Religious Consciousness

Friends,

The great prophets and mystics of humankind have always found themselves in tension with the religious authorities, to the degree they were even persecuted or killed. There is a reason for this.

Let us look at our own time in American culture. Measurement of the attitudes of those who are considered the most churched or religious in the U.S. reveals that such persons are most likely to be in favor of violent military solutions and war to international conflict. Such persons are most likely to be in favor of the death penalty, opposed to tolerance of those who are different, and opposed to compassionate programs of government assistance for those lacking basic needs of shelter, food, or medical care. It's a curious phenomenon when you consider the teachings of the majority religion of our society.

Yet it does make sense in a way when you consider that religious consciousness may be a state of arrested spiritual development. If we look around our world, religious consciousness seems to be a major factor in ethnic and national conflicts of the most violent and brutal kinds. The rise of fundamentalism seems to have exacerbated violence and tensions around the world.

The transpersonal psychologist, Ken Wilber, along with other students of human consciousness have devised models of the development of spiritual consciousness. Mr. Wilber speaks of a progression of developmental states beginning with the most basic instinctual aspects, arising from the primitive reptilian part of the brain, dealing with basic survival, threat and safety. the second level is derived from the mammalian brain and has to do with the primitive emotions of bonding and relatedness with the parent and immediate family members. The third level is that from which religious consciousness is most derived, the level of mythic membership in groups, where we find an identity in our group affiliation. At this level of consciousness then the task of religious group consciousness is to identify who is in the circle of affiliation and who is out, who is pure and who is impure. The impure and the stranger are identified as out of the group and not to be accepted or invited for fear of contamination. Religious consciousness then is very much concerned with affiliation and xenophobia. There is no room for unitive awareness or universalism.

The fourth level in this developmental map is the rational/egoic level. Here the individual capacity for intellectual discernment has primacy. The secularist may be often found in this group. Secularists often have more compassionate concern for the larger community. But this level can be unsatisfying because the intellect alone cannot provide transcendence and meaning to the individual.

For this reason the fifth or intuitive stage of growth may began to assist the secularist to move towards trusting internal non-intellectual means for connecting with the natural world and with other human beings to discover and experience the intimacy that we we all need and seek. Such persons may report they feel "connected" and "whole" in walks in the woods, or experiences in the natural world. Or artistic expression can also feed this level of experience.

The sixth level is that of unitive consciousness. This is the level of mystic universalism. At this level the individual has formally or informally found a spiritual praxis that allows one to intentionally and consciously find communion in the ground or source of all being in a way that connects with the entire universe animate and inanimate. This is the realm of the mystics who transcend even the tradition in which they have practiced. As growth in this state progresses persons begin to experience the lack of any subject or object in life: all is Subject. There is only the "Isness That Is." Being Itself is the Ultimate Reality manifested in each being, in each cell, each atom, and each galaxy in the universe.

Humankind has been approaching a crisis of development of consciousness. Our mythic membership consciousness, especially the religious form of it, when combined with the technology of modern weaponry and the mobilization of mass communications creates a world of unparalleled violence towards other humans and towards the systems of life which sustain our own life.

I am convinced that unitive consciousness is growing and the Way of the Heart, the Way of the mystics will heal the soul of humankind of its wound of separateness.

Blessings always,
Bill Ryan
cmpnwtr@earthlink.net