Love, therefore, is not only the underlying principle of universal order, but love also constitutes the basic essence of the universal order. Everything from personal relationships to political systems and social structures are built on this underlying principle and basic essence. Without the principle and the essence, everything falls apart.
An interesting fact about the Jewish Kabbalah which I had alluded to in the previous post was that the Jewish Kabbalah– which is the esoteric tradition or spiritual order with its own interpretation and set of texts amongst the Jewish people – actually saw its ‘renaissance’ or revival under an Islamic empire, namely, the Ottoman Empire. Hence, one of the major obstacles – if not the biggest obstacle – to the establishment of a ‘spiritual center’ which brings together the esoteric orders and spiritual traditions of both the Jews and Muslims in what is known as the ‘Holy Land’ in both in the past and the present is the ‘Crusader’ discourse that has largely shaped the current global order over the past few decades, given its focus and fixation with appearances and surface issues rather than what is at the core and heart of our collective political and social life.
In short, both Jews and Muslims have a shared esoteric core which unites the two religious traditions, but the esoteric core has largely endured in the Islamic tradition, whereas the esoteric core of Judaism has largely diminished as a result of Western global hegemony. Christianity also shares the same esoteric core as Judaism and Islam, but as mentioned before, a crusading zeal and fanaticism have blinded the West to the true meaning of the mythology and symbolism which shrouds the shared esoteric core. Symbols such as “Christ died on the cross” and so forth are “capable of various interpretations that do not collide with knowledge and do not impair the meaning of the statement.” What we call the “Holy Father” or “God” is “personified” by symbols such as “Sun” and “Fire” to borrow from Jung. In turn, both “Sun” and “Fire” stand for something else as well. As Jung wrote: “Sun and fire – that is to say, the fructifying strength and heat – are attributes of the libido.” Jung added: “In Mysticism the inwardly perceived, divine vision is often merely sun or light, and is very little, or not at all, personified.”
Thus, and as Carl Jung contended: “Is it not time that the Christian mythology, instead of being wiped out, was understood symbolically for once?” Crusader zeal and fanaticism which is then modernized in appearance and form through neoconservatism in the West is somehow coupled with a rationalistic, materialistic, and pseudo-scientific weltanschauung, to borrow from Jung, which offers nothing to mankind “except a variety of paths all leading to one goal which is practically indistinguishable from the Marxist ideal.”
Jung believed that Western Europe, and especially the United States, faced a “fatal vulnerability” as a result of a rationalistic, materialistic, and pseudo-scientific weltanschauung and a “mixed population” which “finds it difficult to strike roots in a soil that is practically without history.” Altogether, the Western man and the individual in a broader sense is “intimidated and endangered by the might of the war technique which is supposed to safeguard his physical existence” all while “his spiritual and moral freedom, though guaranteed within limits in one half of his world, is threatened with chaotic disorientation, and in the other half it is abolished altogether.” All of this then leads to a diminished existence and ontological condition which becomes difficult to overcome.
Adam A. Azim 