APPLYING
SPIRITUAL WISDOM
Thomas D. Lynch
Public Administration
Institute
Louisiana State
University
and
Cynthia E. Lynch
Nelson Mandela School
of Public Policy
Southern University
Abstract
There is a body
of literature that cuts across all religious traditions called “spiritual
wisdom.” For those in public
administration, this literature is especially helpful to make more informed
decisions on values and ethical choices at the individual and group levels. In this globalized world where information
related technology is rapidly changing society, secular thinking found in
governmental and educational settings as well as the thinking of religious
institutions are fundamentally inadequate in confronting our most fundamental
public administration problems and difficulties. The former has stripped out of itself the wisdom of the ages and
the latter seeks too often to advance its own interests rather than those of
society as a whole. This article argues
that we now need to examine the common spiritual wisdom of all religious
traditions to help us confront and properly deal with our ultimate values and
ethical challenges of our profession.
Introduction
As we move into the next millenium with all its challenges, we face a
critical choice. We can move forward
based on the total accumulated knowledge of humankind. Or we can ignore selective segments of our
acquired knowledge. Given the
challenges of the next millennium that are already upon us, we are wiser to use
all the wisdom available to us. This
essay argues that this is especially true in the case of spiritual wisdom that
can be found in all the religious traditions. This wisdom can help us make more
informed value and ethical choices at both individual and group levels. At the end of this millennium, we are
increasingly aware that secular thinking alone can not resolve our problems and difficulties, nor can our religious institutions, because too often
they are designed to only advance their own interests rather than the interests
of the total society.
As
shall be noted later, the next millennium is both a continuation of the past
but also a time of new challenges that will require new approaches that
particularly stress the importance of interdependence and individual
empowerment throughout society. The
private sector has proven its usefulness as a vital part of a dynamic evolving
society, and government has proven that it provides essential services
necessary for our society to advance.
Although the new millennium has not yet even begun, an increasingly
global interdependent society is evident.
Already we can see that we will need higher quality skilled and
remarkably ethical individual leaders in every role in society; leaders who not
only are skilled and knowledgeable, but also
possess and use spiritual wisdom to guide their actions.
In
this essay, we shall make the case for spiritual wisdom and why we must reach
out to the literature of all faiths to help us deal with the problems of our
future. To make this case, we will
explain why the future will not only be different from past periods of human
history, but explain in what critical ways it will be different. We will also explain why spiritual wisdom is
central to those challenges and explain the remarkable resource that we have available
to us that can help us more intelligently meet those challenges. Finally, this paper will end with some
conclusions of what we can do to put our most important resources to good use.
A Paradigm Shift:
A Fundamental Shift
Leonard
Swidler, Ewert Cousins, and Hans Kung note that we are experiencing a
post-Enlightenment paradigm shift of remarkable proportions. This massive shift in thought, that has
permeated our entire human consciousness, can be seen in the basic epistemology
associated with both physical and social sciences. It influences every area of
human activity, including understanding
itself. Swindler explains the
implications of this radical shift as follows:
“As always, when a new major paradigm shift occurs, old answers are no
longer helpful, for they respond to
questions no longer posed, in thought categories no longer used, within a
conceptual framework which no
longer prevails.” This fundamental shift in thought touches the very core
of our understanding of our interrelations with virtually every aspect of what
we call the “entirety.”(1)
This is a
shift from a relationship defined first as dependence, than as independence,
and now changing to interdependence.
This shift can be seen in the way people interrelate with each Other
(Covey, 1990, p. 145) and in the change in human consciousness from the
Pre-Axial period, to the Axial Period (800 – 200 B.C.E.), and now to the Second
Axial Period described by Cousins. In
the Pre-Axial period, Cousins notes the dominant form of consciousness was
cosmic, collective, tribal, mythic, and ritualistic. Thus human consciousness could be described as human
dependency. The tribe defined each
person as organically related into their group as a whole including their
birth, death, nature, and even the
cosmos.
In the Axial period, consciousness
transformed us to what we now call our contemporary perspective of human
independence. This radical change
stressed the importance of the individual as a knowing self. This becomes critical to each person, as
does the importance of individual responsibility. This self-reflective, analytic,
critical consciousness severed the harmony with nature and the organic
relationship with the tribe. However, this new consciousness made possible
radically new social structures, mental imageries that permitted radical
progress in knowledge development, and most significantly opened the individual
spiritual path with its inner way to transcendency.
Our separate institutions of
religion were able to capture our historic past consciousness in their
literature known as scriptures, but as time wore on, the institutions
themselves grew more fiercely independent, agitating and even creating schisms
and ruptures in the whole society.
Now, we are moving into what Cousins
calls the Second Axial Period where human interdependence is the dominant theme
of human consciousness. Like the
previous change, it is occurring around the world simultaneously and is
changing us fundamentally, including our world religions. With our new consciousness, we see ourselves living in a global society with universal
inter-dependence that has profound
implications for us economically, socially, and spiritually. World
diversity is intensified into web-like centers or units that lead
to an evolving more complex set of units and relationships among the units.
Individuals do not disappear but
rather increasingly redefine and understand themselves as units of the union or
entirety. Thus, this increasing and
ever evolving complexity of consciousness leads to a convergence of cultures
and religions. This new interdependence
or global consciousness is rediscovering its roots in the earth and the central
role spirituality has in our lives.
Like the Pre-Axial Period, the tribe becomes important but tribal
consciousness is redefined into the whole of humanity as a single tribe with a
single collective consciousness. Both
fundamentalism and bland universalism are
inadequate as we evolve into a new complex collective consciousness
rooted in the obvious desire of having a stable secure world.
Swidler refers to the
post-Enlightenment epistemological Paradigm-Shift where mankind’s absolute,
static, and monolithic view was “deabsolutized” or cast into intellectual
disregard. Contemporary philosophy’s deabsolutization
of knowledge has completely undermined the eighteenth century “truth” that a
statement about reality was conceived in an absolute, static, exclusive
either-or manner. Thus, the notion of
any version of absolute truth, including scientific theories, was fundamentally challenged to the point
of claiming that all knowledge is relative.
Some, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, even announced that God was dead
because belief in an absolute, such as God, had become impossible (1954).
Swidler disagrees by stressing the
conceptual differences between relative and relational. He counters that deabsolutized logic leads
not to relative truth but rather to the existence of a relational situation
where there is an obviously true aspect to each person’s perspective, even
though each is relational. The always
partial, perspectival, deabsolutized view of a truth statement is recognized at
the same time as the common human basis for perception and description of
reality and value. Swidler notes, “All
human beings experience certain things in common…Our cognitive faculties perceive structures in reality
as variations and symmetries in pitch, color and form.” (1997, p.2) Here we
find a basis for building a
universal fundamental epistemology and value system predicated on a collective
spiritual wisdom.
The post-modern argument about
hermeneutics cited by Swidler especially needs closer treatment. Knowledge of
any text comes from the interpretation of it.
Thus postmodernists argue this interaction constitutes a deabsolutizing
of the claim of “true” meaning. From
the post-modernism point of view, any knowledge learned from the text is only
interpretative or relative and therefore valid only to the particular reader
interpreting it. However, as all
knowledge is interpreted knowledge, the perceiver is still part of the
perceived. The object and subject are
really one as the very process of
seeing a relationship between the two means that the two can also be considered
parts of one perception process.
This
somewhat complex reasoning means that once we start thinking, everything that
comes into our thinking process can be considered by each of us as a part of
the whole that includes our thinking process.
The very process of dialogue with others thus moves us toward Oneness
with them. In the words of the Gospel of Thomas (Meyer, 1992, p.106) saying,
“When you make two into one, you become children of humanity…” In other words, dialogue gives us the
tool to create for ourselves an evolving universal truth by the very act of
thinking. To the extent that the vision
of a universal truth is shared, it is universal but also
remains a relational truth. Such a
truth is dynamic because with continuing dialogue each relational member can
help other members and themselves gain an ever increasing dynamic perception of
truth that is always expanding and changing as we gain insight in the
continuous creative process. We become,
in the words of the Gospel of Thomas, children of humanity.
The Power of Vision
Ideas guide behavior and place value
on people, things, and activities when they are shared by a number of
people. As those ideas evolve through a
sharing process, society proceeds. An
example of this is the early twentieth century vision called the Progressive
Movement that existed and so greatly influenced contemporary America. In the same period, Socialism and Communism
also influenced many of today’s nations
in the world. All three visions built
on a Christendom that evolved into what is called Western Civilization, a belief system that permits a strong
central role for government in society.
In
America, the Progressive vision called for government to regulate and largely
direct a strong private sector based on government decided national, social,
economic, and environmental goals.
Those goals reflected a concern for such policy issues as child labor,
factory safety, meat and drug regulation, political corruption of democracy,
and economic monopolies (Brier, 1992).
The Progressive vision called for government to play an activist role by
providing leadership and direction for society including being the guarantor of
the national economic condition, safety, and well being of the citizenry. Progressivism
helped address newly urbanized America’s social, environmental, and economic
problems that the earlier excess of the Gilded Age, with its stress on individualism,
had failed to confront.
In an increasingly post-agrarian
country (1870 to 1930), the earlier Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith notion that
“the least government was the best government” created a social economic
environment that allowed the robber barons of capitalism to exploit Social
Darwinism. This extreme individualism
expected the weak to evolve (i.e. die off) out of existence and resulted in
extreme
economic elitism and periodic periods of mass unemployment. Not surprisingly, the non-application of the
golden rule by government and economic elites created a backlash in society
that led to a reversal of policy from government inaction to government
action. Thus, the by-products of the
“successes” of the Industrial Age with its lack of spirituality planted the
seeds for a partnership of sorts between the public and private sector in
America and the entire replacement of the private sector for a total public
sector in many other countries in the world.
In a very real sense, these early
twentieth century political and social reforms reinvented government to cope
with the emergence of the new industrial economy that created vast new problems
but also vast new opportunities. The
Progressive Era shaped contemporary America.
Large manufacturing corporations and large government used strict
hierarchies to control their organizations and perform their work. Mass markets were the keys to private
economic success. As a result, a large
middle class grew in prosperity and developed communities with strong family
units and neighborhoods.
The Information Age and the Paradigm Shift
As we approach the new
millennium, many of the hallmarks of the previous era have reversed because
fundamental technological changes have altered the driving forces of
society. We now have the computer with
its remarkable ability to store and manipulate information. The very way we communicate with each other
has changed. The Information Age
altered the glue that held society together.
As a result, today we are continually in a future
shock society with rapid technological and scientific advancements that arise
out of increasingly more complex use of information, coming together in ever-new
combinations.
No longer is the economy creating
significant numbers of manufacturing jobs that are characterized by being
unionized, male, high wage, high school educated. Instead, we have a proliferation of both service job creation,
offering predominantly low paying jobs, and knowledge job creation, offering
fewer higher wage jobs but requiring much higher skills and capabilities. Unlike the earlier work force, this new one
places a high positive economic premium on skills, talent, knowledge, and
creativity, and a low economic premium for the average and below average
worker. As a result, the economic
profile of the country has a significantly dwindling middle class, some
expansion in the number of higher paid positions, and many more lower paid positions.
Information is often the key to
economic success and those that can better use it in the academic arena and
work place tend to be the more highly successful. Economic success for business
is found in global and regional marketing with specialty niches and innovative
units being especially rewarded. Large
organizations are now dinosaurs that cannot move or change fast enough to be
successful in an environment that is always re-inventing itself into new configurations
to take advantage of the latest technological opportunities. Increasingly, successful people are spread
out, live in isolation including gated communities, and have fragmented family
units with both spouses engaged in the work place.
The nature of the work place itself
is changing, as the new information dependent people tend to work
better in decentralized units that connect together in webs rather
than hierarchies. Our work places and
opportunities are becoming more global, reverting us ironically to our tribal
instinctive behavior by cutting us off from our previous social groups and
replacing them with specialty friends often connected together by computer
communications such as e-mail. The now
outdated large private and public organizations are experiencing reinvention
that renders them smaller but more interconnected.
These new web like organizations
require the strategic brokers to exist at the nodes or centers of
interrelations with others. They become
the key problem identifiers and problem solvers much in the same manner of
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s “creative unions.”(1955, p.3) These centers
generate energy and create ideas and jobs that not only expand the economy but
raise the nation’s productivity and standard of living (Reich,
1992). If a large organization is to
compete in this new era, it must become information based, single or nearly
single mission oriented, much smaller, decentralized, and organized using the
web concept. The result is much flatter organizations that have fundamentally
changed the way work is conducted in society (Drucker, 1989).
The Need for Spiritual Wisdom-Utility of Spiritual Wisdom
Spirituality or spiritual wisdom
teaches us a way to live our lives.
Normally based on a belief in the transcendent, spiritual wisdom defines
the realm of divine and human encounters and informs us how to conduct
ourselves in the world. It
motivates us not to live selfish but generous lives by providing a continuous
source of inspiration and guidance that allows us to function positively in the
whole of society. It speaks of both an
outer and inner life while stressing the importance of deepening and
strengthening the inner life so that it can properly guide our outer life.
The spiritual wisdom of most
religious traditions inextricably intertwines God and us as individuals and as
communities. To spiritual wisdom,
everyday life, with its pleasures and pains, is one of the two linked spheres
that are united by God’s creation. The
other sphere is the life of faith that goes well beyond just
believing in God’s existence as it includes manifesting that belief constantly
in our everyday thinking and actions toward others and the whole (O’Connor,
1990, pp. 14-16).
Spiritual wisdom is not rote
religious answers to human problems but rather a means to break through the
mystery of choice that constitutes the ambiguity of human experience. To the spiritual wisdom authors, life is not
a simple set of absolute truths to be followed scrupulously but rather a
continual encounter with conflicting truths with each making apparently
valid but competing claims on the seeker.
Paradoxical life requires our discernment from situation to situation as
we decide when and if to act. Because
truth is ambiguous and paradoxical, every person must engage in self-dialogue
to discover and resolve their own conflicts of truth. Typically, the literary genre of spiritual wisdom is the mashal which is a comparison, short
saying, proverb, aphorism, or riddle expressing a truth about life in concrete,
succinct images. Life’s challenge is to
learn ever more spiritual wisdom leading one to a deeper, transcendent
truth. The seeker must meet the mashal with openness, discernment, and
application of the experiences gained from wisdom. Spiritual wisdom requires
individual discovery, vigilance and choice (O’Connor, 1990, p. 20).
Although spiritual wisdom is the
tool of the individual, it must always be used in the context of the
enhancement of the life of the whole or the entirety. Anything that enhances the whole is considered harmony, joy,
satisfaction, and agreeable. Priority
in life goes to the community rather than the individual except the development
of spiritual wisdom within the individual.
We are all invited to spiritual wisdom without earthly cost to
share in the blessing of God and join in His communion (O’Connor, 1990, p. 21).
Language helps us to appreciate the
richness of the meaning of “Wisdom.”
The Hebrew and Greek nouns for wisdom are hoknah and sophia. The variety of their meaning is not reflected
adequately in English, so a listing of meanings follows to enrich our
comprehension of what spiritual wisdom can mean to each of us. Some of the meanings are:
·
broadly divergent realities,
·
way of thinking,
·
way of living,
·
a body of literature,
·
various technical or artistic skills,
·
search of meaning and order, and
·
sagacity about life and human behavior.
Spiritual wisdom crosses cultures
providing a global source of knowledge that instructs us on proper behavior and
attitude. Spiritual wisdom is didactic
in tone with a strong pedagogical flavor designed to continually teach us. However, we can learn it dialogically within
ourselves and between others (Swidler, 1997).
Ultimately, spiritual wisdom is a divine gift that we should seek but
realize that wisdom finds us and not the converse (O’Connor, 1990 pp. 23-24,
34).
Proverbs as an Example
One example of spiritual wisdom
can be found in the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Proverbs. This collection of wisdom sayings grew out of the daily living of
noble and common people alike, and represents word pictures or verbal
snapshots. They are unclassified and
most lack thematic or chronological order, but like a family cache of photos,
they provide glimpses of humanity with all its good and bad foibles. Proverbs instructs by permitting us to
compare models of wise living with examples of foolish behavior. Proverbs gives us insight into how to rule
over the apparent chaos of life.
However, the insights must be deduced from the proverbs within a process
similar to dialogue because each attempt to employ proverbs must be done in the
greater context of life. Proverbs does
not
seek blind acceptance but rather flexible minds to determine what behavior is
appropriate for us in a unique new circumstance. The wisdom message is spiritual and enduring (O’Connor, 1990, pp.
35-41).
The spirituality of Proverbs in
particular and spiritual wisdom in general is relational. Its intention is holistic as the virtues or
qualities of the wise concern not only the whole person but the whole
community. The goal is to prefect the
individual as a contributing member to the whole community. The matrix of wisdom is the proper, respectful,
and wise relationship with others because the interrelationship makes life
beautiful, challenges us to the core, and provides the most intensive and
surprising joy. All the qualities of
the wise are directed toward peaceful, life-giving relationships in
society. Religious practices are
not
central, but living life intensely and coping with life’s dilemmas with honesty,
faith, and positive desire to enhance the lives of others are
central (O’Connor, 1990, pp. 51-52).
In Proverbs, our relationship to God
is the beginning of knowledge and is expressed by the phrase “fear of
Yahweh.” This idiom does not mean
terror or fright, but it is a relational term referring to an overpowering awe
and wonder. This feeling is combined
with human loving trustful obedience toward the living God. Fear of Yahweh provides a profound sense of
right and wrong. It is not motivation
from terror or legal purity, but rather motivation built on an intimate
relationship with the God of justice and harmony. Fear of Yahweh means confidence and security. It means living in loving devotion and in a
deeply intimate relationship with God.
Fear of Yahweh means recognizing that spiritual wisdom
and its harmony pulsate through the universe, providing enlightenment to those
who seek it. Such a wisdom has always
been there to embrace them, but in the end spiritual wisdom is a gift from God
based on the integral Oneness of all of God’s creation (O’Connor, 1990, pp.
52-53).
Applying Spiritual Wisdom
Today, the secular approach, with
its non-use of the spiritual wisdom literature, is employed to confront and
resolve most public and private policy decisions and the result is a very real
continuing problem in American policy making.
We integrate values and ethics into our society using the positive law
concept of “regime values,” meaning the values of a nation that were brought
into being by an existing constitution. The use of regime values is justified based on three
considerations: (1) ethical norms should be derived from the salient values of
the regime; (2) these normative values for public employees
relate directly to the oath of office that they take upon assuming public
employment; and (3) these values can be discovered by merely examining the
public law of the regime (Rohr, 1978, pp.59-74).
The problem with this notion is
that such a definition can be used to justify any regime, including the Hitler
and Stalin regimes, as long as it is based on an existing constitution. We need to abandon judgments based on
“regime values” and instead use the “common spiritual values of humankind.” We need to forsake the spiritual
wisdom-values dichotomy brought to us by secularized thinking that removes all
linkages between spiritual wisdom and public values. In our correct attempt to remove religion from both the quest
for knowledge and making public and private policy decisions,
we have literally thrown the baby out with the bath water. We have failed to recognize that spiritual
wisdom exists independently of religions and that spiritual wisdom is there for
us if we choose to seek it out.
We need to redefine our values
and ethics to include not regime beliefs but the wealth of spiritual wisdom in
all aspects and segments of our accumulated civilizations. This redefinition of values should not
include religious myths, rites, ceremonies, or dicta of contemporary religious
leaders, nor should it include per se customs, ceremonies, rules, and norms of
specific groups. Instead,
we should use only the spiritual wisdom that is found between and among the
most holy scriptures of all the major religious traditions of the world. In particular, investigators seeking value and
ethical guidance need to focus on the common messages among the holy scriptures
of the five major religious traditions.
This can be done by a process of triangulation, where one first defines
a likely common spiritual wisdom concept and then looks for it in the holy
scriptures of the major religious traditions, in an approach similar to content
analysis. This research requires
looking past wording and focusing on the meaning of the various wisdom
messages.
This investigative procedure can
be applied to recurring major problems in both the public and private sectors
around the world. For example, one
significant public policy today in the United States is federal budget gridlock
and its associated interest group politics.
In Federalist 10, James Madison addressed without embarrassment the
necessary evil of political factions and used that as the
rationale behind the very structure of the United States Constitution (Smith,
1987). Today, the evil identified by
Madison has become the significant force in American politics. We need only look at the budget gridlock in
Washington to realize that the only winners are those that champion their own
roles or their own interests. Losers
champion the larger whole, the nation, because they are the ones that
will lose the next election. At least,
that is how the politicians and interest groups see the process working. Losing is defined in terms of not continuing
in public office or not continuing to be the majority party.
Let us reconsider this public
policy problem, but investigate what spiritual wisdom tells us. First, let us start with the Hebrew Bible:
Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to
dwell together in unity! (Psalms 133:1)
Second,
let us quote from the Buddhist Dhammapada scriptures:
Victory breeds hatred; the defeated sleeps in
misery. One who has calmed down sleeps
in comfort, having given up victory and defeat (Cleary, 1994, p.70).
Third,
let us quote from the Qur’an (1961):
Have you heard the story of the two litigants who entered
his chamber by climbing over the wall?
When they went in to David and saw that he was alarmed, they said: “Have
no fear. We are two litigants, one of
whom has wronged the other. Judge rightly between us and do not be unjust;
guide us to the right path. My brother
here has ninety-nine ewes, but I have only one ewe. He demanded that I should
entrust it to him, and got the better of me in the dispute.” David replied: “He has certainly wronged you in seeking to add
your ewe to his flock. Many partners
are unjust to one another, but not so those that have faith and do good works,
and they are few indeed.” David realized that this was the test for him. He sought forgiveness of his Lord and fell
down penitently on his knees. We
forgave him his sin, and in the world to come he shall be honored and well
received (XXXVIII, pp. 21-28).
Spiritual wisdom often uses the
parable, and our minds are often puzzled by its message. Notice that David was acting as a public
official. He made a secular decision,
but he quickly realized that his decision was a test for him. By secular standards, he ruled in an
apparent equitable manner, but he realized that he failed God’s test. In the parable, he sought, and God gave him,
forgiveness. That parable may be puzzling,
but perhaps the following quote from the King James version of the New
Testament might clarify the point of the Qur’an parable:
And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak
to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he said unto him, Man, who made me a
judge or a divider over you? (Luke 12:13-14).
As is common in working with holy
scriptures, the interpretation is subject to disagreement as we “see” the
parable differently based on our perception and awareness of spiritual wisdom.
However, the key is looking for the
common message among all four quotes.
Humankind is a divider, but God wishes unity or Oneness. In other words, James Madison was correct: division
is evil. Rather, our actions should be guided by making the whole work better
for all of us. Scriptures teach us that
our goal should be unity, love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, and all else
that constitutes and brings about Oneness and not separateness. Unity or Oneness should be our value for a
constitution, a public service ethic, and even a private decision as we
approach the task of passing and implementing a budget for a nation or making a
decision for our business.
In summary, we have permitted the
secularization of our thinking. This is
the mistake! We need to reach out to
our own and other spiritual wisdom sources to help us learn from the common
spiritual message. Then we must take
those messages and live them in our daily activities in order to bring those
messages into practice.
Conclusion
In the next millenium,
individuals in the ever-changing organizational webs will be critical to the
success of the new evolving society.
Without or with little direction and supervision, these individuals must
think in terms of the universal tribe rather than themselves or any sub-group
of society. In other words, they must
continuously apply the common spiritual wisdom of the golden rule that
constitutes the essence of global ethics.
If they do not, anarchy can easily erupt as each person only thinks of
him or herself and the essential interdependence of society breaks down. Faith and trust in others permits
interdependence to work, and selfish acts destroy that faith and trust. Conversely, application of the golden rule
creates deeper faith and trust.
When an employee defrauds the group,
three elements exist: motive, opportunity, and rationalization. Of the three, two involve directly and only
the mind of the individual, and reflect his or her lack of application of the
golden rule. Organizational policy,
procedures, and practices can minimize the opportunity element. For example, proper use of internal controls
can lessen the opportunity associated with white-collar crime. Proper use of objectives and performance
measures in contractual relationships can help establish accountability in
those relationships. However, ever
increasing administrative mechanisms to limit the likelihood of dysfunctional
behavior are administratively costly and dampen work force morale and creative
initiative. The ideal is to have each
individual curb his/her dysfunctional behavior by spontaneously and
independently choosing to follow the golden rule.
Unlike organizations and society of
the twentieth century, curbing opportunities for dysfunctional behavior becomes
increasingly perplexing in the future as the largely independent symbolic
analysts at the various web nodes increase in numbers and importance. Curbs on dysfunctional opportunities are
burdensome to apply to virtual organizational relationships because controls
restrict the creative energy of the symbolic analysts. Faith and trust become the hallmark of their
relationships or they cannot function.
Thus, what motivates individual or group actions, and what underlies the
reason for those actions, becomes central to the success of society in the next
millenium. If they choose to think in terms of their individual benefit or the
benefit of their sub-group, then a breakdown of faith and trust will occur and
working relationships will not endure or be created.
We increasingly live in a global
society requiring ever more complex interrelationships with people of various
cultures and nationalities. Given this
remarkable need for complexity, achieving continuous faith and trust seems
impossible until one realizes that each culture and nationality has universal
values and ethics that the spiritual wisdom of their religious traditions have
largely defined. Each tradition has a
spiritual wisdom that is the source of each culture’s values and ethics. Although the Axial Period produced various
highly influential religious traditions, it also produced, for those who wish
to see, a universal global ethic and value.
Swidler demonstrates this by showing how the golden rule exists in the
spiritual wisdom literature of almost all cultures (Swidler, 1996).
If a common global ethic and value
can be defined from the most holy scriptures of each religious tradition, then
what appeared to be an impossible complexity of cultures and nationalities is
merely a search for what we fundamentally share in common. Based on dialogue, this search becomes a
common quest to inform us on what should motivate our actions and how we should
rationalize our behavior. Each of our
traditions’ spiritual wisdom literature has parallel core beliefs that can be
defined so that we can be a global tribe of One. As the wisdom of the Gospel of Thomas tells us, “When you make
two into one, you become children of humanity, and when you say, ‘Mountain,
move from here,’ it will move” (Meyer, 1992, p. 63; Layton, 1987, p. 398). We can isolate that common core of spiritual
wisdom and make the many into one with our agreement. When we do, nothing for
us is impossible, including a common global ethic.
Spiritual wisdom teaches us that our
actions reveal what we really are to everyone, including ourselves. When we gain the common spiritual wisdom of
all of our cultures and act accordingly, we too become children of
humanity. We become concerned chiefly
or wholly with furthering others and being completely surrendered to God. If we earnestly try, and we believe
wholeheartedly in our God-given capability, God becomes the source of our
energy and strength, and there are no limits to what we can achieve. In the Gospel of Thomas quotation, telling a
mountain to move is a metaphor expressing that we can do the impossible.
Certainly, having humankind realize
that authentic spirituality is a unifying force may seem impossibility, but we
can bring it about one step at a time.
Because we are what our actions are, we will finally be led to discern
that there is no sense to having factions and divisions.
Notes
1.
From the essay by Leonard Swidler.
2.
Ibid.
3.
Cousins, Ewert. (1993). “Judaism-Christianity-Islam: Facing
Modernity Together.” Journal of
Ecumenical Studies. 30(34), Summer-Fall: pp. 417-425.
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