The dimension of depth: the spirit and spirituality

Leonardo Boff

30/08/2012

Opinión

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Human beings not only have appearance, that is their corporeal expression. Nor just interiority, that is their interior psychic universe. Human beings are also endowed with depth, their spiritual dimension.

The spirit is not a part of the human being alongside the other parts. Is the whole human being, who, through consciousness, discovers that s/he belongs to a Whole and is an integral part of that Whole. Through the spirit we are capable of going beyond simple appearances, of what we see, listen to, think about, and love. We can grasp the other side of things, their depth. Things are not just "things". The spirit captures symbols and metaphors from a different reality, present in them but not circumscribed by them, because it spills over from them in all directions. They recall, describe, and lead to another dimension, what we call depth.

Thus, a mountain is not just a mountain. By the fact of being a mountain, it projects a feeling of majesty. The sea evokes grandiosity, the starry heaven, immensity; the deep lines on the face of an old man, a hard life's struggle; and the shining eyes of a child, the mystery of life.

It behooves the human being, the carrier of spirit, to perceive values and meaning, and not simply to enumerate facts and actions. In the end, what really matters to people is not so much what happens to them, but what those events mean to their lives, and what type of important experience they offer.

Everything that happens carries existentially a symbolic, or, we can even say, a sacramental, character. As Goethe subtly observed: «Everything that is transient is nothing but a sign» (Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Zeichen). A property of the sign-sacrament is that it presents a larger, transcendent, meaning, to be realized in the person and made an object of experience. In this sense, every event reminds us of what we have experienced and nourishes our depth.

This is why we fill our homes with photographs and beloved objects from our parents, grandparents, family and friends; from everyone who entered our lives and has meaning to us. It can be the last shirt worn by our father, who died suddenly of a heart attack when he was only 54 years old, the wooden comb of a beloved grandmother who passed away many years ago, the dried leaf in a book, sent by a lover, full of saudades. These things are not just objects; they are sacraments that speak to our depth, they remind us of beloved persons or meaningful events of our lives.

The spirit allows us to have a non-dualistic experience, very well describe by Zen-Buddhism. «You are the world, you are the whole» say the Upanishad of India while the guru points to the universe. Or «you are everything», as many yogis say. «The kingdom of God (Malkuta d’Alaha or ‘The Guiding Principle of Everything’) is within you», Jesus of Nazareth proclaims. These affirmations take us to a living experience more than to a simple doctrine.

The basic experience is that we are linked and re-linked (the root of the word "religion"), one to another, and all to the Fountain of Origin. A thread of energy, of life and meaning, runs through all beings, turning them into the cosmos, instead of chaos, into a symphony instead of a cacophony. Blaise Pascal, who besides being a mathematical genius was also a mystic, pointedly said: «The heart feels God, not reason» (Pensées, frag. 277). This type of experience transforms everything. Everything is impregnated with veneration and unction.

Religions live from this spiritual experience. They flow from it. They express the experience in doctrines, rites, celebrations and ethical and spiritual paths. Their primary function is to create and to offer the necessary conditions to allow all persons and communities to submerge themselves in the divine reality and have a personal experience with the Spirit Creator. Sadly, many religions have fallen ill from fundamentalism and doctrines that make a spiritual experience difficult.

This experience, precisely because it is an experience and not a doctrine, radiates serenity and profound peace, accompanied by the absence of fear. We feel loved, embraced and welcomed into the Divine Bosom. What happens to us, happens within the Divine love. Death itself does not scare us. We accept it as part of life, and as the great alchemic moment of transformation that allows us to truly be part of the Whole, in the heart of God. We must pass through death so as to live more and better.

- Leonardo Boff, Theologian / Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish sent by Melina Alfaro, done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/160848