Secularism, Religion and Spirituality(no url)

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Secularism, Religion and Spirituality by Kittu Reddy

 

A new word has recently been cast into the shifty language of politics,-

alanguage of self-illusion and deliberate delusion of others, which

almostimmediately turns all true and vivid phrases into a jargon, so that men

mayfight in a cloud of words without any clear sense of the thing they

arebattling for,-it is the word secularism.The Late Prime Minister Indira

Gandhi introduced this word into the IndianConstitution in the mid-seventies

during the Emergency. Since then the wordsecularism has become the battle cry

of political parties, intellectuals andopinion makers in India; it has been

used as a tool and a stick to decryanyone with a different viewpoint and has

created more confusion thanunderstanding and harmony. So the terms now being

bandied about by the mediaare secularists, pseudo-secularists, and

non-secularists. As a consequence,there is a great confusion in the minds of

the average Indian as to whatsecularism really means.It will therefore be both

useful and interesting to try to trace the origin,history, and meaning of the

word secularism. This exercise might help inclearing the misunderstandings and

pave the way for a more harmoniouspolity. The word secularism is not essentially

of Indian origin, rather itis a product of modern Western history and

civilization and has now become apart of the vocabulary of all governments in

the world.

The Western mindLet us therefore take a look at modern Western history and the

mindset ofits people in order to understand its psychological roots. The first

pointto note is that it was during the reign of Constantine in 324 AD

thatChristianity became the State religion of the Roman Empire. Before

thatthere was no State religion any where in the world. It must also be

notedthat the first religious wars in history were fought between the

Christiansand the Muslims during the Crusades in the tenth and eleventh

centuries.Let us analyze the characteristic trends of the Western mind. There

are twothings especially that distinguish the normal European mind. Its

twosignificant characters are firstly the cult of the inquiring,

defining,effective, practical reason and secondly the cult of life. All the

greatdevelopments and the high tides of European civilization, Greek culture,

theRoman empire before Constantine, the Renascence, and the modern age with

itstwo colossal idols, Industrialism and physical Science, have come to theWest

on the strong ascending urge of this double force. Whenever the tide ofthese

powers has ebbed, the European mind has entered into much confusion,darkness,

and weakness. This was the period of the middle Ages, known alsoas the Dark

Ages; it began from the time of Constantine when he madeChristianity the State

religion right up to the period of the Renaissanceand the Reformation in the

15th century. During that period the Church wasthe dominant power in Europe.

The Roman Empire was in a state of decay,disorder, and lawlessness and it was

the Christian religion that broughtsome kind of light. Appealing to the poor,

the oppressed and the ignorant,it captured the soul and the ethical being, but

cared little or not at allfor the thinking mind; it was content that the mind

should remain indarkness if the heart could be brought to feel religious truth.

Later in thefifth century when the barbarians captured the Western world, it was

in thesame way content to Christianize them, but made it no part of its

functionto intellectualize them. Distrustful even of the free play of

intelligence,Christian ecclesiasticism and monasticism became

anti-intellectual; it wasonly when the Arabs came in contact with Europe that

the beginnings ofscientific and philosophical knowledge were reintroduced into

asemi-barbarous Christendom; and it needed the spirit of the Renaissance anda

long struggle between religion and science to complete the return of afree

intellectual culture in the re-emerging mind of Europe. Thus althoughthe

Christian religion humanized Europe in certain ethical directions, itfailed to

spiritualize Europe; and this happened because it ran counter tothe two master

instincts of the European mind - the cult of reason and thecult of life. The

Christian religion denied the supremacy of the reason andsuppressed the urge

for a satisfied fullness of life. As a naturalconsequence there was a revolt

and the movements of the Renaissance andReformation overthrew ChristianitySince

then religion was put aside in a corner of the soul and was forbiddento

interfere in the activities of the human being and this was done on theground

that the intermiscence of religion in science, thought, politics,society, life

in general had been and must be a force for retardation,superstition,

oppressive ignorance. That was the beginning of the modernage of Europe and

it was an age of great progress in all the fields of humanactivity. It was a

time of great activity, of high aspiration, of deepsowing, of rich

fruit-bearing; it was also a time when humanity got rid ofmuch that was cruel,

evil, ignorant, dark, odious, not by the power ofreligion, but by the power of

the awakened intelligence and of humanidealism and sympathy; and it was from

this time onward that thepredominance of religion has been violently attacked

and rejected by thatportion of humanity which was then the standard-bearer of

thought andprogress, Europe after the Renascence, modern Europe.The tendency to

secularism is a necessary and inevitable consequence of thecult of life and

reason when it is divorced from their inmost inlook. Theearly Christian

religion in its origin and essence, like all orientalreligious thought claimed

to make religion commensurate with life; it aimedat spiritualising the whole

being and its action. But the later version ofChristianity as it was practiced

was a secular institution which did notlook beyond a certain supraphysical

sanction and convenient aid to thegovernment of this life. And even then the

tendency was to philosophise andreason away the relics of the original

religious spirit in order to get intowhat they called, the clear sunlight of

the logical and practical reason.But modern Europe after the Renaisssance and

the Reformation went fartherand to the very end of this way. In order to shake

off the obsession of theChristian idea, modern Europe separated religion from

life, from philosophy,from art and science, from politics, from the greater

part of social actionand social existence. And it secularised and rationalised

all humanactivity so that it might stand in itself on its own basis; it had no

needof any aid from religious sanction or mystic insistence. In this

evolutionreligion was left aside, an impoverished system of belief and ceremony

towhich one might or might not with very little difference to themarch

of the human mind and life. Its penetrating and colouring power hadbeen reduced

to a faint minimum; a superficial pigmentation of dogma,sentiment and emotion

was all that survived this drastic process.

The Indian mindBut in India there has been neither this predominance of reason

and thelife-cult nor any incompatibility of these two powers with the

religiousspirit. Reason and life were not opposed to religion and spirituality.

Thegreat ages of India, the strong culminations of her civilization andculture,

-in India the high Vedic beginning, the grand spiritual stir of theUpanishads,

the wide flood of Buddhism, Vedanta, Sankhya, the Puranic andTantric religions,

the flowering of Vaishnavism and Shaivism in the southernkingdoms-have come in

on a surge of spiritual light and a massive or intenseclimbing of the religious

or the religio-philosophic mind to its ownheights, its noblest realities, its

largest riches of vision and experience.And this happened because in India

philosophy and religion, - philosophymade dynamic by religion and religion

enlightened by philosophy- have alwaysco-existed in harmony. It was in such

periods that intellect, thought,poetry, the arts, and the material life

flowered into splendour. The ebbingof spirituality brought in always, on the

contrary, the weakness of theseother powers, periods of fossilization or at

least depression of the powerof life, tracts of decline, even beginnings of

decay. Even in its period ofdecline, the religious spirit saved it. And this

was proved vividly in the14th century and later in the 19th century when it

seemed that Indiancivilization was going down under the onslaught of the Muslim

and Britishrule respectively. We can therefore say that all great awakenings in

India,all her periods of mightiest and most varied vigour, have drawn

theirvitality from the fountainheads of some deep religious awakening.

Whereverthe religious awakening has been complete and grand, the national

energy ithas created has been gigantic and puissantThis is a clue to which we

have to hold if we would understand the greatlines of divergence between the

East and the West.We thus see that the Indian temperament is radically

different from theWestern temperament. What is good for the West is not

necessarily good forIndia. Neither is there any question of superiority or

inferiority. They areonly two orbs of the same world culture.The question now

arises as to what is the place of secularism in India. Ifby secularism is meant

the separation of religion from life and all itsactivities, then it goes

contrary to the natural Indian temperament. Suchsecularism cannot have any

place in India; for the religious power andinstinct is too strong and powerful

here; more as already seen, it has beenthe central motive force behind all

Indian development. It will be thereforeimpossible to separate religion from

life and all its activities. If on theother hand secularism means that all

religions have an equal place that isnothing new; it did not need the political

class or the intelligentsia toreveal this truth. For this concept has been the

very essence of all Indianreligious thought right from the Vedic times till

today. Indian religion hasalways given equal importance and place to every

approach to God and that isthe reason why all the religions in the world find

place in India. No othercountry in the world has all the religions being

practiced with as muchvigour and freedom as in India.We may conclude therefore

that the word secularism is quite irrelevant andout of place in the Indian

context.

Religion and SpiritualityReligion then has been one of the dominant motivating

forces of Indianculture. But the governing force of Indian culture was not

religion butspirituality. A spiritual aspiration was the governing force of

Indianculture, its core of thought, its ruling passion. It not only

madespirituality the highest aim of life, but it also tried, as far as

thatcould be done in the past conditions of the human race, to turn the whole

oflife towards spirituality. But since religion is in the human mind the

firstnative, if imperfect form of the spiritual impulse, this predominance of

thespiritual idea necessitated a casting of thought and action into

thereligious mould and a persistent filling of every circumstance of life

withthe religious sense; it demanded and created an

all-pervadingreligio-philosophic culture. It is true that the highest

spirituality movesin a free and wide air far above that lower stage of seeking

which isgoverned by religious form and dogma. But man does not arrive

immediately atthat highest inner elevation and, if it were demanded from him at

once, hewould never arrive there. Therefore Indian culture created a

strongreligious base with the intention of leading man gradually from religion

tospirituality.But at the same time it was aware of the serious limitations in

the practiceof religion. Let us then see the limitations of religion and what

we have toguard against.The first and most serious limitation of religion is

when it becomes creedaland insists on the existence of one God only, one sacred

book, and oneapproach. This leads to narrowness and to fanaticism.Another

serious defect is that religion often lays exclusive stress onintellectual

dogmas, forms, and ceremonies, on some fixed and rigid moralcode, on some

religio-political or religio-social system. Not that thesethings are altogether

negligible or that they must be unworthy orunnecessary or that a spiritual

religion need disdain the aid of forms,ceremonies, creeds or systems. On the

contrary, man needs them because thelower members have to be exalted and raised

before they can be fullyspiritualized, before they can directly feel the spirit

and obey its law. Anintellectual formula is often needed by the thinking and

reasoning mind, aform or ceremony by the aesthetic temperament or other parts

of theinfrarational being, a set moral code by man's vital nature in their

turntowards the inner life. But these things are aids and supports, not

theessence; precisely because they belong to the rational and

infrarationalparts, they can be nothing more and, if too blindly insisted on,

may evenhamper the suprarational light. Such as they are they have to be

offered toman and used by him, but not to be imposed on him as his sole law by

aforced and inflexible domination. In the use of them toleration and

freepermission of variation is the first rule which should be observed.

Thespiritual essence of religion is alone the one thing supremely needful,

thething to which we have always to hold and subordinate to it every

otherelement or motive.We also see that religion has often stood violently in

the way of philosophyand science, burned a Giordano Bruno, imprisoned a

Galileo, and so generallymisconducted themselves in this matter that philosophy

and science had inself-defence to turn upon Religion and rend her to pieces in

order to get afree field for their legitimate development; and this because men

in thepassion and darkness of their vital nature had chosen to think that

religionwas bound up with certain fixed intellectual conceptions about God and

theworld which could not stand scrutiny, and therefore scrutiny had to be

putdown by fire and sword; scientific and philosophical truth had to be

deniedin order that religious error might survive.Another shortcoming of

religion is that a narrow religious spirit oftenoppresses and impoverishes the

joy and beauty of life, either from anintolerant asceticism or, as the Puritans

attempted it, because they couldnot see that religious austerity is not the

whole of religion, though it maybe an important side of it, is not the sole

ethico-religious approach toGod, since love, charity, gentleness, tolerance,

kindliness are also andeven more divine, and they forgot or never knew that God

is love and beautyas well as purity.In the field of politics too religion has

often thrown itself on the side ofpower and resisted the coming of larger

political ideals, because it wasitself, in the form of a Church, supported by

power and because it confusedreligion with the Church, or because it stood for

a false theocracy,forgetting that true theocracy is the kingdom of God in man

and not thekingdom of a Pope, a priesthood or a sacerdotal class.Similarly

religion has often supported a rigid and outworn social system,because it

thought its own life bound up with social forms with which ithappened to have

been associated during a long portion of its own historyand erroneously

concluded that even a necessary change there would be aviolation of religion

and a danger to its existence. As if so mighty andinward a power as the

religious spirit in man could be destroyed by anythingso small as the change of

a social form or so outward as a socialreadjustment! This error in its many

shapes has been the great weakness ofreligion as practiced in the past and the

opportunity and justification forthe revolt of the intelligence, the aesthetic

sense, the social andpolitical idealism, even the ethical spirit of the human

being against whatshould have been its own highest tendency and law.These are

the limitations of religion and we must become aware of it.

The solutionWhere then is the solution? The solution lies in not in getting rid

ofreligion but in the words of Dr Abdul Kalam in graduating from religion

tospirituality. This is beautifully illustrated in the following passage

fromSri Aurobindo: "India can best develop herself and serve humanity by

beingherself and following the law of her own nature. This does not mean, as

somenarrowly and blindly suppose, the rejection of everything new that comes

tous in the stream of Time or happens to have been first developed orpowerfully

expressed by the West. Such an attitude would be intellectuallyabsurd,

physically impossible, and above all unspiritual; true spiritualityrejects no

new light, no added means, or materials of our humanself-development. It means

simply to keep our centre, our essential way ofbeing, our inborn nature and

assimilate to it all we receive, and evolve outof it all we do and create.

Religion has been a central preoccupation of theIndian mind; some have told us

that too much religion ruined India,precisely because we made the whole of life

religion or religion the wholeof life, we have failed in life and gone under. I

will not answer, adoptingthe language used by the poet in a slightly different

connection, that ourfall does not matter and that the dust in which India lies

is sacred. Thefall, the failure does matter, and to lie in the dust is no sound

positionfor man or nation. But the reason assigned is not the true one. If

themajority of Indians had indeed made the whole of their lives religion in

thetrue sense of the word, we should not be where we are now; it was

becausetheir public life became most irreligious, egoistic,

self-seeking,materialistic that they fell. It is possible, that on one side we

deviatedtoo much into an excessive religiosity, that is to say, an

excessiveexternalism of ceremony, rule, routine, mechanical worship, on the

otherinto a too world-shunning asceticism which drew away the best minds who

werethus lost to society instead of standing like the ancient Rishis as

itsspiritual support and its illuminating life-givers. But the root of

thematter was the dwindling of the spiritual impulse in its generality

andbroadness, the decline of intellectual activity and freedom, the waning

ofgreat ideals, the loss of the gust of life.Perhaps there was too much

religion in one sense; the word is English,smacks too much of things external

such as creeds, rites, an external piety;there is no one Indian equivalent. But

if we give rather to religion thesense of the following of the spiritual impulse

in its fullness and definespirituality as the attempt to know and live in the

highest self, thedivine, the all-embracing unity and to raise life in all its

parts to thedivinest possible values, then it is evident that there was not too

much ofreligion, but rather too little of it-and in what there was, a too

one-sidedand therefore an insufficiently ample tendency. The right remedy is,

not tobelittle still farther the age long ideal of India, but to return to its

oldamplitude and give it a still wider scope, to make in very truth all thelife

of the nation a religion in this high spiritual sense. This is thedirection in

which the philosophy, poetry, art of the West is, still more orless obscurely,

but with an increasing light, beginning to turn, and evensome faint glints of

the truth are beginning now to fall across politicaland sociological ideals.

India has the key to the knowledge and consciousapplication of the ideal; what

was dark to her before in its application,she can now, with a new light,

illumine; what was wrong and wry in her oldmethods she can now rectify; the

fences which she created to protect theouter growth of the spiritual ideal and

which afterwards became barriers toits expansion and farther application, she

can now break down and give herspirit a freer field and an ampler flight: she

can, if she will, give a newand decisive turn to the problems over which all

mankind is labouring andstumbling, for the clue to their solutions is there in

her ancientknowledge. Whether she will rise or not to the height of her

opportunity inthe renaissance, which is coming upon her, is the question of her

destiny".