Spiritual Spelunking

April 28th, 2008 · No comments

A friend of mine, an avowed atheist, has been sending me questions about astrology and my belief system. The most recent question came a couple weeks ago and plunged me into a maze of thought. He asked:

Do you feel that your belief system is simply the explanation for the world that fits you, or is it somehow objectively superior to other systems of belief?

Here’s my response:

Dear K,

I’ve actually been thinking about your question a lot. To be honest, your question made me try to define what my belief system is. I feel like I live it every day, to a greater or lesser degree, but I’ve never really been able to define it so I’ve always just kind of let it lie and trusted that I understood as much as I needed to for the time being. Your question made me return to my question again and I find that I’m better able, now, to define my belief system than I ever have been before.

The first thing I have to say is that astrology is not my belief system. It’s part of my spirituality, but it’s not the whole thing or even really the centerpiece. I’d say it’s an expression of it and a really useful way into my beliefs — and, very importantly, back out of them into everyday life. Maybe like other people would consider the Bible. MAYBE. (NOTE: I’m bracing for the backlash on this assertion. If anyone wants, I’ll explain further in a future post.)

So, that said, I think the dichotomy you’ve set up isn’t really fair. I think there are other ways to characterize belief systems than either “simply the explanation for the world that fits [me]” or “objectively superior to other systems of belief.” I came to my spirituality, as did, I assume, many other people, to many different systems, because other ways of experiencing the Divine (or whatever you want to call it) didn’t feel quite right to me. I searched and searched — mostly internally, some externally — until I knew what I believed. I could feel it resonate on many levels within me, in many spheres of my life.

I think that, in the best scenario, we each find our way to our own spiritual core, and that core resonates with other people’s spiritual cores. Maybe not exactly but enough that some community can be forged around the collective corpus. So in that respect, it’s both individual and collective. But “collective” doesn’t mean “objective,” if by objective you mean scientifically provable.

I don’t think there really is such a thing as objective reality when you’re talking about the great mysteries such as Who are we? Why are we here? What is the relationship of the individual to the universe? What is eternity? What is eternal? What dies when my body does, and what, if anything, doesn’t? So to say my belief system is objectively superior is a signal that my ego is attached, first, to having definitive answers to those unanswerable questions and, second, to the correctness of my answers. I think that when the ego is too attached to having something, or to being right about something, that is where power finds a foothold.

Not that power is all bad, but when it is invited into the faith equation, what I’ve noticed is that we build up hierarchies and institutions around belief systems, which makes no sense to me at all. That’s when the beliefs become more system. It all becomes about what we are in this world — our position vis-a-vis others, our puffed-up chests, the set-up of one person against or over or below another. We cling to the territory we’ve claimed as “the right way” and then feel required to defend it. To me, this all runs completely counter to the mystery questions and separates the person from the Spirit. When beliefs create rifts between people, I think it is because worldly concerns have gotten in the way. I think God (or whoever) is sitting up there (or wherever) laughing his/her divine ass off. And also crying at the same time.

Yet — I guess there are people who can practice their faith in solitude, but to me the fact that belief systems do often develop into institutions says something to me about the importance, to most people who have beliefs, of coming together in community to recognize and practice their shared faith. So that’s why I think it’s a false dichotomy to say my spirituality, or anyone’s, is either individual or objectively superior. It’s neither. We come together because it’s not individual, yet each faith community takes a different form because there is no objective reality or superiority when it comes to pondering and responding to the mysteries.

Are you going to come visit us? I already told Alan you might. We would really love to see you.

Kathy