Redemption
Contents
Definition
Applications
The Redemption of Each Individual is the Proper Route Forward
The proper route forward for the redemption of the individual and for mankind as a whole is as a consequence of the redemption of each individual. And I truly believe that that occurs as a consequence of /adherence to the truth and courage in the face of being/, that’s rule one. To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to take on the onslaught and to enter the contentious ring and to do more than your best. Because your best isn’t enough, because your best isn’t as good as you could be. You have to push yourself past that, and that’s, as far as I can tell, where you find what you need in life. You find the meaning that sustains you in life, and you find the patterns of action that redeem the world, both at the same time. I mean life is a very difficult business, it’s fatal and it’s full of suffering and it’s full of betrayal and malevolence. There is nothing about it that’s trivial, it’s all profound. And in order to find your way through all of that, that capacity for hellish experience let’s say, you need to develop a relationship with something that’s profound, and you can! You have that capacity, and what can be more profound than the truth? And what would you rather have on your side? And you might say, ‘well, that’s obvious’, and of course, everyone should do that, and then you need to know why you don’t. And the answer is sort of encapsulated in this amusing ‘question’: “Thank you for enlightening my soul, the burns are still healing”… Well, there’s no shortage of deadwood to burn of. And there’s no shortage of pain when the deadwood burns off, and that’s what makes people afraid of the truth. Maybe that’s why Moses encountered God in a burning bush. There is something about that idea that seems to me to be the case. And so, what’s the decision that you make? You decide to believe, that’s a risk, an existential risk. It’s an act of faith, you believe that the truth can set you free. You believe that people have an intrinsic divinity about their soul. You decide that you’re going to live in that manner. And that you’re going to let everything about yourself that isn’t worthy of that goal die. And that might be almost everything that you are. And that’s a terrible thing to contemplate. The only thing that is worse I would say is the alternative, because the alternative are these sorts of hell’s that we manage to produce around us. And that we produced with particular expertise during the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. And it would be a good thing if we decided collectively and individually not to go back there again. [1]
The Pathway to Redemption is Through Recognition of Error
It’s a classical fall of man story, it’s the story of Exodus. It’s the part of the reason that people aren’t enlightened. If you are going to go up, every up is predicated by a down of equivalent magnitude. If you are going to improve, then you are going to discover that you are wrong about something first. To be wrong about something means you are going to fragment and it’s going to be painful to recognize the fact of that error, to recognize the consequences of that error across your life to have to reformulate yourself so that that error is no longer acting out as a part of your personality in your life. It is an unbelievable descent. Joseph Campbell says follow your bliss, that’s certainly not something that Jung said. Jung said that you search out what you are most terrified of, what you are most disgusted by, and the place you least want to go, where you have to bow the lowest, that’s the place where salvation might be found. (That’s true and that’s terrifying!)The pathway to redemption is through recognition of error, not through bliss. And this is psychotherapeutic truism: If you are going to confront a monster, and you most certainly are, then you do it at a time and place of your choosing, because otherwise it waits until you are at your weakest and most vulnerable and then it attacks. We don’t have the wisdom of the kind of pessimism that enables us to view life that way. You think, well if we are careful and quiet, the monster will avoid us completely and everyone knows that’s a lie. [2]
Interpretations
You need to be exposed to things you fear and hate , because that’s where salvation lies.
See Also
References
