The Sunday Mail
Shingai Rukwata Ndoro
Chiseling the Debris
THE English word “spirit” is derived from Latin “spiritus” which means “breath” (“mweya”). In Greek, this is “pneuma” (Strong’s Concordance #4151), which means a breath or a blast of air (wind).
“Breath” is the air taken into or out of the lungs. Air is “the invisible gaseous substance surrounding the earth.”
This is the atmosphere. In any chemistry textbook, we learn that “air is made up of only five gases: nitrogen, oxygen, water vapour, argon and carbon dioxide.”
Air is within and around every form of life consisting of plants, animals and human beings. Such air is non-physical and can be the activating power in every form of life. So every form of life is a bearer and vehicular expression of air.
Air, wind or breath is not reasonable, thinker and causative by itself. On its own, it lacks agency. It is not humanoid. It is impersonal. Whether perceived good or bad, it lacks independent moral and causative agency.
It cannot feel, smell, touch, hear and see without the sensory organs and the mind. It cannot make a moral choice or take a decision.
Allegorically, “spirituality” would therefore be the awareness, connectivity and relationship with one’s own interiority. From within one’s interiority, one finds the in-dwelling agency and power of causation within the mind.
Human interiority is mental condition and it consists of the following, 1) contemplative or introspective consciousness, 2) positive emotional well-being, 3) the drawing of one to the inner depth of self, and 4) the nourishing of the perspective and quality relationship with oneself and others.
Through one’s own willful and causative effort, one is able to discover and actualise such interiority (mental power). This provides a sense of direction and vision in life driven by the following: conscience – the sense of right or wrong; aspiration – the desire or ambition to achieve something which is good, true and beautiful;responsibility – the acceptance of results, effects and consequences of own choices, decisions and actions), and reason – the cognitive faculty to perceive and comprehend.
When one has done so, he/she is fully and deeply connected to and is part of the nucleus of all life. One is able to realise the fraternal connectedness and helpful relationships with others and the environment. This leads to experiences of transformative peace, harmony and healing. Resultantly, a better world around us is achieved.
The Abrahamic deity is perceived humanly and its misleading to say that it is has a spirit (Genesis 1:2) or it is a spirit (John 4:24). Theologians claim that a deity is a non-material being of three attributes: omnipresent (everywhere), omnipotent (absolute power) and omniscient (all knowing). If we use the science method, these qualities are falsely attributed to.
How does the Abrahamic deity, God, possess air/wind/breath (Genesis 1:2) or itself an expression of air/wind/breath (John 4:24)?
The humanisation of air/wind/breath gave us an anthropomorphical Abrahamic God considered to be resident somewhere in the outer space and it harshly punishes and kindly rewards.
The Abrahamic God is considered to be “enthroned in space, who dispenses good or evil, either according to his whim or fancy, or according to our desires.”
It is also viewed as requiring appeasement by endless petitioning, invocations and supplications combined with emotional admiration and fervent or relentless adoration.
“When a human being grasps (a deity) as another being, albeit a more powerful than him/herself, then he/she relates with (a deity) as a dutiful slave, whose duty is to do his bidding. Blindly following a set of narrowly defined rules make (a deity’s) prisoner, or rather, the prisoner of dogma laid down by humans for their own ends…”– Clara Szalai, “Holophany: The Loop of Creation” (Smashwords, 2007).
Like any deity, the Abrahamic God is a mental construct that is an individuation and projection of human fears, insecurities and paternalistic needs. The underpinnings of an affinity to a deity are the egoistic wants and unconscious vulnerabilities driven by the deepest infantile yearnings. These require a harsh, intrusive and interfering paternal figure. This is the definition of a deity whose imagery contains aspects based on the world of physical senses and mental perception.
There is a serious psychological aspect about any deity. Since a deity and its attributes are perceived humanly, they are imagined as having a surface anatomy (pigmentation, hair and facial features), temperament and personality of the narrator, messenger or scribe. It is therefore not a surprise that the mental image of the Abrahamic deity, its alleged prophets and messengers (angels) is associated with Caucasians.
For a religious person, a deity is a being assumed to be of human attributes whose physical location is somewhere in the universe ready to benevolently reward or viciously and harshly punish anyone unless if fervently supplicated and unquestionably submitted to.
Finally, any deity is a human construct shaped by ignorance, insecurities and vulnerabilities. Its place of existence is only in human minds and in a human-authored collection of books.
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