But it’s not as simple as the previous post would have it.  Because on the other hand there’s this incredible body of philosophic and spiritual thought that stands, perhaps not in opposition to the course of human affairs, but at least renders it fleeting and transitory and meaningless.  The march of progress, to the way of thinking captured or symbolized by something like Wat Pho, is really just an illusion.  Because in the end we’re all going to die. And against that horror what is the real use or efficacy of a few extra dollars in your pocket or a HD-DVD player or even something as transitory as the goodwill of your fellow doomed meat bags? 

The spiritual, in my mind, is that which attempts to answer that last question in a way allows us some reprieve from the finality of death and the bounds of the flesh.  Religion then is the codification and mass production of that answer for others.  The great faiths all seem to agree that the trappings of wealth and fortune – which is to say, trade and therefore progress – are fairly useless and in fact may be a hindrance to the pursuit of an answer to that most pressing of questions. 

Which is probably true.  You can’t take it with you.  It’s easier for a camel to pass through th eye of a needle than a rich man to pass into heaven.  Insert your favorite parable along these lines here.  You will die.  Bill Gates will die.  I will die.  We will all die.  All of us going down the long slide merrily. 

So then all the trade and progress and amassing of wealth is all just a means to enable the search, or the Search, as  it were.  A search that is expressed a million different beautiful ways.  Religious expression IS human expression, in that all of the arts were born in the spiritual.  The first stories were myths, which gave birth to novels, films, and videogames.  The first sculptures were shrines, the first paintings on the walls of shrines, and on and on.  And thus the smallest story or the most modest drawing is part of that timeless and inexpressible Search, against which all your money and wealth and fame and fortune is but a trifle. 

And so we’re back at the beginning the sacred trumps the profane which trumps the sacred which trumps the profane.  Thus the snake eats it’s tail and our end is our beginning.