This residential experiential learning event will present both the contextual underpinning of the Wisdom practice movement as well as a thorough presentation and practice of specific leadership skills for leading Wisdom practice groups. While we will begin with a suggestion of what human Wisdom development might be in this current age and how the Wisdom movement directly addresses this present human challenge, this training will then move directly into the practical demands and realities of contemplative practice and Wisdom group leadership. Not only will we catalogue some of the current expressions of Wisdom groups (e.g., chanting groups, Gospel Thomas groups, book study groups, and, of course, Wisdom Schools), but we will also present, demonstrate, and practice some of the specific group leadership skills that will be demanded in each of these groups. Besides setting forth a unique perspective of the Wisdom post-holder as group leader and delving into some of energetic realities subtly present in this work, this training will also suggest a marriage between energetic group leadership and more traditional group dynamics theory.

Because there is sequential unfolding to this training and to the acquisition of deeper understandings and skills, participants will be expected to attend the whole workshop. A follow-up component in which participants can receive support and supervision will also be made available.

This training will be led by Bill Redfield, Lois Barton, and Deborah Welsh.

The Rev. William C. Redfield is an ordained Episcopal priest and a licensed clinical social worker. Although he was ordained in 1976, he spent the first half of his professional career as a group, family, and individual therapist in Maine. Later Bill served Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville for nearly twenty years. During this time he brought his passion for new forms of Wisdom spirituality and established Wisdom House as an outreach spiritual ministry in the greater community. Having retired from parish work over four years ago, Bill is now engaged in full time Wisdom work mainly in the Northeast.

Sister Lois Barton, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, holds basic and advanced certificates from the Spiritual Direction Mentoring Program of the Spiritual Renewal Center in Syracuse, NY, and a Masters Certificate in Pastoral Ministry from the Loyola Institute for Ministry Extension Program of Loyola University, New Orleans. Sister Lois is an experienced teacher, spiritual director, and group leader. Along with Bill, Lois has a long-established practice of Centering Prayer and also has been an active student of Cynthia Bourgeault for the past eleven years. She is the program director of The Sophia Center in Binghamton, NY.

Deborah Welsh, Ed.D., a Wisdom Leader and creator of Wisdom of the Body, has worked with Bill Redfield and Lois Barton co-leading Wisdom Schools since 2010. She is a Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, Mental Health Counselor, and Board Certified Dance Movement Therapist, specializing in dance and movement as sacred. Her underpinnings are in modern and improvisational dance, the psychology of C.G. Jung, yoga, and exercise physiology.

Cost: All are welcome at Hallelujah Farm. We are grateful for your support in the amount you can afford. As a guideline, the suggested contribution for this retreat is $550, which includes a $50 deposit.

Venue: Guests receive hospitality from Sandy & Roger Daly of beautiful Hallelujah Farm. Accommodations are in shared double rooms. Single rooms may be available upon request.

Information & Registration: Contact Laura Ruth at laurampruth@gmail.com. In order to hold your place, the following deposit is requested: $50 due by April 1, 2018.

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Events Northeast Wisdom

Gurdjieffs Institute

Gurdjieff transitions from searching to teaching just after the time spent with the Sarmoung Brotherhood in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Northern Afghanistan. In 1912, Gurdjieff leaves Tashkent for Moscow where he begins to recruit candidates for the Institute.He experiments with different forms and emphases, to find the necessary cell of people and theappropriateform of expression. Much of this period is recorded in In Search of the Miraculousby Peter Ouspensky.

Gurdjieff establishes groups in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. As the Russian Revolution breaks out, he is forced back down into the Caucasuswith an inner circle of students.During this period, he forms the core of his Russian disciples: Sophia Gregiorovitch, the De Hartmans, Dr. Stjernval and the De Salzmanns.In Moscow, Gurdjieff meets Peter Ouspensky, a scholar, traveller and journalist with an established reputation in the field of esotericism. Gurdjieff naturally hopes to use Ouspenskys influence in order to expand his own, and Ouspensky, in turn, realizes that Gurdjieff is in possession of the very esoteric knowledge that he himself had been long searching for.

Social order begins to collapse in Russia. In 1917, Gurdjieff works intensively with a small group of people, in Essentuki, Tuapse, Sochi, Alexandropol, Rostov-on-the-Don, Ekterinodar, and Tiflis. Gurdjieffs experimental spirit causes difficulties for Ouspensky, who feels that, while he had formerly been able to gain much from Gurdjieff, he is now losing his grip on his teaching. The character of the future Institute is probably coming into being, as well as Ouspenskys refusal to be part of it.

In the meantime, the white armies of Denikin are beaten back. The unsympathetic Bolsheviks and the Anarchists of Stenko take possession of most of Russia. Mr. Gurdjieff decides to relocate in Constantinople. Ouspensky goes north to reconnect with the members in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Gurdjieff takes the others on an incredible journey across the CaucasusMountains to Constantinople. And then in Constantinople, he finally opens The Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.

Nevertheless, after a determined attempt, the decision is made to relocate in Europe. Peter Ouspensky moves to London, where he has journalistic connections. George Gurdjieff travels first to Berlin, then London, then Paris, and finally settles in Fontainbleau just south of Paris.

It is here that the western disciples of Gurdjieff come from 1921 to 1923.Gurdjieff, a native of south central Asia, is amongst people of a totally different tradition and world view, people whose culture bore the imprint of the Italian Renaissance.The Europeans respond enthusiasticallyfar more actively than the Asiansbut without the sense of the starting point in the work and lacking a firm foundation. It proves a dangerous combination. Gurdjieff continues to rapidly experiment and a passionate, unforgettable drama develops, but the cracks begin to emerge.

Aware of this, Ouspensky dissociates himself from Gurdjieffs work and continues independently in London.Gurdjieff is involved in a severe car accident that forces him to close the Institute. His physical health will never fully recover. What he cannot achieve in practice he now vows to achieve in theory: to leave mankind with a written legacy of what he has understood, and with enough of a circle of students to carry that legacy forward into the future. In Beelzebubs Tales he encodes the material of the early stages of creation and of the true role and place of humanity in the project of the Absolute.

Beelzebubs Tales, Gurdjieffs magnum opus, speaks of time and the struggle against entropy and dispersion. The Absolute created a macrocosm to neutralise entropy by generating consciousness out of worlds created in time. He accepted the limitation of the Sacred Heropass. The book speaks of transformation and the function of the Holy Planet Purgatory. It places the micro-cosmos man in the context of the macro-cosmos by painting a large scale picture of the Work: Self remembering is sacred not only for man, but for a whole ascending ray of creation dependent on generating new life.

The book itself is written in a style deliberately difficult to follow. Gurdjieff admittedly buries the bones of his message deep, far from the reach of most readers.In retrospect, the value ofBeelzebubs Talesis arguable. Gurdjieffs close disciples naturally deem it as their Bible, but seventy-five years after its publication, the book falls short of leaving the imprint its author had predicted.

In 1935, Gurdjieff moves to an apartment in Paris on Rue des Colonels Reynard, where the last stage of his teaching is to follow. He comes to realize that he is not the vehicle for the new order as he originally anticipated. He focuses on his followers, that they might carry his message on to the next generation. He carefully sees the completion of his literary works, and warns his students that, despite his intentions, he will be forced to leave them in a fine mess.

Afterdisassociatingwith Gurdjieff, Ouspensky establishes a small group of students in London. He keeps an eye on his Teacher in Fontainbleau, receiving occasional news by students who maintain contact with both parties. Ouspensky has given up trying to work directly with Gurdjieff, but he does not want to compete with any further effort that Mr. Gurdjieff might make to continue or develop the Institute.

Ouspensky knows thatGurdjieffhas the essential knowledge, and that what he needs is a connection with the ultimate source of that knowledge. He does not take this ultimate source to be human beings, but a higher influence (or human beings only inasmuch as they represent this higher influence). He tries to achieve this re-connection to the source, not by seeking out the Sarmoung, but by bringing the work of his group to the highest level possible, hoping that would attract the source.

Ouspensky transforms the aim for realising the specific project of the Institute possibly given from the Sarmoung Brotherhood to the aim of connecting mankind to the purposes of higher influences through the creation of a conscious school. It may be that higher influences were alligned with the Sarmoung and that they worked through the Sarmoung and Mr.Gurdjiefftogether, but Ouspensky states his aim in a very pure way and connects it very directly to his commitment to his own group.

Gurdjieffs Institute does not regenerate, but the shoot put out to America lives at least partly because of the efforts and ability of Orage. A group develops in New York, which, after the War and the death of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, will join with the Gurdjieff Foundation. Orage serves as an important agent for this shoot, but is openly confounded by Gurdjieff, perhaps due to a failure on both sides. As Ouspensky later says, Orage forgot (left out) a lot. At the same time, Gurdjieff, who still had hopes for him, made it impossible for him to understand.

Ouspensky meanwhile, sees Europe crumbling into another period of chaos. He witnesses the rise of Fascism and Communism. He sees the loss of the western order of civilisations in the last generation and predicts the inevitable war. He has known the golden moment of Gurdjieffs vision, the presentation of the whole plan of the work.After seven years of watching and of working in London with 40 or 50 chosen people, Ouspensky choses to expand his work.

His student John Bennett asks him What about your relation to Mr. Gurdjieff as your teacher?

I waited for all these years (before expanding the work in London) because I wanted to see what Mr.Gurdjieffwould do. His work has not given the results he hoped for. I am still as certain as ever that there is a Great Source from which our System has come. Mr. Gurdjieff must have had a contact with that Source, but I do not believe that it was a complete contact. Something is missing, and he has not been able to find it. If we cannot find it through him, then our only hope is to have a direct contact with the Source Our only hope is that the Source will seek us out. That is why I am giving these lectures in London.

Ouspensky saw that what was missing was not more hidden wisdom, not further journeys to the east, not new techniques but commitment, compassion, and direct assistance from the Source from the unified understanding that exists in the cosmos above the cosmos of man.Ouspensky now seeks to re-establish the link to higher school. He visits New York, and returns to London a changed man, according to his student Rodney Collin. Collin later narrates the last chapter of Ouspenskys life as miraculous; that he had become what he had taught for so long. Furthermore, the student senses a hint of that higher school his teacher was seeking out: a presence as much greater than Ouspensky as Ouspensky was greater than us.

Yet the flame goes out in London. There is no successor in London or in Paris only sincere retainers of the tradition.Both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky lived through the first world war and the Bolshevik Revolution. They saw the onset of the depression and the rise of Fascism in Europe. The had both considered that higher influences might be launching an ark for the preservation of the seed elements of civilisation. Bothrealized, by the time they died that their role was not this. And yet their roles do feed into something else.

Early one morning, shortly before his death, Ouspensky suddenly said: One must do everything one can and then just cry to He did not finish, just made one big gesture upwards. Rodney Collin, Theory of Conscious Harmony p.53.

Rodney Collin picks up Ouspenskys aim and refines it by adding the dimension of school. He connects this to the idea of a civilisation. On March 27, 1950 Rodney Collin writes to one of his students:

In light of a certain big achievement, big plan, one has to disappear. Ones personal self, with which one lives nearly the whole time, is too small to have any relation to that. So it has to disappear, if one is to understand. The more it disappears, the more can be understood. This may be very painful for a time. Later, it is quite the reverse; and it is the return, the interference of the personal self which becomes painful, and its absence happiness.

Peter Ouspensky has been, for Rodney Collin, the living example of this particularly in the last months of his life.Ouspenskys teaching, therefore, remains alive in Rodney Collin, who migrates to Mexico to begin again, and once again attempts the experiment in which his two great predecessors failed. Collin hopes that Mexico would be the beginning of the new civilisational order. Like his teacher, he strives to connect with the Hidden Hierarchy, the inner circle of mankind. Like Ouspensky, he sees them as outside of time and space.

But in the end, Rodney Collin reverts to embrace an existing form, joining the Catholic Church. He dies shortly thereafter, falling off the bell tower of a church in Cuzco, Peru. He leaves a rich legacy of teaching experience and understanding in his books; The Theory of Eternal Life, the Theory of Celestial Influence, and (posthumously) The Theory of Conscious Harmony.

There are certainly more shoots that spring from the Gurdjieff trunk, but these exceed the scope of this site. Suffice it to say that the above brief historical overview outlines the progression of the Greater Ark of Ancient Wisdom. This Ark is twofold: a physical form of a vessel and metaphysical contents. Gurdjieff and his successors seemingly failed in creating the former, yet they were successful in conveying the contents to a new age.

These contents inevitably live on, for they originate from beyond time and space. That source, to which Gurdjieff tapped in the end of the 19th century and which he brought westwards, was never subject to time. It hasnt aged since, nor is it any older that its manifestation in any previous age. That spark is the true legacy of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff.

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Gurdjieff Teaching | Gurdjieff Becoming Conscious

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Three Parts:Getting in the Right PositionPracticing the BasicsEasing into a RoutineCommunity Q&A

Meditation can be an invaluable means to de-stress. If you're feeling under pressure, experimenting with meditation can help. Zazen is a type of meditation unique to Zen Buddhism. It involves focusing on the breath and remaining in the present moment. To begin practicing Zen meditation, find a comfortable place and position. Try short sessions where you focus on your breath. With time, develop a routine that works for you. Meditation can be difficult at first, as it takes practice to clear the mind, but you'll eventually find a meditation routine that works for you.

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With Zen mediation, will I experience stillness, in which my mind will not wander anymore?

wikiHow Contributor

Your mind will always naturally wander during meditation, even when you become very experienced. It is not so important to keep your mind from initially wandering; what matters more is being able to catch yourself and regain your focus.

Where can I go to experience Zen Buddhism?

wikiHow Contributor

Some major cities have Zen Centers. Check your local listings for such places, and visit them to see what they have to offer. Otherwise, it is perfectly fine to sit alone and meditate anywhere you find your mind can be most clear.

Can I lie down in a bed and meditate?

wikiHow Contributor

Yes, but you are more likely to fall asleep.

Is it okay to play Zen music?

wikiHow Contributor

It's not required, but there is no "rule" against it. The point of meditation is to clear the mind of distracting thoughts -- if music helps you to do so there is no harm in it.

Is it okay to lean back against a wall while meditating?

wikiHow Contributor

Yes. But try to sit with your back straight. If a cushion on the floor is too difficult, then you can use a chair. It helps the mind to settle and keep awake and clear, and helps the breathing (which should be through the stomach in a relaxed manner). Leaning against a wall contracts the body, making the mind tend to become more heavy and cluttered.

I live in a hostel. How is it possible to meditate in a such crowded and noisy place?

wikiHow Contributor

Get yourself some noise-cancelling headphones. Either wear them silently or play some zen type music or nature sounds like the sea through them. Close your eyes, and put an eye mask on, and focus on your breathing. You will hear nothing outside you and you will see nothing and you will be set to meditate.

Will Zen Meditation help someone who's in prison?

wikiHow Contributor

TM is used in some prisons to help prisoners cope with being behind bars, so Zen Meditation could do the same.

How long and how many times should I do this? Should it be done on an empty stomach?

wikiHow Contributor

How often one meditates is based on preference, though at least once a day for any length of time is preferable. Eating before or after is fine so long as it doesn't interfere with your meditation.

Can I sit in a chair?

wikiHow Contributor

Yes, just be mindful of your posture and that your back is completely straight.

As a Christian, can I still practice Zazen?

wikiHow Contributor

Yes. Not everyone who meditates does so because they adhere to Buddhism. Many people meditate to cope with stress.

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The Best Way to Begin Zen Meditation (Zazen) - wikiHow

The Study

One out of every three dollars invested abroad in 2013 originated in firms from emerging economies. Yet we still have a limited understanding of the factors driving the impressive rise and patterns of internationalization of emerging market multinationals. Drawing on a survey of 713 firms from emerging countries, New Voices in Investment: A Survey of Investors from Emerging Countries sheds light on the characteristics, motivations, strategies, and needs of emerging-market investors.

In contrast to previous surveys of foreign investors, the sample of the Potential Investor Survey includes not only investors, but also firms that considered investing and decided not to, and companies that never considered establishing a foreign presence. This novel survey design reveals differences in incentives and obstacles faced by investors, potential investors, and non-investors. This distinction matters enormously, particularly in identifying binding constraints on foreign investment among those that never managed to carry out the cross-border investment.

There are significant differences among investors and noninvestors. Investors are significantly more dependent on international trade than noninvestors. Indeed, the greater the proportion of earnings that a firm derives from international trade, the more likely it will be to consider investing abroad. Moreover, firms that are publicly listed, owned by domestic capital, and are larger in terms of their labor force are more likely to invest in developing countries.

Emerging market investors exhibit a strong regional bias. While some analysts have stressed the greater geographical dispersion of the recent wave of outward FDI flows from emerging economies, we find that firms in our sample invest more heavily in neighboring countries, where they face lower informational costs and cultural barriers. This regional concentration is stronger for investment in the services sector. Yet, there is cross-country heterogeneity. Firms from India appear to be more globalized than their counterparts from Brazil, South Africa, and Korea, investing more heavily in East Asia and Europe than in the South Asian region

Outward FDI from emerging economies is primarily market and efficiency seeking. For almost 70% of investors surveyed, accessing new markets was the main motivation for investing abroad. Another 20% of respondents invested abroad to lower production costs. Only 5% of investors were driven by the availability of natural resources. The interest of emerging market multilaterals in taking advantage of opportunities for market and business expansion in developing countries is also evident when analyzing the factors that influence their location decisions. Almost 36 percent of investors selected the size of the domestic and regional markets as the top factor influencing their choice of an investment destination. For 30 percent of the firms surveyed, the presence of a variety of potential business counterparts was the most important location factor. A sizeable proportion of respondents (12 percent) worried primarily about the cost of labor.

Emerging markets firms confront a trade-off between market size and market familiarity. The clear regional concentration that emerges from our data suggests that firms face binding costs of investing in distant, culturally dissimilar markets, particularly those in the services sector. Our findings show that firms are more likely to invest in countries that share borders, and have a common colonial history and language.

International economic agreements facilitate cross-border investments. By contributing to regulatory clarity and stability, bilateral investment treaties partly offset the costs associated with investing in faraway and/or unfamiliar markets. Trade agreements, in turn, increase the perceived attractiveness of a host country by providing firms with opportunities to access new markets and reduce the costs of trade.

Political factors constitute binding constraints that deter some emerging-market firms from investing in developing markets. Far from being immune to political risk and cultural uncertainty in host markets, those firms that are more averse to these conditions seem to self-select out of foreign investment. Investors, in turn, value political stability and transparency more than corruption control and fair elections in the host country.

National investment promotion agencies play only a marginal role in raising awareness of investment opportunities in developing countries. Nevertheless, these agencies appear to be a widely used and useful resource for investors once they have made the decision to enter a specific market. In line with previous research, our findings show that investment promotion agency services tend to be more valuable for smaller and less productive firms, for which access to information is more costly.

Our findings suggest that developing countries can increase their attractiveness to investors from emerging and newly emerged economies through a series of policy measures, including:

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New Voices in Investment: A Survey of Investors From ...

Ten-year goals a decade is a long time. In our fast-paced, modern world, things may be almost unrecognizable ten years out. Technology, politics and world events are sure to change the landscape. Yet, if we are going to have a say in our lives, we need to plan for this uncertain future. One thing about a ten-year time frame is the ability to master an area of our lives. If we play the guitar, for instance, we can become really good over a decade. We can master the craft. The same goes for our careers, our family life, and building a business.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers, delivers the researched conclusion that mastering talent in our lives takes on average, 10,000 hours. Given a forty hour work week, this works out to 4.8years of dedicated practice, working full time. Ten years then, it would seem, would give us plenty of time to become proficient at our desired occupations and worthwhile ventures.

In our overall goal setting model, it makes sense to look at the big picture and see what areas we want to dedicateour hours of hard work and learning to as the years roll by. To give us a playing field, Ive taken four areas of life and enclosed them in a worksheet.

Lets take a look at the sheet and how we can use it as a guide.

As you can see we have divided up the sheeting into four broad categories across the top, with three horizontalstepsthat include our goal, our dedicated area of practice or learning, and the resulting modified plan. They are..

Lets take a look at each one and Ill include some examples from my own career.

Back in my early twenties, this would have been how my personal goals looked.

These are common goals for people in their twenties.Depending on your time of life, looking ten years out will be radically different based on your age.

By taking each of the primary goals and looking at areas of learning and practice, its easy to figure out some mastery areas. Looking back at my life, I wish I would have taken the time and spent the money to do more of these the first time around.

In my early twenties, this was my job-based reality and how I saw my career progressing

I went to college anddid a professional certificate program in Auto Repair. This is how my mastery list would have looked

Back in the day, auto repair was a great business. In my college program, I learned how cars worked and how to fix them. I also took classes in sales and management. Thankfully, I talked with a business coach and decided against opening my own shop. But I did get certifications from an industry professional group, which led to higher pay and a management position.

As a trade, working on high-end European cars paid well and allowed my to buy a house after a few years on the job. Unfortunately, auto repair itself took its toll on my body after a while. Thankfully, I was able to eventually move into sales and management which saved my back.

Health and fitness goals are important to consider, depending on your age and occupation. In my case, working in auto repair in my twenties, I had the following goals

I knew that I needed more arm strength for lifting heavy items like transmissions and other large metal parts. Since I was planning on marriage, I had heard that you gain at least 10 to 15 pounds once you tie the knot. Given the solvents used in cleaning parts, I knew I wanted to stay away from too much contact. Here is how my health list would have looked after a few years on the job.

After messing up my lower and upper back a few times, I decided that I would pursue a management track, which would take me out of the repair stall and into the front office. Once I got married, the 10+ pounds magically appeared, and a change in eating habits was necessary. I invested in a pair of chemical-resistant gloves which helped save my hands.

Financial goals are crucial to consider, both on the saving and spending sides. Here are some of my financial goals when I was twenty.

I had three really big goals when I was in my early twenties. After finishing college, I needed a good job. Unfortunately, I didnt have any experience in my field.

To master my financial situation, I found that going backto school and getting industry certifications was a big help. Repair shops and dealerships were looking for people who had the latest certs so they would be qualified to do more technical work. Within a year, I was making good money on my first job. Once I started getting a paycheck, I started saving money for a house and getting married. Since I still lived at home with my parents, this was easier than if I had gone out on my own. I started having regular amounts taken from each paycheck, which made the process much easier.

Once I had saved for a couple of years, my girlfriend and I started looking in the local housing market. We found that we would need to move to the suburbs and combine both of our incomes to qualify. We found a house, decided to get married and used our savings to get started.

By investing in something, we could afford and setting up an automatic savings program helped. We soon had a rainy day fund set up.

By using the worksheet above its easy to see your goals, add in the areas to need to master, and then write out a plan to achieve them. Here is how the last row might have looked in my twenties.

Looking out ten years can be a little daunting at first, but talking with others, getting counseling, and working with a mentor can help. I wish I would have had this worksheet and a little foresight when I was in my twenties. It would have saved me a lot of mistakes and helped me be more diligent about what was vital.

Download the worksheet below and take some time filling out the goal section at the top. Then write in the middle section with areas that youll need to master and milestones youll need to reach to make your ten year dreams a reality. Once you are done, create a simple written plan to achieve them. Use our examples above as a guide.

10 Year Goal Worksheet

In our next step, well take a look at five-year goals and see how we can have foresight into the future, and set significant milestonesthat wont disappoint.

More here:
10 Year Goals: Create a Personal 10 Year Life Plan For Success

The English term enlightenment is the western translation of the term bodhi, "awakening", which was popularised in the Western world through the 19th century translations of Max Mller. It has the western connotation of a sudden insight into a transcendental truth.

The term is also being used to translate several other Buddhist terms and concepts used to denote insight (prajna, kensho and satori); knowledge (vidhya); the "blowing out" (Nirvana) of disturbing emotions and desires and the subsequent freedom or release (vimutti); and the attainment of Buddhahood, as exemplified by Gautama Buddha.

What exactly constituted the Buddha's awakening is unknown. It may probably have involved the knowledge that liberation was attained by the combination of mindfulness and dhyna, applied to the understanding of the arising and ceasing of craving. The relation between dhyana and insight is a core problem in the study of Buddhism, and is one of the fundamentals of Buddhist practice.

In the western world the concept of (spiritual) enlightenment has taken on a romantic meaning. It has become synonymous with self-realization and the true self and false self, being regarded as a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning.[pageneeded], [pageneeded], [pageneeded], [pageneeded]

Robert S. Cohen notes that the majority of English books on Buddhism use the term "enlightenment" to translate the term bodhi. The root budh, from which both bodhi and Buddha are derived, means "to wake up" or "to recover consciousness". Cohen notes that bodhi is not the result of an illumination, but of a path of realization, or coming to understanding. The term "enlightenment" is event-oriented, whereas the term "awakening" is process-oriented. The western use of the term "enlighten" has Christian roots, as in Calvin's "It is God alone who enlightens our minds to perceive his truths".

Early 19th century bodhi was translated as "intelligence". The term "enlighten" was first being used in 1835, in an English translation of a French article, while the first recorded use of the term 'enlightenment' is credited (by the Oxford English Dictionary) to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (February, 1836). In 1857 The Times used the term "the Enlightened" for the Buddha in a short article, which was reprinted the following year by Max Mller. Thereafter, the use of the term subsided, but reappeared with the publication of Max Mller's Chips from a german Workshop, which included a reprint from the Times-article. The book was translated in 1969 into German, using the term "der Erleuchtete". Max Mller was an essentialist, who believed in a natural religion, and saw religion as an inherent capacity of human beings. "Enlightenment" was a means to capture natural religious truths, as distinguished from mere mythology.[note 1]

By the mid-1870s it had become commonplace to call the Buddha "enlightened", and by the end of the 1880s the terms "enlightened" and "enlightenment" dominated the English literature.

Bodhi (Sanskrit, Pli), from the verbal root budd, "to awaken", "to understand", means literally "to have woken up and understood". According to Johannes Bronkhorst, Tillman Vetter, and K.R. Norman, bodhi was at first not specified. K.R. Norman:

It is not at all clear what gaining bodhi means. We are accustomed to the translation "enlightenment" for bodhi, but this is misleading ... It is not clear what the buddha was awakened to, or at what particular point the awakening came.[18]

According to Norman, bodhi may basically have meant the knowledge that nibbana was attained, due to the practice of dhyana. Originally only "prajna" may have been mentioned, and Tillman Vetter even concludes that originally dhyana itself was deemed liberating, with the stilling of pleasure of pain in the fourth jhana. Gombrich also argues that the emphasis on insight is a later development.

In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi refers to the realisation of the four stages of enlightenment and becoming an Arahant. In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi is equal to supreme insight, and the realisation of the four noble truths, which leads to deliverance. According to Nyanatiloka,

(Through Bodhi) one awakens from the slumber or stupor (inflicted upon the mind) by the defilements (kilesa, q.v.) and comprehends the Four Noble Truths (sacca, q.v.).

This equation of bodhi with the four noble truths is a later development, in response to developments within Indian religious thought, where "liberating insight" was deemed essential for liberation. The four noble truths as the liberating insight of the Buddha eventually were superseded by Prattyasamutpda, the twelvefold chain of causation, and still later by anatta, the emptiness of the self.

In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhi is equal to prajna, insight into the Buddha-nature, sunyata and tathat. This is equal to the realisation of the non-duality of absolute and relative.

In Theravada Buddhism pann (Pali) means "understanding", "wisdom", "insight". "Insight" is equivalent to vipassana', insight into the three marks of existence, namely anicca, dukkha and anatta. Insight leads to the four stages of enlightenment and Nirvana.

In Mahayana Buddhism Prajna (Sanskrit) means "insight" or "wisdom", and entails insight into sunyata. The attainment of this insight is often seen as the attainment of "enlightenment".[need quotation to verify]

Kensho and Satori are Japanese terms used in Zen traditions. Kensho means "seeing into one's true nature." Ken means "seeing", sho means "nature", "essence", c.q Buddha-nature. Satori (Japanese) is often used interchangeably with kensho, but refers to the experience of kensho. The Rinzai tradition sees kensho as essential to the attainment of Buddhahood, but considers further practice essential to attain Buddhahood.

East-Asian (Chinese) Buddhism emphasizes insight into Buddha-nature. This term is derived from Indian tathagata-garbha thought, "the womb of the thus-gone" (the Buddha), the inherent potential of every sentient being to become a Buddha. This idea was integrated with the Yogacara-idea of the laya vijna, and further developed in Chinese Buddhism, which integrated Indian Buddhism with native Chinese thought. Buddha-nature came to mean both the potential of awakening and the whole of reality, a dynamic interpenetration of absolute and relative. In this awakening it is realized that observer and observed are not distinct entities, but mutually co-dependent.

The term vidhya is being used in contrast to avidhya, ignorance or the lack of knowledge, which binds us to samsara. The Mahasaccaka Sutta[note 2] describes the three knowledges which the Buddha attained:

According to Bronkhorst, the first two knowledges are later additions, while insight into the four truths represents a later development, in response to concurring religious traditions, in which "liberating insight" came to be stressed over the practice of dhyana.

Vimutti, also called moksha, means "freedom", "release",[note 3] "deliverance". Sometimes a distinction is being made between ceto-vimutti, "liberation of the mind", and panna-vimutti, "liberation by understanding". The Buddhist tradition recognises two kinds of ceto-vimutti, one temporarily and one permanent, the last being equivalent to panna-vimutti.[note 4]

Yogacara uses the term raya parvtti, "revolution of the basis",

... a sudden revulsion, turning, or re-turning of the laya vijna back into its original state of purity [...] the Mind returns to its original condition of non-attachment, non-discrimination and non-duality".

Nirvana is the "blowing out" of disturbing emotions, which is the same as liberation.[web 1] The usage of the term "enlightenment" to translate "nirvana" was popularized in the 19th century, due, in part, to the efforts of Max Muller, who used the term consistently in his translations.

Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, is said to have achieved full awakening, known as samyaksabodhi (Sanskrit; Pli: sammsabodhi), "perfect Buddhahood", or anuttar-samyak-sabodhi, "highest perfect awakening".

The term buddha has acquired somewhat different meanings in the various Buddhist traditions. An equivalent term for Buddha is Tathgata, "the thus-gone". The way to Buddhahood is somewhat differently understood in the various buddhist traditions.

In the suttapitaka, the Buddhist canon as preserved in the Theravada-tradition, a couple of texts can be found in which the Buddha's attainment of liberation forms part of the narrative.[40][note 5]

The Ariyapariyesana Sutta[note 6] describes how the Buddha was dissatisfied with the teachings of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, wandered further through Magadhan country, and then found "an agreeable piece of ground" which served for striving. The sutra then only says that he attained Nibbana.

The Mahasaccaka Sutta[note 7] describes his ascetic practices, which he abandoned. There-after he remembered a spontaneous state of jhana, and set out for jhana-practice. After destroying the disturbances of the mind, and attaining concentration of the mind, he attained three knowledges (vidhya):

According to the Mahasaccaka Sutta these insights, including the way to attain liberation, led the Buddha himself straight to liberation. called "awakening."

Schmithausen[note 8] notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36. Bronkhorst notices that

...the accounts which include the Four Noble Truths had a completely different conception of the process of liberation than the one which includes the Four Dhyanas and the destruction of the intoxicants.

It calls in question the reliability of these accounts, and the relation between dhyana and insight, which is a core problem in the study of early Buddhism. Originally the term prajna may have been used, which came to be replaced by the four truths in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas. Bronkhorst also notices that the conception of what exactly this "liberating insight" was developed throughout time. Whereas originally it may not have been specified, later on the four truths served as such, to be superseded by pratityasamutpada, and still later, in the Hinayana schools, by the doctrine of the non-existence of a substantial self or person. And Schmithausen notices that still other descriptions of this "liberating insight" exist in the Buddhist canon:

"that the five Skandhas are impermanent, disagreeable, and neither the Self nor belonging to oneself";[note 9] "the contemplation of the arising and disappearance (udayabbaya) of the five Skandhas";[note 10] "the realisation of the Skandhas as empty (rittaka), vain (tucchaka) and without any pith or substance (asaraka).[note 11]

An example of this substitution, and its consequences, is Majjhima Nikaya 36:42-43, which gives an account of the awakening of the Buddha.

In Theravada Buddhism, reaching full awakening is equivalent in meaning to reaching Nirva.[web 2] Attaining Nirva is the ultimate goal of Theravada and other rvaka traditions.[web 3] It involves the abandonment of the ten fetters and the cessation of dukkha or suffering. Full awakening is reached in four stages.

In Mahyna Buddhism the Bodhisattva is the ideal. The ultimate goal is not only of one's own liberation in Buddhahood, but the liberation of all living beings.

In time, the Buddha's awakening came to be understood as an immediate full awakening and liberation, instead of the insight into and certainty about the way to follow to reach enlightenment. However, in some Zen traditions this perfection came to be relativized again; according to one contemporary Zen master, "Shakyamuni buddha and Bodhidharma are still practicing."

But Mahayana Buddhism also developed a cosmology with a wide range of buddhas and bodhisattvas, who assist humans on their way to liberation.

In the western world the concept of enlightenment has taken on a romantic meaning. It has become synonymous with self-realization and the true self, being regarded as a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning.

The use of the western word enlightenment is based on the supposed resemblance of bodhi with Aufklrung, the independent use of reason to gain insight into the true nature of our world. In fact there are more resemblances with Romanticism than with the Enlightenment: the emphasis on feeling, on intuitive insight, on a true essence beyond the world of appearances.

The equivalent term "awakening" has also been used in a Christian context, namely the Great Awakenings, several periods of religious revival in American religious history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the late 19th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.

The romantic idea of enlightenment as insight into a timeless, transcendent reality has been popularized especially by D.T. Suzuki.[web 4][web 5] Further popularization was due to the writings of Heinrich Dumoulin.[web 6] Dumoulin viewed metaphysics as the expression of a transcendent truth, which according to him was expressed by Mahayana Buddhism, but not by the pragmatic analysis of the oldest Buddhism, which emphasizes anatta. This romantic vision is also recognizable in the works of Ken Wilber.

In the oldest Buddhism this essentialism is not recognizable.[web 7] According to critics it doesn't really contribute to a real insight into Buddhism:[web 8]

...most of them labour under the old clich that the goal of Buddhist psychological analysis is to reveal the hidden mysteries in the human mind and thereby facilitate the development of a transcendental state of consciousness beyond the reach of linguistic expression.

A common reference in western culture is the notion of "enlightenment experience". This notion can be traced back to William James, who used the term "religious experience" in his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" further back to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the infinite. Schleiermacher used the notion of "religious experience" to defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique.

It was popularised by the Transcendentalists, and exported to Asia via missionaries. Transcendentalism developed as a reaction against 18th Century rationalism, John Locke's philosophy of Sensualism, and the predestinationism of New England Calvinism. It is fundamentally a variety of diverse sources such as Hindu texts like the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, various religions, and German idealism.

It was adopted by many scholars of religion, of which William James was the most influential.[note 12]

The notion of "experience" has been criticised. Robert Sharf points out that "experience" is a typical western term, which has found its way into Asian religiosity via western influences.[note 13]

The notion of "experience" introduces a false notion of duality between "experiencer" and "experienced", whereas the essence of kensho is the realisation of the "non-duality" of observer and observed.[dead link] "Pure experience" does not exist; all experience is mediated by intellectual and cognitive activity. The specific teachings and practices of a specific tradition may even determine what "experience" someone has, which means that this "experience" is not the proof of the teaching, but a result of the teaching. A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception" as per romantic poet William Blake[note 14], would, according to Mohr, be an overwhelming chaos of sensory input without coherence.

Sakyamuni's Buddhahood is celebrated on Bodhi Day. In Sri Lanka and Japan different days are used for this celebration.

According to the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka, Sakyamuni reached Buddhahood at the full moon in May. This is celebrated at Wesak Poya, the full moon in May, as Sambuddhatva jayanthi (also known as Sambuddha jayanthi).[web 9]

According to the Zen tradition, the Buddha reached his decisive insight on 8 December. This is celebrated in Zen monasteries with a very intensive eight-day session of Rhatsu.

It rests upon the notion of the primacy of religious experiences, preferably spectacular ones, as the origin and legitimation of religious action. But this presupposition has a natural home, not in Buddhism, but in Christian and especially Protetstant Christian movements which prescribe a radical conversion.

See Sekida for an example of this influence of William James and Christian conversion stories, mentioning Luther and St. Paul. See also McMahan for the influence of Christian thought on Buddhism.

[T]he role of experience in the history of Buddhism has been greatly exaggerated in contemporary scholarship. Both historical and ethnographic evidence suggests that the privileging of experience may well be traced to certain twentieth-century reform movements, notably those that urge a return to zazen or vipassana meditation, and these reforms were profoundly influenced by religious developments in the west [...] While some adepts may indeed experience "altered states" in the course of their training, critical analysis shows that such states do not constitute the reference point for the elaborate Buddhist discourse pertaining to the "path".

See the original post:
Enlightenment in Buddhism - Wikipedia

Thu 5 Apr 2018Conway HallThe Night Shift Mozarts Horns

Mozart Horn Concerto no.1Mozart Horn Concerto no. 4

Roger Montgomery horn

Mozarts horn concertos in the original home of freethought.

Sun 1 Apr 2018Opra de Monte-CarloMozart: Master of Deception, with Sir Roger Norrington

Mozart Symphony No. 33Mozart Horn Concerto No.4Mozart Horn Concerto No.1Mozart Symphony No. 36

Sir Roger Norrington conductorRoger Montgomery horn

More from the ultimate musical game-player

There is more to Mozart than meets the eye. His repertoire is replete with surprises and deceptions.

Sat 31 Mar 2018The Anvil, BasingstokeBachs St Matthew Passion

Bach St Matthew Passion

Mark Padmore director/EvangelistRoderick Williams ChristusClaudia Huckle contraltoHugo Hymas tenorLouise Kemny sopranoJessica Cale sopranoEleanor Minney mezzo-sopranoMatthew Brook bassChoir of the Age of Enlightenment

A powerful depiction of the Easter Story.

Commemorate Easter with BachsSt Matthew Passion, featuring an all-star line-up of singers, led by Mark Padmore.

Fri 30 Mar 2018ICE Krakow Congress CentreBachs St Matthew Passion

Bach St Matthew Passion

Mark Padmore director/EvangelistRoderick Williams ChristusClaudia Huckle contraltoHugo Hymas tenorLouise Kemny sopranoJessica Cale sopranoEleanor Minney mezzo-sopranoMatthew Brook bassChoir of the Age of Enlightenment

A powerful depiction of the Easter Story.

Commemorate Easter with BachsSt Matthew Passion, featuring an all-star line-up of singers, led by Mark Padmore.

Bachs St Matthew Passion ProgrammeMon 26 Mar 2018

Heresthe programme for our performance of Bachs St Matthew Passion on Monday 26 March at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre. You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

Mark Padmore explores Bachs St Matthew PassionMon 26 Mar 2018

Its designed to disturb. It should get under the skin and worry us.

Mark Padmore explores Bachs St Matthew Passion, and the advantages of performing it without a conductor.

Performing the St Matthew PassionFri 23 Mar 2018

Leader Matthew Truscott tells us what its like to perform Bachs St Matthew Passion without a conductor, but instead following the breathing of singer and director, Mark Padmore.

Bachs B minor Mass (1748)

Following much-praised accounts of the St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio, conductor Stephen Layton now turns to Bachs mighty B minor Mass.

Mark Padmore on Bachs St Matthew PassionMon 5 Mar 2018

Mark Padmore explains his view of the St Matthew Passion, and the role of the Evangelist

The Corridors of Power programmeMon 26 Feb 2018

Heresthe programme for ourThe Corridors of Power concert on Tuesday 27 February at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre. You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

After Beethoven?Tue 20 Feb 2018

After ten concerts in three different countries, our Beethoven tour with Nicola Benedetti came to an end in Abu Dhabi yesterday. If youre at risk of Beethoven withdrawal, we asked our Co-Principal Viola Max Mandel for more Beethoven that you might want to read, watch or listen to next.

The Corridors of Power: playlist previewWed 7 Feb 2018

One of the more unusual concerts in our 2017/18 Visions, Illusions and Delusions season is The Corridors of Power, a mixture of Haydn and Mozart conducted by our old frienddm Fischer.

Behind the scenes with Nicola BenedettiMon 5 Feb 2018

Challenging in different ways but so enjoyable.

Nicola Benedetti chats about performing Beethoven on period instruments as she joins us on tour around the UK and US.

Marin and Nicola join our pre-concert talkFri 2 Feb 2018

If youre coming to our concert with Marin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, on Sunday, get there early for the pre-concert talk at 6pm.

Were delighted both Marin and Nicola have agreed to join us for the discussion alongside our Principal Flute, Lisa Beznosiuk.

The talk is free in the Clore Ballroom from 6pm to 6.30pm.

Marin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti programmeFri 2 Feb 2018

Heresthe programme for ourMarin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti concert on Sunday 4 February at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre (but its also good if youre going to one of the other performances). You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

If you cant see it, just clickhere.

In depth: A new cadenza by Nicola BenedettiThu 1 Feb 2018

In the classical era, composers such as Mozart and Beethoven often included passages called cadenzas towards the end of their concertos. These were either improvised or pre-composed, and gave the soloist the chance to show off the full range of her or his skills.

For Nicola Benedettis performances of Beethovens Violin Concerto with us, shes worked with composer Petr Limonov to write a new cadenza premiered on this tour, for which shell be accompanied by our Principal Timpani, Adrian Bending.

What does it mean to be free?Tue 30 Jan 2018

Today were announcing the concerts in our 2018/19 season as Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre.

Its called Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and its the second in ourSix Chapters of Enlightenment, six years of concerts celebrating the thought that made the modern world.

Fresh Night Shifts for 2018Wed 10 Jan 2018

Classical music hasnt always been about sitting silently in a concert hall, glugging down a pre-poured glass of wine in the interval and polite applause.

With The Night Shift, we take classical music back to its lively, informal roots with gigs in pubs, night clubs and other venues where you like to spend your time. Enjoy two half hour sets of classical music, played by some of the finest players in the business, without the usual rules.

Symmetry in music: Particle physicist Tara ShearsThu 4 Jan 2018

Professor Tara Shears came to talk to us about antimatter as part of our Bach, the Universe and Everything series atKings Place. We learnt there is more connecting Bach and particle physics than you might imagine.

Name us a Handel concertTue 12 Dec 2017

Its been a while, but the time has come for you to put your musical thinking caps on for a our traditional name a concert feature.

We need a name for the following concert coming up in 2018. Think Handel, Telemann, organs and, possibly, feasts.

Original post:
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Home

The Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP) is a Christian discernment ministry, and thus involved in the fields of Christian apologetics and countercult education.

The organization, based in Berkeley, California, has its roots in the Jesus People movement of the late 1960s, but the Spiritual Counterfeits Project itself was formed in 1973.

While it addresses a wide range of apologetics and countercult issues, SCP has a strong focus on the occult and on the New Age movement.

Since 1973, the SCP has been a frontline ministry confronting the occult, the cults, and the New Age movement and explaining why they are making an impact on our society.

In the name of truth, sophisticated lies are fed to unwary people who live in and shape our world. SCPs mandate is to communicate with our generation by creating crossover material that alerts and informs about the very real dangers of the latest deceptions. It is a critical mission at a critical time.

SCP has been involved in two high-profile lawsuits:

Transcendental Meditation

Malnak v. Yogi, was SCPs legal challenge to Transcendental Meditation (TM) in the public school [See Malnak v. Yogi, 440 F. Supp. 1284 (1977) and appeals court opinion: 592 F. 2nd 197 (1979)].

TM represented itself as a non-religious activity and was promoted as the Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI). According to SCP, TM was not religiously neutral and SCI was based on Maharishi Mahesh Yogis Hindu faith. The judge concluded that TM/SCI are religious in nature within the context of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and the teaching thereof in the New jersey public schools is therefore unconstitutional.

The Local Church

Witness Lee et al v. Neil Duddy et al, was a religious defamation case brought by the so-called Local Church which theologically is a cult of Christianity against the author of a book titled, The God-Men and against SCP. While the book was published by InterVarsity Press, author Neil Duddy was said to have relied in SCPs research.

The Local Church was of the opinion that Neil Duddy, and by extension SCP, had committed libel by declaring its teachings to be heretical.

The legal tactics employed by the church depleted SCPs financial resources to such an extend that it was unable to pay its defense lawyers. When the latter withdrews from the case, SCP decided to file for a reorganizational bankruptcy. This resulted in SCP being officially cancelled out as a defendant in the lawsuit. When the case was heard, in May 1985, it was uncontested by any of the defendants, none of whom appeared in court. The judge awarded the case to the Local Church, with damages against the defendants.

Brooks Alexander, at the time SCPs president, addressed the case in an article titled, When Talk Isnt Cheap and Speech Isnt Free: The Abuse of Libel Law.

Among the expert witnesses who testified on behalf of the Local Church was J. Gordon Melton, a United Methodist minister, is the Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion. His input in this case contributed to Meltons reputation as a cult apologist, and demonstrated his self-professed inability to discern between heresy and orthodoxy.

Spiritual Counterfeits Project is the only major apologetics ministry to provide a free-of-charge telephone hotline to the public: (510) 540-5767.

The Access Line is open to the public at no charge three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. West Coast Time (or 5-8 Eastern Standard Time). It is only one of our ministries interfacing with public need and making available our over 6,000 files on different cults and groups around the world. But we are more than just information brokers. Most of those of us on staff became Christians after having gone through any number of New Age and cultic alternatives. So we can speak from experience with insight. Source: Access Counseling Hotline, SCP website

The Spiritual Counterfeits Project publishes both the SCP Newsletter and the the acclaimed SCP Journal.

Other materials, such as books, audio/video, and information packets are also available.

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Spiritual Counterfeits Project | Apologetics Index

The Enlightenment was a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century international movement in ideas and sensibilities, emphasizing the exercise of critical reason as opposed to religious dogmatism or unthinking faith. It developed along with the rise of scientific thinking independent of religious thought and stressed the importance of nature and the natural order as a source of knowledge. In reaction to the religious wars of Europe, Enlightenment thinkers defended religious tolerance and religious freedom. Their emphasis on intellectual freedom and human rights led to a conflict between the advocates of these new ideas and the political and religious establishments in Europe, most dramatically in France.

The Enlightenment in America, more moderate than in Europe, influenced both religious and political thought throughout the colonies. Many would argue that its approach to religious tolerance rose to prominence in America in large part because no single religious group could garner the necessary votes to impose themselves upon the fledgling republic. Leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were considered paragons of Enlightenment thought, and the freedom-loving religious rationalism of their ideas helped to lay the foundations of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

The Enlightenment also bred religious controversy. Many of its advocates, many of whom were themselves Christian, often dismissed the new revivalist religion of the Great Awakening as emotionally excessive. Evangelical Protestants, on the other hand, often viewed rationalism, religious tolerance, and other enlightenment ideals as dangerous to piety and national solidarity in the budding republic. Historians have usually cast this controversy in terms of a conflict between those who favored rational religion and those who opposed them by defending an emotional religion of the heart. But the Enlightenment was so pervasive in the colonies that few Americans remained wholly untouched by its spirit.

Both the emotionalism of revivalist religion and the reasoned ideals associated with the Enlightenment played important roles in the American Revolution. Revolutionaries were drawn from all religious camps and most of them shared a common commitment to freedom of religion. Mostthough certainly not allrevolutionaries, however, fought not for religious freedom for all, but rather for their particular sects or denominations. Nonetheless, the impact of the Revolution and the subsequent adoption of the Constitution on American Christianity cannot be overstated. This period laid the foundation for a bold experiment in religious freedom unlike any understandings of state-religion relations at the time.

The Constitution banned the establishment of religion by the state, thus forcing both Anglicans and Congregationalists to abandon their traditional prerogatives of state support, a bold departure from tradition. All churches and other religious organizations that had arisen during the colonial period necessarily reconstituted themselves under the new constitutional guidelines. This, however, until as late as the 1830s, was understood to apply to the federal government alone; states were allowed to decide for themselves whether or not to have state-supported churches. In any case, this outlook, which considered all churches equal before federal law, more or less asserted that churches are voluntary organizations with no formal coercive authority over those who did not wish to belong to them.

The Revolution and the Constitution became part of the myth of America, the powerful foundational story told about Americas origins. This story begins with the vision of creating a new Christian society on American soil and moves to the idea of a society based on commitment to religious freedom. Still, the transcendent and purposeful vision of Americas destiny remained. This vision fostered the development of what has come to be called Americas civil religion: a belief in Americas special mission as a society based on equality before the law, freedom of conscience, religious tolerance, and the spirit of voluntary service.

Link:
Enlightenment and Revolution | The Pluralism Project

Its been 134 years since FriedrichNietzsche declared: God is Dead (or Gott ist tot, in German), giving philosophy students a collective headache thats lasted from the 19th century until today. It is, perhaps, one of the best known statements in all of philosophy, well known even to those who have never picked up a copy of The Gay Science, the book from which it originates. But do we know exactly what he meant? Or perhaps more importantly, what it means for us?

Nietzsche was an atheist for his adult life and didnt mean that there was a God who had actually died, rather that our idea of one had. Afterthe Enlightenment,the idea of a universe that was governed by physical laws and not by divine providence was now reality. Philosophy had shown that governments no longer needed to be organized around the idea of divine right to be legitimate, but rather by the consent or rationality of the governed that large and consistent moral theories could exist without reference to God. This was a tremendous event.Europe no longer needed God as the source for all morality, value, or order in the universe; philosophy and science were capable of doing that for us.This increasing secularization of thought in the West led the philosopher to realize that not only was God dead but that human beings had killed him with their scientific revolution, their desire to better understand the world.

The death of God didnt strike Nietzsche as an entirely good thing. Without a God, the basic belief system of Western Europe was in jeopardy, as he put it inTwilight of the Idols: When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole.

simon-critchley-examines-friedrich-nietzsche

Nietzsche thought this could be a good thing for some people, saying:... at hearing the news that 'the old god is dead', we philosophers and 'free spirits' feel illuminated by a new dawn.A bright morning had arrived. With the old system of meaning gone a new one could be created, but it came with risksones that could bring out the worst in human nature.Nietzsche believed that the removal of this system put most people at the risk of despair or meaninglessness. What could the point of life be without a God? Even if there was one, the Western world now knew that he hadnt placed us at the centre of the universe, and it was learning of the lowly origin from which man had evolved. We finally saw the true world. The universe wasnt made solely for human existence anymore. Nietzsche feared that this understanding of the world would lead to pessimism,a will to nothingnessthat was antithetical to the life-affirming philosophy Nietzsche prompted.

His fear of nihilism and our reaction to it was shown inThe Will to Power,when he wrote that:"What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism... For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe."He would not have been surprised by the events that plagued Europe in the 20th century. Communism, Nazism, Nationalism, and the other ideologies that made their way across the continent in the wake of World War I sought to provide man with meaning and value, as a worker, as an Aryan, or some other greater deed;in a similar way as to how Christianity could provide meaning as a child of God, and give life on Earth value by relation to heaven. While he may have rejected those ideologies, he no doubt would have acknowledged the need for the meaning they provided.

Of course,asNietzsche saw this coming,heoffered us a way out. The creation of our own values as individuals. The creation of a meaning of life by those who live it. The archetype of the individual who can do this has a name that has also reached our popular consciousness:thebermensch. Nietzsche however, saw this as a distant goal for man and one that most would not be able to reach.Thebermensch,which he felt had yet to exist on Earth, would create meaning in life by their will alone, and understand that they are, in the end, responsible for their selection. As he put it in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:"For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred yes is needed: the spirit now wills his own will."Such a bold individual will not be able to point to dogma or popular opinion as to why they value what they do.

Having suggested the rarity and difficulty in creating the bermensch, Nietzsche suggested an alternative response to Nihilism, and one that he saw as the more likely to be selected; The Last Man. Amost contemptible thingwho lives a quiet life of comfort, without thought for individuality or personal growth as:"'We have discovered happiness,'-- say the Last Men, and they blink."Much to the disappointment of Zarathustra, Nietzsches mouthpiece, the people whom he preaches to beg him for the lifestyle of The Last Man, suggesting his pessimism on our ability to handle Gods death.

But you might ask, if God has been dead for so long and we are supposed to be suffering for knowing it, where are all the atheists? Nietzsche himself provided an answer:God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. Perhaps we are only now seeing the effects of Nietzsches declaration.

Indeed, atheism is on the march, with near majorities in many European countries and newfound growth across the United States heralding a cultural shift. But, unlike when atheism was enforced by the communist nations, there isnt necessarily a worldview backing this new lack of God, it is only the lack. Indeed, British philosopher Bertrand Russell saw Bolshevism as nearly a religion unto itself; it was fully capable and willing to provide meaning and value to a population by itself. That source of meaning without belief is gone.

As many atheists know, to not have a god without an additional philosophical structure providing meaning can be a cause of existential dread. Are we at risk of becoming a society struggling with our own meaninglessness? Are we as a society at risk for nihilism? Are we more vulnerable now to ideologies and conmen who promise to do what God used to do for us and society? While Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the future, the non-religious are less so than the religious. It seems Nietzsche may have been wrong in the long run about our ability to deal with the idea that God is dead.

values-without-religion

As Alain de Botton suggestsabout our values, it seems that we have managed to deal with the death of God better than Nietzschehad thought we would; we are not all the Last Men, nor have we descended into a situation where all morality is seen as utterly relative and meaningless. It seems that we have managed to create a world where the need for God is reduced for some people without falling into collective despair or chaos.

Are we as individuals up to the task of creating our own values? Creating meaning in life by ourselves without aid from God, dogma, or popular choice? Perhaps some of us are, and if we understand the implications of the death of God we stand a better chance of doing so. The despair of the death of God may give way to new meaning in our lives; for as Jean-Paul Sartre suggested"life begins on the other side of despair."

--

Sources:

Abrams, Daniel, Haley Yaple, and Richard Wiener. "ArXiv.org Physics ArXiv:1012.1375v2." [1012.1375v2] A Mathematical Model of Social Group Competition with Application to the Growth of Religious Non-affiliation. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Aug. 2016.

"Americans Overwhelmingly Pessimistic about Country's Path, Poll Finds." Mcclatchydc. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Aug. 2016.

"America's Growing Pessimism." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 10 Oct. 2015. Web. 04 Aug. 2016.

"CNN/ORC Poll: 57% Pessimistic about U.S. Future, Highest in 2 Years." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 04 Aug. 2016.

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