The Living Universe - Duane Elgin [57]
Overall, a key test of our maturity as a species as we move into this next major phase in humanity’s evolution is how well we manage to integrate the many polarities that currently divide us. Unity and diversity, being and becoming, rich and poor, women and men, the eternal and the momentary, transcendence and immanence—the ongoing integration of these and other polarities will produce a strong and dynamically stable world civilization.
The Second Axial Age
The human family is making a pivotal turn from a long evolutionary phase oriented around a spirituality of separation to another long phase that is oriented around a spirituality of communion. A spirituality of separation is seen most clearly in what has been called the first axial age of religion.6 The phrase axial age was used by the philosopher Karl Jaspers to describe the relatively brief period of time—roughly seven hundred years—when the great religions of the world arose: Hinduism and Buddhism in India; Confucianism and Taoism in China; and monotheism in the Middle East.
The period from 900 to 200 B.C.E. is referred to as an axial age because it set the orientation or direction for spirituality for more than 2,000 years into the future. Around the world, the axial age marked the growth of trading networks, the rise of large cities, and large armies equipped with iron-age weapons. This was also a time of extreme violence and widespread warfare. The response of axial-age religions was a countervailing revolution in spiritual growth that put compassion at the forefront.
The word religion comes from the Latin root “religio,” which means to “bind together.” During the long path of increasing separation and differentiation, the role of religion was to bind people, both to one another and to the sacred universe. People were not only leaving nature for urban settings but also, increasingly, disconnecting from the invisible field of aliveness. Here is a powerful summation of the first axial age by D. H. Lawrence: “For two thousand years man has been living in a dead or dying cosmos, hoping for a heaven hereafter. And all the religions have been religions of the dead body and the postponed reward.”7 As people saw themselves less as within the universe and more as separate observers of it, the binding role of religion became more important.
Historically, all of the world’s great religions have understood that humanity is moving along a path of differentiation and individuation, and that a core challenge of religion has been to moderate the extreme consequences of our perceived separation. Despite great diversity of culture and geography, there is a common understanding in the world’s wisdom traditions that is summarized in the Golden Rule.
As you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.
—CHRISTIANITY
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary.
—JUDAISM
No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
—ISLAM
Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.
—HINDUISM
Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
—BUDDHISM
Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you.
—CONFUCIANISM
Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.
—TAOISM
In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.
—JAIN
The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.
—SHINTO
All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.
—NATIVE AMERICAN
As you see yourself, see others as well; only then will you become a partner in heaven.
—SIKHISM
Like different facets of a single jewel or different branches of a single tree, the human family shares a common