Part 1

Produced by David B. Alexander

THE ESSENTIALS OF SPIRITUALITY

by Felix Adler

The Essentials of Spirituality

The first essential is an awakening, a sense of the absence of spirituality, the realized need of giving to our lives a new and higher quality; first there must be the hunger before there can be the satisfaction.

Similar effects are often produced by widely differing processes. In the psychical world that quality which we call spirituality may be associated with and evoked by Theism, or the belief in a Divine Father; by Pantheism, as in the case of Spinoza, whose face at the very first glance impresses you with its spiritual cast; or even by the Buddhist belief in Nirvana. It may also be attained by following the precepts and striving after the ideals of Ethical Culture. For spirituality is not indissolubly associated with any one type of religion or philosophy; it is a quality of soul manifesting itself in a variety of activities and beliefs.

Before we proceed further, however, we must hazard a definition of the word. In the region of mental activity which is called the spiritual life vagueness is apt to prevail, the outlines of thought are apt to be blurred, the feelings aroused are apt to be indistinct and transitory. The word 'spiritual' becomes a synonym of muddy thought and misty emotionalism. If there were another word in the language to take its place, it would be well to use it. But there is not. We must use the word 'spiritual,' despite its associations and its abuse. We shall endeavor, however, to attach a distinct and definite meaning to the word. Mere definition, however, is too abstract and nakedly intellectual. Perhaps a description of some types of character, combined with definition, will be the better way.

Savonarola is surely one of the commanding figures in history. His fiery earnestness, his passion for righteousness, the boldness with which he censured the corruptions of the Roman Court, the personal qualities by which he--a foreigner and a mere monk--made himself for a short period the lawgiver, the prophet, and virtually the dictator of Florence--that Florence which was at the time the very gemmary of the Renaissance--his sudden fall and tragic death; all combine to attract toward him our admiration, pity, and love, and to leave upon our minds the impression of his extraordinary moral genius. And yet, though a spiritual side was not wanting in Savonarola, we should not quote him as an outstanding exemplar of spirituality. The spiritual life is unperturbed and serene. His nature was too passionate, he was too vehement in his philippics, too deeply engrossed in the attainment of immediate results, too stormy a soul to deserve the name of spiritual.

Again, our own Washington is one of the commanding figures in history. He achieved the great task which he set himself; he secured the political independence of America. He became the master builder of a nation; he laid securely the foundations on which succeeding generations have built. He was calm, too, with rare exceptions; an expert in self-control. But there was mingled with his calmness a certain coldness. He was lofty and pure, but we should hardly go to him for instruction in the interior secrets of the spiritual life. His achievements were in another field. His claim to our gratitude rests on other grounds. The spiritual life is calm, but serenely calm; irradiated by a fervor and a depth of feeling that were to some extent lacking in our first president. Lincoln, perhaps, came nearer to possessing them.

Again, we have such types of men as John Howard, the prison reformer, and George Peabody, who devoted his great fortune to bettering the housing of the poor and to multiplying and improving schools. These men--especially the latter--were practical and sane, and were prompted in their endeavors by an active and tender benevolence. Yet we should scarcely think of them as conspicuous examples of the spiritual quality in human life and conduct. Benevolence, be it never so tender and practical, does not reach the high mark of spirituality. Spirituality is more than benevolence in the ordinary sense of the term. The spiritual man is benevolent to a signal degree, but his benevolence is of a peculiar kind. It is characterized by a certain serene fervor which we may almost call saintliness.

But perhaps some one may object that a standard by which personalities like Savonarola, Washington, Howard and Peabody fall short is probably set too high, and that in any case the erection of such a standard cannot be very helpful to the common run of human beings. Where these heroic natures fall short, can you and I hope to attain? To such an objection the reply is that we cannot be too fastidious or exacting in respect to our standard, however poor our performance may be. Nothing less than a kind of divine completeness should ever content us. Furthermore, there have been some men who approached nearer to the spiritual ideal than the patriots and the philanthropists just mentioned--some few men among the Greeks, the Hindus, and the Hebrews. And for the guidance of conduct, these more excellent spirits avail us more than the examples of a Savonarola, a Washington or a Howard. To be a prophet or the lawgiver of a nation is not within your province and mine. For such a task hardly one among millions has the opportunity or the gifts. To be liberators of their country has been accorded in all the ages thus far covered by human history to so small a number of men that one might count them on the fingers of a single hand. Even to be philanthropists on a large scale is the restricted privilege of a very few. But to lead the spiritual life is possible to you and me if we choose to do so. The best is within the reach of all, or it would not be the best. Every one is permitted to share life's highest good.

The spiritual life, then, may be described by its characteristic marks of serenity, a certain inwardness, a measure of saintliness. By the latter we are not to understand merely the aspiration after virtue or after a lofty ideal, still pursued and still eluding, but to a certain extent the embodiment of this ideal in the life--virtue become a normal experience like the inhalation and exhalation of breath! Moreover, the spiritually-minded seem always to be possessed of a great secret. This air of interior knowledge, of the perception of that which is hidden from the uninitiated, is a common mark of all refinement, aesthetic as well as moral. In studying the face of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa,' for instance, one will find that it is this interior insight that explains the so-called "cryptic smile." In the case of aesthetic refinement, the secret discloses itself as at bottom delicacy, the delicacy which prevents intrusion on the personality of others; which abhors a prying curiosity; which finds subtle ways of conveying esteem and delicate modes of rendering service. But the secret of moral refinement is of a far higher order, transcending aesthetic refinement by as much as goodness is superior to mere charm. The secret in this case consists in the insight vouchsafed to the spiritually-minded of the true end of human existence.

Constituted as we are, there exist for us lower and higher ends. This distinction is fundamental for ethics. Food is necessary; without it we cannot live. But the getting of food--however necessary--is a lower end. Knowledge is a necessary end, and a higher one. The practical moral ends, such as the reformation of prisons, the improvement of the dwellings of the poor, are yet higher ends. But above all these is the highest end, that of moral completeness, of perfection, not in one particular but in every particular. Spirituality consists in always keeping in view this supreme end. The spiritually-minded person is one who regards whatever he undertakes from the point of view of its hindering or furthering his attainment of the supreme end. If a river had a consciousness like the human consciousness, we might imagine that it hears the murmur of the distant sea from the very moment when it leaves its source, and that the murmur grows clearer and clearer as the river flows on its way, welcoming every tributary it receives as adding to the volume which it will contribute to the sea, rejoicing at every turn and bend in its long course that brings it nearer to its goal. Such is the consciousness of a spiritually-minded human being. Or to take a simile from human experience. There are times when we go abroad to travel just for change of scenery and the refreshment which change brings with it. When we go in this mood we are likely to be intent on wayside pleasures, and at every stage of the journey, at every town where we halt, we shall suffer ourselves to be engrossed in the points of interest which that temporary abiding-place has to offer us, careless of what may await us farther on. But there are other times when we go abroad on serious business. Some congress of scientists or fellow-workers is to meet in which we are to take our part; or there is a conflict being waged in which we are to bear our share of wounds or death, as in the case of the Japanese, who are now setting out from their homes toward the battlefields of Manchuria; or there is some loved one at a distance who needs us, calls us, expects us. Then the stations on the way are unable to captivate our attention; we are impatient to pass them by; we welcome each one as we approach it as bringing us one step nearer to the desired goal.

Some such analogy will help us understand the inner state of a spiritually-minded person. He thinks always of the ultimate end. In whatever he does or omits to do he asks himself, Will it advance me or divert me from the ultimate goal? Since spirituality consists in keeping in mind the ultimate goal, it follows, in accordance with what was said in the beginning, that there must be various types of spirituality, corresponding to the various ways in which the ultimate goal is conceived. For those to whom the final end of human life is union with God, the Divine Father, the thought of this Divine Father gives color and complexion to their spiritual life. They think of Him when they lie down at night and when they rise up in the morning; his praise is ever on their lips; the desire to win his approbation is with them in all their undertakings. To those who regard the attainment of Nirvana as the supreme end, like the Buddhists, the thought of Nirvana is a perpetual admonition. To those who view the supreme end of life as moral perfection, the thought of that perfection is the constant inner companion. The moral man, commonly so-called; the man who is honest, pays his debts, performs his duties to his family; the man who works for specific objects, such as political reform; this man, worthy of all respect though he be, is still intent on the stages of his journey. The spiritual man, as we must now define him from the point of view of Ethical Culture, is the man who always thinks of the ultimate goal of his journey, i. e., a moral character complete in every particular, and who is influenced by that thought at all times and in all things. Spirituality, in this conception of it, is nothing but morality raised to its highest power.

And now, let us ask what are some of the conditions on which the attainment of such a life depends. The prime condition is to acquire the habit of ever and anon detaching one's self from one's accustomed interests and pursuits, becoming, as it were, a spectator of one's self and one's doings, escaping from the sweeping current and standing on the shore. For this purpose it is advisable to consecrate certain times, preferably a certain time each day, to self-recollection; to dedicate an hour--or a half-hour, if no more can be spared--to seeing one's life in all its relations; that is, as the poet has put it, to seeing life "steadily and seeing it whole." The sane view is to see things in their relation to other things; the non-sane view is to see them isolated, in such a way that they exercise a kind of hypnotic spell over us. And it makes no difference what a man's habitual interests may be, whether they be sordid or lofty, he needs ever and anon to get away from them. In reality, nothing wherewith a man occupies himself need be sordid. The spiritual attitude does not consist in turning one's back on things mundane and fixing one's gaze on some supernal blaze of glory, but rather in seeing things mundane in their relation to things ultimate, perfect.

The eating of bread is surely a sufficiently commonplace operation. Yet Jesus brake bread with his disciples in such way that that simple act has become the symbol of sublimely spiritual relations, the centre of the most august rite of the Christian Church. In like manner the act of sitting down to an ordinary meal with the members of our family may, if seen in its relations, be for us a spiritual consecration. The common meal may become for us the type of the common life we share, the common love we bear.

On the other hand, seemingly much more lofty pursuits may have a narrowing and deadening effect on us if we do not see them in their ultimate relations, and so divest them of reference to life's highest end. For instance, the pursuit of science may have this effect, if the sole object of the scientist be to perform some astonishing piece of work for the purpose of attracting attention or to secure a well-salaried position, or even if he be so wedded to his specialty as to fail to be sensitive to the relations of it to the body of truth in general. And the same holds good of the narrow-minded reformer, of whom Emerson has said that his virtue so painfully resembles vice; the man who puts a moral idol in the place of the moral ideal, who erects into the object toward which all his enthusiasm goes some particular reform, such as the single tax, or socialism, or public parks, or a model school; the man, in short, who strives for a good instead of striving for goodness. Whatever our pursuits may be, we should often mentally detach ourselves from them, and, standing aloof as impartial spectators, consider the direction in which they are taking us.

This counsel is frequently urged on grounds of health, since the wear and tear of too intense absorption in any pursuit is apt to wreck the nervous system. I urge it on the ground of mental sanity, since a man cannot maintain his mental poise if he follows the object of his devotion singly, without seeing it in relation to other objects. And I urge it also on the ground of spirituality, for a salient characteristic of spirituality is calmness, and without the mental repose which comes of detachment we cannot import calmness into our lives. There are some persons, notably among those engaged in philanthropic activities, who glory in being completely engrossed in their tasks, and who hug a secret sense of martyrdom, when late at night, perhaps worn out in mind and body, they throw themselves upon their couch to snatch a few hours of insufficient sleep. Great occasions, of course, do occur when every thought of self should be effaced in service; but as a rule, complete absorption in philanthropic activity is as little sane and as little moral as complete absorption in the race for gain. The tired and worn-out worker cannot do justice to others, nor can he do justice to that inner self whose demands are not satisfied even by philanthropic activity. If, then, self-recollection is essential, let us make daily provision for it. Some interest we should have--even worldly prudence counsels this much--as far remote as possible from our leading interest; and beyond that, some book belonging to the world's great spiritual literature on which we may daily feed. The Bible used to be in the old days all-sufficient for this purpose, and it is still, in part at least, an admirable aid to those who know how to use it. But there are other books, such as the legacy of the great Stoics, the writings of our latter-day prophets, the essays of Arnold and Carlyle and Emerson, the wisdom of Goethe. These noble works, even if they do not wholly satisfy us, serve to set our thoughts in motion about high concerns, and give to the mind a spiritual direction.

A second condition of the spiritual life has been expressed in the precept, reiterated in many religions, by many experts in things relating to the life of the soul: "Live as if this hour were thy last." You will recall, as I pronounce these words, the memento mori of the Ancients, their custom of exhibiting a skeleton at the feast, in order to remind the banqueters of the fate that awaited them. You will remember the other-worldliness of Christian monks and ascetics who decried this pleasant earth as a vale of tears, and endeavored to fix the attention of their followers upon the pale joys of the Christian heaven, and you will wonder, perhaps, that I should be harking back to these conceptions of the past. I have, however, no such intention.

The prevailing attitude toward the thought of death is that of studied neglect. Men wish to face it as little as possible. We know, of course, what the fate is that awaits us. We know what are the terms of the compact. Now and again we are momentarily struck by the pathos of it all; for instance, when we walk through some crowded thoroughfare on a bright day and reflect that before many years this entire multitude will have disappeared. The rosy-cheeked girl who has just passed; the gay young fellow at her side, full of his hopes, confident of his achievements, acting and speaking as if the lease of eternity were his; that "grave and reverend seigneur," clad with dignity and authority--all will have gone, and others will have taken their places. Yet, as a rule, we are not much affected by such reflections. When one of our friends has met with a painless death we are apt to solace ourselves with the hope that perhaps we shall be as lucky as he; at all events, we know that when our time comes we must take our turn. Even those who look forward with apprehension to the last moment, and who when it approaches, cling desperately to life, are prudent enough to hold their peace. There is a general understanding that those who go shall not mar the composure of those who stay, and that public decorum shall not be disturbed by outcries.

This is the baldly secular view of the matter, and this view, though based on low considerations, in some respects is sound enough. And yet I reiterate the opinion that to live as if this hour were our last--in other words, to frankly face the idea of death--is most conducive to the spiritual life. It is for the sake of the reflex action upon life that the practice of coming to a right understanding with death is so valuable. Take the case of a man who calls on his physician, and there unexpectedly discovers that he is afflicted with a fatal malady, and is told that he may have only a few months longer to live. This visit to the physician has changed the whole complexion of life for him. What will be the effect upon him? If he be a sane, strong, morally high-bred man, the effect will be ennobling; it will certainly not darken the face of nature for him. Matthew Arnold wished that when he died he might be placed at the open window, that he might see the sun shining on the landscape, and catch at evening the gleam of the rising star. Everything that is beautiful in the world will still be beautiful; he will thankfully accept the last draught of the joy which nature has poured into his goblet. Everything that is really uplifting in human life will have a more exquisite and tender message for him. The gayety of children will thrill him as never before, interpreted as a sign of the invincible buoyancy of the human race, of that race which will go on battling its way after he has ceased to live. If he be a man of large business connections, he will still, and more than ever, be interested in planning how what he has begun may be safely continued. If he be the father of a family, he will provide with a wise solicitude, as far as possible, for every contingency. He will dispose of matters now, as if he could see what will happen after his departure. On the other hand, all that is vain or frivolous, every vile pleasure, gambling, cruelty, harsh language to wife or child, trickery in business, social snobbishness, all the base traits that disfigure human conduct, he will now recoil from with horror, as being incongruous with the solemn realization of his condition. The frank facing of death, therefore, has the effect of sifting out the true values of life from the false, the things that are worth while from the things that are not worth while, the things that are related to the highest end from those related to the lower partial ends. The precept, "Live as if this hour were thy last," is enjoined as a touchstone; not for the purpose of dampening the healthy relish of life, but as a means of enhancing the relish for real living, the kind of living that is devoted to things really worth while. As such a test it is invaluable. The question, "Should I care to be surprised by death in what I am doing now?"--put it to the dissipated young man in his cups, put it to the respectable rogue--nay, put it to each one of us, and it will often bring the blush of shame to our cheeks. When, therefore, I commend the thought of death, I think of death not as a grim, grisly skeleton, a King of Terrors, but rather as a mighty angel, holding with averted face a wondrous lamp. By that lamp--hold it still nearer, O Death--I would read the scripture of my life, and what I read in that searching light, that would I take to heart.

Finally, there is a third condition of the spiritual life which I would mention, and which comes nearer to the heart of the matter than anything that has yet been said. Learn to look upon any pains and injuries which you may have to endure as you would upon the same pains and injuries endured by someone else. If sick and suffering, remember what you would say to someone else who is sick and suffering, remember how you would admonish him that he is not the first or the only one that has been in like case, how you would expect of him fortitude in bearing pain as an evidence of human dignity. Exhort yourself in like manner; expect the same fortitude of yourself. If any one has done you a wrong, remember what you would adduce in palliation of the offence if another were in the same situation; remember how you would suggest that perhaps the one injured had given some provocation to the wrongdoer, how you would perhaps have quoted the saying: "Tout comprendre est tout pardonner"--"to understand is to pardon," how you would in any case have condemned vindictive resentment. In the moral world each one counts for one and not more than one. The judgment that you pass on others, pass on yourself, and the fact that you are able to do so, that you have the power to rise above your subjective self and take the public universal point of view with respect to yourself, will give you a wonderful sense of enfranchisement and poise and spiritual dignity. And, on the other hand (and this is but the obverse of the same rule), look upon everyone else as being from the moral point of view just as important as you are; nay, realize that every human being is but another self, a part of the same spiritual being that is in you, a complement of yourself, a part of your essential being. Realize the unity that subsists between you and your fellow-men, and then your life will be spiritual indeed. For the highest end with which we must be ever in touch, toward which we must be ever looking, is to make actual that unity between ourselves and others of which our moral nature is the prophecy. The realization of that unity is the goal toward which humanity tends.

Spirituality depends upon our tutoring ourselves to regard the welfare of others--moral as well as external--as much our concern as our own. What this practically means the following illustration will indicate. A certain bank official, a man of excellent education and of high social standing, committed a crime. He allowed himself in a moment of lamentable weakness to use certain trust funds which had been committed to him to cover losses which he had sustained. He intended to replace what he had taken, of course, but he could not do so, for he became more and more deeply involved. One night as he was alone in his office it became plain to him that the day of reckoning could no longer be put off. He was at the end of his resources. The morrow would bring exposure and ruin. Then the temptation seized him to make away with himself. He had a charming wife and two lovely daughters. He was the revered head of the household; in the eyes of his family the paragon of honor. He was universally esteemed by his friends, who knew not his temptation and his fall. On that night in the lonely office he could not bear to think of meeting the future, of being exposed as a criminal in the eyes of his friends, of bringing upon his family the infamy and the agony of his disgrace. Should a man in his situation be permitted to commit suicide? If we were at his elbow should we allow him to do so? This question was submitted to one of my Ethics classes. The students at first impulsively decided in the affirmative, for they argued, as many do, that right conduct consists in bestowing happiness on others, and wrong conduct in inflicting suffering on others; and now that the man had committed the crime, they maintained he could at least relieve those whom he loved of his presence by taking himself out of their way. True, someone said, the exposure was inevitable in any case, and the shock of discovery could not be averted; but we were forced to concede that from the point of view of suffering, the pain involved in the sudden shock could not be compared to the long-drawn-out anguish which would result if he continued to live. For presently he would forfeit his liberty; he would sit as a prisoner in the dock. His wife and daughters, loyal to their duties even toward an unworthy husband and father, would be found at his side. They would hear the whispers, they would see the significant nods, they would endure all the shame. Later on, when the trial was at an end, the prisoner would stand up to hear the verdict. They would still be near him. Still later there would be the pilgrimage to the prison on the Hudson. They would see their beloved husband and father in striped garb among the scum and refuse of society, and these weary journeys would be repeated during long years until his term was over and he returned a broken and outcast man to what was once a home. Could not this lamentable issue at least be forestalled? But then there came a new light into our discussion. One of the students suggested that he must face the consequences of his wrongdoing, and that one of the consequences is the very suffering which he inflicts upon the innocent. He must see that day by day. That would be a part of his expiation, the purifying fire that may consume the dross of his nature. And, on the other hand, it would be right for the innocent to bear, not the guilt, but the consequences of the guilt of the wrongdoer whom they have loved, whom they still love. For this is the holy law: that the other whom we love shall be taken into our self as a part of our very self, that in his joy we shall rejoice as if his joy were ours, that in his achievements we shall triumph, that in his humiliations we shall be humbled, and that we shall work out his redemption by traveling with him the hard road that leads out of the dark depths upward again to the levels of peace and reconciliation.

The spiritual life depends on self-recollection and detachment from the rush of life; it depends on facing frankly the thought of death; it is signalized, especially, by the identification of self with others, even of the guiltless with the guilty. Spirituality is sometimes spoken of as if it were a kind of moral luxury, a work of supererogation, a token of fastidiousness and over-refinement. It is nothing of the sort. Spirituality is simply morality carried to its farthest bounds; it is not an airy bauble of the fancy, it is of "the tough fibre of the human heart."

II. THE SPIRITUAL ATTITUDE TOWARD ONE'S NEIGHBOR.

Sunday, Nov. 27, 1904.

Those whom we call our neighbors, our fellow-men, may stand to us in a threefold relation. Some possess gifts far greater than our own, and in point of development are our superiors; some are on the same level; and some are much inferior to us. The spiritual attitude toward our neighbor--though always governed by the same principle, expresses itself in different ways, according as our neighbor is related to us in one or another of these three ways.

I recently read a biography of Matthew Arnold, the author of which constantly speaks of himself as Arnold's disciple. It is not often nowadays that we hear men proclaim themselves disciples and glory in their discipleship. At the present day the tendency is for every one to assert an equality with others; and most persons would resent the imputation of subordination implied in such a word as disciple. And yet the writer in question is a self-respecting man, he is thoroughly alive to his dignity, and he has keen and unsparing words for certain of the faults of the master whom he reveres. He is not blind, he is not wax in the hands of the master, he does not look upon him with undiscerning admiration, and yet he takes toward him the reverent attitude--what I should call the spiritual attitude--for he recognizes that this master of his is a casket in which nature has deposited a treasure of extraordinary value, that he possesses a genius much superior to that of others. The loyal disciple is concerned that this genius should appear in its full potency and in undiminished radiance. To this end is the upward look, the appreciation and reverence, and to this end also the misgiving and the remonstrance when the great man deviates from the course which he ought to follow. The same attitude of loyalty we sometimes find among the disciples of great artists, and the followers of great religious teachers. Loyalty is a virtue which is somewhat underrated at the present day. Loyalty is not debasing, not unworthy of a self-respecting man; it is but another name for the spiritual attitude toward those who have a superior genius, to whose height we are lifted by our appreciation of them.