college of metaphysics, ancient teachings available to all
COLLEGE OF METAPHYSICS, ancient teachings available to all
a university for the development and education of Intuitive, Spiritual Man
A New Dream Educating
Intuitive Spiritual Man |
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The vision is a place on Earth, open to anyone, where academic learning melds with spiritual disciplines, where arts and sciences are taught together, not as separate often clashing factions. Where understanding form opens the mind to artistic mathematics and imaginative science. Where learning transcends physical limits – no longer a slave to unknown inspiration, artists learn to create at will. No longer a slave to what is defined by the five physical senses, scientists learn to directly perceive truth with the sixth sense.
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In 1993, I spent ten days in Chicago participating in the Parliament of the World's Religions. One of the plenary sessions was given by Gerald Barney who is a founder and president of the Millennium Institute. Their work is concerned with problem solving on a world scale: population overgrowth, pollution, the worldwide increase of "haves" and the "have not's". Following Barney's address to the gathering of hundreds, I attended one of the smaller sessions where people were invited to dialogue. One subject that arose, which was very enlightening to me, was what one attending journalist called "intentional communities." This is basically people having the intention of coming together and living together for a common purpose. The group began discussing how this might be one of the answers to the problems that we all face. I was intrigued.
I raised my hand to respond to a question Barney had posed, and opened my comment with "I live in one on these communities." Immediately, everybody's attention was directed to me. It was like a magnet! It was shocking to me because I didn't expect it. I thought. "My God, this is profound."
My consciousness entered a new realm of realization because I realized most people have no idea what it is like to live as I do and so such a different "lifestyle" provokes keen interest. People want to know what motivates strangers to come together and live as family? What is it like when they do? And as a wise professor of abnormal psychology told a class years ago, "I know if I ask, you will say you are taking this class because you have a brother, sister, friend, roommate….who is a little strange. But I want you to know that I know, you are here because you want to find out if you are a little strange."
We are curious because we want to understand.
The answers are not so far removed from most people's lives. For instance, we encourage our children to interact at young ages. We send them to grandma's for a week or let them stay at a friend's house overnight so they can begin to understand that family extends beyond what they have known. This prepares them for interaction with others in a school setting.
At some point during adolescence most children experience summer camp. Man's progressive movement of collective consciousness shines here for there are camps for everyone: those of the same religious faith, similar talents, the same disease, and interests ranging from sports to space. For many parents summer camps are a way to give their children something they want while freeing mom and dad for a couple weeks. In reality they are much more.
Camps are mind-altering experiences. They plant seeds of the power of common ideals. Where common ideals are realized friendship blossoms. Where friendship exists, understanding replaces hatred, the unknown becomes known. In the summer camps I mentor, young people discover their intuitive aptitude forging bonds within themselves and with others. It is more than building memories that will last a lifetime, these common experiences are the foundation for adult choices that make our future.
These eager, youthful minds learn what can be accomplished when people share a common vision. It is a preparatory step for the college experience. Camps fulfill the adolescence need to identify, to express, to be with your own kind. College fulfills the need to sustain individual integrity while interacting with others.
In the early '70's, the university experience expanded my world because it expanded my consciousness. College in those days was a privilege more than an expected extension of public education. Having come from a small community, the University of Missouri was the first time I had the opportunity to meet and live with people from other countries. What I learned from this experience has remained with me. I understood that beyond the physical trappings of looks, accents, cultures, people are the same. They have similar desires. They want to make a home, provide for their families, leave the world a different, better place. This is part of man's inner nature, it does not depend upon man-made territorial demarcations, it depends upon something beyond physical origins. The Universal Truth of this has been borne out again and again through my life
The dream of people living together, harmoniously, thrives among youth. It always has and it always will. At times the older ones would attempt to kill the dream, to spare the youth the pain of disillusionment. Stories of withholding blessings because of the choice of marriage partner or disinheritance for unapproved behavior still exist in much of the world.
For those of us in the United States the tide turned in the 1960's, that restless glimpse of the transitions to come. Beyond its lack of grace, stood universal principles of hope, love, peace. Spiritual endeavors approached in artificially induced stupors made the effort uncoordinated at best but it was effective, leaving its mark on each person and upon a nation of people. The legacy is a maturity of the adolescents of the '60's. Some like Peter Pan still fight growing up while others have become what they most feared: "the establishment." In our search for maturity it is as though the older generation recognizes the need for change and yet lacks the impetus to personally cause it. The failing of integration illustrates this. Forced integration intended to speed up cooperation between blacks and whites. Within a generation, those of both races wanting better and safer places to raise their children vacated cities to form communities in suburbia. For a long time my husband, a Masters in economics and metaphysics, has advocated carving cities into communities no larger than 100,000. Beyond the material advantages is what will cause it to work: the best communities are where people know each other.
The images, from the '60's, of passive resistance stimulating cruelty in those ill-equipped to respond to nonthreatening offenders haunts everyone who ever sees them. Clubs and water hoses turned on blacks in the South and college students in the Midwest eventually gave way to four dead in Ohio and we all grew up a little bit. Such passive resistance was encouraged by, if not directly stimulated by, events on a continent a world away – the uprising against British rule in India led by Mohandas Gandhi. The world became a much smaller place this century and we are finding out who we really are as a human race.
We have learned that pinning hope on adolescents who are moldable and adjustable, eager and idealistic, has caused most of the innovations in every culture. This is so for universally true reasons.
Adolescents actively seek the common ground. Unlike the infant child who finds the common need fulfilled in family, the adolescent desires commonality and so actively creates it. Ball teams and pep squads, music and pierced body parts, clothing and recreation, all take on an exaggerated sense of importance as the adolescent searches to identify "who am I". It is the essence of the class struggle, the rich and the poor, the haves and have nots, that still rules the world to its detriment rather than its exhaltation. This is adolescent thinking in the hands of physical adults. It is the desire-thinking characteristic of adolescence that gives us the impetus to leave the farm and migrate en masse to cities. All seeking a common dream. By living with all kinds of people we find out who we are, what we are made of and what we are capable of producing.
What will bring about maturity in consciousness, what will cause the global adolescence to give way to a worldwide adulthood is spirit-motivation. It is this kind of thinking operating in the world today that is fueling the greatest changes.
It is this kind of love for our fellowman that will bring us into Spiritual Renaissance.
We are rich in this consciousness in these United States. We have always been willing to help our neighbors. Who our neighbors are continues to change. Today's adoptions enable multicultural families to easily form. Such examples of mixed families, be it mixed races or religions, are in most family trees, perhaps even your own. The fact that in the United States we live together with people of all races, nationalities, backgrounds, cultures, and religions is a testament to the visionary intention that set this country into motion over 200 years ago.
The American dream – of opportunity and the freedom to respond to that opportunity – brings people to the United States. It is this common vision that bonds people beyond all physical differences. Even differences in language pale, those willingly and willfully coming to this country are eager to speak the language of the land for that is part of the American dream. After several generations, the dream tends to disappear as material wealth supersedes spiritual value. What is needed is imagination. We must stop reinventing, and learn to project our consciousness into the future, living in ways we have yet to live.
We need a new dream. The United States can be a melting pot of everyone on earth. It can mature into an example of the family of mankind, a microcosm, the world in miniature. Based on their writings and actions, this was the hope of the founding fathers.
The College of Metaphysics, where my husband, son and I make our home, is giving this dream life. We share meals and chores, laughter and tears, with people of all ages, walks of life, religions, colors, sizes, and shapes. Most come for a year, some stay longer. They come to learn the secrets of the universe and to teach them. We do more than live together, we make a life together. From my vantage point I experience a continuous parade of souls coming and going, receiving and giving, maturing and serving. It is a wonder to behold. More and more I realize I am living the future of mankind. For me Spiritual renaissance is happening every moment.
The vision is a place on Earth, open to anyone, where academic learning melds with spiritual disciplines, where arts and sciences are taught together, not as separate often clashing factions. Where understanding form opens the mind to artistic mathematics and imaginative science. Where learning transcends physical limits – no longer a slave to unknown inspiration, artists learn to create at will. No longer a slave to what is defined by the five physical senses, scientists learn to directly perceive truth with the sixth sense.
A conservative liberal arts and sciences university whose curriculum is dedicated to accelerating the evolution of mankind. Where the concept and workings of Karma become the backbone of studies in law. Where the spiritual law that governs every physical law is taught.
A place of learning where faculty practice and teach principles that govern reasoning, intuition, and enlightenment. Where anthropology teachers and students research the Akashic Record for Atlantean history. Where those desiring to serve as health practitioners are taught to be healers first. Where journalists are taught how to create the objective mind, counselors are taught the Universal Language of Mind, athletes are taught to master life force.
A college of the future. A place of learning for Spiritual Man.
If you'd asked me when I was in college where I'd be in twenty-five years I would not have described what has come to be. I didn't have the capacity to envision it then, that has come along the way.
What I did have then, and what everyone who dreams dreams has, is the desire to know. That is what we have in common. I like to call it the dream of educating Intuitive, Spiritual Man.
An essay from the book Spiritual Renaissance – Elevating Your Consciousness for the Common Good by Dr. Barbara Condron, published May 1999, copyright School of Metaphysics, all rights reserved.
©2002 SOM