coherent authenticity

...it is wholly insufficient merely to proclaim either to ourselves or to the wider world that "everything is holy now" without, at the same time, living ourselves and offering to others a coherent religious practice that allows such an insight to be shown by us in our words and deeds and, therefore, passed on to those who chose to follow us.

~ Andrew Brown

I've been thinking along these lines for a while now. I want to ground my life and spirituality in a coherent understanding of reality. This understanding is bound to grow and evolve, possibly in response to experience and ritual and spiritual practice; but it is good to have a theological or theoretical basis for one's practice. (Note that by 'theological' I don't necessarily mean having to do with deities, and I certainly don't mean anything dogmatic.) If you don't have a theoretical underpinning for your practice, you become known as the religion where you can believe what you like (instead of a religion that is engaging in a search for the truth, whatever that turns out to be).

It's not enough to say that all paths point to the same underlying mystery - one needs criteria to ascertain which path gets there without pitfalls along the way. One needs to be able to explain how spiritual paths that look wildly different on the surface actually do point to the same underlying mystery. I think that the common features of different paths can be found by looking at how they relate to the processes of transformation within the human psyche, which seem to be consistent at least within cultures, and probably across cultures too. However, one needs to make this comparison without implying that the experience is merely psychological; without reducing the rich variety of colours of different traditions to a sort of sludgy mystical fog; and whilst respecting the particularities (historical, cultural and spiritual) of different traditions.

With that caveat in mind, what are the common features of different paths? They have been described in various ways in various traditions (Alchemy, Kabbalah, Wicca, the mystics' journey into the interior castle, Jacob's Ladder in Freemasonry, Jung's description of the individuation process, Campbell's Hero Journey, Lewis Rambo's stages of conversion).

Common features of all these descriptions of the spiritual journey are the sense of descent into one's inner world, which is also connected with the vast interior space of the collective unconscious or the Divine; the realisation that one is inwardly connected with everyone else; the experience of encountering the Void (possibly including self-emptying, or at least the setting aside of the ego); then entering into a larger consciousness (sometimes described as theosis). These experiences are probably more accessible if one takes the view that the Divine is accessible through inward contemplation; that the whole of reality is suffused with the Divine presence; that we ourselves carry sparks of the Divine. But sometimes people go through these processes of inner transformation in spite of having very different ideas of the nature of reality - which is what suggests to me that they are intrinsic to the functioning of the human psyche and its relationship to the universe.

Just as it is possible to have a deeper insight into one's own language and culture if one is conversant with another language and culture (preferably having been immersed in that other culture to some extent), so also it is possible to have a deeper engagement with one's own religious tradition by engaging with other spiritual traditions. I did not understand what Jesus was saying until I had compared his ideas with those of Sufism and Taoism. I am immersed in the symbol system of Wicca (and have been for twenty years now), and having travelled on my spiritual journey through its particular highways and byways, I can appreciate the shape of other spiritual journeys, including that of Christian mysticism - but I could not have travelled by that route because I was encumbered with the baggage of an evangelical Christian background. I had to set Christianity to one side for a long time before I could look at it afresh and see it differently.

You have to travel by one particular route in order to experience the journey fully - but it's good to find out about other journeys and compare their particular scenery with that of your own. If you don't have a concept of journeys and maps, you might never even set out on the journey; and if you don't get tips from other travellers, you might head off in the wrong direction entirely.

From the rising of the sun

Praise be to the source of all life.
Praise, all beings who come from the source, praise the source of all life.
Blessed be the source of all life from this time forth and for evermore.
From the rising of the sun until its setting, praise the Name that cannot be named.
The source transcends nations and boundaries, and its glory is beyond the heavens.
Who is like unto the source of life, which dwells in the deep,
The source that becomes like the earth
  to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!
The spirit of life raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill;
And sets them with princes, even with the princes of their people.
The life wells up even in the barren, and makes them joyfully bring forth life.
Praise the source of all life.

(A NeoPlatonist / Taoist / Unitarian version of Psalm 113)

Spring Equinox

(An address given at Notte Street Unitarian Church, Plymouth, 21 March 2010)

Many cultures celebrate the Spring Equinox.  In the Jewish tradition, it is the moment when the presence of God, the Shekhinah, entered into creation.  The Shekhinah is traditionally represented as feminine. According to the feminist Rabbi, Jill Hammer:

In the Jewish calendar, the first of the month of Nisan is the beginning to spring, and falls close to the spring equinox. It comes halfway between the playful holiday of Purim and the festival of Passover, when birds are beginning to sing and warmth and growth are beginning to take hold. The first of Nisan is one of the four new years of the Jewish calendar, marking the “first of the months” (rosh chadashim), or the beginning of time itself. Nisan is also the date when the Shekhinah first appeared within the mishkan (Divine dwelling-place. It is the moment of the descent of the Divine into the world—the budding of divinity within creation. If Tu B’Shevat represents the Divine sap flowing within the world, the 1st of Nisan is the moment when that sap bursts forth in new buds. The new revelation of the Divine is paired with the new life and beauty that appears in the spring. Within two weeks, the full moon festival of freedom, Passover, will arrive.

An important aspect of Shekhinah theology is the idea that the Shekhinah is separated from the Godhead, and it is human effort that will bring about their reunion. The human effort to reunite them involves all Jewish couples making love on the Sabbath eve, and the practice of Tikkun Olam, or repairing the world, and other mitzvot (commandments).  The idea behind Tikkun Olam is that the world is damaged and must be repaired, and it is the exercise of human love (in all its forms) that will bring about this restoration, and the reunion of the immanent and transcendent aspects of the Divine.  It is also about the restoration of harmony and balance.

Both Taoism and Paganism emphasise the dynamic balance in Nature between growth and decay, darkness and light, yin and yang, male and female, expansion and contraction.  Balance is not just a steady-state, but a dynamic equilibrium. New birth is balanced by death; growth is balanced by decay, light and activity is balanced by darkness and rest. If everything grew and expanded all the time, there would eventually be no space in the world for new growth - the old growth would block out the light.  So death and decay and darkness are not evil, but necessary components of the natural processes of life and change. The darkness is necessary for rest, growth, and regeneration. Death is not evil, but a necessary adjunct to life. If there was no death and dissolution, there could be no change or growth. The cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth is part of the dance. Suffering is also part of the process of growth; just as a tree is shaped by the wind, we are shaped by our experiences. It is only by experiencing suffering that we acquire sufficient depth to know the fullness of joy. It is then that the full light of consciousness dawns in us, and we achieve mystical communion with the divine.  But we cannot connect with the divine by stressing about it, but rather by relaxing and finding the inner stillness and space that is already there. All we have to do is to remember who we really are; to reconnect with the ebb and flow of the cycles of life.  Everything is cyclical – the seasons, the tides, the orbits of the planets – why not human life?  But it is not just a ceaseless round of the same old things, repeated ad nauseam.  Everything changes; everything is always becoming something else; nothing is ever lost.

With all this talk of balance being a natural thing, it might be easy to conclude that we can just go with the flow and all will be well. But what if the flow is out of balance?  Then we might have to go against the flow.  Andrew Pakula recently wrote:

There is also a big problem with going with the flow. The flow is all too often in the wrong direction. The flow may be away from our vision of how the world could and should be and against what is best for each of us. The flow is leading us toward selfishness. The flow is leading us toward a lonely detached kind of fierce individualism. The flow is leading us toward environmental catastrophe. The flow is leading us toward an increasing separation between the rich and the poor.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said "...there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted." He was reminding us that we can get accustomed to injustice and inequality. We can contribute to the negative things in our world just by 'going with the flow'. 

Because human society is somewhat divorced from nature, we cannot assume that it functions in the same way as nature. Human society is constantly being tinkered with by people who do not necessarily have the best interests of people or the ecosystem at heart; they may be motivated by corporate greed, a desire for self-aggrandisement, or other murky motives.  So the flow that is created by actions motivated by greed does not seem likely to create a just and humane society, or a society where everyone's rights are respected and diversity is celebrated.

Another aspect of balance is being able to see others' points of view.  This is the Unitarian practice of tolerance: to try to enter into others' perspectives on life, even when we disagree with them. As Cliff Reed writes:

The values underpinning the Unitarian movement have to do with mutual caring and mutual respect. They involve a readiness to extend to each other a positive, involved and constructive tolerance. They are the values of a liberal religious community that honours individuality without idolising it; of a community that finds spiritual stimulation in the unique contribution of each person while feeling itself united by a bond too deep for words.

So here we have a balance between community and individuality; a way of understanding ourselves as part of a community without sacrificing our individuality. But what does tolerance mean?  Does it mean putting up with other people's views, without challenging those we disagree with? Or does it mean entering into dialogue with them, and trying to understand where they are coming from? Real tolerance cannot mean just putting up with or ignoring someone else's views. It means, among other things, not removing the speck from someone else's eye while ignoring the plank in your own eye. If someone in the community holds views that I consider immoral (such as homophobia), I have a responsibility to engage them in dialogue, because if I remain silent, I am complicit in their prejudice; but my challenge to their views should be delivered in a compassionate way that takes into account their reasons for holding such a view; and I should also be prepared to be challenged by others on views that I hold.

Trying to achieve balance is also a fruitful way of resolving moral dilemmas.  In his excellent book Godless Morality, Richard Holloway points out that moral dilemmas are not usually about a conflict between good and evil, but between two conflicting goods.  The dilemma presented by the issue of abortion is a conflict between the need to prevent harm to the mother (who may have been raped, or whose quality of life could be significantly decreased by having a child) and the potential for the foetus to have a life. These two goods need to be weighed carefully to discover which takes priority at any given stage of the pregnancy.

Similarly, the rights of the individual are in balance with his or her responsibilities.  The idea of inalienable human rights is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on 10 December, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. These rights include freedom of religion (a right dear to Unitarians, who only won it in 1813 in Britain); freedom of speech; freedom of association, and so on. But as citizens, we also have responsibilities: to vote, to resist tyranny, to live sustainably, and so on.

So we do need to be active in maintaining the balance, not merely passive. We need to engage in Tikkun Olam, the restoration of balance and the practice of social justice, which is an integral part of many religious traditions, and a perennial concern of Unitarians. It is a way of restoring balance – caring for the poor and the oppressed, protecting the environment, standing up for human rights, and promoting freedom, peace and justice.  Indeed, we cannot really claim to be mystical or spiritual unless we put compassion into practice by helping others.  The two aspects of religion go hand-in-hand: without a sense of connection to others, there is no basis for compassion, and without the expression of compassion in the form of caring, the mystical experience can be barren and unproductive.

Law does not produce virtue

I've just seen this quote from Harriet Martineau, and it reminded me of a passage from the Tao Te Ching.

"Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it."

- Harriet Martineau

If you want to be a great leader,you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.

The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.

- Lao Tsu

If you want something too much, you end up producing the opposite; if you create laws to control people, you end up tempting them to do the opposite, because they resist oppression.

Transcendence

There are two forms of transcendence; ontological and epistemological. Ontological transcendence being the idea that some world of ideal Platonic forms or divine essence exists beyond the world (I reject this) and epistemological transcendence being the idea that transcendence can be experienced in collectivity - the experience of coinherence, for example, or the moment of identification of the Beloved with the world ("Thou art that"). I imagine that A N Whitehead (and most Pagans) would have no problem with epistemological transcendence, which is entirely consistent with the immanence of the divine. For me, the transcendent quality I experience in the contemplation of Nature is in identifying with it, not in the idea that it points to some ideal Platonic form.  I sometimes experience Nature transfigured (though not all the time) but I believe the transfiguration is in my perception of it (as in Blake's assertion that if the doors of perception were cleaned, everything would appear as it is, infinite) not in the breaking through of Divine essence.

I am interested in Teilhard de Chardin's idea of the Omega Point but he regards the world as being drawn towards the Omega Point by a complex consciousness residing in the future, which seems unnecessarily elaborate.

The Pagan version of cosmic consciousness is Oberon Zell-Ravenheart's Gaia Thesis, formulated in his book Theagenesis (1970).  This simply posits that the Earth, as a complex system, has consciousness (maybe as an emergent property).  It predates the better-known Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock by four years; and Lovelock and Zell actually corresponded on the subject in the 1970s.

In the Tao Te Ching, the Ten Thousand Things are born of the Tao, and include everything - there is no artificial distinction between good and bad.

The Valley Spirit never dies
It is named the Mysterious Female.
And the doorway of the Mysterious Female
Is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.
It is there within us all the while;
Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.

They also return to the Tao, because it is in their nature to do so:

In Tao the only motion is returning;
The only useful quality, weakness.
For though all creatures under heaven are the products of Being,
Being itself is the product of Not-being.

Note that "Not-being" is probably not the same as "divine essence"; in Buddhism, the distinction is between being and not-being, rather than between essence and energy/existence.  I would imagine the same was true of Taoism.

Darkness and Epiphany

Fear of the dark is civilisation's fear of the forest and the wilderness. The denigration of the dark is one of the foundation stones of Western civilisation and even the Enlightenment – so it is difficult to unravel it, to find out where it came from.

It is the connection of darkness with the feminine, nature, and wilderness that gives us the key to explain why it is so denigrated for most of Christian history. In patriarchal culture, the assertive female is regarded as dark, dangerous and malevolent, and characterised as a witch. The passive female is elevated as the model for how women should be: quiet, virginal, and modest. And yet, in the Torah, there are many strong women: the Shulamite in the Song of Songs, Esther, Naomi and Ruth, and many more. But Judaism is kinder to women. Perhaps it was the Romans who bequeathed their patriarchal atttitudes to Christianity. In order for patriarchy to function, female sexuality must be suppressed and controlled, and men must be taught to fear it and abuse it; and the wilderness must be conquered and tamed.

In Taoism, the darkness is seen as yin: passive, dark, feminine, negative, downward-seeking, consuming and corresponds to the night.

Yáng is active, light, masculine, positive, upward-seeking, producing and corresponds to the daytime.

Yin and yang together produce constant movement in the universe.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (a famous Unitarian) wrote:

POLARITY, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; ... An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole.

And there was me thinking that polarity was a Pagan concept! Polarity is expressed in the cycle of the seasons, the interplay of dark and light in the solstices and equinoxes, and we find this cyclicity repeated everywhere; indeed the Mayan calendar was an endless series of interlocking cycles, both great and small.

The point of all this is that darkness is a part of the ebb and flow of life on the planet; it is necessary for life, for rest, for the germination of seeds, and for the renewal of the spirit.

In De Profundis, Oscar Wilde speaks of the nurturing and non-judgmental qualities of Nature and darkness:

“Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on just and unjust alike, will have clefts in the rock where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.”

Darkness is not evil. Darkness is glamourous and seductive -- if one associates darkness with evil, it will attract people to evil. Evil should be represented by beige, grey or fog, to represent the idea that ordinary, mundane, boring people can commit atrocities, it is not the special prerogative of the psychopath.

When we say that darkness is evil, we create a split in ourselves, for we consist of both light and dark aspects. Carl Gustav Jung (the psychoanalyst) said that the psyche consists of Anima, Animus, and Shadow – the Shadow being the unconscious aspect, the parts of ourselves that we fear and repress. We need to bring these into the light in order to transform them into healthy aspects of ourselves – not slaying the monsters, but harnessing their power to work for good.

When we say that darkness is evil, we project that idea onto others – the terrorist, the witch, the deviant, the stranger. Racism and sexism and homophobia have their roots in this fear of the other, the fear of our own unconscious impulses that we project onto others.

In English, Scottish and Greek folk tradition, the dark stranger was welcomed into the house at New Year in the ceremony of first-footing, when he brings a piece of coal for luck. Similarly Befana, the witch of Epiphany in Italy, brings a piece of coal to naughty children – but nowadays it is a piece of candy. Perhaps this could serve to remind us of the blessed silence and sweetness of the darkness.

Jung derived many of his ideas from alchemy, the mystical process of transformation of the soul, which was itself derived ultimately from Taoist thought. Darkness was the first stage of alchemical transformation, and was represented by the Raven. We descend into the darkness to find the lost treasure – creativity, and memory, and dreams.

Epiphany is traditionally the time at which Jesus's baptism is celebrated, and in Eastern Orthodoxy it is therefore the time of the Blessing of the Waters, one of the signs that Orthodoxy believes that God is in all, and all are in God. The feast generally represents the Divine light in the world, and is held to be the time when the three Magi arrived from the East, bearing gifts of gold (for his kingship), frankincense (for his priestliness), and myrrh (for his role as the Divine physician). But the holy birth, and the visit of the Magi, take place at night, in a stable, or possibly a cave, perhaps to dramatically highlight the guiding star and the holy babe, and the quality of mystery that hangs over the “silent night, holy night”.

Only in traditions where the Divine is not seen as present in Nature is darkness feared – for if the Divine is in everything, it must also be in the darkness, and it must also contain darkness. In Paganism, the dark mother is seen as

the bringer of peace. When the unthinkable happens, she is there with open arms, comforting and soothing the wounds. When life has gone on too long, and friends are all gone, she is there to take us home. She is not unfeeling.

But she is not a coddling mother, either. She expects us to be strong. She expects us to take ownership for our lives... she expects us to be able to stand; alone if necessary. And when the test comes, she expects us to be able to look in Her eyes.

In Christianity, the darkness of God is seen as that which is unknowable, the depths which cannot be plumbed. As the book of Genesis so poetically puts it: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.”

The Song of Songs says: “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.”

According to the Poetry Chaikhana website:

Night is the time when lovers meet, when the soul meets its Divine Beloved.

Darkness, like God, envelops everything in its embrace. It is in the darkness of night that all things become one, losing their individuality as they disappear into that mystery. ...

In Sufi poetry, night-time has an added dimension in that many Sufis engage in a special midnight prayer.... Because of this, the night is eagerly anticipated as the holiest of times for many devout Sufis.

So it seems that, if we are to embrace the Divine Beloved, we must also embrace the night, and its gifts of sacred sexuality, silence, prayer, coolness and fragrance. And in embracing the Divine Beloved, we also embrace each other, for each of us has a spark of the Divine within us.

still 100% Pagan

I hereby certify myself still 100% Pagan, or should that be NeoPagan?

Either way, I enjoy Taoism, love of nature, animism, non-theism, pantheism, compassion for all life, communing with the Universe, and seeking to balance myself with the Way of Nature (variously known as the Tao, Yin and Yang, Fire and Frost, Wyrd, etc). I affirm that we are all related (mitakuye oyasin). There was no fall, only an arising. The Universe is the Beloved.

egregores

I came across the concept of egregores on Notes from underground, the blog of an Orthodox anarchist. It seems to me a very useful concept for describing "group mind" - the projection of self beyond the boundaries of the body in order to include others. Sometimes, if the values embraced are liberal, inclusive and humanitarian, such an egregore can be useful; but at other times, it can be destructive and divisive, especially if it involves demonising (projecting a shadow onto) another group.

The clever part about the more inclusive and liberal monotheisms is the idea that there is only one supreme being, who encompasses the whole universe (this is good, because instead of worshipping the egregore of your group, denomination, religion, or country, you are instead worshipping something which is regarded as the parent of all humanity). But the problem of monotheism is that if such a being existed and was omnipotent and omnibenevolent and omniscient as monotheistic religions claim, she would need to be perfect, and not allow evil (such as genocides, pogroms, the Holocaust, etc.) to occur.

Shekhinah theology is quite a good way to account for this problem, but it still does not explain why a perfect being could create a universe in which mind is flawed.

The existence of egregores would certainly account for the narrow, bigoted and sectarian views of many religionists, who are seeking something less than the All - worshipping an egregore of their own cultural values. As Douglas Adams said, many people can't handle the size of the universe, so they choose to live in something smaller of their own devising.

Buddhism has managed to get on for centuries without deities (it acknowledges their existence, but is more interested in liberation from samsara).

Personally I still find Buddhism too interested in liberating spirit from matter, rather than awakening the Mind of the All, but it still has some interesting ideas. That said, if we really want to awaken the Mind of the All, we'd better be sure we give it nice liberal and inclusive values....

the Tao

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao;

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.

The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.

These two spring from the same source but differ in name;

this appears as darkness.

Darkness within darkness.

The gate to all mystery.

—(Tao Te Ching, trans. Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English, 1972).

Godde doesn't exist yet

I had a radical and rather liberating thought this morning. There was no Fall, because there was never a Golden Age or a Garden of Eden to fall from. But there is an Arising. There was no Creator God or Divine Source, rather the universe and its inhabitants are becoming more conscious, more compassionate, more empathic, with the arising of the universal Mind (which proceeds from the unfolding of the Tao). As we interact socially with the Universe, we increase its consciousness. First we awakened gods and spirits of place, then gradually began to perceive the All and wonder at the glories of Nature and the Universe. (Evil occurs when we fail to empathise with others.) We are part of the Arising of the universal Mind, as we become more conscious and more empathic. We are all Future Buddhas. As we become more empathically connected to the All, when we die we contribute our consciousness to the All, and it is in this process of connection that universal Mind arises. Those who mystically identify the All as a Thou and not an It contribute to the process of expanding awareness and continuing the process of making everything more conscious. The process of individuation and self-development is part of the process of becoming aware of the uniqueness and preciousness of all life in its glorious diversity. The golden age is in the future, not in the past. The genius of Buddhism and Unitarianism is that they are focussed on a future golden age, not a mythical one in the past from which we fell. Bodhisattvas (such as Jesus and Kwan Yin) so identified with the All that their compassion / karuna / empathy accelerated the arising of the universal Mind, and they are still there in some sense, guiding humanity towards awakening. But the awakening will not be from the illusion of matter, but rather matter itself is becoming ever more conscious or ensouled - it is awakening. Only when the Mind of the Universe is fully conscious - when the kundalini of the Universe has arisen from the depths - only then will "Godde" fully exist.

See also: God as Manifestation of Mind

Taoist writings

• Tao Te Ching
• The Valley Wind by Lu Yun
• Taoist Song by Chi K'ang
• A Gentle Wind by Fu Hsuan
• The Pivot by Chuang-tzu

thou art that

Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.

Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.

Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.

~ Tao Te Ching, 14