From Mystery to Responsibility
Mysticism and Reality, from M.R.R James to Environmental Protection
There’s a passage in MR James’s celebrated story “oh whistle, and I’ll come to you my lad” which, whether intended or not, strikes me as a description of a moment of illumination. The main character, a fussy professor who is decidedly antagonistic to the idea of there being anything like a spiritual dimension to life, finds an ancient (and cursed!) bronze pipe, and having blown into it, finds that the sound has stirred his imagination (along with something else!). He sees (in his mind) appearing-
“...a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh wind blowing, and in the midst, a lonely figure...”
That strikes me as something akin to what is reportedly encountered in meditation. Once or twice, I’ve been (near!) there. Not, of course, exactly the scene from the story, and certainly not with the implication of some paranormal activity. But when the discursive intellect is put aside and the mind is open, unfettered and alert, sometimes there appears this vastness, pregnant with possibility, full of creative power.
It’s there. Thorough, rational, dialectical and sound as the world of “self and beings” may be, at root, behind the intellect is this eminently spiritual place.
Extremely rich though pre-modern European thought was, it took a crushingly narrow turn with Thomism and scholasticism, although the seeds which would later sprout into the nihilism of the 19th and early 20th centuries were already there with Plato.
The splitting of existence into two worlds- not just two levels of the one world or two dimensions of experience, but actually severing the ideal from the real in a thorough ontological split- with the advent of science could only lead to the assumption that the world is simply a mass of available resources for our exploitation. ‘Dead’ matter versus and under dominion of an intelligent species without restraint. A very destructive and quite western version of materialism.
Remarkably though, Chinese marxists often do not hesitate to use terms such as ‘spirit’ - because Chinese civilisation did not veer towards splitting then jettisoning the continuum between ‘heaven and earth’. In Europe, the medieval schoolmen were at pains to shove them apart with an ocean of quibbling over abstracts. The mystical currents in European thought that went back at least as far as Egyptian civilization were more often than not pushed to the margins if not openly persecuted. Spinoza’s philosophy was possibly the first significantly influential and powerful riposte against that stifling scholasticism.
Spinoza's philosophy would certainly make an excellent choice to form part of a resurgent spiritual attitude and understanding, easily accessible to the western population.
This essay is concerned with policies and our human responsibility- which can also find support from human spiritual tradition.
I begin with a very brief summary of a few major (certainly not all) spiritual paradigms
The Confucians look to God as Principe Taiyi/Tian/Tien the Originator
The Abrahamic religions look to God as Person, El, YWVH, Allah, the Creator
Or as God as Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Vedantic beliefs look to God as Person and Principle, and as Creator and Creation.
With Buddha, this reality is encountered, experienced, or re-embraced, without essentialising the ultimate in a description beyond some terms which are no more than pointers.
Apart from Buddhism here, creation is a combination of will and understanding, united in an ultimate, a limitless way (in Buddhism there is also the non-denial of creativity and limitlessness of reality, only that questions relating to it are not thought to be the best focus for the practitioner)
For the Confucians, Tian, Heaven, is pure creativity. Heaven is omnipresent and omniscient. Heaven feels. Heaven sees as the people see. But Heaven does not impinge on the realm of human responsibility, because it is the lot awarded to humanity to actualize the Heaven endowed potential. Humans if they do so can be seen to take part in the creative transformations of the Universe.
If humans are irresponsible with the powers awarded them, then the heavenly mandate can be withdrawn. ‘Heaven’ does not need humans. Humans need ‘Heaven'.
I think the tendency to de-spirit nature in western philosophy- from at least Aristotle- has led to the dangerous assumption that this world is a lump of resources to exploit without restraint or thought of consequence.
Recognising the diversity of human spiritual beliefs, the Confucian concept could be seen to be conformable to the others to a great extent. In discussing the relationship of humanity to the world therefore -and to avoid as far as possible sectarianism- I will use the Confucian terminology.
If we take the Confucian view of the Heaven-endowed competence and responsibility of humanity, we can prioritise the realm of human society, without a dismissal of the natural world which is the overarching context in which human society is at all possible. Confucius said ‘I am a human being, I cannot herd with the birds and beasts’.
Of course, the natural concern of human beings should be foremost for other human beings. But foremost concern implies there necessarily are others.
If my dedication to the well-being of my fellow human beings (expressed as political activity and attitude) is sincere, and I exercise the human capacity for understanding in recognising our vital reliance on the natural world, it would be inhumane to advocate for policies that I know would lead to disaster.
Understanding calls for responsibility.