 |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Quotations Archives
|
||
|
The Unseen Order The world’s great wisdom traditions have one thing in common: they affirm that there is an unseen order, and the supreme good in life lies in finding the right relationship to that.[i] This was the conclusion reached by the American psychologist and philosopher William James after a lifetime of study and reflection. But this statement only leads most of us to a plethora of questions. What is this “unseen order”? Does it really exist? If it is “unseen,” how can we come to know it? And how, if we choose to make the effort, do we go about finding the right relationship to it? To consider these questions, let us start as far back as the visible record goes. More than 50,000 years ago, people in Europe and Africa were making elaborate drawings on cave walls and rock outcroppings. In Europe, they would make their way into caves and draw very elaborate figures on the cave walls––going to a great deal of trouble to fill those caves with very beautiful, stylized images. And make no mistake, there was a lot of time and effort involved. They had to prepare the pigments, find a way to light the caves while they worked, and sometimes build structures in order to reach inaccessible places. As far as we can surmise, however, all this effort wasn’t about finding food, or shelter, or sexual fulfillment—or even about propagating the species. One could think of these caves as early art galleries, but if so, they certainly were not designed for frequent viewing; just to access them is difficult, and the problem of lighting them sufficiently for viewing with the resources available at that time would have been very challenging. Given all this, the best guess has to be that these works of art deep in the earth had something to do with the religious or spiritual aspirations of their creators. No other motivation—at least none that we can recognize today—seems strong enough to explain these extraordinary paintings. This is the conclusion of David Lewis-Williams, a scholar who has spent a lifetime studying rock art, or cave art as it is also called. In his book, The Mind In The Cave, he concludes that these drawings grew out of rituals in the shamanic tradition of the time, helping to provide a feeling of connection with the spiritual realm for these early peoples—often through an experience or ordeal in an inaccessible place. Thus the creation of these drawings in sometimes difficult to access caves. It is therefore quite likely that more than 50,000 years ago, our ancestors were trying to find the “right relationship” to the “unseen order.” And this conclusion fits perfectly with what we know of later civilizations. From the earliest eras in recorded history, human beings have spent an incredible amount of time, energy, and money in trying to develop and express a connection to and relationship with that which they perceived to be a higher power. If we briefly scan the globe with our mind’s eye, we get a glimpse of the immensity of this human enterprise: massive temples to Egyptian Gods, and elaborate Egyptian burial chambers designed to carry those being buried to the “unseen order”; thousands of temples and statues in ancient Greece, erected to honor the Gods of Olympus; thousands of temples throughout the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia, built for the Gods of the Hindu pantheon; thousands of temples to and statues of the Buddha throughout Asia; great, sometimes intricately decorated mosques all over the Middle East; beautiful synagogues wherever the Jewish people settled; and the majestic cathedrals of the European Middle Ages. The list could of course be much longer, but it is only important to realize that many of the great buildings of the world, throughout human history, were built with a religious or spiritual purpose in mind. People were trying to get into the “right relationship” to something they perceived as greater than themselves. And this process continues unabated today. As with buildings, so with all kinds of art. Much of the art of the world was created within a religious or spiritual context. From the earliest clay figures found around the world, through the later elaborations of many different kinds of pottery, to sculpture, woodcarvings, handicrafts, and paintings, a majority of the images and symbols depicted throughout human history have been religious or spiritual in nature. For direct confirmation of this, one need only walk through any of the great museums of the world. The same is true of music: throughout the ages, much of the world’s music was created for religious ceremony, ritual, or celebration. And so with the written word. The libraries of every land are filled with religious and spiritual texts, commentaries on those texts, explanations of those texts, and individual accounts of religious and spiritual experiences. No other topic has occupied as much of our creative and intellectual effort. If we look closely, we see that much of philosophy, all of theology, and much of literature, story, and poetry throughout the world has been concerned with trying to understand the “unseen order” and in trying to find the right relationship to it in the living of life. Or with describing people’s successes—and failures—in this endeavor. In fact, when one contemplates the amount of time and energy we humans have given to religious and spiritual art, architecture, and music (to creativity of all kinds); to crafts and to the construction of many of the great buildings of the world; and to the verbal and intellectual arenas of philosophy, theology, poetry, literature, myth, and story, it is so vast as to be hard to comprehend. And this does not even include the amount of time humans have spent through the ages in prayer, meditation, spiritual pilgrimage, and religious services of all kinds.
The Reality of the Unseen[ii] Of course, that we humans have given so much time and attention to religious and spiritual activities does not prove anything about the “reality of the unseen,” to use William James’s famous phrase. It only proves that most human beings throughout history have considered this project, this task of finding the right relationship to the unseen order, to be extremely important. We can also quickly notice that different peoples have understood the unseen order in different ways, that they have come to different understandings about what the right relationship to it might be, and they have had many different theories about how one should go about establishing the right relationship to it. But this does not diminish the observation that the underlying urge to make such an effort has been strongly and consistently present for most human beings in every culture and every age. Why might this be so? There are many possible answers to this question, from Freud’s assertion that religion is like a neurosis, an unconscious expression of repressed sexual desires, to Marx’s cry that religion is “the opium of the people,” keeping the burdened and oppressed of the earth from breaking out of their chains, all the way over to the mystics’ quiet assertion that in fact, there IS an unseen order, which most of us don’t perceive clearly because we have not trained ourselves to see it. The other thing we can observe is that for thousands of years, human beings have argued and fought over the existence and nature of this unseen order—what it is like, and how it can best be approached. Probably no other topic has caused as much strife, bitterness, hatred—even bloodshed. Again, this does not prove it’s existence or non-existence, but it certainly proves that it is and always has been a topic of utmost importance to human beings. How can we come to a better understanding of this drive within the human race? The great mythologist Mircea Eliade, who studied the belief systems of dozens of cultures all over the world, came to the conclusion that every culture he had studied incorporated in some way an understanding of two kinds of time: the ordinary time of our everyday activities, which he labeled profane time, and a time that had to do with a different order of reality, which he came to call sacred time. As Keith Thompson expressed this idea, “the ancient Greeks conceived of the ordinary passage of time—incessant, impersonal, non-negotiable—as belonging to the god Kronos, from whose adventures the term chronology is drawn.”[iii] But they also “realized that all time is not ‘ordinary.’ They reserved the term Kairos for special time: moments when the extraordinary punctuates mundane existence, reminding that the origin of being is ever-present, overflowing with what the word ‘holy’ speaks of.”[iv] After documenting at great length the existence of these two ways of thinking about time, Eliade came to an extraordinary observation: that in every culture he had studied, meaning always arose from sacred time. Thus if we humans want to find meaning in our lives, and if Mircea Eliade is right, this is one crucial reason we as a species have focused so much time and attention on what is often thought of as “the sacred.” But how to understand this—that meaning always comes from sacred time. One way to get at it would be to look at how value and meaning systems have arisen in human history. If we examine this question closely, we see that most human cultures, with their ideas about how we should live, what is important, which values we should live by—at least the systems that have endured—have not been founded on principles that grew out of ordinary events, or ordinary time. They have not arisen when someone said: “Hey, I was thinking that maybe we ought to try out this belief system for a while.” Rather, a person went off to a mountain, or a forest, or a desert, and after some time there, came back and said to the people of the community or tribe, “I have seen the truth. This is how we should live, this is what is really important, these are the values we must live by.“ They reported an encounter with something outside the everyday world (outside of ordinary time) which gave guidance as to what was ultimately important in human life. And it is to these value and meaning systems that most human cultures have referred in formulating their belief systems. Just so, Moses went up the mountain, and came back with the Ten Commandments to guide his people. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, then came back and began his teaching about what the kingdom of heaven is like—and how to get there. Mohammed spent many months in meditation and prayer, and only then followed the vision that gave rise to the Koran and the birth of Islam. The Buddha left his home and family and spent many years as a wandering ascetic, finally sitting in stillness under the bodhi tree for many days until he saw his truth. Only after these experiences did he begin to teach his realization. Plato sought wisdom for many years, and finally came to describe what he had found—a world of Ideas, of Pure Form, that lay outside this everyday world but gave meaning to our lives in it—if we could live in the right relationship to it. Lao Tzu described his lifetime’s realization of what lay behind the everyday world: “There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. . . . I will call it the Tao.”[v] And his guidance? To find fulfillment, we must live our lives in accordance with this Tao. In the Upanishads of Hinduism, we read “Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings, vaster than the vast,”[vi] And life’s purpose? To recognize our relationship as one with that. There are many, many other examples that could be given, but the point is clear: most of the world’s belief and value systems have been defined by people who described the origins of those systems as arising from experiences that took place outside of ordinary time. Or who maintained that the beliefs and values they espoused had come to them from a source transcending the everyday world—who said that the beliefs and values they promulgated had to do with something they had perceived that was outside everyday time, but which gave meaning to our lives in this ordinary world. Lest we make the mistake of thinking this is only about the past, however, it is crucial to recognize that most human beings today were born and raised in cultures that trace their teachings back to one of these transcendent meaning and value systems. At this very moment, the values and beliefs that are being taught to children all over the world—and that give rise to how children today will live, and how they will understand the world—come from systems of thought that fit Mircea Eliade’s definition as arising from “sacred time.” This is not to say that all these teachings are the same. They are not. And it offers no judgment as to which value and belief systems might be true or “right.” It is only to demonstrate William James’s point that all wisdom traditions in the world have one thing in common: the view that there is an unseen order, and that the highest purpose of life is to find the right relationship to that.
The Most Important Things Another way to approach this idea is to look at the things that are important to us in our lives—the things that motivate our actions. In the everyday world, most humans are highly motivated by several things: getting enough to eat, finding a safe place to live and a comfortable place to sleep, and trying to make sure these things will be available for the foreseeable future. We humans, along with all animal species, are also powerfully motivated to fulfill our sexual urges—especially in the late teen and early adult years. And when our sexual activity leads to offspring, most of us share with all creatures great and small a deep-seated instinct to nurture and care for the young. If these needs and urges are more or less fulfilled, we might then focus our attention on acquiring a certain amount of power and control over our environment (and sometimes over the people around us). Some of us are further motivated to use our time and energy in acquiring fame, earning the esteem of others, or pursuing adventure, excitement and entertainment. Others of us turn our efforts toward increasing the prestige and power of a group we identify with—family, clan, tribe, sect, or country. For many of us, an additional and powerful current in our lives is the urge to be creative: to bring something into existence that did not exist before, to make the objects we see and use pleasing to look at, to design and make decorations for our structures that delight the eye, to create music, poetry, literature and plays to stimulate, entertain, challenge, and inform. The urge to create is one of the strongest currents in human life. Many of us also seem to have an inherent drive to acquire knowledge, to learn things of all sorts. Sometimes this urge to learn has to do with the acquisition of skills that will be useful in fulfilling other goals, but there also seems to be a pure desire to learn, to acquire knowledge for its own sake. Some of us seem to find a pure pleasure, a delight even, in the process of learning itself. But if we look closely at this list of the motivations running through us, we become painfully aware that we face endless questions as to which are the most important, which will take precedence over others as we go about living our lives. We see that there are inherent conflicts between the various currents competing for our time and energy and attention. These primary motivations are, in a sense, the raw materials with which we work throughout our lives. But nothing within these motivations themselves gives us any guidance as to how to most beneficially allocate time and effort to one instead of another. In fact, the competition for time and attention between these different currents is one of the great dilemmas of life. Next, we can see that there is nothing within these currents themselves to help us decide how our urges and desires will relate to the urges and desires of others, of the “others” we encounter as we go through the day. What happens when I want something that you want—how do we deal with that? What happens if you take something from me? I from you? How will conflicts be resolved? Wars justified or avoided? Murder sanctioned or punished? Stealing winked at or condemned? And further still, how will we deal with the losses and failures that inevitably arise as we seek to fulfill our primal urges and desires? With no more than a cursory look at our own lives, and the lives of the people around us, we can see that at times most of us suffer loss, failure, sadness, and hurt. How will we incorporate these feelings and experiences into the way we think about our lives? How will we understand them? How will we make sense of them? All this is to say that although our most basic motivations take up much of the time and energy of life, nothing within them provides an answer to the most important questions we face, questions such as: What are the most important goals and visions of my life? Which ones will I focus on to the exclusion
of others? Who will I love? Will I use my creativity to pursue fame
and fortune? Or is there some deeper inspiration at work that I
must listen to in order to fulfill the creative urge? If I enjoy learning, will I just learn random facts, or are some kinds of knowledge of greater value to me than others? If so, which kinds? How do I decide that? What is wisdom? What is its role in my life? How do I acquire it? These are only a few of the many internal questions we face in trying to sort out our lives. They are the questions about values and meanings that we humans seem to have so deeply embedded in us. And it is very important to recognize that the basic urges and desires we feel do not answer, but instead lead us to, these questions. We could of course simply follow whatever whims arise in us from moment to moment. But the unanimous teaching of all cultural traditions is that this doesn’t work very well—and if you have ever tried this path, or watched someone trying it, you have first-hand knowledge of its inefficacy. Then how do these questions find answers in us? This is exactly what Mircea Eliade was pointing to: the fact that in every culture he studied, answers to these meaning questions arose from sacred time, from someone’s teaching that had as its core reference the “unseen order.” These internal questions are joined by an equally difficult set of questions concerning how we will relate to other people, and to the society we live in: Will I ever choose to limit the actions I take in expressing my sexual urges? Will I limit those actions only out of fear of rejection or reprisal? What about respect for another person, or commitment to someone else, or concern for the effect my actions might have on the one I desire? If I can take by force what I want, is there any reason, other than fear of reprisal, I might choose not to do so? What values will I live by, sacrifice for? What is right? What is fair? What is just? How can I know these things? ---- Do I care? Will I do what I believe is right and fair and just even if it costs me something that is important to me? Will I help other people, give to others, be of service in some way? ---- If so, how? And why? Will I commit my time and energy to a cause or an idea I believe in, even if it takes time and energy away from my more basic urges and desires? These are the questions, as opposed to our primal urges and desires, that concern the values we will live by—both within ourselves and in relation to others. And these are the questions about the meaning of our experiences, how we will come to understand and give meaning to our lives. So to reemphasize the key point, most human communities throughout history have attributed their answers to these questions to something that transcended their everyday experience. Almost every culture has a creation story, a story of where people came from, and embedded in these stories is guidance as to how people should live. These are the stories that provide guidance about the meanings and values that are crucial to life in the culture or community— the values and meanings that are taught to the young as they are inculturated into the community’s life. (Inculturated seems to me to convey my intent better than the commonly used acculturated.) As you read through the above questions, you may well have answers within yourself to a number of them. Many people do. But ask yourself for a moment; where did the answers that spring up within me to these meaning and value questions come from? If you stay on this train of thought for a little distance, you will discover that your answers arise from an amalgam of things you were taught as a child, blended with the points of view you have encountered while reading about and listening to the influential people in your life. And where did these teachings conveyed to you by the formative figures in your life come from? If you continue this process, what you will find is that almost all such teachings hark back to the great wisdom traditions of human history. And almost uniformly, both the founders and the followers of these traditions believed they originated in the “unseen” domain. This is what led to Eliade’s assertion that in every culture he had studied, meanings and values did not come from people’s experience of their everyday urges and desires, but from something which they felt was transcendent to that.
Alternatives to the Transcendent Once again, this common thread of looking to the transcendent dimension for guidance in finding the meanings and values around which we will organize our lives does not prove the existence of this dimension. But it does demonstrate how universal the belief in it has been—and is. Further, it points to a great dilemma if one wishes to organize in any other way. If there is no transcendent guidance concerning meanings and values, what right does one person have to assert that another person should accept any belief or value they don’t agree with—ever? If there is no transcendent dimension to which we can refer, then the only basis for any assertion by one person in relation to another is pure power. If I have enough force, I can make you do what I want. If I want your money, and I am strong enough, I will take it. If I want to have sex with you, or to kill you, and I am strong enough—and there is no one whose power I fear who might retaliate—then I can do it if I choose. You could of course argue that it is in my self-interest not to steal, or rape, or kill. But if I don’t see it that way, on what basis can you assert that I should not follow my urge to act as I want to act. You could try to persuade me, but what if I am not persuaded? What right do you then have to tell me what to do if your beliefs are not grounded in something larger than your personal opinion? What about the vote of a majority of our community, or tribe, or country? Well, yes, this might help. But on what will the values of this majority be based? As we have seen, in human history cultural rules and values have almost always been attributed to a transcendent dimension. If we cannot ground our communal values and beliefs there, what is left but power? So, if a majority of people in a certain place and time want to use another group of people as slaves, and they have the power to do so, what is the argument against this? If a majority want to create gas chambers to kill those who they don’t like, what argument does one use to stop them? If the majority of people in a tribe or nation want to go to war with a neighboring country to take its land and wealth, on what basis would we try to persuade them otherwise? We could argue that there is something inside human beings—something immanent in us—that guides the shaping of our beliefs and values. But if each person’s immanent guidance system is unique and different—then we are back to the same dilemma: the absence of any basis upon which to assert anything to another person except with power. One person might profoundly believe that rape and murder are wrong, but what if the next person doesn’t feel this way? What right in this circumstance does one person have to assert anything to another—if each person’s immanent guidance is unique to them and has no necessary validity with another? Well, perhaps there is something immanent in all people. But if this thing is in all of us, then by definition it transcends the individual—is not stored in any single person.[vii] Thus this point of view does not clear up anything, but leads only to questions. Where did this immanent thing come from? Where is it stored? Is it exactly the same in all people? How did it get to be the same in different people? Can it change over time? Where are the changes stored? In which persons? Or does it change simultaneously in all living people? If not, which person is the primary reference point—which person or group’s view is more valid than another’s at any given point in time? And ultimately, if it is in more than one person, isn’t it really in the transcendent domain? What the immanent possibility comes down to is this: since people inevitably disagree over beliefs and values, is there something greater than one’s personal point of view to which we can collectively refer concerning values, meanings, beliefs? If this immanent thing does not have some foundation greater than a single person’s point of view, then we are back to basing our relations with others on pure power—one person’s or one group’s assertion against another’s. But if the imminent thing has a standing, a foundation we can jointly base our values and beliefs upon, then we arrive once more at James’s “unseen order.” Thus the attempt to base unifying beliefs and values on the presence of “something immanent in all of us” leads right back to the transcendent dimension. Some might argue that there is a basis for values, beliefs, or meaning in our cells, our genes, our DNA. But if it is in our DNA, how did it get there? By what agency did these values and beliefs arrive there? Was it just chance? If chance, is there any reason we shouldn’t reject these genetic tendencies if we want to? Maybe our new thought is better than the chance genetic development. Is there any reason that we should make an effort to live by them, if we have an urge not to do so? Is there any reason we can use to assert that others should live by them if they don’t want to? Since the answer to these questions would seem to be no, such tendencies do not really serve as a basis for guiding our lives, or our relations with others. Perhaps these tendencies that seem to be values and beliefs simply grew up in us to help us survive, are simply how we interpret the drives in us that urge us to get the good things in life for ourselves. If so, we are immediately thrust into a dog-eat-dog world of pure power, and there are no values and beliefs we can commonly refer to. In this world, values and beliefs are mere tricks we use to persuade others to act in ways that will benefit us if we can get them to go along. Well, maybe there is a drive within us to further our personal gene pool, or to further the interests of our tribe, or our race, or our species—and this drive has given rise to what we think of as beliefs and values. What we have to recognize about this possibility is that there is absolutely no proof that values, or beliefs, or meaning are passed down through our DNA. Some people have speculated along these lines. And this is a theoretical possibility. But there is absolutely no evidence for this, let alone proof. All the arguments I have seen along these lines start with the theological (metaphysical?) assumption that since there is no other possible source, these feelings in us must somehow have developed and be stored in our genes. But the flaw here is in starting with the assumption that there is no other source for values, or beliefs, or meaning. To start with this assumption is pure theology – and flawed theology at that. For although this is one possibility, it is not the only one. Another possibility, as many humans have asserted throughout human history, is that values, meaning, and beliefs come form something transcendent to us. Both are theological (or metaphysical) views. But to assert one theological answer over another because you started with the assumption that it is the only possibility is of no real help—and poor theology to boot.
Leaders Throughout Human History Another way to catch a glimpse of the importance of the unseen order to human experience is to look at those who have been viewed as our leaders, the most accomplished among us, the exemplars of human possibilities—real people, as well as those in story and myth. When we look at the heroes and heroines of human history, four main categories emerge; a) those who have added knowledge and wisdom to human culture, b) those who have found effective ways of creative expression, c) political and military leaders, and d) religious and spiritual role models. But an interesting thing emerges from looking more closely at this list—a very high percentage of the people in the first three categories stated directly, or were believed by the people around them, to derive their wisdom, their authority, or their creativity from a source greater than themselves.
a) Knowledge and Wisdom Figures One of the main fields of knowledge is that of science, and much of the scientific endeavor throughout human history has been motivated by a desire to better understand the “unseen order”: thus Newton pursued his mystical alchemy in parallel with his physics, and “discovered” the God-given laws that govern the universe, Copernicus maintained the perfection of the celestial realm while removing the earth form the center of its revolution, and Galileo --------. And these metaphysical beliefs were not just tangential beliefs held by “early” scientists. There are many reasons to believe, as Albert Einstein declared: “I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.”[viii] The sheer number of scientists throughout the ages holding these transcendental beliefs and motivations led scholar Karen Armstrong to conclude: …….. And transcendental beliefs held among great scientists have continued right down to the modern era, where, as Ken Wilber points out concerning the physicists who created relativity and quantum theory—the crown jewel of 20h century science: “of the dozen or so pioneers in these early revolutions—individuals such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schroedinger, Louis de Broglie, Max Planck, Wolfgang Pauli, Sir Arthur Eddington—the vast majority of them were idealists or transcendentalists of one variety or another.”[ix] In this light, let us listen to the words of the person selected in one poll as the greatest mind of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, “The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science….. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.” [x] Turning to the realm of philosophy, the continual reference to an unseen order is even more striking than in science. In fact, much of philosophy in every culture and every age has been intertwined with theology and metaphysics—with the attempt to understand the transcendent dimension and our relation to it. The list of such philosophers would be endless. So let us look instead at several of the most prominent philosophers known for their focus on our worldly lives – this world and how we might best live in it. And on close inspection, even these more worldly philosophers based their teachings on the assumption of an unseen order: Socrates, for instance, spoke of the voice that guided him, and of the realm of the Good, which, if we only knew it, we would certainly follow, because it was the source of our true happiness. Aristotle was primarily concerned with understanding and categorizing the everyday world, but he held that this everyday world had arisen from a “First Cause” that was transcendent to the everyday, material world. Kant, although arguing that we could not directly know the transcendent dimension, based his morality on the assumption that it did exist, and on the possibility that we could come to know the “holy will” within ourselves. Confucius, although especially concerned with the practical aspects of human life, argued that there was a moral law, the will of heaven, which was the only basis upon which humans could know how to live their life in the world. Rene Descartes, one of the founders of modern philosophy and science, held that our minds partook of the spiritual dimension, and he proposed his ontological proof for the existence of God. And Georg Friedrich Hegel, whose ideas were one of the building blocks for the theories of Karl Marx, argued for the existence of an Absolute Mind, which gave rise to the rationally structured material universe. Again, many, many more examples could be given.
b) Creative Expression As with knowledge and wisdom, so also with creativity. If we look back through the history of human creativity, an incredible number of the major figures recognized for their achievements believed that their creative genius sprang from a source transcendent to themselves. As discussed in his book Higher Creativity, Willis Harmon notes that Beethoven and Brahms “took pains to point out that certain inspirations, more valued than others, seemed to come from some place other than what they normally thought of as their self.”[xi] George Eliot said “that in all of what she considered her best writing, something that was ‘not herself’ took possession of her, and that she felt her own personality to be ‘merely the instrument through which this spirit . . . was acting’."[xii] Richard Strauss wrote, "While the ideas were flowing in upon me—the entire musical, measure for measure—it seemed to me that I was dictated to by two wholly different, Omnipotent Entities. . . .I was definitely conscious of being aided by more than an earthly Power…”[xiii] From Johannes Brahms, "Straightaway the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God, and not only do I see distinct themes in my mind's eye, but they are clothed in the right forms, harmonies, and orchestration. Measure by measure, the finished product is revealed to me. . . "[xiv] Journalist Christine Cox reports that the poet Shelley “spoke of his inspired moments as ‘visitations of the divinity in man’."[xv] She goes on the observe that “Philosophers, artists, the enlightened of all times and places—from Plato to Ching Hao, Tagore to Beethoven—have made similar claims: that true art is inspired by the divine.”[xvi] This engagement of art with the transcendent dimension is so strong that Joseph Campbell was led to conclude: “The way of art, when followed ‘properly’ (in Joyce’s sense), leads also to the mountaintop that is everywhere, beyond opposites, of transcendental vision, where, as Blake discovered and declared, the doors of perception are cleansed and every thing appears to man as it is, infinite.”[xvii] And once again, these currents come right down to the present day. In novels, plays and movies that are widely read in today’s world, the importance of transcendental themes and ideas is very powerful. Great novelists such as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Melville are still taught in many universities, and read by millions. Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables, with its underlying theme of giving one’s life over to the unseen meaning in which the world is held, has been turned into one of the most popular plays of our time. And consider the great poets: Emily Dickinson—whose writings are imbued with an assumption of a transcendent dimension—is still very popular, and against all assumptions one might make, the 12th century mystical poet, Jelaluddin Rumi, is the best-selling poet in America at the start of the 21st century. Even the ever-popular Walt Whitman, who is more identified with a humanist perspective than a transcendental one, could pen these lines: I see something of God in each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass; I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name There is that in me.... I do not know what it is.... but I know it is in me. I do not know it.... it is without name.... it is a word unsaid, It is not in any dictionary or utterance or symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death.... It is form and union and plan... ....it is eternal life.... it is happiness. And in movies, just a few years ago the most watched movies of all time were the Star Wars movies, with their invocation of “the force be with you” —a reference to a transcendental filed that became of byword for a generation of movie-goers. Now we have Harry Potter in his world of many unseen forces, and the overwhelming success, in novel as well as film, of to the spiritual message embedded in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien. These currents are so strong that noted scholar of religions, Huston Smith (who taught for many years at a center of technological development, MIT) concluded simply that “art is spiritual technology.”
c) Political and Military Leaders Moving to political and military leaders, for thousands of years in almost every human culture, the ruler was seen as either divine, or as a representative of the divine. Thus is Egypt, the ruler was considered God on earth, in China the ruler held the Mandate of Heaven, and in Europe there was the belief in the Divine Right of Kings. This association of leadership with the transcendent was common to many human cultures for thousands of years. And in those cultures that did not see the ruler as divine, or as cultures gradually broke away from this belief, most held that the “unseen order” would and could intervene in human affairs. Thus God was seen as speaking directly to Jewish leaders such as Moses, and was believed to intervene on the peoples’ behalf against their enemies (for instance at Jericho, and against the Egyptians). Or the unseen order was believed to give the Jewish rulers and the Jewish people guidance through the voice of the prophets – thus the names of Elijah, and Isaiah, and Ezekiel, and Jeremiah echo down the halls of history in Judeo-Christian lands. The transcendent was equally present for the people of ancient Greece. Ancient Greek leaders were not usually viewed as divine themselves, but the Gods on Olympus were experienced as frequently intervening in human affairs, helping those who made their case for assistance, and subverting those whom the Gods wished to punish or thwart. And here on earth, the Oracle of Delphi was seen as a voice that spoke from a direct inspiration of the “unseen.” In India, the story is told of Krishna becoming the charioteer of the great warrior Arjuna, offering him advice and guidance leading up to and during the great battle of the Mahabharata. From this story came one of the most sacred books in India, the Bhagavad Gita. In ancient China, perhaps the most important and formative book was the I Ching - a book of divination, used by rulers and commoners alike to discover the right relationship to the transcendent dimension. And of course in the world of Islam, Mohammed was seen as the Prophet of God, bringing to the people the wisdom of the Koran. As the belief that human rulers were divine slowly gave way to a more fallible view of worldly leadership, the importance of the unseen order did not necessarily wane in human culture. The belief that there was a transcendent dimension which could affect human affairs continued for most people everywhere. Only the belief that human leaders were divine, or could speak infallibly for the divine, came to be doubted in many cultures. But in this new environment, many political leaders still based their message on an appeal to an “unseen order.” Thus Joan of Arc rallied the French with her divine vision. Thomas Jefferson grounded the creation of America on the phrase “they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.” And Abraham Lincoln led America through its most trying years with such words as: “Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms.”[xviii] And “I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to his will.”[xix] And this grounding in the transcendent by many world leaders continues right down to present time. In the twentieth century, Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian subcontinent to independence with an appeal to ancient transcendental concepts of his native land, swaraj (freedom) and ahimsa (non-violence). Martin Luther King led the civil rights movement in America with an appeal to the capacity in all of us to act from a recognition of a higher good. And Nelson Mandela, the young radical who spent many years in prison—and who finally won political freedom for the majority in his native land, uttered these words at his inauguration as President of South Africa: “We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us: it's in everyone.”[xx] Once again, many, many more examples could be given. And once again, it is important to note that nothing in this discussion gives any guidance as to which, if any, of the people or ideas mentioned above were truly guided by an unseen order. Or which values have a greater validity than others. But it does point out the incredible importance throughout human history that reference to an unseen order has had in the political/ governmental/military arena of human life.
d) Spiritual and Religious Role Models Turning to spiritual and religious role models, one would expect there to be a dramatic belief in and emphasis on the unseen order. And this is certainly the case. It is probably redundant to say that all (or almost all) spiritual and religious figures throughout human history held the belief that there is an unseen order, and that the most important thing in life was to get in the right relationship to it. (One can find individual cases where doubts replaced such a conviction, but the number would be small, and these doubts, if publicly known, almost always led to the loss of spiritual or religious leadership in the community. This is completely separate from the changes that often occurred in spiritual and religious leaders as to the nature of the unseen order, or the best way to get into relationship to it. Many religious and spiritual figures throughout human history have changed their views on what the unseen was really like, or the best way to relate to it. But almost none questioned the existence of an unseen order.) This being so, the thing that is important to note is that in many cultures, religious and spiritual figures were the role models par excellence, often serving as the best image the society had to offer as to how people should live. Thus in Medieval Europe the best and brightest often aspired to be monks or nuns, in Buddhist countries the monks and nuns were held in the highest esteem, in the world of Islam the imam or sheikh was revered and followed, in ancient Israel the prophets were deeply respected, in ancient China the seven immortals were the role models to be emulated, and in India the sadhus were considered to be the most advanced on life’s path. In many lands, religious and spiritual leaders were also the most important counselors to the rulers, as well as to common folk. For instance, in indigenous cultures throughout history, the shaman was seen as the most important and powerful of figures, the one to be listened to above all others, and the one to guide people in times of difficulty or crises. And the most important role of the shaman? To provide the all-important connection between the spirit world and the world of everyday life, to attempt to keep the right relationship to “the numinous powers that can either sustain or extinguish human life.”[xxi] But this importance of religious and spiritual figures as guides, as counselors, as role models did not come to an end some time in the past. It is still very much with us all over the world today. One thinks immediately of Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama (who sold more books in America in 2002 than any other non-fiction author), Bishop Desmond Tutu, Sai Baba, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, and ------ (Islam). And these are only a handful of the living examples. (These examples, and my examples throughout this work are necessarily slanted toward the world I live in. These are the examples I know. A similar survey in any other part of the world would find the same kind of examples—only they would have different names.) If one goes to any land, what figures are seen as the best examples to emulate in this life? In Christian lands, stories and books are full of images of Jesus, of the apostles, of saints and martyrs through the ages, or those who struggled with finding the right relationship to God in many different ways. In Buddhist lands, one hears and reads over and over about the Buddha’s life, and of the thousands of monks and nuns who have carried the Buddhist tradition forward. In Jewish culture, it is the prophets, as well as Jewish religious figures throughout history. In India, it is the stories of Krishna, and Rama, and Hanuman, and countless thousands of religious and spiritual figures through the centuries who are looked upon as the best models for human behavior. In the world of Islam it is Mohammed and Rumi and the imams and sheikhs of history. Then consider the books that people have bought through the ages, and are buying today. The best-selling books of all time are the Christian Bible, the Tao Te Ching, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita – and they are selling more copies today than they have ever sold. Probably the largest-selling category of books sold in the world today is religious and spiritual category. Or if we turn to the list of best-selling biographies in any land or language, religious and spiritual figures are perennially at the top of the list. And this would probably be true in almost any place or any time in history one cared to check. In another vein, think of the teaching stories that have molded and shaped the beliefs of young people in every culture and every clime. How do values and beliefs become a part of each person’s internal system? Through the stories they are told as they grow up. Teaching stories, morality stories, and fairy tales have been used to shape the values and mold the lives of human beings since recorded history began. Think about the numerous parables and stories in the Bible, or the epic stories of India, of the American Indians, of Scandinavia—or any other culture you might care to name. Think of the Sufi, Zen, and Jewish teaching stories, or the plays of the Greeks and Romans. In every land, teaching stories molded the values and beliefs of the culture. And if you examine these stories, you discover that in almost every case, these stories carry an assumption of an unseen order. And often the protagonist is a religious or spiritual figure. Once again, this focus of people throughout history—right down to the present—on spiritual and religious figures as counselors, guides, and role models does not prove the existence of an unseen order, nor does it give any guidance as to which if any of these figures were “right.” But it dramatically demonstrates the importance we humans have put on the examples provided to us by those who believed there was an unseen order—those who believed that finding the right relationship to the “unseen” was of crucial importance. [i] William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Penguin Books Edition (1982), p. 53 [ii] A chapter head in William James Varieties of Religious Experience [iii] Keith Thompson – article in Noetic Sciences Review - Spring 1997 [iv] Ibid [v] Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell, number 25 [vi] Stephen Mitchell, The Enlightened Heart, p.4 [vii] This is the realm that Swiss psychologist Carl Jung named the “collective unconscious.” [viii] on "cosmic religion," a worship of he harmony and beauties of nature that became the common faith of physicists. In Cosmic Religion (1931), 48-49 [ix] Ken Wilber, Eye of Spirit [x] Albert Einstein (1879–1955), Einstein: His Life and Times, ch. 12, sct. 5, Philipp Frank (1947). [xi] Willis Harmon, Higher Creativity, p. 23 [xii] Ibid, p.23-24 [xiii] Ibid p. 46 [xiv] Ibid p. 46 [xv] Article in The Quest Magazine, Spring 1992, by Christine Cox, p. 66 [xvi] Ibid P. 66 [xvii] Joseph Campbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, p.126 [xviii] Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), U.S. president. speech at Edwardsville, Illinois, Sep. 11, 1858. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, p. 95, Rutgers University Press (1953, 1990). [xix] Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), U.S. president. letter to Eliza P. Gurney, Oct. 26, 1862. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 5, p. 478, Rutgers University Press (1953, 1990). [xx] 1994 Presidential Inaugural Speech [xxi] The Spell of the Sensuous
|
Copyright
2005 by David White |