The Second Face of God - Part 3

The Evolution of Spirit

Part 3 of The Second Face of God, a conversation between Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber, as published in EnlightenNext Magazine.

We have seen how postmodern culture has reinforced the conviction that the individual self is the center of the universe and that our thoughts and opinions are the ultimate truth. This mindset has made it difficult for us to accept, let alone surrender to, the possibility that there is something that is higher, more evolved, than ME.

Let's again join Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber as they discuss how the evolution of spirituality and religion through their different stages has failed to keep pace with our rapidly changing Western culture and consciousness.
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Wilber: Spirituality, or religion, has progressed over time through stages of growth. We can use Jean Gebser's developmental terms for the different levels: archaic, magic, mythic, mental-rational, pluralistic and integral. Like individuals and cultures, spiritual understanding evolves through those stages ... and at each of these stages, there are expressions of the three faces of God, of Spirit in first, second and third person. But in the West, the second-person view of Spirit developed from archaic to magic to mythic - with mythic being represented essentially by the Old and New Testaments - and there it got stuck. So for most people in the West today, Spirit in second person has become stunted and identified merely with God the Father, the old man with a white beard in the sky giving these dogmatic mythic commands.

We drastically missed the chance to have our larger cultural backgrounds of religion and education give us a head start on ego-transcendence. Even with the influx of Eastern traditions, people were attracted to third-person and first-person expressions of Spirit. They didn't go for second person because they didn't want to fundamentally submit. And they didn't know how; they didn't have role models for it.

Cohen: Yes. What it actually means to embrace the second face of God in a post-postmodern context is new territory... I've noticed that often people can begin to embrace some kind of feeling connection with whatever their own experience of God as Other is, but they still do it from the safe vantage point of the ego. Or, they may turn to ancient practices that are not necessarily appropriate for our time and culture. Individuals at the postmodern stage may feel okay taking up traditional practices, but that may not be the most authentic way to embrace a second-person relationship with Spirit at their own stage of development.

Wilber: You're right; we've spotted the problem but that is far, far removed from solving it. Even individuals who've realized they need to practice Spirit in second person too often go back to the only practices that are available, which unfortunately don't work.

Cohen: Because the practices are from an earlier stage of development, they feel inauthentic.

Wilber: Yes; they're reinforcing inauthentic modes that are pre-egoic rather than trans-egoic. Guru yoga, done correctly, is one way a student faces God as Other. The guru is apparently other - his or her consciousness is other than mine. Therefore, I need to submit to that guru, but I need to do it in very specific and careful ways. In authentic guru yoga, there is a very profound way of getting deeply in touch with the root of awareness and finding that it is One, that "my master is myself", and that is a fundamental way to transcend ego. When I realize a fundamental identity with the master, I am liberated from the master in a certain sense. But that's very different from how people imagine it.

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Next time the Conclusion: Embracing Hierarchy.

Andrew Cohen: "I've thought a lot about what it means for the postmodern self to embrace the second face of God without having to accept some outmoded traditional structure or mythic belief. And I think it boils down to something simple yet profound. It means embracing the recognition that the structure of the entire cosmos, all the way from its deepest interior to its furthermost exterior, is hierarchical. Hierarchy is actually its fundamental nature at all levels, including consciousness."
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Previous posts in this series:
The Second Face of God - Part 1
The Second Face of God - Part 2
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