Deepa Majumdar
Having established (in Part I) that religion is, by nature, the greatest of all conundrums, we must now ask why religion matters. The answer to this question can be as long as one is willing to listen. But before we launch into the many reasons why religion matters, it is important to repeat (see Part I) that religion is no more than a means to an end. It is not an end in itself. Moreover, even as an instrument, religion is not essential to the ultimate purpose it serves, which is the numinous experience of oneness with God, whether in the embodied state or in the afterlife. To reach the highest numinous level of union with God, an aspirant does not have to follow a religion. For, itis not the glamor of religion, but the power of bhakti (devotion) in the human heart that stands as a barometer oftrue faith. In fact, a human heartoverflowing with bhakti (devotion), can be far truer in its religiosity than that bestowed by a historical religion.
Yet, this type of independent mystic, who does not belong to any religion is rare. For, although her numinous experience – understood as contact withGod, the Universal of all universals – will transcend religion, which is a mere instrument, the mystic draws her lexicon from a particular tradition– whether religious or not.Indeed, not all traditions of wisdom and God consciousness, are religious. Some are more philosophical, individuated, and personal. Thus Plotinus, said to be the father of western mysticism, admitted to experiencing union with God multiple times in his life. A follower and exegete of Plato, he was more philosophical, than religious. At the same time, his actual experiences – not his learning, or wisdom – cannot be categorized as merely philosophical. A traditional religious tradition is typically broader than a philosophical tradition, accommodating myriad levels – ranging from rituals to techniques and wisdom. Religion, in its highest aspects, is also quieter than philosophy. Given their transcendental nature and innate quietude, Plotinus’ mystical experiences, in their pure luminosity, therefore should be understood as more religious than philosophical. Or, better yet, they should be understood as transcending both. They are therefore supra-religious and supra-philosophical in their contents. The same may be said of the movement Plotinusis credited with – Neoplatonism, which emerged in western civilization in late antiquity, in the third century– that despite being merely philosophical, it admitted of supra-religious experiences of the highest order.
Yet, despite its instrumental and inessential nature, religion matters, because it serves many purposes, of which, at least some are uniquely religious. Religion gives us what science simply cannot – a meaning in life, a higher purpose, the power of self-control, and that highest of all loves – namely, Love for the Divine (bhakti), which engenders all valid lower forms of love. It does not make sense to say that conversely, science gives us what religion simply cannot. While this is true, the two are not equal. Religion, which worships at the altar of Truth, thus gaining the power to transcend matter, has to be higher than science, which worships at the altar of external truth, remaining therefore confined to the realm of matter. Religion also gives us, galaxies of saints, and through the insights of its sages, a spiritual cosmology wholly different from the materialistic cosmologies that the natural sciences engender. Thus, the Bhagavadgitā tells us that the universe appears, endures, and disappears – repeating this cycle again and again. What science calls the Big Bang Theory perhaps expresses in corporeal terms, the inception of a new cycle when the universe appears after a period of dormancy. The Stoics hold that the universe was never created, but rather, always was, is, and will be. Finally, religion gives us higher forms of faith that surpass and inspire reason. Science, which uses a lower level of reason, may inspire awe in us. It may use the natural world as an indicator of something higher. At best, it can point upward. It cannot lead us there. For science to inspire faith, it must transcend itself and enter religion.
If we reduce religion to its pure essentials, it serves perhaps three basic purposes. On the earthly plane, religion is a gigantic means of sublimation, far more powerful than all lower forms of sublimation – such as art, sports, and political activism. It is religion alone (in its highest aspects), which possesses the power to sublimate the passions. By offering our passions – especially lust – upward, towards God, we reach the safe shores of dispassion and chastity, without which, no civilization can survive and no ascent to the divine is possible. This unique power belongs to the purview of religion alone.
At a more ethereal level, religion gives us something science simply cannot – namely, a portrait of the afterlife drawn from wisdom and spiritual insight. While religion in its lower aspects concocts fanciful portraits of the afterlife, often intellectualized by great intellectuals and even canonized saints – religion in its highest aspects gives us true insight into the graded heavens and hells and the cycles of reincarnation that serve to deliver divine justice, without which, human existence would become merely natural and therefore meaningless. Man would no longer be a middle creature lodged between beasts and gods.
Finally, at the highest level, religion matters because it is religion alone that delivers us to the hallowed state of unio mystica. Through this culminating experience, the human person justifies the highest purpose of his human birth, reaching its pinnacle, by manifesting hisinnate divinity. Omnipresent, but not equally manifested, God is present in all beings – but manifested most powerfully through the human person. Man alone possesses the power to manifest this omnipresent divinity through the ego-shattering experience of a God consciousness that devours lower levels of consciousness.
Given these three crucial purposes of religion, it becomes difficult to deny religion its proper place in human affairs. Yet, this is not to repudiate the significance of secularism, even in its atheistic expression. For, religion and secularism, although mutually exclusive, can co-exist. Equally, religion and ethics are also two separate spheres, with religion lending deeper meaning to ethics. It is therefore wholly possible to be ethical without being truly religious, even though ethics without religion is a sort of dead end. But the relationship between ethics and religion is asymmetrical. For, while one can be ethical without being religious, one cannot be truly religious without being ethical in the first place. The pseudo-religion we get when we claim religiosity without first being ethical, cannot help but be violent, irrational, and egotistic, thus belying the very purpose of religion, which is to exhume the curtain of the ego, to reveal the Divine within. In short, while ethics can exist without religion, religion cannot and should not exist without ethics.
What is secularism, in its best form, but an expression of ethics without religion? This seeker’s secularism expresses the insouciance of a votary who wants Truth and nothing but the Truth, therefore rejecting all that is fake in what passes as religion in his times. Insofar as Truth is God, such a secular atheist is actually deeply religious, even if unknowingly so. Yet, like religion, secularism too comes in a range, with its share of lower aspects. At the lowest level we have the violent atheistic secularism of historical forms of communism. At the mid-level, we have the atheistic secularism of the body-conscious, socially aware intellectual, who has lost touch with the God within. At the very highest, on par with the seeker’s secularism, we have the agnostic, who simply is not sure whether or not God exists. Adding to all this, we have historical forms of eclipse of the Divine, when whole civilizations deny God over a period of history. The colonizing voice of western civilization drew from centuries of descent from the Truth within, to the external truth sought by the scientific spirit – thus ushering a soul-searing cynicism that culminates in Nietzsche’s cry – “God is dead.” When I first heard this claim, I was shocked by its hubris. To this day I marvel at the effrontery inherent in Nietzsche’s proclamation.How can God,who is eternal, die – at that, by human fiat?Yet, this frank enunciation is better than the clandestine murky atheism of the religious zealot who worships the religious identity and his own ego – instead of Truth. Thus, even the eclipse of God, in its persistent search for external truth, can shower benefits – by honing our powers of discernment, and vanquishing superstition and religious credulity.
Although a conundrum, and sometimes dispensable, religion therefore matters in ways that are crucial. Despite the beauty and truth in the scientific method, religion matters in ways that science simply cannot match. Western civilization, in particular, is perhaps on the cusp of a return, away from science, in the direction of true religiosity. Swami Vivekananda, a universal divine being,is perhaps to be credited for this radical inward turn of western man.
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