Edward Carpenter and the message of Love
For many Edward Carpenter is best known as a socialist philosopher. In the LGBT+ community he was an early pioneer of gay rights. But for me, Edward Carpenter is a great spiritual advocate of love, influenced clearly by Eastern Mysticism and his encounters with Indian scriptures.
In his book ‘Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning’, Carpenter notes that there are only two main factors in life; love and ignorance (an absence of perception, of a sense of unity with others; an absence of love). This reflects the key message of the Upanishads (early Indian scriptures),
“Love is the very first condition for entering the path” (The Upanishads).
The Mandukya Upanishad says “OM. This eternal word is all …It is non-duality and love.”
The two factors Carpenter notes (love and ignorance) are the defining factor of what he calls the second stage in the evolution of consciousness. There are strong links here to what Jean Gerber advocates in his book ‘The Ever-Present Origin’, which Ken Wilber elaborates on in his book ‘Integral Theory’. This, I think, is impressive, when we consider that Carpenter wrote this book back in 1919.
The first stage of consciousness being tribal, and the third stage being whatever comes next (what we might now call Integral consciousness). Out of this first stage came the origins of religion. There are three phases, Carpenter says. The first was connected to our own bodies; sex and fertility (phallic cults). The second was connected to the earth and the seasons; connected to growth and survival (magic and earth-divinities). And the third was connected to the movement of the planets in the sky, and those distant divinities (God in heaven). Christianity, Carpenter says, is still in the grip of this third phase. While the Upanishads, written between 800-400 BC., were a reaction against the rituals of adoration at a distance, such as in the Songs of the Vedas. God is no longer far away, out there. God is in us, our innermost Self, our higher Self; Thou art That, I AM THAT.
However, one of the biggest forces coming out of ignorance is fear, and fear is the defining trait, Carpenter further says, of this the second stage of consciousness, what he calls self-consciousness, where we became conscious of the self, separate from the tribe. This has resulted in a history of cruelty, greed, possession, power, lunacy (barbarism and slaughter) all dressed up as moral righteousness, and the project of commerce, which has divorced love from our natural harmony (including and especially, the great cohesive force of sex).
Carpenter’s key point is that all the different religions and creeds across the world have such similarities it is impossible not to conclude that there is a predisposition and susceptibility to what is already stored in the subconscious mind. The obvious conclusion of this being that we are on a path towards a one-world religion (the whatever comes next, stage three on the evolution of consciousness, an integral religion).
This is not though, Carpenter emphasises, a return to some Golden Age (an idealised sexual garden of Eden during the first stage, which was based on simple-consciousness). It is important we progress through self-consciousness to learn whatever lessons it is we need to learn, to shift into universal-consciousness. There is much we can learn from Eastern Mysticism here when considering the shift to universal-consciousness and a practical approach to oneness, but only, in my opinion, if we can clear away much of the rubbish (based on lower mind thinking) that obscures their essential teachings.
Bringing it all together
We need to shift from our current preoccupation with,
“idiotic wars, its senseless jealousies of nations and classes, its fears and greed’s and vanities…”
Carpenter thinks this is inevitable as ignorance and non-perception can only destroy themselves. For fear to be defeated we must restore the sentiment of the common life. This is not a return to the golden age of tribalism, but a new order of consciousness that expands outwards from the Heart. This is reminiscent of the central message of the Upanishads; a yes to life and to love, where,
“The truth of love is the Truth of the universe.”
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Message me direct if you are interested in kundalini, tantra, yoga practices, or trauma-informed, spiritual, gay, behavioural coaching, Reiki or stress management robert.pinktantra@gmail.com
See my personal development / personality profiling book DISCover the Power of You published through John Hunt Publishing Ltd, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-78535-591-2
And for those who enjoy historical fiction, stories of underrepresented life’s, see my first novel Fermented Spirits published through Austin Macauley Publishers, 2022. ISBN-13: 978-1398437159