Seeking Obedience: RH'L6 in Practice

Up-Side

The happiness stemming from obedience-RH'L6 emerges from the comfort that comes from a certainty of doing the right thing in the right context. It may well be hoped that obedience will be rewarded, but that may not be the case. For those on the Quest, obedience willingly adopted is its own reward. Sometimes the role or social context of obedience must be altered to something more personally satisfying.

The intrinsic challenge is the subjugation of personal desires to social requirements. Of all the Quests, this seems to be the only one that can be socially demanded. In some cultures, like Japan, obedience is Closed a cultural imperative and children are trained from childhood. For those with other personal Quests, this might be assumed to lead to difficulties later in life, even motivating emigration.

Social effects are potentially significant, because any governing apparatus (bureaucracy, military, police, official religion) depends on obedience to laws, protocols, procedures &c. However, I suspect that relatively few employees in those operations have an Obedience Quest, and most prefer the flexible application of their personal preferences. If so, the likelihood of conflict between duty and preference is ever-present and no-one should be surprised by corruption.

The means used to enable obedience involves carefully studying and closely observing the relevant rituals, rules and procedures; and practicing or rehearsing where necessary. Self-discipline, self-observation and self-review builds conviction within the Quest. In a personal relation, guidance and control may be very direct and demanding e.g. from a spouse or a guru. In an organization, there is often a more senior person who acts as a mentor and guide to the initiate, at times toning down extremes of slavishness.

Down-Side

The inherent problem is that the whole body of duties and prescriptions is never fully consistent and coherent. Reconciling conflicts is therefore necessary and may take the form of hard choices where obedience and disobedience occur simultaneously.

There is rarely a conflict between duty and personal preference, because the Quest answers that question in advance. It posits a necessity to renounce personal desires. Social, ethical and organizational structures must always over-ride selfish desires, which are deemed improper or irrelevant.

Control is not total and should not be. But renunciation leads to a temptation to take self-control and austerity to extremes. Illness may result. The suppression and rejection of self can lead to a temptation to abdicate personal responsibility in regard to an order or procedure that is ethically improper. In a relationship, it may involve submission to abuse—not uncommon in cults. In modern times, «following orders» is no longer regarded as an acceptable defence against criminal or inhuman acts.

In an Obedience Quest, your self must be disengaged, but still recognized, valued and capable of acting as a guide in complex social situations. If this goes wrong, negative states emerge. Loss of touch with self can produce an emptiness in which obedience becomes meaningless or automatic. Some religious ordersClosed encourage hostility to the self, ego and inner mental life generally, because they are viewed as the source of temptation and pollution. Where unrealistic goals of total purity are demanded, self-condemnation and excessive self-punishment may result. This is an emotional matter that has little or nothing to do with the Obedience Quest.

  • Next: practical aspects of the Primal Quest for Spirituality.

Originally posted: 29-Jun-2012. Last updated: 10-Aug-2012