Exploring Buddhism

September 25, 2014

I wonder at the change in human consciousness about 100,000 years ago when the cave paintings were made, and then again at the beginnings of civilization. Our brains seem right on the edge of survivability now - do many other animals also commit intentional suicide? And now we have climate change and the possibility of nuclear war. I am inclined to think that nature took a very strange turn with our consciousness (assuming it is a product of nature)- into the supernatural. After all, as far as we know, what other animal thinks of the uncanny or supernatural, or wants to fly through space to other planets?

I like to think of this in terms of what Sagan said that we are nature's way of coming to know itself. It is an experiment in self knowledge, so to speak. I just think our magnificent use of tools got out of hand with our developed self awareness. It outpaced our humanity, so to speak. And we are as you point out, suicidal. We're too smart on the right hand with the tools and technologies, and too dumb on the left with our interior development to not to pull the triggers and burn down the house we're living in. It's a race actually. Will we wake up in time? And is this environmental pressure we have created, nature in us causing pressure through us, in order to drive our evolution further? I tend to think so myself. We adapt out of necessity to survive, and we are creating the crisis to drive what is needed, which is our Awakening. If not, experiment over.

September 25, 2014

Meditation is to lead you to a knowledge of Self (or no-self) not experience of the self. There is a difference.

I suppose I see meditation as serving different purposes at different times. This is probably a semantic issue. I see the mystic experience that occurs during some meditation to be an experience of the self. I'm open to considering other ideas on that, though.

Yes, I agree with most of this in principle. It is what mystics have recognized since the beginning practically, that the self is an illusion. They realized that through stepping outside of it and seeing it. And now postmodernist thinkers are understanding, theoretically, that this is the case. There's a difference between knowing this in principle, and knowing it as the seat of your own awareness. Knowing it's the case theoretically doesn't mean you know what it is to see the world with a different set of eyes existentially.

I agree that intellectual knowledge isn't the same thing as experience. But I apply intellectual knowledge to interpreting my experiences when I think about them after the fact.

Given these two properties of mind,( attributing agency and constructing our selves through interaction with others), what happens in meditation where there is no "other" to reflect? What does it mean to grapple with the socially constructed self alone, by ourselves? Does our agency-attributing faculty go into overdrive in the absence of the "other"? Is this why meditation feels theistic to some? What is the mind actually doing?

It is moving beyond these constructed realities that we self-identify with. We begin to experience what we have always known, that we are not these things, not the objects we identify with the "me" that is not "you". Depending on what stage of development we are at what those objects are shifts outward into ever-widening, more inclusive spheres from the earlier tighter more exclusive spheres. In meditation we take a major leap outside our current level of self-sphere and see it from above, so to speak. We realize it is not who we are, because we are no longer looking out at the world through it, but standing outside of it looking at it. We realize that is not us because who is it then looking at it?

Can you clarify what you mean in the bolded above?

Ages and ages ago it seems, long before I started a meditation practice, I was looking at things like semiotics and evolutionary bio-cultural feed back loops and came up with this thread on this site dabbling in thoughts like this that began to break down what we normal presume as reality because of things like language and cultural programming and so forth. It's an interesting thread to look back and has some validity I was stumbling about trying to get at. What being said here in this thread really takes that and lets it fly: http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/15020-language-truth-god-and-humanity/#.VCK11fldWSo

Thanks for the link. That was a very interesting thread.

I believe today they are called in systems theory "self-amplifying loops" where consciousness gives birth to symbols which then magnifies consciousness. In other words, consciousness participates consciously in giving birth to self. We shall have some fun going down this rabbit hole I hope.

In social science we call the self-amplifying loop a "causal effect". I agree, symbols potentiate and amplify with the meaning that we attach to them. To the extent that the "self" consists of meanings that we construct, absorb, and amplify, we touch the truth of symbolic interactionism in that the self is symbolic. This idea is common in anthropology. When I was at UCLA, I took an anthropology class from Walter Goldschmidt (trivia: he was on Carlos Castenada's dissertation committee) whose life work was on the symbolic self. He said that the symbolic self was so powerful that a disruption to it could lead to suicide, and he gives cross-cultural examples of that.

Here is a summary of one of his other ideas:

"Tool-using hominids existed for three million years before they gave evidence that they had surrounded themselves with a cultural universe. To turn this corner they had not only to share understanding of the world but also to share their imagination and their sentiments. The former they did with language, the latter with ritual to which they harnessed the arts. Henceforward humanity has had to dwell in a dual universe - the physical reality and the symbolic world of its own creation."

In that other thread, you spent considerable energy delineating non dual, not-dual, dualism, and monism. What do you think of Goldschmidt's conception of the dual?

What is fascinating to me here, though, is what is *out* of consciousness; the subconscious. There are powerful forces within myself that I'm only dimly aware of. From time to time, they manifest to the point of my noticing them. It's like the mind has a mind of its own. Sometimes I think about the mystery of volition. How exactly do we decide when to sip that cup of coffee, which we do "without thinking"? When we space out in the car driving home from work, realizing that we made it home on autopilot, who/what was running the show? How many levels are there to consciousness? Is the deepest level truly uncontrollable? Is it knowable? Experience-able?

Meditation is our natural state. I once said to a group of people I was playing my singing bowls and other meditative instruments for, "I can't teach you how to meditate. You already know how"

You may think I'm a nut, but I've said the same thing to people who I was instructing in singing or playing bass/guitar.

. All meditation is is doing is take the discursive self-reflexive mind and moving it out of the way to see what you already see and already know at all times.

So is meditation about accessing that which we already know on some other level? Or do we actively create knowledge in a (meditative) conscious state?

Which brings me to the crux of the matter: consciousness. What the hell is it?

That's your problem right there. You're trying to see "it" as an object.

Actually, that's just a linguistic convention. Once you know about linguistic determinism, you're less susceptible to it. :-)

I think of consciousness as a verb; a process. But the question remains about the process. Remember my DMT experience? This was at the heart of it; I perceived the workings of consciousness (and still can't describe it worth a damn). I want to understand intellectually what I knew by experiencing it. Perhaps it can't be done...

The Self behind the self which can never be seen but Sees.

This ^^^! This is what I'm after--the self behind the self! Can it be accessed?

Yes, I call those images visions. I think that's what visions actually are, not hallucinations. Have you ever gone beyond those in meditation to the casual states?

I see that "causal" is one of Wilber's terms, and I'm not there yet in the book. Can you give a quick definition?

September 25, 2014

Just a quick response. First, I love your mind! I'm very much enjoying our discussion.

Secondly, I need to teach you how to use the quote function better. Here's a quick 'how to'. When you are in the response window after you chose quote to reply to someone, notice in the upper left of the screen there is an icon that says BBCode Mode when you hover over it with your mouse? Click on that. It will then convert it to the actual code the [ quote ] [ / quote ] stuff showing (I put spaces in there so it wouldn't format it to show you). All I do in response is highlight the first line with your name with all the time and stuff in it which ends in the close bracket ] , and then ctrl+c to copy it to the buffer. Then at the end of the section I wish to quote I add a [ /quote] (minus that space after the open bracket of course. I then past that first line I copied with your name at the beginning of an new section following my response to the previous one.

Here's an example you can see when you look at this post in the toggled BBCode Mode:

This is a test quote

See?

Have fun. I'll put some time into my response later. In the meantime, the Casual state question, read through this and we'll have some discussion coming back to it later. Of course, ask whatever questions you may have. https://www.integrallife.com/integral-post/stages-meditation

September 25, 2014

Just a quick response. First, I love your mind! I'm very much enjoying our discussion.

Trust me, the feeling is mutual!

Secondly, I need to teach you how to use the quote function better. Here's a quick 'how to'. When you are in the response window after you chose quote to reply to someone, notice in the upper left of the screen there is an icon that says BBCode Mode when you hover over it with your mouse? Click on that. It will then convert it to the actual code the [ quote ] [ / quote ] stuff showing (I put spaces in there so it wouldn't format it to show you). All I do in response is highlight the first line with your name with all the time and stuff in it which ends in the close bracket ] , and then ctrl+c to copy it to the buffer. Then at the end of the section I wish to quote I add a [ /quote] (minus that space after the open bracket of course. I then past that first line I copied with your name at the beginning of an new section following my response to the previous one.

Here's an example you can see when you look at this post in the toggled BBCode Mode:

This is a test quote

Thank you so much for explaining the mysteries of the quote!

Have fun. I'll put some time into my response later. In the meantime, the Casual state question, read through this and we'll have some discussion coming back to it later. Of course, ask whatever questions you may have. https://www.integrallife.com/integral-post/stages-meditation

I looked at that. I think it deserves its own thread if you're up for it. It might be more boring for you since you are so familiar with it though. Don't do it if it'll be boring.

September 25, 2014

Hmmm... sounds interesting. Things like that can take me sometimes a long time to figure out, and usually comes when you're not looking at it. In fact most junk usually can't be figured out by looking at it. I'll be curious to know what that was. Something I said?

I'm pretty sure it was this:

" The Self behind the self which can never be seen but Sees."

It's working itself out below my level of consciousness. When it's ready, it'll come to me. The trick is not to let, for lack of a better phrase, the mental aversion reaction, stop me.

I'm normally a fast processor, but sometimes it takes time. I don't even know what the disquiet is about right now.

September 26, 2014

Meditation is to lead you to a knowledge of Self (or no-self) not experience of the self. There is a difference.

I suppose I see meditation as serving different purposes at different times. This is probably a semantic issue. I see the mystic experience that occurs during some meditation to be an experience of the self. I'm open to considering other ideas on that, though.

Hey, you got the quotes fixed! Cool. Makes my job responding easier.

To your points above, I definitely agree. It's the whole person affected, both higher and lower. Everything is opened, and not just the higher more transcendent. Trust me, there is a major, very major thing going on for me right now since my brief retreat to the lake recently. A major "higher" level awareness opened for me, a shift to a new vista, so to speak. But the follow up to that was some deep personal work for me "on the ground" that I became ready to work on through that new openness I came to. It's hard to explain, but it's both awareness and knowledge of your psyche as well as you deep structure. And the two work together. Call that your soul, if you wish. Meditation heals as well as transforms beyond where you are at. Talk about your feedback loops!

Yes, I agree with most of this in principle. It is what mystics have recognized since the beginning practically, that the self is an illusion. They realized that through stepping outside of it and seeing it. And now postmodernist thinkers are understanding, theoretically, that this is the case. There's a difference between knowing this in principle, and knowing it as the seat of your own awareness. Knowing it's the case theoretically doesn't mean you know what it is to see the world with a different set of eyes existentially.

I agree that intellectual knowledge isn't the same thing as experience. But I apply intellectual knowledge to interpreting my experiences when I think about them after the fact.

Oh yes, to be sure. That's your stages of growth. You take higher level awareness, peak experiences, and then integrate them to your current understanding. Which is then itself informed by these higher levels, which leads to transformation of understanding to new stages of growth. It's all a process of what you could call accelerated growth. Growth happens just because of normal changes. But when you make it a discipline of exercise, hang on....

It is moving beyond these constructed realities that we self-identify with. We begin to experience what we have always known, that we are not these things, not the objects we identify with the "me" that is not "you". Depending on what stage of development we are at what those objects are shifts outward into ever-widening, more inclusive spheres from the earlier tighter more exclusive spheres. In meditation we take a major leap outside our current level of self-sphere and see it from above, so to speak. We realize it is not who we are, because we are no longer looking out at the world through it, but standing outside of it looking at it. We realize that is not us because who is it then looking at it?

Can you clarify what you mean in the bolded above?

Oh boy, I was hoping you'd just get it.

Okay I'll try here. The first part has to do with ego development. The "I", or ego, we look at is an object of self-identification; that which we call "me". What that is changes in our developmental stages of growth. In early childhood it is the body-self. This is me, as we touch our body. That is you as we touch the other. Then the "I" shifts to identification with the family, then later to friends and peers, then still later to group, then still later to community, then later to state, nation, etc. In more advanced stages, that self-identity moves to the global community, and then to all sentient life, then to the universe and all objects within it, then to the eternal itself. You see the ever-widened circle of "me"? The majority of people are stuck at the ethnocentric of group-identify stage of development. Each of the lower stages are increasingly exclusive. Each of the higher stages are increasingly inclusive.

As for the second bolded part, the set of eyes we look at the world through is invisible to us. It's the 'given' reality. We don't see those eyes, and we can't see them as an object itself. In meditation, you are able to see with a different set of eyes, and see the subject of the previous level. To put a phrase to this for you to ponder, I can't recall the name of the researcher who phrased this, but it nails it perfectly. "The subject of one level, becomes the object of the subject of the next level". Chew on that awhile. It make perfect sense. We cannot see the eyes we are looking out of, until we step out of that set of eyes. As Emerson said so damned well, "What we are, that only can we see".

I look forward to the "eureka" light going off.

I'm going to respond to the rest of this later. For tonight, I'm a little tired and need to relax some before bed. Hoping this little bit is helpful. Enjoying this with you.

Peace, my friend.

September 26, 2014

I believe today they are called in systems theory "self-amplifying loops" where consciousness gives birth to symbols which then magnifies consciousness. In other words, consciousness participates consciously in giving birth to self. We shall have some fun going down this rabbit hole I hope.

In social science we call the self-amplifying loop a "causal effect". I agree, symbols potentiate and amplify with the meaning that we attach to them. To the extent that the "self" consists of meanings that we construct, absorb, and amplify, we touch the truth of symbolic interactionism in that the self is symbolic. This idea is common in anthropology.

I'm going to inject something into here that will help in understanding what we're talking about in here. Without getting too complex there is a difference between symbols and signs, coming back to semiotics. This comes into play in psychology where the role of a symbol is transformational, and the role of the sign is translational. In other words the symbol points to what we are becoming, on a vertical trajectory, whereas the sign functions on the horizontal plane to help translate the world into our current awareness. Symbols open you to a yet unrealized awareness which is intuited for the most part, or briefly opened to in momentary peak experiences, in a sort of 'attractor' way, drawing one to a new level or stage realized by an emergence in the the new, an awakening as it were. Once that awakening has occurred and is relatively stable where you now begin operating at the new awareness, the symbol is done. You're there now. Then the symbol becomes a sign in a sense as it represents the current understanding and helps to translate the world for you in order to learn to integrate and stabilize the new reality. Then a new symbol arises to take you to the next level, which then becomes a sign, and so forth.

People conflate the terms together quite commonly using them interchangeably, in the way society and culture become conflated. But the context as described above usually helps to point to the meaning in the way its used. Then again, a lot a people don't understand the transformational meaning of the word, and they see the world as purely translational. That's how I try to use it for the most part though, taking transformation into account on a vertical plane, just as I differentiate between society as the external supporting structures, the infrastructure of a group of people, and culture as the shared interior spaces of values and ideas and truths.

When I was at UCLA, I took an anthropology class from Walter Goldschmidt (trivia: he was on Carlos Castenada's dissertation committee) whose life work was on the symbolic self. He said that the symbolic self was so powerful that a disruption to it could lead to suicide, and he gives cross-cultural examples of that.

Here is a summary of one of his other ideas:

"Tool-using hominids existed for three million years before they gave evidence that they had surrounded themselves with a cultural universe. To turn this corner they had not only to share understanding of the world but also to share their imagination and their sentiments. The former they did with language, the latter with ritual to which they harnessed the arts. Henceforward humanity has had to dwell in a dual universe - the physical reality and the symbolic world of its own creation."

In that other thread, you spent considerable energy delineating non dual, not-dual, dualism, and monism. What do you think of Goldschmidt's conception of the dual?

Such deep thoughts for so early into my first cup of tea!

I'll give it a try. I think both symbol and sign are being spoken about in what he is rightly pointing out. Language as he is referencing is the sign, translating the world, but when he speaks of ritual and the arts, I think it can be broken down a little further even though he is largely right. Breaking it down further I think there is that current-level 'we space' of culture that is translated and reinforced through ritual and art. But then there is the emergent aspect of a reaching towards novelty, the evolutionary impulse where ritual and art points to something yet to be realized that functions like the pull of the sun on a plant in its growth towards it. I'm not of course talking of improvements to the current system, which some call transformation but are really more simply revolutions, but entire shifts to entire new paradigms, transcending the current translational structures in favor of the new. I don't mean variations on a theme, a new way to play the same old pop song, but real novelty, something beyond the current system itself in how it operates.

If you're familiar with Schopenhauer, he spoke of 'art for art's sake', as to differentiate it from art for entertainment. There is playing of cultural music, folk music and dance, cultural ritual such as holiday celebrations and various rites of passages. Those are seen as "symbolic", and they are, but not in the transformational sense. But then there is the use of these symbolic actions when placed on a vertical plane act as transformational. It is the 'spiritual' intention, or impulse that climbs these as rungs on a ladder, where art expresses the unrealized, intuitively, through 'faith' as it truly operates, where ritual becomes a tool towards interior development, opening the listener and the performer towards an awakening. This often results, in fact pretty much always results in breaking away from the established norm, the conventional use and understanding of art and ritual. So 'art for art's sake', has a lot of depth to its meaning. It's not translational, not speaking to the current cultural and our ties with it, but transformational, unmooring us and setting us free. Oh brave souls we that we are!

I hope some of this makes sense so early in the morning for me. If not, I'll revisit it later. I'm probably going to break now as this is running into my meditation time I wish to do this morning. I'll finish my response in third posting later today or tonight as time permits. Later...

September 26, 2014

Trust me, there is a major, very major thing going on for me right now since my brief retreat to the lake recently. A major "higher" level awareness opened for me, a shift to a new vista, so to speak. But the follow up to that was some deep personal work for me "on the ground" that I became ready to work on through that new openness I came to. It's hard to explain, but it's both awareness and knowledge of your psyche as well as you deep structure. And the two work together. Call that your soul, if you wish. Meditation heals as well as transforms beyond where you are at. Talk about your feedback loops!

Do tell! I'd be delighted to hear more about this if you're comfortable sharing.

Oh boy, I was hoping you'd just get it.

I just needed clarification. I'm wary of just assuming that I know what you mean lest we build a house of cards. I've seen threads go down blind alleys because someone assumed a shared definition where there wasn't one. Wouldn't want that...

September 26, 2014

I'm going to inject something into here that will help in understanding what we're talking about in here. Without getting too complex there is a difference between symbols and signs, coming back to semiotics. This comes into play in psychology where the role of a symbol is transformational, and the role of the sign is translational. In other words the symbol points to what we are becoming, on a vertical trajectory, whereas the sign functions on the horizontal plane to help translate the world into our current awareness.

Agreed. I tend to think the signified (meaning) is more important than the sign. One of my favorite works at the intersection of social theory and semiotics is Roland Barthes "Mythologies".

If you're familiar with Schopenhauer, he spoke of 'art for art's sake', as to differentiate it from art for entertainment. There is playing of cultural music, folk music and dance, cultural ritual such as holiday celebrations and various rites of passages. Those are seen as "symbolic", and they are, but not in the transformational sense.

But then there is the use of these symbolic actions when placed on a vertical plane act as transformational. It is the 'spiritual' intention, or impulse that climbs these as rungs on a ladder, where art expresses the unrealized, intuitively, through 'faith' as it truly operates, where ritual becomes a tool towards interior development, opening the listener and the performer towards an awakening. This often results, in fact pretty much always results in breaking away from the established norm, the conventional use and understanding of art and ritual. So 'art for art's sake', has a lot of depth to its meaning. It's not translational, not speaking to the current cultural and our ties with it, but transformational, unmooring us and setting us free. Oh brave souls we that we are!

I'm going to challenge this is bit. With regards to the bolded statement, it sounds like you are talking along the lines of unilinear cultural evolution; but cultural evolution doesn't always and inevitably result in an upward trajectory. For example, some hunter gather tribes are still hunter gatherer tribes, with the culture and symbol systems that go with that. There is nothing inevitable about progress. Also ritual can lead to "ritualism" rather than progress, where rituals are mindlessly repeated in obedience to the status quo. Some "Pure Land" Buddhism reminds me of ritualism.

So while I agree with you that progress can happen in the way you are describing, I would also say that this is not inevitable or guaranteed.

Looking forward to your posts, as always

September 26, 2014

Agreed. I tend to think the signified (meaning) is more important than the sign. One of my favorite works at the intersection of social theory and semiotics is Roland Barthes "Mythologies".

I was going to ask you if you're familiar with Roland Barthes. Apparently you are.

If you're familiar with Schopenhauer, he spoke of 'art for art's sake', as to differentiate it from art for entertainment. There is playing of cultural music, folk music and dance, cultural ritual such as holiday celebrations and various rites of passages. Those are seen as "symbolic", and they are, but not in the transformational sense.

But then there is the use of these symbolic actions when placed on a vertical plane act as transformational. It is the 'spiritual' intention, or impulse that climbs these as rungs on a ladder, where art expresses the unrealized, intuitively, through 'faith' as it truly operates, where ritual becomes a tool towards interior development, opening the listener and the performer towards an awakening. This often results, in fact pretty much always results in breaking away from the established norm, the conventional use and understanding of art and ritual. So 'art for art's sake', has a lot of depth to its meaning. It's not translational, not speaking to the current cultural and our ties with it, but transformational, unmooring us and setting us free. Oh brave souls we that we are!

I'm going to challenge this is bit. With regards to the bolded statement, it sounds like you are talking along the lines of unilinear cultural evolution; but cultural evolution doesn't always and inevitably result in an upward trajectory. For example, some hunter gather tribes are still hunter gatherer tribes, with the culture and symbol systems that go with that. There is nothing inevitable about progress. Also ritual can lead to "ritualism" rather than progress, where rituals are mindlessly repeated in obedience to the status quo. Some "Pure Land" Buddhism reminds me of ritualism.

So while I agree with you that progress can happen in the way you are describing, I would also say that this is not inevitable or guaranteed.

Looking forward to your posts, as always

I didn't want to get out of sequence in my responses, as I still have more to add to your last one. I'll just quickly inject here for clarification, I'm not speaking of cultural transformation when I was speaking of symbols, but rather individuals. I was speaking in terms of psychology, and the transformation of the individual. Symbols in this sense are as Carl Jung used them, "symbols of our transformation". I am aware that cultures don't necessarily evolve through its use of symbols. I was trying to make a distinction in terms, how that how a culture uses a symbol is not necessarily on a transformational trajectory.

How cultures evolve is another matter. I would place that as far as the leading edge of consciousness, of higher stages of consciousness reaching a point of critical mass, which some call the "tipping point", generally around 10%. Once that happens, many in the middle begin to move and shift towards that and the center of gravity of a culture shifts. That happens through influence. It is through individual transformation, that leads to group consciousness shifting. Where it gets really interesting on that point then is that how that influences and shapes the form of governance of the collective. If you look at our country in the U.S., the center of gravity of culture is around the ethnocentric traditionalist stage. But wrapped around it is a system of Modernity and Postmodernity, which acts as a container for it. Without that container the ethnocentric mass would bring down the rest of culture to its level ,which is precisely what the Christian Right had hoped to accomplish starting in the 1980's.

So what you have now because of this current container of Modernity is a traditionalist culture operating in a Modern and Postmodern system, and thankfully never really able to be true to form. We'd be dead already, or at the least repressed into hiding. This also means that the traditionalist is out of joint with themselves in many regards, believing in the mythic system in a Modernist/Postmodernist reality. One wonders how someone can be rational culturally, yet believe in myth as fact. It's very schizophrenic mess actually for them. No wonder we're so neurotic as a culture, for god's sake. Now wonder they are spiritually disconnected, praising the name of a God they don't know, which exists as a symbolic contradiction in conflicting systems.

Anyway, this may be straying too far afield, but it's all interesting stuff to look at and understand. I hope this clarifies a bit of what I was trying to say. As I said, I was just waking up as I typed that this morning. Yep, now we're going down the rabbit hole.

September 26, 2014

Agreed. I tend to think the signified (meaning) is more important than the sign. One of my favorite works at the intersection of social theory and semiotics is Roland Barthes "Mythologies".
I was going to ask you if you're familiar with Roland Barthes. Apparently you are.

If you're familiar with Schopenhauer, he spoke of 'art for art's sake', as to differentiate it from art for entertainment. There is playing of cultural music, folk music and dance, cultural ritual such as holiday celebrations and various rites of passages. Those are seen as "symbolic", and they are, but not in the transformational sense.

But then there is the use of these symbolic actions when placed on a vertical plane act as transformational. It is the 'spiritual' intention, or impulse that climbs these as rungs on a ladder, where art expresses the unrealized, intuitively, through 'faith' as it truly operates, where ritual becomes a tool towards interior development, opening the listener and the performer towards an awakening. This often results, in fact pretty much always results in breaking away from the established norm, the conventional use and understanding of art and ritual. So 'art for art's sake', has a lot of depth to its meaning. It's not translational, not speaking to the current cultural and our ties with it, but transformational, unmooring us and setting us free. Oh brave souls we that we are!

I'm going to challenge this is bit. With regards to the bolded statement, it sounds like you are talking along the lines of unilinear cultural evolution; but cultural evolution doesn't always and inevitably result in an upward trajectory. For example, some hunter gather tribes are still hunter gatherer tribes, with the culture and symbol systems that go with that. There is nothing inevitable about progress. Also ritual can lead to "ritualism" rather than progress, where rituals are mindlessly repeated in obedience to the status quo. Some "Pure Land" Buddhism reminds me of ritualism.

So while I agree with you that progress can happen in the way you are describing, I would also say that this is not inevitable or guaranteed.

Looking forward to your posts, as always

I didn't want to get out of sequence in my responses, as I still have more to add to your last one. I'll just quickly inject here for clarification, I'm not speaking of cultural transformation when I was speaking of symbols, but rather individuals. I was speaking in terms of psychology, and the transformation of the individual. Symbols in this sense are as Carl Jung used them, "symbols of our transformation". I am aware that cultures don't necessarily evolve through its use of symbols. I was trying to make a distinction in terms, how that how a culture uses a symbol is not necessarily on a transformational trajectory.

How cultures evolve is another matter. I would place that as far as the leading edge of consciousness, of higher stages of consciousness reaching a point of critical mass, which some call the "tipping point", generally around 10%. Once that happens, many in the middle begin to move and shift towards that and the center of gravity of a culture shifts. That happens through influence. It is through individual transformation, that leads to group consciousness shifting. Where it gets really interesting on that point then is that how that influences and shapes the form of governance of the collective. If you look at our country in the U.S., the center of gravity of culture is around the ethnocentric traditionalist stage. But wrapped around it is a system of Modernity and Postmodernity, which acts as a container for it. Without that container the ethnocentric mass would bring down the rest of culture to its level ,which is precisely what the Christian Right had hoped to accomplish starting in the 1980's.

So what you have now because of this current container of Modernity is a traditionalist culture operating in a Modern and Postmodern system, and thankfully never really able to be true to form. We'd be dead already, or at the least repressed into hiding. This also means that the traditionalist is out of joint with themselves in many regards, believing in the mythic system in a Modernist/Postmodernist reality. One wonders how someone can be rational culturally, yet believe in myth as fact. It's very schizophrenic mess actually for them. No wonder we're so neurotic as a culture, for god's sake. Now wonder they are spiritually disconnected, praising the name of a God they don't know, which exists as a symbolic contradiction in conflicting systems.

Anyway, this may be straying too far afield, but it's all interesting stuff to look at and understand. I hope this clarifies a bit of what I was trying to say. As I said, I was just waking up as I typed that this morning. Yep, now we're going down the rabbit hole.

That was all beautifully put. Thanks for the clarification. I'll stop posting and let you catch up.

September 26, 2014

What is fascinating to me here, though, is what is *out* of consciousness; the subconscious. There are powerful forces within myself that I'm only dimly aware of. From time to time, they manifest to the point of my noticing them. It's like the mind has a mind of its own. Sometimes I think about the mystery of volition. How exactly do we decide when to sip that cup of coffee, which we do "without thinking"? When we space out in the car driving home from work, realizing that we made it home on autopilot, who/what was running the show? How many levels are there to consciousness? Is the deepest level truly uncontrollable? Is it knowable? Experience-able?

Picking up where I left off from, I think I need to write a book. That's all I have to say.

Your mind is truly interested. It's more than that of course. You thirst to penetrate this stuff, to lay it all out in maps. That's where to look, to the source of that thirst.

As to the above, transcend and include (a term I know you're going to hear a lot reading Wilber). All of these shortcuts our minds take are ways in which we filter through and sort out all the data that hits it constantly. The little circuits that process data would go on overload if we cognitively tried to grapple with it. We'd short-circuit. But the subconscious mind is aware of everything. In fact it knows these "answers" to things for ourselves our cognitive, linguistic minds can't see/filter out. All manner of filters going on there; data that doesn't fit our current models of reality (consensus consciousness), personal fears and anxieties, emotional capacities, linguistic structures, whatever.

Here's where I see meditation coming into play. When we quite the discursive active mind and just relax and defocus, we begin to feel this knowledge, this information begin to surface to the conscious mind. If we trust it, step off the edge of that cliff, we find, well, revelation! It's very powerful. It can be experienced as a profound existential release into Freedom, the experience of God. As well it is, frankly. Why? Because we are connected to the whole world. We evolved from it, and are part of it. It arouse in us, and is us. I liken it to the knowledge of the world that an animal has, or an infant. Simple. Non-discursive. Non-philosophical. Non-analytical, non-judgmental. Just Being.

But the whopping big difference is unlike the infant or the friendly cow in the field, you are self-reflexively aware. You are not fused to the ecosystem as blinking eyes and impulsive limbs in search of food and survival. You are mentally awake. But here's the thing. When we are embedded in our egoic mind, we are cut off from our existential being and our primal self, our connection to and issuance forth from Ground. When we set aside that conscious mode of being and make our conscious mode of being an awareness of our prior Self, then we are indeed more than the naive slumbering innocence of an infant fused to his mother's breast. We are awakened consciously as God. We have full Self awareness of who and what we are before and beyond this illusory system of mental objects we identify with and call "me" in contrast to the "other", or "not me".

. All meditation is is doing is take the discursive self-reflexive mind and moving it out of the way to see what you already see and already know at all times.

So is meditation about accessing that which we already know on some other level? Or do we actively create knowledge in a (meditative) conscious state?

Yes to the first question, as I seemed to have just explained a moment ago. I wouldn't say we actively create knowledge in meditation, as much as we are exposed to it and become aware of it. We more form a thought our concept around it, but its in response to an experience, or an exposure to something. You can call that gaining insight and wisdom. That is very much what it is about!

I think of consciousness as a verb; a process. But the question remains about the process. Remember my DMT experience? This was at the heart of it; I perceived the workings of consciousness (and still can't describe it worth a damn). I want to understand intellectually what I knew by experiencing it. Perhaps it can't be done...

You gain insight into yourself through repeated exposure to it. You gain insight into the nature of things. I think the difference is that you will hopefully find is that the value of modeling these things is only of value in trying to talk about it with others who aren't aware of it. For you to understand or process and know it for yourself, you'll find that at its most elaborate or eloquent these models are at their very best like a two-dimensional model of the universe made out of toothpicks, versus being thrust into open space swallowing the universe in a single gulp. No model can impart that.

The Self behind the self which can never be seen but Sees.

This ^^^! This is what I'm after--the self behind the self! Can it be accessed?

Of course it can be accessed. It's who you already are. You just have to pull back the veil and let it out as you see yourself without judgement or fear. You become who you truly are, which is not all you think about yourself.

Yes, I call those images visions. I think that's what visions actually are, not hallucinations. Have you ever gone beyond those in meditation to the casual states?

I see that "causal" is one of Wilber's terms, and I'm not there yet in the book. Can you give a quick definition?

I gave you the link, and by all means I see no reason we can't discuss that in this thread here. It does tie into it. So ask away.

OK, I'm done responding finally. You can go ahead now.

September 27, 2014

Picking up where I left off from, I think I need to write a book.

I encourage you to do so.

You thirst to penetrate this stuff, to lay it all out in maps.

Yes, I want to map it all out, play in the data, and giggle in the face of the infinite. All true. Deeply true.

Here's where I see meditation coming into play. When we quite the discursive active mind and just relax and defocus, we begin to feel this knowledge, this information begin to surface to the conscious mind. If we trust it, step off the edge of that cliff, we find, well, revelation! It's very powerful.

The stepping off the cliff is the real trick, isn't it? And once we step off one, we know it's cliffs all the way down.

Related thought: I have had enough of revelation, I need meaning.

You gain insight into yourself through repeated exposure to it. You gain insight into the nature of things. I think the difference is that you will hopefully find is that the value of modeling these things is only of value in trying to talk about it with others who aren't aware of it. For you to understand or process and know it for yourself, you'll find that at its most elaborate or eloquent these models are at their very best like a two-dimensional model of the universe made out of toothpicks, versus being thrust into open space swallowing the universe in a single gulp. No model can impart that.

True that. But I do seek models. Perhaps I do want to be able to explain it to others, because I think it's valuable. But the reason I can't is the same reason the Tao cannot be told. It can only be felt, only be known. I need to accept that, I suppose.

Of course it can be accessed. It's who you already are. You just have to pull back the veil and let it out as you see yourself without judgement or fear.

Actually I do this with relative ease. It's the matter of moving forward/beyond that bedevils me.

I gave you the link, and by all means I see no reason we can't discuss that in this thread here. It does tie into it. So ask away.

I actually have quite a bit to say on this. I need some time to gather my thoughts--will post later.

September 27, 2014

You thirst to penetrate this stuff, to lay it all out in maps.

Yes, I want to map it all out, play in the data, and giggle in the face of the infinite. All true. Deeply true.

Well, they're useful to be sure. I certainly am using maps when I try to talk about this, and to help me understand for myself. But the saying goes that the maps of the terrain are not the terrain itself. It's like reading about the ocean, knowing all the fact and figures and data, but never once visiting it. What you gain in understanding simply walking into it and falling face down in it without any books in hand will tell you more than all the literature ever written about it in one instant.

Here's where I see meditation coming into play. When we quite the discursive active mind and just relax and defocus, we begin to feel this knowledge, this information begin to surface to the conscious mind. If we trust it, step off the edge of that cliff, we find, well, revelation! It's very powerful.

The stepping off the cliff is the real trick, isn't it? And once we step off one, we know it's cliffs all the way down.

No actually, we see there was no cliff ever there at all. It was simply how we perceived the unknown with our projected fear. Doing this has actually taught me what "faith" really means, and it's not that "just believe in this doctrine" crap. It's trusting you won't die when you walk through that door. Your subconscious already knows what to do. You just have to let go and allow. In fact, I always say the meditation is the practice of learning how to simply allow. It's just that.

Related thought: I have had enough of revelation, I need meaning.

By revelation, I mean the Wisdom you already know. The meaning follows because you're listening to yourself, finally.

You gain insight into yourself through repeated exposure to it. You gain insight into the nature of things. I think the difference is that you will hopefully find is that the value of modeling these things is only of value in trying to talk about it with others who aren't aware of it. For you to understand or process and know it for yourself, you'll find that at its most elaborate or eloquent these models are at their very best like a two-dimensional model of the universe made out of toothpicks, versus being thrust into open space swallowing the universe in a single gulp. No model can impart that.

True that. But I do seek models. Perhaps I do want to be able to explain it to others, because I think it's valuable. But the reason I can't is the same reason the Tao cannot be told. It can only be felt, only be known. I need to accept that, I suppose.

Oh, I love models too, if you can't tell! But the thing you and I and any like us have to watch out for is that we see them as telling us the 'answers'. They don't work like that, and never will. They are good as long as they are useful. They are not the truth itself, which is in effect looking for answers outside of ourselves, looking for authorities to trust in lieu of knowing ourselves. Easy to do!

September 27, 2014

Of course it can be accessed. It's who you already are. You just have to pull back the veil and let it out as you see yourself without judgement or fear.

Actually I do this with relative ease. It's the matter of moving forward/beyond that bedevils me.

You do? I find this like those layers of the onion. Whenever I feel like I have, there's yet another clinging to the ego I find, another lack of trust, another contraction, another holdout.

Just accept it's a process that goes on and on. You may have moments of freedom of letting go, but you'll always come back to yet more work to do. Never be discouraged about that, but welcome it open faced.

I gave you the link, and by all means I see no reason we can't discuss that in this thread here. It does tie into it. So ask away.

I actually have quite a bit to say on this. I need some time to gather my thoughts--will post later.

Excellent. I hope all this is helping you on your quest. Take what resonates with you and make it your own. I look forward to your thoughts.

September 27, 2014

Excellent. I hope all this is helping you on your quest. Take what resonates with you and make it your own. I look forward to your thoughts.

Actually I have a question that I hope you don't mind my asking. I'm 6 months into deconversion, and sometimes that process seems to get in the way of what I'm trying to do. What was it like for you at 6 months, and how is it different now?

September 27, 2014

Excellent. I hope all this is helping you on your quest. Take what resonates with you and make it your own. I look forward to your thoughts.

Actually I have a question that I hope you don't mind my asking. I'm 6 months into deconversion, and sometimes that process seems to get in the way of what I'm trying to do. What was it like for you at 6 months, and how is it different now?

I suppose I should ask as a starting point to respond what is it you're trying to do? My own history is a very long arch. It didn't happen abruptly but was rather a long process, in various stages. I moved from being very active in a fundamentalist version of the faith to tamer more mainstream versions, which never really took hold. I still believed but it was back-burnered for several years until I finally had a realization there were others ways to understand the big existential questions without the Church holding the answers in its palm, which I wanted nothing to do with as it was all pretty limp. That's when I became free to put my face into those questions and began my participation on this site shortly after that, which has been a part of the process for me now going on 10 years, believe it or not. Where I am I today itself was a process of continual work, which you got a hint at in that earlier post of mine I link you to. So there really wasn't a 'date' I can look back at as the day it happened in order to know where 6 months lays.

To answer however how is it different for me now then where I really began to stick my face into the whole question of God (and not just my relationship with the church, which was another point of major things looked at earlier), well, it's hard to put into words easily. I've made peace with all of it and am able to comfortably reclaim the baby from the bathwater and build on it. As I mentioned earlier I dropped trying to label myself because those only served a purpose for the time for me in order to draw a boundary around what I would allow and disallow for myself as far as beliefs go. I became very rationalistic, very much a 'where's the evidence' sort of instance in order to push away from the mythic claims of religion. But that proved extremely limited and focused and required me to ignore the bigger questions which still loomed large due to the fact I had begun my entire religious journey following a couple Satori experiences when I was 18 (I briefly describe those here: http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/19243-the-doctrine-of-hell/page-11?p=318390#entry318390 ).

So I identified as a 'spiritual atheist' and tried to make that work for me as a self-identity to get around those those feelings of hypocrisy I would have as on the one hand I was championing reason as the tool to ultimate truth, and yet having these profound religious experiences happen when I would sit in the back yard for instance and a gust of wind would wash up to me, pulling me into it as I had experienced God within my religion context. Then when I finally started an actual meditation practice and entered into that experience fully, the depth of what that was went all the way back to my original experiences when I was 18. The questions of God or no God became moot. Atheism was not a question, nor was theism. They were both moved beyond now, and still are in where I am at now, in what I'm exposed to.

The challenge is, as I heard Deirde comment that it felt "too theistic" is something I can understand. It's like those moments in the backyard as I was calling myself an atheist and yet experiencing "God", in how I associated it previously in my religion experience. I look at this way, both theism and atheism are theologies. They are the minds way to think about the Ultimate, or the Infinite, or the Absolute. I came up with a saying about a year ago I shared on my Facebook page and got into a several month discussion that riled up a friend of mine on there who is going for his doctorate in theology in a very liberal progressive Christian branch (which I respect to a point). I started a discussion with him posting on my wall, "Theology is the mind's last ditch attempt to understand God before it fails, and does."

I see atheism as doing the same thing as theism in their theologies, just in the negative instead of the positive. So for me, the questions answer themselves in direct experience. What we choose to call it is the only question that remains after the fact of it, not the validity of the arguments for or against it beforehand. Both to me are interesting arguments to listen to, but are ultimately unqualified and disqualified from making any meaningful pronouncements, like someone arguing for or against the moons of Jupiter without ever actually looking through the telescope. If someone speaks of no-God having actual transrational experience, that's meaningful. If someone speaks of God having actual transrational experience, that's also meaningful. But I don't think either would insist that understanding is the Truth!, but rather simply meaningful ways to talk about it, which they are at that point.

I have no idea of this answers anything to what you asked, but take from it what you will. So, what are your thoughts about the book so far?

September 27, 2014

Excellent. I hope all this is helping you on your quest. Take what resonates with you and make it your own. I look forward to your thoughts.

Actually I have a question that I hope you don't mind my asking. I'm 6 months into deconversion, and sometimes that process seems to get in the way of what I'm trying to do. What was it like for you at 6 months, and how is it different now?

I suppose I should ask as a starting point to respond what is it you're trying to do? My own history is a very long arch. It didn't happen abruptly but was rather a long process, in various stages. I moved from being very active in a fundamentalist version of the faith to tamer more mainstream versions, which never really took hold. I still believed but it was back-burnered for several years until I finally had a realization there were others ways to understand the big existential questions without the Church holding the answers in its palm, which I wanted nothing to do with as it was all pretty limp. That's when I became free to put my face into those questions and began my participation on this site shortly after that, which has been a part of the process for me now going on 10 years, believe it or not. Where I am I today itself was a process of continual work, which you got a hint at in that earlier post of mine I link you to. So there really wasn't a 'date' I can look back at as the day it happened in order to know where 6 months lays.

To answer however how is it different for me now then where I really began to stick my face into the whole question of God (and not just my relationship with the church, which was another point of major things looked at earlier), well, it's hard to put into words easily. I've made peace with all of it and am able to comfortably reclaim the baby from the bathwater and build on it. As I mentioned earlier I dropped trying to label myself because those only served a purpose for the time for me in order to draw a boundary around what I would allow and disallow for myself as far as beliefs go. I became very rationalistic, very much a 'where's the evidence' sort of instance in order to push away from the mythic claims of religion. But that proved extremely limited and focused and required me to ignore the bigger questions which still loomed large due to the fact I had begun my entire religious journey following a couple Satori experiences when I was 18 (I briefly describe those here: http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/19243-the-doctrine-of-hell/page-11?p=318390#entry318390 ).

So I identified as a 'spiritual atheist' and tried to make that work for me as a self-identity to get around those those feelings of hypocrisy I would have as on the one hand I was championing reason as the tool to ultimate truth, and yet having these profound religious experiences happen when I would sit in the back yard for instance and a gust of wind would wash up to me, pulling me into it as I had experienced God within my religion context. Then when I finally started an actual meditation practice and entered into that experience fully, the depth of what that was went all the way back to my original experiences when I was 18. The questions of God or no God became moot. Atheism was not a question, nor was theism. They were both moved beyond now, and still are in where I am at now, in what I'm exposed to.

The challenge is, as I heard Deirde comment that it felt "too theistic" is something I can understand. It's like those moments in the backyard as I was calling myself an atheist and yet experiencing "God", in how I associated it previously in my religion experience. I look at this way, both theism and atheism are theologies. They are the minds way to think about the Ultimate, or the Infinite, or the Absolute. I came up with a saying about a year ago I shared on my Facebook page and got into a several month discussion that riled up a friend of mine on there who is going for his doctorate in theology in a very liberal progressive Christian branch (which I respect to a point). I started a discussion with him posting on my wall, "Theology is the mind's last ditch attempt to understand God before it fails, and does." I see atheism as doing the same thing, trying to do the same thing as theology, just in the negative instead of the positive. So for me, the questions answer themselves in direct experience. What we choose to call it is the only question that remains after the fact of it, not the validity of the arguments for or against it beforehand. Both to me are unqualified and disqualified from making pronouncements, like someone arguing for or against the moons of Jupiter without ever actually looking through the telescope.

I have no idea of this answers anything to what you asked, but take from it what you will. So, what are your thoughts about the book so far?

Thanks for your response, it is appreciated. "What I'm trying to do" is to progress through meditation and remain an atheist--the "feels theistic" thing is sometimes a challenge. I too had an atypical, lengthy deconversion. I don't have a day I can point to either, but joining this site 6 months ago was the nail in the coffin. Trivia: I joined ExC because of the Panentheism thread!

RE: Book: I plan to do some more reading today, but I'm in the introduction. He likes to build academic straw men and knock them down. His use of the essentialist Carol Gilligan to stand in for the whole of feminism seems odd, but it's nice he's engaging with feminist theory at all. I'll have more to say at the end of the day, I think.

September 27, 2014

Do you reach the causal states?

On the stages of meditation, specifically causal states:

Looking at this article became an exercise in translating my experience into someone else's framework. I've done the best I can.

It appears that most of my meditation is Awareness Meditation. His description of the Psychic level rings true. The Subtle makes sense also.

The causal level, which you asked about, is more of a challenge. In his description of it, Wilber mentions things that to me are quite distinct and don't necessarily go together in the same experience. Maybe he means that any of of these signifies a causal state, not all of them together.

I do see lights and images (in the mind's eye) but I don't get any Deity forms--which I am grateful for, somehow. I don't see/feel a "silvery fullness" but do experience what I call Void and what he calls a "numinous night". I'm confused by his use of the terms God and Godhead.

The soul, or separate-self sense, disappears, and God or separate Deity form disappears, because both—soul and God—collapse into formless Godhead. Both soul and God disappear into the Supreme Identity.

I think there are some semantic issues for me with this. Do I lose a separate self-sense? Yes and no. I'm not completely obliterating the self; there is still a sense of my conscious awareness, the experiencer. But I do feel profoundly part of the universe. I tend not to interpret absolute love, compassion, understanding, and interconnectedness with the word "God" any more, but I feel those things. Do I disappear into the Supreme Identity? I guess not because I don't know what that refers to. I have "become one" with the universal life flow, for lack of a better term, but is that "Supreme Identity?"

So in answer to your question have I reached the causal states of meditation I would have to say "I don't know" because the criteria aren't clear to me. He uses a different language of experience than I do. It's hard to know if we're referring to the same thing or not. Here's an example of that from the Nondual level:

You see that Emptiness appears or manifests itself as Form, and that Form has as its essence Emptiness

I think of the same thing in terms of yin and yang and mutual definition. In this case, however, I can easily see what he means. With the causal level, it is more murky.

I really related to this:

In Dzogchen, this is the recognition of mind’s true nature. All things, in all worlds, are self-liberated as they arise. All things are like sunlight on the water of a pond. It all shimmers. It is all empty. It is all light. It is all full, and it is all fulfilled. And the world goes on its ordinary way, and nobody notices at all.

And lastly, if you still remember, why were you wondering about the causal states?

Will post about the book later,

September 27, 2014

Thanks for your response, it is appreciated. "What I'm trying to do" is to progress through meditation and remain an atheist--the "feels theistic" thing is sometimes a challenge.

What is it that feels theistic to you? You obviously have some experiences that evoke this. So what I find noteworthy in this is a pregiven criteria that it must not be theistic in nature. If you stop and think about that for a minute it could be reinterpreted to say I am looking for insights beyond what I can realize at this point, but it must not violate what I already believe. By setting a boundary around something, we make it impossible to explore beyond what we already have set the limits to.

I'll put it another way, I believe the fear that exists is that if one has a theistic experience within meditation, a sort of "face to face" with God (I'll explain that in a minute), that they might go running back to being a mythic-literal believer, that you'll now have to buy into the whole Bible is God's word, Noah's Ark, 2nd coming, judgment day sort of beliefs again. Believe me, I get that. But the whole thing I said about trust is very much what is needed. You're not lobotomizing yourself on the meditation mat! You're coming into it with a better understanding of these things, we know and understand what mythology is, what archetypes are, we understand psychology, we understand psychotherapy, we understand state experiences, we understand brain function, etc. So if what you are experiencing in meditation takes the form of deities, or angles, or some form of 'corporeal' manifestation that you interact with, you're not going to suddenly go, "Oh my god! Jesus is real! Now I have to be a Christian again!". I think for some people that might happen because they don't feel stable enough yet in order to expose themselves to these subtle-level experiences - which these in fact are. So that's fine too, and I can see them not want to come anywhere close to exposing themselves to that.

In my own experience that did happen in meditation, and my first reaction was trying to push it away, not wanting to look at it. But I did, and it's not a problem at all. In fact, its entirely relative. My comment to myself at that point was to say that I can certainly see how someone at the mythic level of thinking could take such an experience as a literal encounter with a deity. Yet I didn't take it that way. In my experience having a 2nd person experience like this in subtle-level meditation is helpful in a great many regards. The purpose of that is ultimately for you to become that form you are projecting. The 'guru' you meet in meditation, your 'guide' as it were (Jung speaks of this a lot), is in essence your subconscious Self trying to help your conscious self come to know yourself. The guru is a guide, and you meet your inner guru, who then helps you to move beyond your small separate self into your higher realized self. The guru is to teach you to become the Guru yourself. These are all 2nd person perspectives that happen at the subtle level. At the causal level you really move into 1st person perspectives. In the nondual you freely move from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person perspectives unproblematically. I have no problem believing in God, as well as not believing in God. It depends which perspective I assume. Those are all relative positions which all bring value.

There's something else for the time being for you to familiarize yourself with since I brought up the three perspectives. I want to build on that in our continued discussions, plus I think it may actually be quite helpful to your own understanding. Traditional theism is a 2nd person perspective. This article goes into all three, and frankly I find this understanding to be enormously helpful to me. http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/462

RE: Book: I plan to do some more reading today, but I'm in the introduction. He likes to build academic straw men and knock them down. His use of the essentialist Carol Gilligan to stand in for the whole of feminism seems odd, but it's nice he's engaging with feminist theory at all. I'll have more to say at the end of the day, I think.

I'm not so sure I'd call it academic strawman, as it is his own experience reflected from 20 years ago. He does recognizing those trends have begun to collapse under their own weight. But bear in mind in reading him, he will chaff a lot at postmodernism. He's not some Zen master Guru, but more academic in studying broad fields in a integral approach. I don't think he's off base to say that the various disciplines all think that they're were right and everyone else is wrong. Stick a behaviorist and a psychologist in the same room and watch what happens.

It like the rationalist seeing the mystic as practicing "woo woo" because it doesn't fit their approach.

He is trying to create integral models of all these disciplines, and does extraordinarily well in extremely useful and practical ways that are recognized and utilized in many areas, from religion to business, to art, to education, to politics (Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore are fans of his and use his insights as well in their approaches to world politics and social matters, as well as it being currently used in exploring the rebuilding the Ukraine by its President and other UN groups, believe it or not). In other words, he's no New-Age hack.

September 27, 2014

Thanks for your response, it is appreciated. "What I'm trying to do" is to progress through meditation and remain an atheist--the "feels theistic" thing is sometimes a challenge.

What is it that feels theistic to you?

With regards to Wilber, the use of the word God, which as a word is a very specific reference to Yahweh and the Abrahamic religions. If this is really Einstein's Pantheistic "God" is not clear. That word has more cultural baggage than any other word I can think of. It just muddies the waters. What exactly is meant by God in these contexts? The Ground of Being?

You obviously have some experiences that evoke this. So what I find noteworthy in this is a pregiven criteria that it must not be theistic in nature. If you stop and think about that for a minute it could be reinterpreted to say I am looking for insights beyond what I can realize at this point, but it must not violate what I already believe. By setting a boundary around something, we make it impossible to explore beyond what we already have set the limits to.

I'll put it another way, I believe the fear that exists is that if one has a theistic experience within meditation, a sort of "face to face" with God (I'll explain that in a minute), that they might go running back to being a mythic-literal believer, that you'll now have to buy into the whole Bible is God's word, Noah's Ark, 2nd coming, judgment day sort of beliefs again. Believe me, I get that. But the whole thing I said about trust is very much what is needed. You're not lobotomizing yourself on the meditation mat! You're coming into it with a better understanding of these things, we know and understand what mythology is, what archetypes are, we understand psychology, we understand psychotherapy, we understand state experiences, we understand brain function, etc. So if what you are experiencing in meditation takes the form of deities, or angles, or some form of 'corporeal' manifestation that you interact with, you're not going to suddenly go, "Oh my god! Jesus is real! Now I have to be a Christian again!". I think for some people that might happen because they don't feel stable enough yet in order to expose themselves to these subtle-level experiences - which these in fact are. So that's fine too, and I can see them not want to come anywhere close to exposing themselves to that.

In my own experience that did happen in meditation, and my first reaction was trying to push it away, not wanting to look at it. But I did, and it's not a problem at all. In fact, its entirely relative. My comment to myself at that point was to say that I can certainly see how someone at the mythic level of thinking could take such an experience as a literal encounter with a deity. Yet I didn't take it that way. In my experience having a 2nd person experience like this in subtle-level meditation is helpful in a great many regards. The purpose of that is ultimately for you to become that form you are projecting. The 'guru' you meet in meditation, your 'guide' as it were (Jung speaks of this a lot), is in essence your subconscious Self trying to help your conscious self come to know yourself. The guru is a guide, and you meet your inner guru, who then helps you to move beyond your small separate self into your higher realized self. The guru is to teach you to become the Guru yourself. These are all 2nd person perspectives that happen at the subtle level. At the causal level you really move into 1st person perspectives. In the nondual you freely move from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person perspectives unproblematically.

This is all very clear and enormously helpful. Thank you.

I have no problem believing in God, as well as not believing in God. It depends which perspective I assume. Those are all relative positions which all bring value.

Do you mean you sometimes believe in the God of the Bible? Or that you are having a 2nd person experience? Or that you find Yahweh a useful mythical archetype in meditation? Is this the Pantheistic God, which is not a god at all? Or does "God" here mean something else?

September 27, 2014

So, what are your thoughts about the book so far?

I'm going to open up a post here, and jot down my thoughts while reading. Perhaps you can clarify some of my questions about Wilber. Then I'll sleep on it and write an integrated response in the morning.

pg 16 "the shamanic voyage did not consciously include the causal domain"

This strikes me as odd. If causal is taking on the Spiritual Identity this is precisely what happens in some forms of tribal shamanism. The shaman becomes the spirit while he is possessed by it. Obviously this is not meditation--why are we trying to shoehorn shamanism into a model where it doesn't fit? Am I missing the point?

The anthropologist in me wonders where the evidence is for this voyage into "dawn" humanity's psychological past. It looks like classic armchair theorizing. I mean that not as an insult but as a descriptor. We do know something about the belief systems of current hunter gather tribes, which is our closet analog to "dawn" humanity that we have. The lack of reference to this literature is puzzling. Perhaps Wilber is a psychologist?

What he calls the "Romantic view" of tribal peoples is more widely known as the myth of the noble savage. It took me pages to figure out why he kept evoking a European cultural movement to talk about tribes.

pg 33 I really want him to define what he means by Spirit."a tendency to see Spirit as being present in one epoch but not others..."

pg 34 - I do appreciate his criticism of romanticizing the past.

pgs 44-45 These diagrams are clear, but their meaning and implications aren't (8 quadrants) Why is hermeneutics (reading culture like a text) a "we" thing?

At this point he makes much of negative academic reaction to his books. I'm an academic by trade, and my reaction is that he simply needs to clarify what he is saying. Or you need to write an exegesis.

End of Introduction

more later

September 27, 2014

What is it that feels theistic to you?

With regards to Wilber, the use of the word God, which as a word is a very specific reference to Yahweh and the Abrahamic religions. If this is really Einstein's Pantheistic "God" is not clear. That word has more cultural baggage than any other word I can think of. It just muddies the waters. What exactly is meant by God in these contexts? The Ground of Being?

My question of what feels theistic to you was not about Wilber, but you're own meditation experiences which you were referencing. As far Wilber's use of God, yes Ground of Being comes closer. He definitely is beyond imagining YHWH as a real deity. It's a way to express the Absolute, the Ultimate, etc. I use it all the time that way myself. I speak with my Tibetan Buddhist friends like this and there is no confusion whatsoever that I'm speaking about a being up there, somewhere, big-like.

Here's a great quote from Wilber where he uses the word God and the meaning should become perfectly clear it is not the "ontological other", but what God means in how he thinks of God:

But this is not God as an ontological other, set apart from the cosmos, from humans, and from creation at large. Rather, it is God as an archetypal summit of one's own Consciousness. ... By visualizing that identification 'we actually do become the deity. The subject is identified with the object of faith. The worship, the worshiper, and the worshiped, those three are not separate'. At its peak, the soul becomes one, literally one, with the deity-form, with the dhyani-buddha, with (choose whatever term one prefers) God. One dissolves into Deity, as Deity - that Deity which, from the beginning, has been one's own Self or highest Archetype.

~Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pg. 85

I have no problem believing in God, as well as not believing in God. It depends which perspective I assume. Those are all relative positions which all bring value.

Do you mean you sometimes believe in the God of the Bible? Or that you are having a 2nd person experience? Or that you find Yahweh a useful mythical archetype in meditation? Is this the Pantheistic God, which is not a god at all? Or does "God" here mean something else?

Do I sometimes believe in the God of the Bible? Certainly not in the way any normal theology teaches!

As for my views to that, I believe in the fact that humans have an experience of the transcendent, or the eternal Self, that they wrap in the language of their culture. So I would say you can see that expressed, at times, in the insights the various writers sometimes express. The form is primitive to my thinking so I don't make any use of it. I cannot think of God in tribalistic terms, but I get that whatever they felt they put that face upon it. I look at what underlies it, not what's on the surface of it. Perennial Philosophy, remember?

If anything that would be useful archetypically for me it would be that of Father, or Mother - the divine masculine and feminine. Or Son as well, but that is not "Jesus" per say, but rather the relationship of the divine-human that is us in relation to the Infinite. There is something to be said for these types that appear in traditions around the world, and the Trinity, very much unlike the theist theologies about three "persons" in one God confusion, it actually does have some considerable depth at the mystic level. It is really more about dynamism, then some sort of divine construction. That dynamism exists in all living things and within ourselves. It speaks of exchange, and evolution. And so in that sense, I get what it's saying.

That doesn't mean I set up Christian symbols all around in my practice. That's not the case at all. I don't think I could do that based on my history, but I do say I can fully get what someone who is a mystic within the Christian tradition is saying when they speak of God like this. So as I said, the I have no problem seeing it that way - at that level. But I don't and can't think in the magical and mythical language set, so seeing YHWH as a form for me just don't work.

BTW, just as an example how how these things can be used beyond their strict doctrinal understanding, lifting them from the Christian context into a mystical context, listen to how the 14th Century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart speaks of himself being the Son of God. Is it any wonder the church condemned his teachings to hell?

To deny one’s self is to be the only begotten Son of God and one who does so has for himself all the properties of that Son. All God’s acts are performed and his teachings conveyed through the Son, to the point that we should be his only begotten Son. And when this is accomplished in God’s sight, he is so fond of us and so fervent that he acts as if his divine Being might be shattered and he himself annihilated if the whole foundations of his Godhead were not revealed to us, together with his nature and being. God makes haste to do this, so that it may be ours as it is his. It is here that God finds joy and rapture in fulfillment and the person who is thus within God’s knowing and love becomes just what God himself is.

Yeah, wow. Now you see how it doesn't matter what symbol one is using when you start getting to this point? The symbolism works. The same thing is said in other religions using their own symbols. The problem is, and the major difference is when these symbols are objects of a belief system, and not in fact transformational in nature, they create fairy tales to believe in, the Sunday School picture book ideas of God on a cloud and a dove overhead (which defines most Christian thinking). These words understood at the mystical level make perfect sense. Taken in the literal sense, well they are blasphemy and gets you burned as a heretic!

So when I speak of God, or incorporate God into my own practice (or rather it surfaces within my practice is more accurately stated), it is the 2nd person I-Thou relationship. But it has its purpose and role, and is not the end all of it, nor the thing sought after, let alone literalized and "believed in". It serves a function, and that function is very much in line, if not completely identical with what Wilber described in the Archetype of ones own Consciousness.

Eckhart and others in other traditions would speak of "God beyond God". These theological ideas of the Ultimate get in the way, reducing God to an object of belief. You see? It's what I meant when I said to that theologian friend of mine, "Theology is the mind's last ditch attempt to understand God before it fails, and does". It's the Buddhist God. God beyond God, which is not God, but Godhead or the Ground of Being, Emptiness, or however you can try to speak of That.

September 27, 2014

What is it that feels theistic to you?

With regards to Wilber, the use of the word God, which as a word is a very specific reference to Yahweh and the Abrahamic religions. If this is really Einstein's Pantheistic "God" is not clear. That word has more cultural baggage than any other word I can think of. It just muddies the waters. What exactly is meant by God in these contexts? The Ground of Being?

My question of what feels theistic to you was not about Wilber, but you're own meditation experiences which you were referencing. As far Wilber's use of God, yes Ground of Being comes closer. He definitely is beyond imagining YHWH as a real deity. It's a way to express the Absolute, the Ultimate, etc. I use it all the time that way myself. I speak with my Tibetan Buddhist friends like this and there is no confusion whatsoever that I'm speaking about a being up there, somewhere, big-like.

Here's a great quote from Wilber where he uses the word God and the meaning should become perfectly clear it is not the "ontological other", but what God means in how he thinks of God:

But this is not God as an ontological other, set apart from the cosmos, from humans, and from creation at large. Rather, it is God as an archetypal summit of one's own Consciousness. ... By visualizing that identification 'we actually do become the deity. The subject is identified with the object of faith. The worship, the worshiper, and the worshiped, those three are not separate'. At its peak, the soul becomes one, literally one, with the deity-form, with the dhyani-buddha, with (choose whatever term one prefers) God. One dissolves into Deity, as Deity - that Deity which, from the beginning, has been one's own Self or highest Archetype.

~Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pg. 85

I have no problem believing in God, as well as not believing in God. It depends which perspective I assume. Those are all relative positions which all bring value.

Do you mean you sometimes believe in the God of the Bible? Or that you are having a 2nd person experience? Or that you find Yahweh a useful mythical archetype in meditation? Is this the Pantheistic God, which is not a god at all? Or does "God" here mean something else?

Do I sometimes believe in the God of the Bible? Certainly not in the way any normal theology teaches! As for my views to that, I believe in the fact that humans have an experience of the transcendent, or the eternal Self, that they wrap in the language of their culture. So I would say you can see that expressed, at times, in the insights the various writers sometimes express. The form is primitive to my thinking so I don't make any use of it. I cannot think of God in tribalistic terms, but I get that whatever they felt they put that face upon it. I look at what underlies it, not what's on the surface of it. Perennial Philosophy, remember?

If anything that would be useful archetypically for me it would be that of Father, or Mother - the divine masculine and feminine. Or Son as well, but that is not "Jesus" per say, but rather the relationship of the divine-human that is us in relation to the Infinite. There is something to be said for these types that appear in traditions around the world, and the Trinity, very much unlike the theist theologies about three "persons" in one God confusion, it actually does have some considerable depth at the mystic level. It is really more about dynamism, then some sort of divine construction. That dynamism exists in all living things and within ourselves. It speaks of exchange, and evolution. And so in that sense, I get what it's saying.

That doesn't mean I set up Christian symbols all around in my practice. That's not the case at all. I don't think I could do that based on my history, but I do say I can fully get what someone who is a mystic within the Christian tradition is saying when they speak of God like this. So as I said, the I have no problem seeing it that way - at that level. But I don't and can't think in the magical and mythical language set, so seeing YHWH as a form for me just don't work.

BTW, just as an example how how these things can be used beyond their strict doctrinal understanding, lifting them from the Christian context into a mystical context, listen to how the 14th Century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart speaks of himself being the Son of God. Is it any wonder the church condemned his teachings to hell?

To deny one’s self is to be the only begotten Son of God and one who does so has for himself all the properties of that Son. All God’s acts are performed and his teachings conveyed through the Son, to the point that we should be his only begotten Son. And when this is accomplished in God’s sight, he is so fond of us and so fervent that he acts as if his divine Being might be shattered and he himself annihilated if the whole foundations of his Godhead were not revealed to us, together with his nature and being. God makes haste to do this, so that it may be ours as it is his. It is here that God finds joy and rapture in fulfillment and the person who is thus within God’s knowing and love becomes just what God himself is.

Yeah, wow. Now you see how it doesn't matter what symbol one is using when you start getting to this point? The symbolism works. The same thing is said in other religions using their own symbols. The problem is, and the major difference is when these symbols are objects of a belief system, and not in fact transformational in nature, they create fairy tales to believe in, the Sunday School picture book ideas of God on a cloud and a dove overhead (which defines most Christian thinking). These words understood at the mystical level make perfect sense. Taken in the literal sense, well they are blasphemy and gets you burned as a heretic!

So when I speak of God, or incorporate God into my own practice (or rather it surfaces within my practice is more accurately stated), it is the 2nd person I-Thou relationship. But it has its purpose and role, and is not the end all of it, nor the thing sought after, let alone literalized and "believed in". It serves a function, and that function is very much in line, if not completely identical with what Wilber described in the Archetype of ones own Consciousness.

Eckhart and others in other traditions would speak of "God beyond God". These theological ideas of the Ultimate get in the way, reducing God to an object of belief. You see? It's what I meant when I said to that theologian friend of mine, "Theology is the mind's last ditch attempt to understand God before it fails, and does". It's the Buddhist God. God beyond God, which is not God, but Godhead or the Ground of Being, Emptiness, or however you can try to speak of That.

That was very helpful, and a very central issue for me. Thank you for your infinite patience. This really is the crux of the matter. In my own practice, it doesn't feel theistic. It's when I try to describe my meditation to others that it sounds theistic, and I become aware of that, and it makes me question what I am doing. The "woo" issue and the "God" issue were stumbling blocks for me. Thanks for helping clear those up. :-)

September 27, 2014

That was very helpful, and a very central issue for me. Thank you for your infinite patience. This really is the crux of the matter. In my own practice, it doesn't feel theistic. It's when I try to describe my meditation to others that it sounds theistic, and I become aware of that, and it makes me question what I am doing. The "woo" issue and the "God" issue were stumbling blocks for me. Thanks for helping clear those up. :-)

It's funny you say that. My partner very much identifies as atheist in the sense the theistic themes are not part of her meditation experience. She doesn't relate to that, but if I use the term God she very much knows what I mean because she knows me and what I'm pointing at behind it. It is the same thing, as I'm sure it is between you and me, beneath the clothing we dress it in. It's the same Ocean. And that's what we all get. I just happen to have learned a more 2nd person approach and that's fine. I tend to think the atheistic approach is more 3rd person. But each lands in 1st person in the end. Each has its benefit. We can discuss that more later.

Again, nevermind the Knights who say Woo.

BTW, I do wish to clarify I do also come at it very much from a 3rd person perspective. I am very much connected to Nature. I breathe in life and exhale it in exchange. Nature is my first touchstone. In fact, though I question the wisdom of this as it's very personal, I'll share from my meditation journal when I was just up at the cabin a couple weeks ago. I think you'll hear what I just said in this:

I think it due time to make another entry in this journal. I’m up at the lake taking 5 days off work, alone at the cabin. I think I should make some entry in this to record where I’m at. I’m becoming much less expectant in meditation. This whole day has been a constant meditation, as well as yesterday. Quit looking for connection. Quit looking for anything. Be in the moment, in meditation and in every moment of the day. The mind just becomes observant, still. What needed thoughts of the day occur, are gentle waves, rather than abrasive noise, engaging the being within its static debris. I am the Observer. I am Being.

As I was on the bike trail today, the realization came up in a phrase to put me into mindfulness of this. “Do not look for it. Take it in as is. Then you start to see. Then let it go”. It came up as I had found moments of sight, and took photos with my camera. I then found myself constantly looking for another shot, another composition. A repeat performance! But in doing so, I ceased to be present. I ceased to be in the moment. I ceased to see the world and be in it. Instead, I was in my thoughts, my hopes and expectations. It seems this is the near-enemy of Being. Good intentions.

I am deeply grounded right now. In fact, at the lake on the way back on the trail, being just that present Awareness in Being, I sat on a granite bench facing the lake. I was present in my being and the world. I breathed, and exhaled, and my whole being moved with the breath of the earth, and it with me! I was, and am, truly alive. I meditated, “My breath with your breath, my air with your air,” and as I breathed the wind from behind me breathed fiercely, pushing the reeds and the branches outward. I was absolutely One with the world. My thought and its thought were One. It was Enlightenment. We don’t seek to awake, we simply awake. Be in the moment. See what arises. Breathe it, release it. Be it.

Exploring Buddhism

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