Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Participation and the Mystery

2017; Duke University Press; Volume: 32; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/08879982-4252974

2164-0041

Jorge N. Ferrer,

Religion, Ecology, and Ethics

HOW DO WE creatively participate in the mystery of spirituality? The participatory approach holds that human spirituality emerges from human co-creative participation in an undetermined mystery, generative power of life, the cosmos, or reality. My understanding of the mystery is aligned with Rabbi Michael Lerner’s account (in his book Spirit Matters) of Spirit as the “energizing Force” behind the Big Bang and the ongoing evolutionary process.Spiritual participatory events can engage the entire range of human epistemic faculties (e.g., rational, imaginal, somatic, vital, aesthetic) with both the creative unfolding of the mystery and the subtle entities or energies in the enactment — or “bringing forth” — of ontologically rich religious worlds. In other words, the participatory approach presents an enactive understanding of the sacred that conceives spiritual phenomena, experiences, and insights as co-created events. The emergence of spiritual knowing can be located amidst the connections of human multidimensional cognition, cultural context, subtle worlds, and the deep generativity of life or the cosmos. Importantly, this account avoids both the secular postmodernist reduction of religion to cultural-linguistic artifact and, as discussed below, the dogmatic privileging of a single religious tradition as superior or paradigmatic.The rest of this essay introduces nine distinctive features of the participatory approach: spiritual cocreation, creative spirituality, spiritual individuation, participatory pluralism, relaxed spiritual universalism, participatory epistemology, the integral bodhisattva vow, participatory spiritual practice, and social engagement.Spiritual co-creation has three interrelated dimensions — intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal. These dimensions respectively establish participatory spirituality as embodied (spirit within), relational (spirit in-between), and enactive (spirit beyond).Intrapersonal co-creation consists of the collaborative participation of all human attributes — body, vital energy, heart, mind, and consciousness — in the enactment of spiritual phenomena. This dimension is grounded in the equi-primacy principle, according to which no human attribute is intrinsically superior or more evolved than any other. To be sure, the mind-centered character of Western culture hinders the maturation of non-mental attributes, normally making it necessary to engage in intentional practices to bring these attributes up to the same developmental level the mind achieves through mainstream education. In principle, however, all human attributes can participate as equal partners in the creative unfolding of the spiritual path, are equally capable of sharing freely in the life of the mystery here on Earth, and can also be equally alienated from it. The main challenges to intrapersonal co-creation are cognicentrism, lopsided development, mental pride, and disembodied attitudes to spiritual growth. Possible antidotes to those challenges are the integral bodhisattva vow (discussed below), integral practices, the cultivation of mental humility, and embodied approaches to spiritual growth. Intrapersonal co-creation affirms the importance of being rooted in spirit within (i.e., the immanent dimension of the mystery) and renders participatory spirituality essentially embodied and integrative.Interpersonal co-creation emerges from cooperative relationships among human beings growing as peers in the spirit of solidarity, mutual respect, and constructive confrontation. It is grounded in the equipotentiality principle, according to which “we are all teachers and students” insofar as we are superior and inferior to others in different regards. This principle does not entail that there is no value in working with spiritual teachers or mentors; it simply means that human beings cannot be ranked in their totality or according to a single developmental criterion, such as brainpower, emotional intelligence, or contemplative realization. Although peer-to-peer human relationships are vital for spiritual growth, interpersonal co-creation can include contact with perceived nonhuman intelligences, such as subtle entities, natural powers, or archetypal forces that might be embedded in psyche, nature, or the cosmos. The main challenges to interpersonal co-creation are spiritual pride, psychospiritual inflation, circumstantial or self-imposed isolation, and adherence to rigidly hierarchical spiritualities. Remedies to those challenges include collaborative spiritual practice and inquiry, intellectual and spiritual humility, deep dialogue, and relational and pluralistic approaches to spiritual growth. Interpersonal co-creation affirms the importance of communion with spirit in-between (i.e., the situational dimension of the mystery) and makes participatory spirituality intrinsically relational and eco-socio-politically engaged.Transpersonal co-creation refers to dynamic interaction between embodied human beings and the mystery in the bringing forth of spiritual insights, practices, states, and worlds. This dimension is grounded in the equiplurality principle, according to which there can potentially be multiple spiritual enactions that are nonetheless equally holistic and emancipatory. For example, a fully embodied liberation could be equally achieved through Christian incarnation or Yogic integration of purusa (consciousness) and prakriti (nature); likewise, freedom from self-centeredness at the service of others can be attained through the cultivation of Mahayana Buddhist karuna (compassion) or Christian agape (selfless love) in the context of radically different ontologies. This principle frees participatory spirituality from allegiance to any single spiritual system and paves the way for a genuine, ontologically and pragmatically grounded, spiritual pluralism. The main challenges to transpersonal co-creation are spiritual disempowerment, indoctrination, spiritual narcissism, and adherence to naive objectivist or universalist spiritualities. Antidotes include: the development of one’s inner spiritual authority and the affirmation of the right to inquire, heretical courage, and enactive and creative spiritualities. Transpersonal co-creation affirms the importance of being open to spirit beyond (i.e., the subtle dimensions of the mystery) and makes participatory spirituality fundamentally inquiry-driven and enactive.Although all three dimensions interact in multifaceted ways in the enactment of spiritual events, the creative link between intrapersonal and transpersonal co-creation deserves special mention. Whereas the mind and consciousness arguably serve as a natural bridge to subtle spiritual forms already enacted in history that display more fixed forms and dynamics such as cosmological motifs, archetypal configurations, and mystical visions and states, greater access to the more generative power of life or the mystery can be found through attention to the body and its vital energies. From this approach, it follows, the greater the participation of embodied dimensions in religious inquiry, the more creative one’s spiritual life may become and a larger number of creative spiritual developments may emerge.In the infancy of participatory spirituality in the 1990s, spiritual inquiry operated within certain constraints arguably inherited from traditional religion. As the historian of religion, Mircea Eliade famously argued, many established religious practices and rituals are “re-enactive” in their attempt to replicate cosmogonic actions and events. Expanding this account, I have suggested that most religious traditions can be seen as “reproductive” insofar as their practices aim to not only ritually reenact mythical motives, but also replicate the enlightenment of their founder or attain the state of salvation or freedom described in allegedly revealed scriptures. Although disagreements about the exact nature of such states and the most effective methods to attain them abound in the historical development of religious ideas and practices — naturally leading to rich creative developments within the traditions — spiritual inquiry was regulated (and arguably constrained) by such pre-given unequivocal goals.Participatory enaction entails a model of spiritual engagement that does not simply reproduce certain tropes according to a given historical a priori, but rather embarks upon the adventure of openness to the novelty and creativity of life or the mystery. Grounded on current moral intuitions and cognitive competences, for instance, participatory spiritual inquiry can not only undertake the critical revision and actualization of prior religious forms, but also the co-creation of novel spiritual understandings, practices, and even expanded states of freedom.This emphasis in creativity is central to spiritual individuation, that is, the process through which a person gradually develops and embodies her or his unique spiritual identity and wholeness. Religious traditions tend to promote the homogenization of central features of the inner and outer lives of their practitioners, for example, encouraging them to seek the same spiritual states and liberation, to become like Christ or the Buddha, or to wear the same clothes (in the case of monks). These aspirations may have been historically legitimate, but after the emergence of the modern self, our current predicament (at least in the West) arguably calls for an integration of spiritual maturation and psychological individuation that will likely lead to a richer diversity of spiritual expressions. In other words, the participatory approach aims at the emergence of a human community formed by spiritually differentiated individuals.It is important to sharply distinguish between the modern hyper-individualistic mental ego and the participatory selfhood forged in the sacred fire of spiritual individuation. Whereas the disembodied modern self is plagued by alienation, dissociation, and narcissism, a spiritually individuated person has an embodied, integrated, connected, and permeable identity whose high degree of differentiation, far from being isolating, actually allows him or her to enter into a deeply conscious communion with others, nature, and the multidimensional cosmos. A key difference between modern individualism and spiritual individuation is thus the integration of radical relatedness in the latter.The participatory approach embraces a pluralistic vision of spirituality that accepts the formative role of cultural and linguistic factors in religious phenomena. This simultaneously recognizes the importance of nonlinguistic variables (e.g., somatic, imaginal, energetic, subtle, archetypal) in shaping religious experiences and meanings while also affirming the ontological value and creative impact of spiritual worlds.Participatory pluralism allows the conception of a multiplicity of not only spiritual paths, but also spiritual liberations, worlds, and even ultimates. On the one hand, besides affirming the historical existence of multiple spiritual goals, the increased embodied openness to immanent spiritual life and the spirit-in-between fostered by the participatory approach may naturally engender a number of novel holistic spiritual realizations that cannot be reduced to traditional states of enlightenment or liberation. If human beings were regarded as unique embodiments of the mystery or the cosmos, would it not be plausible to consider that as they spiritually individuate, their spiritual realizations might also be distinct even if potentially overlapping and aligned with each other?On the other hand, participatory pluralism proposes that different spiritual ultimates can be enacted through intentional or spontaneous participation in an undetermined mystery, spiritual power, or generative force of life or reality. Whereas I take these enactions to be ultimate in their respective spiritual universes, this consideration in no way relativizes the various traditions’ ultimates — nor does it posit a supra-ultimate spiritual referent beyond them. In contrast, I hold that participatory enaction allows one to not only move away from representational and objectivist accounts of spiritual cognition, but also avoid the problematic dualism of the mystery and its enactions. Building on both the enactive paradigm’s account of cognition as embodied action, I maintain that in the same way an individual is her actions (whether perceptual, cognitive, emotional, or subtle), the mystery is its enactions. In this understanding, emptiness (sunyata), the Tao, and God (in their many inflexions) can be seen as creative gestures of the mystery enacted through participating human (and perhaps nonhuman) individuals and collectives.Hence, the participatory perspective does not contend that there are two, three, or any limited quantity of pre-given spiritual ultimates, but rather that the radical openness, interrelatedness, and creativity of the mystery or the cosmos allows for the participatory co-creation of an indefinite number of ultimate self-disclosures of reality and corresponding religious worlds. Participatory approaches seek to enact with body, mind, heart, and consciousness a creative spirituality that lets a thousand spiritual flowers bloom. Although this may at first sound like a rather “anything goes” approach to religious claims, I hold to the contrary: namely, that recognizing a diversity of co-created religious worlds in fact asks both scholars and practitioners to be more perspicuous in discerning their differences and merits. Because such worlds are not simply given but involve human beings as agents and co-creators, individuals are not off the ethical hook where religion is concerned but instead inevitably make cosmo-political and moral choices in all their religious actions. As discussed below, ethical considerations are crucial, especially in light of the demonstrably pernicious ecological, political, and social impact many religions historically had — and continue to have today.The pluralistic spirit of the participatory approach should not eclipse its “more relaxed” spiritual universalism — although eschewing dubious equations among spiritual ultimates (e.g., the Tao is God or Buddhist emptiness is structurally equivalent to the Hindu Brahman), the participatory approach affirms an underlying undetermined mystery or creative spiritual power as the generative source of all spiritual enactions. This shared spiritual dynamism should be distinguished from any Kantian-like noumenon or “thing-in-itself” endowed with inscrutable qualities and from which all spiritual ultimates are always derived as incomplete, culturally conditioned, or cognitively constrained phenomenal manifestations. In contrast, the enactive epistemology of the participatory approach does away with the Kantian two-worlds dualism by refusing to conceive of the mystery as having objectifiable pre-given attributes (such as personal, impersonal, dual, or nondual) and by affirming the radical identity of the manifold spiritual ultimates and the mystery, even if the former do not exhaust the ontological possibilities of the latter. Put simply, the mystery co-creatively unfolds in multiple ontological directions.Moreover, the relationship between pluralism and universalism cannot be consistently characterized in a hierarchical fashion. Whereas there surely are “lower” and “higher” forms of both universalism and pluralism (e.g., more or less rigid, sophisticated, encompassing, explanatory), the dialectic between universalism and pluralism, between the One and the Many, displays what it may well be the deepest dynamics of the self-disclosing of the mystery. The affirmation of a dialectical movement between the One and the Many in spiritual unfolding renders any abstract or absolute hierarchical arrangement between universalism and pluralism utterly misleading.It cannot be stressed strongly enough that participatory pluralism does not entail the uncritical or relativistic endorsement of past or present religious understandings or forms of life. Put differently, the participatory rejection of an objectifiable pre-given spiritual ultimate referent does not prevent qualitative distinctions in spiritual matters. To be sure, like beautiful porcelains made out of amorphous clay, traditions cannot be qualitatively ranked according to their accuracy in representing some imagined (accessible or inaccessible) original template. However, this account does not mean discernment cannot be cultivated regarding more (or less) evocative, skillful, or sophisticated artifacts.In addition, whereas the participatory turn renders meaningless the postulation of qualitative distinctions among traditions according to a priori doctrines or a prearranged hierarchy of spiritual insights, these comparative grounds can be sought in a variety of practical fruits (e.g., existential, cognitive, emotional, interpersonal). Specifically, I have suggested two basic guidelines: the egocentrism test, which assesses the extent to which spiritual traditions, teachings, and practices free practitioners from gross and subtle forms of narcissism and self-centeredness; and the dissociation test, which evaluates the extent to which the same foster the integrated blossoming of all dimensions of the person. Given the many abuses and oppressions perpetuated in the name of religion, it may be sensible to add an eco-socio-political test, which assesses the extent to which spiritual systems foster ecological balance, social and economic justice, religious and political freedom, class and gender equality, and other fundamental human rights.In light of these guidelines, qualitative differences among traditions can be observed, and this is important — from both “positive” and “negative” angles. In a “positive” light, for example, some traditions may have developed contemplative awareness more than others; the same could be said about psychophysical integration, emotional intelligence, social service, or eco-spiritual understandings and practices fostering a harmonious relationship with nature. In a “negative” light, some traditions may be more prey than others to somatic dissociation, sexual repression, class and gender oppression, religious fanaticism and violence, or ecological blindness, among others. The fact that different traditions have cultivated different human potentials is part of what makes inter-religious cross-fertilization fruitful and arguably crucial for the development of more integral spiritual understandings and practices.Two important qualifications must be made here. First, some spiritual paths and liberations may be more adequate for different psychological and cultural dispositions (as well as for the same individual at distinct developmental junctures), but this does not make them universally superior or inferior. The well-known four yogas of Hinduism (reflection, devotion, action, and experimentation) come quickly to mind in this regard, as do other spiritual typologies that can be found in other traditions. Second, the participatory emphasis on overcoming narcissism and self-centeredness, although arguably central to most spiritual traditions, may not be shared by all. Even more poignantly, most religious traditions would likely not rank too highly in terms of the dissociation or the eco-socio-political tests. For example, gross or subtle forms of repression, control, or strict regulation of the human body and its vital/sexual energies are the norm in most past and present contemplative endeavors, though one could choose autonomous maturation, integration, and participation of the body in spiritual knowing. Likewise, many religions have had a demonstrably negative environmental impact, supported violence, militarism, authoritarian regimes, and brought about serious violations of human rights even though they have also provided vital resources to secure them. Thus, the integrative and socially engaged thrust of the participatory turn is foundational for the development of a participatory critical theory of religion.More positively, these tests normatively point toward the universal ideal of a socially responsible integrated selflessness, which (although the attainability of a fully integrated selflessness is open to question) can act as a regulative principle à la Jürgen Habermas’s “ideal speech situation.” The idea of integrated selflessness is thus capable of providing procedural criteria for critical discernment in spiritual matters, that is, concerning how qualitative distinctions in spiritual discourse might be made. From this evaluative principle, applicable standards, rules, or tests to assess spiritual choices and practices can be derived. In addition to self and peer-assessment, one might consider the use of standardized tests such as the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). In addition, the thoughtful combination of other tests may indicate the degree of psychosomatic integration of spiritual states, for example measures of transcendence used with measures of body intelligence and awareness.To sum up, in this scenario it will no longer be a contested issue whether practitioners endorse a theistic, nondual, or naturalistic account of the mystery, or whether their chosen path of spiritual cultivation is meditation, social engagement, conscious parenting, entheogenic shamanism, or communion with nature. The new spiritual bottom line, in contrast, will be the degree to which each spiritual path fosters both an overcoming of self-centeredness and a fully embodied integration to make individuals not only more sensitive to the needs of others, nature, and the world, but also more effective agents of cultural and planetary transformation in their own unique ways.Since the conscious mind is the seat of most individuals’ sense of identity, an exclusive liberation of consciousness can be deceptive insofar as one can believe that one is fully free when, in fact, essential dimensions of the self are underdeveloped, alienated, or in bondage — as the dysfunctional sexual behavior of numerous modern spiritual teachers attests. Participatory spirituality seeks to foster the harmonious engagement of all human attributes in the spiritual path without tensions or dissociations. Despite his downplaying the spiritual import of sexuality and the vital world, the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo was correct when he wrote that the liberation of consciousness cannot be equated to an integral transformation entailing the spiritual alignment of all human dimensions.With this in mind, I have proposed an integral bodhisattva vow in which the conscious mind renounces its own full liberation until the body, the heart, and the primary world can be free as well from alienating tendencies that prevent them from sharing freely in the unfolding life of the mystery here on Earth. Needless to say, to embrace an integral bodhisattva vow is not a return to the individualistic spiritual aspirations of early Buddhism because it entails a commitment to the integral liberation of all sentient beings, rather than only of their conscious minds or conventional sense of identity. Likewise, as the above description reflects, my use of the term bodhisattva does not suggest a commitment to early Buddhist accounts of liberation as extinction of bodily senses and desires and release from the cycle of transmigratory experience.This vow is arguably connected to the contemporary revisioning of many religious traditions, such as Michael Lerner’s, “Jewish Renewal and Emancipatory Spirituality”, Matthew Fox’s, “Creation Spirituality for Christianity”, or David Loy’s and Donald Rothberg’s, “Socially Engaged Buddhism.” These and many others spiritual leaders and authors propose reconstructions of their traditions that seek not only to critique eco-socio-political oppression and injustice, but also to integrate human dimensions that had been previously inhibited, repressed, or even proscribed such as the roles of women and feminine values, body appreciation and sensual desire, or intimate relationships and sexual diversity.In addition to many classical spiritual skills and values of mindfulness, compassion, or unconditional love, participatory spiritual practice cultivates the embodied, relational, and enactive (i.e., creative, inquiry-driven, and world-constituting) dimensions of spiritual growth. This emphasis can be found in some traditional practices, many contemporary revisions of traditional practices, and a number of innovative spiritual developments. Whereas some traditional practices (e.g., Kabbalistic, contemplative, Indigenous, esoteric) are participatory in many regards (for illustrations, see my coedited anthology The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religions Studies), in their modern (re-)articulations one can find more explicit and robust affirmations of participatory values. Here I locate, for example, Michael Lerner’s highly integrative and body-affirming “Jewish Renewal and Emancipatory Spirituality”, Reginald Ray’s embodied reconstruction of Buddhist meditation, contemporary postural yoga and Ian Whicher’s account of Patanjali’s yoga, modern Eastern and Western approaches to Tantra, and Christian engagements of the body and sexuality in Christian prayer, among many others.In addition, the last few decades have witnessed the emergence of a variety of novel participatory spiritual practices, such as Ramón Albareda and Marina Romero’s interactive embodied meditations, John Heron’s cooperative spiritual inquiry, and my own method of embodied spiritual inquiry. Other bodies of practice with important participatory elements include Stanislav Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork, A. H. Almaas’s Diamond Approach, feminist and women’s spirituality approaches, modern forms of entheogenic spiritual, Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga, some contemporary somatic approaches, relational approaches to spirituality, and modern engagements of sexuality as spiritual path, among others.In a fundamental way, humans are our relationships with both the human and nonhuman world. This recognition is inevitably linked with a commitment to social transformation. To be sure, this commitment can take many different forms, from more direct, active social or political action in the world (e.g., social service, spiritually grounded political criticism, environmental activism) to more subtle types of social activism involving distant prayer, collective meditation, or ritual (as thoroughly discussed by David Nicol in his recent book, Subtle Activism). While there is still much to learn about the actual effectiveness of subtle activism, embodied spirituality cannot be divorced from a commitment to social, political, and ecological transformation — whatever form this may take.This commitment arguably calls for the articulation of a common, albeit contextually sensitive, global ethics. This global ethics, however, cannot arise exclusively out of humanity’s highly ambiguous moral religious and even mystical past, but needs to be crafted in the tapestry of contemporary interfaith interactions, comparative religious ethics, cross-cultural dialogue on global human rights, and cooperative spiritual inquiry. In other words, it is likely that any viable future global ethics will be grounded not only in human spiritual history, but also in the critical reflection on such a history in the context of present-day moral intuitions (e.g., about the pitfalls of religious dogmatism, fanaticism, narcissism, and dissociation). Besides its obvious relevance for regulating cross-cultural and interreligious conflicts, the adoption of global guidelines — including guidelines for dealing with disagreement — seems crucial to address some of the most challenging issues of the “global village,” such as the exploitation of women and children, the increasing polarization of rich and poor, the environmental crisis, xenophobic responses to cultural and ethnic diversity, religion-based terrorism, and unfairness in international business.In closing, although participatory spirituality arguably provides resources for critical discernment in spiritual matters, it is misleading to consider the participatory movement, or any particular participatory approach, a spiritual tradition that could be situated above all others. In contrast, participatory spirituality might be better understood as a spiritual orientation (i.e., toward embodiment, integration, relationality, and creative inquiry) that can be found in various degrees within many existing traditions, that is increasingly alive in the ongoing contemporary renewal of traditions, and that may also give rise to new spiritual expressions and shape the emergence of novel religious or spiritual traditions.In addition, I believe that the participatory movement should be seen more as a network of independent thinkers sharing a scholarly/spiritual sensibility about the cocreated nature of spiritual knowledge, the centrality of embodiment and multidimensional cognition, or the import of religious pluralism than as a school of thought or discipline formalized through traditional scholarly structures. The inherently pluralistic character of a network can house greater theoretical diversity than a school of thought, which often achieves its identity through commitment to specific paradigmatic assumptions or conceptual frameworks. Thus, a network-type organization is not only coherent with the pluralistic ethos of the participatory movement, but also fecund in the sense of not imposing a priori theoretical constraints via premature commitments to particular models or the aspiration to converge into a unified theory. Furthermore, the decentralized nature of a network is consistent with the critique of hierarchical and authoritarian tendencies in society and religion issued by many participatory thinkers, as well as with related proposals for peer-to-peer modes of knowledge production, access, and distribution. Tikkun magazine’s interfaith and secular-humanist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives is an important example of what such networks might seek to accomplish, not only sharing modes of knowledge, but also actively seeking to promote a variety of strategies for healing and transforming the contemporary social, economic and political realities of capitalist dominated societies.Lastly, a participatory approach envisions the long-searched-for spiritual unity of humankind, not in any global spiritual megasystem or integrative conceptual framework, but in the shared lived experience of communion with the generative dimension of the mystery. In other words, the spiritual unity of humankind may not be found in the heavens (i.e., in mental, visionary, or even mystical visions) but deep down into the earth (i.e., in the embodied connection with our common creative root). As the saying attributed to 13th-century Persian poet and mystic Rumi describes, “Maybe you are searching among the branches for what only appears in the roots.” The recognition of such creative roots may allow to growth by branching out in countless creative directions without losing a sense of deep communion across differences. Such a recognition may also engender a sense of belonging to a common spiritual family committed to fostering the spiritual individuation of its members and the eco-socio-politically responsible transformation of the world.I extend an invitation to both scholars and practitioners to add their voices and perspectives to the conversation and to expand participatory thinking in new directions and into new fields. I proceed with the conviction that the participatory approach provides helpful understandings and practical tools to facilitate a more fertile interreligious interaction, empower individuals in the embodied co-creation of their spiritual pathand, perhaps most fundamentally, participate more fully in the mystery out of which everything arises.