WEBVTT

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that will bring us humans to our senses.

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And in the face of which, maybe there will be some serious calamities for our species

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before we'll kind of wake up.

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In other words, does there need to be some kind of a calvary before we're open to this

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new resurrection?

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Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.

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I'm Rick Archer.

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My guest today is Diarmuid O’Murchu.

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Diarmuid is a Catholic theologian known for his insightful perspectives on spirituality

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and the evolving nature of human consciousness.

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He often addresses themes of chaos and transformation, suggesting that these can be opportunities

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for growth and new ways of being.

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Diarmuid encourages people to embrace change and view it as a path toward deeper understanding

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and spiritual evolution.

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His work highlights the importance of thinking globally while acting locally, emphasizing

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the role of spirit in guiding humanity through social and political upheavals.

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And these days we've been putting a little several word phrase in the thumbnail image

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on the YouTube videos, and for you we put "theology coming of age."

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And so I think we'll start off talking about that, and you know, by its name, theology

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seems it would be the study of God, but I looked it up, and indeed it's the study or

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science of God and divine things. And what I found when I looked it up is that it's understood

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there are two aspects of theology, rational theology, based on reason alone without relying

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on divine revelation and then revealed theology, which is based on divine revelation using

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sacred texts and religious experiences as sources of understanding.

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So does that concur with your definition of theology and what do you mean by theology

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coming of age?

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Okay, thank you for having me and welcome to all who are joining with us on this presentation.

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I come from a social science background.

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And one of the things coming from my background

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is a closer look at language and how we use language

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and how we use concepts and how these have been

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enculturated at different times in history.

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So when you talk about rational theology,

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to my mind, there's a fundamental contradiction there.

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Theology is the opening up to the mystery

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are the mysterious reality that we call God.

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And we humans have been doing that

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for thousands upon thousands of years,

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long before formal religions ever came into being.

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The notion of rational theology as officially defined

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is when we begin to build our theology

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as we have been doing

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for most of the 2000 years of Christendom

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on the basis of Greek metaphysics,

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our classical Greek philosophy,

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for which the use of reason is a very central feature

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and hence the word rational.

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Then when we come to the word revealed theology,

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and what we have to first give attention to

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is how we have defined that concept

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or that word of revelation,

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again in our Christian story and in Christian history.

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Basically the word was originally defined in the 300s

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in the context of some of the major councils

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of the early Christian church.

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And the official definition, which still lasts to this day,

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for revealed theology,

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is that it begins with the story of creation

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at the beginning of the Judeo-Christian scriptures

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and ends with the death of the last apostle.

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And there is no formal revelation, therefore, after that,

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according to that formal definition.

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Now that definition was drawn up by a small group

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of elite males in the Roman empire of the time.

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Half of humanity had no say in the matter

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and the rest of creation

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to which God has been revealing God's self

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for billions of years

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before we humans ever came on the scene,

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all that is excluded.

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So to my mind, that's a narrowly dangerous way

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to define theology.

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It's almost Vergy on idolatry.

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And therefore, both definitions, I suggest,

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need to be re-examined pretty profoundly.

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- Good, well, let's continue to re-examine them

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in this conversation.

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And I'm glad I asked you to define those

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because when I read the words revealed theology,

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I thought, oh, that must be like a mystical cognition

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that the saints had or yogis have and things like that.

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They're talking about direct experience,

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But you just explained it completely differently.

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Correct.

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In actual fact, traditionally, and this is one of the sad features, and this is where

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the word rational has been so important in the history of theology, is that anything

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to do with human experience was perceived to be highly suspect.

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Working on the premise, we are fundamentally a flawed species.

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So our experience cannot really be trusted.

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we're doing something as serious and profound as theology, we need to rise above our experience

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and all the personal features of it and hold more firmly to the rational mind. And that's where then

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the definition of the rational one also needs to be re-examined. I think experience is incredibly

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important for our understanding of theology today and indeed has been for many centuries,

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particularly in the lives of the great mystics, because for them, experience was a very fundamental stratum in their theological understanding of life.

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Yeah, and when you say that experiential spirituality is suspect, can't be trusted absolutely, I would agree with that.

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I mean, we shouldn't have absolute trust in anything.

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I like Aldous Huxley's suggestion

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that the development of the working hypothesis

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was the greatest contribution of the scientific revolution.

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And I tend to take everything as a working hypothesis, which

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means it has a certain degree of credibility,

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and degrees vary according to how much empirical evidence

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you can find for it.

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And I think, personally, I think that spirituality

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could be approached in that way too.

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What do you think about that?

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Yes, except I think when we are dealing...

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One of my favorite definitions of spirituality today, as we're beginning to understand it

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now in the 21st century, is Spirit with a capital S connecting with Spirit with a small

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s.

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And basically I'm drawing there on one of the great foundational insights of Carl Reiner,

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contrary to the earlier understanding, particularly say since the Council of Trent in the 16th century,

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the human spirit is fundamentally open to the spirit of God and not fundamentally alien to

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the spirit of God, which is the whole theory of original sin claims. And therefore at that level

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then to begin exploring the deeper meaning of life from the realm of experience is quite appropriate,

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But of course, it needs to be done dialogically or communally.

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It needs to be done through the medium of conversation.

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And that brings in the whole notion of the theology of story,

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which has been quite popular,

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our narrative theology over the past 50 or 60 years.

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And in the United States,

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the work of Jack Shea would be very fundamental in that particular approach.

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Yeah, that's good.

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It's reminiscent of the Hindu approach of the Jiva, the individual soul, is Atman, ultimately,

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the universal soul.

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And you need to understand their oneness experientially, not just conceptually.

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Correct.

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Yeah.

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That would be right.

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And then Atman is Brahman, meaning the totality, and you are that totality.

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But again, it can't just be an understanding, and nice words.

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It has to be experiential.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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So, one thing I just want to throw in here is that in your books you often quote the fact

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that human evolution goes back maybe seven million years.

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And I interviewed a cosmologist a few weeks ago, and we were talking about the size of

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the universe and the likelihood of Earth-like planets, and he said, "Oh, there are possibly

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millions if not billions of Earth-like planets in each galaxy, and there are trillions of

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galaxies."

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Okay.

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Maybe about two trillion of them.

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So when I think that, you know, and I think that life is probably abundant throughout the universe.

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And so if we really want to broaden our perspective, we should think in terms of more than just the seven million years of,

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or whatever it is, of human evolution.

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We should think of, you know, the totality of the universe and how, you know,

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we're just on this little grain of sand,

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making a great fuss about our ideas

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and our institutions and our politics and our wars

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and our religions and all that,

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whereas there's really a kind of a divine or cosmic reality to the thing

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that we're largely oblivious to.

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Well, actually, I would concur with that same argument,

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except I suppose I'm a more practical person with my feet on the ground,

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and some people say maybe influenced by my Celtic background.

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I think if we are really to appreciate those larger horizons

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of the meaning that science is illuminating today at a rapid rate

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and number one, appreciate them, number two, try to understand them

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and number three, try to embrace and integrate them,

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then it may be, for me, I think it's eminently important.

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we need to begin with ourselves. Our view of the human I think is incredibly narrow,

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reductionistic and self-destructive basically. For example in the case of the Christian story,

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we're back to your material of theology a few minutes ago. Most Christians around the world

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and other cultures directly or indirectly influenced by Christianity basically put a

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a huge emphasis often implicit,

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but to stay out of the 2000 year benchmark,

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as if really nothing of significance happened before that.

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Our people have other religious persuasions

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by the argue back three and a half or 4,000 years,

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but they don't link meaning,

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particularly at the human level

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with anything back beyond those dates.

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And I think that's incredibly self-destructive

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and very dangerous in many levels

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of the world in which we're now living.

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We need a bigger vision to live more sanely, humanely,

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and intelligently upon this planet.

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And therefore, let's begin with what our real human story is.

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And the story, when I'm speaking particularly

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in Christian audiences, I often use the language,

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what is actually God's story for us

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in terms of our species?

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It's not a story of 2000 years.

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It's not a story of four or 5,000 years.

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It's a story of 7 million years.

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And I believe our God has been fully involved with us every step of the way along that journey.

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Which then of course raises huge and very difficult questions for our Christian faith,

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which claims that Jesus came to rescue us from something that was fundamentally wrong.

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I mean that verges on idolatry because it's saying that this all-wise, all-creative, wonderful

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God was making an absolute mess of things with us for most of the 7 million years.

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And to me, I just can't buy into that at all. Yeah, some of the Hindus have that kind of

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attitude too, that the world is an illusion and it's kind of a mistake and you just want to get

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out of it as quickly as possible, you know, get liberated, never come back here. And to me, that

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seems kind of disrespectful to God, particularly considering the incredible beauty and profundity

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of the world. By world, I mean the whole thing, the whole universe. And just what you can see,

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you know, who was it? William Blake said something about infinity in a grain of sand,

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eternity in an hour. You know, if we look closely at what's staring us right in the face,

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God is hiding in plain sight, just alive in every little cell and blade of grass and ant and whatnot.

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Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

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Yeah. So this whole idea of the whole thing is a mistake. And, you know, it's just getting it off

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on the wrong foot. Yeah, it is. And a lot of that thinking

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you see is anthropocentric. It's almost like it begins with the with the assumption, a presumption,

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Well, we humans are messing things up, but we don't have it right.

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Therefore, nothing is right or can be right.

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And again, that's a very dangerous,

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almost irresponsible way to be arguing or to be thinking about life.

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And it's based, of course, on the premise that we are the supreme species.

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And again, that's very much we're back to revelation.

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That's a rising reason, really, from a basic

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postulant by Aristotle and Plato.

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We're creatures with a soul, and that gives us the status of being superior beings to everything else.

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And so that whole anthropology has to be revisited and reworked.

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Yeah, well there's plenty of evidence to support the contention that we are messing things up,

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but perhaps they drew the wrong conclusions from that observation.

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Yeah, I mean maybe we could say that we're messing things up because we're not actually

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adequately aligned with divine intelligence or whatever we want to call it. You know,

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we're just kind of reflecting it very partially. That's very much my line of argument.

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Indeed. Yeah. Yeah. And so the project would be to learn how to attune ourselves to it more fully

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and ultimately, completely, if that's possible. Yes. Yeah. And I think, I think, particularly with

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with the wisdom coming from the sciences today,

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from what we call the hard sciences,

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but also from the social sciences.

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There's now abundant information around inviting us

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to come on board and enter this journey of exploration.

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- Yeah.

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So you call for a paradigm shift in Christian theology.

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I think we're kind of hinting at what that might be,

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but perhaps you'd like to elaborate a bit

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on what it should be.

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And also, paradigms are notoriously hard to shift,

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and for a good reason.

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Because if they just shifted at the slightest contradiction,

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there would be no stability.

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But eventually, if there's enough evidence

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to challenge them-- anomalies, they call it--

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then they will eventually shift.

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And so how do you think it's going

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in terms of shifting the paradigm of Christian theology?

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- In a sense, I suppose, this is very much

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the work of my great friend, Ilya Delio.

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It's almost as if we're living through evolutionary times

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where things are moving with a kind of a rapidity

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that we haven't known for quite some time.

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Why now is obviously a complex question

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for which there's no easy answer or obvious answer,

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but that this momentum is happening,

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I think is obvious to me at least,

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and to many others indeed too.

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And therefore, in the context of theology,

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I very much like the phrase that's being used today

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by a lot of theologians and scripture scholars,

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the call to rework the tradition.

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So in other words,

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we're not trying out the baby with the bathwater.

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And it's not merely a case of cling on,

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make sure you cling on to the tradition,

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which is what I was taught in my early years

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as a seminarian and as a student and so forth.

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but it's about reworking the tradition.

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Now, in the case of theology,

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I would be quite happy to begin

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with that little phrase of St. Anselm

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that was adopted by Thomas Aquinas,

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that theology is about faith, seeking, understanding.

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Except, of course, for Anselm and Aquinas,

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when they talked about the deposit of faith,

00:17:36.300 --> 00:17:38.180
which was the formal scriptures

00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:40.780
and the church teaching around the early tradition.

00:17:40.780 --> 00:17:43.580
Today, and we're back to the experience,

00:17:43.580 --> 00:17:48.140
Obviously the word faith has a much more expanded meaning.

00:17:48.140 --> 00:17:49.820
In conjunction with yourself,

00:17:49.820 --> 00:17:51.860
I would want to bring in the insights

00:17:51.860 --> 00:17:53.900
of the other great world religions.

00:17:53.900 --> 00:17:56.100
But I also want to bring in the insights

00:17:56.100 --> 00:17:58.340
that are coming to me from anthropology

00:17:58.340 --> 00:18:00.100
and the social sciences,

00:18:00.100 --> 00:18:02.700
that we have been a spiritual species

00:18:02.700 --> 00:18:05.820
and have been engaging spiritually with life

00:18:05.820 --> 00:18:08.240
for thousands upon thousands of years.

00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:11.980
I think all that now has to come into our definition

00:18:11.980 --> 00:18:14.180
our understanding of faith today.

00:18:14.180 --> 00:18:17.100
And so, yes, how do we bring an understanding

00:18:17.100 --> 00:18:19.780
into that evolving sense of faith

00:18:19.780 --> 00:18:22.740
that would be more relevant and meaningful for our times?

00:18:22.740 --> 00:18:26.100
And in that process, what does it mean to rework

00:18:26.100 --> 00:18:28.380
the different aspects of our tradition?

00:18:28.380 --> 00:18:32.020
So for instance, I suppose one of the most controversial

00:18:32.020 --> 00:18:34.660
ones that people would see in my work,

00:18:34.660 --> 00:18:37.300
the very story or the very place of Jesus

00:18:37.300 --> 00:18:39.540
in terms of incarnation.

00:18:39.540 --> 00:18:41.600
If our God is fully with us,

00:18:41.600 --> 00:18:45.820
when we first evolved 7 million years ago in East Africa,

00:18:45.820 --> 00:18:48.300
then that's where incarnation begins

00:18:48.300 --> 00:18:50.220
in the Christian sense of the word.

00:18:50.220 --> 00:18:52.780
The embodiment of God in our bodies,

00:18:52.780 --> 00:18:54.900
in our flesh, in our lives.

00:18:54.900 --> 00:18:56.740
So therefore, where does that leave us

00:18:56.740 --> 00:18:58.740
then with the person of Jesus?

00:18:58.740 --> 00:19:01.160
And my response to that question is

00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:04.860
that then it could seem that a more responsible

00:19:04.860 --> 00:19:08.140
and creative way to understand the story of Jesus

00:19:08.140 --> 00:19:10.900
is to see Jesus as an affirmation,

00:19:10.900 --> 00:19:13.540
confirmation and celebration.

00:19:13.540 --> 00:19:16.340
To me, those three words are very important.

00:19:16.340 --> 00:19:19.740
Affirmation, confirmation and celebration

00:19:19.740 --> 00:19:22.700
of everything we achieved over the 7 million years.

00:19:22.700 --> 00:19:24.220
Because believe it or not,

00:19:24.220 --> 00:19:26.940
and fortunately we're dealing with a science

00:19:26.940 --> 00:19:28.980
that's becoming more and more rigorous.

00:19:28.980 --> 00:19:29.820
Believe it or not,

00:19:29.820 --> 00:19:33.220
it would seem that we got it right most of the time

00:19:33.220 --> 00:19:35.260
over the 7 million years.

00:19:35.260 --> 00:19:39.820
And we got it right because we remained very close to nature.

00:19:39.820 --> 00:19:41.960
And when we humans remain very close to nature,

00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:43.500
we tend to get it right.

00:19:43.500 --> 00:19:45.180
In the more recent millennia,

00:19:45.180 --> 00:19:47.860
when we put ourselves over against nature

00:19:47.860 --> 00:19:50.700
and we create these awful dualistic divisions

00:19:50.700 --> 00:19:52.820
between ourselves and the natural world,

00:19:52.820 --> 00:19:55.260
we're getting it desperately wrong.

00:19:55.260 --> 00:19:58.300
So I would want to argue that Jesus didn't come

00:19:58.300 --> 00:19:59.700
to rescue us from anything.

00:19:59.700 --> 00:20:03.260
That Jesus is about an affirmation, confirmation,

00:20:03.260 --> 00:20:09.340
celebration and then offers us that very, what I think is a great prophetic vision.

00:20:09.340 --> 00:20:15.860
The Gospels call it the Kingdom of God to help us to move forward with that mandate, if you

00:20:15.860 --> 00:20:21.580
like, and that will carry forward our own project as a human species, as well as what

00:20:21.580 --> 00:20:24.740
evolution I think is doing in us at the present time.

00:20:24.740 --> 00:20:33.100
Now, so I'm using that as an example of what I understand by the reworking of tradition.

00:20:33.100 --> 00:20:37.820
When you use those three words, affirmation, confirmation, celebration, what strikes me

00:20:37.820 --> 00:20:47.540
is that Jesus could be seen as evidence of what a human being is capable of, could become.

00:20:47.540 --> 00:20:50.980
And I think he said things along those lines, you know, all these great things that I do,

00:20:50.980 --> 00:20:57.220
you shall do even greater things, and things like that.

00:20:57.220 --> 00:21:01.960
And if we jump back to my point about the trillions

00:21:01.960 --> 00:21:06.420
of advanced civilizations throughout the universe,

00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:11.680
it calls into question the exclusivity or uniqueness

00:21:11.680 --> 00:21:13.500
of Jesus, unless he's on tour.

00:21:13.500 --> 00:21:14.880
And that would be a very-- he'd have

00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:18.560
to move at a pretty fast pace to cover all those planets.

00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:20.820
But probably, they all have their Jesuses

00:21:20.820 --> 00:21:26.180
and their divine revelators, their saints and sages

00:21:26.180 --> 00:21:29.340
and teachers and so on.

00:21:29.340 --> 00:21:32.100
- And we're more likely to understand and appreciate that

00:21:32.100 --> 00:21:34.780
if we deal more creatively with our own.

00:21:34.780 --> 00:21:36.660
- Yeah, exactly.

00:21:36.660 --> 00:21:40.020
And then even staying on this planet,

00:21:40.020 --> 00:21:44.240
I've often wondered if Jesus was the only way,

00:21:44.240 --> 00:21:47.100
then what happened to all the people

00:21:47.100 --> 00:21:50.020
who lived and died before Jesus came around?

00:21:50.020 --> 00:21:53.900
Or even while he was alive, or since he was alive,

00:21:53.900 --> 00:21:58.360
who lived in Borneo or someplace and never heard of Jesus.

00:21:58.360 --> 00:22:01.180
I guess Christianity or some branches of it

00:22:01.180 --> 00:22:03.220
have explanations for that,

00:22:03.220 --> 00:22:06.200
but they seem a little bit contrived to me.

00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:08.260
- Well, they tend to be very exclusive

00:22:08.260 --> 00:22:12.060
and they carry this rationality

00:22:12.060 --> 00:22:13.860
that we talked about earlier on

00:22:13.860 --> 00:22:17.200
and unfortunately, this sense of superiority.

00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:19.180
I mean, there are still strands

00:22:19.180 --> 00:22:21.460
even in what some people would consider

00:22:21.460 --> 00:22:27.300
more progressive Christian theologians that are saying things like, "We have access to

00:22:27.300 --> 00:22:30.780
revelation in a way that no other world religion has."

00:22:30.780 --> 00:22:32.580
I find that totally unacceptable.

00:22:32.580 --> 00:22:33.580
Yeah.

00:22:33.580 --> 00:22:37.140
And not only Christians, other religions are saying the same thing.

00:22:37.140 --> 00:22:40.820
And even sub-sub-subcategories of specific religions.

00:22:40.820 --> 00:22:44.940
You know, we've got the only way, those guys down the block, they're off the beam.

00:22:44.940 --> 00:22:45.940
Yeah.

00:22:45.940 --> 00:22:46.940
There's a...

00:22:46.940 --> 00:22:51.060
Never mind, I won't go into it.

00:22:51.060 --> 00:22:58.060
a very funny comedian who does this skit about, you know, he's meeting a guy, his name is,

00:22:58.060 --> 00:23:02.380
I forget his name, he's meeting a guy who's about to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and

00:23:02.380 --> 00:23:06.360
he gets into a conversation with him to save his life, you know, and it turns out they're

00:23:06.360 --> 00:23:13.360
both into Christianity and he starts narrowing down the sects and the streams of Christianity

00:23:13.360 --> 00:23:19.740
they belong to and then finally he gets to a point where there's a difference, you know,

00:23:19.740 --> 00:23:24.380
between some obscure branch that they each belong to

00:23:24.380 --> 00:23:26.380
and so he pushes them off the bridge.

00:23:26.380 --> 00:23:28.640
(laughing)

00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:30.380
- Yeah.

00:23:30.380 --> 00:23:31.220
- Emo Phillips, that's the guy.

00:23:31.220 --> 00:23:33.500
If you look up Emo Phillips, Golden Gate Bridge,

00:23:33.500 --> 00:23:34.580
you'll find the skit.

00:23:34.580 --> 00:23:35.580
I'm sorry, go ahead.

00:23:35.580 --> 00:23:40.660
- And it's sad really that some very intelligent,

00:23:40.660 --> 00:23:43.380
creative people, and I'm thinking particularly

00:23:43.380 --> 00:23:46.820
at that strand we call evangelical,

00:23:46.820 --> 00:23:48.900
who spend a huge amount of their time

00:23:48.900 --> 00:23:55.220
that kind of nitpicking of these small details and almost splitting hairs between what one sect

00:23:55.220 --> 00:24:00.500
believes and what another doesn't and so on and so forth. From my perspective it seems a terrible

00:24:00.500 --> 00:24:06.340
waste of time and a terrible terrible waste of talent but there we are. Yeah as I say it's not

00:24:06.340 --> 00:24:11.940
it's not exclusive to Christianity as you well know. Even you know contemporary spirituality

00:24:11.940 --> 00:24:16.580
with this guru or that guru and there's so many people who have the attitude with our teacher is

00:24:16.580 --> 00:24:20.500
is the best, or even some of the teachers say this, I'm the best and my teaching is the

00:24:20.500 --> 00:24:26.500
best and if you leave me, you'll have to be reborn for a hundred more lifetimes before

00:24:26.500 --> 00:24:31.980
you find something this good. I think it's just a reflection of a certain egotism or

00:24:31.980 --> 00:24:39.740
something that afflicts people in general. Anyway, it seems silly in the big picture.

00:24:39.740 --> 00:24:44.840
There was one of your books that talked a lot about anthropology and the thought came

00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:50.000
to me that in terms of many fields of study, but in anthropology and theology in particular,

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:55.480
since that's what we're talking about, aren't just academic or religious pursuits, but that

00:24:55.480 --> 00:25:02.940
when their understandings become institutionalized, they have a major impact on civilization.

00:25:02.940 --> 00:25:07.840
Just as an individual's understanding of what life is about can have a major impact on his

00:25:07.840 --> 00:25:11.040
behavior. For instance, if you think that when you die, that's the end of it, there's

00:25:11.040 --> 00:25:15.680
nothing else, that changes your whole attitude as compared to whether you think that you

00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:20.240
go to heaven or you get reincarnated or, you know, various other possibilities.

00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:24.660
You get a broader perspective if you entertain those possibilities.

00:25:24.660 --> 00:25:30.460
So what do you think about that in terms of the entrenched or ingrained or common understanding

00:25:30.460 --> 00:25:33.920
that these fields of knowledge have?

00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:36.280
There are different ways of approaching that.

00:25:36.280 --> 00:25:41.800
So I think your main line Christian scholar might approach it along the lines that I mentioned

00:25:41.800 --> 00:25:47.560
earlier on, tracing the sources back to classical Greek philosophy, or what in time came to be

00:25:47.560 --> 00:25:51.160
known as scholasticism.

00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:59.240
I think several of the major issues confronting our species today, I tend to trace them back

00:25:59.240 --> 00:26:04.360
about 12,000 years to the shadow side of the agricultural revolution.

00:26:04.360 --> 00:26:07.160
And I comment on this in a number of my books.

00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:15.160
Now the problem one runs into then with that statement is that it's amazing to get a baggage

00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:20.740
many of us are still carrying, some consciously, but for the greater part subconsciously.

00:26:20.740 --> 00:26:27.200
Now we've been so indoctrinated by benchmarks of 2000 years, or maybe 4000 years, that when

00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:32.560
somebody mentions something like that, 10 or 12,000 years, that we're immediately being

00:26:32.560 --> 00:26:37.600
accused that we're into the area of fantasy and that we're no longer dealing with reality in any

00:26:37.600 --> 00:26:43.440
kind of a meaningful way and therefore we're not to be taken seriously. So we're back again to the

00:26:43.440 --> 00:26:49.280
difference between a big story and the narrow reduced downstorm. So about 12,000 years ago

00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:54.800
one of the one of these breakthroughs known as the agricultural revolution which a lot of people

00:26:54.800 --> 00:27:00.960
think has to do with the beginnings of agriculture when in fact it's not because we had been exploring

00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:07.120
the fertility of the land as a species for several thousands of years before that. The agricultural

00:27:07.120 --> 00:27:14.720
revolution has to do with an ice age, an extreme freezing, that disrupted the whole schema of life

00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:20.000
at the time in what today we would call southern Europe, or more particularly in North Africa.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:23.840
In the case of North Africa, leading to the Sahara Desert that we have today.

00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:28.760
And that created huge dislocation of human beings

00:27:28.760 --> 00:27:31.680
and the face of which a new movement,

00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:34.280
and it may be more than one group that was involved,

00:27:34.280 --> 00:27:38.200
began to emerge that we now call patriarchy,

00:27:38.200 --> 00:27:42.040
with a kind of an irrational desire to dominate,

00:27:42.040 --> 00:27:45.480
to control, and to sort out what was, I suppose,

00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:47.740
quite a messy situation.

00:27:47.740 --> 00:27:49.360
And the process of which that began

00:27:49.360 --> 00:27:52.120
breaking the land down into sections

00:27:52.120 --> 00:27:57.880
and parceling them out to different people, setting up adversarial relationships, and setting up what

00:27:57.880 --> 00:28:03.480
eventually became the basis for what today we call the nation-state. Then subsequent to that,

00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:09.800
there were a number of important, I suppose you could call them political structures emerged.

00:28:09.800 --> 00:28:16.440
The most dominant one is the king. Kings are unheard of before seven or eight thousand years

00:28:16.440 --> 00:28:24.920
ago. And then the king taking his validation and mandate from the king above the sky, the sky god,

00:28:24.920 --> 00:28:29.720
which is a projected of human beings themselves. And that's where the notion of a sky god comes

00:28:29.720 --> 00:28:35.800
from. Now alongside the king, you have the warrior on horseback, and you have the priest.

00:28:35.800 --> 00:28:42.280
The role of the priest is to offer sacrifice to pacify the god above the sky. All that it seems

00:28:42.280 --> 00:28:49.800
to me is not just distant stuff that's about some kind of weird fantasy. That's very central to the

00:28:49.800 --> 00:28:59.240
whole development of our species over this past 10 to 12,000 years. And I think, to take a long

00:28:59.240 --> 00:29:03.960
time to elaborate on this and I wouldn't have the knowledge immediately before me to do so,

00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:11.080
that the evolutionary phase that we're going through as a species in this past 10 or 12,000

00:29:11.080 --> 00:29:17.400
years is now beginning to break down into fragment. As more and more people are naming that reality

00:29:17.400 --> 00:29:24.200
and beginning to try and move away from it and to embrace something more of a communal way of

00:29:24.200 --> 00:29:30.120
engaging with life, which would have been something similar to the hunter-gatherer stage of our

00:29:30.120 --> 00:29:38.280
species before the agricultural revolution. So that would be the context and that is the context

00:29:38.280 --> 00:29:44.440
out of which I try to develop both my anthropology and my theology, indeed my psychology as well.

00:29:44.440 --> 00:29:54.760
I think what you just said relates to what you said a few minutes ago about the

00:29:54.760 --> 00:30:05.880
exponentially increasing pace of change. There does seem to be some huge breakdown or reshuffling of

00:30:05.880 --> 00:30:14.520
things and even people who don't really think of things in terms of spirituality talk about

00:30:14.520 --> 00:30:20.440
how the amount of information we have available to us is increasing exponentially.

00:30:20.440 --> 00:30:25.960
It used to take maybe 10 years for a certain amount for it to double, now it's doubling

00:30:25.960 --> 00:30:28.160
every 14 days or some such thing.

00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:34.160
I don't know if my figures are right, but it's just taken off like a rocket ship.

00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:42.720
And I don't know if you can think of, you can comment on this, but many, many people

00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:48.840
suggest that human beings aren't biologically or neurophysiologically wired to deal with

00:30:48.840 --> 00:30:51.760
such a rapid pace of change.

00:30:51.760 --> 00:30:56.000
It's very hard for many people to cope.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:02.640
Just one more thought is, you know, with this change, you mentioned earlier that some people

00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:09.040
are clinging to their worldviews or their theologies and others are more flexible and open and letting

00:31:09.040 --> 00:31:13.600
themselves rise with the tide. And you know that saying, "A rising tide lifts all boats."

00:31:13.600 --> 00:31:20.240
But if certain boats insist upon remaining anchored, as the tide rises, they're going to

00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:27.680
capsize because the water is going to get higher than the length of their anchor rope. So I think

00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:38.960
it's critical that people don't cling rigidly to antiquated notions and be open, but you can't

00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:45.600
mandate that. It somehow has to come from within the ability to do that. Yes, some people would say,

00:31:45.600 --> 00:31:52.720
well then, you know, we require a radical change of emphasis and focus in our educational systems.

00:31:52.720 --> 00:31:58.320
But again, there's going to be a big resistance to that in several quarters. And so one begins

00:31:58.320 --> 00:32:03.680
to wonder, and this indeed may be the great paradox in what in Christian faith we call

00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:09.920
the Paschal Journey, does there have to be some kind of a major crisis, or maybe a number of

00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:15.200
major crises that will bring us humans to our senses? And in the face of which, maybe there

00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:18.820
there will be some serious calamities for our species

00:32:18.820 --> 00:32:21.060
before we kind of wake up.

00:32:21.060 --> 00:32:24.480
In other words, does there need to be some kind of a Calvary

00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:26.520
before we're open to this new resurrection

00:32:26.520 --> 00:32:28.120
that you're talking about?

00:32:28.120 --> 00:32:31.520
And I think that has probably been a pattern.

00:32:31.520 --> 00:32:34.040
And so I was talking a few minutes ago

00:32:34.040 --> 00:32:37.280
about this 10 to 12,000 years.

00:32:37.280 --> 00:32:39.440
Fortunately, we're reasonably aware now

00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:41.600
what went on during that period.

00:32:41.600 --> 00:32:44.460
I suspect myself that was not the first time

00:32:44.460 --> 00:32:50.220
we as a species went through a major crisis. The problem is we don't have the evidence as yet

00:32:50.220 --> 00:32:56.380
to be able to point to it and see how did we pull ourselves out of it. And I think if and when we

00:32:56.380 --> 00:33:01.420
get that evidence and I have no doubt we will in due course and perhaps it'll be a bit like some

00:33:01.420 --> 00:33:07.660
of the great extinctions. In all of them there were some major losses but at the end of the day

00:33:07.660 --> 00:33:13.500
there was a breakthrough and I think maybe that's what's going to happen to us as well. So if you

00:33:13.500 --> 00:33:20.380
If you look at something like another crisis along the lines of COVID, that could be a

00:33:20.380 --> 00:33:27.340
serious cataclysmic event that would bring us to our senses, during which there may be

00:33:27.340 --> 00:33:33.000
some significant loss, even loss of human life, but the breakthrough that evolution wants

00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:34.000
to bring about.

00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:37.500
Yeah, I'm afraid it often has to work that way.

00:33:37.500 --> 00:33:39.100
Yes, I think so.

00:33:39.100 --> 00:33:41.740
I mean, you can even look at things like the Holocaust,

00:33:41.740 --> 00:33:43.020
which is such a horrible thing.

00:33:43.020 --> 00:33:46.460
But look how Germany finally changed

00:33:46.460 --> 00:33:49.780
after realizing what a horrible thing they had done.

00:33:49.780 --> 00:33:51.300
And that's just one case in point.

00:33:51.300 --> 00:33:53.860
But it kind of reminds me of something

00:33:53.860 --> 00:33:55.900
Winston Churchill said about the Americans.

00:33:55.900 --> 00:33:58.660
He said, they always end up doing the right thing

00:33:58.660 --> 00:34:01.060
after having tried every other alternative.

00:34:01.060 --> 00:34:03.460
[LAUGHTER]

00:34:03.460 --> 00:34:07.460
So sometimes we seem to have to have a hard knock in order

00:34:07.460 --> 00:34:07.960
to--

00:34:07.960 --> 00:34:09.800
Right, right.

00:34:09.800 --> 00:34:12.000
The other thing I think is worth keeping in mind here

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:14.960
is a very simple little statement

00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:16.800
from scholastic philosophy.

00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:19.240
One of the good little bits that I cherish

00:34:19.240 --> 00:34:20.680
from my study of it.

00:34:20.680 --> 00:34:22.840
Action follows thought.

00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:25.240
Now, I think we're living in a world

00:34:25.240 --> 00:34:27.840
that's very preoccupied with action

00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:29.640
and achieving this and achieving that

00:34:29.640 --> 00:34:34.640
and targets or, you know, whatever it might be.

00:34:35.080 --> 00:34:38.400
Whereas in fact, it's the consciousness

00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:40.140
we all need to work at.

00:34:40.140 --> 00:34:42.480
Unfortunately, I think there's a lot of work

00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:43.720
being done on that.

00:34:43.720 --> 00:34:46.580
Unfortunately, not by our major institutions

00:34:46.580 --> 00:34:49.300
from the top down, but more from a growing body

00:34:49.300 --> 00:34:50.700
of people from the ground up.

00:34:50.700 --> 00:34:53.440
There's a little known French philosopher,

00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:56.280
I sometimes quote him in my books,

00:34:56.280 --> 00:34:59.760
called Saint-Jean-Pierre.

00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:03.520
And the way he puts it in a more poetic strain,

00:35:03.520 --> 00:35:10.240
When I change the level of my awareness, I start attracting a different reality.

00:35:10.240 --> 00:35:14.380
I think we need more and more people on board in that project.

00:35:14.380 --> 00:35:19.340
When I change the level of my awareness, I start attracting a different reality.

00:35:19.340 --> 00:35:24.740
In other words, the shift in consciousness and AI may indeed contribute significantly

00:35:24.740 --> 00:35:25.740
to that.

00:35:25.740 --> 00:35:28.940
A lot of negative things are being said about it.

00:35:28.940 --> 00:35:36.020
I am concerned about the ethical ramifications of it and the fact that it is still very much

00:35:36.020 --> 00:35:41.340
in the hands of a small group of very powerful people.

00:35:41.340 --> 00:35:46.100
Whereas it needs to be brought more under the control of our governments, for example.

00:35:46.100 --> 00:35:50.980
And we really need an ethics and a morality to work with it.

00:35:50.980 --> 00:35:55.860
But I do think it has the potential to shift this consciousness in ways that will be to

00:35:55.860 --> 00:35:57.460
our benefits in the long term.

00:35:57.460 --> 00:36:01.460
Oh, you said a lot of great things there.

00:36:01.460 --> 00:36:06.460
Firstly, the thing about consciousness being fundamental has been one of my guiding principles

00:36:06.460 --> 00:36:07.460
all my life.

00:36:07.460 --> 00:36:11.900
And I spent years, I mean I've been meditating since I was a teenager, but I spent years

00:36:11.900 --> 00:36:19.660
teaching meditation in the hope that by enlivening consciousness I could have an effect on the

00:36:19.660 --> 00:36:22.180
more manifest levels of life.

00:36:22.180 --> 00:36:29.080
Because as we know from examples in science, the subtle is more powerful, the fundamental

00:36:29.080 --> 00:36:33.700
is more powerful, molecules are more powerful than just the physical level, or atoms are

00:36:33.700 --> 00:36:37.240
more powerful than molecules, and so on.

00:36:37.240 --> 00:36:44.620
And I'm optimistic because I feel like there is some sort of global pandemic of consciousness

00:36:44.620 --> 00:36:53.260
awakening, some kind of wave sweeping the planet and people everywhere are waking up.

00:36:53.260 --> 00:36:57.140
And that's one of the main themes of this show.

00:36:57.140 --> 00:37:03.700
And you know, it doesn't make the six o'clock news, but I think it is having a, it's foundational

00:37:03.700 --> 00:37:11.280
and everything that's less foundational, although it may seem powerful, governments and institutions

00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:21.040
and finances and all that stuff is ultimately on shaky ground. If the foundation shifts,

00:37:21.040 --> 00:37:25.920
it's going to have to shift in some way or cease to exist.

00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:31.640
Exactly. And I think that's the great panic fear that we see. I mean, you see it in America

00:37:31.640 --> 00:37:36.720
with Donald Trump, make America great again. We see it in Russia, where Putin is just desperate

00:37:36.720 --> 00:37:42.720
hold on to the old imperial reality and it's slipping away from him. We see it unfortunately

00:37:42.720 --> 00:37:48.480
in parts of Europe too, we see it in Hungary, we see it in Italy. Georgia Maloney on her visit

00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:56.640
to Donald Trump a few weeks back used the very same phrase, make Europe great again.

00:37:56.640 --> 00:38:02.160
What she was really saying is we need to keep out all these foreigners and then build our

00:38:02.160 --> 00:38:03.920
our own little empires once again.

00:38:03.920 --> 00:38:06.840
So there is a real panic reaction going on.

00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:08.120
I think you're right.

00:38:08.120 --> 00:38:12.860
And it's an optimism that we do need to keep to the fore

00:38:12.860 --> 00:38:15.520
that there is a shift in consciousness

00:38:15.520 --> 00:38:17.400
and there is a consciousness raising

00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:19.680
that I don't think can be subdued.

00:38:19.680 --> 00:38:21.720
- Yeah, I think you're right.

00:38:21.720 --> 00:38:24.460
And sometimes I wonder whether it's rising

00:38:24.460 --> 00:38:27.440
because just people are getting on board and participating

00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:30.560
or whether there's some kind of cosmic shift taking place

00:38:30.560 --> 00:38:33.560
and some people are just picking up on it and participating in it.

00:38:33.560 --> 00:38:39.560
I think it could be both, but I really think that there are kind of larger trends of time

00:38:39.560 --> 00:38:47.560
that are even beyond human volition, and that people go along with those waves or they don't.

00:38:47.560 --> 00:38:51.560
Right. I would be inclined to go along with your latter point of view.

00:38:51.560 --> 00:38:53.560
I think people are tuning in a bit more.

00:38:53.560 --> 00:38:59.560
One of the great little phrases from my meditation teacher many years ago,

00:38:59.560 --> 00:39:02.920
we are tuning in a bit more to the subtleties of what's happening.

00:39:02.920 --> 00:39:09.240
And some of the energy for that is coming to us from a deeper understanding of science and of

00:39:09.240 --> 00:39:16.680
the universe and of cosmological processes. And so I suppose we are all, well at least I would

00:39:16.680 --> 00:39:21.640
like to think many of us are unknowingly and maybe knowingly to a certain degree,

00:39:21.640 --> 00:39:28.280
growing into that great little word coming from the mystics, that sense of fundamental oneness

00:39:28.280 --> 00:39:33.400
and everything. Yeah, beautiful. Would I have known of your meditation teacher? Anybody I would have

00:39:33.400 --> 00:39:40.280
heard of? I, I, Transcendental Meditation has been around for years. Okay, that's what, that's what I

00:39:40.280 --> 00:39:47.240
was a teacher of. I learned it when I was 18 in 1968 and I still do it every day. Yeah, same here.

00:39:47.240 --> 00:39:55.080
Oh cool. Well, you're, well, TM brother. I don't teach it anymore, but, you know, it turned my

00:39:55.080 --> 00:39:59.520
life around. I was basically headed to being a drug addict and I had dropped out of high

00:39:59.520 --> 00:40:04.640
school and gotten arrested a couple of times and boy, I did an about face as soon as I

00:40:04.640 --> 00:40:14.800
learned to meditate. So let's see then. Oh yes, your point about AI. I mean there are

00:40:14.800 --> 00:40:21.480
people who really understand what AI is about and how powerful it will be and some of them

00:40:21.480 --> 00:40:25.920
are scared, you know, and these are guys who really know what they're talking about, who

00:40:25.920 --> 00:40:32.560
are helping to develop it. But some of them also are, again, optimistic. I think it'll

00:40:32.560 --> 00:40:40.640
be like many technologies, predating modern technology, even like fire, you know, it can

00:40:40.640 --> 00:40:46.280
be very harmful, it can be very helpful. The internet gave us all kinds of interesting

00:40:46.280 --> 00:40:51.080
things and reshaped the world, but it could be used for all kinds of ridiculous, horrible

00:40:51.080 --> 00:40:57.040
things and has been and still is. A friend of mine just got ripped off by some Chinese

00:40:57.040 --> 00:41:03.400
fraudulent people who told him that they had this great investment opportunity and he just

00:41:03.400 --> 00:41:13.040
quickly lost a thousand dollars. I'm not picking on the Chinese by the way. But AI, I'm actually

00:41:13.040 --> 00:41:17.400
very involved in it. I have a thing called the BatGapBot. It's an AI chatbot and it's

00:41:17.400 --> 00:41:23.680
It's part of this network that was initially called the Compassion Bot Network.

00:41:23.680 --> 00:41:28.480
There's a wonderful man named Nipun Mehta behind it, and then these days we call it

00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:34.680
Awaken, A-W-A-K-I-N.

00:41:34.680 --> 00:41:39.560
But in any case, it's, you know, there's a promise, well we don't have to get into

00:41:39.560 --> 00:41:43.920
AI in a big way, but there's a promise of all kinds of wonderful things, you know, curing

00:41:43.920 --> 00:41:50.760
diseases and new technologies that will help in so many ways.

00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:55.880
But again, it could be immensely destructive.

00:41:55.880 --> 00:42:01.840
And which way it goes, I think, depends upon what we do with it.

00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:05.640
And if so-called good people are just afraid of it,

00:42:05.640 --> 00:42:07.520
then the so-called bad people are the ones

00:42:07.520 --> 00:42:08.760
who are going to use it anyway.

00:42:08.760 --> 00:42:12.440
So I think it's those who have a sort of altruistic motive

00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:18.760
should get involved in some way if they have the means and the purpose and to help to steer

00:42:18.760 --> 00:42:19.760
it in the right direction.

00:42:19.760 --> 00:42:27.320
Yes, I think ethical or model guidelines for its use are going to be critically important.

00:42:27.320 --> 00:42:33.320
And one of the difficulties on that front, I mean, I remember, you may recall too many

00:42:33.320 --> 00:42:38.400
years ago in the British government, because I spent much of my life in London, when ethical

00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:43.920
moral issues came on the floor when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. Her typical response

00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:49.200
was "that's for the churches, we don't deal with that, we deal with the market". Now if that

00:42:49.200 --> 00:42:54.080
attitude is still around we could be in deep trouble, not just in terms of AI but of other

00:42:54.080 --> 00:43:00.720
very serious issues coming on stream. Our governments today have to deal with very serious

00:43:00.720 --> 00:43:06.080
ethical moral issues and we the voters need to be aware of that in terms of the people we vote

00:43:06.080 --> 00:43:12.080
the government. And a lot of our governments, I think, are in nowhere near ready for this

00:43:12.080 --> 00:43:18.720
challenge facing them. Now the European Union, which doesn't get things right some of the time,

00:43:18.720 --> 00:43:24.160
but I think this one they are beginning to get right, and they haven't done their final report

00:43:24.160 --> 00:43:31.600
on it yet, but just about 18 months ago, they have set up a European Commission to draw up a set of

00:43:31.600 --> 00:43:38.240
ethical guidelines for the management of AI within the European Union. My hope is that more and more

00:43:38.240 --> 00:43:44.240
governments will begin doing that. That's great. Yeah, absolutely, because otherwise it's the Elon

00:43:44.240 --> 00:43:50.160
Musk's and other such people that are using them very often for their own grandiose projects and

00:43:50.160 --> 00:43:55.920
advancement. Whereas if this is touching the lives of all of us, which it is, then I think

00:43:55.920 --> 00:44:02.560
democratically, there needs to be some kind of a structure or a method that helps to protect us,

00:44:02.560 --> 00:44:07.840
while at the same time advancing the qualities of what all this is about.

00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:15.680
Yeah, and I hope it can have some teeth in it to make sure that people adhere to it. I'm not sure

00:44:15.680 --> 00:44:21.200
how exactly that'll work because it's kind of a wild, wild west out there in terms of what people

00:44:21.200 --> 00:44:27.320
are doing. That reminds me of something that's a little tangential, but I just want to throw

00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:33.200
it in there so you'll know about it and remind the audience about it. In terms of ethical

00:44:33.200 --> 00:44:41.080
and moral values, I've always been very concerned about the lack of those in many branches of

00:44:41.080 --> 00:44:47.680
contemporary spirituality, both traditional and the problems that the Catholic Church

00:44:47.680 --> 00:44:53.300
has had, and in terms of just various teachers and teachings these days, there have been

00:44:53.300 --> 00:45:00.500
so many examples of sexual or financial, other kinds of abuse. So I got together with some

00:45:00.500 --> 00:45:06.300
friends about eight years ago, and we started an organization called the Association for

00:45:06.300 --> 00:45:12.860
Spiritual Integrity, and it's grown to be quite popular, over 800, or about 800 members,

00:45:12.860 --> 00:45:16.900
and about 60 member organizations, and so on. So just something to throw out there,

00:45:16.900 --> 00:45:22.180
Yes, what you're saying is critically important. I mean in the case of the Catholic Church,

00:45:22.180 --> 00:45:28.460
which is my church, and I'm aware of this problem for some other Christian denominations

00:45:28.460 --> 00:45:36.260
as well, all clergy are not obliged to have formal supervision in their pastoral work.

00:45:36.260 --> 00:45:40.700
When I worked as a counsellor, which I did for much of my life, and I was working with

00:45:40.700 --> 00:45:46.220
two different groups, I was obliged, I had no choice in the matter, under British law,

00:45:46.220 --> 00:45:53.100
have personal supervision on a monthly basis. But our clergy have never done anything like

00:45:53.100 --> 00:45:58.700
that in place. And the same is true for clergy and other denominations. I think that's outrageous.

00:45:58.700 --> 00:46:03.020
And I'm not just thinking of the sex abuse issue. I'm thinking of the fact that we're

00:46:03.020 --> 00:46:08.740
dealing with people pastorally with a lot of complex, often sensitive issues. We need

00:46:08.740 --> 00:46:14.060
the supervision, not just in terms of keeping an eye on the model and ethical values, but

00:46:14.060 --> 00:46:16.220
We also need it for our personal support.

00:46:16.220 --> 00:46:22.220
And if we're to be responsible discerning people

00:46:22.220 --> 00:46:24.680
with people on their own spiritual journeys,

00:46:24.680 --> 00:46:26.660
we need to be able to fall back

00:46:26.660 --> 00:46:29.500
on some responsible supervision as well.

00:46:29.500 --> 00:46:30.860
- Yeah, and then somebody needs

00:46:30.860 --> 00:46:32.580
to supervise the supervisors.

00:46:32.580 --> 00:46:33.420
- Of course.

00:46:33.420 --> 00:46:34.980
- They need to supervise each other.

00:46:34.980 --> 00:46:37.380
- Yeah. - Yeah.

00:46:37.380 --> 00:46:38.980
Which reminds me of a joke.

00:46:38.980 --> 00:46:42.140
So this young priest just graduated from the seminar

00:46:42.140 --> 00:46:43.080
or whatever you call it,

00:46:43.080 --> 00:46:45.040
and he joined a local parish.

00:46:45.040 --> 00:46:49.200
And shortly thereafter, his bicycle was stolen.

00:46:49.200 --> 00:46:51.640
And he said to the old priest who was running the place,

00:46:51.640 --> 00:46:53.360
oh, you know, I don't have any money.

00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:54.520
My bicycle was stolen.

00:46:54.520 --> 00:46:55.520
What am I going to do?

00:46:55.520 --> 00:46:56.600
I can't get around.

00:46:56.600 --> 00:46:58.720
And the old priest said, well, you give the sermon next Sunday

00:46:58.720 --> 00:47:00.440
and give it on the Ten Commandments.

00:47:00.440 --> 00:47:03.520
And when you get to "Thou Shalt Not Steal,"

00:47:03.520 --> 00:47:07.840
look at the audience carefully, and you'll spot the culprit.

00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:09.200
You'll see it in his face.

00:47:09.200 --> 00:47:11.980
So after Sunday passed, he went back

00:47:11.980 --> 00:47:13.260
and visited with the old priest.

00:47:13.260 --> 00:47:15.060
And the priest said, "Well, did it work?

00:47:15.060 --> 00:47:16.820
I mean, did you catch the guy?"

00:47:16.820 --> 00:47:18.740
And he said, "Well, I didn't get that far.

00:47:18.740 --> 00:47:21.460
I just got as far as thou shalt not commit adultery.

00:47:21.460 --> 00:47:23.620
And I remembered where I left my bicycle."

00:47:23.620 --> 00:47:25.860
(laughing)

00:47:25.860 --> 00:47:29.180
- Oh my God, you're a kid.

00:47:29.180 --> 00:47:31.420
(laughing)

00:47:31.420 --> 00:47:32.260
- Okey dokey.

00:47:32.260 --> 00:47:36.660
So let's see here.

00:47:36.660 --> 00:47:38.740
Incidentally, as we go along here,

00:47:38.740 --> 00:47:40.260
you know, any thoughts that come to mind,

00:47:40.260 --> 00:47:41.420
if I'm not bringing up a question,

00:47:41.420 --> 00:47:43.940
just launch into them and we'll talk about them.

00:47:43.940 --> 00:47:45.540
I'm running through my notes, but there

00:47:45.540 --> 00:47:47.220
might be things I'm missing or things

00:47:47.220 --> 00:47:48.140
you want to talk about.

00:47:48.140 --> 00:47:58.380
OK, let's hit this point a little bit.

00:47:58.380 --> 00:48:03.500
You referred to God at one point as the great birther,

00:48:03.500 --> 00:48:06.140
rather than a patriarchal ruler, implying

00:48:06.140 --> 00:48:08.740
a feminine, corporeal, nurturing, and co-creative

00:48:08.740 --> 00:48:10.660
divine presence.

00:48:10.660 --> 00:48:14.020
The spirit requires bodies to manifest its creative energy.

00:48:14.020 --> 00:48:16.220
Embodiment is central.

00:48:16.220 --> 00:48:19.100
Let's talk, why don't you elaborate on that a little bit?

00:48:19.100 --> 00:48:20.820
- Okay, so I'm really drawn,

00:48:20.820 --> 00:48:23.580
I'm picking up there on one of the great insights

00:48:23.580 --> 00:48:26.540
of Catherine Keller, who I would consider

00:48:26.540 --> 00:48:28.820
to be one of the great American theologians

00:48:28.820 --> 00:48:29.760
of the present time.

00:48:29.760 --> 00:48:32.620
She works out of Drew University

00:48:32.620 --> 00:48:36.660
and particularly her book published in 2003,

00:48:36.660 --> 00:48:38.480
Face of the Deep.

00:48:38.480 --> 00:48:41.200
Now, what Catherine, I mean, that particular book,

00:48:41.200 --> 00:48:44.860
which is something in the region of 250 pages,

00:48:44.860 --> 00:48:47.840
is all about the first two verses

00:48:47.840 --> 00:48:50.500
of chapter one of the book of Genesis.

00:48:50.500 --> 00:48:51.340
(laughing)

00:48:51.340 --> 00:48:54.240
The whole book is on the two verses.

00:48:54.240 --> 00:48:56.180
And our basic contention,

00:48:56.180 --> 00:48:59.960
and a few theologians are beginning to pick it up,

00:48:59.960 --> 00:49:01.600
but it has taken quite a while,

00:49:01.600 --> 00:49:03.820
because I guess it's so revolutionary,

00:49:03.820 --> 00:49:07.140
is that when we look carefully and look deeply

00:49:07.140 --> 00:49:09.860
at the material in those two verses,

00:49:09.860 --> 00:49:11.740
it becomes very clear to us

00:49:11.740 --> 00:49:14.940
that the whole begetting of creation,

00:49:14.940 --> 00:49:16.980
the bringing of creation into being,

00:49:16.980 --> 00:49:19.580
the sustenance and continuing of creation

00:49:19.580 --> 00:49:22.780
is the work of the Holy Spirit of God.

00:49:22.780 --> 00:49:26.340
It's the Holy Spirit of God drawing forth creativity,

00:49:26.340 --> 00:49:28.540
drawing forth expression and forum

00:49:28.540 --> 00:49:30.500
from the open chaos of creation.

00:49:30.500 --> 00:49:32.740
And in the light of that, therefore,

00:49:32.740 --> 00:49:36.660
she suggests we need to revisit the traditional story,

00:49:36.660 --> 00:49:41.620
which is that the creation is done initially

00:49:41.620 --> 00:49:46.620
by this father figure, this male patriarchal creating God

00:49:46.620 --> 00:49:51.860
who creates ex nicola, the Latin phrase, from nothing.

00:49:51.860 --> 00:49:54.260
And that little phrase is telling us,

00:49:54.260 --> 00:49:56.340
now sometimes the people ask,

00:49:56.340 --> 00:49:58.660
maybe coming from a more scientific background,

00:49:58.660 --> 00:50:02.540
so what's the nothing that the father was creating out of?

00:50:02.540 --> 00:50:05.260
And of course, the answer is that that statement

00:50:05.260 --> 00:50:08.660
is not intended to say anything about creation.

00:50:08.660 --> 00:50:10.780
It's the purpose of the statement

00:50:10.780 --> 00:50:13.940
is to protect the absolute integrity,

00:50:13.940 --> 00:50:18.480
power and dominion of this patriarchal father creator,

00:50:18.480 --> 00:50:20.780
before whom nothing could exist

00:50:20.780 --> 00:50:23.580
because he is the absolute beginning of everything.

00:50:23.580 --> 00:50:26.460
So she says, we need to move away

00:50:26.460 --> 00:50:29.580
from that understanding of creation

00:50:29.580 --> 00:50:33.180
and replace the phrase ex-Nicola

00:50:33.180 --> 00:50:35.900
with the phrase ex profundus,

00:50:35.900 --> 00:50:38.220
from the profound depths,

00:50:38.220 --> 00:50:42.220
where the energizing spirit is always energizing.

00:50:42.220 --> 00:50:44.140
And it's in the power of that energy

00:50:44.140 --> 00:50:47.100
that this father figure creates in the first place.

00:50:47.100 --> 00:50:49.860
Just as for example, it said in the letters of Paul,

00:50:49.860 --> 00:50:51.460
it's in the power of the spirit

00:50:51.460 --> 00:50:54.060
that Jesus was raised from the dead.

00:50:54.060 --> 00:50:57.660
Therefore, I suggest then taking her arguments

00:50:57.660 --> 00:50:58.980
forward a bit,

00:50:58.980 --> 00:51:03.060
and this is a nice example too of reworking the tradition.

00:51:03.060 --> 00:51:08.900
instead of thinking then of the creator, so we have the spirit who is the fundamental energizer,

00:51:08.900 --> 00:51:14.100
the energy of the energizing, then we have the energy of the creating or the act of the creating.

00:51:14.100 --> 00:51:21.220
So instead of equating that with a father figure, the whole thing of creation, if you pick up the

00:51:21.220 --> 00:51:28.580
metaphor of birthing and thinking particularly of a lovely phrase from Meister Eckhart,

00:51:28.580 --> 00:51:34.500
the great mystic. What does God do all day long? God lies in the maternity bed giving birth all

00:51:34.500 --> 00:51:42.180
day long. Now picking up that metaphor and then so instead of the father creator why not talk about

00:51:42.180 --> 00:51:49.940
that the mothering God was forever giving birth and in that way that there's the kind of inclusivity

00:51:49.940 --> 00:51:57.620
and there's a whole different relational approach to it. Now several issues then arise there in

00:51:57.620 --> 00:51:59.340
in terms of our understanding of the Trinity.

00:51:59.340 --> 00:52:04.300
Because what she's saying and what I'm saying is we put the spirit first.

00:52:04.300 --> 00:52:10.060
And it's through the energy of the spirit that the birthing principle can work.

00:52:10.060 --> 00:52:15.140
And then for a lot of Christians, then the panic reaction is, well, that's

00:52:15.140 --> 00:52:17.300
reducing Jesus down to the third place.

00:52:17.300 --> 00:52:19.020
We can't, we mustn't do that.

00:52:19.020 --> 00:52:24.780
My suggestion in the parts of the book, when I talk about this topic is then we

00:52:24.780 --> 00:52:29.980
could redefine the role of Jesus as the great ancestor.

00:52:29.980 --> 00:52:32.940
And I'm drawing there on African spirituality

00:52:32.940 --> 00:52:36.620
and African theology, in which the Africans talk

00:52:36.620 --> 00:52:38.900
about the living dead and the ancestors who

00:52:38.900 --> 00:52:42.140
inhabit the trees, inhabit the lake, inhabit the mountains.

00:52:42.140 --> 00:52:44.180
And of course, it also nicely links Jesus

00:52:44.180 --> 00:52:47.100
in with our great African story, which

00:52:47.100 --> 00:52:48.980
I talked about earlier on.

00:52:48.980 --> 00:52:50.980
So that's where that notion comes

00:52:50.980 --> 00:52:53.300
from of using that metaphor.

00:52:53.300 --> 00:52:58.740
Now, you see, if we had used that metaphor down through the centuries, instead of the

00:52:58.740 --> 00:53:04.660
ruler god, the birthing god, we'd have a totally different theology today.

00:53:04.660 --> 00:53:09.940
And I think we'd have a theology that would be much more respectful and inclusive of many

00:53:09.940 --> 00:53:14.460
of the other issues that we've been talking about in the earlier part of this interview.

00:53:14.460 --> 00:53:16.420
Yeah, it's interesting.

00:53:16.420 --> 00:53:20.420
I'm no physicist, but from what my layman's understanding, from what I've listened to

00:53:20.420 --> 00:53:29.760
and read, at the most fundamental level of creation, you have an inconceivable amount of energy

00:53:29.760 --> 00:53:34.780
and potential. Even in a cubic centimeter of empty space at the level of the vacuum

00:53:34.780 --> 00:53:40.500
state, there's more potential energy than is in the whole galaxy at the more manifest

00:53:40.500 --> 00:53:41.500
level.

00:53:41.500 --> 00:53:42.500
Absolutely.

00:53:42.500 --> 00:53:47.720
And the creation just keeps kind of bubbling up from that level. So, like you say, Meister

00:53:47.720 --> 00:53:50.800
record God is eternally on the maternity bed.

00:53:50.800 --> 00:53:57.120
I mean, it's like we think of creation as happening 13.8 billion years ago or 6,000

00:53:57.120 --> 00:54:02.160
years ago if those fundamentalists are to be believed, but it's actually happening now,

00:54:02.160 --> 00:54:03.160
now, now.

00:54:03.160 --> 00:54:11.280
Every second there's a just a bursting forth from that unmanifest level to the manifest.

00:54:11.280 --> 00:54:12.280
Yeah.

00:54:12.280 --> 00:54:13.280
Yeah.

00:54:13.280 --> 00:54:14.280
Yeah.

00:54:14.280 --> 00:54:17.520
- Yeah, this might be an appropriate moment

00:54:17.520 --> 00:54:21.680
to just mention then some of the implications of that

00:54:21.680 --> 00:54:23.280
could bring you back to the anthropology

00:54:23.280 --> 00:54:25.000
for ourselves as human beings.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:28.640
There's the beginnings of a movement,

00:54:28.640 --> 00:54:34.480
and I can't cite any specific experts on it

00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:37.080
because I don't think there are experts as yet.

00:54:37.080 --> 00:54:40.600
This Christian notion of the soul,

00:54:40.600 --> 00:54:43.240
which you also find in the other world religions.

00:54:43.240 --> 00:54:45.720
So in the case of the Christian religion,

00:54:45.720 --> 00:54:48.300
coming particularly from Plato and Aristotle,

00:54:48.300 --> 00:54:52.960
that the soul is that energy bit or that alive bit

00:54:52.960 --> 00:54:55.240
that's brought into the growing fetus

00:54:55.240 --> 00:54:58.040
and the mother's womb at some very early stage.

00:54:58.040 --> 00:55:00.640
And from there on, it becomes a human person.

00:55:00.640 --> 00:55:04.080
And the notion of soul is still extensively used

00:55:04.080 --> 00:55:09.080
in Christian theology, but also it's used in philosophy

00:55:09.080 --> 00:55:12.520
and in other branches of wisdom as well.

00:55:12.520 --> 00:55:15.640
And then at the other end of the life cycle,

00:55:15.640 --> 00:55:18.520
it's the soul that leaves the body

00:55:18.520 --> 00:55:21.900
to go out to the happiness of life in another world.

00:55:21.900 --> 00:55:24.800
Now, personally, I think we need to move away

00:55:24.800 --> 00:55:26.120
from that concept of soul.

00:55:26.120 --> 00:55:28.560
I don't think it's really helpful anymore.

00:55:28.560 --> 00:55:32.600
And replace it with the notion of spirit energy.

00:55:32.600 --> 00:55:35.680
We are creatures of spirit energy.

00:55:35.680 --> 00:55:39.480
All creatures in creation are creatures of spirit energy.

00:55:39.480 --> 00:55:43.180
And in explaining this to audiences in my workshops,

00:55:43.180 --> 00:55:45.080
I often remind people,

00:55:45.080 --> 00:55:47.840
and fortunately there's nearly always one or two

00:55:47.840 --> 00:55:51.360
older people there who have worked in hospice care.

00:55:51.360 --> 00:55:53.080
People who work in hospice care,

00:55:53.080 --> 00:55:55.060
sitting with a dying person,

00:55:55.060 --> 00:55:57.080
will often tell you that they can feel

00:55:57.080 --> 00:55:58.500
the energy disappearing.

00:55:58.500 --> 00:56:00.840
And in my opinion, that's just that,

00:56:00.840 --> 00:56:03.840
that's not that imaginations, that's for real.

00:56:03.840 --> 00:56:07.960
Because around our bodies are these range of energy fields,

00:56:07.960 --> 00:56:10.040
which connect us to creation.

00:56:10.040 --> 00:56:11.480
And as we approach our end,

00:56:11.480 --> 00:56:13.720
they begin to shrivel and shrink

00:56:13.720 --> 00:56:14.880
until eventually we're left

00:56:14.880 --> 00:56:17.080
with what the healers call the aura.

00:56:17.080 --> 00:56:20.360
And when that disappears, then the person dies.

00:56:20.360 --> 00:56:22.000
Now, we're dealing here

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:24.120
with the limitations of human language.

00:56:24.120 --> 00:56:25.400
Energy never disappears.

00:56:25.400 --> 00:56:28.000
You know that, and so many other people

00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:29.760
coming from the scientific background.

00:56:29.760 --> 00:56:32.840
Energy always reconnects with energy.

00:56:32.840 --> 00:56:34.920
So our beloved dead, our beloved departed,

00:56:34.920 --> 00:56:43.640
all around us, living at other energy levels. So we're all energy beings. Now, one of the

00:56:43.640 --> 00:56:50.200
disturbing things in that for a lot of people is then the realization that what energizes me

00:56:50.200 --> 00:56:58.680
is the same energy that energizes the tree, the plant, the mountain, the lake. So at that level,

00:56:58.680 --> 00:57:04.600
we're all on an equal playing field. According to that understanding, there are no superior beings

00:57:04.600 --> 00:57:10.920
in God's creation. Everything is unique, but nothing is superior, is the challenge.

00:57:10.920 --> 00:57:18.040
And the other corollary arising from it, you will recall, and the hearers will recall

00:57:18.040 --> 00:57:22.600
that anecdote in the Gospels, where an evil spirit is cast out of somebody.

00:57:22.600 --> 00:57:28.040
And we're taught the spirit goes roaming around, looking for an alternative habitat.

00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:33.240
The commentators very often miss the point in that little anecdote.

00:57:33.240 --> 00:57:38.440
The point is that spirit and body are intimately interconnected.

00:57:38.440 --> 00:57:46.120
The body is lifeless without spirit, but spirit is impotent without body.

00:57:46.120 --> 00:57:52.200
Whereas in our Christian story and to a lesser extent in some of the other great religions,

00:57:52.200 --> 00:57:54.120
we are always splitting the two.

00:57:54.120 --> 00:57:57.160
The two are highly complementary.

00:57:58.760 --> 00:58:02.360
So that's another feature when we talk about energy.

00:58:02.360 --> 00:58:06.520
And I mean, for me, quantum physics, and I'm not a formal scientist at all.

00:58:06.520 --> 00:58:09.320
In fact, I came rather late in life to study science.

00:58:09.320 --> 00:58:13.520
Quantum physics is profoundly spiritual, as I understand it.

00:58:13.520 --> 00:58:17.300
And it's all about the power of energy at the end of the day

00:58:17.300 --> 00:58:21.460
and the whole relational capacity for energy to interconnect

00:58:21.460 --> 00:58:25.700
and work at every level of life, including ourselves.

00:58:25.700 --> 00:58:28.360
We are energy beings, first and foremost.

00:58:28.360 --> 00:58:34.920
Yeah, I want to comment on what you just said, most of which I agree with, but this is a good

00:58:34.920 --> 00:58:38.920
time to bring in a couple of quotes that you have in your book, "Doing Theology in an

00:58:38.920 --> 00:58:39.920
Evolutionary Way."

00:58:39.920 --> 00:58:45.100
First, you quote Einstein as having said, "Everybody who is seriously involved in the

00:58:45.100 --> 00:58:51.040
pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe,

00:58:51.040 --> 00:58:56.140
a spirit vastly superior to that of mankind, and one in the face of which we, with our

00:58:56.140 --> 00:59:03.220
modest powers must feel humble. Then you quote German physicist Hans-Peter Dürr as having

00:59:03.220 --> 00:59:09.980
said "As a physicist, I have spent fifty years, my entire life as a researcher, to ask,

00:59:09.980 --> 00:59:15.980
what is it that hides behind the material? And the result is simple. There is no matter.

00:59:15.980 --> 00:59:24.100
Basically there is only spirit." And I was moved to read those then because of what you

00:59:24.100 --> 00:59:32.060
you just said, because I think there's a perspective which can reconcile or harmonize the different

00:59:32.060 --> 00:59:38.940
points of view you just mentioned. You know, just as a radio is dead without electricity

00:59:38.940 --> 00:59:44.740
or is useless unless there's some kind of radio transmission for it to pick up, the

00:59:44.740 --> 00:59:52.620
human body is dead, literally, if it is not inhabited by a soul. And as you described,

00:59:52.620 --> 00:59:58.460
time of death, the energy or whatever it is, leaves. And I've interviewed so many people

00:59:58.460 --> 01:00:03.340
who've had near-death experiences and also one guy named Rob Schwartz, I think it was,

01:00:03.340 --> 01:00:12.220
who specializes in shared death experiences, which is people who have these

01:00:12.220 --> 01:00:22.300
profound mystical experiences at the bedside of someone who is dying. They actually see

01:00:22.300 --> 01:00:26.940
visions or they partake in what the dying person is seeing or, you know, something happens

01:00:26.940 --> 01:00:32.540
that is triggered by that atmosphere.

01:00:32.540 --> 01:00:37.700
My take on the whole thing, based upon just my…I've never had a near-death experience

01:00:37.700 --> 01:00:44.140
or anything, but what I've got so far in my understanding, and you're welcome to

01:00:44.140 --> 01:00:49.660
criticize it or whatever, is that there is something we might call a soul.

01:00:49.660 --> 01:00:54.420
The Hindus call it shukshma sharira, which means subtle body.

01:00:54.420 --> 01:00:58.460
And it carries on when the gross body dies.

01:00:58.460 --> 01:01:04.620
And it contains all the components that we have in our human life, but without the gross

01:01:04.620 --> 01:01:05.620
body.

01:01:05.620 --> 01:01:10.380
In other words, mind, intellect, ego, breath, all that stuff.

01:01:10.380 --> 01:01:15.460
And they believe, of course, in reincarnation, that it eventually inhabits another body and

01:01:15.460 --> 01:01:17.840
carries on the journey.

01:01:17.840 --> 01:01:27.280
And whereas on one level, as this Hans-Peter fellow said, there is only spirit and it's

01:01:27.280 --> 01:01:33.000
not hierarchical, on another level, just as we see in nature, there are hierarchies.

01:01:33.000 --> 01:01:38.320
I mean, a mosquito is less evolved than a dog, is less evolved than a human.

01:01:38.320 --> 01:01:43.320
we could say, if by evolved we mean ability to embody

01:01:43.320 --> 01:01:48.940
and reflect the intelligence of the ultimate being

01:01:48.940 --> 01:01:54.680
or spirit or God.

01:01:54.680 --> 01:01:57.040
And perhaps I should stop there

01:01:57.040 --> 01:01:58.400
'cause I could keep rambling on

01:01:58.400 --> 01:02:00.080
and let you respond to that so far

01:02:00.080 --> 01:02:03.120
and maybe I'll have another come back after you respond.

01:02:04.960 --> 01:02:08.280
But I would think is that how the mosquito

01:02:08.280 --> 01:02:12.360
or the other organisms will engage or will respond

01:02:12.360 --> 01:02:15.280
is in their uniqueness

01:02:15.280 --> 01:02:18.480
rather than in any particular superior power.

01:02:18.480 --> 01:02:20.880
That it's the one and same energy,

01:02:20.880 --> 01:02:22.660
the one and same spirit,

01:02:22.660 --> 01:02:25.840
but that each will respond in a unique way.

01:02:25.840 --> 01:02:28.600
So in our case, the uniqueness,

01:02:28.600 --> 01:02:34.560
I'm dealing here with kind of official anthropology,

01:02:34.560 --> 01:02:37.900
that we are the creatures who seem to have,

01:02:37.900 --> 01:02:40.880
and I'm picking my words very carefully here,

01:02:40.880 --> 01:02:43.040
the most highly developed capacity

01:02:43.040 --> 01:02:45.700
for self-reflexive consciousness.

01:02:45.700 --> 01:02:47.280
In other words, that we can think

01:02:47.280 --> 01:02:49.440
about the fact that we can think.

01:02:49.440 --> 01:02:50.720
Now, there are people that argue

01:02:50.720 --> 01:02:53.800
that dolphins seem to have some of that as well.

01:02:53.800 --> 01:02:55.720
And I've come across one scientist

01:02:55.720 --> 01:02:57.720
whose name escapes me now,

01:02:57.720 --> 01:02:59.440
who was claiming that beehives

01:02:59.440 --> 01:03:01.840
would seem to have some of that capacity.

01:03:01.840 --> 01:03:05.120
But that we have it at some particular,

01:03:05.120 --> 01:03:07.480
high, more highly developed level.

01:03:07.480 --> 01:03:09.240
Yes, I'm happy to run with that.

01:03:09.240 --> 01:03:13.280
But we don't have it to allure to go over the others.

01:03:13.280 --> 01:03:16.000
We have it to bring as our gift

01:03:16.000 --> 01:03:18.400
to the, if you like, the table of dialogue

01:03:18.400 --> 01:03:20.040
with all these other creatures

01:03:20.040 --> 01:03:22.880
who will bring their giftedness and their insights

01:03:22.880 --> 01:03:26.280
from their particular embodied structure.

01:03:26.280 --> 01:03:27.920
That's how I would approach it.

01:03:27.920 --> 01:03:28.760
- Oh, I would agree.

01:03:28.760 --> 01:03:30.280
Just as a parent,

01:03:30.280 --> 01:03:35.200
because they happen to be more educated and powerful and wise

01:03:35.200 --> 01:03:39.280
in some ways, that doesn't grant them the right

01:03:39.280 --> 01:03:42.920
to abuse their children or have their children for lunch

01:03:42.920 --> 01:03:45.720
or something like that.

01:03:45.720 --> 01:03:50.840
They have a pastoral role to play,

01:03:50.840 --> 01:03:53.320
taking care of the children, nurturing the children.

01:03:53.320 --> 01:03:58.520
I think that's what the human obligation is.

01:03:58.520 --> 01:04:00.820
if we are more evolved in some respect,

01:04:00.820 --> 01:04:03.820
that should make us greater, you know,

01:04:03.820 --> 01:04:07.100
custodians of creation, not rapists of it.

01:04:07.100 --> 01:04:08.660
- Yeah.

01:04:08.660 --> 01:04:09.600
- Yeah.

01:04:09.600 --> 01:04:10.440
- Yeah, absolutely.

01:04:10.440 --> 01:04:16.180
- Sometimes I watch like an ant or something like that,

01:04:16.180 --> 01:04:18.880
you know, a fly, a little insect.

01:04:18.880 --> 01:04:21.260
And I think, you know, that little ant,

01:04:21.260 --> 01:04:23.820
he has no idea that I'm even here,

01:04:23.820 --> 01:04:26.340
or that all this is here, these trees, these clouds,

01:04:26.340 --> 01:04:27.420
those birds flying over.

01:04:27.420 --> 01:04:31.660
He's got his little ant world, which I'm sure is--

01:04:31.660 --> 01:04:34.580
an ant is a marvelous creature, amazingly complex

01:04:34.580 --> 01:04:35.780
in and of itself.

01:04:35.780 --> 01:04:38.420
But there's so much more than the ant realizes.

01:04:38.420 --> 01:04:40.420
And then I just take the next step and think,

01:04:40.420 --> 01:04:42.860
I'm the ant too, because there's so much more

01:04:42.860 --> 01:04:46.420
than I could possibly realize that's actually going on.

01:04:46.420 --> 01:04:50.820
And it's just a matter of degree to which we both

01:04:50.820 --> 01:04:53.060
are extremely myopic.

01:04:53.060 --> 01:05:01.540
And it's something then about how we work collaboratively and non-violently with those other organisms,

01:05:01.540 --> 01:05:04.020
which of course is a huge challenge.

01:05:04.020 --> 01:05:13.620
Several years ago, as part of a workshop out in Long Island, we were taken to this beekeeper

01:05:13.620 --> 01:05:14.620
who had this...

01:05:14.620 --> 01:05:24.500
as well as having bee hives, he had this big sort of shed where the bees were.

01:05:24.500 --> 01:05:31.940
And as he was showing us around, he walked right in to the middle of the bee place itself

01:05:31.940 --> 01:05:33.700
with no protection on him.

01:05:33.700 --> 01:05:39.980
And of course, those of us that were part of the group, you could feel the kind of reaction

01:05:39.980 --> 01:05:45.680
And then he looked over with a big smile on his face and he said, "No need to worry.

01:05:45.680 --> 01:05:48.080
I know my bees and my bees know me."

01:05:48.080 --> 01:05:49.080
And that's great.

01:05:49.080 --> 01:05:50.080
Yeah.

01:05:50.080 --> 01:05:57.720
And you know, there was a man that he had made that connection.

01:05:57.720 --> 01:06:04.520
For him, the bees weren't some kind of just a material secondary kind of objective entity

01:06:04.520 --> 01:06:07.800
that he had control and domination over.

01:06:07.800 --> 01:06:11.960
Yeah, he was managing the beehive and managing the production of the honey and all that.

01:06:11.960 --> 01:06:16.040
But there was a kind of a relationship between him and the bees, which

01:06:16.040 --> 01:06:19.160
is somehow along the lines of what we're talking about.

01:06:19.160 --> 01:06:25.640
And it's almost like his creative, responsible energy was in tune with their energy.

01:06:25.640 --> 01:06:25.960
Yeah.

01:06:25.960 --> 01:06:27.640
But that's just a spirit of the light.

01:06:27.640 --> 01:06:32.840
I'm reminded here of Jesus saying, "Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

01:06:32.840 --> 01:06:33.080
Yeah.

01:06:33.080 --> 01:06:37.480
You know, that would imply that would include the ant that I just mentioned and the crops

01:06:37.480 --> 01:06:41.980
and the oceans that we dump plastic into and everything else.

01:06:41.980 --> 01:06:44.980
And, you know, the "me" Jesus is referring to there,

01:06:44.980 --> 01:06:49.980
which is, I think he's saying, "I'm in this ant and in this forest and in this ocean

01:06:49.980 --> 01:06:51.980
just as much as I am in this body."

01:06:51.980 --> 01:06:54.980
And if you're doing things, you're harming those things,

01:06:54.980 --> 01:06:57.980
you're harming the "me" that you really care about.

01:06:57.980 --> 01:06:59.980
You know, "I'm not just this body."

01:06:59.980 --> 01:07:02.980
And I think all of us can say the same thing.

01:07:02.980 --> 01:07:05.980
Because, as we've been discussing, we're all that spirit,

01:07:05.980 --> 01:07:12.980
And if we're inflicting harm on anything, on any level, we're doing it to ourselves.

01:07:12.980 --> 01:07:14.980
Yeah, absolutely.

01:07:14.980 --> 01:07:22.980
You suggest the term "companionship of empowerment" instead of "kingdom of God".

01:07:22.980 --> 01:07:28.980
What do you mean by this and how might this idea change the Church's mission?

01:07:28.980 --> 01:07:30.980
We're back to the Church here.

01:07:30.980 --> 01:07:35.540
kind of keep zooming down into this particular religion on this particular planet out to the

01:07:35.540 --> 01:07:42.180
cosmic perspective. But how might this change the Church's mission and its engagement with

01:07:42.180 --> 01:07:50.180
social justice issues? Okay, so firstly maybe to mention for the benefit of our audience,

01:07:50.180 --> 01:07:56.980
and the phrase "Kingdom of God" which was used, well it's used extensively in the Gospels,

01:07:56.980 --> 01:08:01.780
particularly the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. And then in the early church or in early

01:08:01.780 --> 01:08:10.260
Christian times was usually understood as this idea from the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament,

01:08:10.260 --> 01:08:16.020
and going back to things I said earlier on today, that the king was understood to be God's primary

01:08:16.020 --> 01:08:22.900
representative on earth. Therefore, anybody of messianic status, of being a special messenger

01:08:22.900 --> 01:08:29.140
from God to the world would have to come through a royal line. And we see that in the Gospel of

01:08:29.140 --> 01:08:34.180
Matthew and in the Gospel of Luke of Jesus being traced back to the great King David.

01:08:34.180 --> 01:08:39.300
So it's against that kingly background that early Christians would have understood

01:08:39.300 --> 01:08:46.500
at least something and maybe much of what that phrase represented. And then from the time of

01:08:46.500 --> 01:08:48.900
of Constantine of the fourth century,

01:08:48.900 --> 01:08:50.920
it really took off big time.

01:08:50.920 --> 01:08:54.540
And popes and kings beginning to collaborate

01:08:54.540 --> 01:08:56.180
very closely with each other,

01:08:56.180 --> 01:08:58.140
both representing the royal line.

01:08:58.140 --> 01:09:02.460
Now, when you go to the actual Aramaic language,

01:09:02.460 --> 01:09:04.780
which is the language that Jesus spoke

01:09:04.780 --> 01:09:07.020
to the people of his day,

01:09:07.020 --> 01:09:09.780
that phrase, kingdom of God,

01:09:09.780 --> 01:09:12.220
is open to other translations.

01:09:12.220 --> 01:09:14.700
And a number of scholars have remarked that.

01:09:14.700 --> 01:09:17.060
And I have opted particularly for the one

01:09:17.060 --> 01:09:21.580
that initially would sound awkward to a lot of people,

01:09:21.580 --> 01:09:24.500
namely the companionship of empowerment.

01:09:24.500 --> 01:09:27.660
That that seems to be fundamental

01:09:27.660 --> 01:09:30.620
to the Aramaic understanding of the phrase.

01:09:30.620 --> 01:09:32.140
And that in all probability,

01:09:32.140 --> 01:09:34.020
and that's all any of us can say,

01:09:34.020 --> 01:09:35.480
or any scholar can say,

01:09:35.480 --> 01:09:37.140
that it's with that meaning

01:09:37.140 --> 01:09:40.180
that Jesus was actually using the phrase.

01:09:40.180 --> 01:09:42.660
And therefore the Greek translation

01:09:42.660 --> 01:09:44.760
that gives us kingdom of God,

01:09:44.760 --> 01:09:49.460
does need to be reworked and possibly changed anew.

01:09:49.460 --> 01:09:52.340
And so then companionship of empowerment.

01:09:52.340 --> 01:09:54.300
So empowerment is obvious enough

01:09:54.300 --> 01:09:56.940
that Jesus was not about patriarchal,

01:09:56.940 --> 01:09:59.060
hierarchical, kingly power.

01:09:59.060 --> 01:10:01.780
In fact, that he denounced it quite openly,

01:10:01.780 --> 01:10:06.520
but that he was about a strategy of empowerment.

01:10:06.520 --> 01:10:09.820
And therefore the parable stories and the miracle stories

01:10:09.820 --> 01:10:13.080
and the Sermon on the Mount can all be seen in that vein

01:10:13.080 --> 01:10:15.060
as serving the empowerment.

01:10:15.060 --> 01:10:17.560
But the more revolutionary word actually

01:10:17.560 --> 01:10:20.980
in that redefinition is the word companionship.

01:10:20.980 --> 01:10:24.300
So companionship is like where the pyramid

01:10:24.300 --> 01:10:27.060
has collapsed into being a circle.

01:10:27.060 --> 01:10:29.240
And therefore we needed all times

01:10:29.240 --> 01:10:32.820
to try and convert pyramids down into circles

01:10:32.820 --> 01:10:36.200
for communal processing.

01:10:36.200 --> 01:10:39.340
And that then becomes the foundation, which to be fair,

01:10:39.340 --> 01:10:42.100
I think Paul did pick up very accurately

01:10:42.100 --> 01:10:46.540
from Paul's notion of the church as the ecclesia.

01:10:46.540 --> 01:10:48.780
The ecclesia was a political term

01:10:48.780 --> 01:10:51.860
that Paul actually borrowed from local town councils

01:10:51.860 --> 01:10:53.640
or local city councils.

01:10:53.640 --> 01:10:56.500
But whereas in the secular domain,

01:10:56.500 --> 01:11:01.500
ecclesia was for male ruling people only,

01:11:01.500 --> 01:11:04.940
Paul used it, opening it up to everybody

01:11:04.940 --> 01:11:06.720
in a much more inclusive way,

01:11:06.720 --> 01:11:10.220
which I think is honoring that dream

01:11:10.220 --> 01:11:12.960
of the companionship of empowerment.

01:11:12.960 --> 01:11:14.600
And then moving from that,

01:11:14.600 --> 01:11:17.240
if I can bring it right down to our own day,

01:11:17.240 --> 01:11:19.040
in the Catholic context,

01:11:19.040 --> 01:11:21.240
there was a process going on in Rome

01:11:21.240 --> 01:11:24.020
over the past two years under Pope Francis

01:11:24.020 --> 01:11:26.420
called the Synodal Church.

01:11:26.420 --> 01:11:28.680
And it's unfortunate that he used that term

01:11:28.680 --> 01:11:31.240
because I don't think a lot of people really,

01:11:31.240 --> 01:11:35.420
the word synod itself or synodality

01:11:35.420 --> 01:11:37.520
has to do with hierarchical structures

01:11:37.520 --> 01:11:39.540
in earlier historical times.

01:11:39.540 --> 01:11:42.220
Whereas what Francis was really talking about

01:11:42.220 --> 01:11:45.180
and trying to inculcate was a sense of a church

01:11:45.180 --> 01:11:48.020
that would be much more communally based

01:11:48.020 --> 01:11:51.300
from the ground up with real participation

01:11:51.300 --> 01:11:52.980
between people in clergy,

01:11:52.980 --> 01:11:55.580
between people in bishops and so forth.

01:11:55.580 --> 01:11:58.320
And a very interesting thing that emerged

01:11:58.320 --> 01:12:01.060
in the course of those two processes

01:12:01.060 --> 01:12:03.980
was the people were sitting at round tables

01:12:03.980 --> 01:12:06.440
with priests, bishops, and even the Pope himself

01:12:06.440 --> 01:12:08.460
sitting there among the people.

01:12:08.460 --> 01:12:10.620
And the metaphor of the round table,

01:12:10.620 --> 01:12:12.700
particularly in the first session of the Senate,

01:12:12.700 --> 01:12:14.460
became a huge thing,

01:12:14.460 --> 01:12:16.660
as if it was something totally new

01:12:16.660 --> 01:12:18.460
in the life of the church.

01:12:18.460 --> 01:12:22.100
And if they only knew what we're talking about here,

01:12:22.100 --> 01:12:25.440
that the foundation in the gospel itself

01:12:25.440 --> 01:12:27.580
is all about communal process

01:12:27.580 --> 01:12:29.780
in the companionship of empowerment.

01:12:29.780 --> 01:12:34.220
that Paul was heavily in to a communal way of doing things,

01:12:34.220 --> 01:12:37.180
then this desire being articulated

01:12:37.180 --> 01:12:39.820
in and through the metaphor of the round table

01:12:39.820 --> 01:12:42.180
is a desire to reconnect

01:12:42.180 --> 01:12:44.920
with this very deep part of our story.

01:12:44.920 --> 01:12:47.460
The final comment that I make on this,

01:12:47.460 --> 01:12:50.340
both Elizabeth Johnson and Roger Haidt,

01:12:50.340 --> 01:12:52.980
just to mention two theologians,

01:12:52.980 --> 01:12:55.220
have tried to highlight the point

01:12:55.220 --> 01:12:57.820
that when Jesus is talking about this kingdom of God,

01:12:57.820 --> 01:13:00.720
this new reign of God, or this new companionship.

01:13:00.720 --> 01:13:03.260
He's not just talking about a new way

01:13:03.260 --> 01:13:06.540
for people to interrelate among themselves.

01:13:06.540 --> 01:13:10.620
He's also talking about a new way to interrelate

01:13:10.620 --> 01:13:12.380
with the whole of creation.

01:13:12.380 --> 01:13:16.900
And another scholar, Wes Howard Brook, an American,

01:13:16.900 --> 01:13:19.900
links that with the idea of the covenant

01:13:19.900 --> 01:13:22.420
in the Hebrew scriptures in the Old Testament.

01:13:22.420 --> 01:13:24.880
Again, we hear of the covenant of Abraham,

01:13:24.880 --> 01:13:26.180
the covenant with Noah,

01:13:26.180 --> 01:13:28.900
the covenant with David and with Solomon.

01:13:28.900 --> 01:13:32.100
But Wes Howard Brooke claims

01:13:32.100 --> 01:13:34.400
that actually the original covenant

01:13:34.400 --> 01:13:36.740
in the Hebrew scriptures is in chapter one

01:13:36.740 --> 01:13:38.180
of the book of Genesis.

01:13:38.180 --> 01:13:40.480
It's the covenant with creation.

01:13:40.480 --> 01:13:44.100
And Wes Howard Brooke and others are saying,

01:13:44.100 --> 01:13:46.860
and that's what was inspiring Jesus the Jew,

01:13:46.860 --> 01:13:50.900
bringing the concept of the covenant,

01:13:50.900 --> 01:13:52.820
be including the creation,

01:13:52.820 --> 01:13:54.820
and that that's what the foundation

01:13:54.820 --> 01:13:58.660
like Jesus meant then by the companionship of empowerment in the Gospels.

01:13:58.660 --> 01:14:08.740
Yeah, you talk a lot in at least one of your books about how in Jesus's time during his life,

01:14:08.740 --> 01:14:14.900
women were very much involved. And then also during the early years after he died,

01:14:14.900 --> 01:14:21.220
women were very much involved in carrying on the work. In fact, all the men scattered as

01:14:21.220 --> 01:14:28.180
Jesus was being crucified and it was the women who stuck around and you know and yet you know within

01:14:28.180 --> 01:14:33.220
a few hundred years the men had moved in and pushed the women aside and started to build their

01:14:33.220 --> 01:14:39.380
hierarchies and all I think Jesus would have been rather displeased with that had he come back a few

01:14:39.380 --> 01:14:45.220
hundred years later and seen what absolutely was going on. Yeah yeah and there's a really important

01:14:45.220 --> 01:14:51.060
book written by members of this controversial group, the Jesus Seminar, but they're people

01:14:51.060 --> 01:14:56.740
that have done their research very, very profoundly. And they come from a multidisciplinary background,

01:14:56.740 --> 01:15:03.780
which is really important. So the title of the book, "After Jesus, Before Christianity".

01:15:03.780 --> 01:15:08.980
After Jesus, Before Christianity. A woman called Erin Verlen-Comb,

01:15:09.540 --> 01:15:13.840
E.R. in C.O.N.B. is the is the main editor of the book.

01:15:13.840 --> 01:15:18.640
Now, what they look at throughout that book at the first 300 years

01:15:18.640 --> 01:15:22.040
to 50 to 100 years after the death of Jesus.

01:15:22.040 --> 01:15:27.780
Most historians focusing on the hierarchical side of the church developing.

01:15:27.780 --> 01:15:31.040
So we had we had the semblance of the four gospels.

01:15:31.040 --> 01:15:33.180
I buy it by 150.

01:15:33.180 --> 01:15:38.140
We had the beginnings of a presbyterate and mainly bishops and priests.

01:15:38.480 --> 01:15:43.840
and we had the beginnings of a sacramental structure and the historians give the impression

01:15:43.840 --> 01:15:49.520
that that was the main stuff that was actually going on during those first 250 to 300 years.

01:15:49.520 --> 01:15:55.280
Whereas the authors of this book are claiming that that was only one strand.

01:15:55.280 --> 01:16:04.320
That the more important significant strand was a vast range of complex groups meeting, discussing,

01:16:04.320 --> 01:16:10.160
exploring, reaching out to the poor and the marginalized as we find in Acts chapter 2 and 4.

01:16:10.160 --> 01:16:17.200
This whole communal notion from the ground up and very interesting a lot of these clubs,

01:16:17.200 --> 01:16:24.080
associations and groups would often end their meeting with sharing a meal together which they

01:16:24.080 --> 01:16:29.440
understood to be Eucharist even if there was no priest there. That was the stuff that kept going

01:16:29.440 --> 01:16:35.280
until the beginnings of the fourth century. And then unfortunately it's Constantine that really

01:16:35.280 --> 01:16:41.360
impacts very negatively upon that whole thing and more or less demands that everybody,

01:16:41.360 --> 01:16:49.280
one of the first things that Constantine did, I think, maybe at the Council of Nicaea,

01:16:49.280 --> 01:16:56.080
he re-baptized Jesus, if you like, with a new title, Pantocrator, Ruler of the Whole Universe.

01:16:56.800 --> 01:17:03.600
we're back into the imperial kingship stuff. And that becomes the pattern for the next 1500 years

01:17:03.600 --> 01:17:10.240
almost. Yeah. So yeah, I think we need to keep that in mind when we're, yeah, that, that, that

01:17:10.240 --> 01:17:16.400
early, those early centuries were much more complex than we have in technology up until now.

01:17:16.400 --> 01:17:24.800
Yeah, this rulership thing, you know, is very dualistic that, I mean, whether you place Jesus

01:17:24.800 --> 01:17:32.320
in that position or God himself in that position in some kind of detached overseeing position,

01:17:32.320 --> 01:17:37.280
you know, like a master puppeteer of creation or something. You know, whatever happened to the

01:17:37.280 --> 01:17:45.040
idea of God being omnipresent and all-pervading and, you know. Yeah, the Immanuel notion. Yeah.

01:17:45.040 --> 01:17:52.160
Yeah. Yeah. I'm reminded of another joke. You may have heard this one. So God and the devil

01:17:52.160 --> 01:17:56.160
are walking down the street and God sees something shiny on the ground and picks it up and puts it

01:17:56.160 --> 01:18:00.160
in his pocket and the devil says, "Hey, what you got? What was that?" And God said, "Oh,

01:18:00.160 --> 01:18:03.680
it's just the truth." And the devil says, "Give it to me. I'll organize it for you."

01:18:03.680 --> 01:18:10.000
Yeah, yeah, right. Right. Yeah. And that's what began to happen from the beginning of the fourth

01:18:10.000 --> 01:18:16.400
century on. I mean, some people claim that Constantine chaired every session of the Council

01:18:16.400 --> 01:18:22.400
of Nicaea. Now, even if he didn't share every session, he certainly had his key people in there

01:18:22.400 --> 01:18:26.800
managing the whole thing. And any bishop that disagreed with him was kicked out of the council.

01:18:26.800 --> 01:18:32.800
Yeah. So, you know, you had that very sudden, rather brutal kind of shift from a strong,

01:18:32.800 --> 01:18:39.440
what seems to have been a fairly strong communal culture to one that very quickly became hierarchical

01:18:39.440 --> 01:18:42.880
and patriarchy. Yeah.

01:18:42.880 --> 01:18:50.800
Yeah, since you were an old TMer, Maharishi used to say, "Knowledge

01:18:50.800 --> 01:18:53.520
crumbles on the hard rocks of ignorance." Absolutely.

01:18:53.520 --> 01:18:57.360
And he used to talk about how this sort of cycle of

01:18:57.360 --> 01:19:02.000
loss and revival of knowledge just repeats itself throughout the ages.

01:19:02.000 --> 01:19:05.440
And it's like the old party game, I guess, when the

01:19:05.440 --> 01:19:08.240
kid whispers something to the next kid and it goes around the room and by the

01:19:08.240 --> 01:19:11.160
the time it comes back to him, it's a completely different message.

01:19:11.160 --> 01:19:12.160
That's right.

01:19:12.160 --> 01:19:18.760
But, and another point here is that, you know, Jesus was speaking from his level of consciousness,

01:19:18.760 --> 01:19:21.120
and everyone was listening from theirs.

01:19:21.120 --> 01:19:27.440
And if they're not on the same level of consciousness, then there's immediately a loss of something.

01:19:27.440 --> 01:19:31.960
And then, you know, and then nothing's written down for I don't know how long, one or two

01:19:31.960 --> 01:19:32.960
hundred years.

01:19:32.960 --> 01:19:41.920
And so, you know, the whole thing is set up to disintegrate in a way.

01:19:41.920 --> 01:19:47.280
But that's not to say that, you know, we can't derive tremendous benefit from it, or that

01:19:47.280 --> 01:19:49.560
many people haven't.

01:19:49.560 --> 01:19:55.560
But I think your main theme here, that there needs to be a resurgence or a renaissance or

01:19:55.560 --> 01:20:02.520
reinvigoration of all these ancient structures, and probably a complete restructuring or reshuffling

01:20:02.520 --> 01:20:07.080
of them is long overdue, is critically needed now.

01:20:07.080 --> 01:20:13.680
Yes, it is. And my hope is, which I hope is not to be over-utopian, is that whatever is

01:20:13.680 --> 01:20:20.880
going on in this evolutionary time will reawaken a deeper consciousness reminding us all that

01:20:20.880 --> 01:20:27.240
we do need to move in something more of that communitarian direction. With the insights

01:20:27.240 --> 01:20:33.800
of science among other things, assisting us, communitarian and much more expansive and

01:20:33.800 --> 01:20:34.800
inclusive.

01:20:34.800 --> 01:20:38.840
I think it's one of the key qualities that are emerging in our time.

01:20:38.840 --> 01:20:43.960
I think it will and I think that many religious people might see this as a threat but I think

01:20:43.960 --> 01:20:46.000
it's actually a blessing.

01:20:46.000 --> 01:20:51.560
I know in my own case, my parents dragged me to church pretty often when I was a kid.

01:20:51.560 --> 01:20:53.080
I had no idea what was going on.

01:20:53.080 --> 01:20:58.280
It was boring, it was a perfect way to ruin a Sunday.

01:20:58.280 --> 01:21:05.120
But once I got into my own spiritual quest, I thought, "Oh, that's what it's about."

01:21:05.120 --> 01:21:06.720
It began to make sense to me.

01:21:06.720 --> 01:21:07.720
Right.

01:21:07.720 --> 01:21:08.720
So, I think...

01:21:08.720 --> 01:21:10.720
You were growing into the adult.

01:21:10.720 --> 01:21:11.720
Yeah.

01:21:11.720 --> 01:21:19.660
And I kind of realized that there's an inner dimension to it, not just this outer dimension

01:21:19.660 --> 01:21:22.720
of words and stories and all that.

01:21:22.720 --> 01:21:24.240
That's what it's really all about.

01:21:24.240 --> 01:21:30.360
What do you make of Jesus's so-called miracles?

01:21:30.360 --> 01:21:34.440
Do you think that those are just parables or metaphors or something?

01:21:34.440 --> 01:21:38.480
Or do you think that he literally may have done many of those things?

01:21:38.480 --> 01:21:43.360
No, I think that would be two related issues that would come in there.

01:21:43.360 --> 01:21:47.840
Number one, the whole notion of the healer and the healing outreach

01:21:47.840 --> 01:21:49.880
were very common at the time of Jesus.

01:21:49.880 --> 01:21:51.960
And a lot of people had gifts of healing.

01:21:51.960 --> 01:21:55.680
And we need to distinguish between healing and curing.

01:21:55.680 --> 01:21:58.440
The concept of curing, which is more a medical concept,

01:21:58.440 --> 01:22:00.840
really belongs to the 18 and 1900s.

01:22:00.840 --> 01:22:02.720
So we need to keep that in mind.

01:22:02.720 --> 01:22:06.640
Secondly, it does seem that a lot of the people and the culture

01:22:06.640 --> 01:22:10.440
at the time of Jesus was very conscious of the spirit energy

01:22:10.440 --> 01:22:13.600
within within different aspects of the culture.

01:22:13.600 --> 01:22:17.440
And so disease and illness was always often understood

01:22:18.480 --> 01:22:23.120
as not being in tune and not being connected more meaningfully with the spirit.

01:22:23.120 --> 01:22:29.920
And therefore the healing was to realign people with the spirit. And also then the realigning

01:22:29.920 --> 01:22:35.520
and what's to be done communally and not just merely with the with the person himself or herself.

01:22:35.520 --> 01:22:41.200
But you're what you mentioned there, which is the line that I'm beginning to move more in

01:22:41.200 --> 01:22:47.600
is to understand the miracles as parables of action. So we have parables of word,

01:22:47.600 --> 01:22:57.680
and we have parables of action. Now a man called Bloomberg, I can't remember his first name,

01:22:57.680 --> 01:23:02.880
back in 1968, suggested that and I've been in communication with him just in the past three

01:23:02.880 --> 01:23:10.960
months and sadly very few people have actually picked up his very rich seminal ideas. So very

01:23:10.960 --> 01:23:20.320
quickly, if we look at Mark chapter five, that rather bizarre story of a guy out among the tombs,

01:23:20.320 --> 01:23:27.360
and he tearing himself and he naked and he doing all sorts of dreadful things. And, and the story

01:23:27.360 --> 01:23:36.720
is about heat that he's inhabited, are possessed by an evil spirit. But the language used,

01:23:38.320 --> 01:23:44.760
I'm trying to think of the legion is the name that they give to the spirit that's given to the spirit in the story

01:23:44.760 --> 01:23:48.800
Now Legion was a cohort of Roman soldiers

01:23:48.800 --> 01:23:51.880
600 it could be up to 2,000

01:23:51.880 --> 01:23:57.760
But that was the original meaning of the name and then when we look at the Greek text

01:23:57.760 --> 01:24:00.240
Nearly all the verbs being used

01:24:00.240 --> 01:24:03.120
Are related to military activity

01:24:03.960 --> 01:24:15.960
In other words, in all probability, this is the story of a man that was either attacked or attacked and maybe his land robbed from him under the Roman occupation.

01:24:15.960 --> 01:24:18.960
Or maybe some of his family killed in front of his eyes.

01:24:18.960 --> 01:24:24.960
Something very dreadful happened to him, as a result of which he went insane.

01:24:24.960 --> 01:24:27.960
So that, using that as a backdrop.

01:24:27.960 --> 01:24:37.960
The backdrop therefore of... So then this becomes a parable attacking or addressing Roman imperialism.

01:24:37.960 --> 01:24:43.960
And then we have that very strange bit about the pigs going down the cliff into the sea.

01:24:43.960 --> 01:24:53.960
At the time in Syria, one of the platoons of these Roman soldiers, they all carried banners.

01:24:53.960 --> 01:24:58.960
One of the banners was that of a peak or a boar.

01:24:58.960 --> 01:25:05.520
So is this a metaphorical way of saying that the solution and the curing for this man is

01:25:05.520 --> 01:25:10.920
to get the imperial forces out of the land, down back into the sea, so that they can get

01:25:10.920 --> 01:25:11.920
back to Rome?

01:25:11.920 --> 01:25:17.040
For me, that's quite a compelling interpretation of that story.

01:25:17.040 --> 01:25:21.880
And I think one can look at all the, one can look at many of the miracle stories in that

01:25:21.880 --> 01:25:22.880
line.

01:25:22.880 --> 01:25:27.920
hear of people being crippled, when we hear of people being blinded, when we hear people

01:25:27.920 --> 01:25:33.680
being deafened and dumb, has it happened to them as the result of something physical under

01:25:33.680 --> 01:25:39.180
the impression, under the imperial system of Rome?

01:25:39.180 --> 01:25:46.100
And so there's a group of scholars that come from a school called the post-colonial approach.

01:25:46.100 --> 01:25:47.880
That would be the approach they use.

01:25:47.880 --> 01:25:50.560
And I'm personally very attracted to that.

01:25:50.560 --> 01:25:58.080
And again, it means then that all these miracle stories are narratives about empowering people,

01:25:58.080 --> 01:26:05.120
not just curing them, but empowering them to take a new strand or movement in their lives.

01:26:05.120 --> 01:26:09.000
What do you think about some of the other ones like walking on water or multiplying

01:26:09.000 --> 01:26:11.880
the loaves and fishes or turning water into wine?

01:26:11.880 --> 01:26:14.760
Do you think those are all metaphorical too?

01:26:14.760 --> 01:26:17.120
I think that would be for the greater part, yes.

01:26:17.120 --> 01:26:19.520
And they are more difficult to explain.

01:26:19.520 --> 01:26:22.280
Even a traditional scholar like John Meyer,

01:26:22.280 --> 01:26:27.080
the late John Meyer, was having doubts about those himself.

01:26:27.080 --> 01:26:29.240
And he, in many cases, he was taking

01:26:29.240 --> 01:26:31.240
some of the other stories quite literally.

01:26:31.240 --> 01:26:34.760
Now, if you take the water and wine,

01:26:34.760 --> 01:26:39.760
a very interesting aspect in that story from John's gospel

01:26:39.760 --> 01:26:43.680
is that they have these containers for the wine,

01:26:43.680 --> 01:26:45.240
sorry, for the water.

01:26:45.240 --> 01:26:49.120
And we're taught what the amount of water in them is

01:26:49.120 --> 01:26:52.240
that will be contained and then it's turned into wine.

01:26:52.240 --> 01:26:55.480
Those were the containers that were typically used

01:26:55.480 --> 01:26:59.180
in the temple and elsewhere for ritual cleanliness.

01:26:59.180 --> 01:27:03.700
So metaphorically, are we hearing a story here?

01:27:03.700 --> 01:27:07.280
The ritual cleanliness stuff is over.

01:27:07.280 --> 01:27:11.160
We're into celebrating a new feast of the new reign of God,

01:27:11.160 --> 01:27:13.160
of the new companionship.

01:27:13.160 --> 01:27:14.480
That would be the interpretation

01:27:14.480 --> 01:27:17.280
I would be inclined to follow in regard to that story.

01:27:17.280 --> 01:27:23.400
- Oh, I was gonna ask you a question

01:27:23.400 --> 01:27:26.120
that came in from David Reeves in somewhere in the US

01:27:26.120 --> 01:27:27.960
and he said, "No question, just a comment."

01:27:27.960 --> 01:27:30.200
Brilliant, thank you for your work, Diyarmad.

01:27:30.200 --> 01:27:31.960
- Thank you.

01:27:31.960 --> 01:27:37.140
- Okay, so let's see here.

01:27:37.140 --> 01:27:40.400
So we have about 10, 15 minutes left,

01:27:40.400 --> 01:27:43.280
I think if we're gonna hold it to an hour and a half.

01:27:43.280 --> 01:27:44.960
I have a few more pages of notes here.

01:27:44.960 --> 01:27:49.280
Are there some things you would like to suggest

01:27:49.280 --> 01:27:51.480
that you wanna make sure we cover?

01:27:51.480 --> 01:27:55.000
- Well, the one thing that I would mention

01:27:55.000 --> 01:27:59.360
which is indirectly and indeed directly related

01:27:59.360 --> 01:28:02.000
to things we have talked about earlier on.

01:28:02.000 --> 01:28:04.560
And one of my books that I wrote some years ago

01:28:04.560 --> 01:28:07.360
is called "In the Beginning Was the Spirit."

01:28:07.360 --> 01:28:09.200
So that would relate back to that work

01:28:09.200 --> 01:28:14.200
about of Catherine Keller that I spoke about earlier on.

01:28:14.200 --> 01:28:18.600
But the reason I wrote the book was from encounters

01:28:18.600 --> 01:28:21.580
that I had with First Nations peoples,

01:28:21.580 --> 01:28:24.500
originally in Australia, then in the United States,

01:28:24.500 --> 01:28:27.260
in Canada and other parts around the world,

01:28:27.260 --> 01:28:31.700
in which their faith and their naming of what we call God

01:28:31.700 --> 01:28:33.420
is called the Great Spirit.

01:28:33.420 --> 01:28:36.920
And I find this a fascinating field.

01:28:36.920 --> 01:28:42.920
And I wonder, very sadly, I'm not aware of any Christian theologian that has picked it up.

01:28:42.920 --> 01:28:49.800
So for our indigenous peoples, the Great Spirit is not some transcendent being way above the sky.

01:28:49.800 --> 01:28:56.920
The Great Spirit is eminently here on earth. And the Great Spirit, we make connection and

01:28:56.920 --> 01:29:03.240
contact with the Great Spirit in and through the land, in and through the soil. Now that's not

01:29:03.240 --> 01:29:08.280
pantheism. Let me say that loud and clear. And they're not saying that therefore the spirit of

01:29:08.280 --> 01:29:14.200
God is confined to the to the land of the soil. They're saying it's in and true a more organic

01:29:14.200 --> 01:29:19.400
relationship with the land of the soil that we make contact with the Great Spirit. They don't

01:29:19.400 --> 01:29:24.760
have any system of worship in relation to the Great Spirit and they don't pray to the Great Spirit.

01:29:24.760 --> 01:29:33.160
So their rituals, and they have quite a number of elaborate ones, are to prepare them

01:29:33.160 --> 01:29:37.320
are to enable them to collaborate more meaningfully with the great spirit

01:29:37.320 --> 01:29:42.120
and in the work in and around the land. And an interesting thing about prayer

01:29:42.120 --> 01:29:47.800
that for me, one of the favorite definitions of prayer is from Paul's letter to the Romans

01:29:47.800 --> 01:29:53.720
in which he says, it's not we who pray, it's the spirit of God who prays in us.

01:29:53.720 --> 01:29:59.960
And it seems to me that that's very, very close to the faith of our indigenous peoples.

01:30:01.160 --> 01:30:06.920
They don't pray or beseech the Great Spirit, they try to be more attuned with the synergy of the

01:30:06.920 --> 01:30:12.840
Living Spirit in everything in creation and primarily through the land. Now I think that

01:30:12.840 --> 01:30:19.160
relates to several things we have talked about during this interview. It does, I mean again it

01:30:19.160 --> 01:30:25.400
brings up the sort of the notion of oneness versus dualism, you know. It does. Are you reinforcing an

01:30:25.400 --> 01:30:30.600
an I-Thou relationship by praying to some distant or on high

01:30:30.600 --> 01:30:35.880
entity, or are you discovering that that entity pervades you

01:30:35.880 --> 01:30:38.780
and you can align yourself with it

01:30:38.780 --> 01:30:42.360
by tuning into that level of your own life?

01:30:42.360 --> 01:30:45.080
Which is basically what we try to do in meditation.

01:30:45.080 --> 01:30:45.880
Yeah, yeah.

01:30:45.880 --> 01:30:50.140
OK.

01:30:53.360 --> 01:30:57.860
So some final questions that actually are on this very point.

01:30:57.860 --> 01:31:00.540
The idea of a conscious universe or panpsychism

01:31:00.540 --> 01:31:02.360
has profound implications.

01:31:02.360 --> 01:31:04.040
How does this view alter our understanding

01:31:04.040 --> 01:31:07.920
of human uniqueness and our responsibility with the cosmos?

01:31:07.920 --> 01:31:12.000
And I'll just add to the question,

01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:14.040
as I understand it, panpsychism is often

01:31:14.040 --> 01:31:17.000
described as the notion that things are

01:31:17.000 --> 01:31:20.320
conscious to varying degrees.

01:31:20.320 --> 01:31:23.520
a little atom is conscious in some rudimentary way,

01:31:23.520 --> 01:31:28.280
or a toad is conscious to a greater degree, or whatever.

01:31:28.280 --> 01:31:35.040
But I would jump back to that quote by the German scientist

01:31:35.040 --> 01:31:37.900
that basically there is only spirit.

01:31:37.900 --> 01:31:40.980
So spirit appearing as an atom, appearing as a toad,

01:31:40.980 --> 01:31:43.520
appearing as you and me.

01:31:43.520 --> 01:31:48.720
And so it's not that we have consciousness.

01:31:48.720 --> 01:31:50.600
It's that we are consciousness.

01:31:50.600 --> 01:31:55.600
And consciousness manifests complexity

01:31:55.600 --> 01:32:00.120
through its self-interaction

01:32:00.120 --> 01:32:02.960
that results in greater and greater ability

01:32:02.960 --> 01:32:05.480
to function as a living reality.

01:32:05.480 --> 01:32:08.920
Irene saying, "What's the question?"

01:32:08.920 --> 01:32:11.480
I can put a question mark at the end of that statement

01:32:11.480 --> 01:32:13.240
and let you comment on it.

01:32:13.240 --> 01:32:16.460
- Yeah, I mean, sometimes what I find myself saying

01:32:16.460 --> 01:32:18.420
to audiences when I'm working with them.

01:32:18.420 --> 01:32:23.660
Everything in this body of mine has been given to me by the wider creation.

01:32:23.660 --> 01:32:31.940
Um, and, and therefore, um, what the vitality of my body, the intelligence,

01:32:31.940 --> 01:32:37.500
not just in my brain, but of my body is, is, is gifted to me from creation.

01:32:37.500 --> 01:32:43.560
Um, a controversial British astronomer called Fred Hoyle, a way back in the

01:32:43.560 --> 01:32:45.960
1940s, he wrote a book called The

01:32:45.960 --> 01:32:48.280
Intelligent Universe, a way ahead of

01:32:48.280 --> 01:32:51.840
his time. And, and so it's at that

01:32:51.840 --> 01:32:54.280
level, I back again to what I said

01:32:54.280 --> 01:32:56.840
earlier on, and this energy of the

01:32:56.840 --> 01:32:59.760
spirit, which is foundational to all

01:32:59.760 --> 01:33:03.000
life forms, is the same energy that's

01:33:03.000 --> 01:33:06.000
shared with everything from the ant to

01:33:06.000 --> 01:33:09.360
the vast galaxies themselves. But

01:33:09.360 --> 01:33:12.080
instead then of a bland sameness,

01:33:12.880 --> 01:33:16.880
Everything is equal, but each organism is unique.

01:33:16.880 --> 01:33:20.640
So the ant has a uniqueness of being ant.

01:33:20.640 --> 01:33:24.560
And we have uniqueness in being human.

01:33:24.560 --> 01:33:26.560
But we share the same spirit.

01:33:26.560 --> 01:33:29.680
And that spirit is gifted to us.

01:33:29.680 --> 01:33:34.880
And that spirit was fully at work in creation long before we ever came on the scene.

01:33:34.880 --> 01:33:37.840
And long before religions or churches ever evolved.

01:33:38.880 --> 01:33:49.880
It had to be. I mean, in the first few microseconds after the Big Bang, there were already amazingly intelligent, orderly laws of nature orchestrating the whole process.

01:33:49.880 --> 01:33:50.880
Indeed.

01:33:50.880 --> 01:33:51.880
Yeah.

01:33:51.880 --> 01:33:58.520
And I'm glad you used the word bland sameness, because if we think of, let's say, the ground

01:33:58.520 --> 01:34:12.440
of the earth as analogous to consciousness or spirit, then the more fertile the ground,

01:34:12.440 --> 01:34:16.040
the more diversity you end up with, not the more sameness.

01:34:16.040 --> 01:34:22.040
If you look at the Amazon rainforest or something, there's this huge diversity because it's so fertile.

01:34:22.040 --> 01:34:29.040
So I think that as consciousness or spirit becomes more lively and collective consciousness of humanity,

01:34:29.040 --> 01:34:31.040
we're not all going to become the same.

01:34:31.040 --> 01:34:40.040
We're all going to become more diverse and yet more harmonious because of our mutual fundamental connection.

01:34:40.040 --> 01:34:45.040
Yes, and therefore it needs to be a form of unity that can hold and honor the diversity,

01:34:45.040 --> 01:34:50.040
which I think is what the great mystics meant by that word 'oneness'.

01:34:50.040 --> 01:34:52.040
They didn't see it as a bland sameness.

01:34:52.040 --> 01:34:56.040
Yeah, very good. And perhaps a good point to end on,

01:34:56.040 --> 01:34:59.040
because we've been going for more than an hour and a half now.

01:34:59.040 --> 01:35:03.040
So, let's see. So you've written a number of books,

01:35:03.040 --> 01:35:07.040
and I will list them on your Batgap page.

01:35:07.040 --> 01:35:11.040
And is there anything else you're doing that people can plug into,

01:35:11.040 --> 01:35:15.240
into any webinars or conferences?

01:35:15.240 --> 01:35:17.440
- Well, the few that I'm doing now

01:35:17.440 --> 01:35:20.280
because I'm basically retired and working from home.

01:35:20.280 --> 01:35:22.880
And if they follow my webpage,

01:35:22.880 --> 01:35:27.880
which is www.jeermudomoroku.com.

01:35:27.880 --> 01:35:31.840
So it's www.myfullname.com.

01:35:31.840 --> 01:35:34.880
And there's a section in there on commitments.

01:35:34.880 --> 01:35:39.880
And in there, they'll see programs that I might be offering.

01:35:40.600 --> 01:35:44.580
- Good, and I'll link to that from your page on bathgap.com.

01:35:44.580 --> 01:35:45.880
- Yeah, great. - Good.

01:35:45.880 --> 01:35:46.720
Well, thank you so much.

01:35:46.720 --> 01:35:48.320
I really enjoyed this conversation

01:35:48.320 --> 01:35:49.800
and I enjoyed preparing for it

01:35:49.800 --> 01:35:51.500
over the last couple of weeks.

01:35:51.500 --> 01:35:52.340
- Yeah, thank you.

01:35:52.340 --> 01:35:53.560
I've enjoyed it too.

01:35:53.560 --> 01:35:54.400
- Good.

01:35:54.400 --> 01:35:57.080
So we'll be in touch

01:35:57.080 --> 01:35:59.720
and thanks to those who've been listening or watching.

01:35:59.720 --> 01:36:04.000
I think my next interview is with Juergen Zeeuwe,

01:36:04.000 --> 01:36:06.360
whom I interviewed about nine or 10 years ago.

01:36:06.360 --> 01:36:07.960
And Juergen is a fascinating guy.

01:36:07.960 --> 01:36:17.960
he, for most of his life, he's had this ability to astral travel, as he calls it, and very

01:36:17.960 --> 01:36:23.160
vividly and clearly, and he's also a gifted artist. And speaking of AI, he's now using

01:36:23.160 --> 01:36:29.260
AI to create what he considers to be very photorealistic depictions of the subtle realms

01:36:29.260 --> 01:36:35.520
of creation that he has experienced himself, and that perhaps concur with the mystics' descriptions

01:36:35.520 --> 01:36:37.960
of such realms throughout the ages.

01:36:37.960 --> 01:36:40.400
So it's going to be a very visual interview where

01:36:40.400 --> 01:36:41.440
we're going to--

01:36:41.440 --> 01:36:44.920
I'm going to be popping in all the artwork that he does,

01:36:44.920 --> 01:36:46.480
and perhaps even some video clips

01:36:46.480 --> 01:36:51.000
that he's made about as we discuss those different levels

01:36:51.000 --> 01:36:53.120
of creation.

01:36:53.120 --> 01:36:54.120
So stay tuned for that.

01:36:54.120 --> 01:36:58.120
OK, thanks, Diyarmen.

01:36:58.120 --> 01:36:58.680
Thanks again.

01:36:58.680 --> 01:37:00.840
I really appreciate your time.

01:37:00.840 --> 01:37:01.480
Thank you.

01:37:01.480 --> 01:37:02.000
Bye-bye now.

01:37:02.000 --> 01:37:02.500
Cheers.

01:37:02.500 --> 01:37:03.000
Bye-bye.

01:37:03.000 --> 01:37:06.360
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