Most religious practitioners accept as ‘true’ their religious beliefs. In other words, most religious believers will argue that their beliefs are rational. What is rational to the practitioner can easily be denounced as being irrational by a non-believer. With regards to our readings on emotion this week, emotion stems this common debate between Universalism on one hand and Cultural relativism on the other. The former aims to find a common explanation of emotion which can be applicable to ‘world religions’, whereas the latter aims to, “support the cultural construction of emotion, the distinctiveness of local and even personal emotional experiences and styles”. The nineteenth century saw the beginning of many religions through the eyes of European scholars. Due to this, many religious practices that did not fit into a universal ideal of scientific ‘Truth’ was dismissed as being irrational. Corrigan argues that if religion was to be explained in these terms there would be no room for “religious studies professors”. He further says that a very important component of religion that should be studied is emotion, something that can’t be proved and is thus, irrational. However, given how strongly religion typically appeals to emotional values as opposed to intellectual values, don’t believers think that emotional reasons for belief are valid or worthy?
Emotions are said to be accompanied by bodily responses (racing heart, sweaty palms, tense muscles etc…) in which we can sense what is going on inside our body much the same way we can sense what is going on in the outside world. These bodily sensations that one feels is a response to different emotions. For example, during the exam period, some students experience intense muscles and ‘butterflies’ in their stomachs due to stress/anxiety. In this respect our states of mind internally reflect the emotions that we reveal. For instance, students are not stressed because of intense muscles, but have intense muscles because they are stressed. Another example is: people don’t cry because they feel sad, they are sad because they cry.
In this regard, emotion is a very important dimension in religion. In most religions that I have studied emotions plays a key role in differentiating an exceptional practitioner from a practitioner. More precisely, in Hinduism a very key path that is practiced by many Hindus is bhakti yoga or the path of devotion. This path was established to include all peoples regardless of their status or class distinction in society. This path is the easiest of the four paths to reach the main goal of liberation. The practitioner becomes one with god through unconditionally loving him/her. In other words emotions that are felt by humans should be expressed only towards the lord. Such emotions as jealousy should be directed towards the lord. One tries to maximize their emotions towards God, the ultimate idea is to refine negative emotions of jealousy to the most positive which is love. In this context, the individual becomes more and more in tune with God through refining bad emotions/feelings.
Thus, in such a religion emotion becomes the ground for determining the ‘truth’/ worth of Hindu belief. In other words, Hindus who practice this path hold to the assumption that these emotions are what create this inner purity. This to them is how one attains ‘true’ knowledge and is then liberated from the cycle of rebirths. How can one dismiss this aspect of Hinduism as something irrational, if to the believer it is totally rational? In this light, one can clearly see that emotions are reason for belief over intellectual values. Thus, a lot more can be learned about ‘world religions’ through studying things that appear to be ambiguous, such as belief, experience and emotion.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing your insight into bhakti yoga, Aveisha. A friend of mine who participates in yoga has suggested I utilize it as well. Your description has once again opened up that possibility.
I find it interesting that Corrigan would say that emotions in the arena of religion are an important thing that should be studied but because they can't be proved they are irrational. What's there to prove? In the case of the effect of emotion that creates weeping, a universalist can collect tears to quantify a good cry and a relativist can observe the experience within an environment. Doctors prescribe medication for emotional instability. For something that can't be proved - there's a billion dollar pharmaceutical industry fueled by emotions. I think much like the mystical experience or being in the zone - emotions happen but interpreting them is a challenge.
I like your use of the stressed student in drawing out some of the quantitative (rational) observations associated with emotions. Your timing is impeccable. Do you actually mean when you write "people don’t cry because they feel sad, they are sad because they cry." I always thought I cried because I was sad or happy. Could be a typo. It's like the egg (emotion = sad) comes before the chicken (response = crying).
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