Spirituality has no settled foundations

Raising questions, finding some answers and then, asking more questions are basic human traits. Essentially, we may claim that humans are questioning animals. Professor Sanjai Bhatt from the Delhi School of Social Work, University of Delhi, summed up this insight when he tersely claimed: “Quest is us.”
Bhatt is an academician and social worker, “committed to bridging the gap between social work education and practice”. He experiments with different teaching methodologies and works with grassroots organisations. He is associated with a number of social movements and civil society organisations in various capacities. In his experience with social work, he found that one of the fundamental difficulties with us is that we take the easy way out, accept other’s answers and live our lives according to them. Bhatt, who wants “decent work for working people in the organised and unorganised sector”, urged those in the social work profession to look at life seriously and keep on asking fundamental questions, even if they may be disturbing.
He lamented that fact that academicians do not ask the more serious and fundamental questions on life, its goal and meaning. Many of us are satisfied with the simplistic solutions we have found and persist with those answers, even when the questions have changed. Coming to social workers, although, social work is particularly a practical topic, there is also a need for deep reflection, questioning and moving on.
He was talking at an international conference on “Religion, Spirituality and Social Work” organised by the Centre for Studies in Rural Development, Ahmednagar. Suresh Pathare, director of the centre and the main organiser of the conference, added that there is a necessary connection between religion, spirituality and social work.
In fact, spirituality urges us to question, find some answers and move on. Spirituality does not give us settled foundations on which we can rest our past laurels or languish in old miseries. Genuine spirituality is not afraid of ambiguities and uncertainties. It cannot stagnate itself with the old answers given by our forefathers.
The easy way out of it is to accept the naïve answers and live as if we have all the answers that we need. Such an attitude leads to fundamentalism and fanaticism.
At the same time, we need to be grateful to the ancient visionaries. The tradition has to be taken seriously but we cannot be enslaved by it. Acknowledging the contribution our forefathers have made and the wisdom they have gained, we need to ask different questions on today’s complex life, which poses very different perspectives and challenges. It will be foolish to directly apply the insights of yesterday to today’s problems, even at the spiritual realm. The newness of life stems from human hope that denies the present at every moment. Thus, by raising more questions and seeking more answers, we can organically relate the traditions of the past. A spirituality that can provide us with such challenges and opportunities for the present, based on past traditions and open to future possibilities, will flourish for the common and collective good of humanity.
These sentiments can be well summed up in the beautiful insight of the greatest scientist and mystic of the past century, Albert Einstein: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The most important thing is not to stop questioning.”

(The writer is a professor of science and religion)