Karen Armstrong Homo Religiosus Summary

Karen Armstrong makes it very clear throughout her essay “Homo religiosus,” that religious transcendence cannot be achieved through the simple act of thought, rather one must take action in order to understand religion. Since it is in our nature to be focused on ourselves and understanding religion relies on focusing on the grand scheme of life, religion requires hard work and dedication. The effort that we must put into understanding religion begins with developing answers to questions that we may have, standing by those answers, practicing that which we have created and working toward understanding the universe as a power at work that does not center around one person like the Upanishads, Buddhists, and yogins.

Naturally, people search

for answers to their questions, and if they are unable not find one, they construct one themselves. Often, people feel as if they are incomplete and fall into despair if they do not have answers to the great questions of life but since religion is not self-evident, it requires hard work to be understood. Armstrong affirmed, “Like art, the truths of religion require the disciplined cultivation of a different mode of consciousness” (Armstrong 7). People do not wake up one morning with a full understanding of religion, rather the experiences that they have throughout their life shape their conscious mind and they, then, begin to grasp their of religion. For example, in some tribes, when a male reaches puberty, they must undergo an initiation in order to become a man. During this “initiation,” the young males face death and if they come out on the other side, then they have successfully become men. In a sense, this is how one begins to understand religion. Throughout their lives, they strive toward understanding their religion, but must experience events that bring them closer to their beliefs and must be pushed to a new level of consciousness. However, if we cease to believe in what we have constructed, then that which we had constructed fails to exist. Even if what we constructed is proven wrong, does not have any evidence, or has evidence against it, we continue to believe it since we find value in our lives from the answers we have constructed. With this, myths are born. Armstrong felt that religion requires dedication because in order to keep it alive, we must continue to believe in it and have faith in that it exists. She believed, “No god can survive unless he or she is actualized by the practical activity of ritual, and people often turn against gods who fail to deliver” (Armstrong 11). Many people go to their place of worship once a week mindlessly, as part of a routine, but they do not practice their faith when they are outside of their place of worship and do not follow all of the principles of their religion. These people cannot expect to understand their religion and often, they will cease to believe in their religion because they do not understand it. Armstrong confirmed, “Religion is hard work. Its insights are not self-evident and have to be cultivated in the same way as an appreciation of art, music, or poetry must be developed” (Armstrong 6). Just as a person is unable to play the guitar professionally without practice, dedication, and hard work, a person is unable to understand religion without it either. Armstrong wrote that one’s ability to understand religion comes as a result of constant work and development of the mind; she felt that simple practice, only attending mass once a week and not giving religion a second thought the rest of the week, is not nearly enough to understand something as complex as religion. Armstrong contested, “In our own day, the God of the monotheistic tradition has often degenerated into a High God. The rites and practices that once made him a persuasive symbol of the sacred are no longer effective, and people have stopped participating in them” (Armstrong 11). Many people feel that if their prayers are not answered, then there must not be a Supreme Being but they do not work toward their religion, they simply expect for it to be given to them. Armstrong taught, “Before the modern period, most men and women were naturally inclined to religion and they were prepared to work at it. Today many of us are no longer willing to make this effort, so the old myths seem arbitrary, remote, and incredible” (Armstrong 7). Religion and faith do not come to people, we must put in a great deal of effort into it in order to understand it and be a part of it.
Religion does not solely require thought, it requires action in order to uphold the thought. One is unable to “think” their way to understanding religion since it is an abstract concept, rather they must experience it, which can only be done through hard work and dedication. The Upanishadic sages, the writers of the Upanishads, which are believed to contain utterances concerning the nature of ultimate reality and describing the character of and path to human salvation, the Buddhists, and the Yogins were some of many spiritual groups that understood religion as actions that must be performed to reach a certain point that brings eternal happiness rather than thoughts that need to examined and analyzed. Armstrong proclaimed:
The truths of religion are accessible only when you are prepared to get
rid of the selfishness, greed, and self-preoccupation that…are ingrained in our thoughts and behavior but are also the source of so much of our pain…Once you gave up the nervous craving to promote yourself, denigrate others, draw attention to your unique and special qualities, and ensure that you were first in the pecking order, you experienced an immense peace”. (Armstrong 14)
It is; however, our innate behavior to attempt to bring attention to ourselves and to be preoccupied with ourselves rather than others and because we must overcome this to truly understand religion, religion becomes hard work and requires true dedication. Only once you look beyond yourself and beyond what is unseen, can you truly understand religion and accept it, for there are things beyond our control, such as death, that we must accept in order to live without fear. As Armstrong wrote, “…As a result of carefully crafted spiritual exercises, people learned not only to accept, but to embrace this unknowing[old age, sickness, death], they found that they experienced a sense of release” (Armstrong 14). Once a person learns to accept life for what it is and dedicates themselves to religion, they can begin to think about the greater picture rather than solely their existence. The yogins, for example, endured pain in order to finally cease thinking about themselves. Armstrong continued, “It [yoga] was mentally demanding and…physically painful…If he[the yogin] persevered, he found that he achieved a dissolution of ordinary consciousness that extracted the ‘I’ from his thinking” (Armstrong 15). Once a person releases the idea that they are at the center of the universe, they open their mind up to that which they are unable to see and they open their minds to a greater reality. Armstrong observed:
…Yogins find that these disciplines …evoke a sense of calm, harmony, and equanimity… There is a feeling of expansiveness and bliss….As the ‘I’ disappears, the most humdrum objects reveal wholly unexpected qualities since they are no longer viewed through the distorting filter of one’s own egoistic needs and desires.

(Armstrong 15)

As humans, we feel that we must protect our ego, but in order to understand religion, we must look beyond that and focus on the greater scheme of things. Since this goes against our inborn nature, religion requires a great amount of work and dedication. Buddhists, for example, believe in a state called “Nirvana”, which is a “…still center that gave meaning to life, an oasis of calm, and a source of strength that you discovered in the depths of your own being” (Armstrong 16). This state of Nirvana is not attained overnight, rather it is the result of living according to the

Buddha’s doctrine of anatta, meaning “no self”. Buddhists attained true happiness, or Nirvana, through “[behaving] day by day, hour by hour, as though the self did not exist” (Armstrong 17). They believed that thoughts of themselves led to pride, selfishness, and envy and they found that the best way to reach Nirvana was through compassion and empathy which requires one to uncrown themselves as the center of the universe. As exemplified through the Upanishadic sages, the Buddhists, and the Yogins, each religion takes an immense amount of hard work and dedication in order to be

understood.
The hard work and dedication that religion requires is primarily focused on creating a meaning for life’s unanswered questions and upholding those beliefs in order for them to remain “true”. It is also focused on becoming self-less and focusing on ones beliefs, not allowing his or her ego to get ahead of him or her. Just as the Upanishadic sages, the Buddhists, and the Yogins, Armstrong claims that we must live by our beliefs each day, not wavering in our faith in order to truly be a part of it and although today, this may be hard to achieve, those who are truly dedicated to their religion and work hard at it, will understand it and will be able to live by it faithfully.