See the page “Exploring Christian Texts” for more information on this table.
• NATURE OF GOD.
» Religious. God is external to the self, and to the world. A transcendent God who requires obedience.
» Seeker. Panentheistic; literally “all is in God.” This is communion with an immanent Divinity. What is sought is reconciliation with the Divine.
• IDENTITY.
» Religious. The religious take their identity from their participation in a group of allied individuals. Conformity is key to maintaining group affiliation.
» Seeker. Seekers base identity in autonomous self-determination and the understanding that all individuals are unique, infinite and possessed of their own Ground of Being. The early process of seeking is non-conformist, breaking ties with authority figures and institutions.
• ETHICS: IN GENERAL
» Religious. Ethics are based in exclusion; you are either in-group or out-group. As out-group you are rejected as imperfect, to varying degrees.
» Seeker. Ethics are based in acceptance, tolerance and inclusion; there is no out-group. Even those that reject the seeker must be accepted.
• ETHICS: IN THE WORLD.
» Religious. Participation in the world requires imposing God’s will, however defined, on the natural environment and its inhabitants. Here, the ends will justify most means.
» Seeker. Participation in the world requires the seeker to test the actions of oneself in the world, even against the world. But participation is defined as a process of gaining experience, and the testing of the self is based in means as all-important and ends as rarely considered.
• CONSCIENCE.
» Religious. Conscience is defined by adherence to “the law” or defined moral code.
» Seeker. Conscience rises out of the internally autonomous self, through listening to the Ground of Being, acting in concert with seeker ethics.
• TEXT.
»Religious. Scripture is understood in terms reinforcing the nature of separation of self from God. It is also interpreted in a way that upholds the authority of the institution.
»Seeker. Scripture is taken allegorically. Teachings as metaphor (or paradox) defeat the rational mind and open up the intuitive self. This in turn breaks down inner barriers to accessing one’s Ground of Being.
• DISTANCE TO GOD.
»Religious. A divine intercessor is often required to bridge the distance from the individual to God. This can be either an individual or a place – such as Jesus, Mary, the Ganges River, the Kaba’a.
»Seeker. For the seeker there is no bridge to the Divine, no intercessor. There is the realization that God was never separate and is, instead, always present with the self in the world.
• EVIL.
» Religious. Evil exists as a polarity to Good, also out of the world.
» Seeker. There is no evil; there are only the actions of individuals (and their allied groups) that rise out of fear (due to the estrangement of the self from God) rather than love.
• NEGATIVE EXPRESSION.
» Religious. Fear of death and damnation.
» Seeker. Anxiety based in guilt and meaninglessness.
• PERCEPTION.
» Religious. Mythic imagination.
» Seeker. Intuitive deduction.