INSIGHTS ON LIFE

 

Spirituality And That False Premise

As people are becoming more conscious and allowing themselves be free from the fetters of organized religion, it is important to note that if people are going to make healthy progress in their spiritual lives, they will have to squash a false premise which the spirituality movement trumpets as it validates its strides and call in seekers. 

You have heard it said that spirituality is following your own path rather than the path of another. To put it rightly, like a writer quoted, “religion is belief in someone else's experience. Spirituality is having your own experience". This statement, at face value, seem okay, but it is very misleading. Yes, no two people can experience something the same way, but everyone is under the same Sun, everyone is in the same Ocean of Truth. We may walk in different ways but same sun shine on us. We may swim in different directions but we get wet with the same water. How can two people not see the position of the Sun from the same standpoint? Think about this. 

On the spiritual path, you cannot carry on alone without the insights and wisdom of other people's experience. There are no seven billion plus paths to God for each individual on the planet. Many of us are on the same path as distant as we may be from one another. Even in your dreams when you sleep, you see people in the dream setting. They are having some similar experience with you that make them actors in your dream. 

These people who write and convince people to abandon organized religion, so that people can have an experience of their own on matters of life and existence, are doing it the wrong way. People can have spiritual experiences being adherents of organized religion, the only concern being that by virtue of unchanging dogma and theology within an organized religion an individual's experience might be hampered by what he or she believes because such belief is part of an unchanging dogma. The problem of organized religion is that it is refusing to evolve in the face of new knowledge and better understanding; it holds a handful of centuries long ideas as absolute truth, truths which science and human reason have shown to be inaccurate. 

Going forward, after a departure or independence from organized religion as the only source of truth on life and existence, the individual will seek to know and understand more, even if it is by just a minute capacity which his or her mind could take. Towards this, such individual will have to stand on the wisdom of the experience of another who has cultivated much private time to be schooled by life. If we rely on our experiences alone and our individual knowledge, we will make slow progress into spiritually mature individuals and that isn't the goal of this life. Even the author who made popular the quote that "religion is belief in someone else's experience and spirituality is having your own experience" still has people to read his books! Is it not insights gained from his own experience which he is selling to his readers? Of course, yes! I am spiritual myself and come upon glad tidings of this wonderful life. I write them and share them and I am even more joyous when a fellow learns from it. Such learning could have happened later if she hadn't read what I wrote. However, being careful about information you swallow as genuine experiences is important, many of them are junks. If they burden you and make comprehension difficult, abandon them. Truth is simplicity. 

So then, if spirituality is not only following your own experiences, it is, then, being enriched by the various experiences of others so that you, as a beautiful spiritual tree, is being watered in many ways to bear fruit. With this mindset, you can learn from the gems in the books of organized religions, discarding those within them that you don't agree with, and then learn also from the many lights flickering out of new spirituality literature. And then, it will be your spiritual responsibility to likewise share your understanding. We are all lighting the torches of one another so that at last this dark world be fully illuminated. 

Victor Negro is based in Lagos. He writes on matters of life and existence as he thinks, preferring a better understanding of common questions.