John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Has it ever occurred to us that the word that John used for Jesus in his gospel was “logos” rather than “lexis” (a word or words) or “biblion” (a book)? Logos encompasses far wider and far deeper dimensions of meaning than mere “word” or “book”, both of which connote verbal and linguistic expressions. Logos points to the fundamental principle or order of the cosmos, by which and through which the cosmos is formed, by which it is sustained, and towards which it is evolving in its finality.
In other words, when we think of Jesus as logos, we are meant to see beyond mere verbosity and linguisticality. If so, why is it that the church these days fixate on and obsess with Jesus as only accessible through words and verbosity? That prayer must inevitably be verbal and conceptual, dialogical and conversational, rather than leaving room for sheer silence of body, speech, mind, and soul beyond words? And why is it that we fixate unthinkingly and unreflexively on the Bible as the inerrant and infallible Word of God—which smells of bibliolatry or idolatry of the Book—when the true Word (logos) has already become enfleshed and dwelt amongst us in Jesus?
Our dogmatic and fixated minds have made us prisoners of blind binary thinking. If the Bible is infallibly true, then everything else that disagrees with it must be false. And if the Bible is the only source of knowing Jesus, then any other source must be wrong. That is a consequence of binary thinking. We have entrapped ourselves into “with us” or “against us”, “all right” and “all wrong”, “all true” and “all false” mindsets. These binaries are not reflections of reality but constructions of our mentality. By perpetuating such binary thinking in our education and religion, we inadvertently sleepwalk into the culture wars of human-made moralism masked as absolute truth.
A little inquiry will show how binaries fail us. Say I assert: “I have coins in my pocket. And I have no coins in my pocket.”
What would you say? You might say: “That cannot be right. Either you have or you have no coins in your pocket!”
I then say: “I have 10 cent coins in my pocket. I have no 50 cent coins in my pocket.”
See my point? Paralogic allows us to steer away from limited binary thinking and embrace a vaster realm of fluid thinking and perspectival shifts. We need to develop our ability to see and think beyond binaries, while knowing when and in what contexts binaries apply validly. Entrapment in binary thinking will not serve humanity in these complex and precarious times. False binaries are being misapplied by forces intent on domination and control to incite the world into chaos. We need to wake up now.
Credits: Ananda Marga.
