Disposable Religions
By Steve GillmanThe idea of disposable religions came to me during a conversation about the difference between spirituality and religiousness. It seems that whatever the spiritual origin is, a religion cannot help but become stifling and anti-spiritual. A true spirituality should allow for truth to enter whatever it is, after all, and religions uniformly claim a final and unchanging undertstanding of the truth.
The dilemma here is that it’s helpful for people to join together to share love, lessons, and teachings, but any regular gathering based on spiritual ideas has the tendency to become a religion. The support that this provides creates an environment where people can develop in ways that they may not if left on their own. A simple example is a regular meditation group, which provides the discipline that may be lacking when we try to meditate on our own. But when and where people interact there must be rules and shared beliefs, and these often become more important than the ultimate purpose.
This tendency towards rigid ideology or dogma helps produce the contradictory phenomena of people hating others in the name of love, lying in the name of truth, and killing in the name of eternal life. A big part of the problem is our worshipping of words, which cannot capture truth except in the most temorary and incomplete way. The moment you define a concept like love in words, for example, I can find a logical way to call the worst actions by that name. We might partially resolve this problem by continually redefining our words, but only if we also continually look to see what the words point at in reality, rather than how they happen to fit together to argue a point or create a moral commandment.
That is perhaps a poor explanation of a very deep subject. I have written about the limits of language before in more detail. You can find some of that on the pages Words To Live By?, Moral Reasoning - A Convergence, and Are Words The Roots Of War?
For now, it is enough to point out that belief systems based on spiritual ideas become religions, and religions become more rigid in time and therefore less useful. My solution? Disposable religions.
Okay, I really couldn’t endorse any religion. But if we are to have them and enjoy whatever limited benefits they offer, why not replaces them every few years, before they become too focused on rules and their own perpetuation as organizations? That way you can start fresh and once again open yourself to new understandings. Create a religion, use it as the tool it should be, and throw it away in favor of a better tool. the repeat the process
Life is all about impermanence and change. Our understanding has to change as well if we are to truly grow spiritually. Really now, did you think you captured the perfect understanding on the first try? One that never needed to let new evidence or experience affect it? Religions themselves change too, of course, but far to slowly. Throw them out periodically and start over!
| Want To Know A Secret?
How about many useful and fascinating secrets? |
| The Meditation Newsletter
What if you could close your eyes, then open them a few minutes later and be relaxed, alert, and able to think clearly? Meditation can do that, and much more for you. The benefits were there, of course, before science proved them, and now you can keep up on the science and the experience with the free Meditation Newsletter. |
Tags: disposable, religions, spirituality