Seeking Spirituality

I resonate with Andy Ho's review article on "True Spirituality is not about 'me first.'" (ST April 21). I agree with his conclusion that "Spirituality is not fulfilled personal lives. Instead, it is living life to its fullness for the common good…" It is encouraging to read such an inspiring piece in our news media. Congratulations.
It is well-known that there is a search for spirituality in reaction to materialism and uncertainties. We yearn for meaning in life and purpose in living. In spite of the advances that we have made in the scientific and technological world, there is a sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction. We wonder what we have achieved in the end. There must be more in life than we know now.
Different faith communities have tried to offer solutions but unfortunately they have largely reduced religion to 'inner healing' for individuals, outer rituals and other-worldly concerns. They may provide temporary relief from anxiety and euphoria that ultimately all with be well with our soul. Religion has become largely a private matter and disconnected with public issues. Where is the love, care, compassion, freedom and peace with justice? In despair and disenchantment with prevailing religious systems they seek to be "spiritual without being religious." They look for a religious faith without what we have conceived God to be. Human beings have always been clever idol-makers and fashioning idols to worship and help them to cope with life. It becomes an act of self-delusion. Could it be that the God we conceive, fabricated and believe is essentially an idol?
In the present discourse on spirituality we are aware of the limitations of humankind to solve the world's problems. This does not follow that we leave them entirely in the hands of God in the name of faith. It is not a retreat from living out in the world and closeted in our private and personal lives even in prayer and mediation alone. It calls for faith to believe in the God who continues in the creative work of transformation of life and all of creation. One's connection with the Creative ONE which many called God is to work for the common good in all the social, cultural, economic and political situations in our lives. The future is open and we have a responsibility to participate in shaping it and find our fulfillment.
Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao (S2539414C)10E, Braddell Hill, #16-17Singapore 579724Telephone 6250-4561
Cc. Andy Ho
-- Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao10E, Braddell Hill, Apt. #16-17Singapore 579724Tel: +65-6250-4561Email: kimhao.yap@gmail.com
"When we lose the right to be different,we lose the privilege to be free" True spirituality is not about 'me first' By Andy Ho, Senior Write
THE Singapore women paddlers who won a silver in the Olympics Games were said to reflect the Singapore spirit. But how can bodily achievements be 'spiritual'? In his National Day Rally speech, the Prime Minister dwelt at length on economic, social and political concerns - but not the spiritual. Perhaps that is because the former set of concerns is outer and thus public, whereas the latter is inner, religious and thus private. A 2000 review of the literature on development issues turned up no articles that delved into spiritual concerns. And yet these concerns obviously have an impact on the lives of numerous people. In our public discourse, we still tread on spiritual issues like egg shells. But attitudes towards spirituality have changed a great deal over recent decades. Thirty years ago, mainstream culture endorsed a 'scientific' dismissal of the incorporeal and transcendent. Faith and science did not mix, it was said. Today, however, while we still look to science for solutions, the culture rejects brazen scientism and the crass materialism associated with it. Spirituality - religion's fuzzy offspring - is in fashion and the non-material is embraced. This is a response to the crisis of meaning - what sociologists, following Max Weber, call the 'disenchantment of the world'. Culture remains desacralized, but many educated folk are no longer ashamed to admit that they desire to connect with the contemplative. Today's spirituality - decked out with crystals, chanting and channelling though it might be - is a search for a fully human existence. In this endeavour, people tend to look inwards, taking for granted that spirituality is inner, personal and private. By contrast, religion is seen as being of the outer life - a matter of doctrines, institutions and community. But how did this notion of spirituality as being essentially 'inner' come about? It can be traced to the Gnostics of the second century who believed that the soul had fallen from a high into the natural world only to be trapped in the body. The soul thus seeks to transcend the body so that it might attain to its original state of pure knowledge. Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor says in his 1989 classic, Sources Of The Self, that this notion was passed on to the Western world by St Augustine, who urged people: 'Do not go outward; return within yourself. In the inward person dwells the truth.' This interiorisation was later confirmed by Rene Descartes, who argued that there was an 'I' that stood apart from and is external to the world out there: 'Cogito, ergo sum' (I think, therefore I am). Being able to stand apart from his natural and social environments, the individual was said to possess a true inner core. This inner self was taken to be located in some quasi-spatial sanctum inside one's body and consciousness. Spirituality consisted of the moral perfecting of this inner self. Thus, one had separate outer and inner lives. By contrast, interiorities characterised Eastern religions from the very start. Whereas the divine confronts Man from the outside in Western religions, the Eastern religionist seeks 'within himself the divine ground of his own being and the cosmos', as Boston University sociologist of religion Peter Berger puts it. 'Once the divine ground of being is grasped, both man and cosmos pale into insignificance or even illusiveness,' he says in his 1979 work, The Heretical Imperative. Consequently, individuality in the Eastern religionist 'is not sharpened but absorbed, and both history and morality are radically relativised'. Either way, both Eastern and Western spiritualities featured the self-absorbed individualist in search of inner light. The post-modern pursuit of spirituality has taken all this on board. What this inward turn leads to, however, is a spirituality that abstains from the civil life of our communities. It is a me-first approach, and the material, social and political circumstances of the community become irrelevant to morality. To battle this inward turn, German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out that we all originally had no inwardness, as such. As children, we merely responded to whatever happened to us. What we experienced inside was something that we built up as we acquired language. Thus inwardness is something we construct using language; it is not something that existed originally on its own. There is no inner chamber to which my self has privileged access, no inner self that gives rise to my outer life. Wittgenstein argued in his book Philosophical Investigations that the 'outer' - my body, actions, customs and community - forms the basis of everything 'inner'. There is no self inside that is independent of my body, community and culture. Or as the University of Notre Dame philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre put it in his 1984 classic, After Virtue: 'I am my body and my body is social, born to those parents in this community with a specific social identity.' If so, true spirituality cannot refuse to grapple with the social, economic, political and cultural problems of the community. Rather than personal introspection, true spirituality should work itself out in relationships of care within communities of flesh-and-blood people. Spirituality is not about fulfilled personal lives. Instead, it is living life to its fullness for the common good - weeping together in sadness and feasting together in thanksgiving. andyho@sph.com.sg