Someone asked: “What is the criterion of religiosity ? Is it worship ? Is it having a label or an identity ? Is it an idol or icon or a symbol ? Is it mysticism ? Is it revelation ? Is it belief ? Is it awareness of self ? Is it parapsychology? Is it the sense of supernatural ? Is it addiction to something or somebody ?”
I would say: Each one of what has been suggested, and plenty more, would be my answer.
There is no single, simple expression of religiosity. It ranges from the naively absurd to the expansively sublime. That’s why there are so many religions and so many sects, so many theologies and so many practices. Every one of them is an effort to experience or comprehend the mystery of existence in this awesome expanse of space and stretch of inconceivable eternity, or an articulation of that effort, all feeble attempts by the finite to grasp infinity, often with the conviction that one’s own approach in this context is the best one.
The key to religious harmony in the world – a hope not to be realized in the near future, it would seem- is polyodosism: the tenet by which one recognizes that every human being and group can follow one’s own path for spiritual fulfillment, as long as the path is non-hurtful and non-harmful to others.
October 6, 2013
Spurts of Thought 