The Incarnation

God walks among us. Each one of us is a concrete manifestation of the divine spark we carry within us. It may seem paradoxical, but the perfect and abstract finds its home in the imperfect and concrete. In dualistic thinking, this is impossible, the two sides cannot be reconciled. In non-dualistic thinking barriers between the limited human and the unlimited divine are illusory, as the limitless is inclusive of the limited (but not vice versa).

It serves nothing if “God” is limited to one person in one place and one time. The “son of God” is not unique but is the birth right of all humanity. The abstract divine may be perfect, but it is meaningless and useless if it does not take on human proportions, if it does not ground itself in the corporeal and personal perspective of being human, i.e. the “imperfect”.

Far from the idea that “unevolved” beings must climb the ladder of spiritual perfection, the Incarnation talks of abstraction being grounded in concrete experience. The undifferentiated becomes differentiated; formless ore finds itself pushed through the forge of creativity into sensual and personal reality.

If there is anything I take away from the doctrine of the Incarnation, this would be it.

Reason and the Life Force

We don’t need a “reason” to live or want to live. Reason is of the intellect, which not all creatures are endowed with – they don’t need it. What they do have is vitality, instinct, life force or will to live. Call it what you want, but it is present in all living beings, and if you need a “reason” to live, then this basic impulse of life has become repressed or inverted against itself.

When we have run out of “reasons” to live, we are left with the will to live – pure, biological, instinctive. And if we find “nothing” under that pile of intellectual reason except apathy, doesn’t that mean we have become disconnected from life itself, and that our perception of it has become too abstract?

As I see it, life comes first, and our abstract “reasons” or “motives” are secondary to this. The body contains an energy that transcends the mind’s need for reason.

The Narrative of Facts

Facts are facts and cannot be manipulated. However, we can manipulate the order in which and frequency with which they are presented. We can prioritise the presentation of some facts, and “casually” remain silent about others. We can play slight-of-hand with facts, redirecting focus so only what we want to be seen is seen. We can embellish and decorate facts, and infer things from them that might not be factual by leaving “gaps”. The medium through which facts are communicated and the social and psychological contexts into which they are introduced have fundamental affects on how we perceive them, leaving in doubt the objectivity of facts!

The human mind, limited by time, space and personality, is not omniscient and must painstakingly work through bits of information one at a time instead of all at once – an intuitive and holistic perception is a rare gift and may sometimes be too easily conflated with our biases. A list of facts doesn’t suffice for our understanding; we must have something else. We must have story and narrative, metaphor and analogy if we are to learn and grow. “Humanity cannot live from facts alone.”

Presentation is everything; narrative is everything. Human behaviour may be more motivated by narrative than fact. We may not be “free” from the need for narrative (and I’m not sure I would want to be), but we are free to choose from the multitude that exist, and even to create our own. We are artists as well as scientists, and though it can be tricky and even dangerous, we add creativity and colour to our reality that might otherwise be uninspiring.

Alongside this creativity we should strive to develop an “intuitive and holistic perception,” as well as stand firmly by the facts we have garnered, so as not to get lost in our own creations.

Economics of the Brain

Conscious reflection is slower and takes more time and energy than unconscious reaction, the former being a recent development in human evolution and the latter having been around for a lot longer. We don’t go through the day examining each and every one of our actions consciously – it would take too much time and energy, so a lot of the time we go through life relying on habits and reactions.

But habits and reactions can be trained: once I have learnt to ride a bike, I don’t have to think about how I ride the bike, and that frees my thinking to do other things whilst riding, like planning my route, avoiding obstacles, philosophising or thinking about life issues.

We can at times choose circumstances that are conducive to thinking and reflection, but this isn’t always an option. Sometimes there are times when we must react immediately. We can react in an unskilled and chaotic manner, or a skilled manner, which is where training comes in. The appearance of the conscious mind does not dispense with instincts, but with disciplined and conscious training our instincts can become more refined, and reflection becomes easier and quicker (still very much working on this, bit by bit).

Anger

All feelings of anger are legitimate (all feelings, in fact), but anger may be misplaced, focussing in the wrong direction. When we are angry, the organism is reacting against something, and with good reason, but how we explain that to ourselves may be completely off the mark, and how we may express that anger may be more damaging than liberating.

Anger is an urge for freedom and/or justice that has been frustrated. It is essentially liberatory, but this purpose may be warped and twisted, and instead of liberating us, it may in fact turn into a source of suffering and oppression. It’s easy to reject anger as a “negative” and “unreasonable” emotion, but this is unhelpful in the long run and unreasonable in itself. Anger is one of the “keys” on our scale of emotions; it in only inharmonious when it is played wrong or repeated too much.

Culture plays a big role in how we perceive and express our emotions, and I suspect that being English makes my relationship with anger, or any show of passion, complicated. “Stiff upper lip” may be a cliché, but I think there is some truth to it. Anger isn’t “well seen”; it is a loss of control and the power of reason. Exposure to other cultures and how they deal with their emotions can be eye-opening and instructive, even broadening emotional horizons.

There’s a lot of creative energy that comes with anger, which needs some skilful channelling. “Controlling anger” shouldn’t be understood as repressing it, but being able to use it harmoniously and with good timing. In this sense I am still an “apprentice”, though I have grown more comfortable with anger over the years. I think I may acquaint myself with some “fierce deities”, see what I can learn from them.

The Individual and History

It seems that, for most of its existence, humanity has been a passive plaything for the whims of history. Freedom then becomes a process where the subjective self extricates itself from the “tyranny” of history and carves its own path. We can’t be completely isolated from our material and social circumstances. We are forever influenced by them, whether they happened in the past or are happening now. And yet, we might say that the meaning of life is to distinguish ourselves from the circumstances around us, becoming creative subjects instead of passive objects.

And yet the relative freedom of the individual can lie in the power of collaboration and mass movements. Groups of people put aside their individual differences to work on their shared values or qualities. This is necessary because the forces opposing or oppressing them cannot be faced in isolation. In this way rights and emancipation and participation in society have been won over.

Mass movements can only address the socio-economic conditions/categories of my personality. They generalise my existence according to the socio-economic “groups” or “roles” I belong to, thus changing or reinforcing the context of my existence, but they don’t get to the bottom of who I am. They can only alleviate certain conditions, giving me the possibility of self-investigation and self-development.

On one hand, if you join a mass movement, your individual path may become blurred with those of others if you’re not careful, and you may find yourself conforming to a role. At the same time, if you don’t collaborate and show solidarity with others like you, forces and circumstances beyond your individual control may overwhelm you and make “carving your own path” difficult, even impossible.

I have the feeling that a lot of politics has nothing to do with me, that it is something imposed on me from “out there” and if I react against it, I am just distracting myself from what should be my most private and personal life, which should be the right of all people. But if I don’t react, I may find these unwanted politics hampering my ability to live a life that is truly mine.

As with many things, a balance has to be struck. I suppose this is part of what they call “individuation”, a continuous process where impersonal history and personal life inform and modify each other.

Born without Karma

A child isn’t born with karma; they don’t “deserve” it; it is dumped on them from outside by the family and society they were born into. It becomes part of them and conditions their lives unconsciously.

Our underlying (unconscious) mentality weaves karma into our lives; it informs our behaviour, habits and choices, our relationships, careers and interests. The more we become conscious of the karmic patterns embedded within us, the more we can free ourselves from its limits and explore other opportunities.

We are not here to accomplish or fulfil some karmic destiny, but to free ourselves from its influence so we can explore our potential and live more fulfilling lives, free from the limits of cultural karma, as is our birth right.

Psychological and Social Development

Is psychological development rooted in social development, or is social development rooted in psychological development?

To some extent this is a “chicken and egg” issue. The truth is social development begets psychological development, and psychological development begets social development. They are interconnected. If we concentrate only on social development through economic or political policy, the effects will be superficial. But if we are radical, going to the roots of human development, the psychological roots, then the development of society and humanity – social, economic, political and ecological – will be realised in a more permanent and lasting way. However, reflecting on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it may be impossible to realise psychological development in adverse social conditions where we are faced with constant stress and conflict. Realising psychological development may find its optimal expression in conditions of freedom, safety and material abundance – keeping in mind that moments of stress and conflict often produce the opportunity to reflect on and realise our psychological development, as long as we have the appropriate support available.

In the end, psychological development and social development go hand in hand, complementing and reinforcing each other. They cannot be treated in isolation.

Personality and Personhood

It’s important to differentiate between personhood and personality. Western society tends to venerate the personality, but gives little heed to the essence of the person. Personality is a “vehicle” of identity that helps us navigate society, but personhood is a spiritual essence that exists at the centre of our personality, the subjective sense of “I” without names or adjectives.

The evolution of personality has had a long and complex evolution in biological organisms – we can see variations of behaviour within each species of animal – but we know little of the evolution of personhood, except as it manifests subjectively.

Personhood is a divine spark that exists latently within matter, but rather than being “trapped” in a material prison, as the Gnostics would have it, it is a seed that rests within matter, ready to grow. Without matter, this divine spark could not become manifest.

If we so choose, we can take up the challenge of self-discovery, striving towards a more holistic personality, balancing instinct, intellect and intuition, to make of it a more fitting vessel (or a more fertile ground) for the divine spark of personhood as it incarnates itself in human form. But personhood is a hardy seed and takes root in most soils, giving us a marvelous diversity of forms as each seed adapts to its conditions.

Self-discovery isn’t just subjective but social: the more we are aware of our own subjectivity, the more we can recognise and respect subjectivity as it manifests in others. It is from this that empathy is developed and on which an ethical world is built.

Universal and Local Unconsciousnesses

What is the Collective Unconscious? Put simply, it is the psychological structures of which people are, collectively, unaware. But I think there should be a distinction made between a ‘universal’ unconscious that all human share – one which Jung spoke of – and a more local or cultural one that belongs to a specific group of people.

I’ll define each by three points that describe what it is, what it does and how it is established.

Universal (genetic/archetypal) Unconscious

1. It is the repository of the human species’ experience
2. It is innate (genetic)
3. It adapts itself to the specific historical, cultural and symbolic structure of a specific human group (which takes me onto the next “collective unconscious”)

Local (cultural/social/stereotypical) Unconscious

1. It is the collection of unquestioned assumptions (values, habits, etc.) of a human group.
2. It establishes itself early in life through our social experiences and reinforces itself through our social environment.
3. It ensures the conformity of beliefs, behavior and identity of a human group.

This is something I touched on long ago on my other blog The Grove of Quotes: Archetypes, Stereotypes and the Collective Unconscious. It’s certainly a theme that’s always interested me, and I my return to this again in the future, possibly with how they relate to ‘Individuation’.