All hail to the work of the civilised worm! — the creative, inquiring, free and liberative activity of free-religion
In the local Cambridge congregation where I am the minister, there are a fair number of gardeners and tenders of allotments, and all of them know that the humble earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) is vital to the health of the soil. This is because their constant activity helps with soil aeration, decomposition, the circulation of nutrients, improved soil structure, microbial activity and the breakdown of toxins. Indeed, as great a figure as Charles Darwin (1809-1882), once said, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures” (“The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits”, J. Murray, London, 1882, p. 316).
But in the same way as there exists a worm necessary for the health of the soil in our gardens and fields, there also exists a worm necessary for the health of a different kind of soil, namely the soil that is the human heart and mind. This is, perhaps, especially the case in the soil of a person who wishes to become what is known in Japanese as a jiyū shūkyōjin (自由宗教人), that is to say a person wholly committed to the kind of creative, inquiring, free and liberative religion or spirituality we, in Cambridge, are trying to encourage.
So what is this worm? Well, to my knowledge, it is only the philosopher Martin Hollis (1938-1998), who taught at the University of East Anglia for many years, who has ever thought to give it a name; he called the “civilised worm.”
I first heard about this civilised worm from an old friend of mine, Barry, who, in the 1980s, was lucky to have been taught philosophy by Hollis. And, perhaps, we can give this civilised worm another Latin name one in Hollis’ honour, and so playfully call it, Lumbricus hollisi . . .
Now, I don’t know how Hollis unfolded this metaphor in his own lectures, tutorials and private conversations, but this is how I have taken to unfolding it. Just as an earthworm helps with soil aeration, decomposition and nutrient cycling, improved soil structure, microbial activity and the breakdown of toxins, the civilised worm helps to open up the human heart and mind so as to allow new ideas, thoughts and feelings to cycle and flow freely through them, so that old and/or toxic ideas are decomposed and new, creative and healthy possibilities are nourished and allowed to grow and intertwine. In short, the civilised worm endlessly helps to improve the structure of the human heart and mind. I think it’s helpful at this point to realise that the civilised worm is not a discrete thing, but rather a kind of fundamental activity.
I think it’s also important for us to realise that this activity is seen very strongly in the various provisional and tentative Principles of Living or Statements of Faith made throughout his life by the twentieth-century Japanese Yuniterian (sic), advocate of free-religion and educator, Imaoka Shin’ichirō (1881-1988), that we in the local community in Cambridge have begun to work with as aids to the creation of our own provisional tentative expressions of faith.
Let me show you what I mean.
You will recall that Imaoka-sensei begins by saying he “believes in” (see the postscript below) — the underlying Japanese word here is almost certainly 信ずる (shinzuru), which may also be translated as having “faith in” or even better, “placing trust in” — a self which is characterised by three things:
1) subjectivity or autonomy, which can also be called personality,
2) creativity, which can also be called divinity, and
3) sociality, which can also be called Buddhahood.
Now, for Imaoka-sesnei, and indeed for me, it is only when we are awakened to these three things that we begin to find our 生きがい (ikigai), i.e. that activity and way of being in the world that makes our daily lives worth living.
Notice straight away that this is not the atomised, closed in and extremely selfish, neoliberal-inspired self that has so characterised our culture’s recent history, but, instead, is an understanding of the self that, even as it has a sense of inwardness in the form of its own subjectivity and autonomy, through its creativity and sociality, it is simultaneously always-already being opened up to others, and to wider co-operative communities of belonging.
So, in terms of the guiding metaphor of this thought for the day, in Imaoka-sensei’s thinking, the civilised worm is always-already breaking up the soil of a compacted self in a way that doesn’t destroy its integrity as a self, but, instead, is opening it up to allow the inflowing of many new insights and ideas which begins to turn us into what Imaoka-sensei eventually came to call “cosmic human beings” (宇宙人uchūjin), i.e. human beings who are fully aware of the inter- and intra-connectedness of all things. Such people, in turn, become desirous of creating a co-operative society in which more and more people are able to make and re-make expressions of true human solidarity, fellowship and
community. However, for the true jiyū shūkyōjin — the true
free-religionist — this process doesn’t stop with the human co-operative society, because it is a proces which is always
spreading out, richly and rhizomatically, through all of nature.
At its best, every local free-religious spiritual community, in Japanese that’s a kyōkai (教会 or 教會) — and whether we translate that word as a church, a temple, a mosque, a synagogue, a gurudwara, or a meeting-house it matters not — every free-religious spiritual community is an attempt to offer the world an epitome, or microcosm, of this wider Cosmic Community. I hope you can see that it goes without saying that the soil of such a community must always be characterised, from top to bottom, by the activity of the civilised worm, the Lumbricus hollisi.
Naturally, I look forward to hearing your own thoughts on all this in whatever kind of conversation now follows. But before that, I want to draw my own words to a close by pointing to one religious/spiritual fruit that is clearly made possible by the activity of this civilised worm. It is the profound recognition that no individual human, nor any individual religion or spirituality, can ever either monopolise religious truth, nor can it ever be the ultimate embodiment of it.
However, right at this moment of human history we are seeing the return to life of various forms of fundamentalist, ethno-nationalist religion — particularly those connected with Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu traditions — each of which, alas, is only too willing to claim and then violently act upon the belief that they do, in fact, monopolise religious truth and are the ultimate embodiment of it.
Consequently, it seems to me that one of this local free-religious community’s most important spiritual activities, indeed any free-religious community, is to always be carrying with it a big bag of these civilised worms and to be scattering them everywhere we go trusting that their wonderful and miraculous activity really can help transform the hard and compacted soil of every fundamentalist religion into a different kind of rich, open, crumbly and fertile soil, a soil that can help every religion become, itself, a beautiful and unique expression of free religion.
All hail to the work of the civilised worm, say I!
POSTSCRIPT
Statement of Faith (Tentative) for my Daily Life (1983)
Imaoka Shin’ichirō (1881-1988)
A typewritten statement of faith (in English) to which is attached Imaoka Shin’ichirō’s handwritten set of notes, also in English. Dated January 1st 1983. This typewritten text was published by the Japan Free Religious Association and distributed at the 1984 International Association for Religious Freedom (I.A.R.F.) Conference in Tokyo.
1. I BELIEVE IN SELF
Awakened to the autonomy, sociality and creativity within me, I find my daily life worth living. Autonomy, sociality and creativity may be called Personality, Divinity and Buddhahood.
2. I BELIEVE IN OTHERS
Because of my belief in Self, I can not help but believe in Others who have their own Selves as neighbors.
3. I BELIEVE IN COMMUNITY
Both my Self and other Selves are unique but not absolutely distinct from each other. Hence solidarity, fellowship and Community will be realized.
4. I BELIEVE IN THE COSMIC COMMUNITY
Not only Self, Others and Community, but all nature in addition, are one and constitute the Cosmic Community.
5. I BELIEVE IN THE CHURCH
The Church epitomizes the Cosmic Community and I will be a cosmic man by joining the Church.
Handwritten notes added to the [1983] “Statement of Faith for my daily life”
1. Free religion is not a ready made religion and has not a creed or dogma except a tentative statement.
2. Particular religion is Free Religion if it does not insist on a monopoly of truth and applies itself diligently to seek after truth in others too.
3. Free Religion is neither a new religion that unifies all particular religions but is immanent within them particular religions as their essence.
4. Because I and others are not quite independent of each other and form a community, Free Religion is both individual and community religion.
5. Because Free Religion is nothing but the realization of the pure and genuine human nature consisting of autonomy, creativity and sociality, all human activities, i.e., politics, economy, education, art, labor and even domestic affairs are also Free Religion as much as they are also realization[s] of the same fundamental human nature. There is no fundamental distinction between
the sacred and the secular.
6. Free Religion is more than the cooperation of religions and the world peace movement.
Shinichiro Imaoka
January 1st, 1983
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