Just as we can think of the lifeforce, which remains a mystery to science, as something that animates the myriad living forms in existence, we might also regard the countless forms of religion throughout human history as so many expressions of another mystery, called spirituality or spiritual life.
And just as when the lifeforce “goes out” of an organism – leaving aside the question of whether it really goes anywhere or just goes out like a candle – something analogous happens when religion loses the spiritual life that once filled its form with vibrant energy. Its creativity drains away, its relevance to the concerns and possibilities of existence is lost, and the once-living thing becomes a dead shell of its former self.
One important measure of “truth” in religion has nothing to do with how a symbol system compares to the many others we can find around the world, or the degree in which its symbols attach to metaphysically real or objectively supernatural things.
Rather, a religion’s truth is a matter of fluency, which is to say how clear and bright is the flow of spiritual life it facilitates, and how minimally its own structure impedes that flow.
The familiar caution against “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” applies to this relationship of religion (the bathwater) and spiritual life (the baby). With the rise of modernity hitching its hopes for a more enlightened civilization to the new Bethlehem Star of science and technology, religion has had a harder time justifying its rightful corner on the market of relevant concerns.
Many have advocated for dumping out the bathwater and finally being done with religion. In their defense, much of the religion these “dumpers” want to get rid of has been dead for generations, even centuries. When the passions of believers are devoted to the project of defending the literal reading of their myths, the objective existence of their god, and their orthodox beliefs as the “one and only way” to Real Life somewhere else, chances are their bathtub no longer has a baby in it!
It isn’t possible to somehow extract and isolate what we’re calling spiritual life (or spirituality) from the religion that channels, supports, and facilitates its dynamism, just as the lifeforce cannot be extracted, isolated, and laid out on the laboratory table for direct examination.
Whether a particular form of religion is historical and global in reach, such as the name-brand world religions, or instead happens to be the home-grown, cross-pollinated variety so plentiful in the backyards of private religion these days, its principal function is in the service of spirituality.
The popular self-designation “spiritual but not religious” is, therefore, an untenable arrangement in reality, for the straightforward reason that religion of some kind is necessary for human spirituality to flourish. While religion can (and does!) exist without spirituality – Jesus’ metaphor was of a “whitewashed tomb” – the reverse is not possible.
What might such religion, one that is intimately aligned and in sync with the dynamism of spirituality, look like? Setting aside for now the mythologies, symbol systems, ritual practices, moral values and beliefs represented across the diverse field of human religions, is it possible to identify the nodes and channels in religion where the flow of spiritual life is facilitated?
Our word “religion,” from the Latin religare, refers to this function of tying back and linking together certain elements, principals, and dimensions of a presumed lost, or perhaps merely hidden, wholeness.
My own experience and research answers this question in the affirmative, identifying four such “nodes and channels” that qualify true religion from its dead and counterfeit alternatives. I call these nodes and channels spiritual practices. Rather than reducing them to specific methods and techniques, however, we shall leave the description more open, focusing instead on the intention of each spiritual practice.
The four spiritual practices of true religion are Centering, Grounding, Connecting, and Belonging.
It’s important to keep in mind that a spiritual practice is what somebody does – “somebody” meaning an embodied self-conscious (or egoic) human personality. This individual vantage point is pivotal to the perspectivist, phenomenological, and constructivist approach taken here. To help us hold this focus, the diagram above visualizes ego (Latin for “I”) in the middle, with the four spiritual practices arranged around it on the horizontal and vertical axes.
The Spiritual Practice of Centering
As our node of self-conscious identity, ego is (by definition) not what is sometimes called the true Self. Indeed, our first spiritual practice of Centering arises on this recognition of an infinite qualitative difference between ego and true Self, between the part of me that is conscious of myself as somebody unique and special, and the full reality of what I am as a human being – body and soul, as we used to say.
Centering is the spiritual practice that helps us drop off the costumes and concerns of personal identity, in order to regain our balance and refresh the natural integrity of heart, mind, and will.
The Spiritual Practice of Grounding
From this recovered center of true Self, the spiritual practice of Grounding takes awareness deeper still, into the grounding mystery of body-and-soul and the ineffable oneness of Being within. If Centering involves dropping off the costumes and concerns of personal identity, Grounding requires a surrender of ego itself, releasing consciousness from its tether to identity and even from the sense that “I” am doing this.
Within the grounding mystery of body-and-soul, an experience of inner peace and wellbeing awaits.
Together, the spiritual practices of Centering and Grounding form the channel of religion’s mystical path – farther in and deeper down to what is Really Real.
The Spiritual Practice of Connecting
In addition to looking inward to the Self, ego also looks outward to the Other – to “another” (an other) like me, as well as to others of all kinds and types. As a self-conscious person, I am anchored, however dimly, to my true Self. And as a self-conscious person, I “speak through” (Latin persona) my mask of identity to others who share the world stage with me. Developmentally, there can be no ego without an other to encounter, recognize, and respond to my performance of identity.
The spiritual practice of Connecting involves beholding, welcoming, and honoring the otherness in another – a mystery that stands beyond my concepts and opinions about it – and certainly beyond my control!
The Spiritual Practice of Belonging
From the performance stage of my interactions with others, the spiritual practice of Belonging represents a jump in consciousness from interpersonal to transpersonal dynamics. Despite the fact that the concept of belonging is commonly understood as something the ego more passively perceives than actively co-creates, as a spiritual practice the intention is on ways I can actively contribute to the higher wholeness of our life together in community. Thus it is proper and fitting to regard Belonging as a genuinely creative practice.
Such disciplines as fidelity and forgiveness, dialogue and inclusion, sacrifice and service can be understood as distinct contributions that individual egos make for the sake of bringing about “a more perfect union.”
The spiritual practices of Connecting and Belonging together form the channel of religion’s ethical path – farther out and higher up into the mystery of community.
Of course, the question remains whether a given religion – a global brand or our own private invention – incorporates the four spiritual practices in its sacred economy of stories, symbols, rituals, values and beliefs.
A good rule of thumb is to regularly check the temperature and clarity of your bathwater, and if you need to change it for some reason – for goodness sake, don’t throw the baby out!
Tracts of Revolution 