The Integral Message
Let Me Introduce Myself
My life journey is best described as a pilgrim, committed to exploring the unfolding story of life.
From my teenage years in Melbourne, Australia, I have sought an understanding of the human experience. Moved by an awakening attraction to the mystical, and with a quizzical fascination with how to speak of it through the perspective of psychological insights, I have spent a life-time hungry for greater answers. As a priest, pastor and student within the Anglican Church of Australia my answers have arisen from personal experience, relationships, reflection and study of other pilgrims.
A vital experience of life was the day I saw all my learning coalescing in the ancient wisdom, affirmed by Jesus, in the call, ‘to love God and my neighbour as myself’. The relationality of these three directions highlighted the relationality of life, hence my pilgrimage has been to eventually speak of life through this paradigm.
Several windows of life have helped expand my understanding.
1. Experientially: Back in the early 80’s I was introduced to windsurfing by my brother-in-law. The modest experience on a relatively calm lake with a gentle breeze was enough to have a profound psychic effect upon me. The awareness of managing a fine balance of nature, sail/board, and self, needed via personal manipulation of each in relation to one another created a dynamic unity. Windsurfing is an experience of harmony whereby the disrespect of any one component fails the totality. The experience of a profound unity experienced that day lives on in my psyche.
2. During the ’90s as I reflected upon the years of my learning seeking to harmonise the experience of mystical spirituality, the psychological perspective of life and the social justice-responsibility movement, I realised that they replicated the teaching of Jesus to ‘love God and one’s neighbour as oneself’. Identifying the inter-relational nature of these three movements I believed in, spoke of a relational spirituality. As a concept it captured the experience I recalled of the harmony I found in windsurfing.
3 Through the early years of the 2000’s I joined an ecumenical group, The Association of Practical Theology in Oceania. At its convention, I learnt of Raimon Panikkar, a Catholic Priest, theologian, scientist, mystic committed to interfaith dialogue. His teaching spoke of the harmonising of all life. The foundation of this teaching was captured in his Gifford lecture of 1988 and published in his book ‘Rhythm and Harmony’. He described life as being a dynamic whole resulting from the inter-dependence of Creator, Creation, and Creature. He formed the word Cosmotheandric (Cosmos, Theos, and Andros) to speak of the human intuition that replicates this dynamic whole. His work provided the theological foundation for my concept of Relational Spirituality.
4. On one of those meandering wanders through a book store I stumbled upon a book by Ken Wilber. It spoke of his universal theory of life, as a harmonisation of all pertinent streams of knowledge. Sceptical but intrigued I purchased and read much of his extensive works. Speaking of the evolving nature of the mind and its’ consciousness, he outlined the present transition of human consciousness from the passing mental rational era to the emerging integral awareness. This drew many components of knowledge together such as quantum theory, globalisation, sociology psychology, culture, interfaith dialogue and much more. Along with others who have written extensively of the integral world, they have provided the context for understanding the importance of Panikkar’s integral reality.
5. The profound message described by Panikkar is that, ‘Humanity has lived throughout history with a ‘mythos’ of conflict. Unless we discover a new mythos of peace, we will surely destroy ourselves.’
Ewert Cousin’s asks the question as to how we live Panikkar’s Cosmotheandric vision for peace. I present Relational Spirituality as a practical application of Panikkar’s way.