Blog by Joseph Masterleo

Note: Blogs posted by members are not necessarily the views of the Deeptime Network staff.

 

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s (Matthew 22:21).

Whether personal, national, or global, views of history and current events tend to fall mainly into two categories, short-sighted or far-sighted, depending on the viewing platform that informs them. That is, by folk being either naturally informed or spiritually informed. The short-sighted or commonplace view stems from a more pragmatic (worldly) perspective on what is happening at present, lacking historical context and a future-looking viewpoint. As the wisest, spiritually informed perspectives are the clearest and most comprehensive, ancient wisdom offers far-sighted vision of how current events and experiences might fit into a larger dome of meaning. By and large, the post-modern world believes that the ancients were less knowledgeable, less informed, and overall less technologically advanced than we. Not so. Ignored by mainstream scientists, archeological explorations worldwide are beginning to reveal otherwise.

By contrast, spiritual views tend in the direction of having confidence trusting that long-term outcomes will eventually be as they should, and that the arc of history gradually bends toward justice, righteousness, and equality. The spiritual person walks by faith, not by sight or short-sightedness, and is assured and convicted of long-term promises not yet seen. (However, such is not an invitation to shirk or be indifferent to citizenship, social, and voting responsibilities, rights and privileges.) To the pragmatist, such seems like pie-in-the-sky naiveite. However, Scripture and the perennial principles gleaned from it declare that all things work together for good, even though they appear unfavorable, messy, grim, and even tragic. Those insightful principles aim to subvert our limited human outlook, challenge short-view despair, and offer a way through by utterly reframing our worldview.

I too was disappointed in the election results, and appropriately grieved (short view). But not for long, not after practicing daily devotional reminders of the big picture, part of which serves to differentiate the spiritual self from the natural self, secular from biblical history, and the highest perceptual platform (long-view) that centrally informs it. So differentiated, each “self,” natural and spiritual, is indispensable in adapting to the domain and paradigm(s) a person orients to, including a worldview that informs and wisely weights and measures current events. In my faith tradition and experience, the former is seen as oriented to “this world,” the other, to a more transcendent world unfolding “on earth as it is in heaven,” including a god-self of a higher order and the enlightened awareness(es) pertaining thereunto. In the sacred writings, the latter is referenced as “My Kingdom,” that of an unfolding Omega Point that Jesus and Teilhard envisioned as still in progress and future looking. Theren lies my experience, and ultimate hope, trust, and deep-time view of history. Allow me to explain.

A person can know and be known intimately by their source in each domain, natural and spiritual. In the natural world, a “this world” self (horizontally caused) develops via genetics, ancestral history, experiences with parents, family, significant others, and the non-human environment. Likewise with the spiritual self, a distinctive domain experienced and oriented to the spiritual plane (vertically caused), and to the wisdom of others ancient and modern, likewise awakened to same. Being conscious of the spiritual plane (Infinite Invisible) makes a person at One with every spiritual idea which is independent of tense — past, present, and future.

Further, knowing and being known, caring and being cared about are essential to each domain, though the quality of divine attachment and relationship (love) is different, not in degree from the natural plane, but in kind and scope, devoid of self-interest, fear, anxiety, desire, personal gain, and short-sightedness. Such is what makes it distinctly holy (wholemaking), as opposed to more pedestrian in thought, outlook, values, circumstances, and current events like politics. On the natural-self level, each in-group is bounded, having its own “party spirit” or agenda that tends to lack inclusivity. However unintended, such inclines toward promoting division and exclusivity born of separation consciousness.

In his teaching, Jesus refers to the spiritual self as the gateway to unitive (mystical)  consciousness and long-range perspective, the “Way” for a person (spirit-soul) to access and know divinity as Source, as well as being seen and known by same intimately in the largest (cosmic) matrix of meaning. Such is referred to by him as “My Kingdom,” as distinct from “this world,” the spiritual self vs the natural self which differ from each other as day and night, church and state. A redeemed soul cannot serve two masters equally. Only one “self” can be foremost (figural), rendering the other hindmost (background). Many oriented more exclusively to this world and its doings are disadvantaged, devoid of being privy to the highest order of reality, including long-range perspectives. In both instances, natural and spiritual, having neither intimacy or knowledge of one’s source is impoverishing in many ways, primarily in emotional grounding (security), mental stability, balance, thought, perception, and worldview, just as Teilhard emphasized. Such operates as a buckler or firewall against the intrusion of all lower-level impediments in thought, perception, and outlook, instead creating higher order integral unity from one’s deepest center.

But my kingdom is within and all around you. When you know yourselves, then shall you be known, and you shall know that you are the sons of the living Father (Source). But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty (Jesus, in Thomas, saying 24).

In examining his life and teachings carefully, I’m convinced that Jesus came not to establish a new religion, but rather to end all sectarian religions by identifying their common denominator, or universal constant, thus minimizing their distinctive doctrinal claims to transcendence. Instead, he introduced a radical inward awareness of the presence of Spirit within and all-around things everywhere. As explained by Teilhard, such is embedded in matter organically (spirit-matter), like leaven in bread, manifesting everywhere in creation, and raising consciousness of itself only in humans. Though immanent in proximity and experience, Spirit simultaneously transcends time, space, and place. Its movements, formations, and transformations in history are purposive, manifesting as more compassionate and unitive levels of thought and seeing, despite history’s topsy-turvy ups and downs. Technically, this spiritual realization doesn’t horizontally evolve (a Teilhard misconception), it’s instead vertically implanted both in history’s unfolding Big Story and in each spirit-soul so touched or transformed by it, freely accessible to activation in personal experience. “Vertically implanted” implies an organic embedding (incarnation) of Spirit as the highest part of matter. Teilhard, like the Christ, linked both together in a spirit-matter dyad (Matt. 13:31-33). Teilhard also did so referencing the apostle Paul’s epistles, where Jesus is defined as “he in whom all things consist and hold together” (Colossians 1:17), and “he who fills all things everywhere with himself” (Ephesians. 1:23). To name the elemental substance and cohering nature of said mystery substance is the primary challenge that remains for those who follow the Gospel, and Teilhard’s teachings. The fulfillment of that challenge, as yet incomplete, will serve to round out the juridical (sin/redemption) and moral components of the gospel message, and identify the third (or organic) nature of the Christ. And it will do so by identifying the invisible energy referred to as “Spirit.” This mystery substance of all form is also the essential nature of ourselves, and the invisible substance of all visible form universally. This where science comes in along nano-molecular and quantum lines, and vertical causation as to origins, creation, spiritual transformation (regeneration), and renewal of the spirit-soul.

In crises states, my thought processes tend to ask the following: If the foundational theological ingredients are already in place from the same Spirit that informed Teilhard’s vision for a grand religio-scientific synthesis, why search for a New Universe Story (long-view) when they’re revealed the full teachings of that tradition? After all, a full-orbed view of history already exists revealed in the ancient record? Why reinvent the cosmogenic wheel whose axle (axis) is already in place?  And in consulting the biblical timeline of history, past and future, why not include those same views in mitigating our short-term existential anxieties, fears, and prolonged bouts of despair in the midst of current events? Only an activated and developed spiritual self (and consciousness) can accomplish same, especially one with a definitive and hopeful long-range outlook.

As for Spirit, the uncreated organic mystery-substance of all form being everywhere present and freely accessible, consider the following: Only organized systems and in-groups require conditional belonging via membership, dues, groupthink, clerics, certificates of attainment, and organizational sects. Not that those things are undesirable in themselves, but when derailed can slide in the direction of in-group exclusivity, as has Christendom, the organized (sectarian) religion Jesus never came to establish on the earth. In the absence of this wisdom, few naturally see the world clearly and steadily. The Christ revealed that his presence is organically present in ALL matter, including within each person, and exhorted one to search for, activate, and practice it there, in prayer, and in community — later out-picturing it in comportment, outlook, service, and for Teilhardians, a unified synthesis of spirituality and science, the missing cosmotheology for our divided and troubled times. The latter has not been fulfilled, yet to be discovered, in the common, organically unitive element (singularity) in which all things consist and cohere.

I am he who exists from the undivided (or unitive consciousness) — Gospel of Thomas, 61.

Only the natural self divides in thought and outlook via a shared natural human flaw (blind spot) in perception – a separation consciousness (dualistic thinking) characteristic of the natural, sense-bound, horizontally caused and oriented self — one that lacks a true integral cosmology (synthesis) born of unitive consciousness which only a higher order of being can inspire and create. Further, a wisely informed synthesis carries with it a panoramic view of history, one that foresees the global convulsions, cataclysms, and tribulations of current events that have been foretold to precede Omega, describing them as necessary “birth pangs” (tribulations) ultimately leading to a hopeful future and new life.

The deepest self is metaphysical, containing within it access to a comprehensive far-sightedness beyond science, scientism, politics, human invention, and man-made cosmologies and in-groups. The wise and initiated in this tradition learn to first seek, inhabit, practice, and be informed by Spirit’s inner presence, along with its time-tested, future-looking perennial principles revealed in the ancient spiritual teachings of Scripture. To illustrate, the soul (psyche) is the temporal (temporary) scaffolding of the inner life, and Spirit the enduring building that lays behind it whose origin and locus are transcendent to this world. While annexed like chaff and wheat, each agency is distinct from the other but not separate. One must divide them asunder in disciplined practice, not conflate the two, mistaking the scaffolding for the building proper, and the differentiated worldviews of each. Indeed, aware or unaware, there’s a long-range plan that every living soul and all of history are a part of. So informed, each has a role to play. Therefore, despite tribulations, the whirlwinds of global change, spiritual darkness, and the “principalities and powers in high places” that Scripture declares seek to undermine same.

“Thy Kingdom come” (spiritual citizenship) means “my kingdom go” (natural citizenship) in priority. Said attunement, and the higher knowledge accompanying it reveals a divine Sovereign ruling and overruling the affairs of mankind. This God is no static being, but Being Itself, a universal Presence before whom:

— all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing; (and) who changes the times and seasons, who removes kings and sets up kings, and gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding . . . And does according to his will (plan) in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; so that none can stay his hand or say to him, what are you doing? (Daniel 4:35).

Again, I underscore “freely accessible” because ultimate truth sets a person totally free once liberated, binding no one to itself; nor to any organization, sanctions, memberships, by-laws, charters, etc. Further, unvarnished Spirit gives of itself freely, asking nothing in return, which is why Jesus used the metaphors of sunshine, rain, and the air we breathe to illustrate the universal abundance and availability of same. These natural elements act upon things ubiquitously, without discrimination, conditions, or qualification as to their recipients. Unfortunately, such teachings became sectarian, distorted, even corrupt by the divisive conditioned consciousness of human in-groups, and the religion of the empire (politics), each looking to compete and elevate itself over the others. By contrast, Jesus, the apostle Paul, and Teilhard proposed an ORGANIC (elemental) definition to creation itself, circumventing same, implying a central organizing principle (Spirit) oriented to a cosmic center that embeds all created things universally, “in whom we live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Most of those teachings became either ignored, discounted, distorted, misunderstood or selectively in-attended to in the process of taking organizational and distinctive creedal forms.

Like the waves and tides of the ocean, movements of Spirit are wild. They come and go as they please at the behest and in the direction of their universal Source. Attempting to put them in organizing chains is foolhardy, akin to gathering smoke in nets. Likewise in laying claim to Spirit, creating human in-group sects, biases, and organizational agendas, and their claims of having an exclusive corner on the truth. Said Jesus of the bogus religious teachers of his day, similar to the prophets of old,

Isaiah was right about pretenders and hypocrites like you. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy. Ditching God’s command and taking up the latest fads. You scratch out God’s Word and scrawl a whim in its place (Mark 7:6-13).

As for freedom, consider a brief, long-range overview of divine principles congealing in human consciousness since the first Axial Age (800 BCE to 200 BCE): Spiritual notions of divine truth, freedom, liberty, justice, and equality have been infiltrating human consciousness ever since, as far back as ancient Greece. Ripening and personified in the Christ, it was reflected in England’s Magna Carta, on through the American, French, and South American Revolutions, and later the Industrial Revolution. All of them out-pictured in a changed state of consciousness culminating in more and more freedom for people, eventually liberating them from all kinds of limitations, those of the environment, the self-serving inclinations of the natural self, mental and physical laws, narrow views of history, autocratic rule, slavery, widespread disease, poverty, illiteracy, and technology. All of it consonant with the ancient wisdom traditions of Scripture, and the advent of the Christ in human consciousness, described in Teilhard’s evolving notions of the noosphere, centration, convergence of all knowledge along unitive lines (inwardness), including the spiritual advent and differentiation of a spiritual self, oriented to same evolving toward Omega, and culminating in a world here “on earth as it is in heaven.”

With the above wisdom tradition to guide with far-sighted understanding, I became free of reactively bogged down by current events. There is something to be said for revisiting the ancient wisdom literature that offers more of a complete explanation on the origin of life, the nature of God, future-looking views of history, hints at the constituency of Spirit, and of the spirit-soul and spirit-matter, more so than the teachings of all other spiritual traditions combined. But only if one takes the time to carefully research same. However, most are “busy with many things” that preclude them from doing so, instead looking to science, scientism, New Age, or science laden cosmologies to soothe them.

For all the references of late to the “spirituality of cosmogenesis,” seems that the theoretical “bones” of alternative cosmologies want for a substantively proven, coherent theology, one harmonizing with both perennial spiritual principes and science. Why not embrace the theology spawned by the same tradition whose teachings inspired the Christ and Teilhard? And why discard the latter’s notions of Omega leading toward “Christogenesis?” After all, with due respect to other religious traditions, Teilhard didn’t name his evolutionary thrust “Buddha-genesis” or “Islamo-genesis,” though it was to include same, and harmonize with all religions and disciplines joined by a common universal element. Using the metaphors of Christ, there is no such thing as Islamic, or Christian, or Judaic, or Buddhist sunshine, wind, or the air we breathe. Likewise the Faraday Motor was named after its founder, Michael Faraday, though Faraday didn’t create or invent electricity, he merely channeled it for public use. Ditto Nikola Tesla. Ditto Jesus as channel re: spiritual energy, pointing beyond himself to its Cosmic Source, giving the name of “Spirit” to this invisible substance, and the substance of all material form universally, something those who followed neglected to focus on, and today scientifically pursue and name. So why bypass the founder(s) of these primary spiritual teachings who implied a universal element (singularity) common to all that allows for a more complete understanding of a sacred new synthesis whose “elementary force” has been amply alluded to within its ancient pages, and by Teilhard? This long, sought-after but invisible element, like electricity and divinity itself, is hiding in plain sight universally, awaiting discovery. Who is selflessly worthy enough to name it without making the age-old  mistake of claiming it as their own, as do star gazers quick to name a newly discovered planets after themselves? The stars and planets have been there for eons and need no anthropomorphic designations. Its the same for that in whom, and in which “we live, move, and have our being” free of all names and bare of all forms universally (Acts 17:28).

How many in this age of bounded in-groups are free, whole, holy, differentiated, independent, courageous, spiritually prepared, wise, and purposed enough to say so, and with focused intent, pursue it?

Was it a fault in Jesus that the content of his spiritual consciousness became hijacked by those whose human foibles and limitations were to degrade and denature same for political or sectarian purposes? Born at the right time, any idea whose “time has come” always finds a way to establish itself on earth, particularly an idea of divine origin. In the case of Jesus and Teilhard it was born alright, but was sooner misunderstood, censored, corrupted, and deformed by human inclinations outside their founder’s control. But in pristine form, like rare antiquities, they can always be re-considered, revisited, and restored to their original. When one individual receives a principle in consciousness, at that moment it enters human consciousness forever. The principle of electricity, for example, discovered and received through one (profiteering) individual, became available to everyone else in the world. Ditto the invention of air travel, and space travel. And when the idea of developing a horseless carriage was born in the consciousness of a gas-meter reader barely able to care for his family, he received all the support necessary to found the Ford Motor Company. So it is with any idea. If it is born ahead of its time, it dies or stalls. Yet in the fullness of time, however delayed, it ultimately carries with it all that is necessary for its fulfillment. Properly understood, the Gospel message is free, universal and cosmic, not sectarian, as are the organic realities Jesus, Teilhard, and the apostle Paul hinted as the living substance of the entire created order. Under the influences of Jesus and the Pauline epistles, the very definition of Omega emerged from Teilhard’s three favorite texts of St. Paul;

In him all things consist and hold together (Colossians 1:17), He fills all things (Col. 2:10), and Christ is all and in all (Ephesians 4:9).

Search for yourselves; seek, ask, and find. Jesus was not a Christian, and didn’t come to establish a new religion, only a higher order awareness developed by one awakened soul at a time. The movement he began did catch on, and folk did initially catch fire with spiritual enthusiasm. Yet when his followers tried to make him the leader of a group, he merely walked away, wanting no part of it. If his teachings didn’t point to an elemental organic definition of himself as spread across all of creation, like himself incarnated in matter, and his immanent presence and Spirit hadn’t framed and become the capstone on the evolving biblical timeline (deep-time), Teilhard wouldn’t have so embraced it. And he wouldn’t have been inspired by the same Spirit, nor have divinely received the basics of his cosmogenic vision, still unfinished. Based on the perennial truths of his theology and wisdom tradition, said vision was left for those who follow to complete, lest the process become further delayed or derailed, and for similar errant reasons.

They honor me in vain; their teachings are merely of human invention (Matthew 15:9).

I again ask, why reinvent the wheel whose elemental spiritual axle (axis) has been in place at all scales, micro to macro, since the beginning of the Creation event over 14 billion years ago? It was later embodied and consciously realized in the person of Christ, able to come full term in unitive consciousness for those who follow with pure motives to serve a long-range plan, The Gerat Commission. Such involves sacrificing oneself, one’s sectarian tribe, and self-interest in favor of disinterested benevolence, bent on joining belonging systems and in-groups, if only to excoriate “outsiders” who think differently.

As for the advent of widespread, self-aggrandizing autocrats around the globe, including our waning democracy, prophetic Scripture is way ahead of us. One must include that in the calculus while in the throes of post-election despair. As human history approaches end times, human awareness will be unprepared, “as in the days of Noah,” said Jesus. That is, as to the long view of history, most will not only be uninformed, but will be found asleep as to the signs. Briefly, this timeline speaks to end time events (eschatology) that foretells a world leader arising on the stage of history prior to the Second Coming of Christ. Ask Brian Swimme, whos spiritual mentor, Matthew Fox, is alluding to same. This cunning fellow, the antithesis of all things good, or Antichrist, will make all prior autocrats appear benign by comparison. He will be an evil genius the likes of which the world has never seen. According to Scripture, he will become the leader of “a nation that sits on many waters .  .  . populated by a mix of people from many tribes and tongues. . . and many shall be deceived by him.” Sounds familiar. Might he already be in our midst, unawares?

In order to see Big History in enlightened wholes, it is necessary to readily accept, merge, and integrate opposites, engaging both sides of the brain to visualize reality as it is — not as we are — apparent antagonists vying for supremacy on the stage of history — good and evil, darkness and light, life and death. Each in polar combat with the other toward a final resolution. And each under the cosmic auspices of a single power that directs and will ultimately reconcile them on the grand chessboard of world history. Can you believe and reconcile these apparent opposites as emerging from a single Source? And can you do so by reconciling them in one integrated thought at the same time in unitive consciousness. Whoever wrote the disclaimer that begins this blog column, and not any other, surely cannot. Yet the Word invites us to consider the following:

” .  .  . there is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” (Isaiah 45:6,7).

Again, the closer one gets to ultimate truth, the more bizarre and dissonant it seems with “common sense.” Truth is light years beyond what passes as common sense.

When asked by Pontius Pilate if he was Messiah, king of the Jews, and commanded to break his silence before the Roman governor declaring to have power over him, Jesus replied, My kingdom is not of this world .  .  .  you would have no power over me unless it was granted to you from above (John 19:11).

Although humans have choice, much of history is foreordained, yet another apparent paradox that can only be reconciled in a spiritually conscious mind. All of which is to underscore the challenge to rise above the natural temptation to believe either in good and bad politics, or good and bad humanhood, or be overcome by the threat of mass migrations, irreversible climate change, and the imminence of thermonuclear war. Advocate as we might for just causes, no person or collective ultimately has control over any of them. At such times, there is no rest or peace in circumstances, only in time-tested views of the future, the seed bed of Teilhard’s wise optimism and synthesis vision. It’s only divinity working through and as others in the right times and seasons of history, and by the appropriate means, that ultimately can establish freedom “on earth as it is in heaven.” The challenge is to keep one’s vision above the heads of those whose conduct is venal, dutifully doing what one can do on the side of freedom, justice, and reform.

Ultimately, voting bad politicians out of office is not the answer, even in a democratic republic. Nor is lamenting their election, past a certain point. There must be a change in consciousness of a higher order beyond the pedestrian, political, scientific, and philosophical. Freedom is to be attained individually only by spiritual means. In turn, those few will raise up others with them. And if there’s a change of consciousness with the man on the street, it will change the nature and quality of the politicians elected. Only then is a nation likely to have a different type of candidate and have a higher quality of leadership because of that inner realization. Why? Political leaders are merely the embodiment of the consciousness in a body politic, the majority of whom vote them into office. So as characters, shudder not at what number of unqualified, unfit political leaders are voted into office. Rather, observe and measure what level of mind-set (consciousness) the majority of those who vote them into office have. Inevitably, such manifests, defines, and personifies the spiritual character and values of a nation.

It’s time to get on more pointedly with the business at hand consulting the ancient wisdom tradition that motivated a Christ-inspired Teilhard toward the development of a Sacred Science. Said synthesis seeks to explain phenomena in their psycho-physical intricacy, delineating the relationship between mind and matter, spirit and soul, eternity and time, thereby evolving a coherent explanation on the origins (Alpha) and end point (Omega) of human history. For the Christ claimed that he was both, “I Am the Alpha and Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13). The end is in the beginning, and vice versa, as in a circuit. Read all about it in wisdom books. Look for it there. Only then may the vision of Teilhard be fulfilled in the science-spirituality synthesis the world has been waiting for since 1955. Not being duly informed in this basic way only delays the process in a world woefully divided by a spiritually illiterate populace devoid of a spiritual vocabulary.

How many in this age of bounded in-groups are free, whole, differentiated, independent, courageous, spiritually prepared, standalone disciplined, wise, and purposed enough to pursue spiritual literacy born of a perennial tradition and a developed spiritual self? To date, not many. And the reason is the same as it has always been,

You are in error because you know neither the Scriptures, nor the power of God (Matthew 22:29).

Joe Masterleo

About the Author

Joseph C. Masterleo, LCSW-DCSW, is a clinical social worker in private practice in Syracuse NY, and Rockledge FL. His half-century of service in the mental health care field includes faith-based counseling, with an emphasis on psycho-spiritual integration. His subspecialty involves developing a novel paradigm for the synthesis of science, religion, and psychology, identifying the energy and geometric patterns that connect the quantum world with space-time. His model explains how spirit and matter can co-exist as two facets of one reality in a unified field, dissolving the walls of partition between previously siloed disciplines. Inspired by the writings of Thomas Merton (ecumenism), Teilhard de Chardin (synthesis), Thomas Berry (ecotheology), and others, his objective is to tell a new, future-looking story for the Ecozic Age, one that forms a connecting bridge between the biblical story of creation, modern science, and ancient cosmologies. Further information about Joe and his Spirit-Science model can be found in his book The Ambient Christ, the Untold Story of God in Science, Scripture, and Spirituality, and on his website, joeknowsgod.com