Gaia: Network of Spiritual Progressives

Help us spread the World Wide Word

http://triebwad.gaia.com — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:31:58 GMT

For those of you trolling the internet, we can use your help. Join our group on any of these other social network sites and help bring the message of the NSP to all your friends.

myspace: http://groups.myspace.com/spiritualprogressives
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4770638813
youtube: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=TikkunNSP
care2: http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/nsp
wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_of_Spiritual_Progressives
zaadz: http://pods.gaia.com/nsp

thanks,
David

Thinking about the primaries

http://nichola.gaia.com — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:07:06 GMT

I've unearthed some interesting resources for thinking about who to support in the primaries, regardless of your party affiliation.

Check out http://www.countercurrents.org/swanson101207.htm.

And go out and get yourself a copy of Tikkun Magazine, the current issue of which is all about the primaries. Better yet, join the Network of Spiritual Progressives (www.spiritualprogressives.org) as a dues-paying member and get the magazine for free. These folks need your support.

So who are you all supporting?

Speaking solely as an individual and not as a representative of any organization, I will be voting for Dennis Kucinich. I strongly believe we have to vote in the primaries for the candidate whose vision most appeals, and he's it for me. He's the only one who is really suggesting a fundamental change in how we view the world, from an atomistic, individualistic model to one of interdependence and interconnectedness.

Yes, yes, I know they say he's unelectable. But he's only unelectable because you and I aren't voting for him.

An Easy Way to Spread Generosity

http://nichola.gaia.com — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:56:36 GMT

Hi, all--

We've entered a contest on YouTube to have the world leaders at Davos see our video on the Global Marshall Plan, a concrete policy proposal emerging out of our conviction that our national security would be better served through generosity and solidarity than it is by domination and control.

To support this initiative, just go to www.youtube.com/davos. Click on View/Vote. Search for "NSPDavid" and then give it a thumbs up. Thanks!

Good news from 2007

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:13:52 GMT

I work at Tikkun magazine and so am one of the lucky people (how did this happen to me?) who can make a living at trying to change the world, and of course I hear a lot of opinions, read a lot of news and articles and meet some amazing people, but I have to say that the thing that has most cheered me up over the holidays was this email blast Michael Lerner sent out, copying Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and another writer summing up all that went well in 2007. It's a great read for the first week of 2008. See: http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=20080102130922990

Happy New Year to all!

Dave

Re: Is anyone still here?

http://nichola.gaia.com — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:10:59 GMT

Hi, Jacob--

Yes, we're still here. Discussion has been slow lately--everyone is busy with other things--but we're here. You can find out more info at spiritualprogressives.org.

I'd love to know more about you! I check my work email more regularly. That's nichola@tikkun.org.

Best,
Nichola

Is anyone still here?

http://rebornthrubodywork.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:37:58 GMT

Hi,
My name is Jacob and am interested in finding more about spiritual progressives.

The link to the .org did not work.

Just nod if you can hear me... Is there anyone home?

Peace,
Jacob

Don't Be Realistic

http://nichola.gaia.com — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:21:54 GMT

In this excellent video, NSP founder and national chair Rabb Michael Lerner urges viewers to stand up for their highest vision of the good rather than allowing the current powers to predetermine what kinds of social change are "realistic."

Check out the video here.

Re: Please Sign Our Petition!

http://myohosisters.gaia.com — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:26:42 GMT

Hi
The link to sign your petition did not take me to a petition, but back to the discussion forum..

Please Sign Our Petition!

http://firstfreedomfirst.gaia.com — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 15:27:19 GMT

Hey everyone,

First Freedom First is campaign working to protect America's religious freedom from right-wing activists. Please sign our petition here.

Bioneers Anyone?

http://myohosisters.gaia.com — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 02:49:36 GMT

Hi Everyone...

My name is Kellie and I am a fairly new member here.

I came to know of NSP when I was in Washington DC and attended an interfaith service held before the march on the mall Jan 27, 2007.

I was really impressed with what I saw, and more importantly, what I felt.

I am looking forward to evolving with this group.

That being said, I was excited to receive Bioneer Buzz in my email.

I love the Bioneers and was wondering if anyone else is a part of the Bioneer Family. I have been following their annual conferences for years, and was involved with the Flagstaff, AZ Satellite conference in 2006.

The conference is held in October every year in San Rafael, CA and includes satellite locations holding their conferences simultaneously around North America.

BIONEERS

namaste'
and so nice to meet you all...

Kellie

Shalom -- perhaps the richest word of all

http://RichardG.gaia.com — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:48:54 GMT

Excerpted from yet to be published - I Believe. Help Me in My Unbelief :A Skeptic's Search for Meaning - An Unusual Journey Through a Troubled World copyrighted and reprinted with permission by Richard S. Galloway, author.

Context: Starting with his junior year at the American University of Beirut (Lebanon) the author found his life turned on its head. The process continued through civil rights, civil liberties and peace actions of the late 1960s. The excerpts below represent his search for meaning while attending Chicago Theological Seminary at that time, and the conceptual framework that lead him to seek beyond the mere intellectual study of religion and beyond the outer-driven social activist and towards the inner path. of Self discovery. Hold in mind that the following section represents the author's preconception and impetus to begin the journey as was his perspective in the late 60s, not the conclusions for insights from further down the path.

Shalom

The word Shalom in its original Hebrew root meaning to me embodies the greatest concept ever in a single word. Usually translated "peace," it includes all aspects of life from highest to lowest from the inside out. It is often used as a synonym for Love... In today's world, the word peace is most often taken to mean "the absence of war:" Not something in itself, but the absence of something negative. Not so the Hebrew understanding of Shalom... Here are some of the elements it includes as found in Strong's Concordance 7965 - Hebrew Shalom: "Completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety, soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord." This only begins to touch the surface of the meaning. Shalom unites all aspects of human potential: body, feelings, mind and spirit. It is meant to be here and now in this life, not reserved to some other, heavenly realm remove in either time or space. Shalom is a blessing that occurs when the Divine or transcendent (the vertical element) intersects with the human (horizontal) as is symbolically represented in the cross long before the cross was considered a "Christian" symbol.

Shalom is closely related to another of the great Hebrew insights - the realization that the meaning and value of the individual is only found within the context of a community of faith. Shalom is not and cannot be fully private ever. It is not a private salvation apart from its greater context in the world community. Ultimately, Shalom must include all people. The measure of Shalom's presence in us is how much the many above attributes are present and conveyed in our relationships and interactions in our community. If the God we worship is the God of All, then God's Shalom must include all people. It's just that simple. Personal Shalom is not possible without embodying the works of justice, healing, and service to others. It is the antidote for greed and selfishness by definition.

Community without Shalom at its center is not a community: It is at best a mere group of people forced to relate to each other by immediate circumstance or proximity and in which each is most concerned with the needs and desires of self. In terms of religion, meaning "to bind together," without the acts of Shalom there is no real bond with God, Self, Neighbor, or Creation.

The concept of Shalom is very closely related to the prophecies of the Messiah: He who comes in peace; he who fully embodies Shalom in being and action. Shalom is the overcoming the four alienations of Genesis: from God, Self, Others and Creation. The call of our scriptures is for all to prepare for the coming Messiah/Christ by embodying Shalom in our interactions. Without this personal and societal preparation, scriptures make no promise that Messiah will come to fix what we have broken.

God's call to his people Israel says that they will "be blessed so that they may be a blessing to all nations." If Shalom does not embrace all of humanity, it is not Shalom. It contains in itself the dictum that to be God's people is not to be the rulers of all, but to be the servant of all people. The task in the lives of the Chosen is to extend Shalom to everyone they meet - including all of humanity - a blessing to all nations. It involves commitment, dedication, personal risk and self-sacrifice. As Charles Malik and Hartman said, it goes beyond justice: it requires both wisdom and courage. It implicitly includes the concept of loving your enemies. It includes the necessity of seeing the same divine spirit in those who would hate and abuse us.

These are not idle words. Our understanding must press deeper. The concepts of Shalom and Love are totally intertwined and inextricable. The presence of Shalom does not fall as mana from heaven to the undeserving. It requires our actions in response to the call of the Ultimate in our lives. The greeting in Hebrew is "Shalom aleichem" generally translated as "Peace be unto you." In my research, I found many references to Shalom as a "wish" for the blessing of wholeness, prosperity, health,....to others. A wish is passive: having said Shalom, the work is seen as done. What I did not find was the understanding that it is more than saying "I wish this for you." Buber says that it implies a pledge, a willingness, a promise - no, a commitment to do all that you can to work for the other's Shalom. This understanding is fully active and requires our entire being in response to the needs of others around us. Less than that is an abrogation of our responsibilities before God.

Living Shalom requires Shelem or our peace offering that is seen as both before God and before our fellow human beings. It is expressed in the injunction of making such peace offerings or amends to those whom we have harmed in any way before we can approach God. This requires Sheelem or "he paid" his peace offering; he fulfilled his obligation to his fellow humans and God. It implies the idea incorporated in the celebration of Yom Kipur: You can't ask God's forgiveness if you haven't first asked the forgiveness of anyone you have harmed.

It was largely in this context that I began to understand the saying "God shall not be mocked." Mocked means both imitated, as in mocking bird, and ridiculed. The meanings are interrelated. The presence of health, wealth, power, prestige, etc. are taken by many today as proof of God's blessing. These are taken on an ego level. These are things that have been accomplished through selfish human endeavor, not by a wholesome relationship to the entire meaning of Shalom. The proof of Shalom lies not in our own personal Shalom, but in the Shalom we create for others. The wealthy and powerful always get things exactly backwards. These are all understandings I find almost entirely absent from our world including among those who believe themselves to be most devout Muslims, Christians and Jews. In fact, history demonstrates that it is often those who consider themselves the most devout that are the most blatant in refusing to live Shalom - the central call of our scriptures.

I had been studying the history of the time of Jesus and found it much like our own time [in the late 60s and still today]. There were those whose lives centered around the temple in Jerusalem. The lawyers and scribes who were busy as guardians of the proper interpretations of scriptural law and their function as enforcers of these laws on others. This is a belief system that our salvation lies in forcing people to comply with dogmatic morals and beliefs imposed from the outside. This view is not scriptural. The priests who guarded the proper rites of worship and sacrifices in the temple. Again, it is an outside in view of scripture and misses the heart of Shalom as state of being flowing through the individual to the world. Both groups centered around the Temple in Jerusalem were far more concerned with the maintenance of their own power, station and wealth than any other issue. There were primarily two divisions among them: Those who had sold out to the Roman authorities and those who believed that they must resist and possibly overthrow Rome's power over them. They, of course, had this all carefully rationalized so that they could maintain a belief system that justified it all. They were the "organized church" of their day. I mostly saw organized religion of that time and ours in the same terms as MLK saw the mainstream church as quoted above in his "letters from Birmingham jail." I had little regard for the mainstream institutional church and synagogues now or through history. I could not read any of this history without seeing that the organized religions almost always were on the wrong side of every issue although the words on the page told the opposite story. Our history tries to portray the church as the carrier of values, hope and real spirit. To me the reverse is true. While it appears to be all in the eyes of the beholder and what really organizes their thoughts, scripture makes clear that how we are to behold God and Nature has a right way and a wrong way. Most get it wrong! It has little to do with beliefs and everything to do with how we live our lives in service from the inside out.

Another group was the Zealots, or political revolutionaries. The group reached its height about 200 years earlier under Judas Maccabeus ("The Hammer"). In this time, Antiocus IV Epiphanes wanted to destroy Judaism and fully assimilate the Hebrews into the prevailing Greek Culture. The rebellion started as guerrilla war. The Romans responded with troops sent to quell this obstinate rebellion. There was a series of battles in which Judas Maccabeus was able to surprise and overwhelm numerically superior Roman forces - something the Romans definitely frowned on. Maccabeus' reputation as "savior of Israel" soared as more and more joined his ranks. Some thought him to be the Messiah.

This lead to a victory following which Rome assented to nominal Hebraic independence in Judea for a time. The temple, having been profaned by the foreign rulers, was restored. In the restoration, one day's supply of oil for the sacred flame in the temple miraculously lasted eight days, thus, it is the source of the Festival of Lights or Hanukkah. The victory was short-lived. A force of 20,000 battle-hardened Roman soldiers was brought against Maccabeus. With no possibility of surprise this time, Judas' forces were crushed and he died in battle. The hope of rebellion against Rome lived on in the Zealots at the time of Jesus and was centered in the remote area around the Sea of Galilee - the very place Jesus spent most of his life and ministry.

The third major group was the Essenes, reported by the historian Josephus at the time as having over 4,000 members "spread in large numbers in every town." They have been described as alternately mystic, eschatological (regarding the end of time; the new heaven and earth or totally other worldly), messianic, and/or ascetic (again seen as either totally other worldly or at a minimum as living a very simply and disciplined life.) A number of historians also believe that Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Delphic, and Pythagoreanism were a strong influence among the Essenes. I read Dr. Martin Larson's work The Essene Heritage which carefully documents the life of the Essenes from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other early Hebrew and Christian works. He indicates that after their break away from the Zealots about 100 years before Jesus, they began what was perhaps the most complete synchronistisc adaptation of the great world religions to that date including a revised form of Judaism derived from its mystical elements, Zoroastrianism, Greek mysteries, Pythagoreanism, and Buddhism. [1]

The accounts of Josephus and Philo show that the Essenes led a communal life with collective ownership - often compared to Christian monastic living. Some married; others did not. They elected a leader to attend to the interests of them all whose orders they obeyed. They could not swear oaths or sacrifice animals as was still being done in the temple. They learned to control their temper and served as channels of peace. Unlike the Zealots, they could use weapons only as protection against robbers. They were not allowed to have slaves but served each other. They ate very simple and pure diets, mostly vegetarian. After a total of three years probation, ...newly joining members would take an oath that included the commitment to practice piety towards the Deity and righteousness towards humanity, to maintain a pure life-style, to abstain from criminal and immoral activities.[2] Although information about this group remains limited, many scholars believe they represent the inner, more mystical branch of Judaism approaching the time of Jesus.

One of the things that struck me in relationship to those who wrote about all the different schools in existence at the time of Jesus was that the scholars all seemed to want to see each of the above movements as very specific and monolithic - existing independent from others. As I viewed my own life and the world around me in the haydays of the 60s and 70s, I could not help but see that the movements of our time are anything but monolithic. There were almost as many views of the peace and civil rights movements as there are people, not to mention religious cults and sects, free love, drug use, etc. I also noted that people drifted in and out from one to another group representing the full range of traditional, inner and outer paths for finding meaning and understanding. What was my view of most of the movements? Almost all of them were "cultish" and divisive in one form or another. They were looking for new adherents who would "buy in" to their own narrow beliefs and rejected those who questioned them. Many were formed around a "charismatic" individual - charismatic being in quotes on purpose. I did not see most of them as charismatic at all, but rather little tyrants and dilatants who were drawing weaker personalities to themselves in very self-serving ways. On the other hand, there were honest seekers and groups who were doing much to bring light to our world in their own imperfect ways. I have to believe that this was also the case at the time of Jesus. In my skeptic's search at that time, I remained undaunted, but unfulfilled with far more questions than answers.

To round out the picture of the cultural mix of the time of Jesus, we need to remember that the area of Palestine is at "the cross roads of the world" - both the land and sea link between Europe, Asia and Africa. Basically, in this area all of the cultures and religions of the world were well known. Josephus and other historians of that time recorded over 100 individuals who either claimed to be or were regarded by others as the Jewish Messiah. Faith healers and miracle workers were widespread, as was a belief in magic and the "occult."

There was a little of everything in this stewpot of Jesus' time just as there were now! I took this to mean that both then and now are unique times of potential change in history based on the decadence of society that creates hopelessness. This is the necessary impetus for radical change going to the root of things. I considered that there were basically three major groupings: The temple centered "traditionalists" for whom I had little interest; They were to me both the liberals and the conservatives of the church, both whom clung to the past - but in differing ways - and rejected Jesus and his message. The second were the Zealots, those who sought the political, or outer path; they stood apart from the decadence of society and saw the need for the healing of it, but missed the need for inner healing. The final was the Essenes those who sought the mystical or inner path. I began to see the need for the synthesis of the latter two modes of approach. There must be a change in consciousness, but not for private salvation. The inner healing then needs to be addressed to the world community at large and focus on the systemic economic and political structures that create and extend alienation - the antithesis of Shalom. At this point in my skeptic's search for meaning, I saw Shalom as the sum of all scripture and the task of all who heed God's calling.

In sum, it appears to me that Shalom is the synthesis of seeing the outer world as broken and in need of healing actions with the inner work of healing our own internalization of that brokenness. These are the two poles of the path which remain as guides for the skeptic's journey through life. The goal is to find a balance between the two so that our actions to heal the world come from a peaceful center.

The Psychologies of Jung and Freud

Most of the above discussion of my discoveries were based on my studies of the Bible and Judeo-Christian history, along with world religions. That was the looking back into the distant past for meaning. These studies lead me to believe it is a mistake to see the meanings as locked in the past; we need to see them as continuing and growing in the present. Only here can we begin to understand their meaning. I had further come to believe that we all internalize our broken societies and that brokenness lies deeply buried in our unconscious minds and that we need to become released from these forces if we are to be truly loving and healing. Finally, whatever we believe or don't believe about God, the testimony of all the world religions at their source indicates that there is "something divine" that is either buried deeply within us, or comes through that deep part of who we are.

Within this "something" lies the essence of who we really are, the unity, the power, the creativity, the healing, that which inspires and sustains us - that is to say, all the things that the religions have talked about from the beginning. It is not something to be believed in or argued about. Both of those processes actually block the path to realizing the goal. This is where the organized religions missed the mark by making religion an externalized belief system. The true nature of religion can only be found within one's Self - and that through acts of loving service to others. The truly inspired words of our religious scriptures all point to this truth: "The kingdom of God is within." There are many similar passages in all religions. Unfortunately, whether by ignorance or design - and probably some of each as we will explore in book two - before our Judeo-Christian scriptures were canonized, texts which at least appear to justify and support an externalized belief system and our salvation outside of human history crept in and became locked in. All of this was telling me that some sort of inner journey, some way of enhancing contact with my inner Self was the primary objective of my striving.

OK, what does modern psychology tell us about what we can find within our own psyches? Pastoral psychology was a standard course and included many of the popular thinkers of that time. Best among them in my mind was Carl Rogers' On Becoming Human. Like Buber, he held his patients almost in reverence. I liked that. But there was Perls, Mowrer, Erikson, Fromm, Piaget, Mead.... I can't even begin to remember all of them that I read in that time, let alone what they said. I learned a little about developmental psychology and how the mind works or we think it works, but there was still something missing. While somewhat helpful, they mostly seemed to be limited to the surface of things. Where is the depth?

Much again the doing of my brother Russ, I turned to Freud and Jung. I will treat them in much greater depth in book two, but some outline is appropriate here. As I began my study of "depth psychology," one of the amazing things to me was that we humans were so late in our history to begin the study of psychology. In the more distant past, philosophers often touched on what we call psychology today, but not until Freud and Jung did it become an independent field of study which attempted to understand not only the content of our unconscious selves but the nature and structures of our minds. The late arrival of psychology as a field of study is a question that I don't recall anyone else raising as I studied psychology. Why would that be so?

My intuition is that it is because some new threshold has been reached in the evolution of human consciousness. What else can explain it? Popular at that time was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. The astrological Age of Pices is described as an age based on belief. To me that aptly describes religion over the past 2,000 years - and its failings. Aquarius is based on knowledge. Now we must be clear that knowledge as used here is not outer knowledge - i.e. technology, science, behavioral science. It must be understood as inner knowledge or Gnosis as understood by the mystics. It is the internalization of Shalom as the breathing in and the giving of Shalom as we breathe out and act in the world. Maybe the path to this deeper knowledge was too difficult and removed for at least most people to realistically reach in times past. Maybe belief was necessary, but we are beginning to reach the point that Gnosis is becoming progressively available.

Maybe the subconscious is like a dark closet where we throw our mental refuse that we don't want to deal with consciously. Now, just suppose that the cosmic clock has moved forward, and by analogy there's a light in the closet on a dimmer switch. A little at a time, the light is increasing, so when we go to throw more garbage in the closet of our unconscious, it becomes progressively more difficult to ignore the mess in there and that for many of us there's not much room for more. We begin to realize that some day, we're going to have to clean that mess up we have been avoiding!

It's a simple analogy, but just suppose there's a truth buried in it. What would that tell us about our world? To me it makes total sense. It describes what is going on both inside and outside of us. If we have no consciousness of either, we are totally unconscious of problems we have refused to deal with - both personal and social. But over the past several centuries, problems that have existed since the dawn of human civilization have begun to be dealt with - the worst of the Divine Right of King, Nobles and their interlocking relationship with the Lords of the Authoritarian Church. We have begun to recognize the dignity of all human beings however slowly. We have overcome the worst form of human slavery and are contending with the slightly more subtle forms of economic and social slavery. We have begun to face dominance centered paternalistic beliefs that have not only subjected women but the whole feminine side of our consciousness. All of these things exist in society externally, and have been internalized within us. So maybe, just maybe the true light of human consciousness embodied in our ancient wisdom is beginning to dawn in the broad consciousness of all of humanity. Think about that for a while. It may be more than just an interesting notion. And it means it's time to clean out our closets. It's that what we see in the world - those who welcome it and are willing to do the work, and those who resist it and continue to blame the problem on others.

Back to Jung and Freud, in my own paraphrase: To Freud, the unconscious is full of much garbage. Freud was a major neurotic and coke-head, but did an excellent job of bringing the study of human mental pathology to the fore. As the founder of modern psychology, Freud did a masterful job of describing many of our defense mechanisms and how we unconsciously use them.[3] Of all of the defense mechanisms, I think projection of one's faults on others is one of the most common and dangerous in our modern world. It is the basis of our fear of others we deem to be enemies, and thus the very basis of our desire for dominance over them. The more we project, the more we feed the pain within ourselves and yet we continue to see the source of the pain as coming from the outside. When put in the hands of religion, projection results in the belief that those who do not agree with us are god's enemy and the embodiment of evil. We see this strongly represented in the views of such fundamentalists as Pat Robertson, James Dobson and the like. This leads to the false proselytizing, persecution and even war so evidenced in the name of religion throughout history. Unfortunately, it is a highly successful belief system which at least superficially answers the needs of the downtrodden. Projection gives people a way of unloading their own inner pain on others.

A few books by Freud was more than enough for me. I was far more interested in finding out what can be right at this point in my life than what is wrong. In comes Jung. My paraphrase of Jung is - the unconscious is the storage place of much garbage if you put a lot of garbage there. Jung broke with Freud early on and began to seek out how we can overcome our limitations to become fully functioning and creative human beings - his "Undiscovered Self." OK, I can get into this. I set up my own tutorial on Jung and read most of his collected works - several thousand pages. This study keyed things in my own depths that I never imagined before, and at least began an inward process.

Jung described himself as an "empiricist" - i.e. one who merely reports what he observes of the psyche objectively. He discovered and did a masterful job of describing the healing power of symbols and archetypes that seem to exist innately in the subconscious in all cultures and times. He relates this to what he called the "natural mind" about which we will have much to say in book two. I think Jung knew far more than he put in his writings and that he gave the world as much as he thought we could accept at that time. Near the end of his life, Jung was interviewed by the famous British correspondent, Robert Frost. Frost's last question in the interview went something like this: Frost: Dr Jung, are you saying that you don't believe in God? Jung: Yes. Frost: So you are an atheist? Jung with a sublime twinkle in his eye: No. I said I don't believe. And there he stopped. I think it was the last interview he ever gave. I personally think that Jung did "know" more about the reality and power that we call God that lies in our depths and beyond than almost anyone in many generations.

To me there is little difference between the ancient mystics and Jung. They were both delving the inner path of the psyche or soul - in Hebrew nephesh,[4] in Greek Psyche, in English soul. They are just different words for the same thing. There is nothing inherently "religious" about what these words point towards. In the end, truly honest pursuit of their meaning from a secular point of view will arrive at the same observations about their nature and meaning. Although we think of soul as a purely religious concept, the word is in fact secular in its root meaning and found in all cultures and religion. While the concept of soul is not the "property" of religion, it lies at its very basis. The psyche is the essential part of what we are. It is something even the atheist can believe in. It's nature is essentially the same for everyone - i.e. it is universal. Belief has nothing to do with this. It is a question of understanding what's really there rather than a question of whether or not it is there. However dimly understood, the psyche has objective existence on some level. That is much more than a word game.

The path to the fullness of human life is one of personal transformation brought about by an inward journey and which brings balance between the inner and outer aspects of the psyche as represented by the Star of David. The deepest language of the subconscious is the symbols of transformation which Jung called archetypes. They appear to be universally present in our depths and carry transforming power when encountered. Those who take this journey generally return to society with new and higher insights than normally found in the culture of their time. That is the universal testimony of world religions. The powers of insight, intuition and empathy they bring with them give them the ability to assist in the healing of others that most people haven't developed. That is to say all attributes of our feminine or inner aspect of everyone's psyche regardless of our birth gender which has so long been suppressed in Western Culture.

Virtually all who experience this depth see their experiences as luminous, powerful, and more important than anything they could imagine before. While I have no illusion of myself reaching anywhere near the depth achieved by ancient mystics or Jung, many of my own life experiences fully affirm that this is far more than just some fuzzy thinking. As we continue to move forward, I will always be looking at every point in history for evidence of those who took the journey successfully and listen to their counsel well. I believe there is really something to be discovered there. I believe with Jung that it is the foundation of all religion and that the path is open to us. I will take the wisdom derived from the inner journey over dogma any day. Scripture outlines a path, a journey to undertake personally, not something to passively believe and think the work is done.

As part of this self-tutorial on Jung that I took in seminary, I kept a dream log. Jung saw dreams as a major tool for reaching the subconscious. Remember, the word for "prophet" translates "dreamer" in Hebrew. For the most part, I am not one to be aware of dreaming at all, let alone being able to remember more than the most fleeting content of a dream when I do have a vague memory of dreaming on awakening. During the time I was actively studying Jung, I was able to remember dreams fairly vividly on awakening almost every day and had a number of what Jungians call "big dreams." The one I can remember to this day went like this: I was climbing a steep and narrow stairway - barely more than a narrow foothold - up the face of a sheer cliff that was on one side of a narrow gorge. I will mention that I have a strong fear of heights. Normally the dream situation would have had me in a total state of panic. Strangely, I was totally at peace in the dream. In front of me was some sort of a "guide" - a kind of angelic being surrounded by bright white light. It is my personal bent to see this angelic figure as only a dream image and doubt that it has any reality beyond that. On the other hand, I am fully able to see how those who believe in angels would awaken fully convinced that they had literally been visited by an angel as an external, objective reality. In the end, we really don't have any way of knowing the answer to this dilemma at this point. I think the question is mute. The results are the same whether an angel is real in and of itself or only a dream image. To the dreamer, the dream is real.

Down below, it was totally black. Reverberating up towards me was an immense tumult - the chaotic din of innumerable "demonic" voices. Dark entities of some sort were chasing me grabbing at my feet and trying to pull me back down into the abyss. Again, while these forces seem no more than a dream image to me, I can fully understand how many people would believe them real and objective. I had a sense of real threat, but no fear. At some point, my "guide" and I switched places so that he could guard my rear from those dark entities chasing me up the narrow stairs.

As I climbed on, I came up to a golden pulpit-type structure jutting out from the canyon wall. It was like one of those pulpits in Medieval Gothic cathedrals with a narrow stairway leading up out of the chancel of the church to a lectern surrounded by a waist high solid railing and a canopy roof above it from which sermons are normally delivered. The pulpit was surrounded by brilliant white/golden light that drove back the gloom from below. When I reached the lectern, I addressed the multitude of chaos below and commanded it to silence. [There was a real sense of speaking "ex cathedra" with absolute power to command the silence of the demonic voices. In the inner context, I believe we all innately have the ex cathedra power to quiet our demons if we are able to reach this depth.] I awoke with absolute clarity of the dream and infused with a sense of peace and well being beyond almost any other experience in my life.

If we are to believe the Jungians, this dream was an indication that my psyche was going through significant integration. The din of demonic voices can be seen as both the chaos of the world as I was experiencing and as its internalized forms. The feelings of peace and well-being that accompanied the dream stayed with me for a long time afterward lead me to believe that was true that real healing had taken place. [Please again note - I have no illusions that this qualifies me for my sainthood. It did not make me perfect or in any way different or special. I'm like Jung, an empiricist; I'm only reporting exactly what I experienced and nothing more. My ego has no place in this story.] There were many more significant dreams before and after that I can no longer remember, but I continue to believe that this was a critical part of my way along the path.

I checked into parapsychology and psychic phenomena, the Rosicrucians, The Association for Research and Enlightenment (based around the work of Edgar Cayce), the Arcane School, Theosophy, and far more than I can remember. The thing that most amazed me in these studies was that I could find no apparent core in them, especially those whose teachings included elaborate cosmologies and claimed vast "esoteric knowledge." Most singularly lacking was the centrality of service in Shalom. It seemed to me that there were two possible explanations: First, that they were repeating teachings that had long been passed down and elaborated beyond recognition; or they were the product of the private dreams and visions of individuals and had little or no reality beyond themselves. I could be entirely wrong about this. It is possible that I was simply not ready to comprehend what I was reading at that point. But at least what I saw as missing at that time were the central concept of loving and healing service in the world. I think it is more than prejudice that I am unwilling to abandon this Shalom as the true center of religion. How to find this was my quest...

[1] Page xvi

[2]from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes

[3] Denial: arguing against an anxiety provoking stimuli by stating it doesn't exist. Displacement: taking out impulses on a less threatening target. Intellectualization: avoiding unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects. Projection: placing unacceptable impulses in yourself onto someone else. Rationalization: supplying a logical or rational reason as opposed to the real reason. Reaction formation: taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety. Regression: returning to a previous stage of development. Repression: pulling into the unconscious. Sublimation: acting out unacceptable impulses in a socially acceptable way. Suppression: pushing into the unconscious. Source: AllPsychonline.com

[4] "The English word "soul" is from the Latin solus = alone or sole, because the maintenance of man as a living organism, and all that affects his health and well-being, is the one sole or main thing in common with every living thing which the LORD God has made. The correct Latin word for the theological term "soul" (or nephesh) is anima; and this is from the Greek anemos = air or breath, because it is this which keeps the whole in life and in being." Bear this in mind. However, I will continue to use "soul" because of its widespread acceptance. Source: http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/nephesh.html

Re: Planning for Generosity Sunday

http://nichola.gaia.com — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:36:46 GMT

Dear JC and all--

Generosity Sunday is a go, and it's scheduled for April 15. In fact, in some places, the national day of action is being expanded to a whole weekend, from April 13-15, so that various religious bodies can have sabbath services around the theme of security through generosity rather than domination.

In addition to the religious services, we're hoping to have alternative peace demonstrations on April 15. These would be "alternative" in at least two ways: 1) There would be more focus on what we are FOR (namely a world of love and generosity) than what we are against, and 2) The demonstations would embody a spirit of hope, possibility, and even love. I know that anti-war demonstrations often turn me off because the dominant emotional tone is anger. While we have lots of reasons to be angry, I think that anger needs to be channeled into positive vision in order for us to move forward from this place.

Some people are achieving this second goal by having a kind of "festival of generosity" to demonstrate to people that generosity IS possible among human beings. For example, some will be incorporating free health screenings by volunteer nurses, free massages, and even "free markets" in which people give away things they no longer need.

Stories of hope are also crucial--any examples we can give of times when people acted out of love rather than self-interest. I'll never forget a story told at our last Spiritual Activism Conference about a woman who testified in the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa. Her husband and son had both been killed, and she was confronted with the killer, and she asked three things: 1) to be able to give her loved ones a proper burial, 2) to be escorted across the room to meet the man who killed them, and 3) that he come to her house once a week so that she could pour out to him whatever love she had left to give. If that doesn't give one hope in our potential to transcend narrow self-interest...

Anyway, you can find out more about Generosity Sunday at http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=20061207105532221

JC, we would love to see a really vibrant event in Austin! There is an NSP chapter there that might be interested in working with you on this. You can get their contact info on our local chapters page: http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=localchapters. If what they are doing doesn't excite you, though, feel free to organize a second event. Austin is really ripe for this kind of thing, I think.

Spirituality and Politics - Internet Radio Program

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:04:01 GMT

Spirit Progress Radio is an online streamed audio radio program every Sunday night from 8-11 pm ET on the progressive stream at listener -supported RadioPower.org. Hosted by NSP Pittsburgh member Barry Tepperman, it builds around progressive spirituality and the social justice and advocacy activities that arise out of it. The program features listener call-ins, interviews and conversations with those most involved with faith-driven social activism, and commentaries by your gentle host. I have set up a Pod here on Zaadz, Spirit Progress Radio, for discussion of recent broadcasts, listener comments on directions for programming, suggestions for guests and interviews, and discussion on how we can improve bringing this message forward. Barry's blog for Spirit Progress Radio is included in his personal Zaadz blog at http://griffin3350.zaadz.com/blog.

Need to know more:

Spirit Progress Radio
Sunday 8-11 pm ET
RadioPower.org - progressive stream

e-mail me at SpiritProgress@RadioPower.org

call-in numbers during live show:
USA - 800-517-4243 toll-free
International - 412-321-2098

And PLEASE! I'd welcome all constructive ideas about how to put this time and access to the best use of our cause. Nicola - I went live a week earlier than we'd discussed. Will get in touch with you later this week so we can brainstorm ideas about the best use of this space and time.... or you could come over to my Pod and we can do it that way.

Barry

Re: Planning for Generosity Sunday

http://shakerjc.gaia.com — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:56:45 GMT

Hi Nichola,

What's the latest on Generosity Sunday? I saw Lerner's article, "Hope Is Back!" and I'm working on a commentary for my blog.

I would be interested in helping to organize an event here in Austin. Let me know how I can find out more.

Thanks,

JC Shakespeare

peacememe9@yahoo.com

Re: How can we make the anti-war movement a peace movement?

http://shakerjc.gaia.com — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:26:28 GMT

Great point, Barry,

Just read a great article on the apparent dichotomy between "negative peace" and "positive peace." This seems to be a real live wire right now, and it feels synchronous that so many of us are working on this idea.

Looking forward to more!

jc

Re: How can we make the anti-war movement a peace movement?

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:08:50 GMT

Seems to me that the need is to take a negative and make it a positive. The "anti-war" movement is inherently against something but it does not imply a positive social movement to take its place. A peace movement is inherent positive and subsumes all possible anti-war movements, among others - anti-genocide, anti-racism. I agree this is a task for radical love. We should be participating in the "anti-war" demonstrations and activities, but as PEACE activists we bring a diferent message that we should be modelling and propagating within the demonstrators. Peace rises form our spirituality. Our demonstrations and message should be non-violent and we should speak both to the issues and to the demonstators. We can be content with winning the demonstators over one heart at a time.

Re: How can we make the anti-war movement a peace movement?

http://shakerjc.gaia.com — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 20:20:07 GMT

Hey,

I hope we can revive this thread, because I believe it's absolutely crucial to navigate the upcoming time in which we find ourselves. I've just come from an organizing brunch put on by the Austin (Tx, of course!) Center for Peace and Justice. And there was much lively debate about the idea of a Unifying Cause that would bring all the fragments of the P&J movement together so that "all these problems could be solved."

A couple of points:

A) My belief is that there can only be one unifying cause, and that is Love. Not hippy-dippy, drug-induced, free-sex love, but AGAPE, the highest love, the love that allows me to love you even if we vehemently disagree on everything else. Each individual is responsible for cultivating that. There is no other force that can unify people so powerfully.

B) "All these problems" will never be solved at our current level of consciousness. Too many people asleep! So arguments, resistance, and anger are not useful tools if we're still in the "US" vs "THEM" mentality.

So, how can we create a clear, positive vision of a world in which peace is not only possible, but pragmatic and prosperous?

My starting point: Peace Work Is Inner Work.

Please, if you've got a few minutes, check out this post on my blog entitled A New Paradigm of Peace.

I hope you'll visit other pages on Peace Meme as well.

Don't let this thread die!

Peace,
jc

Re: Sacred Activism Conference

http://Mary1670.gaia.com — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:27:00 GMT

Thanks for the information on the Sacred Activism Conference!

I am really looking for a way to become involved in meaningful activity directed toward changing the way we interact with the non-human world, and share your concern about the number of progressive groups out there and how much more could be accomplished if we all worked together instead of trying to re-invent the wheel.

Mary

Re: Sacred Activism Conference

http://fernando.gaia.com — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 06:35:44 GMT

I understand that Andrew Harvey & NSP have many points of commonality. I am personally drawn to Andrew Harvey's message of SA and look forward to learning from him at some point in the not too distant future.

I am also familiar with Paul Ray's work on CC and the new political compass. I read his book shortly after it came out and was very much inspired by where his analysis pointed to.

Keep in touch!

Sacred Activism Conference

http://amaradodave.gaia.com — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 04:15:14 GMT

In Tulsa, in May, there is a conference aimed at coalescing a new agenda based on values we hold sacred. I know NSP is aware of this because Michael is scheduled as a presenter.

If any in our pod are unaware, here is a link:

https://www.wisdomuniversity.org/sacred-activism-index.html

A few questions I have are:

Does NSP know about Paul Ray's work on Cultural Creatives and the impact they can have if unified as a polical action bloc?

Does NSP endorse and promote the Sacred Activism Conference?

Can such a conference take place in Northern California?

Does every progressive organization have to reinvent every movement by itself? Or can organizations with similar goals partner to create something stronger than anything each could accomplish on its own?

I am looking forward to hearing from other NSP members...