In The Shining Way I presented in outline the way of salvation that true religion sponsors and promotes. Not all religions, but true religion. That qualification allowed me to make a critical distinction between religion-in-essence or religion-itself, and the sometimes pathological forms it can take when it gets hijacked by that most dangerous force inContinue reading “Passing Through, Never Home”
Tag Archives: conviction
Spiritual Intelligence
Spiritual intelligence (SQ) has nothing to do with religious orthodoxy, how much you know about metaphysics, or whether you possess super-normal abilities like yogic flying, seeing into the future, or bending spoons with your mind. Maybe it’s because I can’t do any of those things, that I define spiritual intelligence without appealing to special gifts. AsContinue reading “Spiritual Intelligence”
The Price of Ignórance
We know for a fact that the pesticides we spray on our crops end up in our grocery stores. We know that rampant consumerism is unraveling the delicate web of life on our planet. We know that collateral losses of civilian casualties make wars criminally unjust. We know that teaching students what to think andContinue reading “The Price of Ignórance”
The Way of Dialogue
One sure mark of maturity is our ability as individuals to engage others in constructive dialogue. This term is not meant as a synonym for mere conversation, argumentative debate, or the pursuit of agreement in how we see things. To communicate with others of a different perspective means at least that we are able toContinue reading “The Way of Dialogue”
Our Quest for Identity, and What’s Beyond
One of the critical achievements on the long arc to human fulfillment is a capacity for getting over ourselves. Our chronic problems and pathologies are complications of a failure in this regard. We get tangled up, hooked, and held back from our true potential and end up settling for something we aren’t. Instead of focusing onContinue reading “Our Quest for Identity, and What’s Beyond”
The Supreme Paradox
I’ve written before on what I call the Matrix of Meaning, referring to a deep code of primary concerns and narrative motifs that generates the very fabric of our worldview. A sense of self and reality is the central construct in our personal myth, orienting us on the pressing challenges and emerging opportunities in our journey through life. TheContinue reading “The Supreme Paradox”
Life Outside the Consensus Trance
The psychologist Charles Tart coined the term consensus trance in reference to the shared assumptions and agreements that hold social organizations inside the rules of groupthink (Irving Janus, 1972). As an aspect of what he named a consensus reality orientation (CRO), it reflects the tendency we all have in adjusting our perspective and aspirations toContinue reading “Life Outside the Consensus Trance”
Mental Bypass in Religion
How did something with its origins in a mystical intuition of reality’s essential oneness become such a violent force of division in the world? If religion began as a system of symbols, rites, and sacred stories with the purpose of linking the business of daily life back to the grounding mystery of being, where didContinue reading “Mental Bypass in Religion”
The Examined Life
It was Socrates who said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” He is a key figure in the history of Western consciousness and its growing fascination with the self. At that time, Socrates and others were searching out the individual’s place in the comic and moral orders; only later did the obsession collapse into theContinue reading “The Examined Life”
The Consilient Leader
Reality is not a thing, but a process comprised of three interacting forces which are universal throughout the Great Process we call ‘the universe’. Consilient leaders understand this process, working with rather than against it. Not long ago I made a case for taking a little-known term out of seclusion and applying it in a fresh way to theContinue reading “The Consilient Leader”
Tracts of Revolution 