Is Rational Spirituality possible? ' Need and context of spirituality.

"We know that spirituality in any form today is a sacred pill for many to overcome emotional challenges posed by life. It may be a placebo. But it works for many. We are all tired. We are all stressed. We all need a shoulder to cry on. If spirituality is implicitly illogical, how you think should a rational human being deal with such problems? "

Correct. We live in an age when complacence is considered a sin and a problem-free job is termed as a comfort zone. Arrogance is no more a negative quality. We are all bound to be in a rat-race, and battered mind and confused brain are just innate features of a racing rat, aren't they? The horrendous turbulence of our times makes our minds fertile for all sorts of insecurities. No wonder we see monumental throngs around self-styled spiritual leaders and demigods. It is entirely disheartening to watch the desperation of unsuspecting pool souls in these agonizing days. No matter however smart or intelligent, they are all taken for a ride by a much inferior section of people. As Russell put it, the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Rationalists are human beings. I should admit that they are there in all walks of life, doing all sorts of jobs, undergoing similar stresses and pains of everyday life just as believers do. Being a rationalist is sometimes very painful. You should live with the idea that you are the only one who has got control over your actions and emotions, and there is no external force out there to help you out. Come hell or high water, you have to safeguard yourself.

I remember a reader of Richard Dawkin’s “Selfish Gene” resenting his reading that book. He says that the sheer realization that a human being is nothing but a carrier of DNA and is no different from any other organism had so powerful an impact on his life that it shattered his very love towards life. Cases like this are in plenty.

A rationalist is bound to be much courageous than his spiritual counterpart.

"So, you agree that spiritual, God-fearing human beings are happier, correct?"

If I say a blatant "no" to your question, that is not going to hold water. But I am not sure if that is true happiness. If I can quote Bernard Shaw here, the fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

Having said that, the fact remains that most rationalists are still either confused or are caught themselves in the relentless struggle to endure mounting peer-pressure: especially in a country like India. I think this inevitable disarray of emotions that ultimately forces a genuine thinker to abandon his rational outlook is something that has been the biggest impediment between modern society and a paradigm-shift in Indian perception of rationalism. That is precisely why a free-thinking society is still far from a reality.

So, before proceeding further, let us assume that spirituality is a good thing. It may be the need of the hour. May be it is not. But it is definitely not something bad. Anything that assists life can not be bad.

"Swami, why should it take a full-length explanation like that to assume spirituality is not bad? It is inherently good, isn't it? Even if it might lack rational explanation to some degree, all it has been doing was helping people to reflect, introspect, meditate or to perform any such harmless activity around ' right? Then why should one be careful when advocating Spirituality?"

 For one, as you said, anything that lacks a rational explanation should be taken with a pinch of salt by an inquiring mind. But that is not the only problem with the theme of Spirituality. There is one much more hazardous dimension to it:

Spirituality is such an abstract idea is that it can easily be wangled or molded based on someone's vested interests. The greatest historical evidence that is in favor of this argument is the fact that the re-invention of a class of spirituality lies with Fascistic notions prevailed around the time of World War II. The severe antagonism that the fascists managed to maintain against the Jews was morally justified as a struggle against "decadence." For fascists, decadence meant all worldly-minded notions. Jews were considered to be the most decadent of all. Spirituality, for them, was just the opposite of decadence ' "kill the decadents, long live Spirituality"! Now, how is that?

Here, spirituality was a powerful weapon to dress them up against the enemy and was a perfect catalyst to their predatory ambitions. The minds of the followers were so transformed with such an approach that it transcended all materialistic and social considerations and managed to generate a great degree of self-discipline and virility. This "spiritual" attitude involved a certain emotional non-indulgence that helped them avoid feelings of pity for their victims. This mindset does have rough similarity with what jihadi terrorism and other forms of religious extremism have. For them, the moral justification of their deeds lies in a skewed version of spirituality. Hard to conceive ' but a fact!

"That's an interesting observation. Now, let me ask you a very different, but very important question. The world saw, and is still seeing, a host of great teachers and spiritual Gurus. Are you saying that they all lack conviction and accuracy? Didn't any of them provide us with enough guidelines to approach Spirituality from a rationalistic point of view?"

Swami prepared to answer that question by stretching his arms to get his cigarette case. Dabbing a cigarette lightly on the dial of his wrist watch, he quietly fixed his dark brown eyes on me, and went on to be his best eloquent self.

Next:  Spirituality minus religion, Part-3: Is Rational Spirituality possible ' What do some of the best minds have to say?

Finally, I managed to pull in Swami The Rationalist to an area where I could take on him so confidently - Spirituality !

That day Swami's room was scarcely lit - as always. But it didn’t stop me from ascertaining the silhouette of that familiar wavy gray hair and off-white kurta. Swami doesn’t like too much light. He never does.

While asking questions this time, my voice was rather shaky, for some reason. I might be so excited about the subject.

"Swami, listen carefully. Is any life without spirituality worth living ? What is man without a soul ? Sorry to say this, but your philosophy of considering humans as a mere collection of molecules is not only rubbish , but is sort of intellectual arrogance. "

Answer was interrogative: "Will you please tell me what spirituality is ?"

Bewildered, I searched for words. But swami himself came to my rescue :

"I don’t know what spirituality means to you. It’s a very weird and complex term, and is highly subjective. This extreme subjectivity associated with this word has been endorsed by even its prime proponents. So, let me first discuss the most universally accepted version of spirituality and evaluate it.

The history of spirituality may be something like this: For centuries, the cognition had flummoxed genuine philosophers as well as religious manipulators. While the normal thinking process was found to be in response to sensory perceptions and acquired learning, the processes too complex to interpret were attributed a state of mind that could be “reached” by systematic harnessing of cognition.

Now, here comes the interesting point. The normal thought-process is so mundane it was not bracketed together with the “sublime cognition”. Even though it is a very simple logic to assume that both the basic and controlled thought-processes are just different statuses of the same attribute of a live human ( we call this attribute mind ), the latter, due to its complexity, managed to put on a sort of hallow of romance around it. This sublime cognition thus demanded a new name and it did get a new name - spirituality !

The word spirituality is related with the theory of “spirit”. The theory is simple and have an astounding universality and acceptance among religions. This theory, putting simply, says that “spirit” is said to be instilled into life-forms by of course, the super-natural. This spirit is responsible for keeping the life-form alive and thinking. As you are familiar with the computer jargon, you may roughly draw some parallel with the “server-client” paradigm here. Spirit, according to this theory, acts as an agent of the super-natural inside the body, and it makes it think the way it needs to.

While one can not easily “feel” the presence of spirit inside him during a normal thinking session, he can do so by the a systematic and meditative process - how cute ! The fakers were simply cashing in on the infinite possibilities of human mind !

"If there is no "spirit", then where do all these feelings come from ? "

"Let us leave the world of fiction and get into the realm of reality. Even from the time of Democritus, there were other pursuits going on braving the metaphysical onslaughts. You would be surprised to know that Democritus, way back in 4th century BC, actually proposed that thinking and perception are nothing but ” the properties of matter put together in a sufficiently fine and complex way” , and not due to some external forces putting “spirit” into the body. This theory is not very different from the most realistic explanation of cognition that exists today. It is just that it has been proved beyond all conjectures.

I don’t think I should detail that any further. We are living in an age where highly complex phenomena like extra-sensory perception and out-of-the body experiences are scientifically or even empirically explained. We will come back to this later.We now know that hallucinatory experiences can be brought about through direct stimulation of the exposed brain, as in cases of local cortical arousal under the neurosurgeon’s stimulating electrode.

In short, for a human being, spirituality is hard-wired. It is all about stimulating some portion of your brain. Yet - spiritual experience is as pleasurable as sex and as natural as breathing. It is not the proverbial 'enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a mystery."

" Swami. My worry is this : can your rationalism provide even an ounce of the inner-peace and tranquility, as against the profoundest of them that a simple session of meditation can offer ? “

” I am afraid we are harping on much regurgitated subjects. I hate to do this. Science vs. Religion or Religion with and without spirituality and all that stuff. But yes, some subjects are ever-green and incessant. So let me try to make my stand very clear about this timeless issue as well.

You are quite right. Meditation in any form , may it be a prayer or a concentration-practice-session , does make positive effects on one’s mental state. The issue is in calling this as religious spirituality and clubbing it with ritual- ridden religions.

But , wait - is religion really necessary to do this stimulation ? Is meditation is a monopoly of one or more religions ?

The guidelines of today’s religions , as I see it, can be categorized broadly into four categories. ( You may call them as pillars of religious restrictions or something - swami laughs). I may be oversimplifying , but I sure I am very close to reality :

Theological - what should come to your mind when you hear the word “God”

Behavioral - what you should do daily /monthly/ annually being in that religion , coupled with dress codes and all that.

Communal - who are your friends and who are not

Spiritual - when, how and where you should do your prayer

The degree of importance of each of these guideline categories varies from one religion to another. That is not my area of interest here. What you have to keep your focus on is my short description of the “spiritual" type. They just ask you when, how and where you should do your prayer (Buddhism may be an exception. I will come to that later).Nothing more. Nothing less. If somebody tries to add something more to ritualistic spirituality, that is distorting the truth.

To me, spirituality is the pursuit of your existence. It is everything you think and dream. It is your memory and intelligence. It is your conscience and subconscious. It is you minus your body.You got the clue here ? A man is doing service to his spiritual self when he thinks about himself and his existence.Thus spirituality has more to do with science than with religion ! Inconceivable , but a fact !

Religions explore a meager fraction of the grand terrain of spirituality. They scratch on the surface. But since they were really the first ones who taught you how to scratch, they are still synonymous with spirituality.

Next : Spirituality minus religion: Is rational spirituality possible ?

We were more serious when we met each other the next day. I was eager to sell some of the points I managed to thought out earlier that day.

“Swami, so you are saying that Religions did , or they still do, more harm than good. Let me remind you of their tremendous contribution to human civilization. Can you ever play down their roles in almost everything on which humanity has been thriving - be it art, music, philosophy, knowledge, literature, social living, culture and even science itself ? How would you possibly overlook religion in the very context of human existence ?”

“Ah ! Sounds like a brilliant point ! But is it plain truth ? Let me remind you in return my dear, that religions were made to align with human affinities and instincts, and not the other way around. Art and literature are natural upshots of the cognitive pursuits inherent with a creature like human being. Our artists have been expressing whatever they feel strongly about, and among them was ( not necessarily “is”) religion. God and religion have been the color and texture of our social fabric for centuries .Undeniably so.

Now let’s attempt to fancy the extreme .What would have happened in the absence of religions ? Do you think there would have been no creativity or aesthetics or passion or romanticism ? I don’t know what your answer to this is, but mine won’t be in the affirmative .Most rationalists and positivists are rather passionate than utilitarian.They are more sensitive towards pain and suffering than most men of religion. Many of the best novelists, poets, philosophers and artists were secularists or even downright atheists. Of course, there was a time when everything was centered about religions. Talent and genius were no exceptions. No brainiac could help coming in terms with this reality. Some were genuinely devoted, some just adjusted, and some even pretended to had been religious ( remember, being alive and well is as important as being true to one’s conscience ( laughs)). Some , however, were smart enough to manipulate beliefs in their favor, knowing fully what they were doing. Let’s not discuss it now.

It is exceedingly wrong to presume that all not-so-materialistic stuff around - whether it is aesthetic, passion or romanticism - are not in the reach of a truly secular society. In the absence of religion, there would have been different paradigms in place of what we have been seeing through ages. I don’t deny religions contributed to humankind. All I argue is that we would still have all the good things in a different form or fashion ,while we and all the future generations would have gotten away from the hazardous yet undue zealotry brought about by this entire “holy mess”.

And my dear boy - at least please don’t speak about religions contributions to science. It is the contribution of trying to burn the scientist to char his ideas. Such an argument is, well, just preposterous.”

Well, then. What would you say about the deterrence generated by religions , which , for centuries, have been intimidating people from performing wrong deeds ?

“I never deny that religions were and are one of the ways of making people do right things . I should also agree to the argument that most religious preachers had all good intentions. Those prophets , demi- gods and human gods were infinitely more superior to the rest of the society intellectually, emotionally , psychologically or even, at least in some cases, physically. Their convincing prowess and leadership qualities were boundless. Just as any other great leader, each of them left monumental impacts on the way we live, the way we think.

Just as any other ideology, religions took root, bloomed, flourished and managed to influence minds and time. There was nothing so unnatural about this establishment of supernatural. It is but too innate a characteristic with humans to follow, never caring for a rational evaluation, the best and the most powerful among them. And those superior ones found it to be much more effective to influence society through impalpable themes than through empirical presentations.

Smart men invented religions and sold them to their cognitively challenged counterparts. They were needed at one point in time. They were historical necessities. They were, and still are, the most influential ideologies around.

But tell me concretely how much good did they do anyway despite the fair intentions of their founding proponents ? There may be more number of deaths on this planets while carrying out the agenda of the implementers of religions than those in all other human tragedies put together. Religions can easily be held responsible for the countless blood clots on the pages of history, that spans from the prehistoric pagan clashes for instituting dominance of their local deities to Jihadi terrorism, from supranational conflicts between Reformation & Counter-Reformation in medieval Europe to Holocaust and from Aurangzebian atrocities to systematic ethnic-cleansing in Croatia ! “


“Wait a minute. I don’t think is very wise to argue that religions are responsible for all the clashes in this world. Do you think there would not have been a Hitler if there were no Judaism or Christianity ? How will you account for centuries-long deadly hostility among the European nations despite their religious homogeneity ? What is your say on the still prevalent caste-wars in India ? What about the kinds of violence in Rwanda, where the Hutu - Tutsy ethnic animosities had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives ? My point is , religions or no religions, men will always have their own reasons to slaughter each other”


“It is natural with every single species to fight for dominance. it is as natural as the struggle for existence. While conceding to the fact that man has got all those beastly features inscribed on his chromosomes , I should also say there are at least two-three levels of insulation over this basic carnal self, and this is what makes a human being distinct. These coatings are constituted by his inborn intellect, acquired knowledge and a host of socio-political restrictions. They should normally be strong for all humans as they are cumulative & it takes something too intensive to fuse them. And let me tell you my dear, irrational ideas is the best possible corrosive around. Let me prove it :

Although seemingly teaching love and respect , religions indirectly and sometimes inadvertently fails to teach “why” you should love in the first place - from a rational perspective.One way of driving someone away from killing is to tell about hell , other way is to convince him, in his own language, that it will be a living hell for him and his fellows down here if he kills somebody - for numerous social, legal, physical and psychological reasons. Unfortunately, religions rather go by the metaphysical way. In short, the process effectively was to teach to think irrationally first, and then ask people to be virtuous for these out of the world reasons.

Once somebody starts to think in these lines, they tend to overlook the actual human and social dimensions of their deeds. This eventually becomes a habit. Further down the line, some of us even forget all social and human aspects of any the deed. This breeds outright unscrupulousness.

Coming back to those particular examples you have kindly brought up: it is high time you went back to your history books and re-read them earnestly. Who told you Christian Europe didn’t have problems as it was “religiously homogenous” ? There are so many facts that disprove it, that I am not sure if such an argument is worth addressing. Did you forget Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants in an attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in England. Ever heard of 17th centuray massacre of French Protestants that claimed no less than 80,000 in Paris plotted by Catherine de Médicis and carried out by Roman Catholic nobles ? Do you know the then pope Gregory XIII had a medal struck to celebrate that event ? Factional beliefs within religions have been proved to be as dangerous , if not more, as inter-religious stand-offs. What better examples do you need than the eternal Hindu in-fights or Shiah-Sunni battues ?

Caste-ridden India is a bleeding admonisher of the extent of congenital misery that a belief-system can potentially bring about in the lives of human beings. How dare you put that forth to advocate the points you wanted to make ?! Shame on you ! Did you really study the roots of Rwandan violence ? Though its the gory history finds its roots in ethnic disparities, the Hutu-Tutsi run-ins were also stepped up to mammoth proportions by the infuences of organized religions in recent past . All through Rwanda’s and Burundi’s colonial histories can we find reminiscences as to how various European evangelists exploited these ethnic differences as a means of perpetuating the animosities.

So my dear friend - let’s face it. True secularism is the way forward.

There were breeze, twilight and silence, apart from Swami and me, by the riverside.

Brisk evening.

Mind elated, spirits lifted, I craved to converse with Swami.

But on what ?

Swami is a montage of paradoxes, you may not be able to agree with him all the time.

Ask him how he defines himself, and you will most likely get an answer like this - ” I am a romantic scientist, a spiritual rationalist , a Gandhian warrior and a free-market socialist ” . Or at least something that sounds similar.

“Existence is the only discrete thing for a human being. And existence have been subjected to so many interpretations, and we call them ideologies. Why can't you then focus on existence itself ? ” Blah, blah, blah..

Pedantic . Hypocritical. Isn’t he ?

Unfortunately, he is not. He is simply what he is : unpretentious, but so gallingly forthright. And he is right in his self-evaluation . He enjoys Wordsworthian poetry, Kantian philosophy and Einsteinian physics - all with the same fervor.Or it may be that he doesn’t enjoy any.

I couldn’t ever guess the ideology he actually believes in. I couldn't ever guess what he thinks in a given point in time.

Confused.

So, when I noticed him gazing some diffuse bright portion of the serene but starlit night sky, remaining firm on the bank of Vembanad Lake of Alappuzha, my first query to him , quite predictably, was this :

” Swami - are you lost in the galactic intricacies of Orion nebula , or in a more dreamy stuff like ‘..the eye of heaven shines..’ ” ?

I love watching him churning out tidbits of wisdom with his very own system of logic. I waited for reply.

Swami didn’t seem to be in a mood to answer that. His celestial stare was just getting intensified. I gave up.

I had got absorbed back in the repair of my “vintage” flashlight when I heard Swami’s virile voice, resonating majestically over Vembanad backwaters.

“How small we are , before the grandness of macrocosm !”

So what ? Cliched stuff. Everybody knows the universe is huge.
But I was happy, as I knew that comment might precede a good conversation.
I decided to take advantage of the situation just by letting off my thought :

“So what ? “

“There is an estimated minimum of ten billion trillion planets in the universe. Planets, I say. Planets like earth”.

Swami went on.

“And here we are ! The species called name Homo sapiens, thinking ourselves to be the masters of the universe. Worse still, thinking our race or country or culture or whatever possible nonsense to be the best of its kind. We fight and die for something called religion. The most engrossing point is that these stupid fights are for some stuff that we define, none of which exists in actuality ! Humans are agonizingly interesting creatures, aren’t they ? “

His teeth sparkled in a melancholic smile.

“Majority of us prefer to keep our brains occluded with ideas that lack any sense whatsoever, thereby letting ourselves fooled handily by all unfounded beliefs and ideas out there. “

“What is your point ?”

“I simply mean that it is possible to do away with most problems of the world just by doing justice to our brain & senses. Let me talk straight out : Society should believe in sensible ideas. It should start giving less and less importance to all metaphysical speculations. "

“This is plain old Rationalism, nothing new …”

Swami snorted.

“See how you scorn the very word ‘rationalism’, dear ! Regrettable , to say the least. You are closing your mind so tight it hurts your intellect. For one, you should not conceive rationalism as doctrine or an ideology, which it is not. Being a rationalist is just being true to yourself as a species that thinks; it is really as simple as that.

My rationalism here is neither a synonym of atheism, nor it is simply an offshoot of empiricism. It is much more exalted than that. Rational thinking is the mother of science, and it is not - as most of us mistakenly believe - the other way around. “

“Swami, I am trying to make sense of what you are preaching ( You donnish bore !). But tell me how defying religions helps solve world’s problems ?

“I am not defying anything. All I wish to happen is that we give more focus on things where it is due. When we attribute all that happen on something specific, that ’something’ naturally assumes unquestionable dominance of our life as a whole. If our concern is about building a better world, we would naturally be more preoccupied with the actions to that end. If we wanted just peace of mind , we would try to nurture our conscience accordingly, which would give raise to an entirely different set of actions . Now, if we consider religion to be the most significant thing in our life, we tend to overlook a host of real issues that loom us here in this world.

A man who takes materials as they are , can count every other person only as a human being, and not as one who “belongs to” another group or category.

Well, the point I want to make is simple : Worldly issues only have worldly solutions. Good that you brought up the phrase “problems of the world” here. What do you think those problems are - Poverty ? Terror ? Growing disbelief and intolerance ? Insecurity ? Or are they something else ? Now - I am not going to instruct you to follow my line of thought. You think freely and answer your own conscience. I just have two queries :

One, How many of these issues are being resolved by religions ?
Two, How many problems are because of religions ? “

I gave it a thought , and then asked :

“Swami, It can’t help agreeing with you ( but you are still too bad, old man ! ) ; many of these issues may have something to with religions. But see, religions are here for a good cause. They don’t preach violence. They ask their followers to be righteous and virtuous.”

“No ideology in this world advocates being ‘bad’. Even fascism or Nazism, for that matter. Communism is the most humane ideology for some, and the most vicious for someone else. So is Capitalism. Ideologies just theorize a set of thoughts that their proponents believe to be true. I don’t see any difference between religion and ideology. Both have some core beliefs. Both have some books-of-facts. Both discourses about ways of doing things. A religion is just an ideology based on the cognitive phenomenon called God. “

“You said cognitive ! This means that you consider God to be nonexistent !”

“Well, what I believe in doesn’t matter much. Existence of God doesn’t matter here either. That is a different topic . The discussion here is this : Which is better ? A sensible world that seeks rational, if not scientific, solutions to their issues - or - a world that struggles to feed on some historical leftovers, while it can actually afford feast on a host of other alternatives that their brains offer”.

With those words, Swami turned about and began to walk past me. Down here, Moonlight has now engulfed the Vembanadan wavelets, and up there, it has done the same on many stars and nebulas, making them entirely inconspicuous. I started thinking about the 'grandness of macrocosm'