Essay on Mystical Easter Part 2

This is part 2 of my essay on Mystical Easter. You can find part 1 via this link.

I pick up from the end of part 1 and continue discussing my approach to this topic before discussing the highest meaning of Easter.

Part 2 is also available as a talk on the Deep Psychology podcast.

It’s Post-postmodern

I believe that my approach is post-postmodern. What do I mean by post-postmodern?

To understand this, we first have to remember the stages of faith development, of which post-postmodern faith is one. The three that immediately precede the level that I’m talking about are Mythic, Rational, and Postmodern. we’ll talk about post-postmodern as one stage, but it’s likely to be several stages, and in fact there’s models that describe post-postmodern as several stages.

To understand post-postmodern, we must understand postmodern faith. This is the period in our spiritual lives when we come out of atheism and rationlism, and begin to realise that several faith traditions might be important and conceal deep truth. Thus, we begin opening up to them.

We tend to become interested in several traditions or systems, such as Buddhism, yoga, meditation, Hinduism. We’re now starting to grasp the teachings on a deeper level and realise that spirituality is fundamentally about transformation. Instead of dismissing symbols, as we tend to at Rational, or interpreting them literally, as we tend to at Mythic, we become open to symbols as concealing realities that cannot be adequately described in words.

However, at postmodern we still don’t quite understand the depth of what spirituality really is. Postmodern spirituality is often about feeling good, coming together in groups, exploring health, exploring a whole buffet of spiritual practices, but without a clear direction and structure.

With post-postmodern, I feel we finally come to the heart of the matter, which is direct experience of the divine, of altered states leading to altered traits. Our focus goes to what I’ll call Gnostic spirituality.

We have a focus, a very clear focus, and it’s on direct experience, on awakening. This awakening goes beyond Mythic, Rational and Postmodern ideas of awakening. This goes right to the heart of the issue.

Instead of just looking at different traditions and being open to them, we now start to realise that they all point to the same territory in different ways. The deeper truths are enclosed in the spiritual traditions. Without naively equating them all, they are all ultimately pointing to the territory of Waking Up.

So at post-postmodern, we look at the deep truths in all spiritual traditions, and we interpret religious and spiritual symbols as indicators or pointers to those deep truths, and indeed as tools that induce direct experience of them.

Utility is Our Priority

We now judge spiritual teachings and systems by their utility.

Instead of judging utility based on whether it’s Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or from a certain teacher, we judge it based on utility alone. It’s very non-dogmatic in that sense. Value is not based on the source of the teaching or the teacher, but on how useful it is to us as spiritual practitioners and to our own direct experience of truth.

As such, the value of Christian teachings to a post-postmodern spiritual practitioner is not that they’re Christian, but that they are useful teachings. This is my approach to Christianity.

Direct Experience

Another key point here is that this view is based on direct experience.

If you’ve never had direct experience of these matters, it’s near impossible to understand why Easter, Christ, the Bible and Christianity is really all about direct experience.

All of this is about direct spiritual awakening. It’s about deeply perceiving for yourself, in your own direct experience, the reality of what Christianity, and most other spiritual traditions, are pointing to.

It’s difficult for me to concisely describe this subject, so if you’ve never had such experiences, take solace in the fact that direct experience will eventually reveal all. When you have it, you’ll understand a lot better what the spiritual traditions are talking about, including Christianity.

Our approach centres on direct experience. It’s not about believing anything. It’s not about memorising the Bible, and it’s not about even taking the pointers, symbols and descriptions too seriously.

You may memorise 100 quotes from Jesus Christ, but if you’ve never had a direct experience, it’s really a waste of time. Jesus was a Gnostic teacher, and his teachings are designed for us to directly awaken to the deepest truths of life.

If we’re never reaching direct experience of these matters, then we’re either lost in belief or in ignorance. Of course, we might need to study these things on a more intellectual level at first, but if it never gets translated into direct experience, and if you’re not trying to do so, then your intellectual knowledge is essentially irrelevant.

In some ways, this is a rite of passage or a bar to meet. It means that those with direct experience of these matters truly know, and those who don’t, do not.

This may seem like a burden, but it’s also a great opportunity: I’m not asking you to believe what I say and just take me on my word. When you have direct experience, you will finally understand what Easter and Christianity are really about.

In fact, all that really counts is your direct experience. I don’t help you have a direct experience, or if this article doesn’t spur you on to do the work to have a direct experience of these matters, then it’s not fulfilled its purpose.

So, the fact that direct experience is the standard is very freeing. I’m not saying you need to be a Christian, nor that you need to memorise anything, nor that you need to believe stories and myths.

I’m saying you need to cultivate your direct experience. You need to have direct perception of these matters, and then you understand them.

Based on Psychological Development Beyond Mythic and Rational

I want to make it clear that this is not merely based on a different spiritual reference or a different opinion, but on a higher level of thinking that is qualitatively different to Mythic and Rational levels.

Most people either participate in or are familiar with Mythic spirituality, and they believe that all spirituality boils down to it. They may not know they do so. It’s understandable because that is what has dominated human faith for thousands of years. It’s probably played a role in our evolution, but now we’ve reached the point where we’re sick of it, and on a broad scale we’re ready for something else.

It’s also not rational, as I’ve explained. The importance of this approach being beyond mythic and rational is that we are looking at things from a higher point of view, from a higher level of thinking, perceiving and embodying.

We’re not going down into mythic and rational and trying to fix the Mythic and Rational worldviews. Though I’m going to critique them a lot and I have already, that is not my ultimate goal.

On one hand, our approach is more correct because post-rationality includes rationality in its best version, but also it’s seeing things from a higher level that cannot be reduced to rationality. As such, it doesn’t get caught in the same traps that rationality does. It’s inherently more inclusive.

And it is not so because I’ve intentionally derived a post-rational view that incorporates and eclipses rationality. It is not a theoretical derivation, but a higher mode of being. Our view is based on the self-evident truths that are embedded in this post-rational mode of being.

The same applies to Mythic. Our view is embedded in a higher mode of being, and is therefore more complete, more whole, and more correct. It’s aware of more than the Mythic and Rational levels and does not get trapped in their drastic shortcomings.

It’s more inclusive than Mythic because we’re not clinging to Christianity to the exclusion of all other traditions, and we’re not getting lost in literal interpretations.

It’s more inclusive than Rational because we’re not narrowing our vision by demanding that everything be couched in demonstrable facts and proven with scientific evidence. If we demand this, we get lost in the intellect, and we’re unlikely to ever have a direct experience of these matters.

Inherently, it’s aware of more than both these views, as well as the Postmodern view. It’s aware that the deepest spiritual truths cannot be put into language and cannot be proven other than through direct experience. Mythic and Rational do not allow for either of these crucial points.

Our view is beyond it’s beyond mythic and rational. You cannot look at them from a Mythic or Anti-mythic or Rational or purely Anti-rational. It’s actually beyond both, yet inherently includes them to the extent that is necessary.

This Becomes Self-Evident

A reminder that these truths become self-evident when you reach into post-conceptual symbolic and metaphoric spirituality. This means that aside from proof or evidence, you intrinsically understand Christianity from this perspective.

As we develop as people, our worldview, psychology, perspective-taking, values, morals, and so on, all alter. As they do, new truths and perspectives open up to us when previously they were hidden or seemed incomprehensible. Much like how an adult can make sense of written language when young children see it as random scribbles, those with more developed antennae can decipher truth that is beyond those who lack such antennae.

Just as rationality and logic become self-evidently true, necessary and useful for those with rational capacities, those who reach into post-postmodern faith begin to naturally appreciate spiritual symbols and metaphors in the way we have discussed.

For this reason, if you’re trying to understand these ideas from a point of view that is purely conceptual or literal, you’re not going to understand them, This is post-conceptual, symbolic and metaphorical. We’re aiming high, and it won’t work if you’re trying to meet this at a lower level.

We’re really trying to ask what Easter is about, at the highest possible level of interpretation. Reaching a satisfactory answer to this requires a level of psychological development that is beyond what most people can access.

For that reason, it’s challenging, potentially off-putting, and may seem far out there. Neither Mythic spirituality nor Rational spirituality nor Postmodern spirituality can fully handle post-conceptual, post-symbolic and metaphorical spirituality.

Metaphorical-Symbolic Spirituality & Mystical Easter

Before we talk about what Easter is from the highest level, it’s crucial that we cover what metaphorical, symbolic spirituality is. This is roughly stage five and stage six of James Fowler’s faith system.

It’s post-mythic, post-rational, post-conceptual. It’s symbolic and metaphorical. But what does that really mean? In day-to-day life, what does it feel like to hold this view of spirituality?

A crucial point is that in this view we’re ignoring historical fact and we’re also ignoring dogma. I’m not here to debate the biblical facts or whether Jesus’ miracles actually took place, whether he literally came out of a cave on the day of the Resurrection, or whether the Last Supper was literally the day before he was crucified, whether he was literally crucified, or whether Jesus even existed.

I’ve got my opinion on those, but it doesn’t even matter. We’re not even going into that. We’re just not paying attention to that because it’s not important when it comes to metaphorical-symbolic spirituality.

We’re also ignoring dogma. We’re not interested in all the fine minutiae of the Bible, such as who did what and when, what were the precise details, what was the order of the evenets, who said what, what chapter of the Bible was it in, and so on.

It doesn’t matter, and it’s so easy to get lost in all those details. In fact, that’s what Christianity has done for thousands of years now. It’s been getting lost in all these details and taking everything so literally.

When I draw on the Bible or on the facts of Jesus’s life, whether they are facts or not, the point is not to take them as facts or to take them as dogma, or even to put a lot of stock in whether they existed or not. Their only importance is as symbols. Their function is symbolic and metaphorical.

If I believe something has a metaphorical, symbolic function, I’ll use it and I’ll refer to it. If it doesn’t, I’ll just ignore it because it doesn’t play a role in our work.

So, we’re basically ignoring historical fact and dogma and we’re judging things on their utility.

Second of all, we are paying very close attention to symbols here, including all the common symbols of the Bible. And how are we doing this? I want this to be very clear how we’re actually doing this. The way we’re looking at symbols is that they are pointing to transpersonal realities.

For example, the Christian Cross is pointing to a transpersonal reality. The Crucifixion is pointing to a transpersonal reality. The Resurrection is pointing to a transpersonal reality. Lent is pointing to a transpersonal reality. Easter eggs are pointing to a transpersonal reality.

Let’s take Easter eggs for example, because I have an article about the symbolism of Easter eggs. Obviously, the egg itself is a recognisable physical form: we all know what an egg is, we all know that if an egg grows and is nurtured for enough time, you eventually get a chick.

We know it’s a container of sorts, we know what it feels like, we know that it’s a whole and complete shape. Therefore, it’s possess a recognisable physical form. All symbols have a recognisable physical form, which can in many cases be rather mundane. Symbols can come in the form of parables and stories.

Even the cross is quite a mundane symbol: it’s simply two lines or rectangles crossing each other. The actual physical form of an egg is mundane and has nothing special to it. It’s not particularly valuable in and of itself: it’s just an egg!

However, the recognisable physical form of all symbols points to a transpersonal reality.

It might sound silly to say that. How could an egg be transpersonal? But when you put it in the context of the story of Jesus, Easter and the Resurrection, it actually becomes quite obvious that the egg is pointing to a transpersonal reality.

Another key point is that symbols are catalysts or inductors. What do I mean by this? From the metaphorical symbolic view, you realise is that the function of symbols is to basically reach down and grab you. It’s like they’re trying to grab you and show you something. When you do so, your consciousness expands, and you notice you connect to the reality that they disclose.

As Ken Wilber says: “all of those symbols and the rites and ceremonies associated with those symbols are esoterically meant to function as supports of contemplation or symbolic transformers.” So when we’re talking about any Easter symbol, we’re trying to see them in this way: as an invitation, as a catalyst, as an inductor.

When I see spiritual symbols, it feels like I wake up and gain awareness of the reality that the symbol is trying to point to.

While, this requires some abstraction and rational thinking to understand what the symbol is referring to, fundamentally this mode of interpretation is post-rational. The function of the rationality is to get a basic grasp on the mundane physical representation of the symbol, its history and other related symbols.

However, when we’re actually looking at it, we must move beyond these basic conclusions into a post-rational way of interpreting it. Its message is post-verbal and post-conceptual. Its meaning is difficult to verablise, but in connecting with the symbol, it grabs you and moves you into that transpersonal reality. Rationality cannot touch this mode.

Though we do require some abstraction and a little bit of understanding to really connect with symbols in this deep way, this mode is post-rational.

Also, it’s essential to neither believe in myths, but also not to demonise them. If we spend our time either believing the Easter story in literal terms, and that every single fragment of information in the Bible is true, you’re not going to understand the metaphorical symbolic view.

Remember: we don’t pay much attention to all the fine details, rather we focus on the most powerful Christian symbols. However, if you also spend your time demonising Christianity, which is what scientific, rational people tend to do, you’re closing yourself to the metaphorical-symbolic view. The symbols and stories and the whole narrative of Easter are just pointers, nothing else.

I’m sure you’ve heard the metaphor of the finger and the moon. If I point to the moon, it’s not so that you look at my finger, but that you look at the moon. The Easter story and the whole of Christianity is just a finger, a pointer. Have a look at what it’s trying to point out, rather than the pointer itself. Believing in the myths is to believe in the finger and to exaggerate its importance.

But also, we’re not demonising the finger. If we demonise the finger too much, we won’t see the moon itself. So, the symbols act as a pointer towards the heart of the matter, which can only be understood through direct experience.

Let’s cover two more points before we talk about what Easter actually is. First, it’s crucial to note that Easter, very simply, is about you, and is about right now. Even though this discussion might seem very abstract, in ultimate instance, we’re talking about you, we’re talking about your direct experience, and we’re talking about right now.

We’re not talking about some experience you might have in the future, but about this very experience, the experience of being alive. We’re talking about the different levels of our consciousness and what happens when we realise them.

Usually, our consciousness is locked into what I call the surface levels, and we’re unaware of the levels that are beyond that. Most people spend their entire lives unaware of them, even though they are here right now.

They are already present and available; it’s a matter of seeing them. Fortunately, whenever we’re engaged in metaphorical, symbolic work, we’re essentially training ourselves to see what is right here, right now.

Remember: it’s right here, right now, and it’s within us, not somewhere else. We’re not talking about somewhere else; we’re talking about our very experience right now. If we’re looking elsewhere, we’re looking outside of ourselves, or in the past or future, we’re not getting it.

It’s right here, it’s direct, it’s perceptible, it’s waiting for us right now. This is such a fundamental thing to remember about all spiritual work, and is crucial to remember when we’re talking about Christianity and Easter too.

And finally, you have to realise that spiritual transformation is possible. And it’s not possible for Jesus Christ, it’s not possible for your favourite saint, and it’s not possible as an idea: it’s possible for you. This is what Easter is really about, and this is what Christianity is really about. They’re really about spiritual transformation. If you don’t take this on, you’re not going to be able to stomach what the highest meaning of Easter is.

If you cannot stomach the idea that it’s possible and is about you and your own spiritual transformation, you’re not going to understand what we’re talking about here, and you’ll continue to think it’s about somewhere else or someone else. It’s about your own spiritual transformation.

What is Easter?

So, let’s now discuss what Easter is. To briefly summarise before we go into the various aspects of Easter and what they really mean, I’ll say that Easter is a metaphor for the path of spiritual awakening and spiritual potential.

Easter is symbolic, whether or not the events of Easter are real, historical events. Easter is a symbolic story or a set of pointers for various aspects of the path of spiritual awakening.

Easter is not limited to calendar time, such as Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday and so on. It’s not limited to calendar time, because it can happen at any time. Since it’s talking about us awakening to our spiritual nature, which is already present if you have the eyes to see it, Easter can happen at any time. Indeed, our spiritual nature is beyond time.

Easter is beyond the Bible, Christianity, dogma, the Church, and any spiritual tradition. It’s beyond anything, because it’s pointing to a deep aspect of being human. It has nothing to do with the church really, and fundamentally it has nothing even to do with Jesus Christ. It’s talking about the reality of spiritual awakening, which we cannot limit that to a certain spiritual tradition, symbol, pointer, story or set of stories.

Easter is a description of spiritual death and rebirth. It’s a metaphor for spiritual awakening, the path to it, and who we may become when we realise it. To be more precise, it’s a description of spiritual death and rebirth, which is why Lent, Crucifixion and the Resurrection are fundamental pillars of the story.

It’s not a description of your physical death or even Jesus’s physical death. Spiritual death and rebirth is beyond age, it’s beyond place and time, it’s beyond calendar time. It is a fundamental human reality.

We can also think of Easter as a watershed moment in the spiritual practitioner’s life, because it’s a period of spiritual death and rebirth. Your own Easter might be a specific time in your life when you had a deep spiritual death and rebirth, and in that sense the Easter story is a metaphor for that process, its effects and what precludes it.

Furthermore, Easter can be both a single period of time in your spiritual path and a repeating theme of the path. If you’re a serious spiritual practitioner, you’re going through spiritual death and rebirth all the time. Some of these processes might be significant or less so, more intense or less so, and some might be big moments where your life changes quite dramatically.

In a nutshell, that’s what Easter really is: it is a metaphor for spiritual death and rebirth.

Lent, Good Friday & Easter Sunday in Mystical Easter

Let’s look more closely at the events of Easter and the popular symbology that it contains. To sum this up, I’m going to quote Ken Wilber, who summarises Easter as such: “Christ is sacrificed (the lamb), he dies to his separate self (the Crucifixion), is reborn to ascend into heaven (actual transcendence).” That is a short summary of what the Crucifixion and the Resurrection mean.

Let’s talk about Lent. The story of Lent is that Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, during which time he was tempted by the devil. So what does that symbolise in terms of spiritual death and rebirth? Well, prior to any form of spiritual awakening, there is usually a period of a lot of hard work, striving and confusion. You’re wrestling with your old way of seeing the world, you’re wrestling with the devil.

But what really si the devil? The devil is not some abstract entity outside of you. Instead, the devil is your own ignorance of your spiritual nature. The devil is a part of you. So whenever you’re pre-spiritual awakening, you’re basically you’re wrestling with your addiction to your personality and your ignorance of who you really are. That is your period of Lent.

If we look at a literal interpretation of Lent, it’s a period of renunciation. The theme of renunciation appears in all spiritual schools and is considered as a necessary aspect of awakening. Walking the path inevitably includes renunciation. In that sense, we could say that Lent is something you may choose to do deliberately as a way to awaken.

Whether your spiritual path explicitly includes renunciation or not, you’ll have to go through it before spiritual awakening because fundamentally you’re tempted by your ignorance, by your addiction to yourself, by your lack of knowledge of your own spiritual nature. So, that’s what Lent is: it’s pre-awakening.

How about Good Friday, the Crucifixion? This is not a day of physical death. This is not the day that Jesus Christ died 2,000 years ago. This is spiritual death, it is the death of your ignorance, it is the death of egoic consciousness. It’s not your physical death, you’re not dying for your sins, and Jesus didn’t literally die for our sins on the cross.

As Wilber point out, the Crucifxion symbolises what we need to do to spiritually awaken, which is to die to our exclusive identity with the human condition and our sense of identity, with our sense of who we are.

The cross itself is a very powerful symbol not really for death, but for our spiritual nature. The cross is a pointer to our spiritual nature, to what it’s like to live with our awareness of our spiritual nature. The Crucifixion is a metaphor for spiritual death, for the cutting of our ignorance, the cutting of our attachment to who we are.

As for the Resurrection, it’s just a metaphor for spiritual rebirth. There’s a phrase in Matthew that tells us what happens with spiritual rebirth: “his appearance was like lightning and his clothes were white as snow”. And in Thessalonians, “I am the Resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

The Resurrection is not about Jesus being reborn as a human from a cave. It’s not even about you being reborn after physical death. It’s about our spiritual rebirth as Christ-like beings: our clothes are “white as snow”, our appearance is “like lightning”. There’s actually a noticeable transformation that is taking place.

This doesn’t mean we have to wear white clothes. This is all metaphorical! We’re not literally like lightening; rather, there’s an energetic change in us. There’s like a change to our personality, to how we are in the world, to how we live. There’s a purification when we are reborn spiritually. We die to our ignorance of who we are and to the human condition, and we realise that fundamentally we are not really human. In that sense, we can never die because our spiritual nature is fundamentally immortal.

Our Christ nature, our own inner Jesus Christ is immortal. When it says “believes in me”, it doesn’t mean believe in me and all my dogma: it means follow the way of Jesus, follow the way of spiritual death and rebirth, which is about direct experience. When you die spiritually, when you go through spiritual death and you go through spiritual rebirth, the result is that you become a new person, for whom the Jesus figure is an archetype. He’s an archetype for who you can become when you are spiritually reborn, and includes qualities like purity, generosity, availability, wisdom, and so on.

These are guiding principles for who we can become. It doesn’t mean all people who have gone through spiritual death and rebirth will constantly display these qualities, but this is a general result of spiritual awakening.

Mystical Easter: Conclusion

That is the Easter story. It’s all metaphors and pointers to this process of spiritual death and rebirth. This is how you can be Christian without being Christian. I don’t consider myself a Christian and I’ve not read much of the Bible, but I appreciate these powerful symbols and realise they’re pointing to something very deep, at least when interpreted from a metaphorical-symbolic view.

Whenever you’re engaging with Easter and reading about Christianity and the life of Jesus, I encourage you to look at it from this metaphorical-symbolic view. Obviously you can discard stuff that isn’t useful or seems superfluous, like I do, but ultimately this is all about your spiritual awakening. It’s not about Christ’s own transformation! Christ is just a metaphor for you, and Jesus Christ is just an archetype or a metaphor for who we become when we go through this process.