This question was posed by a Facebook friend about
expressions that are sometimes heard in efforts to console a
person's moment of great human tragedy or loss:
"God is in control..."Or "God is still in
control".....Or "Everything happens for a reason"...
What do these even mean, in any practical way for our times?
Here is my effort to respond: *The Western ego(what most consider 'me'), including the typical Christianized ego, does not know, believe let alone trust there is any true reality beyond what it apprehends with its physical senses. So to say to most anyone in midst of seeming tragedy any of these statements, which have become clichés to most persons, would be cruel and even correctly resented.
I suspect it is not typically till after mid life in our materialistic culture that a human becomes very capable of consciously experiencing there is something 'other' that is part of themselves beyond the 'ego me'. This is what the instinctual religious function in us humans is about as it seeks to 'open our eyes' to what is more than only ego perception. And it is where the stories of revelation, hearing 'a voice of God' and the statements you quote had their legitimately experienced origin. Until the entrance of depth psychology , the past 100 years, there had been no way to grasp, to have an Archimedean leverage point, an awareness of the 'other' within us through personal ego consciousness alone. Or to have anything close to an 'explanation' of such an experience of the 'other'. So such reports in past millennia usually degenerated to now being 'only superstitions' that many still cling to without significant or convincing inner experience of it.
But ancient or now, when such experience happens a person can find themselves legitimately living with a conscious awareness of both the ego perceived world(all there is with ego consciousness alone) and a reality that is beyond our ego and of which the ego can normally have barely a conscious and often fleeting comprehension of. Yet a person significantly aware of this 'more than the ego' part of themselves still feels the pain of all human suffering but from a view just outside and broader than the limited ego. This state of awareness cannot come from being 'told' to believe it. It must be experienced to be real. Moving toward this increased range of consciousness is a central goal of the processes of depth psychology, initiated in modern times by Freud's scientific discovery of the personal unconscious and much expanded by C.G. Jung as Analytical Psychological.
The expressions you quote have in times past and present been found to be experienced in the struggles of some more 'individuated' personalities. This happening is never anything to boast of for it is simply a matter of psychological/spiritual development. This development, though including what can only be described as what people imagine as 'miracle and ecstasy' is also clearly natural and not supernatural. This means it is a possible state of consciousness that can come to any human being in his/her development. And hopefully it is becoming the experience of many more persons than ever before. It does likely require quiet and meditative type outer and inner spaces to nurture such a process of development, something that the Western materialistic ego is often not turned toward in interest or that people find easily available. The outer environment's noise, both physical and in thoughts and image, that we seem to prefer crowds out what seeks to be noticed from within. Here we can learn from the East without trying to copy it.
Why this happens to only some and when will it be more typical are probably questions unanswerable but must be related to the evolution of our species' collective consciousness. Surely the word GOD found in all cultures is made most relevant by such a mind development but, to be warned, it's being experienced is also most likely something quite different than any present collective notion of the idea of GOD. (It would not be expected to be a total discontinuity from present collective religious views but a further development of them. For it all comes from the same Collective Unconscious source.) God is probably best now thought of as enfolded within us , and all of nature, collectively and individually, not as 'some thing or being' out there somewhere separate from our own natural, but barely becoming understood, natural mind or psyche.
This more immanent view of the 'God mind' , the imperfect and incomprehensible, guide of universal Evolution, being enfolded into all creation coupled with humanity's growing awareness of our being more than only our initial ego impressions has encouraging implications: That in our present age, far more than ever before, God and human are in a cooperative dependent relationship with each other. Amazingly implied is that God 'needs' this newly developing human consciousness for God's own development as much as the human needs the guiding function of the ever evolving and supporting 'Mind of God.' It is encouraging to know that persons from many quarters now, far more than in the past, are becoming conscious of a movement within themselves that is in harmony with the 'other' or 'God mind' toward a higher valuing and respect of all humans and all other elements of creation. (One astonishing example is how the equality of female and male, so contrary to past millennia and American culture, is now grasped and claimed by a majority of Western persons. This in the space of only a few decades and unimaginable even to the founders of America. That phenomenon I suggest is not the result of any human conscious political conspiracy but a matter of evolution and a strong leap in human collective consciousness. A cooperation between human consciousness and the 'mind of evolution' or what can still be called God. There are many other just as amazing and 'used to be unconscious' developments happening.)
This positive hope for the future of humanity and the planet still faces resistance of the strong instincts of our past survival traumas which created our tendency toward tribalism and looking after one's self and one's own rather than seeing the now more obvious need of striving for the good and health of the whole. This while also preserving the necessity and uniqueness of each contributing part of creation. I think we are seeing , especially in politics and religion, very strong last minute convulsive like seizures to, at all costs, stave off this destined evolutionary movement toward a much improved and healthier humanity and planet.
*As I write this I am aware that, in addition to Depth Psychiatrist Carl Jung, I am influenced by the hopeful and empowering 'visions' of Jesuit priest and world renowned evolutionary paleontologist(how is that for a combination?) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin along with some of the implications of Scientific Physics Quantum Theory. And God only knows what or who else.
Here is my effort to respond: *The Western ego(what most consider 'me'), including the typical Christianized ego, does not know, believe let alone trust there is any true reality beyond what it apprehends with its physical senses. So to say to most anyone in midst of seeming tragedy any of these statements, which have become clichés to most persons, would be cruel and even correctly resented.
I suspect it is not typically till after mid life in our materialistic culture that a human becomes very capable of consciously experiencing there is something 'other' that is part of themselves beyond the 'ego me'. This is what the instinctual religious function in us humans is about as it seeks to 'open our eyes' to what is more than only ego perception. And it is where the stories of revelation, hearing 'a voice of God' and the statements you quote had their legitimately experienced origin. Until the entrance of depth psychology , the past 100 years, there had been no way to grasp, to have an Archimedean leverage point, an awareness of the 'other' within us through personal ego consciousness alone. Or to have anything close to an 'explanation' of such an experience of the 'other'. So such reports in past millennia usually degenerated to now being 'only superstitions' that many still cling to without significant or convincing inner experience of it.
But ancient or now, when such experience happens a person can find themselves legitimately living with a conscious awareness of both the ego perceived world(all there is with ego consciousness alone) and a reality that is beyond our ego and of which the ego can normally have barely a conscious and often fleeting comprehension of. Yet a person significantly aware of this 'more than the ego' part of themselves still feels the pain of all human suffering but from a view just outside and broader than the limited ego. This state of awareness cannot come from being 'told' to believe it. It must be experienced to be real. Moving toward this increased range of consciousness is a central goal of the processes of depth psychology, initiated in modern times by Freud's scientific discovery of the personal unconscious and much expanded by C.G. Jung as Analytical Psychological.
The expressions you quote have in times past and present been found to be experienced in the struggles of some more 'individuated' personalities. This happening is never anything to boast of for it is simply a matter of psychological/spiritual development. This development, though including what can only be described as what people imagine as 'miracle and ecstasy' is also clearly natural and not supernatural. This means it is a possible state of consciousness that can come to any human being in his/her development. And hopefully it is becoming the experience of many more persons than ever before. It does likely require quiet and meditative type outer and inner spaces to nurture such a process of development, something that the Western materialistic ego is often not turned toward in interest or that people find easily available. The outer environment's noise, both physical and in thoughts and image, that we seem to prefer crowds out what seeks to be noticed from within. Here we can learn from the East without trying to copy it.
Why this happens to only some and when will it be more typical are probably questions unanswerable but must be related to the evolution of our species' collective consciousness. Surely the word GOD found in all cultures is made most relevant by such a mind development but, to be warned, it's being experienced is also most likely something quite different than any present collective notion of the idea of GOD. (It would not be expected to be a total discontinuity from present collective religious views but a further development of them. For it all comes from the same Collective Unconscious source.) God is probably best now thought of as enfolded within us , and all of nature, collectively and individually, not as 'some thing or being' out there somewhere separate from our own natural, but barely becoming understood, natural mind or psyche.
This more immanent view of the 'God mind' , the imperfect and incomprehensible, guide of universal Evolution, being enfolded into all creation coupled with humanity's growing awareness of our being more than only our initial ego impressions has encouraging implications: That in our present age, far more than ever before, God and human are in a cooperative dependent relationship with each other. Amazingly implied is that God 'needs' this newly developing human consciousness for God's own development as much as the human needs the guiding function of the ever evolving and supporting 'Mind of God.' It is encouraging to know that persons from many quarters now, far more than in the past, are becoming conscious of a movement within themselves that is in harmony with the 'other' or 'God mind' toward a higher valuing and respect of all humans and all other elements of creation. (One astonishing example is how the equality of female and male, so contrary to past millennia and American culture, is now grasped and claimed by a majority of Western persons. This in the space of only a few decades and unimaginable even to the founders of America. That phenomenon I suggest is not the result of any human conscious political conspiracy but a matter of evolution and a strong leap in human collective consciousness. A cooperation between human consciousness and the 'mind of evolution' or what can still be called God. There are many other just as amazing and 'used to be unconscious' developments happening.)
This positive hope for the future of humanity and the planet still faces resistance of the strong instincts of our past survival traumas which created our tendency toward tribalism and looking after one's self and one's own rather than seeing the now more obvious need of striving for the good and health of the whole. This while also preserving the necessity and uniqueness of each contributing part of creation. I think we are seeing , especially in politics and religion, very strong last minute convulsive like seizures to, at all costs, stave off this destined evolutionary movement toward a much improved and healthier humanity and planet.
*As I write this I am aware that, in addition to Depth Psychiatrist Carl Jung, I am influenced by the hopeful and empowering 'visions' of Jesuit priest and world renowned evolutionary paleontologist(how is that for a combination?) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin along with some of the implications of Scientific Physics Quantum Theory. And God only knows what or who else.
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