What does spirituality in politics look like

[Chadders]

Curious to know how spirituality in the political realm would manifest - policies, programmes etc

I see this as profoundly important. We hear all the time about the symptoms of a dysfunctional system but never the actual causes  

For example child poverty is a symptom and very well intentioned politicians will look at addressing the symptom only rather than the cause by providing something like free school meals or higher welfare payments

These are great but there is never the mention of the actual cause - this being ultimately that society is deeply unspiritual and is still driven by material pursuits. This means that any good that is done by addressing the symptoms can be undone by the next government because there has been no focus on the spiritual dimension to elevate society’s consciousness 

How I see spirituality manifesting in politics would be these kind of programmes

- legalisation of psychedelics and tripping centres 

- spirituality is an explored area in schools 

- spirituality concepts are part of mental health and wellbeing treatment plans

- identifying spiritually gifted people and giving them proper channels to connect with the public

Edited April 27 by Chadders

[Leo Gura]

 

[Basman]

18 hours ago, Chadders said:

These are great but there is never the mention of the actual cause - this being ultimately that society is deeply unspiritual and is still driven by material pursuits. This means that any good that is done by addressing the symptoms can be undone by the next government because there has been no focus on the spiritual dimension to elevate society’s consciousness

This reminds me of the continuous de-funding of welfare programs here in Denmark. I'm sure there are more examples of such in West-Europe.

[jakee]

Incorporating authentic spirituality in politics would require a whole lot of other political processes to keep it from turning into ideological hot mess. 

I think the six metamodern political processes described by Hanzi Freinacht in Nordic Ideology, provides some valuable frameworks for starters.

Here's a Google Gemini's short desctiptions of them;

Quote

Hanzi Freinacht, a key thinker in the metamodernist movement, describes six primary political processes within his book "Nordic Ideology". These processes are intended to work together to drive societal change through personal growth and development. Here's a breakdown of each process:

 

1. Democratization Politics

Focus: Expanding and deepening democratic participation at all levels of society. This goes beyond just voting and focuses on genuine involvement in decision-making that affects people's lives.

Goals:

Decentralize power

Increase transparency in decision-making

Empowering individuals and communities to actively shape their futures.

 

2. Gemeinschaft Politics (Politics of Relationships and Community)

Focus: Nurturing a sense of community, belonging, and social bonds on a local and global scale.

Goals:

Countering alienation and isolation within modern society

Fostering empathy, cooperation, and mutual support

Building strong, resilient communities

 

3. Existential Politics (spirituality)

Focus: Addressing the fundamental questions of human existence, meaning, and purpose in a post-religious world.

Goals:

Helping individuals find meaning and direction beyond material pursuits

Encouraging a sense of awe, wonder, and connection to something larger than oneself

Supporting the search for personal growth and transcendence

 

4. Emancipation Politics

Focus: Overcoming systemic injustices and oppressive power structures based on factors like race, gender, sexual orientation, and class.

Goals:

Creating a truly equitable and just society for all

Dismantling hierarchies that perpetuate inequality

Empowering marginalized groups

 

5. Empirical Politics

Focus: Grounding political decisions in evidence-based reasoning and the scientific method.

Goals:

Promoting policies supported by rigorous research and data

Prioritizing effectiveness and measurable outcomes

Avoiding decisions based purely on ideology or dogma

 

6. Politics of Theory (or Narrative)

Focus: The power of overarching narratives and worldviews to shape our understanding of reality and guide political action.

Goals:

Recognizing the influence of underlying beliefs and ideologies

Developing narratives that promote progress, human flourishing, and ecological sustainability

Critically examining and deconstructing harmful narratives

 

Important Considerations

Interconnection: Freinacht emphasizes that these processes are not meant to operate in isolation. They are intended to reinforce and balance each other for holistic societal transformation.

Psychological Development: A core concept in metamodernism is that societal advancement is driven by the psychological development of individuals. These political processes support personal growth, which then translates to positive societal change.

With spirituality you are able to penetrate all the way to the deepest parts of peoples consciousness, which in the wrong hands and without control becomes potentially very dangerous. So we would definitely need to have stronger and more transparent/conscious political systems in place to support such a deep practices and information. Or else it will just devolve into another religion.

It would need to be build on top of modern and post-modern politics!

[Chadders]

@jakee Very interesting.

Goals:

Helping individuals find meaning and direction beyond material pursuits

Encouraging a sense of awe, wonder, and connection to something larger than oneself

Supporting the search for personal growth and transcendence

Some kind of programmes for the above or policy initiatives to actualise these

Sure you are right about being aware of the dangers of introducing spirituality into the political realm. It can get easily warped and misconstrued

Ultimately if it is properly introduced and is true to the infinite nature of consciousness spirituality is not about telling people what to think, but about providing a space to explore consciousness and multi dimensional experience. Being open to each others interpretation and exploring that - all part of the infinite whole 

This is how spirituality should be deployed within society rather than dogma

[jakee]

@Chadders Yeah, but it's even deeper than that. It's not the content of spiritual policies or their purity, but the structure of the larger society that supports them (the level of development of the population and correlating infrastructure)

Without the proper development of the masses, I don't think any form of collective spirituality - however pure, would suffice in the face of all the bullshit and biased survival games, which also seem to be infinite.  

[Chadders]

@Leo Gura I’ve never heard of this guy but really like his thinking. We need this kind of meta perspective on society and its development 

[Chadders]

@jakee I would argue that you can’t have proper development of society without spirituality being a greater part of people’s lives because at the moment that is what is completely missing from political dialogue 

Edited April 30 by Chadders

[Carl-Richard]

Islam 😂

[Chadders]

@Carl-Richard I wouldn’t associate Islam with spirituality or any other religion for that matter - eastern wisdom is the closest but still unnecessary. Religion for the most part is ideology because members don’t accept the doctrines of other religions except for the very rare (more spiritual) few. Spirituality encompasses everything and sits outside of any narrow religious field of view where what’s written in this book is the word of god etc etc

So with Islam or other religions that sit at the heart of political dialogue these are not examples of where spirituality is present. Quite the opposite. It’s just conservative spiral dynamics 

Edited May 2 by Chadders

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Chadders said:

@Carl-Richard I wouldn’t associate Islam with spirituality or any other religion for that matter - eastern wisdom is the closest but still unnecessary. Religion for the most part is ideology because members don’t accept the doctrines of other religions except for the very rare (more spiritual) few. Spirituality encompasses everything and sits outside of any narrow religious field of view where what’s written in this book is the word of god etc etc

So with Islam or other religions that sit at the heart of political dialogue these are not examples of where spirituality is present. Quite the opposite. It’s just conservative spiral dynamics 

I could definitely see some New Agers support legislation to ban certain "low consciousness" behaviors; "New Age Sharia" if you'd like. Although I could also see how the belief in individual liberties might overrule that impulse 

You could argue spirituality in politics is by definition religion. When spirituality integrates into institutions, larger communities and the larger society, that's actually what you call religion. Spirituality integrating with politics is just that taken to the extreme (which is what Islam is known for).

Edited May 2 by Carl-Richard

[tvaeli]

I think the biggest challenge is that when spirituality comes to politics, it starts bringing money, and then the materialist people are there to talk spiritual things to get money, because the spiritual model would get more income and thus be materialistic.

[tvaeli]

To be in politics, spiritual people need to valuate material aspects of well-being, money and civilization.

In west, enlightenment means building the civilization and meditation means going deep with philosophical skepticism - there are meditations of Descartes, and the scientific awakening itself is called enlightenment, there were several times of enlightenment. Those activities have very similar effects to buddhist enlightenment, but you can see enlightenment is rather collective - the collective karma went a lot better by democratization, introducing the science etc., which were coming out from dark medievial times (dark = not enlightenment). The meditation of Descartes is a materialist equivalent to buddhist meditation; one looks neutrally at mind (Buddhist), the other at matter (Descartes). Meditations of Marcus Aurelius have also mostly to do with building a civilization.

Getting to understand that there is very similar or same concept behind - but in west, you use the rational part of your brain, whereas in east, you create a holistic view ..how those are two important powers, and how both get enlightened over time, this is very important part to understand. Politics, it should become enlightened - I don't know what other you mean by "spiritual" -, but the process of enlightenment of west is wery well fit to politics, and it spreads similar messages. French revolution was the biggest act of western enlightenment.

By building a civilization, west creates good karma for big groups and this is very spiritual activity kind of, but achieved through the rational process. It also spreads love, brotherhood and equal rights, gets people out of slavery etc. It works with mechanisms of civilization, scientific brotherhood, etc., and through very materialistic thinking - but it generates good karma so much that a Buddhist cannot fight this down with their enlightenment, as we see in history. Buddhist enlightenment activates a different "chakra" or part of our brain. As you can see western work with buddhism, Plato and others have similar systems of natural elements to buddhist system etc., you can see how they can differ in west. You can see Buddhists work hard to become friends with the western science and understand, where the two meets; west has also worked a lot to create scientific papers about the buddhism, there are rationally reasoned introductions to buddhism. How Buddha works, gives access to certain truths and thus, proofs of something. How the west works, gives proofs of a different kind. I see this as very important process to find the western civilization-building reasoning from the mindsets of Buddhism I have developed; to integrate the rational thought and philosophy with the thought and philosophy buddhism has to offer.

Unifiing those two processes of enlightenment is the way we need to take. I am a Buddhist, but I am also from Christian family with long tradition of building civilization, and for me - I want to activate this inner knowledge, what buddhist has, but I also want to activate this reasoning, "mechanical enlightenment", the view of the west - I think, where those two meet, there resides the actual superpower of the future.

So to find political, spiritual people - those people, who are spiritual, need to work hard with the western enlightenment and meditations, to catch up this modern time - they have not much to do in government unless they have "invented it", by catching up with the western thing. West generates it's good karma and life miracles of high development of cultures collectively; western enlightenment was basically a series of updates to government machine. You need to understand this enlightenment - it created the base, collective values, and a system which can provide it's people this good karma. This karma is hard to fight for spiritual person. Buddhist, or a spiritual person, works rather on personal karma, but however good this level of enlightenment is, it's not able to create such organizations like collective enlightenment, and thus those people are also unable to participiate.

To think what the collective enlightenment is, and what is the reasoning, the force of the west, and how this relates to underlying force of enlightenment and meditation - to achieve better karma and clarity. Meditations of Descartes achieve the karma you need for your collective work, and then, enlightenment of the west is creating collective superkarma, which used to conquer the world. I don't give it up by being a Buddhist, and the eastern buddhists also have high interest and respect about this. To have only your personal development and try to become a part of the government - this is hard.

Sense this energy, the western superpower. Civilization, science, etc., they create a huge superpower of collective karma, and the philosophy creates a mental framework for this, and the meditations of descartes give you the mindset of this science. This is all collective thing achieved through material thinking, and it cannot easily be won by having a personal, mystical enlightenment. You must eat the fruits of this tree and the spiritual people need scientists and west-enlightened people in the collective to specify their models ..the west uses proofs by falsification - it sees, where your holistic and spiritual models get idealistic, where you need to work with matter and logic; you can have very good energy, but you need to connect it with reality, and understand how much work on business models etc. there is to build a paradise.

Paradise is the collective enlightenment, and christ is more or less reasoning kind of a person.

So to reach the high ideals of the future, you need to connect the superpowers of Buddha with the superpowers of Christ, who spoke about the collective thing. Buddhism creates a collective thing, but this needs constant input - the heaven of christ, in turn, is a machine and works with much less creative input; it's stable and reliable like a machine ..to be a spiritual person with a collective, you need to create these situations all the time, you don't have a machine or the mind automation.

[enchanted]

Spirituality in politics might look like Mariam Williamsons campaign?

[Chadders]

@Carl-Richard I disagree on that. Spirituality is independent of religion. Religion is like ideology and by that definition science could be a religion of sorts if you believe reality is simply a mechanical machine and only the scientific method can tell us what truth is. This is belief system ultimately 

As mentioned in first post, spirituality in politics for me would be the adoption of some of those policies such as trip centres and introducing spirituality into schools

It is a loaded term which might be why you’re associating it with religion. Religion is irrelevant to what spirituality actually means ie consciousness, metaphysics etc. 

spirituality is fundamentally the exploration of consciousness and all its manifestations. That’s it, no religious or ideological predispositions are necessary or relevant though they are explored within the dimensions of consciousness - they are secondary, relative truths not the prior absolute truth that you are a conscious human being and your direct experience of reality is fundamental to existence itself 

[Carl-Richard]

@Chadders

Spirituality, when conceptualized and practiced (which is the only spirituality worth talking about), is riddled with beliefs.

Edited May 12 by Carl-Richard

[Reciprocality]

If all there is left are the means for achieving untempting ends meaning inverts on itself, the medium for achievement couples with the closest thing there are to those ends, nay, the end (purposes) are seen directly in those very things.

Spiritual politics are bottom upwards, it is bottlenecked by the nature of the bottom and the more detailed behaviour of such a political system could necessarily not be predicted through the theories you elicited in your post.

Edited May 11 by Reciprocality

[Reciprocality]

I will make the above clearer by elucidating on the following question, are you doubtful whether the good old political systems operate on the same program as conceptual schematics and logic?

In the case they do operate very similarly and conceptual systems judge/determine particular concrete situations by force (subsumption), then surely a spiritualist who no longer judges situations as literally being this or that way will only politicise themself through action that harmonise with those of a similar nature?

Without a society where the majority are such a spiritualist there will only be possible for a political power dynamic operating on agreement of what the world is and what should be achieved, in a society of spiritualists on the other hand (spirituality according to the exposition in the first paragraph in my first comment) there are no truth, no grand narrative and no telos, instead there would be emergent expressions based on the peace and harmony between each agent made possible simply though the genuine integrity of each of them.

To believe that you can have a spiritual top-down political system is amusing, a fairytale and historically illiterate.

[Reciprocality]

I will try to reverse the order of the argument if it helps.

When we understand the meaning of the concept of emergence better, or see more and more examples of things for which reason the concept exists, we can see how a top-down system of governance functionally contradicts that emergent process.

That which emerges from something else does not need to exist in the parts it emerges from, is more than each of the parts taken separately or even collectively. A political system on the other hand must re-distribute the glue which holds it together into the minds of its followers, complimenting the behaviour of emergence precisely.

A community of integrated spirituality has no ultimate purpose because spirituality is to be left only with the means itself to achieve what everyone else needs to maintain their respective self, left only with these means (knowledge, concepts, friendships, sensorial receptivity, whatever) in the absence of the wish to achieve anything through them the spiritualists discovers that these means are ends in themselves, are in fact the ultimate end, or perfection.

Such a community will form its own unique behaviour, and that is as far as our knowledge of its politics goes because we are nothing like it.

Edited May 11 by Reciprocality

[bebotalk]

On 28/04/2024 at 9:53 AM, Leo Gura said:

 

Iran and the Vatican.

And Saudi Arabia and the UAE to a lesser extent.