ANARCHY AND THE SPIRITUAL QUEST

The Hebrew version of this article is to be found on the following URL:

http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/AnarchyandSpiritualQuestHEB.htm

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 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, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com