Spirituality and Democracy Plus One

Two Levels of Polarization

The chaos many of us are experiencing due to the new administration puts focusing on higher spiritual needs out of reach.

May you catch your breath, reach into your sublime inner strength, and see that we can rebuild our inner world without having to wait for circumstances to change.

In due time, we will turn ourselves around and attend to spiritual needs in order to attend to physical ones.

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Review

As discussed in Spirituality and Democracy, the first hurdle we are overcoming is knowing each other according to our physical appearances, gradually succeeding in knowing each other spiritually. In part, this is knowing each other according to character but more so according to our shared essence of being.

In developing our collective vision of democracy, we are also overcoming the second hurdle by recognizing our singularity in spiritual terms. We are light, more specifically names of light, in a unity held together by the common intelligence of the light of Word in each of us.

The Practical Guide, introduced in the previous article and included again below, explains how to keep spiritual unity in democracy by blessing those of us who have lost sight of it. Losing sight of it creates a polarization in our mind between democratic and autocratic thinking, the illusory battle between light and darkness, illusory because there is no darkness in Name. Ultimately, every mind engaged in the illusion is drawn into the world polarization between democracy and autocracy, where different values only appear to be the real problem.

Two Levels of Polarization

Polarization between democracy and autocracy is difficult and almost unresolvable. Commonalities exist between them but neither side is willing to give up their view of the world, and yet, this is not the most difficult polarization. Even with many commonalities and similar values among the diverse groups on the democratic side, it is we who pose the most difficulties. We are simply unable to sustain clear awareness of the singularity in and between our democracies.

The only thing that brings us together every generation or so is the threat from the autocratic side. Then when the threat is gone, we go back to our group focus and often simply tolerate each other without recourse to anything greater. Kept under economic constraints and various types of addiction, we fail to create a unity that stays strong perpetually to abate polarization amongst ourselves or against us from autocracy.

Some of you may even see me or yourselves outside the unity, demonstrating the point. We use a form of equality to see each other in a tolerable-type unity. Those we do not see or are not willing to see as equal to us or others are excluded in our minds from any unity of singularity.

The key is to make all others more important than ourselves without being against ourselves, the principle of conscience (suneidesis).¹ As practiced in The Practical Guide, it does not make anyone more important in essence. It is an attitude of humility, a method of spirituality, which is not against our nature, only against our present way of thinking blindly. A process quite natural to learn, it reflects our co-conscientiousness, our suneidesis, expounded on according to seven rules of thinking democracies.

The Pearl Moon

The moon is like a pearl orbiting around all nations, symbolically with a force capable of uniting or polarizing our view of the world, democratically or autocratically. It is the “Plus One” in the title. The pearl has the spiritual gravitational force of unlimited agapé (unconditional love), uniting us in political parties around the world. But under limited agapé, it polarizes us in our many groups and, between us, in the two worldviews.

The Practical Guide

Four Basic Rules

1. Visually respect all others in your heart by making the light of their identity (without gender, ethnicity or age) more important than your own in the light of Name. With the goodness of the light of Word, see their light through yours without blocking either so that you can give Name all your agapé through them.

2. While visually respecting everyone like this, reject any illusion in anyone who does not know who they are in the light of Name or its singularity—seeing through their illusion with every thought and feeling in the light of Word.

3. While visually respecting everyone and rejecting all illusion, see the inner act of disrespecting others as the loss of spiritual will. Assuming it is willful when we cannot know only tempts us to judge others or ourselves.

4. While visually respecting everyone and rejecting all illusion, see the act of carrying out such actions physically as the loss of physical will. Since we cannot know on the spiritual level, we cannot assume we know on the physical level. Either way, distinguish between the good, bad and ugly and bear with the bad but resist the ugly—while still loving those who commit them in regards to who they are in the light of Name and its singularity, not who they blindly think they are in their physical attributes.

Three Refined Rules

1. Visually worship Name by loving the aspect of its light that perpetually cleanses (yirah) the eyes of our heart. But at the same time, it blinds them with fear when we do not do our part, through our oneness in the light of Word, to fully restore our spiritual and physical wills and respect all others on both levels. Seeing the cleansing aspect of the light both ways at the same time helps us realize that nothing originates in totality from us in our position in Name’s light. We partake of the essences in the light of Name through the light of Word and, through our own usage of them, are entirely fulfilled or unfulfilled by our own choices, individually and collectively.

2. Visually worship Name by loving the aspects of its light that cleanse our eyes and endow us with a healthy anger, one directed toward those of us who do not respect all others. At the same time though, they are misusing Name’s aspect of anger in themselves so as to disrespect others, trying to make anyone who they can fear through misuse of the cleansing aspect in Name’s light. Seeing these aspects both ways at the same time frees us from thinking that we can see anyone independent of the light of Name. We are entirely fulfilled or unfulfilled in it by our individual and collective choices.

3. Visually worship Name by loving these two aspects together with the purity of desire for Name and its memory in us. It fills the eyes of our heart with the past and present goodness of Name in the light of Word and reveals it in the disrespectful as well. They misuse even this in themselves to foolishly strengthen what binds them, binding themselves tighter in Name’s anger. They do so to hopefully see fear in those they disrespect, making their binding complete in these three aspects of the light of Name. Recognize them, without anything of their own, like the rest of us, but blindly wrestling with the light of Name in themselves and between each other, despite the outer appearance that they are in control of themselves. Witnessing it empowers us to see through their illusion and bless them for who they really are in the light of Word. This keeps us aware of the singularity of our democracy and its full blessing in the light of Word—while resisting the ugly things they commit without judging them in the light of Name. For we are not against ourselves.

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Illusory Boundaries

Blessing others for who they are is foremost blessing them as names in the unlimited agapé light of Name, each of us agapé names. The source level of this agapé is found between Name and Word, who never block out the other’s light to see themselves first, called the exquisite light. But we, by not knowing who we are, block out the fullness of our unlimited agapé and others’—in our awareness—and believe that we exist in a limited form. Those of us with similar blindness seek each other out, creating the boundaries of our illusory house, where limited agapé appears to grow and fill us to our true capacity. Contrary to a house of knowledge structured on the principle, it is a dwelling where we unknowingly wrestle Name and Word perpetually.

We exist in the full unlimited agapé light of Name in Word, and when ready, we always do our part to restore everyone’s awareness of Word’s pearl orbiting all nations. With Word’s knowledge, we do leave the illusory boundaries that hide our positions in the singularity of democracy. And by loving the enemies of suneidesis,² we give up our last hiding place, for that is what Name does in us as its agapé names of light.

Suggested Articles:

Spirituality and Democracy

The Eyes of Democracy (Introduction and Index of Articles)

1. Suneidesis is pronounced soon-eye-day-sis. After reading the link explaining it, you will see how central it is to this teaching. Using this foreign word regularly in discussions helps us get accustomed to experiencing something new and positive in our awareness. When the word conscience is used, it will refer to the aspect of suneidesis that involves right and wrong, but this aspect cannot be separated from our co-conscientious awareness of all things.

If I understand that my awareness of something as simple as a cup includes co-conscientiousness, I do not allow myself to get blinded by the cup alone but know it as part of all creation at the hands of the Creator or the universe, depending on one’s beliefs. Spiritual maturity does this naturally.

2. The repetition of suneidesis in these articles is meant to challenge you to consider this dimension in your awareness. Apologies, but it will only be a necessary annoyance until it becomes natural.