Transcript: is HERE – http://www.eckharttolle.com/article/Eckhart-Tolle-Oprah-Winfrey-O-Magazine-Interview
Tag: Belief
What’s the difference between spirituality and religion?
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How do you answer the question above?
Below is how far I have got with this issue.
Spirituality is how we relate to the unknown and unknowable – to Ultimate reality – and the meaning and motivation we derive therefrom.
Our worldview, as a consequence, is how we ‘read’ the world. Our worldview includes that of which are conscious, plus that which derives from enculturation. Becoming more fully conscious of Oneness, and acting accordingly, is our purpose.
Religion is the agreed set of relationships, teachings and customs held in common with any religious group of which one has membership.
Progress in spirituality is measured by regularly bringing oneself to account – in relation to the standards of your spirituality, world-view and religious group/s (if any).
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Etymological issues:
The English word “religion” is derived from the Middle English “religioun” which came from the Old French “religion.” It may have been originally derived from the Latin word “religo” which means “good faith,” “ritual,” and other similar meanings. Or it may have come from the Latin “religãre” which means “to tie fast.”
Doing your own research:
A very good starting point is provided by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. See HERE
The definitions I like best from this source are;
George Hegel: “the knowledge possessed by the finite mind of its nature as absolute mind.”
Paul Tillich: “Religious is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern”
Others are;
The Religious Tolerance group tell us that David Carpenter has collected and published a list of definitions of religion, including:
Anthony Wallace: “a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man or nature.”
Hall, Pilgrim, and Cavanagh: “Religion is the varied, symbolic expression of, and appropriate response to that which people deliberately affirm as being of unrestricted value for them.”
Karl Marx: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Don Swenson defines religion in terms of the sacred: “Religion is the individual and social experience of the sacred that is manifested in mythologies, ritual, ethos, and integrated into a collective or organization.”
Paul Connelly also defines religion in terms of the sacred and the spiritual: “Religion originates in an attempt to represent and order beliefs, feelings, imaginings and actions that arise in response to direct experience of the sacred and the spiritual. As this attempt expands in its formulation and elaboration, it becomes a process that creates meaning for itself on a sustaining basis, in terms of both its originating experiences and its own continuing responses.”
He defines sacred as: “The sacred is a mysterious manifestation of power and presence that is experienced as both primordial & transformative, inspiring awe & rapt attention. This is usually an event that represents a break or discontinuity from the ordinary, forcing a re-establishment or recalibration of perspective on the part of the experiencer, but it may also be something seemingly ordinary, repeated exposure to which gradually produces a perception of mysteriously cumulative significance out of proportion to the significance originally invested in it.”
He further defines the spiritual as: “The spiritual is a perception of the commonality of mindfulness in the world that shifts the boundaries between self and other, producing a sense of the union of purposes of self and other in confronting the existential questions of life, and providing a mediation of the challenge-response interaction between self and other, one and many, that underlies existential questions.”
My final question – “Why are there so many religious intolerance groups?”
To read the full article by the Religious Tolerance group go HERE
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True achievement, success and happiness lie in being fully and positively human –
through our caring our creativity and our criticality –
developed via service to the communities to which we belong.
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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the
PhD. Summaries are HERE
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Don’t forget the chocolate Mr Eckhart Tolle – enlightenment and wood-chopping, awe and concepts, the Whole and the parts.l
“Concepts are delicious snacks with which we try to alleviate our amazement.” – A J Heschel
Yesterday I wrote a short open letter of questions to Eckhart Tolle.
I also wrote a short introduction to the Dictionary of Concepts in development on a sister site allied to this one. The latter in part answers the questions. The introduction to the Dictionary reads;
Everything here on this site, and its allied sites, is about how we have to balance the myriad parts of life, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the Whole – from which everything emanates, including us.
The 1000+ ways or categories are also concepts, and HERE the concepts are gathered as a Dictionary
But our interest in concepts needs to be balanced with interest in the Whole from which all things emanate and take form, and to which they return – in the formless and infinite.
The Whole is nameless because it cannot be conceptualized. In terms of our experience we can briefly lose ourselves in the non-duality of the infinite Whole. This is beyond the logic-chopping of religions (and the illogic-chopping!) . ‘God has no religion’. God is no-thing. We can only point – and be silent. Silence is the language of God.
On the site there is a place you can go, to take you beyond concepts HERE. Let the few words dissolve as you realize the oneness of the light, and the silence that, embraces others all around the globe, who also rest right now, in the now, and the silence – and let go their egoic forms.
The greatest need humanity has is for all peoples to realize that they are the cells of a single body. That realization comes as we learn to live in the now, and the silence beyond all concepts – that is to feel the Whole. This has been the mystic teaching, the perennial philosophy, to be found at the heart of all of the world’s wisdom traditions – but so often obscured by the dust of human egotism.
But for those who love chocolate, and beautiful landscapes, and sailing and beautiful bodies we have, during our time in this world, to fly with the wing of ‘duality’ – as well as our experiences of non-duality. After enlightenment the comes the water carrying and wood chopping. After the water carrying and wood chopping – enlightenment. The two are complementaries – at least in this world. Hooray! Hallelujah! Amen! Om! Pass the chocolate!
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