It's no secret that the powers-that-should-not-be invest a great deal of time and energy into conditioning people to react to the external world in prescribed and predetermined ways. Lightly scratch away at the surface of our societies and you quickly discover that practically all aspects of human life -- from politics to marketing -- are ruled by this sort of external conditioning.
The end goal of this external conditioning appears to be the eclipsing of the divine self with the external world via consciousness. To put it another way, conditioning people to believe in nothing but the external world focuses consciousness exclusively on that "perceived" reality.
Consciousness disconnects from the divine self and concentrates exclusively with responding to the various stimuli and forces of the external world. Through this process, consciousness internalizes the external world and displaces the divine self, thereby displacing the only force that can "creatively penetrate", resist, and transform the external forces of the world by thinking and acting in ways that transcend reactive conditioning.
Now, there is no denying that humans have inherent natures. There's also no denying the "nurture" influence of culture, traditions, beliefs, etc. Both of these present obvious limits to our powers, but it seems to me that Christianity offers a path by which individuals can move beyond the nature and nurture paradigm -- if nothing else, at least intermittently. This path depends entirely on our connection to what is divine within us and the understanding that the divine within us, not the external world, is the true source of our freedom and agency.
Jesus provides the ultimate example of non-reaction to the external world. He lived in the world and interacted with it within the context of his inherent nature blending with external factors such as culture and history, but He never allowed Himself to be conditioned by any of it. Instead, it was He who conditioned the external world with the inner workings of his divine self.
Jesus never responded to the external world in the way it expected Him to respond. On the contrary, guided by his divine self -- that vast ocean of inner freedom with which his consciousness was fully aligned, and which, in turn, was fully aligned with God -- Jesus acted and thought in ways that not only dumbfounded the external world, but also inspired it to reconsider its own assumptions about "reality". This is evident in both Jesus' teachings and in the details of His thoughts and actions on earth.
Christians need to rediscover this positive source of creation. The simplest and clearest way to begin this sort of creative activity is to practice thinking and acting in ways that go beyond the glaring external conditioning as well as the nature/nurture aspects inherent in our own "natural" human selves, all while keeping in mind that the creative thinking and action must emanate primarily from what is divine within us as individuals rather than from some source external to us.
It is through this that people can begin the process of "introducing something new into Creation" rather than merely reacting to some external aspect of the "given world" of conditioning.
This approach immediately raises concerns. For example, how is this any different from the faux "I gotta be me" attitude of egoistic, hedonistic liberalism? Similarly, how can creative thinking be distinguished from thoughts and activities that are unaligned with God?
The answer lies in consciousness. If consciousness directs the divine self properly, the free, creative response to the external world will find itself in harmony with the God and with Creation, which will work to support and expand the creative act.
The end goal of this external conditioning appears to be the eclipsing of the divine self with the external world via consciousness. To put it another way, conditioning people to believe in nothing but the external world focuses consciousness exclusively on that "perceived" reality.
Consciousness disconnects from the divine self and concentrates exclusively with responding to the various stimuli and forces of the external world. Through this process, consciousness internalizes the external world and displaces the divine self, thereby displacing the only force that can "creatively penetrate", resist, and transform the external forces of the world by thinking and acting in ways that transcend reactive conditioning.
Now, there is no denying that humans have inherent natures. There's also no denying the "nurture" influence of culture, traditions, beliefs, etc. Both of these present obvious limits to our powers, but it seems to me that Christianity offers a path by which individuals can move beyond the nature and nurture paradigm -- if nothing else, at least intermittently. This path depends entirely on our connection to what is divine within us and the understanding that the divine within us, not the external world, is the true source of our freedom and agency.
Jesus provides the ultimate example of non-reaction to the external world. He lived in the world and interacted with it within the context of his inherent nature blending with external factors such as culture and history, but He never allowed Himself to be conditioned by any of it. Instead, it was He who conditioned the external world with the inner workings of his divine self.
Jesus never responded to the external world in the way it expected Him to respond. On the contrary, guided by his divine self -- that vast ocean of inner freedom with which his consciousness was fully aligned, and which, in turn, was fully aligned with God -- Jesus acted and thought in ways that not only dumbfounded the external world, but also inspired it to reconsider its own assumptions about "reality". This is evident in both Jesus' teachings and in the details of His thoughts and actions on earth.
Christians need to rediscover this positive source of creation. The simplest and clearest way to begin this sort of creative activity is to practice thinking and acting in ways that go beyond the glaring external conditioning as well as the nature/nurture aspects inherent in our own "natural" human selves, all while keeping in mind that the creative thinking and action must emanate primarily from what is divine within us as individuals rather than from some source external to us.
It is through this that people can begin the process of "introducing something new into Creation" rather than merely reacting to some external aspect of the "given world" of conditioning.
This approach immediately raises concerns. For example, how is this any different from the faux "I gotta be me" attitude of egoistic, hedonistic liberalism? Similarly, how can creative thinking be distinguished from thoughts and activities that are unaligned with God?
The answer lies in consciousness. If consciousness directs the divine self properly, the free, creative response to the external world will find itself in harmony with the God and with Creation, which will work to support and expand the creative act.
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