Thursday, November 8, 2012
More on New Age Spiritualities and Religions: Nonduality, the unlimited power of the self and the reality as an illusion
In the lastest posts, I've analyzed and criticized some New Age
Spiritualities and Religions, specially the ones which pose themselves
as revisionisms of Christianity.
As far I've noted, these revisionistic spiritualities have many more
features in common (besides misleadingly using Christian terminology in
order to convey the impression that it is Jesus himself who is providing
the information):
1-They tend to accept the Indian religious concept of "Maya" (illusion),
according to which the reality is a projection of consciousness, an
illusion. Such illusion is characterized by "dualisms": good and evil,
God and the devil, love and fear, etc. This is a key concept in
mysticism.
2-They tend to undermine the authority of God (which is essential in
monotheistic religions) and exalt the "individual self" as the key to
unlocking the TRUTH. It is the individual, in its interior, who will
find the answers, the inner teacher or guide.
An obvious moral problem with the "illusion" concept, interpreted in terms of duality, is that if the objective reality
has not dual aspects, then it is hard to see how objective moral values
can be justified. After all, moral values implies anti-values (e.g. the
good is opposed to the evil, justice is opposed to unjustice).
If all of duality is an illusion, then the dual distintion between good
and evil is also an illusion. Therefore, there is not objective basis
(i.e. a basis in reality) to judge that certain actions are objectively
(not merely illusory) bad or evil or wrong.
Ironically, this is the mioral view implied by metaphysical naturalism, as Richard Dawkins has summarized: "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference" River Out Of Eden p.155. Emphasis in blue added).
The New Age believer perhaps would challenge Dawkins's last point about
everything being ultimately "blind, pitiless indifference", but he would
agree with Dawkins that the duality of "good and evil" is illusory and
hence not objectively existing.
Part of the appealing for this "anti-duality" mentality is that it makes
the believer to feel good, and vanishes the feelings of guilt and fear
connected with Christianity. After all, if there is not duality, no
sense can be made of the distinction between justice and unjustice, and
hence there is not point in talking about divine justice. Therefore, not
possibility of being "punished" by sins or evils committed in this life
exists, and the feelings of fear and guilt dissapear.
Another problem that I see in these New Age spiritualities is that they
tend to undermine God's authority and power on creation on behalf of the
"Self"' own powers. It is not God, but the "self" which determines
almost everything. As consequence, the believers in these systems tend
to have a watering down view of God (at least, in relation with the
concept of God in monotheistic religions and analytic philosophy in
which the distinction between God and the created universe is sharp and
ontologically essential).
This position may make sense if you assume the non-personalistic
ontology of many branches of Hinduism and Buddhism, but not in theism
which is grounded in fundamental and ontologically senior person called
God.
But the New Age revisionist won't be bothered by that.
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