In response to my blog SPIRITUALITY, a friend opined, “To create is to participate in the Divine.”

Perhaps. But defining the Divine is as elusive as spirituality.

Another friend wrote, “Spirituality and reality may be seen as identical if an all-inclusive definition of both is used. All is real. All is spiritual.”

By assuming that spirituality is identical to reality we exclude a qualitative difference between them. There is, thus, no difference between matter and spirit. Nevertheless, given the findings of Quantum Physics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, he may have a point. Particularly so in view of recent scientific discoveries of Dark Energy and Dark Matter.

Astrophysicists have concluded through indirect measurements that about 95% of the matter and about 95% of the energy of the cosmos is in total darkness, i.e., completely unknown to us. They have been unable thus far to identify, locate, or characterize either one. Therefore, our entire knowledge of the universe (including, incredibly, E=MC2) is based on approximately 5% matter and 5% energy each.

The precept of spirituality, however, posits a clear separation between matter and spirituality. Spirituality is said to be devoid of mass, substance, or physicality. It cannot be measured or tested, nor confined to any space, not even to the vast reaches of the cosmos.

To recapitulate what I wrote in my last essay – Heschel emphasized that, “At the root of our thinking and feeling is the certainty that there is meaning in whatever exits.” That is, there is significance in whatever and wherever something exists, whether or not we can see it, feel it or measure it. An experience of ineffable transcendence is just that.

I wonder whether our inability to relate to spirituality is due to our handicap to comprehend its nature. At best it is expressed as a sense of the supernal – a ubiquitous force of unlimited power, devoid of all physicality, without form or substance, eternal and mysterious.