Part I – Individual Something Deeperism

If Pure Love creates, sustains, shines through, overwhelms and ultimately Is all things

If all that truly Is is an infinitely infinite explosion (exploding out infinitely in all possible ways, and from every point again exploding out infinitely in all possible ways, and from …) of creative kind joyful embracing and giving

And

If mortal minds/hearts/bodies can relate meaningfully to this Love that is enough for love and life overflowing for everyone that ever was is and will be

Then

Wisdom is possible

And

There is a way forward: a way of feeling/thinking/speaking/acting/relating that we can adequately believe in, care about, understand, connect with, follow, be, joy in.

This is the foundation of individual Something Deeperism, which holds that the way forward is to assume the possibility that there is a Truth and we humans can relate meaningfully to It, just not in a direct/1:1, or complete/definitive, or exclusive/unique kind of way.

The non-literal part is because:
If Truth exists, It is prior to our feelings and ideas about Truth, and so the best we can hope for is that the Truth shines within our conscious experiences and we can orientate ourselves poetically (without literal, precise, or complete certainty, knowledge, or understanding; but yet with an adequate whole-being connection and — through the constant effort of harkening better and better to the Truth and thereby self-critiquing and adjusting how we hold and move ourselves within our own conscious moments — (though setbacks are inevitable part of an imperfect human process, on the whole) ever-growing sense of confident insight into an experiential sense-of-things) to It.

Individual Something Deeperism is easy, at least the theory of it is: Take as a working hypothesis the essential correctness of the mystics and seek the Kingdom of Heaven within yourself in the ways long established: pray, meditate, study sacred texts, practice loving kindness and humility and gentle resolve; seek always to turn yourself inside out, letting the inner Light shine out and connect to the Light all around and through all things and all creatures; seek always to do what is best for everyone in a gentle soul-centered action-cautious love. That is to say, carry on as normal —

Just with the constant consideration that what we are all seeking is a real relationship with Pure Love; and while (being comprised in the here and now largely of ideas and feelings) we must meaningfully relate our ideas and feelings to Pure Love as part of meaningfully relating our whole moments to Pure Love, confusing our ideas and feelings about Pure Love with Pure Love Itself is counterproductive.

And hence the dance of wisdom: Open up to what is beyond feelings and ideas, drop down into your workaday self once again transformed and with slightly tweaked feelings/ideas about Love and life; listen and live as best grounded in the spiritual Reality as possible, but not pretending you have it all figured out at all or anything silly like that; and then again you try to turn yourself inside out, forgetting everything you imagine you’ve learned and trying again to let Pure Love overwhelm every bit of you — including all your notions about Pure Love.

Easier said than done, but not controversial when said, since we all share this common vista and it is the sharing of this vista that makes both meaningful connection and wisdom possible.

Part 2: Shared Something Deeperism

What is more difficult to figure is what we collectively should do with Something Deeeperism.

Because here the matter becomes political. The request is no longer that people consider the ideas of Something Deeperism and assent to a certain reasonableness and wonderfulness within them, but that people agree to jointly adopt them. And how could I be so bold as to even suggest such a thing? And, more to the point, how do we create political consensus around what is prior to ideas and feelings without doing more harm than good? And then again: Even if we could get people to agree upon some broad principles, what difference would that make? Would they not already be the broad principles that politicians on all sides mouth and which humans are notoriously adept at manipulating to selfish ends?

Still, the first moves of shared Something Deeperism are self-evident and clear-cut enough to avoid much controversy:

We separate religion and state not because we claim that spiritual experience is not important, but because combining spiritual authority with political power tempts both leaders and citizens to lie to themselves and others about the most sacred things in order to win worldly power, security, and glory.

And so for shared Something Deeperism we don’t request that everyone sign onto our philosophical and spiritual notions; but rather that we all agree that none of our worldviews, religions, and/or philosophies can make sense to any of us except to the degree that they help us to feel/think/speak/act/relate/live aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, loving kind, and joyfully sharing; and to better understand that and in what way it is True to say, “We’re all in this together”. And that therefore, we should not sacrifice these fundamental shared values for any expediency.

That is Something Deeperism: Keep first things first. Within a human conscious moment or between them, there is much confusion and controversy: OK, but don’t let those confusions and controversies take our eye off what we within and between individuals agree upon.

What are both atheists and fundamentalist theologians so desperately protecting if not their right to a worldview that is meaningful to them?

And what worldview can be meaningful to anyone except insofar as one’s interpretation of the worldview helps one to feel/think/act aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, compassionate, loving kind, and joyfully sharing; and to gain more and more insight into that and in what way it is True to say we’re all in this together? Without these goods, life tastes like chalk in our mouths — meaningless, pointless, a lie, a crime of confusion; and we cannot meaningfully travel with our own thoughts to our own conclusions.

This does not prove that the universal values are correct, or that we’re all in this together, or that life is meaningful; but it does demonstrate that there is only one way forward for human beings: find a way to gain reliable insight into the universal values and the Truth of the Love that chooses us all — not literally/dogmatically (since the point here is a meaningful life: not assenting to stories about the Truth no one can intellectually/emotionally understand anyway; but actually living in and through the Truth) but as a whole (ideas, feelings and the Truth all working imperfectly but still meaningfully together).

This is what we essayists are here asking us all to agree upon: That we already share fundamental spiritual values, with “spiritual” here used in the sense of, “deeper and wider than ideas and feelings, so that our arguments for and against them are less fundamental to our feeling/thinking/acting than the values themselves”; and that those values are founded in a spiritual sense of Pure Love: a love that chooses everyone, that binds us all together in a universal accord. It is the sense of things that makes us appreciate simple tales of friendship and wholesome intentions triumphing over self-centered grabs at power (think The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series); and it is the sense of things that made young people in the 1940s — walking to the farm or the factory or the corner store — think to themselves, “I feel that Hitler is wrong. Why? Because I say he’s wrong? Because my parents do? Because the preacher does? No, I feel Hitler is wrong because I feel that God says what Hitler is doing is not OK.” Is it so much to ask that we all gently and carefully, and not trying to find Hitlers in everyone who we disagree with, but holding to a clearcut historical example, agree on that sense of things — not worrying one way or another over the absolute meaning of words like “God” or “right and wrong”, but on the general sense that there is a Way and It is gentle, humble, kind, careful with ourselves and one another; that It is chooses us all and is wise enough to guide us all together towards what is best for us all together?

So then, we accept that general direction, that general sense of a Reality that is Love, and that living in and through and for Love is the Way, and that we have inborn boundaries to help us keep to that path: feel/think/act aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, compassionate, loving kind, joyfully sharing. But what does it matter if we all sign onto that path? What concrete systems, policies, and procedures can we jointly draw from it? Don’t we already nod along to such high-minded niceties? And don’t we already misuse these concepts to undermine our individual and shared fidelity to them? What good can an essay about shared Something Deeperism ever do?

I don’t know. Maybe by clarifying what we agree upon and what we can meaningfully say and do about it, we can better individually and jointly prioritize it.

There are basic psychological laws to human life that require us to seek and attain and live in accordance with wisdom — which is a spiritual good because wisdom is not about what seems best, but what is Best, and what is Best is by definition wider and deeper than our ideas and feelings about what is Best: “What is Best” points towards a sense of things that is either illusionary or wider and deeper than what ideas and feelings (who know themselves to be limited and fallible and in-and-of-themselves without reliable foundations) can describe. And if the sense of “What is Best for us all” is illusionary, there’s no hope for any of our feeling/thinking/acting to be meaningful to any of us: our feeling/thinking/acting is predicated upon the sense that there’s truer and better ways and that Love is real. To see this one only need to consider what meaningful conclusion one can derive from “knowing” that our senses of the universal values and/or of a universal Love are illusionary: None! Nothing matters to us, nothing is worth or not worth saying or doing, everything turns to empty mush. This is not a sermon; this is just psychology. No metaphysics is involved in this argument besides the sense that we are all fundamentally the same. And not even that metaphysical assumption is considered proven by our need for it to be True. All we here argue is that we all need for the universal values and for their underpinning Love to be True; and we all need insight into that and in what way these Goods are True.

If we agree to together accept the reality of our shared psychological need, we can agree to together adopt systems, procedures, and policies that conducive to pursuing and sharing wisdom: conducive to individually and collectively pursuing aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, loving kind, joyfully sharing feeling/thinking/speaking/acting; and to individually and collectively behaving in ways that are in accordance with a Love that Loves us all equally and never hurts or abandons or puts down or makes a snide comment about or in anyway harms anyone ever no matter what.

And so we return again and again to this individual and collective agreement to honestly try to do the right thing for all, nourished by the freedom to pursue our individual senses of the Love as we see fit — be it through this or that religious tradition, and/or secular humanism, and/or (not always wisest and best) an obsessive writing and rewriting over and over again essays on Something Deeperism. And from here we converse, we debate, we legislate, we organize, we vote. Maybe that makes a difference.

All our worldviews consider it counterproductive to squabble over details none of us understand instead of focusing on working together to protect and develop those areas we already agree upon. That’s it. That is shared Something Deeperism. I conclude from it liberal democracy — so that individual rights are protected, and that the many can serve as a final check on the madness and corruption of the leaders and other minorities. I conclude from it an open, transparent political process and honest and careful political conversations. I conclude from it a constant gentle effort to fight against corruption in politics, elections, information, society, and everywhere: not the demagogue’s tool of calling what is not quite perfect “evil corruption” in order to co-opt the system to their own actually evil ends, but a gentle careful honest shared self-critique, -analysis, and -adjustment: as if we were all one body and we were seeking to become actually healthier by making meaningful and actionable and careful changes. I see more madness and corruption as what makes it easier for less wise impulses to gain and hold attention, respect, and power; and I see more sanity and good government (within or between individual human conscious spaces) as what makes it easier for wiser impulses to gain and hold attention, respect, and power. I see a story of Love that is not about who is better and worse, but about what motions within and between our conscious spaces do a better job of turning towards and poetically (not literally/definitively/1:1, but still meaningfully) expressing the Love that chooses everyone always.

In short, I see what we all already agree upon. So why do I write essay after essay about Something Deeperism? I don’t know. What am I doing? Winding around and around in circles.

Mindless cynicism is just as self-defeating as mindless following. And both tools are used by those who would lead us astray. “Mindlessly agree that the other side is Evil and that I am Good!” This is the way down. Together feeling, thinking, and acting aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, loving kind, and joyfully sharing is the way up.

Why do we like simple hero tales? Because they tell us that our sense that friendship and kindness and cooperation and generosity and compassion not only should but can win the day. What do we know? Maybe they can. We can’t know how beautiful we can make our lives without giving it an honest effort.

Authors/Editors: Bartleby Willard & Amble Whistletown
Copyright: Andrew Mackenzie Watson

Left Overs:

…

You can also use the universal values angle as a way into individual Something Deeperism: We can only believe in our own thinking/feeling/acting to the degree it is clear … joyfully sharing. So sacrificing those values for the sake of any dogma would be self-defeating. So they must be founded in a sense of things prior to specific dogmas. But within the universal values is implicit a sense of Absolute (we don’t sense that we should abide by these values because we personally or collectively opine or feel or assume that we should abide by these values, but because deep inside, prior to our arguments for and against doing so, we KNOW that we SHOULD abide by them); as well as the sense that our relationship to the Absolute will be more meaningful by prioritizing a non-literal process, as opposed to some specific dogmas (the values are not so much dogmas as inner directions).

Although, the more we think about it, the more we see that the foundations of Something Deeperism are self-evident to us all: Without Truth we slide back and forth upon ultimately foundationless/meaningless assumptions that in vain would try to justify themselves and each other; but for Truth to be Truth, it would have to be prior to our ideas and feelings about It, and therefore confusing our ideas and feelings about Truth with Truth Itself would have to be self-defeating.

So, upon further reflection, can we not all agree upon the basic foundations of Something Deeperism? Whether we be atheist, fundamentalist believer, fanatical skeptic, or liberal believer / (wisest and best) devout Something Deeperist; can we not all agree to assent both to the human need for universal values with a spiritual foundation and the human reality that our insights into the spiritual can never be literal or definitive or exclusive, but must always be poetic (of a vista that cannot fit into words, nor even any collection of ideas and feelings) and thus an ongoing process of constant self-assessment, -critique, and -revision — of the sort recognized by all wisdom traditions?
You can also use the universal values angle as a way into individual Something Deeperism: We can only believe in our own thinking/feeling/acting to the degree it is clear … joyfully sharing. So sacrificing those values for the sake of any dogma would be self-defeating. So they must be founded in a sense of things prior to specific dogmas. But within the universal values is implicit a sense of Absolute (we don’t sense that we should abide by these values because we personally or collectively opine or feel or assume that we should abide by these values, but because deep inside, prior to our arguments for and against doing so, we KNOW that we SHOULD abide by them); as well as the sense that our relationship to the Absolute will be more meaningful by prioritizing a non-literal process, as opposed to some specific dogmas (the values are not so much dogmas as inner directions).

Although, the more we think about it, the more we see that the foundations of Something Deeperism are self-evident to us all: Without Truth we slide back and forth upon ultimately foundationless/meaningless assumptions that in vain would try to justify themselves and each other; but for Truth to be Truth, it would have to be prior to our ideas and feelings about It, and therefore confusing our ideas and feelings about Truth with Truth Itself would have to be self-defeating.

So, upon further reflection, can we not all agree upon the basic foundations of Something Deeperism? Whether we be atheist, fundamentalist believer, fanatical skeptic, or liberal believer / (wisest and best) devout Something Deeperist; can we not all agree to assent both to the human need for universal values with a spiritual foundation and the human reality that our insights into the spiritual can never be literal or definitive or exclusive, but must always be poetic (of a vista that cannot fit into words, nor even any collection of ideas and feelings) and thus an ongoing process of constant self-assessment, -critique, and -revision — of the sort recognized by all wisdom traditions?

….

So, upon further reflection, can we not all agree upon the basic foundations of Something Deeperism? Whether we be atheist, fundamentalist believer, fanatical skeptic, or liberal believer / (wisest and best) devout Something Deeperist; can we not all agree that we need Truth, but the Truth we need cannot be captured in any ideas or feelings, and thus not in any dogmas? And so can we not all agree to assent both to the human need for universal values with a spiritual foundation and the human reality that our insights into the spiritual can never be literal or definitive or exclusive, but must always be poetic (of a vista that cannot fit into words, nor even any collection of ideas and feelings) and thus an ongoing process of constant self-assessment, -critique, and -revision — of the sort recognized by all wisdom traditions? Is that not the wisdom within the separation of church and state: Not that the spiritual side of life doesn’t matter, but that it is too deep and hidden and important to be used as a political test, since doing so tempts everyone to lie about the most sacred things, both to themselves and to one another?