The Spiritual is Not Simply Religion-Lite
In all spiritual studies, there seems a draw to get behind the veil of phenomenal experience, to see the interconnected or singular reality, to experience cosmic illumination. I do not call it religion, for systematized religious dogmatism, has little to do with seeing things from an a-perspectival transcendency, as it is more concerned with making distinctions and drawing separation between groups. There is a profound “us vs. them” mentality in the world’s major religions, especially in their fundamentalist forms, that threatens to remove humanity from a path leading to an ever-deepening acknowledgment that back of all ego there is a creative force shaping all things. Whether that force be an actual substance or simply a means of framing existence is not at issue here, for what such thought does is remove the tendentious creations of a mind bent on discriminating. Such discrimination is replaced by contemplation in the realm of figuring out how differences are merely aspects of a greater whole. In that place there can be no more hatred, in that place there can be true understanding and forgiveness.
Erich Fromm, in his book The Art of Loving, when talking about divine love stated: “...God becomes what he potentially is in monotheistic theology, the nameless One, an inexpressible stammer, referring to the unity underlying the phenomenal universe, the ground of all existence; God becomes truth, love, justice. God is I, inasmuch as I am human.” There is no shame or guilt, doubt or despair, no focus on what is lacking, only a celebration of what is, in the human creature, a presence of beauty and grandeur waiting to be awoken to.
J. Bronowski, in his book The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, when discussing the creative and imaginative potential in the human person stated:
“The mind, like the hydrogen atom, so long as you do not look at it, is allowed to reach one of an infinite number of answers, and only when action is demanded of it does it come up with a definite answer. But the action now is not an action of the brain -- it is an action of the whole person”
Later in the book he states:
“The creative personality is always one that looks on the world as fit for change and on himself as an instrument for change.”
The actions of a broken person, one who believes themself to be only pieces waiting to be fixed or made whole, will always falter, hobbling as if wearing only one shoe. The celebration of life, of imaginative potential, is a journey from out of present wholeness, a knowledge that every step taken is a step vibrating in an interconnected fashion with all else even beyond what is personally known.
During a speech at Whittier, Ernest Holmes, founder of Science of Mind, had an experience where he was caught up in an illuminating realization of the transcendental connection of all, an experience that at first seemed to be answered by that of ineffable silence, in fact, he even stated that he could no longer go on. However, I don’t believe silence or, perhaps better, the absence of sound, was his true answer. Rather it served as a resounding shout to the heavens that there existed a quality of experience that went beyond words, that must be felt by each one of us as we come into the realization of our shared divinity and the cosmic constancy of an imagination bound only within the limits of the entire cosmos.
In that knowing, however, in that supreme experience of self-ness, cosmic illumination, there lies the absence of that very self or ego focus, as we see the singularity of the Universe lying not in front of us like an open sea but flowing in and around us, a maelstrom of creative potential throwing up possibility after possibility. We behold that our individuation is cause for celebration only in the context of our interconnection with all other divine manifestations. We are not a palette of only one color, but the entirety of the spectrum, eagerly waiting for the inexpressible stammer of an illumined existence.