This article is listed as Argument 1 in the Index of Articles of this series.
We are going to start this journey in search of knowledge to build our house of knowledge by touching on a few things that need to be put out in front. There should be no misunderstanding that what we are pursuing with our conscience (suneidesis)1 is agapé in democracy, unconditional love, spiritual love, which does not make us vulnerable — because we are never against ourselves at the same time.
Democratic Agapé and Tolerance
Democracy does not thrive when its diverse groups merely tolerate one another, for such fragile relationships can be easily manipulated. Turning away from such distant attitudes, from offensively trying to convert others to ignoring their existence altogether, would it not be uplifting to experience a deep democratic agapé for each other? It would not require an external enemy, like the Nazis, which molded Americans last century into a democratic agapé for years to follow. And yet, now it is time to learn how to see followers of Nazism differently while still rejecting their beliefs.
We are not likely to encounter any external threat uniting Democrats, Independents and Republicans, for global politics now works within and across nations in a far more destructive way. Political parties in aligned nations favoring autocracy often bring their national policies of favoring each other to the point of — we win or we all go down.
Underlying political and other national groups though are belief systems, religious and nonreligious. But they comply with the politics of tolerance also when they do not practice agapé in their suneidesis. Thus, as we see so often, they too are easily manipulated against each other.
Most followers of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and atheism only tolerate each other, especially under western religious beliefs that consider all beliefs outside their own as false. But learning how to love the enemies of suneidesis non-religiously or religiously can change all that. We could have a deep love for one another through the democracy of our world awareness (suneidesis). It would underlie a deep democratic love for one another within our national suneidesis, regardless of our nation’s form of governance in the world. Thoughtless dismissal of this indicates a willingness to tolerate blindness and its hatred.
In the face of such dismissal, we blindly wonder why we do not learn more from the past. Simply declaring “never again” is not enough. Despite our best efforts to educate the younger generation about past catastrophic mistakes, we cannot get past the blindness we have created in our national past that disables our present understanding. This makes it impossible to “re-live” the errors of past generations in our present national suneidesis and learn from them. We have no choice but to live them each generation or so on the soil of the earth. But that cannot teach us what we need to learn. With deep knowledge of agapé in our national awareness though, all lessons can be re-lived in our world awareness and learned.
The key lesson now is to know that tolerance results in hatred when our perception of those we tolerate is manipulated to get us to hate them. Unconditional agapé cannot be manipulated since it does not depend on any conditions, particularly those used to get us to hate those we have tolerated. Tolerance is the soil that nurtures hatred.
With and Without Belief in Jesus
Jesus said that if we do not believe in him, we should at least believe in his works. And underlying all of his works is his teaching on love for all, particularly our enemies. In democracy, it can be referred to as love for the enemies of our national suneidesis, the principle. Therefore, learning or practicing the principle does not require religious belief or faith. It is a choice requiring knowledge to follow, which may or may not be part of our religion if we follow one. In any case, it is completely in line with Jesus’s teaching on the matter, who himself introduced democracy through the principle.
Usage of the words Name and Word
To respect everyone’s beliefs, I use the word Name to refer to God, Life, or any other belief one may hold concerning a source higher power. Knowledge that I attribute to coming directly from Name, I call Word, meaning the Word of God, the Word of Life, or the Word of any other belief one may hold. This also enables me to keep my personal beliefs unknown and, thus, from becoming a distraction to this knowledge. If you just clicked a link to get to this paragraph, please read the previous one about Jesus.
The Name is used in Judaism to refer to the actual name of God outside of Hebrew Scriptures, while within Scripture translations, it is replaced with “The Lord”, usually in small caps. Both are done to avoid any disrespectful use of God’s Hebrew name. Here, the word Name without the does not refer to the personal name of God or Life, while one may choose to use it that way in their own practice.
Names of Light
Since we are in the image of Name (God or Life), we too are names, more precisely names of light since Name is light. Knowledge of Word states that “you have a few names in Sardius who have not soiled their garments.” (Revelation 3:4) Thinking of ourselves in terms of names of light can be viewed as symbolic or spiritual, depending on our beliefs.
The Word-Symbol Democracy
Our suneidesis is naturally a democracy, which is what makes democracy a word-symbol.2 Our suneidesis bears witness to what is good or bad for us collectively, sustained by thoughts that are for each other’s well-being or thoughts that tear us apart. As knowledge of Word stated about others — their suneidesis bearing witness and the thoughts between them accusing or else defending [the goodness of caring for others’ well-being]. The choices we make and our recognition of those made by others affecting us are like votes determining the democratic or autocratic state of our suneidesis — depending on how we respond.
So loving an enemy of our suneidesis saves our democracy. This may sound counter intuitive until we see that our suneidesis is light — when our agapé extends to its enemies, makes others more important in it without being against itself. Democracy needs the light of agapé even more than the light of justice. For the light of agapé is so strong that even hating will not blind us, as long as it is for actions that are not for everyone’s well-being and not the person. For such hatred works from the light of our suneidesis loving those who commit such actions, not for their actions themselves or their ideologies.
Without the light of agapé, we end up hating not just the actions of those against the light of justice but those who commit them, and that will blind us.
Our suneidesis is in a state of blindness when we make ourselves or our groups more important in it, being against anyone who challenges us, the seeds of hatred. When our suneidesis is in the state of light, even if others’ challenges prove to be personal attacks, the light of our suneidesis is not against them personally. On the other hand, without the light of agapé, we are often simply in a state of complacency, thinking it is alright not to love outsiders, as long as we do not hate them.
And yet, sometimes loving enemies of agapé in our suneidesis is all we can do when their hatred makes it unwise to express agapé for them in the world. At the same time though, expressing anger in the world ourselves, anger that works from agapé for everyone’s well-being, when necessary, is wise. For such anger possesses the self-control to do no harm or, as though it were our own brother or mother, as a very last resort.
Those we must love this way in our suneidesis often do not know that we see them as more than just fellow citizens. We see them as part of the democracy of our suneidesis, albeit a part for blind members, all working in a singularity. So when they sense that we care about their well-being, as physically blind people sense, in time, it comes against the blindness in their suneidesis telling them that we are blind and not them, as though their tolerance or hatred had eyes.
Singularity through Permeation
Referring to us, Word said, “…that they may all be one [in a singularity]; even as You, Father (Name), [are] in me (Word), and I [am] in You, that they also may be in us [through our singularity in Word].” (John 17:21) Only as names of light can we be in each other at the same time through Word’s permeation. In knowledge of Word, we are warned not to be deceived and led astray from “the singularity and purity [of agapé] that are in Christ (Word).” (2 Corinthians 11:3)
Word’s singularity is a profound part of the democratic life in our suneidesis, discussed over several articles. Keep in mind that everyone’s position in it first works from a limited number of names of light joined together, before our full participation in it is revealed to us. So while Word’s singularity is always inseparable, we participate consciously in only a small part of it a good deal of the time, staying unaware of our participation in the remaining part until we learn how the principle works in it.
When working consciously in the fullness, we also stay aware of the small part from which we entered, all in the service of loving the enemies of agapé in our suneidesis of Word’s singularity. At this point, it is more appropriate to call enemies the least among us, members of our family who reject agapé, lesser for no other reason.
The Principle of Suneidesis (Conscience)
We are all capable of deceiving ourselves, being incapable of knowing that we are spiritually blind. But we can quickly come out of it by honestly examining ourselves with the only absolute standard of suneidesis—to make all others more important without being against ourselves, the principle of suneidesis. (See the next section for the full form.) Without it, we keep deceiving ourselves by telling each other in our groups how much we love each other and hate or at least do not love others, the antithesis of mature democracy. If we see, we do not judge others for this. We recognize blindness with compassion even when it is used against us, for the power of agapé and knowledge is far greater in our suneidesis.
Saving the democracy of our country requires that we use the principle to build the house of knowledge in our suneidesis — to save democracy there first in its singularity.
Giving All Our Agapé To Name, The Givance
We can all appreciate living a full life, or put another way, loving life with all we have got. Giving Life or God all of our agapé is perhaps the best way to put it. The question is how?
After teaching that we should give all our agapé to Name, Word added that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, saying that this “second [instruction] is like it [like loving Name].” For if we take the words all our agapé literally, there is none left for our neighbor, leaving the correct interpretation of loving our neighbor as ourselves to be loving our neighbor as though they were ourselves, and that is like loving Name.
In other words, instead of giving all our agapé to Name directly from ourselves, we should work through each other as ourselves to give all our agapé to Name. After all, as names of light, we permeate each other and Name, so we naturally permeate each other to love Name.
To do our part, however, we must make each other more important so that we do not eclipse others with our own light. This has the sense of working through each other as ourselves. We do this as individual agapé names and, at the same time, as collective agapé names of light in our singularity, nation-names like Frenchman or Frenchwoman, Australian, Chinese person and Columbian.
In the process, we also love one another as we give Name all our agapé through each other by way of the agapé of Word. This includes the agapé light of democracy in our world suneidesis, the full form of the principle of suneidesis, called The Givance.
When believing, however, that we are giving all our agapé to someone as an entirely independent name, for example, a parent, spouse or child, we are unaware that we are actually giving the light of that agapé to Name through them. For the reflective light of agapé starts and ends with the singularity of Name in Word. As abstruse as this may seem, we can see its value especially when giving all our agapé to Name through blind members of the light of our democracy, the least among us. But as we will see, blindness ultimately is the only enemy of suneidesis.
Loving the Enemies of Suneidesis
Does not Word teach us how to love the enemies of our suneidesis, blind individuals and members of our national and world democracy, by telling us that loving a neighbor, any neighbor, is like loving Name? It is loving Life in every member of Life — regardless of whether they are blind to it in themselves or others in their nation — without being against ourselves.
We can measure the height and weight of a person and know their age, gender, language and ethnicity, but the democracy of our suneidesis sees none of these appearances. Under the principle, democracy sees only names, all of whom are capable of being conscientious of one another, who are part of a singularity that has no past or future but encompasses both in Word.
In the light of Name, Word’s democracy knows each of us in its singularity by our agapé names and level of awareness of the seeing and blind in our world suneidesis.
The topic of loving the least among us runs through most articles in this series, but keep this in mind: seeing them as Word sees them is how we can love them unconditionally; to do this, we must learn how to envision Word as he is and thus how he sees and loves them, as Name does, without their blindness, but in our pristine form as names of Name. They are irresistibly loveable as they give Name all their agapé through us in the supersession.
For some, spirituality is a system of metaphors symbolizing things possible beyond our senses. For others, spirituality is the gateway into things beyond. Either way, if we can agree that unconditional love gives us the eyes to see each other beyond our differences, we should develop it and together learn how to wisely resist the surface appearances destroying our world.
Suggested Articles:
The Eyes of Democracy (Introduction and Index of Articles)
Suneidesis, pronounced soo-NAY-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.
Consider the spiritual reasoning behind what words are.
a. Words are labels for the things we can experience with our senses but are symbols for the things we cannot experience this way.
b. When word-symbols are true, they transform into living words in our mind.
c. For example, the word-symbol “love” is true when it is unconditional, for love waiting for conditions stops being love. Thus, the word-symbol love or agapé transforms into living agapé in us, an experience not a label for an experience.
d. We can know this because we are living and know when somethings else is living or not. This is how we know that agapé is real.
e. When word-symbols are not true, they not only do not transform in us but build an imaginary world of words in our minds, where agapé is not real. So since democracy is about people who care for each other enough to keep their democracy, an essential level of unconditional love, agapé, democracy without agapé is an imaginary world in our minds.
The word democracy is a symbol because we cannot experience it with our senses. It is not buildings or even people themselves. Democracy is a symbol in our suneidesis that joins us together. Those of us working against that unity are living in an imaginary world of democracy.
Love this George
I saw “democratic agape” and knew this would be good. Your point of view is fascinating, George. Look forward to seeing more of your work. :)