On Notions of Holiness: The Sacred and the Profane, Seperation and Alienation

I was recently watching a lecture by Dr. Christine Hayes on the Open Yale website, where they have an entire series of lectures on the Old Testament. This particular lecture was called "The Priestly Legacy: Cult and Sacrifice, Purity and Holiness in Leviticus and Numbers."

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testament-...

In it, Dr. Hayes explores the notions of holiness and ritual purity required to enter through the successive layers of the tabernacle and become closer and closer to the "inner most holy of holies" at the center.

It's a long lecture and so I'll try to keep it short. She explains that the word "profane" only means "common". Nothing wrong with being profane, but in order to approach what is holy, you must separate yourself from what is common, or profane, through ritual purification and sacred rites. And only the high priest who has the highest degree of separation from what is "common" can enter into the central chamber of the tabernacle where the arc of the covenant resides.

In short holiness and profanity exist on opposite ends of a spectrum, perhaps with some overlap, but essentially they are opposites.

I thought about this for a while, and recognized similar notions of holiness exist in other religions. I prefer to study buddhism and so that is where I started looking. A bikkhu (buddhist monk) must separate themselves from the common lay life. They do so by a dress code, but also by a code of behavior which ensures their "purity" such as refraining from using money, having sex, engaging in idle chatter or gossip, and even from having close personal ties with any person or family. This even manifests as a separate class of citizens such as in the Tibeten feudal theocracy. To live the holy life, a bikkhu must completely separate themselves.

And I began to wonder, what is it about the profane, or the common, that is incompatible with holiness? Perhaps this notion of holiness is what lead to our current status of alienation. And so instead of trying to perform special rituals or meditations to get closer to the divine, I began trying to think of all of my mundane acts as something sacred.

"This is a sacred egg I'm cooking. This is a sacred piss I'm taking. This is a sacred dump. This is a sacred lethargy that I'm feeling. This is a sacred orgasm to sacred porn. This is a sacred cigarette and a sacred beer..." I began thinking.

I'm not sure that I feel any closer to holiness, but it's only been a week so far. I'm going to keep it up, and try to recognize that every mundane and common thing is all a part of one giant divine dance, and stop trying so hard to separate myself.