November 25, 2012
Religion vs. Spirituality
The other day, I interrupted my personal reflection and discussion around the idea that, having failed to spread spirituality, Sahaj Marg has become a kind of religion. Led by Chari and the myths spread by Whispers, we saw hatch a religion where God is embodied by a "special personality" called Babuji, residing in the Central Region in the midst of the spiritual Hierarchy of the great saints of history. This new religion has bestowed a project upon itself, a Grand intelligent design but mysterious and hidden, and which occurs after multiple disasters and the Apocalypse. Whispers promises abhyasis that they are the elected (elite? chosen?), the vanguard of the so-called "World of Tomorrow".For further reflection, I offer a patchwork of quotations from various interviews with Frédéric Lenoir, philosopher and sociologist, historian of religions, director of the French magazine "Le Monde des Religions". This man is not my guru, or even my spiritual guide, but I find it very exciting.
One can find a number of his interviews on the internet, listen to French radio France Culture, read his essays or his books. This time, I purposely selected quotations related to differences between spirituality and religion and definitions which he gives to these two terms:
(...)"Spirituality is personal, religion is collective.
(...) Religion is really a collective practice, it is rituals that organize society starting with common beliefs. Spirituality is individual. It is a path, it is a personal quest.
(...) It is the individual who seeks what is the meaning of life.
(...) Religion re-connects (re-ties?) (religare in Latin), and spirituality loosens (unties, liberates) it releases (frees). It releases (liberates?) to better re-connect. Religion re-connects because it creates a social bond. To share the same religious beliefs creates links between individuals but religion also creates intolerance towards those who do not share the same beliefs. Spirituality is to work on oneself, "wisdom" is roughly the same for me, it is a work on one's self in which one learns to know one's self.
(...) And suddenly, we will arrive by untying, that is to say, by being fully oneself, to be free and to better love, to be re-linked to others in a more just manner, because the purpose of spirituality is love. Freedom leads to love. "
In contrast, Chari said about obedience in Salient Features: # 4 (It must be a secret as a password is now needed)
"(...) the best disciple is one who is the most obedient.
(...) At Sahaj Marg, without obedience, nothing can be achieved, absolutely nothing.
(...) It is my belief, confirmed by my personal experience with the Master for over 20 years, after much analysis and reflection. So you see, success is not due to education, or to the application or to the practice, it is only obedience that finally remains in my mind today, as the first and single factor in our spiritual development. "
Élodie
