Integral Transformation

Swami Ramalingam

2009-08-05T18:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged for a while. For some people blogging comes naturally, but for me, especially at present, I find it is easier for me to write stuff for my website (kheper net) or my book (The Integral Paradigm) or simply reply to emails. But I do feel obligated to at least keep some updates going, and a lot's been happening, so here goes:

Swami Ramalingam (Vallalar) - About a month or two ago my friend and correspondent Rick Lipschutz told me about the work of the late T.R.Thulasiram, a Tamil devotee of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, Swami Ramdas, and Swami Ramalingam (my brief (at time of writing) page, Wikipedia page), also known as Vallalar) and resident of Sri Aurobindo ashram. In 1980 Thulasiram's huge two volume 2000 page opus (Arut Perum Jyothi and Deathless Body was published by Madras University; it is long out of print and very rare (although a CD and pdf version is available on the AUMRA Trust website (dedicated to Thulasiram's work). Basically, Thulasiram's thesis is that some of these Tamil siddhas (especially Thirumoolar and Ramalingam) attained the same Supramental realisations as Sri Aurobindo. At first I was sceptical, but the more I attuned to Swami Ramalingam presence the more he affected me in a positive way. For me he combines elements of Ramana Maharshi (deep compassion for all sentient beings) with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's supramental integral yoga.

At the same time, whether separately or not I don't know, I have been inspired to upgrade and update my website (and also my book), especially focusing on the Integral Paradigm. For me now the Integral Paradigm begins primarily with the yoga of Thirumoolar, Ramalingam, Sri Aurobindo and Mirra (the Mother), although there seem to be a few amazing parallels with Christ, and perhaps one can go back further to Ancient Egypt. All this refers to the yoga of the perfection (divinisation) of the body (hence also siddha and Taoist yogic alchemy). In classic spirituality the body and things of the world are disparaged (with only a few exceptions, e.g. Paganism, Tantra etc), but this is a yoga that includes the body. I still take Sri Aurobindo's definition of Integral Yoga as the esoteric core of the integral paradigm - the complete and evolutionary divinisation of the entire being.

This is not to deny the importance of the secular Integral philosophies or studies of Teilhard, Gebser, Haskell, Jantsch, Maslow, Murphy, Paul Ray, Wilber, etc. However I do make a distinction between the radical esoteric yoga of Integral divinisation, and the "exoteric" theories of synthesis of psycho-socio developmental and evolutionary levels.

The historical and autobiographical approach

2009-05-23T17:19:00.000-07:00

I'm going to post occaisonal updates of my progress in writing The Integral Paradigm here, as well as assorting musings and inspirations.

So, Chapter 1 - the Introduction - is pretty much completed (although there'll always be small updates and edits) so I'm mostly working on Chapter 3 - Gnosis and Esotericism, now (Chapter 2 is on the Perennial Philosophy).

This chapter turned out to be a lot longer than originally planned, because I kept adding stuff, as I usually do. It is also very different to my previous attempts at book writing, because I followed the advice and feedback of several reviewers and made it more personal and autobiographical.

This shift from impersonal, objectivist statements to personal experience is really part of the overall zeitgeist, which is moving a way from the old authoritorian model to a more participatory one, with the author as part of history, rather than standing above history. The term "postmodernist" is sometimes used in this context, although I would specify that this has nothing to do with deconstruction (I've never read Derrida and am probably not likely to), contextualism (Steven Katz on mysticism - basically the diametric opposite of Perennialism), anti-metaphysics (Wilber is an example here, although he tries to retain some of his own metaphysics, while denying everyone else's), and so on. I still fully acknowledge the transcendent reality; indeed I am compelled by gnosis to do so. Postmodernist philosophers only have the rational mind to depend on; without gnosis they cannot understand the transcendent, and hence they reject or deny it. This is the same with Western Philosophy in general, as it has lost the original Wisdom Tradition of Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, etc. This is why I have always been more attracted to Eastern Philosophy, which retains the wisdom tradition and gnostic aspects.

But it is interesting to consider that, if I were writing 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, it would have been more purely academic and "objectivist". It would have been a very different book, and, I believe, a much less interesting one.

For me, writing has always been a way to gnosis (at least to one form of gnosism, what Sri Aurobindo calls the "Higher Mental". Indeed it is only in writing this book that I have come to fully appreciate that there is no philosophy outside of history.

Even the very greatest spiritual sages, like Sri Aurobindo for example (although I could equally mention other Realized beings), were still embedded in a historical and cultural context. That is why certain fundamentalist interpretations of Sri Aurobindo, which take his words as absolute and eternal, are so ridiculous. While his Consciousness and teachings came from a Transcendent and yes an Eternal realm, they still had to be expressed through his finite personality in time and space, which was educated in England and liked classic poetry.

The problem with Religion is that it confuses Time and Space with that which is eternal and transcendent. The result is fundamentalism. This sort of frozen thinking is the very opposite of Truth, which is ever new and creative. And you can be a fundamentalist Aurobindonian as much as fundamentalist Christian or Buddhist or anything else. Just as you can be a spontaneous, non-dogmatic, free and open, Aurobindonian, Christian, Buddhist, or whatever.

I remember many years back, i guess in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was very much a fundamentalist Aurobindonian. And the wierd thing is, it was an obsessive thing, you aren't allowed to believe in anything that contradicts this. I guess I knew it was neurotic, but there was nothing I could do about it. I actually remained an Aurobindonian fundamentalist until quite recently. I can't recall when I actually was able to let go of that stuff; i guess it was a gradual process. Personally, I feel it isn't possible to really understand Sri Aurobindo, or any other great sage, if you are fundamentalist about their teachings.

I've mentioned in the past my own experiences with the Integral movement, and I was amazed how they were so fundamentalist about Wilber. Well, I can say I have been equally fundamentalist about Aurobindo. This is also part of my story; the meeting with, and growing beyond, fundamentalism and literalism in all its forms.

So, in all these ways, and many more I haven't mentioned here, my book will be as much an autobiography about my intellectual journey as it will be a description of esoteric cosmology, transcendent dimensions, cosmic evolution, an dthe Divinization (Supramentalization) of the Earth (although it will be about those things too).

It is all about balancing and integrating the transcendenta nd teh historical. What I like about Integral philosophy is that it ideally - although most people who claim to be integral (I'm thinking specifically of the Wilber movement) don't or can't seem to be able to do this - integrates the historical and the eternal (I talk about this in chapter 2, on the Perennial Philosophy).

Ok, that's all for now!

The Integral Paradigm

2009-03-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

Just cross-posting this on Gaia com (formerly Zaadz) as well.

My book, previously called Integral Metaphysics and Transformation, will now be called The Integral Paradigm (with apologies to Thomas Kuhn!). I feel that Paradigm is a broader and hence more useful term than metaphysics, even if it is a bit New Agey.

Also, the phrase the Integral Movement (which I previously used) is inappropriate for anything other than the Wilber-Beck-Cohen-etc movement (which I previously called "Integral Movement sensu stricta"). Because it is not a movement as such, but rather a frame of reference (hence "paradigm" a la Fritjof Capra).

Basically I define the Integral Paradigm in terms of seven central interrelated and interweaving themes:

1) Manysidedness (in Jainism Anekantavada), Broadness, All-Inclusiveness)
2) Metaphysics, Esotericism, Gnosis, (Absolutre Reality, Great Chain of Being, evolving body of godhead, etc)
3) Evolution, (includes Spiritual evolution, but also scientific e.g. Darwinian, evolution), Creativity, spontaneity
4) Empathy for all beings, Sentientism, I-Thou (Buber), Participatory epistemology & spirituality
5) Co-Creation, Transformation of self and society, and of all aspects of the being
6) Synthesis of all partial perspectives and practices in a larger or universal integral whole
7) Singularity, Divinization, Perfection (Omega Point, Supramentalization, Transhumanist Singularity, etc)

This represents a radical revisioning previous definitions of Integral philosophy.

Previously, the definition of Integral visionaries has been mostly limited to those recommended or described by Wilber (Integral Psychology), the EnlightenNext editors, and others. So Aurobindo, Gebser, and Wilber are considered integral but not Teilhard. Or Aurobindo, Teilhard, Gebser, and Wilber are integral but not Mahatma Gandhi, Fritjof Capra, or Peter Russell. Hence an emphasis on developmental psychology, postmodern philosophy, Tibetan Buddhism, and so on, which can be found in many Integralist blogs. These are all worthy topics, but they reflect Wilber's interests, not teh Integral Paradigm as such. So the whole thing quickly deteriorates into yet another (albeit benign and useful) New Age religious movement based around a charismatic leader.

In my book I take a very different tack. This is different even to my previous essays, where I was looking for some common stream or thread that can define "Integral". But any such approach is self-limiting.

While it is easy to make fun of the belief that only those who advocate Wilber's AQAL philosophy represent the evolutionary elite, the top 2%, or whatever, what is harder is to define what the Integral Paradigm actually is. My current position is that the classic New Age movement is just as much, or as little, Integral as the Wilber-inspired movement that currently bears the name. Which isn't in any way to denegrate the latter. Or the former.

I emphasise Classic New Age, what Hanegraaff (New Age Religion and Western Culture) calls the New Age sensu stricta. By this is meant people like David Spangler, Jose Arguelles, etc, not dumbed down stuff like The Secret (my original comment on this here, while Stuart Davis provides a more detailed critique). David Spangler rightly attacks such "New Age glamour"; is it any wonder he has decided to distance himself from the whole movement!

Then there is Russian Cosmism; and you have people like Barbara Marx Hubbard; in fact it soon becomes apparent that the Integral Paradigm is much vaster than what is currently referred to as the "Integral Movement".

I've several times even considered scrapping the term "integral" altogether. This is so I don't have to be limited to the Wilber-inspired movement (which is but one contemporary stream of the Integral paradigm, albeit an important one). Unfortunately, there are no good alternatives. "The Cosmic Paradigm" sounds pretentious and silly. So it looks like Integral it is!

Sri Aurobindo and Ken Wilber on Wikipedia

2008-12-14T15:08:00.000-08:00

In terms of the current Integral Paradigm, can there vbe any two more influential figures than Sri Aurobindo and Ken Wilber?

Sri Aurobindo is of course by far the more important and original; the founder of Integral Yoga, who provided both a roadmap to planetary transformation and, with his co-worker The Mother, the means.

Wilber's relevance lies more in his skill in synthesising and popularising many difefrent worldviews around the central core of evolutionary development, thus craeting a second generation New Paradigm movement. In terms of insight or gnosis however he gets no further than standard New Age/New Paradigm Advaito-Buddhist nonduality, which is only one of many aspects in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's yoga. And while if carried to its end it is able to confer Liberation, it is in insufficent on its own to bring about the required Transformation of the world, or even of the individual in the world.

Sri Aurobindo and Wilber are in fact are two extremely different and unrelated individuals. It was actually unfair of me in the past to try to compare them, because you can't compare them. One is an Enlightened Yogi-Sage, the other a spiritually orientated intellectual teacher and theorist. They have nothing in common other than that both set forward an spiritual-evolutionary worldview, and both provided an inclusive, rather than exclusive, philosophy. So if you are looking for a lowest common denominator for "Integral philosophy", that is about it. Nevertheless Wilber, as a passionate and articulate propnent of (his version of) the Integral paradigm, does have an important role to play in the current memetic evolution.

In my book in progress, I have much more to say on the Integral Paradigm, bringing in Jain and other approaches and thus going beyond the current and still very limited and exoteric Integral Movement.

But enough rambling. What inspired this present blog post is the status of the respective wikipedia pages of these two very different innovators.

Wilber's page is well referenced (32 footnotes at last count, plus a very comprehensive bibliography), dynamic, and constantly being adjusted.

Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's pages are static, in the case of Sri Aurobindo poorly refernced (only 7 footnotes), and constantly savaged by editors who for the most part don't have the faintest idea what they are talking about. Two examples. On The Mother's page, almost every reference to "the Mother" has been replaced by "Alfassa". It's a bit like replacing every reference to the 14th Dalai Lama with "Gyatso", or every reference to the current Pope Benedict with "Ratzinger", on their respective pages. If you want to know how stupid it would look, just read their respective pages accordingly. While the current version of the Sri Aurobindo page is full of "original research" tags. Not just at the top of teh page, but under almost every subheading. I scanned through teh page and it didn't look like there is original research there; the only problem is taht there are very few footnoted citations to Sri Aurobindo's works. So because there are no footnotes, it is assumed that it must be "original research", a big heresy on Wikipedia.

Of course, one can hardly blame the Wikipedia community for this sorry state of affairs. Were it not for the presence of a strong online Wilber-Integral community - both supporters and critics - the Wilber page would be just as constantly mutilated as the Sri Aurobindo and The Mother pages are.

Since it is unlikely that Aurobidonians are less passionate, nor would it be the case that Wilber is many times better kniown (if anything the opposite is the case!), what this shows is that there is a much larger online Wilber community, and hence the percentage of those motivated to work on Wikipedia would be sufficiently large as to have an effect.

Despite its vaunted NPOV ideals, Wikipedia is not and never has been neutral; it presents a selectively deletionist forum in which minor comic book and TV characters given prefernce over less famous real life biographies. And while an excellent resource in mainstream subjects and geek special interests (and I for one do appreciate and are attracted to Geek things, so this isn't an insult), fails miserably when it comes to alternative knowledge; anything outside teh mainstream consensus paradigm.

I have no doubt that many years from now, there will be enough Aurobindonians active on Wikipedia to rectify the current imbalance at least as far as the coverage of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother are concerned, but I don't envisage this happening any time soon.

A final comment, lest it be seen that I'm unduely wiki-bashing. For all its faults, and for all its decline from its pre-deletionist summit of 2005, Wikipedia still serves as a powerful knowledge-building community and invaluable resource. I wouldn't continue to be involved if I didn't think it served an essential role in the ecology of the noosphere. But Wikipedia is only as good as its contributers and contributions. Doubtless it will continue to evolve, as human knowledge does. But it will follow, rather than lead. And perhaps, as an online encyclopaedia of a traditional, rather than unconventional, mould, that's the way it should be..

Adi Da (1939-2008)

2008-11-29T13:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening I was informed by one of my correspondents/co-workers (some of whose email I have incorporated into this post, he is more an expert on Adi Da than I am) that the guru Adi Da (his official site) (my page on him) (previously Da Free John, Franklin Jones) died suddenly but apparently peacefully on Thursday 27 November (Thanksgiving Day in the US) in Fiji of a massive heart attack, just after his 69th birthday (he was born on 3 Nov 1939). Da was doing what he loved, working on his art, talking and laughing with his devotees.

His unexpected death (or "Mahasamadhi" as his devotees call it, after the Indian euphamism for the death of a Guru) was not surprising given his extreme hedonistic lifestyle and prior medical issues with severe arteriosclerosis. Followers had hoped he would come back to life as he had from other "death" experiences and kept a prayer vigil. But after a while they realised he really had left his physical body. (references: Devotee announcement and discussion, Fiji News)

Like all great Gurus, Da left no "realized" successor. As he died without warning, it remains to be seen what will happen with the group. My feeling is that it will continue like the following around other famous Gurus after their passing. The devotees continue, even after the death of the Master. It was a religion even when the Master was alive, and it remains a religion. It is the same with both Fully Enlightened and Intermediate Zone gurus.

An extraordinarily potent figure, of great intelligence, brilliance, and creativity, and (with Mahavira, St Francis, and Ramana) one of the few Gurus and Spiritual masters to go out of his way to consider the needs of the animal kingdom (as shown by his beautiful Fear No More Zoo project), Da Free John / Adi Da was someone who had impressed and even influenced me for more than a quater of a century. Originally and for many years I considered him a fully enlightened being. I wrote an initially very favourable web page on him, but was contacted by several ex-devotees who informed me of his abusive behaviour towards his devotees. When I changed the article accordingly I was contacted by current devotees who would present the other side of the coin. Thus I would swing in my understanding to and fro, not really understanding, until I came upon the thesis by an ex-devotee explaining Da's paradoxical qualities in terms of the Intermediate Zone. (this was the same ex-devotee incidentally, who yesterday notified me of Da's death ). This awakened me to the possibility of "intermediate zone" phenomenon as being a standard explanation for the paradoxical phenomenon of many "abusive" gurus. I used this thesis in a popular essay on Integral World to explain another, lesser guru, Andrew Cohen (his official site) (my page on him), an associate of Ken Wilber and a senior figure in the modern Wilber-Beck stream of the Integral Movement (which I have previously referred to as The Integral Movement sensu stricta, but am no longer happy with this title) itself is a subset of the larger Integral Paradigm (my brief page, wikipedia page I co-authored).

I have to say, news of Da Free John/Adi Da's death left me feeling really sad. Significantly, over the last couple of months I have come to feel that my earlier stance on the Intermediate Zone gurus is much too simplistic and polarised. While there is no doubt regarding those rare individuals who are fully and completely Enlightened, such as Ramana, Nityananda, Ramsuratkumar, and of course Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, I've been rethinking the whole problem of how to understand less than totally Realised Gurus, the nature of the Intermediate Zone, and so on. So for example I not longer consider Andrew Cohen even an Intermediate Zone guru (in contrast to my earlier essay).

As a result I have been feelinga lot more positively and respectfully about Adi Da. Sure he would seem to represent the classic case of the "Intermediate Zone" as described by Sri Aurobindo, but really he was very advanced, a whole class above all the others like Muktananda, Osho, etc. A really unique Teacher, although for me I prefer authentic fully Enlightened gurus. The Intermediate Zone can be a dangerous place, and by attuning to a Master coming from that space you can get sucked in too. Thus, like Ken Wilber, I prefer to respect Adi Da from afar, and really, the Da I resonate to and appreciate is not the dangerous, chaotic, inflationary Adi Dam of later years, where the Intermediate Zone shines in all its frightening terror, but the earlier, profound, nonduality realised Bubba Free John / Da Free John (I am sure Wilber feels the same).

The Wilber-Beck stream of the Integral Movement owes Da Free John / Adi Da much much more than it realises. It was Bubba/Da Free John (I use his old names because those where the names he used when he was teaching those ideas) who first fomulated a single physico-psycho-spiritual developmental spectrum (the "Seven Stages of Life" (official page, my page, another page, with useful diagrams); itself perhaps inspired by Theosophy or Rudolf Steiner); it was this same spectrum of seven stages that Wilber used as the basis of his entire philosophy and cosmology, causing him to reject his earlier Transpersonal-Jungian model, once he became a devotee. What would AQAL (All Quadrants and All Levels (my page, another page from old Wikipedia page, official Journal) be without the Levels? And it was Da Free John who formulated the levels. Wilber's contribution was simply to add a bunch of correspondences, and more recently, lines, quadrants, post-metaphysics and so on. It was Da Free John, the master of nonduality, who introduced Wilber - and hence almost the entire Wilber-Beck stream (the only exceptions I know of are Steve McIntosh and Chris Dierkes) - to an "Advaito-Buddhist" metaphysic and spirituality. And it was also Da Free John / Adi Da who formulated it first into a grand synthesis of all spirituality, in his profound (if limited, because he acknowledges nonduality) Basket of Tolerance (detailed contents of all editions; official page)

And finally, a trivial note regarding Wikipedia. As I sometimes contribute to Wikipedia, I found it amusing to discover that Da's date of death had been added to the page very soon after the event, then removed on the grounds that it wasn't from a reliable source, then added again, then removed again, then a general notice that "this article is about someone who has recently died" was added, while the byzantine bureaucracy that is Wikipedia's workings ground on, before details of his death were finally added. History page (if you are reading this blog later, scroll to 27th-29th November 2008)

A new way of thinking is required

2008-11-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

I've been upgrading my website, adding some new sections and going over earlier stuff; particularily my pages on gurus and on the integral movement. It's amazing how my understand of both these themes has changed; a lot of my earlier material now seems to be very dated, even though it was only written a couple of years ago.

For example, my early views on "abusive gurus" I now feel are much too simplistic. Certainly there are some gurus who are genuinely abusive, and the situation regarding the paradoxical nature of the Intermediate Zone still holds. But for most I feel the situation is much more ambiguous. So I want to revise my pages in the light of this insight.

Regarding the "integral paradigm", my current insight is inspired by sentientism and Jainism as much as by the standard big names of the movement. At the same time it may not be possible to distinguish between Integral Movement, Global Mindshift, New Paradigm, New Age, etc, if one considers the phenomenon as a process of global spiritual renewal and restitution. So it would be better to talk of an emergent global phenomenon of spiritual awakening and renewal, triggered by the current planetary environmental crisis, and ultimately perhaps by the Supramental Descent of 1956 and later activity (this last theme of course would be rejected out of hand by mainstream conservative materialism and religionism; but such biases are little importance; what is required is creating a whole radically new way of thinking and doing.

By radical new way of thinking I mean new even beyond the the current external New Age/Mew Paradigm/Global Mindshift/Integral Movement. For example,

o there is still very little, if any, concept of Sentientism (the movement ranging from biocentric ("Green") to biocentric and anthropocentric).
o There is still the idea of a linear "map" of Reality, whether it be the Wilberians with their stages and quadrants, the Great Story process philosophers, or the Theosophically-inspired New Age movement
o there is still very little insight into the dynamics of Spiritual teachers and Realisation, with the old dichotomy (evident even in my previous writing) of good versus bad, or else the naive all good (New Age) or all bad (sceptical materiualism and fundamentalist religionism). Neither duality (good vs bad) nor all good, (no such thing as abusive guru) nor all bad (no such thing as genuine guru) is subtle enough
o Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's more radical Teachings are very slow to filter through to the rest of the movement, assuming they filter through at all. Instead, much of the New Age/New paradigm/Integral movement is still based on the outmoded "yoga of ascent" (world-negating). At the same time, within the Integral Yoga community itself there is a tendency among many (but not all) to descend into religionism and literalism.

So for those involved in the "frothy edge" (as the Wilberians would say) of planetary awakening, there is much to be challenged, and much to be done. Indeed, we live in interesting times!

Going beyond external forms

2008-11-08T20:09:00.000-08:00

Coming back to my book (Integral Metaphysics and Transformation) after a period of about three months, I was amazed at how heavy and intellectual it all is. The whole thing needs a lot of re-organising and trimming down. One thing especially I want to get away from is the idea that the Absolute can be described in a linear or mental-conceptual manner. So I've rewritten the chapter on the Absolute Reality, presenting it in a more non-linear way. The rest of it is probably okay as it is, although needs a lot of simplifying and getting rid of over-technical stuff. Hopefully the final version will now be a lot better, and also shorter and more readable.

More and more I am losing interest in systems that describe Reality in a purely linear-mental manner. The theoretical side of the mainstream Integral Movement for example, with its top-heavy wilberian intellectual schemata, is a good example of how not to do things. On the other hand, the more pragmatic side of that same Integral Movement certainly represents one among a number of currents in the present Planetary Revolution (Great Turning, Global Mindshift, Integral Society, or whatever you want to call it).

As I have mentioned in my Gaia (formerly Zaadz) blog, currently my interest lies much more in "Keeping the Company of Saints" (or Great Realisers or Enlightened Beings). The authentic Enlightened Being is transparent to the Light of the Supreme. So by connecting with them through photographs, books, stories, videos, or any other manner, one accesses the Light of the Divine that shines equally through all.

But where and how do Enlightened Ones fit in the current Planetary Transformation; a Transformation that is the culmination of History, and must succeed if Earth is to survive?

Well, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother - the two most Radical Evolutionary Realisers - were the ones who initiated the Integral Paradigm. Not just intellectually, but perhaps more radically occultly and esoterically as well. But the modern Integral Movement, and the Global Mindshift, and the public New Age - all are different facets of the same phenomenon - are all exoteric, lacking in transcendent gnosis. And despite the great sincerity and spiritual impulse in all of them, there is not a single authentic Enlightened Being to be found anywhere there.

Perhaps this is where the other Realisers fit in. Without the Light of such beings, who transparently reveal the Divine in their life and teachings, there is only a stumbling in ignorance when it comes to matters of metaphysical transcendence and yogic practice.

And by accessing the one Light that shines through the various Realisers, one is enabled to move beyond the limitations and religious fundamentalism of attachment to a single form, a single Teaching, no matter how sublime and profound that teaching may be.

New insights

2008-04-03T15:28:00.000-07:00

Following a hiatus of several months (due to a cycling accident) I've come back to my book again, although I won't be doing much or any work on it until I have finished a revision of my website. Basically though, my metaphysics and methodology have changed, as in both these I no longer give priority to any intellectual systems of thought that lack gnosis.

From this new perspective, my old arrangement or metaphysic was based too much on a mental interpretation of an old fashioned interpretation of the "Great Chain of Being". In the revised book I will retain the "Great Chain of Being", but only as one orientating perspective or partial understanding of Reality among many. Otehr perspectives are nonduality, supramentalisation, etc. There is still a hierarchy though, in that Supramentalisation is a far more profound and all-encompasisng Realisation than Nonduality, just as Nonduality is far more profound than Avidya/Maya/Samsara (relative consciousness).

So rather than ontological realities, the emphasis will be on the hypostases (levels of being, e.g. Manifest Absolute etc) as states of greater or lesser Enlightenment and trans-enlightenment; as different ways of experiencing the Absolute. This does not mean that i am buying into some sort of postmodernist wilber-V interpretation that says there is no such thing as metaphysics, levels of being etc, as I still fully acknowledge such realities.

In any case, I believe this approach is truer to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's position, which remains my central orientating perspective

Two different Integral initiatives

2007-12-17T17:59:00.000-08:00

Two very different "Integral" projects:

The Gnostic Centre - a research centre for the growth of consciousness, based on Aurobindonian Integral philosophy. "Gnostic" here would seem to be a reference to Sri Aurobindo'sd term for higher consciousness and supramentalised being (see The Life Divine Book II ch.27)

To quote from the site:

based in new delhi, set up as a non-profit public charitable trust, in 1996, engaged in research, training and education

The Gnostic Centre was set up by a group of youth, with the purpose of creating a space for those who seek a more integral knowledge - about themselves as well as the world. Based on the Integral Yoga philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, it is working towards creating a community for research and training in growth of consciousness, and to grow into a future university that integrates the subjective and objective realms of knowledge - towards a larger perfection of knowledge and action, based on an inner core of self-discovery and self-mastery.

and also

The Gnostic Centre is continuously engaged in creating resources that emerge out of its ongoing work, as well as support that work based on study and action research in the fields of Integral Yoga, Psychology, Self-development, Integral Education, Management, Social Change, Transformative Learning, Culture......

Includes an "International Centre for Integral Studies" (ICIS) which is quite different to both the Californian Institute of Integral Studies and the Wilberian Integral Institute, although the similarity of topic titles to Wilberian I-I i\s intriguing. Obviously, the content will be very different (and no doubt much more practical and grounded in authentic spirituality). But I am extremely pleased to see this development, which shows that the Wilberians do not have a monopologly on "integralism". Indeed, my main criticism of Wilber is not his philosophy (as I consider his attempt at a grand synthesis very inspiring) but his hegemonistic claim to ownership of "Integral" (see the AQAL glossary) and to represent and build upon Sri Aurobindo, who he seriously misinterpretates. If he even half-correctly interpreted Sri Aurobindo I would be all for him! Yet, ironically, even he is still furthering the Divine Work established by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

The Gnostic Centre / International Centre for Integral Studies seems to have been around for over a decade (founded in 1996, the journal goes back to 1997), which intriguingly is also about the time the Wilber Integral Institute was established (1997-98).

A very different, and still new, and equally worthy, project is Open Source Integral, a forum established by Mike of the Integral Research Group (Integral Praxis blog). It's a bit like a post-wilberian version of Zaadz, although much smaller (only two dozen or so members). But some very interesting discussions and comments, even if only a very few people are involved.

For example, might Integralism at the broadest be defined, in one contributer Bill's words (this in a comment on the thread "Mapping out the "Integral" Tool Kit"), as a "cohesive model of human development" (this would nicely include both Wilberism and Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga)

But I'm not sure if the Integral Open Spource Project will keep going; the problem being that a certain minimum critical mass of people is required (the "tipping point" or threshhold) for the project to have a life of its own, rather than being "carried" by only one or two people.

For example, Zaadz has a life of its own. The science fiction project I initiated and co-founded, Orion's Arm, also has a life of its own. Even though i am involved at only a very minimal level now it is still continuing better than ever. Wikipedia has a life of its own; I can definitely see it continuing even withoutt Jimmy Wales at its head.

I don't think that Wilber's Integral Institute has, because i cannot see it continuing without Wilber's central presence, except as a hollow shell or at best an exoteric religion. But a wider Integral Movement definitely has a life of its own, because this movement seems to already be being established, and is no way depedent on the personality cult of one person. Whether it will continue to grow and develop and become a whole new evolutionary cultural stage of consciousness, as Sri Aurobindo (using different terminology - see The Human Cycle) Paul Ray, Sally Goerner, Ken Wilber, Don Beck, Scott McIntosh, and others have suggested, remains to be seen. For now, my position is that the Western Integral Movement (established by but no longer limited to Wilber) is the newest development of the New Paradigm, and the New Paradigm/Integral movement is the secular and intellectual counterpart of the New Age.

An interesting development, were it to happen, would be a New Paradigm convergence of Integral Movement (secular, exoteric) and Integral Yoga (esoteric). If Wilber keeps publicising Sri Aurobindo, maybe something like this might actually happen, despite Wilber (and most of the mainstream Integral movement)'s complete misunderstanding of what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother actually taught. That is why I say that even Wilber is, unknowingly, furthering the Divine Work established by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Integral Movement page on Wikipedia

2007-12-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, the Integral Movement page on Wikipedia seems to be shaping up quite well. I was quite concerned about the resistance of Wikipedia to even progressive ideas like Integralism (even though it is exoteric), and saw this resistance as an example of the old consciousness against the new. Well, it is, but the new consciousness can still establish itself in the current status quo; indeed it is absolutely essential that it does so, if change and transformation is to occur.

So I've been merging material from redirect pages, and with footnotes it is looking more scholarly. So even though these conservatives annoy me, i have to admit that I do agree with them that in terms of current popular knowledge (and that is what Wikipedia represents, the status of popular Western secular knowledge as it is at present, all from a geekish perspective) one can't justify a whole string of Integral articles. But a single one, well written, on the Integral Movement, is a good idea.

So if anyone reading this wants to chip in and add to the page, please do so! Especially important are footnotes and citations, so it is best to add stuff that can be referred to in print or in scholarly online articles.

Evolutionary allies

2007-11-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

My new essay - "Evolutionary allies - an Integral approach" - has just the other day been posted on Frank's Integral World website, and also given a mention on Integral Praxis. This essay (the title inspired by the AUM 2007 conference) represents a major policy shift for me, as I have already mentioned on Zaadz. My previous work in the Integral Movement as critic and, so to speak, Wilber rival, has, I would like to think, been helpful in furthering a number of goals, among which are: (a) explaining that it was Sri Aurobindo hismelf who first coined and defined "Integral" in a spiritual evolutionary context (b) reclaiming Sri Aurobindo's actual teachings from mainstream Integralist misinterpretations; (c) illustrating the limitations of Wilber's purely mental-intellectual approach (lacking esotericism and gnosis) in explaining the "big questions"; (d) showing how the Integral Movement is much larger than just Wilberian ideas or the Integral Institute alone; and (e) contributing to broader definitions of Integralism. Now, having done all that, and also defined my own position, and hopefully not made too much of a fool of myself in doing so :-) I feel much more enthusiastic about emphasising similarities and working together in cooperation, in bringing about the new world; through dialogue and unity in diversity (and diversity in unity). Especially since I find myself identifying equally strongly with both the Integral Yoga community and the Larger Integral Movement.

Some people may wonder why I bothered to critique Wilber in the first place, since he is not an esoteric thinker. The answer is that as a popular new consciousness writer he plays an influential role in the current paradigm shift and process of global transformation, even if it is "only" on an exoteric level. Because exoteric and esoteric are equally necessary. And the future and currently emerging society or cicvilisation will honour both (as well as the "trans-esoteric" position of the Supramental transformation)

My interest now is in writing my books, in cooperation and friendly dialogue with others who share the same aim of making this a better world, respecting and honouring differences as well as commonalities, and presenting a new worldview inspired both by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings and by esotericism and science in general.

By "esotericism and science" I mean that all esoteric and spiritual knowledge should conform to the empirical discoveries of science on the material level. So on the one hand, no facile New Age pop Quantum physics (you know, what the Bleep, all that stuff). And on the other, no freaking out about evolutionary science. It is no good rejecting Darwinian science because it offends one's religious or philosophical sensibilities! A true esoteric evolutionary integral worldview has to include all these things, both authentic science and authentic esotericism. And evolution, even material evolution, is a mighty spiritual truth, for those who have eyes to see it as such.

Responses to my essay

2007-10-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

I've been getting very positive feedback in response to my essay. I've also been interested in criticism (which I always value highly), and Joe Perez has written a passionate rebuttal, to which I wrote a counter-reply. It's all on Frank Visser's Integral World site now for anyone who wants to follow the whole thing

"Redefining Integral" - my original essay

"Questioning Kazlev's Redefinitions" - Joe Perez' reply (also posted or mentioned on several other forums)

"Wilber and Aurobindo" - my counter-reply

Although Joe and I may differ intellectually (I mean it is really only on the matter of KW, he likes Wilber and AQAL while I take a contrary position) I think highly of him, and feel that at bottom Integralism is still about a common goal (more on this in a follow up post). He sent me a short friendly email concerning my reply to his critique. But not suire if the debate is going any further for now. So if anyone else wants to jump in on either side of the debate, or alternatively propose their own pov, that would help carry things along

Essay published, and Kosmos

2007-10-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

Phew, finally finished a few days ago my latest essay, Redefining Integral, which has just appeared on Frank Visser's Integral World website (based on my earlier blog post to Integral Praxis of basically the same name, but with heaps more stuff). It should be a seminal essay in the field, and I feel it is my best essay on the Integral Movement so far

Unfortunately, in the version I sent Frank for Integral World, there was an error that came about through my originally too glib overview of the integral journal Kosmos and not taking the time to review their website in more detail.

Because Don Beck's spiral dynamics diagram features prominently, and because there are one or two essays there which are inspired by a more traditional integral theory (the journal itself was founded in 2000, before the larger integral movement really took off), in my essay I classified Kosmos as Integral strictu senso (Wilber-Beck-inspired Integral, with stages, quadrants, etc). I was then informed (after the essay had appeared on the Integral World site) that Kosmos is also closely associated with many individuals from the wider Integral movement; for example Ervin Laszlo (Club of Budapest) and Ashok Gangadean (World Wisdom Council). There is also material by Brian Swimme ("Great Story", “Global Mindshift”), Elizabeth Sahtouris (also on the World Wisdom Council), and in the coming issue Jorge Ferrer (California Institute of Integral Studies). All this authors seem to be dismissed as “postmodern” / “green” by the Integral Movement stricto sensu (Wilber, while being very gracious about it, still considers Ferrer's approach to be “green” meme, while Swimme is listed as a Conscious Evolutionist rather than an Integralist in the WIE issue no. 35 on different interpretations and schools of Evolutionism) All in all, Kosmos falls within the category of the Larger Integral Movement, and indeed seems to be one of the forerunners in the field, with an admirable emphasis on global activism, through their association with the United Nations.

There is more that could be said, but I'll save it for my book in progress A New Heaven and a New Earth

Fortunately, my article has since been corrected (I wrote to Frank about it, and he updated the page straight away, thanks Frank!). But all this raises the problem of how one can accurately convey and present a global movement and paradigm shift. Up until now, I have tended to work on my own, my only connection with the wider integral community being with certain forums and individuals (because there isn't time to contact everyone, but also I admit I was being lazy), it is easy for errors and superficial perceptions to sneak in. In that way at least I feel for Wilber, he's one guy but he's trying single-handedly to explain the world; it can't be done.

So this has shown me that the time has come for me to get more involved in the larger integral / mind shift community, not just on Zaadz, Open Integral, Integral World, and Integral Praxis, admirable as those forums may be, but other groups, forums, organisations, and journals as well.

An Integral rant

2007-09-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

Author's note: This was originally written as a rather rambling rant. I decided to put it more in order, and divide it into four statements. These are

The Current Integral Movement does not seem to be receptive to the concept of Divinisation

The Integral Movement is a subset of the New Age/New Paradigm/Global Mindshift and lacks gnosis

The Synthesis of Yoga describes true Integral Spiritual Practice in contrast to the non-integral spirituality of the mainstream Integral movement

There is a lack of understanding of Bhakti (Surrender to the Supreme) in the Mainstream Integral Movement

This material is also being incorporated into an essay that I will submit to Frank Visser's Integral World when finished.

The Current Integral Movement does not seem to be receptive to the concept of Divinisation

I've been having some interesting discussion on the Integral blogs. And one thing that intrigues me is the lack of receptivity to concepts such as Divinisation. Now, I will say that Integral Praxis is a very admirable initiative, the people behind the blog are top guys, and hopefully something raelly meanintgful and productive will come of it all. I support them, and I'll probably chip in with comments and posts now and then, and also give them links and mentions. But having said that, I am reminded of where I stand, and where the Integral Movement (as opposed to the Integral Yoga movement, which which I identify) stands. And the difference is great. And always has been. I still see the Integral Movement - whether wilberian, neowilberian (hows that for a neologism ;-), postwilberian, or nonwilberian, as an important part of the planetary mindshift. And I still identify with it to a partial extent, in teh sense that I agree with their ideals of spiritual evolution, the integration of knowledge, and building a better world (all of which are indistinguishable from the goals of the mainstream New Age movement too). And I find the Kosmos definition of Integral preferable to the Integral Institute definition, because there is more praxis and less theory there.

The Integral Movement is a subset of the New Age/New Paradigm/Global Mindshift and lacks gnosis

Some background, for those who don't know my story. The reason I became interested in the Integral Movement because it seemed to me to embody a spirit of universal spiritual synthesis combined with the intellectual rigour lacking in the New Age. The reason I became disillsuioned with the Integral Movement is when I realised the whole movement is limited to a very Wilber perspective, which goes against the whole idea of a synthesis of teachings, in which everyone has their say. Who wants to follow a guy who isn't even enlightened? This is why (I discovered to my great disappointment) there is no authentic gnosis or integral spirituality there at all.

The problem with the Integral Movement is that its foundation is not spirituality or enlightened revelation, but both a religion based on Wilber worship, and an intellectualism based on Wilber books, and some Westernised Buddhism thrown in (Buddhism is pretty much the only spirituality they can handle, because it is intellectual and pragmatic, and does not involve metaphysics or radical practices such as Surrender to the Supreme; you can be a physicalist and still be a practicing Buddhist! It is ideally set up for the secular Western mindset), as well as some Californian Lifestyle choices marketed as "Spiritual Cross-Training". And even the people disillusioned with Wilber, not interested in his personality cult, and involved in activism and practice, are still limited by his intellectualism; there is no gnosis there at all.

This is now being supplemented by practical activism, which is a very positive development. But the activism and practice is still tried to modernist, wilberian, and buddhistic perspectives.

On the theoretical level, the Integral Movement can synthesise opposites and integrate the diverse areas of human knowledge in a larger evolutionary paradigm. But so could Whitehead, Vernadsky, Teilhard, Haskell, Jantsch .... So what is unique?

On the practical level it is no different to the general New Age / New Paradigm / Alternative / Global Mindshift / etc movements. All of which are highly worthy, and the most exoteric stage of the Integral Transformation. But it is not an Integral Movement or Practice, but a New Age sensu lato (Hanegraaf) / New Paradigm / Alternative / Integral / Global Mindshift / Great Turning cluster of mcurrenst within the larger Integral Transformation.

The third level? that's the spiritual. And I mean teh authentic, total transformation of all parts of the being and incorporation of all the yogas. And you won't find this sort of spirituality anywhere in the current, mainstream, Integral Movement (which is not to deny the spiritual nature of the movement, but I am talking about a much more radical and yogic spiritual practice)

The Synthesis of Yoga describes true Integral Spiritual Practice in contrast to the non-integral spirituality of the mainstream Integral movement

The following passage, from chapter V of the introduction of Synthesis of Yoga, explains how even in its most preliminary methodology, the Integral spirituality of Sri Aurobindo goes far beyond anything in the Integral movement now, and probably beyond anything the Integral Movement will have to offer for decades to come (unless my own work has an influence; because by writing about something i am also changing it).

...it is always through something in the lower that we must rise into the higher existence, and the schools of Yoga each select their own point of departure or their own gate of escape. They specialise certain activities of the lower prakriti and turn them towards the Divine. But the normal action of Nature in us is an integral movement in which the full complexity of all our elements is affected by and affects all our environments. The whole of life is the Yoga of Nature. The Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of short cuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.

Ok, let's look at Sri Aurobindo is saying here.

Ordinary existence or nature itself is an integral movment, but one based in ignorance ("ego and division").

The various previous yogas were not interested in transforming this world, only in finding the quickest shortcut out, selcting only a single attribute of the lower nature (prakriti) and using taht to attain the transcendent (so it could be jnana or bhakti or whatever). Hence Buddha's parable of the arrow. Why waste time discussing metaphysics when you can be working on attaining Liberation?

Sri Aurobindo's unique synthesis - Integral Yoga, in contrast has to combine all the systems. This is because he isn't interested in fleeing the world. rather he wants to transform it. But to transform it he has to addre4ss all the aspects of the lower nature, and hence incorporate all the yogic techniques. rather than just one, he has to synthesise all of them.

And that's Integral Yoga.

Now, let's return to the present-day Integral Movement.

This proposes an evolutionary synthesis of knowledge. This is the first stage, theory. Here we have Wilber and development psychologists like Kegan and Cook-Gruber, Spiral Dynamics (Don Beck), neowilberian theory (i.e. people who like Wilber but add extra stuff to his ideas - e.g. Mark Edwards), and postwilberians (people who reject or go beyond Wilber but still retain certain of his ideas - e.g. Edward Berge of Open Integral). And we have lots of others who use "integral" in a non-wilberian sense - e.g. Sally Goerner and Erwin Lazlo. There is also a lot more that isn't called Integral but that says the same thing - e.g. non-integral spiral dynamics (Chris Cowan), Great Story neo-teilhardism (Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme), and New Age sensu lato and so on. So we can't even use the word Integral because Integral is just a subset of a broader paradigm shift.

Then we have the next stage, practice. This means putting that exoteric synethsis into practice in thought and word and deed. This is the cutting edge, the "frothy edge" to use their term, of the Integral Movement now. And once again there is also Great Story eco-spirituality and practice, the Alternative Movement, the New Age sensu lato, etc etc . Once again, Wilberian/Neowilberian/Postwilberian Integral is just a tiny subset of a much bigger paradigm shift.

Then we have stage three, Integral Yoga. This means going beyond mental forms altogether, and going beyond exoteric limitations, and living and practicing a life and praxis and activism that is infused with gnosis and enlighetnemnt and spiritual transformation of self and world at every stage. Here is where we leave the poor Wilberian movement far behind. Because this stage involves all spiritualities, not just Wilber's Westernised Buddhism.

So it can be seen that spirituality in the current Integral Movement is old, premodern to use their term. They have integral theory, excellent. They are only now making admirable steps in practice. have not made a single advance beyond what the Buddha discovered 2500 years ago, and if anything they have gone backwards, because rather than following the path to enlightenment they get distracted by all this mental masturbation over minutiae of quadrants and lines and waves and altitude and methodological perspectives.

There is a lack of understanding of Bhakti (Surrender to the Supreme) in the Mainstream Integral Movement

What Sri Aurobindo taught, in contrast to all this, was an Integral Spirituality. He wasn't the first, Ramakrishna did it before him. But so far this Integral Spiritual Practice is limited to the Aurobindonian Integral Yoga community, which with a few admirable exceptions such as AUM ("All USA Meeting") and an offshoot blog SCIY ("Science, Culture & Integral Yoga"), does not dialogue with the rest of the world. Well, who can blame them? There's a lot of ignorance out there, and it can be tedious. But this means the collective social transformation (noosphere) is not addressed.

Each is one-sided to some extent. The Integral Yoga community in the West is not active in outreach (in India however Sri Aurobindo is very big, and there are important education iniatives in the state of Orissa for example). While the Integral Movement remains tied to a limited, non-integral, non-world-transforming spirituality.

Ok, but what about Michael Murphy - Integral Transformative Practice - linking Aurobindo and Wilber? Well, I cannot comment here. i get a good vibe from his photo, but does ITP raelly radically go beyond the mental, transcend the ego, transmute the lower desires, enlighten the cells of the body, bring the Divine down to Earth? Or is it just another California lifestyle thing? I can't tell, because I have no experience with it. but what makes me cynical is that Murphy, like Craig Hamilton (formerly of What is Enlightenment? magazine, and a devotee of Andrew Cohen), while strongly supportive of the AUM 2007 Conference, seem to lack insights in the way that Bhakti and Surrender focused on an enlightened guru (not an intermediate zone one) works. To quote from a report about the AUM. Below is an article written for Auroville Today on the conference

Craig Hamilton (former editor of "What is Enlightenment?" magazine, whose workshop at last year's AUM brought this question into the open) along with Michael Murphy of Esalen found that their major criticisms (the unquestioning acceptance of Mother and failure of self-reflection that they'd seen in the Ashram and Auroville) were effectively answered by the very fact of the panel itself.

Failure of Self Reflection? Or heart-felt devotion through Bhakti Yoga? A devotion taht transcends the mental faculties. This is not to say that the mental cannot be employed as well; indeed it should be to avoid the slide into fundamentalism. But one thing I find interesting is that nowhere is there any evidence of Bhakti, or of Surrender to the Supreme, in the entire Integral Movement. This is not surprising, given the over intellectual nature of the whole movement. People with a strong mental nature tend to be weakly developed on the emotional. But unless there is balance between head and heart, then nothing can be achieved.

by the way I do feel this balance at forums like Integral Praxis and Zaadz; but I never see it in Wilber's obsessive intellectualising. This is obviously one reason why Wilber frequently mentions Sri Aurobindo, but never once in all his thousands of pages The Mother.

But balance of head and heart alone are not enough. A third element is needed; transcendence of the rational mind. This requires giving up hierarchical perspectives such as ideas of second tier elitism etc. And this is achieved most powerfully through heart-felt aspiration to the Supreme. If your mind and heart is centered on the Supreme, then you won't be thinking about how special and superior your mental understanding is, how you are at the cutting edge or frothy edge of kosmic evolution, and so on.

This essential humility is what is most needed for the Integral Movement

So where do I go from here? Well, I'll keep blogging and stirring things up. And finish my books. And help launch a new definition of Integral, which is also teh original definition, which is so far in advance of what is around now (which is not to denegrate, only to speak strongly).

The world is waiting for a new evolutionary consciousness.

My essay on Integral Praxis

2007-09-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

I've submitted an essay to the Integral Research Group (IRG) people for inclusion on Integral Praxis - it's called Redefining the Integral. There's already some comments there (both pro and anti), so it should be interesting. Will the Integral movement be able to break free of its Wilberian shackles? Time will tell.

The IRG also has another, non-intellectual, blog, called Integral Flow which I've joined. (I would have preferred another title, say, Integral Life, but, we'll see what happens)

In the meantime, I have three books in the pipeline - Integral Metaphysics and Transformation, which has been already described here and on my Zaadz blog, but which will be shorter than originally planned, because I'm a perfectionist and I don't want to be writing forever; another tentatively titled Global Paradigm Shift, about the New Age, New Paradigm, Alternative, Eco-spiritual, Integral, and other such movements, and how they all fit together; and a non-technical book that I'm thinking of calling The Story of Everything about the origin, history and future of the cosmos, from an esoteric perspective.

New Integral Developments

2007-09-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything here for quite a while. the main reason being that I've been busy on my books, my sadhana, my website, and other things. I've also written some stuff at my Zaadz blog.

Anyway there've been a few interesting things that have come up

Fora long time now I've been feeling bored with the whole Integral Movement. The intellectualism, the religosity (Wilber worship), the lack off gnosis.... I've already writetn some of my comments on my blogs.

I decided to reorganise some of my website; and transfer some of the material in the "Integral" section to a new section called "Esotericism". So this is what I'm doing on at the moment. Because Esotericism is based on Gnosis, whereas "Integral" is an ambigious word that can mean anything. And not seeing any foundation in the movement beyond Wilberism (Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga community is totally different) I was thinking of giving up entirely on the Integral movement. But then two interesting developments came along

First, some real questioning on Open Integral - Personal reflections on integral - rather than the usual philosophising and social commentary (not saying those things are bad, just, well, i want more). Is this just a flash in the pan, or is Open Integral finally beginning to mature?

Second, an intriguing new blog, which I found out about through Open Integral, called Integral Praxis. Might this be the beginning of an authentic proper post-wilberian movement (I don't mean intellectual Wilber criticism, which, while useful and necessary, does not consitute a movement)? It seems like something I should get involved in.

Most important of all is networking, because there is little that can be achieved by working in isolation, as was the rule in the past.

So we'll see what happens!

Book update

2007-07-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

An update on my book in progress.

Currently the manuscript is being reorganised. I've renamed it Integral Metaphysics and Transformation. Some of the material in the early chapters has been moved to other chapters. There will be less stuff on the Wilberian (current mainstream) Integral Movement, which basically I have to say is just another exoteric philosophy and intellectual new age religious movement, and more on my own unique Integral Vision. Rather than just reacting to and writing within the context of the current Integral Movement, which I find to be very limiting (because of its exoteric religious and overly mental nature), I'm presenting a more active and unique worldview based on gnosis and practical transformation. This will be a new definition of "Integral", going back to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the real founders. Also I'm making the language a bit snappier and more provocative; the previous drafts were rather too tame. I was trying to hard to be polite, and a think a lot was lost as a result. There are times when one has to speak out strongly and boldly.

Progress report on my book Integral Metaphysics

2007-06-09T23:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything in a whole because I've been so busy on my book, which will now be called Integral Metaphysics

From the preface

The present book is the end result of my own long path of exploration in and experiences with the teachings and practice of science, esotericism, occultism, spirituality, the alternative movement, the New Age movement, and the Integral movement. The result is both a bringing together of all these fields, and a new description of reality that builds on those foundations.

Although the intention here is to present a visionary rather than an academic account, I have tried as much as possible to provide references and footnotes to the various concepts. But because I am an intuitive thinker rather than an academic, there are more details and much better references when it comes to subjects I know about, and much less, or only secondary or tertiary references, on topics I am not. I have also tried to write this book in a way that anyone can understand, yet at the same include complex and subtle topics. This has meant wherever possible replacing a difficult word with a simpler one. Whether or not I have succeeded is up to the reader to decide.

From the introduction: (about the title)

The title, “Integral Metaphysics”, refers to the synthesis of two topics that have grabbed my interest over the years. “Integral” (in the philosophical and spiritual context) is a poorly defined concept that refers to a universal explanation of everything in terms of an evolutionary philosophy of personal and social transformation. “Metaphysics” refers to all the big questions about the nature of life, the universe, and Reality as a whole. It pertains not just to the visible physical world, but the invisible, non-physical reality as well. “Integral Metaphysics” combines both these themes. It also describes an evolutionary transformation culminating in personal and global divinisation.

Tentative table of contents (without indenting, and the minor sections in parts IV to VII are not generally worked out, and those that are listed are not numbered). Note that this list and arrangement of topics will almost certainly change as the book proceeds. I am very interested in any comments and feedback, inclyuding suggestions for further topics that should be included.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
Part I. Introduction
1. Introduction
1-i Outline of the Present Book
1-ii How this book came to be written
1-iii. Don't take this book as dogma
2. Biographies
2-i. Difficulties facing the biographer
2-ii. Sri Aurobindo
2-iii. The Mother
2-v. Avoiding the fundamentalist trap
Part II Integral
3. Exoteric and Esoteric
3-i. Religion and Science, Exoteric and Esoteric
3-ii. Esotericism is not Elitism
4. Going beyond the current Consensus
4-i. The Consensus Western Worldview
4-ii. Religionism
4-iii. “Religious” versus “Spiritual”
4-iv. Secular knowledge, Science and Scientism
4-v. The Limitation of Reason
4-vi The need for a new, more Universal understanding
5. The Universal Approach
5-i The Blind Men and the Elephant
5-ii The Fox and the Hedgehog – Relativism and Universalism
6. The Integral Alternative
6-i. “Integral” in the spiritual-philosophical sense
6-ii. Sri Aurobindo and his influence
6-iii. Pitirim Sorokin's social theory
6-iv. Jean Gebser's structures of consciousness
6-v. Counter-Culture, New Age, and the Alternative movement
6-vi. Ray and Anderson's Cultural Creatives
6-vii. Ken Wilber's Integral theory
6-viii. Other Integral thinkers
6-ix. Exoteric Integralism
6-x. Kuhn's Paradigm hypothesis, and follow-up interpretations
6-xi. Is there such a thing as an “Integral Paradigm”?
6-xii. The Moral dimension
6-xiii. Exoteric Integral – a definition
Part III Metaphysics
7. Metaphysics
7-i. The many definitions of Metaphysics
8. What is Consciousness?
8-i Philosophy of Consciousness - The Mind-Body problem
8-ii. Consciousness in Kashmir Shaivism
9. Esotericism and Gnosis
9-i The recovery of spiritual wisdom
9-ii. Reason, Faith, and Gnosis
9-iii. Epistemology and Gnosis
9-iv. Occultism
9-v. Esotericism
9-vi. The Perennial Philosophy
9-vii. The Mystical Experience
9-viii. Beyond the refusal of the Ascetic
9-ix. A personal definition of Gnosis
10 Reply to the Academic Critique
10-i. Reply to empiricist-based physicalism
10-ii. Reply to the “myth of the given”.
10-iii. Reply to postmodernism
10-iv. Why sceptical reductionism cannot understand esotericism
11. The Esoteric Integral Alternative
11-i. Defining the Esoteric Integral Paradigm
11-ii. Fundamental premises
Part IV. First Philosophy (chapters to be revised)
12. The Supreme Reality
o The Absolute Reality
o The problem of defining God
o (more)
13. Emanation, Polarity, and Change
o The Ontological Gradation and the Theory of Emanation
o Polarity
o From One to Many
14. Causality, Karma, and Empathy
o Dependent Origination
o Change
Part V. Being
15. Occultism and Cosmology (the macrocosm)
o The Concept of Planes of Existence
o Dualism versus Ontological Gradation
o Hierarchy and Unity
o Multiple Parameters
o Noospace – Dimensions of Consciousness
16. Psychology (the microcosm)
17. The Physocosm (Larger Physical Reality) and its subdivisions
o The Physocosm and its four states
o Physical-Mundane Reality (or state)
o The Mundane Physical Mind
o Etherophysical (paraphysical) Reality
o Subtle physical (esoteric) Reality
o Causal physical Reality
o Inner Divinity
18. Astral Reality - Orectocosm
19. Mental Reality – Noocosm
Part VI. Process
20. Process
21 Kalpas and Universes
22 Tohu and Tikkun
23 Rounds and Dimensions
24. Evolution and Hypostases
Part VII. Divinisation
25 The Yoga of Ascent and the Yoga of Descent
26. Enlightenment / Self-Realisation
27. Divine Soul / Soul-Realisatrion
28. Higher revelation and gnosis
29. Cosmic revelation – God-Realisation
30. Supramentalisation (Cosmic Redemption)
Appendices
o Appendix 1 - “The Divinisation Of Matter - Lurianic Kabbalah, Sri Aurobindo, and the New Physics” by M.Alan Kazlev
o Appendix 2 - “Towards a Foundation of a Universal Esoteric Science”, by M.Alan Kazlev, (with additional comments by Steven Guth and Arvan Harvat)
o Appendix 3 – “Multidimensional Science” by Robert Searle
Glossary of names and teachings
Glossary of technical terms
Index

Philosophy vs Teaching

2007-05-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

Marko - who like me posts occaisonally on Open Integral, always from the perspective of gnosis - made an interesting observation that I think is highly relevant and worth repeating here:

I would propose the distinction between Integral philosophies and Integral teachings. I see that in the Integral community the two are not enough delineated while I think it helps to do so.
I found this little explanation of the difference between teachings and philosophies by a professor of the university of Virginia in an article on consciousness: http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness/
“A metaphysical philosophy is a purely conceptual structure that is presumed to be a logically self-consistent description of some aspect of reality. It does not necessarily include techniques for experiencing this reality. A philosophy is different from what we shall call a teaching. The purpose of a teaching is to help a student to know a reality, no matter whether it is phenomenal or noumenal. Since the emphasis is on knowledge rather than on logic, a teaching may use whatever concepts and techniques work in bringing the student to the desired knowledge. A teaching often will have a philosophical basis, but there is no particular equirement to adhere rigidly to it.”
I see Wilber etc. as creating an integral philosophy, meaning their purpose is to describe in a logical self-consistent way as many aspects of reality as possible.
Aurobindo, Almaas etc. have integral teachings, meaning their purpose is to help their students know (by experience) as many aspects of reality as possible.
Now I am not saying that one is better then the other, I find both of them interesting although I am more interested in the second. But I do see a confusion in the Integral community between the two that would help the discussions if there was more clarity.
And also I see Integral philosophers use concepts from teachings (like for instance Advaita) that are not meant to be used in the philosophical way, but in the teaching way, that is only as pointers for students to find the knowledge themselves through jnana or gnosis. I think you
can use these concepts for a philosophical system, but if you then afterwards refer back to the teaching you should not treat it like a philosophy but as a teaching.

Obviously, this is also where I differ from the Wilberian / Post Wilberian movement. Their intellectual and philosophical discussions are about taking authentic teachings out of their original very pragmatic spiritual and soteriological milieu, making them into something dry and mentally abstract. But while it is useful in adding to the store of human knowledge, and indeed serves an absolutely necessary purpose, in the end no amount of mental theorising can confer enlightenment. For me therefore what is interesting and useful is the Teaching, not the Philosophy!

Spiritual attitude

2007-05-01T19:53:00.000-07:00

I've been getting some very good cxomments from my original suggestion for a gnostic community. Here are two that I would like to repeat.

From Tom:

Said Lao-tzu: "We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue!"

Lao-tzu seems to me to be an enlightened sage very much in the mould of Ramana Maharshi, and vice-versa. Both teach a form of quietism and non-striving that is very confronting to the egotist who seeks to elevate him or herself (for often him) above others.

This is where most pop gurus and teachings go wrong. They are full of egotism, full of what the Mother and Sri Aurobindo call "the vital" (the emotional/affective nature, corresponding in part to the "astral plane" of Theosophy); one contacts such a guru and is full of excitement. This excitement, tied up with egotism, is the result of "the vital" (or as my friend Steven Guth calls it, "The Double"). Almost all religion and (pseudo-)spirituality is based on this. So is the mass media, and if you look at a Hollywood blockbuster movie you will notice it is almost totally devoid of any mentality at all. In each case, the whole thing is just a way of pushing the buttons of the lower "vital". Likewise the Wilberian Integral movement, and much of the New Age movement in general.

From Ned:

A gnostic community would include a group of people who, as Sri Aurobindo and Mother indicate to us, have compassion and empathy for all beings no matter what stage of growth they are at, while having an ongoing sense of spiritual evolution -- in other words, even in the most ignorant, such people would see the Divine behind the veil and draw that out. For such a community to arise spontaneously, all we can do on a personal level is to surrender totally to the Grace of the Supreme.

The main problem I see with this whole Wilberian business of labeling and color-coding stages and what not is that it's very prejudicial and mental. It requires that you judge people externally and basically stumble around blindly inside their souls. Truly spiritual people rise above all of this, see people's pain and attachments, and try to address their *needs*, not impose personal agendas on them. They participate from a totally different level and manifest a presence that draws out from people what they themselves were not aware of. This is why surrendering to the presence of a true sage is so empowering. It is the difference between the spiritual authoritarianism of the past and the divine anarchy of the future.

The Divine, and the consciousness of the Enlightened Being (as opposed to the "intermediate zone" guru with only a partial realisation) doesn't discriminate. The mental and egotistic position however organises things in terms of a hierarchy, with those most disagreeable to one's own pov, or alternatively those deemed the most "primitive", placed at the bottom, and those most similar to one's own pov, near the top, but still below one's own position, as a sort of earlier version or prelude to what one is saying. Some religious classifications do this, they classify the other religions or philosophies in an ascending order. Ditto 19th/early 20th century western colonialism, with other cultures and races. And of course Wilberian and Spiral Dynamics versions of the "Great Chain of Being" (as opposed to the authentic, metapohysical "Great Chain of Being". Ultimately, the whole thing is narcissistic, the universe revolving around one's own religion, culture, race, philosophy, or ideology.

A gnostic or geneuine spiritual community's "outreach" would be very different to that of the conventional (Wilberian) integral movement, since it would be on the level of the mental pointing to the spiritual, whereas the latter is based on the mental inspired and powered by the affective ("vital", astral) level. How such a thing would work, without ego getting involved, I don't know. The best thing would be to strive for mindful awareness of one's own reactions, watching out for movements of the lower nature which are ever waiting toi hijack the genuine spiritual impulse. And in that way, to always follow one's own inner spiritual guidance.

Gnosis and Outreach

2007-04-30T21:53:00.000-07:00

Carrying on from the topic of the last post

First, a current working definition of "integral" that is able to include both Wilber and Aurobindo. By "integral" can be meant they share these qualities:

(a) a spiritual evolutionary worldview,
(b) a "big picture" approach that is both distinct from but also integrates spirituality, philosophy, science, etc, and
(c) self-referential - both use the word "integral".

Not much to go by, and at one point I was ready to give up the possibility of any connection at all, other than that Wilber appropriated Sri Aurobindo's terminology in this context. But Scott Zimmerle and I are currently working on a book which traces the influence of the Integral worldview - or alternatively the Modern Teleological worldview, back to German idealism, and I would add Western esotericism. Note that Whitehead, Teilhard, Blavatsky, Steiner, and many others can also be defined as "integral" according to (a) and (b); with Gebser and the post-wilberians we can add (c) as well.

Anyway, there is an interesting symmetry between the Integral Yoga Community (Aurobindonian) and the Integral Movement (Wilberian/PostWilberian) . Since I have been and still are involved in both, I can talk from experience, or at least as much experience as my own observations may carry, which is not anywhere as much as those qualified in these subjects.

The situation as I see it is like this. Integral Yoga constitutes an authentic spiritual path based on the teachings of two genuine enlightened beings (Sri Aurobindo and The Mother) who can only be approached through spiritual insight. Thus you need some measure of gnosis to begin with, or the whole thing appears meaningless, and can easily be rejected. As with those involved in any spiritual tradition, some may be only "seekers" (the seeker is not the same as the gnostic, because the seeker only knows from a mental or devotional level; e.g. someone is "seeking", then they join a religion or a guru) who feel an affinity. But this affinity is not or not yet the broad certainty and non-contradiction of all spiritual paths that Gnosis conveys. But (again as with any authentic tradition) the core of Integral Yoga people, and many on the periphery, have at least some level of gnosis or insight.

However the Integral Yoga community tends to be quite insular, in that it has not is primarily concerned with Sri Aurobindo and The Mother's teachings, and its effect on the larger world or even the larger New Age community has been slight. The exception is in India where Sri Aurobindo is still seen as an important guru, philosopher, and freedom-fighter, but that is a cultural thing, and I suppose also involves national pride.

What I have said here for Integral Yoga applies by analogy also to every other authentic spiritual tradition - Buddhist, Vedantic, Sufi, Kabbalistic, Taoist, Esoteric Christian, etc etc. I don't mean pop gurus who teach a watered down message acceptable to the secular West. I mean authentic esoteric spiritual traditions.

The opposite or converse of this is shown by the Integral Movement, initiated by and still focused around KW and his teachings. Here there is no transcendent spiritual path, but only mental theory. But there is something that the authentic traditions lack; outreach

The orthodox Wilberian mainstream of the Integral movement has been incredibly proficient in this regard, and indeed in many ways Wilberism resembles a missionary religion. You will never see this sort of marketing involved with an esoteric teaching. Because of their success, the Wilberian integralites have established a decent influence within the New Age and New Consciousness movement, and especially on the internet, and are also very successful - much more than any esoteric teaching - in America and I have heard also in Germany. But this isn't the case everywhere. In Australia Wilberism is insignificant as a "new age" movement. with only a relatively small number of followers. But the situation with Integral Yoga is even worse. Apart from myself and one or two others, Aurobindonianism is totally non-existent!

So we have two diametrically poles within the realm of the "integral". One has genuine spiritual insight, but little in the way of outreach. The other is brilliant at outreach, but the philosophy lacks an authentic spiritual core.

Actually the situation may be changing, at least from the Integral Yoga perspective. Here is a very intersting and promising instance of Integral Yoga outreach.

To come back to the topic back to an Integral Gnostic Community, I hadthe idea, although maybe this is just egotism and forcing things, rather than allowing them to develop spontaneously (whatever that might involve). Anyway I thought that maybe a Gnostic Community might likewise benefit from "outreach". It may be writing books, or webpages, or whatever. In any case this is only something that would be posisble after the original group is established. So first there should be a community of fellow gnostics on-line. They don't even have to be "integral" (sensu the two or three characteristics listed above) gnostics, although that's basically my approach. But others may have different approaches. The important thing is that they are receptive to a higher or deeper, more spiritual and divine, consciousness. People who genuinely see things in terms of going beyond limited mental perspectives, and are attuned to, or aspire to, the Transcendent,

Then, if and when a decent and active community develops online, and depending on the amount of interest these suggestions generate, the next step should be some sort of "outreach". But it is essential always to avoid the dangers of cultism, superficiality, authoritarianism, dogmatism etc. Spiritual principles based on genuine inner guidance and inspiration (not outer authority) should never be compromised. And there is no greater way to destroy an initiative like this than for one or more people involved to get caught up in egotism or competing personalities, or trying to appropriate the community as a vehicle for their own personal agendas or belief systems, whatever they may be. I have been involved in internet forums and I have seen that sort of thing happen, and it is immediately obvious that there is not an atom of genuine spirituality there, it is all ego. Well-meaning ego, with a lot of good will and sincerity, sure. But egotism all the same. The group therefore might be the synergetic result of the sadhana or spiritual aspiration of the participants; spiritual practice that transcends the limited thoughtforms of mental or mental-spiritual teachings, and thus can come to approach and appreciate the Supreme/Enlightment/The Absolute from one, several, many, and/or all, perspectives. A good example of this is given by Sri Aurobindo, and which I have posted on Open Integral.

Towards an Integral Gnostic Community

2007-04-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

I'm double posting this on Zaadz as well..

Having participated in and checked out a number of "integral" forums and on-line communities, I am intrigued by the fact that there is one thing that seems to be missing. Gnosis.
By Gnosis I mean an inner certainty and spiritual knowing that goes beyond the endless futile turnings of rational argument.

These words - when divorced from the content of their experience - appear shallow and new agey and thus can be misinterpreted by those who lack Gnosis and coming only from the sceptical rational mind. Because, as with all things, they have meaning through experience. You need to have Gnosis to understand Gnosis. Elitism? Perhaps. But if that's how it is, that's how it is. You cannot say that the state of gnosis is the same as the state of lacking gnosis. When there is an lack of gnosis, all that understanding has to rely on are endless intellectual theories, abstractions, dogmas, of which one is chosen as the mental truth, and the others denied or subordinated to that. Sure there are degrees of gnosis too; it's not like anyone who has Insight is the same or in agreement or lacks ego. This is only the very first step.

And this, I contend, is where the current Integral movement totally fails. The latter is based on academic and quasi-academic thinking, and heavily influenced by the intellectualising of the Wilberian/Post-Wilberian paradigm, an intellectualising that seeks with great good will to understand. But which cannot understand the transcendent, because the transcendent by its very nature is beyond such intellectualising. All that the best intellectualising can do is point to the infinitely manifold Supreme. In the words of the old cliche, the map is not the territory. And philosophy and academia fails when it remains fixated on the map, and ignores - or still worse in the case of radical agnosticism, materialism, or religious fundamentalism, denies - the territory.

This is not to denigrate the many wonderful people I have met in the Integral community, or to deny the influence Wilber's work has had on my own way of thinking. However for me Wilber's influence has been more along the lines of a catalyst - the immensely inspirational idea of bringing everything and everyone on the cutting edge of human and collective evolution together. Unfortunately I consider Wilber's own philosophy - his integral theory - an intellectual dead end. His theory, with all its lines and levels and quadrants and stages and states, is much too tiny and much too inflexible for this vision. And his ego, sorry to say this Ken, is much too big. Without humility, nothing can be achieved.

This is why I advocate not a mental integral theory, and not egotistic pomposity, but a spiritual gnosis, an integral insight that goes beyond all such limitations. I have yet to see anyone do a better job at pointing the way than Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. What Wilber fails to do, philosophically, spiritually, esoterically and occultly, they succeed in doing.

So okay, if the Wilberian/Postwilberian movement isn't the way (at least not for me; there are many for whom it is the way, and it is good and right that they are there, because they are exactly where they should be), what about the Integral Yoga community? Wouldn't they constitute the sort of thing I am talking about?

Well, much as I am grateful to share this planet with others inspired by the same twin avatars as I, and very glad that they are carrying on the message, there is also a danger here. It is exactly the same danger the Wilberians face; the danger of becoming fixated on a single teaching. And sure in this case it is a genuine teaching, not an intellectual dead end. But there is still the fact that if you follow those two great teachers literally, you'll be stuck yet again in another limited religion. And you'll only be able to approach the Supreme through a limited perspective, that is, through the mental filter of a literal reading of only one set of teachings, rather than an unlimited one through the experience of all teachings and all teachers. Also, just because someone follows Sri Aurobindo and the Mother doesn't mean they ave gnosis! It may simply be an intellectual attraction, or an emotional affiliation, or a combination of factors that have nothing to do with spiritual insight.

Now, I'm not saying that following Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to the exclusion of all other teachers is no good. First, esotericism has always worked that way. You attain enlightenment through a fundamentalist approach to Vedanta, a fundamentalist approach to Sufism, a fundamentalist approach to Kabbalah. The rigid and inflexible Thoughtform leads beyond itself to the Supreme. And those who are fundamentalist Aurobindonians are following the path that is exactly right for them, and honouring that path and that teaching, and I would be the last one to try to dissuade them. Also, there are those Aurobindonians who are aware of the danger of literalism. So I am not saying everyone in Integral Yoga only follows the one thing, absolutely not.

And second, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother truly did bring something new, the Yoga of Descent, the Yoga of the Divinisation of the Body and of Matter, which marks a complete break with old spiritualities and yogas, which were only concerned with the attainment of a nirvana or enlightenment that renounces the world (or in the case of the bodhisattva ideal defers liberation until everyone else has been enlightened and entered nirvana and disappeared from the world). In this regard, Wilber, for all his claims to be the most advanced, the most integral, etc etc, is totally stuck in the old idea of the highest state (what he calls nondual, Spirit, One Taste, etc) as one of transcendence of the world.

But even so, for me, and for many others, there is the need to go beyond the reliance on one teacher or teaching only. Sure you may still honour that teaching, and that teacher. It may be your primary orientation to spirituality and gnosis and the Supreme. For me Sri Aurobindo and the Mother always will be. But it is not the only one. Your spiritual conscious is wide enough to take in many authentic teachings and teachers, and see the Supreme in each. For example, I see Ramana Maharshi as equal, that's right, equal, to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. This is a paradox since mentally I consider Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings superior. And I am always open and receptive to further teachers and teachings, who would likewise be equal in status, because all partake of the Supreme through their complete Enlightenment. You may have similar experiences with different teachers and teachings, or with the same ones, it doesn't matter. What matters is the Gnosis that goes beyond words. And beyond focus on a single external form.

Nor does this mean that everyone has the same gnosis, the same experience, and will attain the same enlightenment. We are all different, unique, and so are experiences and our gnosis are too. It is not a bland uniformity. It is the exact opposite.

I do envisage a very new type of spiritual community emerging, a community of gnostics, not bound by religious or philosophical limitations. There have always been such esoteric groups, but in the past they were limited to a particular tradition, no matter how authentic that tradition was or is. The Supreme however encompasses all traditions, and infinitely more besides. And a community of gnostics connected over the Internet would indeed be something new. The work of transformation is still done in one's own self first and foremost. But the synergy of spiritual exchange between gnostics all over the world may lead to a totally new emergent phenomena, new spiritual evolution, quite different to the current mentally-based noosphere. And this would aid in the work of global transformation, a community of Gnostic Lightworkers.

Such are my thoughts. I look forward to your feedback on this :-)

Eco-activism, New Age empowerment, and Lightworking

2007-04-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

Several months ago I went to two very different workshops. The first was an ecological group, the second Theta Healing. I have already written about both on this blog and alos my zaadz blog. In this post I would like to just comment on my feelings of both in hindsight, what each has left me with. Because in a sense each only provides half the picture.

The Ecological workshop did a very good job of reminding me of the mess the Earth is in because of human stupidity (but they didn't and cannot know that human beings - at least those in power - are just puppets of forces from the supraphysical, especially the affective or astral plane (what the Mother calls the vital world). And it pricked my consciousness and reminded me of why I'm here. But when it came to solutions, well i wasn't impressed. But I'm not a march in the streets holding placards activist, or a lie down in front of bulldozers activist, or an organise a filming pof Al Gore's inconvenient truth video to your local community activist, or even a write letters to your local MP activist. And really even if you are one of those (and btw Iabsolutely support all of them, I'm not denigrating this sort pf action at all!) it wasn't very good because the second part which was supposed to be the practical solutions was inefficiently organised, rushed, and the networking not followed up (apart from a Yahoo mail list). To be fair to these people they are new at this too, at least here in Oz, but even so it reminded me of a talk/workship at a ConFest some 20-odd years ago, in which the guy giving the talk and describing all the horrors of what is happening to the Earth ended it on a funny note by saying "father australopithecus, help us!" and stuff like that (calling on the ancestral hominids i guess). And I thought, this is the only solution they have?

The New Age scene is very different. It is all about empowering yourself, thoughts/beliefs create reality, so you are given techniques or initiated into the ability to modify your thoughts and beliefs to engineer your reality. The empowerment that is lacking - or is only present on the gross physical - in eco-spirituality, is present in the New Age, and indeed is the whole subject of the New Age. But conversely the New Age tends to be..., well, narcissistic is too strong a word, but what i mean is it more about oneself, although also of course about healing others, and even when about oneself it is in a positive manner. But there is very little about the Environment for example, except the acknowledgment that the current crisis is something that comes about through negative thinking, and lightworkers are working on healing the Earth. Or there may be some millenialistic element as in Jose Arguelles system (Mayan Prophecy), which in that regard is more like millenialist Christianity than the positive aspect New Age (although it lacks the intolerance of fundamentalist premillenialism). I saw a video of Arguelles talking a month or so ago (this was organised by the local Planet Art Network group) and he seems like a really nice guy btw.

Looking back at the two workshops I went to then, learning Theta Healing was a major turning point in my life, whereas the ecological workshop did not made any change in my life.

So the true Lightworking involves taking the best from both. Ecological and environbmental consciousness from eco-spirituality and deep ecology, and ecological activism, and personal spiritual empowerment from the New Age. It is actually strange that these two have not been combined already, because it is such a logical step, with each complementing the other. Or maybe they have - in fact I'm sure someone must have connected them somewhere - but i just don't know about it.

One reason for the lack or rarity of this synergy may be obstruction due to drugs clouding the consciousness and remoiving the will. I haven't bene to any confests in many many years, but i stopped going because of the degenerate drug use (excessive marijuana). This, I suggest, is where the hippy/alternative movement has run aground; they have become a bunch of druggies, no better than alcoholics in mainstream society or among the older generation. A friend of mine who has the same pure no-drugs attitude that I have, comments on this even in the rainbow gatherings and confests today, although he thinks it may still be possible to get around this. I disagree, and think instead that this is why the alternative movement, with their very perceptive enmvironmental and political consciousness, has not been able to empower themselves. You can't work on the subtle levels if you're head is always cloudy and out of it diue to marijuana in the bvloodstream (and marijuana stays in the bloodstream much longer than alcohol does, it is quite an insidious drug in that regard)

Thus the true lightworker, the true "rainbow warrior" (i don't know if this meme is still big but it was very big in my alternative and confest days some 20-25 years ago), integrates empowerment and magical potency with strong environmental and eco-spiritual consciousness. This is how the Earth is to be saved. Thus both New Age and environmentalism are good, but alos each partial. One gives power, but no map; the other a map, but no power. Okay environmental groups still leave out animal liberation and sentient rights; this is the real weakness in the environmental / social-reform movement that continues even now. Ultimately the lightworker has three areas of healing to do, human, animal, and environmental. Any one alone, or even any two alone, cannot heal this Earth. The healing can only come with all three, and with the power to engineer reality by working with belief and invoking higher spiritual and divine realities.

Disappointments with the integral movement

2007-03-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to report

I'm working on several books.

Still doing my "theta" meditation

Posted a somewhat acerbic comment on Open Integral, but it didn't come up for some reason (sometimes there's a 12 or whowever many hour delay before a post appears).

I fear that Edward Berge (see his original post in the above link) is correct, Open Integral looks like going the way of the dodo. The reasons why are stated in my comment.

But basically Open Integral's problem is that

o it couldn't get beyond Wilberian commentary (ho hum)
o there is no spiritual consensus, so it remains at the mental level
o some of the most dynamic people in the Integral (sensu lato) community chose not to get involved, or else were felt that the environment there is unsatisfactory

It is necessary for the Integral movement (actually it's not uniform enough to be a movement) to be recreated anew. We've had Sri Aurobindo who laid the spiritual foundation and set forward (in my biased approasal) the most profound philosophical and esoteric teachings ever. We've had Ken Wilber the master populariser who has been succesful in getting ideas accepted in the on-line community. But now we need co-creation through the work of many spiritually strong individuals. Not followers who would shine in the light of another, but leaders who are strong and mature to work with others of like mind and of duifferent mind, for a larger and broader and deeper and higher future.

Two and a half years ago, i was enraptured by reading the ideals on the Wilber Integral University site, and thought that this was it (they just had to dump their Wilber worship, or if that was impractical, at least add worship of dozens of other teachers who are equal and greater than Ken). But all I found was cultism and worship of one man, and my dissilusionment was great.

Then after Earpy I thought that Wilber's controversial actions would galvanise the larger integral community into action, to establish something greater. Perhaps Open Integral was to be the seed. But it seems that this is going nowhere (although it may still reinvent itself)

Another possibility is Arina / Integral Review, which seems to be the best Integral academic forum around. Perhaps this can be the nucleus for a new integral vision. Having just participated in an online forum there, I've found the people involved to be both sincere and enthusiastic.

But for me now, the goal is to get these books written!

Initial impressions reading Jean Gebser

2007-03-01T00:50:00.000-08:00

I've started reading Jean Gebser's Ever Present Origin - actually it isn't the sort of book one can read from cover to cover so i'm reading it in bits. Very intriguing but also very heavy and difficult to read; very much that "old world" style of writing. Blavatsky, Jung, and Aurobindo are the same (as are most 18th and 19th century authors), it makes for very tiring reading; although if you read only small selections here and there you tune in to a lot of wisdom.

I had heard about Gebser through Wilber, but unfortunately I have to say that once again this is an example of how Wilber (without meaning to, i'm sure) totally misinterprets (or Wilberises; i.e. makes them out to be earlier predecessors of his own views) the people he cites and refers too. Gebser in fact is dead against the sort of linear, perspictival, evolutionary-progress-orientated approach championed by Wilber, contrast Wilber's AQAL cosmology (see Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, or Integral Psychology, or other such books), the Wilber-Beck Spiral Dynamics, etc etc, with pp.36-41 of Ever Present Origin (Ohio University Press). A better approach to Gebser is through William Irwin Thompson; both have a visionary multidisciplinary renaissance man type approach. Gebser also reminds me of Steiner in the description of his Magical, Mythic, and Mental structures of consciousness. But unlike Steiner and Wilber these are not "sequential", as mentioned, Gebser rejects that sort of interpretation; "archetypal" might be a better word; all the structures are archetypal, as indicated by the table of correspondences in the back of the book.

So this has really deepened my appreciation of teh range of persoectives that constitute the Integral movement and Integral philosophy. Whitehead, who I haven't read, and Teilhard who I have, a bit, are two evolutionary theologians who are also representative of the "Integral Paradigm". More about this in my book in progress of the same name.

Magic and Mysticism

2007-02-11T15:18:00.000-08:00

Magic (creating, bringing into being) and Mysticism (devotion to the Supreme) go together, or ideally they should. I'm developing my own form of Theta, which by now is very different to the original version i was taught a week ago, so much so that it almost deserves a different name. Although I like the word "theta". Not in reference to brain waves, but the way Teilhard used Omega. Theta process? Theta transformation? Unlike Creative Visualisation, it begins with aspiration for the Supreme, or for that aspect of the Suprme which one resonates with atm. That's the Mysticism. The commanding into manifestation is the Magic. So Magic and Mysticism are not sequential stages as in Wilberian socio-evolution, but two distinct and complementary processes.

I am certainly integrating Theta Healing with the Aurobindonian tradition. In an earlier post I incorrectly suggested that Vianna's Theta Healing was an aspect of the Supramental Change initiated by the Mother (just like the New Age etc). This is incorrect. Theta Healing is basically Magic which invcolces going out of the body, into the astral and mental planes, to effect change. Nothing new there. The Mother new and had long mastered all that and more (under her tutelage with Theon and his wife and even before). But in The Agenda she is very clear that the Supramental Transformation is very different, it takes place in the body, not above.

So what I should have said is that the Supramental transformation has enlisted the aid of these other things (like Magic) and made them more accessible. But they remain very different, even opposite in nature.

What I have done now is scrapped all that visualisation about going out of the body and ascending through the planes that is used in Vianna's method. That's the old method, the old Magic (you can go all the way back to paleolithic shamanism). And it means you get spaced out, and have to ground yourself afterwards, purify yourself, and all that. Now, inspired by The Mother, I simply keep my consciousness in the body. There is no need to go through the planes to contact the Divine, as is done in Theta Healing, because the Supreme is present everywhere and can be accessed everywhere. So I begin by just feeling the presence of the Supreme. There is a particular aspect of the Supreme that I am in contact with, but everyone has to find their own aspect. For example, Sri Aurobindo's book on The Mother has the four Archetypes or emanations or aspects of the Supreme Mother. Then there are other esoteric systems. You find whatever resonates with you, whatever your being is aligned with. Then you can work with that. I don't want to give instructions because everyone has to find their own Truth, their own conception of God/Godhead/Divine/Supreme, whether it be from an exoteric religion, a New Age interpretation, and esoteric teaching, a Fully Enlightened Guru (Sadguru), or anyone or anything else.

Another thing in Theta Healing i never use is NLP. Because Magic is more potent than NLP. And I find I can work on clearing my physical mind using my esoteric knowledge and mind's eye intuition. I don't need to stuff around with NLP. Sure NLP "digging" can reveal stuff in your repressed subconscious, but it's always the same garbage for everyone, I'm not worthy, I'm going to go to hell, etc etc; mostly just culturally conditioned and an artifact of the NLP type process and resulting word association in any case. It's more useful to just clear stuff as it arises.

A lot of this stuff will be minor "astral parasites" from what Mirra calls "the most material vital". Or it could be deeply rooted stuff. Whatever, you clear it, send it to the Supreme, dissolve it in Light, use whatever works for you (because everyone has to create their own method that is suitable for them). Each time you do that, each time you clear out a load of garbage from the subconscious, you feel much Lighter and more joyful.

This is also what those Rainbow Bridge people do; clear out the aura. I remember reading that book many many years ago and it made an impression on me, even though I'm not into Alice Bailey. But basically what I'm doing now includes a simpler version of what they say. No need to worry about visualising a soul star etc. Also I incorporate a lot of Mirra's and Sri Aurobindo's ideas which they don't have access to. But it is intriguing to see these common ideas.

So even after a week I feel like I've made huge progress. Is this a short-term thing that requires me to keep using the method, or a permanent change, the benefits of which will remain even if i stop practicing? I don't know; it is too early to say. As with everything, it comes down to will and self-discipline, and even if the results are permanent rather than temporary (when i did old style meditation the relaxation effect was very temporary), that itself is even more motivation to keep going.

Certainly the task of healing oneself, and healing the planet, using both mysticism and magic (or Aspiration and Command) is a very potent and powerful technique, and I look forward with great enthusiasm to seeing what the future holds! And will be reporting updates here and in my Zaadz blog too (which I've been neglecting a bit and need to add to). Also these insights will mean yet another revision (but a very positive one) to my book. That's life!

More on Theta healing

2007-02-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

Having mused over my experiences with Theta Healing and the course I did, and states of consciousness experienced, I've got some extra things to add to yesterday's comments. Moreover, last night I read some of volume 5 of Mother's Agenda, and was struck by the very different perspective.

Before going further, I would like to comment, re the "family resemblance", that Theta Healing should not be seen as equal to the work of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and coming from the same Source (except inasmuch as everything is ultimately from the same source). Rather, to clarify, in my Aurocentric understanding, it isn't that Theta Healing is directly attuned to the Supramental descent, but rather that the Supramental Descent brought about by The Mother made possible a number of other things, such as the New Age movement, Theta Healing, etc.

The interesting thing about Theta Healing is that like New Thought and The New Age, it is based very much on an "abundance theology", which comes from a contemporary Western Christian theology, and is also found albeit in a more perverted form in Televangelism (with multimillionaire pastors), and in materialistic applications of Nichiren Buddhism. The idea is (to put it faceitiously) that God is a sort of cosmic bellboy, or Santa Claus in the sky. You just ask and he brings up your order. (Sure I know this is a cliche and it doesn't work this way in the New Age, or even in a lot of evangelicism. In the New Age - Shirley Maclean, Theta Healing, etc, the idea is that you are one with the Creator, and hence it is ultimately you doing teh creating).

In contrast Eastern philosophy and religion, like medieval western (e.g. Catholic etc), is based on a "poverty consciousness"; the idea that to get close to God you have to live in poverty and denial; like the vows that Catholic nuns take. It is the same thing in the East; e.g. Ramakrishna's statement regarding the pernicious desire for "woman and gold", and that you have to give up desires for these things (and similar) if you want to attain enlightenment.

Now, I am not saying that voluntary poverty, celibacy, ascetism, etc are necessarily bad. Perhaps these things were necessary in those days, as a sort of self-discipline. And maybe it didn't make such a big difference anyway, because the standard of living was so low regardless. And perhaps they still are necessary now for people of a certain psychological disposition, or wish to follow and extremely pure spiritual path. Or perhaps it was always a misinterpretation of what the enlightened sages said; because Jesus and Buddha didn't need those things, it therefore becomes a dogma that no-one should. Or maybe it's a mixture of everything.

Regardless of whether all this applies or not to others, one of the things this Theta Healing course really brought home to me is my own subconscious guilt trip; the idea that one has to live in restraint in order to progress spiritually, because chasing after material things for their own sake is a form of materialism and egotism (because you are satisfying the ego rather than following the dictates of the soul). And the fact that so many televangelicals are so obviously obscene in their money-grubbing in the name of Jesus, while in contrast the various Eastern sages who had a genuine spirituality lived a life of renunciation, didn't help matters.

Sure on the surface i was happy for material things, but the deep down subconscious causes?

And if renunciation and denial of ego were the answer, why hadn't I progressed, or at least progressed more rapidly? Ironically I feel I've made more progress in the few short days of the course and since, then I made in years previously. e.g. control of temper and (to a lesser degree) impatience. Maybe it is just the "buzz" and after affect of the course, rather than a long term result. Or maybe all those years have prepared me, and without them I would never have made progress now. But re this latter, one cannot say for sure, because it is not possible to rerun one's life one cannot tell in a scientific manner, there is no "control" to the "experiment". Also even if there was, what applies to me may not apply to someone else; everyone's life and destiny and Soul-purpose is different and unique. But I suppose one could make a broad sociological study of Theta graduates etc, and for that manner people who have done New Age style workshops, Reiki, Buddhist retreats, etc etc

One thing I have been doing is replacing the Judaeo-Christian-inspired Theta terminology with Aurobindonian and just my own jargon; this helps a great deal, but whether it would be more powerful for everyone, or just works for me because I'm customising the system to my own personal worldview and thoughtforms, I cannot say (although an Aurobindonian terminology is meaningless if you don't know Integral Yoga). The real challenge of course is to maintain the practice; something I've always had problems with (i.e. it's all about self-discipline and will-power).

So, for now, I am working on the hypothesis that it is not necessary to lead a life of personal self-restriction (whether voluntary, or enforced by life circumstances) in order to progress spiritually, and that in some cases (I am not saying in every case) these are subconscious guilt trips and hang-ups enforced by collective misconceptions. The spiritual life is not about what you have, but what you do with what you have. There are Hindu folk tales of wealthy kings who still lived a very spiritual life, because they weren't attached to their possessions. And Tantric stories of yogis and adepts who would have promiscuous sex but not be bound by attachment (hence many fallen gurus to the West who applied this, but, not being integrally enlightened, ended up becoming abusive gurus, because their actions were not perfect and pure and spontaneous).

So we need to distinguish between ascetism and renunciation. You can be an ascetic but still desire things, in which case your ascetism is a waste of time. Or you can be a renunciate and possess everything, and enjoy those things, but because you are not attached to them you don't become a slave to them, and hence can still aspire for and attain enlightenment and beyond.

The ascetic ideal developed in the West it seems through dualistic sects like the Essenes and the Gnostics, who considered that this world was evil, and therefore one should have as little as possible to do with it, so as to attain freedom of the soul. If Jesus was an essene (and some have argued he was, others he wasn't; the meme that he was seems to come mostly from Edgar Cayce) that explains why he taught ascetism, in contrast to mainstream Judaism which was and is world- and life- affirming. This is why Christianity has such a big thing about guilt regarding sex and in Catholicism, etc money. In Calvinism however there is the idea of God's elect being wealthy, hence the Protestant work ethic and the Western, especially American (being founded by puritans fleeing religious persecution) consumerist society.

While in ancient India there were the forest renunciates, and people like Mahavira and Buddha, who also taught an ascetic lifestyle. Through these memes, Hinduism also became world-negating, considering that the phenomenal reality is ultimately Maya and that it is necessary to renounce everything to achieve Liberation.

In China, Taoist quietism was the equivalent form of ascetism, while Confucianism represented the this-worldly emphasis on social mores and filial-duties (in the second half of the 20th century this was replaced by Maoism and now by totalitarian consumerism).

But now we are finally able to move away from the meme that voluntary self-restriction is necessary for individual spirituality, or for global transformation. A whole new perspective is needed on things, something that avoids the extremes of empty and gluttonous consumerism on the one hand, and world-negative spirituality on the other. And really, this is what Sri Aurobindo is saying too, when he begins The Life Divine with a study of the two negations, the Materialist and the Ascetic. Both have a partial truth, neither has the complete truth.

Just as with systems like Theta Yoga, these should not be taken as literal dogmas (I saw people at the course believing it literally) but as useful systems, to be incorporated into and used as a form of spiritual practice. I can easily imagine Theta Healing becoming just one more New Age religion, and that is something I want absolutely no part of. But as a set of very useful tools for the clearing of negative beliefs and establishment of more constructive beliefs, in order to create a more healthy reality, in the best tradition of the New Age (we are co-creators) rather than the worst (pseudo-spiritual consumerism and uncritical belief and worship of some new age teacher or guru) it is something that is valuable and, I believe, can and perhaps is contributing in its own way to the healing of the Earth, and getting us over this current global crisis, in a way that is best for all beings, and in accordance with the Divine Plan.

Theta Healing, Magic, and the Big Picture

2007-02-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

I just finished a 3 day Theta Healing course taught by Simon Rose. It was truly amazing, one reason because this technique is so potent, another because I am at the time in my life where I am ready for this transformation!

I should explain how I came to do this course.

In Living Now! magazine (a Melbourne-based free New Age newspaper/magazine that comes out once a month; paid for by ads) some months back there was an article on Gangaji, which connected me with Gangaji's vibration. As a result i was inspired to go to her talks, as a result of that I received Ramana Maharshi's transmission of Light (via Gangaji), which connected me with Ramana, which changed my life on a spiritual level (a sort of inner initiation, really).

Well naturally my ego got enthusiastic for spiritual development - or rather the glamour side as Alice Bailey would say, because it's all ego and the effective being that gets stirred up - and I started looking through Living Now! seeing what other amazing things might be advertised.

This doesn't mean that ego is bad btw (it's important to ditch those pop guru guilt trips), because it is ego that leads us beyond ego!

Anyway I was looking through the promotional pages on healing modalities; there were all sorts mentioned there, but I wanted something radical, and none really grabbed me until i noticed the write-up on Theta Magic (taught by Simon Rose). I don't know why, but there was something that powerfully drew me to this. So even though the full course is a lot of money for someone of scant financial means (notice the money issue?) I signed up for the February one.

So I thought, with a bit of trepidation, ok I'll phone and sign up. I sensed a lot of power through Simon's voice on the phone which i took as a positive sign

Then in the following days all sorts of unexpected minor crises and what not regarding real life came up (and it's funny because if these had come up first i would not of signed up)

In the meantime I did the Awakening the Dreamer symposium (eco-spiritual) which helped me to reconnect with the Alternative movement (it's all happening...), but on a higher turn of the spiral (greater emotional and spiritual maturity) then when i was involved & going to confests and so on 20+ years back.

In the following Friday and weekend I did the Theta Healing course taught by Simon. There were about 30 people there all up, but i seemed to be the only one with serious esoteric knowledge. The consciousness was very New Age, of the level of "What the bleep" and "The Secret"; the sort of thing that many people even in the Integral movement would be cynical of and/or consider naive.

Indeed I am constantly struck by the very different consciousness in each group of which I am involved or seem to gravitate too.

Science is empirical and pragmatic but open to possibilities on the physical level. Very few people who are not scientists can think scientifically.

Transhumanism is a subculture that is physicalist and visionary and head-centered with a religiously millennialist approach, but they do get the science right. There is a lot of overlap with since fiction, visionary elements in IT, certain elements in geek culture, etc.

The Wilberian Integral movement is a small Consciousness-studies / "new age" / post-postmodernist subculture that again (like the previous two) is very head centered and theory-orientated, but also has a more spiritual perspective (via Buddhism mostly) as well as empiricism, but tends to rely unhealthily on a single individual (you know who ;-) whose science is not always the best. But at least they are usually not limited by physicalism, and their vision of a grand synthesis is inspiring. Yet this same movement may also be very cynical of the New Age (despite a number of common themes and some overlap), just as is Science and Transhumanism. There is some overlap and sharing of common cause and perspective, but also rivalry with, the Eco-Spiritual movement (which is denigrated as "green meme").

The Eco-spiritual movement, Great Turning, etc, is social, ecological, shamanic spiritual (rather than Buddhistic), very much heart centered, or head and heart, rather than just head as in the previous categories. They constitute a sort of evolution of the mainstream.

Animal Liberation is heart-centered and concerned with what I call the "great taboo"; which is the human animal's inhumanity to non-human animals. Heart centered again, this is true compassion because it isn't guided by anthropocentric religious biases. Outsiders find it strident, and as a result the movement alienates, unlike the Eco-Spiritual movement which gathers people to its cause (e.g. Al Gore). But if you can sense the pain of non-human animals (who are identical to us on an emotional level) you can understand why animal activists are strident. To me, people involved in groups like PETA are the real heros in this world.

The New Age movement is Heart Centred, basically like the best of religion, really a sort of eclectic and tolerant Alice Bailey ascended masters interpretation of Christianity, at its best very optimistic, and open to all sorts of possibilities of consciousness. As Wouter Hanegraaf says, the New Age is a sort of public esotericism. They constitute a sort of mainstream movement, people who are disillusioned with both physicalism and conservative religion.

Finally, the very small Integral Yoga (Sri Aurobindo & The Mother) movement is head and heart both, based on a very powerful spiritual path, but tends not to mix with other groups. But those who want the highest teaching of all (okay I'm biased!) this is the place to go.

Going from the Integral Movement to Eco-Spirituality to Theta Healing presneted me with a sort of whirl of the vast range of possibilities and realities that people attune to. And it is my goal to incorporate them all. Not in a head way (anyone of reasonable intelligence who reads up on this stuff can do that), but in a head and heart way. This is something no-one has ever done before. So each program that I do or group I associate with reveals something new, something more to be brought together in a new paradigm that is the New Consciousness.

So to return to the Theta Healing program. It went for three days, all day Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 9 am to 6.30 pm, so you are looking at three full days. I rode there on my pushbike, which was enjoyable exercise. Everyone was very nice. Apart from myself only one girl there seemed to be full on into environmental passion, and it seemed (although maybe i'm wrong because i didn't talk to everyone) no-one other than me into either sentient rights or traditional esotericism. That's what i mean about all these groups are different, insular, each with their own group consciousness, with very little overlap. If you are a sociologist you would find it fascinating. As I did. But really i was there to learn and grow and develop new spiritual skills.

The teaching and the whole course is based on Vianna Stibal, who is the lady who founded the whole thing on the basis of "channelled" communication. So you have to work with her thoughtform. It's like anything; if you want to learn Kabbalah you work with the Kabbalah thought from. And so on. Simon is a student of Vianna (who has in turn has become a master in his own right, with his own students) and the course is based on her book Theta Healing, with just the essentials (you get the book free with the course but having done the course you don't really need it, although it is good for reference i suppose).

It is sort of funny, because the first day i was there i thought, oh ok, this is just more New Age stuff, interesting sure but i can't afford it and wasted my money. The best thing is a girl who at the end (when we practiced angel reading) gave me a reading that was really astonishingly relevant (this girl i feel has great potential, but when i told her that she seemed a bit taken aback; i guess many people need time to mature grow into their talents and abilities)

It took till the second day before I really "got it", and by the third day before I could usefully map Vianna's cosmology onto my own in order to work with it (because it's very hard using a system if you can't relate it to your own system). Even so i was able to do the exercises, and amazed to get results. Having done that, and being able to get results, I considered and still consider this course to be priceless. I would and do unhesitatingly recommend it to anyone who would like to develop these abilities. The techniques I learned and practical knowledge I gained through the course cannot be simply bought in learned in a book)

It's also worth commenting on the energy dynamics of the group. As a result of the practices and the energy, everyone's aura was expanded. I felt high and my consciousness was expanded, and this became progressively so throughout the course, especially days two and three. I read in an issue of Living Now! a story by a regular columnist who describes being a workshop junkie. And this is true, there is an amazing energy in these groups, even non-New Age ones like say the Eco-spirituality one. But it is more so if you have a New Age group that is doing energy work over a period of time. Then the chakras are opened (although you can open your chakras doing extreme sports, anything exhilarating, as well) and the "vibration" of the aura is raised, especially if it is a good group with a powerful technique and a good teacher.

By the end of the course I had learned the technique and how to get into the state of consciousness, and now it's just a matter of practicing it on a regular basis. Because it's the same as everything, if you don't practice you lose the power (this is what happened with me with Reiki. It's not that i lost the power because once you are initiated you always have it, but it is dormant because i don't practice it and don't receive it.

Theta Healing is however very different to Reiki. It was only, as I said, by day 3 that I really "got it". That's when I realised that Theta Healing is actually a form of Magic (so Simon is completely correct in referring to his program as Theta Magic). That is, Theta Healing works on the level of the Pure Mental Plane. By influencing and changing beliefs, one therefore can change the reality that that belief creates and maintains. Without the belief providing the structure and support, the reality disappears, or rather is replaced by a new reality that is the result of more wholesome and positive beliefs. That is how I explain it, which is compatible with Simon's explanation on his website, even if, as you can see, he uses a different conceptual framework. Note that this is an old idea; one finds it in the Hermetic occult tradition, in Christian Science, New Thought, much of the New Age movement, and so on. What is unique about Theta Healing, in relation to these other systems, is the ease and power and scope of the whole thing. It really changed mny whole persectoive, and showed me things I never thought would be possible. Although one might mnake analogies with John Lilly in Programming and Meta-programming the Human Bio-computer, but it is the question of actually applying this in practice.

Note also that Theta Healing is not the same as Creative Visualisation. In Creative Vidsualisation you have to painstaking build up a thoughtform, keep pumping it with positive thoughts and affirmations, and so on. And if you don't get to the negative beliefs and doubts in the subconscious the whole thing is a waste of time (If you don't have strong subconscious blocks in those areas though, you get excellent results!). Theta Healing however works by identifying with the dynamic aspect of the Divine - in this system called "The Creator" or "Creator of All That Is", and simply witnessing the change the Creator makes. Since the Creator does all the work, it is so much easier; all you have to do is bring the topic to consciousness. It is like quantum physics, where the simple act of observation affects the outcome of the experiment (as in the famous wave-particle double slit experiment, a favourite of New Age cosmology). Regardless of whether the New Age interpretation of split beam experiments is right or not (and I don't know enough about the subject to tell), the Theta healing technique does work, and can be used to not just re-program the subconscious, but also to affect physical reality. Animal healing is also possible, and this cannot be explained in terms of placebo affect. So we are dealing with a real phenomenon.

All of which really was confronting to me (in a positive way) because I had always thought of things having to be difficult. This was just a negative and limiting belief on my part. Sure creative visualisation, which works on the level of astral thoughtforms, is, or can be, difficult. But Theta Healing works on a totally different level, a higher metaphysical plane so to speak, and hence in a very different way.

I also used to think that the "Power zone" was the Astral/Affective plane. But now i can see that the Mental plane - the plane of beliefs - is an even more potent region, because it reorganises and directs the astral/emotional and hence the physical (following the law of emanation that each higher plane is the cause of the next one down).

I won't go into the details of relating and integrating Vianna's cosmology with that of Theosophy, Theon, Sri Aurobindo, Muktananda, etc. This is better addressed in my books. There is the same basic sequence of physical, subtle/astral, causal/mental, etc, with the Divine supporting all. As for the New Age monotheistic theology ("Creator of All That Is") that is the heart of the technique and identified with the highest plane, basically it is the same as reconciling Ramana and Aurobindo. Once you go beyond the surface mental thoughtform of right and wrong and hierarchies of systems, you realise it is all aspects and facets of the same Divine, variously manifested, and you can access the Divine as you conceive of it, as well as fitting this particular aspect of the Divine into the whole picture. Again, this is something better left for my book(s). But I am working with the hypothesis that Theta Healing works from an aspect of the Supramental; the Supramental being first brought down to Earth and into the physical consciousness by Mirra (The Mother) in 1956. As explained in Mother's Agenda Vol.1, p.69:

FIRST SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION
(During the common meditation on Wednesday The 29th February 1956)

This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.
As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come', and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

I work on the "Aurocentric" hypothesis that event was the turning point of the transformation of the Earth. Everything that has happened since, the Counterculture (1960s), New Age movement (1970s onwards), the Great Turning (as defined by Joanna Macy & - building upon her thesis - David Korten, 1960s to present and ongoing), Harmonic Convergence (New Age metaphor - very big in the late 1980s, now forgotten), Photon Belt (ditto), Twelve Strand DNA (New Age materialistic metaphoric reference to awakening of subtle body in late 1990s-early 2000s, now not often mentioned), etc etc are further events on the gross and subtle levels relating to that. Theta Healing I would envisage as one more. This might seem surprising in view of the fact that Vianna's underlying cosmology seems to be New Age Judaeo-Christian with some Amerindian reference, but that's just the external thoughtform. It's on the level beyond thoughts and thoughtforms and structures that changes take place. So one should be careful not to be misled by thoughtforms and dogmas and collective beliefs associated with them.

Consider:

o The way that one's belief shape reality, and the importance of changing beliefs is central to both Theta Healing and Mother's Agenda (the latter more in the context of the Yoga of collective transformation).
o Both mention transforming the Cells of the body
o Reprogramming the Subconscious
o Physical immortality (this theme also comes up in Leonard Orr's Rebirthing movement, Babaji etc, i remember this from the late 1980s but it doesn't seem to be a part of Rebirthing as a whole)
o Collective Transformation - for Sri Aurobindo and Mirra this is central to the Supramental transformation. In the New Age there is refernce to Lightworkers, etc, this was mentioned by Simon and by others there, not sure if its in the book, but the idea is that the transformation cannot be individual, it is the same with the "Great Turning" towards a deep ecological and environmentally sustainable ethic and civilization.
o A process that is totally new and unfolding and developing all the time
o The fundamental Divine reality as including everything in the sense of integral (Gebser, Mirra) or "All That Is"
o Everything is achieved by the Divine (i.e. it isn't like creative visualisation where you have to do the hard work of visualising etc)

Of course some of these theses like reliance on the Divine are common to Mystics down the ages. But what I am saying is that this is more a "family resemblance" (see Wittgenstein's answer to the problem of Universals), just like correlating Sri Aurobindo and Wilber. Similarily, although I mention Theta Healing here (because I did the Course), one can mention other teachings and modalities and so on as well. e.g. Rebirthing which introduced the possibility of physical immortality (through Yoganada's concept of an immortal yogi Babaji). It is however also very important not to confuse physical immortality alone with Supramentalisation, that is the mistake that Osho Rajneesh made. We are dealing with teachings here that are very subtle and profound, and cannot be reduced to simplistic cliches. Rather one needs to look at the bigger picture, to get the full "family resemblance".

Thus transformation can occur on many levels, and all are necessary. It is necessary to heal the person in order to heal the planet, and vice versa. It is necessary to ensure sentient rights for animals as well as human rights for people. You can't try to improve the human world if you don't improve the condition of non-human animals. Because everything is interrelated and interconnected. The slaughtering of innocent animals in abattoirs further creates man's inhumanity to man, both on the level of cultivating insensitivity and cruelty at the level of the outer personality, and on the occult level of adding suffering to the subtle planes. Similarly the environment has to be saved if humanity can be, but also, in the present stage of the Earth's evolution, vice versa. And all levels have to be considered. So transformation and practice can be on the level of physical activism, changing society as a whole, etc, on the subtle physical level with Feng Shui, the etheric use of energetic healing (Reiki, Pranic healing), the affective/astral level working with the physical, as in Neo-Paganism and Hermeticism, the personality level of cultivating calm, compassion, etc as in Buddhism, the mental use of magic (changing beliefs and hence changing reality) as in Theta Healing/Theta Magic, and the higher spiritual-mental and Divine supramental level of Integral Yoga, to mention just a few.

The Big Picture cannot be just an intellectual and theoretical synthesis, as in the books of Ken Wilber, valuable as they may be in showing that such a synthesis is possible (as long as one is careful to avoid making the synthesis too inflexible or intellectual in structure). It has to be a practical synthesis, of all these principles working together, as they do as aspects and manifestations of the one underlying Divine Cause (which I interpret as mentioned above by The Mother's description of the descent of the Supramental).

In this way, transformation and healing of the world is a work of both individual and collective yoga, requiring constant practice. The more one practices, the more one achieves and the stronger one becomes.

Rejecting simplistic linear interpretations

2007-01-18T15:22:00.000-08:00

The more I contemplate this subject, the more I realise that the Integral movement, the Integral evolution - as a bringing together / convergence of different ways of being - goes beyond popular forms of a intellectualised New Age, New Paradigm etc.

For one thing, practice is most important, theory is secondary. All the theory and theorising and mapmaking in the world doesn't matter, if there is no practical outcome.

Also it is necessary to get away from the Gebserian, Wilberian, and Beck and Cowan (Spiral Dynamics) idea of a march of evolutionary progress from archaic magical thinking to modernity and postmodernity, and beyond that to an integral or "upper tier" perspective, as if they are all part of a simplistic linear sequence. These linear, ethnocentric and anthropocentric assumptions need to be challenged, they are simply part of the myth of modern man, an update on European colonial ideas of social evolution, white man's burden, etc

A true Integral or full or complete (purna Sri Aurobindo, pleroma Teilhard) perspective and transformation represents and includes all elements, both the human and the natural worlds, both the technological west and tribal society, both secularism and yogic transcendence. But - and here is the key, and here is also where I differ with "orthodox" integralism - it isn't a sequential, linear artificial series like a temporalised "great chain of being" (or if you want to be a Wilberian holarchist "great nest of being"). The human noosphere is not a step above the natural biosphere, they are both equal in importance. Ditto the technological west and tribal society, ditto yogic or mystical transcendence versus secularism. It is not that one is "higher". Concepts of higher and lower tiers so beloved of Spiral Dynamics and Wilberian Integralism, concepts that "only man has a soul" such as Teilhard retained from his Christian belief, the idea that a mystical life of renunciation is better than life in the world, or vice versa, all these are misleading and relativist conceptions that profoundly take away from our understanding of what an Integral Transformation will be like.

First there is, then there isn't, then there is

2006-12-30T14:59:00.000-08:00

For me writing has always been a sort of jnana yoga, a yoga of insight. As I write, new insights come to me, old insights are discarded or put aside, sometimes permanently, sometimes just for a while. My perspective changes in a sort of kaleidoscopic manner, especially if the subject matter is subtle

Thus in my current book in progress, with the working title The Integral Paradigm, I am wrestling with the question of whether there really even is an integral paradigm and an integral movement (as opposed to say, simply a Wilberian etc), or whether it isn't just an artifact due to the fact that the same word was used in a (perhaps only superficially) similar manner by different spiritual and big picture philosophers.

So originally I thought there was an Integral movement, and there is a sort of generic Integral paradigm (although very poorly defined). This was my view when I submitted the two essays to Frank's Integral World website.

Then, as explained in my last blog post, I started to have doubts, and came to the conclusion that no there isn't and Integral movement or Integral paradigm.

Then I happened to chance upon Joe Perez's thoughtful and passionate essay "Two kinds of criticisms of integral theory: internal and external”, and, while I aren't quite so sanguine about the degree of essential unity among representatives of the Integral movement/paradigm/theory, (that they would agree on about 80% of things and only disagree on about 20%), reading what he said did make think that maybe there is an Integral movement/paradigm/etc after all.

I think where I went wrong before was to try to look for things that everyone had in common. It just didn't work. Now I'm considering instead recurring themes. Even though there is no teaching that includes all the themes, there are still many common themes - e.g. Unity, Holism, Evolution, Divinisation, etc. So I decided to write the book based on these themes. Of course I still consider that Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have the highest perspective, since only they refer to the Divinisation of the world, rather than just seeing the world from enlightenment eyes (although that too, and that's the starting point).

Having had my ideas on this matter go back and forth like this reminds me a bit of that Zen saying

First there is a mountain.
Then there isn't.
Then there is.

For those interested in minutiae of references, the saying goes back to an eighth-century Ch'an (or Zen to give the later, Japanese, name) master of the T'ang Dynasty named Ch’ing Yuan (or Quingyuan, depending on what transliteration spelling you use), who said

"Thirty years ago, before I practiced, I saw mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. After having arrived at more intimate knowledge, I saw that mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains and rivers as rivers."

(The above combines two translations, here (moving acount of 9/11 from a Buddhist perspective) and here (philosophy and counselling). Thanks to Google for finding the quotes for me!)

Unlike Ch’ing Yuan I cannot say I have arrived at the final understanding. But through practice of sadhana one's understanding does grow. The same with everything.

Getting started on the Integral paradigm

2006-12-25T17:44:00.000-08:00

As you may know, I've been working on a book tentatively titled The Integral Paradigm (I may still change this title), based on the idea of an Integral Philosophy or worldview and praxis incorporating common elements of Sri Aurobindo, Ken Wilber, and others, and building on themes in my two essays on Integral World, as well as comments and discussions on Open Integral.

And I just felt I was getting nowhere. In other words, there just isn't enough common denominator to even define an Integral worldview, as opposed to say a New Age worldview. And as I argue in my essay, the Integral movement, especially the Wilberian Integral movement, cannot even be distinguished from the New Age sensu lato (see Wouter Hanegraaff New Age Religion and Western Culture, SUNY 1998). There just isn't enough of a common denominator between Aurobindo and Wilber to constitute a worldview. This was brought home to me even more clearly in discussions on Open Integral - see the threads The Integral movement - new page at Integral Wiki and What does the Integral Movement represent? which made me question whether there even is such a thing as an Integral Movement. There is a Wilberian Integral movement, an Aurobindonian Integral Yoga community, etc etc. Sure. But an Integral movement over and above all these? Forums like Open Integral and SCIY may or may not be able to define the Integral Movement. And sure one can construct a mental viewpoint based on the "big three" of Aurobindo, Gebser, and Wilber, or even on one of these alone, but it would be mental only, arbitrary, artificial, a mere construct, not a real revelation.

Anyway, I was thinking about this, trying to figure what to do. Should I just scrap the whole idea as unworkable? Just forget this integral stuff and go back to straight Esotericism?

And then the answer came to me, on Christmas late afternoon. A sort of Christmas epiphany one might say (I spent Christmas on my own apart from my animals).

The solution is simple. For an Integral worldview I have a strong nucleus. That strong nucleus is (or will be in my book) the essence of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on this.

e.g. Sri Aurobindo's teachings might be summed up as

o The Supermind as the link between the static, infinite, and perfect Absolute (Sachchidananda) and the lower three worlds of matter, life, and mind.
o Man is a transitional being (i.e., evolution doesn't end with the mental)
o This Yoga begins where all the others end
o Integral Yoga involves the transformation and divinisation of the entire being
o The transformation is not just individual but collective, involving the entire terrestrial (i.e. physical) evolution

(note that this is just my own tentative listing; more knowledgeable students of Sri Aurobindo than I would probably have a more accurate list)

For The Mother one might add

o The importance of spiritual virtues like Faith, Aspiration, Surrender etc
o The bringing to the fore of the Psychic Being
o The Supramental Force is (and has been since 29 February 1956) already established on the Earth, it just needs to be attuned to
o The transformation is through the Cells of the Body (Satprem's "Mind of the Cells" - incidentally I find The Mother's quotes here far more useful then most of Staprem's commentary)

(again, this is just my own incomplete and preliminary list)

In this context then, and as a starting point, "Integral" means the spiritual and divine transformation initiated by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and the associated theory and practice that might be included in this. This does not exclude Wilberian, Genserian, Teilhardian, and other paradigms, because as I said the Aurobindonian definition is selected, rather than a vague lowest common denominator approach, in order to get the ball rolling.

So I am not trying to enforce an Aurobinbdonian fundamentalism here, because any form of literalism means that there can no longer be growth and transformation. But at least this way I have my starting point.

Now, you may ask, why not start with the Wilberian definition? Since we are looking only for a starting point, not as a delimiter? Well, here's the definition of Integral from the Integral Institute (thanks to Joe Perez for this quote)

What's "Integral"? It simply means more balanced, comprehensive, interconnected, and whole. By using an Integral approach--whether it's in business, personal development, art, education, or spirituality (or any of dozens of other fields)--we can include more aspects of reality, and more of our humanity, in order to become more fully awake and effective in anything we do... "Integral" is not only a "theory of everything," but involves new ways of working, loving, creating, playing, and interacting in a complex and evolving world--it's a worldview for the 21st Century.

Now, no disrespect intended to Wilberians, all to whom I have associated with have shown a lot of integrity (even Backface was acting in a more reasonable and civil manner in his most recent post), but this definition does not work for me.

Why not? Because,looking beneath the surface, the impression I get (and I emphasise that this is only the impression I get, you may get a totally different impression) is that ultimately it is about lifestyle, about New Age sensu lato, about the where you go next once you have an affluent career and lifestyle and all the material trappings that come with success in Western consumerist society, about a better way of the limited outer personality and body doing things, only about the way in which this small finite personality is made more balanced, interconnected, etc while remaining in the state of avidya. Mention is made to "new ways of working, loving, etc" but how does this differ from what you would find advertised in any New Age / Human Potential workshop?

Don't get me wrong, these are fantastic goals, and certainly our current world with its short-sided, greedy, exploitative, shadow-projecting ugliness is destroying the Earth desperately needs more people who uphold them. And what the Integral Institute talks about (although it's cultic devotionalism means it may have difficulty in applying it!) are the sort of attitudes can save the Earth, if everyone were to adopt them (that's a big if, but...). So I am not saying there is anything wrong with these goals, not at all. I 100% support all the things the Integral Institute mentions. I am just saying they are too limited, too tiny, too unimaginative, too exoteric, for me.

Why aim small, when you can aim high? Why aim only for trying to be harmonious and interconnected in the workplace, when you can realise the Supermind (the Supreme Godhead) in the cells of your body? Why strive only for better ways of loving and playing, when you can reverse entropy?

Of course, it is very much much easier to be harmonious in the workplace than to reverse entropy. The little goals are achieved before the big goals are. Rome wasn't built in a day, and maybe the Wilberian goals are necessary prerequisites before one can hope for anything like what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother promised. Although for me personally, it's the path of Sri Ramana that's the preliminary stage, each to their own. Perhaps these can all be arranged hgirarchically:

e.g.

o mundane consciousness which is unsatisfactory (the ordinary consciousness of most people)
o a more harmonious mundane consciousness (Wiilberian, New Age, etc)
o realisation of the Silent Self, shunyata, enlightenment, liberation, union with God, whatever (Sri Ramana, Buddhism, genuine Sufism, other authentic teachings)
o Supramental Transformation (Sri Aurobindo and The Mother)

So to get back to the question, why start with the Aurobindonian stance rather than the Wilberian, my reply is simply that (to me) the Aurobindonian is more majestic, more awesome, more inspiring, more provocative, more inclusive, and more amazing and more profound in every way then any other teaching and any other praxis. And that is why, in my book on the Integral paradigm, I am using as the foundation and point of reference the Aurobindonian revelation. Starting with that first, and considering all the others (both "integral" and non-integral). Of course, who knows, I might decide to change things again, but so far this feels right.

The current plan of my book is

o Introduction - What is Integral, problems of definition, the Aurobindonian message
o Biographies and teachings - a list of people both included and not included in the integral movement, and who have either influenced and inspired me in my understanding and development of this Integral paradigm, or who are worthy of inclusion, regardless of what I might thing at present (I might have to get some feedback regarding this latter). Not that not everyone here need be famous, they might just be people I get a good vibe about, even people I have met on the Internet ;-) This is not a definitive review, only my own personal account
o Exoteric praxis (Wilberian and other, e.g. the Integral Institute quote above, and similar themes) - personal and social transformation; Integral lifestyle, Social transformation, sentient rights (Animal Liberation etc), Integral Art, "spiritual cross-training", etc etc
o Esoteric praxis - inward transformation, the Inner Being, the spiritual path (I don't mean superficially, I mean the real deal), leading to liberation, and a brief mention of dangers along the way, such as the Intermediate Zone; the culmination here is liberation such as is taught by Sri Ramana and others. Where all other yogas end, where Integral Yoga begins.
o The Integral/Supramental Transformation

Most of these themes have already been covered or will be covered in my material posted on Frank's Integral World website; so essentially I am elaborating upon that. The only original element will be the biographies, and even there some of these have already been referred to briefly in my essays or their seminal ideas mentioned - e.g. Tielhard, Haskell, Gooch, Wilber, etc. I'm also going to include here several communities - specifically Zaadz and Integrative Spirituality, although the latter looks a lot less like a community and more like an amazing idea by some Wilber-inspired people that unfortunately did not really catch on; regardless, the ideas of the anonymous authors of that site deserve a mention; they certainly have inspired me in several points (I was interested to find that Joe Perez independently mentioned them on Open Integral), despite my criticisms with certain problems they may have.

As my book is written I will post extracts on this blog and on my Zaadz blog; not the whole manuscript, just some stuff here and there, to get people's feedback and to give everyone an idea oif the sort of content. Basically it will be, as mentioned, like the material on Integral World, but with more detail, and some of the more abrasive polemics toned down (what's suitable for the internet isn't necessarily suitable for a book!).

Wilber fundamentalist on Wikipedia?

2006-12-20T22:06:00.000-08:00

I'm going to leave off my usual musing on Integral matters to address a bit of a drama that's been happening lately. But in itself this is also important, because no amount of accessing the higher worlds and transpersonal states of consciousness matters if the situation and groundwork on the physical plane isn't done too!

The situation is this. Recently a Wilberian propagandist joined Wikipedia and began selectively attacking and deleting all the links he could find to my pages on the Integral movement, as well as trying to delete all references to Matthew Dallman, and nominating for deletion Michel Bauwen's biography (the motion was narrowly defeated)

Here's his user page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Backface

Here's the discussion on my talk page
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:M_Alan_Kazlev&redirect=no#Not_Notable.3F

Here's his nominations for page deletion
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Zimmerman&diff=prev&oldid=93570248
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timothy_Wilken&diff=prev&oldid=93569711
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peer-to-peer_%28meme%29&diff=prev&oldid=93569278 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michel_Bauwens&oldid=90661021

(Note that I am the author of all of those pages.)

From what I gather and the opinion of a friend, BF is much more likely to be a solitary Wilber fundamentalist rather than someone affiliated with an organisation like, say, the Integral Institute.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems that this guy's main gripe is with me, possibly as a result of my essay on Integral Esotericism on Frank Visser's site, as he refers to my work as "self-published drivel from self-declared esotericists". It is possible also that Wiki references to Matthew may have been targeted because I was the author of his now deleted bio (you can find Backface's comments there too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Matthew_Dallman (scroll down)) and I added links and references to him on the Wikipedia Integral Art page. Interestingly, I was also the author of Michel's wikipedia page.

Anyway most of his edits have since been reverted, so there's no harm done there, although unfortunately pages that are deleted stay deleted. And here Backface is able to manipulate Wikipedia's current appallingly one-sided policy regarding biographical essays, against which I have argued passionately but with very little effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Notability_%28people%29#Current_bio_notability_guidelines_adding_to_systematic_bias.3F (and yes BF even has to have his say on that page too. Yet only on the issue I'm talking about!)

In any case, like bullies everywhere, BF is good at dishing it out (deleting links etc) but not so good at taking it, as indicated by the fact that he ran straight to the Personal Attack noticeboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Personal_attack_intervention_noticeboard#User:M_Alan_Kazlev when I marked his edits as pov vandal (actually he is right on a technicality, Wikipedia vandalism doesnt include POV, and I was happy to admit my breach of wikinette, but why go to all the trouble of trying to list me there?), as well as using my first name rather than Kazlev and even giving me a compliment as if trying to suck up to me. Yet at the same time as he's trying to be friendly to me, he's harassing one of my supporters http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dseer&diff=prev&oldid=95648444

So why am I saying all this here? Especially since Backface, having been challenged, has (at least at the time of writing) stopped attempting to delete pages and links relevant to the Integral movement? Because this sort of abuse of Wikipedia, which is by no means rare, should be brought out into the open. It is all too easy for people with specific agendas to push their pov.

A few closing comments (and disclaimers) in regard to this whole affair.

I have no idea what BF is like apart from his activities on Wikipedia. For all I know he may be a really swell guy, very sincere and well-meaning in what he tries to do, but, through lack of self-knowledge, not aware of his own biases and shadow-projection. I don't know. And I certainly don't want to judging him as a person. I'm only judging what he does on Wikipedia, and the attitude with which he judges it. The reader is free to come to their own opinion on this and other matters, indeed I certainly don;t think you should form an opinion about something or someone just because I said something regarding them. It is important to always make one's own inquiries and then, guiding by one's inner intuition and Light, come to one's own conclusions with sincerity.

Secondly, those Wilberians I have met have come across as very decent and principled people. So I am not trying to imply that Backface's actions are in any way representative of the Wilberian movement. This is not to deny that some Wilberians do act in a reprehensible manner (e.g. the antagonism some commentators show to Frank's posts on Wilber Watch is disappointing), but on the whole I find this community to be a high principled one, my criticism of certain cultic tendencies not withstanding. The very fact that there is the ability to look at and question things, as indicated for example by these blogs on Zaadz, is an encouraging sign

Thirdly, Wikipedia itself, despite its many glaring faults, has built into it an admirable transparency. Indeed, it is this transparenmcy that prevents Backface from hiding his real agenda, as anyone who takes the trouble to follow up on his edits on his user page can see.

Finally, I must say, all of this has been a very big incentive and encouragement for me to get my books written! I've decided that the first one will be a revised version of my material posted on Frank's site.

Integral Wiki

2006-12-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

I'm just posting this in a few places, because it's a worthy project and more people should get involved and contribute material to it

Integral Wiki

An integral perfection cannot come by one kind of realisation alone

2006-12-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

A while back I posted a quote by Sri Aurobindo on the Wikipedia page on Integral thought. While I was impressed by the sentiment of the words of this quote, I didn't yet appreciate it in a deeper manner.

A few days ago (1st Dec), postwilberian philosopher Edward Berge posted the same quote on Open Integral, as a comment on my post An Integral Approach to Enlightenment and beyond.

Rereading this profound passage, it occured to me how perfectly it explains my own experiences in this regard (concerning the non-contradiction of the Light and revelations Sri Aurobindo and Sri Ramana):

“But the Divine is in his essence infinite and his manifestation too is multitudinously infinite. If that is so, it is not likely that our true integral perfection in being and in nature can come by one kind of realisation alone; it must combine many different strands of divine experience. It cannot be reached by the exclusive pursuit of a single line of identity till that is raised to its absolute; it must harmonise many aspects of the Infinite. An integral consciousness with a multiform dynamic experience is essential for the complete transformation of our nature.”

— ''The Synthesis of Yoga'', p.114

The Teacher or the Teaching?

2006-12-04T15:54:00.000-08:00

The widespread phenomenon of the "abusive guru" has put paid the myth of the spiritual renunciate who, desiring only moksha (Liberation), would spend years or decades meditating alone in a cave in the Himalayas, attain enlightenment, and set up an ashram dedicated to given out pure teachings and aiding others in their own quest for realisation.

In the West today, the guru is an ambiguous, paradoxical figure who helps and inspires many and harms, exploits, and abuses many (while others go away neither helped nor harmed). They are a world away from the figure of the ideal sage such as Yajnavalkya, Gautama Buddha, Pythagoras, Lao-tze, Bodhidharma, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, or Sri Aurobindo.

Faced with the guru who acts egotistically, or selfishly takes advantage of their disciples for financial gain, or abuses their position of trust by selects teens or twenty-something devotees for sex, or cruelly plays with their devotees feelings using the excuse of "braking down the ego", yet at the same time says things that are inspiring, what are we to do?

The common approach in the West, among those who are not locked in a sado-masochistic co-dependency relationship with an abusive guru, or who - if anything even more appalling - rationalise and justify their guru's abusive and selfish behaviour and attack or denigrate the victims, is to take the teachings for what they are worth and reject the teacher.

My approach, ironically, is the exact inverse of this. It is not that one should adopt the teachings and reject the teacher. Rather one should adopt an authetic teacher (very rare and precious indeed!), and thus go beyond the mental limitations of the teachings.

On the basis of my own experience with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and more recently with Gangaji (by no means a sadguru but still with a lot of decent qualities) and Ramana Maharshi (the real deal), I have to say that what the teacher says (the teaching) is of less importance than the Light and Presence of the Teacher.

Yes, even the profound and magnificent philosophical synthesis of Sri Aurobindo's written work, which have for more than 25 years guided and continue to guide my intellectual understanding of the world and of the spiritual path. The Presence of the authentic Teacher (whether it be Sri Aurobindo himself or someone else), on the transcendent (nondual) level, is even more important than that.

This ultimately is what the Guru really represents, the role the authentic guru plays. The guru-disciple relationship is a form of bhakti yoga, in which the guru (as the enlightened or realised being) takes the form of the Supreme, and is seen as and believed to be the Divine (this is the whole idea of avatar, sadguru, etc), showers their grace, and in this way enables the disciple to attain that same state.

Would you worship a deity who acted as capriciously and selfishly as many so-called gurus?

So if the teacher is imperfect, if their realisation, however profound and sublime in all other respects, is polluted by their ego or desires, anything you get from would likewise be imperfect. This is the whole idea of the Intermediate Zone Guru.

To ignore the (abusive) guru but concentrate only on their teachings is to be stuck in the thoughtform of the exoteric reality, but substituting words (teachings) for reality (the Divine Presence). Worse, much much worse, you are using the words of an imperfect teacher, and thus attuning to their presence on the subtle realms. In this way one can be misled. So rather than chasing the real state of the Supreme, one becomes lost in the beguiling half-lights and hall of mirrors that is the Intermediate zone.

It only a true guru, a Sadguru, that is safe and reliable, and worthy of the guru-disciple relationship. And only an awakened Divine Center ("Psychic Being" in Aurobindonian terminology) can guide you safely and surely to such a teacher or teachers.

And while one may find out about an authentic guru through an imperfect teacher, the imperfect teacher can then be transcended, once one has a connection with an authentic teacher. In this way, one can attain to the sadguru's enlightenment and grace, and thus oneself work to and eventually (more quickly or more slowly, depending on one's sincerity and integrity of one's aspiration) attain that state, and realise within oneslef the same state of divinity as shines through and as the nondual Presence and Personality of the authentic guru.

The harmony of the teachings of Sri Ramana and Sri Aurobindo

2006-11-29T15:56:00.000-08:00

Practicing Maharshi's yoga has been an interesting experience. Previously I followed the path of bhakti, now I am again (after some 25-odd years) attempting the path of Jnana, realisation of the Self.

The usual idea is that Jnana is difficult because it is all self-effort and doing; Bhakti is easy because it is non-doing. I have actually find the opposite to be the case.

With Bhakti one consciously aspires to the Supreme, and consciously offers upo everything to the Supreme. That is the path of "doing". The goal is to attain teh Supreme (the Mystical Ascemnt) or be transformed by the Divine (mystical descent)

With Jnana one simply tries (even try isn't the right word) to realise what one always is, including at this very moment. One simply abuides in the consciousness of the now. It is the supreme non-doing, not striving, not becoming anything you are not, just stepping back and watching and being the nonduual Conscoiousness one already is (albeit without getting caught up in the dramas of the surface consciousness)

But as I have said, ultimately these two paths and these two revelations are complementary, and non-exclusive.

And while Sri Aurobindo did instruct his devotees to follow the path of devotion centered on The Mother (as they were having difficulty with the pure path of gnosis and ascent to Supermind), his opus Synthesis of Yoga follows the Gita in integrating all three yogas and margas - Karma, Bhakti, and Jnana, These are reconciled in the fourth, the Integral or Purna (full or complete) Yoga.

There is another thing worth mentioning. According to Sri Aurobindo, his yoga ends where all the other yogas begin. I never truly realised what this meant until now.

Anyway here's a relevant passage from the Life Divine (here I tried to break the quote from LD into thematic threads).

Experiencing both the revelation of Sri Aurobindo and that of Sri
Ramana in a non-contradictory way, feeling the two blending, realising the two Teachers as great Enlighteneed masters and avatars, a true Integral and Integrative Spirituality, is nothing new. In an email, Rick Lipschutz provides an iunvaluable historical anecdote and quotation:

Sri Kapali Sastry (1886-1953), a noted Sanskritist of the twentieth
century, born Tantric and a noted Vedic scholar, was a disciple of Sri
Ramana before becoming a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and
following their sadhana. Sri Kapali composed among many other works
the Siddhanjana, a commentary on the first ashtaka of the Rig-Veda
where he differs considerably from Sayana and provides a solid
scholarly underpinning for Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of the Veda.
Yet even after become an ashramite Sastry continued to produce
commentaries of considerable interpretative merit on Sri Ramana's
teachings. Kapali's student, the prolific and peripatetic M.P. Pandit,
writes, in a diary containing spoken observations of his longtime
mentor published on p. 238 in Volume III of the 12-volume collected
works of T.V. Kapali Sastri (available from Sri Aurobindo Ashram):

"Sri Maharshi's path and the path of Sri Aurobindo differ in this way.
In the former, apparently, it is you who are to work out your sadhana.
In the latter, you count for little; you cannot do anything much; it
is they [Sri Aurobindo and The Mother] to whom you have to surrender
yourself completely who can and will work out the sadhana.

"But we must also note that when the Maharshi says, 'It is you who
have to look within yourself and work out your sadhana,' he puts in
the needed influence, anugraha, to help you proceed and do the
sadhana.

"Similarly, here, when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother say, 'Surrender
everything of you to the Divine and be free,' they put in you the
necessary force which enables you to carry out your indispensable
individual effort for surrendering all that you have and are.

"In the Maharshi's teaching, as indeed in all yogas of ancient India,
the problem to be solved is the problem of the individual. In Sri
Aurobindo's teaching, it is the problem of man in his total being and
the meaning of his existence on the earth that is sought to be
discovered and worked out. The problems are different and so are the
solutions. 17-11-48."

For more on subject, see my posting on Open Integral on the need to go beyond literal interpretations to the inner esoteric understanding and revelation. It is on that level that the teachings of Ramana and Sri Aurobindo are seen and appreciated as non-contradictory.

Ramana and Sri Aurobindo

2006-11-24T15:34:00.000-08:00

As mentioned on my Zaadz blog, a week ago I saw Gangaji, who I had only recently discovered in a local free New Age newspaper Living Now (Nov 2006; Vic issue no.90).

I was quite impressed by her talk published in the issue of Living Now; it reminded me a lot of Da Free John in the subtle wording (note: superficially these two gurus couldn't be further apart!!!!), implying that like Da, Gangaji had attained the Intermediate Zone. Since very few do (and far far fewer actually go beyond to become a sadguru), and since she was talking just up the road from me, i decided to go along. I decided that I would sincerely aspire to receive what Light I could. And indeed I did! My summation of Gangaji is here. The amazing thing is that through this transmission of presence, I was able to access Sri Ramana Maharshi's Light and revelation. And that was and is simply amazing!

I had previously heard of and respected Ramana, but wasn't very interested in him, because his teachings were of the "old school" whereas I was and am more interested in the "new yoga" of integral transformation and supramentalisation taught by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. It took a direct (or indirect, via Gangaji via her guru Papaji who was a devotee of Ramana) transmission for "the scales to fall from my eyes" and for me to realise Ramana's status as avatar and sadguru.

Interestingly, the way I received Ramana's Light is very different to how I received Sri Aurobindo and The Mother's Light. I was first connected to the twin integral avatars via my uncle, who mentioned them in a letter to my mother when I was only 12 or 13, although it was to be some years before that realisation would flower. With Ramana I was already much more spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually mature, and so when Gangaji presented the transmission I was able - through great aspiration (although not really as great as it should have been, because of ego and desire) - to receive it.

A few days later I went down to the local Theosophical Bookshop and bought two books on Ramana; reading them and looking at his photo further strengthened the connection.

Intellectually, Ramana and Sri Aurobindo could not be further apart. Ramana rejects the Aurobindonian position; Sri Aurobindo's teachings include and transcend Ramana's nondualism.

Spiritually, once one gets beyond these words, which includes even getting beyond even Maharshi's and Sri Aurobindo's respective words, one feels that both are equal facets of the Supreme. Both are avatars and light bringers to this world of countless beings enmeshed in samsara. Mentally, there is a contradiction, and a limitation. Spiritually, there is no contradiction, only totally complementary revelations of the same Supreme.

For me there is no contradiction between the two. And what I am interested in is showing how their revelations - not their mental or spiritual-mental teachings, but their Revelations - converge and harmonise, for the purpose of the Enlightenment of the World.

And therein lies the key.

Links:

Realization.org: The Power of the Presence Part One: - Ramana had little interest in Sri Aurobindo's philosophical teachings.

Generation Sit » Blog Archive » Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo - a sensitive and insightful appreciation, presented from the perspective of Wilberian Integral Theory

Integral Spirituality - Exploring the Connection of the Sages Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo by Charles Ismael Flores. - "This article includes an imaginary interview in which the author compares, based on published quotes from Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo, what each of them might say to questions posed by a spiritual Seeker who is learning about the Indian tradition of Kevalya Advaita and Integral (Purna) Yoga. The article sheds light on the distinctly different spiritual approaches of these two masters."

My new essay - Integral Esotericism

2006-11-12T14:52:00.000-08:00

I've been referring to my essay in progress for a while now. It's gone through a number of name changes in the process of writing it. The final title I decided on is Integral Esotericism: A new Integral paradigm in theory and practice. Part 1 has just appeared on Integral World. If you don't want to wait for all eight installments I can send you the whole thing in either Open Office or Word Document format.

In a sense this essay continues the previous one, and hopefully concludes my critique of current Wilberian Integral theory and the mainstream Integral movement, while proposing an alternative approach. But it is also in a sense an independent work, since my ideas have continued to evolve and develop since I finished the first essay.

Consistency-wise, this second essay is nowhere as good as it could have been, but I submitted it because I just got sick of constantly adding to, revising, and rewriting it. One needs to bring things to a closure so one can start on new projects.

As a result (and much like my Kheper website as a whole), Integral Esotericism contains layers of development, a sort of archeological or stratigraphic succession of ideas, with the newer ideas plastered on top of older ones, and the sections of older ideas only incompletely revised and updated. The result has a sort of patchwork or collage-like feel.

I now want to turn my attention to writing books; although these books will still incorporate a lot of my previous internet published material. The advantage of a hard copy book is that it can reach many more people than the internet can (but also, vice versa!) and it has a permanence about it that helps ground that thoughtform in the physical world. I already have an outline for a book on my website but after working in these two long essays my ideas have again changed so I will probably end up either writing other books first, or else dividing the material I already have among or into several books. When the books are written the material will also form the basis for the integral theory on the website. Ideally book and website should supplement each other; Shambhalla does this quite well with Wilber's books and essays.

Wiki, essay and book

2006-11-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything for a while, because I've been very busy with several different projects.

One is the Palaeos org wiki, which is shaping up nicely, even at this early stage. But it requires a lot of input to keep the momentum going (just like Orion's Arm when i was getting it started).

Another is my essay on "Integral Esotericism" (previously called "An Integral Metaparadigm"), for Frank Visser's Integral World website, as a follow-up of my Aurobindonian essay and critique of Ken Wilber. This essay is just becoming bigger and bigger, almost turning into a monster, or at least into a full length book. It's currently at 143 pages, and the problem is it is very uneven, because my perspective and even motivation for writing it changed in the course of writing it. Short of rewriting the whole thing from scratch, it would be very difficult to really smooth it out. So I decided rather than waste any more time on it, I'll just send it in as it is, to see what sort of feedback I get.

Then I can be free to take material from these two essays and make them into a book, to be titled, of course, Integral Esotericism. This book will be less polemical than the essays, and will basically present a radically esoteric and Aurobindonian version of Integral theory and practice, or alternatively an integral version of Esotericism.

Hopefully the book (and maybe the current essay) will help the integral movement break free of its current exoteric Wilberian gridlock.

Palaeos Wiki online

2006-09-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

Just announcing that the new Palaeos Wiki is now online. The original Palaeos site will also be restored, but will be greatly streamlined as various material is transferred over to the wiki.

Palaeos, and Essay

2006-09-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

Some assorted news.

First, good news re Palaeos. A number of us have been discussing restoring the site as and converting it to a wiki. So hopefully not only will it be back, but it will be better than ever, and this time easier to maintain as a multi-authored project.

Second, re my Integral/Holistic Metaparadigm essay, also good news; the first draft is almost finished. So I'll send that to a couple of people for freedback and constructive criticism, and then when i hear back from them will send the revised version to Frank for posting on Integral World. It's been fun working on this essay and i look forward to seeing the sort of response (if any) the integral movement will have.

Unique "living fossil" under threat

2006-09-08T17:56:00.000-07:00

The rare Australian Lungfish - a creature literally unchanged since the early Triassic period (before the days of the dinosaurs) - is under threat. Please read and sign this online petition. Even better, write a snail mail letter!

Palaeos website down

2006-09-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy with my other projects that I forgot about Palaeos (although I was working on the Middle Permian about a month or two ago). It seems that the site is down, because in doing maintenances work the server deleted the whole thing. I found out about this about 3 days ago. I don't have an up to date backup; well i have a backup of some parts but not on a number of new pages like the Eukaryotes. There's a whole giant section that hasn't been backed up. I could get it through painstaking going through the cache on the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive), but that mostly captures text; rarely the graphics files.

Anyway i'm kicking myself for not creating a complete backup on my hard-drive

I emailed my friend Toby who was managing, editing, and updating the site until he had to take a sabbatical from it for about 6 months or so (due to r/l commitments), but haven't received a reply yet. Hopefully when I hear from him he'll be able to restore the site.

Anyway, it's depressing, because it was a good site that many people all over the world used as an important reference, a real alternative to the endless sites on dinosaurs etc (sorry, don't mean to criticise, but what about all the rest of the history of life on Earth?), and so much work went into it. Hopefully when Toby gets back on line he'll be able to restore the site.

Steve Irwin - Wildlife Warrior

2006-09-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

I've posted a tribute to Steve Irwin, tragically killed while fiming marine life in North Queensland, on my Zaadz blog

(For those who don't know who Steve Irwin is, here's the wikipedia page)

Metaphysics, not post-metaphysics

2006-08-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

Here is another (slightly edited) extract from my essay in progress, now titled An Integral/Holistic Metaparadigm.

(note: The "post-metaphysics" in the title of this post concerns Ken Wilber's interpretation of post-metaphysics ("Wilber-V"), and not contemporary German philosopher Jürgen Habermas's earlier use of the term)

Metaphysics is that branch of Philosophy that the rational investigation of questions about existence, being (Ontology), the nature of God or the Absolute Reality (Theology) and of the Universe (Cosmology), the mind-body problem (nowadays generally a separate discipline in Philosophy), causality, the problem of free will and determinism, and so on. In other words, questions concerning the meaning of existence, which underlie all other inquiries.

With the rise of the secular Enlightenment in the West, and especially current modernity, much of academic philosophy has lost its connection with the original "Wisdom Tradition" of Pythagoras and Plato and Plotinus, and hence cannot really answer these questions. Because these questions cannot be answered, proved, or disproved, by rational physical or physicalist means alone.

The word Metaphysics means literally “after” (not "beyond" or “above”) “physics", and refers to the arrangement of Aristotle's writings, in which his books on “first philosophy” were placed after the books on “physics”. This is quite distinct to the popular definition of beyond or above the physical reality...

Within the integral movement, especially its majority Wilberian branch, “Metaphysics” has become something of a dirty word. This is due solely to Wilber's repeated statements that metaphysics belongs to an outdated or pre-modern age and must be rejected if spiritual teachings (by which he means experiences abstracted from any context or meaning and hence slotted into his own AQAL system) are to be acceptable at the court of modernity and postmodernity1. In addition, as I have shown (Towards a Larger Definition of the Integral, Part Two, A Fourfold Critique sect. 2a), Wilber understands by metaphysics only the popular, non-academic philosophical meaning. Because of this, he is able to avoid acknowledging the fact that his own system is highly metaphysical (quadrants, holons, transcendent Spirit, etc) when making his self-contradictory claim that his own current teachings as "post-metaphysical".

In doing this Wilber (and hence the entire Wilberian integral movement) has bought into the scientistic and academic preference for debunking metaphysics, because it deals with things that cannot be "proved" by or to the Physical Mind (sensu Sri Aurobindo). But this rationalist physicalism itself rests on a number of unproved, irrational, and yes, metaphysical, assumptions, as has been persuasively shown by Transpersonal Psychologist Charles T. Tart. (see Charles T. Tart, “Some assumptions of orthodox, Western Psychology”. In C. Tart (Ed.), Transpersonal Psychologies. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 61-111)

My position here is that not only is metaphysics necessary, but no truly comprehensive “integral” understanding of reality is possible without it. Without metaphysics the best one could have would be a sort of agnostic postmodernist or neo-Buddhistic (on western-inspired apologetic Hinduism and Buddhism see Jorge Ferrer, Revisioning Transpersonal Theory, pp.48-51) style of approach, in which bare experiences are recognised and definied empirically, but there is no attempt at arriving at a deeper meaning, no attempt is made to show what those experiences refer to. Such agnosticism comes with its own metaphysical baggage, e.g. crypto-physicalism or crypto-materialism, the subtle conception that all these experiences, visions, etc are simply the by-product of the physical brain, but one shouldn't look to closely at that, just be satisfied with the experience taken out of its context and sanitised for a secular physicalistic bias. This may work for Wilberian physicalism, but as soon as one studies even superficially the teachings of authentic spiritual realisers it quickly becomes apparent that reality is much vaster than physicalism considers it to be.

The problem here, as mentioned, is that modern Western secular academic thought has lost its original wisdom tradition (represented by Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Neoplatonism, etc) and hence has to fall back on scientism and superficial empiricism. This is why spiritual apologetics like Wilber try so hard to present an unthreatening and secularised version of spiritual and perennialist teachings.

At the same time, no metaphysical system and no map of reality should be accepted as final. It should always be remembered that all these concepts are just suggestions and points of view, useful classification schemes and thoughtforms, which should never be used as alternatives for direct spiritual experience.

What Sri Aurobindo's represents

2006-08-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

" Sri Aurobindo has come on earth not to bring a teaching or a creed in competition with previous creeds or teachings, but to show the way to overpass the past and to open concretely the route towards an imminent and inevitable future."
--- The Mother

Today, 15th August, is Sri Aurobindo's birthday, and hence one of the Aurobindo Ashram “darshan days”.

Although considered a philosopher, and on the surface dense and intellectual, Sri Aurobindo's writings go beyond the academic intellectual approach, because the physical mind cannot access the spiritual truths. They go beyond the New Age spiritual supermarket, where the Revelation of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo can easily be overlooked among the clamour of systems, some genuine, many misleading or superficial. And they go beyond religion with its dogmas and literalism.

The strength in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings lies in the fact that they truly are "integral", in both the inclusive sense, because they include all other teachings, like the parable of the Buddha's teaching being like the elephant's footprint that can contain the footprints of all the other animals, and in the Transformative sense, because they taught the way by which the entire individual being that is to be transformed, and ultimately the Earth as a whole.

It is this vast and all-encompassing vision that constitutes a powerful appeal of the Integral Yoga teaching. There is also the strength of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's spiritual presence, which is especially felt on “darshan days”. But this can only be felt by those who read their works with receptivity, or who in some way have receptivity in their hearts, and some opening or receptivity to the inner Divine Center (Psychic Being). And that is why it is most important that the Mother – usually ignored by intellectuals - be recognised as well.

Through heroic deeds, the Divinisation of even physical mundane reality may be brought about!

Suggested definition for a complete Integral metaparadigm

2006-08-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

The following is from my essay in progress, tentatively entitled An Integral metaparadigm. This essay is about 2/3rds finished and will be posted on Frank Visser's Integral World when finished, as the follow-up to my 4-part essay "Towards a larger definition of Integral"

Please note that this is still a work in progress, and some of this material may be modified in the submitted essay:

A definition of Integral:

My current definition of an Integral Metaparadigm (so-called because it would include various integral paradigmns as components or sub-components):

A pragmatic movement of individual, collective, and global transformation, which uses theoretical integralism as a preliminary framework or entre to a practical integralism orientated to greater synergy and ultimately to the divinisation of the world.

Such a transformative integralism should be one in which the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and divine, the individual and collective, the exoteric and esoteric, the secular and the sacred, the scientific and the occult, in fact all dichotomies, can and should be incorporated. Nothing less than all of the above, can be considered truly integral. And it is this wideness and depth and height that the integral movement should aspire for, not just in theory, bit in practice as well, the practice being transformative (because it is integral) rather than simply a one-sided development of a single faculty that ignores the rest, or (as in most conventional spiritualities) a one-sided liberation that confers freedom and transcendence on the individual, but leaves the world unchanged.

Themes and Categories:

On the basis of the above definition, a number of specific categories could be suggested, that an Integral movement or meta-paradigm would have to include or incorporate in order to be truly Integral. Remember, the goal of Integral (as defined here) is firstly to include and encompass everything, hence all human knowledge and fields of expertise, and everything in the cosmos even beyond that, and second, to transform everything. Since we are still limited to human ways of being and knowing, there will be the largest number of categories and their included themes in those areas we are most familiar with, and much less in those we aren't. As always, the following list should be taken as provisional only; it is not an attempt at a complete explanation; that would certainly be impossible. Rather it is hoped that it can serve as a suggestion or starting point for further discussion.

The categories given here are

Integral Philosophy - the mental “map”, integration of knowledge, which incorporates the understanding of various ancient and modern cultures including the insights of secular modernity. Incorporates both exoteric academia and esotericism – the latter transcendending the mundane and constituting the mental “map” as regards the supra-mundane

Integral Science – the understanding and mental integration of the natural, social, paraphysical, and noetic worlds and sciences

Integral Aesthetics and fine arts which expresses, symbolically represents, participates in or allows the audience to participate in narratives and archetypal realities at various levels.

Integral Morality and Epistemology – action in regard to other (physical/embodied) beings, which is based on empathic relation with all sentient beings and with the entire cosmos, and actions and behaviour only in accordance with that

Integral Education which addresses the whole child and the whole adult, in a harmonious manner which furthers individual personal and transpersonal/spiritual development

Integral Society – which is pluralistic, diverse, ecological, spiritual, and wholistic

Integral Technology which is always appropriate and always sustainable

Integral Psychology and Phenomenology of which includes all states of consciousness and all aspects of the psyche and the microcosm

Integral Esotericism and Occultism – interacting with subtle forces, action in regard to supra-physical realities, understanding the nature of the subtle forces impinging on and influencing the individual

Integral Visionary Cosmology of which brings together science, esotericism, mythology, occultism, and gnosis and encompasses and explains all worlds and realities and their transformations

Integral Spirituality and Yoga – becoming transpersonal, accessing of the inner being; consciousness may or may not still be limited to the physical, may be solitary or interact via positive morality with others or with society, transcendence of ego, enabling the transformation and transmutation of the entire personality and surface individuality through the triple transformation of Self-realisation (Liberation or Enlightenment), Soul-realisation (The Divine Center), and ultimately Supramentalisation

Integral Spiritual teachers and Initiators who are fully self-realised and Godhead-realised beings, free of all trace of ego, narcissism, and self-delusion

Integral Tikkun – Transformation and divinisation of the individual, collective, and planetary consciousness and being on all levels, Soul- and Self-realisation and beyond; Godheadhood, Supramentalistion, Omega Point, Divinisation of the World

Each of these categories will be explained at greater length in the essay, although some of these terms - e.g. soul-realisation and self-realisation - are explained in my previous essay on the Visser site.

If anyone has any suggestions for further categories or definitions, or comments or criticisms of the ones suggested here, please send them in.

Meta-states of Consciousness - a preliminary paradigm

2006-08-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything recently because I have been busy with my follow-up essay for Integral World; An Integral Meta-paradigm. But here is a slightly edited part of it, on Levels of Consciousness, which also reflects my current understanding.

Note that these levels (even this word is not right; they are better thought of as "states" or "meta-states" (foundational levels behind) states of consciousness, should not just be simplistically described in perennialist terms of a “Great Chain of Being”, or in Wilberian terms of “include and transcend” (although they can be described that way, but that is just one aspect). While they do represent increasing levels of Insight, they also represent radically different functionings and modes of being. Also, they are not ontological levels, but rather ways of relating to ontological levels. This quick summary will also be elaborated in detail in my forthcoming books.

The Mundane level / Mundane Consciousness – This is the level or state of the “exoteric”, the outer being or surface personality – the outer physical, emotional and mental consciousness, and of the external reality. In other words, this is the only sphere of being at which there is an actual Cartesian dichotomy between subject and object, self and other, “exterior” and “interior”. Of course, what is exterior to oneself is actually interior to another, so even this dichotomy is invalid. Mundane Consciousness, like all the spheres of being, consists of many sub-levels, of which the most focused and “objective” (pertaining to the exterior material world) and hence repeatable and scientific, is the “physical mind”(to borrow a term from Sri Aurobindo) which pertains to the mundane or outer being and the reality it experiences (there is also a much more limited form of outer experience, that of the fundamentalist literalist, who applies a sort of objectivism to every word and letter of his or her particular sacred scripture, seeking to understand it the way that the scientist understands the external universe). This and other surface aspects of the outer being constitute the essential interface between the mundane individual self and the larger mundane exterior world (other selves). And although this is the most restricted and limited level of human consciousness (apart from the subconscious), by that very reason it is also the starting point for higher development.

Occult / Spiritual / Esoteric Consciousness - Beyond the limits of the secular experience and states of consciousness, is the intuitive understanding, experience, and access to the inner being. These are dimensions and states of being far beyond the mundane level of consciousness, and simply cannot be accommodated in the secular worldview. They include both sub-physical, intra-physical, and supra-physical realities. The supra-physical realities are quite ontologically distinct from the physical, and hence can neither be proved or disproved by empirical methods.

At these levels, experience is limited only the highly distorting nature of one's mental bubble or mental fortress. The result of this is that we do not see things as they are, but as we think they are. This is why many esoteric and occult cosmologies are highly subjective, even though they do authentically contact and in their practical form (occultism and some forms of yoga) allow the interaction with subtle realities. Only a few teachers like Max Theon and the Mother (Mirra Alfassa) learned how to access these realities directly,

Intermediate / Pseudo-enlightened Consciousness - Beyond the mental bubble of our own thought-forms are the far more cosmic and potent dimensions of the immanent/transcendent (indeed such dichotomies are meaningless at this and higher levels) intermediate zone of partial realisations, in which ignorance and delusion are determined not by the conceptual mind but by the levels of egoic pseudo-enlightenment and potent but misleading experiences of great power and knowledge which are however still not of the nature of true enlightenment or liberation. Indeed it seems that the great majority of gurus and teachers that proclaim total enlightenment but still retain narcissistic and abusive behaviour rationalised as “crazy wisdom” or “necessary to break down the walls of the ego” are false teachers which are trapped in the Intermediate Zone, mistaking that for the final goal. This is explained by Sant Mat (Sikh esotericism) which refers to a number of misleading lesser heavens, by Sri Aurobindo in his important essay on the Intermediate Zone, and by my own comments in the “gurus and spiritual teachers” section of my website. (see ”The Intermediate Zone guru” and other webpages in this section - still under construction at the time of writing)

Enlightened Consciousness - Beyond the intermediate zone is the state of true liberation or enlightenment. In all traditional spiritualities this is the highest one can go. Sri Aurobindo however refers to even greater states of trans-enlightenment beyond that. The nature of some of these states of liberation or enlightenment has already been referred to at some length in my current essay on Integral World, Towards a Larger Definition of the Integral – section 3, to which the reader is referred.

Supramentalisation (or in Lurianic Kabbalah the cosmic tikkun; also Christian concepts of “New Heaven and New Earth” and Teilhard de Chardin's “Omega Point”) refers to the end process of Integral Yoga, which is the Integral Divinisation and Transenlightenment of the entire being, including even the very cells of the physical body, and ultimately inanimate matter itself. There would seem to be two stages here, a transitional and a more complete Supramentalisation. This will bring about a radical spiritual singularity at the global and eventually the cosmic level. On this, see also my essay The Divinisation Of Matter - Lurianic Kabbalah, Sri Aurobindo, and the New Physics.

My essay on Integral World

2006-07-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

Finally my entire essay - Towards a Larger Definition of the Integral - An Aurobindonian vision and a critique of the Wilberian paradigm - is up on the Integral World website!

The entire series is:

Historical and Comparative use of “Integral”
http://www.integralworld.net/kazlev1.html

The Wilberian Paradigm: A Fourfold Critique
http://www.integralworld.net/kazlev2.html

An Aurobindonian Vision
http://www.integralworld.net/kazlev3.html

Where To Now For The Integral Movement?
http://www.integralworld.net/kazlev4.html

So far I have gotten some very positive feedback, also some critical comments, which I also greatly welcome.

I do get the impression from this feedback that there is a "silent majority" of people in the New consciousness / alternative paradigm /whatever we want to call it that are not as enamoured of Wilber as his publicists and PR machine would make out (although see Geoff Falk's blog if you really want some harsh comments on all this!).

On the other hand, the concept of Supramentalisation may be very hard for many people in the integral movement (whether Wilberian or ex-Wilberian) to understand; not surprisingly since their background, like Wilber's, is in Eastern philosophy and spirituality, especially Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism, and Transpersonal psychology (which again is based on the Eastern traditions). And sublime and profound as these great spiritual paths are, they still do not incorporate the understanding of a truly integral transformation of matter. See part 3 of my essay for more regarding this.

In view of this fact, it will be interesting to see what effect my essay has on the Integral community. The Integral World website is very much the home of Wilberians (although less now, given Frank's strong peer review stance against Ken, which led to the latter's vindictive sniping at him and at IW in his blog) and ex-Wilberians (more so now, for the same reasons). But the Aurobindonian vision of the divinisation of matter is another ball game altogether.

Despite this, I deliberately posted my essay there because I believe that the Integral movement has enormous potential; or at least the essence of this movement has. I feel a genuine light there. That's the reason I'm taking the time and trouble to do this, rather than simply working on my books.

And sure maybe i'm deluded and caught in some intermediate zone glamour, it all depends on the nature of the attractor behind Ken. It is so hard to be certain, and so easy to be caught up in glamour, in all these things. But until I'm otherwise persuaded, I'll continue along the present course.

Wilber's role in the integral movement seems to be as the anchor for the "attractor", to serve as a nucleus for these ideas and this discussion in the internet community. He has brought a lot of people together, got them talking and interested and networking. But his own approach is far too rigid and limited and cultic to be of any real use. It is not his side of the Integral movement, but the larger Integral movement, that I feel has this great potential.

But to advance to the next stage, the stage beyond where the Integral movement is now, requires incorporating the spiritual; the true spiritual, the spiritual that comes from the individual divine center, not the intellectual so-called spiritual such as Wilber propounds in his procrustean stages and states and SDi tiers of development.

This is why in my essay I refer to the need to go beyond the rational-mental understanding. Until one can do that, until one can feel the inner divinity, one cannot truly understand what real spirituality means. And for me the Integral movement is a spiritual movement, a movement pertaining to an integral transformation (i'll develop this theme in my follow-up essay). A purely rational-mental philosophy on its own is sterile, it leads only to one becoming trapped in one's own "mental fortress". It is only when reason is a servant of higher gnosis and inner spiritual wisdom that it attains value.

If the focus of the integral movement can shift from Wilber as exemplar, to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as exemplars, there will be a mighty change.

So we will see what happens.

Essay in progress

2006-07-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

Well I'm still working on my follow-up essay for Integral World, which will probably be titled Towards a Larger Definition of Integral (II) - an Integral meta-paradigm. This will present a larger meta-picture oin which various integral philosophies and practices can, hopefully, be placed. Individual aspects of Integral will be able to be defined according to several parameters, such as theory and practice, esoteric and exoteric, and an ascending scale of spiritual insight and realisation.

This is again based on the Aurobindonian paradigm, I like S.A.'s teaching because even at the intellectual level (which is what I am talking about here, not the direct Soul insight beyond the mental) it so incredibly comprehensive; with only a little fiddling literally everything can be included there! Talk about integral, this is uber-integral! But I stress again I am in no way an orthodox aurobindonian; some of my interpretations may be considered strange. That is why, if anyone is interested in Sri Aurobindo, it's best to read his stuff yourself, not rely on my interpretations.

As for my essay already on Integral World (call it Towards a Larger Definition of Integral (I) ) , apparently Mark Edwards (a "strong positive" critic on the Visser scale) is going to write a reply refuting my assertion that Ken Wilber is a physicalist. Well, that should be intersting, because I have never seen anything in Wilber-V that indicates anything other than physicalism! So hopefully we'll get a nice debate going!

What this Blog is about

2006-07-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

I already have a blog at Zaadz, which has been going quite well, and indeed encouraged me about all these things, but thought I should also join and post on the wider blogosphere.

I decided to call this blog Integral Transformation, because that is what it will be about, and what I am interested in. This will involve the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and divine, the individual and collective, the exoteric and esoteric, the secular and the sacred, the scientific and the occult, in fact all dichotomies, can and should be incorporated. In addition of course (although this is also part of the work of integral transformation) I'll also talk about general stuff, experiences with sadhana, what I'm doing at the moment writing-wise, and so on. Also will add pertinant quotes and passages, mostly from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and commentaries on them.

For an example of my recent work, see my essay (an Aurobindonian critque of Ken Wilber) on Frank Visser's Integral World - part one, part two (part three hasn't appeared yet). On my website, I am currently revising the Gurus and Spiritual Teachers section, which will deal with both true and fake gurus. I need to also find time for my revision of the Middle Permian on Palaeos.

That's all for now; will post more later!