Relationships: Public / Private

Before we get into today's topic, 2 things: One is a very cool quote from GK Chesterton:
“Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.” – The Speaker, 12/15/00

Secondly: If we mis-diagnose the problem(s) of humanity, then we could come up with some very strange prescriptions on how to address it, could we not?

Here's Deepak Chopra's passive prescription of the problem and pill:

"Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realisation of worthy goals... Even with the experience of all these things, we will remain unfulfilled unless we nurture the seeds of divinity inside us. In reality we are divinity in disguise, and the gods and goddesses in embryo that are contained within us seek to be fully materialised"
Deepak Chopra, "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A practical Guide to the fulfilment of Your Dreams" '94.

Quote: Elizabeth Lesser, Co-founder and senior advisor of the Omega Institute in NY:

"if the purpose of meditation is to accept the way things already are, then how do we justify any striving at all. When I was involved in Zen meditation, I was very confused by this dilemma. The concept of reaching "enlightenment" is a big part of Zen Buddhism. But so is non striving. So, which is it?... The answer and this is the answer to many of the Zen koans, is both. I eventually came up with the slogan that put the question to rest for me: "Not either-or, but both and more..." And yes, the kinds of work that it takes to reach enlightenment looks like a passionate form of doing nothing".
Lesser "The New American Spirituality: A Seeker's Guide" '99

According to Eckhart Tolle in New Earth:

Tolle assigns original sin / suffering/ delusion with "forgetting" to be aware of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic "oneness" with every "other" as well as the Source. 

A flower, a crystal and a bird, these become a window for you into the formless.  They have been preparing the ground for the more profound shift in planetary consciousness that is destined to take in the human species. This is the spiritual awakening that we are beginning to witness now.


Given relationships are the ultimate purpose for which you and I exist, came into existence through, question for you: 

Can the secular western world view of maintaining a separation of private / public life be consistent? 

That is, if a person is doing a wonderful effective job (like Bob Hawke), is it any ones business what they do in private? 

The fallacious (western) view that a person's' private life is separate from their public life, especially when it comes to politicians, or in the workforce.

Yet we so desperately long for gossip, the inside into people's personal world where they go, what they eat, where they holiday, who they hang out with and what they wear.  And we don't mind paying money for it, yet we shake our fist on the other hand (with the magazine still open in the other) and state: "So what if they were unfaithful to their spouse, so long as they do a good job then it's nobodies business!"

So I can have seemingly good morals at work, profess a christian faith, stand up for the downtrodden and yet be having affairs all over the place and staying out drinking neglecting time with the family.

One is public and the other private. And the nature of our relationships, who we are in those settings, and the words deeds and thoughts that come out in public and private - are almost from different people....

Here's an article from RZIM recently about the political fray that is ensuing in the US about the distinction between work and the employees/ers personal beliefs and the breach that that is causing in the name of secularism and public/private life:

This is another example of the increasing problems of privatization in our society, which is the socially required and legally enforced separation of our private lives and our public personas. Privatization insists that issues of ultimate meaning be relegated to our private spheres, so as individuals we are forced to keep our moral and religious beliefs private and never express them in public. Secularism is also a belief on ultimate things. Why is it that the secular thinker is not asked to keep his or her secularism in private as well? We know that the premise of privatization is flawed, because that which is sacred to you in private is also sacred to you in public. It is not at all surprising that meaninglessness and hopelessness have become the hallmark of the millennial generation that has been indoctrinated into absolutizing relativism and a valueless belief system. Evidently some lawmakers have not seen this breakdown and the connection.

It is easily demonstrated that private belief separated from public practice is philosophically contradictory and pragmatically unworkable. That this threat is happening in America, whose very values emerged from a Judeo-Christian backdrop and the sacredness of belief in the transcendent, is lamentable.

Commitment to God most certainly has its private expression, but it implicitly directs all of life. Spiritual reality is not just a sentinel from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. behind closed doors. For the follower of Jesus Christ, worship is co-extensive with life. Privatization with disregard for coherence forces this dichotomy. In today’s society, moral and religious beliefs are often privatized, while in the name of freedom and non-offensiveness, all kinds of anomalous beliefs are made public and even mandated.

http://www.rzim.org/rzim-news/religious-freedom-in-the-workplace-statement-on-amicus-brief-filed-at-u-s-supreme-court/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-26/french-president-splits-with-partner-after-affair/5219362

Bob Hawke, Silvio Berlesconi, Nicholas Sarcozy, Catholic Priests - you and me. 

So let's bring this very very close to home: How I conduct my relationships with my colleagues and clients and partners, is it not just as sacred to that of my family and friends? 

Is not my word, my word? 

James 5: 12 But above all [things], my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath; but let your yes be [a simple] yes, and your no be [a simple] no, so that you may not sin and fall under condemnation.

Are not my actions, my actions? 

Is it not what I say about another in their absence just as important? 

Matthew 5:22 (AMP)

22 But I say to you that everyone who continues to be angry with his brother or harbors malice (enmity of heart) against him shall be liable to and unable to escape the punishment imposed by the court; and whoever speaks contemptuously and insultingly to his brother shall be liable to and unable to escape the punishment imposed by the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, You cursed fool! [You empty-headed idiot!] shall be liable to and unable to escape the hell (Gehenna) of fire.