His face fell

[Written May 25th, 2006.]

A few weeks ago I started a new blog, not knowing where it would lead. Like a dog sniffing a trail and straining at the leash, it seems to have led towards questioning “spirituality”. Do I really want to use this word to describe the important stuff that happens deep inside us?

No matter how we try to redefine it, “spirituality” sits on the shoulders of religions, and they go back thousands of years. They all seem to involve sacrifice. In the Old Testament, Israelites slit the throats of lambs and goats and offered them to God. According to Christians, Jesus went a stage further and offered himself on the Cross, so that our sins would be forgiven. Spiritual seekers in more recent times take it as given that to “gain spiritually”, whatever that means, it is necessary to renounce something. Christians have Lent, Muslims have Ramadan, Buddhists have detachment etc. The New Age religion has all sorts of things to renounce, together with new reasons for it too: chauvinism, junk food, couch potatoism, polluting the planet, cruelty to animals, war, anything “gross” that they identify as the new evil. But just like the old religions, the New Age one doesn’t lead its followers into wisdom, peace and joy. It leaves them in a state of perpetual neurotic striving, or perpetual smug hypocrisy.

So I’ve given up spirituality, just as I gave up religion, meditation and God, on account of their divisiveness. They make their devotees feel superior to others. They divide us against ourselves and make us feel guilty.

I don’t really believe in “spirit” at all. Spirit for the ancients was that invisible substance which gives life when we breathe and leaves our body after our last breath. A potent image to be sure, but it has gone too far.

What’s left? I feel more connected than ever, but I don’t bother asking what I’m connected to. If I were pressed on the subject, I would say that my personal religion is “communing with Nature”. But that misses the point. There are depths in all of us, and it doesn’t matter what stirs those depths. The foolishness is to cherish beliefs without experience, because that is when the wars start.

The young man behind the counter at the petrol station is a born-again Muslim. By way of Muzak, he was playing a Koranic recitation. He spoke of his beard, Mohammed, going to Mecca, recognising holiness in all the prophets including Jesus. As he spoke, his eyes sparkled, his presence was almost angelic. “As long as you believe in God . . .” he said. I told him I had given up all beliefs including that one, and felt better for it. Poor fellow! His face fell.