Spiritual Kitsch, Paranoid Process and Relativist Nihilism

Dude how did you change your font??!?!?

yes. yes. yes. oh, yes.

but what of the fear of death?…where does this fit into the worldview…the one thing that will always cut through the sometimes convincing kitch…beating up pollyanna…the one thing we can dance around, distracting ourself with these paranoid processes but that will burn us in the end…the “whats the point” that can be hear from under the breath of the nihilist who might see the impermanence of this song…the one thing we cannot truely avoid might actually be the gateway for the existential humanist?…but how does one enter?…i ask you this, my friend…now what…and where is the key?

Julian, I like the term Existential Humanism. Where did you get it?

Hi, Julian, I will say more about your overall essay later – I appreciate many of your distinctions and analyses – but for now I have a question about your choice of terminology.  You are placing existential humanism on the far side of postmodernism, it appears.  I assume you are aware that postmodernism arose, in part, as a critique of the modernist movements of humanism and existentialism?  So, do you differentiate your “existential humanism” from these essentially modern (Orange) perspectives?

Best wishes,

B.

sounds like “existential humanism” came from the combining of opposites in a tier that probably does well with non-dual concepts…just a thought…

Hi, Sa'Rah, existentialism and humanism are not really opposites.  In terms of the postmodern critique, at least, they were treated as on par.

To be fair, though, Wilber does place the existential LEVEL at the level of the centaur or the emergence of vision logic.

Julian,
…and under all this: making the subjective feelings and beliefs  into objective understandings.

It does seem very possible that the 'New-Age” folk begin as serious altruists. Such an innocent beginning, at the flowering of adulthood, with much passion and good intention. It appears that getting stuck in this place is especially difficult, because in order to 'evolve up the spiral' the very sense of meaning that has sustained you has to be seemingly  destroyed (the subjective to the objective). You know what I mean? The transformation to mature adult responsibility, as Robert Kagen stated was 'Over our heads'. The transformation to shift from once strongly held belief to an unknown thinking modality is of course scary. We have all been there I think.

This is the gap I think you are trying to close, for these people specifically, but I think it could be done with more bang for the buck, with questions and examples. The technical reasons for transformation are tools, but the practice is personal. Personalised by using the personal anecdote, the story of the shift, the before, during and after of a moment of clarity. These sorts of examples are needed to help people understand what its like to 'ride the bike' not just the explanation of how the bike is made and what it is for. The integral approach is rife with technicality (if not utterly), and we need the myths to ensure its transmission. A little like Zen yes? The koan only points, and maybe we can point with more 'coaching'?

Again, this is my little wee perspective…

Oh and death? I think it’s important to get a life, before you get a death. : )

Hi, Julian,

Actually, I may be fumbling more than you.  I also look forward to Mr. Teacup's input.  The strands of humanism, existentialism, and post-modernism have overlapped each other to some degree.  Humanism, while a modern movement, has also been identified with by existentialists such as Sartre (who identified existentialism as a type of humanism).  Both existentialism and postmodernism recognized the contingency of the human being and rejected belief in absolute, universal values; both pushed up against (and sometimes past) the limits of reason (or the rational worldview).  Some existentialists, however, tended to promote a phenomenological ontology, and accepted the idea that there are universal rules or laws at work in the universe, both of which perspectives postmodernists criticized as naive. 

Because of this overlap, but also perhaps the limitations of my own understanding, I have been questioning the notion that existentialism can really be seen as emerging exclusively on the far side of postmodernism.  Both movements appear to be pushing into similar territory, but taking different perspectives and approaches.  Both movements emerged from the same founding fathers, at least in part.  But historically, humanism and existentialism both predate postmodernism, which arose (in part, as I said) as a critique of some of the assumptions of both.

Wilber does place the existential LEVEL (sorry for the caps; my italics don't work) in early vision logic, so I can see that as justification for your choice here.  But the overlap of traditions and ideas and the historical disjunction place the “elevation” of your term to a post-postmodern position into question.

Beyond this, the existential level generates a sort of angst which Wilber claims must be answered by moving beyond it … to the level of the transpersonal.  I'm not sure where the transpersonal fits into what you are writing.   Is this what you are thinking of when you describe the Awakened Integral perspective?

Flapping around in murky water, but glad to be here.

Balder

Hey guys,

Bruce is probably right about the historical ordering of the various schools and movements, but I am less certain that the movements themselves correspond to precisely to the structures. Postmodernism as a trend in philosophy dates from 1960 to the present, but I usually think of SD Green as beginning from at least the mid-19th century, if not earlier. I'm thinking of the Romantics like Wordsworth and Whitman who were anti-rationalists, John Muir and the beginnings of the environmental movement, Emerson, Thoreau, etc. The roots of New Age spirituality are also here.

Humanism is certainly a modern Orange structure, and Sartre says existentialism is a type of humanism, but I think it's kind of a loose statement. Maybe something like existentialism is the new humanism. Existentialism is sometimes taken to mean merely individualistic, which would put it in Orange, but I think this is wrong, especially considering Martin Buber's I and Thou, which elevates both the intersubjective and the 2nd face of God.

I really think the question is whether existentialism is SD Green or is it higher than that. I've also heard some fairly convincing arguments that Derrida properly understood also transcends Green, so there's probably a range that extends up into Integral even, perhaps with Buber and Heidegger.

-mike

Great stuff Julian. Thank you for initiating this conversation. I suspect you may be preaching to the choir (given the comments) but I like to sing so I'll go off line for a more thoughtful reply.
  I will say that it is my belief and experience that the only cure/transcendence of  New Age Happy Face Spirituality happens through severe and repeated failure. This failure may show up in the following ways: financially, romantically, career-ically, sexually or physically. Sa'rah is right on that Death is the principal teacher_ Death of a business, death of a relationship and ultimately, death of a body. Seen from the perspective of “manifesting success” such deaths can be interpreted as failures. Seen from the desire to understand depth and the “truth of being” these deaths become magic mirrors. Magic in that you not only see yourself as you appear but also as that which is present within all appearances.

  It is no accident that you have such a passion for discussing and dissing the New Age movement. You live in the thick of it in So Cal_ and you have your own personal story of journey through the gauntlet of affirmative spirituality. I think Sanjuro hit the bullseye when he advocated for the importance of stories. (Which I add you have done with the Kundalini series.)

  We're having a snow day here in Maine so perhaps I'll have some time to write more offline.
  Thanks again Julian and to all the participants. Rich and delicious.
coyote
.

Julian it is hard isn't it! :)

 I loved what you said:
my assertion here (as always) is that transrational is not embracing prerational magic and myth with more intellectual language, but rather it is inquiring into what is left after the rational and postmodern decontruction of the cultural, psychological and superstitious baggage has been stripped away….. which actually is quite a lot - but usually not what our magical fantasies would like!

This statement showed me your connective thought - i.e. - what is inspiring you to discuss these items in so much detail.

Now if we hold my experience as an example of a simple disconnect (i.e. I don't quite get why/what you are saying, could you expand on that so I can), we have been only able to do this by each of us on the blog asking questions.

So, that then reveals something both new-agey, and very not new-agey.
The second tier relies on group thinking. That we work as a team, a connective collection of consciousness. We are separate and responsible AND we are (new-age believers rejoice…) inter-connected and responsible - both, not one or the other. It is now too complex to do all the thinking ourselves  -since we are limited in our perspectives - and now we are at mature enough stage to admit that.

You know I always believe you are goading the SD Greens, nothing you say will prevent that from happening… :)

But to give an example as you requested…

I'd say it is pretty common for folk at the SD Green phase to have enemies of some kind. People that they just do not like at all, with passion, and perhaps some intensity. That they believe they have been truly wronged. So…

It may be easier to communicate stage development by expressing the differences in how stages see enemies. Do you think Julian you could tackle that one? Maybe we can work through that one together, or actually all of us? Since most of our problems seem to come from others! :)

Enemies and others are where all the problematic rubber hits our personal road…

lets boogie

Julian,

Yes, your suggestion does make sense.  There isn't a one-to-one correspondence.  Regarding at least some of the confusion, I wouldn't say it's a shortcoming in Integral in these cases so much as a too-casual or over-generalized application of Integral stage categories to specific movements.  You may or may not have seen it, but I started a thread on II-Zaadz a couple weeks ago talking about what appears to me to be a failure to distinguish between content and structure in some Spiral Dynamics descriptions and discussions.  I think this is a related phenomenon.

I agree with Mr. T that it is likely that neither postmodernism nor existentialism can be assigned to a single v-Meme level – just as you can't “fix” something like Buddhism or Christianity simply at Amber.

About terminology, I am thinking about alternatives.  Part of it hinges on whether you intend to associate your terms with the historical movements of existentialism and humanism.  As I mentioned, post-modernism emerged as a response to, and really as an attack on, modernist phenomenological movements such as existentialism and humanism.  I believe Wilber discusses this in some detail in Appendix III in Integral Spirituality.  The disagreement appears to have been a quadrant dispute – LL v. UL – rather than stemming from clear developmental differences…

Anyway, because of this overlap and the potential for confusion, I'm thinking it might be better to find different terms.  But I'm not clear, and I make my recommendation with some reservations.  I definitely agree that existential concerns and insights are indicators of a certain maturity of spirit, and as such are in the “developmental future” of many folks who subscribe to New Age beliefs and practices (many of which are fanciful, Romantic, and regressive).  So, it makes sense to point to existentialism – on some level, in some guise – as a purifying doorway through which we must pass.  I'm with you on that.

As you might guess, however, I probably differ with you on your interpretation or application of existentialism.  I expect you mean atheist/secular existentialism, specifically; but I would point out that there are also Christian humanists, Christian existentialists, etc.  One Buddhist teacher I enjoy makes a distinction between existentialism and something he calls meta-existentialism – a development that he thinks is necessary beyond the territory charted by Western existentialists.  He does this within the context of Buddhist (specifically Dzogchen) philosophy.  I suppose this is an aside, but I make it because I think it relates to the issue I described above of fusing content and structure…

Back to terminology:  Have you considered using the stage terms of Cook-Greuter or Torbert to communicate the same transitions and territories you are describing?

This response is, I feel, all over the place … I'm composing sentences in between phone calls and thus don't have continuity of thought … but I guess it'll serve for now…

Best wishes,

B.

Julian,

Trying to be careful here not to turn this into a rehashing of our old debate, since that won't really be relevant to your thread, I will answer your questions in brief rather than in detail:

Yes, I agree that literalist Amber beliefs will not survive the transition out of Amber, by definition.  Christians, for example, who really inhabit Orange or Green value spaces, or higher, will understand the nature of God, the stories in the Bible, the personhood and historicity of Jesus, etc, in quite different ways – and frequently in ways that Amber religionists will reject as heretical.  I have a good friend, for instance, who is a “post-Amber” Christian, and he is regularly reviled and criticized by Amber Christians, some of whom even accuse him of being evil (say, because he refuses to attack or condemn the things that they condemn).  But he would certainly take exception to your suggestion that he shouldn't meaningfully call himself Christian anymore.  Christian values are the central guiding principles in his life – he just doesn't hold them in the way that Amber religionists do.  Further, if you look at Fowler's work, who laid out a developmental trajectory of stages of faith, you will see that some of the highest “core Christian” beliefs and values are not really conventional-level, either, not as they were most likely taught.  But these tenets are often “translated down” and appropriated by Amber religionists.

Anyway, I agree that the “existentialist phase” is an important one in spiritual maturation, and I agree that passing through it will significantly shift our beliefs, our value systems, our ways of relating to the stories and symbols of ancient and modern spiritual traditions, etc.  I agree also that we have to face life, suffering, meaning(lessness), chaos, and death squarely, particularly as we become aware of our many flight mechanisms and defenses against these facts.  But I would stop shy of saying something as final as “as they are,” because that would presuppose that a particular perspective on these issues is the final one, and that may not be (in my view, very likely is not) the case.

Best wishes,

Balder

No, I agree – literalist faith is essentially Amber.  But that's not the only type of faith, nor the only ways the central stories, concepts, etc, of various traditional religions are held.  For that matter, “archetypal” is not the highest level at which these images can, or have been, held, either.

Best wishes,

B.

As much as I like the term, I think it could be misleading. Perhaps “post-metaphysical” is a better one?

Wonderful piece Julian.  And thanks to everyone commenting here.  Very astute!!! 

Hi, Julian, regarding my assertion that there are levels beyond the archetypal understanding:  I'm talking particularly about the Tantric understanding and use of mythical imagery.  There are a number of ways that the Tantric approach surpasses the “archetype” paradigm, in my opinion.  The highly technical, intentionally constructed images do not simply represent particular abstract qualities, as a map might do; when worked with in meditation, they actually stand forth as a direct evocation of the subtle aspects of energy and consciousness that they also “represent.”  It is a nondual understanding: they are experienced directly as that which they evoke, rather than pointing conceptually or symbolically towards some separate set of cognitive events or structures.  Philosophically and “existentially,” these forms are understood from the point of view of emptiness, which again is a sophisticated apprehension that, in my view, goes beyond the archetypal paradigm which is tainted by the myth of the given.  And technically, the construction and “interaction with” these meaning-forms demands a high level of meditative training and a skilled command of the psychosomatic-energetic system that goes well beyond the archetypal work that is done in most Western psychological contexts.

Best wishes,

Balder

The term intra-psychic still trades on dualistic categories of thought and modes of experience, which is why I don't think it is appropriate to “reduce” spiritual ultimates to the UL.

You asked:  “how do you reconcile this difference between local fashions [as referenced by Wilber in his conversation with Cohen], cultural masks, archetypal representations and their transrational and therefore universal (not merely reductive a la the psychoanalytic mode) interpretations a la non-dual states?”

Hoping I've understood your question, here's my response:  Traditional Tantric meditation deities or yidams are empty of inherent existence.  I'd love to hear from other Integrally informed Tantric practitioners on this, but in my view, this includes within it the realization that they are, in fact, socially constructed images.  But this does not pose a problem, in my view, because what I'm referring to as “higher” is not the actual images themselves (which ARE cultural/historical fashions, and need not be presented in exactly those forms) but the ways in which these images are understood, related to, and worked with. 

An example from one of my own practices, TSK, which is a spiritual vision and vehicle created by a modern Tibetan lama, uses visualizations of the human body (in great anatomic detail, inside and out) rather than meditation deities towards much the same end.  TSK does not go to the same depth, in my opinion, as Tantric traditions do in the transformative use of these images – particularly in the area of energy circulation and so on – simply because it is an individualistic tradition that does not rely on or require work with trained teachers, but I believe that the TSK practices could very easily be taken in that direction in the right contexts.  Because, even in  its current form, the use of visualized imagery in TSK is already quite subtle and sophisticated.

Best wishes,

B.

The term intra-psychic still trades on dualistic categories of thought and modes of experience, which is why I don't think it is appropriate to “reduce” spiritual ultimates to the UL.

Given that any stage will necessarily interpret nonduality in a way that is fundamentally inappropriate, intra-psychic could well be the integral interpretation.

However, Wilber in his mapping does occasionally place nondual in the “background” or as the open context (the blank page) of the arising of AQAL, and also refers to Satori as the perception which is not a perspective (e.g., not reducible to the terms of the UL or any other quadrant-perspective).  What do you think of this, and how do you relate it to what you said above?

Hi, Julian, yes, my last post was in response to Mr. Teacup's comments.  I plan to respond to your several posts next, as soon as I have sufficient time to give to them.  I've read them but just need time (away from phones!) to respond.

Best wishes,

B.

Bruce,

That formulation could well be problematic, if taken too literally. It might imply that in satori, one omnisciently apprehends every holon in all four quadrants. At any rate, I'm ill-equiped to debate this point, since I find myself in contradiction any way I try to resolve it.

I agree that we should not fetishize the East or romanticize its attainments.  On the other hand, I do believe that there are some areas of Eastern knowledge that surpass Western knowledge, and I think we should be careful not to simply reduce everything we “read about” in Eastern teachings to our own modern, Western terms and presuppositions…particularly if we haven't done the extensive work in the associated disciplines that is required to actually grasp what is being discussed.  Does the East have the final say on things spiritual?  No.  Is Eastern knowledge so “great” that it doesn't need to be supplemented by the fruits of Western inquiry?  No, again.  In fact, I think it will benefit from such a marriage.  But I raise MY eyebrow when people who understand Western psychology then believe they REALLY understand Eastern knowledge, better than the backwards (supposedly premodern) Easterners do themselves.  You may not have meant that, Julian – but there was an undertone of that, which is why I'm saying this.

I am still planning on responding to your previous letter to me, hopefully later this morning.

Best wishes,

B.

Hi, Julian,

Yes, I agree with you that the term nondual is often used in a sloppy or inaccurate way.  Making the distinction of calling something “not-two” is a subtle but significant correction to substantialist monistic thinking, but people often use “nondual” and “one” as interchangeable terms, and this is problematic.  The term “nondual” originated in a rich, sophisticated philosophical/contemplative climate, and when used frequently presupposed an understanding of emptiness.  Needless to say, many people who loosely use the term now do not really understand emptiness or have the philosophical/contemplative base which is the necessary context to really grasp the term's import.

Concerning the term's association with “both/and” thinking, and your implication that both/and thinking is actually sloppier and somehow represents an anti-distinction orientation:  I agree that both/and thinking is sometimes popularly used as an excuse not to make important distinctions, as a sort of sentimentally driven mushy inclusivism.  However, technically, it is a development that emerges as we enlarge or expand our refined distinction-making capacities.  Check out Lupasco's “logic of the included middle,” for instance.  Classical Aristotelian logic is “excluded middle logic” – but as Basarab Nicolescu points out, the nature of this logical form actually requires us to limit the scope of our attention, analyzing things in contrasting pairs, and therefore isn't really well-suited for complex systems analysis.  As we move into multi-dimensional thinking and complex systems analysis, a type of both/and logic does come to the fore, and represents an enhanced distinction-making ability, not an abdication of critical thought.

You wrote:  “so i think because i know your thinking is more sophisticated than that i want to ask you to clarify more - if you saying that :
calling a powerful state that has as it's content socially constructed images that also point to or dissolve into universal insights and transformational experiences of energetic/physiological  and psycho-spiritual openings “still (magnificently, powerfully, mysteriously) intra-psychic” is dualistic - can you elaborate in a way that doesnt imply that making these sorts of distinctions is somehow a lesser level of consciousness and conversely that not making those distinctions would be evidence of a higher level of consciousness?”

I have fewer objections, actually, to this clarified use of “intra-psychic” than I did to your previous use of it.  And my comments should be read more as cautionary notes than out-right objections – cautionary notes not to take the extra- and intra-psychic distinctions as absolute, self-existent divisions within the Kosmos, rather than objections to using the terms at all.  I am simply making a request not to close the door here, not to imagine we've gone as far as we can in understanding the nature of the world, or that our current presuppositions about it (say, “mind in here” vs. “world out there”) are complete and sufficient.

You're right that an example is not easy to give, but not because it escapes language altogether (though there IS that challenge!).  My difficulty here is that I think it would take a sustained inquiry into foundational presuppositions to really illustrate what I'm thinking of when I make my cautionary notes above.  To be clear, one of the perspectives (among several) that I'm thinking of here is the Time-Space-Knowledge vision, which accepts all of the distinctions you are making, but which also presents a vision which accommodates them as particular “focal settings” within a very precise and rigorous but radically different understanding of world.  In this vision, intra- and extra-psychic are valid distinctions that can be meaningfully made, but they should not be taken as ultimate reductive categories.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi Julian…

This is just, simply, a masterful discussion and I’m totally in awe that you have time (and inclination) to do this work. However, part of me wonders what you (or for that matter) any one who can spend the time to read and grok this discussion does for work (as in pay the rent/mortgage, the gorcery bills, the heating bill, the credit card bills, insurance bills, taxes ..etc.)!!?

As much as I find your explanations of Integrality to be extremely valuable (and admitting that you’ve elucidated much that is obscure to me) … i wonder how this can have practical application for any of us trodding uncertain paths within a moving heirarchy of needs?

How will this play in Peroria … so to speak? I’m certainly not a great example as I’m already covered for the basic needs of my existence (at least at some level I’ve rationalized I have a safety net). But I wonder about younger folks than I (younger generations) and recent immigrants and a future that holds some promise for any of us to be Integral in pursuit of well lived lives (ie; validated work that supports us enough to pursue higher states and stages of being).

I want to reiterate that I truly value what you’re doing in these conversations … I wonder what it will do to promote more folks into this fold with some real world application? And my apologies in advance if this seems an impertinent set of questions.

Thanks and admiration,
Dave

Julian & Bruce, thanks for your considerations. Good stuff!

Godspeed,

Hokai

Well, DAMN, brother J.  :-)  Back to the drawing board…

And thank you, Hokai.  I was kinda hoping you were in the neighborhood….

To make one more pass at my disagreement with Bruce, after some research, it appears to me that this dispute is the same as the question of whether Buddha-nature is empty or not, i.e. whether truly real or not. This question is still debated today, so it's unlikely that we'll be able to resolve it, but at least we know that the Theravadin view rejects Buddha nature, and not all Mahayana sects accept it as absolute or real. Additionally, the positive view is that although Buddha nature is ontologically real, only the highest level Buddhas can verify it, but must be taken on faith in order to become such a Buddha. Therefore, I find it questionable that the integral model should take a positive position on this; a neutral or agnostic view is preferable to me.

To Dave's point about what the purpose of this conversation is, to me, the purpose is to carve out a space for “atheistic” spirituality to exist. At the present, the “New Age” community uncritically foists increasingly far-fetched metaphysical propositions on people, and it seems both reasonable and vital to expect people to at minimum introduce caveats in the spirit of tolerance for those who take a different view. In my view, it is almost as if fanciful metaphysical beliefs are required in spiritual circles, and even though they tolerantly permit that the specifics are up for discussion,  what is not tolerated is atheism. My goal here is not to prove the truth of “atheistic spirituality”, but to make it a possibility for reasoned, friendly debate: that it's fully consistent with the truths revealed in mystical experience, and not intrinsically antagonistic to alternative points of view.

The validity of such a spirituality must be justified on philosophic grounds before it can filter into a more general consensus, even though the conversation is admittedly esoteric and out of reach for the majority. The goal would be to make the case to the teachers and thinkers to whom the majority takes direction from.

Classical Aristotelian logic is “excluded middle logic” – but as Basarab Nicolescu points out, the nature of this logical form actually requires us to limit the scope of our attention, analyzing things in contrasting pairs, and therefore isn't really well-suited for complex systems analysis.  As we move into multi-dimensional thinking and complex systems analysis, a type of both/and logic does come to the fore, and represents an enhanced distinction-making ability, not an abdication of critical thought.

a cannot be a and not-a at the same time and in the same respect is the original formulation. at the same time and in the same respect is the critical phrase.

the non-excluded middle proposition is not consistent with this formulation. to have to jump between arbitrary “layers of reality” or invoke “trans-disciplinary” situations (the addition of “t” to a and not-a) in order to justify the logic renders the non-excluded middle a logical error. the middle remains conspicuous by its absence. there are no contradictions in the universe, only apparent ones, no true paradoxes, only apparent ones. the non-excluded middle proposition holds favour mainly among those who dispute the validity of objective reality, and has been largely marginalised by physicists and philosophers.

given the territory under discussion on this and numerous other blogs (we are talking about the nature of reality after all), i don't think that ontological fence-sitting and seemingly disingenuous use of wildly ambiguous language helps matters. this seems to seek to offend no-one by failing either to say “yes this does exist outside of the imagination” or “no, this does not exist outside of the imagination”, or by omitting to use words which are unambiguous in their ontological status. the topical example being that all-things-to-all-men word god, which can mean anything, and therefore means nothing.

Mr. Teacup, can you help me with what our disagreement is?  It honestly isn't clear to me!  (Maybe I'm just foggy and tired after work…)

Sorry, I mean the question of how to interpret the concept of satori as the paper on which the map is drawn. It seems the varying interpretations may be closely related to how one views Buddha nature.

Hi, Mike,

I agree with your observation – that this dynamic is related to how buddha-nature has been conceived in different schools of Buddhism.  It seems to me that Wilber, in speaking to both theists and non-theists, tends to emphasize a more “positive” view of emptiness (as an open clearing of presence, rather than the more “negative” conception of fundamental lack-of-inherent-self-existence) and sometimes also verges on a rather Hindu way of talking about the Ultimate (Spirit or Godhead / Brahman).  If I had to classify my preferred perspective, it would be what I might call the subtle-positive approach of Dzogchen, rather than the cataphatic approach of (Hindu or Judeo-Christian) theists or the apophatic approach of some Madhyamikas.  I think Dzogchen manages to balance these two basic apporoaches or perspectives (cataphatic and apophatic) in a way that is satisfying to me.

In terms of theoretical approach, I actually agree with you that the Integral “treatment” of the nature and meaning of the blank page should be somewhat open and agnostic…at least if Integral aims to accommodate and integrate these different traditions, whether atheistic, theistic, or whatever. 

In terms of Julian's project, I definitely support his desire to forge an atheistic mystical / existential humanist spirituality informed by Integral principles.  My only objections would be to the argument that this atheist spirituality be seen as really the only valid, viable mode of spirituality available at second-tier and beyond.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi, Julian,

Actually, no, I do not object to what you are saying.  But before I state more positively what my position is, would you mind answering two questions?  They're biggies, so I'm looking for your informed opinion, not the “final answer”… :-)

One, what is your understanding of the origin of the universe?  How did it come about?  Or…did it even begin?

Two, what is your understanding of the nature of consciousness?  Does it have a beginning, and if so, at what point along the evolutionary chain did it first emerge?

A bonus third question:  Are these questions even meaningful and relevant in spiritual life?
Best wishes,

Balder

Julian, have you moved on from this discussion?

(Cool new blog entries, by the way…)

B.

Nice story, Julian!  I like that even better than the Flying Spaghetti Monster!  (Which LOOKS like a Jellyfish).  Hmmm, maybe you're on to something:  the First One really WAS a jellyfish, but the image has been distorted by humanity's alimentocentricity and now we think IT was a plate of spaghetti…

I ask, one, because I wonder if you have any personal beliefs in this area (if you consider yourself an atheist rather than an agnostic, you are actually taking a stronger position than “I don't know”), but also because I just wanted to make the point that theism, in and of itself, is not an irrational belief system.  It is an empirically undemonstrated and perhaps undemonstrable position, but it is not illogical or necessarily irrational.  I am not a theist myself, not in any conventional sense.  And I think we both readily agree that the Amber mythic-literal stories we've been talking about are products of human thought.  But philosophically, logically, I do not believe it is illogical to presuppose a vast creative Intelligence at the “root” of the Kosmos.  The atheistic and theistic positions both have their strengths and weaknesses, logically.  Both are human ways of relating to and “story-ing” the cosmos. 

Have you read David Loy's book, Nonduality?  If not, I recommend it.  In it, Loy (a Zen Buddhist) points out that theistic and non-theistic interpretations of nondual experience are just that, interpretations.  There are valid reasons one could go in either direction, based on the phenomenological evidence at hand and on reason as well. 

Best wishes,

Balder

Nice story, Julian!  I like that even better than the Flying Spaghetti Monster!  (Which LOOKS like a Jellyfish).  Hmmm, maybe you're on to something:  the First One really WAS a jellyfish, but the image has been distorted by humanity's alimentocentricity and now we think IT was a plate of spaghetti…

I ask, one, because I wonder if you have any personal beliefs in this area (if you consider yourself an atheist rather than an agnostic, you are actually taking a stronger position than “I don't know”), but also because I just wanted to make the point that theism, in and of itself, is not an irrational belief system.  It is an empirically undemonstrated and perhaps undemonstrable position, but it is not illogical or necessarily irrational.  I am not a theist myself, not in any conventional sense.  And I think we both readily agree that the Amber mythic-literal stories we've been talking about are products of human thought.  But philosophically, logically, I do not believe it is illogical to presuppose a vast creative Intelligence at the “root” of the Kosmos.  The atheistic and theistic positions both have their strengths and weaknesses, logically.  Both are human ways of relating to and “story-ing” the cosmos. 

Have you read David Loy's book, Nonduality?  If not, I recommend it.  In it, Loy (a Zen Buddhist) points out that theistic and non-theistic interpretations of nondual experience are just that, interpretations.  There are valid reasons one could go in either direction, based on the phenomenological evidence at hand and on reason as well. 

Best wishes,

Balder

Interesting conversation, everyone.

 Julian:  “Though i know even wilber might call this a materialist reduction, i am quite comfortable with consciousness as a phenomenon of matter.”

Hi Julian. Given this, how do you explain the deep-sleep experience? Because it does seem like it gives us an instance of consciousness without the body. Here are a few descriptions of Ken 's from SidebarG:
 

    “Finally, in the deep-sleep state, you see a causal realm, a realm that contains nothing but the level or sheath of bliss-formlessness.

     “Finally, when you pass into the deep, dreamless state–the causal or formless realm–then not only does the gross realm fall away, the subtle realm also falls away: there are no emotions, no thoughts, no images, no dreams, no visions, no nuttin'–except vast emptiness or formlessness, a blissful release from all forms, high or low or in between. And thus in the causal realm there is only the ananda 'level' of blissful formlessness.

     
“Likewise, if consciousness continues to gain strength, then a very tacit awareness will persist even into the deep dreamless state, and you will awaken as vast, formless, empty, infinite Consciousness without an object–a direct experience, it is said, of Nirvana, of the Abyss, the Ursprung, Ayn, the infinite Void, the groundless Ground of all that is.”


Best,

David

Actually, Julian, no, I don't think my assertion that both atheism and theism are stories we tell falls apart logically.  Why?  Because atheism is defined by an active belief that there is not, and cannot be, a God.  It is not an agnostic position – e.g., we don't know the beginning; we don't know anything beyond ordinary human experience – but a much more positively told story, “We don't really know the beginning, but we KNOW FOR SURE that there is not a singular, vast, creative intelligence behind all of this.” 

Yes, there is a burden of proof issue if you assert that there is a vast, creative intelligence and you know exactly what its nature is, what its will is, what its history is, etc., and if you assert that your version of this “vast intelligence” is truer and better than all others (as many theists do).  But to the extent that an atheist occupies a similarly strong, almost rigid position – e.g., I know for certain that there is no singular creative being or consciousness behind the universe, and that there cannot be any; and further, I know that my worldview is superior to that of the theist's – then that is most certainly a story that the atheist is telling.  And if the atheist wants people to believe it – not only that there is no evidence that they can find for any divine consciousness behind creation, but that to believe so is stupid and immature – then they have told a story specific enough, and made assertions strong enough, that it also requires defense and support.

When Wilber tells the story of the involution and lila of Spirit, do you think his story is closer in alignment with atheism or theism?  While it is clear Wilber isn't referring to any mythic form of God when he uses the term Spirit, I personally don't think you can say it is therefore best understood in exclusively atheistic terms; at the least, I believe you have to say that it is a story which can readily accommodate both perspectives in its own way, either a poetically rendered naturalism or the more open, philosophical form of theism I was describing. 

Best wishes,

Balder

I think there's a body if you're looking at it from the outside, Julian, but I'm not sure there is from the inside.

When athiests negate any idea of a creative intelligence, it doesn't seem as though they offer anything better in its place. Rather, it looks as though they put something lesser in its place: random chance and mutation, which doesn't make a lot of sense when you observe what sort of order has been established all around the world, the directionality of evolution, the complexity that has emerged apparently from rocks, and also the similarity in patterns of growth around the world.

I am open to looking into atheism–it's possible it may turn out to be the best–but I'm also wondering if there are any third-tier atheists out there.

Best,

David

Probably you guys have seen this video. I like how they present creationism as a rational, scientific project, and evolution in poetic, religious terms.

When athiests negate any idea of a creative intelligence, it doesn't seem as though they offer anything better in its place.

I think that is a good thing. This is closely related to something I've been thinking a lot about, and I'm sure we're all familiar with it, but I'll risk repeating it.

I think that the basis of the spiritual path is hopelessness. Hope is the belief that one's happiness depends on conditions; that one can find security on what is fundamentally shifting ground. If one pins one's hopes and happiness on the truth of a particular philosophic position on the ultimate nature of the universe, this is a unspiritual perspective. The fact that many people can't accept the “meaningless” and “hopeless” picture painted by some atheists is a sign that they have profoundly misplaced the source of true happiness.

How would consciousness without a body be proved? It's at least a chicken and the egg kind of thing, isn't it, where we couldn't really say it was one way or the other?

I'm not arguing for intelligent design at all. I agree that's lower than random chance and mutation. But what I think is higher than random chance and mutation is the idea that there is a creativity at work–and its nature is the same in generation after generation of human being, through different levels, and you can also see it in animals.

Think about the amazing complexity of a human body–what developed that and how does it keep operating? What sort of creativity is there at work right now as you read this? Isn't it fundamentally the same creativity that was there when you were five years old and learning how to build a sand castle or paint? Isn't it fundamentally the same creativity that is in each person? And we can use that to go in all sorts of different directions, right, but isn't it the same basic creativity at work? And isn't it the same creativity at work when you see two birds building a nest or learning to fly?

We don't need to believe in an “other” God to believe that. We can believe that's just a part of who we are, an impersonal part. The same creative energy that grew us in the womb grew us out of the womb and learned math and language and everything else, right?

Have you seen this article? I think asking for proof might not be the right question since we're not likely to find proof either way. I think the question might be more a long the lines of, considering everything, what's the most likely?

Best,

David

I don't regard your comments as either serious or informed enough, Julian, to make this conversation worth continuing.  I at least do not appreciate the condescending, mocking tone you are taking with me, which I believe is uncalled for.  I am recalling earlier conversations with you, now, where you did the same thing, and I'm feeling a bit triggered.  I regard the stream of words you're currently “getting on” as juvenile and really a waste of my time.  I also do not need your silly lectures about what the conservatives are doing.  I know full well what they are doing.  I am not defending that, or even suggesting anything remotely like it.  But you're actually so dogmatically attached to your single perspective that asking you to consider anything different from your pet beliefs (even in theory or as a rational alternative), without your immediately switching into a mocking tone, is, I am learning, an endlessly disappointing venture.

Good night.

Funny how God looks like Jerry Garcia. Do I detect a little postmodern cynicism in the duelity video? I'm not saying this is anyone's motive here, but are they not perhaps deriding both stories so that their personal self still has room to play? Wouldn't it be typically postmodern to deride both and not come up with anything better? Not saying that anyone here is doing that, but likely as not it's what the filmakers are up to. Fun, though. Are people like Wilber, Aurobindo, Cohen less spiritually evolved than the atheists? Perhaps there is a developmental line that the atheists excel on, but I think there is more to it than that.

About hopelessness, I think that's a good point, though perhaps not complete. KW talks about tiring of experience. Another part of it has to do with the intellect rather than with emotions–one simply reaches the end of one's philosophical rope. One just really doesn't know anymore. Perspectives have knocked eachother out; nothing makes very good sense; you don't know what to do, not an egoic confusion but freedom from the thoughtstream so the evolutionary intelligence can do its work unhindered.  At that moment you drop into the evolutionary witness–and that's where I wonder about atheists, whether they will have enough trust and faith in the process, in the impersonal life force, to carry on with it and let it carry them.

I think there's a paradox here–because one has to be without a position and at the same time have a position. Not having any position throughout oneself at every level and you will be a rag doll. At some deep level, there needs to be an intention and with that intention comes a worldview, say a kosmocentric worldview. There may well be an atheistic kosmocentric worldview out there, but I don't think nihilism is kosmocentric, which I think is what we get when we don't offer a better worldview. Because, again, it's not just about unknowing and not having a position, it's also about knowing and having a position, an operating system–that is unavoidable and necessary. As Almaas put it, a knowing in a sea of unknowing. Also, maybe atheists find hope and happiness in their worldview? :) The basic point is well taken–the spiritualists probably to tend to be holding on to something, but it seems as though the atheists are also holding on to something.

David

I don't want the tone to change. I believe Balder was contributing fine and on the level, and perhaps he is tired now and fails to recall that your inquiry is light hearted, genuine and playful. I am following this conversation (or trying to), and I don't appreciate 'flak'… and that's what it is if someone gets grumpy and tells people to shut up, without taking the time to provide corrections or supplemental material (especially in light of the spirit of this post).

I'd ask you continue Julian, as I do not see why an otherwise productive and enlightening thread (if somewhat heady and intellectual) should be stalled for the bad temper of one of its participants.

I didn't mean atheism is nihilism; I meant negating anything and everything with regard to a creative intelligence could leave us with a kind of nihilism. Or at best materialism, which doesn't take into account directionality, increasingly complexity, etc. So if we can come up with some atheistic TOE that takes all this into account, including third-tier stages, then great. If it doesn't take all that into account, I don't think it's a step forward.

Not that this will be news to anyone, but KW talks about the need for having some operating system, that it's not all about unknowing and such, in this great video.

David

Julian, how did the body come into being if there wasn't consciousness without the body? Wouldn't consciousness have to come first? If the body came first, what caused the body? How could the first tiny little cell come into being without consciousness first?

I think you are right about nihilism, David, but to me, nihilism is a kind of hope. The hope is that if I can withdraw from the world and disconnect from it, I might be able to be free of disappointments, and this is just another strategy or project of the ego, another way of avoiding real hopelessness. Really, nihilism is obsessed with the ways things ought to be, a sentimentalizing and romanticizing of one's condition as a kind of cosmic unfairness, but I think this is a sign of an inability to love oneself. But more than anything, it is a worldview, rather than the absence of one.

One benefit of this perspective is to some degree, there is sadness in the condition of hopelessness, and if we respond with compassion toward ourselves for being in this condition, we can also recognize that everyone is also in this condition, and we can find a way of feeling compassion for them that's beyond reciprocity. In some ways, hopelessness provides the clarity that yet another worldview can't: how can you tell if you aren't smuggling ego projects into these “higher” perspectives? It's difficult, and very easy to get caught up in them. Hopelessness doesn't suffer from this, because its a space that no-one chooses. I like how Sam Harris put it in his lecture: even among prisoners, solitude is considered a punishment. Or this quote that I first heard on the UNKLE album Never Never Land:

“The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and… and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth. ”

What is left when all is burned away, even nihilism, sorrow and fear? We don't need a worldview to be in the world, we are already in the world, and have a view. That view is spontaneous, living and embodied: it gets up and walks out the door. It doesn't look at the world, it is the look of the world. To explain it in positive terms would do violence to it, by implying that it something other than total freedom, and that it is merely one of a thousand other ideas and concepts that are available in today's WalMart of ideas and concepts. What does it mean? Nothing.

Julian,
  I was sorry to see Balder get angry and leave the conversation. I just wanted you to know that I specifically enjoy the quality of “playfulness” and think that is the right metaphor for these types of discussions. Here in these threads we are involved in creative play. To use another metaphor, think of making music with friends. Sometimes it just seems like bad campfire music and sometimes it all falls together and becomes magical. (magical= mysterious, creative, non-reproducible, unproveable, play). The point being, that you have to be willing to pass through the valley of camp to get to the moments of creative joy.
  Demanding proof is a blind alley for most of this stuff. What can be proven (according to the strict and specific laws of logic) is a very thin slice of the reality pie. Demand “proof that you love me” long enough and before long you're back on Match.com hoping for a hookup. It is to my mind and heart far more interesting to notice correlations. Correlation is not proof and requires large samples to be really meaningful but it does allow for wider discussions and more creative play.
  As for collapsing everything into the UR and saying “no body = no conciousness” is, to me, simply dull. A few days before my sister's death she was resting in a deep “coma” (no observable or proveable consciousness). I was not there when she “woke up” and looked at the woman care giver beside her and said “I went somewhere.” The care giver was startled and asked “What was it like?” My sister smiled and said “It was gooooood….” That for me is the essence of mystery.
blessings,
Phil/coyote

bruce alderman - you get back in this discussion immediately!

i have been watching this dialog (with fine contributions from others) with deep respect and affection and admiration. i have been dying to get stuck in more, but a perfect storm of life stress factors and intense shadow work during the final stages of a mindblowing trauma recovery-satori-psychotherapist training course has apparently rendered me snidey as hell, so i've been letting you guys write with the beautiful tone which makes this kind of discussion not only possible, but also which represents the most sincere embodiment of the values alluded to by models of higher stages of consciousness. i do feel moved to comment at this point however, even if my contribution to the content of this particular discussion will have to wait until i'm more grounded!

looking over the writing of all of the writers i'm familiar with, i'm seeing some of the same reflexive patterns and types of logical errors i've seen earlier - but in much reduced levels.

please continue people - i really feel something amazing is happening here. not because the direction of discussion seems to be heading in a way which gives me a feeling of elation and hope for humanity, but because the dogged persistence with issues which only a tiny number of people on this planet could understand let alone bother with is the very thing which drives growth at the dizzier heights of consciousness evolution. we're all benefiting watching this heroic work at the coalface.

julian - i think the analogies that you started to use last night are valid vehicles for illustration in the areas of psychological propensitiy towards causal explanation not merited by evidence and the use (and misuse) of logic, and were not intended to be derogatory or patronising at all. i can also see how it could be seen as somewhat of a dismissive poke if read in certain ways. there are times in the discussion where you seem to have ducked the issues a little in favour of jocularity instead of going more into the heart of the logic that the explication arguably merits (although light-heartedness and playfulness is a fine thing in itself). however, this is small potatoes in comparison to the fine clarity and detail characterising most of your discussion here. i can otherwise only commend you on the quantity and quality of the thinking that you put out there. i find it thrilling and hugely energising! : )

bruce - your voice is - and always will be - needed in discussions of this kind. while i think that you - to an extent, in common with others - exhibit some of the closed positional thinking in your view of what  atheism (as with other “orangey” labels) is and isn't that you caution so elegantly against elsewhere, and while i think that sometimes it is both acceptable and proper to hold aspects of ontology and epistemology along a range of certainties including calling a spade a spade,  i see your urging not to close the door to even radical progressions of perception, and possibility of future discovery and elucidation, not as a defence of fluffy, evasive or specious thinking, or intellectual dishonesty, but as a vital defence of the scientific method. as you know, i draw a much more definite line than you have in the past regarding perceiver and perceived, but the methodology of your thinking itself in regard to honest openness towards new evidence makes you in this regard a true scientist. this latter comment is in no way intended to marginalise the content of your writing, which is always similarly open to discussion, rather it represents one of the highest compliments i can give. that you transcend the usual (and also over-narrow!) notion of scientist to the degree that you do - along the lines suggested by the phrase existential humanist (i actually think that the word human may suffice once we commonly recognise and accept the full potentialities and faculties of that fine species) - is even more of a compliment, which i offer in all sincerity. i am deeply grateful to the people i have interacted with on this site for the insights which have caused me - painfully at times - to abandon some of my own personal beliefs and views, and similarly for the education which has been afforded me. if this discussion continues (it will anyway, here or elsewhere!), there are necessary logical implications for some of the beliefs and views of the contributors. i recognise the psychological turns that this discussion has taken over the last couple of days (not just from you btw), and in my experience, these turns precede (if the invitation is accepted) a higher relocation of locus of consciousness based on discarding of previously held beliefs (experienced as constriction), and adoption of new beliefs based on a wider embrace of what is (experienced as relaxation).

these intense and public discussions are draining at times (certainly for mind-types like myself anyway), and i offer these words not in patronising encouragement (i know you know i know you know), but in the sincere hope that you will pick up the thread, because i think that of all the areas of discussion i see going on in my known haunts in blogland, this area represents the most courageous, pertinent and critical area that mankind faces.

you asked in an earlier question to julian whether questions of the origins and nature of the universe and of consciousness have any relevance to our spiritual lives. my answer to that would be that how we answer these questions is hugely relevant not only to our spiritual lives (by which i mean experience in the higher reaches of consciousness), but to the whole of our lives and also to those other living entities - and indeed the capacity for present and future life generally - with which we share this planet. it is therefore the responsibility of all of us to strive for the highest standards of practise in all our faculties - physical, emotional and rational - which when exercised at the highest levels of which we are capable, can all be described as spiritual in nature. this requires us to hold spiritual attainment as more important than any particular belief or system of beliefs we hold dear, or are holding onto for security or defence - and is the process of what i regard as a central aspect of “enlightenment”, which includes physical development, critical thinking (the application of logic to consciousness) and the limitless realm of interior experience - in other words, all human faculties. (you will appreciate i have widened my points somewhat beyond your own contribution to this discussion bruce!).

philosophy has five main branches: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. to use nathaniel branden's everyman summary of it: “what exists, how do we know, so what?”

all flows from metaphysics and the epistemology by which we determine the metaphysical nature of existence, life, and consciousness. each branch is dependent on effective understanding of the preceding branch which is informed by the subsequent branch. the whole should ideally be internally consistent or non-contradictory, but in any case, each area affects all others dynamically. if we determine that the origin of the universe and consciousness is am omnipotent force or a self-aware causal agent (for example), this has necessary implications for every other facet of life, including our spiritual lives.

and there my comment ends for now, because it's lunchtime! and so to all involved in this most beautiful discourse - keep going! (maybe i could just have said that anyway… damn!)

food is good!

feeling more grounded apparently : )

david - your questions re how bodies develop and how the first cell formed are questions which have been answered fairly comprehensively by observation of biology and informed speculation of biological history without requiring a conscious causal agent, especially in the theory of evolution, covering how increasing complexity occurs in the absence of a sentient agent. a body does not require consciousness to exist, as any corpse would testify if it still had consciousness ; ) there is no evidence of consciousness without a body that i'm aware of. i was not aware of myself before my body and brain developed enough for self-awareness to be possible. the notion of disembodied consciousness is just that - a notion - and not one upon which i would place value, since i have insufficient reason to do so.

hi coyote - saying that consciousness does not exist without a physical body is not the same as saying that consciousness does not exist or even marginalising it. it's not quadrant reductionism - i don't think julian was attempting to collapse one into the other - it's saying that experience in UL is dependent on there being something in UR to support it. that's not dull, it's just fact as far as we know it. nor does it reduce consciousness or mind to matter. it leaves the full richness of subjective experience, mystery and all, untouched and undulled.

Hi Adam,
  Thank you for joining in.
  You write: …it's saying that experience in UL is dependent on there being something in UR to support it.
   I was attempting to draw the important distinction between correlate and cause. I do not doubt  that for every state and felt experience there is a co-responding co-relational event in the body. But the key word there is “dependent” which I don't buy_ not independent and not dependent. At this point there is a temptation for us weenie-greenies to reach for analogies in quantum physics, revealing more often than not our ignorance of both subjects. However, the English language is structured along lines of separation of subject and object which leads to a subtle association of cause and effect that may not be true. There does not seem to be easy ways to talk of simultaneous “non-local” experience. Co-relation is not cause. The map is not the territory. There is no such place as UL or UR.
  Okay, I'll catch my breath here.

  Thanks for contributing and supporting this written exchange of views. I so much prefer the benefits of conversation where nuance, humor and the simple pleasure of company can be wordlessly communicated.
  c

Thank you, Adam, for your words and for your encouragement to continue this conversation.  I didn't find your comments patronizing and they mean a lot to me.  I actually had been planning to return to this discussion, having received some PMs from Julian and having also gotten over my exasperation.  I am not angry with Julian in any way at all, and I still respect the passion and energy and intelligence he brings to these discussions.  I agree with David that he is currently maintaining one of the best blogs on Zaadz.  I grew exasperated last night, however, because I felt I was encountering patterns which had, in previous conversations with him, turned into dead ends.  I also enjoy light-heartedness and jocularity and even irreverence.  That, alone, is not what bothered me.  I believe that explaining what “triggered” me and why I got fed up may actually help carry this conversation forward, or at least help me get past my communicative and philosophical impasse with Julian, so I will attempt that in my next post here.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hello Julian:
I was actually introduced to your blog a few weeks ago via a link to an article you'd written on archetypes and the movie, Pan's Labryinth.  I quite enjoyed it so the other evening, when I had a bit of time to spare, I thought I'd pop back in to see if you had anything of more interest to say.  I began reading this article but found myself feeling very dissappointed about halfway through.  My dissappointment had a lot to do with the image you'd posted as coupled with this statement: did anyone love the paranoid classified ad as much as i did? :O)

Quite honestly, I felt like I'd been punched and I wanted to share a few words with you about that.  First, I sat with my response for a few days so I could figure out what it was all about.  Having done that, I then joined this community so I could respond to you personally.  To do that, I had to agree to honor these terms, which I assume you also had to agree to: The gateway above is a reminder of the principles we aspire to uphold. By clicking it, you agree to enter our community with an attitude of reverence, compassion, respect for yourself, your fellow members, and the law, and a desire to grow and to give to the world.

And now, I'm ready to share those words.   The following is a quote from a young man I know.  He was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.

I wanted to share a story with all of you about the day I first recognized that having a “mental illness” meant that I would not be accepted as an intelligent human being capable of contributing to this world and worthy of the basic respect that any person should be afforded.

I went to my first psychiatric consultation six years ago. I, of course, should have been in therapy much sooner but did not realize the extent of my illness or the fact that I was even ill at all until that time.

I had to first consult with a primary caregiver due to the regulations dictated by my insurance plan. This meant that I had to first see my general practitioner and he would then send me to a specialist if required.          …

When I arrived in his office, he asked me what had been bothering me. I mentioned the letter that I had mailed to his office and much to my disappointment, he had not read it. He quickly left the room and retrieved the letter from the front desk, where it had apparently been for several weeks.

I watched as he read quickly through the letter and he was obviously disturbed by what he had read. He wasted no time in telling me that he would refer me to a psychiatrist as the whole “antihistamine” thing bothered him.

I did later see the psychiatrist and that will no doubt be the subject of many upcoming blogs. But what I found distressing was how my relationship with this doctor had been irreparably changed.

I saw him many months later, as I was visiting someone in hospital. I approached him and said hello as I was genuinely pleased to see him. My pleasure soon faded as I realized that he was very uncomfortable in my presence. It was at that moment, I realized he would have rathered I had been a drug addict or a wife beater than the person who was standing before him.


You may also find it insightful to read through the following two threads:

http://kaleidoscope-forum.org/talk/index.php?topic=1908.0

http://kaleidoscope-forum.org/talk/index.php?topic=1918.msg23521#msg23521

And now, I have nothing more to say.

Regards,

spiritual_emergency

Hi, Julian,

I'm sorry for losing my patience last night.  I'm now diving back into this discussion - and in a big way, at least in terms of wordiness!  Hold onto your reading glasses….

In this post, I want to do a couple things:  1) Explain what I was objecting to when I got exasperated; 2) Explain what my own perspective is, since I've been attempting here to defend a perspective which is NOT identical with my own; and 3) Ask you to possibly clarify some of your positions.

1)  The “pattern” I alluded to, and to which I was objecting.

We've talked before about how I think you may be committing a level/line fallacy in your treatment of the phenomenon of religion.  Here, in this discussion of theism, in which I was beginning to make the argument that there are various developmental levels at which theism manifests - that, as a phenomenon, it shows a spectrum of development - you kept firing off questions and playful/irreverent examples, the nature of which made it clear to me that you were essentially reducing theistic thinking to an exclusively mythic-level artifact.  I admit that in this thread, I had not yet made my own case, but I was heading in that direction, and your questions (mocking, because they were designed to make theism look absurd by caricaturing it with Magenta- or Amber-level examples) made it apparent to me that I was going to fact the same uphill battle that I've faced in similar conversations with you in the past.  By which I mean, getting you to consider the possibility that religion, consideration of certain “paranormal phenomena,” theism, etc, could actually be engaged and expressed from multiple centers of gravity or “Kosmic addresses.”

I also was getting tired (worn out) by your regular return to The Secret-like examples of New Age thinking (a favorite target of yours, as we all know) since that is not where I'm coming from, and that is not where the various theists I'm thinking of are coming from, and I am just fed up with having to defend against those ill-placed charges.  It gets tiring, and I feel we're in a rut - primarily, in my assessment, because you consider things like religion and theism to be levels rather than lines.

And that takes us to my remark that you are perhaps not informed enough in this area.  Because if you were, you wouldn't keep treating theism as if it were exclusively an Amber- or Magenta-level construct.  For example, if you took the time to read process theologians such as A.N. Whitehead, David Ray Griffin, or John Cobb, or the works of Raimundo Panikkar, Paul Knitter, the mature Thomas Merton, Bishop Shelby Spong, Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, Beatrice Bruteau, Teilhard de Chardin, Meister Eckhart, Hans Kung, Marcus Borg, and Soren Kierkegaard, to name just a few, you would find ample evidence of a range of post-Amber (Orange to Teal) theistic perspectives.  The perspectives of these thinkers simply cannot be reduced to or fairly represented by the mythic caricatures you keep offering.

Are most of these thinkers still dealing in metaphysical constructs?  Yes, they are.  But I would say that, with many of them, it is a more mature, self-aware metaphysics than the type you are lampooning.  Most of these thinkers are mature enough to recognize the human fingerprints all over our stories of origin and our theological (and philosophical and scientific) mode-making and theorizing.  In my view, the post-metaphysical turn does not amount to an outright rejection of all metaphysical constructs.  Even Wilber, and even you and Adam and others in the “atheist” camp, still depend on them to some degree.  As I see it, post-metaphysical thinking brackets metaphysical thinking in a mature self-awareness - an awareness of the limitations on, and the constructedness of, human knowledge, and of the provisionality of our perspectives.

Is Wilber, with his call for a post-metaphysical, integral spirituality adding anything new to the scene?  Yes, I believe so - but in a number of instances, his work is a reiteration and an amplification of what a number of these thinkers are already doing, rather than being something radically new.  He is also integrating a wider array of perspectives, generally, than many of these thinkers currently have dealt with.

In one of your posts, you intimated that I was making a relativistic theistic argument from design.  (In drag!  How did you know what I was wearing?)  I have a few comments about that.  One, it seems you are saying that both theism and relativism have no place in mature, 2nd tier, “adult” spirituality.  Is that the case?  This post up to this point has been an attempt to show the fallacy of the first position - that theism is Amber or strictly “first tier.”  But the same goes for relativism.  In integral cognition, as I understand it, the insight into the relativity of our perspectives is still retained, it is just not rendered in such a flatland, quadrant-absolutistic fashion.  To use your language, Integral is relativity-plus, not “minus relativity.”

[Continued in next post]

[Continued from previous post]

Beyond this, to the more pertinent point:  Am I saying that the appearance of design-like features in the Kosmos proves the existence of God?  No, and neither are the post-Amber theologians I'm referring to.  But modern cosmology does reveal an amazing specificity and precision in the unfolding of our life-sustaining, consciousness-amplifying and -organizing universe, in light of which it is not unreasonable or irrational to presuppose a fundamental ordering, creative intelligence - not necessarily as a disembodied mythic entity who gets bored and decides to create a world, but rather as an integral aspect of being as a whole (Panikkar's “depth dimension”).  Cosmologists now know that, had the universe expanded any faster or slower than it did - even by a trillionth of a percent - the formation of a life-sustaining universe would not have been possible.  Had the particular ratio of the four fundamental forces varied even by a small percent, stars would burn out too quickly for life-supporting worlds to ever form.  If you get into the mathematics of cosmological evolution, the knife-edge precision and elegance of the order of the universe is startling and awe-inspiring.

Don't misunderstand me.  I am not saying that this precision proves or even necessitates a theistic solution.  I am just saying these facts are not incompatible with a (mature, post-Amber) theistic worldview.  In other words, in the face of these facts - or, say, the various philosophical considerations Whitehead raises - it is not inherently irrational to adopt a theistic perspective - a perspective which posits a greater-than-human ordering, creative, evolutionary intelligence at the root of the universe.  You have made an argument about the lack of empirical proof for a mythic being “out there” in the heavens somewhere, but this is off the mark in two ways.  One, lack of empirical evidence for something does not render it irrational.  While yet a speculative solution, it can nevertheless be entertained as a rationally defensible one even in the absence of empirical proof.  And two, the post-Amber theists I've been talking about don't believe in a disembodied mythical entity residing in heaven or outside the universe, anyway.

This response is getting quite lengthy and I haven't covered a number of things I wanted to say.  For now, I'll just touch on the two points I mentioned at the beginning of this letter.

2)  My perspective on this argument.

Simply, I believe that both theistic and non-theistic models or theories are still viable at so-called 2nd tier.  There are rational and philosophical arguments you can make for both at these levels, and transrational contemplative experience can be shown (say, a la David Loy) to be compatible with both interpretations.  To allay Adam's suspicions - I do not think atheism is merely an Orange phenomenon.  Like theism, I think we can treat it as a line - with atheists inhabiting, and defending their positions from, a range of centers of gravity.  I think there is most certainly room for an atheistic/non-theistic spirituality within (and outside of) the Integral movement.  My objection has been to the identification by Julian and others of theism, simplistically, with a single level of development.  I agree with you (Julian) about the need for an existential transition and purification on the way to second-tier spirituality, but I maintain that this can - and does - take place in both theistic and non-theistic contexts.  (See Kierkegaard and Tillich for examples of existential/humanistic theology, for instance).

My own personal perspective is actually non-theistic.  In shorthand, I sometimes identify as a Buddhist, but I think a fairer description would be this:  an Integrally informed contemplative who studies and employs nontheistic perspectives and practices (Buddhism and TSK) as part of his ILP, but who has sympathy and respect for those who also adopt more theistic orientations and practices in their own lives … even at 2nd or 3rd tier.

3)  Clarifications from Julian.

I have several questions based on your comments in this discussion:  a) Can you define “spirituality” for me and tell me what you, as an atheist, mean by “spirit”?  b) Can you tell me whether, as per the example you provided above, you believe that science is “just a method” and is therefore paradigm-free and largely transparent or contentless?  c) How would you define post-metaphysics?  Do you disagree with my definition above? 

Best wishes,

Balder

Mike, it's interesting about hoplessness. It reminds me of Rumi:

Here are the miracle-signs you want: that
you cry through the night and get up at dawn, asking,
that in the absence of what you ask for your day gets dark,
your neck thin as a spindle, that what you give away
is all you own, that you sacrifice belongings,
sleep, health, your head, that you often
sit down in a fire like aloes wood, and often go out
to meet a blade like a battered helmet.

When acts of helplessness become habitual,
those are the signs.


At any rate, what you say makes sense to me. You talk about two things: hoplessness and compassion. I think a kind of hoplessness might be found at some later personal-self stage, and that it would be necessary for some new emergence. People probably need to hit rock bottom, usually, at each stage to get sufficiently interested in the next.

So, a kind of hoplessness might occur towards the end of the personal-self line–hopeless in terms of the ego's dream. Nothing will work. Sure, that must be necessary. Every dream ends in nightmare, every attempt to realize a dream comes up empty, and then one begins to learn that. So I can see how hoplelessness in terms of the personal-self dream is a necessary and evolutionary thing.

Then you talk about compassion–where's that coming from? It's not coming from the loveless, self-concerned ego, the personal self. That's coming from a deeper part of one's being; that's the new emergence, what hoplessness has made possible. Hoplessness created an opening (as well as unknowing, perhaps, awakening of care, bearing witness to suffering). But there is also a worldview in there, in the compassion, and I think that's what needs to be fleshed out. Is there meaninglessness in that compassion? When you respond to someone you love needing you, is there meaninglessness in that moment? Different from the dream-bound meaning; more of an intrinsic meaningfulness in that moment, right? And not something, in that moment, that can be denied.

About wordviews–you speak about there already being a spontaneous view that is the look of the world. It sounds as though you are talking about a state here or perhaps desireless, at-least-causal-level action. At any rate, if we're walking out the door there is a worldview even if it's totally nondoing and spontaneous. Many advaita-type teachers are in denial of this. There is at least a worldview supporting it–the operating system might not be conceptual, but I do believe it will be influenced, no matter how nonconceptual the person is, by the first conceptual level that arises. My understanding is that there will always be a dance between the conceptual and the nonceptual mind, that they need eachother, guide eachother, etc. To use Aurobindo-type language, the psychic being (nonpersonal stages) has a sort of innate goodness and evolutionaryness about it but will use previously evolved functions and capabilities when necessary.

 There may be total freedom, perspectivelessness in meditation, but as soon as one gets off the meditation cushion, the person, whether they are aware of it or not, is taking a position, a worldview, or being influenced by one at the very least. To maintain that freedom, to act from causal bliss, say, requires incredible discrimination and vigilance and intention. And in that discrimination, there is a worldview–for example, one that includes compassion for all beings, or perhaps compassion as well for the process, oneself, the four quadrants. There are also different lines, each with a worldview: sexual/romantic, affect, interpersonal. I think it's more complex than the phrase total freedom would suggest.

But I agree that any wordview is a poor substitute for that being in action; that is, any description doesn't quite work and tends to land us back in the conceptual mind. At the same time the best worldview, the closest and most complete approximation will create the best jumping off point, will make it the most stable. But to say it means nothing, in my view, does as much violence to it or more than to say it means something and give it a positive spin. It seems to be the case that being in action is ultimately positive, that it is the action and the only action that builds structures in all four quadrants. Anything short of that causal or nondual action isn't building a structure, it's distorting it or perhaps even tearing it down. But I think these approaches probably do balance out different types, different emotional constellations, so it's probably a mistake to instist on one, though there might be some things to insist on.

So, since there's always a worldview to accompany the look of the world (which is also the world in action, the absolute in action?), what is the worldview in that compassion? Is it the same worldview in the one that says it has no meaning? Two different things? I think we probably need paradoxes like emptiness/fullness, meaning/meaninglessness. detachment/engagement, unknowing/knowing, etc.

David

Bravo Balder!
(Yeah, like he said…)
fun
c

Adam, but what is the first cause? I know that biology and evolutionary biology have explained some things, but what about the origin of life? That's what it hasn't explained. It also hasn't explained new emergences.

Also, you say the UL is dependant on the UR. What proof do you have that it isn't the other way around? If there were absolutely no data to suggest otherwise, as was the case for many centuries, we might say yes, it's all a function of the material self. But there are hundreds of reports of out of body experiences, near-death experiences, etc. For example, this one from Ernest Hemingway:

“A big Austrian trench mortar bomb, of the type that used to be called ash cans, exploded in the darkness. I died then. I felt my soul or something coming right out of my body, like you'd pulled a silk handkerchief out of a pocket by one corner. It flew around and then came back and went in again and I wasn't dead anymore.”

There are, of course, thousands of stories like that, from all over the world. Not proof, perhaps, but enough to put the previous theories–that consciousness cannot exist without the body–into doubt. At least, that would be the scientific position, that we really couldn't say at this point one way or the other; we'll have to wait for more studies to see whether there is anything to this growing body of evidence that consciousness can exist beyond the body. There could be other explanations for them, of course, but perhaps not; perhaps the spiritual/soul/consciousness-as-primary explanations will prove to be correct. If we're going to be scientific about it, we'll have to just wait and see.

David

Spiritual_emergency, I'm sorry your feelings were hurt. I understand how that would be hurtful. I don't think Julian meant any harm, but it's always good to remind eachother about such things and help eachother become more aware and compassionate. So thank you for sharing your view and your feelings. Also, you have a very interesting and informative blog, thank you.

David

Mike, I think with hopelessness you may actually be talking about the same thing I've been contemplating recently, which is suffering and the avoidance of suffering. It seems that this is one of or perhaps the major movement of the ego–to avoid suffering, to reject suffering, suffering now and feared-of suffering in the future, and it distorts one's actions and generally makes a mess of things. Yes? So, with hopelessness one is no longer making any attempt to avoid suffering, now or in the future; one simply allows all suffering and does what is clear of all that, what flows from the deepest part of oneself. Some people call that the evolutionary impulse, but I agree that is not a perfect approximation, though it may be the best I have heard. Maybe we could say it's the evolutionary impulse when freed of the fears and desires of the ego. It's comes from out of time, which is why “evolutionary” doesn't work perfectly–it makes it sound too in time–but it impacts time in the most positive way; it builds, contributes, does what is necessary, most evolutionary. That, at any rate, would be a part of the supporting worldview.

David

David: I don't think Julian meant any harm, but it's always good to remind eachother about such things and help eachother become more aware and compassionate.

Thank you David.  I appreciate your words.  Whether Julian intended harm or not, he has created it by presenting someone he recognizes as a “paranoid schizophrenic” as an object of inferiority and ridicule.  Is this really the path of “integral evolution”?  .

Meantime, I believe that the dynamic Julian is attempting to describe could more properly be attributed to authoritarianism – not paranoid schizophrenia.  Readers may also enjoy this article by Stanislav Grof which addresses a number of the points that Wilber (and Julian) makes. 

http://primal-page.com/grofken.htm

David: I think with hopelessness you may actually be talking about the same thing I've been contemplating recently, which is suffering and the avoidance of suffering. It seems that this is one of or perhaps the major movement of the ego-to avoid suffering, to reject suffering, suffering now and feared-of suffering in the future, and it distorts one's actions and generally makes a mess of things.

This article may be insightful: http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/tonglen1.php

Regards,

s_e

bruce - it's late, i'm still coming down from lots of dancing (aka the meaning of life but standing up)… but like i said, we need you bro.

as far as i can see, we all have some unwarranted things we identify with to let go of, erroneous beliefs to relax around, and logic to surrender to, since these are all arguments from logic whether we like it or not.

julian - consider the bar raised. it's a worthy challenge, potentially with no losers. we're all winners if we use this vehicle to burn away constriction and attachment, and still honour rationality. anyone who has a good reason to omit logic in their considerations, let me know. this discourse is getting raw and honest. let's use it.

taking a nice deep breath in… and sighing it out…

i'll be back…

rock on.

People probably need to hit rock bottom, usually, at each stage to get sufficiently interested in the next. So, a kind of hoplessness might occur towards the end of the personal-self line–hopeless in terms of the ego's dream. Nothing will work.

I would say that my kind of hopelessness is somewhat distinct from that kind. Toward the end of a stage, you might feel hopeless, but the stage transition most often means that you find a new hope in a new worldview. Also, I don't really agree with Aurobindo's idea that there is an end to evolution. This involves stacking states on to stages, and I don't see nondual realization depending at all on an evolutionary stage.

Is there meaninglessness in that compassion? When you respond to someone you love needing you, is there meaninglessness in that moment? Different from the dream-bound meaning; more of an intrinsic meaningfulness in that moment, right? And not something, in that moment, that can be denied.

Yes, I would say that compassion is meaningless and purposeless. It exists for itself, and complete in itself. There are other kinds of things we conventionally call compassion and love that are incomplete unless the action has the desired consequences, and those require worldviews that determine what the desire is. The difficulty of the practice of being in the world is to maintain the completeness of compassion in itself, while also working to create specific conditions based on a worldview.

In a sense, “intrinsic meaning” is a contradiction – the meaning of an action is distinct from it, something that we attach on top of acting it out. That is why the answer to the question, “what does it mean?”, is “nothing.” To say anything would imply that it requires that interpretation to be complete, not complete in itself. Nothing is also not quite it, because it might imply nihilism, but I think we've gone over that.

We could accept your term “intrinsic meaning”, but that introduces some difficulties. Take something, like compassion, you would call intrinsically meaningful, and answer the question, What does it mean? Immediately, its a justification, an appeal to values or a description of the wonderful benefits of compassion. The meaning of compassion, then, is that it is interpretative as good, after the fact.

At any rate, if we're walking out the door there is a worldview even if it's totally nondoing and spontaneous. Many advaita-type teachers are in denial of this. There is at least a worldview supporting it–the operating system might not be conceptual, but I do believe it will be influenced, no matter how nonconceptual the person is, by the first conceptual level that arises.

The doing is spontaneous. What is done has some relation to a worldview, but that is merely the vehicle through which the action occurs.

There may be total freedom, perspectivelessness in meditation, but as soon as one gets off the meditation cushion, the person, whether they are aware of it or not, is taking a position, a worldview, or being influenced by one at the very least.

Yes, but you don't need be attached to a worldview in order to act.

To maintain that freedom, to act from causal bliss, say, requires incredible discrimination and vigilance and intention. And in that discrimination, there is a worldview

Its more important that the intention to be free is itself an expression of freedom, otherwise it becomes a demanding expectation, a worldview that one ought to be this way rather than that.

for example, one that includes compassion for all beings, or perhaps compassion as well for the process, oneself, the four quadrants.

One can hold pure compassion independently of who it is directed at; it simply is. That is important to do, because once you attach a worldview to it, it can easily become a demand.

Yes, I would say that compassion is meaningless and purposeless.

 How do you know if it's compassion if some end isn't achieved? How is it still compassion when you take it out of context? Are there not different levels of compassion, each with its own meaning? How is it compassionate if it is meaningless and purposeless? How do you define compassion? If it's meaningless and purposeless it would seem to be worthless. At what stage in AQAL would you put “compassion is meaningless and purposeless”?

 

The difficulty of the practice of being in the world is to maintain the completeness of compassion in itself, while also working to create specific conditions based on a worldview.

So you're talking about compassion as a stage adaption in the first part (p. 198 IP) and its appilcations in the second?
 

That is why the answer to the question, “what does it mean?”, is “nothing… .” Immediately, its a justification, an appeal to values or a description of the wonderful benefits of compassion. The meaning of compassion, then, is that it is interpretative as good, after the fact.

I think you're talking about spontaneous compassion from Being, right, not coming from the mind? So I understand why you would say nothing–for the same reason that you say emptiness. Almaas believes that, rather than saying it's emptiness or you can't say anything about it, you can say an inexaustable number of things about it, and that that is more helpful. So, maybe, rather than saying compassion is meangingless, it might be more helpful to make some approximation of meaning, to take an educated guess. That way we can formulate a worldview and set up a base camp that's aligned with this inner dynamism. If our explanation is meaninglessness, which is kind of like “oops,” as Ken says, what sort of worldview will that leave a person with? Perhaps not one that would help stabilize that impersonal (we might add “evolutionary” just to put people in the ballpark) compassion.

At any rate, in everyone there will likely be some lingering personal self–as the structure on which that enlightenment and compassion is built–and it actually needs meaning to be healthy, so some translation for it would be helpful as well. A philosophy of “meaninglessness” and “purposelessness” might not build a strong structure for that enlightenment and compassion, though of course it would be one more thing for the ego to dive into. But the ego will dive into anything, including meaninglessness.
 

The doing is spontaneous. What is done has some relation to a worldview, but that is merely the vehicle through which the action occurs.

I agree that it's spontaneous, but I wouldn't understimate the importance of the structure–without the structure it wouldn't be possible. And if the person isn't consistent with the structure, which most people aren't, the nondoing, spontaneous compassion will vary a great deal in purity, clarity, and effectiveness and sometimes not be worthy of the name “compassion” at all. 
 

Yes, but you don't need be attached to a worldview in order to act.

I don't think it's wrong to hold oneself to one's highest worldview. I think it would be a mistake to call that attachment and group it with all the fears and desires. Have you seen this video (see “the top-down view” in the right-hand column).
 

It's more important that the intention to be free is itself an expression of freedom, otherwise it becomes a demanding expectation, a worldview that one ought to be this way rather than that.

A lot of people say that enlightened action is spontaneous and you can't say it should be this way or that, and I think there's truth to that, but what often happens is that they become more or less unconscious expressions of a variety of worldviews rather than a consistent expression of the highest structures available to them.
 

One can hold pure compassion independently of who it is directed at; it simply is. That is important to do, because once you attach a worldview to it, it can easily become a demand.

That's a good point, and well taken, though sometimes it's compassionate to make a demand.


David

How do you know if it's compassion if some end isn't achieved? How is it still compassion when you take it out of context? Are there not different levels of compassion, each with its own meaning? How is it compassionate if it is meaningless and purposeless? How do you define compassion? If it's meaningless and purposeless it would seem to be worthless. At what stage in AQAL would you put “compassion is meaningless and purposeless”?

I'm talking about compassionate intention, compassion-in-itself, which is a pure feeling. This is distinct from compassionate action, which are the consequences of the action. My view is that compassion-in-itself has intrinsic value, not just because we can do something useful with it, which is the view of the separate self – what can this do for me?

There is another valuation that we can make based on the stages through which compassion is expressed, i.e. how expansive is the circle, but they are not directly related. A very high realization of compassion-in-itself does not necessarily translate into a high stage of compassionate action. Standard ethical precepts still apply to everyone.

So you're talking about compassion as a stage adaption in the first part (p. 198 IP) and its appilcations in the second?

I'm not sure what page reference you are giving here. More explanation?

Almaas believes that, rather than saying it's emptiness or you can't say anything about it, you can say an inexaustable number of things about it, and that that is more helpful.

That is also acceptable, though more time consuming :)

So, maybe, rather than saying compassion is meangingless, it might be more helpful to make some approximation of meaning, to take an educated guess.

The dzogchen practice is very much about turning toward, rather than away from fearful possibilities. This is not for everyone, of course, but it is viable.

That way we can formulate a worldview and set up a base camp that's aligned with this inner dynamism. If our explanation is meaninglessness, which is kind of like “oops,” as Ken says, what sort of worldview will that leave a person with?

My educated guess revolves around compassion and emptiness as complete in themselves.

it actually needs meaning to be healthy, so some translation for it would be helpful as well.

Yes, I agree, though that is distinct from true spirituality. I don't say that meaning and purpose are irrelevant, but they are not concerns of true spirituality. Meaning and purpose involve self-improvement, discipline, integrity, relationships, ethics, career, politics, philosophy, etc. It is important to do the spiritual thing and the being-in-the-world thing, but they are relatively distinct. It is possible to be almost purely spiritual and live in a cave, and also be purely materialistic and live in the world, and it is also quite apparent that most religious and spiritual/New Age people are purely materialistic, because their “spiritual” life is deeply dependent on certain premises about the material universe being true. And this is true regardless of whether those premises are theistic, atheistic, Amber, Orange, Pink or Fuschia.

One positive thing worth saying about hopelessness as I understand it is that it often permits a certain degree of flexibility to one's creation of meaning and purpose because these two poles are relatively independent. One is free to metaphorically and poetically interpret the world without having to be in contradiction with literal reality. I think that's the real meaning of the Duelity videos. Both remained relatively faithful to the factual claims of the religious and scientific worldviews, but switched the interpretative language.

I agree that it's spontaneous, but I wouldn't understimate the importance of the structure–without the structure it wouldn't be possible. And if the person isn't consistent with the structure, which most people aren't, the nondoing, spontaneous compassion will vary a great deal in purity, clarity, and effectiveness and sometimes not be worthy of the name “compassion” at all.

Agreed.

A lot of people say that enlightened action is spontaneous and you can't say it should be this way or that, and I think there's truth to that, but what often happens is that they become more or less unconscious expressions of a variety of worldviews rather than a consistent expression of the highest structures available to them.

Very true. To re-iterate my earlier point, the completeness of hopelessness, emptiness and compassion does not take away from the importance of vertical transformation.

Julian: i think perhaps you misunderstood my description of paranoid schizophrenia as a pathology with me saying that paranoid schizophrenics were not human beings worthy of love and respect.

i would never say that - it is not what i beleive at all!

I see.  And the classified ad and exhortion that your readers “enjoy it as much as you do” was merely a demonstration of your considerable love and respect? 

Julian: at the same time as one can have compltete empathy and respect for their experience - especially in a personal interaction, in talking theory  it is only reasonable to recognize that one should not take the statements made by a mentally ill person as being a good reflection of reality - as their equipment is not working, right?

I see.  So, you have both the nature of schizophrenia and the nature of reality all figured out?  

My own experience has been that individuals moving through a schizophrenic process are suffering from a collapsed, fragmented, or deadened ego, frequently without the awareness that they are doing so but surrounded by others who, in their smug superiority are certain that the reality they see is the only one.

… once we have abandoned the luminous state of arising and passing, we open to a profound cycle of dissolution, death, and rebirth … In this stage, nothing around us seems solid or trustworthy.  On all levels, our consciousness becomes attuned to endings and death.  We notice the end of conversations, of music, of encounters, of days, of sensations in the body on a powerful cellular level.  We sense the dissolution of life moment to moment.  Now the dark night deepens.  As our outer and inner worlds dissolve, we lose our sense of reference.  There arises a great sense of unease and fear, leading students into a realm of fear and terror.  “Where is there any security?  Wherever I look, things are dissolving.”   In these stages we can experience this dissolution and dying within our own body. We may look down and see pieces of our own body seeming to melt away and decay, as if we were a corpse. As the realm of terror deepens, periods of paranoia may arise. In this stage, wherever we look, we become fearful of danger…

Source: http://www.nor.com.au/community/spiritualemergence/page4.html

Beyond this experience, all light disappears, all awareness ceases. There is no perception of anything; there is simply no experience. When the soul is completely concentrated on the absolute there is nothing to perceive, for to perceive total darkness is not to perceive. Light is the awareness that arises out of this total darkness, revealing that the absolute is prior to light, awareness, and consciousness. This experience of cessation is the experience of complete ego death, for it is going beyond the world of manifestation, beyond even awareness of the world of manifestation. There is no awareness of self or soul, for there is no awareness at all, without this being unconsciousness or sleep. When awareness looks out again, which we experience as the return of awareness, the manifest universe reappears. With the return of awareness the logos appears as the displaying of time and space, and all the phenomena of the universe. We are here the absolute, the luminous night …

… when the soul begins to see the limitation of structure and experiences herself as presence, the structure begins to reveal its nature as a mental construct characterized by past conditioning, ideas, memories, etc. The soul begins to experience an inner emptiness, a meaninglessness, a dread of falling apart, and terror of death and annihilation. These experiences of falling apart or being annihilated actually come to pass as the structures dissolve. The soul experiences disintegration and dissolution, disorientation, and a loss of identity; she feels lost and despondent. These existential crises are actually elements of some stages of working through ego structures that then lead to deeper realizations of true nature, moving to timelessness and formlessness.

Source: http://www.ahalmaas.com/glossary/e/ego_death.htm

PERRY:  The overall experience is described as falling into a kind of abyss of isolation. This comes about because there is such a discrepancy between the subjective inner world that one has been swept into, and the mundane everyday world outside. There seems to be a total gulf between these two.

O'C: So it starts with a feeling of isolation…

PERRY: Yes. Now the symbolic expression of this is falling into a death - not only a death state, but also a death space - the “afterlife,” the “realm of the ancestors,” the “land of the dead,” the “spirit world.”  The common experience here is for the person to look about and think that half the people around him are dead too. While in this condition, it's very hard for one to tell if one is really alive or not.

Source: http://www.global-vision.org/interview/perry.html

In a series of books (e.g., A Sociable God, Up from Eden, and The Eye of Spirit), I have tried to show that religion itself has always performed two very important, but very different, functions.

One, it acts as a way of creating meaning for the separate self: it offers myths and stories and tales and narratives and rituals and revivals that, taken together, help the separate self make sense of, and endure, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. This function of religion does not usually or necessarily change the level of consciousness in a person; it does not deliver radical transformation. Nor does it deliver a shattering liberation from the separate self altogether. Rather, it consoles the self, fortifies the self, defends the self, promotes the self.

But two, religion has also served - in a usually very, very small minority - the function of radical transformation and liberation. This function of religion does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it - not consolation but devastation, not entrenchment but emptiness, not complacency but explosion, not comfort but revolution - in short, not a conventional bolstering of consciousness but a radical transmutation and transformation at the deepest seat of consciousness itself.

There are several different ways that we can state these two important functions of religion. The first function - that of creating meaning for the self - is a type of horizontal movement; the second function - that of transcending the self - is a type of vertical movement (higher or deeper, depending on your metaphor). The first I have named “translation,” the second, “transformation.”

With translation, the self is simply given a new way to think or feel about reality. The self is given a new belief - perhaps holistic instead of atomistic, perhaps forgiveness instead of blame, perhaps relational instead of analytic. The self then learns to translate its world and its being in the terms of this new belief or new language or new paradigm, and this new and enchanting translation acts, at least temporarily, to alleviate or diminish the terror inherent in the heart of the separate self.

But with transformation, the very process of translation itself is challenged, witnessed, undermined and eventually dismantled. With typical translation, the self (or subject) is given a new way to think about the world (or objects); but with radical transformation, the self itself is inquired into, looked into, grabbed by its throat and literally throttled to death.

… authentic transformation is not a matter of belief but of the death of the believer; not a matter of translating the world but of transforming the world; not a matter of finding solace but of finding infinity on the other side of death. The self is not made content; the self is made toast.

… transformative religion offers authenticity. For those few individuals who are ready - that is, sick with the suffering of the separate self, and no longer able to embrace the legitimate worldview - a transformative opening to true authenticity, true enlightenment, true liberation, calls more and more insistently. And, depending upon your capacity for suffering, you will sooner or later answer the call of authenticity, of transformation, of liberation on the lost horizon of infinity.

Transformative spirituality, authentic spirituality, is therefore revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone.

Source: http://www.wie.org/j12/wilber.asp


Meantime, a bit of a funny story… 

Several years ago I went through an “experience”.  Two labels were given to that experience by those who witnessed it: the first was enlightened, the second was schizophrenic.  Not knowing what those terms meant I determined to find out.  This included seeking out and talking to others who self-identified according to those labels.  It's now several years later and what I've discovered is that I prefer the company of the schizophrenics.  As for “the enlightened” I've found it's best to back away slowly.

“…there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.”

– Suzuki Roshi

Regards,

s_e

Music of the Hour: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aOhb7uc8IGU

talking about getting off on the wrong foot, here's an example of how literal belief in faith-based metaphysics can play out in the real world.

i'd have been hopping mad if i'd been that guy…

Hi, Julian,

I believe we've discussed our interpretations of 'religion' before.  I understand what you mean, so perhaps our difference is, in part, semantic here.  In my view (based on a number of perspectives that have been offered about the nature of relgion, from Durkheim to Eliade to Krishnamurti), religion is broader than the definition you give it, and includes a number of things that I do not believe are fully captured by spirituality:  a concern with or orientation towards the sacred, a praxis for opening to the numinous, and multiple LL and LR expressions of spirituality, from ethical and aesthetic to social and organizational).

Regarding our debate over the nature and scope of theism, a related question to the ones I asked previously comes up:  in your vision of spirituality, is there any place for notions of sacredness, or the ground of being, the ultimate or absolute?  Do you believe there is a place for anything which transcends human psychological realities, which, themselves, are products of biology, culture, and history?

I have shared his thoughts with you before, but I think Raimundo Panikkar offers a vision that may address both of our perspectives and concerns.  He calls it the cosmotheandric vision – a vision which sees the kosmic, the theistic (sacred), and human as inseparable aspects of an indivisible whole.  While he uses the term “theos” for the sacred, he also talks about going beyond theism.

Here's an excerpt:

 

“Three assumptions lay behind Panikkar's cosmotheandric vision. The first is that reality is ultimately harmonious. It is neither a monolithic unity nor sheer diversity and multiplicity. Second, reality is radically relational and interdependent so that every reality is constitutively connected to all other realities: “every being is nothing but relatedness.” There is, if you like, organic unity and dynamic process where every 'part' of the whole 'participates' in or 'mirrors' the whole. This corresponds to the ancient notion that every reality is a microcosm of the macro-universe. A contemporary version would be the Gaia principle. Third, reality is symbolic, both pointing to and participating in something beyond itself. We do not have a God separate from the world, a world that is purely material, nor humans that are reducible to their own thought-processes or cultural expressions. While it is important to recognise the “symbolic difference” between God and the world, as between one religion and another, for Panikkar, all cultures, religions and peoples are relationally and symbolically entwined with each other, with the world in which we live, and with an ultimate divine reality.

THEOS

The divine dimension of reality is not an 'object' of human knowledge, but the depth-dimension to everything that is. The mistake or western thought was to begin with identifying God as the Supreme Being (monotheism) which resulted in God being turned into a human projection (atheism). Panikkar moves beyond God-talk to speak of the divine mystery now identified in non-theistic terms as infinitude, freedom and nothingness. This essentially trinitarian inspiration takes as its cue the notion that “the Trinity is not the privilege of the Godhead, but the character of the entire reality.” As he states, he wants “to liberate the divine from the burden of being God.”

Panikkar's concern is not to overthrow the central insights and experiences of the theistic traditions but to acknowledge that “true religiousness is not bound to theisms, not even in the West.” He is especially sensitive to the modern secular critique of traditional religions in their generation of various forms of alienation, pathology and disbelief. The suggestion is that we need to replace the monotheistic attitude with a new paradigm or a new kosmology precisely in order to `rescue' the divine from an increasingly isolated, alienated and irrelevant existence. Sardonically expressed, the divine is not a “Deus ex machina with whom we maintain formal relations.” Rather, the mystery of the divine is the mystery of the inherent inexhaustibility of all things, at once infinitely transcendent, utterly immanent, totally irreducible, absolutely ineffable.

Of course, this divine dimension is discernable within the depths of the human person. Humanity is not a closed system and, despite whatever forms of manipulation and control are exercised, the aspect of (divine) freedom remains. Nor is the world without its own dimension of mystery since it too is a living organism with endless possibility as the astro-physicists, among others, are showing us. Moreover, the earth has its own truth and wisdom even if this has largely been ignored in recent centuries by too many cultures and religions.

ANTHROPOS

Consciousness is, if you like, the human dimension of reality which is, however, not reducible to humanity: “Consciousness permeates every being. Eveything that is, is cit.” In other words, consciousness relates not only to humans who know but to everything else that is actually or potentially known–including a far galaxy on the other side of the universe. In this sense, “the waters of human consciousness wash all the shores of the real.” From the other perspective, the human person is never reducible to consciousness. It is evidently the case that humans participate in the evolving cosmos of which they are a part. They also participate in the divine mystery of freedom.

Panikkar presents human experience as a threefold reality: aesthetic, intellectual and mystical. He critiques technocratic culture for reducing human life to two levels (the sensible and the rational), forgetting if not despising the `third' realm (the mystical). The `third' realm is not a rarified psychological state, but a `further' depth-dimension within all human awareness. This 'mystical' dimension which comes to the fore as a moment of realization that a certain experience is unique, ineffable, non-repeatable.

Panikkar's intention is to show that genuine human experience involves the triad of senses, intellect and mystical awareness in correlation with matter, thought and freedom. Each act en-acts the cosmotheandric mystery:

We cannot sense, think, experience, without matter, logos, and spirit. Thought and mystical awareness are not possible without matter, indeed, without the body. All our thoughts, words, states of consciousness and the like are also material, or have a material basis. But our intellect as well would not have life, initiative, freedom and indefinite scope (all metaphors) without the spirit lurking as it were, behind or above, and matter hiding underneath.

This cosmotheandric insight stresses human identity with the worldly character and temporal nature of the cosmos; it also manifests a human openness towards the infinite mystery that ipso facto transcends human thought. The basis of such affirmations is human experience itself which somehow refuses to sever itself from the totality of Being: we experience ourselves to be something `more' than mere pawns of nature in the evolution of matter, passing egos in the flow of time, or temporary insertions in the expansion of space. This too has been the fundamental insight of every religious tradition.

COSMOS

The world of matter, energy, space and time is, for better or worse, our home. These realities are ultimate and irreducible. There is no thought, prayer or action that is not radically cosmic in its foundations, expressions and effects. The earth is sacred, as many a tradition proclaims. More than this, there is no sacredness without the secularity of the world (literally saeculum). Panikkar speaks of “sacred secularity” as the particular way in which the divine and conscious dimensions of reality are rooted in the world and its cosmic processes.

He insists, for example, there is something more than pure materiality in a simple stone. Through its existence in space and time, the stone is connected to the entire universe with which it shares its destiny. Notions of inert matter, amorphous space and neutral time are superseded with reference to the ancient wisdom of anima mundi: the universe is a living organism constitutive of the Whole. Moreover, science itself is on the way to recovering something of this lost insight through its recognition of the indeterminacy of matter, the open-endedness of space, and the indefinability of time. In Panikkar's terms, there are “no disembodied souls or disincarnated gods, just as there is no matter, no energy, no spatio-temporal world without divine and conscious dimensions.” Every concrete reality is cosmotheandric, that is, a symbol of the `whole'. It is not only God who reveals; the earth has its own revelations.

Matter, space, time and energy are then co-extensive with both human consciousness and the divine mystery. There is something unknowable, unthinkable, uncanny or inexhaustible which  belongs to the world as world. This means that the final unknowability of things is not only an epistemological problem (due to the limits of the intellect) but also an ontological reality (integral to the very structure of beings). Other traditions will call this dimension nothingness, emptiness or even Non-being insofar as it is that which enables beings to be, to grow, to change–and even to cease-to-be.”

From the above excerpt of the article about Panikkar, one paragraph I would highlight in relation to your writings is the following:

“Panikkar presents human experience as a threefold reality: aesthetic, intellectual and mystical. He critiques technocratic culture for reducing human life to two levels (the sensible and the rational), forgetting if not despising the `third' realm (the mystical). The `third' realm is not a rarified psychological state, but a `further' depth-dimension within all human awareness.”

I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that you do not acknowledge or stress this mystical, non-psychological depth dimension that he emphasizes as a necessary component of spirituality.

Best wishes,

Balder

“It is not what you say you believe in that matters as much as what you demonstrate you believe in.”

– Patricia Lefave

Julian: the enjoying of the ad had to do with it as a brilliant example of paranoid process. sorry that offended you s_e. i was taken by it's authenticity as a classified ad and meant no disrespect to anyone's frineds or family members and i do apologize if some has been taken… this is a theoretical discussion about belief systems and how they arise.  …  i have only had the time to glance at your long comment …

Clearly, you're a busy man so let's see if I can save you some time.  Perhaps it would be helpful to drag more of your own words into this space: 

“So in this sense “integrative” also means to integrate the aspects of our experience, feelings, needs, potentials that we have relegated to the unconscious because of various disturbances in healthy development in the first three chakras. It is in defense against dealing with this very primal and often painful material that a kind of prepersonal spirituality can spring up - one that dissociates from having to deal with these feelings and usually judges them as unspiritual, too attached, egoic etc - …”

Your article would have been more powerful and less offensive if you had been willing to share some aspect of your own paranoid processes, your own vulnerability, instead of using a “paranoid schizophrenic” to carry that aspect for you.  Perhaps this too is where Balder has picked up on your inclination to “mock” others.  You say that this is a discussion as related to belief systems.  So be it then.

As for reading my blogs… Again, I'll make it easy for you.  In this instance, the most valuable entry can be found here: http://spiritualrecoveries.blogspot.com/2007/02/dedication.html

I enjoyed your other articles Julian.  Clearly, you bring a large body of experience, insight and intelligent debate to this material.  You're also aware enough to know that there can be confusion between authentic awakening experiences and psychiatric diagnoses.  While I would agree that not all forms of psychosis are authentic spiritual experiences, I'm also aware that with the exception of good fortune, there is very little that separates me from those who are “mentally ill” and those who are not.  I earlier noted that two labels were applied to my experience.  Although ultimately, both must be rejected, one of them has been a far more efficient teacher than the other.

Regards,

s_e


Music of the Hour: http://youtube.com/watch?v=x4KQ1EUhjI8

Hello, Julian:  I'm an outsider/newcomer to this discussion and want to thank you for your explanation of integral thinking without jargon.  I didn't have any difficulty following your essay, and saw a lot of wonderful insight.  I think your analysis is sound.  However, I despair of systems that require a certain (high) IQ level for comprehension - even apart from the psychological and cultural obstacles that may be present.   How do you feel about the elitist ramifications of intellectual accessibility?  Is that a chief reason you are writing? 

Peace,

Earon

Earon: As a writer and someone who loves to popularize complex subjects myself, I have to chime in (again) here. The wisdom here can be found in many forms, as you well know. You've likely run into the same thing, written from different perspectives, presented with various techniques, in the form of explanation, dialogue, poetry, faerie tales, quantum physics, etc etc etc… This is another of those forms.

The language here (or elsewhere that might be perceived as elitist or esoteric) is not necessarily elitist simply because it is holds to a different lexicon, no more than Little Red Riding Hood is elitist because it is phrased for the understanding and enjoyment of children (yet we will often, devoid of children, not read nor be able to penetrate the truly profound messages of faerie tales for ourselves). Intellectual jargon, as it is called, or academic writing, is often necessary for more complex thinkers, or 'higher IQ' as you say.

Yet think of how marginalized and alienated the overthinkers are in our society. How little chance they get amongst people to talk fluently in their own lexicon. To make references to the hundreds of books written by other intellectuals in their given field, and be able to share experience because they have read a similar body of materials to another person. How much in common one can establish right off the bat, without having to 'teach math from grade 1' so to speak.

I think if you really wanted to participate and contribute to such conversations you'd have to do your homework. So the questions are really: Can you get this information slash knowledge slash wisdom anywhere else? Do you need access to it? Do you have the time and humility to do the required reading, contemplation, discussion? Do you have the strength of character to prevent it from getting to your head once you 'think' you understand?

Intelligence is not a gift, it is something worked at at great expense and sacrifice. Intelligence studies in psychology say that motivation (ie. Love for what you are doing) that is the single greatest factor in how much 'intelligence' one has in a certain area. For the most part, we all have the potential to participate in this lexicon.

Any elitist ramifications about intellectual accessibility are generally brought to the table by people who think they are handicapped. I think any honest intellectual will tell you that there is much more alienation and marginalization in their experience than elitism.

Can I be Julians character witness? Can I? Can I?

Julian, god forbid, is human. The poor chap is a 'Thinker' - in typology terms, and so the 'Feelers' are gonna feel his 'coldness'. But he is I stand as witness, a good being, flaws and all just like the lot of us.

I thought the Classified Ad was funny, but not without a good disclaimer for those people who do not know Julians depth of humanity. Its easy to judge - shame on you Julian for being easy to judge - you target you! :)

I have not been able to keep up with the excellent talk this weekend, its been a roller coaster I hear, and since I have found Julians 'edge's' before I did some shadow-work on myself a whiles back. I know you all know what I am talking about, cause yer a smart bunch! But that shadow work was very infomative, it allowed me to be in Julians space with his edge, and I can help (as we all do) smooth some of the edges. It is bringing awareness, it isn;t shoving the arguement in someones face, pushing them into a corner. That is no diplomacy…

If Julian can provoke my critcal thinking, I can provoke his intuition and feeling in him, Though I think I have the harder job! :)

Julian, be nicer, we will be thinker. :)

Sanjuro: I thought the Classified Ad was funny, but not without a good disclaimer for those people who do not know Julians depth of humanity. Its easy to judge - shame on you Julian for being easy to judge - you target you! :)

I think it's admirable that you would leap to Julian's defense – what with him being an actual living, breathing, feeling, thinking human being, and all.   As for me, perhaps I have more shadow work that needs to be done.  Apparently, there is no other rationale that could explain my desire to defend another who otherwise, is defenseless.  

Meantime, I'm certain Julian will weather this modest learning opportunity just fine.  He is, after all, surrounded by numerous friends, defenders, and admirers.

Regards,

s_e

Balder – thanks for the heads up on Panikkar.  I enjoyed the read. 

In the spirit of sharing, you may enjoy this site: http://www.annebaring.com/anbar12_lect01_relevance.htm

It's Jungian oriented and I don't know if that's your cup of tea, but you could give it a sip and decide for yourself.

Regards,

s_e

Music of the Hour: http://youtube.com/watch?v=d-SKYk0iy5U

s_e

Perhaps, we can look at all the other rationales between defending and attacking, I sense we both understand there are degrees and context? You are not really advocating an either/or approach? No, I sense if you are discussing shadow and Jung, like me, you are open to discussing or as Peter Senge would say 'dialoguing'…

'Discussion' in Senge's context is proving your point over another. 'Dialoguing' is finding an answer that is currently unknown by all…

I hope we can dialogue my friend… Jungian is my cup of tea, I am so glad to meet another I was getting lonely… :)

This must be brief Sanjuro, as I'm late for an appointment.  If you scroll up, you will see a link to an entry in my blog.  It's the one I said had the most relevence to my point of disagreement with Julian.  If you read that entry, and you sit with it for awhile, you will understand why I do what I do.

And now, I must run.

Regards,

s_e

s_e     I will… of course, you asked.     Perhaps though you will indulge me with the notion that we all suffer, we all defend that which most concerns us, we most identify with, and sometimes we get ranty.     Where does the ranty come from? The other? The complex? The container?     I will my friend sit with your blog.     Perhaps you can sit with the concept that just perhaps you got ranty?      Sit with that, keep that in suspension. This does not preclude that you were right in some way, merely that your button got pushed, and you pushed back, and this distorts your message.      I look forward to the dialogue.

I already sat with it, Sanjuro:  http://kaleidoscope-forum.org/talk/index.php?topic=1918.0

Is it a rant?  Indeed, it is.

Julian: i stand by my examples and my humor - and see nothing cold or mean there,,,

Yes, I know.  You'll follow up on the rest when you're not so busy.

You might be capable of addressing the subject of paranoia Julian.  But you're about as capable of addressing the subject of paranoid schizophrenia as I am to speak on the history of yoga.  The difference is, people aren't dying from yoga and I'm not laughing.  You're biased; you're misinformed; you're operating from stereotypes, and in spite of all your intellectualism, meditation, and hanging out in “the intuitive, sensate and emotional realms”… you seem to have lost the basic human ability to say, “Aw, gee, I was wrong.” 

i'll stop by and offer my respectful comments!. 

No, you won't, Julian.  You're a busy man with an image to uphold.  But thanks for the “whale of a good time.”

Spiritual-emergence,
  I think you have missed the tone of Julians comments to you.
  I have written before and will no doubt again that these forums have a structural weakness that can at times overwhelm the discussion. This weakness is that the comments have all the spontaneity of conversation but without any of the non-verbal signals that accompany a deep connection_ eye contact, smiles, body language, the power of attention etc.  The other weakness/strength  is that these comments have all the concreteness of the written word. What I say becomes a permanent record, now and forever, and should I sit down to my keyboard having had one too many espressos along with a partially digested disagreement with my wife, I am apt to work out the details (unconsciously) for all to see.  This means that there are several ways of mis-reading any given remark and that my own remarks are both pointing out and mirroring back. It's simply the nature of the medium.
  What I've found is that it is imperative to be generous and assume that the people who take time to write in are well meaning and sincere. This is not an assumption I make if reading or contributing to political blogs such as Dailykos.  On those sites there are more than a few contributors who are more interested in “counting coup” than making a positive contribution_ but I don't find that to be true here.
  So the invitation is  to keep coming back, thicken your skin a little bit and give others (including  me) a break. If you expect to find a place where everyone agrees with everyone you'll need to keep looking. If you are interested in  a community where each contributes to an overall picture of “the  truth” then stay.  I am asking you directly to stay.  I value your comments. This space is bigger than Julian. He  is providing the kitchen but it's all of us who are doing the cooking.
best,
c

Coyoteyogi, I think that's excellent counsel, very well put.  It is a topic on which we all need periodic reminding.

And, there are times when it is important to take offense, albeit gently.  I am fascinated by the atheist/theist debate, in which both atheists and theists seem to beat up on agnostics.  Balder and Julian had an exchange in which I perveived that Balder was trying to hold space for non-fundamentalist Christians (and perhaps similar people in other faiths), but Julian did not hear/honor that.  So, I found Balder's reaction useful and courageous.  I am not Christian, but I do know people who strongly self-identify as Christians, but who do not believe that Jesus was literally the divine son of God, nor that there is any particular “God.”  They believe in kindness and see Jesus as a wise person, and are open to the wisdom of other traditions.  There are congregations and organizations that support these “Christian” beliefs and yet they are marginalized by mainstream Christians even though, like Deists, their inspiration comes from the Christian Bible.

Beyond religion, many of us have “faith” that life is good and that things will get better.  This is not necessarily religious faith, but rather something I'd call human faith because it is in our nature and it is not conditional (although we waver at times).   My writing tends to focus on human nature rather than human intellectualization.

James,  I long pondered your generous response to my inquiry about elitism and integralism.  I feel that the creation of separate jargon at this point in history adds more to the confusion than it could possibly clarify or elucidate, unless a global conquest is planned to unify everyone by force (lol).  To create/advocate new language when there are already ample words and meanings seems to me more laziness or ego than anything else.  Ethical and spiritual language abounds on this planet.

Peace,

Earon

Yes, this is another thing that Julian and I have debated – whether faith is a level or a line.  I believe my disagreement with Julian about all of this – whether religion, faith, and theism, are just Amber artifacts or actual lines in themselves – is essentially the same argument.  Julian appears to believe that secular humanist atheism is the only viable “path” in second tier, and really beyond Amber.  I disagree.  (I am looking forward, Julian, to your response to my letters to you, especially the two-part one, when you have the time…) 

For what it's worth, when I posted the question, “Is faith a level or a line?” on several Integral forums, the majority of responses (virtually all) expressed the opinion that it was a line.  In keeping, for instance, with Fowler's work, which Wilber also uses.

Best wishes,

B.

  I'm talking about compassionate intention, compassion-in-itself, which is a pure feeling. This is distinct from compassionate action, which are the consequences of the action. My view is that compassion-in-itself has intrinsic value …

 I'm not sure yet what you mean by intrinsic value of compassion. It could either mean an absolute perspective on compassion (sort of like compassion or love being one of those innumerable aspects of the absolute), or it could mean just of value for the person who is  feeling it. There would seem to be truth to both, but of course we wouldn't want to elevate the former vertically.

… not just because we can do something useful with it, which is the view of the separate self - what can this do for me?

Boddhisatvic compassion (Integral Psychology, page 198) perhaps shouldn't  be characterized primarily as “helping others,” as would be the case with mythic-level missionary work, for example.  For the bodhisattva it would be more like helping Oneself, perhaps, in all One's forms. So I think we should be careful about relegating compassion to the domain of the separate-self sense. From one perspective, that might be true, since there's still a perspective, but it's less and less dualistic as we go up. I recently heard a satsang teacher say that all the boddhisatvas are on an ego trip–I know you're not saying this, but it's such a common misperception in postmodern spirituality I thought I would mention it.

 

A very high realization of compassion-in-itself does not necessarily translate into a high stage of compassionate action.

Andrew Cohen has said that a person can have hundreds or thousands of authentic thoughts before acting on one of them, and this makes sense to me. Because people tend to get the cognition first and the self-sense or emotions to go along with it later.

 

Standard ethical precepts still apply to everyone.

I agree, for the most par (the precepts can get modified as a person goes up). This is another thing some of the postmodern Advaita-type “realizers” deny, because they feel “realization” has put them beyond this. There may be some truth to this in a few cases–I could quote Aurobindo speaking about the psychic being beyond conventional morality if you like– but they are not well integrated (as the psychic still uses and appreciates conventional ethics) at least not in their worldview or philosophy.

David: So, maybe, rather than saying compassion is meaningless, it might be more helpful to make some approximation of meaning, to take an educated guess.

Mike: The dzogchen practice is very much about turning toward, rather than away from fearful possibilities. This is not for everyone, of course, but it is viable.

Ha, ha! Well, there could be some of that going on with me, probably is, but what I haven't been convinced of yet is that the meaningless you are speaking of is really third-tier meaninglessness. You would have to show you are including certain things in between, at least to some extent, appreciating the importance of certain things (such as the evolutionary context, the evolutionary impulse). At that point, it might make more sense to make a tetralemma out of it.  Also, I'm just getting into Dzogchen and haven't read anything about fear yet. Any recommendations for Dzogchen sources? Also, hey, a little frightening perhaps that there could be meaning as well?   :) 


 My educated guess revolves around compassion and emptiness as complete in themselves.

That would serve for the absolute-truth side of the doctrine.

Yes, I agree, though that is distinct from true spirituality. I don't say that meaning and purpose are irrelevant, but they are not concerns of true spirituality.  It is possible to be almost purely spiritual and live in a cave.

One could be living in a cave and living a purely spiritual life, that is, including all three faces of God, but this could also be a person who is just seeing God as “I” or a person with only an ego/absolute model. I don't see how it could be pulled off not admitting any meaning, at least a paradox, meaning/ no meaning, or again, better still, a tetralemma. If not, why do you say, “It is important to do the spiritual thing and the being-in-the-world thing”?

One positive thing worth saying about hopelessness as I understand it…

Could you come up with a different word for hopelessness or at least a further elucidation of it? The trouble with “hopelessness” is that it is also used for first-tier personal hopelessness, and you are talking about third-tier impersonal hopelessness, so the word itself tends to convey the former meaning. I think the “hopelessness” you are referring to is actually beyond hope and hopelessness, just as I think the meaninglessness you are referring to is beyond meaning and meaninglessness. (Meaningful, not meaningful, both meaningful and … )

 

 The completeness of hopelessness, emptiness and compassion does not take away from the importance of vertical transformation.

To some extent we are probably just interpreting the words differently, or for typology reasons choosing a via negativa rather than a via positiva, or vica versa. That doesn't necessarily make them equal though. Of course there's also the possibility of avoidance (with via negativa) or attachement (with via positiva) going on. Maybe an integral view embraces both. It seems to me that primarily via-negativa or atheistic paths would benefit from some notion of Buddha nature or the second- and third-faces of God, an example of which I will offer in an upcoming post, which will also be to Julian and everyone else and perhaps merge the two threads that have been going on here.

David





 

Hi, Julian,

Thank you for your comments.  I also love and appreciate your presence (in general and also here on Zaadz), and I respect the passion and intelligence you bring to presenting your vision.  You have a wonderful capacity to pull me into debate ;-) , but I believe that these discussions are worthwhile and I continue to learn from them – so thank you.

We've been around and around a number of times on this “religion” question, and really it seems to amount to a matter of semantics.  In my view, “religion” seems like a more encompassing term, a term which includes LR and LL components, while spirituality seems more like an individualistic affair.  You equate “religion” with “Amber-level spirituality,” and so of course we cannot agree.  If you read the texts of a number of sociologists and researchers, however, such as Durkheim or Eliade, you'll see that they define religion in this broader way – considering the social and cultural manifestation of spiritual impulses even in primitive socieities to be a particular form of religion or religiosity.  So, I do not think “religion” is limited to the few Amber expressions with which you have identified it.  Thus, in my view, where religion is defined as the AQAL activity of human beings as they orient towards the sacred and ultimate (highest conceivable) truth, the contradictions you mention do not arise. 

You suggest, also, that religion drops out of the picture at the Orange level, reappearing at Teal, but again I think you are thinking too strongly in terms of content rather than structure.  You are identifying a particular Orange culture (say, scientism) with Orange as a structure, but in my view Orange is bigger than that and does not require a particular content of belief.  There are theologies which have been developed which reflect Orange structural features and general concerns and principles.  I can recognize this from my own study and experience, but if you read Appendix III of Integral Spirituality, you'll see that Wilber also identifies certain theologians as Orange.  (So, at least in terms of Integral, my position here is the orthodox one…  ;-) )

You wrote:  “as i said in a previous post, i think that you may be pointing out the very high development of cognition, ethics and even aesthetics in people who are still theists - which to my mind means that the spiritual line has stopped at belief in a deity who interacts with the world/universe and/or that books like the bible actuallly are telling us something really spiritually deep about reality if you just interpret them through a sophisticated enough lens.”

I have two responses to this.  One, I think your perception here is a reflection of your identification of theism with a particular level of development, rather than an understanding how post-Amber individuals who still retain a place for the concept of “God” within their worldviews actually think.  I should point out that, technically speaking, higher levels of theism do tend to show up in more holistic forms, particularly panentheism. 

My other response has to do with your use of the concept of spirituality as a line.  What defines (and differentiates) the spiritual line from other lines?  Is the spiritual line, in your view, a conceptual line – a progression of particular translations?

You wrote:  “a christian believes that jesus christ is the son of god, born of a virgin, died for our sins, rose from the dead and waits at god's right hand to judge the living and the dead. probably also in the heaven or hell that will be our fate based on that judgment.”

This is what a mythic Christian believes; this is not what all Christians believe.  This is not what Raimundo Panikkar or some of the other theologians I've mentioned believe, nor is it what many Christians who identify themselves as progressive or universalist or postmodern believe.

you wrote:  “i know you have several writers whose theology a you admire - and you are right i may be uninformed about how brilliant and nuanced they are - but my opinion (for whatever that is worth) is that using highly developed cognition to support religious ideas is problematic at best.”

I believe this is because your understanding of “religious ideas” is too narrow and not in line with what these writers actually profess.

You wrote:  “i do not think second tier makes sense as including theism - the kinds of poetic, revelatory, yogic, buddhist and non-dual conceptions of spiritual practice and experience that i find useful and interesting are not theistic and i think are very clearly differentiated form “belief in god” in the conventional sense.”

I understand.  Beyond Amber, theists also do not believe in God in the “conventional” (e.g., Amber) sense.

I asked: “Can you define “spirituality” for me and tell me what you, as an atheist, mean by 'spirit'? ”

You replied:  “i do not really use the word 'spirit' except to mean mood or feeling.  i define spirituality as the pursuit of truth in a committed engagement with the inner life - the life of the psyche or soul, along a path of practice, self-reflection and inquiry that includes a willingness to deconstruct and surrender spiritual beliefs, superstitions and metaphysical constructs that actually impede a spiritual relationship to truth and defend against the very openings in awareness that keep moving us toward integration, honesty and maturity. this process of course is immeasurably supported by the development of compassion married to critical thinking.”

If you don't use “spirit” except to refer to a mood or a feeling, and the path of growth consists of deconstructing spiritual beliefs, then what does “spiritual relationship to the truth” mean?  It seems the word, as you are using it, is not clearly defined and really maybe best left behind.  It doesn't seem to carry much meaningful content.  I could be missing something, though, so I'd like to hear more.

I asked:  “Can you tell me whether, as per the example you provided above, you believe that science is 'just a method' and is therefore paradigm-free and largely transparent or contentless?”

You responded, in part, by quoting a Wiki explanation of the scientific method.  But Thomas Kuhn has done very important work in revealing the paradigms that shape scientific inquiry at all levels, and which always contextualize the use of the scientific method.  In other words, the methods do not function in a vacuum.  Do you agree with this?

I asked:  “How would you define post-metaphysics?  Do you disagree with my definition above?”

You replied:  “post-metaphysics is a transcending of metaphysical ideas in favor of a more direct perception of reality.”

The notion that we can have a direct perception of reality was exactly the notion that postmodern post-metaphysicalists sought to deconstruct.  I would need to hear more about what you mean, but it seems as if your definition here might be problematic.  Metaphysics – including the metaphysics of Rationalism, which Kant challenged – assumes that there is a “reality-in-itself” just waiting to be directly perceived.  Post-metaphysics involves the rejection of this idea, and the recognition of the contingency and constructedness of our perceptions.

I'm running a bit late and have to cut this short, but I want to post it before I go.  A general (lovingly spoken) comment I have is that a number of your comments in your recent response actually do reinforce the impression of closed-mindedness that I referenced in my exasperated post:  You do not really open the door to inquiry, to the consideration of alternative perspectives, or exhibit a willingness to look into the writings and perspectives of those writers I have referenced; nor do you offer reasons for why you consider certain beliefs to be inherently irrational; you just say, “This is how I see it.  Sorry.”  Do you see how this at least gives the impression that you are not really interested in listening and are holding rather dogmatically to your position?

With love,

Balder

Julian: your charicaturing me as being too busy in some kind of arrogant self-important way is not only ridiculous - it's simply not true.

I might have believed you Julian – if I had seen the traces of you anywhere in my blog stats.  My statement is not based on speculation, it's based on fact.  

The article you didn't read is this one: Dedication   If you had read it, you would know that it wasn't about me.  I still don't expect that you'll read it – you still seem quite surprised that anyone would take you to task for your actions – but others might. 

My condolences on your friends who have been diagnosed as mentally ill.  Their chances of a full recovery are exceedingly slim – treatment in the west has an established history of producing chronicity, not recovery. 

you are a guest on this page

I knew what I was when I walked in here Julian, and although I have enjoyed rubbing shoulders with some of your contributors, I can't imagine why I'd want to stay any longer than I already have.

Regards.

Hi everyone,
  Two rams meet on a mountain meadow. Snorting and puffing the cold crisp air they paw the ground in anticipation. Then as if by magic they lower their heads and charge <boom> we have an integral moment. Good conversation Mr. Bruce and Mr. Julian. Now throwing caution to the wind I'll stand between you for a moment.
  So, I would like to introduce a couple of different threads or possible lenses of interpretation. Then I'll offer a couple of brief stories that illustrate my point of views.
  The first is the whole idea of “story” and story telling. I am speaking of our need to hear and tell stories throughout our lives. KW on his Kosmos CD collection identifies himself as a story teller and most good stories begin “once upon a time…”
  The Bible is for the most part a collection of stories. I have no familiarity with the Koran. The Bhagavad Gita is a story. Stories give structure to our lives consciously and unconsciously from the moment we are born. If we are lucky we get stories told to us throughout our childhood. If unlucky we get them from our peers and TV. The history of science is also filled with stories_ stories not just of the search for truth but passion, ambition, duplicity and betrayal. Read a good biography of Newton or the story of the discovery of the double helix.
   The power of stories is that they can resonate at many different levels of development. I'll take as an example a less charged example ( and one of my personal favorites) the Shamanic initiation of Alice in Wonderland. Now this is a great story. I read it aloud to my children when they were 8-10. There are talking animals, magic potions, death (off with their heads!) and a quest from start to finish. Now when you read this as an adult you can better appreciate all of Lewis Carrolls puns, his playfull presentation of logic, his poking fun at the whole idea of a “royal family”. On another level it is a close description of a classic OOB experience. There is a liminal state of consciousness entered, a long dark tunnel and a fall to earth. Then there is much ingesting of substances to get to the garden, a rabbit comes and goes and the story unfolds.
  Now if you read this story and try to argue that somewhere there really is a rabbit hole and a girl called Alice really did fall into it and meet these creatures in the flesh. Well, then you are Wonderland fundamentalist and because it is written it is true and it is true because it is written that it is true and if you don't agree with me you're going to hell….and if you would only drink this potion from the bottle all would become very obvious (or maybe a piece of mushroom perhaps?)
  My point is that stories have the power to resonate all the way up and all the way down. While the stories remain  the same, the interpretation and understanding and meaning can grow, change, mature and transform.

  I have a good friend who is Catholic. He is one of the brightest, scholarly, sober, delightful people I know. He's been a friend for almost 40 years. For him, (not for me) the Catholic tradition has always been a source of mystery and deep meaning. This man is not a fundamentalist in the least. He simply loves the Bible and its ability to continually unfold and inform his spiritual practice. He loves the history of it, the deep roots, the community the opportunities it gives him to teach and study.
   I was amazed, dismayed and surprised that he kept his faith intact through all the scandals and horror stories (he lives in Boston). I was sure it would cause him to turn away. I was hoping he might try a little holotropic breathwork (no luck…yet). So, when I consider religion and the power of religion I have to include my friend. Is he post-metaphysic integral? I don't know. He's a good friend, a good listener and I love his story.
 

I've been writing this online on-the-fly so I'll post.

best,
c

Oh Jesus, Julian! ☺

I took the ‘closing’ the discussion ‘hint’ from the post, same as Balder. Please disconnect yourself from the discussion at hand and go read your post and find out why… it is a wee habit of yours. And listen to your friends.

Let me humbly give you some hints because Bruce has told you before, and I mention ‘coldness’ before and YOU DON’T LISTEN, are you deaf?! ☺

From Getting To Yes and Beyond Reason by Roger Fisher

You are sometimes heavy handed (and do not see it), where you could be empathetic, so focus a little on the empathetic notions in the above article. This is your blind spot my good friend. I promise you, you will become an International Speaker of Enormous repute in moments flat.

As I mentioned to s_e. Who did not want know either… We need to dialogue, not engage in argument to promote our position. Because no-one feels good after an argument. And if no one feels good, or better off, then what was the point? We are here to engage to grow.

Then when you loosen up a little you might see more of what Balder is saying:

For example – religion if viewed from its potential, as opposed to all its limitations (which we know all about), can be seen to grow in a certain direction: as the container for a communities spiritual nature. Spiral growth for community takes way longer than it does for individuals, that’s most probably why we do not see many green religions… people need meaning, we are all Ronin now and have to reconnect to a community of purpose. Quakers do this for example, they do not have ministers, they meditate (silent practice), and the bible if used is for inspiration of deeper meaning, never anything literal… and then they go help people in Sarajevo talk to each other again… (particularly difficult, but not so bad for kids..)

Anyway, my point is really that in order to connect, you must surrender your armour and have faith that talking is better than fighting/arguing/dismissing whatever. Dialogue not Discussion.

And what are friends for anyway! :)

It's great to be here, Julian. You provide a great space for serious discussion and always a lot of really helpful analysis and information. I especially liked the rundown of the religious line. There's one thing that should be moved, however, unless you were making some esoteric critique of  Wilber, Beck, Suzanne-Cooke Greuter, etc., which might be the case:

 

 Perhaps attempts to find the universal truths within the layers of cultural baggage and superstition that rational completely dismissed.

Unless you are simply in disagreement with said pandits about this, we should move this from the postmodern section to the integral section. Suzanne-Cooke Greuter defines the postmodern version of truth like this: “Truth can never be found. Everything is relative; there is no place to stand or judge from –> deconstructive postmodernism.” And she defines the integral idea of truth like this: “Truth can be approximated; higher development is better… . there are qualitative differences.” It was perhaps just an oversight on your part, since I know you understand this.

Julian: So given that conception which i think is fairly standard integralese - i don't see how the being a theist is technically possible beyond mythic.

To begin with, just to open the door a little, we should recognize that the first-tier stages (everything up to integral) are a little or at times a lot blind to the truths of the others. For example, conservatives (mythic-rational) tend to believe in interior causation and liberals (rational-postmodern) tend to believe in exterior causation, sometimes totally denying that the other has any validity. So rational, postmodern, and even integral can be blind to certain intuitions, however crudely rendered, of the mythic stage. It's perhaps even necessary for their development to do this. For example, since mythic (Amber) follows egocentric (Red), the mythic folks are barely past that Red wildness and reactivity and are extremely intolerant of it. Similarly, a person at the rational stage tends to negate the mythic stage in an absolute, nonintegral way. Certain things will never be included again in their own self-system, like the myths, though society will hold on to them for the immense value they add in taming lawless egocentricism (Red).
 
Julian: My hunch (and forgive me if this sounds insulting - i dont mean it to be) is that we are talking about highly developed people on multiple lines - who may even have developed rational, postmodern or integral spirituality - but still have a sentimental soft spot for their mythic faith, or who think it is politically incorrect or unwise to be straightforward about their moving beyond mythic literalism.

I think there is truth to this. I also think there could be some lingering fear of God, perhaps partly because of developmental issues involving Dad and Mom and such. But I think, in addition to those things, there will be some intuitions or even realizations of higher truths having to do with God in the second person. For example, some truth regarding the law of karma or a realization of the evolutionary impulse.

 Those people with the higher-stage realizations (Indigo, Violet, etc.), who have intuited and begun to embrace, become aware of, and embody the grain of truth in the mythic God (the evolutionary impulse), may continue to use mythic contents, and most likely are not always post-metaphysical by Wilberian standards. This will, of course, make things confusing for everyone. On the outside they may be dressed no differently than a mythic priest and recommend saying “Jesus” in the heart like a mantra and such, or they may not recognize the importance of emphasizing interpersonal skills or engagement with the political system, etc. One way we might draw the distinction is between mythic Christians or theists and mystic or contemplative Christians or theists. You can see by the poems here that while they tend to be mythic on the outside they are mystic on the inside. An example from St. Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
     no hands but yours,
     no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
     Christ's compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
     doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

Julian: First another question for you regarding religion as a line - does that mean magical thinking is a line too? or postmodernism is a line? i just don't get it. does religion just come into being at amber and then continue? is it lost at orange only to return at teal? this is problematic i think.

I think we might call it the God line rather than the spiritual or religious line to clarify things.  I think that's the real bone of contention, and the level/line fallacy Ken talks about has to do with God in the second person.

Julian:  i define spirituality as the pursuit of truth in a committed engagement with the inner life -

I really like your answers there, Julian. As usual you help clarify things. I would add, though, that the inner life at the gross-realm stages (up to integral) is concerned with the psychological stuff of the personal self, while the inner life of the subtle-realm and causal stages (Indigo to Clear Light) have to do with archetypal-type stuff and primal energies. In other words, the the dream/mythic Gods will include such things as the rain God, the Maize God,  the Biblical Jesus, etc. The rational-integral Gods, as Ken put it, “clunking around in the gross realm,” will include Presidents, sports stars, scientists, CEOs, and gurus. And the third-tier Gods will include archetypal Gods and primal energies, such as  teacher/student, dragon/dragonslayer, masculine/feminine, and the evolutionary impulse. The evolutionary impulse, Eros, is the post mythic, postmetaphysical God. It is the grain of truth in the mythic God and the force behind all the other Gods, which can be seen as increasingly clear intuitions of it, and I will offer a description of it soon.

David

I can accept that Julian. My desire is that you never again present a “schizophrenic” on your blog in a manner that would perpetuate bias, stigma, ridicule or shame. They really do, have more than enough to deal with already.

And now, I'll leave you in peace.


Music of the Hour: Vincent

I'm going to get back on the main topic for bit:

B: there is a burden of proof issue if you assert that there is a vast, creative intelligence and you know exactly what its nature is… But to the extent that an atheist occupies a similarly strong, almost rigid position… it also requires defense and support.

But we all agree that we should believe things based on evidence, not on hope or wishful thinking. You are kind of presenting this as a “He said, she said” situation, and there is something relativistic about this logic. Integral doesn't throw out these proper standards for evidence, it restores them, and the fact is that the atheistic position is by far the best defended and supported by all the evidence that we have available.

I am perfectly OK with saying that after many years of practice, penetrating the depths of contemplative spirituality, a person may have direct first-hand experiences that they come away from and find that the categories of theism and atheism do not quite seem to work any more. That person can believe whatever they want, but simply assuming theism from the outset? That's no different from faith. Atheism may also be an assumption, but there is far more reason to make it than the alternative.

Even by integral standards, one is not entitled to claim theism without evidence; in this case, direct, first-hand, personal experience of the highest reaches of contemplative realization is required. Failing that, we must rely on the best evidence that we do have.

D: I think, in addition to those things, there will be some intuitions or even realizations of higher truths having to do with God in the second person.

I want to add something here, that might not be apparent: To me, the issue of atheism vs. theism is completely separate from the issue of 1st vs. 2nd person approaches to spirituality. It is perfectly possible to engage in devotional practices without making claims about the nature of what you are directing them toward.

Julian,

You wrote:  “it feels a little like you are trying to catch me out - i mean that i do not use the word spirit as a proper noun. i do us the word spiritual as i explained. as for being merely individualistic i would say that this i may be your narrow use of the word spiritual! i participate every day of my life in spiritual community that is all about shared group experience.”

No, I am not trying to catch you out or trip you up.  I really do think it doesn't make a lot of sense to use the adjective, spiritual, if the noun doesn't have any meaning for you.  One reason I was highlighting it has to do with the points and questions I raised in an earlier post, where I also provided the excerpt from Panikkar: the issue of the mystical depth dimension that is not reducible to a rarefied psychological state.  Spirit, in panentheistic  mysticism; sems-nyid (nature of mind), in Tibetan Buddhism.  Does that make my question clearer? 

you wrote:  “you disappoint me - i was not meaning to be closing the discussion, merely acknowledging that we have covered this ground and trying to respect the fact that we have probably clarified where and how we see it differently. it's ironic because i am actually trying to be more open and respectful - but you would maybe think i was being more open if i agreed?! :O)”

Well, of course!  If you agreed with me, everything would be shiny and happy and I would just KNOW that the Kosmos loves me!  Seriously, I have noticed and appreciated your respectfulness and warmth throughout our conversation.  What I was pointing to here was to the apparent finality with which you were stating things.  I wasn't thinking of the fact that we've debated this before; I was just hoping for more of a reasoned effort on your part to support your conclusions in the context of this discussion (rather than just asserting them, and saying that was that.)

You wrote:  “what do you call religion if not belief in amber myth? and if it is not belief in amber myth how would it recognizably be religion to most of the world?”

Merriam Webster defines religion as “relating to an acknowledged ultimate reality.”  I think that is broad enough to cover more than simply the Amber expression of spirituality.  As I stated in my last letter, I think the term religion suggests LR and LL aspects of spirituality as well as the UL.  As such, it can encompass the AQAL activity of mankind as we orient towards the sacred/the highest truth.  And while Amber religion is predominant in our age, it is most certainly not the only level or form of it.

You wrote:  “the postmetaphysics you describe and reference is really daunting but worthwhile BIG project (i am just starting to try and wrap my head around kant) that unfortunately does open a door to the kind of misunderstanding and rampant relativism i have described as being so problematic. do you see where that has gone terribly wrong in the nascent integral community?”

I don't see anything that has gone “terribly wrong” in the Integral community to date, but I do agree that some folks still do express relativistic/New Agey beliefs in some areas.

You wrote:  “i think a good and pretty simple place to start is by relinquishing speculative belief-based metaphysics that is purely made-up… you know that good old magic, myth and superstition that we are so attached to as a species!”

I agree.  And when panentheistic contemplatives use the term “God,” they aren't just making stuff up; they have an experiential referent to which they are referring, as do Buddhists when they talk about nature of mind or buddhanature.

You asked: “if religion is a line, shouldn't we then have a new age line too? there certainly are people in the zaadz integral pod who thought so with their (sorry to mention it) 'turquoise perspectives on the secret' or 'teal witchcraft' threads….. do you see the problem here?”

No, not at all.  As I'm using the term, religion would encompass New Age too:  New Age is a religious movement, as are Christianity and Shingon and Wicca.

You asked:  “what about the really conventional usage of the phrase 'spiritual, but not religious'? why does this make sense to so many people?”

Because they have burned out on the organized form(s) of religion with which they are familiar.

You wrote:  “you are dead right on one thing though - i do consider certain beliefs irrational and i am sorry if this offends.”

No, I'm not offended that you consider certain beliefs irrational.  But it would be helpful if you would explain what you think is irrational, for instance, about Wilber's use of the word, Spirit, or his discussion of the “1-2-3 of God.”  Is Wilber committing a pre/trans fallacy here?

you asked:  “do you have anything to say about my suggestion that while cognitive, ethical and aesthetic lines may have evolved very highly to use nuanced and beautiful language and concepts, there may still be either a sentimental or politically correct attachment to outdated mythic beliefs that has limited the further development of the spiritual line?”

Yes, I think this is certainly possible.  But I also think – as Coyote neatly illustrated – that you may be reducing multiple levels of theism down to one level simply because they're all using the same “base” of story and metaphor.  I do understand that you have said that you have no problem with using these stories, as stories.  But you also appear to reject the idea that “God” can refer to anything actual other than a psychological principle.  Wilber, for instance, argues that when you have realized the fundamental nature of mind or consciousness, you have realized something more than human: you have realized something fundamental about the Kosmos, about the whole of being.  Do you reject this as inherently irrational?

Best wishes,

Bruce

Julian,
Don’t be bummed. God (or whatever you believe in) forbid! :)

Your empathy in dialogue needs a light sanding, not rebuilt. Empathy is a line of development too, and so does not detract from your two years with Balder at all! Statements of warmth by the way, do not stand out from the disconnects, nor can they mask them. The disconnects stand out like weeds on a lawn. And so we can see them, and you will too soon enough, and THEN that will make the thing hum into the great depths!

Because (Teal) Empathy does, as I have learned, allow much deeper connections to happen through discussion, as perspectives of others are intrinsically felt, and automatically honoured AND then with some sort of kinship involved the dialog takes you somewhere deeper. Not nicer. This has nothing to do with nice and soft, that’s altruism yeh? That’s being ‘nice to others 101’. This is not SD Green Empathy… I’d wager.

Your passion and respect for the process does not so much need explanation, how you manage to put all this stuff down AND have a serious vocation too cannot be easy. I find sometimes it is easier to relax and say, hmm, I goofed, let me sit with that, since deep learning takes time, quick learning is shallow – just because it is quick. You have the intention, we all know that!

Best, of course

Hi, Mr. T,

I WROTE:  “…there is a burden of proof issue if you assert that there is a vast, creative intelligence and you know exactly what its nature is… But to the extent that an atheist occupies a similarly strong, almost rigid position…it also requires defense and support.”

YOU RESPONDED:  “But we all agree that we should believe things based on evidence, not on hope or wishful thinking. You are kind of presenting this as a “He said, she said” situation, and there is something relativistic about this logic. Integral doesn't throw out these proper standards for evidence, it restores them, and the fact is that the atheistic position is by far the best defended and supported by all the evidence that we have available.”

I am not aware of any direct evidence for the atheistic position.  Can you give examples of those things which you believe most strongly support atheism?  By which “eye” has that evidence been gathered, for the most part?

I do agree with you that we should not just accept the theistic position without compelling support of some sort; on Christian forums, I argue against blind faith and mythic literalism as much as anyone here probably would.  And after being a theist myself, I eventually moved away because – like many here – I found that non-theistic models generally made more sense to me.  (And even as a theist, I never accepted the mythic images as literally true.)  But in recent years, I have also come to accept that deep contemplative experiences, for example, can be understood in ways that are at least consonant with panentheistic theological models…that using “God-talk” in those contexts is a legitimate way to proceed.

On a personal level – not attempting to represent the perspectives of theists, but just relating how I personally relate to theistic images – I believe that figures like “God” and “Christ” can serve in contemplative practice as yidams, as objects of transformative devotional and contemplative focus and as immediate presentations of the “ground” they represent.  In my view, this is how a higher “theism” will show up – meaning higher not only in stage but also in state realization.

Best wishes,

Balder

P. S. I am sure there are other ways forward, and we don't have to replicate the Buddhist path.  But the Buddhist example is a good one, in my opinion, as it shows a path from the suspension and deconstruction of theistic-type beliefs to the re-emergence of purified (empty) theistic forms within a philosophically and contemplatively advanced body of teaching and practice.

Thanks, Julian – I enjoyed this more “raw” response.  I did hear your heartmind in this coming through, and I respect where you are coming from. 

I know you've got your hands full and my posts to you aren't the only ones out there, but when you have time, I'd be interested in your reflections on the Panikkar material (Cosmos/Theos/Anthropos) that I posted (as a direction Catholic theology is heading, at least in some small circles), and some of the questions I posted in relation to it.

I understand and can respect your use of the word “spiritual” – using it to refer to inner life.  However, I wonder if it is perhaps redundant in some way.  Do you distinguish it from “psychological” in any way?  What do you mean by inner life – what does that encompass?

YOU WROTE:  “however the jump from an abstract evolutionary principle to a concretized metaphysical being that is somehow separate from the process doesnt quite work for me - ”

This is one reason why I'm asking you to read the Panikkar piece, as an example of (a snapshot of) panentheistic theology, which does NOT commit the error you are describing, as far as I can see.

YOU WROTE:  “personally i would rather see it presenting a real alternative to both amber religion and new age spirituality by taking some slightly less mushy stands and being more philosophically responsible. i also think that we do ourselves a dis-service by not making a big space psychologically for the important process of  dealing with both the biographical and existential pain and fear underneath the spiritual/religious defense structure - until that is attempted, grappled with and deeply acknowledged i mostly just see a lot of wishful thinking dressed up as intellectual expansiveness and spiritual open-ness….”

I understand you, and I think these are good points.  To a large extent, I agree.  My concern is this:  You appear to be closing the door to the possibility of an authentic Orange or Green or higher expression of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, etc.  I have no problem at all with the emergence and flowering of a powerful, authentic humanistic/non-theistic spirituality, with its own language and vision.  I think that's a healthy thing to be arising in our time.  But I think that assuming that that is the only viable way forward, especially when there are already Orange- and higher-level practitioners in these other traditions (and when these religions, in fact, have never been confined wholly to Amber in all lines or aspects), is misguided and unnecessarily restrictive.  To me, your inability to imagine how these things can be held and used in non-Amber ways, or to imagine why people would want to, only reflects your lack of familiarity with what is already happening in these circles.

YOU WROTE:  “The post-metaphysics i have personally encountered [is] a going beyond the metaphysical concept of something else, something invisible and independent involved in what is happening.”

Yes, being able to recognize our metaphysical constructs for what they are is part of moving into post-metaphysics.  But it consists of more than simply weeding out ideas or concepts for which we haven't found adequate empirical evidence (based on whatever standard/paradigm we are using) – that is a movement that begins at Orange.  Post-metaphysics recognizes the contingency of all our perspectives, including those things for which we have marshalled extensive evidence.

For instance…

YOU WROTE:  “the universe is not made of love, it's made of carbon.  it's a vast empty space not a superhuman brainless mind.”

These statements, and these perceptions, cannot be separated from the Kosmic address of the person making them.  You cannot assume that these perceptions are equally true for everyone, at all stages of development, even those beyond your own, without engaging in metaphysics.

YOU WROTE:  “for me the spiritual dimension would be more effectively represented by a strong endorsement of inquiry-based practice and an agnostic/skeptical attitude toward metaphysical constructions - also recognition that altered states are available to all but that the  interpretation of them will be a reflection of one's psychograph.”

Yes, I agree with you about inquiry-based practice, and I think you are making an important point about post-metaphysics, as I was indicating above.  But it applies to all our perceptions, models, and concepts, not just certain interior experiences.  With regard to inner/spiritual experience, however, one tack is to say that, beyond a certain stage, it is no longer legitimate to use the word God.  Another, which Wilber takes, is to be careful to contextualize the use of our terms according to the Giga-Glossary – being able to indicate the person-perspective and “level” from which a particular concept is being framed and employed, which of course changes the nature and scope of its referent.  This latter approach recognizes and works with the historical fact that terms like “God” and “Spirit” are actually already being used from within a number of different developmental perspectives.

Best wishes,

Bruce

Julian,
 I just read through your most recent comment, haven't gotten to Balder's yet, and I find this bit of writing and thinking to be your most powerful (and <gasp> persuasive).  You write:

  personally i would rather see it presenting a real alternative to both amber religion and new age spirituality by taking some slightly less mushy stands and being more philosophically responsible. i also think that we do ourselves a dis-service by not making a big space psychologically for the important process of  dealing with both the biographical and existential pain and fear underneath the spiritual/religious defense structure - until that is attempted, grappled with and deeply acknowledged i mostly just see a lot of wishful thinking dressed up as intellectual expansiveness and spiritual open-ness….
  This seems to me to resonate with the Stan Grof article that I think SE linked to above. In it, Grof does a credible job of criticism of the Wilber model and of the gaps and “too tidiness'” of the AQAL map. I think that breathwork takes people to those places/spaces that they would like to deny, avoid or paper over with a smiley face and that work represents real spiritual “progress”.
  Gotta go. Keep writing raw. You rock.
c

bravo, julian! i appreciate your 'rawness' immensely. this has been a wonderful and provocative conversation/dialogue process for me. i'm so enriched by all who have contributed with such depth of thought and feeling. i'm certain that this sort of thinking will contribute to a changed world view, one that is compassionate and inclusive of all states and stages, evolving to integrality. i'm  reminded of a declaration made by marshall mcluhan in his last book, the global village: “truth is not matching. it is neither a label or a mental reflection. it is something we make in the encounter with the world that is making us. we make sense not in cognition, but in replay. that is my definition of intellection, if not indeed, scholarship. representation, not replica.”
blessings to all in this season of the winter solstice,dave

Great posts, everyone.

 

Mike: Atheism may also be an assumption, but there is far more reason to make it than the alternative.

It depends what alternative we are referring to. A better alternative than the world is created in seven days, but when you see that everywhere growth has taken place through stages of increasing complexity and integration (not to deny that dissolution also occurs), that growth has occurred through the same stages everywhere (atoms-molecules-cells), you begin to suspect something more than random chance and mutation. If you look at it long enough, random and chance mutation doesn't make much more sense than Intelligent Design. We not only went from rocks to Shakespeare, we went from rocks to Rumi, from rocks to Tagore, from rocks to Buddha, from rocks to Lau Tzu, from rocks to Emerson, from rocks to Whitehead, from rocks to Watts, from rocks to Wilber–anywhere in the world we look it's gone from from rocks to poets, pandits, scientists, and the like. As Ken put it, those are pretty frisky rocks! Pretty smart rocks. It's more logical to assume that there was some sort of a telos or Buddha nature in those rocks than to think it was one random event after another that has landed us in the information age and all that that entails.

  

Julian: You asked:  “what about the really conventional usage of the phrase 'spiritual, but not religious'? why does this make sense to so many people?”

Bruce: Because they have burned out on the organized form(s) of religion with which they are familiar.

Also because they are postmoderns, and postmoderns don't want anybody to tell them what to do, because why should they? Their truth is no better than mine. It's also very threatening to the personal part of us that wants to stay in control rather than letting the impersonal or transpersonal part of us be in control.

Julian: However the jump from an abstract evolutionary principle to a concretized metaphysical being that is somehow separate from the process doesn't quite work for me - and even if wilber is not exactly doing that i think that his use of language in this particular area makes it seem to others who really want to make that leap that he already has…

 The language everywhere is a mess and very difficult to sift through. Ken will use one sort of language when talking to Buddhists, another to Christians, another with Andrew Cohen. Teachers will express various worldviews themselves; they will answer relative questions with absolute answers. It is a mess! And that definitely needs to be cleaned up.

 From one perspective, Buddha nature is “I”; it's not apart from us. From another perspective, it is “other,” not I. It's not ultimately true that it is other, but from one perspective we are such a distortion of that intelligence, it's appropriate to term it as “other” or “it” or, if you like, “thou.” It's a paradox that we have to learn to deal with and hold. Using the God language does have a lot of pitfalls–it can take certain evolved capacities and functions “offline”; it can cause a person to disengage with the process when they should engage and vica versa; it can also open a person up to crude Amber energy, good-and-evil-type thinking masquerading as something higher. It's awfully difficult to differentiate consistently, particularly with shadow, and also because there is hardly anyone teaching it. It's pretty new stuff.

Julian:  The force that through the green fuse drives the flower - yes!

You're taking a third-person perspective on it right there. You're saying it's “not me,” which is fine, because that's a valid perspective. “It is me” is also a valid perspective, and “it is something I want to have a relationship with, to eventually fuse with and embody with clarity and without the distortion of my personal issues” would be getting towards a second-person perspective. There are a few reasons why God language might actually be helpful, including: 1) It can help integrate our entire being, including Amber; 2) It can help us tap into a part of ourselves that is not personal, an energy that, from one perspective, is on a different line than the personal self.

Without the notion of “other” or “thou,” most people will end up thinking “I” and “thou” are the same thing–divine egoism. “Thou” can be helpful in stripping that energy of personality, though at the same time, the moment the person gets metaphysical, good-versus-evilish, or less-than-four quadrantish and begins thinking “I am God,” and he or she isn't, it will increase personality rather than strip it away.

Julian:  “A la becker, i think that death is the end of life/consciousness as we know it and that for some reason this is an incredibly hard fact for the vast majority of humans to accept.”


I think you need to present evidence for this. There's actually a large body of evidence to suggest that this might not be true, including spiritual experiences from around the world, near-death experiences from around the world, out-of-body experiences, data suggestive of reincarnation. I don't think it's scientific, given all this, to come to the conclusion that death means a total lights out. Also, it's a perspective that fails to tell us why and how matter came to be in the first place–suddenly just matter and then consciousness? Where did the matter come from? I think it's a least a place for agnosticism, and maybe, from a spiritual-practice perspective, agnosticism (not knowing, not concluding, open to all possibilities) is the best way.

~David

Thank you, Julian.

Well, it's different than design because this is a creative, evolving intellgience. The future is not planned out or decided. It's being created in each moment. Just as we create each of these posts.

Just in the way a beaver makes his damn or an ant makes its hill or a bird his nest. With the same innate creativity, only with different tools and capabilities, different bodies. But they tend to feel the same way about things. They all want to get their work done; they all protect their young from predators; they all gather food.

So, we agree on a life force, the force that drives through the flower, etc. Is the problem in the telos, the intelligence, the directionality? But if there wasn't any intelligence about it, how would it all be happening and moving forward? How would we have evolved these bodies and these societies without an innate intelligence? What created the human brain must have had intelligence, right?



We have to take a look at the sources with that list–the Mayans were basically tribal/early empire, right, so we can't take their time stuff any more seriously than the Biblical myths. I haven't heard a credible source about aliens, though there may be one.  I don't find channelers convincing; it's archetypal stuff at best. I'm not sure what you mean by universal synchronistic manifestation. 

 But here's a quote from Krishnamurti on an out-of-body experience. Sure, there's a lot of cultural-interpretation stuff in here–ignore all the religious language–but he's a pretty reliable source, right? I don't offer it as final proof, but just one of many accounts that should raise doubts about the conventional theories.

“When I had sat thus for some time, I felt myself going out of my body, I saw myself sitting down with the delicate tender leaves of the tree over me. I was facing the east. In front of me was my body and over my head I saw the Star, bright and clear. Then I could feel the vibrations of the Lord Buddha; I beheld Lord Maitreya and Master KH. I was so happy, calm and at peace. I could still see my body and I was hovering near it. There was such profound calmness both in the air and within myself, the calmness of the bottom of a deep unfathomable lake…. The Presence of the mighty Beings was with me for some time and then They were gone. I was supremely happy, for I had seen. Nothing could ever be the same. I have drunk at the clear and pure waters at the source of the fountain of life and my thirst was appeased…. I have touched compassion which heals all sorrow and suffering; it is not for myself, but for the world. I have stood on the mountain top and gazed at the mighty Beings…. Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated.”

Hi, Julian,

I'm not entirely satisfied with the way Wilber presented his ideas on post-metaphysics in Integral Spirituality, but I do think he's making some important points that need to be carefully digested.

There is a degree of truth to the notion that we create “reality,” or co-create it, so we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater just because of the ways this idea is popularly misunderstood, misappropriated, and misapplied.  The idea is not that, by thinking certain thoughts, we cause physical objects or properties to pop magically into existence.  It's much subtler than that, pointing to the deeply interpretive nature of even the basic elements of our experience.  Just as our fingerprints are all over our images of God and the divine, our fingerprints are all over our maps and models of the world.

A simple way to grasp this is to take a long temporal perspective – to look at the play of knowledge in time.  In Aristotle's day, people would have said that sublunar objects are composed of a mix of four basic elements, and supralunar objects are composed of quintessence.  Later, in Newton's time, people said that everything in the universe is composed of solid, impenetrable, indivisible atoms of matter (of a certain size).  Later still, we found that these singular atoms are actually composite, and mostly consist of space; that the elements that make them up can't be said to “exist” in an absolute way, but rather must be described as “tendencies to exist,” as probability waves.  And the model is still in flux.  Three thousand years from now, can we really even begin to guess how we might conceive of the fabric of reality?  Isn't it likely that the concept of “carbon” will strike us as simple and quaint and clumsy as the five elements of Aristotle?  So, then can we really say that the universe is made, absolutely, of carbon?  Or is the more reasonable position that the universe, from our current vantage point, with the current limiting horizons it imposes on our vision, appears to conform to our “carbon map” closely enough to serve our current purposes, and so therefore we can hold it, provisionally, as true?

Let's look at your claim that the universe is a vast empty space, not an infinite brainless mind.  You state this as “simply a fact.”  But, this is pure metaphysics if you do not recognize that that object you call “space” is an interpretation of experience.  I'm not saying “space itself” is unreal; I'm saying you aren't dealing with “space itself” when you talk to me, you're dealing with certain interpretations.  Perhaps neither of your options are true.  Do we really know what space is?  Scientists already are questioning whether our notions of space are inadequate.  What to make of non-locality, the one feature of the quantum perspective that Herbert argues is most likely to be around for awhile?  How does that impact our notions of the nature of space?  Is it possible that space is of such a nature that it transcends and includes (accommodates) locality and non-locality in ways we do not presently understand? 

It is clear that philosophically, space is an epistemic underperformer.  What do I mean by that?  Objects demand space to appear.  Space therefore should have temporal and ontological priority over objects.  But if space is truly dead and empty, then there's no way to explain how objects ever arise out of it.  Something's missing.  If space is epistemically empty, it is epistemically inert.  There's (apparently) no way to know how matter (or nonspatial consciousness) could originate in it.  The problem I'm pointing to here, of course, isn't a property of “space itself,” but a consequence of a certain epistemically underperforming conception of space.  If consciousness goes “all the way down,” as Wilber argues, then it goes too to this root problem of an epistemically inert space: something's gotta give.

You may regard the above paragraph as a speculative waste of time which in no way changes the fact that it will take us many, many years to cross the empty space between here to Sirius.  But my point was simply to point out that, in using the term space, you are speaking from within a particular model, with its own set of presuppositions, which should not be taken simply as “given.”

Best wishes,

Balder

I am not aware of any direct evidence for the atheistic position. Can you give examples of those things which you believe most strongly support atheism?  By which “eye” has that evidence been gathered, for the most part?

The atheistic position doesn't require direct evidence. If the theistic position doesn't have good evidence, then we just don't accept it. You can never prove a negative, and some people take this to mean that you can believe in whatever you like, which seems a lot like Green narcissistic relativism: clinging to perceived holes in our knowledge to insert what they want to believe. This basic principle is not refuted by integral epistemology, it just opens up new domains of knowing. We can't find affirmative proof of God using the eye of the flesh, and following Kant, we can't use the eye of the mind either, because the mind is structured by conventional reality.

The eye of the spirit may disclose some truth, but what are those truths? Apparently, they are beyond both theism and atheism, beyond all dualities, and if that's the case, it is somewhat misleading to place that kind of “knowledge” alongside dualistic eyes of flesh and mind. That kind of knowledge does not disclose anything about the world of form, it deconstructs the mind's relationship to it. But as the koan goes, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” I take this to mean that our basic epistemology is not altered, uplifted or supernaturalized, it is simply an innate transcendent unitary mode of experience that is also within a non-transcendent mode. Most contemplative traditions seem to take, partially or completely, a subjective idealist perspective that is more amenable to a transcendent theism. Given that integral epistemology rejects subjective idealism in favor of partial truths of idealism and realism, the nature of the divine must also be altered to fit. This underscores my point – given that we must render divine experience into the world of form, we must choose the highest epistemology we can find, even knowing that it can never completely capture it.

I fully support a spiritual practice that takes as an assumption a deity or a god, but this should be seen as a pragmatic tool, not something that is given the traditional ontological status. For example, no spiritual teacher should advise students to have faith in God for the treatment of diseases.

David said, If you look at it long enough, random and chance mutation doesn't make much more sense than Intelligent Design. We not only went from rocks to Shakespeare

I agree that natural selection doesn't account for all the creativity in the unvierse, but self-organization does, but its not particularly divine. It does sounds like you are espousing a natural philosophy, i.e. that the divine can be disclosed by the eye of the flesh. But if you believe there is hard data support a belief in God, then you must also be saying that if that data turns out to be wrong, then you must conclude God doesn't exist, that Jesus and the Buddha and every other contemplative mystic was merely hallucinating. These “God in the gaps” arguments are particularly destructive to contemporary spirituality because its obvious that the people who make them don't take the methodology of the eye of the flesh very seriously. Even if you assume that there is a creative intelligence guiding the universe, why think that is what is disclosed in contemplative experience?

in response to balder and david, i'm struggling to find points which julian and teacup have not covered admirably, nevertheless…

bruce - if i'm correct, you assert that it is defensible to hold a literal theistic belief up to a certain stage of rational consciousness development, beyond which it is both rational and defensible to retain the concept and language of theism but with the refinement of understanding that theism is now taken to refer to metaphorical/archetypal/post-archetypal constructs, and/or to an overarching or pervasive non-material universal force or forces which may suggest intelligence or consciousness, but not to a separate conscious material entity (commonly also regarded as omnipotent and omniscient).

you also assert (or give the impression) that contemplation reveals depth dimensions of objective reality which exist beyond individual consciousness, which are not able to be apprehended other than through contemplation, and which are consistent with panentheism

just as you insist - quite rightly - that concepts and beliefs should not be held exempt from new evidence and rational judgement, my interest lies not so much in the promotion of a position, but in the promotion of clarification, especially as regards logic, language, and epistemology, upon which this discussion is based.

i'll start simply, referring to belief systems which may not reflect the nuances (or definition of terms) in some of your ideas and those of authors you refer to, but which are relevant nevertheless.

here are the three positions of theistic belief and their common definitions:

theism is the belief in the existence of a god or gods, and especially that one god created the universe and plays an active intervening part in, and has a personal relationship with, its creatures. period.

atheism is the belief that such a god does not exist. period.

agnosticism is the refusal to commit oneself one way or the other concerning the existence of god. it is the belief that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of god or of anything beyond material phenomena, or the refusal to have faith or disbelief in the existence of such a god. period.

there are 2 main points that are relevant to the discussion - the rationality of holding any of these positions, and the appropriateness of using terms in common usage to denote something other than is commonly understood by them, and which is poorly or variably defined.

regarding the rationality of holding positions; rationality is thinking in accordance with reason and logic. if there is no sensory evidence or logical proof upon which to base a belief, that belief is held irrationally. i'll get to the main arguments for the existence of god - argument of first cause, argument of design/complexity, and argument of life - later on, as with the apprehension of dimensions of objective reality by means of contemplation.

as regards belief in a god as described by theism:

there is no proof for such a god, therefore belief in such a god is irrational. theism is irrational.
there is no proof for such a god, therefore disbelief in such a god is rational. atheism is rational.

regarding agnosticism, to quote nathaniel branden: “of any position one might take concerning the existence of god, agnosticism is, epistemologically, the least tenable. agnosticism is the refusal to commit oneself one way or the other concerning the existence of god. in judging this policy, it is necessary to remember that no theist has ever been able to educe evidence in support of his belief in god. no theist has ever provided an intelligible non-contradictory definition of what he means by god, as a consequence one can only believe in god as an act of faith. faith is the acceptance of ideas without sensory evidence or rational proof. a man of reason does not accept ideas on faith. he knows that all of one's conclusions must be based on and derived from the facts of reality. he is therefore an atheist. his position is this: i accept and consider only that for which there is rational evidence. if a theist wishes to assert the existence of god, the burden of proof is on him, but i do not regard his feeling that god exists as relevant or admissible to a rational discussion. the position of the theist and the atheist then is unequivocal and clear-cut; the theist, in the absence of rational grounds for believing in god believes in god on faith - the atheist, in the absence of rational grounds for believing in god, does not believe in god.

in logic, these two positions exhaust the possibilities. agnosticism is not a third position - it is the evasion of a position. to understand the nature and motive of this evasion, consider the argument that the agnostic offers in self-justification; he states in effect - granted that the existence of god cannot be proved, neither can it be disproved. one cannot prove that god does not exist, all we can say is that we do not know whether god exists and may never know. atheism is as much an act of faith then as theism. observe this then: an agnostic does not distinguish between, but rather he treats as equally valid an atheist's demand for reason, and a theist's assertion of his feelings. an atheist's refusal to believe that for which no evidence exists is classified by the agnostic as an act of faith. what the agnostic demands of the atheist is proof of a negative, proof of the non-existence of god, but it is impossible to prove a negative, and irrational to demand it. proving a negative means proving the non-existence of that for which no evidence of any kind exists. proof, logic, reason, thinking, knowledge pertain to and deal only with that which exists - they cannot be applied to that which does not exist. nothing can be relevant or applicable to the non-existent. the non-existent is… nothing. a positive statement based on facts which have been erroneously interpreted can be refuted by means of exposing the errors in the interpretation of the facts. such refutation is the disproving of a positive, not the proving of a negative. in the pursuit of knowledge there is no place for whims - every claim statement or proposition has to be based on the facts of reality - nothing may be claimed causelessly, groundlessly, arbitrarily.”

it should be pointed out that atheism is not inherently a dogmatic position - as with any belief the atheist belief can be held dogmatically or rationally. atheism does not exclude the possibility that evidence will come to light that makes the belief in the absence of a theist god irrational. it simply means a belief currently held that is consistent with the facts of reality as they are currently known. any belief which does not conform to this standard is irrational, and continuing to hold it when its irrationality is known to the subscriber is willfully - or doubly - irrational. the rational integration of knowledge requires that existing knowledge must not be held exempt from new evidence or rational judgement.

that a belief may at some point in future be proven to be untrue does not make it irrational. that a belief may at some point in future be proven to be true does not make it rational. only positive evidence decides the rationality of holding a belief.

for now, my main point is this - it is both rational and therefore valid to “be” an atheist. atheism is only what it is - it has zero relevance or implications to one's level of consciousness development, one's character, one's spiritual development or depth etc etc. it is not dogmatic, narrow-minded, unreasonable, intellectually dishonest or anything like it. anyone who asserts otherwise doesn't understand what rationality is and what it necessitates. it is similarly perfectly valid and acceptable to identify oneself as atheist, as it is acceptable to assert oneself as being a disbeliever in the matmos of barbarella as the ground of existence. i suggest that most atheists don't consciously identify themselves as such, because having disposed of the argument, there is not much need to think about it further.

just as it was not very cool a while back to say that one is a man, (and still isn't  on some campuses), the times they are a-changing for belief, and rationalists needs to stand up and be counted, quite unapologetically.

atheism is cool!

more on mysticism, god, and language later…

the above post may appear to be a step backwards, and to have missed most of the subtleties, distinctions and nuances around popomo theism, mysticism, post-metaphysics, existential humanism archetype etc in this blog and elsewhere. however, if pursuit of actual knowledge is one's aim, the points i raise need to be addressed, and seen for what they actually are, not what other positions they affect. i'm not advocating atheism as one's primary public platform (it seems nonsensical to me anyway - the word is a negative), nor saying that it is incompatible with any rational integral or methodological pluralist approach, only that it is a necessary and unavoidable consequence of the rational use of the human mind. some of the conclusions can seem a bit of a stretch, but i do think it has become somewhat unfashionable, not to mention unsexy, to maintain a rational belief about anything, with disapproval within circles which otherwise offer valuable thinking and insights, and i think that is unfortunate for all of us. it seems at times unacceptable in some circles to hold anything as definite outside of opinion. and finally, it should be noted that thinking rationally, and transcending the constructed self-image to experience the full range of consciousness states and stages are entirely compatible.

i'll be moving through the other main points as soon as poss… there is some outstanding commentary and critique from writers of all persuasions and angles here - i'm honoured to be in such awesome company.

Hi, Mr. T,

I don't have any essential disagreement with anything you're saying.  I asked about “direct proof” for atheism because it sounded as if you were asserting that such evidence existed, and I didn't think it was logical to assert direct proof for a negative, as you have stated.  So, thanks for clearing that up.

The way theistic-like elements are handled in Buddhism is largely pragmatic; at least, that is how I relate to the meditation deities of Tantric Buddhism and Dzogchen.  So, I agree with the approach you suggested.  I think these charged images of the sacred can serve as useful focal points and catalysts in contemplative/transformative practice.  With Krishnamurti* and Buddhism, respectively, I still hold a place for terms such as “sacred” and “absolute” as valid categories of thought, without reifying them or turning them into self-existent entities-in-themselves.  Somewhat like Panikkar's existentially purged, post-atheistic theos.  (As I mentioned above, Panikkar argues that atheism is an important developmental step in theological thinking, but he does not regard it as the “final” step.)  Within this overall context, I accept the use of God-language by certain mystics as valid (taking it as neither literal, in the mythic sense; nor “just a psychological projection” in the modern sense).

Best wishes,

Balder

P.S. Adam – thanks for your letters.  I'll respond to them soon.

Julian,

I've been making a case for the idea that there are multiple, developmentally unfolding forms of theism, and I stand behind it.  But for this post, I want to step on the other side of the line, more in “communion” with your overall project, and post a brief description of the principles of my own primary practice tradition, TSK.  I think you will find a lot that is consonant with what you are writing and teaching, J.

~*~

“Since this issue of the relationship between TSK and other kinds of study or practice has continued to draw considerable attention, perhaps it would be helpful to list briefly some of the ways in which TSK studies differ from other approaches to knowledge:

*  TSK does not put forward claims regarding an absolute. In fact, it does not specify any form of substance or reality at all. From a TSK perspective, such definitions and claims inevitably generate conceptual structures. Once such structures are seen as anything more than tools for investigation, they limit knowledge, encouraging the formation of territories and positions that soon come to take priority over inquiry and insight.

*  TSK does not maintain the existence of a creator or creative force responsible for appearance. Identifying such an originating source is another instance of the tendency to assign labels and then make those labels the basis for limitation. For instance, readers of earlier books in this series might say that TSK attributes creation to a kind of magical operation. But the label ‘magic' is just another way of limiting what arises. The temptation to rely on labels in dealing with TSK is strong, for ordinary understanding depends on labels, and we are usually interested only in what we can understand. But applying this approach to TSK or any other form of inquiry will only ensure that what is already familiar to us will perpetuate itself. There will be no opportunities for a new vision to make itself known.

*  TSK does not teach faith in any outside force, nor does it counsel devotion toward a higher being, such as God or the Buddha. It suggests that the knowledge we require is implicit in the self's embodiment in space and time. The highest values are immediately available to us.

*  TSK does not pursue knowledge through beliefs founded on reasons. Instead, it proceeds through active inquiry, which is seen as embodying knowledge directly.

*  TSK does not investigate a subject located somewhere else, apart from the self. It looks directly to awareness.

*  TSK follows no model or doctrine. All knowledge can be a part of the vision.

*  TSK does not structure reality in terms of a hierarchy that proceeds from higher to lower or good to bad. Though the vision sometimes relies on language that makes such distinctions, the fundamental outlook is that knowledge understands all manifestations to be equally good. Although the process of inquiry will initially proceed step by step, moving from level to level, this sequence of unfolding does not reflect any inherent characteristic of appearance.

*  TSK does not offer any moral code. From a TSK perspective, being itself is perfect, exhibiting in all its facets the qualities of life and beauty. Since this is so, there is no need to seek perfection. The natural way of being is intrinsically sacred. When we exhibit this perfection in our own actions, vows and precepts are not required.

*  TSK does not rely on prayers or ceremonies, nor does it ask anyone to make offerings or practice the accumulation of merit. As ritual it offers creative action, as ceremony it presents the challenge of evoking knowledge, as prayer it relies on the silent stillness of awareness. Instead of outer gestures, it invites the inner healing of the heart that comes when knowledge exhibits freely in time.

*  TSK does not rely on worship. In place of communion it offers self-understanding; in place of initiations, it looks to the natural flow of knowledge within appearance. The natural healing that comes through knowledge is sufficient to cure all suffering.

*  There is no path in TSK: no ‘from' or ‘to' or going from one to the next. All such movements arise within the linear unfolding of time, and TSK calls that unfolding itself into question. Since whatever appears is a part of the vision, there is nothing ‘higher' to understand or unite with. Ordinary mind, everyday perceptions, and the structures of common experience are already the full embodiment of knowledge in time and space.

*  TSK relies on no higher authority, apart from knowledge itself. Within knowledge, there are no divisions, discriminations, or exclusions. The followers of any school or teaching can study TSK, drawing from it whatever benefit they can.

*  TSK does not require attacking the positions or beliefs or attitudes of the ego. The ego can be seen as a manifestation of a narrow focal setting on time and space and knowledge; it functions as a ‘bias-stander'. As space and time and knowledge open more fully, this narrowness automatically drops away in favor of a more comprehensive knowingness.

*  TSK does not assign guilt or define rules that are not to be broken. Even actions that have harmful consequences can become the source of knowledge. Whatever has happened in the past, we can be grateful for the present opportunity to recognize and accommodate knowledge in all its manifestations.

*  TSK does not directly teach the practice of love or compassion toward others. However, once the narrowness of the positions we hold drops away, we find that we interact more easily with others, and out of this openness love and compassion emerge as natural responses. As we grow more familiar with the vision, we realize that we all share the same space, are related in time, and speak a shared language that embodies knowledge. Any basis for discrimination between self and others falls away.

*  TSK does not separate the real from the fictional in any ultimate sense. From a TSK perspective, whatever we do can be understood as the play of time in space. However, the play does not reject what is serious, nor does it mistake being playful for seeking out amusements. To play without concern is to respond appropriately to all concerns, and being playful does not mean ignoring or rejecting the meaning of what arises. This is play as exhibition: action as the appearance of beauty.

*  TSK does not emphasize good works or benefiting others through acts of charity. However, TSK spontaneously offers the knowledge that can bring an end to suffering and release pain into knowledgeability. In this sense, the vision itself is a gift.

It may seem from this list that TSK is hostile to systems of belief that make claims about reality or proper forms of conduct. But this conclusion would only limit the vision. Devotion and rituals do not ‘belong' to the TSK vision, but they do not contradict it. The path of religion can open to knowledge, and so can the path of science. Nothing in the vision precludes drawing on such traditions and approaches.” (Dynamics of Time and Space, pp. xvi-xxi )

Thanks, Julian. Looking forward to part three!

 

Mike said: The eye of the spirit may disclose some truth, but what are those truths? Apparently, they are beyond both theism and atheism, beyond all dualities. and if that's the case, it is somewhat misleading to place that kind of “knowledge” alongside dualistic eyes of flesh and mind. That kind of knowledge does not disclose anything about the world of form, it deconstructs the mind's relationship to it. But as the koan goes, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” I take this to mean that our basic epistemology is not altered, uplifted or supernaturalized, it is simply an innate transcendent unitary mode of experience that is also within a non-transcendent mode.

Deep state experience discloses the first truth you mentioned–beyond duality. And if this is all that happens, the basic epistemology is not altered. Before, chop wood, carry water. After, chop wood, carry water–in basically the same way. With only horizontal enlightenment, the person is basically just stepping out of the game and then back in the game when it needs to drink or build a fire.

But with stage development, one gains more awareness in the game. One's relationship to the game changes. At one point one is convinced that the War God and the Rain God and the Maize God are mad at you, and so you have to sacrifice someone to appease them. Later you learn that this was crazy, it's not all those Gods that need to be appeased, it's just Jesus, and all he wants you to do is wear a cross and pray to him and make others do the same, only if you don't he'll make you burn in hell forever.

Then you wake up one day and think, “Man, that's crazy. God could never have built the earth in seven days, and the dinosaur fossils and all the other fossils prove that he didn't, and Jesus is dead, so what the hell am I praying to him for? It's the CEO and the police who's God. I've just got to work hard and obey the law so I get a raise and stay out of jail.”

And on it goes, but eventually one becomes aware of the voice that has been saying all these things. One becomes aware when it wants to do this or that–and one sees that there's another force going on, but this one is silent, doesn't say a word, but it's had a bigger say in what's happened all along than the one who chatters all the time.

But this construct awareness is a fairly new thing. Not every Zen master and guru has had it; in fact, most probably have not. Most are just stepping out of the game and then stepping back into the game and playing the game more or less like anyone else. So there is more than one spiritual revelation, and with the vertical one our basic epistemology is altered.

That's not to say that there's a mythic God that's apart from the process; just the opposite actually, that there's an impersonal energetic aspect of Being and that it does seem that this dynamism has a creative intelligence from various perspectives. People surely use the second-face-of-God perspective for different reasons, but Aurobindo, Almaas, Wilber, and Cohen use it to help people with this vertical realization. If there are any others who teach this, I would be interested in hearing about them.

David

Thank you, Julian. And thanks for the TSK, Bruce. I'll have a look at that.

When I said the authenic self/evolutionary impulse is silent, I just meant to distinguish it from any kind of voices in the head or other entities and such. It's each individual's authentic voice.

~David

yo coyote!

Thank you for joining in.

thank you for thanking me… always a pleasure sir : )

sorry for not answering this sooner, hope it clears up a few loose ends as well as creating a few more ; )

You write: …it's saying that experience in UL is dependent on there being something in UR to support it. I was attempting to draw the important distinction between correlate and cause. I do not doubt  that for every state and felt experience there is a co-responding co-relational event in the body. But the key word there is “dependent” which I don't buy_ not independent and not dependent. At this point there is a temptation for us weenie-greenies to reach for analogies in quantum physics, revealing more often than not our ignorance of both subjects

your distinction is one i share - by experience being dependent on a physical body, i was referring to the body being necessary for experience to be perceived in the first place - i.e. necessary but insufficient - experience presupposes the existence of a material body to experience (of which more later - for david especially)

However, the English language is structured along lines of separation of subject and object which leads to a subtle association of cause and effect that may not be true.

i think this is continuation from your mistaking the context of my original use of the word “dependent”. but in response to the comment: i don't see that  language or even consciousness is possible without subject and object - language signifies things. perception of a thing - even a feeling of no self-separation from the all, requires there to be a perceiver and a thing to perceive. i don't think there's necessarily any causal relationship inferred.

There does not seem to be easy ways to talk of simultaneous “non-local” experience.

the phrase non-local works for me, i imagine a new vocabulary will emerge if new evidence merits.

Co-relation is not cause. The map is not the territory. There is no such place as UL or UR.

i think i understand why you think i confused a generalised model of an aspect of reality with that aspect of reality, if it's related to the previous point. i guess you by now know i didn't.

Thanks for contributing and supporting this written exchange of views. I so much prefer the benefits of conversation where nuance, humor and the simple pleasure of company can be wordlessly communicated.

absolutely. it does intrigue me how one's online persona can differ from oneself live, and how easily people take offence at such narrow lines of written discussion. i suspect we'd all get on famously in non-virtual meeting. one of my dearest psychotherapy colleagues is a creationist who claims to require no further information on the matter, being perfectly satisfied in her understanding of the matter. another is a create-your-own-reality relativist who claims no knowledge of anything, oblivious to the contradiction in her statement. both hold their beliefs in defiance of even basic principles of thinking. both are wrong in this regard, and both pay the price psychologically. and both are lovely human beings and dear friends who i admire and learn from. and i'd probably tear strips off them on here. gently and respectfully of course.

this written platform does allow the exchange of views, information, and reasoning which i value highly, even though there are inherent limitations in the nature of written philosophy discussion (in itself not a bad thing), especially where the individuals' rules of discourse and reasoning differ so widely. if one is looking for emotional reassurance for example, or group validation, or even objective feedback, this is not the place, but that's ok by me since i'm more interested in the philosophy. that being said, i know of no other vehicle which offers this diversity of beliefs with such a high level of moderation and consideration. i'm very grateful to have found this site and this collection of minds. and your preference for face-to-face doesn't stop you dipping your oar in either ; )

or, to respond more briefly: ☺

Adam,
and your preference for face-to-face doesn't stop you dipping your oar in either ; )
  Thank you for making it clear that I only use one oar ;-)

Thank you for making it clear that I only use one oar ;-)

lol…

: )))

Hi, Adam,

I am not sure if you believe I am defending an agnostic position here, but I do not feel that is what I am doing.  (I'm somewhat symptathetic to Stephen Batchelor's “Deep Agnosticism,” but it is closer to the general rational/secular orientation that you and Julian are promoting than the wishy-washy evasive position you described).  I also am not opposed to rationality, and agree that any so-called transrational development will transcend and include rationality, not avoid it or repress it.  However, some of the basic presuppositions of rational-ISM – the belief in foundationalism, for instance – will have to be let go or modified as rationality learns to move in the (post)-postmodern context.

Here's essentially where I'm coming from (and I remain open to receiving feedback and criticism):

In my view, theism – not just Amber mythic theism, but the whole spectrum of theistic thought that I've described – is a valid language, a valid interpretive stream.  I say stream here because it is not a fixed thing, not a single “translation” or set of beliefs, but rather an interpretive movement that shows a relative degree of continuity, even while going through its own internal shifts (sometimes quite radical).  It is a lineage of thought, a rich seedbed of image and language and insight.  If you look at the theistic traditions in their fullness, in all the ways that they have developed, taking in the insights of leading edge theologians and mystics throughout history, rather than limiting your perspective to the more popular (simplistic) forms, then you may come to appreciate the fact that these are language systems that are subtle and rich and flexible enough to accommodate a number of stages of development.  The term “God” can be, and has been, understood in a number of different ways, from a number of different “Kosmic addresses.” 

I am not saying that, just because theistic traditions have their own languages, they should therefore be immune from rational criticism or evidential claims or whatever.  I actually have spent a lot of time in the past on various theology forums, doing just this – challening literalistic, mythic, even some Orange or Green formulations, exploring the perhaps unintended negative consequences of holding certain theistic beliefs or theological positions, and so on.  I think there is a place, and a need, for theists and non-theists to challenge each other, for members of different faiths to dialogue deeply and searchingly, and for theistic (and non-theistic) traditions to engage in ongoing self-critique as well…particularly as modern knowledge shows certain traditional beliefs to be untenable or inadequate. 

I suppose the reason why I am debating these points with Julian (and now you) is simply because, while I agree that rational and post-rational/Integral critiques and analyses of “the state of modern religion” are called for, particularly in this volatile period in our history, I believe that some of these critiques are already going on within these traditions themselves, in creative, powerful, hopeful ways.  From what I have seen, this is happening more in Christianity and Judaism than Islam, but it is happening.  My argument is that it is just too narrow and restrictive to insist that spiritual secularism and an abandonment of these theistic traditions is really the only viable way forward, post-Amber.  Particularly when there are perspectives and tools already available, or at least actively being worked on and fleshed out, in these traditions that maintain continuity with a particular cultural vision, a particular lineage of thought and practice, while at the same time transforming it and opening it to broader rational and transrational/Integral-contemplative expressions.

In other words, instead of seeing the future of all these traditions as singular, requiring the abandonment of their own roots and the adoption of a secular/humanistic worldview, I see a future with a number of possible pathways open, including (but not limited to) the integral developments in which many of us are interested:  integral existential humanism, integral Christianity, integral Buddhism, integral Judaism, integral Islam, integral Hinduism, integral transformative spirituality…even integral TSK! 

I do think that, as any of these traditions develop and unfold, in communication with each other and with modern streams of knowledge (science, philosophy, etc), they will likely move in a similar direction – towards certain more universal principles and perspectives, towards a recognition of the contingency and culturally determined nature of their particular formulations of reality, towards greater transparency of image and metaphor, towards a process of internalization and integration of outward symbols, hopefully towards a deeper grounding in and/or valuation of contemplative disciplines, and so on. 

I've been thinking aloud, somewhat, in this post – trying to better articulate the position I've been holding (even to myself).  I would appreciate feedback on this – but I don't believe I'm advocating an anything goes attitude, or a non-discriminating Green relativism.  I believe that there is actually a lot of work that needs to be done within these traditions.  But because there are people within many of these traditions already working in this way, essentially engaged in a process of retranslation (on one level) and archeology (drawing on deep resources of appropriate depth and sophistication that already exist in the traditions but which, for whatever reason, are not prominent parts of the current landscape), as they adjust to the perceived leading edges of human understanding, I feel comfortable trusting the resourcefulness of individuals in these traditions to find creative ways forward that honor their roots while also coming to terms with and embracing the new.

Best wishes,

Balder

One thing that might be added to the discussion is the concept of “types.” KW speaks as though everyone should be able to integrate at least a touch of the second-face-of God. This may be true. I don't know. There could be an entirely first- and third-face-of-God approach that's available to people. It seems possible to me. Who knows, it might even be better in some ways, so I really would like to inquire into that. It seems useful, as a somewhat theistically oriented person, to consider the possibility of eliminating the second face of God. It would seem useful also for atheists to continually inquire into the possibility of adding just a touch of the second face.

It may ultimately turn out to be just a distortion, the second face of God, but I haven't heard a third-tier atheist talk about it, so I'm not sure. At least, though, we should recognize that there are different types and allow the possibility of either, and not be too adamant about theistic or atheistic, there being such a mystery about the whole thing. If ultimately the truth is I and no one else, we should consider the value of atheism, but perhaps for a human being there will continually be a new stage emergence that is “other than what I am now,” at least until it's totally stablized. I heard a friend say the other day how much he wants to “get” integral–it isn't in his system now, at least not enough of it. It is “other,” and there is also jump off the personal line altogether.


At any rate, it's important to recognize that it could be just a case of different types as well, including different cultural types. 

David

I wanted to expand just a bit on my comment that I believe these traditions still have “a lot of work to do.”  I've been debating and dialoguing with traditional religionists for many years now.  I do not count myself among them anymore, and haven't for a long time.  But, from having been a Christian at one time (for a few years), and having debated and engaged with these folks for far longer, I am very aware of how resistant many folks are to change or to the “retranslation” and “archeology” I mentioned above.  I do not want to gloss this over.  Wilber's Orange Ceiling is not totally an imposition from without; it is, in part, self-imposed.  When I say that theistic traditions have a “language” that is subtle and flexible, I do not mean to overlook or downplay the dogmatism and conservativism that are also very real and present factors.  There IS a range of perspectives and teachings available within these traditions which is promising to me, which is why I'm sort of stressing honoring the potential that is already present in them, but admittedly they are still in the minority, and there is active resistance to them in some quarters.  But because they represent what I believe can be seen as authentic, deeply beautiful and meaningful flowerings in these spiritual lineages – developments which are infused with the unique fragrance of these traditions – I think they should be honored and assisted by folks in the Integral movement, not dismissed as aberrations or rejected just because Amber fundamentalists would also reject them.

hi bruce

I am very aware of how resistant many folks are to change or to the “retranslation” and “archeology” I mentioned above

me too - several christian friends have told me how much they are censured for trying to introduce progressive change into their church, and how much they have to moderate their language and phrasing in order to remain within the bounds of acceptability even in normal conversation. in my experience, the fear-based identification with existing rules and structures is a powerful inhibiting force against progressive change. this is not a comment on religion at all, rather a comment on human reactionary psychology and in-group dynamics in general.

i am dying to add more to this discussion - there are still important distinctions to be made,  it's just very busy in advance of the holyday! i wasn't implying that your position is  agnosticism - that was just one of a number of points i wanted to add to the discussion, like the picky ring-wraith i am ; )

and here's wishing a fulfilling and re-creational break to all the fine contributors to this blog (not to mention julian for starting it!), and peace, goodwill, and reason to all people here on middle-earth!

Hi, Adam, I look forward to your next post – after what is hopefully a refreshing and joyful holiday.  I've been running too, doing all the last-minute shopping that our consumeristic culture demands (but which, I admit, I also enjoy … or, at least, the fruits of which I enjoy:  the smiles and excitement from my son on Christmas morning.)

Warm wishes,

Bruce

P.S. All this talk of Middle Earth inspired me; I've rented LOTR to watch later this evening…

For anyone interested, Hokai and I are engaged in a related discussion over on his blog, The Four Horsemen, which discusses a recent dialogue that took place between the so-called New Atheists, Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett.

Well, Well, lots of great points here.

Adam: theism is the belief in the existence of a god or gods, and especially that one god created the universe and plays an active intervening part in, and has a personal relationship with, its creatures. period.

In most cases, theists would disagree with you. reducing their belief to only merely the “existence of god or gods” is short-sighted. and this isn't usually what theists debate or argue about with atheists. It's also the atheists mistake that that's what is being discussed.
It's reducing a set of meanings to only speaking about proof of existence. Proof of existence is a problem because we are not talking about using empirical proofs and atheists again make the mistake that theism is based in empiricism.

When we look at various writers of theistic ontologies, across the board, there is a great variety of the forms of God. From the Upanishads to even the early Greek writings to Spinoza…God is not necessarily described as omnipotent ect. There are very specific arguments  that these writers make and has nothing to do with proving the “existence” of God.

Many theological scholars do not go about trying to logically prove God's existence but rather debate moral implications as in what happens when we kill someone and why is this important? Atheists would just argue that it is immoral to kill, but do they have any logical arguments to say it is immoral? No, to them it is just wrong. Do they provide any rationality to something being immoral? I haven't seem too any atheists providing logical/rational implications to killing at least that is not popular or widespread. If I'm ignorant of those kind of things, it's because I haven't read anything about it yet. If there is, I would love to know.

hi lucidity !

Adam: theism is the belief in the existence of a god or gods, and especially that one god created the universe and plays an active intervening part in, and has a personal relationship with, its creatures. period.

In most cases, theists would disagree with you.

if they do not believe in (what is commonly understood by the term) god, then they are neither theists nor familiar with basic linguistic conventions. they should take it up with the oxford dictionary, or consider redefining their self-identity, because one or the other is mistaken. i didn't make the meaning of the word up. the word has a specific set of meanings, centring on explicit belief in god. if people want to redefine words in arbitrary ways, they are free to do so, but they are not free to avoid the ensuing vagueness, confusion, and dilution of meaning which is rife not only in mystical writing but in the population at large.

in discussing what exists and how we know, it is critical that we strive for clarity of language definition and usage, and strive for non-contradictory logical progression in our thinking. i'm after some lucidity here ; ) and theism is one of the words that is increasingly being covered with fluff. the theism/religion debate that is growing across several blogs here on zaadz is similarly accumulating alarming levels of fluff.

reducing their belief to only merely the “existence of god or gods” is short-sighted

setting up a straw-man argument and then personalising your comments based on that argument is not something i appreciate. and during the season of goodwill too… charming!

theists may believe a bunch of other things, none of which alter the criteria for being a theist or not.

and this isn't usually what theists debate or argue about with atheists. It's also the atheists mistake that that's what is being discussed.

i wouldn't know what theists and atheists usually debate about, (although i know for a fact that the existence/non-existence of god comes up now and again). how do you know? and how do you know what atheists think is being discussed?

you seem to know a lot. why don't you tell me what theism is ; )

i'm being facetiously picky here, but i'm just asking for basic critical thinking, without which we're voicing ungrounded opinions about feelings and impressions with no method for establishing common standards of identifying aspects of reality.

It's reducing a set of meanings to only speaking about proof of existence. Proof of existence is a problem because we are not talking about using empirical proofs and atheists again make the mistake that theism is based in empiricism.

i am an atheist, and i certainly don't think that theism is based in empiricism. or logic for that matter. i think it's based on erroneous thinking about causal relationships, and confusing numinous feelings with ontological reality based on cultural conditioning. please tell me what the non-empirical proof of god is, or for that matter any intelligible grounds for believing in god, however defined. please volunteer your definition of god also - i don't have one myself. i know some of the various concepts of god that are posited, but i have no definition of what god is.

When we look at various writers of theistic ontologies, across the board, there is a great variety of the forms of God.

none of them having an ontological basis. theistic ontology is tantamount to a contradiction in terms. ontology is the branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature of what exists, the nature of being. in the absence of evidence, it is a dubious exercise at best to talk about any “form of god” where there is no form of existent to talk about, and when other signifiers would be more appropriate.

From the Upanishads to even the early Greek writings to Spinoza…God is not necessarily described as omnipotent ect. There are very specific arguments  that these writers make and has nothing to do with proving the “existence” of God.

very specific arguments about what? and based on what? and why should i take them seriously? and on what grounds do they take seriously the notion of god in the first place? how long is a piece of string that doesn't exist? and what colour is it?

i'm well aware that much discourse about god is not referring to a mythic god out there believed in literally. that being understood, i think it would be to our distinct advantage if a different terminology were used to convey more clearly what is actually intended to be communicated.

i should also point out that the definition of theism mentions the existence of god or gods. omnipotence is not mentioned but is not excluded. although to know whether an entity is omnipotent i would have to be omniscient. hmmm. and if i were omniscient, not only would i qualify as a god, but i would also know everything that is going to happen in future, and if i knew that, then god would not be able to do anything other than what i foresee, so god could not be omnipotent. and if he's not omnipotent, then what kind of god is he? a bit omnipotent? really really powerful but not omnipotent?

again, i'm referring to the widely understood and believed form of god, not the incredibly nuanced and sophisticated forms/faces of god that more advanced thinkers attempt to promote while casting supercilious aspersions on the “regressive rational stage” atheists, and simultaneously seeking to avoid the processional effects of rationality by citing post-modern immunity…

Many theological scholars do not go about trying to logically prove God's existence but rather debate moral implications as in what happens when we kill someone and why is this important?

such questions being philosophical in nature. theology is the study of the nature of god and religious belief. are you suggesting that (many) theologists do not factor in to their deliberations on morals the question of god or an afterlife, or divine judgement? again, if someone does not believe in a personal god, creator or ruler of the universe etc, that person is not a theist. they may be deist or some other flavour of believer in a supreme being, but not theist.

Atheists would just argue that it is immoral to kill

that's an interesting absolute belief. not one i share, nor do any other atheists i know. while you're at it, please tell me what an atheist is, and why he/she would just argue that it is immoral to kill (kill what? when? always/never? why?)

but do they have any logical arguments to say it is immoral? No, to them it is just wrong. Do they provide any rationality to something being immoral?

why decide something is definitely a certain way, then ask if there is evidence to the contrary?

I haven't seem too any atheists providing logical/rational implications to killing at least that is not popular or widespread. If I'm ignorant of those kind of things, it's because I haven't read anything about it yet. If there is, I would love to know.

being “an atheist” is just one specific aspect of a personality. there are stupid immoral bigoted atheists, and stupid immoral and bigoted theists, similarly there are loving kind wise atheists and loving kind wise theists. it's like height - it has little relevance necessarily to one's personality or character as a whole, although there are significant psychological consequences to holding contradictory psycho-epistemological policies simultaneously, as theistic belief necessitates.

one of the most dangerous lies of theism is that human beings require supernatural moral guidance, without which we would be ethically adrift. if this is a belief you subscribe to, may i respectfully suggest that you consider possible prejudices against atheists (and theists while you're at it). then look at basic humanist philosophy (i mean complete philosophies which hold life as a value, proceeding from metaphysics through epistemology, ethics, politics and aesthetics). objectivist philosophy as described and expanded upon by nathaniel branden (in his later work especially) provides the most comprehensive and benevolent philosophy for human life on earth that i am aware of, with a clear ethical basis for human action.

both atheism and theism are simple binary and specific positions of belief, one based on reason, one based on faith. this is not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of semantic propriety. there is nothing for you to defend here, rationally at least.

best wishes

adam

Adam,

Good points. I'll get to you since I have a project that needs to be finished.
Will start vacation in Cabo in the new year, so until then I'll gather more thoughts about the the debate between atheism and theism. I'm not debating one side or the other though. Trying to point out  flaws in “Rationality” in terms of the Atheist requiring “proof of existence” as the basis for their argument against theistic religions.