The following articles explore the integration of human development and spiritual growth, the concepts of a middlepath spirituality and its role in building compassionate, non-violent community.
It is my hope that the ideas and concepts that I present in the articles posted on this web site and in the Stonyhill Newsletters will begin a dialog with others who wish to walk the compassionate middlepath, develop insight into the primitive ego that dwells in each of us, and grow in self-awareness. Growth in self-awareness is by definition authentic spiritual growth. Authentic spiritual growth is by definition growth in self-awareness. I believe that the development of a compassionate global world and the future of humanity require that we intentionally evolve our consciousness and become more self-aware.
Stonyhill is an educational facility designed to offer others interested in the conscious evolution of our species, and the development of compassionate communities through middlepath spiritual practices, and spiritual growth through increased self-awareness articles and insights on these subjects a place to gather.
I encourage readers with comments or questions to contact me either by email at dick_rauscher@stonyhill.com or by posting comments on the Stonyhill blog site at http://stonyhillnewsletter.blogspot.com/.
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A
Brief Look At Christianity For The 21st Century: A Personal
Journey:
This article is an attempt to briefly explore the intellectual and spiritual
path that I have been walking for the last sixty years. It is not meant to
be the final word on my understanding of God, nor is it meant to represent
THE truth. Like all of us, I continue to grow and awaken spiritually each
day. This article simply reflects what currently makes sense to me as an
ordained pastor of the Christian Church at this point in my spiritual journey
as I struggle to spiritually awaken.
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A
New Paradigm of Christian Ministry: Issues of Spiritual Growth: The
issues of spiritual formation and the negative impact of burned
out pastors need to be addressed in virtually all main line
Christian Churches. In this paper discusses how the current
definition of Christian ministry is inherently competitive
and therefore harmful to the spiritual formation of both pastors
and their congregations.
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Boundaries: The
Art of Setting Limits: Establishing healthy boundaries is how
we define the sacred space we call self.
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Compassion:
The Middlepath: a short description of Middle Path spirituality.
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Creation,
Evolution And Co-Creation: The Conscious Nature Of God And
Humans: This article posits that God is the conscious,
intelligent, creating spirit energy that has been present from
the beginning of creation and manifests in the world of form
as evolution. This God energy is agape love and is the only
energy capable of reversing entropy. Because we are conscious
and capable of manifesting agape love, humans are co-creators
with God and fully responsible for the forms we create; both
positive and negative.
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Do
No Harm - The Invitation to a Middlepath Spirituality called
Compassion: Middle Path Compassion as an alternative to
the social caste categories of our culture.
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Meaning
of Life: This article discuss’ the idea that our
essential self, which is best understood as a local wave of “i
am” that exists in the ocean of “I AM”, is
the basic creative energy of the universe called agape love.
Unlike the conditional love of the primitive ego which always requires
a “because”, agape love is an unconditional love that manifests
in the
world of form without a “because”; it simply exists.
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Middlepath:
The Goal of Enlightment: Middlepath is a state of mind,
not a place. It is achieved only when all sense of duality
thinking, the black and white thinking process that creates “otherness” is
removed. This article describes the judgment and conflict that
arises from duality thinking when our primitive ego insists
on being right.
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Mystics:
Chung Shu and The Spiritual Teachers: All mystics teach
that authentic spirituality comes only with deep self knowledge
and self awareness. This article looks at spiritual teachings
from Buddha, Confucius and Jesus.
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Planting
the Seeds of Happiness: how we might change the way
we interact with the world around us in order to enjoy life
to the fullest.
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Psychotherapy
and Spiritual Growth: An issue of language and the Tower of
Babal: the common goals and methodologies used by psychotherapists
and spiritual directors. The goal in both disciplines is a
shift from looking out into the world to one of looking inward. Both
happiness and spiritual growth are found only when we look
within.
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Spiritual
Growth: Growth in Self-Awareness: Spiritual growth is simply
the process of awakening our consciousness to be in the moment
with what is. Our higher self or essential self is pure consciousness.
Over time our ego beliefs and opinions cover over the essential
self and we increasingly manifest our individual personality
or self-identity. The light of agape love energy is no longer
able to shine through our essential self. Spiritual growth
is simply removing or emptying the ego; removing the log in
our own eye.
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Spiritual
Growth: The Primitive Ego Grows Up: Spiritual growth will
require humanity to adopt a meme or paradigm of horizontal
power; a world view of cooperation, empathy, diversity, interdependence,
and a self-identity that is spirit centered, not ego centered.
The primitive ego of early childhood uses a paradigm of negation
and vertical power; a world view called survival of the fittest.
The vertical power paradigm of the primitive ego is the root
of virtually all conflict and suffering. Spiritual growth,
the evolution of the human species and the formation of a non-violent
global community are all dependent on the maturation of the
primitive ego.
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Spiritual
Parenting: This is a brief discussion of Stonyhill's use
of spiritual practice and sound developmental psychology in
raising healthy well balanced children. We feel that much of
the violence we are seen by children against their peers is
due to failures in their developmental needs. This article
is an overview of the Stonyhill focus on effective parenting.
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The
Fundamental Illusion: Blaming our Feelings on Others: This
article explores the fundamental illusion, the belief that
other people and events cause our feelings. This is a very
dangerous belief if our goal is intimacy and happiness. In
fact, this universally accepted belief is the artesian spring
from which the muddy waters of unhappiness have poured since
the birth of the first human mind. No person and no event
have the ability to make us feel any emotion that is not
already inside of us.
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The
Journey from Ego to Enlightenment: The ultimate
Goal of all Human Development: The ultimate goal of all
human growth is enlightenment. The unconscious primitive
ego of the inner child is stuck in the past and is not capable
of running an adult life. Only the current adult self living
in this moment is capable of growing in self-awareness and
achieving enlightenment. Authentic spiritual growth requires
growth in self-awareness. This article presents an integrated
model of human development and spiritual growth.
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The
Search for Happiness: a look at the reality of what we
have.
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What
is Stony Hill:This is a short article that explains briefly
some of the guiding principle and concepts taught here at
Stonyhill. I wrote it originally for a Stonyhill newsletter
we were going to send out each month, but the postage nailed
that idea very quickly. Eventually, when we get better organized,
we will do the newsletter by e-mail. If you have any questions
after reading this article, drop us an e-mail and I will
respond as soon as possible. Most of the articles on this
site are written to clarify the concepts covered in "What
is Stonyhill".
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Global
Spirituality. Part 1 None of the main line religions,
including and especially Judaism, Islam, and Christianity,
are structured or equipped to bring a critically needed global
spirituality into the 21st century. The mainline religions
of the world were localized tribal religions originally founded
on the wisdom teachings of an enlightened ego, but this wisdom
was later interpreted and then institutionalized by primitive
egos; ego’s that unfortunately were unable to understand
the deeper wisdom of the enlightened teachers. The primitive
ego can only manifest itself. Until the primitive ego of
an individual or an institution grows and matures, it will
be unable to cope successfully with the diversity and complexity
of a global human culture and there will be little or no
ability to manifest the unconditional love of an enlightened
consciousness.
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Global
Spirituality. Part 2 Until the thinking process of any
individual, or institution, matures beyond that of the primitive
ego, neither will be able to cope successfully with the diversity
and complexity of a global culture. They will have little
or no ability to manifest the unconditional love of an enlightened
consciousness.
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Addendum
to Global Spirituality. Part 1 and 2
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Spiritual
Awakening: Using the Primitive Ego Theory of Human Development,
the author defines spiritual awakening as the transformation
from the primitive ego of the inner child, to the maturing
ego of an awakened adult. Using Melanie Klein’s definition
of the schizoid-paranoid position to illustrate the concept
of primitive ego, he shows how the primitive ego is a non-spiritual
being capable of manifesting only an imperfect pseudo-spirituality.
The conditional love of the primitive ego is present only
when others are in agreement with its beliefs. A sustained,
authentic spirituality capable of unconditional love is possible
only when a deep level of self-awareness has been achieved.
Awakening is the most important task facing humanity in the
21st century.
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Change
the Way We Think: Change is a reality but perfection is an
illusion: - This article was written back in 1997/98.
It is a bit redundant but it does contain some of my early
thinking about middlepath, perfection, change, evolution,
the primitive ego, the sources of pain and suffering, and
unhappiness. I have included this article because it contains
a broad overview of my early thoughts on these subjects.
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A
New Paradigm of Christian Ministry for the 21st Century:
Issues of Spiritual Growth: - This paper was originally
written as a white paper for the Board of Ordained Ministry
of the United Methodist Church IN November, 2000. Today I
would suggest that it is a new paradigm for all mainline
Christian denominations. The paper discusses the institutional
church’s lack of focus and support for the spiritual
growth and spiritual formation needs of both individual clergy
and laity. The energy and financial resources of all the
mainline Christian churches today are focused almost entirely
on the survival needs of the institutional church.
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Evolutionary Spirituality: - The 21st century challenge for humanity to evolve into a more compassionate global culture is becoming critical. We must each learn to evolve out of the individual focus of the primitive ego and embrace a more mature, community based global spirituality; a spirituality based not on individual religious beliefs, but rather on our shared common ground as part of the human species; an evolutionary spirituality that embraces both the conscious evolution of our individual consciousness, and our social potential as a species.
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Evolution debate reflects fear of change: Editorial
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Awakening - This article on Awakening is a major position paper on "The Primitive Ego Theory of Human Development"© developed by Dick Rauscher at the Stonyhill Institute. The purpose of this paper is to offer the reader a clear model and process for ego awakening and authentic spiritual growth. It offers the reader a map for psychological and spiritual growth that anyone, whether they are grounded in a specific religious belief, agnostic, or even atheistic, can use to increase their ego self-consciousness and their ability to more intentionally manifest mutuality and compassion.
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Manifestations of the Primitive Ego:
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Our Human Spiritual Journey: The Primitive Ego Theory of Human Social and Spiritual Development© - From Primitive Ego Narcissism To An Enlightened Middlepath Evolutionary Spirituality
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The Future of Mainline Religion in the 21st Century© - A discussion of the survival and relevance of both Christianity and other imperialistic mainline religions as we move into the 21st century. The article ends with seven reforms that will be needed by all mainline religions if they wish to institutionally survive and reestablish relevance for a post-modern consciousness.
