We feel like we must have a reason for being here, that there’s gotta be meaning to all of this, to who we are. We feel the need to figure out where we fit in this grand, wide expense of the universe. Humans are meaning-making creatures. But it doesn’t mean we have to have faith. We can have spirituality without religion. Being secular doesn’t mean you’re disconnected from your soul. Your body is a temple. Sacred secularism does exist. 

The universe is vast. When we look up at the night sky, there’s a tendency to feel not only small, but insignificant. We are a tiny speck of dust, clinging to a big rock that spins in space around a huge ball of fire, that is itself but a tiny microscopic pinprick of a flame within the immensity of the cosmos. 

It is no wonder that humans have been wondering and pondering about what animates this elegant spectacle, this enchanting enormity that surrounds us. It is no wonder that humans came up with all kinds of ideas about the nature of reality, and about what gave birth to this gorgeous, ginormous diversity of forms and shapes, and twinkly lights that bedeck the darkness of the night over our heads. 

We all need to feel connected. Humans need to feel connected to each other, to community, to culture, to place, to time. We have an inherent need to connect with other species. We have the need for explanations and understanding. Humans have a deep need to connect with something greater than ourselves. 

Defining Sacred Secularism 

The Limits of Faith

Humans like to solve problems. People have felt the need to solve great mysteries since pre-historic times. Many traditions evolved by telling stories that help explain the cause and origin of life, of natural phenomena, giving the unseen a seat of honor in a complex world. 

Many people romanticize mysticism. The belief in the supernatural has been more appealing to the human mind-heart than leaning into the unsettling recognition that most of the universe is unknown to us, and that most of the unknowns remain unknown. 

One of the reasons religions developed is because leaders in human communities discovered that belief is the most effective way to gather (and control) a large group of people. We want explanations, we want to be led, we want connection, we want to be shown how to live a sacred life, and religion feeds (and feeds on) those deep desires. 

Most humans don’t like to feel like an insignificant speck of dust.  

Religions found easy access to the minds of humans. We need to have a sense of belonging, and religion offers a sense of community. A story about human smallness in comparison to a great god, gives humans comfort – someone else has it covered. You don’t have to worry about it. Daddy’s got it.

Belief is a relief. 

But finding meaning without god is not as hard as some people may think. It does require, well, thinking – actually thinking – not believing. 

Spirituality Without Religion

These days, Spirituality helps with finding purpose without religion, and more and more meaning making practices that come from different traditions are available for people. But just like what happens within any human circle, there are problems in paradise. Within the modernization, appropriation, and capitalization of wisdom traditions (yoga, meditation, and other spiritual practices), there is a thirst for power. And power over people is easier to achieve when you teach them not to think, or to think in only one way.

Spiritual Atheism invites people to contemplate and to think critically, to meditate, but not to minimize the importance of logic, emotion, cognition, feeling, analysis, mood, comprehension, reason, personality, and rationale. Spiritual Atheism invites us to connect with the vastness of the universe, but not to lose oneself in it, not to become so absorbed in the infinite, that you no longer think for yourself. Oneness is not instead of manyness. Difference matters. YOU matter. And so are others. 

We can be deeply spiritual without making the intellect more or less important than the heart and soul, without making the body more or less holy than the mind. In fact, maybe that’s a deeply spiritual vision…  

Sacred Secularism breaks the common cultural divide between the sacred and the secular. We can teach ourselves how to see the sacred in everyday life. We can receive the temporary gift of life as a treasure. We can make new meanings and new connections to the vastness of the universe, without limiting ourselves to belief. Instead, we can open ourselves up to possibilities, to not knowing, to the wonder of wondering. 

There are no rules to how Sacred Secularism works. It’s about creativity and inspiration, symbolic thinking and mythic self discovery, meaning making practices and respect for different cultures, not about dogma.

The thread that weaves together Sacred Secularism, is the thread of questioning. 

The Wisdom of Doubt and Uncertainty

Religion offers people comfort through certainty. But certainty can too easily lead to tyranny, and religion has proven over and over again, across continents and history, that if there’s no room for argument, and no room for doubt, there’s no room for growth. If there’s no room for questioning, there’s no room for each other.

Doubt is important. Not many are quick to grapple with how paradoxical reality is. The dichotomy of truth is uncomfortable, and discomfort is not popular. This is a huge part of what’s happening in the world right now. Many things have contributed to how superficial, shallow, and binary our culture is. In a complicated world that doesn’t add up, people seek the comfort of certainty. And voila – you’ve got yourself authoritarianism! 

In its core, Sacred Secularism is paradoxical. The term itself doesn’t add up easily in most people’s minds. It’s ambiguous. It doesn’t offer one straight, clear path. 

So here’s an example for you; I’m Jewish, but not religious. I’m a third/fourth generation of Secular Jews. Some people raise an eyebrow when they hear that. They try to make sense of it, to compare it to some other, clearer concept in their minds. You can try to go into the whole racial thing, but that’s not quite it either. It’s more nuanced than that. And if you ask me what makes me Jewish other than the fact that my mom is Jewish (so is my dad, but the mother line is what counts in Judaism), I will not have a clear answer for you. Questioning is where it’s at. 

When a religious Jew leaves their Jewish faith, it’s called; Lachzor B’She’ela, which translates from Hebrew into; “to return in question.” Leaving behind the religion, they still remain Jewish. What makes someone Jewish is a complex network of meanings. It’s also a genetic thing. It’s ancestral. It’s non linear. It’s the mother line. It’s not a clear answer. The most beautiful thing about it is that it’s not obvious what makes someone Jewish. What makes someone Jewish remains a question for secular Jews. 

What is Sacred Secularism Meaning

It can simply mean having a secular worldview with wonder. Or a continuous conversation with art and nature. It can mean that you are committed to finding inspiration wherever you look. It can mean that you are having a deep relationship with the unconscious, with intuition and the imagination, and with the creative aliveness within and around you, Or it can mean whatever you think it means. 

The meaning of Sacred Secularism is not defined by one person, or by a group of people. It is a personal journey, and a collective endeavor. It’s a presence that we can bring to anything that we do, and anyone we’re in relationship with. It’s an invitation to let our breath be holy and one another precious and other species not less important than we are. 

The individual and the community, the personal and the planetary, the collective and the cosmos are all included in the vision of Sacred Secularism. The definition of it moves in serpentine ways. It undulates, it twists and turns, it burrows and rises and crawls on the earth, it wraps around a branch of an idea, and hisses at the attempt to pin it down.

The Sacred Without Belief

For the questioning mind, the spiritual marrow in the bones of mythology can become life-giving. Those of us who feel not just disconnected from faith, but actually discontent and critical of the over simplistic solutions faith offers, can find refuge in the symbolic language of mythology that curls around the most important themes of the soul.

No doubt that hope is more accessible through faith, but what if hope isn’t what we need? What if a secular approach to mythology, to ritual, to life, can offer us other threads of meaning that weave a story saturated in flavor because it doesn’t lean on mysticism? 

A few years ago I was having a conversation with my dad, and somehow my interest in astrology came up. “Do you believe in astrology?” asked my dad. And it was right then, through that question, that I was able to pull together some very important pieces from the depths of the unconscious. “No,” I said, “I don’t believe in it. But I love it! I find the archetypes to be so interesting and informative. Studying them is deeply insightful. I don’t need to believe in it in order to work with it.” and in that moment I freed myself from the chains of faith that were weighing me down on my path of exploration and learning. 

If I don’t need to believe in it in order to work with it, I can not only expand my capacity to understand some key features in our human experience, but my process, my work, my study can become more receptive, generative, and creative.  

Why Spiritual Atheism is Growing

More and more people feel less and less connected to the dogma of religion, and are embracing a more secular philosophy of life. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need connection to something bigger than ourselves. And it doesn’t mean we don’t crave that deep, immersive feeling of being present to the wonder of life. 

I hear a lot of people speaking about the universe very similarly to how people talk about God. There’s that whole; “the universe has your back” thing, or “the universe is putting me through a test,” or “I trust the universe” and I can see the appeal. But this kind of spirituality is still rooted in faith. Great for some people – deeply helpful and meaningful! But some of us still feel a disconnect when the conversation goes there. 

A Spiritual Atheist doesn’t usually believe in a higher power, but they still feel spirit. They may feel that the soil and the soul are interwoven, that the universe doesn’t promise anything, but that its magic is in the vastness and in the unknown, and that when you find the questions that don’t have a clear answer, you find the vastness of the universe in you. 

Spiritual Atheism offers an alternative to faith. It offers not refuge, but complexity, not a solution, but an invitation to love your life and love the world with all of the dichotomies it provides, with its beauty and bummers, grief and gifts, wonders and horrors. 

I think many of us are horrified by the black or white thinking and lack of depth we’re seeing around us. We see how many problems humanity has caused because of faith. We realize that belief closes people’s minds and leads to myopic views. We know that there’s no way around dichotomy. And so along with many paradoxes, we embrace the paradox of being a spiritual atheist practicing sacred secularity.

The longing to live a meaningful life is a basic human need. The longing for depth seems rare in this culture, but I think many of us crave it. We want a connection to reality, to the imagination, to the mystery – not the mysticism – of the universe. You know there are things that you cannot know. And you are learning to breathe with it. It becomes where meaning meets depth. 

The spiritual meaning of secularism is the question, not the answer. 

Practices of Sacred Secularism

There are many ways one can practice sacred secularism. No one can tell you how to live a sacred life. It is a personal practice. And yet it’s a collective one. 

An important principle is to allow there to be no particular practice at all. There is no obligation. You might treat your life as a precious gift, and when you forget, you keep coming back to the love that you feel for whatever it is that you love. It’s not religious. There are no rules to this. 

You know that life is sacred. You don’t perform it, you live it. And in the living there is wavering and forgetting and moments of becoming ungrateful, and still you keep coming back to your core; life is sacred. A secular worldview with wonder is all some people need. 

Ritual Without Religion

Some atheists feel a deep pull toward spiritual practices and the depth of meaning that comes with exploring existential questions, cosmic ideas, and the feeling of being part of the earth, of the universe. They look for rituals and spaces where belief isn’t required, but the vibe is like a temple of a goddess. 

And so going out to nature fulfills that need for many of us. What feels more like the temple of a Great Mother Goddess than the mountains? Where do you feel like you’re in her womb if not in the ocean or the sea? Deep meditative, contemplative experiences tend to dawn on spiritual seekers in the arid vastness of the desert. A spiritual atheist person might not hear God in the desert, but they might hear a deep voice of wisdom that speaks from within the soul and from the rocks, the cacti, and the soil. 

For many people, yoga and meditation are the secular sacred spaces where ritual meets the body, and where the modern mind can access ancient wisdom. 

From mythic self discovery, through symbolic thinking, and archetypal personal growth, to the ways that these practices yoke us to something greater than ourselves – to one another, to the creative power of nature, to other species, to the vastness of the universe – engaging with storytelling is one spiritual meaning of secularism. Ritual itself is a story. And telling stories is a ritual act. 

There are so many ways that we can engage in rituals without the pressure to believe in anything. Ritual can open up a doorway into secular spirituality. Through ritual we can practice the art of living without belief, the art of spirituality without religion, the art of living a meaningful life as a spiritual atheist. 

I’m working on a free guide for Secular Rituals. It’s almost ready. Get on my mailing list and I will send it to you as soon as it’s done. (in the meantime, you’ll get my free guide to Spark Your Inspiration – there’s an easy button at the foot of this page)

The Promise of Sacred Secularism

Here we are again, embracing the paradox, always playing with an oxymoron, delighting in dichotomy, and celebrating complexity. Sacred Secularism doesn’t promise us anything. It is an open ended invitation. The beauty of it is that this kind of approach keeps us receptive. 

In a world that rewards clarity and certainty in ways that end up becoming oppressive (like what we’re seeing now on the political stage around the world), receptivity is like medicine. 

Take that in. 

Receptivity is medicinal. 

Sacred Secularism can be like the antidote to the poison of personality cults, fascism, authoritarianism, superficiality, echo chambers, myopic views, and binary thinking. 

Instead of faith we can cultivate openness, receptivity, and generative, innovative energy. Instead of believing, we can create. Instead of canceling, we can think critically and discern, create boundaries, but not raise walls. 

Let’s lean into community – even when we disagree on certain things, we can still find ways to work together. We don’t all have to believe in the same things. 

Practicing secular spirituality doesn’t separate us from the holy well of life’s meaning; It draws us closer, offering pathways of depth and connection. 

Subscribe to my Substack here – for Muse Medicine that drops every Monday and explores the pathways of Sacred Secularism. 

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here – for videos that explore mythic concepts and yogic teachings and bring them into the body through movement. 

Explore why myth matters here.

Much love,

Hagar