SPIRITUAL HUMANISM - Humanism beyond religion, rationality and science

2007-09-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Möller de la Rouvière

Author of: SPIRITUALITY WITHOUT GOD

(Please also look at my website: www.spiritualhumanism.co.za from where you could order this book via Amazon.com.)

WHAT IS SPIRITUAL HUMANISM?

Spiritual Humanism explores humankind’s deepest potential for the expression of emotional well-being, sanity, intelligent living, love and the humane ordering of society. Founded in the full potential of human life, Spiritual Humanism is not a philosophy, but rather suggests a practical, effective and efficient means by which integral living could be achieved. And because it is anchored in the reality of human experience alone, recognizing no super-human influence or directive power over how we conduct our affairs, Spiritual Humanism presents a realistic vision for human life recognizing both our material existence and our deeper, self-transcendent human potential as fundamental to complete human development.

There is no doubt that what we currently externalize with regard to material existence, human relations, scientific/technological development, social organization, morality, psychology, and spirituality reflect forms of functioning which are chronically characterized by inner and outer disorder, misapprehension and lack of self-knowledge. Having experimented with these over the past few thousand years, it would seem that little progress has been made with regard to the establishment of a well-integrated and humane society. We have fallen victim to a style of living which is fragmentary, divisive, alienating and profoundly lacking insight into what it means simply to be human. In short, we are caught in a paradigm of living which finds it progressively more difficult to sustain mental and emotional well-being, relational integrity and coherent social ordering.

Like every aspect of manifest existence, human life depends on exact laws governing not only its continued existence, but also its natural functioning. Human life requires appropriate and efficient functional relationships between its various faculties to create optimal living conditions for itself: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If, through lack of insight and clarity into our own functioning any of these gets neglected, abused, inappropriately applied or over-stimulated, inner dysfunction will result. And as all social order reflects the way we live as individuals, our social fabric will inevitably become as confused, disharmonious and dysfunctional as we are. Do as we may, life is the final arbiter. And if we do not meet the moment to moment challenges of life with the harmonious functioning of our entire human potential, everything we do will be compromised by the partial or inadequate responses we bring to these challenges.

Spiritual Humanism suggests that humanity is indeed capable of manifesting and supporting a more holistic, less fragmentary way of living. It brings into focus the entire spectrum of our potential, which includes the development of many of our faculties which, up until now, have either not been fully developed or inappropriately applied through uninspected living or which have not yet been recognized as necessary and useful instruments for serving the totality of human life. We approach the many challenges facing us every day with a limited responsiveness, not making use of the vast depth of human potential available to us. And as life, in any moment of its manifestation, is always a complete and multi-dimensional affair, such inadequate response-ability naturally fragments our interaction with the living moment. And it is this fragmentation of the field of experience which is directly responsible for every aspect of human-created suffering, whether this suffering is psychological, mental, physical or emotional.

To approach the totality of the living moment with anything less than our complete potential, is to reflect back to our living environment a response which is not only inadequate and fragmentary, but also destiny creating. Any challenge which is partially met can at best only be partially addressed. And this leaves residue of incomplete living which remains within our sphere of operation as a potent source for future confusion, dysfunction and human created suffering.

Spiritual Humanism suggests that there exists a dire need for humanity to develop a holistic approach to life if we are serious about discovering for ourselves a way of life which stands free from dogma, conditioned rationality, superstition, scientific materialism, alienation, moral decay, relational dysfunction and spiritual barrenness. And in order to arrive at such a comprehensive vision for the fulfillment of our quest for well-being and integral living, we need to start afresh with our investigation into the human condition. We cannot continue with the mistakes of the past if we want to bring order into the present.

Once we are willing to question every aspect of our conditioned knowledge which dictates to us what it means to be human, we may become receptive to a new vision for humanity, founded in realism, not idealism. We have lived long enough with incomplete models telling us how we should live and what human life is all about. These have become stagnant pools of toxic, outmoded information. What is required now is for us to re-examine many aspects of our human functioning to discover the inherent potential within our nature to deliver us from our misguided, unsuccessful ways of conducting our affairs. Such an enquiry alone can reveal to us a life of openness and freedom from self-imposed dilemma. Spiritual Humanism affords us with all the instruments with which to observe the mechanisms of our dysfunction and bondage, as well as how to allow for true healing to take place from deep within our being.

One of the pivotal proposals that Spiritual Humanism brings to the quest for well-being and integral living, is that we need to allow ourselves the space to discover for ourselves the truth or falsehood about how to conduct our human affairs. No doubt we may learn a tremendous amount from those who have gone before us, but ultimately each of us has to travel their own path of inner investigation and self-exploration. Spiritual Humanism affords us with many practical and realistic ways for investigating ourselves; methods of practice by which to deconstruct conditioning and insights to break free from all forms of mental, emotional and physical preconditions about life and living. It also gives us clear guidelines on how to achieve human development informed by true intelligence, love and deep humane values through self-observation, self-knowledge and self-transcendence. It holds only one fundamental view of human life and that is that it lacks absolutely nothing for the complete fulfillment of its natural demand for well-being, emotional equanimity, intelligent living, and the expression of love and relational integrity.

But to come to such clarity, and to have the courage to enquire into life for ourselves and to find our own measure as human beings, we need to develop a healthy skepticism toward every aspect of what we socially regard as necessary and valuable. We are caught in a never-ending cycle of confusion, misapprehension, alienation and unrelatedness. To develop a sensitivity toward these, and to see for ourselves how these limit and control the free expression of our being, we need to develop the art of self-observation and a fearless spirit of enquiry.

We cannot maintain complete faith in all the paradigms of confusion we use as guidelines for living, while at the same time attempt to gain insight into where and in which ways these have failed us. An inner attitudinal shift with regard to our absolute belief in these has to take place. We need to start our enquiry with an open mind - a mind ready for exploration, risk taking and self-investigation where nothing is too holy, too definite, too obvious, too true or too pure to be investigated. Only in such a mind may flower a new understanding as it makes itself available to insight and a deeper grasp of reality. This is the valuable starting point for a radically new investigation into human life which Spiritual Humanism explores and describes.

The true enquiring mind leaves nothing unturned - not even the many new insights it might gain along the path of its own self-discovery. Every insight becomes a new point of departure for further investigation. If true, such an insight will stand by itself. If false the Intelligence inherent in our spirit of enquiry will reveal this falseness, and in this way human unfolding towards integral living becomes possible.

Spiritual Humanism does not suggest that we develop clearly defined, ready-made or instant ‘answers’ to every situation or challenge. Rather it seeks to develop the instruments with which to deal with life appropriately. Once these instruments are in place, we have created the potential for intelligent living, and the answers will follow by themselves. Our responses will become more reality-generated, hence leaving little or no residue from which future discontent might arise.

The main function of Spiritual Humanism, therefore, is to awaken within us the potential for appropriate action, rather than presenting us with clearly defined rules to live by. Spiritual Humanism is not prescriptive. It has complete faith in our human ability to create a sustainable humane environment for us to live in. It leads the enquiring mind first into itself, recognizing every aspect of its previous delusory and inappropriate ways of functioning, and then points to a clear direction for inner work to free us from our self-imposed and self-created discontentment.

This work is exploratory: it does not seek instant answers. We already have too many ‘answers’ to life’s challenges, and, considering the chaos and turmoil in which we find ourselves, it is clear that these have failed us. The time has arrived for humanity to take charge of its own affairs in a much more responsible and delicate manner than what has been the case up to now. In the process we will leave behind out-dated beliefs, dogmas and superstitions, and manifest into this world a truly humane character of intelligence, love and relational integrity.

This human-centric approach to holistic living is what Spiritual Humanism proposes and explores. It suggests a useful point of departure for the true enquiring mind and heart to discover, deep within the subtle potential of human life, a quality of being which is not of the order of our ordinary reactive, conditioned forms of behavior. This quality of intelligence, love and wholeness, is the spiritual component of human life. It stands radically free from that which binds us into the conformity of uninspected living. It represents the humane aspect of human life which is simply too intelligent and awake to be abused, manipulated or controlled as our ordinary conditioned mentality allows for.

Spiritual Humanism offers a challenge to human life to leave its adolescent phase of dependence on the authority of the church, the spiritual traditions, the myth of pure reason, scientific materialism, speculative philosophy and metaphysics, social conventions and all forms of dogma and chauvinism behind, and to wake up to a call for a greater humanity founded upon our own unfathomable well of human potential.

To discover our true living measure, we need to enquire deeply into our own condition. We need to develop ways of introspection which will reveal to us the exact status and functional reality of both our confusion and our clarity. To do this we need to be willing to have all our traditional ‘answers’ undone in the light of our own self-exploration. In this way human life becomes its own experiment. It accepts responsibility for how it conducts its affairs and what it bases its interactions and relationships with its world on. We become sensitive to how the inappropriate use of powerful instruments such as thought, attention and emotion distort our vision and condition our behavior.

Spiritual Humanism, therefore, explores the human condition from the disposition of the totality of human life. It suggests a process of intelligent participation in what we do and how we do things. In this way we learn not only about ourselves and how to conduct our affairs with greater efficacy: in the process we establish ourselves in the undivided nature of our present situation.

Spiritual Humanism suggests that our greater humanity can be served only if we remove that which obscures our natural ability in order to respond appropriately to the challenges of life. Once we remove from our vision all misapprehension that fragments our lives, our natural condition of wholeness, emotional equanimity, compassion and intelligence will reveal itself to have always been the case. These refined humane qualities are perfectly natural to human life, they have only been obscured through uninspected living.

When we wake up to our own deep potential for appropriate response-ability, a new order for humanity may come into being – an order based on intelligence, love, relational integrity, non-materialism, compassion and mutual co-operation. There is indeed hope for humanity. But the realization of such hope lies in us accepting responsibility for establishing ourselves in a new paradigm for living.

It is this new paradigm that Spiritual Humanism explores and communicates.

Möller de la Rouvière

Sept. 26 2007