Secularism, religion and spirituality

Ever since the creation of the world, human beings have struggled to find happiness of temporal, divine and mystical standards.

They have looked for happiness through a life of pleasure and enjoyment, life of free and responsible citizens and life of mystics to discover the truth of metaphysics.

Human ideas evolved, alongside these three areas, to resolve the unending conflicts of the world, for temporal solutions to life, eternal solutions through religion and spiritual journeys to individual ecstasy.

Theoretically, there is no clash among them; but in the constant conflicting world, religion and its role in social life to some part while secularism to other parts have to share the responsibilities of the unending conflicts.

Again, failing to draw solace from either, some quarters of people move alone to solve his internal perceptual conflict from the mystical journey.

The international conflicts have emanated from accumulating national interests to a bigger pie in cases, while sometimes assigned to religion and on the enigma of religious and spiritual activities carried out by some corners.

Therefore, old patterns of conflicts or wars between nations have gone to spreading between nations and individuals or even sometimes within the individual himself.

The fight is sometimes with a bigger power than the state, while again there is the bigger fight of the individual with himself to discover and commune with metaphysics to find answers to the temporal puzzles. 

That brings the current world to a crossroads to determine which is bigger, God and His scripture or humans and human made treaties. An understanding of religion, spirituality and philosophy of governance are necessary to understand their role in making a meaning of life.

Are there conflicts among the three or perceptual anomalies that put them at loggerheads? Is secularism a concept to deny space to all religion or give unique space to some? Is the human journey directed to a lonely space of happiness of this world or hereafter?

Or is there accommodation of all from a single perspective? These will be the focal points of the article. 

Social life is guided by sources of human power and supernatural power i.e. political power composed either of only human system or a mix of human and supernatural systems.

Religion and politics are intertwined in social livelihood. The condition that religion must be rigorously excluded from political life has been the myth of the sovereign nation-state. As state and religion were indivisible in the pre-modern period, so was religion and politics.

Secularism, the product of the nation-state, has broadly been accepted as a model of governance to run worldly affairs ever since the 'Treaty of Westphalia', while religion and spirituality are largely seen as something to do with life hereafter and be observed purely as private affairs with total exclusion from political affairs.

A clear understanding of religion directs humankind to a purely regulated life with equals and just share with others. Secularists claim that religion is the source of human conflicts and peace can be maintained if it is pushed into home practice.

On the other hand,  mystics see both religion and secularism as no solution to the eternal goal of life that one should search for in the spiritual plain of individual rather than the ordered system of collective life. Let us first see religion and secularism and then spirituality and religion for a better and sequential understanding.

The problem between secularism and religion is something to do with an unclear universal definition of religion on one hand, and unpronounced spirit of secularism on the other. Karen Armstrong in her book 'Fields of Blood' states that there is no universal definition of religion; rather it is defined far and wide in different regions and for different civilizations.

The West defines religion as a coherent system of obligatory belief, institutions and rituals, centering on a supernatural God, whose practice is essentially private and hermetically sealed off from all secular activities. But in other regions, religion is translated in a much larger, vaguer and more encompassing manner in language and words.

The Arabic word 'din', comparable to religion, signifies a whole way of life to satisfy the social, spiritual and material needs of people, while at the same time fulfilling the will of God, while the Sanskrit word 'dharma' is a total concept untranslatable, which covers law, justice, morals and social life.

The Oxford Classical dictionary firmly states: 'No word either in Greek or Latin corresponds to the English "religion" or "religions"'. 

The idea of religion as a personal and systematic pursuit was entirely absent from classical Greece, Japan, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, China and India. The Treaty of Westphalia became a turning point in the history of nations because the elements it set in place were as uncomplicated as they were sweeping.

The state, not the empire, dynasty or religious confession was affirmed as the building block of European order, which established the concept of state and sovereignty. The followers of the modern world got engulfed with this concept. The two great wars that the world suffered were owing to chauvinistic nationalism.

The political question inspired a theological debate about God's governance of human affairs.

The linkage of secularism with this notion, which appeared in the Western world, can be found.  Henry Kissinger in his 'World Order' shows more interesting findings from the history of its European rise after the Treaty of Westphalia.

The Peace of Westphalia, the sum of three separate complimentary agreements, was signed at different times in different cities.

Peace of Munster of January 1684 was recognition of the Independent Dutch Republic by Spain. In October 1648, separate groupings of powers signed the Treaty of Munster and the Treaty of Osnabruck, with terms mirroring each other and incorporating key provisions by reference.

Both the main multilateral treaties proclaimed their intent as "a Christian, universal, perpetual true and sincere peace and friendship" for "the glory of God and the security of Christendom."

Interestingly, widely practised secularism closes its metaphysical views of the world beyond its declared intent and is attempting to function like a new religion in disguise. The conflict between the two is perhaps to not exclude from religious life but establish a particular religion.

Let us take a look at the conundrum of religion and spirituality. Over the course of history, religion has been perceived quite differently from spirituality.

An enigmatic relation has been drawn between the two. Some feel them to be synonymous, while some see them quite differently.

The enigmatic perceived distance between religion and spirituality is actually larger. Noah Yuval Harari in his book of 'History of Tomorrow' says that religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey. He further says that religion gives a complete description of the world, and offers a well-defined contract with pre-determined goals.

By the meaning of religion, God exists and orders behaviour in certain ways. By this clarity of deal, it allows society to define common norms and values that regulate human behaviour.

Therefore, religion is a deal between humankind and its Creator for the conduct of orderly life and collective good with regards to culture, politics and one's very view of the world. It is a tool for preserving social order and organizing large scale cooperation.

That concludes religion is not something which can be divorced from societal function.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that in order to live a moral life people need a governor who will reward virtue with happiness. It denotes clearly that this virtue can be achieved in human life through maintaining order and establishing a just society, and thus happiness can be secured in eternal life.

Spiritual journey is far from this perception. Spirituality takes people in mysterious way towards unknown destinations. The quest begins usually with some big questions like 'Who am I? What is the meaning of life?

What is God?' People readily accept the reality mentioned in the scriptures or in the sovereign constitutions, while the spiritual seekers are seldom satisfied with those. They pursue a course to find answers to the aforementioned questions, no matter where it leads them.

They take spirituality as an individual journey for union with eternal divinity, thus relegating worldly affairs to it. The seekers of spirituality see religion as only rituals and secular life a waste of time and thus attempt self-communion with the source of eternal power.

Justin Gerald mentioned in her book, "Sophie's World", that the very journey of philosophy began with questions like 'Who am I? Who is the Creator? And who created the Creator?' A few more questions crept in at the same time --- 'Where does the world come from or is there life after death?'

The objective of this philosophical messianic mission was to find the external and rationalistic meaning of religion. Failing to find all rational answers, many philosophers went out of worldly life to mysticism and disappeared.

Some returned while some didn't. Imam Gazzali followed the same path of disappearance but returned with renewed conviction that faith must be put beyond the reach or realm of reason. He returned saying it was impossible to demonstrate the existence of God by logic and rational proof.

Mystics, the early version of philosophers, drove a group of human beings to some sort of mystical journey of spirituality. Both these mystics and the Sufis had one thing in common in their axiomatic belief: "He who knows himself knows God", resonating to what Socrates said, "Know thyself".

For Sufis, religion is neither law nor theology, neither creed nor rituals but merely means the means that can destroy the ego so as to enable one to become one with the Creator. The love of God became the hallmark of this Sufism and state of annihilation became their ideal.

They believed they are able to rise above the world of metaphors. They attempted to teach people to explore the interior dimension of spirituality. The motif of a return to the primal unity is crucial in their understanding of the mystical quest.

The experience of the Sufis showed that it was possible for people to attain a vision of God that was philosophically sound without logic and rationality. Both these forms of mystics and Sufis believed that they could transcend human distinctions and find rational answers to all unknown.

The Turkish philosopher Al Farabi, popularly known as Renaissance Man, a physician and a mystic, showed that social and political concerns were central to spirituality. Similarly, Plato in his Republic argued that a good society must be led by a philosopher who ruled according to rational principles, which he was able to put across to ordinary people.

Therefore, both in human governance or religious model, the goal is the same --- to establish a just and equal society for service to ordinary people through rational principles of governance.

Religion and spirituality are quoted often as synonymous and secularism as bigger than anything above. Chauvinism, endless profit for divinely bliss in the world drives a quarter of human beings towards inhumanity through temporal governance absolved from societal responsibility, while the other quarter is enticed to self-immolation looking for oneself to divine ecstasy deducing that temporal or religious solutions fail to provide the ultimate solution of life.

At this criticality, two intellectual camps drive the current generation to seek knowledge of secularism, religion or spirituality through their guided means only. 

The individual is shrinking his world by resorting to a technological domain and seeking knowledge of his own choosing without understanding the consequences. Some go beyond technology for knowledge, seeking it either from enlightenment, renaissance, reformation, romanticism and globalisation, while some follow only theology with a conviction that it can help them reach the discovery of divine knowledge.

One needs to acquire knowledge from a combination of all co-related subjects rather than either religion or worldly affairs only. Life is to live the current world with order prescribed by both scriptures and sovereign constitutions that will guarantee a ticket to peaceful eternity.   


The writer is a regular contributor to the Asian Age