Spiritually Incorrect
Continued from part 3.
The Law of Evolutionary Intimacy
Reclaiming Intimacy
Our era can most aptly be described with the opening lines of Charles Dickens 1859 masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” We live in a world of outrageous love. We live in a world of outrageous pain.
More people live in conditions of unprecedented dignity, choice and possibility than at any other time in history. The leading edge of thought recognizes, as we point to in this book, the essential nature of reality itself is outrageous love. For this first time however this knowing of the eye of the spirit and the eye of the heart is supported by the growing evidence from what Pier Luigi Lusi and Fritjof Capra have called in their 2014 book by that name, The Systems View of Life. Life is built on profound cooperation between billions of diverse elements that allure and attract each other as they dance in near-perfect harmony.
At the same time we face unprecedented challenges to our continued stability, to our survival and to the health of the planet. We live in a world where the outrageous pain is both personal and collective. There is no longer a split between the global and the local. No more is there a place to hide. Google Earth symbolizes the disappearing lines between the global and local; in seconds you can view any location on the globe from the comfort of your home. Such access was not available two decades ago to even the most advanced spy agency. Today, what happens in China affects the daily life of someone in the United States. World financial markets are intertwined. Climate change knows no boundaries. Billions of individuals connected on the planet experience various levels of outrageous pain.
Three thousand people went to work on an ordinary day and died terribly when al-Qaeda obliterated the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and terrorist organizations continue to threaten civilization. Disease travels via jet plane. Seventeen million people are enslaved for sex and labor. Twenty million children will die of starvation and related diseases this year if the current conditions remain un-transformed. Included in the suffering are the victims of mass rape, children forced to be soldier murderers and tens of millions of aids victims in Africa. Hordes of people in western countries are driven to addiction because they experience their lives as devoid of purpose and empty of meaning. Teens commit suicides at shocking rates. Masses of people live under fundamentalist regimes of politics or religion and their life force is deadened by being denied the twin human joys of authentic self-expression and free creativity. All of these are crises on the level of the individual. These individual sufferings, however add up to a global upheaval of outrageous pain. Virtually all of it is unnecessary. Its root is in a pervasive failure of intimacy.
In a real sense, we are living the tale of two futures, and each unfolding is quite different. One view is of continued outrageous pain. Yet, for the first time we are awakening to the possibility that outrageous pain is not inevitable. All of the justifications offered by the various philosophies of human life are being rejected. We recognize that outrageous pain is outrageous. Outrageous pain is a violation of intimacy. The only response to outrageous pain is outrageous love.
Yet, even those on the leading edge, committed to changing the game through outrageous acts of love, are afflicted by a powerful loneliness. The feeling of being disconnected, the feeling “I cannot do it myself” remains. The great evolutionary, mystic, Jesuit priest, Teilhard De Chardin, spoke to this existential angst when we said, “There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision.”
We live in an intimate universe. Intimacy must be restored. We become powerful by aligning with intimacy, the core of existence. The global anguish and the consequential loneliness cannot be healed merely by personal intimacy. They require a communion. They require an awakening into an evolutionary, global intimacy.
Taken from a first draft text from the forthcoming book The Path and Practice of Outrageous Love by Marc Gafni and Kristina Kincaid, this series elaborates on a critical advancement of the Unique Self Dharma that Dr. Marc has developed after Your Unique Self was published.
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