Closed Systems and Their Centers

Closed systems circle around a center. This center contains something which is not allowed to be put in question, criticized or changed. The center is absolutized and removed from the sphere of relativity. It gets surrounded with a sphere of faith. On the threshold to the center, knowledge ends, and the access is limited to those who believe unconditionally.

Revealed religions contain their revelations in the center. This is where God spoke to the humans, and what he said there has absolute truth and cannot be relativized in any way. In (other?) cults it is often the word of the founder which has to be accepted without criticism, even when he orders out of divine inspiration that all members of the group have to kill themselves.

Closed systems have an absolute center and everything around it is relative, related to this center. The center decides what is right and what is wrong, and these decisions have absolute power and validity. The center is perfect and everything else is incomplete and deficient. Often, there is a hierarchy among the relative, which states that the closer someone is to the center, the closer they approach completion. Those who stick to that rule, can make their carrier (e.g. in the closed system of a dictatorship), those who neglect it have to face bad consequences (e.g. a prolonged visit to hell in the case of Christianity or Islam).

The center generates rules which keep the closed system closed, although time moves on and the system is constantly affected by new influences. In the Catholic Church, there was the sentence in place: "Roma locuta, causa finita." - When Rome has spoken, the case is closed. Within a closed system, differing opinions are allowed as long as the center has declared the truth, and after that everyone has to be silent and to obey. The closeness has been restored.

For the Catholic Church, Rome, which is the Pope in person (as representative of Jesus Christ on earth) figures as center. In the 19th century, he was entrusted with the gift of infallibility about doctrines. From such a center, all the rules flow which the believers need for leading their lives in the right way. Every new influence has to be checked and be either approved or repudiated. So there was an index of prohibited books, dogmas which were defined by labelling every disbeliever as heretic, inquisitive and painful procedures against members who have opinions of their own, condemnations of thoughts or ideas, which came up outside of the church and against which the believers have to be warned - defensive measures with the aim of protecting  closeness.

Of course such a gigantic task cannot be fulfilled in a world of growing complexity. So it seems that the new Pope has chosen a new direction to primarily take care of the people in need instead of keeping up doctrines, a direction promising more openness.
Martin Luther had stood up against this centralism, which had also caused the split with eastern European Christians in the 11th century. It was one of the concerns of Protestant reformation to blast the Roman center of papacy and to replace it by the sole center of the written revelations. Luther hoped for more opening by establishing an abstract form of a center, but this was no basic escape from closeness. As a consequence, this sector of Christianity had to face an enormous fragmentation. Every new Protestant movement tried to escape the forming of a center by creating a new center of an "even truer" Christianity. Obviously, this caused a dynamics to absolutize the center even more as smaller as the system got. The most segregated Christian fundamentalisms can be found in these evangelical secessionist churches of the US Middle West. An example of the rigid belief systems of these closed circles can be found in the discussions around creationism, an ideological system formed to prove the creation of the world by God as a scientific fact. 

Also in the area of politics, sacrosanct centers are part of the game. Many political movements gather around a central idea which is declared as untouchable. For its realization, all means are justified, as the end justifies the means. Robespierre is a striking example of this delusion when he proclaimed a cult of reason at the peak of the French revolution. All those who were considered of endangering this highest value were handed over to the machinery of execution without mercy.

A plain look at today's crisis and wars does not only show the massive and deplorable destruction of lives, demolitions and dehumanizations happening there. It also gives insights into the center of the relevant ideologies which drive the conflict and war parties. Sometimes, the historical threads in these ideological centers are so densely interwoven that they seem quite complex. Yet, we basically find fears of survival, out of which the respective ideologies promise a sole exit. They also name the main adversary and enemy, who has to be defeated.

Also within the smaller context of the growing plurality of searching for sense, forming of centers play an important role. Although many of these approaches explicitly proclaim opening, they all to easily overlook their own basic presumptions, which stay out of the experiential area in which the insights can be found and which have to be believed. These phenomena can be found in various schools of self-help, psychotherapy, esoteric and spirituality.

In the field of psychotherapy, it is often the personality of the founder who is established as unquestionable center. Their concerns and insights are kept in this center like a sanctuary, against which every new insight or method has to be measured. There are also guiding concepts, which a therapist has adopted once because they were helping him and which he then applies with every client without taking care whether they are applicable or not. So a constant self-enquiry and self-reflection is important to keep ideologies out of therapy. The guideline to invent a new therapy together with every client helps to get out of tendencies towards closed concepts, as it encourages to constant openness for the experience of the moment.

The exoteric scene is virtually defined by gaining supporters via hidden ideas of centers. Trust your experiences but believe everything which is offered as explanation for them. When you had a good experience, the respective system will explain to you thanks to which angel, alien or ascended master you had received it. In case you had some doubts at these occult centers of the teaching, you get a diagnosis of lack of maturity and consciousness. The only remedy to these ailments can be found in the center.

Spiritual teachers should mark a distinction to esoteric marketing by advising their students to rigorous self-enquiry. “Look for all that is true for you in our innermost core and free yourself from all models and concepts.” Such encouragements are open as they do not pretend to know about the outcome of the search but leave it up to the student in total freedom.

Still, many spiritual teachers have their sanctum, a core of their teaching, and all too often they demand from their adherents to adopt their concepts without willingness to open up the centers of their beliefs. Wherever dependencies and power issues arise in spiritual communities or movements, an underlying center is the cause of the struggle.

By entering into a systemic form of consciousness, we face the challenge to learn to live without absolutized centers. Hence we become aware of the importance of recognizing and naming such centers when we encounter closed systems, and to outline alternatives of how to live without them.

We are used to the idea of an unchanging and always true core inside of us, which always grants us the right direction. This idea gives us inner and outer safety. Yet we have the power and inner strength to lighten up the illusions, which these seemingly safe core concepts and orientation markers claim to provide us with. For any of these illusions we can say good-bye to, we receive a precious piece of inner freedom in exchange.

Two Truths and Language

Language develops in the sphere of conventional consciousness. Generally, verbal communication serves the purpose of taking care of sharing a common view of reality. "Is this the sun?" asks the child. "Yes, this is the sun," replies the father. "Do you love me?" asks the person freshly in love. "More than anything else," is the answer which transforms the own prospect of reality into a shared one. Many of our verbal remarks come from this need for reassurance. They start with an insecurity, and by talking this insecurity either diminishes or grows, depending on how secure or unsecure the addressed person reacts.

"Do you understand me?" asks the grown up and means: "Can I feel safe in the relationship with you?" When the answer comes: "No, not at all," then the insecurity grows and the wish comes up to go on talking till safety is restored.

So language serves also serves as an instrument of the ego to reassure itself about itself, in an effort to reduce its fears. By talking and sharing it wants to create safety. This is why people like to talk so much and so often. For instance, when a few people attend a concert or a movie, everyone is focussed on oneself during the performance. Afterwards, the need for talking arises on how to create the understanding necessary for restoring a shared reality after a time of singular experiences, and thus restore social security. It is as if the storage of safety is used up after some time, so that we have to rebuild and reload it now and them. Our egos need the coordination with the other egos to be able to relax.

Thinking as Inner Talking

Large parts of mental activities are internalized talking. E.g., when I write a text like this, an inner voice talks the sentences prior to writing them down. Each change I want to make is first discussed in an inner discourse. Also here, thinking acts as protection as what I write should make sense for others. When someone told me that my writing is incomprehensible or silly, this creates an insecurity in my ego which I want to prevent by writing as clearly as possible.

It is obvious as well that I become unbalanced when reading a text which I consider as uncomprehensive or silly. By such a labelling I try to create safety again. By asking someone else to share my opinion I can even do more to it.

The sphere of speechlessness

We do not need language in the sphere of ultimate truth. Here, everything is crystal clear and does not need any explanation. We do not have any insecurity of doubts so we are not dependent on reassurement. We even cannot communicate what we experience as it cannot put into words, according to all mystics. To talk about the unspeakable is trying to translate the absolute into the world of the relative. In any, even the best translations from one conventional language to the other, lot of the original meanings get lost.

Yet in this case, even the undertaking of translation is bound to fail from the beginning. For it attempts to transfer nonlingual experience into language. This would mean to press the infinite into the form of the finite. Timelessness should fit into the framework of time.

So as soon as we are talking about the states of experiencing the absolute, we are already back in the world of conventional consciousness. Here, some share our understanding, some don't. Some affirm our view, others devaluate us. The more we talk the more we get entangled in the complex pitfalls of the conventional world, which are sodden with fears and mistrust.

The  problem of esoteric

Mysticism lives in a communicative nowhere land due to the difficulties and misunderstandings connected with expressing mystical experience with the means of language. This is why mystics in all societies got into problems as soon as language became a media of accusation and justification in the course of history. To share experiences which question the conventional consensus and to state additionally that these highest insights are only available in a certain framework of experience, has been a scandal which caused prosecution and severe punishment. As a consequence, many teachers passed their wisdom only to inaugurated students which again fed the distrust of the outsiders.

The mystic would say, "When you want to understand what I mean you have to enter the same realm of experience in which I am." This realm is not easily accessible of anybody, so it is "esoteric" which means only open for insiders. Yet anybody can become an insider and it is not necessary to become part of a school, cult or secret society. Still, everyone enters this realm by his/her unique entrance.

The critic of esoteric might demand: "So tell me, what there is inside." The mystic might answer, "I cannot express it in words." This will cause the critic to frown and say, "What a nonsense. Everything can be expressed in words. How should I or anyone else otherwise understand what this is all about?" The mystic will reply, "You can find this truth only inside yourself. By closing your eyes and exploring inside yourself it will become apparent to you." When the critic follows the suggestion he will probably become a meditator, when he refrains from it he will stick to his skepticism and talk disapprovingly about the mystic and about mysticism.

This is the border between the rational and the transrational area, the border between the conventions and the ultimate. For crossing it, the conventions of language have to be left behind as well, including the ideas of general validity based on them. Spiritual insights gain their validity in the sphere of introspection and who knows this world can easily communicate with someone who is familiar with it without any need of conventional language. Those who do not know it will not have any use for verbal descriptions similar to explaining colours to a blind person.

The differing accesses

Some people need a teacher or guide, others find themselves suddenly and spontaneously in the sphere of the absolute. Some stick to a certain method for a longer period of time, others change from one practice to the next. Some collect the insights into the infinite like pieces of a puzzle, to others a gigantic door opens up at once. Some of the experiences are singular and fleeing, others return in a similar form, some stay permanently, others can be recalled by will.

Some reach the sphere of the absolute via language. They hear words or read texts which send them on the journey. But as soon as they have found a place where they know that they have arrived, they realize that they do not need language any more for being able to stay in this place, and that they do neither need language to return to it. So silence which is also the freedom from words, becomes a steady companion. Slowly and persistently, the power of silence becomes stronger than the talkativeness of the conventional world.

Some of the saints like to talk and like to talk a lot. They want others to take part in their experiences true to the quote: "For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." (Luc 6, 45)
Some of the listeners are taken away by such speeches as the words are soaked in a spirit which lets them make out what is meant. It is the clarity and power of the speech and not the words which convey the good message. They are permeated by a sense of not-wanting which comes from inner freedom.

There are ears used to only hearing what they expect and to reject anything challenging the habits of listening. They will have difficulties in being touched by the talk of a saint. They will perceive power instead of surrender, craving for approval instead of love and stubbornness instead of freedom. The tenser the ego is, the tenser its range of receptivity (chronical stress stiffens the muscles which move the auditory ossicles, thus limiting the ability to hear certain frequencies). The fearful ego only hears what it wants to hear, which is mainly itself with its anxieties and cravings. When hearing has been opened and expanded, it becomes easier to hear the frequencies of the final truth and to resonate with it.

Listening consciously to music (not just allowing it as a kind of background noise or just listening to one's favorite hits repetitiously) changes habits of hearing. So this can serve as a good preparation exercise for leaving the areas of convention behind and gaining a taste of the absolute. This is why many musicians feel close to the absolute.

There are mystics who do not talk at all or just converse about trivialities of daily life. They are only present with those who want to be together with them in silence. And there are others who only look deeply into the eyes of people and embrace them.

These are some of the possibilities of hinting at the great mystery, which beyond conventional talk awaits everyone who want to open up to it.

"These words are for someone who needs words to understand. But someone who understands without words - how would he need words? ... Someone who hears a low tone, how would he need talking and screaming?" (Rumi)

Rule 36: The Principle of Reciprocity

This world is erected upon the principle of reciprocity. Neither a drop of kindness nor a speck of evil will remain unreciprocated. Fear not the plots, deceptions or tricks of other people. If someone is setting a trap remember so is God. He is the biggest plotter. Not even a leaf sits outside of God’s knowledge. Simply and fully believe in that. Whatever God does He does beautifully.

The law of reciprocity states that what is given comes back again. The energy of the whole is preserved, all that happens are transformations of the form which energy takes on. This is what we have learned from the physicists. All there is are processes in which one form of energy transmutes into another, and the amount of the whole stays the same all the time. All existing things give away from what they have and receive back from the others, and the sum of all these actions do not change by this.

How are these matters among humans? Here we have immensely numerous levels for exchange, starting from breathing the shared air on to all the social and economical processes up to ethereal and subtle realms. A detailed consideration on all these structures and their innate logics is of course not possible in this framework.

As we have the inclination to reduce complexities in order to make the world more manageable, esoteric simplifications of reciprocity become quite popular like the law of attraction which says that we attract what we send out („The Secret“). We should be aware when dealing with such concepts not to become paranoid in the sense that we just have to transmit our wishes in the right way and the universe has to serve us accordingly. We just have to align our energy with the great whole and then we will get everything we dream of. When we fail, it is our fault as we have not applied the appropriate methods consistently enough.

This is the track of the materialistic consciousness, which believes that we just have to invent suitable procedures to govern the world and then all our wishes will be fulfilled. We can make gold from straw and increase our wealth more and more and more. This is the fairy tale of the capitalist, and esoteric prophets like to copy such fantasies.

In my opinion, esoteric can be distinguished from spirituality as the former does not make a clear and radical distinction from manipulation and strengthening of the ego. Many esoteric insights are targets of marketing and selling for the purpose of the individual improvement of life and self enhancement. Spiritual insights have no profit, but in the best case reach a person and touch her, so that inside of her a change arises and the world becomes new. When we meet wisdom which attracts and grasps us, we can pay our attention to what enlarges inside of us: Our loving heart or our greedy belly.

How could we use the concept of reciprocity for our practical life? Here I will try to take a closer look at the area of giving and receiving. Starting from the image of an egomaniac we believe about ourselves that we prefer taking over giving. So we know a lot of rules which should ease our giving: Give and so you will be given. What you want to receive, give in the first place. Giving is more blessed than taking etc. Following these rules is not always easy as it goes against our self-will.

Yet the insight they contain says that we have the chance to change the course of affairs in a direction which serves life or in another direction which diminishes it. We can widen the area of love or reduce it. Again and again we can find anchor points in our own history, basically in any moment. Anchor points are those, in which something new wants to start. By setting an anchor point consciously, we stop to go on spinning the old threads and start to give: We give a new direction to life which opens and frees. We stop to take by using old patterns for our purposes in a rut. Instead, we jump over our shadow.

For all that has been used up and become comfortable, all we cling to as soon as it is over, becomes part of the shadow area. However, following the courage to try new trails in giving from a deep inner source of creativity, enriching and beautifying life, then we move out of the shadow towards the sun, towards the light.

What we receive back from this giving, we feel right in that moment where we accomplish the new: A simple, yet clear feeling of joy and fulfillment arises. This is the immediate gratification for our friendliness and kindness towards life.

So life offers us immediate recognition as soon as we have given selflessly and altruistically. Thus the reciprocal equilibrium is created straight away and does not need further compensation. The cycle is closed in the act of giving and in the momentary feedback of life.

Yet we tend to move on and open the next cycle by overlooking the gratification we just have been offered. Instead, we expect, claim or wish another form of getting as soon as we have given. When I give A, I expect to receive B. By this, I narrow down the world to B, only B can satisfy me; although I get C, I am disappointed (except when C is an augmentation of B, which can help me over my disappointment, when I get an invitation to a dinner instead to a drink for have given a service to someone). In any case I act as if the world, which is usually the other people, should know exactly what I need to regain my reciprocal balance.

In many areas reality works approximately like that – I take a good and give the money printed on the label in return. The economical = materialistic consciousness has furnished the world in a way that possibly every object and every action has a distinct numeric value a quantification, which indicates the appropriate equivalent.

This is the origin of the following idea: I produce, by this I give value, e.g. cake, and for this I want a certain value back, e.g. money. It was exactly this connection which Karl Marx termed as alienation. For our theme this means that we alienate ourselves from our actions, when we subject it to quantification. Then it is no longer our unique contribution to the world but a product which is obeying the logic of the world of wares. One of the consequences of this form of reciprocity is that not only the results of human labor are reified but even more that these things get quantified, which means turned into numeric values. Eventually there are only numbers in the internal world of the capitalistic man, and his or her mood runs parallel to the rise and fall of the numbers in the account or stock markets.

So should we no more charge money for anything? A society which works without money and is still able to regulate a highly complex system of exchange of goods and services has not been invented so far. Up to then, we have to live with the current system and handle its shortcomings. When we act consciously within the economical processes of a capitalistic world, we can keep the human dimension of these processes of exchange alive at the same time. We can become aware of the human investment in every object we buy, and also that everyone who sells this object to us, is a person who gives. It is up to us and our awareness, whether we hand our power over to the capitalistic system or to humanity and kindness by taking every form of giving and receiving as a spiritual practice. Then we avoid the pitfalls which have been installed in the elaborate world of wares and consumers with its reified enticements on every corner.

The rules are taken from Elif Shafak's novel “The Forty Rules of Love” (Viking 2010). They are inspired by the Sufi tradition and worded by the autor's imagination. www.elifshafak.com