Karl Jaspers, the great German thinker, was the first one to coin the term Axial Age to describe the time period from 800BC to 200BC when the birth of the major world religions happened in various parts of the world nearly “simultaneously.” To understand how and why this happened is incredibly interesting. But something beyond the birth of religion as we know it happened then as well. And it is that I want us to think about. We experienced a marked shift from what Jasper’s calls pre-axial consciousness.
The world “pre-axial” was a world where union with creation was obvious, expected and enjoyed. The transition into the Axial Age brought about a dis-integration, a decoupling, a dis-connecting of humanity and the self from God as God had been known up till that time. (Interesting note: religion is from the Latin re-ligare, to re-ligature, re-bind, re-connect, it is unfortunate that the word religion has fallen on such hard times and is presumed to be about rules when in reality it is about relationship)
I said my two words of investigation this year were going to be quantum and integral. I sense we are living in a time where people are longing for integration, or what might be simply called deeper reconnection of all of the parts of life.
I would never suggest we should go back to the pre-axial age as if that was a better time. But I might suggest we want to move to a post-axial time or a neo-axial time where a new re-ligatur-ing can happen.
Religion as we know it in most of it’s 21st century contexts, is divisive, disconnecting, paranoid about connecting to creation, power hungry, judgmental, and sectarian. It is not what the word says it is supposed to be, re-ligion – re-connecting all that is to all that God is.
And I can hear my mac mail chime of mail coming into my inbox saying “but this is why Christianity is so different Ron, it is all about love and relationship not rules and religion.” But we need to cut to the honest chase. Christianity in most of its instances in the 21st century is sectarian, exclusive, doctrinal, dogmatic, and not really doing much in the area of integrating all of life.
Jesus came and took on the religious leaders of the day. The ones that were to be the re-connectors and includers were sectarian excluders and judgers. Jesus came to question, undercut and quite honestly abolish such masquerading re-ligion. Instead Jesus came to bring integration; integration of self with other, integration of the world of seeds and weeds and dirt and trees. Integration of self with self. Integration of self with God. Might this be the “perissos zoe” Jesus said he came to bring? Overabundant, incredibly provisioned life?
What does an integral life look like? What is a ‘re-ligious’ person? What is a post-axial integrated life like?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Intriguing spin on the word religion… It is unfortunate that the word religion has become disassociated with a braided life. I suppose our culture’s rampant individualism has something to do with the shift toward a personal God vs. a communal God. I wonder if our view of God (in Trinitarian form) has to change before we can change our view of ourselves and the purpose of our religion/reconnection.
Maybe God is a “Wii” before a “He”…
I think an integral life would imply a balance between dualistic and monistic visions of the world. The church (and the West as a whole) has glorified the art of distinction and classification to a point where dualism reigns supreme and we cannot help but be sectarian. We are also more disconnected from the cosmos than we were at the time of the Axial break due to our unrelenting focus on obtaining golden tickets for the afterlife. I think the Eastern religions have an advantage here with the ‘nirvana is samsara’ idea since for them life is all of a piece.
We cannot return to the naive Edenic unity of pre-Axial times but we should get try to a place where we can perceive the whole as well as its parts. The key is that this process will be driven by experiential knowledge as opposed to analogical knowledge. The dialectic of the medieval quaestio has been found wanting but the light of communion and participation awaits for those who are willing to see it. Hopefully this will make us a more grounded people as well.
{ 1 trackback }