“… what the world as a whole desperately needs now is a renewed spirituality that brings back the knowledge of the primal cause and which everyone can accept …”   ~ Hans Meijer

In Part 1, of this 2-part series Hans Meijer explored primal cause and closed with the question: why has man always (until our “modern times”) strived to dis-cover the primal cause of existence? …

Read on for his answer in the conclusion of this series … where he makes the case that there is a real need for renewed spirituality.

This series is authored by (& copyright of) Hans Meijer … and is published here with his permission. See more about Hans at the bottom of the post including his earlier guest posts.

Realization of the primal cause ends suffering

As mentioned, the fact that we are human confronts us with the questions of how and why of our existence. It is great that by being aware of ourselves we can have these questions, but at the same time it is terrible that we also know that our life will end.

This makes our life a challenge: am I able to find my answers to life questions or do I remain ignorant?

Although people  can give meaning to their existence at different levels, it is the wise from ancient times who have “lived” how a man can reach his ultimate destiny by the realization of the primal cause. In this “Self-realization”, there is oneness (non-duality) with the Absolute (the primal cause).

This means that the idea of being a body with a mind has turned into the experience of being the Absolute (the primal cause) with a body and a mind.

Since human suffering is only possible in the combination of body and mind (the Absolute is “bliss”), with Self-realization suffering has been overcome (when mystics claim to have conquered death and to be immortal, they refer to this state of Self-realization).

This final goal of spiritual development is not often achieved (how many people in their dying yet consciously achieve unity with the Absolute we can not know). Yet it is true that as we become wiser, our suffering decreases. After all, our suffering takes place in thinking and we have to replace thinking by self-awareness.

Throughout the centuries,  spirituality has meant for many an answer to life´s suffering. But also: so many innocent people have lost their lives in the great known wars what makes us conclude that spirituality, religion, apparently has no answer to that.

In fact, in my opinion the cause of this kind of great human drama lies in the complete lack of knowledge about the primal cause of existence (and thus also the lack of ethical conscience – which could have prevented such great human dramas).

Although in our time the technical developments have a lot of positive to offer, the inner man himself has not changed and thus the human tragedy as such has not become less. Hence: what the world as a whole desperately needs now is a renewed spirituality that brings back the knowledge of the primal cause and which everyone can accept.

Shall we see how this could be achieved?

The Need for a renewed spirituality

As said before, within the Dharmic religions, the human being strives for enlightenment (also called liberation), while within the Semitic tradition it is generally the submission to the “supreme being” that matters (there is no incentive for the believer to realize the primal cause. One must believe and not try to understand).

To live without knowing that the best we can do is to strive for spiritual growth, can be compared with being all of us together  in a big cinema, completely absorbed by what is going on there, while we are not aware that we are quietly sitting on a chair and the story we are in is no more than a projected reality. Through our identification with the story, we are vulnerable to all the emotions that the story brings us.

In other words: we have no idea that we are in reality  in a great rest and we let ourselves be guided by all the thoughts that arise in us. Well, this is the basis of our human tragedy (lost dreams, broken hearts, missed opportunities, diseases, loneliness and finally death).

But how then can we come to the so desperately needed  wisdom?

As the Semitic religions have insufficiently provided us with wisdom, let us see what the Dharmic religions can teach us.

The word Dharma (Dharmic) can not be translated literally into English. Dhar comes from the Sanskrit verb: to sustain, to maintain (dhr, or dhru). Ma refers to the primal cause (the first word that every person in his/her life speaks to his/her “personal primal cause” is : mama).

Thus, if I may translate Dharma freely (in my own way), I would say: to live according to Dharma means to live in such a way that it sustains the primal cause.

This definition should be the basis of a renewed spirituality.

But, how do we sustain the primal cause if we do not know that primal cause?

And indeed, as long as we have not realized the SELF, we do not know the primal cause. What we can do, as an individual, is to strive to come closer to the knowledge of the  omnipresent primal cause by living by what we experience as being related to the primal cause.

As a human society, this means making a commitment to renewed spirituality – and making it a priority.

There are roughly three levels on which we can do this:

1 A spiritual way of life

This is the way of the “spiritual seeker”. Someone can withdraw into a monastery or ashram, or in normal life strive for enlightenment through study and meditation (in my book Initiation Into Reality I have shown different ways to do this – also see my website). See also my previously mentioned article “Non-Duality And Its Value For The World”.

For most of us this way can be difficult to follow.  What we can do then:

2 Adaption to the universal law of love

We all have the same beginning: from our conception we are “woven” in a sublime but incomprehensible way in the safe place of our primal cause (“mama”). Once born we grow through the loving eyes of our “personal primal cause”.

It is really amazing to realize that the life-breath, feeling, smelling, hearing, seeing, thinking, becoming aware, creating, in short: the miracle of being human is “activated” by the love of the mother for her child (we know that when this love fails, usually that child will not have a happy life). So, love is the primal experience on which our life is built.

In my book (Initiation Into Reality) I distinguish three kinds of love: parent love, partner love and people love (“ppp”).

Although all these forms of love have been given to us at birth (as universal law), the unselfish love between parents and children is the strongest and most “sustainable”.

What we have to do here is to reflect seriously on these three kinds of love. These apply to everyone and if you think about it you will see that if you make your decisions in life based on love, you sustain the primal cause (as the source of life).

You will find that if you base your decisions on love (for your family, your partner or your fellow human beings, society) your mind is purified from egoism, jealousy, abuse of power and all other bad qualities (deceive, dominate, exploit, in short: everything that deforms our society).

This increases your self-awareness, your mind becomes stronger and comes to rest. With this you live according to Dharma and your mind becomes more receptive to experiencing the primal cause (being immanent as well as transcendent).

If you can not or insufficiently adapt to the universal law of love, then you could try the following:

3 Living in harmony with nature

The primal cause reveals itself in nature. We know how man exploits nature (money above morality) instead of “managing” nature for the benefit of all.

In my view, this abuse of nature is possible because the idea that a first cause precedes nature has completely disappeared (science has not been able to define a primal cause, so “it is not there”).

If this were not the case, there would be respect for nature, world wide.

What you can do at this level, to come closer to the knowledge of the omnipresent primal cause, is to practice respect for nature and live in harmony with nature. This means that you are “caring” for your environment and for yourself (so explicitly maintaining a healthy lifestyle).

At the same time you should become aware of the beauty and the amazing, unspeakable greatness of nature.

To stimulate this, you could (if possible) regularly withdraw in the silence of nature. This also gives you the experience of “getting closer to yourself”. Your soul seeks connection with the silence of nature. What actually happens here is: the primal cause seeks revelation in you as human being. That is why people like to be in nature, although they don’t exactly know why this is so.

And, in due time you will find that your sense of happiness grows, perhaps you will look at the tragic aspects of life with different eyes, in short, your spiritual journey to discovering your true Self (the primal cause) has started.

Renewed Spirituality as Redemption

No one has to doubt the presence of the primal cause of life (God). “It, He or She” is always here and now, under all circumstances. People who deny a primal cause probably deny the idea of an old man with a long beard and never reflected on the necessity of a preceding omnipresent cause of life.

I can imagine that I may have evoked more questions than answered (can the primal cause intervene with our lives? can we enter into a personal relationship with it? etc.) but, in this short explanation, I can not go into this further (I covered this in my mentioned book).

The fact that in our society the importance of a life based on our relationship with the primal cause is not seen at all is – as said – the reason why “so much goes wrong”. Apart from boundless egoism (self-interest above general interest) many suffer from stress, depression and loneliness because there is no longer any real purpose in life.

And remember: even though the technical developments are going extremely fast, they will not bring us real new life purposes (not in the least because of the lack of Dharma-based ethics).

Hence my suggestion to come to a renewed spirituality …

                            Only wisdom can save the world

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Click here for Hans’ BIO and all of his guest posts.

Hans is the author of the book Initiation into Reality – available for purchase on Amazon. For more on Hans’ work, please visit his website Initiation into Reality.

Please feel free to comment and/or raise any questions for Hans in the Comments section below. He will address these as soon as he can.

 

Images: (edited and logo added): Featured and 1) Man on spiritual journey by rolffimages, 2) Inside of Inside by agsandrew, 3) Theatre performance concept with masks by Elnur_, 4) Purity of the zen massage by rfphoto, 5) Beautiful illuminating Diya by alliesinteract, 6) Grey zen stone in shape of heart, on sand background by belchonock, 7) Beautiful autumn park by sergeypeterman, 8) Collage of a) Man in rainbow by rolffimages & b) Silhouette of Buddha in a circle by cienpies. All purchased from depositphotos, for use only on our website/social channels (these images are not permitted to be shared separate from this post).