Men As Learners
and Elders (M.A.L.Es)
a program offered by
the Center for Action
and Contemplation
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Men As Learners
and Elders (M.A.L.Es)
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Adam's Return Copyrighted material from Chapter One - pages 1 and 2 Excerpt from Chapter 2
We do not have to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. Where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. Where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
How DO we explain the larger-than-life people we occasionally meet in every country, in most institutions, even the smallest churches, and hidden away in our neighborhoods? There always seem to be one or two people who hold the energy of a group together, strategic individuals whom the Bible would call "chosen people," men and women who move events and history forward, sometimes almost invisibly. Where do such folks come from? I have given up thinking that such people come from any one religion, any one school of thought, any 1 Page 2 Adam's Return particular race or nation, any specific socioeconomic sector, or even, indeed, that they are always perfect or moral in the conventional sense. Spiritually powerful individuals seem to cross and defy all of these boundaries. Something else seems to have happened to them, and one way to put it is that they have somehow been "initiated." Initiated into their true self, initiated into the flow of reality, initiated into the great patterns that are always true, initiated into the life of God—choose the description with which you are most comfortable. Such initiations took specific ritual forms in every age and every continent for most of human history. They were considered central to the social survival of nearly every culture — and to the spiritual survival of males in particular. Patterns of initiation are the oldest system of spiritual instruction that we know of, predating all institutional religions. They emerged rather universally in what Karl Jaspers calls Pre-Axial Consciousness, before the Axial Age (800-200 BCE) when we began to organize thought all over the world.12 There is much evidence that this Axial age has run its course and is now turning in on itself. We see it in the bad effects of rationalism, individualism, and patriarchy. I believe this is at the heart of many of our cultural and religious problems today. We now need to recapitulate the wisdom of the pre-Axial Age, together with the clarity and radiance of the Axial Age. I will be taking just such a both-and approach in this book, hopefully being fair to both ages and contributions. Jaspers would call this II Axial Consciousness. I would just call it the effects of the Spirit upon human consciousness. 2 Order Adam's Return Excerpt from Chapter 2 Return to: |
Last modified: April 13, 2008 |