 105. Maturity (Transformation) |
The child's principal concern is relative to the "God-Parent-Reality" (or That on Which all depends), and relative to his or her growing (but, as yet, not fully conscious) sense of separated "self"-existence. "Separate self" and "objective world" are yet hidden in unconsciousness for the child. They are (themselves) a mysterious and later comprehension of that which is (at first) only felt, not conceptualized, as fear and sorrow.
Therefore, the child is always grasping for permanent security in a non-differentiated, un-born bliss, wherein the threats implied in life are forgotten and unknown. Re-union through obedience is the manner in which the living child learns in secret, while the life that grows the child through "experience" continually demonstrates the failure of all childish seeking.
In the current exchanges about the True Way of life, people are alternately invited either to submit themselves in childish, emotional, and cultic fashion, usually by grace of "hype", to one or another glamorous tradition, personality, or possible effect, or else to assert their adolescent independence from any Divine Influence, Master, or Way by engaging in any one of the (seemingly numberless) cool, mental, and strategic "methods" of "self"-indulgence, "self"-absorption, "self"-help, de-programming, or certified sudden transcendentalism now available in these media-motivated times.
In the midst of the pervasive language of these offerings is all the implicit crawling fear of children and adolescents, surrounded by Parent, waiting for Wednesday, wasting weekends on authorities who preach against authority, or who promote peculiar enthusiasms for secret, unique, scriptural, and wholly fulfilling "techniques" for bodily, emotional, and mental absorptions in the One True Reality — which everyone advertises, but very few find sufficient. "Religious", "Spiritual", and "philosophical" revivals are so plastic and popular, as mindless as soap — and, yet, they seem always to distract the "world".
There are true and false (or fruitless) ways to live. There are partial revelations. What is only distraction and foolishness has always been part of the theatre of humankind. This need not be of concern, if the need for True Illumination is strong enough.
What each one is obliged to do is to Realize, in his or her own case, a heart that is the center of one's life, that is neither "self"-indulgent nor foolish, and that is responsible only to Truth Itself.
"Experiences", high and low, are required by those who are still lingering in the conditions of their childhood and adolescence.
Everything a child does is a manifestation of one underlying presumption: dependence. When you are a child, the presumption of dependence is eminently realistic and useful. But it should be a temporary stage of psycho-physical life, in which one's functions are nurtured and developed in conventional ways. However, there is commonly a lag in the transition to adulthood, because of the shocks encountered in the immature attempts to function in the "world". Thus, to some degree, every adult lingers in the childhood presumption of dependence. And, insofar as adults are children, they seek to enlarge that personal presumption of dependence into a universal conception in the form of the "God-Cosmos-Parent" game — the game of dependence upon (and obedience to) That upon Which all depends.
That childish aspect in each individual always seeks to verify the condition of dependence in forms of safety and relative unconsciousness. That childish demand in every adult human being is the principal origin of exoteric "religion".
Exoteric "religion" is the search to be re-united, to "experience" the vital and emotional re-establishment of some imagined or felt condition (or state) of life that is previous to responsibility. It is the urge toward the parented, enclosed condition.
This urge always seeks "experiences", beliefs, and immunities as a consolation for the primitive cognition of fear and vulnerability. And the "Way" enacted by such a motivation is principally a game of obedience to parentlike enormities.
