Richard Rohr en “Liminal Space”

Richard Rohr kry dit soms reg om die ekstreme rebel binne die kerk te wees, en dit is met opset want hy glo die kerk is besig om te faal, om sy taak te versaak en dit moet omgekeer word, maar verandering moet van binne gebeur.

In sy boek “Falling Upward” bekryf hy die die geloofslewe van mense in die eerste fase van hulle lewe en hy beskryf dit as ‘n naïewe, kinderlike soort van geloof, maar hy is ook realisties genoeg om te weet dat meeste mense nie in staat is daartoe om selfs eers maar te verstaan wat die tweede helfte van lewe se godsdiens behels nie, en hy wil nie daardie mense vervreem of agterlaat nie. Jy moet immers eers by graad een begin en dan jou pad op werk na Universiteit en verder aan as meer van jou vakgebied wil te wete kom.

In hierdie lesing probeer hy jou aanmoedig om verder te gaan, verder te dink, om te gaan na waar ware transformasie kan en sal gebeur.

Father Richard describes how both life and religion can invite us into liminal, sacred space as well as provide us opportunities to escape or ignore it:  

We keep praying that our illusions will fall away. God erodes them from many sides, hoping they will fall. But we often remain trapped in what we call normalcy—“the way things are.” Life then revolves around problem-solving, fixing, explaining, and taking sides with winners and losers. It can be a pretty circular and even nonsensical existence.

Ons ken almal daardie plek, daardie soort lewe, die “normale” lewe van geld en sport en grootste huis, grootste kar, geweld en oorlog en afguns en nyd en plesier en seks … en een dag per week kerk toe gaan.

To get out of this repetitive cycle, we have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. There alone is our old world left behind, though we’re not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. We must get there often and stay as long as we can by whatever means possible. It’s the realm where God can best get at us because our false certitudes are finally out of the way. This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed. If we don’t encounter liminal space in our lives, we start idealizing normalcy. The threshold is God’s waiting room. Here we are taught openness and patience as we come to expect an appointment with the Divine Doctor.

Maar dit, die plek waar die ou wêreld en ons sekerhede wegval, is ‘n skrikwekkende plek. Dit voel (en die kerk vertel ons selfs) dat God nie daar is nie.

I believe that religion’s unique and necessary function is to lead us into liminal space. Instead, religion has largely become a confirmation of the status quo and business as usual. Religion should lead us into sacred space where deconstruction of the old “normal” can occur. Much of my criticism of religion comes about when I see it not only affirming the system of normalcy but teaching folks how to live there comfortably. [1]

Want buite my kerk en my heilige geskrifte en my kultuur is die duiwel!

Culturally, we don’t want to embrace liminal space or recognize our natural egocentricity. In fact, we avoid trying to experience it at all. We shut away people who are ill and dying in hospitals and nursing homes, rather than allowing them to spend their final days at home, surrounded by loved ones who will learn and grow by dwelling together in the liminal space between life and death. We avoid other times of liminality in our lives through denial, escaping with the help of alcohol, sugar, and drugs to avoid truly experiencing the opportunities of liminal space. Yet the irony is that liminal space doesn’t have to be difficult. While it can be challenging, it can also be extremely rewarding. I discover there is another Center, and it’s not me!

Liminal space relativizes our perspective. When we embrace liminality, we choose hope over sleepwalking, denial, or despair. The world around us becomes again an enchanted universe, something we intuitively understood when we were young and somehow lost touch with as we grew older. [2]

Ander gelowe soos die Judaïsme (Kabbalisme), Islam (Sufisme) en Buddhisme (Trantrisme) moedig mense, (in meeste gevalle geselekteerde lede) van die kerk/gemeenskap aan, en lei hulle op om hierdie liminale wêreld te betree en te ondersoek. Dit, vertel al die ou wysheidstradisies deur al die eeue ons nog altyd, is inderdaad die enigste pad na die Lig toe. Die Buddha en die Christus was immers ons wegwysers na hierdie “sacred space, into liminality”

Vader Richard Rohr is ‘n wyse ou Fransiskaan, en net soos Francis van Assisi, nie altyd gewild in sy eie Katolieke kerk nie.

Hierdie artikel kom uit sy “Daily Meditations”, gaan soek hom op by Center for Action and Contemplation meditations@cac.org (hy is op FB ook). Baie mense lees die meditasies elke dag en vind inspirasie vir die dag wat voor lê.

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Richard Rohr

Ek plaas hierdie artikel van Richard Rohr volledig hier oor ek dink hy het, soos gewoonlik, iets baie insiggewend en belangrik vir ons gewone mense se daaglikse stryd om te bestaan te sê.

Dit kom uit sy “Daily Meditations” waarop julle self kan inteken as julle wil. Dit is altyd baie inspirerend.

The Gift of Self-Acceptance  

Friday, June 23, 2023

Father Richard stresses both the challenge and great gifts that come from working with our shadow self:  

“I am afraid that the closer we get to the Light, the more of our shadow we see. Thus, truly holy people are always humble people. Invariably when something upsets us, and we have a strong emotional reaction out of proportion to the moment, our shadow self has just been exposed. So, watch for any overreactions or over denials. The reason that a mature or saintly person can be so peaceful, so accepting of self and others, is that there is not much left of the hidden shadow self.” [1] 

Dit sluit natuurlik aan by wat Jung ook sê oor die skadukant van die mens en die belangrikheid daarvan om daarvan (the shadow) kennis te neem en daaraan te werk. Net om self daarvan bewus te word is al reeds genoeg om ons nederig te hou, maar nie skaam nie want dit wat ons agter die masker sien is wie ons is. Volwassenheid is om jouself te aanvaar, jouself te vergewe en agter die masker uit te kom met niks om weg te steek nie, oop en vol vrede.

Buddhist teacher Tara Brach shares a well-known and instructive myth about the Buddha and his compassionate interactions with the shadow god Mara:  

“You may be familiar with images of the Buddha [Siddhartha] meditating all night long under the Bodhi tree until he experienced full liberation. The shadow god Mara (who represents the universal energies of greed, hatred, and delusion) tried everything he knew to make him fail—sending violent storms, beautiful temptresses, raging demons, and massive armies to distract him. Siddhartha met them all with an awake and compassionate presence, and as the morning star appeared in the sky, he became a Buddha, a fully realized being.”

Hierdie klink natuurlik vir ons wat as Christenmens grootgeword het baie bekend – die Christus se tyd van versoeking in die woestyn. Het Hy daar die Lig gesien soos Siddhartha onder sy Bodhi boom?

Ons moet onthou dat Siddhartha nie in een nag verlig geword het nie. Hy het vir sewe jaar van meester tot meerster geswerf en by elkeen iets geleer wat hom gehelp het om uiteindelik, na ‘n lang tyd van meditasie en swaarkry, die Lig te laat sien, en toe het hy uit gegaan, sy dissipels bymekaar geroep en begin preek.

Net so het die Christus nie een oggend opgestaan, besluit hy is die Christus en begin preek nie. Dit is jammer dat ons nie weet presies waar hy was en wat hy gedoen het, en wie hom dalk op sy pad gehelp het voor hy met sy bediening begin het nie.

“But this was not the end of his relationship with Mara!” sê Tara.  

“In the five decades following his enlightenment, the Buddha traveled throughout northern India teaching all who were interested the path of presence, compassion, and freedom.…  

“And as the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh tells the story, Mara sometimes appeared as well…. [The Buddha would] stroll over to Mara and with a firm yet gentle voice say, “I see you, Mara…. Come, let’s have tea.” And the Buddha himself would serve Mara as an honored guest.  

“This is what’s possible for us. Just imagine that Mara appears in your life as a surge of fear about failure, or hurt about another’s neglect or disrespect. Now, what if your response were to pause and say, “I see you, Mara”—Recognizing. And “Let’s have tea”—Allowing. Instead of avoiding your feelings, instead of lashing out in anger or turning on yourself with self-judgment, you are responding to life with more clarity and graciousness, kindness and ease.” [2] 

Richard continues:  

“The gift of shadowboxing is in the seeing of the shadow and its games in ourselves, which takes away much of the shadow’s hidden power. No wonder Teresa of Ávila said that the mansion of true self-knowledge was the necessary first mansion on the spiritual journey. [3] Once we have faced our own hidden or denied self, there is not much to be anxious about anymore, because there is no fear of exposure. We are no longer afraid to be seen—by ourselves or others. The game is over—and we are free. We finally are who we are, and can be who we are, without disguise or fear.” [4] 

Maar ons speel speletjies – met ons self en met almal waarmee ons kontak maak. Ons kan en wil nie erken wie en wat ons is nie, nie aan ons self nie, en ook nie aan ander nie. Ons lewe in vrees dat ons eendag uitgevang sal word en dra die masker verbete tot die dood toe, of tot ons die moed het om die masker af te haal, die skadu te konfronteer en te inkorpureer en so heel te word, te word wie ons regtig is en wil en kan wees.

Ek is mal oor Richard Rohr en sy daaglikse meditasies. Gaan soek hom op op die internet en op Facebook.

References: 

[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2011), 132–133. 

[2] Tara Brach, Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN(New York: Viking Life, 2019), 18–19. 

[3] Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, First Mansion, chapter 2, part 8. 

[4] Rohr, Falling Upward, 134. 

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Life and our sweet delusions

Maria Popova

Let Your Heart Be Broken

“We spend our lives trying to anchor our transience in some illusion of permanence and stability. We lay plans, we make vows, we backbone the flow of uncertainty with habits and routines that lull us with the comforting dream of predictability and control, only to find ourselves again and again bent at the knees with surrender to forces and events vastly larger than us. In those moments, kneeling in a pool of the unknown, the heart breaks open and allows life — life itself, not the simulacrum of life that comes from control — to rush in.”

Father Richard Rohr describes the practice of “letting go” as dying.

He says:

“In the larger-than-life people I have met, I always find one common denominator: in some sense, they have all died before they died—and thus they are larger than death, too! At some point, they were led to the edge of their private resources, and that breakdown, which surely felt like dying, led them into a larger life. They went through a death of their various false selves and came out on the other side knowing that death could no longer hurt them. They fell into the Big Love and the Big Freedom.” and Life came rushing in.

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Pelgrim

Pilgrimage

Kujawa-Holbrook writes of the interwoven journeys that pilgrimage takes us through: 

The sacred art of pilgrimage involves both an inward and outward journey…. The pilgrim strives to hold both the inward and outward journey together, sometimes in tension, but always focused on the search for meaning, for the Divine…. What most distinguishes the sacred art of pilgrimage from a tourist trip or hiking expedition, as beneficial as these are, is the characteristic inward journey, a turning of one’s heart to the Divine, with the expectation of transformation on every level of being along the way. Benedict of Nursia [c. 480–547], the founder of Western monasticism and author of the Benedictine Rule, used to advise his monks and nuns to “listen with the ear of their heart.” [3] In other words, the pilgrim’s first yearning is in the heart, deeply and inwardly, sometimes for years before the outward journey begins.

Richard Rohr:

“There is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see.”

Gekry van Richard Rohr se ‘Daily Meditations’

Foto deur Hannelie. (Goden Gate)

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Richard Rohr on Simplicity

In opvolging van my vorig inskrywing hier, plaas ek hierdie gedagtes van Richard Rohr as ‘n soort van ondersteuning van wat ek te sê gehad het. Richard is een van die wyse manne van vandag vir wie ek groot respek het. Dit is tragies dat hy nou ook een van die groter wordende aantal mense is wat besig is om die stryd teen die groot K te verloor.

Richard Rohr

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Simplicity

Embracing Enoughness

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. —Lao Tzu

Most of us have grown up with a capitalist worldview which makes a virtue and goal out of accumulation, consumption, and collecting. It has taught us to assume, quite falsely, that more is better. But it’s hard for us to recognize this unsustainable and unhappy trap because it’s the only game in town. When parents perform multiple duties all day and into the night, it is the story line that their children surely absorb. “I produce therefore I am” and “I consume therefore I am” might be today’s answers to Descartes’ “I think therefore I am.” These identities are all terribly mistaken, but we can’t discover the truth until we remove the clutter.

The course we are on assures us of a predictable future of strained individualism, environmental destruction, severe competition as resources dwindle for a growing population, and perpetual war. Our culture ingrains in us the belief that there isn’t enough to go around, which determines most of our politics and spending. In the United States there is never enough money for adequate health care, education, the arts, or even basic infrastructure. At the same time, the largest budget is always for war, bombs, and military gadgets. I hope we can all recognize how the tragic consequences of these decisions are being played out right now.

1. F. Schumacher (1911–1977) said years ago, “Small is beautiful,” and many other wise people have come to know that less stuff invariably leaves room for more soul. In fact, possessions and soul seem to operate in inverse proportion to one another. Only through simplicity can we find deep contentment instead of perpetually striving and living unsatisfied. Simple living is the foundational social justice teaching of Jesus, Francis and Clare of Assisi, Dorothy Day, Pope Francis, and all hermits, mystics, prophets, and seers since time immemorial.

Franciscan spirituality asks us to let go, to recognize that there is enough to go around and meet everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed. A worldview of enoughness will predictably emerge in us as we realize our naked being instead of thinking that more of anything or more frenetic doing can fill up our infinite longing and restlessness. Francis did not just tolerate or endure simplicity; he loved it and called it poverty. Francis dove into simplicity and found his freedom there. This is hard for most of us to even comprehend. Thankfully, new monastics like Tessa Bielecki, Shane Claiborne, and Adam Bucko illustrate how this is still possible even in our modern world.

Francis knew that climbing ladders to nowhere would never make us happy nor create peace and justice on this earth. Too many have to stay at the bottom of the ladder so we can be at the top. Living simply helps level the playing field and offers abundance and enoughness to all, regardless of our status or state of belonging to religion or group.

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Who are we, and why?

Dark night of the soul

Father Richard Rohr:

Richard Rohr

‘I must be honest with you here about my own life. For the last ten years I have had little spiritual “feeling,” neither consolation nor desolation. Most days, I’ve had to simply choose to believe, to love, and to trust. In this, I know I stand in good company with Teilhard (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin), John of the Cross, Mother Teresa, and countless other mystics and saints, and maybe some of you.’

I think that most of us can sympathize with Rohr regarding this state of mind. Our world has been turned upside down. If climate change, the aftermath of Trump’s post truth world, the destruction caused by the pandemic and Putin’s viscous attack on the Ukraine does not shake the foundations of your world, then you are either totally out of contact with reality, or unconscious. 

 We are living in what Maria Popova (Marginalia blogger) calls ‘those seasons of being when life boughs you down low with world-weariness, when the sun of your soul is collapsing into a black hole’. And like Rohr we can only choose to believe, to love, and to trust … or go down cursing and whining.

“The measure of life’s beauty and magic is not,” says Maria Popova “the absence of terror and tumult but the presence, persistence, and grace with which we face reality on its own terms.”

We have no time for complacencies or for false promises at this time. With Annie Dillard we can say “That is touching, that Allah, God, and their ilk care when one ant dismembers another, or to note when a sparrow falls, but I strain to see the use of it”. When, what John of the Cross calls “the dark night of the soul” envelops you, it has far-reaching implications for how you show up in your life and interact with others with whom you live, work and pray. This is perhaps the time to remember that anybody who really knows, also knows that they don’t know at all, even about ants and sparrows.

Annie Dillard

“Suddenly there is a point where religion becomes laughable,” said Thomas Merton. “Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious.” But in a new way, because the old way failed us miserably and/or we have outgrown it.

We do not know why it was that, on the 30^th day of April in 1991, 138,000 people drowned in a tidal wave in Bangladesh, or why the Chinese Emperor Qin killed four hundred thousand (yes, 400,000!)  prisoners after one of his battles in his desire to subdue all of China under his rule. These are questions we do not have answers for, and probably never will, but that is no reason to stop asking questions and demanding answers.

“If I should lose all faith in God, I think that I should continue to believe invincibly in the world” said Teilhard de Chardin. Maybe that is a way out. In this way there is no all-knowing, omnipresent, almighty God to blame for the horrific deaths of millions of people (for causing it or failing to prevent it), “the world” is what it is and is oblivious of your desperate fight for survival. Death is simply part of life and that is that.

Since the beginning of time man has been asking “why?” Why drown 138,000 innocent people in Bangladesh? Why the apple in Eden? Why cancer and war and a bubonic plague that killed 25 million people in Europe? (“one death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic” said Joseph Stalin)

“Many times, in Christian churches” said Annie Dillard, “I have heard the pastor say to God, ‘All your actions show your wisdom and love.’ “Each time,” she said, “I reach in vain for the courage to rise and shout, ‘That’s a lie!’ – just to put things on a solid footing”

We look for answers in religion and holy scriptures and every religion claims to have the answer to all the questions and then go happily about killing people for not believing in the answers given by their brand of spirituality. The sickening statistics: During the 30-year war between Protestants and Lutherans against Catholics in Germany about 12 million people (30% of the German population) were murdered in the name of God. In France; about 4 million were brutally murdered in 36 years of religious wars from 1562 to 1598.

Wisdom and love? In 415 AD lady Hypatia, a well-bred philosopher, astronomer and mathematician were killed by Christians. According to legend she was captured and dragged through the streets of Alexandrea to a church where they killed her by cutting her body up with oyster shells and striped the flesh off her bones while still alive. She was accused of being a pagan!

We look for answers in political systems like capitalism and communism, or democracy and fascism, and the famous Nazi National Socialism of Adolf Hitler, and all we get is more war, more death and destruction. The brutal statistics: World War I – 40 million dead and/or wounded (20 million dead in action). In July 1916, in the muddy hills of Souville in France, two hundred thousand British and Commonwealth men died fighting in the mud. During WW2 – 50 to 56 million people died in the war to end all wars.

“How heart-rendering it is to find oneself so seldom with a task to be accomplished, one to which the soul feels that it can commit itself unreservedly!” wrote Teilhard de Chardin from the front where his work was to retrieve wounded soldiers from the battlefront while being shot at by snipers and enemy soldiers. War, glorious war, it is a sport to kill for!

Verdun

Isaiah 45 : 7: “I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.” And that is no lie.

The next world war will probably see double the 50 million in dead people, but what the hell, there are about nine billion of us on earth, one hundred million dead would scarcely cause a ripple in the see that is humanity. (In 1957 Mao said in Moscow that he was willing to lose 300 million people – 50% of the population of China at that time – to win the war, should China get involved in a nuclear war).

But it need not happen. The total annihilation of the human race is but one option, there are alternative, more sane, more humane options available. It is but a question of, what Ken Wilber calls, waking up, growing up and showing up in your life, and it is up to you to do that – it starts with you. Nobody can do it for you.  To do this you have to “enter into the unknown, into the void of being, where subjectively, inwardly, everything is left behind, and all knowledge is relinquished. It is to enter into your own nothingness, without even the thought or mere image of nothingness to keep you company. It is complete surrender, and the highest act of love. It is to leap beyond life and death without moving an inch.” (Adyashanti). Or you could simply go to war and kill or be killed, it is fun … during the battle of Some in the first world war, 200,000 French, 500,000 thousand German and 420,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded (20,000 British men killed in the first day of fighting).

Battle of Some

Ultimately the Joseph Stalins, Adolf Hitlers and Putins of the world cannot win because: “It’s possible to come into such profound alignment with the moral and spiritual axis of the universe that every moment of your life is a walk in grace, and a living demonstration of the mysterious, inherent goodness of the life process itself.” (David Whyte, Consolations).

There will always be those enlightened souls like the Buddha, the Christ, Baal Shem Tov, Francis of Assisi, Augustine and many modern-day spiritual leaders to show us the way. Good people can and will stand together in fellowship to turn the tide, “fellowship is for scarred people, and for scared people, and for people who want to believe but aren’t sure what or how to believe. When we come together just as we are, we begin to rise again, to believe again, to hope again, to live again,” said James Finley.

But we forget. Despite two devastating world wars where millions of people died a horrible death, along came Putin … and Ukraine happens. We forget, and after all the blood and death and destruction we remember: “Only from the place of sacred wholeness and reverence can we begin the work of healing, of bringing the world back into balance.” (Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee)

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Order, Disorder, Reorder.

Ek pos hierdie artikel deur Richard Rohr volledig hier aangesien ek dink dit het berekking op, en bring n ander perspektief op die huidige wanorde in die VSA asook in die res van die wêreld. Ons lewe in n tyd van ongekende politieke, fiesiese, emosionele en natuurlike aanslae en dit is maklik moed te verloor. Maar Rohr sê dat selfs wanorde nodig is om die volgende fase van ons evolusie in te gaan.

Order, Disorder, Reorder: Part Three

Reorder: The Promised Land
Sunday, August 23, 2020

Our recent Daily Meditations have been focusing on what seems to me a universal pattern of spiritual transformation that takes us from Order, through Disorder, to Reorder. Order, by itself, normally wants to eliminate any disorder or diversity, creating a narrow and cognitive rigidity in both people and systems. Disorder, by itself, closes us off from any primal union, meaning, and eventually even sanity in both people and systems. Our focus of this week is Reorder, or transformation of people and systems, which happens when both are seen to work together.

Like most other kinds of growth, this spiral probably happens over and over throughout our lives, and reveals itself in the Bible:

Garden of Eden —> Fall —> Paradise.

Walter Brueggemann teaches three kinds of Psalms: Psalms of Orientation —> Psalms of Disorientation —> Psalms of New Orientation. [1]

Christians call the pattern Life —> Crucifixion —> Resurrection.

Many now speak generally of Construction —> Deconstruction —> Reconstruction.

We are indeed “saved” by knowing and surrendering to this universal pattern of reality. Knowing the full pattern allows us to let go of the first order, accept the disorder, and, sometimes hardest of all—to trust the new reorder.

Every religion in its own way is talking about getting us to the reorder stage. Various systems would call it “enlightenment,” “paradise,” “nirvana,” “heaven,” “nirvana,” “springtime,” or even “resurrection.” It is the life on the other side of death, the victory on the other side of failure, the joy on the other side of birthing pains. It is an insistence on going through—not under, over, or around. There is no nonstop flight to reorder. To arrive there, we must endure, learn from, and include the Disorder stage, transcending the first naïve Order—but also still including it! It amounts to the best of the conservative and the best of the liberal positions. People who have reached this stage, like the Jewish prophets, might be called “radical traditionalists.” They love their truth and their group enough to critique it; and they critique it enough to maintain their own integrity and intelligence. These wise ones have stopped overreacting but also over defending. They are usually a minority of humans.

Based on years of spiritual direction, I have observed that conservatives must let go of their illusion that they can order and control the world through religion, money, war, or politics. True release of control to God will show itself as compassion and generosity, and less boundary keeping. Liberals, however, must surrender their skepticism of leadership, eldering, or authority, and find what is good, healthy, and deeply true about a foundational order. This will normally be experienced as a move toward humility and real community.

Voel vry om opmerkings te maak of kretiek te lewer, ons is mos deel van “the wise ones”, ons kan en moet soos grootmense oor hierdie belangrike sake praat.

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Dit brand daar buite.

Black Lives/All Life Matters?

Daar is die afgelope tyd al so baie gesê oor die rasse geweld in Amerika en die res van die wêreld dat ek huiwerig was om by al die heen en weer fingerwysery betrokke te raak.

Tog dink ek hierdie artikel van Richard Rohr (soos hier gedeeltelik aangehaal) is van toepassing op wat daar buite besig is om te gebeur. Dit bring ’n ander perspektief op ‘n emosionele saak en noop ‘n mens tot ‘n bietjie selfondersoek.

Inner and Outer Freedom

Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go

“Authentic spirituality is always on some level or in some way about letting go.”

Een van die eerste goed wat moet laat gaan word, maar ook die moeilikste ding om te laat gaan, is die ego. Die eie ek wat so belangrik is, wat vra en smeek en eis om erken te word.

“The freedom Jesus promises involves letting go of our small self, our cultural biases, and even our fear of loss and death. Freedom is letting go of wanting more and better things; it is letting go of our need to control and manipulate God and others. It is even letting go of our need to know and our need to be right—which we only discover with maturity. We become ever more free as we let go of our three primary motivations: our need for power and control, our need for safety and security, and our need for affection and esteem.” (my kursief)

Met ander woorde, ons moet verby Maslow se basiese behoeftes groei en tot wasdom kom en dan sal ons werklik vry word. Selfaktualisering maak jou vry, ook vry van die begeerte om “vry” te wees want dan besef jy dat jy nog altyd vry was.

“When we’re young, we think rebellion is the only path to freedom! Some amount of structure is important, but it is first-level growth. Far too much religion stays right there.” (my kursief)

Hier moet in gedagte gehou word dat, soos Ken Wilber sê, nie net individue (kan/moet) groei tot wasdom nie, volke, nasies en kulture volg dieselfde groei kurwe.

“Authentic spirituality, as opposed to mere rebellion, is about finding true freedom. It offers us freedom from our smaller selves as a reference point for everything or anything. This is the necessary Copernican Revolution wherein we change reference points. We discover that we are not the centre of the universe any more than the Earth is. We no longer feel the need to place our own thoughts and feelings in the centre of every conversation or difficulty. (my kursief)

Ons moet dus verby die sogenaamde “ek-teks” van egoïsme groei en besef dat ander mense ook regte, geldige standpunte en gevoelens het wat in ag geneem moet word.

“Although we have to start with self at the centre to build a necessary “ego structure,” we must then move beyond it. The big and full world does not circle around any one of us. Yet so many refuse to undergo this foundational enlightenment, which leaves them much less free than they want to be.”

En dit is onderliggend aan alle vorme van diskriminasie, die eie ek wat so belangrik is dat ek op ander kan neersien as minderwaardig (meesal uit ‘n posisie van bevoorregting wat niks of baie min te doen het met eie verdienste), of dat ek myself die reg toeëien om ander se eiendom te vernietig net omdat ek nie het wat hy het nie ongeag daarvan of ek bevoegd is om die werk te kan doen wat gedoen moet word om ‘n moderne samelewing te laat werk.

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Donald Trump and the Post-Truth World

Trump and a post-truth world

(Just another Glass Bead Game?)

Just a short introduction to and, discussion of Ken Wilber’s book on the phenomenon of the election of Donald Trump as the forty-fifth president of the US of A that came for some as a complete surprise and even as a staggering shock, while others could hardly contain their jubilation.

I urge you to go and read the book yourself to get a completely different perspective on the issue from the normal I hate him/I love him emotional outpourings in newspapers and on the digital social media forums.

The million-dollar question is; Is Trump the demon that is going to destroy America (like the foaming at mouth Democrats make him out to be), or is he the saviour that will make America great again as the Republicans, and Trump himself, so loudly proclaim?

Wilber, with his Integral Theory (or Metatheory), does not focus on the new occupant of the White house as prime factor (or culprit) in the shocking result of the election that put an “orange” (more about this later), leader in the driving seat of the country that was once regarded as the indisputable economic, technological and social leader of the world.

Wilber rather focusses on the evolutionary process that integrates premodern, modern and postmodern structures, stages and lines of development and everything that went right to bring America (and most of the free, democratic world) from level 1 (Infrared/Archaic) development to a level 7 development and leadership country (Green/Postmodern/World-centric) and then to the brink of level 7 (Turquoise/Integral), and what went horribly wrong to get the US back to a level 4 (Amber/Ethnocentric) government, fanning the flames of new internal culture wars where 50% of Americans positively hates the other 50% of Americans who hates them loudly and vehemently right back.

At a time when leading (Green) intellectuals became toxic and started deconstructing and virtually destroying the very systems that were holding the Postmodern society together, and moving it forward, the Republicans (with a little help from the Kremlin?), capitalised on the ensuing bewilderment of the people and grabbed control of the government.

Wilber’s Integral Theory, combining different developmental theories (from Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, to the theories of Graves, Kohlberg, Maslow, Kegan, Loevinger, Gerber, Fowler, Gilligan – stages of female development – and many more, into one Integral Operating System (IOS), using the AQAL matrix to map individual or group evolution on Cognitive, Emotional, Interpersonal, Psychosexual, Moral, Spiritual and other developmental factors that influences and determines  human behaviour, tries to make sense of, and postulates a way to salvage a world gone slightly mad.

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Kersfees/Christmas 2017

Jingle the bells

‘So, it was that time of the year again,’ said my old friend, the world famous Red Cap, from the top of the Christmas tree. I thought it would be a good idea to have a philosophising Cap on top of the tree instead of the traditional star or angel. From up there he will have a better view of the festivities and traditions of us the, according to him, “inferior mere mortals”.
‘Yes,’ I confirm merrily. ‘Jingle Bells were ringing joyously down the isles of shops in tune with the jingling of cash registers all over the world, and Boney M’s Little Drummer Boy competed with the sound of children throwing temper tantrums in front of shelves stacked to the roof with toys of all description while desperate mothers, in the spirit of Christmas, tried not to murder them in public. It was marvellous, absolutely wonderful, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, I know you are mad about it, you just love the spirit of it. You find it thrilling and exciting and joyful. Me, I fail to see the sense in any of this, but then again, you are a mere mortal, a stupid creature driven by senseless passion and uncontrollable emotions.’
‘But look at all the beautiful Christmas trees with the little lights in them. The streets were aglow with colourful lights and marvellous decorations,’ I tell him. ‘The people were happy and friendly and more forgiving. Laughter and love was in the air. It always stirs something deep in you, it fills you with wonder, with awe as if some miracle is about to happen.

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