Monday 9 May 2022

The imperative to re-connect; and the choice between passive immersion and active Love

The stage that Modern Man has reached in his evolutionary development is one where, sometime in adolescence, his consciousness becomes cut-off from the collective consciousness in-which he used (in early childhood) to be immersed (as was 'early man'). 

Modern Man becomes alienated such that his only direct experience is self-consciousness. There is coherence within his mind; but outside his mind is an incomprehensible chaos - and all communication are uncertain and prone to distortion and 'wishful-thinking'.  He finds himself alone, isolated. 

What does he do? Man cannot be alone, and so he must somehow reconnect with the collective, with other Beings... 


There are two options - one is mainstream and common - the other rare and regarded by the majority as childish and dumb wishful-thinking. 

The mainstream attempt to reconnect is to open the mind to dominant external influence

Each Man reconnects with the collective by voluntarily immersing himself in the dominant, powerful, most authoritative current-opinion; and thereby alleviates his lonely isolation and again feels a part of a greater whole. 

This mainstream strategy is a chosen passivity; a decision Not to think, but instead to be... what ever the collective is currently dictating. 

In the modern West, this is the decision to live in accordance with The System (the decision that most people have clearly made - including most self-identified Christians) - by this; one's facts, concepts and attitudes absorbed-from the powerful bureaucracies, officialdom and the mass media. 

And by this - to some subjective extent - one escapes isolation and becomes a part of the human collective: a materialist world backed-by a de facto monopoly on propaganda/ education and coercion/ bribery, and therefore assumed to be 'real'. 


And now that all of these institutions agree monolithically on all issues that They regard as essential; and now that individuals are plugged-into communicatiouns systems for most of every day - it has never been easier to feel a part of the collective by the simple decision to be passive and absorptive. 

Of course; this sense of belongingness is impaired by the covert fact that such cohesion is man-made and arbitrary - and by the intermittent awareness that the unity of perspective is (substantially) manipulative and exploitative. 

Nonetheless, it is regarded as the only alternative to utterly alienated isolation - so such doubts are suppressed or ignored; on the basis that 'there is no alternative' - at least none that are real


But there is an alternative to the mainstream outer-to-inner, switching-off thinking and opening one's mind to external meanings; and that alternative is to work from the inside outwards. 

In other words; the alternative is to start from the cohesion of one's isolated mind, and then choose to align this inner coherence with divine coherence

By choosing to align with God's creation; we thereby reconnect our inner mind with the larger world, and escape from alienation by re-joining God and God's people, the inhabitants of Heaven and those who have chosen (while on earth) to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected Heavenly life after their deaths.


So these are the choices. We are driven to escape the isolation of modern consciousness; and can choose either to open our minds to the external; or to connect of inner divine natures with the greatness of divine creation. 

This inner-outer reconnection is done for the sake of Love - or else it is not done at all. We must want to live by-Love. 

And why would we want this? Because, in essence, we have chosen to believe the hints and glimpses of a life rooted in Love (hints and glimpses from family life, romantic love or intense friendship) that are afforded by this mortal life. Those who choose to believe that these point-at the possibility of Men living eternally with the divine (and other Men); having made an eternal commitment to live-by-Love.  

 

Conversely (and this seems to be the normal, mainstream, dominant view of Modern Man) we can choose to regard the hints and glimpses of a life lived by Love as merely delusions or manipulative deceptions - such that the only realistic decision is to subordinate our-selves to whatever currently are the dominant external influences. 



2 comments:

Alexeyprofi said...

What if I believe that Jesus was just a man with some personality traits that allowed him to become a religious leader, but without divinity or no more than in other people?

Bruce Charlton said...

@A - It seems that in this time and place, those who do not *follow* Jesus (in the sense I describe in Lazarus Writes - see link in sidebar), will take the choice of immersion in the external, and subordinate themselves to The System. This has happened very strongly over the past two-plus years, and continues. This is not a matter of 'theories' but of what actually works as a motivator for life lived spiritually outwith The System.