Steven Sim

I had a short discussion over lunch with a friend of JR about spiritualism vs. religion.

It all began with him saying he is a vegan due to spiritual and health concerns when I asked him whether he is a vegan because of health or religion?

My accidental lunch mate went on to say that there is a difference between being spiritual and being religious. He said and I paraphrase, “I don’t think suicide bombers are spiritual, religious maybe but not spiritual”.

In a way, he was implying that being spiritual was some kind of higher practice than religion and without saying it, he seemed to think that spirituality includes being vegan, and probably like many others, consider spirituality as being in harmony with nature, pacifism, non-violence (and maybe sexual orgies? ;p).

I am fine with people wanting to believe in their brand of religion, “spirituality” if you like, but when you assume you’ve got the last word to say, and you’ve got the purest extract of what is religion to me and then taking a general swipe at “religionists”, then I have to ask further questions for you to ask further questions.

I asked him if he know there are those who eat others as a form of spirituality. Violence therefore does not immediately exclude an act from being spiritual, no? He said, as long as you don’t harm others.

But what about the Bhagavad Gita? One of my favourite Hindu literature. The Gita tells of Lord Krishna, the god-manifestation, expounding the concepts of bhakti, kamma and jhanna yoga to Arjuna, the princely-soldier fighting a war in the battlefield. In one instance, Krishna, also known as the Bhagavan (blessed/divine one) instructed Arjuna to fight the battle “without grief” because it was his destiny. The yoga of action (kamma yoga), i.e. living out one’s vocation in full surrender to the divine, is one path towards spiritual liberation.

How then can we say that the suicide bombers are not performing a spiritual act? Please note that I am not condoning suicide bombings or any violent acts. I am putting forth this question for the consideration of the spiritualists and new age yogis, who believe that doing certain thing is and is not spirituality. How do you judge? And how do you unbox spirituality from religion? Often, we hear how spiritualists speak as though “spirituality” is the pure distilled water from the muddled pool of religion. As if religion is the lower level practice of which the higher level is spirituality.

And as if spirituality merely means the disembodied “thing” concerned with abstract non physical stuff like souls and wholeness and aura.

Let’s not forget that the great Gandhi, the Mahatma (great Soul), saw something as mundane as spinning the cotton wheel linked to the concept of swaraj (self-rule), a political term yes, but no less a spiritual term for the great statesman-satyagrahi-brahmacharya (disciple of the Brahma [divine reality-god]). His philosophy of resistance was not merely political but as satyagraha, it was a profound spiritual act. Incidentally, the Mahatma was one of the modern commentator of the Gita.

I didn’t really say all that to my vegan lunch mate. I did ask one or two questions to encourage him to consider further his stance on spirituality and religion. But nothing more than that, it was a quick lunch and I do not think confrontation has a place on the dining table. I finally ended our brief discussion with an acknowledgement of my inability to differentiate between religion and spirituality, and said that, I’d better keep to religion.

Of course, I know that some of our spiritualist friends really meant that they are against the bad stuff followers of organized religions do. I concur. But I think that should not cloud us from the real stuff about religions. If we really want to be technical to separate the both, I think I will say, religion gives spirituality its context, spirituality gives religion its dynamics. But seriously, deep inside, I sincerely think they are really really difficult to differentiate.

One of my favourite theologian (yup, bad word, bad bad word) who happens to be the leader of one of the world’s most institutionalized religious movements, the Anglican Church, recently preached an interesting sermon. I think it was very spiritual. It was titled, the Politics of Human Dignity. Organized religion, a state church, a theologian, an academician (Cambridge & Oxford), politics and parliament. Not the usual ingredient of vegan spiritualism. But read for yourself how he celebrate the divine reality and humanity amidst the struggling in our complex and chaotic world. Read here, if you have the patience to meditate and read slowly till the end, that is.

Some excerpts:

“So in the gospel story of the tribute money, Jesus refuses to make a neat opposition between Caesar and God, as his critics want him to. By all means, he says, pay your debts to the political order, give Caesar what belongs to him. If you are profiting from Caesar’s government, don’t grumble about paying Caesar’s taxes. But never forget that the ultimate point of any human political order is giving God what belongs to God – setting human agents free, acknowledging and reinforcing the dignity in which God has clothed them”

“…a political renewal that looks for a vital, decisive commitment to human dignity and social trust will not get far without a capacity to tune in to the themes of religious practice, the narratives and rhythms of embodied faith, not least, though not exclusively, in the life of the established Church”

(Photo: Gandhi and his spinning wheel.Source: The Internet)

One may also be interested in a recent post by my friend on An Understanding of Christian Spirituality.