It's a cold and gloomy start to the day, winter battling back even as some grass begins to show, and we see the work of seasons, how one thing seems to be another even as that one thing is so inevitable. The sun has just become too strong and spring will have its way. But from this current perspective, it is lost - winter will last forever.
It won't, and we no longer see the weather as temperamental gods that have to be appeased with bonfires and sacrifices. We now understand that such things as the seasons follow a natural law that cannot be denied. We no longer have to appease the gods, for what will happen will happen, regardless.
Such is the view of the seasons of human consciousness for some of my favorite thinkers, the 20th century perennialists, and so it would seem from a recent report on religion I just read this morning. In the US, people who say that religion is unimportant in their lives has risen from 14% in 1997 to 21% today. This number has been tracked for decades, and since the 1950's, there has only been this one direction. It looks, apparently, like a seasonal change, one that is inevitable. In Western Europe, those numbers of the unconcerned have risen to over 50%. In the US, this is occurring fastest among men in the North East and the West, the more crowded and industrial areas of the US, those areas most like Europe in those ways. We can safely speculate that population and industrialization will spread, as will the lack of belief (I take this lack of belief to include all spirituality - this might be wrong, but that is the assumption I am going on). As the perennialist Fritzjof Schuon said, this direction is part of the long-term cycle of humanity. It will end in the self-destruction of the emerging global society before a new age will be reborn. It simply cannot be stopped.
Yesterday we talked of the effects of belief, where I ended with the speculation that absolute faith could actually alter natural law. The idea is that in the very act of being born, we enter into an understanding - or a set of laws - that enable and govern this reality. It is thus impossible to change this reality from the inside - instead, outside influences - spiritual influences - must be allowed to enter by emptying the mind of the continually reasserted laws of this reality. From there, anything is possible. This is not my opinion, but the truth as given to us through the great spiritual sages from all times and places. But we cannot think from this arena and draw in "magic" from another - as long as we are held captive by this reality, only widely scattered miracles can occur. Thus we are told to rely on faith, not on results (in Christianity, by Paul and Jesus). It is only through absolute faith that the breakthrough in reality can occur - and this cannot be tested from a stance in this reality. Thus is makes belief particularly hard for those who expect results - for those, such as men in industrialized society. It is these - us - who expect a tangible effect to come from a cause, such as prayer, and if the effect does not come, the cause is not real.
This is a self-confirming principle, or vicious cycle or positive feedback loop, however one wishes to define it. It's hard to believe now that such thinking was not always the case, but until a few hundred years ago, nearly everyone everywhere took for granted the supernatural. It was as self-evident then as it is not now. And while our history only goes back as far as the Iron Age, where the laws of nature as we know them seemed to govern as securely as they do now, there was a different way of thinking, of putting the greater facts of reality together, that made such "magical" thinking very real and nearly universal. This, too, is a part of the seasonal change of thought - that mere perception caused a very different experience of reality for those of the times This ancient perception now seems to be coming to an end. The people then were no less capable than those now - they lived, they created remarkable art and buildings, and systems of thought that still influence us today, but less and less so.
We are following a logical progression - as is the movement of the earth towards the sun in the change of the seasons. But in the former case, it is an entirely abstract thing, something, since the loss of the mythical Golden Age, that works only on people's minds. The great sages knew this - and so sought to change the thinking processes of the people. To the Hindus, life was taught to be a dream within a dream, God's dream of us who then dreamed our own dream of reality. To Christ, we were to negate the obvious workings of human society - turn the other cheek, seek not wealth and fame,and so on - and, ultimately, to have faith. To the modern man, faith is gullibility, giving in to fairy tales taught to us by a theological power structure. Some times this is the case, but it was never the point or the intention of the sages. Rather, it is to give up belief in the ordinary for something else - something else that resides deep within us all. In total faith, the hegemony of world social thought it broken up, and the new - or really, the very old - has a chance to return.
But the sun is now coming out, and spring is having its way. And so it is with the chain of thought - ever more tied to a certain reality that reinforces itself and becomes inevitably stronger. Unlike the seasons in this reality, this is not inevitable. It can be broken at any point. But we insist on proof. Thus we are told by the sages to not "test god" , nor to seek faith in changes in this reality. No eternal kingdom will come as long as we look to this world even as we pray to another. This pattern of belief, what we call the real, must first be dispelled.
When asked why he bothered to even continue with his writings on spiritual truth if our fall was inevitable, Schuon replied that the light, no matter how faint, must be maintained. When everything else is shattered, it must be in place to lead the way out of the dark tunnel of despair and confusion. But whether or not we must first hit rock bottom, it is somehow imperative that we understand that THIS, this antsy world, is not IT. There is something far greater beyond or within, and it must be that it will show itself - just as the sun must climb higher in the spring. It will bring a season of another kind, but just like our sun in this world, it cannot remain hidden forever. FK
It won't, and we no longer see the weather as temperamental gods that have to be appeased with bonfires and sacrifices. We now understand that such things as the seasons follow a natural law that cannot be denied. We no longer have to appease the gods, for what will happen will happen, regardless.
Such is the view of the seasons of human consciousness for some of my favorite thinkers, the 20th century perennialists, and so it would seem from a recent report on religion I just read this morning. In the US, people who say that religion is unimportant in their lives has risen from 14% in 1997 to 21% today. This number has been tracked for decades, and since the 1950's, there has only been this one direction. It looks, apparently, like a seasonal change, one that is inevitable. In Western Europe, those numbers of the unconcerned have risen to over 50%. In the US, this is occurring fastest among men in the North East and the West, the more crowded and industrial areas of the US, those areas most like Europe in those ways. We can safely speculate that population and industrialization will spread, as will the lack of belief (I take this lack of belief to include all spirituality - this might be wrong, but that is the assumption I am going on). As the perennialist Fritzjof Schuon said, this direction is part of the long-term cycle of humanity. It will end in the self-destruction of the emerging global society before a new age will be reborn. It simply cannot be stopped.
Yesterday we talked of the effects of belief, where I ended with the speculation that absolute faith could actually alter natural law. The idea is that in the very act of being born, we enter into an understanding - or a set of laws - that enable and govern this reality. It is thus impossible to change this reality from the inside - instead, outside influences - spiritual influences - must be allowed to enter by emptying the mind of the continually reasserted laws of this reality. From there, anything is possible. This is not my opinion, but the truth as given to us through the great spiritual sages from all times and places. But we cannot think from this arena and draw in "magic" from another - as long as we are held captive by this reality, only widely scattered miracles can occur. Thus we are told to rely on faith, not on results (in Christianity, by Paul and Jesus). It is only through absolute faith that the breakthrough in reality can occur - and this cannot be tested from a stance in this reality. Thus is makes belief particularly hard for those who expect results - for those, such as men in industrialized society. It is these - us - who expect a tangible effect to come from a cause, such as prayer, and if the effect does not come, the cause is not real.
This is a self-confirming principle, or vicious cycle or positive feedback loop, however one wishes to define it. It's hard to believe now that such thinking was not always the case, but until a few hundred years ago, nearly everyone everywhere took for granted the supernatural. It was as self-evident then as it is not now. And while our history only goes back as far as the Iron Age, where the laws of nature as we know them seemed to govern as securely as they do now, there was a different way of thinking, of putting the greater facts of reality together, that made such "magical" thinking very real and nearly universal. This, too, is a part of the seasonal change of thought - that mere perception caused a very different experience of reality for those of the times This ancient perception now seems to be coming to an end. The people then were no less capable than those now - they lived, they created remarkable art and buildings, and systems of thought that still influence us today, but less and less so.
We are following a logical progression - as is the movement of the earth towards the sun in the change of the seasons. But in the former case, it is an entirely abstract thing, something, since the loss of the mythical Golden Age, that works only on people's minds. The great sages knew this - and so sought to change the thinking processes of the people. To the Hindus, life was taught to be a dream within a dream, God's dream of us who then dreamed our own dream of reality. To Christ, we were to negate the obvious workings of human society - turn the other cheek, seek not wealth and fame,and so on - and, ultimately, to have faith. To the modern man, faith is gullibility, giving in to fairy tales taught to us by a theological power structure. Some times this is the case, but it was never the point or the intention of the sages. Rather, it is to give up belief in the ordinary for something else - something else that resides deep within us all. In total faith, the hegemony of world social thought it broken up, and the new - or really, the very old - has a chance to return.
But the sun is now coming out, and spring is having its way. And so it is with the chain of thought - ever more tied to a certain reality that reinforces itself and becomes inevitably stronger. Unlike the seasons in this reality, this is not inevitable. It can be broken at any point. But we insist on proof. Thus we are told by the sages to not "test god" , nor to seek faith in changes in this reality. No eternal kingdom will come as long as we look to this world even as we pray to another. This pattern of belief, what we call the real, must first be dispelled.
When asked why he bothered to even continue with his writings on spiritual truth if our fall was inevitable, Schuon replied that the light, no matter how faint, must be maintained. When everything else is shattered, it must be in place to lead the way out of the dark tunnel of despair and confusion. But whether or not we must first hit rock bottom, it is somehow imperative that we understand that THIS, this antsy world, is not IT. There is something far greater beyond or within, and it must be that it will show itself - just as the sun must climb higher in the spring. It will bring a season of another kind, but just like our sun in this world, it cannot remain hidden forever. FK
RSS Feed