Individual existence today is the egoistic self-assertion of man fallen out of the primal harmony. Everyone starts from himself – but sooner or later becomes socialised. Man is driven by the sexual urge towards the biological propagation of the species, and this is also the source of his social organisation. The basis of the communal dimension of existence ought to be the principle of synergy, according to which the community as a whole is more than the numerical sum of the individuals who take part in it. We may also call this the law of the exponential growth of communal-social energy, yet it is precisely this surplus that breeds conflict.
Social existence, which accumulates energies of every kind, today deifies economic life, and in its name lays the world under tribute and tyrannically exploits natural and human resources. The idea of live and let live could prevail as well; and yet it is the spirit of competition that has come to rule. Linked to this are the industrial revolution, mass production and the consumer mentality, and, in a positive sense, health and environmental awareness, which, sadly, most often seems important only in the concave mirror of the destruction, the absence, of both.
Man's emotional life, closely bound to his consciousness – the heart zone – is ruled by customary law, by various ideologies, world views, schools of philosophy, then by religions, political regimes and opinion leaders. These have played a decisive role in influencing man, and panem et circenses, divide et impera, compulsory attendance at Mass or the communist agitprop department were as much instruments of that influence as the dictatorship of the ‘free’ media. The religious-moral world view bound up with this did at least try to address man's emotional and ethical dimension, even if not always perfectly. Commandments, moral norms and impossible demands, then, through secularisation, social contracts and articles of law tried to appeal to man's better self – with more, or rather less, success.
For some decades now people have spoken of an information age, and here unexpected, explosive changes have taken place. The personal computer, still regarded as a failed product in the mid-sixties, is now among the ten most important personal belongings, and a great many people cobble together social media pages even when they have nothing to say. The consumer mentality shows itself in information technology too, for information devoured indiscriminately often dulls and deceives man's inner judgement, and communication specialists are trained in vain if no one tells the truth.
The glut of saying nothing bred immense inner problems: the feeling of emptiness, the spiritual horror vacui, which led to the age of psychologising. Psychological talking-through seems to be taking over the role of confession or spiritual direction, but some elements are missing: repentance, penance and absolution.
This change of roles shows symbolically that the religious world view has been replaced by a new ideology: the scientific world view, the religion of science. And the materialist explanation of the world brought with it an inevitable metaphysical loss: in the course of scientific thinking, the free and independent spiritual personality, until now held to be the highest of values, seems to be lost. In the words of the psychologist Dr Ferenc Völgyesi: ‘mankind has gained in civilisation, lost in its moral-religious values, and fallen behind in true spiritual culture.’
It is this loss that makes the unfolding of the new paradigm, the metaphysical world view, a matter of urgency. In it man no longer lives merely his alienated life, but his pure metaphysical existence. It is our hope that this high intellectual-spiritual level is only the base vibration, the root chakra, of the new human species, homo illustris, or the enlightened man. For just as the chakra system of the man of today extends from self-preservation to enlightenment, so a higher octave of the chakra system perhaps begins with enlightenment, and who knows how far it stretches?