Tag: needs

EASTER: CHRIST’S CONSCIOUSNESS

For Meister Eckhart the spiritual journey

is not a climb up Jacob’s ladder

nor the ascent of Mount Carmel

but rather an upward spiral

of expanding consciousness

that has no limits

which fits with what Carl Jung thought

the purpose of life is:

to constantly grow in consciousness

 

which in some ways is similar

to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

physiological (food and shelter) needs/

safety needs/the need to belong/

the need for self-esteem/then self-actualization/

and finally self-transcendence

where you forget yourself

in service to others

 

self-transcendence does not mean

you think your self is very little

but that you think of your self

very little

 

everyone’s story, however little, is sacred

and story is our primary means

of accessing the Divine Source

and the ultimate meaning of life

 

this is why Jesus spoke in parables –

stories that overturned everyone’s applecart –

their view of how life worked –

the religious leaders want to kill God?

Are you serious?

 

but they were serious

because they were operating

from the lowest rungs

of the spiral of consciousness –

the need for their own safety –

because the Romans would destroy their Jewish applecart

if this rebel prophet Jesus

converted too many people to his level of consciousness –

Christ’s call to “repent” is “metanoia:” in Greek:

Christ said: “Go to your Higher (‘meta’) Mind (‘noia’).”

LOVE AND SOCIAL RENEWAL

Maslow’s growth hierarchy of needs operates like this:

physiological needs must be met before we can pursue

safety/belonging/self-esteem/self-actualization/

self-transcendence needs – the need to move beyond self

into ever-expanding circles of care/consciousness –

this is the transpersonal/spiritual level

 

but the Enlightenment emphasis on separation

of religion and state made Christianity captive

to the financial values of the middle class

which then used religion to justify those values –

so we got stuck

at the physiological/financial safety need level

 

the middle class version of Christian joy

then became the synthetic “happy-making”

of going on a vacation cruise

whereas true Christian joy

takes you from the limitations

of what you had no choice to be born into

to the freedom of creatively loving

those who are strangers to you

 

for the soul this is all or nothing –

either we see God’s image in all people

or we don’t see at all –

love of enemies makes no logical sense

but absolute soul sense –

we can no longer exclude anyone

 

sometimes the “enemy” is the one you are married to

but conjugal love could become highly regarded

and bring about psychological/social/cultural renewal

if Christian couples focused not on money

but on committed/harmonious love –

divine love would shine thru everything –

 

“Seek joy in God/peace within yourself/love in relationships –

seek to rest in the good, the true, and the beautiful –

this resting is then God within you

loving God all around you – this is authentic social renewal.”

– Richard Rohr