Human Egalitarianism and the Patriarchal Illusion: A Phenomenological View

Introduction

The Heart of Egalitarianism is our ongoing experience of the Purity of Being of our self and the Purity of Being of the self of others. This presence of the Pure Being-ness of humanness is located in all the various forms of human beings. Both the good and the bad, the kind and the evil, the beautiful and the ugly, the smart and the ignorant, the happy and the sad, those of good fortune and those of tragic fortune, those who are believers and those who are non-believers! The Purity of our Being is beyond our mind and the judgements of mind. Our mind cannot experience Being, only our awareness directly knows Being.

The Purity of Being

This presence of Being is completely Pure. This presence of Being is the Purity of the ontological openness of Being-ness, as well as the Purity of the open radiance of Being-ness. Our mutual experience of the pervasive presence of Pure Being-ness that is within each other, brings forth the Egalitarian Field of human existence. Our mutual experience of the pervasive presence of Pure Being-ness that is within each other brings forth Equality Consciousness and Equal Vision.

Equality Consciousness and the experience of Equal Vision is the experience of the Purity of Being, being within ‘us as us’ and the Purity of Being being experienced within each other. Equality consciousness and the experience of Equal Vision is the source of self- liberation.

Foundational Base of Egalitarian Experience

Our mutual experience of the pervasive presence of Pure Being-ness within each person brings forth the Egalitarian field of Existing-ness. From within the ontological field of mutual resonance and mutual attunement to the Pure Being-ness within each other, the power of the Egalitarian field of Being manifests as a social political experience. The ontic social political Egalitarian field of Being is ontologically grounded in our awareness of our mutually experienced Purity of Being. This experience of the Purity of Being of human beings is the existential foundational base of Egalitarian social political experience.

Without this existential foundational experience of Being and the Purity of Being, we would be living only in opinion and only in belief. Egalitarianism becomes nothing than one more opinion and one more ardent belief. Actually the personal experience of Egalitarianism reflects the foundational experience of the Purity of Being of human beings. To experience of the Purity of Being of and within human beings is self -liberating. To live within the Purity of Being within the Sea of Being is self- liberating.

Ontological Ontic Dimensions: An Intertwining

Ontic is the actual physical and psychological dimension of a human being. Ontological is the Being dimension of a human being. Human beings are the intertwining of the ontic ontological dimensions. Through our direct awareness of the ontological dimension of human experience, there is the experience of the indivisibleness of the sameness of Being within all of human beings. And through our direct intuitive knowing of Being, there is within our direct experience of Being the sense of the indivisibleness of the Pure Being-ness of the Being of human beings.

Egalitarian Experience

From this experience of the Pure Being-ness of our Being and the Being of other human beings there naturally arises the Egalitarian Experience of Equality consciousness and Equal vision. In this context, Egalitarian Experience is contextualized ontologically and ontically. From within this ontological experience of equal vision and equality consciousness, the ontic political and social field of Egalitarianism can be manifested and perhaps sustained and maintained. Ontic reflects the actuality of our mind’s knowing of forms. Ontological reflects our awareness directly knowing Being. We are ontic ontological human beings.

Direct Perception of Being

The experience of Egalitarianism reflects our natural direct perception of Being. The experience of Egalitarianism reflects our direct perception of the Purity of Being of human beings. This experience of ontological equality is not simply an opinion or a good idea. Jacques Maritain the contemporary French Catholic philosopher called this direct intuitive knowing of the Being of a human beings Connatural Knowing (Koppl, 2008).

One of earliest description of the direct experiential knowing of Being was expressed by the Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus in the 5th BCE century.

Natural Perception of Being

This understanding of the natural direct perception of Being is deeply embedded within medieval Thomistic philosophy and theology. This natural direct knowing of Being is also understood and embraced in the Continental Phenomenology of Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau Ponty (Morris, 2018). This direct intuitive knowing of Being also reflects the understanding and the experience of Bersonian philosophy. In eastern philosophical Non Dualistic traditions such as Tibetan Dzogchen and Hindu Kashmir Shavism, this natural direct perception and direct knowing of Being and the Being of beings is called Jnana or Gnosis. Dudjom Lingpa the founder of the Dudjom lineage of Tibetan Buddhism would describe Dzogchen as the training to directly experience the Purity of Being of all persons and the Purity of Being of all phenomena (Lingpa, 2015).

In contemporary Existential Psychoanalysis and Existential Psychotherapy the experience of direct knowing of Being has been taught by such psychotherapist as Donald Winnicott, Robert Stotorow, Erving Polster, Miriam Polster, Austin DesLaurier, Eugene Gendlin, Michael Eigen, Menard Boss, Rollo May, Carl Rogers and many, many others. In this existential context, the direct experience of the field of Being is the direct experience of our ontological sense of our relational self in relationship to human beings and their Being-ness (Morris, 2018).

The Inner Experience of Being

Within human beings there is this innermost awareness of the inner experience of Being. St. Augustine in the 6th ad century writes about this innermost knowingness of Pure Being as self. This experience of inner Being is completely Pure. The forms of human beings are so completely different and their characters are so completely different, and yet their field of Being is completely Pure and untouched and uncontaminated.

From within this mutually perceived field of Pure Being, Egalitarian existence can validly emerge and become social political egalitarian life systems. Egalitarianism is an authentic state of direct knowing of Being. It is not simply a mind alone value. It is not a transcendental principle. It is not a good or new idea. It is not revealed by whomever. The purity of Being is self- revealed by Being itself within Being itself to Being itself ‘as us’.

The unbound infinity of human cultures are so vastly different and yet the Being of all human beings are of the very same Being as our own Being. This Being is always completely Pure and Luminous. This sameness of Human Being-ness is the source of Equal Vision and Equality Consciousness. This “sameness” of our mutual experience of the Purity of Human Being-ness is the ontological source of Egalitarianism. From within this mutually held ontological experience of mutually held Purity of Being political and social systems can become manifest as Egalitarian life systems.

The Sameness of Being: Univocity

The Equality of the sameness of the Being of human Beings is the realistic existential source of Equality Consciousness and Equal Vision. Equality Consciousness is the true and ultimate source of ethical experience, ethical understanding and ethical action. Equality consciousness is the path of self-liberation. Equality Consciousness does not depend on religious belief or religious institutionalization, or religious understanding. Equality consciousness does not depend on patriarchal authority. Equality consciousness does not depend on the One Who Knows Absolutely. This sameness of Being was described by Dun Scotus and Meister Eckhart, Spinoza and Deleuze as Univocity. The sameness of Being is beyond the analogy of Being. The analogy of Being thinking is ultimately a Patriarchal assumption.

View of Existential Phenomenology

From the view of Existential Phenomenology, all human beings have direct knowing of Being. All human beings have gnosis and jnana. All human beings are gnosis and are jnana. Human beings do not simply have direct knowing, they are the direct knowing of Being. This natural view is neither understood or experienced by transcendental traditions both of the east and the west. This phenomenological view was especially articulated both by Maurice Merleau Ponty and Martin Heidegger in their transformation from a transcendental phenomenology into a perceptual ontology of direct perception of Being. Phenomenological tradition profoundly shifted from a Transcendental tradition to a tradition of Immanence (Capobianco, 2014).

The Two Modes of Human Knowing: The Knowing of Mind and The Knowing of Awareness

This skill and capacity of direct knowing of Being can and must be practiced and cultivated. We have two modes of knowing. Our mind knows form and our awareness knows Being. Our mind knows duality and difference. Our awareness knows non duality and oneness. In developing our skill of knowing as knowers of Being we must learn to integrate our knowing of mind into and within our knowing of awareness. In this way we can know the Being of forms and the form of Being. We can know the Being of phenomena and the phenomena of Being.