions and mysteries of existence.
There is, that is to say, a primordial discontent. It is described in many ways but by every analysis it stems from the contradictions inherent in a finite being's sense of the Infinite. It is an acute problem in the subject/object dichotomy.
It can be overcome.
That is, to put it another way: the common experience of the human condition is alienated, but it is possible to overcome (rectify) this alienation. The testimony of the saints and sages is that transformation is possible (albeit not always easy).
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Rightly or wrongly, this endeavor is often referred to as “spiritual”, the term based on the dichotomy:
*common (profane) state = material, gross, dense
*exalted state = spiritus, rarefaction.
The metaphor (taken from Latin) is that of density. The “spiritual” is less dense. The “profane” is more dense. (Alienation is a burden, a weight.) The exalted or spiritual state is also called “numinous” (the metaphor of clarity) or “enlightened” (the metaphor of the light/dark polarity). And so on.
Sometimes the 'profane' (untransformed, alienated) state is characterized as an existential disease (therapeutic metaphor) and transformation is thus a cure (salv- ation = to be healed).
This pursuit of the spiritual or numinous (exalted experience) is the common heritage of the human race. It is the subject of art, literature, mythology, stories, saga, poetry, song from very, very ancient times.
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There is a very ancient and diverse technology (techne = skill) of methods devoted to this endeavor, from contemplation (sitting around thinking about it) to obliteration (extreme induced hallucinatory experiences).
In some (but not all) traditions an essential method is to posit a Supreme Other (God) against which one's being stands in contrast. It's a practical move. Devotion is a method - an awed self-emptying into this Other. Similarly, some (but not all) traditions posit an after life as a lure to motivate the alienated man.
Other traditions pursue the numinous (or spiritual) not through transcendence but through immanence, through the radical identification with the Here rather than the pursuit of a Beyond. These are different means to the same end.
An abiding theme of all the great spiritual traditions is that human self-sufficiency is a pretension. The false ego – self-pride, narcissism – is the enemy.
Many methods of spirituality are best understood as types of play. Homo ludens. Ritual. Dance. Drama. Liturgy. Myth and make believe. The most noble forms of play devoted to the most noble end, the resolution of the human paradox.
Tried and true collections of methods are called “paths” (metaphor of the journey).
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“Religion” is a particular way of going about “spirituality”. It is one way of organizing the spiritual dimension of human life - the dominant way of doing so (for sociological reasons) since about 600 BC. (The so-called Axial Age)
Religion is typically social/communal. (There are so-called “faith communities”, the Church, the Sanga, the Ummah, etc.) Not only do individuals seek the numinous by themselves, individuals gather into groups to help each other do so. Virtually all human societies address this dimension of life as a collective ideal and have institutions and provisions beyond mere utility (because “man does not live by bread alone.”)
Typically, religions try to make the exalted experience more likely for groups of people by organizing and encoding with meaning time (festivals, rites of passage) and usually (but not always) by imposing moral and ethical regulations deemed conductive to or a prerequisite for the exalted (numinous) experience. Again, for practical (techne) reasons (what Buddhism calls “skillful means”).
Example: Islam prohibits alcohol in order to create certain social conditions within the community (Ummah) but also, and more importantly, because drunken states are inimical to many of the techniques and methods employed in Islamic spirituality. It is a practical, not a moral, matter first and foremost. Everything is calculated to foster the numinous experience, realization.
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Religion, that is to say, is a sub-set of spirituality. Religion, given its subject matter, is necessarily spiritual, but the spiritual isn't necessarily religious.
Religions serve (in the best cases) to create fruitful conditions for spirituality. Religions create the 'space' and resources for spirituality. Religions texture cultures in this way and for this purpose (unless they lose sight of this and become ends in themselves - tyrannous formalisms or empty fundamentalisms.)
There is spirituality that is not necessarily religious in the sense that it does not take place inside the defined structures and frameworks that are typical of religions. More often, though, enduring methods of spirituality are adapted to or shelter within but are only semi-attached to religions.
Some methods (systems) of spirituality present themselves as the “true” or “inner” (esoteric) meaning of a (legalist, externalist) religion according to an inner/outer model.
Some methods (systems) of spirituality clash with the religious edifice of the day and are forced underground (occultism).
Alchemy (a spirituality of metaphors extrapolated in prehistory from the observed transformations of early metallurgy) is a good example of an enduring spirituality that is not, in itself, a religion, but which often attaches and adapts itself to particular religious traditions - thus we find Christian alchemy, Islamic alchemy, Taoist alchemy etc. - but which nevertheless sometimes must retreat into secrecy (occultism) when it clashes with passing religious norms.
Before and over-lapping with the age of religions there were also traditions of Philosophy. “Philo-sophia” in the ancient and proper sense is a mode of spirituality employing an intellectual and dialectical methodology (think your way out of the human predicament). In these traditions the exalted, realized state is called “wisdom” and is usually personified as feminine (sophia).
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Some methods of spirituality employ intellect as the means of transformation (jnana yoga), some employ emotion (devotionalism), some employ imagination (gnosticism), some employ altered or extreme states of consciousness, catering to different human temperaments and constitutions.
All the human faculties, the full range of human diversity, every reach of human ingenuity - from counting beans (Pythagoreanism) to sexual orgies (tantra), from spinning around on the spot (Sufism) to symbolic cannibalism (Catholicism) - have been put to this endeavor: spirituality. It embraces the rational and the irrational. It is comprehensive in that way.
It is integral to what human beings are. And will continue to be so in future, even though methods and frameworks change.
- Harper Mc Alpine Black
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