Searching for Wisdom
By Phil Golding (A Psychosynthesis Approach to Therapy and Self-Realization )
Wisdom/Morality as a Genuine Science and how to approach it with an open and intelligent mind.
In the last two hundreds years, humanity has made many great technological advances, but when it comes to the question of true wisdom or the science of morality, we have progressed very little. Here I emphasise the word "science" to steer the concept of morality away from religious moralising, which all too often has little to do with what truly works to bring peace, harmony, joy and ultimately love into human affairs. Despite our religious teachings and material technology, fear, ignorance, prejudice and greed still prevail, along with all the suffering and destruction that it causes.
Why is it that we can spend years studying in school and then university and still be no closer to the answers to these fundamental problems facing the world? Why is it that we are taught so much "materialistic knowledge" while at the same time being taught so little wisdom?
INTUITION, SPIRITUALITY AND HIGHER INTELLIGENCE - SCIENCE BENEFITS FROM WISDOM
It could also be strongly argued that progress in true wisdom/morality creates increasingly fertile ground for scientific advancement. It is well known that great advances in technology stay neglected or hidden away due to dishonesty and inefficiencies caused by greed-driven competition instead of goodwill and cooperation. Today we are seeing increasing evidence of how our misguided actions are adversely altering the very planet we depend on for our existence. Humanity, and especially those of us in the West who have the material wealth and technological power, cannot regard ourselves as truly intelligent when we can't even preserve our own environment - a basic necessity for our health and wellbeing.
Also well known is the fact that intuition has always played a major part in scientific discoveries, along with every other level of human advancement. Intuition can be regarded as a spiritual form of intelligence that transcends normal modes of rational-based thinking, no matter how advanced that may be. Intuition is a holistic form of intelligence that appears to flow from a higher level of consciousness. At times the intuition, in a flash, solves a problem that the thinker had been struggling with for years, such as Isaac Newton's theory of gravity. At other times it provides information that is scoffed at at first but is then proven to be true years later when science and technology makes further advances. For example, spiritual masters at various times in history have taught that everything is Light and that this Light is a consciousness that constitutes all life and matter. In the past 50 years or so, quantum physicists have now discovered this quantum light that is the very basis of all things, which mysteriously responds to the consciousness of the experimenter.
It is perhaps because of its spiritual nature that mainstream science has been reluctant to look deeply into intuition and often tries to invalidate it. Because of this reluctance, the knowledge of how to access one's intuition at will is not as widely known as it should be. Transpersonal Psychology (TP) is one field of science that takes intuition very seriously. TP practitioners study and practice advanced consciousness techniques. Such techniques have been practiced down the ages in most established cultures, and in the advanced societies that have flourish at times in human history, this skill has been developed to very high degrees.
ACCESSING YOUR INTUITION
To purposefully access one's intuition requires the ability to calm the mind and detached sufficiently enough from any emotional and mental distractions. Meditation is one way of achieving this. A central point of concentration is focused on such as the breath and an imagined point of light within the head or somewhere within the inner-vision. To bring through the power to lift the consciousness (awareness) into the intuitive plane, this point of light is then equated with the ultimate moral principles of Unconditional Love and Total Personal Responsibility. This is needed because any fear/pride/ego-based thinking will interfere with the process by making one's consciousness denser. As the consciousness rises or expands, via its identification with the divine nature of this Light energy, feelings of inner-peace and love increase, along with a sense of timelessness. A sense of a higher perspective floods the awareness in usually subtle ways where one can see his/herself apart from the more human levels of reality. In this state of mind one can access a state of super intelligence or wisdom that can instantly solve complex problems whether technological or moral. Technologically, one enters into a quantum level of perception. Morally, one can perceive in a way that caters for the highest good for the highest number. A skilled ability to access the intuition when desired requires a significant amount of personal development. It is not realistic to think one can achieve this by reading a book. It requires a dedicated student and a good teacher. Also, even though there are essential elements that this process depends on, there are many approaches to achieving higher states of consciousness.
There are no clear lines between the levels of consciousness. It is very difficult to keep ones consciousness "peaking" at this high level all the times. One would need to be a spiritual master for this. However, the more one develops the consciousness through discipline and genuine morality, the higher one's average level of consciousness will be and the more frequently this desired peak can be reached. In Buddhist teachings, for example, this is call mindfulness .
THE REJECTION OF SPIRTUALITY BY SCIENCE
Despite the supreme wisdom that has been taught to us by many highly evolved individuals throughout human history, designed to introduce us to the transformational power of Unconditional Love and Personal Responsibility, their message repeatedly became a tool for the less evolved masses and their leaders to justify very ungodly deeds. Religion became a form of control and a promoter of unthinking obedience rather than a promoter of true moral advancement and consciousness development. As a result, pride and selfishness has been able to spread its roots everywhere.
Eventually science rebelled and the age of "enlightenment" (beginning in the 1700's) began. Science and philosophical thought pulled itself free of religious dogma and went its own way. Unfortunately rebellion is a reaction that is born from a distain that at least partially blinds the rebel. Due to this reaction, all notions of spirituality were rejected by this purely materialistic scientific revolution, and as a result, the intuitive power of higher consciousness became invalided and suppressed. Science therefore exposed itself to the ravages of pride and selfishness as well.
Today we have a technological age that is morally backwards. In mainstream scientific institutions we are free to think so long as it's along purely materialistic lines. In mainstream religious institutions, blind obedience to childish dogma is still demanded. We have been literally taught by science and religion alike not to look within our own heart, or to put it another way, we are told by both what we are supposed to think, regardless of what we are intuitively feeling. Where free, open minded and intelligent investigation of spirituality is concerned, both science and religion try to bind us in unthinking dogma.
It is ludicrous that there are fundamental questions about life that mainstream science will not touch. In this category of untouchable questions I could write a very long list. A few examples are:
Is there life/consciousness after death?
How is it that some people have powerful extra sensory perception of various kinds?
Is there real evidence for reincarnation?
Science is supposed to impartially investigate natural phenomena, no matter what it is. Try researching these questions in mainstream university and you will find your funding will start being revoked. If we turn to religion for answers to such questions we certainly get answers but these answers are like stories we would tell to children, not to sophisticated intelligent adults.
LEARNING TO LEARN
It is time that we claimed our right to bring spirituality into the field of science. To do this though, we need to sharpen our investigative skills and adjust our scientific approach in a way that is appropriate to what is being investigated.
Saying that people need to learn how to learn may be looked on as a facetious or pretentious statement, however, it is a fundamental first step on the path to self-realization, a step of which we need to be frequently reminded. The statement is based on the premise that all that we take in through our senses and then turn over in our mind has first had to permeate through a filter constructed of all our previous experiences, many of which have been painful. These many experiences, in tern, condition us to unconsciously think in biased ways. For example, when we meet someone for the first time, the way we interact with that person may be immediately influenced by these past experiences. This person may remind us of our mother or father or a former partner. So the way we react to this new person may have more to do with our past experiences than the reality of who this new person might be.
Of course, the only way around this is to give the person "the benefit of the doubt". However, some of us are so locked into our past traumas that we are simply not prepared to do this, so trust is very difficult for us. Another extreme is, by being influenced by our past experiences, we give too much credence to a stranger, allowing him or her to have undue authority over us. Of course, maintaining such attitudes is going to greatly hamper our ability to see a clear picture of reality.
Our relationship with religion and science is similar. We need to gain awareness of how we have been conditioned through experience, which causes us to blindly react rather than assess something on its own merits. Here again, meditation is a powerful tool for overcoming these perceptual difficulties.
So it is when dealing with a new concept or teaching, particularly spiritual teaching, which tends to connect with something deep within us, and stirs up our emotions. Falling into the opposites of being overly skeptical or gullible are simply parallel roads to ignorance! Being overly skeptical means that we may be too attached to our old ways of thinking. Our thinking pattern has become a "comfort zone" for us. We dare not venture outside of it for fear of being thrown into an abyss of uncertainty. So to compensate for our fears we expect unrealistic levels of proof before we are prepared to give a new teaching consideration. Often such proof is impossible to attain unless we are prepared to experience something on a subjective level (personally). However, to do this we may need to take a risk by stepping outside of our self-imposed comfort zone - a "catch 22" situation.
This is a common problem of our rational scientific institutions, which look for physical proof of spiritual realities with methods that do not look past the material world. This is like looking for proof of the existence of air by using a rain gauge. The misguided scientist holds up his gauge and says, "look, there is nothing there, therefore air does not exist!"
Others of us have been conditioned to believe that we do not have the capacity to think for ourselves. Therefore, we are only too ready to blindly believe the words spoken by an impressive personality. We want to be pushed along on the crest of somebody else's wave. This is so often a dangerous course to take. As teachers, having someone so devoted to our teachings can be very flattering and therefore ego inflating. As teachers, many of us have fallen under the spell of such adulation. This phenomenon is also seen in popular singers and actors when their egos become inflated by the constant flattery, and they lose touch with reality, with often disastrous consequences. In the process, as the adoring ones, we become disillusioned when our adored ones come crashing down off their pedestals.
Another side to this problem is that because we become overly dependent on the wisdom of another, we tend to fall under the illusion that we cannot attain wisdom for ourselves.
Another problem is that when we meet a strong teacher with much genuine wisdom to offer, we may reject that teacher because he or she will insist that we stand on our own two feet as a good teacher will do. Hence, a golden opportunity is lost. A good teacher will teach us how to think for ourselves and how to identify what feels right for us in our own heart, where the true authority for our life is to be found.
WHAT ARE WE SEARCHING FOR?
Perhaps this question could be answered with one word - CERTAINTY! But of course, this certainty seems to be so illusive. Modern science has been searching for it for centuries and all they seem to be finding is more and more uncertainty. Despite our vast technologies, the depth and complexity of human suffering seems to be unfathomable, at least for modern orthodox science.
However, as I have pointed out already, there are those who have claimed to have found the answers, and foremost among those are the great teaches of the various spiritual disciplines down the ages. Such teachers are considered great because they have proven themselves living examples of what they teach. They have demonstrated that these principles work.
Without exception these individuals claim to have found the answers by searching within themselves. They all claim that within all of us is some transcendental quality that is One with everything else. That is, there are fundamental "laws" to our existence that apply equally to every human being, and that by systematically searching within oneself, those fundamental laws can be discovered. The foundation of this science of morality is Unconditional Love and Total Personal Responsibility . This is the Oneness. These laws of consciousness apply equally to everyone. They remain unchanged throughout the course of time. If practiced sincerely, your life will improve in direct proportion to your increasing self-awareness of the infinite depth of these laws and in proportion to your skill in applying them to your character.
In Buddhism these two fundamental laws are described in the first two steps of the Noble Eightfold Path. These two steps are known as the wisdom steps. They are said to be the beginning and the end of the journey to enlightenment. The first is "Right View" (Unconditional Love). The second is "Right Intent" (Total Personal Responsibility). In Christianity, the first law is "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your Soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." God is regarded as pure Unconditional Love. This law, therefore, simply says devote yourself totally to Unconditional Love. Jesus then placed a second stage to this ultimate law; "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - a clear statement of personal responsibility, and an excellent way to assess the right thing to do in any given situation. "Love thy neighbor (everybody) as your self" is another way he stated this.
The Oneness has been described using many names and conceptual frameworks. The Hindus call it "Brahman" (all that is) and the Buddhists call it "emptiness" (empty of all that is impermanent). Some Western mystics have called it "Gnosis" (knowledge of the heart). In the Bible it is referred to as the "One in whom we live and move and have our being". They are all talking about something permanent, unchanging and limitless that is at the very center of our self.
Our ability to be a conscious part of this limitless "Life-force" gradually increases as we learn and eventually master the "game of life". Some say we become Life or Love itself! In other words; because we become so adept at living according to these fundamental laws of nature, we become a perfect expression of these laws, they become our very nature.
It is reasonable to say then that if the mystics and sages down the ages have all hit on some sort of common ground then there might be something in this. There just may be something called an ultimate truth, a "Holy Grail" that the mythical sacred warrior once searched for.
Another common factor is that the answer cannot be found easily or without experiential effort - the willingness to step outside our comfort zones. What we need is enough courage and personal honesty in order to face up to our human limitations. We need also to do this with a sense of deep compassion for our humanness. Self-condemnation is not practicing the way of Unconditional Love. In this Light of self-compassion, the discomfort of self-searching is greatly reduced, and the rewards of self-realization are more readily available.
It is clear to see that this foundation of the science of morality has been ignored by the majority of religious teachers and obscured in dead dogma and ceremony. Ego pride has ruled instead. Instead of being adults by taking responsibility for our lives by using the guiding principles designed for this very purpose, we have been like children wanting our image of a God to pick us up and carry us. Even worse, like spoilt brats, we expect this parent god to do our bidding. Like children, we do the right thing only when we can't get away with satisfying our lower primal desires. Like children, if unsupervised, we are selfish and unruly. Our lack of willingness to follow our conscience, and discipline ourselves to what we know deep down is right, pulls everyone down, including ourselves. As someone once said when describing Western society; "we have become very clever at doing stupid things."
The reward for those who are prepared to take this ultimate human journey of self-discovery is the gradual transcending of suffering, and therefore increasing joy, balance, and a feeling of interconnectedness with all things.
EMOTIONS-THE DOORWAY INTO THE SELF
The central feature in all this searching are our emotions, which we must face, feel, identify, understand and balance. Every great spiritual doctrine, whether it is Buddha's Eightfold Path, the Hindu Upanishads and Yoga Sutras, the Muslim Sufi tradition, the Jewish Kabalah, and the Christian teachings of Jesus, just to name a few, all have balancing the emotions as a central feature. They all clearly state in their particular teachings that until this balancing of the emotional nature is sufficiently complete none can go further without deluding themselves! The disregarding of this essential element has resulted in the subsequent corruption of all the great teachings. It isn't until one has rediscovered this reality does one start to gain true benefit from these ancient teachings. Someone else once said, if perhaps a little facetiously, "It is not that Christianity doesn't work, the problem is that it has never been tried!" This speaks for all the other traditions as well. Over the centuries we have been taught blind obedience and devotion, at the expense of Wisdom and our own intuition, through biased and unskillful interpretations and translations of once beautiful and carefully worded texts. And yet, if studied the way they were meant to be studied, these teachings would instead teach us how to truly feel and to truly think. It is the sages, ancient and modern and from all walks of life - not just "spiritual", who have found this truth and who lead the way by their own living example.
Emotions are very important for the fact that they are the ultimate indicator of the state of your mind. In other words, your emotions reveal to you the way you have learned to think. If your emotions are painful and volatile, then this indicates that your thinking is in a state of confusion. Of course, we will never come to this realization and also learn how to overcome this confusion if we insist on blaming others for the way we think. This attitude maybe justifiable for a child, but not for an adult with the potential of consciousness available to him/her. This reveals the importance of personal responsibility as an essential key to this process, or to put it another way, emotional honesty.
WORDS! WORDS! WORDS! WORDS!
So how do we plot a course through the blind alleys that we all tend to find ourselves, at least on occasions? The first thing we need to be careful of is being dogmatic about words. Our society depends so heavily on words. Whole institutions, such as Universities, are built upon words, and rightly so. The written and spoken word, apart from mathematics, is the most powerful tool humanity has. The means of communication through words is essential on this material plane in which we exist.
It is essential to understand that a word is really a subjective symbol. In other words, even though there is a dictionary definition for each word, to every individual, any particular word means something different. This once again depends on our past experiences. Despite these differences, we are prepared to project our meaning of a word onto others, unreasonably expecting it to have the same meaning for them; and then we are sometimes even prepared to persecute them if it doesn't.
Consider the huge number of variables that influence our interpretation of something as simple as a word. The influences from our family of origin is just one of these variables. Other variables include other relationships, culture, first language, character, sex, sexual preference, socio-economic background, level of education, race, political persuasion, health, age, intellectual capacity, religious persuasion, hobbies, career, and the list goes on. Other possible variables may include one's level of spiritual consciousness or lack of, or perhaps even one's past-life experiences.
How often have we found ourselves arguing with a friend over an issue only to discover an hour later that we have been in agreance the whole time - the argument turning out to be only about the interpretation of words!
When we encounter a new teacher, and his or her teachings, we need to give them both the benefit of the doubt. We must not make quick judgments based on our own interpretations. We need to give ourselves time to understand the meaning that is unique to that particular teacher. Such an attitude is, of course, beneficial in our every day interactions as well.
However, if we find this difficult to do then perhaps we have another opportunity to find out why our past is interfering with our present, and therefore our future. We have another perfect opportunity for self-realization!
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD TO DISCOVERY
Teaching using words invariably leads to the consideration of concepts. Concepts are formed, of course, by many words and thus a myriad of images coming together to construct a very complex idea. Not surprisingly, the potential for misunderstanding and dogmatism is greatly increased. Once again, a concept is a subjective thing. For example, no Christian understands Christ in the same way, even though they may all call themselves Christians. Learning really does come back to each individual's unique life path. We may all have to eventually walk the same road (broadly speaking), but what we see and encounter, and how we feel about it will be unique for each of us. If this is the case then we must be free to experience life in our own way - but within certain boundaries.
What has this got to do with something called a scientific method? Take an example such as playing tennis. To be a good tennis player we must first learn the rules of the game. If we don't accept that we need to hit the ball within certain boundaries then we are hardly going to be good at the game. Also, there are various tried and true techniques that are used to hit the ball effectively. By incorporating those techniques into our own unique way of playing we, hopefully, become masters of that little fuzzy yellow ball. In other words, the game of tennis has a scientific method.
So it is with the game of life. To become masters at the game of life we need to learn the scientific method of that game. Of course, the game of life is somewhat more complex than the game of tennis. However, like tennis, the more skilled we become, the simpler life gets. A skilled tennis player makes it look easy and so does a Master of life.
If you were to study the great Masters of life, you would find that they have all hit upon a similar method of living. Such a study (called a meta analysis) has been carried out in this century, thanks to our modern access to vast amounts of information, by the likes of William James, Abraham Maslow, Carl Gustav Jung, Manly P Hall, and Joseph Campbell, just to name a few. They all came to the conclusion that, although coached in different concepts, there is a technique, used down the ages in diverse cultures, if studied, practised and mastered, which will lead to higher states of consciousness where suffering is transcended - where life becomes very simple. I am not talking here about some mystical mystery that can only be obtained through some strange psychic ability. What I am talking about is learnable techniques that can be practiced and mastered by any individual in their normal daily life.
THE HYPOTHESIS OF LIFE
Still our major problem is to find a way of approaching these techniques without our preconditioned attitudes and ideas sending us up those ever-present blind alleys. One approach that has been tried and proven effective down the ages could be called the hypothetical approach, and is used extensively by science, ancient and modern. An hypothesis is an idea that is put forward to be tested. An able experimenter does not try to make this idea out to be true, or false for that matter, in a biased manner. The idea is simply held up to be examined and methodically put to the test. With each experiment, evidence is gathered for and against. This may sound all very dry and boring, and for most of us, when conducted in a scientific laboratory on some obscure topic, it is. However, when it is applied to everyday life and the topic of the experiment is ourselves, amazing things can be discovered, and we can find ourselves on an incredible journey of self-realization. We can actually come to feel our consciousness expanding with the power of each new piece of evidence, evidence that we slowly but surely gather together through hard won experience and contemplation to form our own respective method of mastering life.
Where the science of morality, wisdom or spirituality is concerned, there is one hypothesis that is essential to getting the desired results. This hypothesis could be stated as such:
There is one ultimate truth that applies to every human being and this truth is the answer to suffering and also self-mastery.
This, of course is a bold statement. It needs to be to have a hope of revealing something significant. It also reflects the longing within the heart of every true searcher of truth.
If you reject this statement out-of-hand then this reveals a flaw in your thinking, because you can't truly know that this statement is false. If you accept this statement without truly having experienced it, then your thinking is also flawed. It may have a good feeling about it for you, but do you truly know what the answer is and are you actually applying it to your life in such a way that the truth of it shines in the power of your example. This is the only real prove of this experiment.
We have to start with something, however, so we must take such an hypothesis very seriously in order to discover if there is a reality behind it. For example, many people may reject a particular spiritual text because of the way it is written, or the language that it uses, conflicts with certain beliefs or cultural conditioning, and yet this text may have had a profound influence of millions of people, transforming and binding together many different cultures and nations. We would need to consider that their must be some power behind this teaching, no matter how misinterpreted it may have become. Therefore, by applying this hypothesis to such a teaching, we would need to look past our meaning of the words and concepts, or what we have been told that does not feel right for us, and try to search for the original essence of the teaching. In this scientific approach, learning to use our intuition, our feeling intelligence, is essential for separating the influence of the human ego from the teaching's original meaning.
It may be too difficult to confirm or otherwise such an hypothesis by investigating just one teaching. You may need to take a broader approach for the picture to start to take shape. You may need to consider that this possible ultimate truth does not belong exclusively to any one teaching.
Unconditional Love and Total Personal Responsibility, along with the depth of what this means and how it is lived, is the answer that I found to this hypothesis. "Seek and you shall find," and find I did. These principles are at the center of my philosophy. So far I have not found anything that contradicts them. Instead, everyday these principles of further reinforced.
Become a seeker yourself, if you dare. See if you come to the same conclusion.
LIFE'S LIKE A JIGSAW PUZZLE
Another tool to use in this search for the meanings of life is to consider our view of life to be like a vast jigsaw puzzle. The pieces we currently have may fit well for us today and provide the security we need to adequately move through life. However, the secret to this scientific method is to remain detached enough from this "world view" of ours in order to consider any other jigsaw puzzle pieces that may come along. We may find one that fits better or one that fills a vacant space. These pieces consist of hypotheses, and we can remove them again whenever we want and replace them with other pieces. However, we do need to leave them in place long enough to test them out in an unbiased and patient manner, like a skilled scientist would. With careful, but open-minded consideration, our world view is able to expand and grow more sophisticated on a daily basis. If such a method is used in a moderate and intelligent manner, the freedom and growth that our Soul demands, as well as a secure base for our not so secure human self, can be both catered for. Our world view, therefore, must be solid enough to stand on but so rigid that is become a prison.
LADDER OF REALIZATION
A way of looking at spiritual growth or consciousness expansion is to equate it with climbing a ladder. Our current understanding consists of a rung on that ladder. This understanding has served us well but if we wish to climb to the next rung, we need to let go of the old one. Each rung of the ladder represents our gradually expanding consciousness as we progress on our journey of self-realization. This expansion cannot occur if we become too attached to our old ways of thinking. As the ladder is being climbed, each rung represents a higher, broader and more inclusive way of thinking and perceiving. Eventually there comes a time when we begin to touch the very "heart and mind of God", whether it is through an experience of pure Unconditional love, intuition or direct inspiration. It is then that we begin to truly realize the limitations of the human mind for what they are. A master eventually transcends all ideology, culturally bound thinking, personal theories and religious doctrine. The master has the privilege of a universal knowing that embraces all of human nature and its various influences.
Theories and doctrine can be beautifully constructed, well intentioned and heighten many people's understanding, but it is still only human knowledge and ultimately it is only a substitute for truth, which can only be "Pure Knowledge" direct from the mind of God. Or, to put it in an impersonal framework; truth only exists within the fundamental laws of the cosmos. This is the aim of the ladder - to climb closer and closer to the truth, with the aid of solid and tested experience, so we can begin to reach up high enough within ourselves to touch our own fundamental being that is one with all being.
When talking about spirituality, there is not a word spoken or written that ultimately is the truth! Truth is unity, oneness, wholeness. The moment even intuition reaches the human brain it has become polarized and fragmented. The physical human mind cannot operate any other way. The physical plane is the plane of opposites and mental discrimination (in other words being able to tell things apart). Pure Knowledge is ineffable to the physical mind because of its complete Oneness. One simply cannot articulate absolute unity. In order for this material world to exit there must be separation between two opposite poles. When there is absolute unity there is nothing material. We can of course think intuitively and receive inspiration but this is received by our higher consciousness, our Higher-Self. This knowing is then pulled down to our more physical rational mind where we attempt to hang on to an understanding of it and put it into some sort of action. The result is all the different methods, ideologies and religions. Intuition and inspiration has been stepped down and incorporated into an individual's physical thinking patterns. The higher we progress on the ladder of self-realization or enlightenment, the more we can live and act from our higher consciousness where Oneness is truly perceived.
Delusions of Grandeur: Unfortunately the ego loves to think it has achieved enlightenment the moment it has a significant experience of intuition or inspiration. Much trouble is caused when this inspiration then triggers delusions of grandeur caused by an individual's ego thinking that he or she is the sole arbiter of the source of the Wisdom. So always be aware of the limitations of our physical mind. By the time we can think like God we won't be in the physical. The Master eventually kicks away the ladder along with his or her attachment to all ways of thinking. Therefore, each rung of the ladder represents a greater unity, a greater approximation of the ultimate truth, another divine principle better understood and practised, but in order to reach total unity we must eventually let go of everything that separates us from all there is.
Thinking has its Proper Place: Where religion and spirituality is concerned, there is also a common attitude in some "new age" teachings, as well as some older traditions, that we shouldn't use our intellect, that analyzing the validity of a doctrine or teaching is somehow bad, just as a narrow scientific view invalidates feeling. This unreasonable sanction has kept in place many religious doctrines that should have long ago given way to more sophisticated understandings. Many of these outmoded doctrines still have enormous influence on our society today. A lot of unhelpful new-age teachings have been able to flourish at times for the same reason. For all genuine expansions of consciousness depend on there being an integration of these two important faculties. Contrary to some traditional views, all religious doctrine should be placed under the light of critical analysis and stand to reason. This invalidation of the intellect creates a problematic split between our intellect and feeling natures. This leads to gullibility and ignorance on the one hand and an intellectual rejection and rebellion on the other. In the process, the truth gets buried and lost. The correct use of the intellect leads to clarity, which is essential for balancing the emotional nature and thus avoiding dangers such as being overly emotionally sensitive or reactive, as well as all forms of fanaticism and the like.
From what I have observed, the problem lies with thinking that the act of thinking is the problem. What I mean is; thinking is a tool used by our mind, not unlike the way we use a hammer or a shovel or a computer, for example. It is the way the tools are used that is the problem, not the tools themselves. Therefore, it is the way we think, rather then thinking as such, that produces the problem. Everybody thinks.
If you have condemned someone then that has been the result of the wrong use of thinking. The classic spiritual text that came to us in the 1970's, "A Course in Miracles", deals extensively with this subject. Thinking can be harmonized with our higher-consciousness, just like feeling. It stands to reason then that we need to become conscious of not only the ways we feel but also the ways we think.
So if you think about it, all the great teachings are about teaching us how to think skillfully. To say that we shouldn't think deprives us of the opportunity to get more acquainted with the ways we do think. We are simply setting up a smoke screen over the fact that we can't not think. It is worth repeating that denying the importance of the intellect in spiritual investigation places ourselves in the dangerous position where we are unaware of the reality of the way we think and as a result we can become a play-thing for our ego's mental delusions.
Certainly higher states of consciousness can be achieved by bringing thought, as well as emotions, to a point of stillness, but we can't walk around in a trance all day. Feelings can be actively used to achieve a heightened state of consciousness. This can be called devotion. In the same vein, we can think ourselves into a higher state of consciousness. This is called contemplation. So let us not limit ourselves by invalidating our capacity to think constructively and harmoniously. There are a number of important approaches to higher states of consciousness. We need to learn to consciously use all our human resources as we gradually climb that symbolic ladder.
THE RIDDLE OF THE OPPOSITES
The act of reaching a higher rung on our metaphysical ladder invariably involves the unification of a series of seemingly opposing views. For example, science and religion, or religion and spirituality. Having transcended a more obvious set of opposites and thus arrived at a perspective that reveals the Oneness or real harmony of the situation and therefore ending an initial conflict, we then find ourselves struggling to find the answer to the riddle of yet another set of more subtle opposites. An example of this may be the difference between true compassion that helps a person help themselves and futile forms of handouts that rob the recipients of their dignity and affords them no real education. These opposites are the opposing forces that dictate the tension in our lives, resulting in our lives being that of a constant balancing act. Within this cycle lies the relationship between the opposites of "being and becoming", as referred to in Mahayana Buddhism. The ultimate being and becoming that concerns us here is the Being of Life-force, which penetrates matter resulting in a state of becoming (evolution) - arguably the biggest riddle of them all.
The concept of the opposites is not an easy one to grasp, but it is a fundamental Law of nature that rules our lives and it pays to be aware of it and consciously work with it. The great psychologist Carl Jung devoted much of his writing to this topic and it is thanks to him that I and many others have a fair understanding of it. I will do my best to pass that understanding onto you in this brief passage.
Becoming: Basically, becoming is about reaching for something for the sake of moving away from something else. Fear and suffering on the one hand, and desire and ambition on the other, are the motivating forces driving this reaching out beyond any particular situation we may find ourselves in. What we are reaching for may include love, comfort, peace, and fulfillment. This about covers our entire earthly existence in its endless variety.
Every crisis in our lives involves being caught within the tension of a pair of opposites that is too great for us to bare. For example, let us take at look at the opposites of loneliness and companionship. Such an opposite dominates our lives. If our loneliness becomes acute, so does the need for companionship. The tension between the two becomes so great that our behavior can become somewhat desperate. As a result we grasp at people's attention, even to the point of acting phony to win their approval. This odd behavior may result in rejection and thus further disappointment. We are said to be "caught in the opposites". Because of our emotional pain, we may be fearful of reaching out for companionship because of the risk of being rejected again. To compensate for this growing tension, "or to let off steam", we may engage in countless different behavior patterns such as; angrily lashing out, drowning the tension with alcohol or drugs, distracting ourselves with various forms of entertainment, or compromising our principles for the sake of being with someone to the point where we lose sight of our principles altogether.
Other more subtle ways we compensate for this tension between the opposites is to rationalize it away with ego defenses. We say to ourselves we are better off alone, or that only stupid people reject us, or that it must be because we are ugly (which keeps the cosmetic companies rich), or it is because of the color of my skin, or their skin, or that I don't have enough money. The list, of course, is endless. Then we get caught in between another opposite of truth verses falsity. We compensate for that one by avoiding certain thoughts.
Another way we compensate for our loneliness is to join what is called in sociology an "ingroup". We get around the barrier of who we think we are by taking on an outward image or identity. Through this image-based identity we can strengthen the bonds between each other by rejecting what is called an "outgroup", such as an opposing gang, football team, religion, profession, race or nation. See how complicated it all gets, this business of becoming. We get so caught up in this rationalizing, rejecting, grasping and identifying that we totally lose track of what it was all for in the first place. Now and then, however, we get trapped in between an opposite from which we can't find an escape. This is what a crisis is about, and this is when we are really confronted with the reality of suffering.
Being: The endless search to become something else is what drives the wheel of suffering and also eventually lifts us out of it, for we realize that to want to escape from the realities of life is the whole problem. This need to escape is what keeps us in the dilemma of suffering, which is the game of avoidance, the game of death. The answer is to start playing the game of life, which is the art of Being. This game of life has a different set of rules. Instead of running away, we stand and face the problem and our fears surrounding that problem. This of course is going to challenge our beliefs, attitudes and comfort zones, which, by becoming too rigid, have steered us into this crisis in the first place. This facing of our problem may first happen accidentally, when, having been trapped, we are forced to draw on an inner strength that we never knew we had. By having to face this agonizing tension within us we are forced to face reality and get honest. We are forced to think those thoughts that we wouldn't let ourselves think, such as; "I am lonely because I don't think I am worth knowing. I do not know how to relate to people. I do not know how to love. I need help to change my own behavior."
So we get help of one sort or another, where we may learn ways to stop ourselves from lashing out or avoiding and instead face and work through the issue, which, in turn, enables us to move out of the crisis. Whether we are aware of it or not, we have expanded our consciousness. We have deepened our awareness on some level of the ultimate laws of life that never change- Being in other words. Being can also be regarded as the transformative power of Unconditional Love and Total Personal Responsibility.
Another crisis will come of course, because we are human. However, if we are willing to persistently face life the best that we can, one day at a time, we have entered into the game of life where we consciously and willingly climb up that ladder of realization. When we open our heart to the challenges of life in this way, we begin to connect to and flow with the powerful evolutionary forces of supreme consciousness. Soon we gain an intuitive feel for how the game of life works, with the benefits that come with this. As a result, we step up to a new reality. Buddhism calls this "entering the stream". In the often buried wisdom teachings of Christianity, this jump in awareness and self-empowerment is called the baptism, or at a higher level, the transfiguration. In this state of awareness we are working with the conscious forces of the cosmos rather than against them.
CONCLUSION
As we climb up our ladder of realization we gradually gain an ever broader picture of the field of experience in which the human being is capable of participating, which is very broad in indeed. The human being is such a remarkable creature. It could be said that we are capable of experiencing multiple dimensions at once! For example, our field of experience can range from the second dimension of the written page in front of you to the fifth dimensional level of Oneness. This field represents a spectrum of expanding consciousness. Within this spectrum or field of consciousness are the dimensions of matter, Soul and Life-force, and these dimensions or planes can be further broken up, such as the physical, emotional and mental plane within the plane or dimension of matter. The breakdown can continue even further depending on the level of metaphysics you wish to apply.
How much of this field any individual can consciously experience at any one time depends on several factors. To begin with our experience depends on whether our mind is seated in our conscious or subconscious awareness. The dream state, for example, involves a very different area of this field than when we are awake.
Our field of experience is determined by our biological capacities, which are simply the product of our individual evolution, including our genes, character, karma, level of consciousness, and so on. Our field of experience will broaden as we naturally mature. However, within this given, our field of experience is also determined by what we are willing to experience, which can be referred to as our attitudes, which have a strong control over our perceptions. If we are not willing to venture outside our particular comfort zones, then we are restricting our own field of experience.
I personally encountered this phenomenon time and time again during my University training. So much of what is taught within such institutions is based on thinking limited to materialistic rationalism. In other words, to put it crudely, if you can't see it, taste it, smell it, hear it, physically feel it, or measure it with a scientific instrument than it does not exist. However, many people can perceive phenomena that is outside the field of experience of rational materialistic science, and there is an enormous amount of circumstantial and experiential evidence to support this - more than enough evidence, in fact, that would be required to convict you or I of a serious crime in a law court. And yet we have to play this game of "it does not exist", which means we are not allowed by the less than subtle social rules of this game to even investigate such phenomena.
The same thing happens within religion and also culture. These are all collectively sanctioned comfort zones, comfort zones that imprison us and interfere with our evolution, personal and collective. We have the opportunity to break out of this prison by using a more skillful method of investigation as we conduct our own carefully and wisely measured personal experiment of life.
The teachings that have eventually resulted in a particular religion were not meant to narrow our field of experience but to broaden it. However, it is human nature to build comfort zones due to fear, pride and ignorance, and I am sure this was taken into account by the masters who originally gave out such teachings. Despite being reduced to comfort zones these teachings have delivered us to where we are today. In this new age that we are moving into, new teachings are available to us which, in particular, help us to awaken to the fact that we are now powerful individual Souls participating in the collective experience called humanity, which rises above race, creed and culture. Texts more spiritually and psychologically advanced than any other time in human history have been coming through in the last 150 years or so in similar ways to the inspired teachings of old.
There is no evidence to suggests that those who laid down the texts of old were any more advanced in their inspiration than learned Souls are now. In fact, the evidence suggests otherwise. We may consider that greats such as Jesus and Buddha were akin to perfection, but they made a point of not writing down anything, perhaps being aware of how the written word was going to be treated. Perhaps they knew that is was not necessary. Considering intuition, the truth is there for all to perceive when we are each developed enough to touch it. It is fair to say then that on the whole our ability to receive these teachings without so grossly distorting them has evolved in the last two thousand years.
From this new perspective we can look back at these old "religious" teachings, whether Christian, Hindu, Buddhist etc., and begin to once again perceive the original message in its pure form. Many are doing this and the barriers between the various religions are beginning to melt away despite the fanaticism that we see. Everyday an increasing mass of the world's population can see all the different spiritual and philosophical teachings as one teaching that has many different faces. There is a new spiritual/philosophical movement spontaneously sprouting throughout humanity that regards humanity as One and all the multitudinous faces of God as One and these people can be found in every tradition.
From this new perspective, each religion can be studied and even participated in, knowing and appreciating that it highlights particular areas of this field of experience. Our perceptions have only been limited by the perceptions of those who were interpreting and teaching us these doctrines for all these years. If you take the time to look, you will see that the full depth of religion is being rediscovered, and I am not talking about the return to fundamentalism, which is a negative reaction to this new awakening. Fundamentalism will die out eventually and naturally due to its limitedness and its repulsiveness.
Therefore, it is not necessary to abandon your religion. It can be used as a legitimate base for your great adventure. Also, there is no need to indiscriminately put down religious teachings, for we can discover and see for ourselves, despite the narrow interpretations, their deeper meanings. On the other hand, it is neither necessary to even have a religion as such. Choose your own path. A devotion to and the practice of the principles of Unconditional Love and Total Personal Responsibility is more that enough to lead you forward.
What I wish to highlight to you in concluding this essay is that there is a way to awaken to the full potential that the human being can experience. The science of Wisdom or Morality is no longer a mystery. The next great piece of the human puzzle is ours for the taking right now. There is now an incredible wealth of information available to everyone right now. This new science of Wisdom/Morality offers genuine answers to all the problems that face humanity right now, technological, social and moral. There is no longer an excuse for stumbling along in blind ignorance. What we need now is to look up and peer over our petty material comforts zones and see that the rest of the suffering world is just over the garden fence. If you have the courage to face what you see with real heart-felt honesty, then you will see that the whole of humanity is sailing on one big ship called Earth. Keep looking if you dare. If you do you will also see that this good ship Earth is looking more like the Titanic. Look at where you are standing and the way you live your life. We in the West are the fat, rich elite who are wining and dining, oblivious to the fact, or straight-out denying the fact, that our beautiful ship is sinking and it is sinking because of what we have done to it. If you are still willing to keep looking, you will also see that it is those of us who are so privileged to live in the West that are the ones who hold the key to saving the good ship Earth from floundering on the rocks of neglect and ruin caused by ignorance, pride and greed. The West has the material power, it has the intellectual/technological power and it even has the spiritual/moral power, if we are willing to use it honestly. As individuals, we each have a role to play in empowering this great shift in consciousness. We each have a responsibility to intelligently awaken to our own spiritual power, our higher intelligence, which we can then add consciously to this new collective awakening and so put this vast power that we have into constructive action.