The
Creation of Consciousness
The Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek
February 5th, 2006
Pastoral Prayer
In the midst of dreaming, we pause to mark New England winter's half-way point. Rubbing from our eyes the fog of sleep, we pause, equidistant from solstice and equinox. This is the time of Brigid's Night and Imbolc, ancient bonfires, Candlemas, groundhogs and hedgehogs divining weather. We pause to mark our place in the vast and elegant turning of Nature's great wheel, the gradual, reliable turning of the earth, the graceful turning of our lives. We slowly begin gathering ourselves for the arrival of spring, scanning the shadows, wondering if it's safe to emerge.
Yes, in this half-way time, this time of rest and sleep, this womb-like season, let us begin to stir, stretch, and awaken. Let us begin coming back to consciousness, bringing the insights of our deeper, hidden, dreaming lives into view. Let us begin to ask openly those questions pertaining to spirit and divinity: who am I? Who are we? What is sacred? What is most reliable in this universe? In what ground are we rooted? In what sky do we soar? And as we wander towards full waking, as we rehearse the images of our dreams so as not to forget their subtle meanings, let us fearlessly pierce the shadows of anxiety and inconsistency, powerlessness and fear. Let us make ourselves ready for meeting new challenges. Let us make ourselves ready for growth. Let us make ourselves ready for the crafting of new myths. Let us make ourselves ready for the indwelling of spirit as creativity. Let us make ourselves ready for a bold, new consciousness even God has not yet imagined.
Shadows abound whenever one wakes from winter sleep. May we awake to find our winter rest has done its saving work, that shadows are merely friends in strange guise, and we are ready to live.
Amen and Blessed Be.
I offer you a personal fantasy. Suppose the universe consists of an omniscient mind containing total and absolute knowledge. But it is asleep. Slowly it stirs, stretches and starts to awaken. It begins to ask questions. What am I? - but no answer comes. Then it thinks, I shall consult my fantasy, I shall do active imagination. With that, galaxies and solar systems spring into being. The fantasy focuses on earth. It becomes autonomous and life appears. Now the Divine mind wants dialogue and [humanity] emerges to answer that need. The deity is straining for Self-knowledge and the noblest representatives of [humanity] have the burden of that divine urgency imposed on them. Many are broken by the weight. A few survive and incorporate the fruits of their divine encounter in mighty works of religion and art and human knowledge. These then generate new ages and civilizations in the history of [humanity]. Slowly, as this process unfolds, God begins to learn who [God] is….
The purpose of human life is the creation of consciousness.
"Suppose the universe consists of an omniscient mind containing total and absolute knowledge. But it is asleep."1 With this proposition I return us to questions of theology. "Slowly it stirs, stretches and starts to awaken. It begins to ask questions. What am I?-but no answer comes."2 Many of you will remember I preached regularly on theology this past fall, encouraging us to develop our Unitarian Universalist theological literacy. I believe we together possess knowledge of God, a collective spiritual wisdom, a Unitarian Universalist theology, but it is asleep. Last fall I prodded us to stir, stretch and awaken, to begin asking questions. Yet I know, and I suspect you do too, that as we begin to ask theological questions-Who are we? Is there a God? What is ultimately reliable in this universe?-when we begin to ask these questions with intentionality and passion, when we begin to stir, stretch and awaken, quite often, as in the reading, no answer comes. Theology is hard. Most of us are not trained in it. And if we are trained, often we don't agree with our training. We UUs are people who frequently don't agree with the teachings of our childhood religion. No wonder theology is hard. What language do we use? What images appeal to us? Where do we find our grounding?
"Then it thinks, I shall consult my fantasy, I shall do active imagination. With that, galaxies and solar systems spring into being…. [Earth] becomes autonomous and life appears."3 Somehow, for us, theology must make use of the imagination. There may be no other place to begin, no other source of language and images, no other way to answer our questions, no other way to create in ourselves consciousness of who we are, who or what God is, and what is ultimately reliable in this universe. "Slowly, as this process unfolds, God begins to learn who [God] is."4 The purpose of human life is the creation of consciousness -God's and ours.
In response to one of those sermons last fall, Fred Sawyer suggested I read The Creation of Consciousness: Jung's Myth for Modern Man, written in the 1970s by Edward Edinger, a Jungian analyst. Carl Jung was a towering twentieth century intellectual and founder of analytic psychology. If you're familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality test, its categories of extrovert, introvert, sensing, intuiting, thinking and feeling come from Jung. In psychology the concept of archetypes comes from Jung. The notion of the collective unconscious comes from Jung. The concept of "new age" religion comes from Jung.
I confess I've never studied Jung's work, except in 11th grade, but all I really remember from that class is that his name is pronounced with a 'y' sound instead of a 'j.' I never studied him in college or seminary. For fifteen years I've been carrying around a copy of one of his more famous books, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, which I bought used for $.50, but I haven't read it. Those of you who are familiar with Jung may be wondering what UU minister isn't familiar with Carl Jung? Well, yours isn't. Having said this, I don't minister to you in a complete Jungian vacuum. Jung was very influential in the evolution of 20th-century liberal religious thought. He and his disciples forged the academic and therapeutic links between psychology and religion. I'm aware of these influences. It is difficult for one to train for Unitarian Universalist ministry and not become aware of the profound impact Jung has had on liberal religion.
One of the central Jungian assumptions is that the fundamental problem we face on this planet, as a result of the vast and rapid innovations of modernity, is the condition of mythlessness. In the modern world there is no grand narrative we tell ourselves, no overarching story in which we see our lives unfolding, no myth to guide us, and thus no sense of purpose or meaning beyond our basic economic lives. Mythlessness is dangerous. Without myths to ground and guide us, we wander aimlessly, plagued by moral ambiguity, unsettled by an uncertain future, deeply fearful.
In that book I own but haven't yet read, Jung wrote about a conversation he had with himself around 1920: "I had explained the myths of peoples of the past; I had written a book about the hero, the myth in which [humanity] has always lived. But in what myth does [humanity] live nowadays? In the Christian myth, the answer might be. 'Do you live in it?' I asked myself. To be honest, the answer was no. For me, it is not what I live by. 'Then do we no longer have any myth?' 'No, evidently we no longer have any myth.' 'But then what is your myth-the myth in which you do live?' At this point the dialogue with myself became uncomfortable, and I stopped thinking. I had reached a dead end."6 This quote is reminiscent of the stories many of you tell in our orientation class. Many of you have said, in your own words, "I was raised with the Christian myth or the Jewish myth or some other myth. I can no longer live by them, at least not in the way they are currently presented."
Throughout the twentieth century theologians, philosophers, politicians, artists, poets, writers, and revolutionaries have acknowledged the loss of myth in modern society. Many have reached that same dead end Jung described more than eighty years ago. Some have accepted it, have been willing to live in that state of mythlessness. Others have turned around and sought the comfort and certainty of traditional religion, hence the rise of religious fundamentalism among Christians, Muslims, and Jews, in the late twentieth century. Still others have responded to the loss of myth by attempting to tell a new story. Jung eventually moved passed his dead end. He sought a new myth-one that was consistent with the science of his day, one that was meaningful to modern people who want purpose and direction in their lives, yet who cannot go back to a faith that regards ancient myths as literally true. Many Unitarian Universalists feel they cannot go back in this way, and this is why Jung has appealed to UUs over the years. The search for a new myth is a primary reason people come to Unitarian Universalism.
"The purpose of human life is the creation of consciousness."7 This is how Edinger understands Jung's myth for modern humanity. Our task is not to retreat into the safety of old myths. Nor is it to live in a state of mythlessness. Our task is to create, expand, and deepen our consciousness. Furthermore, Jung interpreted many of the older myths, particularly the stories in Christian and Jewish scriptures, to show that the creation of consciousness is not only the purpose of human life, it is also God's purpose.
Here psychology and religion become seamless. Psychology becomes theological. Theology becomes psychological. For who is this God of which Jung speaks? Yahweh? Allah? Zeus? Christ? Each of these is a name for God in a particular religious context. But God is ultimately something more fundamental. God is an archetype. Archetypes are images or patterns common to all human beings, residing in the unconscious. Together they make up the collective or universal unconscious in which all humanity participates. It doesn't matter when or where you live, what religion you profess, or what experiences you've had; Jung contended archetypes are common to all humanity. God, or what he sometimes calls "the God-image in the human psyche," coincides with the archetype of the self. When Jungians speak of the archetype of the self, they are also speaking about God or the God-image in the human psyche. They are speaking about a sense of wholeness. God is synonymous with human wholeness. God is synonymous with the whole self. That is, self with a capital 'S.'
But archetypes reside in the unconscious. Because we live primarily in our conscious minds, we don't feel whole on a regular basis. We don't feel God on a regular basis. We don't know our self with a capital 'S.' We feel limited and particular, fragile and finite because our conscious mind is limited and particular, fragile and finite. And yet in dreams and through prayer and meditation, worship, art, nature, suffering, we experience moments in which we become open to our unconscious, we encounter the archetypal self, we feel whole, we submerge in the collective unconscious. God breaks through. At such moments we experience God and Self as one and the same. I find this reminiscent of some eastern theology. I think of the Bhagavad Gita's tenth chapter, where the deity, Krishna, says: "I am the Self abiding in the heart of all creatures."8
Still, this God-Self unity, this source of our wholeness, is unconscious. Since we engage the world from a state of consciousness, we are asleep to God. And although God may be infinite and all-knowing, it really doesn't do us or God any good unless we can somehow become conscious of it. There's an element of the tree falling in the woods: if no one hears it fall, does it make a sound? If no one is conscious of God, does God exist? In Jung's theology God needs us to become conscious of God in order for God to exist. Edinger says God's "omnipotence, omniscience and divine purpose are not always known to [God]. [God] needs [humanity's] capacity to know God in order [for God to know God].9
This creates an incredible dilemma for God. As any therapist will tell you, the unconscious does not like to be observed. At least mine doesn't. It resists observation because once it is seen, once it is known, it enters our consciousness and it no longer has the same power over us; it no longer acts autonomously, behind the scenes, without our knowing; it loses its omnipotence; we gain some power over it. God desires to be known, God needs to be known, but God doesn't like to be known. As long as God is mired in our unconscious, anything goes. Its one big party! God can do anything God wants. God can simultaneously be moral and immoral, just and unjust, bountiful and stingy. Because we're not conscious of God, we have no idea why God acts in such a contradictory fashion from day to day, from Bible verse to Bible verse. God's purpose remains inscrutable. God can be loving and angry, jealous and giving, peaceful and violent, cunning and foolish; strong and powerless. In so many religious traditions the Gods and Goddesses are like this: confusing and confounding. No wonder we so often hear the phrase, "God must have a reason," as if it justifies any tragedy or atrocity. God likes this. This kind of power makes being God easy. Of course, we like it too, because we're simultaneously talking about these same contradictions and ambiguities in ourselves. When we say, "God must have a reason," or "there's a reason for everything," we're also saying, "I prefer to be asleep; I prefer not to know the truth; I'd rather not be honest with myself; I don't want to be challenged; I'm comfortable the way I am." We let God off the hook. We accept God's capriciousness. Frankly, we set low expectations for God. We let God get away with some pretty poor behavior. No wonder theology is hard. No wonder the answers don't come easily when we begin to ask deep theological questions!
It can't go on this way. The modern mind doesn't tolerate it. Unitarian Universalism, at is best, doesn't tolerate it. Modern people reject the myths that allow God such caprice and inscrutability. We'll take the anxiety of mythlessness over the anxiety of an unpredictable God. But Jung offered more than a new anxiety. Using the Book of Job, he offered a theology in which we and God could grow together.
He saw Job as a story of how each of us comes to know the god-image in the human psyche, and how the god-image comes to know us-a story about that place in us where psychology meets theology, consciousness meets unconsciousness. Job is a faithful servant of God, a prosperous and blessed person. Satan makes a bet with God that Job's faith can be broken, that Job can be made to reject God. God accepts the wager and visits the worst possible afflictions upon Job. Job doesn't crack. He remains faithful. God wins the bet, but in Jung's interpretation Job, through the course of his suffering, becomes conscious of God's amoral nature. A good and loving God-a consistent, moral God-wouldn't do what God did to Job. Job wakes up to God. He's angry at God. "God," he says, essentially, "you've got issues!" God doesn't like hearing this at all. But in Jung's view, God definitely hears it. Edinger says, "Yahweh suffered a moral defeat in the encounter with Job and the unnoticed result was that [humanity] was elevated above Yahweh. This required Yahweh to 'catch up' with [humanity].10 That is, God now needs to become conscious of humanity. And in order to do this, God must take human form. Here Jung is setting up an interpretation of incarnation of God in Jesus, though he is aware God takes human form in many religious traditions. Through this process of becoming human, God comes to know humanity more deeply, and this knowing transforms God. God grows and evolves. Then it is humanity's turn, once again, to become conscious of this new God. And so it goes, humanity becoming conscious of God, God becoming conscious of humanity; an endless, dynamic flow of knowing and being known.
I said at the beginning of this sermon that somehow, for us, theology must make use of the imagination, that there may be no other place to begin. Imagination is our ability to bring into our consciousness something we've never perceived before. Imagination is one of the most powerful tools we have to plumb the depths of our unconscious mind. And if the unconscious mind is where God resides, then let us stir, stretch and awaken; let us learn to imagine what God may be. For God is always imagining who we may be. The purpose of human life is the creation of consciousness-ours and God's.
Amen and Blessed Be.
In his poem, "Waking Up Is Hard To Do," Jung's contemporary, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote, "You have not grown old, and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives up its secrets."
1 Edinger, Edward F., The Creation of Consciousness: Jung's Myth for Modern Man (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1984) p. 56.
2 Ibid., p. 56.
3Ibid., p. 56.
4Ibid., p. 56.
5Ibid., p. 57.
6Edinger, Edward F., The Creation of Consciousness: Jung's Myth for Modern Man (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1984) p. 56.p. 12.
7Ibid., p. 57.
8The Bhagavad Gita, 10:20, Miller, Barbara S., Tr. (New York: Bantam Books, 1986) p. 92.
9From Jung's Answer to Job, quoted in Edinger, The Creation of Consciousness, p. 23.
7Ibid., pp. 73-74.
