Creative Mind: A Domain Of Spirituality - Term Paper Example

Creative Mind: A Domain Of Spirituality Introduction In his essay ‘Salvation,’ Langston Hughes has described his experience of ritual of ‘salvation,’ that took place in his childhood. From the essay, it is clear that Hughes does not have faith in God and thinks that all the religious rituals are nothing but fake human drama. He has described the event that led him to lose his faith in Jesus, and led him to believe that people who say that they are ‘saved by Jesus’ are fake and liars. However, instead of reflecting on his childhood experience and re-evaluating his opinion about the ritual of salvation in his adulthood, he remained closed and stuck on his conclusion that “Jesus does not exist.” Not only that but Hughes has justified his loss of faith in Jesus by telling the readers the incident that has led him to lose faith in Jesus. This shows that Hughes has taken a narrow minded approach towards the aspect of human being’s faith in God. In Church, Hughes saw his friend Westley lying to everyone that he was ‘saved’ by Jesus, just to avoid sitting there and bearing the push from elders to get ‘saved’ (Hughes 295). This shows that Hughes’s opinion that spiritual experience is a fake thing, is immature, as it is based solely on the deceptive behavior displayed by Westley (Hughes 295). Hence, instead of criticizing the coercive ‘ritual’ of salvation and condemning fake people, Hughes has ended up mocking the human experience of God, which is not fake and limited to the Church, but is authentic and can happen to anyone, anywhere and anytime, as is proved by the experiences of spiritual people from different parts of the world, and also by psychologists. The Essence of ‘Salvation’ Salvation is one of the most important rituals in Christian religion. It is believed that if devotees of Jesus desire freedom from their sins, then they should participate in the ritual of salvation (Wright 17). However, achieving salvation is not an easy thing. According to the Apostle Paul, for a Christian follower to achieve salvation, he has to have complete faith in the belief that “Jesus died for him and He was raised by God” to save him (Wright 9). At the same time, the follower also has to make heartfelt verbal confessions of his sins in order to be saved by Jesus (Wright 9). Without the implementation of these conditions, salvation cannot be achieved by Christians. However, Christian religious texts do not say that Jesus will come in his ‘physical form’ in front of a devotee and tell him that he is saved. Salvation is the ritual which is performed in order to make a person reduce his ego, accept God’s existence and open up to Him (Wright 16). Hence, it is a heart transforming ritual which makes people submit their will to God and become spiritual in nature (Wright 17). However, the aspect that plays an essential role in the ritual of salvation is the belief and faith in God. Religion and spirituality does not mean one and the same thing for everyone. Every human being has his own way of interpreting the messages of God (DiZerega 76). With the formation of free societies, the religious scriptures were also released to the common people from the strict hold of the religious authorities (DiZerega 76). People were free to encounter the words of God without dependence on the authority to interpret it for them (DiZerega 76). People’s heart opened up to God and they began to surrender themselves to God. Hence, every individual receives the messages or ‘signs’ from God in his own individual way (DiZerega 76). This makes it clear that spiritual experience or encounter with God is not a social phenomenon or an act to be dramatized, but is an intimate feeling, experience and meeting with God. Unfortunately, organized religions, in order to prove their superiority to other religions, make God a social phenomenon. Hence, most people end up believing that God does not exit and people, who say that they have encountered God, are liars. Salvation is also one such ritual that is practiced socially. However, religious authorities fail to understand that God does not need them to send His message to His followers (DiZerega 76). God does so through different mysterious ways and hence, the encounter can happen anywhere, and not just in Church (DiZerega 76). God’s presence is available wherever there is a devotee with open mind, heart and soul. Hence, God’s experience is more of a ‘heart’ thing than ‘physical’ thing (Wright 17). However, in his essay, Hughes has analyzed the childhood experience from a different perspective. From Hughes’s description of the event from his childhood in the essay ‘Salvation,’ the reader realizes that due to the colorful explanation of the ritual from his aunt, Hughes was expecting something totally different from what actually happens during the ritual of salvation (Hughes 294). Hughes was just a twelve year old boy when he was taken to the Church by his aunt to be ‘saved’ by Jesus (Hughes 294). The reader can clearly understand that when an adult says that “Jesus will save you,” then a twelve year old child is bound to think that Jesus will come in physical form and somehow save him. Moreover, a child does not even have the capacity to grasp the meaning of ‘sin’ and ‘liberation from sins’. Hence, the author’s dilemma and guilt is completely understandable because when he was taken to the Church for getting ‘saved’ by Jesus, he was only a child and was not really mature enough to understand the role of the ritual in Christian’s life. However, what really strikes the reader is that the opinion that the author has formed in his childhood is not changed even in his adulthood. Mature people know that ‘salvation’ is a phenomenon that occurs on the level of heart and soul, and not on the level of body (Wright 17). Sadly, the author failed to realize that. Moreover, he has even discarded other people’s experience as fake. However, not everyone’s spiritual experience is fraud, as the authenticity of the encounters with divine beings is not only proved by the records of spiritual masters, but is also proved through the records of the psychologists. Jung And His Spiritual Experiences Psychologist Carl Jung is a pioneer in study of spiritual experiences by human beings. His studies and researches in the field of religion and spirituality were responsible in bringing revolution in the understanding of spirituality by people ( Dunne viii). In spite being a psychiatrist, he was also open to realms of spirituality, subjectivity, archetypes, imageries and religion (Dunne ix). Spirit was as important and as real for him as mind and body (Dunne ix). This open attitude and curiosity opened the gates of his heart and brought the experiences of spiritual encounters in his real life (Dunne ix). Jung has described one such experience when he saw a vision of Christ when he was in Switzerland (Dunne 125). At that time of war years, Jung was living in neutral Switzerland, and was spending his time in studying religion and alchemy (Dunne 125). This stay deepened his inner experience as he was away from public life and international scene (Dunne 125). It was during this time that one night, he woke up and “saw, bathed in bright light at the foot” of his bed, “the figure of Christ on the Cross” (Dunne 125). Jung saw that Christ’s body was made of greenish gold and surprisingly, the figure was extremely distinct and real (Dunne 125). According to Jung, he was completely shaken by the beauty of the figure (Dunne 125). This experience had a profound impact on him. He says that it was as if Chris was uniting with his own essence which was lying in the body and matter (Dunne 125). The important thing to note here is that this was not the only spiritual experience that Jung had. He had described many eerie dreams which had prophesized the wars and the bloodshed even before they were declared (Dunne 125). He described a the horrible dream that he had in the year 1918 “following the peace declaration of world war 1,” which indicated to him that great disaster was going to strike Europe in 1940 (Dunne 126). This shows that there is an existence of an extraordinary and spiritual domain in this world, which speaks to those human beings who are open and positive towards it. However, what really attracted Jung to the world of spirit are the psychic experiences that he had in his life. During one of the summer holidays, Jung experienced a psychic phenomenon in which he, his mother and his maid heard the noise of a pistol shot from the drawer of the walnut dining-table (Jung and Main 47). Jung realized that the table was split open right in the centre through the solid wood (Jung and Main 47). It was a curious accident as Jung was not able to figure out what had caused the accident (Jung and Main 47). Two weeks later, another curious incident happened. Jung’s mother, his sister and his maid heard noises from the sideboard (Jung and Main 47). On investigating the interior of the cupboard, Jung found that the blade of the bread knife, which was kept in the cupboard, was split into several pieces and spread in the corners of the cupboard (Jung and Main 47). Also, the knife handle was found in the bread basket (Jung and Main 47). The knife was last used in the evening and no one had touched it since then (Jung and Main 47). The interesting thing is that when Jung took the knife to the cutler for inspection, he was told that the steel was faultless and “someone must have deliberately broken it piece by piece” (Jung and Main 47). These experiences recorded by Jung cannot be called fake as it has come from a human being who was not just interested in study of religion and spirituality, but was also a pioneer in the field of psychology. However, Jung says that this experience left him annoyed as he had no explanation for it, and his friends dismissed it as fraud when he discussed the possibility of it with them (Jung and Main 47). According to Jung, it is this kind of close attitude and resistance to the idea of spirituality that is the cause of psychological disorders and mental suffering in human beings (Jung 200). According to Jung, people in the field of psychology and medicine have always remained away from the problems that are strictly psychic in nature (Jung 226). Jung says that psychologists fail to understand that human beings have a deep need and aspiration for spiritual experiences (Jung 230). They are always in search of meaning in life (Jung 230). However, psychological theories are useful only in fulfilling the surface drives and desires of human beings (Jung 230). They leave the spiritual needs unfulfilled and this makes human beings suffer from mentally disturbed and unhappy life (Jung 230). The spiritual stagnation, lack of meaning in life, lack of creativity etc., makes human being’s life miserable. Hence, according to Jung, man should not discard spiritual experiences or religious rituals as fake, but should go deep into it with an open heart. An open attitude towards spirituality can give meaning to human life and can make man happy. Conclusion The discussion above shows that spiritual experience is not a fake thing, but is a means of a happy and content life. Hence, instead of discarding the ritual of salvation as fake and deceptive, Hughes should have explored deeper into the spiritual aspects of life and opened his heart to it, as it is evident from the discussion above that only a creative mind, open heart and an inviting attitude makes God to come and live in His devotee’s heart and make his life a bliss. Work Cited DiZerega, Gus. Pagans & Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 2001. Print. Dunne, Claire. Carl Jung: Wounded Healer Of The Soul: An Illustrated Biography. London: Continuum Books, 2000. Print. Hughes, Langston. “Salvation.” One Hundred Great Essays. 4th ed. Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York: Penguin, 2010. 294-296. Print. Jung, Carl and Roderick Main. Jung On Synchronicity And The Paranormal. London: Routledge, 1997. Print. Jung, Carl. Modern Man In Search Of A Soul. Oxon: Routledge, 1993. Print. Read More