VII. Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Individuality

5. Bicameral World Religions

Sharma, Arvind and Katherin Young, eds. Feminism and World Religions. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. An attempt to sort many strands from romanticism and deconstruction to Marxism and postcolonialism to properly document and right the place of women. A relational complementarity is advocated by a writer from the Chinese tradition.

Targowski, Andrew. The Limits of Civilization. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Scientific,, 2016. Noted more in Complementary Civilizations, the Western Michigan University professor of computer information systems and global citizen philosopher provides another volume of luminous cultural and environmental guidance.

Tucker, Mary Evelyn. Religious Dimensions of Confucianism: Cosmology and Cultivation. Philosophy East & West. 48/1, 1998. A new appreciation of Chinese wisdom is seen to be arising due much to William Theodore de Bary, Tu Wei-ming and Thomas Berry, which is so needed by our alienated, morally adrift world. The Bucknell University historian of religion and cofounder of the Forum on Religion and Ecology weaves together several historic strands by which to appreciate Confucianism as a middle way that can recognize and respect both person and cosmos in a mutually interactive reciprocity.

Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim. Worldviews and Ecology. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1993. A broadly ecumenical collection that delves into the spectrum of world religions including native traditions in search of appropriate environmental guidance.

Welwood, John. Toward a Psychology of Awakening. Boston: Shambhala, 2000. A psychologist steeped in both Western and Eastern modes of encounter advises a curative balance and synthesis of individuation and liberation, engagement or release.

The new vision we are needing is one that brings together two different halves of our nature, which have been cultivated in different ways on opposites sides of the globe. While the traditional spiritual cultures of the East have specialized in illuminating the timeless, suprepersonal ground of being - the “heaven” side of human nature - Western psychology has focused on the earthly half - the personal and interpersonal. (xi)

The diametrically opposite notions of ego strength and egolessness epitomize the seminal difference between the psychologies of West and East. Western psychotherapy emphasizes the need for a strong ego….Eastern contemplative psychologies, by contrast regard the ego….as ultimately unreal and unnecessary. (35)

Yasuo, Y. A Contemporary Scientific Paradigm and the Discovery of the Inner Cosmos. Kasolis, Thomas, ed. Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. In a more “introverted” East, science and religion never separated in conflict as they have in the “extroverted” West. This inappropriate split might be healed if a teleological synchronicity linking inner and outer cosmos can be fully appreciated.

Zhengkun, Gu. Confucian Family Values as Universal Values in the 21st Century. Berliner China-Hefte Chinese History and Society. Volume 41, 2012. Reviewed more in Complementarity of Civilizations, the Peking University, Institute of World Literature, senior scholar elucidates a clear contrast of bicameral east and west belief systems.

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