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The proposal of the religious traditions, to a society articulated upon initiative, creativity, innovation, and continuous change in all levels of life, cannot account for “linking”. It will account for trust and acceptance of an offer supported by the acknowledgement…
This paper is a meditation on the myth of freedom. It embraces freedom as a myth, i.e. as it is present in our consciousness before and beyond any notion or conceptualisation of it, and defying any attempt to its definition. Our meditation is on the creative power of this symbolic word, extending its scope beyond the confines of an exclusively human trait, to encompass all reality.
Myths and symbols are systems for programming pre-industrial and pre-cientific societies. They programme static societies that go on for a very long time in fundamentally the same way. Programming static societies means programming them for no change, to exclude change. This sort of programming is not possible unless it is believed that things, including the absolute itself, are as the myths and symbols say they are.
Centre Unesco de Catalunya. On Mystics: A congress. Barcelona, June 2001 (Each participant was asked to introduce himself in connection to the subject, his personal stand point on spirituality). I embarked on a study of humanity’s great religious traditions, from the perspective of the cultural conditions of the new situation. I started by studying the remoter cultural traditions, in order to avoid the interference of my own beliefs: Hinduism, Buddhism. As my research progressed I approached western religions, first Islam, then Judaism and finally the great Christian mystics. In this study my interest was centred in the depth of the message rather than questions of the doctrine or beliefs that were being expressed.
In new societies, where economic success is linked to scientific and technical innovation capacity, as much for goods as for services, and therefore to the ability to change organizing and axiological patterns, the fixed ways of thinking, judging, feeling, organizing…