Man has been becoming detached from his original, spontaneous, natural contact with the god/s, spirits, nature and other Men for many generations - indeed for many hundreds of years. Originally Men lived in a kind of immersive telepathic contact with all of these and with each other - but that has been dwindling for a long time - and at about the millenium the separation became complete for almost everyone, from adolescence onwards.
Lacking such an immersive awareness, almost everyone is now utterly dependent upon external perceptions - incoming 'information' from the senses, communications, images etc. And because 'information' includes both the symbolic code and the decoder; Modern Man not only absorbs what specifically to think (ideas, beliefs, facts) - but much more significantly, how to interpret perceptions: how to think about things.
Modern Man blots-up concepts along with data; absorbs his software as well as his inputs.
Modern Man is therefore pathetic in his extreme vulnerability to external influence - and since both perception and interpretation are equally open and adrift; there is no easy answer.
In particular, there is no way in which large-scale (mass) external influence can cure this fundamental deficiency in the ability to resist external influence!
We need and must have the ability to interpret, think and be motivated-from our inner reality - which reality is also the only possible route to the realities of the god/s, spirits, nature and other Men.
Access to inner reality - which is actually the divine within us - is made difficult by the entirety of mainstream public discourse (and all kinds of institutions, including churches), by inculcated habits; and access if made impossible when our conceptual framework rejects all inner realities that contradict our imposed-programming; as meaningless, trivial or (increasingly) immoral.
(For Modern Man the source of evil is the individual's soul; the path of 'salvation' is to be open to 'the right kind' of external influence; and the only disagreement between people concerns the 'right kind' of source of external influence to which we should open our-selves. But then any person's discernment between rival sources is equally open to external influences...)
The stark nature of our condition is that the answer lies within everyone (at least, every person or being capable of love); but the answer is almost-wholly dependent upon each person both diagnosing his continuous state of sinful passivity to the demonic; and also seeking his own cure.
Unless or until an individual initiates the seeking of his own salvation from his own divine inner resources by means of 'intuition'; his situation is literally hope-less.
I mean he has No Hope.
Yet, if any Man does seek salvation within; vast creative divine resources will immediately be available to assist. The merest pinhole made by inner-divine-soul intent is all that is required as an entry point for help from the god/s, spirit, nature and other Men (including the so-called dead).
But that initiatory intent is absolutely required.
1 comment:
Reading in your first paragraph that we lived in immersive contact with god/s, nature, spirits, and each other I recognised immediately that I still do, but I also notice that since about the Millenium the media environment has changed completely. As I know you are aware from your Addicted to Distraction, McLuhan said that these changes of environment numb us initially. I'm coming out of it, but in my experience you are exactly right when you say it requires "iniatory intent." And so far it only inner spiritual practice that counters the torrent of distraction. It is much like St. Augustine's friend who was addicted to the sight of blood and death in the arena, but who managed to break its hold on him. His friends dragged him back to the arena but he was still free so long as he did not look - then he opened his eyes and was lost forever.
Post a Comment