The Schalter

Written by: Nina Knollys

“When a person stops believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.”
- G. K. Chesterton

“A lot of women are discovering a spiritual gap in their lives and finding that a certain type of spa treatment can help to fill the void.”
- Elle Magazine

It seems to me one can barely open a fashion magazine without references to yoga, personal gurus and alternative therapies jumping off the page. While church attendance declines ever further, it appears there are plenty of ashrams, meditation centres and yoga centres willing to soak up the disillusioned yet spiritually inclined. The rising popularity of eastern spirituality has gone hand in hand with a rising interest in alternative therapies, and the whole thing has become big business. They have been exoticised and have become the object of a kind of new orientalism. And the icon of this phenomenon appears to be the image of the Buddha, for Buddhism is undoubtedly the trendiest religion going.

There are so many positive things about Buddhism I only have time to list a fraction of them. It offers a practical, flexible way of dealing with life which is entirely non-dogmatic and compatible with other religions. It emphasises compassion. It offers an escape from pain and suffering. It does not encourage guilt. But this is not an article in which I am going to deal with the benefits of true Buddhism, or any other religion; or indeed to ponder on the reasons why people turn to it instead of, for instance Christianity. What I wish to focus on is the way in which alternative spirituality has been commercialised.

A few years ago I read a ridiculous article in Vogue entitled ‘How much does your karma cost?’ This focused on about eight extraordinarily rich women, clearly with far too much time and money on their hands, who were spending literally thousands of pounds a week on various ‘spiritual’ activities which apparently helped them feel better about themselves and find some sort of inner peace. These included macrobiotic diets, holistic massages, meditation tuition and in one case, employing someone to sand down all the hard lines in their flat so as not to obstruct the positive energy. This was a seriously expensive undertaking and I bet the person who was paid to do it laughed all the way to the bank.

I love the way that so many people have rejected the idea that there might be a god, and yet they still have such a well-defined conviction of their own holiness. While having a browse through Selfridges I stumbled upon the ‘holistic lifestyle store and inner beauty day spa’, Calmia, which claims that ‘each product is carefully developed to benefit and balance mind, body and spirit.’ Ah, so you don’t just get something to take your make up off with, you get enlightenment in a bottle. One of Calmia’s signature treatments is the ‘Balinese Blossom Ritual’, which involves ‘using aromatic blossoms as used in Asia for prayer offering and bathing’, and claims to ‘sweeten the skin and sooth the mind.’ The cost? £150. A snip compared with Louis Vuitton’s £800 yoga bag, but in my view just as much of a rip-off. Let’s face it, having botox injections could probably be rebranded as a spiritual activity if the syringe was blessed by a Taoist monk. Mind, body and spirit: a very contemporary trinity indeed.

It is with quite a healthy dose of scepticism that I glance in the windows of spas on the high street and note the imagery with which they choose to identify themselves: calm, meditating Buddha statues and lotus blossoms. You could argue that these are simply images; but images are powerful symbols with deep-seated associations, and to stick the badge of Buddha on a range of cosmetic treatments seems absurd. People who engage in all of this seem to have completely missed the point. Buddhism, like most eastern traditions, teaches that we will never find happiness in worldly experience, however attractive or pleasurable it may be. We think we will, but we won’t, because nothing is permanent and even the most enjoyable experiences we can have will all come to an end. Instead, we find happiness in actually giving up our sense of self; in behaving compassionately towards others and doing our best to create good karma. The enormous emphasis on beauty is also way out of sync with much of Buddhist thinking. Beauty is not valued because it doesn’t last and is therefore an illusion. Buddhist monks will sometimes meditate on the most disgusting aspects of the human body, such as the process of digestion; concentrating on it in order to reduce their emotional attachment to what is on the outside. The concept of ‘inner beauty’ somewhat falls apart here, I feel.

The biggest irony I can see with all this is that at the heart of the Buddhist philosophy is the idea of emptiness or ‘sunyata’- the idea that nothing has inherent existence. All we know is ultimately empty. So, anyone using Buddhism as a marketing tool is in effect, selling literally nothing. Selling nothing and making a profit. There’s more than a touch of the emperor’s new clothes about that. You’ve also got to ask yourself whether if any of these things actually worked, people would go on needing them. The very fact that they still exist as a purchasable commodity is testament to their utter uselessness at providing any lasting inner satisfaction.

I also wonder why, if people are going to pick’n'mix their religions, why people don’t pick the prettier parts of Christianity? Obviously the church needs to sort out its marketing strategy. Maybe with a bit of clever PR you could probably create some sort of ‘catholic rejuvenation experience’ where people bathe in large fonts surrounded by incense and candles. On a less cynical note, (and don’t get me wrong: I am not a Christian myself), I can see that there plenty of positive aspects to it, in purely aesthetic terms, which a lot of people may have overlooked. Have you ever been to a cathedral and marvelled at how beautiful it is? Walked through a tranquil nave with candles gently flickering in the shadows, looking up in awe at the arched ceilings and stained glass? Alternatively, if you really object to organised religion and you want a bit of peace and quiet, go and sit in a fucking field.

We live in a world where there is so much sadness, pain, and misery. Surely if you want to do something of spiritual worth then you should be doing something which aims to alleviate some of this? Not in yourself, but for others. To me, spirituality isn’t about aromatherapy and lotus flowers, it’s about taking action; and not being afraid to get your hands dirty. It’s about cultivating happiness and wellbeing where perhaps there was none before. It’s about making a difference to people’s lives. I’m sorry to end with a cliché but the best things in life are very often free.

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This post is tagged Health, Religion