THE ATHEIST IN THE BURNING BUSH
<Life consists of a string of related
coincidences>, said Kurt Vonnegut. This is a story of such coincidences in
my life, which deal with Philosophy and Consciousness (Wisdom). Looking back on
it, I might agree with the philosopher Schopenhauer, who said that in
retrospect an individual's life resembles a symphony for an orchestra where
everything finally has a meaning. Unfortunately, mine sounds more like a
rehearsal played by amateurs.
Having
been born in the years Hitler came to power in my country made it easy for me
to grow up as an atheist, but I am sure I would have done so in any other
place. -- No my American friends, not as an agnostic, who is just not sure, I
was very sure! And no, I was not illiterate either, even if in junior college I
only read stuff on science and some Kafka and Hemingway.
It was during these junior years
in college that I discovered my talent and interest for philosophy. What
happened was this: A university professor in philosophy and religion, head of
the school for philosophy at the large university in the capital city, had his
private residence in our small college town. We were being told he was the
leading authority of the Lutheran church in the country. [That's about 50% of
all Christians in this country] And that it was a great privilege for us when
he agreed to teach one course in Aristotelian philosophy and one in religion
during our graduating year at our college.
Totally out of character for me, I
paid considerable attention during the course in Aristotelian logic and kept my
mouth shut during the classes in religion -- except for one time. The subject
that our esteemed professor was lecturing on was 'tragic' event in our lives
and 'Faith' (which he must have realized we did not have much of). His idea was
that when these events happen, it is 'God' calling us and it is our time to
embrace religious Faith etc. etc. When he finally paused, pleased with his
brilliant sermon, stupid me had to speak-up. --- Because, --- “HERE I STOOD, I COULD DO NO OTHER”---
I don't recall my exact words, but in essence (and
with today's terminology) I said: "We have the duty to grow up fully,
into an independent-self or autonomous-self, a self-actualized person (Maslow), a fully individuated self (Jung). Running back to
a Father-God is a regressive act, it means going back into childhood
dependency, back to Mommy and Daddy, --- and it’s a coward’s way out."
After this, all hell broke loose, such that, even at our 25th class reunion, everyone still remembered the event vividly. Our good professor started foaming at the mouth, literally, and my classmates told me later that they thought he was going to kill me right there in the classroom. Well, he did not and actually apologize the next day, as a 'good' Christian should. It is only now, in the last decades of my life, that I have a good explanation of what transpired.
What kind of professor was Dr. Schneider? An
American example that comes to my mind is the law professor in the movie
<The Paper Chase>, a man extremely tough and even ruthless in his
intellectual demands on young students. When grading time came along, he
declared that the best grade would be a B-minus, since we were all ignorant
undergraduates. And besides, only his very best grad-students ever got an A.
Such an attitude was something my classmates were not accustomed to in our
sheltered little college and for the first time there was protest.
"OK", he said, "
I sure did not want to participate in this grueling test, but my <brave>
girlfriend insisted that I join the 9 other suicidal maniacs that were going to
take this test. She herself did not, and she was a strait-A student. (Me? --- C-average.) It
was her bid for becoming 'First violin' in Schopenhauer's orchestra in my life. (See also “Life’s magic mirror”)
In this sudden-death type of contest I was
number three. The two candidates before me had only lasted two of his
questions, which he had fired at them as if he was handling a machine-gun. I
answered the first ten questions, twenty, thirty, he stopped and changed the
rules: "I have seven more students here he said, you must answer any
question that they can't answer!" I did not object, because 7 candidates
meant only 7 questions, and by this time I actually had deducted the basic
meta-concept of all his questions.
It is strange how we seem to
remember our toughest teachers most distinctly, and I sure remember Professor
Schneider. But what about his outburst in the class on Christian religion? What
could possibly have caused this brilliant man to lose control in a class of
<ignorant> undergraduates? The obvious explanation is that psychological
<shadow material> was being unmasked, but what was this <repressed>
material involving his own field of expertise.
Let's take a look at “stages of
consciousness” (spiritual growth), such as James W. Fowler's study or the good
description in Scott Peck's <The Different Drum>. We find that the stage
of the fully developed rational/phenomenological mind is also the stage of
<atheism> (a stage in which we hand out Nobel prizes in science in our
culture). This is also a <spiritual stage> which is actually one step
above the one where people are <good Christians>, or <good Jews>,
or <good Marxists>, or <good Any-religion>.
Ken Wilber gives a very good
explanation for this: when he writes: ... dogmas or given beliefs are
precisely what hinders the emergence of deeper truths and wider vision. ------
“There is more spirituality in reason’s denial of God than there is in
myth’s affirmation of God, precisely because there is more depth. (And the transrational, in turn, discloses yet more depth, yet more
Spirit, than either myth or reason).
Interestingly, one of the Eastern Gurus made a similar statement when he
said
"Have Faith in nothing, Faith is the eye that sees nothing and rejoices
in it. Unknowingness absolves the future path of danger. The eye sees [it
should, but], sees nothing, and so has Faith. --- Fair set, all are hallowed
--- Shanti".
The next higher stage, also called the
<Authentic level> by Kohlberg, is the first <transcendental> stage.
It is here where a new understanding (vision logic) becomes possible and the
previously perceived conflict between science and God disappears”. For these
higher stages one has to read authors other then the first two mentioned above.
Christians in this extreme <mile-high-club> could be Meister Eckart, Saint Teresa of Àvila,
and some more, but certainly that <young fellow from
But let's get back to Professor Schneider.
--- Scott Peck points out that the transition from the stage of the
conventional <good Christian>, (stage 2 in his book) to stage four, where
a new concept of <God> becomes possible, is extremely difficult without
going through the stage of atheism or at least agnosticism. Peck says that the
Church does not want to acknowledge this and deal with this problem. And that
is <psychological repression>, a <denial> that creates a
<shadow>. Professor Schneider, with his brilliant intellect, was
certainly in the 'phenomenological mind stage' but was repressing everything
that was not approved Christian church-doctrine. - A Big Shadow! - Denial! I
just struck a match and threw some light on it. Here is some advice for the Professor from a 62-year-old psychiatrist
<One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by
making the darkness conscious. That which we do not bring to
consciousness appears in our life as fate. >
C. G. Jung
And the same advice from his very own
<29-year-old-God > is:
<If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save
you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth,
will destroy you.>
Jesus of Nazareth
Our
esteemed professor, however, was not the only one who developed a 'shadow'
blocking his spiritual development. For me, it was the <scientific
paradigm> which kept me stuck in my old 'atheistic' stage. To break this
block to spiritual growth took an event in my life that maybe was not tragic,
but certainly very painful: My wife, the strait-A student, (now also a
full-professor) left me. Do I hear Prof. Schneider's voice from his grave: <
Did I not tell you? > I would answer, "It's not quite what you had in mind
professor!” Also, this first event was not sufficient in my case. <He>
(or whatever) had to put limits on my <scientific paradigm>. How does God
do that? - Anyway she can!
For me, my tendencies to avoid
emotional pain was used as the means, because I started dating again right away
and happen to become infatuated with a woman who was very psychic. She lived in
a town 150 miles away, but knew everything that went on in my life; there was
no way to cheat on her. (Not that I had the intention.) This was the beginning
of my psychic endeavors, I was practically bombarded with psychic events, and
it was nicely done in the form of the <double blind tests> of modern
psychology. And I needed that, because I would have laughed at anything as
feeble as reported by C.G. Jung (Synchronicity). But with strong evidence like
this, there was no way that I could hang on to my scientific paradigm. My
trusts in things, such as <linear time>, <the rules of information
theory> and other <laws of physics> were constantly being violated. My
scientific training was much too thorough not to recognize this. Now I also
wanted to become a psychic, just as reported by Woody Allen when he said:
One of the most
astounding cases of clairvoyance is that of the noted Greek psychic Achilles Loudos. Loudos realized that he
had unusual powers by the age of ten, when he could lie in bed and, by
concentrating, make his father's false teeth jump out of his mouth.
To get that training I had to find a
meditation teacher and psychic, --- and I did, --- and then a very interesting
event happened:
<The BURNING BUSH
experience with a TWIST>
One thing that our psychic teacher (a very nice lady) was telling us, was to
envision a <white light> around our bodies as a protection against
<evil> spirits coming into our dreams at night. Well, I wanted to learn
this stuff, so I did all of it no matter how silly it appeared to be. But this
one night, I dream that I am trying to apprehend two criminals in a large
building. When I finally catch up with them, one of them has a gun and when I
try to draw my own; I do not have it. One of my hobbies is target shooting and
this outcome was totally ridiculous, - disgusted, I wake-up. --- Now I am awake
but I am still annoyed, this time about my psychic teacher and that her
<white-light-thing> is obviously not working. And while I am laying there
in the darkness, a golden light appears to faintly illuminate the bedroom.
Where is <that> coming from? -- Somewhere out of my chest? -- Yes, that's
it, but it originates about 6 inches behind my chest. My mind gets hold of this
spot and I find that I can control it, make it brighter, light up the whole
bedroom with a bright golden light. My next thought was "Aha, that's how
it's done", and I am playing with it, and my thoughts are of the <Power
Company> and my electric bill. --- Was there a profound message from God
such as: <I AM THAT I AM>, spoken in a deep voice with an electronic-echo
thrown in (as in the movie)? No! What can God possibly say to an <atheist>,
who is not a Prophet but a MSEE, and only thinks about Computers and Electric
Companies? If there was any message, it had to do with the 'Twist', the
difference between my personal experience and that of Moses.
From within or from "behind", a light shines "through" us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. --- R. W. Emerson
To explain what this <twist> could be
I will retell a story from Father William Johnston, a Jesuit who went to
meditate in a Japanese Zen monastery and recorded his impressions in the book,
<Christian Zen>: He relates that after sitting in meditation for some
time his legs began to ache terribly. The master gave him advice on this and
asked him what practice he was following in his meditation.
Lilly Tomplin
might be just a comedian, but this funny line of hers makes the Zen-God concept
quite clear: SCITZOPHRENIA BEATS HAVING LUNCH ALONE.
This Zen-concept of God, when combined with a statement by our Western
Philosopher A. N. Whitehead: --- <THE COSMOS IS SELF-CREATION OF GOD> --- is the only hypothesis for me which makes sense, because it justifies the suffering in
this life. It tells me that we should work on becoming Co-creator
with God. (Mathew 5 13-16)
From what is known about the <creative
process> a difficult question comes up, namely how much <guidance> or <interference> into our lives by
higher powers can be tolerated without becoming <counter productive> for the 
process of creation? --- Even the <prerequisite
process> of self-creation of our own unique personality could suffer from
such <interference>. Becoming a unique “autonomous-self, a
self-actualized person” must be our own doing. These were also the
words I said to Professor Schneider more than 50 years ago and now A N
Whitehead’s statement and a letter by Albert Einstein
published in 2008, have brought me full circle. --- I read Einstein’s
<popular> book on Relativity at age 12 and comprehended most of it, (the
exception being the math in “Lorenz transformation” equation), he then became
my <symbol> for creativity. Einstein says that the Torah (Bible) is very
childish, but from my studies in pedagogic I understand why this had to be so.
What I don’t understand is why the clergy themselves has adopted this childish
understanding and made it into their dogma. Only <old senile elementary school
teachers> behave that way. The Christian clergy never developed the <higher consciousness> DEMANDED by Jesus Christ, and even his
request was lost when it was terribly misquoted by Luke (14:26*). (Lack of
<higher consciousness> and the dogma arrested all development.)
If you
now think the Zen masters, Lilly Tomplin and A.N.
Whitehead are all silly comedians, you must then also put Jesus Christ into this
same group, because he was the one who said that: <The kingdom of Heaven is within>. Actually it’s 6 inches
behind us, right where we have trouble scratching. Therefore we need friends
and lovers or spouses in our lives. (To scratch) Trust me, my Aristotelian logic is impeccable.
References:
PAPER: <Life's Magic Mirror, a
non-dualistic look at relationships> H. Winter Proceedings of the
International Forum on New Science> 1991,
BOOK: Edited by Abrams, J. & Zweig, C. (1991) <MEETING THE SHADOW, The Hidden Power
of the Dark Side of Human Nature>, Jeremy P. Tarcher,
Inc. Los Angeles
BOOK: Briggs, J. (1990) <FIRE IN
THE CRUCIBLE, Self-Creation of Creativity and Genius> Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. Los Angeles
BOOK: Fowler, J.W.(1981) <STAGES
OF FAITH, The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning>, Harper&Row, San Francisco
BOOK: Peck, M.S. (1987) <THE
DIFFERENT DRUM, Community Making and Peace> (A Touchstone Book) Simon &
Schuster, New York
BOOK: Wilber, K. (1983) < EYE to
EYE, The Quest for the New Paradigm>,
BOOK: Wilber, K. (1995) <SEX,
ECOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY, The Spirit of Evolution>,
Both are by Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boston, MA
Missing from this “Gospel” is the
<Construction Principle of Everything>, (next page) the Tao
Te Ching, --- but you can find it hidden in
my <two line GENESIS> below.
In the Beginning were no Words, but God Thought: (To Herself, no one else was there!) I'm Bored, Let's Go For Broke! And with <One Hand clapping>,
she made a Big Bang.