Faith

This three part series explores the historic cycles of humanity’s return to a just social order and the nature and role of Freedom in Integral Development through the lens of the mystic inner life. The first parte in “Essays”

Part II: Freedom Emerges from the Inner Life

Divine design shows us that Freedom is not an a priori condition, but an emergent condition. True Freedom is not a political right granted by a state document, but a spiritual byproduct of a soul coming into purity and alignment with the Divine Design. Freedom, in the divine order, is rather the effect, or the resultant state, of the interior life of prayer, meditation, and union with the Creator. It is the emergent state of a mind in habit of contemplation of Jesus Christ, who is the perfect reflection and living expression, in complete oneness with God the Father. This contemplation of the pure love of Christ for the Father, in turn purifies the interior state of the thoughts of the mind and aims the will toward the desires of God the Father. This contemplation returns our gaze to the Source of Light–whereas, in contrast, humanistic Enlightenment thinking focused our gaze on the outer reaches of any ray of light we so chose to follow away from the Source. Hence the rise of our cancerous multiplicity,¹ which of course, we were free to follow.

Part I
The Return of Astraea: Divine Justice Anew
Everywhere we are now witnessing the collapse of the ideals of liberal democracy, and the rise and normalization of authoritarian rule. It appears that “the new order for the ages” has become old, and is soon to pass away. As liberal democracy falters, we look on in fear and question: Is this the end of human civilization? Is this the failure of the project of Integral Development? And rightly, we question: where did we go wrong? Let us not despair. Rather, let us recall that the promise etched into the Great Seal of the United States, Novus Ordo Seclorum,¹ was adopted from the Roman poet Virgil when he wrote in 40 BC, “Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo,”² meaning, “The great order of the ages is born afresh,” or as others translate, “A great cycle of ages is born anew.”

When the world order that Virgil knew was collapsing, he was writing about a promise as he watched the Roman civil wars rip the empire apart. At this moment in human history, where all order is being upended, Virgil is both mourning a great loss and prophesying a new birth. For everything that begins, is born from the death of the last thing that had once also been the promised new beginning. Instead of the demise of a cherished world order, it is the phoenix rising from the ash that Virgil sets his eyes upon. It is precisely from this focus that he told a prophecy of a miraculous child that would usher in a Golden Age, a return of justice as Astraea, the goddess of justice, would return a peaceful, ancient reign of Saturn.

When Virgil in Eclogue IV heralds, “Now returns the virgin, returns the reign of Saturn. Alas, Astraea is descending back to Earth!” ³ Virgil was not focused on the ending. He was focused on a new beginning. Indeed, in the coming years, under Augustus’ new imperial rule, Rome witnessed justice and a golden age of peace was, at least for the time of the Flavian Dynasty, restored to the early Roman Empire. We can see this same promise of the return of peace after the great upheavals caused by Reformation, as Queen Elizabeth used Astraea imagery to indicate that she was the reincarnation of the star-maiden destined to bring divine justice to Britain.⁴

The world is hungry. We hunger for justice and peace. We are born into a state of hunger, cut off from our mother and turned out to a cruel world as orphaned beggars. We are robbed daily of our peace. Our energy and joy are eaten day and night to fuel the extracting machines of this world: industrialism, capitalism, consumerism. Brutalized, where in this world can we turn for justice? No where. Checks on executive power weaken with each social media proclamation, judicial bias has been bought stock and trade, due process is a false and flimsy veil over systemic corruption. Justice is bartered at the money changers’ tables beneath the ivory towers of our governments and the price is steep!