The spirit

In late March, I had an interesting exchange on Twitter with Barney Leith. No big deal - he probably hasn't thought twice about it, but it got me thinking. Barney was responding to a media report about research that concluded that, based on census figures, religion was set to die out in nine countries. The report said:

"A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.

The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation. ...

The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland."

Jason Palmer: Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says

To this, Barney asked: "How much weight can we place on the findings of this study that claims religion may become extinct in 9 countries?". I replied "People may say they don't affiliate with any religion, but plenty still talk about spirituality. Just look at Twitter!". And Barney answered: "Spirituality: ambiguous concept used to refer to a wide range of beliefs & practices. Lots of interest, yes, but in what?"

Have to confess, I was a bit shocked by this - lots of interest in what? In the spirit, of course! There may be a wide range of beliefs and practices related to spirituality, but spirit is one. People talk about it in different ways, Baha'u'llah talks about it too, but we are all talking about the same thing. We just see it through different lenses. The word 'God' is also an ambiguous concept underpinning a wide range of beliefs and practices. Lots of interest in that too. Baha'is see God one way, others see God in other ways, but hey it's all God.

The Bab has a succinct way of putting it. It's all one soul, one religion and one cause:

"Know ye that 'the paths to God are as numerous as the breaths of the creatures' yet, there is no soul but one and there is no religion but the one religion, and it is the Cause of God." Epistle on the Spiritual Journey towards God, trans Todd Lawson

Barney's lament about the concept of spirituality being ambiguous reminded me of the exchange in Qur'an 17:85, which Baha'u'llah discusses in the Kitab-i Iqan. Muhammad's adversaries, in an attempt to ridicule him, ask him about the spirit: "And they will ask Thee of the Spirit", to which Muhammad was told to reply: "The Spirit proceedeth at My Lord's command." Baha'u'llah reports that the divines fell about laughing and accused Muhammad of being ignorant. It seems they thought the comment wasn't up to much - pretty ambiguous, in fact - and we know where that got them!

In the Hidden Words, Baha'u'llah appears to assume his audience knows what spirit is. He boldly addresses his readers on many occasions as "O son of spirit". Also ambiguous, perhaps, but one thing we can take from it is that we are all children of spirit, which fits with the Bab's assertion that it's all one religion anyway. That being the case, there should be no wonder at people the world over talking about their experiences of spirit, and doing so in numerous settings, not just within the discourse of the established religions.

To answer Barney's question, then, I'm not at all concerned about reports that religion will die out in nine countries because census figures show a gradual drop in religious affiliation. That observation is simply one about fashion, like, for example, an observation that women wear cotton today but wore silk a century ago. Just because women wear fewer clothes these days than they used to doesn't mean they'll end up wearing nothing! (I hope. If they do, I'll be even less fashionable than I am now. :-)) The assumptions behind the report show ignorance about the nature of reality, which is that we're all swimming in a sea of spirit. I always loved Baha'u'llah's analogy designed to illustrate this:

"Say: My creatures are even as the fish of the deep. Their life dependeth upon the water, and yet they remain unaware of that which, by the grace of an omniscient and omnipotent Lord, sustaineth their very existence. Indeed, their heedlessness is such that were they asked concerning the water and its properties, they would prove entirely ignorant. Thus do We set forth comparisons and similitudes, that perchance the people may turn unto Him Who is the Object of the adoration of the entire creation." Súriy-i-Haykal in Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p40, para 76

The spirit proceeds at the Lord's command: there's a wake-up call here. Watch your assumptions. The spirit does what the Lord commands and not what we assume it is doing. If we think spirituality outside established religion is namby-pamby, we cut ourselves off to an awful lot of God's work. And the joke will be on us, just as was on the divines.