Saturday, January 2, 2010

Esoteric and exoteric philosophy

All people have a philosophy of life, not just philosophers. Many people have, in fact, two, one exoteric, public, and one secret, esoteric.

The secret philosophy of life, the hidden agenda, is often not as becoming as the official one.

It is our secret philosophy of life that directs our actions. When we make up our mind and decide if we shall stay or if we shall go, if we shall accept an offer or if we shall say no, these decisions come from our esoteric philosophy of life.

Our secret philosophy of life is secret also to ourselves, it is unconscious, we don’t think of it, we are not aware of it. It is like learning how to drive a car. In the beginning, we have to put all our attention into the driving, after a year or so the driving has become automatic. We don’t have to think of it. We can put our conscious mind on other things while the unconscious mind does the driving for us.

However, we have to change when things around us change. For example, if you move to England you have to get used to left-hand traffic. You will then have to put a lot of attention to the driving again and this is tiring. It will take some time before the driving becomes automatic again.

Neither our exoteric nor our esoteric philosophy of life is our own. We have picked them up from people around us, from our family and friends, from books and TV and parts of them have probably a genetic origin. We are conditioned, socially and biologically.

Chimpanzees have only one philosophy of life. They are not at all like humans though we share 98, 5 % of their genes.

Bonobos, or the Pygmy chimpanzees, are not like chimpanzees. Bonobos have so much sex with all the members in the flock that a father will never know which of his offspring is his. They live in matriarchal communities; chimpanzees live in patriarchal communities and a chimpanzee boss has to put a lot of energy into guarding his wives from having sex with others than him.

I have changed my mind again. It is not possible to live, I think now, without a philosophy of life. We are wired for explanations, mind constructions and beliefs. This is one of the important differences between human beings and other animals. We can’t stop the thinking, birds can't keep from singing and fish can’t stop swimming.

All the religions have proved to be disastrous. They have not just caused endless miseries because of superstition, but what is more important; they have created a `them and us´ way of looking at life which has resulted in war and violence. All the political ideologies have also proved to be disastrous. What can we do? Can't we simply drop the religions, the ideologies and the philosophies of life? I think now that this is not possible.

I think now that we have to create a new religion or a new philosophy of life and a new ideology that is adjusted to this time. Christianity is two thousand years old, Islam is a religion from the Middle Ages, Communism, Nazism and liberalism is from the ninetieth and the twentieth century. They are all passé.

I used to think that what we have to do is getting rid of all the religions, philosophies and ideologies, that we must free ourselves from conceptual thinking, social and biological conditioning, without creating a new belief system to replace the old world idiocies with. Now I understand that this is not possible. We have to create a new religion. Human beings are not able to live without beliefs, values and ideas.

What is the point with creating a new religion or a new philosophy of life? The old religions and ideologies are still here, aren’t they, thousands of different versions of Christianity, thousands of different versions of Hinduism, thousands of different versions of Islam? And, as if this is not enough aren’t there already thousands and thousands of new gurus and teachers to be found on the internet? There must be someone or something for you out there. What's wrong with Eckhart? What's your problem? Do you want to become a guru yourself? What's wrong with you?

You’re trying to put out a fire with gasoline, aren't you? What makes you think that you can create a new religion, without creating more madness?

Because I have to. And so do you. We all create new religions, beliefs, interpretations and philosophies of life because we are made to do it. We are all gurus, high priests and preachers. We’re not at all like the apes.

1 comment:

:Doreen said...

There is a completely different possibility, than what is created through "thinking"... through conceptual mind. There is intuition. Following one's intuiton is a completely different way to experience Life. Life live You... not the other way around.
This is the way of Liberation.