DeConick A.D

20
THE MATRIX OF ANCIENT SPIRITUALITY
Figure 1.1 Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) emerges from his pod in The Matrix (1999).
It is unnerving to think of our reality as a constructed matrix, a software
program that we are wired into. Although we are not humans incubated
in pods by machines, we inhabit a worldview that has been constructed
for us by our human ancestors, and we perceive this worldview
to be reality, the way things actually are. Yet, when we study the flux of
history and cultures, we see very plainly that worldviews are adjustable
and what is viewed as “real” changes with time and location. Humans are
known for shifting and altering the worldviews or matrices that structure
and organize people’s lives, including people’s spiritual orientation, what
we call today “spirituality.”
Spirituality points to the metaphysical orientation that directs our lives.
It is like our sexual orientation, only in reference to our views of the existential
and transcendent. It is our view of reality. It is the metaphysical
matrix that we live within. It is like the Wachowskis’ vision of a human
software program that we engage when we think about all there is and
how we fit in. It involves how we structure our lives around the big questions
of existence, reality, transcendence, and the sacred (cf. Fuller 2001,
8–9; Sheldrake 2007, 1–2; Kaufman 1993, 45–47). What exists ultimately?
Who are we fundamentally? What do we value deeply? Why are we here
primarily? What inspires us with awe and dread? Our answers to these
types of questions create the spiritual matrix in which we orient ourselves,
enabling us to lead structured and meaningful lives within a chaotic world
where suffering and death are unavoidable.
How then does religion fit into this? If spirituality is how we meaningfully
orient our lives to the existential, to the transcendent and to the