I am spiritual but not religious.
I recently heard on Speaking of Faith and interview with Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. Sasso articulates the distinctions between spirituality and religion in a beautiful way, and while I point you to check out the Speaking of Faith website and podcast to hear it, I will attempt to succinctly recreate her point.
The story goes that Moses went up on the mountain and received the 10 commandments. When he came down from the mountain his face had a brightness that was too bright to look at. Something happened on that mountain, something beyond Moses. Something bigger than one person. It was the literal ‘mountain top’ experience many people talk about in their own lives.
What Moses experienced on that mountain was a Spiritual experience. It transcended words and actions and was impossible to replicate to another. While the experience was a Spiritual one, the 10 commandments were the container of that experience. The 10 commandments (not the literal rules, but the material expression) is the way in which the raw Spiritual experience was expressed to others.
(This is in a sense what she articulated. Below are my musings on this theme.)
Moses could have easily had the Spiritual experience and came off the mountain with his face aglow and not told a soul about it. He could have cherished that moment for his whole life like Golem cherished the Ring in Lord of the Rings. But, just as Golem did, to hold on to that experience, Moses would have become focused only on that to the point of going insane or entirely self focused to death. Rather, Moses shared the experience with others by way of the container, the 10 commandments.
Could this the danger of being spiritual but not religious? We become so focused on our own spirituality, not sharing with others our lives/experiences/insights/thoughts, that we turn inward and atrophy?
Reflections on Rumi
Listening to the Speaking of Faith Podcast entitled “The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi” today and ran across a few lines which I wanted to lock away for the future.
If you don’t plow the earth, it’s going to get so hard nothing grows in it. You just plow the earth of yourself. You just get moving. And even don’t ask exactly what’s going to happen. You allow yourself to move around, and then you will see the benefit.
Something you (Fatemeh Keshavarz) wrote about whirling that was so gripping to me said, for Rumi, the whirling is one way to stay centered while moving.
Ms. Keshavarz: (translating) If anyone asks you about the houris, show your face, say: like this. If anyone asks you about the moon, climb up on the roof, say: “Like this.” If anyone seeks a fairy, let them see your countenance. If anyone talks about the aroma of musk, untie your hair and say: “Like this.” If anyone asks: “How do the clouds uncover the moon?” untie the front of your robe, knot by knot, say: “Like this.” If anyone asks: “How did Jesus raise the dead?’ kiss me on the lips, say: “Like this.” If anyone asks: “What are those killed by love like?” direct him to me, say: “Like this.” If anyone kindly asks you how tall I am, show him your arched eyebrows, say: “Like this.”
So the whole ghazal (above) is a description of the physical beauty of the lover, but at the same time, it’s a fairly long poem. At the end, it leads us to blind with envy the one who says, “How can a human being reach God?” Give each of us a candle of purity, say: “Like this.” In the end, human beings can get to that candle of purity and reach God, and all human beings can do that.
