Philosophical Revolutions in Thought Could Generate a 'Spiritual Enlightenment'

It is apparent that many religious teachers and leaders such as Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, and Muhammad have been trying to create an enlightened age of wisdom for millennia. Yet positive attempts at improving the lot of humanity and efforts towards the evolution of mutual understanding keep getting hijacked by profiteers and the unscrupulous. Hopefully we are at a point in history where twistings of wisdom teachings, abuses in the name of religion, and injustices rationlized by appeal to authority or force of passion are recognized for what they are - misguided attemtps to control and oppress humanity. The spread of Democracy, increased public education, and global communications may help to avert this in the future.

Aldous Huxley described the Perennial Philosophy as one which seems to appear throughout all times and places in history. He maintains that in an enlightened era, social and personal decisions are based on love, there is recognition of mutual understanding, and that individual growth is recognized as the key to a life worth living.

My experience has taught me that the true "job" of an individual is spiritual development. Your spirituality is the art or practice of your philosophical and religious beliefs. Your spirituality is in essence your being and its growth through conscious effort. Your being is the totality of your experience; it is a holistic cumulation of all of your human aspects. The job of spiritual evolution is the growth of the complete human. We are not born with everything we need to live a spiritual life. We each must work at our own spiritual growth. This has been recognized by all of the greatest teachers throughout history.

It is increasingly apparent that a Spiritual Enlightenment is emerging in the consciousness of humanity. All around the world people are turning away from orthodoxy and established religious institutions and are beginning their own spiritual journeys. We are at a time where the focus of attention of many people is turning away from the glorification of material pursuits – and towards the asking of questions like, “who am I, why am I here, what am I doing, and how do I make a better future?” Not only are increasing numbers of people developing their own opinions about philosophy and their practices of spirituality, but many are developing their understandings from a wide variety of different religious traditions. Many people are discovering that there are mutually shared wisdoms throughout history that can be incorporated into their daily lives. This is nothing short of a Philosophical Revolution.

It has become apparent in the Western world that the so-called “Age of Enlightenment” in Europe is not complete. Something was left undone. We are discovering that the use of reasoning and logic alone is not enough to fully enjoy life. A real Enlightenment would be a spiritual one occurring both internally and externally - both within individuals and externally in society. In the Eastern world there has always been a strong role for spiritual exploration in society although it has seldom transformed into any positive social action as a result. There is a great yearning in modern societies for answers to questions deeper than those offered by the “Enlightenment” or industrial revolution, and a disappointment at the slow pace at which we translate our ideals into actions.

The agricultural, industrial, and scientific revolutions liberated us from many of the difficulties of life. Now we need a Philosophical Revolution in thought to free us from the old prejudices and fallacies of the past and enable us to grow our creative potentials and mutual understandings. Without these, all of the technology in the world will not save us from ourselves and the disasters we wreak on each other and the planet through ignorance, fear, and hatred.

Humanity is at a critical pivot point at which global cvilization either transforms into a healthier reality, falls back to obsolete ways of life, or dissolves into a chaos of cultural and religious conflicts. There are increasing numbers of people who are becoming sensitive to the fact that we are at a crossroads of human development. There is no more important task than the elevation of human society from the morass out of which it constantly struggles to emerge. Each of us must take this task upon us; we can no longer sit and wait while things continue on autopilot.

To accomplish a transformation into an ‘Age of Wisdom’ throughout this new millennium we must facilitate a Spiritual Enlightenment – something which has been struggling to emerge throughout the 20th Century. The challenges facing humanity can be addressed if we comprehend the underlying reasons for the old historical errors we keep falling into and muster both the individual and social will to make positive changes. This begins with each of us in our personal lives. Social change begins with the individual person and when there are enough people dedicating their lives to the betterment of humanity larger scale social progress then becomes possible. A prosperous and healthy world could be just around the corner - humanity already has all of the needed ideas, technologies, people, and resources to make the necessary changes to better ways of living. This is possible now, let’s get started!

The whole effort of many successive generations has been to create better realities for their children than they had themselves. The nurturing of the future is the true job of humanity. It is no less than the liberation of our individual minds, hearts, bodies, and communities from slavery. There have always been forces opposing this liberation, and at many critical junctures on the way to positive social development all previous societies until now have failed in this quest. Yet there have been messengers of many sorts, examples of which are replete in all civilizations - people who point the way for possible future development. These spiritual teachers and leaders have all asked us to use loving compassion as the driving force in our activities and to create communities based on cooperation, respect, and tolerance for one another. Each successive generation must work at this in its own way. New generations now have many resources coming "on-line" to facilitate yet another attempt at the advancement of our consciousness through self knowledge and spiritual evolution.

The efforts of humanity over its history have been toward increasing liberty and improving community standards of conduct. Enlightened education liberates us individually from ignorance, fear, greed, and hate. ‘Civilization’ is a development that could ennoble humanity yet now more than ever is a machine for slavery for billions rather than a means to increase freedom. There is widespread confusion at the change of the millennium as to 'where things are headed,' and why we do what we do - unanswered because the big task of explanation is languishing. Like Moses we must open the granaries of the wisdom of the ages of humanity and feed the hungry. The common threads in our cultural wisdom must be revealed to make sense in our daily lives. The way to do this is through communication, education, and activism.

We are at the point where nature will not evolve us further. Evolution means improvement in the conditions of life. Future human evolution for humanity is impossibile unless there is a major alteration of our destructive and consumptive trends. Our ability to alter our environments to suit our purposes has circumvented the forces of the early natural selection that shaped our evolution to this point. Any further evolution of our species will come as a direct result of our own individual conscious efforts. We are at the point where we must consciously create our future or fall into chaos. The beings created must become new co-creators. Our future evolution is not the mechanical extension of our already existent functions to become stronger and faster, or to see and hear better. The future evolution of humanity is in the direction of the deepening of our beings, the growth of our consciousness and consciences, and the transformation of our world views and environments into more positive ones.

Future spiritual evolution involves individuals co-creating a global perspective of experience. We must grow beyond our divided selves. To further evolve as individuals we must include all the parts of our psyches in our active lives. Whether an individual has the corner on the market of wisdom and truth is less important than whether a person works on nurturing the growth of one's being while helping family and friends in this process. Along with all of our other functions humans have a religious, mystical, and magical dimension to our psyches which should not be neglected. Spiritual evolution involves allowing common sense and love to permeate life. Such enlightenment is the foundation for the creation of a human community basing its ethics on mutual values. The future of humanity depends upon the creation of a global community with a tolerant dialogue of religions and belief systems. This will only be possible with a Philosophical Revolution in the hearts, minds, consciences, and souls of increasing numbers of people around the world.

With the globalization of society we are having social transformations on a scale unprecedented in history. At the same time never before has the imperative to make the personal and social change to a more enlightened global society been so great. We are at a point where there can be an evolution of consciousness, common sense, conscience, and creativity. Unfortunately the benefits of humanity’s successive growth as a whole have only been enjoyed by a small few. Unscrupulous profiteers have been utilizing the developing capacities of humanity to maximize the efficiency of mass exploitation and their own profit generation. We must ask ourselves how we as individuals can act to correct this historical maladjustment.

The social problems of today have been repeated over and over and the warnings of the ancient wise echo down the hallways of time for those who have ears to hear. Our struggles are not new; they have been replayed a thousand times at differing scales of human civilization. The most difficult of our challenges in the survival of civilized life is not merely providing for our material well-being, but providing for the social, psychological, and spiritual aspects of life as well. The greatest challenge to the future of civilization is the drama played out in each and every one of our daily lives.

We have a unique historical opportunity with a global communications revolution. As people from different backgrounds increasingly communicate with each other, many perceived boundaries to mutual understanding will begin to fade. It is inevitable that not only will people globally communicate about stock prices, entertainment, and advertising; people will also share their ideas on philosophy, spirituality, religion, and politics. The great dialogue of human experience as expressed through the spiritual ideas of different cultures can begin to establish commonalties and new understandings. The achievement of just such a global dialogue on spiritual synthesis can set the stage for a real enlightenment, a spiritual one.

For the first time in history all of the peoples of our planet are connected through some type of communication. There are more specialists, scientists, and thinkers at this time in history than ever before and yet people are less and less satisfied about their solutions for living life. We are now in a position to re-evaluate all of the myths, world views, and primary assumptions upon which we base our actions. There is now enough historical evidence and scientific information available to say some new things about people and the world in which we live. What is missing is the synthesis of the existent information and knowledge. The synthesis of knowledge must be done by each of us individually and then translated into action in our personal lives. We each must go through a paradigm shift to prepare ourselves for the future by re-evaluating our ideas and actions in the light of new understandings.

At each stage in the growth of humanity the same challenges arise again and again. Each person must rise above the baser qualities of human thought and conduct. The battle for human evolution is now amplified in each generation. We are now at a point where if we do not come to terms with our shadows they will overtake us. The price of failure is the pollution and destruction of our planet and therefore our annihilation. The ultimate battle for planetary survival is happening now and the forces of destruction are those which represent ego, fear, and greed - those which ravage the planet, destroy communities, preach intolerance, and base their authority on violence.

The way to change our society is through changing ourselves. Only by individual changes in the way people think, feel, and act will larger scale changes occur. Who else is responsible for the social ills which beset us but each of us individually through our cumulative actions? The only change that can happen to improve the nature of our lives and society in general are the personal decisions we make in our own lives and how we act towards others. It is now necessary to have a Philosophical Revolution occur individually on large scales in global society. There is no other way for the conditions of life to improve.

For too long we have been appointing or relying on others to do the participation with spirituality and society for us. We have become isolated and despondent in this condition. Our job as people is to be artists that consciously co-create their lives with each other. We are rapidly coming to the point where the technology will be available to us to create and engineer our own environments, genetics, minds, and personal realities.

The question arises as to how we can begin the evolution of our own personal consciousnesses and consciences. We must remember that the human is a creature of heart, mind, body, and soul. The battle for our imaginations takes place in the arena of vision - that of ourselves and that of the future direction of society. The political future of the nations of the world will turn on what type of vision of human nature takes precedence - that of the enlightened teachers and leaders throughout history and culture or that of the profiteers of culture wars. New methods are necessary for people to grow from the stream of unifying human values that exist regardless of time or place. An example of this is the individual conscience - it transcends gender, race, religion, culture, lifestyle, and political ideology.

Only by making conscious the underlying beliefs, attitudes, and world views which operate within us unconsciously can we come to an understanding of what is happening on the planet. The mass confusion which is occurring in many industrial countries and in people’s lives is driven by the combination of many mistaken interpretations of history, a huge amount of ancient beliefs and assumptions, and the disconnected mountains of meaningless information provided through modern communications. We must open up the assumptions of the past and the visions of the future and challenge them if we are to create our own meaning in life and fashion decent futures for ourselves. This process is that nothing less than an individual’s own Philosophical Revolution, and when enough members of humanity seriously undertake this process, it will add up to a real Spiritual Enlightenment!


Copyright 2010, B. E. Foley