Pegasus said:
"I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life."
-Carl Jung
It's very important IMO. Having a spiritual take on life gives your life a purpose. I know I was wandering around lost for years until I got my spiritual outlook on life. I'm a proponent of the Eastern Philosophies, particularly the concept of Tao (self-actualization, essentially), but I support whatever spirituality gives someone drive in life, so long as it isn't destructive
This. Very nicely put, Pegasus.
vox, I think you're onto something about faith filling in the mysteries of life. The Big Questions (Is there a higher power? Do we have free will / freedom? What essentially are we and why are we here?) will never be answered definitively, and we could spend our whole lives working on these unanswerable puzzles and not solve them. There are many who have done this, and in my estimation only enjoyed it or thought it worthwhile if they A) did it purely for sport, knowing full well they would not unravel the secrets of the universe, or B) Arrived at a tentative answer that really pleased them, taking at least one or two items on plumb faith.
One can choose to have a worldview where if it's truth, it's scientific truth. But this premise itself is an article of faith. I'm not saying there aren't good, well articulated arguments for holding this singular, faith-banning article of faith. I'm simply saying it's as unproven as the statement, "There are real entities and aspects of life or reality that are not available to scientific inquiry." Both positions are held unproven
as if they were fact, because, in either case, the people who hold it find it helpful and congruent with how they care to see their place in the greater picture.
One great piece of wisdom I've picked up from the Western mystical tradition is that we as beholders have a creative role in reality. An example where this becomes very clear is seeing objects in clouds, something that has been used as a mystical and divination practice since prehistory. The world presses into us and shapes us, and we push back and shape the world. Reality is where the inner and outer worlds reach a balance point of pushing against each other. Faith is a very powerful tool, a veritable samurai sword, for exerting our creative impulses on the external world. It allows us to connect the dots and define our place in the big picture as one of cosmic significance. Which it very well could be. We hope and pray. And why not? Life is short (as your grandmother realized pretty quickly), and if you have faith that there's something more to this life than corporeal existence, and you're wrong, as Alan Watts put it, "it's a bet you won't even be there to realize you've lost."
I, for one, am taking that bet. I haven't settled on exactly what the purpose of my life is. But I'm taking it as a minimal grain of faith that there is
some purpose to, or grand plan behind, my time here. I may never know, and that's OK. But I'm always open to hints from beyond this world. Meanwhile, I'll continue to be a mystic and seeker, as time permits.
You might find this is the way for you too, OP. Just hold a tiny flicker of faith that it all happens for a reason, whatever that might be or who's ultimately behind the wheel, and you'll know that reason if and when the time comes. But until then, just live, just be.
