ANARCHY AND THE SPIRITUAL QUEST
Unlike the
majority of Anarchists, I am not an atheist.
In my youth I undertook a spiritual quest that went over a period of
some twenty-five years. I know there is
a God. I experienced God.
Magnificently
sublime and rapturous as the experiences were; they were removed from the pain
I saw all around me in this world and they were very isolating. I could not
share that which I experienced with others. Worst of all, I could not alleviate
people's suffering simply by virtue of the fact that I knew there is a God,
that there are higher worlds than the one in which we live and that the Soul is
immortal. While I communed with God widows and orphans languished. I could not
stay in those rarified heights knowing there was so much suffering. I took
leave to return to this reality.
Spiritual quests
should not be undertaken for the sake of fleeing the unbearable in this world,
as was mine. They should not be a desperate resort for a wounded Soul trying to
find solace and meaning in a world that seems too cruel and absurd to live in
and bear.
The spiritual
quest should be undertaken only when we have achieved a very high level of
material security, moral human interaction and personal fulfillment.
When we live in a
world described by free and fair trade, equality among all Human beings, mutual
aid respect for all sentient beings, maximum actualization of the Self and aid
to others to actualize themselves in the material world we will discover that
there is still something missing, something that we cannot attain from material
welfare, well-being and prosperity alone.
We are spiritual
beings and the need to fulfill that aspect of ourselves will come to the fore.
It will arise spontaneously and naturally within us as individuals and among us
as societies and it will be an expression of organic unity that we, atomized as
we currently are, are simply not capable of.
The time for that
has not yet come. There is much groundwork to lay.
We are in a
sickly, mutilated, truncated and stunted state. We are slaves. Our perceptions
are distorted. We are filled with negativity and mistrust. We are filled with
every manner of fear and trepidation, as our economic masters have conditioned
us to be. We are filled with shame. Our bodies are poisoned and we have been
trained to run to the comfort of substances and diversions in the small bit of
free time that we have. We regard one another as competitors. Our eye is
trained on the negative in others.
In such a state
of insalubrity and in societies as unwholesome as
ours we cannot possibly interpret and understand holy Texts properly. We do not
possess the clarity and the refinement to perceive the Holy. Most certainly, we
do not see it in one another as we vie with one another for our sustenance.
We see the very
same negativity in holy Texts that we see in those around us and in ourselves.
There are, under
the present social conditions, two possible reactions when encountering holy
Texts. In both cases we read them on a most perfunctory level and wholly
misunderstand them, but believe that what we see is what they are saying. We
then do one of two things. We either reject that which we think we see
out-of-hand. Or, we accept that which we see and live a religion that is little
more than our own hallucinations.
A goodly number
of religious figures gathered large followings within a relatively short amount
of time. It has been my experience that that which truly elevates the estate of
human beings does not become popular quickly. People do not let go of their
shackles nor surrender their crutches readily. Those who are shackled have been
taught that it is their shackles that sustain and support them and they are,
therefore, desperate to hold on to them. They attack those who would divest
them of their fetters viciously, perceiving those who would emancipate them as
enemies who mean to harm them. Therefore, the fact that religions have caught
on quickly makes them suspect in my eyes.
There is another
matter that is of yet more concern to me. Although I would say that most people
who set out on spiritual quests were sensitive Souls and well-intentioned; we
see that not one spiritual path has ever alleviated human misery and poverty. I
think the reason for this is eminently clear. Religions do not change the
physical conditions that cause people to want to flee from this world. They do
not call for the elimination of classes, power structures and economic
disparities. Quite the opposite. They encourage them,
even making them obligatory. The adherents of religions are taught that it is
sacrilege to defy or even question authority. The punishment for doing so is,
in addition to the misery of this world that is taken as a given, unending
indescribable misery in the next world or forfeiting one's place in the World
to Come altogether. It is, then, in the interests of
those in religious power to keep this world rather unbearable so that they may
constantly dangle the carrot of hope in the next world before their adherents
if and only if they "behave" themselves. Thus far, all religions, no
matter how sublime they may or may not have been in their inception,
deteriorated into mass mind and behavior control by creating conditions of
misery for the vast majority.
Not one religion
thus far, not a single one, has called for the elimination of power structures
as a religious tenet. They cultivated a "this world-other world" illusory
dichotomy. Rather than organized religions eliminating poverty and the
dependence of classes upon others, they encourage it as one of their most
central methods of concentrating power in the hands of some.
Today religion
teaches us that we, as individuals, and we alone, are responsible for all of
our unhappiness and ills. No blame whatsoever is put on our economic slave
masters. If we are sad, sick or evil befalls us (all too often in the form of
economic hardships) it is because we have been negligent in the performance of
some ceremony, recitation of formulas or other magical rite. Of course, we are
expected to tithe our incomes and to give some percentage to both our
religions' priests and to the poor. We are not taught to eliminate poverty in
society, or even that that is desirable. Neglecting to tithe (a system devised
to perpetuate poverty by keeping the poor on the brink while stuffing the pockets
of the clergy) most certainly rains the wrath of heaven down on us, so we are
taught.
For the present, then,
the holiest work one can engage in and the only real spiritual practice
available to us is the abolition of classes and poverty, with all their
attendant ills so that we may be freed to become fully Human beings. This idea
is expressed in a quote from the Preface to Part Two of RED EMMA SPEAKS by Alix Kates Shulman
1998. Shulman writes: "A rabbi who heard her
lecture a large conference of clergymen on atheism probably came closer than
the public to understanding her antireligious stand."In
spite of all Miss Goldman has said against religion, he announced, "she is
the most religious person I know."". Amen!
Religion cannot, must
never be, be otherworldly. It must be an expression of both our physical and
our spiritual natures. We are both physical and spiritual beings always and
inextricably. In a healthy society, one that is habitable for those people who
have attained their humanity in the fullest sense, the one aspect is never
sacrificed in favor of the other. Our profoundest spiritual yearnings are
always expressed through physicality. It is only in physicality that we can
carry out the precepts of justice and express our love. It is in full
acceptance of our own physical nature, that of other living beings and the
world we live in that we become capable of expressing or spiritual nature as
expressed in free and voluntary interaction and exchange.
Religion must
never be a refuge for the economically, intellectually, emotionally and
socially indigent. It cannot be a palliative for living in economic,
intellectual, emotional and social squalor and deformation. We must never ask
of religion that which we need from people and is not being fulfilled. If we
do, that neediness makes us easy and certain prey to those who would demand all
manners of unnecessary and even perverse behaviors in order to get that which
we seek piteously when we turn to religion in our need. It is in our turning to
religion for that which society must provide, that which we must demand and see
to it that society provides, that we create organized religion and beg others
to fulfill our needs by becoming "religious leaders" over us.
Just as
emotionally healthy human beings do not wish to enter into emotional
relationships on the basis of desperation or personal lack; so our
spiritual-morality must proceed from us as full and materially and socially
fulfilled human beings.
Religion must be
the crowning achievement of having creating a just, providing and fulfilling
society. It can never be a replacement therefore.
When we will have
created just societies and attained Human stature; when we will have created a
world that is habitable so that we may be grounded in this reality, in this
world; we will, in wisdom, security and repose, turn to God for ultimate
fulfillment, able to engage in a relationship with the Divine that is real and
fitting for free Men, Women and Children. No more will we come to God as
beggars bartering our Souls for our daily bread.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan,