Ego Unbound

THE NEED FOR A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS

                               Transcending the Axial dilemmas

Enduring socio-political cooperation between branches of the new consciousness is possible as the history of the co-existence of Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism and Christianity in China demonstrates. Following the armed invasion of China by the mechanically superior entrepreneurial Western capitalists the communist Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of all values other than modern egalitarian social darwinism, leaving a cultural vacuum. This was filled by the meaningless culture of politically-enforced but environmentally-destructive consumerism which greatly damaged this traditional synthesis.

The intolerant and highly aggressive monotheism of Bible-based Judaism and Protestant Christianity and Koran-based Islam which over-emphasises belief that self-sacrifice will be rewarded with immortality and that violent conversion or conquest can alone bring about God’s will of world domination, cannot live in harmony for long with any of the other branches of universalistic consciousness that developed during the Axial Age. Similarly the neurotic totalitarian believers in Western Scientific Materialism are convinced that they have a monopoly of the truth, and with their superior weaponry and greater efficiency in dealing with bodily health they feel obliged to mind everyone else’s business, often with massive unanticipated consequences.

The Collapse of the Greek Scientific Paradigm

Can the cognitive dissonance between immoral rationality and irrational morality be resolved? The collapse of the rational materialistic paradigm produced a hundred years ago by depth psychology, relativity theory and quantum mechanics has lessened the arrogant assumption that, given enough time, scientific materialism and rational thinking could provide a systematic explanation of the nature of man and the universe. It is time to realise that Process Cosmology together with insights from depth psychology, sociology, ethology, eco-system analysis and narrative-driven role theory has the potential to lead to end the completely irrational separation between subjective and objective realities. This is clearly demonstrated by the common confusion between such polarised abstract conceptualisations as “mind” and “brain” and between “conscious observer” and “observed phenomena”.