[This is part of The System]
Shared Something Deeperism
An individual Something Deeperist grows her body/heart/mind relationship with the Love shining through the center of her body/heart/mind and gains better and better poetic, whole-being insight into that and in what way it is True to say Love is Real. And she works with that core of Pure Love to better and better motivate, justify, explicate, and react to the universal values and fundamental questions.
She becomes a better and better conduit for the Pure Love that is all that ever is, was, and shall be — an everforth-bubbling giggle, a joy at life beyond being and nonbeing.
But what about groups of individuals? What does Something Deeperism suggest they do?
Required working assumption: All humans are essentially the same
First let us remember that part of what we need Love = Reality to motivate, justify, and explicate — if we’re to believe in, understand, or care about our own feeling/thinking/acting/living — is the essential sameness and brother/sister/themhood of all humans.
[That follows from what the Absolute must be if It is to be meaningful to us. If Reality is not something along the lines of a Love that chooses everyone, we will never relate meaningfully to Reality.
We are psychologically constructed for a Reality in which we are all joined in and through and for the Love that chooses everyone. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t feel like that’s the way we are; but these are the times when we float upon the surface, ignoring our own depths.
But if you don’t feel like diving all the way into your pit of pits at the moment; here’s another way we could explain the need for a “All humans are essentially the same” working assumption:
Either we humans are all essentially the same, or life is too lonely to fathom or bear and we’ve also no idea how to understand everything we’ve learned by interacting with others — which is pretty much everything we’ve ever learned*. From this it follows that we need to discover that and in what way the essential sameness of all human beings is True.
*(We learn fundamental concepts via empathy: My father bangs his toe, grabs it, leaps around, makes faces and gestures, yells “Ow!” and “That hurts!” and “My toe!” and “Man!”; I take all that in and map it onto my mind/body to recreate a facsimile of his experience, and thereby get a sense of the language and underlying concepts he’s using. And from fundamental concepts, we build other knowledge, mostly by directly interacting with other humans.)]
Let us, therefore — though we’re perhaps yet all not so very wise — procedurally assume that all is not lost and that we humans are all essentially the same and are all “in this together”.
Meaningful collaboration requires prioritizing the universal
Assuming there’s some hope for humans to be meaningful to themselves, and thus assuming we are all essentially the same (as in we all share the universal values and fundamental questions and all most fundamentally require spiritual Love to understand, believe in, or care about our own feeling/thinking/acting) and are all in this together:
No one’s worldview can be meaningful to anyone except to the degree their worldview helps them abide by the universal values and address the fundamental questions via an ever-deepening and -widening relationship with Love = Reality.
That relationship between the mundane (feelings, thoughts, et cetera) and Absolute aspects of one’s conscious experience is best accomplished through the spiritual practice of organizing one’s feeling/thinking/acting around Love = Reality so that It can guide their thought-as-a-whole* to better and better motivate, justify, explicate, and live the universal values and fundamental questions.
*(thought-as-a-whole: L = R, feelings, ideas, et cetera — all experiencing each other simultaneously, organizing themselves, and relating imperfectly but still meaningfully to one another. The wiser one is, the more the rest of one’s conscious experience recognizes and follows L = R. [because L = R is by far the wisest and best aspect of a conscious moment])
From this it follows that the way forward for groups is to together prioritize the universal values, fundamental questions, standard spiritual practices, and most fundamentally the Love = Reality required to make these values, questions and practices, and our whole lives meaningful to us.
Only by together prioritizing the values, questions, practices, and spiritual sense without which none of our worldviews are meaningful to any of us (i.e. only by together prioritizing those values, questions, practices, and sense-of-things without which none of our feeling/thinking/acting is meaningful to any of us); can we work meaningfully together.
We need to be on the same page to feel, think, and act meaningfully together. But we all essentially the same, and thus we are already on the same page. Therefore, to better share meaning, we need only to better recognize and prioritize what we already share: the universal values, fundamental questions, standard spiritual practices, and the Love that alone Knows what’s what.
Wisdom can neither be forced on others, nor reliably measured with shared dogmas
Human wisdom is the process of relating a spiritual Love prior to feeling/thinking/acting to feeling/thinking/acting.
As such, while good dogmas properly understood help people grow in wisdom, wisdom is ultimately distinct from dogmas (a good dogma with poor insight is often counterproductive; and a not-quite-there dogma with good insight [including an inner sense of what, how, and to what degree the dogma hits, and to what degree it misses] can be helpful).
Therefore — wisdom being a largely internal process that relates only poetically (not literally/definitively/1:1) to dogmas — you cannot force wisdom on anyone (including yourself), and you cannot use adherence to any given dogma as a reliable measuring stick for wisdom.
We cannot reliably assess other peoples’ spiritual journeys
We can’t get inside of other people and help them organize themselves around Love = Reality. Nor can we see into their souls to see how they are relating to L = R deep down in their misty depths.
Wisdom in Groups
Groups of different sizes, compositions, and purposes will have different responses to how to best prioritize the universal values, fundamental questions, spiritual practices, and L = R.
But in general, wisdom councils that all groups be careful with trust and power, and that we never sacrifice any element of our inborn path (the universal values, fundamental practices, standard spiritual practices, and most fundamentally the Love that lights the way).
Wisdom will not sacrifice its guardrails for any expediency
Human wisdom is fundamentally careful, humble, and procedural. All those qualities follow from wisdom’s understanding of itself as both necessary and limited.
The God (aka: Reality = Love) alone is 100% wise.
Human wisdom is the relationship of our limited faculties to the unlimited, which is an ongoing process and always liable to corruption and error.
But that’s OK, because we have the universal values, fundamental questions, standard spiritual practices, and most importantly our need for a Love that is infinitely kind, compassionate, and helpful to everyone always.
We can use all those parameters to help keep us from over- or under-stepping our relationship to Reality = Love.
We can grow in wisdom, but only by sticking with our inborn procedures for growing in wisdom with the caution and humility proper to limited creatures who can only be meaningful to themselves to the degree they can relate to an unlimited Love shining through all things.
Wisdom prioritizes the universal values, fundamental questions, and standard spiritual practices. It will never ask anyone to sacrifice those goods for any expediency. Because that would work against wisdom.
Wisdom prioritizes growing in Love most, but only fools pretend they can grow in Love without the inborn guardrails that help to both necessitate and protect our spiritual journey*.
*(OK, sometimes people probably get spiritually lucky and stumble into wisdom, but here we are trying to come up with a workable philosophy, and “perhaps I’ll stumble into wisdom, so I guess I’ll just do whatever I feel like” is not much of a plan and could cause a lot of harm to oneself and others.)
Wisdom seeks to share wisdom, trust, and power
Wisdom recognizes we are all essentially the same and are all in this together. Wisdom therefore wants what is best for all. Wisdom — rejoicing in and reflecting Love = Reality — therefore wants to share wisdom.
But sharing wisdom requires at least some degree of trust- and power-sharing.
No one can force wisdom on anyone. We (especially in large impersonal groups) can’t reliably measure wisdom in others. And sharing dogmas does not necessarily equal sharing wisdom (we don’t know that others understand our faith the same as we do, and we can’t even know if they are telling the truth about what they believe).
Sharing wisdom thus requires open conversation and the self-exploration and -discovery of all involved, as well as sharing enough power and respect that all are heard and none are deified.
Part of sharing wisdom is recognizing that we all have a responsibility to foster our own wisdom and to use that wisdom to speak and act wisely. Therefore, rather than trust that our leaders’ decisions must be wise because our leaders “are wise” or mistrust our leaders’ decision because they “are fools”, we should all gently (for wisdom is first and foremost gentle) consider the wisdom of what they say and do: let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of members of government and private citizens who will be impacted by their decisions, empathizing with all sides.
Don’t worry! Empathy is not a blank check. Empathizing with foolish feeling/thinking/acting does not imply acting as if that kind of f/t/a is fine and dandy; it implies seeing human errors as missteps within whole human beings — creatures who span the Kingdom of Heaven, better and worse emotional/mental interpretations of that shared inner vista of Godlight, and the particular details of living.
Wisdom spreads itself not by demanding fidelity to individuals or dogmas, but by working with as many people as possible to discover and do what’s best for all.
This implies some measure of sharing power, trust, and responsibility: You can’t meaningfully share one without sharing all three.
Concentrating all power and/or authority in one place risky and counterproductive
Excessive faith and power can corrupt even the wisest people. Everyone’s wisdom is a tenuous and vulnerable flower that they need to tend constantly if they are to be any good to themselves or anyone else.
And, even supposing some leader or group of leaders were wise enough to be given all the power and/or authority, concentrating all power and/or authority in a small portion of the whole would corrupt the system and everyone involved because it would pretend away our shared responsibility for this shared life.
Anyway, no matter how wise our leaders are in a given moment, concentrating all power and/or trust in a small portion of the whole would open us all up to eventually handing power over to someone unprepared to do what’s best for all (and tomorrow’s fool could be today’s wise person: nothing is static and no one’s wisdom is guaranteed; and you know what they say about absolute power … ).
Human wisdom is best maintained in different ways in groups of different sizes, but it’s core elements are always the same
In different times and places wisdom’s desire to build consensus and share power, responsibility, and wisdom will build and nourish different systems, cultures, and behaviors.
But if someone sacrifices the universal values, fundamental questions, standard spiritual practices, or fidelity to Love to win power and/or prestige; they are not behaving wisely, and if successful, they will do real harm to themselves and others.
If someone lies, cheats, steals, muddies the waters, and/or bullies to win power and/or prestige; they are working against wisdom. And to the degree they get and maintain power, they will hurt everyone.
If someone asks you to accept their authority and/or power on blind faith, watch out! Wisdom wants you to carry your share of responsibility, authority, and power. And wisdom knows we are all in this together and that working together requires recognizing that and in what way we are all in this together and are all essentially the same: imperfect creatures trying to be better stewards of the perfect Love that chooses everyone always forever and never hurts anyone, or shoves anyone around, or patronizes anyone, or in any way manipulates, controls, or takes advantage of anyone’s weakness, but instead gently listens and love-lifts all towards the joyful gentle selfless kindness of Love beyond all measure.
And if someone living in a democratic republic attempts to weaken democratic norms and rules to aggregate more power and/or prestige to themselves, they are not behaving wisely; and if successful, they will do great harm to themselves, others, and the nation they imagine and/or pretend (and/or because such self-centered delusions muddle merrily together) they are serving. Because liberal representative democracy is a spiritual good.
Liberal representative democracy is a spiritual Good
A liberal representative democracy is a spiritual good. It allows the citizens to build cultural and political consensus through open conversation, fair elections, limits on individual and group powers, and freedom from reprisals. In this way, the citizens can act as a final check on madness and corruption in government, while also gently guiding the whole (both their shared culture and their shared government) towards better government procedures, ideas, and decisions.
By allowing us to all share meaning and power, a liberal representative democracy encourages us to together prioritize and protect the universal values (without which no meaningful conversation or decision-making is possible), and to safeguard each person’s right to address the fundamental questions and seek Love = Reality in a way that is meaningful to them. (You can’t force wisdom on people, and pretending you can force wisdom or its fruits onto others encourages people to lie about what is most important to themselves and others.)
A liberal representative democracy is a spiritual good. We who are lucky enough to enjoy one should work carefully and gently together to preserve it and the process of communal consensus, compromise, and shared privilege and responsibility. We should prioritize such foundational goods over short-term partisan goals. We should choose leaders who demonstrably do the same.
And we should tweak the system so that it selects for good civic and political behavior (honesty, clarity, accuracy, competency, humble service to the greater good); good government (transparent honest accurate competent stewardship, fair elections with wide enfranchisement and thoughtful and knowledgeable participation, separation of and limits on powers [including, I would argue, the power of money]*; fundamental rights like freedom of speech and freedom from reprisals and from trial-less imprisonment and punishment [and I would argue: freedom from wanton violence]**); and good policies (those that help all us inhabitants of this world live together well — sharing the responsibility, rights, and joy of free souls in this Love-soaked life).
Willfully encouraging or being complicit in pushing liberal representative democracies towards tyranny is a crime against God and man: In a tyranny, the government is a criminal organization and so one has to choose between publicly standing up for what is right and keeping oneself and one’s family safe. To willfully replace the win-win of a system that (placing checks on individual powers, guaranteeing basic human rights and equality under the law, and creating a sound government with temporary leaders who serve at the people’s pleasure) encourages, rewards, and selects for good behavior (like competent stewardship) with a system that (by instilling leaders who equate themselves with the government and whose primary goal is not to govern competently in the best interest of all, but instead to remain in power forever) selects for bad behavior (from both the leadership and the complicit-or-endangered citizenry) is a profound evil.
*For the sake of reading-flow, the money footnote
**and the wanton violence footnote
Have been removed to Appendix B (of the soonish to be rereleased Diary of An Adamant Lover)
Just remember that part of maintaining a functioning representative democracy is relaxing the situation, so that we avoid existential crises and allow politics to be a fun, worthwhile, and joyfully-shared responsibility. To this end, we keep the government responsive to the people with universal enfranchisement*, regular and fair elections, open clear honest transparent government, and limits on individual and group powers; we simultaneously evolve culture and policies together through open clear honest careful loving conversation and action; and, most fundamentally and joyfully, we together prioritize the universal values and the process of representative democracy over partisan prancing and partisan victories.
In short: We are gentle with one another and our shared system.
*[why not make a law that every voting day is a holiday and that everyone must vote, and that the polls must be so organized that no one is harassed or need wait more than an hour to do this civic duty? Why not collectively keep what protects us all from tyranny both serious and joyful?]
What about state religions?
Why do we separate church and state if we recognize that the standard spiritual practices are important elements of growing in wisdom?
Because combining spiritual and political authority tempts both leaders and citizens to lie to themselves and others about the most sacred things.
And because wisdom is ultimately wider and deeper than our dogmas; and confusing our ideas and feelings about the Truth for the Truth* is a fundamental spiritual error that — to the degree it is committed — damages individuals, their relationships, and their organizations.
*[Note that we all make this spiritual error to some degree. Even when we say there is no Truth, or we can’t say whether or not there’s a Truth: Still we grab certain notions with desperate fidelity, with the sense of, “Here’s the Truth! Here I’m safe, thriving and blessed!” And in so doing, we overstep our experience. Because our experience — insofar as it is an accurate and workable path forward — is of a Truth beyond our notions.]
The standard spiritual practices are things like:
Prayer; meditation; study and contemplation of spiritual texts and ideas; fellowship with fellow believers; acts of service; practicing loving kindness, humility, and the other spiritual virtues.
These practices are meant for individuals and groups of believers to grow individually and together in wisdom.
Using them as a litmus test for political office perverts their purpose by turning what should be an inward and carefully self-observant process into an outward display designed to gain the very goods (power and prestige) that religious practitioners are trying to rise above.
Power and prestige are not necessarily bad. But they are not the point of life. We should serve Love first, rather than gratifying temptations like the need to win and possess and be liked and respected. Spiritual practices exist in large part to help us remember that difficult truth. Demanding one put on a display of spirituality is thus counterproductive.
We don’t need a state religion to prioritize the standard spiritual practices. We need to together admit that we already share the universal values, fundamental questions, and standard spiritual practices; and that we should thus prioritize following the universal values and guaranteeing everyone’s ability to make use of the standard spiritual practices and answer the fundamental questions for themselves. People need to find, nurture, and grow their own insights if these insights are to be meaningful to those individuals, and helpful to their communities (of all sizes: two is a community; a family is as well; we are all in many, oft-overlapping communities).
Something Deeperism as a state religion?
No!
Something Deeperism as the shared insight into our shared need to prioritize and nourish the universal values, fundamental questions, standard spiritual practices, and Love. So we can be meaningful to ourselves and others and work together to serve as a final check on madness and corruption in government, and to gently help steer our shared ship towards futures that are good for democracy, ourselves, our fellow citizens, and the world and its inhabitants.
Something Deeperism to admit together that we’re all in this together and are all essentially the same and have the same fundamental needs.
The most fundamental faith of Something Deeperism is the most fundamental faith of liberal representative democracy: We are all in this together and we can together find a way forward for everyone, because the Love calls us all.
Something Deeperism to accept the reality of our situation and work together within the universal values on the honest conversation, equality under the law, and compromise necessary to sustainably grow together.
We separate church and state to protect both our government and our spiritual growth.
A liberal, representative democracy encourages individual and group wisdom by focusing on the process. Together we abide by the universal values to find what is best for everyone within a system built for hearing all voices and growing the conversation in tandem with the nation’s policies. What is the paradox at play? How can it be that a secular liberal democracy is better for individual spiritual growth than a religious government? It’s because we can’t force spiritual growth on people; but we can create a system that selects for aware, clear, honest, accurate, kind, compassionate, joyfully-together: we can prioritize wise thoughts, people, and decisions: we can prioritize together holding to the universal values and the rules and norms of a healthy democratic republic; we can grow together.
