Traditional Static Holism
Discussion
Traditional Static Holism
Glen Martin:
"Confronted with these disturbing realities, it is imperative to ask where we have been and what resources human civilization has accumulated that might contribute to a transformed future of peace, justice, and sustainability. None of the traditional great religions, for example, condone anything like the conditions described above. Within Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism one finds religiously grounded ethical principles that point to, and demand, a very different future. If not “the kingdom of God on Earth” envisioned by Christianity, each of these ancient holistic religions imagines a possible human future characterized by peace with justice: a world in harmony with the ultimate principle, whether this be Allah, Brahman, Dharmakaya, or the Tao.
Human beings began to move beyond a mythological consciousness and mythological relation to the world during the Axial Period in human history, often identified as the 8th to the 2nd centuries BCE.iii In cultures across the world ethicalreligious teachers and prophets emerged who experienced the divine as transcendent to the natural world as well as immanent within it. In Mahayana Buddhism this transcendent-immanent principle was the unsayable Dharmakaya, the Buddha-nature inherent in all things. In Hinduism the unsayable, transcendent-immanent aspects of Brahman, accessible through yoga meditational practices, opened human life to this holistic dimension. Just as one should live in harmony with the Tao, for Chuang Tzu, so for Confucius, the hidden and manifest holistic principle of all things, humanness (jen), arises from the mutual realization of virtue (te), and social propriety (li). Confucius
does not emphasize a transcendent dimension but rather the holistic harmony that nevertheless conforms to “Heaven’s will.” The universal ethical principle expresses the same “Golden Rule” emphasized in all these religions: “Do not do to others what you would not like yourself” (Analects XII: 2).
Similarly, in Taoism, Thai Shang states that the good person will “regard [others] gains as if they were his own, and their losses in the same way.”
For Chuang Tzu: “The inaction of Heaven is its purity, the inaction of earth is its peace…. Heaven and earth do nothing and there is nothing that is not done”.
The Golden Rule within Taoism arises from the innate holism and harmony of the world—the “inaction” of Heaven and earth. Nothing needs to be done because everything follows holistically from the intrinsic harmony of existence.
The revelation to Arjuna through Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita manifests the Holism of Hinduism and results in an ethical ideal that resonates with those of the other ancient dispensations: “He has compassion toward all creatures and no greed. He knows mildness and humility, and is not fickle in his behavior… He is forbearing, firm, and pure, free from all treachery and conceit”.
In the 6th century BCE, Gautama, the Buddha, denied the Atman, which he apparently took to mean the idea of a metaphysical self-substance (svabhāva) within human beings. Nevertheless, the holism of the mutual interpenetration of all things in emptiness (śūnyatā) actualizes in a similar ideal of human ethical insight: “As a mother cares for her son, all her days, so toward all living things a man’s mind should be all embracing”.
In the Western religions, the transcendent God is also immanent within the world. This pervasive understanding results in a holism similar in some basic ways to that of the East. When Jesus in Matthew 22 expresses the “great commandment”—“You shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” he is expressing the holism of the immanent God within all existence and human life. The love of God for humans (agapē), the love of humans for God (agapē), and the love of other persons (also agapē) arise from this holism: this immense love that informs the cosmos through both its immanent and transcendent dimensions, of which human beings can be directly aware and which can inform or relationships with all others.
For Judaism, Yahweh is immanent in history and the source of a deeply ritualized existence devoted to the realization of His presence and remembrance throughout daily life: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut.6: 5-4). All humans are embraced within this holism as declared in Leviticus 19:11-18: ““You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him… When a stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.”
In Islam, according to Islamic scholar Frithjof Schuon, for Islam: “To say ‘God’ is to say… ‘Reality’, ‘Manifestation’, ‘Reintegration’: to say ‘man’ is to say ‘theomorphism’, ‘transcendent intelligence’ and ‘free will’”. Schuon affirms that the relation of Allah to humans and the world is one of holism. Transcendence and immanence permeate all things. God is both manifestation and reintegration, and man’s theomorphism aligns him to God. Hence, the ethical dimension manifests this holism: “But it is righteous… To spend your substance, Our of love for Him, For your kin, For Orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, For those who ask, And for the ransom of slaves; To be steadfast in prayer, And practice regular charity, To fulfill contracts Which ye have made”.
The holism of these ancient sources recognizes the oneness of all human beings, their common “humanness” and/or their common “theomorphic” structure. The results in every case translate into ethical principles emphasizing love, compassion, harmony, and doing to others as you would have them do to you. Versions of the Golden Rule are found in every one of these ancient holistic religions.xi I should do unto others as I would have them do unto me because I am internally related to the others within the divine holism of the cosmos. My thesis contends that we are recovering holism today on a higher level, so to speak, a level that now integrates the emergent evolutionary dynamic of the universe that has been discovered by all the 20th century sciences."