In defense of spiritual subjectivism

 (Ég biðst forláts á því að eftirfarandi hugleiðingar skuli vera á engilsaxneskri tungu; ástæðan fyrir því er einfaldlega sú staðreynd að eftir mörg ár af því að lesa jöfnum höndum bækur á ensku og íslensku er hugsanalíf mitt klofið milli þessara tveggja merkilegu og fögru tungumála. Sumt finnst mér hljóma betur á íslensku og annað finnst mér hljóma betur á ensku - og í seinni flokkinn falla hugleiðingar þær sem hér fara á eftir).

For me privately, I absolutely insist on interpreting anything 'spiritual' in an inner, esoteric, subjective/atemporal sense - in contradistinction to an outer, exoteric, objective/historical interpretation.

And it is my firm conviction that a good many (if not most) of the vagaries, superstitions and errors of the religions stem from their preferring the latter interpretation.

A case in point is that crude apocalypticism that has marred Christian thought since the beginning: "we live in the end times, the last days of human history!" has been the misguided refrain (a mixture of ecstatic hope and abject despair) of countless Christians for close to twothousand years. And it all springs in the last analysis from people making the grave mistake of projecting subjective spiritual truths on external reality.

The only eschatology I (as a religious/spiritual subjectivist) believe in is the end of what has been termed "psychological time" - i.e. the end of individual human beings dwelling (in the subjective, mental sphere) unnecessarily in the past and the future - which termination embraces the Eternal Now and thus invites 'enlightenment.'

And enlightenment is needless to say an entirely subjective experience, which no external circumstances can directly facilitate (nor, for that matter, retard). Well has it been said that not even the advent of a thousand Christs to Earth could bring humanity one step closer to freeing itself of the shackles of psychological time and thus inaugurate the Kingdom of God on Earth (for our obsession with said psychological time is the main obstacle barring us from conscious contact with that mysterious source of all existence which we vaguely give the name of 'God' or alternately, for those who prefer less explicitly religious terminology, 'The Eternal Now').

In the end, it all has to come from within - and from each one of us individually.

Starting, of course, with you and me.