Rss Feed
Tweeter button
Facebook button
Youtube button

Tag: "god"

The Meaning of Suffering in an Evolutionary Universe (Think About This)

by Carter Phipps

The issue of suffering has always been one of the great fault lines of the science and religion debate: How can tremendous suffering exist in a universe created by a beneficent God? In Rediscovering Teilhard’s Fire (SJU Press, 2010), a book of collected essays exploring the work of Jesuit priest and pioneer of evolutionary spirituality Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Catholic theologian John F. Haught addresses the complex issue of suffering. Using Teilhard’s writings as context, Haught brings his scholarly brilliance to bear on this hoary issue, explaining how the reality of suffering is better accounted for in a theology that incorporates the scientific truth of an evolutionary universe—a universe that is in a constant state of “becoming.” In the following excerpt from the essay, Haught elucidates the importance of looking to the future for God’s answer to the world’s suffering, rather than to some imagined perfection of the past.

Teilhard proposes an alternative cosmological framework, one that is fully supported by science, to serve as the context for theology’s reflections on the meaning of suffering—and here I am talking about all of life’s suffering and not just our own. In a universe that is still unfinished…the attribute of perfection can be applied only to a future cosmic unity that will occur in the everlasting care of a God who calls the universe into being from up ahead in the future… Evolution places in question all [theologies] that have nourished themselves on nostalgia for a lost paradise. It leaves no legitimate room for resentment that paradise has been lost since creation has never (yet) been a paradise. Both the biblical logic of promise and the pattern of evolution have together barred the door to our ever returning to Eden. Henceforth our attempts at [theology] must…place life’s suffering and sacrifice in the context of hope for future fulfillment.

To read the complete essay, visit the MetaNexus Institute online.

To read EnlightenNext magazine’s interview with John Haught (winner of a Folio Gold “Eddie” award), visit:

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j42/haught.asp

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Apr 06, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post

Spiritual Masters: Swami Chidanand Saraswati

by Joel Pitney

The first in our series of posts about contemporary spiritual masters is India’s Swami Chidanand Saraswati. I had the honor of meeting Swamiji at the Parmarth Niketan Ashram (of which he is the President) in the sacred himalayan city of Rishikesh in early 2010. I was at the Ashram accompanying EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen (my own spiritual teacher), who had been invited by the Swami to participate in his annual Yoga Conference.

As you’ll see in the following video, Continue reading…

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Mar 01, 2011 | 1 comment | View Post

A Chance Encounter With Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Think About This)

by Joel Pitney

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is one of the most influential Evolutionaries of the twentieth century. His vision for humanity’s role in the grand story of evolution has inspired countless individuals, many of whom have appeared on the pages of EnlightenNext magazine. One of the most interesting examples is human potential pioneer Jean Houston, who befriended Teilhard after a chance encounter in Central Park in 1951 when she was fourteen years old. In the following excerpt from an EnlightenNext interview, Houston describes an exchange with “Mr. Tayer,” as she called him, in which he shares his spiritual interpretation of evolution:


“We need to have more specialists in spirit who will lead people into self-discovery,” he told me.

“What do you mean, Mr. Tayer?”

He said—and this is exactly what he said; I was taking notes because I knew I was in the presence of greatness—”We are being called into metamorphosis, into a far higher order, and yet we often act only from a tiny portion of ourselves. It is necessary that we increase that portion. But do not think for one minute, Jean, that we are alone in making that possible. We are part of a cosmic evolutionary movement that inspires us to unite with God. This is the lightning flash for all our potentialities. This is the great originating cause of all our shifts and changes. Without it there is nothing but struggle and decline.”

Click here to read the full interview with Jean Houston.

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Nov 03, 2010 | 18 comments | View Post

Quote of the Week: Spirit In Action Is Freedom & Creativity

by Andrew Cohen

Unmanifest Spirit is freedom. Manifest Spirit is creativity. And when we realize that the process of life is Spirit in action, then ideally we would aspire for our lives to become an unceasing manifestation of its multidimensional nature. We would expect our actions to embody its most significant qualities. That means we would be expressing freedom and creativity in and through the way that we live the gift of life. And this would occur both as the spontaneous expression of a liberated heart and mind and as the practice of evolutionarily enlightened living.

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Oct 18, 2010 | 39 comments | View Post

EnlightenNext’s Best of the Web (09/05 – 09/19)

by Bergen Vermette

A few tasty morsels from the best posts, tweets, and news stories that caught our eyes surfing the web these past two weeks . . .

In the News

Continue reading…

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Sep 18, 2010 | 0 comments | View Post

The Holy Church of the Orgasm?

by Joel Pitney

When we encountered the bizarre Orgasmic Meditation practice (OM for short) of San Francisco-based spiritual group One Taste in our research for an article on the community in our March-May 2009 issue, we thought we had found the strangest expression yet of our contemporary spiritual-but-not-religious culture’s obsession with using sex as a pathway to God. In “Their Stroke of Insight,” contributing editor Maura R. O’Connor went undercover at an OM workshop at One Taste’s NYC-branch, and learned that the organization’s “sensual researchers” are actively engaged in using orgasm as the gateway to the Divine and have built an entire spiritual philosophy (“Limbic Enlightenment”) and practice around it. Continue reading…

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Sep 07, 2010 | 2 comments | View Post

EnlightenNext’s Best of the Web (08/28-09/04)

by Bergen Vermette

Here’s a choice selection of the posts, tweets, and news stories that caught our eyes as we cruised the information highway over the past week . . .

In the News

Continue reading…

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Sep 04, 2010 | 1 comment | View Post

The Greatest Good (Quote of the Week)

by Andrew Cohen

From an evolutionary perspective or worldview, development—the emergence of that which is new—is seen as the greatest good. So during the limited time that each of us has here on Earth, we all have the opportunity to develop, to make a difference in this world through applying our God-given capacity for free agency, or freedom of choice, to our own conscious evolution. No matter who we are, we all have some measurable, not insignificant degree of free agency. And learning how to activate that gift, so that which is truly higher and new can emerge through us, is what makes all the difference.

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Apr 19, 2010 | 15 comments | View Post

EnlightenNext MP3: Robert Wright

by Joel Pitney

The Evolution of God

Click here to purchase the full interview.

Award-winning author and journalist Robert Wright promises that his new book, The Evolution of God, “will antagonize just about everyone—Jews, Christians, Muslims, new agers, and atheists alike.” In it, this recognized authority on human moral development and evolutionary psychology presents the controversial notion that God has evolved alongside culture since prehistoric times.

In a series on his new book, EnlightenNext senior editor Elizabeth Debold interviewed Wright (also the author of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny and The Moral Animal). The first part of the interview is an exploration of how our understanding of God has changed in response to technological, political, and social development, from early hunter-gatherer clans and chiefdoms to modern monotheistic religions. Defining religion as a stabilizing force throughout history, Wright argues that the spiritual traditions have always pulled humanity to a higher moral truth and kept society from falling into chaos.

In the second part, Wright continues his exploration into humanity’s changing views of God, from ancient Egyptian myths to present day religions. Driven by his interest in redefining and “re-enchanting” our ideas about the divine for modern times, he takes into account all that we know about evolution, biology, and human history. Arguing that, even though we can no longer rely on old belief systems to understand divinity, within the desire to know God is an indispensible spark of truth that is in line with “the moral code of the universe.”

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Apr 12, 2010 | 1 comment | View Post

EnlightenNext MP3: Arianna Huffington

by Joel Pitney

“The Better Angels of Our Nature”

–>Click here to purchase the full interview< --

In our highly polarized political climate, it is rare to find an individual who is as familiar with both sides of the aisle as Arianna Huffington is. A bestselling author, a nationally syndicated columnist, and named by Time magazine as one of the one hundred most influential people in 2006, Huffington’s eclectic career has always defied convention—and partisan categorization. Continue reading…

Share This:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Buzz
Mar 31, 2010 | 1 comment | View Post
Page 1 of 212