Einstein's God, or The Hopes for a Secular Spirituality (Part 5)

If Einstein pointed the way to a new form of spirituality through his comment on Buddhism -- quoted at the end of the last post -- in which he gave the key criteria for a "cosmic religion of the future." Such a religion, he said, should

--Transcend a personal God
--Avoid dogma and theology
--Embrace both the natural and the spiritual
--Establish itself on a personal sense of unity among all things

What's left for us is to apply the same criteria today, fifty years after Einstein's death. For many people the first step will prove the hardest. They seek the reassurance and solace of a personal God, but Einstein had seen enough of world catastrophe to reject the possibility of a God who intervenes in daily affairs. A benevolent God who doesn't intervene also seems rather futile. The alternative, as he saw it, is to transcend to a level of Nature where harmony, wonder, and unity are real experiences. One would then have God's essence without needing God's interference. The second point, avoiding dogma and theology, releases us from organized religion. Einstein, being an independent thinker of the highest order, couldn't fit into any organized faith, and more to the point, the Judeo-Christian tradition is based on a personal God, which he had already rejected. Being freed from religion offers an open field for new and unknown possibilities.

The next point, embracing the natural and the spiritual. is crucial in the age of science. Unless you can find a common ground where reason can meet with spirit, there's little alternative except a forced choice of one or the other. Einstein was almost unique in his ability to see, however dimly, that a forced choice isn't necessary. As the last point states, a person can only be religious in the truest sense when unity is sensed already. I think this is Einstein's most valuable insight. Instead of trying to seek unity at the end of the spiritual journey, Einstein uses it as our guide from the very beginning. the beauty and wonder of the cosmos are inescapable at the intuitive level, which is where wonder is born. Awe is a humbling feeling and thus a good preparation for realizing the vastness of truth. In that sense, however great a mind he possessed, Einstein as a spiritual creature was devotional at heart. He worshipped before the altar of harmony, order, and universal law, all presided over by an unseen consciousness never to be fully known or even named.

Because he was so genuinely philosophical, Einstein tended to express his spiritual intuitions in abstract terms, but we can translate them into simpler ones:

-- Don't rely on an absent God who cannot be contacted.
--Step aside from dogma and find your own version of God.
--Your God is the ultimate perfection of your vision of life.
--Despite turmoil in the world, such a God resides at a level where mind, body, and spirit have the same source. This is also your source.
--In your search for our source, don't pay so much attention to fixed beliefs and past experience. Go back, over and over, to the simplicity of Nature at its most beautiful and inspiring.
--See yourself as part of the harmony you find around you, not as part of the chaos and disorder.

This is only the barest sketch of where Einstein was pointing, but to me the map is valid. We are all familiar with the opposite way, which leads to inner conflict, anger, and anxiety. Trying to turn the turbulent world into something eternal, non-changing, and harmonious is beyond any individual, but what Einstein saw is that behind the mask of the material world lies such a realm. Our lives are not removed from eternity and harmony, nor are they vaguely infused by those transcendent qualities. The eternal domain is the basis of Nature itself. therefore, it is the basis of our own nature. The fact that we can comprehend the universe means that we are enmeshed in its mysteries. To that end, every search for understanding and truth is religious -- Einstein felt this even about physics -- and the possibility of finding ever greater truths opens the way for a spirituality that does the same thing. To me, this vision is the most optimistic one to emerge from the profound thinkers of the quantum era. The criteria that Einstein laid down for a "cosmic religion of the future" have lost none of their power to entice us toward freedom and truth.

Click: www.intentblog.com

www.deepakchopra.com

Comments

[stevesrant]

"The fact that we can comprehend the universe means that we are enmeshed in its mysteries" Or, more to the point of embracing the natural and the spiritual, the fact that we can comprehend the universe that grows us can only mean that our intelligence is a manifestation of the intelligence that (mysteriously) suffuses the universe. One need not defer to an outside designer or deify the accidental in acknowledging the infinite mystery of who we are. Thank you Dr. Chopra for your rational approach to this magical mystery. Tour?

[Dap]

Dear Dr. Chopra,

I want to send ya an apology, seems I (just took notice) had not put you on my favorites list, I had thought I had early on, sorry, as I do always enjoy your essays/posts.

You have always brought great discourse to this forum and your exploration of Humanity's spirit is enlightening in an of itself.

Thank you for all your sharing with us. Agape.

[Tryingtobereasonable]

Deepak, have you been reading Sagan, Dennett, Dawkins and Harris?

--Transcend a personal God
--Avoid dogma and theology
--Embrace both the natural and the spiritual
--Establish itself on a personal sense of unity among all things

What happen to your other list, the one about our future? The one that says:

--Prayer will be seen as real and efficacious.
--Faith will no longer be seen as an irrational departure from reason and science.
--Manifestation of desires will be talked about as a real phenomenon.
--Aspects of the paranormal and miraculous will be widely credited.
--A wisdom tradition will grow to embrace the great spiritual teachings at the
heart of organized religion.

[xenofile]

I don't see a conflict between the lists.
And the top list comes from Einstein, obviously an inspiration to most people.

I still think it comes down to a communication issue, and Dawkins & Harris don't hold a candle to Sagan when it comes to moving people who aren't already in lockstep agreement with them.

[phasechange]

While I have been critical of your prior comments, your positive quest to reduce the conflicts inherently produced by irrational religious thought does deserve some merit. However, you continue to err on a crucial aspect of Einstein's views when you state (emphasis added) "He worshipped before the altar of harmony, order, and universal law, all presided over by an unseen CONSCIOUSNESS never to be fully known or even named." Please, Einstein never referred to an unseen consciousness but was particularly careful in describing his belief in a universal order. Once again, you take his name in vain by sloppily exaggerating his graceful appreciation of the beauty of the cosmos.

[DougIndeap]

I agree. Einstein's expressions of awe, wonder, and humility in contemplating the cosmos and its secrets say nothing about a cosmic consciousness (in the form of a god or otherwise). Indeed, he took care to distance himself from such notions. Of his various statements on the subject, this one summarizes his views well: "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." As Dawkings and others have noted, many self-proclaimed atheists experience similar feelings toward nature and the cosmos and could thus also characterize themselves as religious in the Einsteinian sense.