Many scholars of world religions use the term spirituality without actually explaining what they mean by spirituality. Each one has his/her own understanding of spirituality drawn from their respective religious traditions such as Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim, etc. The literal definition of spirituality is the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. I will explain my perspective of spirituality from the teachings of Jesus or dharma of Jesus, not from the religion known as Christianity. Jesus made a very clear distinction between religion and dharma on many occasions in his ministry. It is important to understand spirituality without the conditions of religion.
Understanding Religion
In order to understand spirituality, you have to understand religion and the dangers of fundamentalism. The term religion comes from the Latin word ‘religare’ which means to bind or to restrain and has been defined in over hundred different ways. Religion, a man made institution, is a totalitarian system that attempts to bring all the aspects of human life under its control through a hierarchical power structure of some kind of priesthood system. It plays an important, personal role in the life of the people.
Organized religion consists of faith in the existence of a deity and acceptance of certain beliefs related to that deity. It has a founder and the time of its origin. It includes some rituals by which the deity is approached or worshiped and rituals known as Rite of Passage. It has scripture accepted by its followers as the basis for their theology and for their religious life. It might have an institution to spread its beliefs, doctrines or creeds and centers for worship, sacraments and rituals. Apart from organized religions there are many sects and cults in the world. The positive aspect of religion is that it serves as a psychological necessity to deal with the suffering by giving faith and hope. It is not opium but a necessary placebo. The religion could become opium if people are emotionally attached to it and think that their religion is true and others are false and hate the people of other religions. Religious fundamentalism and fanaticism has been the cause for persecution, martyrdom, inquisitions, sociopolitical oppression and wars, slavery, ethnic cleansing, racial and caste discrimination. One fundamentalism demonizes the fundamentalism of another religion. This leads to the suffering of innocent people in both religions. The fundamentalist in one religion fails to understand, appreciate and accommodate the good in other’s religion.
The history of religions shows that religions are developed many years after the death of the prophets and sages. The followers developed religions in their names by making them as gods or incarnations of God by adding mythological features in their life. People were made to become worshippers rather than the followers of teachings of the sages. The priest introduced religious rituals that promised them security, prosperity and salvation. Consequently people become obsessed with rituals, feast, festivals, pilgrimages and idol worship in one form or another. It opened the way for the development of a powerful priestly system that started to control the society. This is the current situation prevailing in all religious and political worlds.
Dharma of Spirituality
The term ‘Dharma’ is a Sanskrit term, commonly known as a universal truth. It is generally understood as righteous teachings in the Indian religious literature. I understand it as moral and spiritual principles or values which help people to live a meaningful, purposeful, peaceful and joyful life in spite of all the miseries and meaningless conflict in the human experience. It transforms the life of a person. The prophets and sages mainly taught dharma to their people. The term ‘Dharma’ cannot be translated into English as ‘Religion’ that consists of faith, traditions, dogmas, mythologies, and superstitions, rituals of worship and doctrines or theologies. It consists of only moral, ethical, and spiritual values.
In my view, many great religious teachers, prophets and saints had come into different parts of the world from time to time. They taught, lived and attempted to bring change in the lives of the people for good by teaching dharma. The goal of dharma was to help people to have a spiritual experience. Unfortunately very few people practiced the dharma taught by the saints, prophets and sages in both the western and eastern countries from Socrates to Mahatma Gandhi.
Some Hindu writers use the term religion for dharma. They translate the term ‘sanatana dharma’ as ‘eternal religion’ and call Hinduism as eternal religion. In my view there is no equivalent English term for dharma. As I stated before dharma refers to the teachings of the sages in India. Buddha taught his Eight-fold principles. Similarly the Vedic sages taught dharma in India. I use the term dharma here for the moral and spiritual principles found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. People who developed religions think that their God or gods can be known and experienced by following the religion. Religions in general present only an anthropomorphic view of their God or gods because God the Ultimate Reality or Ground of Being cannot be grasped by the finite mind of man.
My view of spirituality comes from the dharma of Jesus Christ, not from Christianity. For example, the Buddhist view of spirituality and Hindu view of spirituality are not the same. Similarly, spirituality in Christianity could be different from one denomination to another. I draw my understanding of spirituality from the teachings of Jesus found in the four Gospels. His teachings on the Sermon on the Mount consisted of moral and spiritual principles which I call dharma.
Jesus made a distinction between religion and dharma while he was speaking to his audience. As I stated earlier dharma consists of moral and spiritual values. Great religious teachers mainly taught these values as unique teachings to people. Gautama Buddha and many Indian saints and sages taught dharma. Jesus’ teachings on the Sermon on the Mount to his people consisted of moral and spiritual values such as love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, justice, peace, reconciliation, prayer, humility, humanity, benevolence etc.
Transcending Religion
All of us who are born in the world are born with an empty mind that is conditioned or programmed later on by our cultural and religious environment. The mind has the power and freedom to think and transcend the conditioning. Generally the majority of the people think and behave the way they are conditioned and they do not realize that their mind is conditioned. Therefore what one believes appears to be true and real to him/her. Our mind has become captive to certain religious and political ideologies by which we try to live our life in the world. This captivity is the cause for lack of peace and harmony in society. Therefore we need to deconstruct our mental makeup and transcend our ideologies to view humanity and the world as it is. If we do that we can perceive one world and one humanity or mankind subject to many inevitable natural calamities, human suffering and death. We have no theology or philosophy with a satisfying answer to the pain in the world.
We are born in this world without choice and we are forced to go through the flow or process of our life through sickness, old age and death. We do not know what is beyond death. Instinctively we long for eternity and desire to know the unknown, the Ultimate Reality or the Ground of Being, the Ultimate Cause of the creation. But we realize that we cannot know the Infinite with a finite mind. Ultimately the responsibility comes to man to fix the problem of pain. The religions, politics and science have promised to fix the problem but it is not fixed. All man can do is to accept the reality of pain and do what all he can do is to help people to live a meaningful life here and now and limit the human suffering. Jesus taught us how we can do by word and deed out of love.
After understanding Jesus’ life and teachings I have come to understand the true spirituality of Jesus. Jesus taught us true spirituality through the Parable of Good Samaritan. This parable about the Good Samaritan is a good example of experiencing spirituality without the confinement of religion. Robbers attacked a person and left him on the road suffering and dying. Two religious people, a priest and Levite, passed by and did not care about him because they had religious duties to do. Then a Samaritan came on the same way. Samaritans are considered untouchable by the Jews who thought of themselves as the children of God. He saw the suffering man who was attacked by the robbers. He did not worry about his safety and his life. He was moved by compassion and helped him to get well. In doing so he experienced true spirituality.
True Spirituality, according to Jesus, is an inner experience of bliss that comes to a person by transcending religion and serving humanity with compassion and acts of love. Jesus demonstrated this by breaking all the barriers that divided humanity and ultimately sacrificing his life on the cross. It is this state of inner experience of joy or bliss that we should all aspire to through our spirituality.
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