Author: Bruce Tallman

Since 2002 I have been a full-time spiritual director in private practice in London Ontario. I have published two books on spiritual direction for spiritual directors. One of them, "Finding Seekers," is a best seller in the field. I have also published two books on spirituality for the general public. The latest one is called "God's Ecstatic Love: Transform Your Life with a Spiritual Masterpiece." It is a 21st century update of Francis de Sales' classic "Treatise on the Love of God." See Amazon.com The London Free Press has published hundreds of my articles on spirituality, theology and ethics and I have facilitated marriage preparation with over 3500 couples since 1988. For more information see www.brucetallman.com

LOVING OUR DIFFERENCES

The core challenge of spiritual maturity

is integrity and differentiation:

being rooted in your own spirituality

while respecting the different spirituality of others.

Accepting differences gets the ego out of the way

and points to self-transcendence – a dynamic force

operative in all human nature/experience/activity:

God’s Mercy frees us from our self.

But most religions play both sides:

throughout the Qur’an God is

All-Merciful/All-Compassionate/All-Loving

but also the Master of the Day of Doom.

God is the Only One to pray to and serve

the Only One to guide us to be blessed

and not subject to God’s Wrath.

But we cut our self off from God:

“Disobedience and thanklessness

are the source of all evil.”

– Saint Catherine of Sienna

Some think humans are saints

others think we are “totally depraved” (John Calvin)/

“piles of dung covered over by the snow of Christ” (Martin Luther).

However, churches also have the capability of creating unity –

bringing in the light of God unites human beings

by showing we are simultaneously

defective and dignified/broken and blessed.

But churches are also flawed/divided/broken –

the Church thought of itself as universal and united

during the first one thousand years

till the Great Schism in 1054

between Catholic and Orthodox –

when churches became obsessed

with being ‘right’ about what separates them.

Life always involves conflict

but “The journey of the mythological hero

is to move through a devastated landscape

and suffuse it with imperishable love” (Joseph Campbell).

It always gets back to:

love/love of those who are different/

love of our enemies

the teachings of Jesus.

FULL LIFE IN AN “AI” UNIVERSE

We are called to see God in all things

including our astounding science/tech innovations

and use them for the service of God

and everyone’s eternal happiness.

But since love is not part of the knowing process

of artificial intelligence/silicon chips/robots

technology takes over as our guide, not religion

and leads us into a posthuman world.

Edwin Hubble discovered the universe continually expands –

a major revolution in scientific understanding

of a former/fixed/static universe:

the universe will dissipate and end.

Expecting “The Universe” to do things for you –

“Ask the Universe to help you,” or as many say 

“Put your request out there and the Universe will grant it” 

is folly.

It is God who grants things. 

The reason for the Incarnation 

is the excess mercy and love of God.

Incarnation consummates the universe

and is willed by God entirely for itself

not as an afterthought

brought in to deal with sin. 

First of all, God wanted to show us 

how to be fully alive through Jesus the Incarnate Christ.

It is in our ordinary daily lives

where loving like Jesus

and bringing in transforming grace

happens in our relationships 

with spouses/children/friends/parents/coworkers.

When you enter fully into the Present

you alleviate confusion/suffering 

and touch the Prince of Peace and your own Buddhahood –

Buddhists practice Presence through conscious breathing.

Prayer is not primarily thinking and saying holy words –

it is a stance, a way of living continually in Presence

being aware of Presence, and enjoying Presence.

INTEGRATING MATTER/SHADOW/LOVE

The Second Axial Period

(after the First: from 800 to 200 BCE)

developed from the Protestant Reformation to now

(the shift from religion to science)

and is gradually becoming global/communal/ecological/cosmic

and challenging religions to integrate

matter/spirit/secular energy/sacred energy

into one complete human energy.

Wilber’s Four Quadrants accomplish this by including

– self and consciousness (“I:” upper left quadrant)

– brain and neocortex (“It:” upper right)

– culture and worldview (“We:” lower left)

– social systems and environment (“Its:” lower right).

Wilber later concluded even this was incomplete

and the dark side of things needed to be included

so he added “shadow” –

shadow only seems bad because it contains

all the parts of me that society does not accept –

but shadow is in fact a treasure buried in a field

because it also paradoxically contains everything

that can make us whole/holy.

Therefore, if someone asks

“What kind of Christian are you?”

the most honest answer is “A bad one but

I am on a pilgrimage with God

as my guide and destination.”

One of the manifestations of shadow is loneliness

which is essential to human experience –

papered over with busyness/success/money

but never eliminated because

nothing earthly can satisfy the longing of the heart

not even married love because

loneliness is ultimately longing for God.

Authentic married love overcomes loneliness

if caught up into Divine Love

and governed and enriched

by Christ’s redeeming power.

Authentic joining of self/spouse/world/God

unites spirit/matter/secular/sacred.

BIRTHING HEAVEN AND EARTH

“From time immemorial

people have had ideas about a Supreme Being

and the Land of the Hereafter.

Only today do they think

they can do without such ideas.” – Carl Jung

“Sin is to believe the lie

that you are self-created/self-dependent/

self-sustained.” – Augustine

People are bound not free because they sacrifice

their personal integrity/spiritual liberty

for security/money/ambition/pleasure.

Global warming is a global warning

that this self-centeredness is not working –

people dying from flood/drought/fire

is the canary in the coalmine of human extinction.

According to legend, the Buddha’s father

provided his son with 40,000 dancing girls

and all pleasures that material/secular life can offer

but the gods disguised themselves

as an old/then sick/then dead man/

and as a happy monk

and so the Buddha-to-be retired from the world.

Mindfulness is the womb that produces the Buddha

so we are all potential Buddha-mothers.

If we take care through mindfulness

of the baby Buddha latent inside us

eventually Enlightenment will be born.

We all need to see today

in a more holistic/paradoxical/wise way

going beyond mere rational thought

to giving birth to God inside us

not as an external agent

and to Nature as sacred

not as a means to personal gain.

We all need unitive thinking to give birth

to a New Heaven/New Earth

within and without.

LIFE IS A GOOD TEACHER

Life is a good teacher and a good friend

because it is always in transition

and therefore open-ended and non-aggressive.

The astronomer’s telescope, through Copernicus

pushed over God’s throne –

the stable center of planet Earth.

Religion was not ready for this shift

from Earth as Center of All

to the Universe as Center.

If each star in the Milky Way Galaxy was a grain of sand

you would need a colossal dump truck

to contain the two hundred billion stars.

Western religion has been challenged

by science and other world religions

particularly the power of Islam.

Certain themes run through the Qur’an

and create strong motives of desire and fear:

the power and glory of God/the terrors of the Fire/

the joys of Paradise.

In Buddhism and Christianity, the sutras and gospels

are not the living teachings of Buddha and Christ –

the living teaching can only be had

by living/practicing/acting upon what was taught –

then you do not just believe the teachings

you know them to be true.

Then living unlimited love/

meaningful human work/interreligious dialogue

help all things evolve to the fullness

of the Universal Christ

as the Lamb or the G.O.A.T. –

the Greatest Of All Time –

the Center of the Universe.

SOUL’S PURPOSE: BEING/MEANING/PROPHECY

Anxiety about meaninglessness

comes from the loss of an ultimate concern

a spiritual center, an answer to the question

of the meaning of existence, a meaning

which gives meaning to all meanings.

The purpose of the soul is pure being

not doing this specific thing or that.

The soul is thus a master of

non-addiction/non-grasping/non-clinging

to anything – pure non-attachment.

The goal of the spiritual life

is not to get rid of shadow

but to include and integrate it.

Without shadow, we would be flat and dull –

shadow gives us personality/depth/substance.

Our supposed inner adversary – our shadow

which we want to destroy – is our friend

when it points out our errors to us.

If the soul stops feeding

on the pleasure of the senses

it enters a “dark night of the senses”

that eventually leads to a “dark night of the soul”

that depends on faith alone.

These dark nights of sense and soul are voids

that paradoxically give light.

Religious faith is forever a struggle

between darkness and light/good and evil

pastoral and prophetic.

Institutions are always pastoral –

baptizing shared values/giving comfort and stability/

resisting change.

But prophets agitate for change

to get people out of their comfortable pews

thus institutions forever resist prophets.

Poets/artists/mystics/prophets

are often lonely creative individuals

because they do not fit in a competitive society

that spends all its energy on ephemerals.

They need powerful married love leading to Divine Love

which sheds shadow by its shining light.

GETTING BEYOND INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION

Spirituality is: a critique of institutional religion

a yearning for new gods as the old gods fail

a search for fresh connections to God/others/self.

God can be our Mother/Lover/Friend

representing Agape/Eros/Philia

taking care of others/self/world.

Dante: every scripture passage

for example, the Passion/Resurrection narrative

can be taken literally: Jesus rose bodily from death

morally: we should focus on eternal not temporal things

allegorically: we too will rise from death to eternal life

mystically: eternal life is present right here and right now.

Some see life through stained glass windows:

theirs is a sacramental view of the world –

“The Earth Is bread, the Sun is wine”

all sin/oppression/violence are the Passion of Christ.

Shadow is often falsely equated with sin

but sin is rejection of God

and shadow is rejection of self.

The false self is more bogus than bad

and only bad when it pretends

to be more than it is – a costume we need to shed

so we can see the light of the true self.

Churches can help us find this light

by envisioning the true dignity of human beings:

both male and female are made in God’s image

capable of knowing and loving their Creator

masters of all creatures on Earth

and responsible for stewardship of them

in a way that honors God.

Jesus chased all creatures out of the Temple

in order to end the ritual slaughter of animals

“What God desires is mercy not sacrifice”

Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 9:13.

But institutional religion did not accept

this New God

and slaughtered him instead.

GETTING BEYOND FLATLAND

We must get beyond Flatland –

the loss of transcendence –

and build a civilization that integrates

consciousness/culture/nature

morals/art/science

personal values/collective wisdom/tech knowhow.

Science and technology on their own

are not accountable to anything

except their own ethic: expediency and efficiency.

If technology allows us to do something

we feel we must do it

even if we destroy whole civilizations

with chemical/biological/nuclear war.

Normal ethics do not apply

to these autonomous powers.

“Life is always a battleground between opposites:

birth/death, joy/pain, good/evil, science/religion.

If the opposites ceased, life would cease.”

– Carl Jung

If science alone rules, we are in deep trouble:

“Humanity should not be afraid of God,

we should be afraid of losing God.”

– Meister Eckhart

Every civilization is built on mythology

and the most common myth is the hero.

The mythic structure is always the same

whether ancient/medieval/modern

whether Far East/African/Incan:

miraculous birth/early displays  

of superhuman strength/then rise to power/

triumphant struggle with evil/

eventual fall due to pride or death.

Pope John Paul II noted also:

common mythic structures/elements/roots

in the many varieties of religion.

This pope was more on the side of

Vivekananda than Francis Xavier –

John Paul was a pope

who ironically transcended Christianity.

THE INTER-SPIRITUAL GOLD STANDARD

Inter-spirituality – religions getting along

and learning from each other – is an ideal

like the ethical gold standards:

economic egalitarianism

abandonment of militant nationalism

nuclear disarmament

which are promoted by globalism

and multiculturalism.

Conservative spirituality needs to loosen up

its fixation on ethnocentric myth

and learn how the Spirit expresses itself

in worldcentric reason

and postconventional love.

The Church is both human

since it exists within time

and is subject to forces of history and culture

and it is also divine

because it resolutely presses towards

the final Kingdom/Queendom/Kindom of God.

“Christians must resolutely strive towards

justice in the real, ambiguous world

where grace and sin abound.”

– Reinhold Niebuhr

The idea of God/Christ/religion evolving

rests on the notion that humans evolve –

in fact, technology has become so pervasive

we have evolved into a new species –

techno-sapiens.

At the microlevel of subatomic particles

there is an unceasing flow of energy

too vast for our minds to comprehend.

The Universal Christ is this energy incarnate

in every church/religion/all humans/the universe –

the Universal Christ is the inter-spiritual

gold standard.

NEW ADAMS AND NEW EVES

Gandhi’s doctrine of nonviolence

came from his optimistic view of human nature –

truth is the law of our being

nonviolence is more natural for us than violence

love is more of our essence than hate.

The Cloud of Unknowing:

love must receive primacy in prayer

ahead of cogitation.

We must pray out of love

not out of a quest for knowledge.

And we must love God for God’s self

not for what God does for us.

To meditate to feel good is a common mistake –

every time you don’t feel good

you will feel like a failure at meditation.

Even the most experienced meditators

feel pain and frustration.

But non-dual seers hold contraries together

like pain and pleasure

and since they experience everything as One again

they are New Adams and New Eves

in the garden naked and unashamed.

Men in particular need to grow

into spiritual maturity, becoming New Adams

by exploring ancient wisdom

about the spiritual life of men

and relaunching the Sacred Masculine.

The medieval view by men like Aquinas and Eckhart

went beyond intellect and will

to the divine spark in the soul.

The soul is naturally godly

and designed to know ultimate perfection.

This is the true knowledge that transforms:

God made us for perfect holiness, grace and truth.