Tenth Guardian Consult April 11, 1976

I. Several years ago we turned to the masses. This was symbolized by a minor preaching mission in India. Later the symbolism was deepened by the summer known as the turn to the world. What was discovered in India was that if you could get through the establishment structures to the local people they could understand and were ready to move. This was true within the church and within the broader structures of religious. This is a matter of breaking through the last defense of the past which is the steel aura of piety. To do this a new piety must have come to those who do the breaking. But the old piety is not directly attacked nor is the focus of attack upon the intellectual. It is rather the social that is dealt with. This does not mean that the intellectual and spiritual are not important. They are just not the point of attack in going to the masses. Indeed, the three dynamics are inseparable and to the degree that the piety has to do with the intensification of the other two, its the final end.

II. "Going to the Masses" is a profound and complex image. It has to do with depth consciousness, with clericalism, with Protestant and Catholic bigotry, with Christian bigotry, with the last fat ­ lady, with the relations of time and space, with globality, with bending history, with the concept of care, with engagement, with Faith, Hope and Love, with a new religious mode and a new social vehicle, with church renewal, with sacrificial service and so on and on. More precisely going to the masses means all of the several billions of people in the whole world and the local communities of which there are over 700,000 in India alone. It means addressing all of the historical Faiths in the world beyond Christianity ­ Hinduism, Muslem, Buddhists, etc. This includes the neo­pagans or secular man as such everywhere. It means going to all Religious bodies. And it includes the permeation of all the secular structures. The Governments of the globe; the international business communities; and the educational dynamics of the nations. Lastly it means going to the voluntary aspects of society and the disestablishment thrusts.

III. The means of "going to the Masses" is T.M. (Town Meeting) and S.D. (Social Demonstration) even these are intensified in the form of snow falling and replication they produce the eschaton which is P.C.(Primal Community). Relative to T.M. and S.D. it is difficult to say which is prior to the other and they are inseparable. The three belong together ontologically. T.M. is more intellectual or knowing; S.D. is more engagement or doing; P.C. is being or more spiritual. All are dynamics of the social or the doing pole. Up to now we have been doing the intellectual dynamic: Theological curriculum (knowing); Social curriculum (doing); Spiritual curriculum (being). Later we will deal directly with the New Religious Mode. What this will look like we finally do not know but it is what we are marching toward ­ inevitably. The question is not which is prior, T.M. or S.D. Actually, in one case it is one way and in another the opposite. The important thing is both are social and essential and both are necessary to P.C. This is saying that what T.M. represents and S.D. represents is an ontological given in history as is P.C. which is their intensification. K- D- B. This is society.

IV. Primal Community, in concretion (X in Concrete), is awakened individuals operating awake in cooperative interdependence. It is a given in which working for each other, they work for themselves. It is loving others as you love yourselves. It is doing unto others as you would have done to you. It is spiritual collectivity. P.C. is the social dynamic as Spiritual Method is the knowing dynamic. P.C. is the invisible reality only seen by those who enter the deeps of Profound Consciousness. Here we are dealing with the New Religious Mode. It will be knowing, doing and being. However, its forms will include: "I believe," "those who care," and profound consciousness. In this sense this is the intensification of the individual and the social or the knowing and the doing. We are hence moving toward P.C. but this means going on to the Spiritual form. The final dynamic which is pure spirit is the Spirit Methods intensified and the Primal Community intensified. It is the being of the being of knowing plus the being of doing.

V. Primal Community is relationship, foundational relationship. It is that without which there is no humanness. This means that their is no selfhood, no neighbor, no God where there is no basic community. Such community is local; it is immediate; it is concrete; it is at­hand or it is not. P.C. is grounded in the Mystery but it can only "be" in relation to the Mystery. Self & Other & God are totally interdependent. The People of God are sent to keep the flame of local community. A local church is the presence of that force that cares for the flame of faith, love and hope. This force is not out to promote itself but to promote primal community where selfhood is born and God defended & the neighbor is preserved. This service of keeping the flame is profound care. To be the church is to learn to be nothing. It is learning to do the work of more than kings as "nobodies". Primal Community is like a "parish" not a congregation. Here the socio­economic and cultural well­being of all is cared for. The atmosphere and means for depth living is provided.