Situs ini tentang spiritualisme kritis dalam karya Ayu Utami

This site is about critical spiritualism in the work of Indonesian author Ayu Utami

Jakarta, 2015

Sekilas Spiritualisme Kritis

for English, see below

“Spiritualisme kritis adalah keterbukaan pada yang spiritual tanpa mengkhianati nalar kritis.”

Spiritualisme kritis dalam karya Ayu Utami pertama disebut dalam Bilangan Fu, novel yang bercerita tentang ketegangan yang terjadi karena dogmatisme kaum agama maupun kelompok sekular-modern di Jawa. Novel itu terbit tahun 2008, dengan latar meningkatnya teror dan kekerasan agama, di Indonesia maupun dunia.
Sebetulnya, secara tradisional orang Jawa mendamaikan perbedaan melalui proses sinkretisme. Candi-candi kuno menunjukkan paduan ajaran Syiwa-Buddha. Islam dan Kristianitas dikembangkan melalui seni dan falsafah lokal maupun etnis. Tapi, kearifan itu kini terganggu oleh dua kekuatan global: fundamentalisme agama dan dogmatisme modernitas, yang sama-sama memakai kekerasan.
Tokoh utama dalam Bilangan Fu menawarkan spiritualisme kritis. Sinkretisme tradisional tidak memadai lagi sebagai cara negosiasi. Rasionalitas adalah bahasa yang tak terelakkan jika kita tak mau kembali ke dalam kegelapan. Spiritualisme kritis adalah dialektika antara nalar kritis dengan yang di luar batasnya.

 

Spiritualisme Kritis Sahaja
Spiritualisme kritis disebut dalam Bilangan Fu, Pengakuan Eks Parasit Lajang (otobiografi seksualitas dan spiritualitas), sebelum akhirnya dijadikan serial sendiri dan bahkan dijadikan metode menulis kreatif. Serial itu ditujukan bagi pembaca awam, ditulis dengan bahasa yang sederhana.
Dialog ataupun dialektika antara nalar kritis dengan yang di luar batasnya tentu sudah dilakukan oleh begitu banyak filsuf, teolog, dan mistikus dari zaman ke zaman. Tapi, semakin spesifik suatu bahasa, semakin ia tak dimengerti orang banyak, semakin sulit dan makan waktu untuk memahaminya. Kehidupan modern, terutama di negara berkembang, membuat manusia bekerja dari pagi hingga malam. Studi filsafat yang dalam menjadi kemewahan yang tak selalu terjangkau.
Seri Spiritualisme Kritis mencoba memberikan bacaan ringan dan menyentuh untuk masuk ke dalam sikap kritis-terbuka. Seri Menulis dan Berpikir Kreatif Cara Spiritualisme Kritis adalah panduan teknis menulis yang menekankan pentingnya dialektika antara struktur dan kebebasan.

 

Biografi Penulis
Ayu Utami lahir dari keluarga Jawa beragama Katolik, anak bungsu dari lima bersaudara. Ayahnya seorang jaksa dalam pemerintahan rezim militer Suharto. Ibunya guru sekolah sebelum memutuskan menjadi ibu rumah tangga penuh. Pada usia belasan Ayu sangat religius. Pada usia 20-an, bersama pertumbuhan seksualitasnya, ia menjadi kritis pada agama, terutama karena struktur patriarki agama. Ia meninggalkan gereja dan memilih jadi agnostik. Ia belajar linguistik, menjadi wartawan dan aktivis pro-demokrasi di era militerisme.
Ia dikenal sebagai sastrawan secara luas berkat novel debutnya, Saman (1998), yang dianggap mendobrak tabu dan ikut menandai perubahan zaman dari rezim militer ke demokrasi. Ayu menjadi salah satu penerima Prince Claus Award tahun 2000 karena dianggap memperluas cakrawalasa sastra Indonesia. Novel itu membuat ia sadar bahwa khazanah kesusastraannya ia dapat dari agama, bahkan sekalipun ia mencoba meninggalkan agama. Pada usia 30-an ia mulai menimbang kembali agama dengan lebih positif, yaitu sebagai sumber yang berharga bagi peradaban, tanpa harus menjadi tujuan. Pada umur 40, ia menerbitkan Bilangan Fu yang pertama menyebut spiritualisme kritis.

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Critical Spiritualism in Brief

"Critical Spiritualism is an openness to the spiritual without betraying the critical reasoning."

Critical spiritualism in the work of Ayu Utami is first mentioned in The Number Fu, a novel about a conflict in a Javanese village caused by the hardening of dogmatism both of the religious and the modern-secular groups. The novel was published in 2008, with an increasing number of incidents of terror and religious violence in Indonesia and in the world as the context.
In the past the Javanese was well-known for their ability to reconcile different values by way of syncretism. Many ancient temples show us a mixture of Shiva-Buddhist teachings of the past. Islam and Christianity developed through local and ethnic arts and world views. The wisdom is now in jeopardy with the invasion of two global powers: religious fundamentalism and modern dogmatism; both using violence.
The main character in The Number Fu proposes critical spiritualism. Traditional syncretism is no longer sufficient as a means of negotiation. Rationality is an unavoidable language unless we want to go back into the darkness. Critical spiritualism is a dialectic between critical reasoning with the thing beyond its limit.

 

Simple Critical Spiritualism

Critical spiritualism is mentioned in The Number Fu (novel), Confessions of A (sexual and spiritual autobiography), before finally made into a series, and even used as a method of creative writing. The series is intended for the common reader, written in simple language.

For sure theologians, philosopers, and mystics have been exercising dialogues and dialectics between critical reasoning and the-thing-outside-its-limit through the ages. Unfortunately the more specific the language, the more difficult it is for many people to understand. Modern life especially in developing countries forces people to work from morning to night; philosophy is a luxury not always affordable. Critical Spiritualism series tries to give an easy reading of moving stories to help simple readers entering into a deeper discussion. The other series, Creative Writing in Critical-Spiritual Way, comprises handbooks of creative writing that emphasize the importance of the dialectic between structure and freedom.

 

Author’s Biography
Ayu Utami was born into a Javanese Catholic family (a small minority in predominantly Moslem Indonesia), the youngest of five siblings. Her father was a prosecutor during General Suharto’s regime. Her mother had been a school teacher for the first years of their marriage. In her teens Ayu was very religious. In her twenties, along with the development of her sexuality and the understanding of it, she became critical to religion, especially to its patriarchal structure. She left the church and became an agnostic. She studied linguistic, worked as a journalist, and joined a pro-democracy movement in the military era.
She started to be widely known through her debut novel, Saman (1998), which was considered to break taboos and also marked the changing from the military era to democracy. She is a Prince Clause Award laureate in 2000 for having expanded the horizon of Indonesian literature.The novel made her realized that her important literary source is the Bible. In her thirties she began to reconsider religion in general with a more positive perspective, and to see it as a valuable resource, but not necesarily a goal, for civilization. At the age of forty, she published The Number Fu, that mentions critical spiritualism for the first time in her works.