Spirituality: Session Eight B

We are all interconnected and interdependent in History.

Session Summary

emersonstones
As we we began, Paul passed out three tarot cards from the Haindl deck (published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Stamford, CT 06902). The Father of Stones card shows the interconnection of many types of footprints on ancient stones. It describes how we are connected to all of history and can get in touch with this through our imagination. We are reliant on our ancestors. The Man in the Emperor card stands confident and competent, before the tree of Life, and depicts self-reliance and the necessity that we must know who we are. The Justice card is a balance between self and other reliance. Justice is the regulator within the universe, we need this in order to balance.

Emerson's understanding of history is like the white rose in Dante's Divine Comedy, a holographic image. The petals are individual people , but all together they make up the rose. Like an icon, which focuses a transcendant truth through a particular form. We all understand each other at the deepest level, because we are of the same substance.


emersonemperor
If this is so, why is there so much variety and misunderstanding in the world? We all have different slants and perceptions. We deal with the same material but process it differently. Literally fixating on contradictions prevents us from seeing the deeper unity.

Emerson believed we are all poets and can understand reality as poets. Does the severe schizophrenic know the same as the educated writer? Emerson would say 'yes'. Each would acknowledge the same truth, but in their own way. Emerson's basis for understanding education was platonic; we already know all things. We are connected to that which is omniscient. What does this say about copyright issues or about individual creativity? Much is made nowadays about who owns what. We believe that ideas belong to those who express them. But Emerson's view would say that while we embody a particular piece of creative energy, the source of this energy is beyond us, and flows through all people.


emersonjustice
And by extension all times are present in this time. But some era's seem markedly different from others. The 60's apparently were about freedom, the 90's embody materialism. There is some truth to these differences. But understanding from the Mind is a different perspective than when standing within culture. The Mind is non-judgmental, balancing contradictions, like the Justice card we saw earlier. From Mind we understand that each unique age is necessary and connected to other ages, and that each age serves consciousness. The expansiveness of one generation reveals the possibilities of Spirit. The limitations of another teaches the need for clarification of values. History is the evolution of one Human.

During the Renaissance a popular saying emerged: "Man is the measure of all things." This suggests the Universal Mind is not an impersonal absolute, but has personality. Humans are a variety of forms that contain the same essence. But we must never identify with the forms. They always point beyond themselves. We always need to move from emblem to substance. Paradoxically, we must be true to our particular form because it is a unique expression of humanness. Even though we are all united, the uniqueness of each one needs to be honored. Again the image of the Justice cards brings up the need for balance between unity and uniqueness. If either scale of the balance is ignored, we lose our identity or identify ourselves as God. The danger of identifying yourself alone with this energy, instead of participating in it, is you start to use things and people as objects.

History is biography but we're so ahistorical, all that IS is us, now. Meanwhile every person whose ever lived has been a miniature of the evolving Mind or Oversoul. From an ahistorical perspective, the movie Titanic could be seen as a super-teen cult for Leo DeCaprio. From a historical perspective you could see the deeper history of the old lady/young woman. Or we could see that event as an emblem for our own time, showing the terrible cost of pride and greed. A historical perspective might cause you to ask, "What did we learn from the Titanic movie, as a culture?"

The same could be asked of news stories, like the two Vietnam soldiers who saved villagers while their comrades committed the My Lai massacre, or the Arkansas shooting of 4 young girls by 11 and 13 year-old boys. These are shocking stories, which vividly show depravity and innocent suffering in those involved. Its easy to be removed and judgmental. But Emerson's History essay asks us to enter with Mind. Within Mind, we don't oppose or personalize, but see these events as one part of the Universal Human. We begin to see ourselves therefore as within those events. Like seeing the beggars downtown as being our debts. In the large scheme, everything balances, and these too have a place. These emblems can draw us out, evoke the Mind within us that connects to the universal Mind.

We might ask ourselves, "Is it necessary to be drawn out?" Perhaps we feel our lives are too full or too busy to take the time for this. But to be drawn out in this way is an ecstatic experience. In Mind we participate in god, in the big picture. We see we are part of a large whole, and that simultaneously we are that whole. This participation brings consciousness of our actions--helps us to learn from our life. To deny this keeps us unconscious and violent. To see in this way requires not mastery (control) but humility & trust. Worship and compassion is called for, not struggle & knowledge. Taliesin the Welsh poet-priest says:

I have born the banner before Alexander... 

I was at the place of crucifixion of the merciful Son of God... 

I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene... 

I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth.

This poem speaks about living simultaneously in transcendant as well as here-and-now consciousness. Emerson refers to this as double consciousness. This is thou, this is not thou. This is the meaning of an icon; it is not what it represents, but points beyond itself. Our lives are icons to the Universal Mind (Christ) that informs everything. History is about allowing our hearts to be opened through imagination and allowing recovery of ourselves by seeing ourselves in all times.

back to emerson section            comments            next