In the last issue of the Newsletter, we talked about the dangers of using primitive childhood “splitting” to navigate our way in the adult world. We took a brief look at a model on the human thinking process. We saw how the primitive black-and-white thinking process of religious and political fundamentalists, and their countless claims of “absolute truth”, is creating virtually all of the conflict and violence we see in the world.
In this issue, we will focus on learning to live with veracity in the world we know; in other words, a commitment to see and accept things exactly as they are; to fully embrace reality. A commitment to live in the world we “know” means, for example, having the courage to live as mature, fully conscious adults in a world where there are no absolute black-and-white human truths; only relative and subjective truths.
No matter how strongly an individual or institution might believe that “absolute truth” exists, reality does not change; “absolute truth” is still an illusion; a false belief. There are only “relative truths” in the human world.
When we attempt to ignore the world we “know” and live outside of reality in a make believe fantasy world, we are choosing to live psychotically. I am not George Washington; no matter how emphatically I “insist” that I am. I am not George Washington no matter how strongly I “believe” that I am.
Because they are relative and subjective, all human beliefs need to be open to inquiry and verification.
It is important to note that some beliefs are called “faith” beliefs because they are not verifiable. They have to be taken on faith. Thus, to insist that a faith belief represents the illusion called “absolute truth” is not only psychotic thinking; it is a radical contradiction in terms. A belief cannot logically represent both “faith” and “absolute truth”.
Claims of absolute truth in any other field of human knowledge would immediately lead us to look for verification or proof that the claim was testably true and verifiable. With faith beliefs however, we simply assume that they are true.
It is this unverifiable assumption of absolute truth in faith beliefs that give the religious fundamentalists their power. We are struggling to physically rid the world of religious terrorists, but we are unwilling to confront the black-and-white “absolute truth” primitive ego thinking process religious fundamentalists use to create their violence.
In our attempt to be “politically correct” we are choosing to ignore the root cause of all terrorism. It is considered rude, offensive, and embarrassing to publicly challenge a faith belief in our modern culture, even when it is presented as absolute truth.
Virtually no well-educated, respected 21st century theologians or clergy in the Jewish or Christian religions believe in the inerrancy of their scriptures, or the literal translation of their scriptural metaphors. Unfortunately, this modern scholarship is not finding its way into the pews of our mainline religions. Faith beliefs continue to be accepted as representing absolute truth.
The problem is not just with religious fundamentalists. Even those who claim to be liberal Christians or Jews, unconsciously assume that scriptural metaphors and stories such as the Virgin Birth, the Garden of Eden, God parting the Red Sea, and Jesus walking on water, are somehow true. They too unknowingly allow most of their religious faith beliefs to exist outside the commitment to veracity.
I suspect this reluctance to confront religious claims of absolute truth is not only a reflection of the narcissism in our Western culture, but also stems in part from a deep cultural fear that reflects two thousand years of religious torture and death for heresy.
Even today, the prescribed punishment for heresy in the Islamic faith is death. This was also true for Christian heresy for almost 1800 years until the awakening of the modern world in the 17th and 18th centuries. The violence meted out to dissenters of totalitarian political regimes is also well documented both historically and in current world politics.
The unconscious assumption of “absolute truth” in our world’s religious faith beliefs, and our cultural unwillingness or fear to challenge these claims of “absolute truth” have become a pervasive a part of our species consciousness. We are now unwilling to make a commitment to veracity not only in religion, but in virtually all political, economic, and environmental categories of human life.
Because of the narcissistic self-focus of our primitive ego, its need to be right, and its need for the security that comes with black-and-white thinking, the avoidance of veracity in human culture is virtually endemic.
For example, we pretend that global warming is not a problem despite the fact that we are being confronted daily with scientific evidence that says there are going to be very dangerous consequences if we continue to ignore the rapid build up of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
We ignore the fact that our natural resources are dangerously limited; that we are quickly running out of both energy and mineral resources. We choose to believe that the preposterous theory of unlimited economic growth is real. We know, but choose to ignore the fact, that we are quickly running out of both fresh water and the ability to feed our rapidly growing global populations.
We know, but choose to ignore that we are causing the extinction of other life forms at unprecedented and alarming rates. Scientists are warning us that the life support system of the planet that birthed us is rapidly breaking down. We know that Earth is the planet that birthed us; we know that God did not magically put us here. And we know if the Earth loses its ability to sustain us, we will cease to exist as a species.
We have reached a point in Western culture where our primitive egos narcissistically assume that all of our personal beliefs somehow represent absolute truth; in other words, we dismiss the above realities as being “no-big-deal” problems that “somebody” will fix if they do become a problem. This is of course a classic definition of psychotic thinking; the thoughts of a person or species unwilling to live in the world we “know”.
We are clearly a conscious species, unconsciously choosing to psychotically ignore the consequences of our choices. It is as if we have become unconsciously convinced as a species, that God, or some other parental figure, will somehow come and magically fix our problems. We are unconsciously allowing the primitive ego of our inner-child to keep us from growing up. We are functioning as a species at a level of consciousness equal to that of powerless dependent children.
This is not reality. We are not dependent children. We are reflexively conscious beings fully capable of fixing our own problems; problems that we have created. It is obvious that our days as a species may be seriously numbered unless we choose to live more intentionally in the world that we know than we have in the past.
I believe that the commitment to live a life of veracity; to see things exactly as they are, is the most important challenge to the evolution and growth in human consciousness that has ever faced us as a species. Humanity is rapidly birthing a global culture. We no long use spears and swords to fight our wars, we bring atomic and biological weapons; each of which are capable of erasing all higher life forms from the planet.
The unconscious black-and-white thinking of our inner-child’s primitive ego needs to be named for what it is; ignorance and arrogance; the pathological narcissism of a primitive thinking process. When we choose to remain silent and ignore the black-and-white imperialistic faith claims of fundamentalist theologies just to avoid offending someone, or to be politically “correct”, or to avoid conflict, we are perpetuating a dangerous problem. The black-and-white thinking process of our primitive ego is far too dangerous to ignore.
The world’s fundamentalists may represent a relatively small percentage of the human population but their voices are very loud, arrogant, aggressive, and angry. They are the voices of dying religious and political institutions struggling to maintain power in the face of our rapidly changing 21st century religious and cultural paradigms. Unfortunately, they have virtually become the only voices being heard.
It is time for each of us to make a commitment to veracity; to become a voice of reason; to have the courage and will to speak out against the ignorance and evil that denies the reality of the world we know. We must be willing to make a conscious decision; a commitment to intentional growth in our self-awareness; to become consciously aware whenever we find ourselves allowing ignorance to be the only voice heard.
Until we do, we will continue to allow totalitarian and dictatorial governments, the imperialism of self-righteous religious and political institutions, and the religiously generated conflict and violence of our world’s fundamental religions to speak for all of human culture.
We may offend some people when we speak, but if enough of us are willing to name ignorance when we hear ignorance, it would not be long before the voices of reason would drowned out the voices of fundamentalism and their derisory claims of absolute truth.
The assumption that black and white thinking represents absolute truth is a form of ignorance that has created great evil and suffering in the world. It is time to awaken to the reality that ignoring ignorance is not an effective survival strategy.
(Readers can go to www.stonyhill.com for more in-depth articles and past Newsletter discussions on the subjects of our inner-child’s primitive ego, happiness, authentic spiritual growth, and The Primitive Ego Theory of Human Social and Spiritual Development©.)
Personal Thoughts
Living in the world we “know” requires that we intentionally take action; a difficult and challenging undertaking. It requires that we intentionally awaken our consciousness. It requires intentionally confronting the narcissism of our primitive ego. It requires intentional growth in our self-awareness. It is much more comfortable to simply continue living the illusion that all is well.
I was talking with a friend recently who said that he did not believe that we will change our behaviors as a species until we are forced to change by some kind of catastrophic crisis. He does not believe that voluntarily limiting human population growth, reducing green house emissions, limiting our consumption of energy and mineral resources, and more equitably distributing our wealth with the 90% of humans currently living on $1 to $2, will ever happen on its own.
New York Time OP-ED writer Jared Diamond wrote recently that if just China and India were to simply catch up with the current consumption rates of America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia, the effective population of the world, in terms of resource consumption, would be equivalent to 72 billion people within the next forty years.
Diamond points out that we are currently struggling to maintain a first-class life style for only 1 billion people out of the 6.5 billion people that currently live on the planet, and we are already exhausting the earth’s natural resources. No scientist believes we could support the current consumption levels for an equivalent 72 billion people; in other words, 9 billion people all consuming at current Western world rates.
This is just one example of the many predictions that say we are headed for a train wreck in the not so distant future if we continue to pursue the absurd illusion called unlimited economic expansion. Scientists warn that we simply do not know how to predict when we will hit the point of no return; the point in which it is too late to solve the problems that face us without having to face a catastrophic crisis.
There is a part of me that worries that my friend might be right. That it will take a major crisis to wake us up and force us to make the changes required to live with veracity. But I choose to be more hopeful for two reasons. First is the fact that the problems are no-longer going to confront us “someday”. The train wreck that is coming is going to happen within the lifetime of most of us living today; certainly in the lifetime of our children.
Our primitive ego is very narcissistic. It pays attention to problems and events that will affect us personally.
Secondly, I honestly believe that if enough people could become self-aware of their inner-child’s primitive ego, the part of our psyche that interferes with our ability to mature and achieve a truly adult consciousness, we could actually make the commitment as a species to begin living with veracity in the world we “know”. We would effectively begin, as a species; to undertake the difficult changes so urgently needed to avert the various environmental and cultural crises toward which we are clearly headed. We would begin to name absolute truth as a form of ignorance no longer acceptable.
Growth in conscious awareness of our primitive ego would represent a major shift in human consciousness. It would lead to a clarity of awareness that changing the current behaviors and direction of our species would indeed be in our own individual self-interest; one in which continuing to believe the psychotic illusion that these problems will “somehow be magically fixed by somebody, somehow” would not be tolerated. It simply would not make sense to us as a sane species.
For these reasons I remain hopeful. For these reasons I will continue to write the Stonyhill Newsletter in the hope that someday the human species will evolve in consciousness to the point where our primitive ego’s will no longer have the power to unconsciously control our behaviors. To a time when we, as a species, manifest an evolutionary spirituality that works with, instead of against, the creative evolutionary process.
So thanks for being a part of the Stonyhill community on this exciting evolutionary journey into the future. I very much appreciate the wisdom of your feedback comments and your ongoing support of the Newsletter.
Quote:
If you step back and begin to look more and more objectively, in light of this greater context we exist within, you will slowly but surely begin to recognize for yourself the impersonal nature of all of your own experience. In that recognition, the personal dimension (primitive ego) will suddenly become completely transparent to you. This insight, even if only temporary, will completely undercut every belief you have about being a unique, individuated entity who lives in some separate bubble, mysteriously isolated from everything else that exists. You are a process. Dare to face this for yourself, and you will discover a radical objectivity that liberates you, right now, to consciously participate in the highest level of that process, which is the evolution of consciousness itself. Philosopher, spiritual teacher, and futurist Andrew Cohen, WIE Magazine
A Spiritual Practice
Learn to pay attention to your need to be “right”. The defensive energy that arises when you are defending your beliefs is easy to identify. This is particularly true with political and religious beliefs. This practice, more than any other, will help you become conscious and self-aware of your primitive ego when it tries to manifest itself and control your behavior. The need to be right is another way to define “absolute truth”!
When your adult observing ego becomes aware that your primitive ego is manifesting this “need to be right” behavior, simply remind yourself that all human beliefs are relative and subjective. Then quietly let go of your defensive energy. Pay attention to the calm within as the energy fades away.
You will find that your primitive ego does “not” like being told it is wrong. But over time, it will become easier to simply let the other person be right. It is not your responsibility to “educate” them.If their primitive ego is caught up in their defensive energy they will not be open to new input anyway.
We live in a world filled with conflict and violence. Almost everyone agrees that something has to change. There is an urgent need to develop a more compassionate global spirituality.
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