Thread: The Sacred and the Profane in Modernity

“Moderns who proclaim to live in a completely Profane world are nourished by the memory of the Sacred, in camouflaged myths and degenerated rituals.” - M. Eliade. This is of concern to all seeking the FULL potential of HUMAN POWER.

The ancient polarities between the Sacred & Profane have been lodged into our collective subconscious through THOUSANDS of years of iterations. Even atheists feel a “terrible power, manifested in God’s WRATH” - reflecting Luther’s idea of a ‘Living God.’

A terror feeling often precedes the SACRED: the awe-inspiring mystery (MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM) which emanates from a “wholly other” and superior majesty of power. At the threshold of the mysterium tremendum is: the fear of crossing over into that world.

This crossing over experience has been categorized as “numinous”, from the Latin numen; God. This “wholly other” (ganz andere) experience is neither cosmic or human - when confronted with this mystery, man feels he is nothing but ashes and dust...

The “ganz andere” goes BEYOND man’s realm of understanding and experience. In designating the manifestation of the sacred, Eliade applied the term “hierophany.” The word hierophany is used when “something sacred shows itself to us.”

There are “elemental hierophanies” which echo Zen Buddhism - the sacred manifesting in ordinary objects like trees & stones. There are “supreme hierophanies”, like the incarnation of Christ. In each, there is a sacred reality not of our profane world.

Modern pseudo-intellects may mistake those who see the numinous in a tree as a “tree cultist.” Nothing could be further from the truth. As a hierophany, the tree is not being adulated as a tree - it is worshipped because it is no longer a tree - it is a gateway to the sacred.

When manifesting the sacred, an object becomes something else. Simultaneously, it remains itself - it continues to participate in the “cosmic milieu.” This echoes the lifepath of a BODHISATTVA, who remains in society post-enlightenment...

The religious person, homo religiosus, deeply desires TO BE, to participate in reality - to be saturated with TRUE POWER. Thus archaic societies lived in sacred spaces, or near consecrated objects. Via proximity to the sacred, fullness of being was made a daily reality.

At this point, it is important to define the difference between men who remain in the sacred universe as long as possible, versus those non-religious, narcissistic men and women who live (or wish to live) in a desacralized world.

An infinite abyss separates the Sacred and the Profane - yet both potentialities live within all beings. It is important to observe that the desacralization of reality pervades modernity. Thus, it is increasingly difficult to rediscover the richness of ancient man.

Consider:
-Sacred Spaces
-ritual building of habitats
-religious experience of time
-relation to nature vs world of tools
-desecration/consecration of life itself
-sacrality of vital functions (food/sex/work etc.)

How do cities, houses, nature, and tools present to the modern man? As a means to an end. Relics of a NIHILISTIC RAT RACE where POWER GAMES are played at both MICRO and MACRO levels. An unnatural concrete jungle of deceit, sabotage and ceaseless one upmanship.

Those in touch with the sacred see physiological acts as holding potential to become a sacrament, or a communion with the religious experience. Thus organic phenomena are no longer encumbered by certain taboos (table manners, sexual morality).

The ancient Mesopotamians, Indians, Chinese, Kwakiutl and other primitives all tapped into this vast power of the spirit in their own way. All is intertwined. For instance, symbolisms and cults of Mother Earth would never have manifested without agriculture.

This intertwines with agricultural fertility and the sacrality of women. None of these complex religious systems would have been birthed without the complementary masculine force which developed agriculture. Pre-argicultural societies didn’t feel the sacrality of Mother Earth.

Rather, they connected to the numinous via a hunting society. All of these deviations, however, are moot with respect to the spiritual. Deviations in economy, culture and social organization are not important in comparison to the binding force of living in a Sacred Cosmos.

Orientation to the sacred allows a center - a non homogenous space of GROUNDING. “Draw not nigh hither,” said the Lord to Moses; “put off thy shoes from they feet, for the place whereupon thou standest is holy ground.”

NO WORLD can be birthed in the CHAOS of PROFANE SPACE. Even those who espouse crypto-religious behaviors intuit this: scenes of a first love, the streets of one’s birthplace - these are wholly different; even to those who inhabit a shattered universe.

Only in the SACRED and CONSECRATED WORLD does one have REAL EXISTENCE. To inhabit Sacred space is to imitate the work of the Gods. The consecration cosmicizes chaos and sanctifies ones inner and outer world.

By doing this, man closes in on his desire to live in a pure and holy cosmos - allowing homo religiosus to periodically experience the universe “in principio” - at the mythical moment of creation.

“By its very nature, sacred time is reversible” - it is a primordial, mythical time made present in festivals and during liturgies. It is “Parmenidean Time”; it ALWAYS REMAINS. It, itself, never changes or is exhausted (in contrast to grief, lust, power etc). It is numinous.

In Hegel’s Judeo-Christian interpretation, the universal spirit continually manifests itself in a manner that had to happen as it did, for universal spirit willed it to be. This recalls the spiritual notion of “Upaya”, or flowing expertly in the river of one’s life

The cosmic rhythms manifest order, harmony, permanence, fecundity. As a whole, it is an organism, at once real, living, and sacred. It simultaneously reveals a path to being in the world and a path to sacrality. It is a cipher of divinity.

The UNCONSCIOUS plays the ROLE OF RELIGION in the PROFANE MAN of modernity; offering him “solutions” for the difficulties of life - he has LOST the capacity to consciously live a life imbued with religion, spirit and virtue.

Despite this, the potentiality for the re-emergence of the sacred lies at great depth for these men. The numinous has long since been lost to them, and twisted into new age pseudo-science - long after their fall from true power, and the Sacred.

Which side will you choose? The sacred, or the profane? It can be very complex navigating these treacherous waters. Download my free guides to help you figure this out. FREE. Type 0 for price, or donate if you’d like to contribute to future projects. https://gumroad.com/l/BeastModeBuddhist