The emergence of Barak Obama from out of nowhere and his challenging even progressive forces of the political establishment gives this writer reason to pause and consider the arcane possibility that Mr. Obama is more than merely an agent of conventional change, but a vehicle for the forces and intentions of creative change itself -in a word, emergence.
We know that the spiral of evolution generally grinds out its day-to-day movements in slow, complex and convoluted -even painful- drudgery. But it is punctuated with occasional bursts of creativity, insight and quantum leaps forward.
When such openings are deep and profound science has coined the word/concept 'emergence' to designate the opening of such a portal. Every truly significant ground breaking insight, flash of genius, and planetary avatar carries in his/her mind or heart a healthy dose of such emergence.
When in the Idaho primary Mr. Obama burst forward with startling presence, upsetting conventional wisdom and radically changing the tenure of the entire field overnight around the notion of 'change', I was convinced that this man may in fact be a herald of the New, dawning in the realm of secular politics. Not that there are others not equally endowed, or perhaps even more so. But not at this level, not with the appropriate qualifications, and not so convincing.
Keeping in mind that emergence is utterly dependent upon its context for meaning and value, Barak may be a veritable child of the horizon xculturally new and complex, successfully integrating and navigating diverse cultural modalities, brimming with the hope of the possible. But only when the poison of divisiveness is left behind. This accounts for his authentic message anent leaving the duality of polarizing partisanship behind for the middle ground of unity and progressive moderation -although such a position does indeed seem rather 'liberal' to the entrenched agenda of the old patriarchal ego.
Contrasting Mr. Obama's notions of change with that of the Clintons, Billary's take on change is here likened to merely replacing the worn tires on your car with another set of the same ilk, and so designated 'new' if you insist, 'upgraded' in a sense,'renewed' perhaps, but profound change it is not.
Obviously Mr. Obama wants more than that -he wants a new vehicle. It may not be of the most technologically advanced kind, but one which can embody the best of what everyone has to contribute. It may not be hip, but it'll be balanced -best serving everyone's needs in the long haul.And a comment if I may, about recent reactions to husband Bill's coming forward as co-candidate. What did you really expect? Hellox. It is becoming obvious that Hillary herself is not electable, but that the Clintons are indeed viable. And why not? There are no overt laws discounting such a play, and socially we have husband/wife teams doing such in other domains. And after the debacle of George the Neanderthal, even Billary is starting to look pretty darn good.-And what about the many complaints that the Clinton's are ganging up on Mr. Obama, tag-teaming our poor lowly angel of emergence, despite that fact that in the real world 'all's fair in love, war, and politics'. As with all people consumed with their place in history, the Clinton's are engaged in a wholesale knock down to win the presidency and everything else comes later.
All to Mr. Obama's betterment, quite frankly. One of the problems of emergent systems is their incompleteness, being insufficient to adequately sustain their existence in the midst of contrary forces and intentions. If Mr. Obama is to truly champion the noble causes he espouses he is going to need all the requisite characteristics and toughness to carry through and adequately engage the mundane world. The love-taps the Clinton's are offering up are little more than your lame old dog's bad breath, tolerable because its in the family. Wait until the stench of vile enemies are breathing down your neck before you start wailing 'foul'!
There's one final item of interest that should be addressed here, and it concerns the populace's actual tolerance for real change. As with the kind of emergence I am outlining here, ground breaking, paradigm altering visions cannot, as a rule, be stomached by the masses, who usually take generations of slow change, education, and arm twisting to get to embrace the original inspirations of our heroes. This means that although there are indeed many voters who revel in the oratories of Mr. Obama and the hope that he inspires, when it actually comes to changes in lifestyle or the sacrifices that many may be called upon to shoulder to help forward the programs that Mr. Obama is leaning towards, he may find that the populace is peopled with less than willing participants in ObamaWorld.
If Barak is truly an agent of such emergence -which means that there can indeed be a much larger will at work than we may see at present- then long overdue changes may be intended by Life itself.
If so more surprises are at hand.-Rev. Wiseman is a specialist in comparative religion, spiritual psychology, and a lineage holder in one of the eastern wisdom traditions. He teaches regularly at his dharma center Trin-Star, located in Lakewood, Co. (303) 232-3701
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Obama the Emergent
Failure of the Patriarchal Ego
It is not at all true that 'everyone' decries the bloodshed and overall losses rife in the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict. There is one common, shared characteristic pervading the entire drama that actually relishes the notion that it is 'winning' or ascending in status and overall being from the testing now being inflicted on themselves, each other, and the world at large.To understand this we must first understand the fundamental dialectic pervading all aspects of life. Thus the masculine principle is defined by its contraction, strong boundaries, sense of substance, the individualized self and its strength and rightness. Its feminine complement is characterized by it openness, relationality, subtlety, and compromise. Historically, before the worldwide rise of the patriarchal initiative around two millennia B.C., every culture was dominated and characterized by matriarchal land-ownership, mother-daughter rulership transference, and goddess worship. The collective global welling up of the male principle (via kingship) and its movement away from earth based agriculture to human social caste systems, movement away from egalitarianism to intellectual hierarchies and power structures, and exponential development of weapon technology ushered in the rise of male dominated society and its consequences. This is not to say that the extremes of the feminine are any more virtuous or desirable than extremes of the utterly masculine. But we are indeed in the grips of the ascended male principle as it hasexercised its power, agendas, and one-upmanship during these several thousand years of recorded history. And it has not been, and is not now, very pretty.In the modern era, specifically the 21st century, we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel in terms of a necessary corrective in nature's natural balancing prerogative. Thus while there is an overall ascendancy of the feminine globally there are still male based fundamentalist attitudes pervading all cultures, religious monotheism being one of its bastions. This in turn is being fueled by technologies made available by science (male/impersonal). Thus while it may appear that the male dominated agendas of one-upmanship (i.e., absolute supremacy) are firmly in control of our global situation the deeper truth is quite the opposite. What we are witnessing in the last gasp efforts on behalf of these archaic structures of mind and consciousness is the implicit recognition that everything else in life and nature around it is not necessarily in agreement with it's self centered and self aggrandizing imperative. Before it's too late and while such agendas can effectively be executed fundamentalists must proceed apace with its implementation, even if it entails an unnatural and aggressive stimulation of the circumstances and time frames of their quantized 'end-of-the-world' eschatology. For such people only the 'true believers' in their particular sense of theology are the saved, displaying the obviously valid way to worship their construed male god, as He really wants to be worshipped. And it seems to be perfectly fine for their leaders to decide who lives and dies in the service of these patriarchal ideals, for innocents are arrayed in every situation as pawns and buffer zones for the aloof, elitist messiahs.The problem dogging the suppressed, economically impoverished, a largely uneducated mass is the need for emotional stimulation and emotional self-worth. It is this very ego that has been successfully exploited down the ages by every serpent of every stripe. Our current situation in the Middle East is a case in point. The masses generally want a job that provides a roof over their head, a meal with their children, and to bounce grandchildren on their knee at a birthday party. Everything else is politics. Spiritually the personality-based ego wants a comfortable personal relationship to a big, godly Person -one comforting, secure, and willing to provide through prayer and supplication. All else is theology. These assessments, to some, may seem a bit simplistic, but they are also startlingly valid.Is there a solution to these conflicts x the politics, theological divides, and personal anger? Yes. But one must be able to see through the illusion of misconstrued absolutes that under gird all such male/patriarchal systems. The implicit reification tendency of the male principle relentlessly sustains historical structures social, political, economic, and theological. With the modern day ascendancy of feminine relatedness -women in all aspects of society, the U.N. and international accountability, valuing relationship over righteousness, transitioning from tribalism toone-world global centrism- the male patriarchal ego feels encroached upon from all sides and is thus in a last ditch, knock-down-drag-out effort to win at these final historical stages, ushering in, so they believe, their hallowed kingdom of heaven.The rise of patriarchal fundamentalism actually began with the birth of male dominated monotheism. Having had ample time to establish their tradition, Judaism was already centuries old when the advent of Christianity made its way onto the local scene in the first and second century A.D. By the time of the prophet Mohammed (sixth century A.D.) Judaism and Christianity had well-established traditions, texts, myths and ritual. With the old testament narrative delegating Ishmael and his Egyptian mother Hagar (Abraham's surrogate concubine) to secondary, almost illegitimate status, the emerging Islamic tradition wasted no time after Mohammed's death to develop their own pet rendition of monotheism with correspondingly illegitimate mythological, theological, and historical concoctions -at least so traditional Judaism and the well established Christian church held. Both older siblings of the younger 'brat' Islam had little patience or respect for what they saw as Islam's usurping of their core teachings and/or reinterpreting the profound status of their holy personages (it was not Isaac that was almost sacrificed by his father Abraham, but rather Ishmael, eventual father of the twelve tribes of Islam; and Jesus was not the veritable incarnation of an aspect of the divine Trinity, but merely a noble prophet -Mohammed being the last and greatest of all the sons of God).
Help give validity to what they grasped onto as an essentially inspired revelation welling up from within their own roots. But the male patriarchal, absolutist structures within Islam's older siblings could not and would not allow yet another set of absolutes into their conflict of absolutes already raging. What were passionate Bedouin Arabs to do? Get exceedingly upset (something they apparently do exceedingly well). Thus nascent Islam took the violent, assertive, and dualistic example stemming from Mohammed's life and, riding on the backs of the Arabian horse culture, ran amok amongst European and middle eastern cultures reeking revenge on dissenting God fearers and pagans alike in response to the concerted guilt-tripping bestowed upon them by fellow blood and spirit descendents of their common father Abraham who were asserting their illegitimacy and testifying that they had fallen from the 'true faith'. How then could one dissolve the resulting acidic conflict that has festered down the ages and boiled into the global conflicts that we are witness to in the 21st century? Today band aid-like political, economic or even military solutions, while having impact and their own conventional validity, cannot loosen the essential rope of theological issues twisted into a fixed knot of absolutes. That these people fashion their pet constructions into weapons and then attempt to eradicate one another as a stepping stone to absolute union with their male Deity in heaven is a theological joke and an existential disaster being reeked not just on themselves, but upon the rest of humanity who must suffer along with them, the undivided whole we truly are. These peoples and traditions must redress the knotted fixed absolutes that fester at every meeting. But this means a shift in paradigms from the archaic structures of anearlier humanity to the more complex, integral, and relational systems of thinking, feeling, and acting that are everywhere arising on this planet. In plain English -grant everyone their due allotment of legitimacy and accept as conventionally valid the particular approach to life and spirit they are pursuing -mutually acknowledged.To use an art dressed metaphor, suppose that a young artist without much apparent talent or training begins to spontaneously strike a number of interesting pieces that he and others around him come to conclude are inspired, and perhaps even something artistically new. In sharing his insights and inspirations with his neighbors, friends, and eventually other artists and critics, perhaps a few friends are convinced of his obvious self-worth, but other artists and art critics are at least unconvinced if not out right resentful to the point of being derogatory. They might go so far as to deride the new upstart as a fraud, uninspired, and out of fashion with the true avenues of artistic expression. What is a young and passionate messenger to do? Get promotional and show the art world and populace at large that he is for real and completely legitimate. And that is exactly what Mohammed and the emerging Islamic tradition did -they got creative and drew upon existing information, style and structures from the long standing traditions around them in order to grant themselves enough status and authenticity to survive in the virulent environment of their day, hoping to live long enough to fight another battle and eventually win at some point in the future. And so here we are! Our modern situation is further complicated by the advent of weapons technology, placing in the hands of barely sane extremists destructive capabilities far outweighing their sense of compassion or civility. Since fundamentalists on all sides are convinced that their counterparts are irreducibly evil, we appear to be headed towards an Armageddon-like show down of their own creation, calling it preordained scripture written large by God himself!Will these fundamentalists ever really come down off their high horses? I doubt it. One of the defining characteristics of this mindset is its righteousness and its willingness to die (or their willingness for you to die) for their Godly calling, all for His glorification and satisfaction as they see it. Certainly the use of brute force is simply fuel heaped onto the fire, merely inflaming mutual responses. The only method that can truly work was introduced above -theologians and ecclesiastical minds must first see through the intractable absolutes that are the rigid wrenches in the cogs of progressive evolution. Once relationality is given a long overdue chance we will see a gradual dismantling of the patriarchal mask and allow the beauty of a more flexible fairness guide our affairs. A view, in other words, that sees the truth of our mutual dependency as facets in the jewel of All-Reality.Do we have the time necessary to effect these changes? Perhaps not, given the aggressiveness of the combatants and their disregard for all else. Perhaps a Moses figure could walk these peoples through the sands of conventional time, allowing a generation or two to pass, ushering in a reeducated and purified future. Aside from the fact that no such personage exists that could garner therespect of all parties, such a scenario is more a myth now than it may have been in its past incarnation. But we appear to have little choice but to enact something of the sort in its own guise. By avoiding anything that feeds these attitudes and quelling by all reasonable and civil means tensions that flame into armed conflict we may be able to suspend the rampant hatred enough for another generation to rise in its stead.All along the way humanity -individually and collectively- must begin to see the value of mutual respect arising from mutual dependency. Applied to the current situation I would urge Israel to use every civil means short of offensive military force to secure the release of their captured soldiers. Even if Hezbollah were to use extreme measures to invoke an escalation of conflict I still would advise patience and courage -suffering damage and casualties if necessary. This would have the effect of clearly showing that Israel was not the evil aggressor and garner for them the advantageous posture of 'victim'. Granted it is another form of courage and strength, the feminine, but it is nonetheless effective when properly applied and given time (Gandhi showed us decisively that compassionate resistance can indeed work).I recently attended an event where the Dali Lama was given the Living Peace Award. In his speech he made the insightful comment that war was a clear signal of failure, for resorting to killing people's bodies, bombing homes, and destroying another's culture, even if temporarily successful, does nothing to address the deeper psychological issues that need healing, merely repressing them, only to resurface at some point in that persons or that people's future.
It has been suggested that it is the Islamic moderates that must eventually root out their own supremacists. True; the body of Islam must itself reabsorb its own cancer, but they will need help. Judaism too must find the wisdom to relinquish its own absolutes that provide the basis for intractable conflict. Everyone must relate to the profound nature of balance. I would thus point both Jewish hardliners and Christian fundamentalists to their own Old Testament:"Be sure to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath; For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."
Deep Spirit
Our last contributor is one of the most multi-faceted, multi-talented people we have ever met. We recently dubbed him, "The Patron Saint of Balance" and asked him to share his immense wisdom in this series. Raj Wiseman teaches Yoga, meditation, and contemplative studies at his TRIN - STAR, Wholistic Nexus and Yoga Center, in Lakewood.
"Balance, life's greatest virtue; imbalance, it's only real vice."
I'm glad to have the opportunity to put forward that humble notion into the public record (and hopefully into your hearts, minds, and bodies as well). After half a lifetime in seminary as well as ghetto, spiritual community as well as prisons, fixing plumbing as well as playing Beethoven cello sonatas, in the ecstasy of relationship as well as months in contemplative seclusion, I've come away with alot. And I can only hope, friends, that you are willing to pause for a moment and hear this pith wisdom and consider its value in your own life to date, as well as watch it work every moment of every day henceforth.In addressing balance I am not talking about some kind of sterile 50/50 notion rigidly applied to relationships, business deals, or disciplining the kids. Life is too complex for that. But its exactly because cosmos is now proven to be about the enrichment that comes through complexity, with its ebbs and flows (just like the eastern traditions have long taught) that we should get hip to its necessity and intentions. Arising in the midst of that creative tension is its natural complement that serves as the centering virtue. Integrating the diversity (which sometimes spills over into randomness and chaos) is that subtle and illusive, but very real and ever present, floating point of balance. It must be there, in the midst of every system, quietly abiding, giving us the opportunity maintain awareness of all that is happening and suggesting a way through the conflicts that are going to arise, especially when other egos bend circumstances out of shape.We don't have to plumb the esoteric to see how we embrace balance amidst the ebbs and flows of everyday opposites -when cold we reach for another pair of socks or turn up the heat, too bright the sunlight and we pull down our sun glasses, if our mouth feels dry we reach for our favorite beverage, when lonely we seek out loved ones or the comfort that satisfies.Relating to balance as a central premise is a virtue generally recognized and applied but by a very few, and too bad, because understanding its profound importance is not a part of any religious doctrinal base, the focal point of education at any level, or the stated mission purpose of no business I'm familiar with (and no one mentions it as "the greatest thing my grandparents ever left me"). In short modern culture does not support any such notion -its simply not stimulating enough (even though its the true basis of physical health and mental sanity). Notice that every other sales pitch promotes "extreme this", "grab the gusto", "ultimate rush/sensation", or "go crazy for that". The failure to recognize nature's pervasive dialectical laws (there is no such thing as up without down, left without right, hot without cold, masculine without feminine, etc.) results in the mistaken ego that one can pursue such pet extremes, pushed to any limit one can get away with, without eventually running up against its own complementary opposite that we in fact called up by our own choices. We simply cannot not ultimately escape the karma of imbalance, prompting us to regain balance, often through the experiences of pain or psychological suffering of some ilk. To see balance as a working natural principle I'll invoke two different examples that should be pretty poignant.Consider basketball superstar Michael Jordan, who many vote the single greatest athlete who ever lived. What's his secret? ... he was simply the most complete package ever. Every facet of his person and his game was fully present -no holes!
My second example comes from a study I saw in Scientific American magazine. Anthropologists scanned the shape of thousands of faces in dozens of cultures from around the globe in a survey of what different peoples considered aesthetically beautiful. Then they compiled the data into one 'average face' -the sum total mean appearance. When later showing each respective tribe their own pictures the scientists inserted the composite face into the group (with that tribes distinctive colorings, hair style, etc. so as to look like them). In each case the tribe or racial group chose the average composite as the most beautiful. In other words, the most balanced face was the most desirable and attractive!Turning to how imbalances in decisions and lifestyle translate into ill health, the underlying mechanism progresses in this wise: imbalance > disease> dysfunction. Granted there are genetic factors and inherited predispositions participating in every physical and mental health situation, but one's day to day decision making is a major influence on how certain basic structures operate or are fleshed out. By way of analogy, an architect may indeed design a perfectly competent building on paper, but if the contractor erects the design with inferior quality materials the initial building cannot hope to operate well or have a carefree lifespan. If one adds to this poor maintenance over the years, still with inferior materials, what kind of condition would one expect the originally sound design to be in?The human constitution is not a diamond, impervious to whatsoever we throw at or into it. In fact quite to the contrary, as one scientific study after another is now conforming regarding the profound influence mind and spiritual endeavors have on even basic chemistry. Thus our approach to balance and wholeness should encompass not just issues surrounding our immediate personality (the horizontal axis) but the equally important extension into the transpersonal spirit (the vertical axis). This is true health: balance > wholeness > holiness. This is the opposite of the downward spiral outlined above. Instead we can wake up to an inspired ascent into health, the empathy to properly love, the patience to respect others, and the enthusiasm and deep security that allows one to freely give your dreams away.