Dialogue ~ 7

I closed yesterday’s blog with, “Lord Acton had said (with regard to particular states of mind or being-ness) that ‘they can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities’. Should this be true, then reason or at least what has been interpreted as reason is not sufficient to bring about transformation per se – and if reason is not the ‘contrary quality’ of ignorance or small-mindedness, then what is?”

Perhaps it is helpful to revisit what Lord Acton had said with regards to the relationship between liberty, authority and force and to which I had put into summary as ‘authority must be in service of liberty (which has to do with morals rather than politics), as when it is not, it loses authority and moves into force’.

He also wrote, “Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.”

To the extent that we are capable of being authentic in any situation and of coming from a place of own determination of what is right or wrong is the extent to which we are capable of recognising our authority in the world; the conditions which are necessary for being authentic are the willingness to take responsibility for how we think and thereby the content of our thoughts, to embrace that there is much we don’t know about life and the cosmos; that even what we think we know is open for us to question and with the curiosity to enquire. There is wisdom in the saying of Jesus, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”.

Reason is not the contrary quality to ignorance and small-mindedness but is an attribute of the mind which is put to use in service of cognizance, insight and common sense.

Another saying which many will be familiar with from the Gospel of Mathew is “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”.

At this point it might be useful to explore what is meant by conscience.  A quick definition is that conscience refers to a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual’s moral philosophy or value system. Whilst religious and spiritual views regard conscience as linked to a morality that is inherent in all humans and to a beneficent universe and/or creator, secular or scientific views regard capacity for conscience as genetically determined and which an individual has been imprinted with or learned as part of a culture.

In Buddhism, conscience is associated with compassion for those who must endure craving and suffering until such time as right conduct brings about a natural state of mindfulness and contemplation; this can in turn open into a state of being-ness which is aware of itself as a single whole.

Similarly, Advaita Vedanta, a school of Hindu philosophy and religious practice, teaches that right action helps to purify the heart and provide mental tranquillity, but does not on its own yield direct perception of reality; for such to occur is to discriminate between the eternal and non-eternal (which Buddhism might refer to as impermanence) and through contemplation, a realisation that the sense of self merges in a universe of pure consciousness.

Plato’s allegory of the chariot envisaged elements of the psyche as comprising logic, the spirited and the appetites. Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations, “to move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness … the only rewards of our existence here are an unstained character and unselfish acts”. There are religious doctrines which envisage the human experience as being one of repentance and atonement.

Some individuals allow for God or the moral teachings of their particular religion as being the highest authority and from which to contextualise any moral quandaries which might arise. In a secular world, the highest authority can be interpreted as referring to ‘the greater good’ of a particular cause or ideology, suggesting that peace of mind is relative and can be attained even in the midst of taking actions which purport for ‘the ends justifies the means’.

What is evident is that the central axis from which individuals will determine their moral philosophy or personal values can differ and so too will their actions, experience of relationship, ownership of authority and worldview.

Consider what this means in terms of:

“Authority must be in service of liberty (which has to do with morals rather than politics), as when it is not, it loses authority and moves into force”

“Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being”

“Reason is not the contrary quality to ignorance and small-mindedness but is an attribute of the mind which is put to use in service of cognizance, insight and common sense”

But also, something which I had written in Dialogue 4:  

“With each generation, it appears as if there has been an increasing fragmentation of the collective psyche, as the human will and its endeavours have sought to determine causality and to attribute meaning to everyday experience. It is as if the world has become magnified in the lens of its perceiver and has invited its observer into its complexity; ideas about how things are have been generated and which have in turn moved a perceiver away from abstract reasoning”

Clearly, worldviews will differ and not simply according to whether an individual attributes cause and meaning to a world in which there is a God or higher power (or even whether a higher power resides in the world or is beyond it). There are those who will interpret higher power as referring to the greater good of a selected few, of those who demonstrate particular characteristics and even of humanity in general.

I had opened the previous blog with: “It is not what we do so much as the way in which we have viewed a problem that is at cause of many failed or floundering attempts to improve conditions, to do the right thing or to bring about harmony.”

Is there a way of interpreting ‘the way in which we have viewed a problem’ that is different again from simply accounting for the presence of multiple worldviews or perspectives?