Establishing the Principle of the Democratic Suneidesis

By exposing the different types of appearances in the world

Updated from its original posting on Nov 10, 2024, this article is listed as Argument 2 in the Index of Articles of this series.

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Next in our search for knowledge, the kind that builds into itself with our light in Word, we are going to examine the nature of spiritual blindness. It is not the absence of light as is physical blindness. It is the misuse of physical appearances themselves through false beliefs about them. But blindness to what? To picture something described to them, people born physically blind would have to have visualization skills that do not require visual memory. If we are spiritually blind, we do not have any spiritual visualization skills, so no matter how something spiritual is described in physical terms, we cannot visualize it spiritually.

Obviously, we are using physical language here, so in order for me to describe something spiritual with it, I would have to use symbols to represent it, since the spiritual and physical have completely different dimensional forms. Only with symbols could you then use your spiritual visualization skills to picture it.

We do not need a physical eye surgeon if we are spiritually blind, we need a house of knowledge that gives us the skills to envision with the light of agapé, unconditional love.

For agapé is the only light that is spiritual, that is alive, which is why blindness to it in ourselves is so spiritually life threatening. You will never regret being accountable to the light of agapé in yourself. It frees us from the dangers of tolerance with democratic agapé.

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What Not to Resist

With direct knowledge of Name, Word warns us, do not resist evil…[lest] your eye is evil…lest the light that is in you is darkness. Spiritually speaking, an eye that is evil refers to the inability to see the light of Word’s agapé in everyone. Thus, an evil eye is blindness that, rather than seeing Word’s agapé always present in everyone, instead thinks it “sees its absence”, hatred, projected from its own blindness.

When blind though, we can choose to but cannot learn how to envision Word’s agapé light, the light that is darkness in us, until we first stop resisting our blindness to it. Once we know how to stop resisting blindness in our perception, we can start understanding how it works.

Since the word evil is commonly used without this understanding, we will begin our nonresistance by avoiding its usage, for it draws us into resistance, at least until we understand it as the word-symbol evil. Instead, we will use the word blindness with this understanding. At the same time, we will begin practicing unconditional love by looking past others’ blindness and loving them without being against ourselves. By giving Name all our agapé through them, the full principle, we are bringing ourselves and others out of darkness without politically conquering anyone as democracy without agapé seeks.

Blindness is the Real Enemy

Spiritual blindness is not the inability to see light. It is the inability to see beyond the surface of light, the appearance of things. It is the inability to permeate the surface with Word’s agapé light and together experience conscientious awareness of all things. The principle is essential for this collectively in good democracy, for it makes all others’ appearances more important in our conscience (suneidesis)¹—which enables us to see through them and prevent them from dividing us.

Consider how minorities often hold on to their surface appearances for identity in suffering. If they cannot permeate it and work from Word’s agapé light, then the rest of us, minority members or not, must be able to—in order to bring Word’s singularity of democracy to light in our national suneidesis.

Now as we can see, nations around the world have only recently begun to achieve this state of suneidesis,² starting with the U.S. just a few centuries ago. Today, with some 120 democracies out of 192 nations in the world, we are still only beginning to achieve the principle on the national level. We are mostly faced with democracy’s challenge to itself—to develop beyond the fundamentals of conscientious government and achieve the maturity produced when giving Name all our agapé through each other and our groups, especially blind members.

Giving Name (Life or God) all our agapé through each other as a means of running democracy may sound unrealistic to you, but consider that when you lift a veil, you do not get to choose what is behind it. In this case, it is the wonders of all life in the form of unconditional love, our real social nature. It cannot be made conditional and not work as a veil.

The Three Types of Surface Appearances: Physicality, Morals and Beliefs

Establishing the principle in our democratic suneidesis requires knowledge of appearances to see through all of them. We have heard astronauts tell us how beautiful the earth is when personally viewed from space—but how devastating it is to remember how much suffering is present here. Consider the beauty of the inhabitants of the ocean but how the fight for survival for most of them is all they know.

Imagine them blinding themselves from their own beauty because it hurts them to think about it while fighting for survival. In part, we blind ourselves to the unconditional love within us because it hurts us to think about how the conditional love we have chosen causes us and others to suffer.

Blinding ourselves, we cannot see beyond the appearance of light reflecting off the surface differences of gender, age and ethnicity. Cut off from the conscientious beauty that such differences bring to the earth’s landscape, we use them to designate appearance borders.

We may get beyond that type of outer surface appearance only to face the surface created in the appearances we form in our minds. First, there are the ones based on others’ moral standards. Working from these superficial surfaces, we reason that followers of different moral standards are simply unworthy to be made more important in our suneidesis, for that would set up the appearances we have formed of them and their moral standards in us. Permeating them with Word’s agapé light though or using it to not form them at all, we do not allow such differences to divide us or reduce our agapé for them to mere tolerance.

And if we get beyond this inner surface appearance, we are faced with the inner surface we create in appearances based on beliefs. This is a surface we form behind the surface we form of their moral standards. Consider all three types of surface appearances in these passages from the knowledge of Word.

An Example of Surface Appearances Being Misused

In knowledge of Word, young believers are called “men of flesh” when not ready for spiritual things, “people of flesh” in general including nonbelievers. It should not be taken derogatorily unless we refuse to mature in the democracy of our suneidesis. In the account of a woman who loved much spiritually, the man who invited Jesus to his house watched her wetting Jesus’s feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, kissing them, and anointing them with perfume. The man thought to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching him, that she is a sinner. Unless the man knew he was using appearances to judge her and wanted to stop but did not know how, he was not ready for spiritual things.

Using knowledge of Word, Paul literally said to one church, “Your temptation [was] in my flesh. You did not despise me nor reject me contemptuously, but you received me as an angel [conveyance] of God [Name], as Christ Jesus [Word].”

Since as babes they were struggling with temptation and Paul was teaching them how to be set free from it, it would have been quite understandable had they despised and rejected Paul as a hypocrite for having their temptation rise up in his body. But they did the exact opposite in receiving him with such high regard. Why?

Paul demonstrated how Word enabled him to bear in his body, without being tempted, the appearances that tempted others in their bodies. But crucial to their experience, he also explained to them, by implication not recorded, that it was Word who opened their eyes to understand this; for otherwise, seeing the temptation in his body, indeed, it must have looked like he was being overcome. Paul said, “Being free from all [things], I myself become a servant to all that I may gain the more [for Word to free also].”

In the former passage, had he been there, Paul would have also bore the temptation of the woman in his flesh and would have not been tempted. With Word’s agapé light, he would have seen through such appearances—gender, age, moral standards, and beliefs. And like Jesus, he would not have judged her or the man who did, but instead would have taught her spiritual things since it is obvious she wanted to be free but did not have the knowledge.

On the other hand, people of flesh are often offended by what they consider the sins of others, including hypocrisy, and believe they must defend the goodness of Name. But until we are ready for spiritual things, we are more offended by temptation having control over us and using us to tempt others, whether we are aware of being used or not. This is conditional love at work, making us hide from Word’s agapé light within us until we are ready for unconditional love.

When beginning to see with the principle, we see where we and others in our democracy have blinded ourselves outwardly and inwardly with these surfaces. We also see that those who choose to continue to live behind appearances subject themselves to their three types of duration.

The Three Types of Duration in Appearances: Lifetime, Generational and Ancestral

With the principle, we can start looking across the duration of our own lifetime and acknowledge blindness where it has existed in surface appearances—why we made friends with one person and not another, starting in our childhood. With this knowledge of Word applied personally, we can stop resisting blindness and permeate it.

We can consider what an enemy of our suneidesis has suffered in their lifetime—the appearances that made them blind by having chosen conditional love or having come under group pressure, no different than us. Then, we need to look across generational duration to consider what has been passed down to make us all blind in surface appearances, veiling Word’s agapé light in us across the generations.

Lastly, we need to consider ancestral duration. Take the worst case scenario, the appearance hatred between Israel and Palestine. In the teaching of Biblical history, it began around 4,000 years ago with Israel taking possession of the land of the Philistines. Every generation since then on both sides has passed down their learned perception of past appearances, taught through blindness of the principle in present appearances. Today, their actions are witnessed by every nation through media. It puts the appearances of their actions at the forefront of humanity’s blind world suneidesis.

Viewing such images works against our individual and collective conscientiousness, unless we can permeate their surface appearances and give Name all our agapé through each of them—by envisioning Word correctly in and between both of them.

The less we resist the blinding appearances that hold the ancestral hatred between Israel and Palestine, the more we restore our world suneidesis to help. They are suffering from blindness on the three types of surfaces, working across the three types of duration of blindness. We can tolerate or hate one or both sides, or we can lift the veil that is over ourselves with the full principle. Working from our house of knowledge, we will abound in unconditional love for them both and every other nation.

Suggested articles:

The Eyes of Democracy (Introduction and Index of Articles)

1. Suneidesis, pronounced soon-eye-day-sis, is a Greek word that joins our natural awareness with our sense of conscience. Click on the link for a detailed explanation. It is central to this teaching. Using this foreign word regularly in discussions helps us get accustomed to experiencing something new and positive working in our awareness itself. 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 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.