Spiritual Democracy

Discussion

Matthew Fox:

"Enlightenment consciousness that fought so hard for democracy—so the American Revolution and its great thinkers, the French Revolution, and so forth. The whole idea that we ’re not eternally bound to hierarchy, to monarchy in any of its forms, to dictatorships—even benign ones—that we ’re not just in vertical relationships. We ’re in horizontal relationships also, and we are individuals. That is, I think, one of the major accomplishments of the modern-era enlightenment consciousness: the dignity of the individual. That spirit works through democratic and horizontal directions and through circles, not just down from ladders.

So a spiritual democracy incorporates the wisdom of the Thomas Jeffersons of the world, if you will, that this is not just about a secular, political shift of power. It is a spiritual insight, and it’s not unrelated to the teachings of Jesus and the Cosmic Christ and Buddha and the Buddha Nature, and so forth. The Iroquois were already practicing democracy centuries before the Europeans landed here.

The notion is that the spiritual works through democracy, through a shared distribution of power, through debate and disagreement and compromise, and through every citizen having an insight about what life is about. So again, it’s about moving from the vertical idea to horizontal.

Now this does not mean that you’re without leadership. But it means that, first of all, leadership can evolve, and no one is meant to be a king for life, and we have to elicit leadership from one another. And it’s not an ego trip; therefore, it’s not a power trip. Leadership is, again, a mode of service, as Jesus tried to teach. So it’s not as if we’re without a leader, but that ultimately the leader is responsible to the group itself, and the group is responsible for itself. You’re not surrendering power to some kind of individual."

(https://realitysandwich.com/radical-spirituality-for-a-radical-generation/)