RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICES

What is the Place of Art in Spirituality?

The Western world has long suffered from a split between the sacred and the profane. Into the profane was placed not only business but art, science and philosophy. The sacred was limited to the realm of religious law and theology, in which creative expression was denigrated along with the idea that the world is evil and God or Allah has no image (and therefore is apart from Nature and humanity).

This denial of images, as in Islam or Protestant Christianity, naturally stifles art, particularly of a sacred nature. When images were allowed as in Catholicism, their forms were restricted according to religious doctrines. Similarly music was sometimes banned as unholy or restricted in its forms or usage. When art did escape the shackles of religion, which began in Europe with the Renaissance, it developed apart from religion and has become largely a personal affair, not a way of connecting with the cosmic and with the Gods and Goddesses as it was among the ancient Greeks who lived prior to this split.

In India this split did not occur, though Hindus do discriminate outer or mundane from inner or spiritual knowledge. Yet in the Hindu view art can be part of a way of spiritual knowledge and theology part of the mundane. It is a question of attitude and approach. Art can be a natural expression of devotion or love of God, while theology may be no more than a sterile dogma. Hence the Hindu religion is filled with poetry, drama, sculpture, painting, music and dance as an integral part of worship, as part of the temple itself and its regular activities.

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