The Modern Era

A few days ago I wrote here about the 1^st Axial Age, the name given to the time in history when humanity made a major leap ahead, a change in consciousness that brought scattered humanity—each in unique ways—to lay the foundations for civilization that still serve us today.

The modern era necessitates another axial change wherein humanity comes to embrace a new consciousness of what and who we are.  We’ve seen ourselves from outer space—earth as one small interconnected interacting unit.   We must come to realize that what happens to one part effects the whole.  We can no longer choose war; we are One world threatened with self-destruction. 

We were given a planet in which to create a world according to our choice.  Little by little, with glory and strife, we came together to become a global world; we have yet to realize our oneness.  May we in our lifetime experience humanity's rise in consciousness.

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 I repeat an earlier poem from my blog of 10/15/13

POTENTIAL

I believe in human potential--

     Man can be more than he is

     if armed with the will to become.

I see the inherent dangers--

     Power can either create or destroy

     so knowledge of it awakens fear.

I know of quantitative quality--

     That which can be expressed positively

     can likewise be expressed negatively.

     I look to civilization’s development

          - the taming of fire

          - the mastery of communication

          - the understanding of order

          - the creation of beauty

          - the invention of systems

          - the development of industry

          - the perfection of technology

     Laced with wars, tyranny, slavery, holocaust, bigotry, treason, genocide...

     This is my heritage, my lineage, my ancestry;

     It all came before me and is mine because I am!

     This awareness engenders painful ambivalence;

     Majesty and pride joust with horror and shame.

     All this is because of human potential;

     Our being has changed the face of the earth.

     Man has traveled to the moon

     And he has created Auschwitz and Dachau.

               Are we gods or demons?

     The more we refine our being

     the more aware we become of its flaws.

     Ignorance once hid from us our vast potential;

     Yet once glimpsed, that image holds the mind in bondage.

     Reality forces us to live with the less that is

     while desperately longing for the more beyond reach.

Now, together, we are called to create a better world--      

     The negatives are painfully real

     but somewhere, somehow, progress happens.

Truth demands we acknowledge our potential's full range

     without abnegating the responsibility;

     --each person's choices help shape the future.

Of Human Progress

There is meaning to life.  Throughout time consciousness is expanding toward a goal and humanity is progressing.  Most human progress is so gradual it goes unnoticed in day-to-day affairs.   Some even argue there is no progress—but if we make it a point to look carefully at where we are now as compared to where we have been the picture changes.

Let’s begin with considering that in primitive man, the earliest signs of awareness and consciousness were directed toward nature and survival.  His identity was not personal but rather as part of a tribe or clan wherein all outsiders were considered ‘enemy’.  At what point was there a growing longing for ‘something more’?  We can’t see back that far but get hints from stories and myths carried forward in the oral tradition (such as Gilgamesh and various Creation stories). 

Then a phenomenon occurred during the first millennium BCE, roughly between 800-200 BC, there was a change in human consciousness throughout most of the inhabited world.  It was the period of time in which rigid and closed tribalism gave way to dynamic human interaction that became civilization as we know it.  That period is now called the Axial Age, so named by the philosopher Karl Jasper in 1870 as that period represents a pivotal change in human thought with the birth of philosophy and all major religions.  Jasper wrote: “The spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently in China, India, Persia, Judea and Greece.  And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today.”

That in itself seems curious . . . there was no intercommunication between these remote areas, yet it was almost as if it were ‘time for humanity to wake up’.  What caused the awakening? . . . the seed to break out of its shell, the butterfly to emerge from its chrysalis? . . . Clearly the time had arrived!  Was it the invisible hand of God guiding humanity to the next step needed for civilization to emerge?  Or was it simply what was required by the circumstances of having become more densely packed?  Or was it individual persons thinking more deeply about the ‘something’ of their longing?  Or was it all of that together?  Whatever the forces at work, it happened; there was a consciousness change that brought deep questions, a searching for meaning and the discovery of selfhood apart from ‘tribe’.

Now, lets look at what might be considered human progress.  It is easy to acknowledge technological advances—things that didn’t exist but once discovered changed humanity and the world:  the humble loom, printing press, steam engines, the sewing machine, electricity, telegraph & telephone, airplane, computer . . . all introduced by the human.

Those are things produced by human ingenuity and are readily accepted as examples of progress because of the direct benefit they give.  The human progress is less obvious, moves at a slower pace and is resisted because it comes at a cost and demands change.  But we can chart its progress:  Where there was once unrestrained use of brute force to overpower neighboring territories to rape and plunder and lay claim . . . that mitigated to a less obvious conquest mentality of explorers planting a national flag and ‘claiming’ a newly discovered ‘primitive lands’, pushing back or enslaving the natives . . . which changed again with developed nations ‘colonizing’ territories, treating the natives a bit more kindly and ‘civilizing’ them while harvesting whatever valuable resources the land had to offer (not exactly embracing humanitarian compassion but baby steps to ‘less cruel’) . . . and now, colonization is frowned upon and technically abandoned in the 20^th Century—the increasing respect for human rights shows advancement.

Social change is slow and hard fought but when evaluated through the eye of justice, and given time, we come to the right conclusion.  Slavery was an institution since the beginning of time, yet in the mid-1800, following a bloody war it was finally acknowledged by society that slavery was incompatible with civilization.  That view, however, did not extend to discrimination which took another 100 years to reach public awareness as unjust and was overthrown without violence by way of peace marches led by Martin Luther King Jr.  There is so much more yet to be done but this gives evidence to humanity’s progress.  In one of Dr. King’s inspiring speeches he spoke these words:  “The Arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  That is the nature of human progress—humankind choosing to move toward Justice, Truth and Love is the expansion of consciousness.

Other examples:

            --endorsing education for all, not just the privileged

            -- realizing an obligation to care for the sick and wounded

            -- philanthropic concern for those in need

            --the UN formulating the Declaration of Human Rights

            -- using diplomacy and striving to end war

These give evidence to human progress—to become less cruel and more compassionate, to move toward positive values . . . it will never be complete and never absolute but progress is measured by humans collectively choosing for the good.

God Search

Within the human species there is an insatiable desire to know, understand and draw conclusions—some call that a ‘God Search’.  It requires quiet time, but in this crazy fast-paced world of information overload, who has that quiet time?  And that search has been relegated to ‘unimportant’ in our secular world . . . but is it?

We all know that life is a limited experience.  We each come into being by way of an unfathomable chain of events; then, unknown circumstances will play upon us until the inevitable extinguishing of our mortal self.  We know this, but do we actually realize it?  Fact:  with few exceptions, the allotted time for each of us averages some 75-85 years and only rarely exceeds 100.  Such a tiny piece of time!  Individually we enter and exit the flow of life that stretches beyond our vision in both directions, backward and forward.   Why are we here so briefly? Why do we have consciousness to ask the question ‘Why’?

The majority of people are unconcerned about deep questions of existence, they are engaged in the survival struggle and ask only questions about immediate concerns . . . but for those who do ask the deep questions there seems to be two conflicting answers.  The first answer that came long ago, was to consider that some guiding spirit or spirits ‘made things happen’, controlling and watching the human struggle.  The spirits were identified differently by different groups of people, but the unifying idea was of ‘something more’.  The second answer came later, it was to consider that there are no spirit guides, humanity is alone in a meaningless universe without pattern or purpose—life appeared on this planet through random happenstance.  Our coming and going is just that brief experience without value, purpose or hope.

We seem to be caught between those two answers even if we personally aren’t engaged in the search.  The first answer seemed to offer hope and promise in the ‘something more’, but it became tangled in the definitions and rules of the institutions that grew around the idea.  The second answer came supported by science and seemed lofty, intelligent and, Oh so rational!—but dark and unsatisfying . . . Nothing more?  Meaninglessness?

Currently, among progressive thinkers a new question is being raised:  Are we experiencing another Axial Age?  A pivotal time when there is a fundamental shift in thinking about the universe and our part in it?  So, to address the question below that question, what IS an Axial Age?

The German philosopher Karl Jasper coined the term Axial Age in reference to the period of time roughly between 800-200 B.C.  He wrote: “The spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently throughout most of the inhabited world” . . . in that time the great intellectual, philosophical and religious systems emerged [i.e. Greek philosophers, Hebrew prophets, Confucius and Lao-Tzu in China, the Buddha in India, Zoroaster in Persia . . .] that shaped subsequent human society and culture.  Each chose different patterns of behavior yet held similar attitudes of respectful relationships and ultimate concerns beyond mere survival.  There was a shift or turn away from the violence of mere self-preservation characteristic of tribalism, shifting to living cooperatively with those who were different and speculating about the fate of humanity.  There emerged a new concern for the individual person evidenced by some form of the ‘Golden Rule’ expressed in each of the cultures. (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.) 

The New World Encyclopedia defines this era as: “the time in which all foundations that underlie current civilization came into being.  The Axial Age plays a central, foundational, or crucial role in human history.”

What is the significance of the Axial Age with regards to the God search?  It is a piece of evidence that supports the hopeful position that life is unfolding in accordance to a discernible pattern or plan.  From the study of science we see and understand life has evolved from simple to complex forms; when we observe long-term human behavior we can see a pattern of advancement from lower to higher states of consciousness.  The 1^st Axial Age shows that without direct communication, these diverse groups of people, although isolated from each other, chose advancement from barbarism to civilization—it implies a knowing directive force behind the flow of history, and bespeaks intentionality that affirms a God leading humanity to a higher purpose.