Given this recurrent history, it is the responsibility of a spiritual leader to not give up hope or action. All too often, those who absorb a cyclical perspective on time grant control to the natural forces (and societal forces) that are swirling about them. Why seek to remedy the current conditions when ultimately there is no progress and the city on the hill must once again be rebuilt. Why teach when the lessons will soon be forgotten or ignored? The spiritual answer is: KEEP TRYING. The challenge of spiritual leadership is ultimately greater for those working in a community of cyclical time than in a community of linear time. However, a state of inaction is unacceptable. History must be honored, even if it is often ignored—for as Paul Tillich declares, Grace is to be found in this history. While the solution might only hold for a short while, it does provide relief for the moment from pain and suffering. We must identify a compelling vision of the future, even if this vision will never be fully realized nor persist for a long period of time.
Timelessness: There is a third basic template. It assumes that time doesn’t even exist. There is no time because there ultimately is no reality. Societies exist in our individual minds, but not in the one true reality. There is only God or some other transcendent deity or cosmic consciousness. We find this sense of timelessness in many Asian-based religions and philosophical traditions—most notably Buddhism. We also find it in Christian Science—which is a distinctively American religion that was very popular during the late 19th and early 20th century.
In contemporary times, we find that quantum physics and principles of physical uncertainty have led some people to embrace a solipsistic perspective, such as “each of us is creating their own reality”. An accomplished scientist, Robert Lanza has offered a controversial “bio-centric” version of the world in which he declares that recent scientific breakthroughs (particularly related to quantum theory) propel us to a profound recognition that we are creating the universe through our perceptions and cognitive reconstructions of the world (Lanza and Berman, 2010). From the perspective of biocentrism, consciousness is found to be the creator of reality. Life precedes and supersedes the universe — not the other way around.
The belief that there is no physical reality eliminates the problem of an omnipotent and all caring god creating a universe in which there is pain, evil and ultimately death. Furthermore, in many of these spiritual traditions, there is an escape from the pain and suffering of physical existence. We are embraced by and fully a part of a benevolent cosmic being or are fully secure in our own self-invented and self-controlled universe.
A timeless template is fully aligned with the declaration that there is no physical reality. A spiritual leader who embraces this perspective recognizes that they are only a representation of the “leadership” to be found in some overarching cosmic entity or it is to be found in one’s own consciousness. While what we have to say about the five best practices might be of interest to those embracing the perspective of a cosmic but not physical reality, there is not much to retain from these practices—other than reliance on the wisdom and guidance of an omniscient “God” or cosmic consciousness. On the other hand, for those who believe that there is only our own omniscient consciousness, then what we have written is of great importance—for the world and our relationship with other people is being “constructed” on the basis of how we conceive these relationships and the world in which we live.
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