Does Religion Equal Spirituality?

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="633"] Can we find a sense of spirituality from our own experiences or do we need to rely on the words of others?[/caption]

 

Does Religion Equal Spirituality?

I want to ask what it means to be spiritual in today's world. Are being religious and being spiritual the same thing? Is spirituality something that can only be found and practiced within man-made walls? If it is, then what is there for those who don’t tend to follow these traditional routes to spirituality? Religions like Christianity and Islam have been around for thousands of years. They have influenced the world and their followers greatly. However, is there only a choice between finding spirituality in religion and having none at all?

I, for one, don’t think that the choice is necessarily this black and white. It shouldn't be. I believe that it is indeed possible to feel a sense of spirituality without being part of a formal institution. As someone who participated in one of these establishments every week for nearly 20 years, I can say that I never felt close to feeling spiritual when sat between those walls. Perhaps I just need to explore another religion as is becoming the trend nowadays.

According to a survey conducted by Pew Research in 2007, "More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all." What motivations are standing behind such a statistic? Of course those major organizations can give wonderful guidelines for communities to live by, but they also provide numerous rules to abide by. These rules often restrict the soul, not set it free.

 

Spirituality in the Twenty-First Century

Shakespeare's Hamlet has been famously credited for coining the phrase “nothing is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.” For a lot of people, being part of a structured, organized religion is the key to spirituality. However, look at the world and how much it has changed – the way we eat, drink, learn, play, party, travel, and communicate – the list is endless of what has been altered over time. So why do we continue to follow methods that were created so long ago? Young people nowadays are leaving traditional religions and are searching for new means to develop their inner selves. Besides, there is no clear definition of spirituality. No one can say one way is either correct or incorrect. For some it may sound oxymoronic to say ‘Yeah, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious.” People should be entitled to feel how they want, and I’d even encourage people to find some sense of spirituality within themselves, no matter how small it may seem to be. Too many people these days are trapped behind desks, phone screens and computers and need to get out and experience the world to find that unique sense of being.

 

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="329"] Do we need to pray to unearthly gods or do 'the answers' lie elsewhere?[/caption]

What Is Being Spiritual?

Why do we even need spirituality? Is the world just blood, bone, rock, plant and physical matter? No one can say for sure, not yet anyway. Nobody probably ever will. I’d like to think that there is something else, something mystical, incorporeal on our universe. It is that ‘x-factor’ that makes our lives more enjoyable and worthwhile. It can’t be just about money and material goods, can it? This is where the word ‘spirit’ comes to mind. It is where we learn if there is a deeper meaning to life. Everyone has a spirit. Perhaps they don’t call it a spirit, but rather ‘soul’ or ‘energy’ or ‘character.’

Since arriving in Korea, I was initially surprised to learn how Christian the society here is, especially as I don't tend to associate Asia with Christianity. I've worked closely with many clever and kind people who get up every day to attend early services and spend their weekends dedicating all their free time to cooking, cleaning and decorating churches. Perhaps these people are in touch with their spirits but on the face of things, they were also constantly exhausted and often fell ill due to a lack of a healthy diet (fasting) and  a lack of sleep. Surely a healthy body is part of having a healthy mind and maybe even a healthy soul.

 

Where Can We Find Spirituality?

If spirituality isn’t relegated to churches, temples and mosques, then where is it hiding? Of course, for some, it remains in these places. But a concrete answer to spirituality will never really be found: One man's trash is another man's treasure.

For me, our spirit is harnessed through our experiences – the places we go, the people we meet, the cultures we encounter, our interaction with nature, even the books and music we consume can shape our personalities, our way of thinking and ultimately, our souls. This variety of factors opens our senses, broadens our thinking and can make us better people, if we are willing to learn from them. On a personal note, though it may sound ‘hippyish’, I think I have gained an immeasurable amount from travelling. Of course, travelling is not a religion, but its impact on an individual cannot be underestimated. I don’t envy those who have travelled so much more than me but instead wish to follow their lead. There is so much to be learned from meeting others and seeing what makes them tick in life.

I’d like to encourage those who lack a sense of spirit to get out and search for it. Though I can’t say what it looks like or where it will be, the truth is out there.

(Featured image credits.)

Why Atheists celebrate Christmas

I must have been 5 or 6 years old when my best friend told me during gym class that Sinterklaas (the Dutch version of Santa Claus) didn’t exist. I didn’t want to believe it, but he kept insisting. “It’s your parents who are giving you those gifts,” he said. I kept being in denial until I got home and asked my parents about it. When they confirmed, I lost my faith in Sinterklaas. It was then and there that I stopped believing in claims of a higher power if not proven by science. In other words: I’m an atheist.

It’s difficult to know that you are the only one you can fall back on, that you’re alone in this world, without some higher power looking over your shoulder. No guardian angel, no deity, no force that’s with me; I have to do everything myself. My father knows both sides of the story: as a devoted muslim he felt comfortable that God was always watching over him, but when he abandoned his faith, so did His watchful eye. He tells me life was easier as a Muslim, because his faith in God would always help him when he would face difficulties. Now, he has to face them all by himself. My father still goes to a mosque sometimes to feel the spirituality of the place, whereas I go for the magnificent architecture, which I like to photograph. Spirituality is meaningless to me; it’s like telling myself Sinterklaas still exists when I know he does not. I have no use for it in my life.

Now that I am living in Korea, I sometimes feel out of place when spirituality is involved. However modern it may look on the outside, Korean society still has a big place for spirituality. Soothsayers and palm readers play a big role in many people’s choices in life, Buddhist temples and churches are still frequented for guidance and prayer, and multiple times a year rituals are performed to honor deceased ancestors. All this spirituality means nothing to me. I think that the soothsayers and palm readers are a bunch of frauds that make a good living off the uncertainty of people, I frequent Buddhist temples and churches only for the amazing architecture and scenery I love to photograph, and I have no need for honoring my dead ancestors because they are dead and can’t hear me anymore.

Although spirituality hasn’t any meaning to me, I can’t escape it due to my Korean wife’s family. My wife used to go to a palm reader in the early stages of our relationship. She was shocked to hear the palm reader say that we would break up a few years later, at which I got angry and told her she shouldn’t see those people anymore. The problem resolved itself. When the deadline of the prophecy passed, our relationship was stronger than ever. She hasn’t gone to one of them since. I don’t have any problems with my mother-in-law going to a Buddhist temple every week. Being an atheist doesn’t necessarily mean that you think other people should be atheists as well. Religion and spirituality is something personal that everybody should figure out for themselves. No, the most frequent exposure to spirituality is the ritual to honor the dead that I have to go through multiple times a year. There is charye (차례) on New Year’s Day and Chuseok (추석) in the Fall, and because my wife’s grandmother died a couple of weeks after Chuseok, we need to repeat the whole ceremony again on the day she died (which is called Jesa or 제사). My wife’s grandfather died on another day still so there’s another day for that too.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Table set for Chuseok (photo by Emre Kanik)[/caption]

The ceremonies are almost identical (I haven’t found a difference yet, but then again, I could be wrong): It starts with preparing a lot of food and putting it on a table in a predetermined way, organized by color and/or type of food. Nobody seems to know because every time we are arguing what goes where and shifting around the food. Several times we need to refer to a printed piece of paper with the set up on it to get it right. Then my father-in-law and his brother change into their nicest suit and the ceremony begins. Well, not immediately because my father in law, who needs to lead the ceremony, always forgets what must be done. He’s studying a book with instructions and pictures intensively before we start. During the ceremony he constantly reaches for it too, because he’s not sure about the next step. While not having the need for any spirituality, I still participate in all the bowing and circling a cup of rice wine (Jeong Jong, 정종) around incense three times. There is also a period just before the final bow when we shouldn’t look at the table so the spirits of our ancestors wouldn’t be disturbed while eating the food from the table. Though I think the reason you shouldn’t look is that you won’t see that there’s actually nothing going on at all. We awkwardly wander around in the living room until my father in law says it is time to continue the ceremony.

So why participate in all this if I’m so skeptical, you might ask. The answer is the same as when we celebrated Sinterklaas during my childhood. After I stopped believing in Sinterklaas we didn’t stop celebrating it. Partly it was because of my little sister, who still very much believed, but also when she stopped believing we continued celebrating. Although it shifted to celebrating Christmas, which is even weirder to celebrate as an atheist when you think about it. I remember we would really look forward to the gifts we would receive and preferably open all at once. Now that I’m an adult and living in Korea I’m in a whole different situation. I don’t celebrate Sinterklaas nor Christmas anymore and I don’t need all the rituals and spirituality. However, when people express their gratitude when I know the proper way to bow in a funeral, or help my in-laws setting up the table and participating in the ceremony, I know I still do it for the same reason as celebrating Sinterklaas when I was just a kid. I’m still doing it for the gifts, but I’m not on the receiving end anymore and that makes it even more rewarding.

Don't get me wrong, if you believe in a god I still think you're wrong, but it's just not worth it disrupting Christmas for. Like I found my way to deal with spirituality you have found yours. People throughout history have been wrong or right on numerous issues and have solved them in any number ways, including the really ugly ones like suppression and violence, and good ones like dialogue and arguing. I like to choose for the latter rather than the former, so unless you are one of those people who advocate the former, I think we're going to do just fine.

Christmas... in Korea?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6oy8IucCMg

Ho ho ho!

Santa and his trusty reindeer land on rooftops, and he shimmies down the chimney to deliver Christmas presents for those on his ‘Nice List.’ Sound familiar?

This is what some of you inevitably expected of Christmas when you were younger and still held onto the notion of a mystical figure who brought gifts on one magical winter holiday of the year. Although you grew up and eventually learned that (SPOILER ALERT!) Santa Claus did not actually exist, you still probably promoted the idea to future generations. Even minus a jolly red-cheeked fat man with gifts, Christmas is still a joyous holiday the world over, all about spreading holiday cheer to family and friends---even as far as Korea!

Yep, you read that correctly. Christmas is celebrated in Korea as well as in many Western countries. Indeed, the Korean notion of Christmas are pretty similar to that found in the West, but with a few tweaks.

Santa Claus exists in the hearts of most young children in Korea as in many other countries. Parents tell their children to behave and be nice if they want Santa, often called Santa haraboji (할아버지; Grandpa Santa) to bring them presents. However, as the children grow older, they discontinue their belief in Santa, and as such, they stop receiving presents. Most children stop getting presents once they become middle school students. In Korea, no strict custom exists for family or friends to give and receive Christmas gifts. No Christmas presents, you ask? Then what about the food? Surely, there shall be a feast to celebrate with the family!

Nope, the only food that is especially popular on Korean Christmas is Christmas cake. Christmas is, after all, the birth of Jesus Christ, and what better way to celebrate his birthday than with a cake? Thus, every year, bakeries try to outdo one another with extravagant cakes. Stroll into any bakery near the holidays and you’ll find the store brimming with Christmas cakes.

[caption id="attachment_1516" align="aligncenter" width="500" class=" "] Korean Christmas cake[/caption]

Most, if not all, churches in Korea welcome anyone and serve food (don’t expect anything too special) and sometimes small gifts around Christmas. Because 25 percent of the Korean population is Christian, many churchgoers, as well as non-Christians, attend Christmas service in church. For those that prefer not to spend the holiday in church, there are other options.

Many people choose to spend Christmas with their family, regardless of how bland the holiday may be. For others, it’s a day to go out drinking and partying with friends. On Christmas Eve and Christmas day, you’ll find most pubs and bars filled to the brim with patrons looking for some holiday ‘spirit.’ In parts of Seoul like Gangnam or Hongdae, you’ll see groups of men and women mixing together, trying to see if they can find love. There’s even a huge event called "solo daecheop (솔로대첩; victory for singles)" on Christmas where single folk come out to find partners. However, for those who already have a significant other, the day is dedicated to enjoying a romantic date. On Christmas Eve and Christmas day, you’ll see many couples walking hand in hand, taking in the sights. Visit any restaurant and most of the tables are occupied with couples. Who knows? You might find a relationship too.

[caption id="attachment_1514" align="aligncenter" width="500" class=" "] Matching singles in Korea during the holidays[/caption]

Those who live in or frequent downtown Seoul know certain districts light up with bright Christmas decorations during December. Most decorations are put up in big shopping districts, or Korea’s many cafes. So if you’re feeling homesick, try hanging out in the booming shopping district 명동 (Myeongdong, Line 4) or Times Square in 영등포 (Yeongdeungpo, Line 1).

[caption id="attachment_3392" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Christmas in Myeongdong[/caption]

There are many ways to spend the Christmas holidays. So if you happen to be an expat in Korea during them, don’t shut yourself in your home, thinking about your past holiday experiences. Go out and take in the sights, meet new people, grab a few (or more) drinks with friends, or if you have family, spend a warm and cheerful holiday with them. Christmas isn’t about where you are; it’s about those with whom you choose to spend it. Merry Christmas!