On Thinking That Belief in a Deity
Is a Clutch for Those with a Broken Psyche
as a function of intimately illumining Redeeming Religiousness?
#15.
Most of us human beings can adapt ourselves somehow to anything our imagination can cope with; but we cannot deal with CHAOS. In the context of BEYONDISM, CHAOS is a tumult of events which lack not just interpretations but interpretability. Because the characteristic human function and our highest asset is conception, our greatest fright is to meet what we cannot construe — the "uncanny," as it is popularly called.
There are at least three points where CHAOS threatens to break in upon a human being: at the limits of one's analytic capacities, at the limits of one's powers of endurance, and at the limits of one's moral insight.
"Among all my patients in the second half of life…there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life."— Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss Psychoanalyst (1875–1961)
The word 'RELIGION' derives NOT from Latin religare (to bind together), but from relegere — to take care of, to tend, to reconnect — the very opposite of neglegere, to neglect. RELIGION is essentially trying to reconnect our individual 'being' to its creator: the Supreme Being.
"If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
BEYONDISM does not intend to turn against the belief systems of our fathers. The CULTURE CONCEPT adhered to by BEYONDISM denotes a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols by means of which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward LIFE.
"One compares religions not by equating the highest storey of one with the lowest storey of another, but storey for storey."— Arnold Toynbee, British Historian (1889–1975)
The central accusation — that Belief in a Deity is a clutch for those with a broken psyche — misapprehends the relationship between psychology and the sacred. BEYONDISM argues instead that the psyche is itself a sacred instrument: the organ through which the Supreme Being is most intimately perceived.
"The central symbol of Christianity must have, above all else, a psychological meaning, for without this it would have been relegated long ago to the dusty cabinet of spiritual monstrosities."— Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961)
ALTRUISM — the density of giving without expectation of return — is precisely this: the willingness to sacrifice the ego's insatiable demands upon the altar of a higher good. Altruism is not weakness; it is the supreme expression of the soul that has transcended mere biological imperatives.
"Let us say, 'Either God is or he is not.'…if you win you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then: wager that he does exist."— Blaise Pascal, French Philosopher (1623–1662)
BEYONDISM insists that morality must be anchored to the present human circumstances — alive, fluid, responsive. The moral insights embedded in African spiritual traditions — Ubuntu (I am because we are), Ngomi (ancestral reverence) — are sophisticated hydraulic systems for managing the flow of social trust.
"Religion does not consist in throwing oneself prostrate on the ground…but in beholding all with a peaceful soul."— Lucretius, Roman Poet-Philosopher (c. 99–55 BC)
This fire is ALTRUISM made incandescent. The fully actualized being does not hoard their light but radiates it. They become, in Fuller's magnificent phrase, not a noun but a verb — a continuous act of becoming, giving, illuminating. This is the felicitous foundation of the African Renaissance.
"Here is God's purpose — for God, to me, it seems, is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper."— R. Buckminster Fuller, American Visionary (1895–1983)
"The central symbol of Christianity must have, above all else, a psychological meaning, for without this it…would have been relegated long ago to the dusty cabinet of spiritual monstrosities."
"Among all my patients in the second half of life…there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind…The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle."
"Let us say, 'Either God is or he is not'…if you win you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then: wager that he does exist."
Bacon: "A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
Aquinas: "Whatever is in motion must be moved by something else…So we reach a first mover which is not moved by anything. And this all men think of as God."
Nerval: "Despair and suicide are the result of certain fatal situations for those who have no faith in immortality, its joys and its sorrows."
Sterne: "Whenever a man talks loudly against religion — always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions which have got the better of his creed."
Lucretius: "Religion does not consist in throwing oneself prostrate on the ground…but in beholding all with a peaceful soul."
Fuller: "Here is God's purpose — for God, to me, it seems, is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper."
Shaw: "I am a sort of collector of religions: and the curious thing is that I find I can believe in them all."
Toynbee: "One compares religions not by equating the highest storey of one with the lowest storey of another, but storey for storey."
Haskins: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."
Plutarch: "Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity."
Barnes: "One cathedral is worth a hundred theologians capable of proving the existence of God by logic."
MOST OF US HUMAN BEINGS can adapt ourselves somehow to anything our imagination can cope with; but we cannot deal with CHAOS. CHAOS in the context of BEYONDISM is a tumult of events which lack not just interpretations but interpretability. Because the characteristic human function and our highest asset is conception, our greatest fright is to meet what we cannot construe — the "uncanny," as it is popularly called.
The word 'RELIGION' derives NOT from Latin religare (to bind together), but from relegere — to take care of, to tend, to reconnect. RELIGION is essentially trying to reconnect our individual 'being' to its creator: the Supreme Being. It is a developed system for ascribing ultimate MEANING and purpose to LIFE.
BEYONDISM holds that reverence of ancestors (in Kikuyu, Ngomi) supports the jural authority of elders. Initiation rites establish sexual identity and adult status. Myths provide charters for social institutions — pillars of the African Renaissance.
✦ Sacred Meditation Prompt ✦
BEYONDISM Hereby Consolidates
- RRefusing false assumption of authority in the 'name of God,' for no mortal tongue may fully speak the Infinite.
- EEschewing that most hypocritical holier-than-thou attitude, which poisons the wells of genuine spiritual community.
- DDiscarding empty ceremonialism or self-enslaving rituals that chain the spirit rather than releasing it toward the Divine.
- EEntertaining only those ideals which are spiritually uplifting, consonant with human dignity, and cosmically aligned.
- EEnact religion not as a garment to be worn on worship days, but as the very skin of your being in every waking moment.
- MMove against blaming your shortcomings to that entity 'Devil' — own your shadow and transmute it into sacred fuel.
- IInsist on basing morality to the present human circumstances — living ethics, not the fossilized decrees of forgotten centuries.
- NNo mortal possesses divine wisdom in the matters of heaven — humility before the Mystery is the first gate of wisdom.
- GGuide others without dominating; never try to exploit them — for the true spiritual leader walks always behind those they serve.
- RRealising ourselves as part and parcel of Divinity — each soul a facet of the one light shattered into luminous multiplicity.
- EEndeavouring to uproot ourselves from self-betrayals that keep us smaller than our Cosmic birthright demands.
- LLoving everybody as ourselves with no strings attached — the supreme altruism that transforms religion from creed into living flame.
- IIntentionally committing ourselves to a clean life — not under surveillance but from the inner sovereignty of a purified will.
- GGiving out without expecting to be rewarded back — the celestial mathematics in which giving multiplies what is given.
- IIncisively testing and improving our potential quotient — for the soul that does not grow is already beginning to decline.
- OOpening our 'beings' to the mysteries of the 'Cosmos' — with a receptivity that does not demand but humbly receives.
- UUniting our innermost 'beings' with the 'Supreme Being' — the consummate act of all genuine spiritual endeavour.
- SShooting the arrow of our aspirations courageously — aiming at the highest even when the target is shrouded in sacred mist.
- NNurturing human welfare and social co-operation — the twin pillars upon which the African Renaissance must stand.
- EEnjoying our every moment and hour of mortality — for this finite life is the supreme gift of the Infinite to the finite soul.
- SSoaking ourselves to social and historical imperatives — understanding that no soul is an island in the ocean of Cosmos.
- SSurrounding ourselves with the ethical companions — for one's spiritual calibre is measured by the company one chooses to keep.