CULTURE
In Earth And Its Beings I Trust
An exploration of spirituality
It’s chilly from all the spring drizzle of the last two days. The trail was well paved with gravel or occasionally with stones. Off the trail, the ground was soft and damp but not muddy. Surrounding us on both sides were Japanese Cedars, Torreyas, and Hydrangeas, held in control by a million stone lanterns like border guards.
It was early in the spring, so the cherry blossoms were only making sporadic appearances. It must be a paradise with them all blooming in the next three weeks. The moss growing on the lanterns and tree barks shrouded us with a magical green aura.
Between the lanterns, I saw two deer heads bobbing and bowing. I tried to give them an ojigi, the Japanese bow of respect, to which they reciprocated. Being around so many monks must have made these Sika deer polite.
If I ignored the lanterns and the flag posts, I could imagine that I was on a trail in Seattle. But the crimson on the flags and the shrine are too bright to ignore. I was in Kasuga-Taisha, the Shinto Shrine in Nara, which along with Kasugayama Primeval Forest is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
When we got inside the shrine, next to the Naoraiden Hall stood a 1000-year-old cedar tree, Shato-no-Ohsugi, and from its roots grew a new tree, Shinpak. There’s a hole in the hall’s roof to avoid obstructing the giant tree. And next to the tree is a small shrine, as if to pay obeisance to the elder who has seen it all.
“What do you mean you’re not religious but spiritual? I don’t understand”
My uncle barged in one morning when I was at my parents’ home. In that characteristic way of sharing too much random information, my dad had once mentioned to him that I wasn’t religious or believed in their gods. And to soften his message and salvage my moral reputation, he added that I was spiritual. I bet my dad knew nothing about the phrase spiritual-but-not-religious (SBNR) then.
I wish I could say, ‘Dear uncle, you don’t have to understand. My membership in a religion is a private matter.’ Alas, those are Klingon words in an Indian household. Everything from religious to sexual preference is a matter of familial debate.
By the tone of it, my uncle wasn’t in a mood to understand. He was offended and enraged. He dismissed my answer that I like to learn and experience transcendence without the shackles of any one religion or its rules.
He was instead convinced that religion, any religion, was the source of spirituality. So, he wanted me to either stay in his or convert to someone else’s religion. Whichever it was, he wanted me to see it through. What did that even mean?
I waved and smiled at my uncle, and politely told him that I needed to find my path; that I didn’t like to follow. Since my parents didn’t lecture me on polite behavior later, I assume I was polite enough.
My uncle isn’t entirely wrong in expecting religion to be a source of spirituality or the essence of our non-material existence.
Human rights, for example, which we now take for granted, was a Christian gift to the species. The concept that all humans are God’s children and need to be treated equally, was ground-breaking.
The idea that nature has rights that need to be protected might be a basic tenet to those following the Alaska Native Religion, even though the current UK government finds it incomprehensible.
But he is wrong in expecting religions to be the only source.
Spirituality for the most part is that quality in us that makes us extend love, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, responsibility, concern for others, and anything else that goes beyond our selfish material needs. Transcendence, or the god-part, is only one more aspect on the list.
So do I need a religion to tell me that killing or lying or cheating is wrong?
“And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good —
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”
A few days later, my dad asked, “You say you don’t believe in our gods, so why do you keep going to that temple every time?”
He finally got to the good part, the god-part, the sneak peek into transcendence.
Each time I’m at my parents’, I visit Vadakkunathan, a majestic Siva temple. It’s built on an elevated hillock and a stone wall encloses an area of 9 acres. Within that fortification, apart from the shrines or gopurams with deities, and the main prayer areas, are huge banyan trees. As per the legend, the foot of one of the banyan trees, the moola sthana, was where the presence of the deity was manifested before it was enshrined elsewhere.
When I go to that temple, I’m less interested in the rituals of praying or going inside the shrines. I’m there to walk among the giants, the centuries-old banyan trees guarding the edges of the fortress. Odysseus might have walked with the giants; I’m satisfied to walk among them.
I prefer going alone, avoiding chit-chat or time constraints. The temple rituals usually stipulate circumambulation in odd numbers; typically one, three, or twelve; or 101 for the red bulls. Even when defying rituals, I follow this one — walking barefoot, focusing on the breath that goes in and out; the longer the better. And I sit for a little while before heading back.
I do this every time I’m in town not because I believe in some superpower blessing me for my efforts, but because it reminds me how my wild and precious life is a speck when compared to everything else around me.
‘In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes.’ — Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we lived in Seattle, we went hiking on most Saturdays. Surrounded on all three sides by mountains, there are thousands of hiking trails. My parents only remembered Mt. Rainier and ignored the other mountains. And on Saturdays, they joked if we were off on our pilgrimage.
Seeking lakes, rivers, mountains, waterfalls, and evergreen woods, we tramped Yellow Aster Butte, Snow Lake, Summerland, Lake Serene, Baker Lake, and many more. After hiking for multiple hours, the calf muscles aching with every step, when we finally arrive, the feeling is that of a child cradled in safety, embraced by those mighty and magnificent mountains.
There was certainly no transcendence within a few hours of climbing. The closest I came to that feeling was after hiking 22km and sharing a hearty meal with strangers.
We were in Patagonia in 2018 hiking the W-Trek. It was a 5-day trek across 100km in one of the remotest and most beautiful landscapes on earth. Of the campsites we stayed in, Refugio Chileno which was our final one, was the most inaccessible. It’s situated on a mountain slope, next to a deep ravine, and could be reached only on foot or horse.
We arrived at Chileno after a long day and were welcomed by the incessant musical chant of the river. At night, instead of falling dead asleep from my tiredness, I stayed up listening to the whooshing sound of the wind rhythmically passing through the ravine.
At that moment, my entire being was fully present. I wasn’t thinking about anything else; not my past, not my future; just that moment when the wind passed through the ravine like a genie from a bottle. I wasn’t apart from my surroundings, I was part of it.
Kant wouldn’t admit my experience as transcendental; it didn’t go beyond what my cognitive abilities could legitimately know. But that was a moment when the divisions between me and my world disappeared; the moment I became one with it.
Like many other animistic religions, Shinto believes every living being — man, animal, or plant — is a kami worth worshipping. Life must be worshipped.
A few days earlier, we were in Nikko, another UNESCO World Heritage site with Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Aside from the grandeur of the ornate buildings, crimson-colored river bridge, and the multi-storied pagoda, those 103 buildings or structures were built on mountain slopes and surrounded by cedars, larches, hemlocks, and maples. Being in those shrines took the pilgrim to the woods, with the sunlight sneaking its way through the trees and the river giggling to it.
Other ancient shrines, temples, and churches aren’t exceptions.
Camino de Santiago, the various pilgrim routes starting from Portugal, Spain, and France to Santiago de Compostela, demands the devoted to hike between 4 to 35 days along the ocean, mountains, or forests.
Most of the ancient temples in India — Tirupati, Sabarimala, Badrinath — are all on mountaintops or riversides, requiring the pilgrims to make an arduous trip, at the end of which the brain is drunk on endorphins, filling the person with euphoria and calm.
Every religion has rituals and practices aimed at physical deprivation or fasting, psychological disciplining or meditation, and spiritual practices that look up to divinity.
And these are what I find in the journey, regardless of the destination. The hike, whether it’s to a mountain or a temple, putting one foot in front of the other, breathing in and out, and stopping when tired, is the meditative act of the pilgrimage; the act which settles the noise in the head and allows us to experience life with serenity.
My uncle asked what I meant by being spiritual but not religious.
The materialist in me doesn’t care about an afterlife or if someone would roast my soul in the pits of hell. Perhaps, as one of my friends commented, I don’t care about the afterlife because I haven’t started thinking about the endgame yet.
But the spiritualist in me believes I’m connected to all other beings. Our actions affect one another. This earth, nature, and its beings are the ones feeding my mind, body, and soul.
I care about the present. As Joseph Campbell says, ‘Eternity isn’t some later time. Eternity isn’t even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off.’
And when I’m in that Shinto shrine amid a million stone lanterns crowned with moss, bordering hundred-year-old cedar trees, I’m experiencing eternity. The temporal terms cut off. And I become one with my world.
