When we use the word "ritual", we usually think of magical rites or church services. Naturally, neither divine service nor a love spell are possible without performing certain actions - conspiracies or prayers in which not a single word can be changed, strictly consistent movements, and so on. And few people think that we cannot do without rituals in everyday life.
Why don't we need it: if you take a closer look, it turns out that all our daily life consists of rituals. Remember: isn't your morning awakening with tea or coffee from your favorite cup a ritual? The most real. And the rituals of greeting and farewell? What is a ritual, why is it so valuable, why, without ritual, we cannot take a step?
No religion is complete without rituals. Somewhere they are more magnificent, somewhere - completely ascetic, nevertheless, the ritual is present in any service. The question is: why do we need a church ritual when God is in the soul?
Survival instinct
Whatever the rituals, their main goal is always the same - communication: communication between man and man, between people and gods. That's right - even if someone comes up with a ritual for himself personally and performs it strictly alone!
For example, a child decides to himself: "If I ride on one leg to that bench, I don't stumble, and no one calls me, then no one will ask about the diary at home." It does not even occur to him that he invented a moderately complex ritual of an agreement with the Higher Powers, brought them a sacrifice (rode on one leg) and waited for their "blessing" (no one called out to him).
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Communication is at the heart of the rituals of animals, birds, insects. With the help of a once and for all set of actions, one individual transmits information to another about its intentions - friendly, mating, or belligerent.
And if some "white crow" reacts inadequately to a standard set of ritual actions, it means that she is sick, "crazy", and she should be expelled from the herd, flock, swarm or community. In fact, animal rituals and human rituals grow from the same root and serve one purpose - communication and preservation of the species.
According to the laws of harmony
For some reason, comparison with animals is always a little offensive for us. How can you compare the ritual of taking the military oath or church service with some kind of mating dances of ostriches? However, there are more than enough reasons for this.
Let's remember the wonderful fairy tale "The Little Prince" by Exupery. Flying from planet to planet, he meets a lamplighter who lights and extinguishes the lantern every minute - because it is at this speed that the time of day is changing on his planet. When the Little Prince asked why he was doing this, the lamplighter answered: "Such an agreement."
Looking at this “ridiculous man” and observing his strange actions, the Little Prince understands: this is the highest honesty - to do your duty, to do your job, even if it has turned into pure ritual. Are the actions of the lamplighter pointless? “There is a sense in his work,” says the little prince. - When he lights up his lantern - as if another star or flower is being born. And when he turns off the lantern, it is as if a star or a flower fall asleep. Great job. It's really useful because it's beautiful."
So what happens? Ritual actions can be completely devoid of practical meaning: why ride on one leg? Why light and extinguish the lantern every minute? Why repeat words of prayer or oath? The true meaning of the ritual is the repetition of a series of symbolic actions that "guarantee" a connection with the Higher powers. What does this have to do with the practical meaning ?!
But there is one more aspect to the ritual, which cannot be called functional at all. This is beauty.
Rituals in the animal kingdom are also amazingly beautiful - remember the most graceful mating dances of peacocks. But birds, fish, and mammals write out all these complex steps not at all for beauty! For our younger brothers, they are absolutely natural, that is, economical and expedient. But in the human world, the beauty of the ritual has its own value and special meaning.
Only man has God given such "excess" as the feeling of beauty. For us, the beauty of church services is a symbolic reflection of heavenly harmony, adherence to the laws by which our world was created.
The main themes of the most ancient rituals are precisely cosmological: the creation of space from chaos. Reproducing the act of creation, people tried to restore space, harmony in the sacred space of the temple, in order to "cure" the rest of the world from chaos and destruction (well, or at least one nation in a single country). An indispensable condition for the effectiveness of the ritual was the sacrifice to the gods.
When today we let a cat into a new house ("for good luck"), it certainly does not occur to us that this custom is an echo of an ancient ritual, according to which the domestic deity had to sacrifice livestock and other living creatures.
In principle, with the help of a ritual, any life event can be correlated with a “heavenly story”. The construction of a temple or even a new home - with the creation of the world, a wedding - with a heavenly marriage, wars - with the feuds of the gods.
Beauty will save the world
The perfect, beautiful form of the ritual often passed from one religious tradition to another, filling with a completely different content. The inner essence of the ritual is always destroyed earlier, but the preservation of the form for some time leaves the opportunity to "remember", to return to the true essence. The ritual itself, devoid of spiritual content, is only a "wrapper", a shell.
Ritual art is gradually becoming a museum exhibit, philosophy is a subject of study by historians and ethnographers, and the debris of ritual actions turns into rituals, customs, beliefs, that is, they are reduced to primitive magic. Like, if after a donation of a hundred bucks "Cadillac" crashed a pole, then the church circle is "out of order."
On the other hand, when religion renounces ritual, abandons form in favor of content (as happens, for example, in some branches of Protestantism), worship becomes more and more like a variety show. At the same time, sooner or later new rituals are invented and implemented, but not so … beautiful.
The Russian Orthodox Church is perhaps the most "ritualized" one. When Vladyka Anthony of Sourozh was asked why the Orthodox services are so magnificent, he simply said: "Children like it."
And really, why do we need a church ritual when God is in the soul? Yes, why not. But who is in our souls after all our "adventures" is still a question. The Apostle John the Theologian calls Christians to "discern spirits", the Apostle Paul warns that "Satan himself takes the form of an Angel of light." Church ritual in its entirety at least provides a guideline for beauty as a force structuring society, connecting Heaven and earth, past and future, real time and metaphysical time.
Man is an amazing creature who belongs to both the "world below" and "the world above"; it consists of the same elements as the dust underfoot, has the same reflexes as animals, it is "corporeal." But he is the only animal that belongs to the “incorporeal,” spiritual world.
A man, like an angel, is able to perceive the absolute beauty and beauty of divine creation, and, having a body, flesh, he can create beauty himself. In the church ritual, these abilities are most fully expressed: a person creates a ritual, but the ritual also helps a person to remain (and become) himself.
Tina GEORGIEVSKAYA