Religion: The Five Senses Of Religion

“Without the senses there would be no religion, for religion is founded on a relation between embodied beings and the world around them.” (IRS, 69) The senses help us construct and allow us to partake in the world’s religions. The faiths of the world are deeply fixed in the customs of culture and connect to the human experience. Aesthetics is important to religion, they are firm in our human sensory experience, it is the way human bodies sense their religious worlds, especially through sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell (IRS, 68). Without the senses there would be no religion, religion is in the feeling of power and guidance the Hindus feel from participating in puja, religion is the sense of purification and closeness to God a Catholic feels when receiving the body and blood of Christ, religion is the way the Navajo call forth the healing spiritual power of the Holy People, Hindu worship, known as puja, involves almost all of the five senses. In The Power of Religion, Jaya explains that Devi is the savior of the universe, the Hindu mother, powerful and beautiful. Devi is a guest in her home and Jaya keeps purple blossoms and grapes in a brass bowl on the alter to please her. “We bow to her and thank her for coming, sing her favorite songs, wash her feet and hands and face, and light incense for her” (POR, 56). The sweet smell of sandalwood dances around the room while she sings and bows her head to the statue of Devi that has been made real
In the book Dreaming in the World’s Religions, Sufism was a religious movement within Islam that promoted an extraordinarily strong personal relationship with the divine. In their simple lifestyles and musing devotions they sought to obliterate their ordinary human selves, purify their souls, and become worthy of a confession of God’s living presence. The dream of al-Tirmidhi, from a ninth