Dreaming And Aboriginal Spirituality

The Australian Indigenous community hold extremely significant corrections to the land of Australia, of which they refer to as ‘Country.’ Indigenous people acquire deep meaning from the land, sea and the countless resources derived from them. This special relationship has formed for many centuries. To them ‘Country’ is paramount for overall wellbeing; the strong, significant, spiritual bonds embody their entire existence. Knowledge is continually passed down to create an unbroken connection of past,

Religion is a set of beliefs towards life where it helps describe the truth, purpose, lessons and outlook on life and also beliefs toward a higher authority or creator depending on the beliefs. Aboriginal spirituality is the set of beliefs of spiritual traditions and teachings which is passed down orally through the generations and centuries of believers. Buddhism is the set of beliefs of ending personal suffering and discovering happiness in life to achieve the state of nirvana which ends the cycle of reincarnation. Through Aboriginal Spirituality and Buddhism, there are similar themes in beliefs between these religions such as beliefs upon spirits, the circle of balance and afterlife; in which these ideas demonstrate and distinguish the relation between Aboriginal Spirituality and Buddhism.

The land is a pivotal medium through which the Dreaming is communicated. Hence, when the High Court of Australia ruled that Australia’s land was occupied at the time of British settlement and overturned the notion of ‘Terra Nullius’, deeming it legally invalid, the opportunity was granted for Indigenous Australians to re-establish spiritual links with the land and their cultural

The Dreaming stories pass on important knowledge, cultural values and belief systems to later generations. This is done by song, dance, storytelling and painting. Indigenous Australians have maintained links to The Dreaming dating back from ancient times up to the present, providing a very rich cultural heritage. The role that The Dreaming plays in Indigenous Australian life is very important to this culture as it holds big significance of how Indigenous Australians and their culture came to be.

These philosophical ways of being and abiding by are supported by the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime can be explained as ‘how the world came to be’ for Australia’s First People, centered around ‘how people must conduct their behavior and social relations’ (Broome, 2002, p. 19). There are estimated to be 600 different Indigenous countries that exist amongst the Australian continent, all with different ways of ‘doing’ (Edwards, 1998). The Dreaming is an important way of passing on knowledge, cultural values and belief systems from generation to generation (Australian Government, 2015). The deep connection that Aboriginal people have to their land is also an important concept relation to the concept of The Dreaming. The land is where the events of the dreaming occurred, with the spirit beings of The Dreaming, forming sacred parts of the Australian landscape (Edwards, 1998, p. 81). This spiritual way of being is also linked to elaborate laws of kinship (Phillips, 2005).

All aboriginals are linked to the Dreamtime through their totemic creation ancestors, whose stories are passed on through generations. Just as they would care for their family or tribe, they are obliged to care for their ancestral spirits existing in their land. It is important to remember that ancestral spirits are not necessarily ‘Gods’, but instead they are natural features of the land. As the Ancestor Spirits travelled the land, they taught the Law. When Aboriginals say they have a spiritual connection to the land, this relationship exists through the Law developed at the period of formation that includes a system of totemism. A totemic being represents the original form of an animal, plant or other object as it was in the Creation Period. The Kumbumerri Yugambeh people’s totem is the Eagle. ‘What is meant by totemism in Aboriginal Australia is always a mystical connection, expressed by symbolic devices and maintained by rules, between living persons, whether as individuals or as groups or as stocks, and other existents—their ‘totems’ —within an ontology of life that in Aboriginal understanding depends for order and continuity on maintaining the identities and associations which exemplify the connection.’ (5.3) Totems not only create a sense of belonging and spiritual connectedness to the land and others in the tribe, but they also offer hints to the person's

Indigenous people are dependant on their knowledge and understanding for the survival of their land. They needed to know the seasons and when and where the various types of food are available. The land needs to be protected to ensure the survival of the land. They do this by passing on knowledge of the land and its creation through stories, songs, ceremonies, dances and art. The closest English word for this knowledge of the land and its creation is the Dreaming. The Dreaming is a unifying characteristic of all Indigenous culture, but each group within Australia had its own particular Dreaming. The Dreaming of a group explained how features of their world came to be; the dreaming explained the sacred sites and their importance. It also set out the rules of how people should behave, particularly towards the land. The Dreaming gave meaning and direction to the lives of each Indigenous group, and continues to do so.

For Aboriginal Australians, the land has a special significance that is rarely understood by those of European descent. The land, or country, does not only sustain Aborigines in material ways, such as providing food and shelter, it also plays a major role in their spiritual lives. As Rose put it, "Land provides for my physical needs and spiritual needs." (1992, p.106). To use Rose 's own term, to Aboriginals the land is a 'nourishing terrain '. (1996, p.7).

When the ancestral spirits had created life, law and food it believed that they will returned to the land. And people say that they made themselves into creeks, water, mud and pools which it remain today. And all the traditional indigenous people believed that are being formed during the dreamtime, and the way that they hunt food, and they this is how dreamtime helped

To better understand Aboriginals as a Dream Culture I want to give more insight into Aboriginal Australians general culture and their conceptions of “Dream Time.” In his discussion of religion, Mircea Eliade describes a concept of Cosmos vs Chaos (Eliade 1957). In this notion an unordered world is chaotic only until is it transposed during a sacred time: “By occupying it and, above all, by settling in it, man symbolically transforms it into a cosmos though a ritual repetition of the cosmogony” (Eliade 1957:31). In other words until a land is tamed or created it is considered unordered. This can be applied to Aboriginal’s understanding of the world prior to their current presence. Aboriginals believe that in a time before the Dreamings, the land and world was a featureless earth. It was not until the dreamtime, or time of creation: “where there is contact with appearances from both realms of inside the earth itself as from ill-defined upper region” that the earth began to have its composed landscapes (Cowan 1992:26). The Dream Time is not only a period but more of a dimension where ancestral beings moved across the earth and created not only land, but every aspect of the earth including animals, plants, and man. It is important to realize that the ancestors created the natural earth and that is why Aboriginals live a particular lifestyle. Most Aboriginals living in this cosmogony are hunter-gatherer tribes. This aspect of their life can be traced to stem from the idea of

Aboriginals or indigenous Australians are the native people of Australia. Aboriginals were nomadic people who came to Australia about 40,000 – 60,000 years ago from Southeast Asia. Religion is a great part of Aboriginal culture. The essay answers these questions: What do Aboriginals belief? What is a Kinship system? What is Dreaming and Dreamtime? What rituals does Aboriginals have?

All that exists in this world, as the Aboriginal Australians believe, originates from “The Dreaming”, a cosmology of existence which serves as the larger context or background against which Aboriginal people orient their lives. In a mystical time long ago, anthropomorphic and theriomorphic beings who emerged from the land, traveled across Australia manifesting permanent geographic features and all there is into being. The essence of these powerful beings remains within the subterranean realm and evidence of their existence, vestiges, are embedded in the Australian landscape. Vast regions of western and central parts of the Australian continent are covered by harsh, arid terrain. Geographically, this region includes grassy plains, sand hills,

Aboriginal people are spiritually connected to country, their sacred land in which their ancestral beings were formed. The Dreaming is the core of Aboriginal spirituality that’s embedded with explanation of the creation process along with rules and ‘laws of social and religious behaviour'. that is vital to live by. The Dreaming is a complex metatemporal concept that includes the understanding of the world creations and its great stories that are linked to the creation process, and the spiritual ancestors of the land. The creation process explains the formation of the land and all living contents created by Ancestral beings who transformed into particular sites and left their spirits behind.

In an excerpt taken from his 1953 publication titled, The Dreaming and Other Essays, W.E. H. Stanner mentions that an Indigenous Australian may refer to “the place from which his spirit came his Dreaming,” additionally, “he may also explain the existence of a custom or law of life as casually due to ‘The Dreaming’” (Stanner 1953:23). Here, Stanner not only exposes the multiplicity of Dreaming but, also, its implications on the Aborigine. The Dreaming is the larger context or the background against which they orient

aboriginal heritage is what everything goes back to, they believe in spirits and fall into the thoughts of them creating this world,