‘Faith, not just creed’

‘Faith, not just creed’ is the title of the World View in The Hindu today by David Brooks. It could be ‘spirituality, not religion’. In spite of religions consolidating themselves for political exigencies and survival people don’t really take religions in their face value anymore! He quotes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: ‘faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline (rubrics), love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion.’

Brooks says, ‘And yet there is a silent majority who experience a faith that attractively marked by combinations of fervor and doubt, clarity and confusion, empathy and moral demand.’

He continues, ‘If you are a secular person curious about how believers experience their faith, you might start with Augustine’s famous passage “What do I love when I love my God,” and especially the way his experience is in the world but then mysteriously surpasses the world: “It is not physical beauty nor temporal glory nor the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, not the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, nor the gentle odor of flowers, and ointments and perfumes, nor manna or honey, nor limbs welcoming the embraces of the flesh; it is not these I love when I love my God – a light, voice, odor, food, embrace of my innerness, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can lessen, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. This is what I love when I love my God.”

Idolatry is prohibited in all monotheistic religions! But the paradox is that those very religions and their scriptures even are idols, for they are stagnant, sterile etc. Religions have conveniently stopped gods of their revelations anymore. They have practically caged gods in their laws, rituals, traditions etc. They are made helpless before the whims and fancies of a priest! Gods and their blessings are traded with… They claim to be gods or their vicars while in practice worse than other poor humans!

This is not a sweeping statement. There could certainly be some good priests, prophetic ones who really speak for God… But they are subdued and suffocated by the more vocal and powerful ritual priests of the powerful institutional religions. They have no heart, but only arrogance of positions and possessions…