Spirituality via science
Massey’s Rohana Ulluwishewa believes in the importance of demystifying spirituality. He speaks to about his work.
It’s a big subject, spirituality. One that is hard to pinpoint, difficult to explain and often deeply personal. For Rohana Ulluwishewa, it’s something that the world needs more of and his award-winning manuscript aims to understand it, demystify it and explain it in rational and scientific terms.
It’s been a hard road. Ulluwishewa has had an extensive and international university career as an academic and development consultant but he is not a scientist. He did, however, realise along the way that external changes brought about by development cannot solve poverty, inequality, unsustainability and unhappiness and he decided that spirituality was a positive path to change that needed explaining. He compares writing his manuscript with making a jigsaw puzzle, familiarising himself with quantum physics, psychology, neuroscience and reading extensively on various spirituality-related issues.
Ulluwishewa, an honorary research associate at Massey University, is quick to point out that religion is separate from spirituality. ‘‘People use a religion for identity, not for transformation,’’ he says.
‘‘I find that in every religion there are two core components, the core and the periphery. The core of each religion constitutes the original teachings of the founders of the religions which greatly contribute to inner transformation of people, to make people less selfish and more loving. That is in the core.
‘‘In the periphery there are things like ritualistics, cultural and political dogmas. So what happens is that many religious people follow the periphery and not the core, so that is the reason that religion has become a problem now. Religion divides people rather than unifying. The core is spiritual and the peripheral is cultural. People can be spiritual without being religious because they have unconditional love and the willingness to help people. There are people who go to church and they do all the rituals but they are less kind to people and this is how we differentiate spirituality from religion. So one can be spiritual without being religious.’’
Ulluwishewa is a Buddhist and he says for years he followed the periphery, the rituals, the cultures. He wasn’t living at the core and he says at some point he realised this and he made a choice to be guided ‘‘by the universe’’.
‘‘Until recently I was writing about poverty, sustainability and inequality from a materialistic point of view. When the right time came, some sort of inner transformation occurred within which guided me to look at the same problems from a spiritual point of view.’’
Ulluwishewa’s manuscript won the unpublished manuscript category for the Mind Body Spirit Literary Award and prompted the judge to say ‘‘if you were to only read one book in one’s lifetime, this is the one’’. Judge Adonia Wylie went on to heap praise on Ulluwishewa’s work.
‘‘Its clarity, its cogent use of words, its ability to cover the most abstract of topics seamlessly while staying fully grounded, completely clear and coherent makes it a brilliant work.’’
For Ulluwishewa, he wanted to write something that everyone could understand. He wants to encourage people that the only way to transform the world is to transform ourselves. Education, says Ulluwishewa, is a key and he says that spirituality needs to be taught in schools.
‘‘I think it was after the Industrial Revolution and the growth of capitalism in Europe that spirituality was left to the church and schools were only for materialistic education, so now we can see the consequences. Schools and universities are producing highly skilled individual people; they are rich in knowledge and skills but poor in love and spiritual qualities. People don’t always use their knowledge for the wellbeing of the people; they use it for their own self-gratitude.
‘‘I believe that if spirituality is integrated into schools and higher educational institutes then the students will understand the purpose of life. We lack the understanding for the reason for existence as human beings. There should be a reason – things like love, kindness, compassion and tolerance. Then they can use the skills that they have gained for the wellbeing of the people rather than