Consciousness, Ultimacy, and Religion

"Consciousness is both the most obvious and the most mysterious feature of our minds." —Daniel C. Dennett

Ultimacy precedes all, succeeds all, surrounds all, permeates all, is all.—Anonymous

"Religion is at best a tool to helpyou train your mind."—The Dalai Lama

The function of religion is to facilitate fundamental transformation in our personality, our character, our inherited sense of who we are, the most basic element of our beingness, in a word, our very nature as human beings. Religion that does not actively foster human transformation—by means of transcendence—is little more than a social convention. If it does not regularly and consistently promote individual change, growth, development, transformation, it fails to operate out of its true base and center. Such religion forfeits its primary purpose and becomes indistinguishable from other noble features that make up social life. By not basing and centering itself in that which is unique to itself, religion loses its authenticity and becomes only one more enterprise among the many that make up society—cultural, educational, recreational, political, commercial, etc.

Generic Religion

An initial understanding of the nature of religion can be gained by considering the Latin word from which it is derived, religio. Scholars believe that religio in turn is derived from either religare or relegere. Religare means 'to re-connect', 'to bind to'. Religion is thus a means of rejoining what has become separated. It is the means by which we become re-rooted in that from which we draw our existence; it is the rediscovery of our Source. In most religious traditions, this is understood as returning to God, to the divine. T.S. Eliot, locating the religious thrust in the nature of man to reach into the unknown, may have had this etymological sense of the Latin root, religio, in mind when he wrote in the Four Quartets:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

In this sense, religion represents an essential impulse or orientation in the very core of our nature as a human being.

The second possible root for the word religion, relegere, indicates a way out of the widespread, virtually universal way that we humans unwittingly restrict our engagement with life. A great deal of evidence supports the view that we typically live in self-created, mental- emotional boxes of ideas, thoughts, expectations, fears, desires, etc., that shape and limit our experience of life and the role we play in it. We tend to ignore or deny whatever comes before us that challenges or contradicts our familiar view of self, other, and world. To feel safe, to avoid uncertainty and confusion, to maintain some degree of contentment and happiness, we typically resist whatever disturbs or threatens. Or we do not even allow it to engage our awareness. Through selective attention, we unconsciously filter out much that would disrupt our nominal sense of well being. This second root, relegere, means 'to attend to', 'to observe carefully'. Accordingly, religion is the process of paying close attention to whatever presents itself—emotionally, intellectually, physically, relationally, etc.—without prior evaluation, without closing down or shutting out. If we do not arbitrarily exclude what does not fit our pre-established worldview, if we remain open to new input in the course of life, even when it threatens, we may discover a power and mystery and wonder in life greater than anything previously imagined.

The Chinese are fond of noting that danger is also opportunity, that when we feel threatened by something we are being given an opportunity to engage life more openly and realistically. The letters making up the word 'fear' may be seen as an anagram which means "forever evading another reality." By staying open to life as it unfolds on its own terms, we may in fact experience what the German scholar, Rudolf Otto, calls the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the awe-inspiring, power-filled mystery known as the Holy. Any encounter with the divine that is likely to effect transformation must of necessity entail some degree of apprehension, perhaps even anxiety and trepidation. Only by relinquishing the "tried and true" and venturing into the unknown, with all the uncertainty and fear that this inevitably entails, is it possible to experience the power that transforms. Relegere suggests a sensitive awareness and ready willingness to embrace life on its own terms, as it presents itself to us, without expectation and without denial. Only then is discovery and insight possible. Nothing is revealed to the one who is closed, to the one who thinks he or she already knows.

Both of these Latin roots locate the religious thrust in human nature itself, as if to say: to be human is to be religious. Contrary to naive and simplistic views, authentic religion is not rooted in fear, whether the fear of pain, loneliness, punishment, insecurity, or death. Those who engage religion authentically face these and other exigencies of life with courage and acceptance, seeing personal trials as opportunities for growth and realization. At the same time, it would be foolhardy to deny that many are drawn to religion out of a desire to avoid the perplexities and sufferings of life. Religion does offer explanations and give consolation. But escapist religion, all too common within the ranks of conventional religiosity, goes even further. This is religion marked by unreflective belief, doctrinaire rigidity, shallow emotionalism, and fanciful hope, the kind of religious orientation that is far removed from standing open and attentive to life as it unfolds, accepting and venturing into the unknown as it arises each ongoing moment.

Even as the root meanings of the word religion give no support for an attitude of avoidance, they give no support to a religion of mere conventionality or tradition. A great deal of religion is little more than custom—routine, habitual, repetitive—more concerned with security, comfort, and the status quo than with the adventure that leads, often by way of uncertainty and disruption, to personal discovery, growth, and realization. Destiny places most of us in a specific tradition, with all the limitations that inevitably characterize an established way. Only inertia, however, keeps us bound to the customary. To recognize the merely conventional is to glimpse the vital and the authentic beyond the usual and formal. To embrace the newly sensed—however, subtle, elusive, or threatening it may be—is to relinquish infantile and adolescent perspectives and embark on the journey of mature religion.

One reason some people are not religious may be because the only forms of religion they know are seen to be inadequate, are recognized as escapist and/or fantastic in their claims. If only limited or deficient forms of religion are known, one is actually to be commended for refusing to align with them. If one's highest intuitions and sentiments are belied by so-called religion, one may be motivated by a deeper, unrecognized but genuine religious sensibility, a sensibility, for example, that refuses to acknowledge a god who would destroy humans because they worship a god of different name and features. If religion is not presented authentically, one would not expect conscientious, thinking people to be attracted to it. William Blake was of this outlook when he contended, as we saw above, that when truth is truly understood it will be believed.

Another reason why some may not be interested in religion is because they are so captivated by other social and cultural features that their attention is never really drawn to matters of religion. Even here, however, Blake's observation is relevant. It may be safe to suggest that when religion does not appeal to an individual, it is because of deficiency in the specific religions known to the person, or because of a failure on the part of the individual to recognize the full breadth and depth of his or her own nature as a human being.

Genuine religion is an adventure that includes religare (return to Origin) and relegere (careful attention), both goal and method, both end and means. These roots stipulate the common goal and means of all genuine, transformative religion. In true religion, one moves toward Origin by following the signposts that inevitably appear when one is open and trusting, much as a bird migrates to its place of origin by simultaneously acting according to inner urge and navigating according to outer sign. Prior, then, to all forms of distorted or merely conventional religion is the inborn inclination to seek the Source of our humanness by following the way that unfolds as we attend to all that presents itself to us in the course of being human, from within and from without. This is the path of supreme happiness.

By conjoining the Latin roots, we have revealed the required human activity (awareness, attention) and identified the end result (reconnection, unity) that constitutes religion. As we attend carefully (and respond honestly) to whatever arises in the ordinary course of our lives, we are rejoining our Source, we are being generically religious, i.e., spiritual. These insights remain implied and determinative in all that is yet to be discussed about religion. But we still need a more formal definition, one that identifies more clearly what most people recognize as religion. Broadly defined, religion is the human response to what is recognized as Ultimacy. This definition implies that religion is a human construct, that humans have formulated religion in light of their sense of God and God's expectations of humans. Some believers reject this view by insisting that religion is given by God. This view is hard to maintain, however, in light of the many religions found in the world. One must ask why God would instill so many different, often conflicting, religions among humankind. An enormous amount of 'rationalizing' and 'justifying' of this mythic stance is required for a given religion to maintain that it is uniquely established by God and is the only true religion. Even a softening and liberalizing of this position is difficult to uphold in light of the increasing interaction, understanding, and appreciation that has occurred as a result of the practitioners of the world's religions coming together and conversing and worshipping with each other. Today, a far more defensible position is that of seeing religion as man-made.

Refinement of this initial definition will ensue but must wait investigation into the nature of consciousness and the ways humans have conceived Ultimacy. Before we can come to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of religion, we must understand: (1) our own nature as consciousness and (2) how humans have conceived the central referent in all authentic religion, namely, Ultimacy.

Consciousness

Consciousness is what we are. It constitutes our essential nature. Without consciousness we are not human as we know ourselves to be human. Consciousness is that field within which anything must appear if it is to have any recognizable contact with us or relevance for us. For anything to exist for us it must arise in consciousness. In spite of the fact that we tend to identify ourselves first and foremost as a body with a mind (my body, my thoughts), consciousness rests prior to this identification; it is the field within which the identification occurs. A novice monk exclaimed: "Is there anything more marvelous than the wonders of nature?" His abbot replied: "Yes, your awareness of the wonders of nature."

The body and the thinking mind are inside consciousness, and not consciousness inside them, just as the brain is inside the mind and not vice versa (the mind can study the brain but not the reverse). A simple thought experiment will demonstrate the priority of consciousness to the body and the thinking mind. With imagination, a particular function of consciousness, we can envision ourselves without a body or thoughts. However, the sense of oneself as who one has always been will remain the same. In other words, it is quite possible to remain wide awake, and know oneself to be alive and existing, without identifying oneself as a body or a mind filled with memories, thoughts, feelings, intentions, expectations, etc. Accomplished meditators perform this feat repeatedly.

It is necessary to distinguish between consciousness itself or pure consciousness, on one hand, and the contents or objects of consciousness, on the other hand, that is, the sights, sounds, smells, emotions, intentions, thoughts, memories, etc., that arise in consciousness. Consciousness itself is analogous to empty space, while the contents of consciousness are analogous to mass and energy, the solid and energetic things that occur in space. More simply, consciousness itself is like the empty sky and its contents are like clouds, lightning, birds, etc. Or, to use a different metaphor, pure consciousness is like silence and its contents are like sounds. If we sense into consciousness itself, letting go of attention to specifics, we note that it has no apparent boundaries; no walls or demarcations are discernable anywhere. It is dimensionless; there is no way to measure it. It is nonlocal in the sense that it does not reside in any place; it cannot be located. Therefore, it seems to have the property usually denoted infinite; it is not finite.

We also discover that consciousness itself does not seem to be touched by time. We have the same consciousness today that we had as children. We know ourselves to be the same person even though we know also that every cell in our body, including our brain, has changed numerous times. The content of our mind has changed greatly—we have a larger vocabulary and perhaps additional languages, our sense of the world and human life are significantly different, yet we are the same person. While that which arises in consciousness is radically different over time, consciousness itself remains unaltered. It seems to have the property usually denoted eternal; that is, not marked by time. And, in consciousness itself there seems to be no sense of myself as a person; personhood and personality are absent. It is not a case of impersonalness but apersonalness, the simple absence of being qualified by personhood.

Thus, in pure consciousness—to the extent that we can disidentify with the contents of consciousness—we find a boundless, timeless, non-self-conscious awareness and simple presence (devoid of anything being present). Succinctly, if we have successfully engaged this 'experiential' experiment, we find that as humans, in consciousness without content, there is only the infinite and eternal.

Consciousness, as we ordinarily experience it in a typical twenty-four hour period, commonly takes two quite different forms, waking and sleeping. The sleeping state is further divided into dream and dreamless sleep, and will be investigated subsequently. The waking state, when observed in terms of its content, is found to comprise at any given moment innumerable thoughts, feelings, visual objects, sounds, tactical sensations, smells, etc., all perfectly obvious and well-defined, all co-existing in a more-or-less coherent whole. If we attend to vision alone, we find that at any given moment our consciousness registers a massive aray of different and apparently discrete sights in foreground, mid-ground, and background. This brief consideration of moment-by-moment sensory awareness demonstrates that the contents of consciousness are always manifold and changing. Awareness of multiplicity, of an uncountable number of different 'things', then, is a universal characteristic of the waking state of consciousness.