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I am a retired academic, comfortable and content. I live with my wife (Shirley) in a semi-rural area about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta. I have two adult sons and two grandsons. I took up exploration of the spiritual side of life as my retirement activity because of some noetic experiences that I had earlier in my life. I have been meditating regularly since 2010. I've done retreats based in Theravada Buddhism, Tantrik Yoga and Kriya Yoga. I have read a good bit of spiritual literature written, for the most part, by current practitioners and teachers.

Essays Meditation Related

Meditation, What it is and Why do it?

By admin on Sunday, March 26, 2023

What is Meditation and Why Meditate?

If you heard or read the piece on worldviews that preceded this you may recall that at the end, a nondual perspective was discussed. Also discussed was the necessity of an experiential understanding of the underlying unity of such a worldview to fully grok it. The principle avenue for that experiential understanding was meditation. Thus, this is an elaboration on the previous piece.

Introduction

I have studied and practiced meditation for about fifteen years. On the basis of that background, I think meditation can be divided into at least three categories. First, there is what I would call natural meditation. Natural meditation is not done with intent and is a relaxed state of awareness that one may fall into for any number of reasons. One example is a state that one might enter as a result of a solitary encounter with the beauty and tranquility of nature. The second category I call traditional, because it is grounded in a meditative tradition such as Buddhism or Hindu philosophies such as Vedanta or Tantra. Traditional meditation may take many forms and is always done with intent. The third category I would call medicalized. This is a form of meditation that has been adapted from a traditional meditation and employed for health reasons. An example of this type is the Benson Relaxation Response, which is a relabeled form of basic mindfulness meditation. It was first introduced by a Harvard cardiologist, Herbert Benson, several decades ago as a technique to help reduce stress in his patients. This discussion of meditation will be based on the traditional approach.

What is Meditation?

Meditation is a technique to improve the quality of your attention, which determines what you are aware of. The root meaning of the word that “attention” is derived from means “to grasp.” Thus, attention is making sensory contact with a physical stimulus or introspective contact with a mental stimulus and holding on to it. To improve attention requires that you have the self-discipline to practice the technique of meditation consistently and persistently. Meditation can also be useful for revealing the cognitive structures of mind such as ideologies or belief systems and automatic programs (APs) that use such structures to render judgments for you.

Here is an anecdote about attention. Dean Radin, head of research for IONS, had an experiment that he wanted to conduct that required participants who could maintain their focus of attention for a minimum of thirty seconds without exception. He tested a large number of volunteers to identify those who would be suitable for his experiment. He found that the vast majority of those tested could maintain a focus of attention, on average, for six seconds. He did find the subjects he needed and it may be no surprise that they were all experienced meditators.

What is the purpose of improved attention?

While there may be several ends to which enhanced attention might be directed, in meditation it is to make a state of presence more easily attained. Presence, as the late Ram Dass is noted for saying, is, “Be here now.” This means that you are focused on the present moment, not on the past, not on the future, not on your personal narratives (or stories) and not on other narratives (or stories).

Two teachers who put an emphasis on presence are Richard Moss, a former ER physician, and Leonard Jacobson, a former attorney. Moss offers his students an exercise employing a circle. He suggests thinking of yourself standing in the middle of the circle, which represents the present, the portion behind you represents the past, the portion in front of you represents the future, the portion to your left represents your personal stories and the portion to the right of you represents other stories. He says that any time you find your attention outside of the circle, bring it back to the center of the circle and the present. Jacobson similarly suggests that you should keep your focus on what’s in front of you, that is, be present with actuality. He believes that most of us most of the time are divorced from the actual and are “lost in our minds.” Both would agree that the mind is a useful tool and has an important role to play in our lives, and both would agree that we spend a great deal of time engaged with the mind when it is unnecessary.

Why is it important to be present?

To begin with it is only through being present that you can truly experience life. Life is grounded in experience not in the labyrinth of your mind. Life is a process that unfolds through your experience of what is present. When you are lost in your mind you are missing out on life.

Presence also is important to becoming non-judgmental, an attitude discussed in the post preceding this one. You may recall that being non-judgmental requires that you approach people and situations as unique and come to a determination about them through discernment grounded in what is present, not on ideologies and beliefs that create generalized categories in your mind. When you respond to someone as if they were a representative of a mental category, you are dehumaniz- ing them and treating them as an object. You can often recognize this process because the category frequently has a demeaning label.

Presence can also reveal things to you about your conditioned mind and its biases, what was called automatic programs in the previous post. Automatic programs will often be the first thing that attempt to arise and take over your response to someone or some situation. This is an excellent opportunity to take note of this automatic program, suspend it and try to identify its source. Once you know where it is coming from you will be better able to manage it rather than be managed by it.

What is the role of the brain?

The answer to this question is influenced by the work of Iain McGilchrist and Jill Taylor, both of whom are neuroscientists.

The brain is divided into two hemispheres. McGilchrist’s hypothesis about how evolutionarily the split brain came to be adopted by many life forms is related to two tasks of great importance in the past and today, especially in non-human animals. Those tasks include the need for particularized attention for seeking and obtaining food and generalized attention to monitor the larger environment for danger, such as predators. This reminds me of an illustrative story about generalized or inclusive attention. This was related by an anthropologist studying some indigenous people living in a jungle environment. The anthropologist was with a group on some sort of expedition into the jungle. When they reached a certain spot, one of the natives came and led him to a clear spot and told him they would wait here and the others would be back for them. He asked, “why do I have to wait here?” The native replied, “white men don’t know how to see.” The anthropologist asked, “see what?” The native answered, “danger.” These indigenous people clearly didn’t think much of Europeans’ right hemisphere functioning.

Briefly, the left side tends to exclusive attention. It is very good at bringing single objects of consciousness into its “grasp” and cognitively dismantling and manipulating them. This is often referred to as reductive thinking, i.e., reducing things to their apparent parts. Linear logic is then applied to understanding the relations among the parts. Understanding gained from this process has been very useful, especially in learning about many physical processes, and in the development of technology. However, this great asset provided by the left side must be overseen by the right side if good order is to be maintained in overall brain functioning.

Indeed, McGilchrist argues that from an evolutionary perspective, the right side of the brain is designed to be the master while the left side of the brain is designed to be its servant. He illustrates the importance of this relationship by discussing the effects seen in his patients with right hemisphere impairment due to strokes, trauma and disease. The effect of such impairment on the functioning of these patients, he indicates, is very similar to what he sees in his patients with schizophrenia. The effects are generally not so severe when the reverse occurs, suggesting that the right can do without the left much better than the left can do without the right hemisphere.

The right hemisphere tends to inclusive attention and processes input from the left side and its own intuitive understanding through integral thinking that creates an overall synthesis. Such a synthesis weaves a picture that renders an understanding of reality that far exceeds what the left side can accomplish on its own. The right side is also generally reckoned to be the source of imagination, which is largely responsible for using the synthesis to make creative leaps.

It is also worth noting that the most common patterns of electrical activity in the brain, the so called brain waves, seem to have some association with the hemispheres. Beta activity is likely to be more often dominant when the left hemisphere is dominant. Alpha activity is likely to be more often dominant when the right hemisphere is dominant. Alpha is associated with a more relaxed and fluid state of functioning than beta. It better supports the right hemisphere’s need for a more holistic mind set. Theta is also more likely to be dominant in the right side, especially when imagination and creativity are in process. Both alpha and theta are associated with meditative states and indicate that meditation is a useful tool for relaxation, inclusive attention, a holistic mind set and Presence.

Returning to the left hemisphere, when beta is dominant and the left hemisphere is inattentive, a network known as the default mode network (DMN) becomes active. The DMN is thought to support and maintain the ego narrative that most of us rely upon to explain our thoughts, emotions and behavior. One way it does this is to bring into awareness various memories and emotional associations to those memories that are tied to our personal narratives, causing rehearsal of and commentary on the narratives. The DMN also brings forward into awareness similar stimuli associated with other narratives important to ego. These stimuli are processed in much the same manner and for similar purposes. New meditators often find themselves less attentive and still in a beta-dominant mode, which presents them with a hurdle. The activation of the DMN while attempting to move into a meditative state often creates a significant distraction — a state sometimes described as Monkey Mind Syndrome. This syndrome has probably thwarted the intentions of more would-be meditators than anything else. If the new meditator will relax, persist and not become judgmental about his or her difficulties, they can be overcome. Success will not only improve the quality of attention and facilitate states of Presence but can also alter brain structure and improve the brain’s neuroplasticity.

Taylor and McGilchrist both take the view that the materialistic worldview common in western thought and becoming increasingly more common worldwide leads to a left-brain fixation. The processes of the left hemisphere are praised and encouraged and generally put forward as the pinnacle of human thinking while dismissing or minimizing right hemisphere processes and functions. McGilchrist, especially, appears to be of the opinion that this fixation could very well undermine civilization and lead to its collapse. Taylor, if nothing else, is an advocate for restoring whole brain functioning as a way to heal many of our personal and societal ills.

How does meditation help you become Present?

Meditation helps you become Present in several ways. First, the deep relaxation that accompanies meditation activates the right hemisphere. Second, holistic or inclusive attention activates the right hemisphere. Finally, meditation suppresses the activity of the default mode network, which reduces left-hemisphere activation. All mental stimuli, especially language, activate the left hemisphere and bring attention to bear on specific stimuli, which become objects of consciousness. Presence and dominance of the right hemisphere make consciousness without an object possible. This means that a state of awareness can be attained in which there is no attention focused on a particular stimulus. Both music and language are auditory stimuli. Music, however, can be useful for some people during meditation if it is calm and soothing music that aids relaxation and contains no lyrics. Lyrics often draw attention to themselves in the same way that speech does and become objects of consciousness in an activated left hemisphere.

Does meditation give you psychic powers or other unusual experiences?

Patanjali, a venerated yoga teacher, from about 400 BCE, taught that if psychic phenomena appear during meditation, they should be considered as distractions and ignored. Note that there are several branches of yoga practice and this reference to yoga is not to the Westernized version of Hatha Yoga commonly practiced in the U.S.

More likely to occur are noetic events. Noetic events are often associated with the late Edgar Mitchell who, on his return trip from the moon, had an unusual and profound experience while gazing out a window at the vastness of the universe. After he was back on earth, he began researching the experience that he had and concluded that it was a noetic event. A noetic event is defined as an intuitive and implicit understanding or subjective knowing of something. Noetic events are also characterized by being ineffable or difficult to verbally and meaningfully describe to others, unless they have had some similar experience themselves. Edgar Mitchell went on to found an organization known today as IONS (Institute on Noetic Science) whose mission is to study noetic events. Noetic events can arise in both natural and traditional meditative states.

What is the best meditation technique?

There are many styles of meditation that have developed within various traditions. Which one is best for you depends what is most comfortable for you and can be the basis of a sustainable practice. I use what I call a sensory-field meditation technique that I’ve arrived at from my study and practice of meditation. I am happy to share my process with anyone who has a serious interest.

What is enlightenment?

In the piece that preceded this one, it was noted that some traditions view human functioning along a dimension that runs from ignorance to enlightenment. Ignorance is seen as being ignorant of one’s divine nature, and enlightenment is coming to know one’s divine nature directly, i.e. through experience. A contemporary nondual teacher, Rupert Spira, prefers to replace the word “Enlightenment” with the word “Truth,” which functionally still carries the same meaning as just given. However, Spira prefers it because it doesn’t have as much conceptual baggage as the term “Enlightenment.”

Here is what enlightenment won’t do for you. It won’t turn you into a zombie. It won’t render you unable to deal with the daily world, and it won’t solve all of your problems, though it may give you a different perspective on them. There is a Zen saying that I think is apropos when talking about enlightenment. It goes like this: “Before enlightenment chop wood and carry water, after enlightenment chop wood and carry water.” Those seeking the spectacular are usually disappointed. If you’re one of those people looking for something spectacular from enlightenment, you might want to contemplate this Zen saying on a regular basis.

There is a Western connection to the idea of enlightenment through Abraham Maslow and Carl Jung. Both considered transcendence of the ego self to be important. Such a shift they found produced a shift in perspective and a broadened worldview. Both thought this shift was a shift away from the ego or self and to a more authentic Self. Maslow say the shift is the culmination of a developmental process, and Jung says it is the result of individuation or the integration of the unconscious, subconscious and ego consciousness.

Transcendence of the self, from my understanding, puts one on the cusp of enlightenment. Some traditions use a six-phase model when talking about the process of moving from ignorance to truth (enlightenment). The first phase is the unconditioned mind (infants and pre-verbal children) with no sense of self. The second phase is the conditioned mind (most everyone else), which is the phase where one is acquiring and has acquired a hierarchy of concepts and a process for processing and judging people and circumstances through those concepts. It also is the period where a lot of automatic programs are established that lead to decisions that require little thought. The third phase is often referred to as “I AM.” It is a phase in which one throws off much of the conditioning acquired during phase two. In this phase, one has acquired Presence and learned to use discernment rather than judgment. I have written about this phase calling it the natural mind.

When one transitions from the natural mind, the cusp is crossed and one enters the fourth phase, which is the first phase of enlightenment. This phase is called Self-realization. It can be described as the direct experience of one’s true nature (a manifestation of divinity). The fifth phase is often called God-consciousness and can be described as direct experience of unconditional acceptance by Source consciousness (God, if you prefer). Unconditional acceptance and Divine Love are often considered to be interchangeable. The sixth phase can be referred to as Unity-consciousness and described as the experience of being unconditional acceptance. This can also be thought of an identity with Source. Jill Taylor thinks that the right hemisphere anterior cingulate is the gateway to experience of Source.

Note: Be careful not to conflate human love with Divine Love. The former is an emotional state and the latter is a way of being. Human love is often thought to be elicited by an external stimulus, whereas Divine Love is not elicited but emitted or, if you prefer, radiated.

Reflections Religion and Spirit

God and the Problem of Evil

By admin on Monday, March 20, 2023

For this essay, I need to define two terms that I will use; i.e., God and evil. These definitions are my understanding of the terms and may have little if anything to do with how you understand the same terms. I ask you to suspend your concepts by the same names and instead attempt to employ my concepts for these names, at least, until you have read this piece and understood it as I have written it. If you succeed in doing this, you will have done all I can hope for and it is possible that true communication between two minds has occurred.

Writing a piece like this can only be done through metaphor. A metaphor can sometimes bring us very close to seeing what actually is but at other times may miss the mark. I hope the metaphors chosen will be approximations of the former type rather than the latter. So, let’s begin with “God.”

I do not find the traditional notion of God, as expressed in the Abrahamic religions, one that conveys any sense of truth. This can be illustrated by a metaphor used in scripture. “Our Father who art in heaven” says it all. First, the choice of the term “father” implies all those qualities that are often associated with human fathers. Fathers initiate our creation, fathers are providers, fathers are teachers, fathers are disciplinarians, to name a few of the characteristics of the paternal role. In short, a good father has many human functions. That all these characteristics are attributed to God can be demonstrated by references in scripture. I take this to clearly indicate that the God of the Abrahamic religions is the projection of the known onto the unknown. In other words, I consider the God spoken about above, using the “father,” metaphor is a metaphor that misses the mark.

The expression “art in heaven” suggests a father who is not present but elsewhere. Not unlike what might be said by a child becoming an adult who has gone out into the world and refers to its father, who is far away and at home in some other domicile. Here lies the theistic duality of Abrahamic religions, i.e., God and humanity, heaven and the world, spirit and matter, etc.

I shall now offer an alternative metaphor for God that may come closer to the mark. Albert Einstein once remarked that ”…the field is the only reality…” by which I understand him to be referring to the quantum field. It has also been suggested that the quantum field is fundamental and everything ultimately arises from the quantum field, of which there can be many subfields. For example, consider a particle, e.g., an electron in relation to its subfield. A particle is not, as we often assume, a small bit of material substance like a tiny pellet. Instead, quantum field theory describes an electron as a ripple in an electron field. It might help to think of the ripple as a concentrated frequency, giving its position within its field a greater density. It has also been suggested that the quantum field is nonlocal; i.e., it is outside of space/time. It has no extension in space and no duration in time. It cannot be said to be eternal because that implies time, nor can it be infinite because that implies extension in space. It just is. Thus, if we think of God as like in some ways to a quantum field, we have a root or core assumption (a.k.a. an ontological primitive) for a worldview (a.k.a. a metaphysical system).

Let us, metaphorically speaking, consider that God is something like this “field.” Let’s further imagine that God has a few other characteristics. I owe the following remarks largely to the scientist, technologist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup and his book Rationalist Spirituality. This is my understanding of his book with which he may or may not agree. Thus, God cannot be held responsible for creating an imperfect cosmos because God is imperfect. We can infer that God is imperfect from the fact that God created the cosmos. It is only because God is imperfect that there would be any reason to create a cosmos. Why would this be so? One might say that God is a formless, timeless and boundless field (a nonlocal field), has primordial awareness, has intelligence, has creativity and most importantly purpose or, if one prefers, a drive to know its potential. That is, this is God’s nature.

In this primordial state, God is only aware of being. There is nothing else to be aware of. God has consciousness but without an object. How does one explore and express one’s inherent potential when there is only primordial awareness? To me the following is the biggest leap of faith of all, but a necessary one. God realized that there had to be a medium that provided contrasts and decisions in order for experience to occur. I can only hazard a guess as to how this was realized. It might have been through something like a thought process or something like an inherent or instinctual process or something well beyond my understanding. Experience is the only likely vehicle for the expression of potential and growth in awareness of that potential. Thus, a context was needed that would make experience possible.

How did this context come to be? God, being creative, has imagination. First, let us assume that God imagined a process that could create a context. I offer here a metaphor from computer gaming. Consider an algorithm that, once started in a computing environment, begins a process of creating a world from the interaction of virtual building blocks. If you’ve every played a computer game that generated a virtual world, then you have some sense of what is being suggested. Otherwise, you’ll just have to take my word that once conceived, developed and given a suitable computing environment, it can be done. So, to borrow a concept from Kastrup, God dissociated a portion of itself into a separate subfield. Those familiar with computer technology, think of a virtual drive being created from a portion of a computer’s random access memory (RAM). In this virtual drive you can run programs that are isolated from the rest of the computer’s RAM. More primitive but along the same lines, think of creating a square foot garden in your yard.

So, in this dissociated portion of God, an algorithm was launched that began evolving a context. Thus began the creation of what we call the physical universe. Incorporated within this algorithm was the potential for life to evolve as the algorithm progressed and unfolded its intended creation. While from our perspective this process appears to be purely random and without purpose, it is clearly, in this scenario, driven by purpose but coming from a level beyond our normal ability to perceive. Another metaphor that can be applied here is from the reformulation of quantum physics by David Bohm. Let it be noted that David Bohm’s reformulation is not generally accepted by physicists because it is a “hidden variable” model. I won’t go into that here, but it still provides an interesting metaphor for our purposes.

Bohm’s model has three levels. The first he calls the “super implicate order” (SIO), the second the “implicate order” (IO) and the third the “explicate order” (EO). Think of the SIO level as analogous to the Field or God. Think of the IO as analogous to the algorithm running on the virtual drive that is generating the cosmos. Think of the EO as the unfolding physical universe being displayed on a computer display or screen of perception. Roughly speaking, in Bohm’s model the SIO contains the rule sets that constrain what is possible under certain conditions. The IO generates possibilities for explication with varying probabilities. The IO then unfolds or explicates certain possibilities into the EO. This unfolding, it is suggested, is what creates the sense of time experienced by creatures in the EO. The possibilities unfolded into the explicate order then enfold their effects back into the IO, which then affects the probabilities for possibilities to unfolded into the EO. Thus, a continuous feedback loop is created. So, in a manner of speaking, when it is said that we create our own reality this is true within the limits implied in the above. You or I may have little, if any, effect on the possibilities being unfolded from the IO, but humanity as a collective source of feedback would have a significant effect.

Returning to the output of the algorithm metaphor, one of the outputs that was necessary to fulfill its purpose was to create a context in which it was possible for experiences to be generated. To have experience, it is necessary to have contrasts. To provide a simple illustration, you can’t experience temperature if you only know hot. You would not have any basis for differentiating hot as a construct because there would be nothing to contrast it to. This takes us to what the late Niels Bohr (one of the founders of quantum physics) referred to as complementary pairs. Bohr originally introduced this concept to help explain and think about the wave/particle duality in quantum physics. Bohr latter argued that this concept could be much more broadly applied than just to physics and could extend to such fields as psychology or philosophy, e.g., male/female, life/death, pain/pleasure, etc.. One might see this same recognition being illustrated in the story of Adam and Eve. In this story, God recognized that Adam alone was insufficient and created Eve, thereby creating a complementary pair. Of course, evolutionarily speaking, sexual dimorphism came about long before humanity even existed. But, this story too is metaphorical and isn’t intended to relate a factual history.

As the algorithm progressed and creation unfolded, life emerged. Prior to life evolving we might say that everything was made of the “stuff” of the field. It was not until life emerged that the possibility for the awareness inherent in the field to truly become active in the physical universe. As nervous systems evolved and became more complex, their ability to express greater and greater levels of awareness (or if you prefer, consciousness) grew. The upper limit on this process is determined by the complexity of the nervous system. Since awareness is a dissociated aspect of God, it is clear that it is not possible for any nervous system to express the full capability of the consciousness of God. Thus, while God is the source of all consciousness in living entities, the complexity of nervous systems imposes limits and constraints on dissociated expression of that awareness or consciousness. One way of thinking about it is that the brain and nervous system function as a constraint on the expression and reduces it to a level appropriate for the nervous system to sustain. This implies that entities with highly complex nervous systems might have the potential to be aware of far more than they typically are. However, a deeper connection to God is not necessary for dealing with the routines and problems of daily life.

The psychologist Donald Hoffman has proposed a theory, for which he has developed some evidence, that indicates evolutionary pressures have shaped the perception of living entities to be what they are today. What the evolutionary process has done is shape perception not to see “reality” as it is, but to shape what is seen based on its functionality for survival and reproduction. Much of what might be perceptible about the true nature of reality is irrelevant to survival and reproduction and to perceive it would be counterproductive, evolutionarily speaking. In short, we’re designed by evolution to see what we need to see not everything that might possibly be seen.

Now, consider the earlier discussion of the building blocks of the cosmos; i.e., subfields in which a ripple within a field or subfield is interpreted as a particle, which of course is used to build elements and molecules. As we generally assume, there probably is a real world “out there,” meaning outside of ourselves. However, it is the case that the world in itself, as opposed to the world perceived, is a world of fields of various combinations, intensities and extents. If the world in itself is nothing more than fields, you might wonder, why can I feel it as things of substance? Why does the positive end of a magnet resist and push against the negative end of a magnet as if encountering some resisting solid? It is simply one magnetic field pushing against another magnetic field. So, it may be, when your hand pushes against a wall and is resisted by the wall this is the result of two incompatible sets of frequencies encountering one another.

Lets now, metaphorically speaking, consider another process that might help us visualize how things arise and manifest from fields. The process of organizing into patterns small particles such as sand or salt or fluids like water is called Cymatics. It is said that the apparent fluidity of the quantum field is due to ripples in the field where the ripples are photons. Suppose that the ripples in fields that produce particles that then assemble into elements and molecules are influenced to produce different particles by sound causing them to take on particular patterns much like sand on a table top does when exposed to sound of a certain frequency.

Thus, the manifest world could be thought of as a product of patterns of particles assembled by various frequencies of sound. Consider that in some creation stories it is said the first thing God brought into existence was light. That is what a photon is and it is thought to be the most fundamental product of a quantum field. Further, some eastern mystics have said that the underlying vibration of the universe is the sound produced by “OM.” Could it be that the sound frequency represented by “OM” gave rise to the first and all subsequent photons? Not a claim just a thought. Note, when producing this sound, the “M” is silent. When speaking it conversationally, the “M” is pronounced. The world may very well consist of frequency fields that are organized by sound, which includes you. And where, you might ask are these frequency fields? Possibly, in a dissociated field lying within the greatest field of them all — God (note, this is by definition panentheism).

Hoffman’s theory suggests, we perceive these fields as rocks, trees, birds, dogs and people. We perceive them as such because to perceive them in that way has functional value to us, evolutionarily speaking. This removes us from reality, as it is in itself, by multiple steps. First, there is the underlying frequency field – God. Next, we have the dissociated frequency field within which the cosmos is manifested. Then, we see functional representations of the fields comprising aspects of the world. Finally, we interpret the representations that we perceive. Hoffman compares this to the computer interface you see on your computer screen. What you see on the computer screen is in no way a true perception of what the icons represent. However, what you perceive is much more useful to you than the strings of computer code that the icons represent, and there is much more going on in the computer that you have no need to know and for which there are no icons.

Now, let us consider the term “evil.” I first began seriously thinking about the nature of evil a number of years ago as I read a book, Evil in Modern Thought, by Susan Neiman. This book is billed as an alternate history of philosophy, and I would qualify this by inserting the word “western” before the word “history.” I found it to be a very unsatisfying book, and after I finished reading it, I wrote a brief critique on the title page: “The problem of evil in western philosophy/theology arises from a fundamental error. The error is in construing God as a superhuman, which turns the concept of God into a caricature of divinity.” Shortly after writing this critique, I composed a post for my website titled The Nature of Evil. The current essay could be considered an update of the earlier essay linked in the previous sentence.

In some Eastern philosophies, the responsibility for evil is not attributed to God but to humanity. Specifically, to actions arising from ignorance, which is a feature of ego consciousness. The more egocentric one is, the deeper one’s ignorance and the more likely is bad behavior. You are probably wondering, ignorance of what? The answer is ignorance of one’s true nature. Given the narrative about the nature of God and the creation of the cosmos developed above, it should be clear that our consciousness is a limited explication of the very same Consciousness that characterizes God. Thus, our very being is directly related to the beingness of God. If you think of God as divine then you too are of divine origin. If you recognize this, you also understand that you share your divinity with all living entities. Everything ultimately traces back to God, I personally prefer Source Consciousness or simply Source, and thereby puts all life in a state of unity.

The general theme in some Eastern traditions is that your purpose is to develop your consciousness so that it becomes less egocentric and more integral or, as it is usually put, evolving from ignorance to enlightenment. A nondual teacher, Ruper Spira, prefers Truth, which is to experience your true nature, over enlightenment and I tend to agree with him. The psychologist and philosopher Ken Wilbur suggests that developmentally there are eight stages of cognitive functioning, each related to a different level of psychological and moral functioning. We all begin at Stage 1 and progress from there to some endpoint, which is nearly always prior to the latter stages. Nearly everyone reaches Stage 3 by the time they reach biological maturity. Stage 3 is a stage characterized as egocentric. The most common end points in the West are Stages 4 and 5, with significant minorities at Stages 3 and 6. Wilbur considers these stages to not only represent individuals but also societies. That is, he would argue that a society can be characterized as being dominated by a particular stage of thinking. The dominant stage of development in a society tends, in general, to characterize the society. One might think of all but the last of Wilbur’s stages as sub-divisions of ignorance.

One scheme from an Eastern tradition suggests 6 stages across the span from ignorance to enlightenment. The first three segments of this model are classified as ignorance to varying degrees. The latter three segments of this model are classified as enlightenment to varying degrees. In terms of Wilbur’s stages, I would put Stages 1 and 2 in the unconditioned-mind stage (first segment). I would put Wilbur’s Stages 3 through 6 in the conditioned-mind stage (second segment) and Wilbur’s Stage 7 in the I AM or authentic Self stage (third segment) or what I would call the natural-mind stage. In this Eastern model, the third stage is on the cusp of enlightenment. When one fully transcends ignorance, you are in the fourth segment (Self-realization) or experience of one’s divine nature. With transition to the fifth segment (God Consciousness), one has direct experience of God, Source or divinity. With transition to the sixth segment (Unity Consciousness), one has as full a reconciliation with God as is possible in human existence. Wilbur’s Stage 8 (Super Integral stage) appears to be part of the enlightenment segment in the Eastern scheme. He says that Stage 8 is potentially divisible into possibly four additional stages, but he doesn’t elaborate.

On the process of enlightenment, Wilbur offers a four-phase model that begins with Stepping Up, which means making a commitment to the process. Second is Cleaning Up, which means working to modify or eliminate any dysfunctional behavior and thinking. Third is Growing Up, which means working your way up through the psychological and moral stages. Fourth, is Waking Up, which, as I read him, means transitioning into the Super Integral stage (8). Logically, it seems to make sense to me to equate Wilbur’s stage 8 with enlightenment. However, there is reason to believe that he sees spiritual enlightenment as separate from the developmental process and can potentially occur at almost any stage in his model. This seems to be why he emphasizes his four-step process. He says that the stage at which you are functioning when self-transcendence occurs will significantly impact the quality of the transition and can lead to undesirable outcomes.

The importance of the concept of enlightenment can be understood by considering why the cosmos and life were created. If God is imperfect and is in the process of

perfecting its potential, then you and other living creatures, throughout the cosmos, are the tools that make the process possible. I would say that of all the experiential input God receives from the experience of living creatures, the experience of one who has made the journey from ignorance to full enlightenment or reconciliation with God should prove to be the most cherished experience. Such a journey will not often be brief and, as some eastern traditions suggest, may take multiple lifetimes to complete. Thus, we see the rationale behind the concept of reincarnation.

If in fact your consciousness is a dissociated aspect of God’s Consciousness and upon biological death your consciousness returns to God. Accepting this, the idea that your consciousness and what it has learned could be dissociated again and then expressed through a new nervous system doesn’t seem to be especially difficult to accept. If God needs experience to evolve, the higher the quality of the experience the better. The best source of high quality experience should come from the evolution of a consciousness toward reconciliation with God. Why enfold a consciousness that has completed 5% of the journey and incorporate its limited experience and then replace it with a dissociated consciousness that is beginning at zero? Continuation of the development of a dissociated consciousness will in the long run produce more high quality experiential input and increase the ratio of high to low quality input. You might ask, if everyone starts in ignorance, how is anything gained by reincarnation? I would say that everyone may start at the same point in each life but those who have made prior progress on the journey will move quickly toward their previous state of spiritual evolution where those with less experience or no previous experience or even a lot of experience from which they learned little will progress more slowly.

You might ask, if everyone is of divine origin, why is there so much suffering (evil) in the world? Given the above, I would answer that you can’t create a highly diverse experiential environment without significant contrasts. If a range of experiences are possible, some of them are by necessity going to be experienced as less desirable than others. Further, the opportunity to learn from one’s experiences is not limited to positive experiences. In fact, in some instances, one might learn more from negative experiences than from positive ones. Negative experience can also be motivational and spur one to develop further. Likewise, the negative experiences of others provides you with the opportunity to develop compassion, which then motivates you to attempt to relieve their suffering. I would also suggest that the development of compassion is a necessary step in perceiving the divinity lying at the core of others and thereby recognizing the unity that you both share through God. As this recognition of unity grows, it will likely increase in breadth and encompass a wider and wider range of those realized to share in this unity.

On a broader scale, bear in mind that all the negativity that occurs affects the probabilities of future negative possibilities being explicated into the world. We seem to be almost immune to the opportunities that are repeatedly explicated into the world, and as we continue to ignore them we increase the likelihood of similar or worse future events. To take one example, of many possible examples, how many genocides were there in the twentieth century? The UN definition of genocide covers “…acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group…” and does not include what are termed mass killings that may include thousands of people but were not killed with genocidal intent; e.g. some wars. By the UN definition, there have been 28 genocides in the twentieth century. Germany’s holocaust perpetrated against its Jewish people in the 1930s and 40s was one of the largest in terms of numbers of people slaughtered. It was an event that brought out a lot of “never again” sentiment. Unfortunately, there were 12 genocides in the second half of the twentieth century – all following the Jewish holocaust.

Thus, all who have eyes to see have a responsibility to affect the feedback in whatever way they can. Since the feedback is a collective effect, you can best aid it by expanding the number of people who understand this process and actively take responsibility for their personal evolution. Always remember that intellectual knowing can never replace experiential knowing – a lesson that institutionalized religion seems to have forgotten or never learned. This is why a rule-based approach to improving people has a limited effect. You may impose “good” behavior on people through threats, coercion and punishment but you don’t change people in this manner. Remove the external control and the “good” behavior will dissipate quickly because the rules haven’t changed anyone. As a poster I once saw said, “You may shut me up, but you can’t change my mind.” Personal evolution is the only thing that has an enduring effect that needs no external controls.

Finally, I remind the reader that what I’ve presented is a narrative and like all narratives it is not literally true even though some of the metaphors used are factual. The critical question is, should I accept it? I can only tell you why I accept it. I accept it because it is a more satisfying explanation than any competing narrative, because it can answer more of my questions about “reality” than any competing narrative, because it gives me more insight into how I should be in the world than competing narratives and because it provides a better foundation for purpose and meaning in my life than competing narratives. You must make those same and possibly other evaluations for yourself.

Essays

Ethics, Morality and Worldview

By admin on Monday, February 13, 2023

There is, in my opinion, a critical attitude that is important in the application of Ethical and Moral Principles, which includes the UUA’s seven Principles. Principles such as, treat everyone with respect and recognize their inherent worth and dignity. That critical attitude is being non-judgmental, which promotes acceptance of others. Less than full acceptance leads to rejection or mere tolerance, and results in less than optimal application of principles. Granted, tolerance is better than rejection and may be a step on the path to full acceptance, but one should be cautious about becoming too self-satisfied about having achieved mere tolerance. Below is a quote from a book written by a former journalist who spent several years living on the streets as a homeless woman, for reason I won’t go into. Of the help she received that allowed her to resume a productive life she said:

“To those who helped me, I will always be eternally grateful…However, while you stand in your place in the accepted social hierarchy of giving and receiving, looking down on those you deem worthy of helping, would you please stop to notice how you are slapping us in the face with the very hand that you have extended in your goodwill?”

I would suggest that what is implicit in this quote is the recognition by her that some of her benefactors were merely tolerant of her and tolerated her as much to enhance their own self-esteem by being seen helping her as to compassionately respond to her and her circumstances.

So, what do I mean by judgment? Judgment is based on categorical thinking. A way of thinking that classifies people and treats them as categories. I am reminded of a comment by the late David Bohm, a quantum physicist and philosopher, who said that all genuine knowledge will only be found between categories. Others, such as Martin Buber in his book, I and Thou (see also my post On Buber and Bohm), make the point that only through a relationship of acceptance of the other can you respond fully to the humanity of another person. Likewise, the philosopher Ken Wilbur, in his book Sex, Ecology , Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, points out that our culture has a history of objectifying people and classifying them as objects characterized by the status of its.

Judgment employs a system of filters or beliefs, represented as cognitive constructs, that are arranged into a hierarchy or decision tree. These beliefs are acquired through Social learning. You acquire them, one might say absorb them, from your parents, siblings, extended family, peers, community and social institutions such as schools and churches. These filters or algorithms are subconscious and automatic (hereafter, APs). Practically, everyone has such APs running outside of their conscious awareness that affect their perceptions of people and situations. What you are most likely to be aware of is a mental label, emotion or impulse to act in a certain way arising into awareness. Often this is the end product of an AP with an implicit bias. What most frequently happens when a judgment or impulse arises into awareness is that you generate a rationale, to incorporate into your personal narrative, to explain the judgment or impulse. The rationale then becomes part of your idea of yourself. There is seldom any connection between the AP and the rationale for its output. The rationale is more likely to be self-deception.

Some subconscious biases or APs can be revealed through Harvard University’s Implicit Attitude Tests that are available on Harvard’s website and are free to the public. You might find it interesting and possibly useful to take some of these tests that cover such topics as sexual orientation, race and gender identity, among others.

You can also personally pursue locating your APs , first, through carefully monitoring your responses to people and situation and then, second, employing introspection to drill down and find the underlying source of your reaction. This is not always easy and will often be confounded by the camouflage that your rationale justifying their output creates. In such cases, there are other more sophisticated techniques that might be employed or you may need professional help with the task.

Not all APs are dysfunctional. For example, you have APs that are instrumental to you being able to drive an automobile safely and with hardly any conscious effort. You are more likely to find APs that support biased perceptions in those related to people, organizations and situations than among those helping with the routine tasks of getting through the day. If you find any dysfunctional APs, you should modify, replace or eliminate them. Doing this will aid your spiritual evolution, which – as will be clarified shortly – is your purpose.

The flip side of judgment is discernment. Discernment is an unbiased evaluation that is free of APs. Discernment can only be practiced by treating each encounter with people and situations as unique and worthy of individual consideration rather than as a prepackaged categorical response. Systems of judgment, while not entirely dependent upon, are supported by one’s worldview. Your worldview can, therefore, aid or hinder cleaning up maladaptive APs or even being able to recognize them.

Let us now turn to a brief discussion of four western worldviews. The first is theistic dualism. This worldview has been around for several thousand years and most of us can easily associate it with such dualities as God and Satan, good and evil, heaven and hell, saved and damned. It is not a worldview designed to promote acceptance. The second I’ll call Descartes’ Compromise. This was a compromise suggested by René Descartes in the 17^th century. This suggestion was an effort to moderate religious interference in the work of naturalists (today we’d call them scientists) attempting to understand the processes underlying the physical world. Some of their work attracted potentially deadly attention from religious authorities who judged some of their findings to be heretical to church dogma. What the compromise suggested was that concern with physical processes be left to the naturalists and considered secular in nature, and concern with spiritual matters be left to theologians and priests and considered religious in nature. The compromise was an improvement on the purely theistic worldview but was still not one that fully promoted acceptance of people in all their diversity. In short, judgment is implicit in a dualistic worldview.

Descartes’ Compromise eventually morphed into secular or scientific materialism. This came about, over time, by excluding half of the compromise from the worldview, turning it into a purely materialist worldview. The materialist worldview takes as its root assumption that everything arises from matter — matter is primary. The narrative supporting this worldview posits that all matter first came into existence through what is described as the Big Bang. The late Stephen Hawking, a physicist and cosmologist, when asked by someone to explain where the Big Bang came from, replied that it was “spontaneous creation from nothing.” The Big Bang is sometimes also described as a cosmic accident. This narrative further posits that the physical universe and ultimately the life in it evolves through random processes. So, matter came into being through a cosmic accident and the stars, planets, the life planets support, solar systems, galaxies and the universe all evolved by chance or through random processes. What is denied by this worldview is that any of this had any purpose behind it. To my understanding, anything without purpose has no implicit meaning and is, in many ways, a nihilistic philosophy. Nihilism rejects all values as being baseless and offers no grounds for promoting acceptance.

The fourth western worldview that will be covered is analytic idealism, a nondual philosophy, perhaps best represented, at the current time, by scientist, technologist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup. Recently, Kastrup has taken the position of director of a foundation, The Essentia Foundation, whose goal is to promote idealism as an alternative to materialism. An organization with a similar goal is the Academy for the Advancement of a Postmaterialist Science whose membership is comprised of scientists and academics.

Kastrup’s presentation of idealism, especially Rationalist Spirituality, takes as its root assumption that Consciousness or Universal Mind is a field of Consciousness or Source Consciousness (hereafter just Source) that is infinite, eternal, intelligent and creative. It is not, however, capable of metacognition or self-reflection. Everything arises from and returns to Source. Think of a wave arising from the ocean and returning to the ocean. It is all water whatever form it takes. Therefore, everything must be unconditionally accepted by Source because to do otherwise would be to reject itself.

Kastrup suggests that the physical universe is an experience engine that is running within Source, which means Source can’t be equated with the physical universe, being much more. In Kastrup’s model, Source needs experience to evolve and realize its potential. Further, life is a carrier of Source that experiences and evolves, while also providing input for Source’s evolution. Kastrup argues that Source is an evolving phenomenon because if Source were perfect there would be no need to create an experiential universe. He argues that even if a perfect Source had created an experiential universe it would have to reflect that perfection and it is clear from our experience that his is not a perfect universe. The bottom line of this presentation on idealism means that personal evolution contributes to Universal evolution, which gives life a source of purpose and meaning.

One explanation for how experience comes about is that experience arises from complementarity. The concept of complementarity was first proposed by the late Niels Bohr, a quantum physicist and one of the founders of quantum physics. He originally introduced this concept to help understand and talk about the wave – particle duality in quantum physics. He subsequently indicated that he thought the concept had a much broader application and could even be used in such fields as psychology. See also my post Love and Hate in Human Thought.

Here is a mundane example that should be easier to follow than a discussion of the complementary pair of wave — particle. Consider the pair hot — cold, This pair can be represented on a dimension with each member of the pair anchoring an opposite pole of the dimension. It is the gradations that are made possible by this bipolar construct that makes the experience of temperature possible. If you would like to carry this illustration further, think through other complementary pairs such as male and female.

Members of a complementary pair can be thought of as partial reflections of an undivided whole. The writer Arthur Koestler referred to such wholes as holons. Each holon is both a whole and a part. It is a part of a greater holon, which in turn is a whole and a part of a greater holon. If you extrapolate this process to its logical end point, you will arrive at a holon that encompasses the entire physical universe. Such a holon can easily be thought of as a singular representation of the physical universe or a unity of physicality. However, one might go further and imagine this holon as a whole and a part that is a part of a greater holon yet, such as Source. Perhaps Source is the ultimate Holon, which exists as a part of nothing, being both infinite and eternal. You can find a fuller discussion of the concept of holons in the Ken Wilbur book linked above. You can find a fuller discussion of the unity of physicality (in physicist speak, the entanglement of all the particles in the physical universe) in my post Reality Appears to Arise from Mysterious Foundations about the perspective of the quantum physicist Menas Kafatos.

In the East there are several nondual philosophies, such as Buddhism, Tantra, Taoism and Vedanta. If you have heard of Tibetan Buddhism, headed by the Dalai Lama, it is also known as Tantric Buddhism, which recognizes that it is a fusion of Buddhism and Tantra. I will try to present a brief, homogenized and probably unjust description of these traditions to the best of my understanding.

In this worldview, life is an expression of Universal Consciousness and much that was said about Consciousness earlier is also applicable to one degree or another. Human functioning in this view ranges from Ignorant to Enlightened, which in this view means ego consciousness (self) at one pole and a more purified Consciousness at the other pole (Self or authentic Self). In nondualism, our goal should be to rise above our ignorance, and realize our inherent divinity. In other words, transcend ego consciousness. This is not unheard of in the West. In the twentieth century the psychologist Abraham Maslow placed self-transcendence at the apex of his hierarchy of development. It is not unusual to see his hierarchy taught without the final step of self-transcendence, which is probably because it doesn’t fit very well into the prevailing materialist paradigm and is therefore ignored. Carl Jung, a twentieth-century psychiatrist and proponent of depth psychology, made self-transcendence the ultimate goal of psychological integration. Jung proposed that this could be achieved, though not easily, by integrating the unconscious, subconscious and ego consciousness and thereby expressing one’s higher Self.

In nondualism, bad behavior is viewed as a product of ignorance, not of evil (a link to my post The Nature of Evil). We often classify certain forms of behavior as evil but a non-dualist would say that it is simply an expression of ignorance. This does not excuse it, but the focus here is the behavior, not the person. Consequently, bad behavior requires a non-emotional response that is non-judgmental and includes respectful, dignified and just treatment of the actor. This type of response is, to a non-dualist, one that is least likely to be an overreaction resulting in a non-productive counter response and one most likely to promote the spiritual development of the one receiving it. Finally, these traditions usually see the process of moving from ignorance to enlightenment to be one that unfolds slowly and requires a great deal of time to have and to benefit from the necessary experiences. Thus, you frequently see reincarnation as a component of these traditions, since it provides the necessary time to complete spiritual evolution.

The original Unitarian and Universalist denominations came about in the 16^th century and arose for Christian denominations that disagreed with some of the prevailing theology of the Christian church of the time. The Christians that became Unitarians affirmed the unitary nature of divinity and thereby rejected the theological concept of a Trinitarian divinity. They also rejected the dogma of “original sin.” The Christians that became Universalists rejected the dogma of selective salvation or reconciliation with divinity for universal reconciliation. They viewed some theological concepts such as reconciliation as being a fundamental truth that has universal application unbound by any constraint. This position is sometimes compared to the principle from the Rig Veda ( a scripture from Vedanta) that holds that “Truth is One; sages call it by various names.”

In consideration of the above, I don’t think it is a great stretch to say that Unitarian Universalism has within it the potential to become a western representative of a nondual worldview (a panentheistic view) that has theological roots rather than purely philosophical roots. Personally, I think it would be a more productive direction than it has been following, which seems to me to be attempting to establish a humanistic option within materialism. Currently, it is in the process of revising its principles and appears to be making Love as the center piece of this revision. I would suggest that this is a step in the right direction.

A few closing comments on nonduality: In nondualism, being against others includes being against the self since both you and the other arise from the same Source and share the same core divinity. Thus, nonduality promotes acceptance of self and others. Because of complementarity, you can’t live in nonduality, but you can know and use it as a perspective.

Nonduality can be known both intellectually and experientially. To illustrate the difference, consider someone who knows nothing about music, including having never heard music played. Now imagine that this individual is given a workbook on musical notation and a book on musical instruments that explains what they are and their basic mechanisms for producing sound. After studying these materials, our imaginary character has a pretty good intellectual understanding of music. Now imagine that we take this person to a symphony hall and let him or her listen to a symphony play music. The individual will come out of the symphony hall with a very different understanding of music from the one s/he entered with. The person now has an experiential understanding of music to go along with an intellectual understanding. The experiential dimension could be deepened by learning to play an instrument as well. Nondual traditions place a preference for the experiential knowing over intellectual knowing, while recognizing that in most cases intellectual understanding precedes experiential understanding. Thus, one should be open to the experience of nonduality, Unity or Source. Most traditions that advocate experiential knowing promote the practice of contemplation and meditation as methods that can open you to the experience, though they will also tell you you can’t make it happen. In fact, trying to force it will do nothing more than push you further away from the experience. You don’t take it, it takes you (see my post Taken).

Next month: Meditation: What it is and why do it.

P.S. Limiting ourselves to western worldviews, some might ask which is True, Scientific Materialism or Analytic Idealism?

I would say that neither is True. Both are philosophical systems that rest upon a core assumption. In one case, the Primacy of Matter and in the other the Primacy of Consciousness. So, the question posed is pointless. Both probably contain some truth. A better question is, which one has the greatest depth and range and which has the best chance of enhancing humanity?

My answer is idealism and I offer that for several reasons:

1. If the interpretation of the double-slit experiments in quantum physics that assert that Consciousness is responsible for the collapse of the wave function are valid, and a lot of evidence supports this interpretation, then Consciousness is Primary and matter is an epiphenomenon of Consciousness. Thus, it seems likely that matter requires Consciousness to come into existence.

2. Idealism can subsume materialism similarly to how quantum physics subsumes Newtonian physics. This provides a much broader and deeper paradigm for understanding the nature of reality. The reverse, however, doesn’t expand our paradigm because it requires that human consciousness be a separate and isolated phenomenon generated by the brain rather than the brain being its receiver and moderator. This negates all the advantage to be found from looking at Consciousness as primary and there is a significant amount of evidence backing the view that Consciousness is Primary though in some quarters it is not viewed as being conclusive.

3. Even given all other things being equal, I go with idealism because it is a narrative that gives humanity purpose and meaning. This has the potential to bring humanity together in a positive way and thus make it more likely to survive and evolve and possibly to continue to contribute to Source’s evolution. The likely alternative is to become a dead end.

Essays

The Richest Nation in the World?

By admin on Sunday, October 9, 2022

One often hears the U.S. referred to as the richest nation in the world, but it is entirely possible that this is a delusion on the part of Americans and many foreign observers. A book titled The Millionaire Next Door illustrates the contrast between the wealthy and those who appear to be wealthy. The author reported that most of the millionaires that he interviewed were not extravagant spenders and generally had pretty pedestrian tastes. When asked by the marketing firm that had commissioned the study, on which the book was based, who the big spenders were, the author said “the guys with the big hats and no cattle.” Big hats and no cattle is a metaphor for lots of credit and debt but no wealth. The simple fact of the matter is that America creates an illusion of wealth through massive debt. The only question is when will our credit line max out and be withdrawn, plunging us into default and bankruptcy.

So how much debt do we owe? Recent reports put the U.S. government (USG) debt at 31 trillion dollars. One-third of that has been accumulated since 2008 and most of that since the COVID pandemic that began in 2019. Each year we average a 2-trillion dollar budget deficit, which means we spend an additional 2 trillion dollars that we don’t have. We pay out 965 million dollars a day in interest on the USG debt, which adds up to 349 billion dollars per year — assuming interest rates don’t go up, which are currently rising and adding to the size of the outlay for interest payments. To USG debt, add business debt estimated to be 19.5 trillion dollars and household debt put at 18.6 trillion dollars for a grand total of 69 trillion dollars. This does not include under funded future obligations to programs like Social Security and Medicare.

So, just how might one get a perspective on a number like a trillion. Here are some comparison that might help:

One million seconds is about 11 days ago.

One billion seconds ago was 1988.

One trillion seconds ago was 30,000 BC.

A trillion square miles would cover the surface of 5,000 planet Earths.

Suppose you had a job that paid you $1 per second, or $3,600 per hour.

That amounts to $86,400 per day and about $32 million per year.

With that job, it would take you nearly 31,700 years to earn a trillion dollars.

For someone earning $50,000 a year, it would take more than 20 million years to earn a trillion dollars – assuming they didn’t spend any of it and it wasn’t taxed.

A trillion is a staggering number by itself. Just think about multiplying it by 31 or, worse yet, the combined debt of 69 trillion dollars owed by the three sectors mentioned above.

Some pundits dismiss the USG debt on the grounds that the USG can create all the money that it wants. I’ll come back to this. First, I just want to point out that even were this claim literally true, it would not be true of businesses and households. The problem with creating massive amounts of money is that one risks creating an inflationary depression similar to the one experienced by Germany (a.k.a., the Weimar Republic) following the first World War. The Great Depression in the U.S. in the 1930s was a deflationary depression. In an inflationary depression, money becomes progressively less and less valuable. In short, its purchasing power is decimated. There is a lot of money around but it won’t buy much of anything. In deflationary depression, money is in short supply and therefore its value rises. In short, its purchasing power is enhanced. The problem is that while money will buy a great deal, there is very little money to be had. All of this is very complicated to explain and I’ll spare you the details, but I suggest interested readers make a study of the phenomena themselves.

The greatest risk at present, in my opinion, would be for the USD to lose its status as the reserve currency. The reason that the USG has been able to go so deeply into debt is because the U.S. Dollar (USD) is the currency of international trade. This creates a high demand for dollars, as everyone needs dollars to settle accounts for goods exchanged between countries. There is a considerable amount of unhappiness with this arrangement. Many countries are concerned by the massive debt build up in the U.S. and fear that it will undermine the USD and create instability in trading settlements. Such fears lead to anxiety about holding large USD reserves. Others are unhappy with the USD being the reserve currency of the world because the U.S. often uses its currency as a way to coerce other nations to dance to its tune. All in all, there are a number of countries both anxious about and tired of this arrangement. There are discussions going on among some of the discontents about how to replace the USD and put the U.S. in its place, financially speaking.

Should an alternative come about, and I think that it eventually will, the demand for the USD will collapse. When that collapse occurs, the ability of the USG to create money will be seriously compromised, because there will be few parties interested in buying U.S. bonds, which is how the USG borrows capital to finance its deficits and debt. If that happens, the USG will be faced with either meeting its obligations by “printing” large sums of money, which will create an imbalance between the amount of USDs in circulation relative to goods to be bought, producing a rapid rise in the price for those goods. In short, the purchasing power of the USD will be significantly diminished, creating an inflationary depression. The indebted will be able to pay off their debts for pennies on the dollar and thereby bankrupt the creditors who financed their loans. One result of this will be to dry up credit. Since businesses and households already are heavily dependent on credit, it will be a disaster for them. Economic chaos will ensue.

On the other hand, the USG could simply default on its obligations either in full or part, which is the equivalent of declaring bankruptcy. That will cause massive loses to those who are owed payments either for obligations such as pensions or investments such as USG bonds. This will cause a cascade of bankruptcies ripping through the economy. The result will be to destroy massive amounts of “virtual” money and thereby significantly reducing the availability of money to lend out to people and businesses that need to buy things but don’t have sufficient cash reserves to effect the transactions. While such an event will cause the price of things to fall significantly, as prices will be drastically cut in an attempt to attract any buyers who have scarce money to spend. The country will essentially hold a going-out-of-business sale and there will be economic chaos. If you happen to be one of the lucky few who have “cash” reserves, it will be a buyer’s market for virtually anything you might want to buy.

Caveat: If it makes you feel any better, I am not an economist, and you will not have much trouble finding “expert economists” or “financial authorities” who will assure you that this is nonsense and that my reasoning is faulty. I grant you that I may have presented a gross description that is lacking in the finer details, but I think it is still largely on target. Also, consider how many of these folks are likely to confirm any of this even if they know it to be true. I suggest that it is past time to adopt the Boy Scouts’ motto: “Be Prepared.” When a collapse will occur is difficult to predict. I could begin next week or it may be many years before the reckoning arrives.

Awakening Reflections Uncategorized

The Several Selves

By admin on Monday, August 1, 2022

I think the course of personal identity moves across four, basic developmental domains, though not everyone explicates and integrates all four domains. The four domains are sensory, physical, mental and spiritual. In keeping with the present focus, let’s refer to them as the sensory self, physical self, mental self and spiritual self. In the following I will set out a hypothetical description of how this development unfolds.

The development of selves is largely a process dependent upon differentiation. A new born infant initially identifies with its sensory field and has a sensory self. With time and experience, a process that differentiates the self from the sensory field begins. This starts with differentiating various aspects of the sensory field from one another and assigning them the status of being separate “things.” For example, think of a bird and its song. At first, the bird and its song are part of the generalized, unified sensory field. With experience, an infant begins to recognize the bird as the source of the song and to consider the two as an integrated whole that attention turns the bird into an object of consciousness. Once captured as an object of consciousness, the bird and its song become abstracted through visual and auditory representation. With that comes the ability to recall a memory that encodes the bird symbolically. This memory allows the bird to be isolated, explored and manipulated symbolically as an object in consciousness. This cognitive possession of the bird and its song differentiates it from the self and make it a separate object within awareness.

This process of differentiation goes on until a clear sense of two categories develops: self and other. By “other” is meant things that have become differentiated as separate “things.” The next step is begun with the question, who is this self that is aware of all these other things, which can be turned into objects of consciousness? At this time, the thing that garners the most attention in awareness is the physical body. The physical body not only has been differentiated from the sensory field but has also been recognized as the seat of a great many subjective experiences. It experiences emotional reactions, thoughts and feelings along with auditory, visual, olfactory and tactile sensations, among others. All this appears to be localized in the physical body. Under these conditions, it is very easy to identify oneself with the body. Hence, we have the physical self. The former sensory self has been transcended but the transition from sensory to physical self integrates the sensory self into the physical self.

The real fireworks begin with transcending the physical self and arriving at the mental self. With the beginning of the mental self a significant change in perception takes place. Up until this point, perception has been largely a bottom up process, which means that perception is relatively unhindered by filters. As language skills grow and experience is reconstructed with visual and linguistic symbols, a shift away from a focus on the physical body begins and is accompanied by a change of focus to mental activity. Not only are memories encoded but are also interpreted. Memories are assigned meanings and so begins the creation of a personal past. Perception now begins to shift toward a top down process, which means that perception comes to be a process subject to filtering. We also learn that we can describe and interpret imaginal outcomes thereby conjuring up a future. The narrative approach to life has begun in earnest. Our mental self becomes absorbed with the content of our mind.

With this mental focus, our narratives and their meanings begin to organize themselves into an hierarchy of beliefs about ourselves and our lives. Along with the mental self, ego arrives on the scene. Our identity has now transcended the physical self. The physical self, along with the sensory self integrated into it, has been incorporated into the newly developed mental self. The first stage of the mental self could be described as egocentric. We are consumed with ourselves; with our self narrative. We narrowly perceive the world through a first person perspective.

As we gain experience, develop cognitively and become more sophisticated in our thinking, our narratives grow more complex and our perspective broadens into a second person perspective. This new stage in the mental self could be described as ethnocentric. We now include in our identities others who belong to groups in which we are embedded. Our identity now includes our family and family friends. It may include others similar to us who, for example, are members of our religion and attend services with us. It will grow to include “outsiders,” known to us, who share our beliefs and other characteristics such as ethnicity, language, dress, food habits and so on. For some of us, development becomes arrested at this stage due to a constrained range of experiences. A constraint on our range of experience results in a lack of opportunity for new cognitive growth. Often, the constraint is imposed by our narratives and the beliefs about the world that they impose on our perceptions and the meaning we attribute to them. Things such as racism are usually grounded in an ethnocentric identity.

If we do continue in our development, the next stage in the evolution of the mental self could be described as sociocentric. We now have acquired the ability to take a third person perspective. We can identify with a much larger social group than in the past. Our expanded narratives gives us a social perspective that is much broader than our previous provincial identity. We can now bring into our identity persons who differ from us in significant ways because we share a broader membership with them. For example, if we strongly identify with our nationality, we can incorporate people who may have significant differences from ourselves into our identity because they too are American or French or Chinese and so on. It is likely that the upper developmental limit for most people is a sociocentric perspective. People that we might describe as nationalists are probably operating from this level of identity.

A small number of people who continue to develop will transition to a worldcentric perspective. The final step in the development of the mental self. They now identify with a context that exceeds the boundaries of nation states. Such individuals become “citizens” of the world and identify with humanity in its many variations. All the previous self identities and narratives related to those identities have been incorporated into and subsumed by the new broader identity. These are people who advocate for just treatment of all living things, of a more holistic approach to the health of the planet and sustainable styles of living. Many of us would consider this the pinnacle of human cognitive development, which it may be in a sense.

Yet, there remains, at least, one more development related to self or identity. This transformation goes by various names but in the first paragraph it was called the spiritual self. Transcendence of the mental self to the spiritual self could be described as arriving at a Kosmocentric perspective. This is a relatively rare occurrence and you probably have never met such a person. One reason that it is so rare is because almost everyone becomes deeply entangled in their ever more complex personal narratives or more simply stated in their mental self. As one spiritual teacher put it, we are “lost in our minds.” The mental self lives through symbolic representations of the past and for imagined futures and gives little attention to the present. What goes unrecognized is that recall of narratives about the past are about things that no longer exist, if they ever did, and that narratives about the future are about things that may never come to pass. The only reality that one can truly grasp is the one that is fleetingly present in the moment. One likely distinction between the earlier selves and the spiritual self is that the former are largely governed by processes associated with the left hemisphere in the brain and the latter in the right hemisphere. It is the difference between a particularlized and a holistic grasp on our experienced reality.

I ask that you contemplate the following questions carefully. Are you really the stories (narratives) that you tell about yourself? Do these narratives feel love or anger? Can your narratives think about things? Who is it that knows your subjective experience? Who is editing and telling these stories that you live by? It is certainly not the narratives that you associate with your name; e.g., Bill Smith or Mary Jones, doing all these things. So, who is doing it? If you like, you can read a poem that I wrote that also addresses this issue here or read a more complete list of questions here.

It would appear that you have a subtle self that is the observer of all that you are. It is not your sensory field though it is aware of the sensory field. It is not your physical body though it is aware of the physical body. It is not your mental activity though it is aware of your mental activity. It is your uncluttered ever present conscious awareness. The spiritual self has always been present but your attention has been elsewhere. You’ve lived much of your life consumed by distractions. If you can identify with the spiritual self you will have a unique perspective that still has access to all the prior selves that you’ve grown through, if they will still serve you, but you will not be entangled in them.

One person, the late Franklin Merrell-Wolff, who connected with his spiritual self and became present with his pristine conscious awareness described living through the spiritual self as the “high indifference.” What he meant by this phrase was that he seldom needed to interpret his experience through narratives. He seldom found beliefs that gave meaning to those narratives useful. Thus, he found little use for judgment and was open to and accepting of life as it passed through him. He found that he was emotionally disengaged from most events taking place around him. The people involved in those events were entangled in stories that often competed with one another for the status of “truth.” This does not mean that he did not engage the world. What it means is that he engaged the world through discernment free of any narrative generated prescription about how he should engage it.

He found that being fully present in the world required little attention to the world of the mind that consumed those around him. Giving little attention to the mentally constructed world gave him a clearer view of what was important and when he acted he was more likely to have an effect on something that mattered. The late Abraham Maslow, a developmental psychologist, described the pinnacle of his developmental pyramid as self transcendence. It is a rising above the mental self and all that went before it. It is an experience and there is no formula for creating a transcendent experience. It is an internal journey following a pathless path. It is awakening to one’s true nature and being released from ignorance.

Reflections Religion and Spirit

Infinite Universe

By admin on Tuesday, May 24, 2022

I recall that even as a child the visible universe challenged me. I looked in awe and wonder at the night sky in its immensity. I asked myself what could contain it? To my young mind there was no knowledge of extension beyond sight or of the concept of infinity. But bring forth that knowledge and the impossibility of the universe only expands. I am still in awe and wonder at the very thought of an infinite universe.

If someone asked me what can contain the infinite universe, the only possible answer that comes to mind is consciousness. I learned that as a philosophical system this answer is based in idealism. As a theological system, the answer is based in panentheism. I will try to explain.

To begin, no explication of systems such as these can be had without first offering the root assumption that the narrative is built upon. I lay down as my root or core assumption the assertion that the “infinite” universe arises from primordial consciousness or, perhaps better still, source consciousness. If the universe is “infinite,” then source consciousness must be at least if not more inclusive than the “infinite” universe. To clarify, I use the term “infinite” with quotation marks to indicate my uncertainty about what the word means. It is, I think, beyond the keen of the human mind and certainly beyond mine.

The implication of the above root assumption is that our reality arises within consciousness. I will borrow an analogy, from Bernardo Kastrup, based upon dissociative identity disorder (DID), a.k.a. multiple personality disorder. Hopefully, this analogy will illustrate my impression of an idealist reality. The description will not adhere rigidly to descriptions of clinical DID. That said, imagine that you are a person with (DID). In this condition you may have multiple identities. Each identity is distinguished from the others and each is playing a different role and controlling conscious awareness with a different flavor, at different times and under different circumstances. Now imagine that the person with DID when asleep relaxes the barriers separating the identities from one another, and when s/he dreams, all the identities have a character in the dream.

The context in which the dream unfolds is common to each identity. However, each identity has a different perspective on the content and a different system of beliefs, values and goals, to varying degrees, from the other identities. Thus, each has a personal reality that includes a version of the common content and that has been processed through his/her beliefs, values and goals. Each identity has a dream character that plays out its role in the dream. Each dream character interacts with the common content as do the other dream characters and each dream character is part of the common content. In short, the dream we imagine is much like a fully functioning reality though more constrained in scope.

Now, take the above description and apply it analogously to the everyday reality that you experience. Your reality, like a dream, has common content that is drawn on by everyone. Subgroups, to varying degrees, may draw on specialized content common to the subgroup. The common content has evolved from necessity through the creativity and intention of consciousnesses grappling with need or desire. In other words, content evolves, and the more it is employed, the stronger it becomes. At first, in a manner of speaking, as an experiment, then a habit and finally a virtual addiction, which gives it a strong presence within the common content. It is a form that began as a thought and evolved into something with much greater actuality. It has become deeply embedded in memory and at times this memory is an object of consciousness. As an object of consciousness it becomes subject to manipulations that we often call thinking.

We also perceive thought forms as “real” objects outside of ourselves – think fork, cup, shovel, etc. You perceive many characteristic of a thought form that may include representations that have color, smell, texture, density weight and extension in space. These thought forms comprise your reality. You assume that they exist outside of you, but do they? What do you know of things that exist outside of you? Nothing. You have no experience with anything that exists outside of you because everything you know is confined within your consciousness or, if you prefer, awareness. Others may agree with you about the “external” characteristics of forms, but they share common content with you and are just as confined within their consciousness as you are in yours. Your assumed reality “out there” is completely inaccessible to you. It is just an idea, belief or an assumption. Enter deep sleep or die and the world ceases to exist for you because it is no longer an object of consciousness.

Earlier, I suggested that new thought forms arise through creativity and intention. However, all thought forms reside within source consciousness. We, as characters playing out an evolving narrative within source consciousness, absorb new thoughts from source consciousness. How accessible those thoughts are depends on the degree to which a person can relax the barriers separating one’s embodied consciousness from source consciousness. Relax the barriers and a question posed, with genuine desire and need for an answer will find an answer emerging from source consciousness. This is why answers often come in the form of dreams. That is, our barriers are more relaxed during sleep and dreaming. We call asking such questions and answers to them creativity or insight.

So, whatever one perceives becomes an object of consciousness and cannot be shown to exist anywhere else other than in awareness. Try to specify one thing that you can prove exists outside of your consciousness. If you think about it, you will realize that you can’t use agreement by others as proof because everything they “know” exists within their consciousness. Know also that your “body” is a thought form that exists as an object of your own consciousness, which is an extension of source consciousness. You live in a matrix of thought forms that, upon being perceived by you, can become objects of consciousness. Once you are aware of these forms they may also become memories.

You have no way of knowing the actual nature of a thought form. Your perception of it gives it characteristics consistent with your perspective, but it could exhibit very different characteristics if perceived from a different perspective. You are not an objective entity performing on a stage, independent of you, that you construe as external reality. However, you contribute to the creation of both yourself and the reality in which you perform.

In short, you and your perspective on reality are simply a strand in the carpet of source consciousness. You exist to make experience possible for source consciousness. You are an experience collector for source consciousness gathering experience from a unique perspective. It is through such experience that source consciousness comes to know its own potential and to evolve in ways that maximize that potential. The greater your realization of the nature of your reality and that of others, the greater is the evolution of your consciousness and your contribution to the maximization of source consciousness’ potential.

That is your purpose for being. To the extent that you fulfill that purpose, your life is a meaningful contribution to source consciousness. To the extent that you are ignorant of the nature of your reality and that of others, the more prone to error you are and the less growth enhancing are your contributions.

Reflections Religion and Spirit

Love and Hate in Human Thought

By admin on Monday, March 7, 2022

Consider the notions of infinity and the finite. This pair of concepts embody both a contradictory and a complementary relationship. The two concepts compliment one another in that each makes the other more understandable through their contrast. They are contradictory in that each conveys a meaning that is 180 degrees out from the other.

The finite can only exist as a reduction of the infinite. That is, the finite is a subset of the infinite. Now consider an ocean and a wave. The wave can only exist as a subset of the ocean. The finite can never subsume the infinite and a wave can never subsume an ocean.

Let’s now think about “love” and “hate.” According to many spiritual traditions, love is the underlying dynamic of the universe. It is also said by many spiritual traditions that hate arises from fear and that fear is a corruption of love. The logic of the ocean and the wave can help us frame love and hate. It is far more likely that “love” is like the infinite or like an ocean because it is easy to see that “hate” is a more contracted expression than love. Thus, it seems appropriate to think of hate as a subset of love. A subset in the sense that hate arises from a corruption of love by fear that is engendered by spiritual ignorance (see my post The Nature of Evil).

Let’s end this brief discussion with the concepts of “good” and “evil.” I would argue that, like love, good is ontologically superior to evil. Good is the value field in which evil arises just as an ocean is the field in which waves arise. Thus, we can view evil as a subset of good. The infinite, waves, love and good can be thought of as all-inclusive fields in which contradictory and complimentary factions arise. These factions serve the function of making experience possible from the possibilities opened up through the contrasts they provide. After all, you could not experience temperature in the absence of the contrast provided by hot and cold.

Note: This brief comment was stimulated by the writing of the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo.

Reflections Religion and Spirit

Precept versus Practice

By admin on Friday, December 24, 2021

Christianity purports to hold love as a value and through precepts such as “love one another” attempts to make it an essential aspect of a religious life. However, the evidence for its practice by Christians is sparse, at least in my experience. Even Christians who seem to exemplify the precept often report something different. For example, the “saint” Mother Theresa has often been offered as an example of Christian compassion and love. On the other hand, I’ve read that she denied this and attributed her behavior to a sense of duty. In short, she seemed to be saying that she acted according to a behavioral form, that is, she acted according what she thought she should do not from how she experienced the world around her and how she felt toward that world.

What is missing here is the lack of practices that develop the ability to be love in the sense that Jesus meant and contemporary spiritual teachers mean. To hold love as a value and advocate for it is simply not enough. Without specific practices designed to actualize love in one’s way of being, love as a value is an empty shell, and a precept such as “love one another” is meaningless. Thus, the result is someone who acts according to an idea or belief about what love should look like but does so not out of love but out of duty or some other motivation.

By way of a concrete analogy, consider a military recruit on a rifle range where marksmanship is valued. The recruit is given the instruction to aim true and shoot straight (precept). Unless this recruit arrives already adept in the use of a rifle, he or she will be largely clue less about how to implement the instruction. What the recruit needs is a practice that develops the skills necessary to aim true and shoot straight. This requires someone skilled in the practice to teach it to the recruit who in turn then engages the practice until the desired level of skill is achieved. Such a practice may have multiple components, such as, body position, breath control. sighting, adjustment for wind, trigger compression and extinguishing reflexive actions; e.g., closing the eyes when firing.

I would suggest that what Jesus and many other spiritual teachers mean by love is grounded in an ability to moderate the ego-self in which its needs and wants are primary and other people’s needs and wants are secondary or even irrelevant. It is only when one has learned to stand aside from the ego-self and its inherent self-centered- ness that it is possible to be love and to engage the world from love. Some spiritual traditions have practices that help one learn how to stand aside from the ego-self. They also have practices that target specific problems that need to be overcome, such as negative feelings toward someone in particular that make it difficult to stand aside from the ego-self that harbors those feelings.

To my knowledge, Christianity has no such practices. Or, perhaps I should say, it has had individuals who developed such practices but they were suppressed and prevented from becoming a part of the religion. In many cases, the person who developed the practices and exhibited their effects was isolated or declared a heretic and in some cases put to death. In contemporary times there has been some effort to introduce the practice of meditation into Christianity through the Centering Prayer movement. One of the earliest advocates was Fa William Johnston who went to Japan to proselytize and took up Zen as a way to better understand the culture. He got more than he expected (Christian Zen, 1971).

Reflections Science and Spirit

The Great Illusion

By admin on Tuesday, October 5, 2021

The world we live in is driven by narratives. In earlier times they were called myths. The original meaning of “myth” was a story that, while not entirely factual, contained truth.

One of the narratives central to western civilization is scientific materialism, which takes matter to be primary, i.e., to come first. Materialism begins its narrative with infinite nothingness into which matter suddenly explodes, a.k.a. the Big Bang. The physicist Stephen Hawking was once asked how the Big Bang came to be. He replied, “Spontaneous creation from nothing.”

There is an alternative narrative in western thought that is not as well known, though perhaps it should be. I’ll call it the Great Illusion. The Great Illusion is based on the philosophy of idealism and takes consciousness to be primary, i.e., to come first. One advantage of the Great Illusion over the Big Bang is that it offers a purpose for the universe that can provide an ultimate meaning for life. To answer the question, “How did the Great Illusion come to be and what are its implications?” will now be addressed and is based in part on the book Rationalist Spirituality by philosopher Bernardo Kastrup a proponent of analytic idealism.

In the beginning, there was only timeless and unbound Consciousness imbued with intelligence, curiosity, potential and creativity. For those with a scientific frame of mind and also familiar with the work of the quantum physicist David Bohm — think of the Super Implicate Order. I will hence forth simply refer to this Primordial Consciousness as Source. Some might call it “God” who is believed to be perfect and complete. However, if God is perfect and complete, the universe God allegedly created would be static and unchanging. It is not possible to add to perfection and completeness. However, the universe is dynamic and in flux.

Source was inherently curious about its nature and its potential. However, being a unity of all that is, self-exploration was no more possible for Source than for an eye to examine itself. The best way for an eye to examine itself is with a mirror. Thus, Source set about creating a mirror capable of reflecting its potential. Using its inherent creativity, Source imagined a myriad of possibilities for this mirror and settled upon a self-evolving image (virtual reality). Through intention, Source initiated a self-evolving universe where its potential could unfold and reveal itself. And, the Great Illusion came to be. For those familiar with David Bohm’s work, setting into motion the self-evolving image can be thought of as the Implicate Order and the physical universe as what David Bohm called the Explicate Order or the unfolding of the Implicate Order.

One requirement inherent in Source’s intention was for vehicles capable of sustaining a degree of consciousness and with enough diversity to make experience possible. The vehicle that evolved were life forms. The contrast was duality, which the physicist Neils Bohr called complementarity. For example, no hot and cold then no gradient of temperature or experience of temperature. Another requirement was for a causal framework to make possible the interaction between life forms and between life forms and the physical universe. We call this framework space and time, which the physicist Albert Einstein called spacetime. Source itself is nonlocal, which means it does not exist within spacetime but rather spacetime exist within the mirror or virtual reality initiated by Source.

As the evolution of the universe progressed it began to resemble what we see today. At some point in this evolution, the conditions became ripe for the emergence of life. As life began its evolution, nervous systems were able to embody and carry a portion of Source. As life became more and more complex its capacity as a carrier for Source expanded accordingly.

Thus, individuated life forms capable of receiving and sustaining a transmission of consciousness from Source became part of the Great Illusion. The transmission received was filtered down to an appropriate degree by the relative sophistication of a life form’s nervous system. The more sophisticated the nervous system the greater the degree of consciousness received.

At some point in this evolution, the degree of consciousness received was sufficient for self-awareness to emerge. Self-awareness greatly expanded the range of experiences possible. The last known expansion was the capacity for self-reflection or meta-cognition. This latter ability allows for reflection upon abstract representations; e.g., thinking about how a past experience is relevant to a current situation or thinking about your thinking processes. The increasing variety and complexity of experience was enfolded into Source to stimulate its evolution toward completeness.

A carrier of consciousness has a degree of autonomy in its collection of experience. The more complex the nervous system the greater the autonomy. With autonomy comes choices and the more choices the greater the amount of information created for the life form and for Source. The relationship between choice and information is found in the Information Theory of Claude Shannon.

One implication of the Great Illusion is that, as a self-evolving system with autonomous actors that can make choices, the necessary richness of experience required for the evolution of Source is likely. Given that autonomy and choice exist within the Great Illusion, it is unlikely that Source would intervene in the affairs of the world. To do so would reduce the range of choice and information produced by living forms, which would diminish the experiences available to Source. Another implication is that what we call good and evil should be seen as the outcome of choices made by relatively autonomous individuals and groups. Good and evil are a complementary pair, which makes possible a range of experience between the polarities.

It also appears that there is an ongoing natural tendency for each individual consciousness to be exposed to experiences that include what it needs to acquire insight. The choices that you make influence subsequent experiences that the evolving universe will, in time, bring to you. This happens because the enfolding of information from choices, experiences and insights into Source influences the Implicate Order. This feedback affects the unfolding of possibilities into physicality or the Explicate Order. Possibilities that unfold don’t have to be useful or even positive. They simply have to provide the opportunity for insight, which in turn contributes to the evolution of the individual’s consciousness and of Source.

Choices that we make can facilitate or interfere with insight. Acts that interfere with the progress of others are likely to impede your own progress. Feedback from such choices may be experienced as pain and suffering. Feedback that is facilitative will often result in greater clarity and understanding, including at times insight. All beings, whether they know it or not, are contributing to the same universal goal, that is, to both the evolution of personal consciousness and of Source. This implies that we need to always be mindful of the choices we make in life.

The experiences of many people across time suggest that access to Source can occur. Such access occurs to varying degrees for different individuals and is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Sometimes this appears to happen without any obvious antecedents and sometimes it seems to be the product of following practices set out by various spiritual traditions as helpful.

What are the implications of the Great Illusion for death?

1. Nothing essential is lost with the death of the body/mind.

2. You are just a collection of experiences that are preserved in Source.

3. With the death of the vehicle your consciousness will be enfolded back into Source just as it was unfolded into physicality with your birth.

4. The illusion of individuality and physicality will dissolve.

5. But, no one truly dies or is lost to others Kastrup leaves us with two questions:

1. Is it possible that practices developed by various spiritual traditions can help facilitate access to Source Consciousness?

2. Can you break away from your preconceptions and allow yourself more latitude to investigate spiritual ideas?

Essays

On Buber and Bohm

By admin on Saturday, May 22, 2021

Note: Buber uses all caps for his relational words, which can at times be confusing. I have, for clarity, used lower case when the meaning of the relational words have different implications from the words when upper case is used.

In his book I and Thou, Martin Buber discusses two core relational words, one or the other of which dominates our way of being in the world. These relational words are “i”-“it”and I-Thou (You). As I understand him, the former separates and fragments while the latter relates and unifies. The creation of an “it” requires making the person, event, process, etc., isolated, abstracted and conceptualized. Buber suggests that You is the spiritual or authentic Self that precedes any development of a self (me) or ego (“i”). Thus, when one has an I-You relationship, it is a dynamic, living and authentic relationship. The authentic Self that lies behind ego enters into a relationship with another Self. Thus, an I-You relationship is at root a spiritual or authentic relationship that unifies rather than divides. On the other hand, an “i” cannot have an I-You relationship with an academic or scientific subject, a social institution or organization or technological devices — only with people and probably some other living organisms. You can, however, also have an “i”-“it” relationship with people, animals and things where the “i” represents the egoic self (me) and “it” represents an objectified thing. An “i”-“it” (me-thing) relationship renders people as objects and therefore is suitable to use as a means to an end. Buber argues that the foundations of modernity are found in “i”-“it” relationships. He advocates that we must learn to live and grow as authentic human beings by living through I-You or I-Thou relationships.

The physicist and philosopher David Bohm reached similar conclusions and offered in his book On Dialogue a method to facilitate relationships grounded in understanding others, which I think Buber would recognize as I-You relationships. Bohm’s method, as I understand it, is normally done with a limited but diverse group but can also be done between two individuals or even as a method for self examination. A brief description of his group method involves several basic components. First, as diverse a group as possible should be assembled. Second, the group members should commit to meet on a regular schedule and to see the process through. Third, members of the group are asked to share with the group anything about their beliefs, attitudes, thoughts or other subjective attributes that they wish. I was reminded of the Quaker practice in which members of their leaderless congregations sit in silence until someone feels moved to speak, stands and says their piece and then sits down. Here is the crux of the process. Fourth, other members may ask clarifying questions or restate in their own words what they understood to have been said, for confirmation or elaboration. Fifth, under no circumstances is anyone allowed to deny, challenge, argue, judge or in any way, including tone of voice, rebut what someone says. If one holds a different view relative to something said, he or she can simply state that view but in no way frame it as an argument against what the other person said. All comments are offered as simple declarative statements, e.g., I am uncomfortable around LGBTQ people. I believe in a personal God. I believe in socialism. I prefer to associate with people from my own ethnic background, and so on.

What Bohm found happens in such groups is that over time they come to develop a group pattern of thought. This pattern is grounded in an understanding of what sorts of beliefs, attitudes and thinking are held by the group as a whole. The members come to understand one another and form a cohesive group. Once there is cohesion, it becomes possible to have non-conflictual, meaningful relationships and authentic dialogue between members of the group. In short, You-You relationships.