The “illogicality” of spirituality

Recently I had been to a party and I happened to meet some new and interesting people. At some point, the discussions veered around to spirituality. They were asking me some questions and since I do not know the answer to many questions, one of them exclaimed, “Spirituality is so illogical!” I do not harbor any ill will towards that person for making the statement, but thought of analyzing the same with an apocryphal story which I created.

Junama is a smart kid in the dark jungles of Africa in a place totally untouched by current civilization. Junama is an expert hunter and he has built his own super deduction system based on which he can pinpoint any hunting prey based on different sounds, smells etc. He has gone to the Famous Institute of Hunting where he has learnt advanced hunting techniques. The people in the village think that he is an absolute genius and he is something equivalent to a Harvard graduate! So just like any graduate from a top university, people think that Junama is an expert at everything.

One day as he is hunting, he comes pretty far off and accidentally bumps into Mr. John who is browsing on his laptop and seeing a documentary on animals. Junama observes from behind and notices that there are deer and rabbit in this small “something”. He is absolutely amazed and goes to Mr. John and tells he also wants to make rabbits and deer appear. Let’s not worry how they communicated with one another. Mr. John tells him that Junama does not have access and he has been denied the rights to play the game. John tries to explain the concept of entitlements/password etc. Junama tries to make sense of it and based on his limited concept of the world realizes that there is something called Internet in a distant place who decides whether deer and rabbit can be created or not and that he has been denied the ability. He comes back to his village and announces what he has seen. Since he is from the Famous Institute, people take him seriously and one of the elders suggests that they should start worshipping Internet so that rabbits and deer appear. So the villagers start building temples for Internet and worship it hoping they will get more to hunt.  Several years later, Junama’s grandson being a great sportsman gets a chance to play the World Cup in America. Junama recalls John telling that the Internet is in America and he tells his grandson Punama to meet Internet and come.

Punama goes to America and after his games looks around and asks people for Internet. He is told that Internet is everywhere and that it does not have a body or shape and so he cannot meet Internet. Punama is totally confused. He has grown up seeing the images of Internet in temples and now he is being told that Internet does not have a shape and is everywhere. He comes back to his village and tells what he has seen to his grandfather Junama. Junama asks him some questions about what he has seen and asks deeper questions about Internet as described by his grandson. The grandson with his limited knowledge of Internet and totally conditioned by his childhood belief that Internet is God, finds it impossible to answer questions. So Junama declares that the concept of Internet as understood by Punama is totally flawed and illogical and they continue worshipping Internet in the temple and even make Punama beg forgiveness of the great Internet God.

Though the above story may appear ridiculous, this is our state of spirituality. We have been conditioned in our concepts of the world based on what we perceive through our senses, feel through our emotions and conceptualize through our intellect. Now, the core of spirituality which talks of Consciousness as a concept does not fit into the model that we have grown up knowing and imbibing. 

Consciousness is so subtle that it is subtler than the body, mind and intellect which are the instruments we can use in any of our investigations. So using a gross instrument, if we try to investigate a subtle element, there is now way we can understand the laws of the subtle medium and we end up telling that the laws of the subtle medium are illogical.

It made no difference to the Internet how it was conceptualized by the simple hunter tribe of Africa and it still did what it was supposed to do based on its own rules of logic and not the rules of logic as defined by the hunting community. Similarly, whatever we think of the logicality or illogicality of spirituality, the laws of spirituality act and affect each of us based on its own logic and rules, which we may declare as illogical.