Part IV
page one
Now, having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the Kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:20-21 NAS
Human development, the maturity continuum culminating in adulthood, progresses along basic predictable behavioral patterns. Infancy is a time when discovery and involvement with the environment is sensory based. Except for instinctive behaviors and functions controlled by the brain stem and cerebellum, infants are totally dependent on external sources. The first step towards independence is the development of an awareness of their surroundings. An awareness of the external is critical if a child is to comprehend dependence; a necessary pre-requisite if the child is to fashion a sturdy framework for future independence. For the developing infant it is important to gather as much information about the external environment as is possible. This is achieved through the senses.
When the natural developmental flow is interrupted, stymied, naturally occurring behaviors have a tendency to establish sensory addictions, patterns of behavior that are cyclic, a behavioral loop possessing a repetitive nature which produces a comforting equilibrium, a status quo, offering a sense of safety and security founded in external familiarities. The infant-toddler years, the attachment experience years of early childhood development, are most often the years when emotional and social development is stymied. Legitimate needs are left unmet. The developmental sequence is interrupted, the train stops, and waits for something that should have happened, but didn't. These are sensory based years. This is a period of development when external awareness reigns supreme. It is a time when life legitimately demands a child give complete attention to the external world. This is done through the senses. It is at this point the individual becomes addicted to external stimulus; a person develops an unhealthy dependence on the sensory world.
I suggest; the difficulty individuals experience when attempting to comprehend the internal nature of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God; the total independence from external stimuli inherent in this Kingdom; this difficulty results from mankind’s addiction to and dependence on the sensory mode. What I am trying to understand and explain is why individuals are stuck in the sensory mode; why it is that mankind places such significance on externals; why we as a culture; why we create religious and social traditions centered on an external focus. Church buildings, ritual, priests, prophets and pastors, hierarchies, books, simplistic codes of observable behaviors, heroes and heroines, patriotism, sainthood, patterns of worship, sensory security systems, doctrine, a consuming emphasis on external comparisons; these are debilitating entities which offer elemental security, but establish false sanctuaries and unwholesome attachments which anchor the individual to lower levels of maturity; levels of maturity addicted to externals and preventing the internal focus demanded for maturation; a maturity which demands independence from external stimuli; an Adulthood where all that is necessary for wholesome living lies within the individual; a Self-sufficient kingdom within.
Mankind’s behaviors are almost totally externally focused. Religious activity is externally focused. Note the Ten Commandments: Love God; how is it monitored? By external behaviors. Obey your parents; how is it monitored? By external behaviors. Murder? External behavior. Theft? External behaviors. Adultery? External behaviors. Covetousness? A focus on externals. Swearing? External behaviors. The worship of idols? External focus. External behaviors are appropriate to the lower thresholds of maturity. In the early years of human development, the brain has not matured; the brain is incapable of developing an abstract internal focus. By age twenty, the brain is capable of this function; a person’s conscious awareness of the internal nature of their existence is well within the brain’s capabilities. But, for the most part, the majority of individuals are unable to breech the chasm and remain locked within the external, sensory based, mode.
This reality cripples society. Society senses the retardation, recognizes it as a threat to their systems of security, the pseudo-sanctuaries and bastions of cultivated naivety, and endeavors to stimulate their sensory awareness and focus more diligently on externals. Anyone attempting to suggest the possibility of a path from the external focus to an internal focus is naturally viewed as a threat and isolated through sensory based behaviors. In a sense, society's addiction to the sensory mode has vaccinated it against infection from the upper thresholds of maturity. That anyone escapes is a miracle. It is no miracle, actually. It is simply the combined forces of genetic predisposition life experience. The insufficiency of the knowledge base of universal experience simply won't allow the leap. When the knowledge base is at last sufficient to escape the sensory based free-will orbit, there must be a first one to recognize this new potential; a first one to escape the free-will orbit; a lonely, dreadful experience, at best.
Maslov’s hierarchy of needs culminates in self-actualization. This concept of self-actualization is such a nebulous, undefined, concept; a concept eluding mankind’s ability to comprehend; a realm so mysterious that it is deemed only a select few are able to attain it, when in actuality, it is a level of maturity we are each fully expected to and capable of achieving. It is not a realm reserved for saints, for the Mother Theresas and Ghandis of this world. A wholesome developing human can and should reach this level of development. It is not beyond the reach of any person.
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