Consider what our reality is based on. Hint: It is not the tangible temporal world we see and touch every day, the energy and matter around us, the stuff of Newtonian, Relativity, and Quantum physics. Ponder how many Big Bangs are encapsulated in eternity. Here is a rhetorical question, as the answer is patently obvious: Can our human senses detect (even with instrumentation) and our brains process the physical and psychological reality we can already observe? The answer (spoiler alert!): No, and by a number of light years so large that scientific notation can’t contain it. It could be argued that the unknown-to-us part of our Johari window is of infinite dimensions. And, as Enlightenment thinkers are quick to point out (quite properly in that context), in the realm of physics there is no life after your temporal existence; once you’re dead, whatever was “you” is gone forever. This sketches out what I think is an accurate perspective of our grasp on the world of physics, which I will argue below does not contain (much less undergird) the whole of reality.
Now consider the social and personal aspects of our existence. To survive physically, we require the first two tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; those are the physiological and safety needs. Without these the rest is moot, if we assume all is based on the physical underpinnings assumed in the context of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, perspectives. Physical subsistence is integral to our temporal human existence, but most people would also agree that subsistence alone does not constitute living; that’s just existing, and is considered pathological as in clinical depression. So here’s another rhetorical question: Are we done with (mission accomplished) providing for our lives when we’ve achieved a firm level of subsistence? The obvious answer: No, and those who claim they are do so in the context that their life fulfillment is drawn from sources beyond just their physical subsistence (e.g. St. Francis and his vow of poverty). We humans like our independence, but we are also by nature communal animals, which makes us each other’s helper to varying degrees. This interplay between our (sometimes competing) instincts for both independence and communal belonging has real world policy implications for all areas of society. Can we (humanity) sort through this complexity of societal factors? I think it’s fair to say that humanity as a whole has not achieved any consistent holistic resolution to the independence vs. communal dilemma that is satisfactory, much less fulfilling, for all. Add to this challenge that some are adding more tiers of human state-of-being accomplishments to Maslow’s hierarchy beyond self-actualization. Very few accomplish that level; how are we going to accomplish a tier even higher?
The obvious answer is that we humans have a spiritual dimension that is ignored to our peril, and arguably to our death. One approach to this is to crack the cosmic egg (à la Joseph Chilton Pearce), which I think establishes well (external to Christianity) that we are by nature spiritual beings. But it seems to me that such a crack, through which to escape the temporal and into the spiritual realm, leaves the human escapee vulnerable to forces that we don’t understand and that are far out of our control. Viewed that way, we are damned if we do and also damned if we don’t (escape the temporal and enter into the spiritual realm).
Up to this point, our discussion has established that there is a reality beyond the physical and social world we normally inhabit. Also that it is not only desirable but also of existential necessity that we ground ourselves in that actual foundational reality, which underpins both the temporal physical world observed by Enlightenment culture as well as the spiritual components of our human lives. Where then would we turn to escape the death trap of Enlightenment thought if there are multiple hazards in (attempts at) cracking into the spiritual realm, a path fraught with religious chicanery (by so called Christians as well as others) and charlatans of every sort?
The answer is to seek the Spirit that indwelled those in that 1st century community first called Christians at Antioch. This seeking must be a purely individual quest (as distinguished from effort, which negates Grace), and at the same time that seeking is done within the support of that community that abides in the Spirit. To accomplish this, we must cultivate our spiritual sensitivities, through deliberately being open to the Spirit that undergirds our very existence. Any difficulty in doing this arises from inside those persons wanting the Spirit to abide in them. If “effort” is not an option, then how does one mutually abide in the Spirit?