Written by Nevele Burnem   

THE METAPOLITICS OF TRANSFORMATION


One of the great values of poetic expression is the use of figural language (e.g., metaphor, simile, symbol and synecdoche) in order to convey meaning in a highly concentrated and concise manner. For example, in a poem I wrote many years ago (“Icthonos–Requiem For The Piscean Age”) there is a passage that depicts the tragedy of Narcissus, the self-absorbed egotist who is obsessed with his own reflection:

Lady Echo’s pretty boy
shudders at the pool’s edge
trembles in the grip
of his unagaping gaze
no longer in rapture
of his image
yet clinging still even
to this terror:
the world time and space
reduced and resolved
to this shattered stare
these red-veined eyes.

Traditionally, Narcissus has been a symbol of extreme egocentrism and material selfishness. At its extremity, egocentrism leads to solipsism, which in the excerpt above is suggested in its last four lines. For the solipsist, nothing exists outside of him or herself. The tragedy is that this condition makes it impossible to care truly for anyone or anything beyond the self. This makes for a terrifying sense of alienation and isolation from the outside world and other people.

The noted author Nomi Prins, whose published work on the culture and behavior of Wall Street movers and shakers has exposed the narcissistic attitudes and beliefs of these rich and powerful controllers of vast wealth, describes these people as having incredibly inflated egos. In her view, these masters of capital acquisition and speculation truly believe that the world revolves around them; their actions and decisions are assumed by them to be the most important facts of American life.
Moreover, they have little or no concern for or interest in the impact their actions and decisions have on the rest of society. All that matters to them is the exercise of their prerogatives as controllers of wealth and power. The creation of ever-increasing capital gain is their major preoccupation.

Now, profit making is the essence of a capitalistic system; there wouldn’t be any sense in working for no gain at all in such a system. However, an enlightened business strategy does require a capital player to be mindful of long-term consequences both to his/her own life circumstances and the larger world beyond the boardroom and office. The practice of outsourcing industrial production and the jobs that go with it is an outstanding example of a business strategy that is based on short-term, shortsighted considerations of profit making. As has been seen and discussed by many economists, this practice has yielded enormous profit for many corporations; but it has led to greatly reduced purchasing power for American domestic workers who have lost high paying jobs. As a consequence, consumer demand for goods and services has fallen, causing many businesses to fail or at least contract. Clearly, outsourcing is not a good long-term strategy for businesses, if only because of its destructive effect on those businesses, saying nothing at all of the deeply depressing and destructive effect it has on the working public and the national economy.

Common sense and human decency would seem to require members of a rational and benevolent society to shun any practice that creates vast wealth for a few but leaves the bulk of the population wanting and in material distress. Greed and the hoarding of limited resources beyond any reasonable need must, therefore, be viewed as pathological behavior. What accounts for such behavior? Why are some members of a society so obsessed with amassing great wealth and power beyond any real necessity, even when doing so creates hardship and misery for many others? There can be several reasons given: some people regard affluence as a sign that God favors them and loves them—a belief rooted in Calvinism; others believe that the mere creation of more and more wealth is good for everyone through a supposed trickle-down effect; then there are those who see great wealth as a just reward for a successful career in a chosen field, a by-product of personal excellence and hard work. What underlies all of these reasons is a definition of human identity and a world view that are rarely ever questioned or challenged.

If one accepts the concept of evolution as a viable explanation of life on the planet, and further assumes that the human species has been an integral part of that evolution, then one can question if human evolution was complete with the emergence of what is called homo sapiens, starting at about 20,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that human development reached its peak with the realization of personal consciousness and the capacity to use reflective thinking and reasoning.

All civilizations on Earth have been based on those faculties, along with the use of imagination and intuition, although these latter two capacities have not always been strongly evident in all people or even recognized as particularly important by some. Emotional evolution has also been a very important component of human development; we have come a long way from the basic feelings of fright, physical desire and pleasure, and murderous rage. Spiritual love, empathy and compassion came later, and they were crucial to the development of societies based on human decency, trust and a drive to achieve justice and fairness for all.

What separates the basic feelings of our primitive ancestors from modern humankind is one essential difference: a sense of social consciousness, a de-centering from self to other. This development is replicated in miniature with every child born; we begin with the infantile and childish wants of “me, me, me” and gradually learn to recognize and accept the wants and needs of those outside of ourselves. A large part of becoming a responsible and mature individual is the capacity to care for and be concerned for others, to make sacrifices for them and to put aside one’s own pleasures and comforts to see that they are secure and happy. That is the essence of good parenting, good marital partnering and also, in my view, good citizenship.

The criminals in society are those who prey on others, violate their rights, steal their goods and do violent harm to them. These are people who lack compassion and empathy; they have no social conscience or concept of justice. In short, they are like our primitive ancestors, at least in terms of their emotional and behavioral development. They can be highly intelligent and devious, even diabolical, and can feign concern and good will for others. However, their only real interest is what they can take for themselves, by any means necessary. Theirs is the law of the jungle: survival of the most savage and cunning. If people of this kind achieve any high level of command and power in society they can be very dangerous and destructive. In a formally democratic society,
they can, if they have the intelligence and education required, use the means, ways and rules of such a society to advance their interests through subterfuge, misinformation and propaganda. There is a long and tragic history of people like this, and I feel no need to go down the list of tyrants, dictators, mercantile rogues and political demagogues that have come and gone.

To summarize, human evolution has taken us from primal ancestors
with only basic instincts, fears and desires to highly developed individuals capable of great intellectual, social and artistic achievements, as well as deeply enlightened social movements for civil rights, economic justice and political emancipation. The one constant in our evolution since the beginning of advanced civilizations has been our sense of personal identity. As I mentioned earlier, the assumption has been that our evolution was complete with the emergence of personal, reflective consciousness. However, there have been some thinkers and theorists who have posited a higher level of consciousness, a transpersonal consciousness.

Abraham Maslow, Ken Wilber and Joseph Chilton Pearce have all developed theories of transpersonal consciousness. This is not a new idea; in fact, it is a very old idea that began in ancient East Asian cultures. What the present day thinkers have done is to bring the idea into the realm of social science, using terms and concepts taken from depth psychology. The effect of these efforts has been to de-mystify the notion, taking it out of the realm of religious or, more properly, spiritual philosophy. There is nothing wrong with the old language and images of Taoism, Buddhism and Vedic Hinduism, but for modern Western audiences, the language of social science may make the concept more familiar and less difficult to grasp. At this point, one may well ask: what does it mean to experience transpersonal consciousness, and what benefit is there in having such an experience?

In a condition of transpersonal consciousness, one’s sense of identity becomes radically altered so that one feels the socially conditioned boundary of the conventional self dissolve into an unbound, nameless and timeless consciousness. It may sound strange and even frightening,
and it can be, at first. Realizing such a state of altered consciousness usually requires an individual to use some method of quieting the mind and body, generally some kind of meditation technique. What technique or system is used is not that important. What is important is that it works for the person using it. From all accounts I have ever read, and from my own experience, I can say that what is necessary is to still the mind to a point where one’s consciousness becomes liberated from the ego-self sense. What does this feel like? Experiences vary, depending on the depth and length of the release, but my experience was one of great peace and joy, coupled with a feeling of being very old and brand new at the same time. That sounds completely contradictory; however, I came to understand that it is an effect of feeling timeless. Next question: what are the benefits of entering such a state of mind?

For one thing, there is a complete lack of fear and desire, coupled with a sense that one is in union with all life, which includes the natural world as well as other human beings. Feeling these things, I no longer had any animosity toward anyone, even people for whom I had previously felt strong dislike. Instead, I felt compassion and forgiveness for them and myself. I realized that the greatest sin is ignorance; the next greatest sin is vanity. Now, when I say sin, I do not mean sin in the Christian sense of the word. The ancient Greek word for sin is hamartia, which means to “miss the mark,” to not get it, to be ignorant. Vanity comes out of ignorance; to ignore the higher awareness that is one’s true identity. I realized that it is foolish and silly to be self-centered and selfish, and at its worst, selfishness leads to greed, indifference to the pain of others and a lack of social conscience. Worst of all, it leads to a deep feeling of guilt, not just for being uncaring and insensitive to others but for failing to realize the “better angel” of yourself, to borrow the phrase from Mr. Lincoln.


There has never been a society in which a general enlightenment of the population has been realized, an enlightenment that results in a transpersonal sense of identity. There have been groups within certain societies that have had a general realization of transpersonal identity—the Buddhist monks in Tibet and elsewhere; Zen roshis in Japan; and the maharishis and yogis in India are examples that come to mind. Groups such as these do provide an inspiration to their societies; however, it must be stressed that inspiring examples are only truly of value to others if each member of society does the work necessary to bring about his or her own realization. Being a devoted, loyal follower is never enough, and a purely intellectual understanding of transpersonal liberation without the experience is totally inadequate.

It is true that, given the example of enlightened groups within certain societies, such societies have tended to be less inclined to the kind of aggressive egoism found in societies in which no such groups are found. The Western Christian nations have never been substantially inclined toward transcendence of the ego-self with its attachments and obsessions; on the contrary, the ego-self has been exalted and vigorously sustained. It is true that the Judeo-Christian tradition did produce some notable examples of enlightened men and women whose experiences of transpersonal realization were just as strong and enduring as the experiences of their Oriental brothers and sisters. It is, however, also true that they were a scant minority that was usually driven underground. In recent times, there has been something of a revival of their teachings and writings; but they remain largely unknown to the general populations of Europe and the United States.

At this juncture, I need to make an important distinction. All the literature on the subject of transpersonal realization has made the point that there are degrees or stages of enlightenment. These degrees are not completely separate levels from one another; in fact, they are degrees of intensity that form a continuum of evolving experience toward full and enduring realization. One danger in the process of attaining full liberation from the ego-self is that one may believe that his or her realization is complete before it actually is. One sure sign that the realization is only partial is taking any kind of pride in what has been experienced or believing that one has become superior to others who have not had any experience of transpersonal realization.
Until full realization has occurred, transpersonal consciousness will not be stable or sustainable.

If there are degrees of enlightenment, then I think it can be said that there are also degrees of un-enlightenment. In an egocentric culture such as our own, not all people are narcissistic egomaniacs. There are degrees of egoism; having a realistic sense of self-esteem is hardly the same as being a strutting self-glorifier. Moreover, what is considered to be a normal kind of selfhood in our culture does not mean being insensitive or indifferent to others. Much benevolence and kindness can be found in our human history---it has not all been about wars, violent conquest and subjugation of others. The influence of religion and ethical philosophy has been considerable, but the problem has been that the good effects of religion and ethics have not been stable or sustainable over long periods of time.

Those who have been most un-enlightened have also been those most driven to selfishness, greed and disregard for others. It may be fair to say that many if not most of those who have achieved the greatest wealth and power in this world did it though violent, criminal action against the other members of their societies. It may then be true to say that such people suffer most from the illusion of the ego-self. As I mentioned before, the narcissist, the egotist rampant, is alienated from others and is inclined to see others as mere objects or instruments to be used and discarded. For these people, love becomes pure sexual craving combined with the desire to dominate and tyrannize. Compassion does not exist, except as a pretense to achieve an end. The tragedy of the extreme egotist is that he or she feels isolated and threatened. They see other human beings mostly as potential rivals or enemies to be crushed.
Their narcissism makes them feel cut off and insecure. In this condition, they look for those things that will make them feel secure and content; it is no accident that they crave wealth and the power that comes with it.

Some depth psychologists have advanced the idea that the craving for great material affluence is driven by the unconscious desire to regain the lost world of intra-uterine wholeness and connectedness through the acquisition of things. This is a highly regressive tendency, and one that is doomed to fail. No amount of material things or money will ever enable anyone to feel less alienated, alone and cut off from the world.
What is truly sad for those who suffer this extreme degree of egomania is that there is a path to an experience of oneness and connectedness, but it is not through endless acquisition of things.

In our present state of the American nation, the gap between rich and poor has been increasing at a rapid pace. Money, or the lack of it, has been an all-consuming issue. As a number of analysts have pointed out, the use and understanding of money seems to have changed dramatically over the last forty-odd years. Since the Nixon era, money has not been pegged to and backed by the nation’s gold reserve. Money exchanges have been done via computers, and the bank debit card has largely supplanted cash dollars for consumer purchases. Perhaps the most significant difference in how money is used can be understood by a quick review of how money has been defined.

Money, which derives from the ancient term manna, has three main uses: 1) As a medium of exchange; 2) a standard of value; and 3) a store of wealth. Increasingly, since the 1970s, money has been used less and less for productive investment and more for it own intrinsic value, or, I should say, as if it had intrinsic value, which it does not. Money has often been used to make more money rather than to invest in industrial production. It has become largely an end in itself. Thus, the oldest use of money---as a store of wealth—has become dominant again. This tendency harkens back to archaic societies in which the precious objects used as money were stored in temples and guarded by a priestly class. The objects themselves were useless for any practical purposes, but their guardians treated them as if they had intrinsic value. As Norman O. Brown has said, these objects derived their value from the realm of the sacred; for their owners they became symbols of immortality. This meant that possession of these objects conferred immortality upon them as well. In terms of my analysis, based on the concept of transpersonal realization, possession of great sums of money becomes a compensatory substitute for the failure to evolve beyond egocentric consciousness.
Why is this so?

In a state of transpersonal realization, the individual directly experiences him/herself as unbound consciousness, utterly transcendent of any socially conditioned and imposed sense of ego identity. Moreover, there is a sense of timelessness, a sense of being beyond birth and death. In this state of mind and heart, an individual has been reborn in, and bonded with, what I call ultimate source consciousness, which, in the view of several speculative theorists in advanced physics,
( e.g., David Bohm, Jack Sarfatti, Itzhak Bentov) is the ultimate ground of all things. (I hasten to say that this consciousness is an infinite field of consciousness and not to be mistaken for a personal deity.) This condition of mind and heart is, in the view of the abovementioned thinkers and several others, previously mentioned, to be a natural development of all human beings, their evolutionary endowment and birthright. It is, however, an evolutionary development that is not involuntary and automatic; it must be recognized and worked toward through a highly disciplined use of mind and body.

It is my view that all benevolent and humanly decent impulses derive from some intuition or sense of transpersonal identity (the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, in his essay on the foundation of morality, made a very similar point). Such impulses can, therefore, be understood as an adumbration or incomplete realization of transpersonal identity. To say that I am my brother’s keeper is ultimately more than establishing a caring and loving relationship with other human beings; it comes out of a sense that, in some way, we are all connected, all part of some larger force or energy out of which we have all been born. That is true, as far as I am concerned. The image of Indra’s web comes to mind. In the Hindu mythology, there is a net of gems in which each gem is the reflection of the other. Each human being is a reflection of the other, since we are all localizations or focalizations of the same source consciousness. This is not to say that we don’t have individual personalities and peculiarities; we are all different in our surface characters. However, underlying those masks of personality is the same source consciousness.

Since realization of transpersonal identity is not automatic, it has been the case that only a relatively few humans has ever reached full and sustained higher consciousness. Failing that, we either live in a state of partial enlightenment or in its unconscious adumbration, which can lead to very charitable and benevolent feelings toward our fellow humans but not to stable and sustainable compassion or caring.

When human beings succumb to great fear and craving; when ego overcomes the capacity to evolve, then we tend to seek out those material things that become compensatory substitutes for transegoic liberation. If transpersonal realization is our evolutionary birthright and endowment, then it can never truly be denied, but it can be distorted into a pathological deviation. Such a deviation manifests itself in a limitless pursuit of wealth, an insatiable drive to accumulate money and power.
It is insatiable because as the eminent social psychologist, Erich Fromm, once observed, you can never get enough of what you really don’t want.
As Ken Wllber put it, money buys all those things that sustain life; and for the individual obsessed with money, money itself becomes life. Wealth can be increased and stored, as it was in temples in ancient times. It can be passed on to one’s heirs and used to create and perpetuate family or business dynasties. In short, it confers a sense of immortality upon its owners. And that is precisely the point; the ego-self in its narcissistic extremity is radically isolated and vulnerable; it is cut off from its source, ultimate source consciousness. The ego-self never loses its drive to evolve, but, through fear and craving, it can repress and deny its source and seek a false immortality through the acquisition of stupendous wealth. If this drive to hoard and possess material wealth is not understood and reckoned with, it will, as a pathological behavior, progressively worsen until it destroys all those consumed by it along with the greater society on which such persons prey.


* * * * * * * *

At the present time, America stands at a crossroads; it is in the grip of individuals and institutions that represent a highly advanced pathology of rapacious greed and selfishness. At the same time, the economic imbalance and injustice these forces have created has provoked a popular revolt. This revolt, which began as something called Occupy Wall Street, has spread worldwide in a very short time.
In cities and even small towns across the planet, large groups of protestors have gathered to rage against the financial/corporate complex that has impoverished and immiserated so many. Where it will end and what it can succeed in doing to take down the forces against it
remains to be seen. Its critics and adversaries have been quick to complain that the revolt has no clear set of grievance and goals. Actually, some specific grievances and proposals have been set down,
but there has been no consensus on what is being repudiated and what should be done about it. It occurs to me that the reason why this is so is that what the protestors are really rejecting is an entire worldview, a paradigm of social/political ordering. To say that they are against this
or that practice or behavior is to miss the forest for the trees.

What could be emerging out of all this unrest and protest may be more that just a revolt against banks, corporations and the political class that collaborates with them. Although not explicitly articulated or even understood as a need for spiritual transformation, the cry of the heart I am hearing is being made by those who feel the need to throw off the manacles of fear, craving and alienation that they, and we, have been forced to endure for so long. It is long past time for all of us to evolve in mind and heart, to say farewell to Narcissus, to put aside childish things, find ourselves in each other and find out who we truly are.

We need, finally, to grow up in spirit, to rid ourselves of the old illusions, hatreds and misunderstandings. Religious literalism and so-called fundamentalism have put shackles on the human soul. As the writer Kazantzakis once wrote, the letters of the law are “black bars where the spirit strangles.” There is nothing wrong with any kind of religious scripture, if it is read as metaphor and symbol. The Upanishads, the oldest spiritual scripture in human history, tells us that we can read its verses and aphorisms from beginning to end; but if we do not have the experience of liberation it refers to, we have nothing
but a prison of print that kills the spirit by lines of type. Look, then, to what the words point toward; know the radiant grace they portend.

At the end of the beautiful film adaptation of Somerset Maughm’s equally beautiful novel, The Razor’s Edge, the Maughm character, played by Herbert Marshall, observes that “goodness is, after all, the greatest force in the world.” One can only hope that we can begin the long journey toward spiritual liberation we are capable of. Until then, we can cheer on or join with all those who cry out for common sense, human decency and goodwill to all.

I will finish this piece with a brief bit of verse I wrote long ago.
As Norman O. Brown wrote at the end of his extraordinary book, Love’s Body, “everything is only a metaphor; there is only poetry.”

AGAPE AT SUNSET

When all the words
are finished
what will stand
what lasting truth
to guide
the fretful human band?
Look and listen
laughs the sage
to eternity’s reply:
crimson fields of waving grass
dusk wind’s steady sigh