After we've resolved to quit smoking, eat fewer carbs, be nicer to our mother-in-laws, and lose that "extra" ten pounds that's been making us feel blue all year, we may want to consider working on consciousness -- not as some kind of flimsy resolution aiming for superficial self-improvement, but as an active choice for God and Creation.
Teenagers can physically become adults but still remain teenagers in their hearts and minds when it comes to how they think about, understand, and relate to themselves, other beings, the world, and God. Thus, becoming an adult is not merely about maturing physically. An active choice for adulthood must also be made. It must come from within rather than from outwith.
The same applies to consciousness and spirituality. How we think about, understand, and relate to ourselves, other beings, the world, and God should emanate from within rather than from outwith. Testing our current state of consciousness is as easy (actually, quite difficult) as stripping away everything external from how we think about, understand, and relate to God.
Try it.
What are you left with once you remove tradition, churches, doctrines, customs, and all the rest of it? Start from wherever you end up, and then continue working inward rather than outward after that. Begin working externally once you know you have reached a solid point from which to proceed internally.
Why bother?
Because mature religious consciousness doesn't just happen; it must be chosen. The real work begins after the choice, and the work is not easy, but it is the only way to overcome the alienation, objectification, and externalization that plagues the world.
Note: Working on consciousness should not be construed as self-improvement or becoming a better person. It is more a matter of discovering the self and becoming a person.
Some thoughts to start the process from Berdyaev' Slavery and Freedom:
“The theological doctrine that God created man for His own glory and praise is degrading to man, and degrading to God also…. God as personality does not desire a man over whom He can rule, and who ought to praise Him, but man as personality who answers His call and with whom communion of love is possible.”
“Consciousness which exteriorizes and alienates is always slavish consciousness. God the Master, man the slave; the church the master, man the slave; the family the master, man the slave; Nature the master, man the slave; object the master, man-subject the slave. The source of slavery is always objectification, that is to say exteriorization, alienation.”
“Man can be a slave to public opinion, a slave to custom, to morals, to judgments and opinions which are imposed by society. It is difficult to overestimate the violence which is perpetrated by the press in our time. The average man of our day holds the opinions and forms the judgments of the newspaper which he reads every morning: it exercises psychological compulsion upon him. And in view of the falsehood and venality of the press, the effects are very terrible as seen in the enslavement of man and his deprivation of freedom of conscience and judgment.”
Teenagers can physically become adults but still remain teenagers in their hearts and minds when it comes to how they think about, understand, and relate to themselves, other beings, the world, and God. Thus, becoming an adult is not merely about maturing physically. An active choice for adulthood must also be made. It must come from within rather than from outwith.
The same applies to consciousness and spirituality. How we think about, understand, and relate to ourselves, other beings, the world, and God should emanate from within rather than from outwith. Testing our current state of consciousness is as easy (actually, quite difficult) as stripping away everything external from how we think about, understand, and relate to God.
Try it.
What are you left with once you remove tradition, churches, doctrines, customs, and all the rest of it? Start from wherever you end up, and then continue working inward rather than outward after that. Begin working externally once you know you have reached a solid point from which to proceed internally.
Why bother?
Because mature religious consciousness doesn't just happen; it must be chosen. The real work begins after the choice, and the work is not easy, but it is the only way to overcome the alienation, objectification, and externalization that plagues the world.
Note: Working on consciousness should not be construed as self-improvement or becoming a better person. It is more a matter of discovering the self and becoming a person.
Some thoughts to start the process from Berdyaev' Slavery and Freedom:
“The theological doctrine that God created man for His own glory and praise is degrading to man, and degrading to God also…. God as personality does not desire a man over whom He can rule, and who ought to praise Him, but man as personality who answers His call and with whom communion of love is possible.”
“Consciousness which exteriorizes and alienates is always slavish consciousness. God the Master, man the slave; the church the master, man the slave; the family the master, man the slave; Nature the master, man the slave; object the master, man-subject the slave. The source of slavery is always objectification, that is to say exteriorization, alienation.”
“Man can be a slave to public opinion, a slave to custom, to morals, to judgments and opinions which are imposed by society. It is difficult to overestimate the violence which is perpetrated by the press in our time. The average man of our day holds the opinions and forms the judgments of the newspaper which he reads every morning: it exercises psychological compulsion upon him. And in view of the falsehood and venality of the press, the effects are very terrible as seen in the enslavement of man and his deprivation of freedom of conscience and judgment.”
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