abian Philosophy

Health, or touch with source, is the foundation of the structure of self, but it is only a beginning point. The first step to any real knowledge of self is in establishing a relationship with others. Hence the necessity of belonging. At first this is through the conditioned responses to family and social mores.   All too often we find zealots who rail against the "brainwashing" of family customs, religious indoctrination and national propaganda. Such a person does not realize that conditioning is a necessary part of "becoming." We cannot grow in a vacuum. What the zealot fails to realize (or perhaps realizes only subconsciously) is that we must outgrow the unthinking reflexes of conditioned behavior. It is a natural function of growth to either consciously accept the mores of our upbringing or to reject them in favor of more acceptable, self-discovered values.

Sabian philosophy teaches that conditioning is negative only when it imprisons the soul in the dungeon of unthinking response. Conditioning is positive when it encourages a self-discipline that leads the self to release the underlying uniqueness of its social potential.

This approach to creative living is based on Ibn Gabirol’s Fountain of Life Book II, Chapter 5. Here the Teacher explains that quantity, that is physical bodies, is the category that separates one being from another. He rejects the idea that quantity is an essential element of being.  Rather, quantity is just as much a nonessential element of our being as is the color of our skin or the clothes we wear. It follows from this that there is no real separation of one human being from another. It is this condition of the physical (quantitative) world that places the  "I" here and "You" there. Remove our coats of skin and we become, ultimately, one in mind, heart, and spirit. We are, indeed, one.

A practical application of the concept of belonging would be to 1) affirm some positive quality that you find in yourself and 2) affirm some positive quality in someone you really dislike.