Search Results for “The Natural Mind” – Page 2

Ego Is the Mask God Wears While Pretending To Be You – Revised

By admin on Friday, January 26, 2024

The title of this piece is an aphorism, for lack of a better word, that arose into my awareness while meditating. Along with the arising of the words came a strong sense of Truth behind the words. Herein I will attempt to unpack the meaning behind the words.

The word “ego” means the fictive-self, as I have referred to it elsewhere. I call this self “fictive” because it is a social/cognitive construct that, while potentially very helpful, also obscures the Authentic Self or Spiritual Self or Natural Mind. The fictive-self is a narrative description of what could be said to be like an algorithm. Algorithms can be quite complex but simply said, they automate decision-making and responding based on those decisions. Ego then is like an algorithm that guides you through your daily life with varying degrees of “success.” Success, as culturally defined or lack of same, depends on how well it has been “constructed.”

The meaning of “mask” in the above is already evident in the discussion of ego. Ego is a mask because it is a construct or narrative that obscures the Authentic Self. Most spiritual traditions have, in part, the goal of dethroning or seeing beyond the fictive-self in order to open the potential for realization of the Authentic Self. The Authentic Self is a gateway to a more direct experience of Source or God, if you prefer.

The word “God” in this aphorism simply refers to the Source of All that is manifest in the physical world. Rather than go into a long and complex discussion of my understanding of that word, I will simply link you to a discussion in another essay: God and the Problem of Evil. If you’re good to go with the short opening description and would prefer to skip a more detailed, nuanced discussion then move on.

“Hides behind” simply refers to the fact that one’s potential for knowing God through the Authentic Self is hidden by the ego. “While pretending to be you” alludes to the idea that all of life, to varying degrees, has a direct connection to Source Consciousness. Thus, all life is a manifestation of Source and is unique so that it can gain experience for Source. However, intelligent life with significant cognitive abilities is by far a richer source of experience, since it has greater possibilities, including meta-cognition, which even Source has only through you. In short, there is only one Universal Consciousness and all manifestations of it in the physical realm are like Source’s “avatars.” Thus, each avatar is Source pretending to be something else, e.g., fish, tiger, cow or human.

Reflections

What are the goals for a spiritual practice?

By admin on Saturday, September 30, 2023

The goals for a spiritual practice are to realize that you are the subjective self or, as some say, the true or authentic Self and to identify with it.

To realize that you are the subjective self, your meditation practice should examine all objects of consciousness that arise in awareness and recognize that as objects they cannot be subjects. It is you that is the subject that is perceiving them and is aware of them.

When you see a tree, the eyes take in a sensory data stream that is processed and represented as an image that you recognize as a tree. As an image, it has entered your awareness and become an object of consciousness. This is true for all sensory data, be it a sight, sound, touch, smell or taste. This is equally true for your physical body, which is observed much like any other object in the environment and, when observed, becomes an object of consciousness.

This is also true of perceptions of bodily processes such as the beating of the heart or the flow of breath, the pressure from a full bladder or the grumbling of a hungry stomach. All of these are experienced as objects of consciousness, and they cannot be subjects. If the body, including its perceivable activity, is an object, then it can’t be a subject. Therefore, you are not your body.

So perhaps you are your mind. What kinds of things might we attribute to mind? Some of those things include thoughts (I’m tired), emotions (I’m happy) memories (I recall learning to ride a bike), personality, ego and so on. All of these things have to be objects of consciousness for you to be aware of them. Thus, they cannot be you because you being the subject in these subject-object relations are apart from them, just as you were apart from sensory objects in the physical world, including your body. Therefore, you are not your mind.

Maybe you are the intellect. Suppose that you studied mathematics and physics very deeply while you were in school. You can now know many ways to solve measurement problems and know many things about the patterns of physicality. But, consider that here too all these formal things you’ve learned are intellectual achievements and are also objects of consciousness. Because you are aware of them, they are perceivable and therefore are objects and can’t be subjects. You are apart from them and thus you are not the intellect either.

You (the subjective self or the observer or witness as some say) are not any of these perceivable objects of consciousness. The one thing that is not an object in awareness is the subjective self or awareness itself. The subjective self can never become an object of consciousness anymore than an eye can directly look at itself. In other words, the subjective self cannot be an object to itself.

This is probably why Adyashanti says true meditation is to simply be with awareness itself or just being with what is. This is also, in part, why in a Guide to Sensory Field Meditation*, I suggest that one begin meditation by allowing awareness to fill with and empty out of the objects of consciousness that arise and subside naturally, while maintaining attention on the gestalt or the field of awareness as a unified whole. That is, focus on the whole rather than upon individual objects arising and subsiding within the gestalt. This gives a global or right brain view of the underlying processes of awareness. You cannot make of awareness an object for it is no-thing when empty of objects. Thus, it is only by observing the process of awareness that you can come, indirectly, to a sense of it. Ultimately, you may find that everything in awareness drops away, and you become awareness or consciousness itself. You form an identity with it, which is not an observational state. Eastern traditions call this state the Void or Samadhi.

Besides being perceivable as objects of consciousness what do the sensory objects you perceive, the body that you perceive and the mind that you perceive all have in common? They are ever changing. As the philosopher Henri Bergson said of the perceivable world – it is in a constant state of flux. Everything perceivable changes. Some things like a mountain may not noticeably change in your life time but even it is changing. The trees that you see change, the body that you inhabit changes, the mind that you exhibit changes and the intellect that you employ changes. When you are young the changes largely tend toward growth and as you become older the changes tend toward deterioration.

So, what doesn’t change? The subjective self is a constant amidst all of this flux. Though Source Consciousness exists outside of space-time, your embodied thread of consciousness in the physical world of space-time appears to have what Bergson called duration and persists unchanged. Even if you deteriorate to the point of being unable to recognize or understand what appears in your awareness, you still perceive and are aware of objects of consciousness.

Only physical death seems to end the subjective self, but that is just from the perspective of observers in the physical world. Given its unchanging nature that is impervious to all the flux it observes, it is reasonable to assume that it continues to persist once the body it inhabited succumbs to entropy. Being an embodied thread of Source Consciousness, it stands to reason that when no longer embodied, your consciousness withdraws back into Source Consciousness, which exists outside of space-time and just is.

Many spiritual practices also include Self-inquiry. This practice might be thought of as a project to recognize the subjective self as the true Self by the process of elimination. This practice can be done simply by asking, about each object of consciousness that arises in awareness — whether during meditation or periods of normal activity — is this the true Self? If what is perceived is an object of consciousness and it must be for you to be aware of it, the answer is “No, not that.” That is not the true Self. This practice continues until you are convinced that none of these many things that arise in awareness are the subjective self. If the subjective self or true Self cannot be found in awareness, then by the process of elimination, you have only one option remaining and that is consciousness itself. When you fully accept this conclusion without doubt or qualification, you have realized your true Self and should identify with it. This is the ultimate goal of a spiritual practice.

You are now on the cusp of what is often referred to as enlightenment. This next step reveals the connection between your embodied thread of consciousness and the Source Consciousness to which it is tethered. It is generally accepted that there are no methods to be employed in this last step. Your practice should be to simply abide in and through the true Self and patiently wait for this experience of your connection to Source Consciousness to take you.

* You can download a PDF copy of Guide to Sensory Field Meditation as part two of Meditation: What, Why and How. You can find this by going to my website’s Pick Up Page and scrolling down until you reach it then follow the directions given at the top of the page for downloads, if you aren’t already familiar with this process.

Personal Items Reflections

Noetic Events

By admin on Saturday, April 22, 2023

To begin, let’s clarify what is meant by a noetic event. Noetic was a word that received a boost in frequency of use and recognition from the astronaut Edgar Mitchell. He chose it after a search for a word to describe an experience he had on his return voyage from the moon. The Institute on Noetic Science (IONS) was founded by Mitchell to study experiences like Mitchell’s. IONS defines Noetic as follows:

Noetic comes from the Greek word noēsis/ noētikos that means inner wisdom, direct knowing, intuition, or implicit understanding. Noetic experiences can be hard to describe with words and feel like states of knowledge where we access profound truths that we intuitively know as truth without our intellect analyzing them. The noetic…refers to people’s experience of interconnectedness or a force or power greater than themselves (e.g., Higher Self, God, Spirit, Source, Universe, Interconnected Field, Higher Consciousness, Divine, and so on.

This post will try to illustrate noetic experiences through a few personal examples. Subjectively, the noetic is a noetic experience limited to the one having the experience and objectively is a noetic event to anyone hearing or reading about it. So, if I tell you about a noetic experience that I had, you are hearing about a noetic event.

My first noetic experience took place when I was 17 years old. At the time, I was just beginning my senior year in high school. It might be useful to know that at that time I could be described as an angry, conflicted youth who was frequently in difficulty at school, when I bothered to go. I barely scraped by academically. In my junior year, I dropped out of school, unofficially, to find a job and then make the exit official. I failed to find employment and my father insisted that I return to school, which I did. My father required only that I pass my classes and that proved to be a low bar for me. I subsequently graduated with a 1.5 GPA (D+) on a 4 point scale.

With that background I’ll begin the description of the events that led up to my first noetic experience. It began on a rainy Sunday in September. I spent the day “cruising” the metro area, where I lived, with a group of friends. This meant that we simply drove around with no particular destination listening to music, talking and often drinking. One of the people in the car began saying that he wanted to go home because we were going to have a wreck. This was the first time that this individual had ever said anything like this and everyone dismissed his “warning” and his request as being silly.

Eventually, we arrived back in the suburban neighborhood from which we had departed. The first person to be dropped off was the prognosticator. We then proceeded to drop off a couple of other people at their cars. At this point only the driver and myself were left in the car. We began driving out a highway that led to my parents’ home. It was night by now and still raining. As we entered a long straight away, a car coming from the opposite direction was being passed by another car. When the passing car cut back into it’s proper lane, it began spinning and drifting from one side of the road to the other. As it approached us, it went off the road onto the shoulder. Just before it reached us it came back onto the road crossway in the road and hit us creating a T-bone collision.

As predicted the wreck did occur though this isn’t the end of the story. Suffice it to say that the car that hit us was estimated to be doing between 80 and 90 mph. This was in the days prior to seat belts and one result was that I punched a hole in the windshield with my face. A motorist stopped and rushed me to an emergency room at a university hospital several miles for the scene of the accident. His kindness and that of a student who donated blood probably saved my life. The injuries I received resulted in several hospitalizations and surgeries.

The really interesting result of this accident only took place about a year later. I’ll describe this noetic experience but I’ll lead off with a poem I wrote trying to capture it:

Epiphany

Before and after images,
Objects of consciousness.
A smiling face – blemish free,
Another marked by trauma.
The contrast contemplated,
An emotional shudder evoked.
A sense of engulfing sadness,
Tears well up – stain cheeks.
The smiling face – frozen in time,
Behind the smile – a death mask.
Its life story no longer told,
Erased in the blink of an eye.
A story built on shifting sand,
Scattered by the winds of fortune.
But, what of the other face,
Who looks out from those eyes?
A question answered – epiphany,
Anyone – just anyone at all.
A blank page for a new story,
A personal myth for a new face.
The power of a fictive narrative,
To set life on a new journey.
Who is this novelist in the mind,
Who pens this fictive self?
Another, much deeper question,
Set aside for the moment.

The noetic experience behind the poem took place while sitting in my parked car in the front passenger seat. I was just sitting and looking at two pictures. One was my senior picture taken a week or so before the accident and the other was a “before” picture taken by my plastic surgeon before he began his work.

I was drawn to the contrast between the two pictures but otherwise was not thinking of anything in particular about the pictures. As I sat there, I was overcome with the sense that the person in the senior photo was no more. I was overcome by sadness, as if someone I knew and cared about had died. Then, I had a sudden, profound realization about personal narratives. I knew beyond doubt that they were a self generated fiction. I have in my writing come to refer to this narrative as a fictive-self. I also realized that I needed this story but that I didn’t need to conflate myself with the story. I, as an embodied consciousness, was an actor playing a character named David. Further, that the script for David was subject to improvisation.

I began building a new story. To paraphrase the title of a book I once read, I turned left at Thursday and went off in a new direction. As my narrative about myself changed, others saw me as a different person. This transformation didn’t happen overnight but through a slow, steady evolution. I’ll spare you the details of that evolution. Briefly, however, I began as a youth whose own father said was aimless and reckless and predicted that I would be in prison before I was 25. The outcome of the insight I had that day sitting in my car led me eventually to become a developmental therapist working with troubled children and that to a career as a professor and eventually a department chair in a large urban research university. A sudden insight had broken the identification I had with my personal narrative and shown me that I was not my story. A noetic experience released me from my story.

The second noetic experience in my life arrived when I had just gotten out of the U.S. Navy. I’ll introduce this noetic event with a poem that tries to capture it:

The Void
Body resting in quiet repose,
Eyes embracing the natural world.
Awareness filled with oneness,
Attention seeking no-thing to grasp.
The image of nature fades,
Awareness slides into darkness.
Deep silence spreads throughout,
Perception sleeps in the darkness.
Only pure awareness manifesting,
Conscious only of the Void.
Impressions seep into awareness,
Siren songs – drifting in the deep.
Impressions that reveal stories,
Unguarded, open to awareness.
Attention takes hold of the stories,
Creating objects of consciousness.
A sense of privacy breached, or
Perhaps fear of exposure.
Contraction – then withdrawal,
Return to the resting body.

This noetic experience occurred one afternoon while I was sitting in my apartment looking out the window in the direction of a cemetery. I don’t recall thinking about anything, though I can’t say some stray thoughts weren’t passing through my awareness. If so, they were not receiving any attention and therefore were not objects of consciousness. All was quiet and time seemed at a stand still. Gradually, I sensed my awareness sliding into a state of primordial emptiness, pure no-thing-ness, perhaps what Buddhists call Void Consciousness.

I knew myself as a disembodied awareness experiencing the nature of the primordial awareness from which my personal awareness arose. After a while, I became aware of something impinging on my consciousness that might be described as intuitive impressions broadcast by other consciousnesses into the void. This experience felt a bit like a mind meld though not of conceptualized particulars but rather of essences. I also had a feeling that this access was a breach of privacy. I felt that I was, at least, in a situation in which I didn’t understand the protocols. I contracted and withdrew. I became aware of my body sitting very still looking out the window at a cemetery.

The third noetic event in my life took place a few years later. It was a cold winter day and I felt withdrawn from the world. I left the apartment and began a solitary walk in the cold. While I was walking, I stopped and looked distractedly at the dormant grass along my path. As I stood quietly looking at the grass, I suddenly experienced a sense of infusion much like a compressed download that unfolded as it entered consciousness. A flow of energy that carried with it a knowing about the nature of reality that had a profound sense of certainty about it. The following is a poem that tries to capture what was experienced:

Outlaw

An outlaw is a man,
Born in quiet and solitude,
The quiet of aloneness.
Wind, cold and desolate,
Heralds his birth,
And being.
Eyes like polished glass,
Opening on everything,
Nothing.
His flesh shivers,
then accepts the cold,
The coldness passes.
Only a fleeting thought,
Set aside now,
Forgotten.
Life pulses in harmony,
A flowing continuum,
Time is a schedule.
To the man,
All is simple – clear,
To be.
The breath of God,
Passes through him,
Transforming.
Its essence absorbed,
Flowing through his veins,
Cleansing.
Bursting into his brain,
Lifting a thousand shades,
Clearing binding webs.
Webs like steel girders,
Weighing upon the mind,
Suppressing the man.
God moved through him,
And the man knew God,
And he was God.
He was not good or evil,
Nor right or wrong,
And he was made free.
Freedom from the past,
And from the future,
An outlaw.
Moving with the world,
And through the world,
But, not of it.
He knew not the world,
Nor man but was both,
And yet, something else.
All history and tradition,
Culture and words,
Rescinded — Grace.

I have often compared this noetic experience with the first one. Not that they were anything alike in terms of what took place but in the core message. What I took that message to be follows. While the ego or fictive-self of an individual is a story about who and what that individual thinks s/he is, the third event conveyed that this was true of the human world as well. That is, what we call the world is a narrative that creates a mental framework that we think of as reality. To be clear I am not saying that this “human reality” doesn’t have demonstrable consequences. It does – just as your beliefs about yourself have consequences. The world too is a fiction. It creates a stage on which life plays out. It seems few ever see beyond the fiction and wonder about what lies beneath or beyond.

Elsewhere, I have described this framework for human reality as the web of the world. For me, the web of the world is a complex of interacting concepts that, while variable to some degree, come together and form consistent themes that run like strands in a spider’s web. This web creates the sense of reality that we experience and is a mental reality though it clearly has components experienced as physical. Take for example an airplane. This is a complex conceptual entity that is manifest as a physical artifact through varied processes all of which have conceptual origins. Or, take history as another example. This too is a complex conceptual entity that organizes how a people understand their collective past. This understanding informs their present activities, which in turn unfolds their future. It is all at root mental. Remove human beings from the planet and wait a few millennia and little if any evidence of the web of the world will remain. The “reality” that humans lived in will have largely vanished. The planet will still be here and life will go on but the web of the world will have vanished.

If the above discussion of the web-of-the-world (WotW), doesn’t resonate with you, consider this alternative analogy. Consider a tree as representing the planet and its ecosystem (the world). Consider an invasive vine, e.g., think Kudzu, as representing the WotW or civilization. Over time, the vine will overwhelm the tree and kill it. The vine will continue on for a while not recognizing what it has done. Eventually, the tree collapses and takes the vine down with it. The vine will have lost its support structure and most if not all of it will die from the loss of supporting structure. I have no idea whether this is true of a vine that has lost its supporting structure but lets assume that to be the case for the sake of the analogy. Assuming some of it survives, the remaining vine will have to find a new support structure and begin a phase of regeneration and growth. Perhaps the the cycle will repeat many times.

To be clear. What is being suggested here is that our civilization is overwhelming its underlying support structure. We may go on for a time with little notice of what we’re doing to the planet’s ecological systems and little motivation to do anything about it when we do notice. Like the vine we are probably on a road that will lead to a collapse of the ecosystem and likewise civilization, which is built upon it and depends upon it. The ecosystem is primary and civilization is secondary. Civilization needs to engage in an harmonious and cooperative relationship with the planet and its ecosystem before it destroys the support system that it rests upon. Our civilization is built upon worldviews, materialism (a.k.a. physicalism) and theistic dualism, that is poorly suited to creating the kind of relationship needed for survival. We could learn much from the attitudes of some indigenous peoples toward the support system. Within western philosophy, the worldview most likely, in my opinion, to be helpful with this task is the objective idealism of Bernardo Kastrup.

These examples of noetic experiences from my life clearly demonstrated to me that the materialist philosophy or physicalism driving many in our culture is perhaps useful in some ways but is a very narrow perspective on the nature of reality. A perspective that, as a dominant point of view, is being challenged and its hold on the world is hopefully slipping.

These events changed the way that I look at myself and the “world.” I do not ask that anyone accept or believe that these experiences are true or even that they actually took place. These were phenomenological events, which means that they were private experiences that provided me with an experience that cannot really be shared only described. Those who have had similar experiences of their own can begin to grasp the importance and meaning of these experiences for me. For those who have had no such experiences, you may be willing to entertain their possibility but can only accept them as true and valid through your own noetic experiences. For those of you who reject them out of hand, consider the possibility that you are “flying blind.”

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.

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

Salvation Will Not Be Found in Politics — Updated 03/14/21

By admin on Sunday, December 6, 2020

There is an apparent “war” of cultures in American politics. The so-called Red/Blue divide that seems unbridgeable. Red struggles to overcome Blue. Blue struggles to overcome Red. Each side believes fervently that it is the defender of “Truth.” Each side attempts to eke out a victory so that it might impose its view of truth on the nation as a whole. Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Garrett, in their recent book The Upswing, describe this struggle in a way that suggests a cycle. They describe one turn of the apparent cycle. The first leg of the current cycle began in the late 19^th century when Blue began an ascendance and imposed its views on society. The cycle peaked around 1971 and began its second leg, which is where we are currently positioned. During the past 50 years, Red has been in ascendance and has been reversing Blue’s accomplishments and has been imposing its views on society. In discussing what needs to be done, the authors propose that the answer is to restore Blue’s programs to a dominant position. I think this is a mistake made by not taking into account the significant portion of the population that sides with Red. In my view, the only thing suppression will accomplish is to initiate a new cycle, which is not a solution at all. Both viewpoints need to be transcended.

On a longer-term basis, Iain McGilchrist, in his book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, discusses a back and forth tug-a-war between the left and right brain functions. He thinks the tug-a-war has its origins in the ancient Greeks and has been operating throughout history. He spends a considerable amount of effort to document this process. McGilchrist, a neuro-psychiatrist, discusses the underlying reason for our split brain. He says that the right brain is responsible for relating and integrating our understanding of the world. Because of its relational nature, the right brain provides a dynamic and holistic view of the world and is the source of meaning in our lives. The left brain on the other hand is responsible for separating out of our perception of the world isolated pieces, which are rendered static and then divided further into pieces for examination.

According to McGilchrist, there should be cooperation between these functions. The left brain should inform the right brain about its understanding of examined pieces of the world and then the right brain should integrate this understanding into a dynamic and holistic view of the world. In short, the left brain evolved to be a tool of the right brain, which should have the overall responsibility for our understanding of the world. McGilchrist argues that currently the left brain has gained dominance over the right brain, which evolved to be the dominant partner.

Human beings can skew the intent of evolution through their ability to form concepts and abstractions that model the world. Concepts, abstractions and models are left brain functions grounded in language. The left brain has in effect “hijacked” the functions of the right brain through the use of concepts and abstractions. Unfortunately, the left brain approach leads to fragmentation rather than the needed holistic view. Ken Wilber, discussed below, would probably agree with the essence of McGilchrist’s analysis. I think this is because Wilber argues that most of our current problems are due to an extreme emphasis on quadrant three of his model (see Table in the section about Wilber), which he thinks is dominated by scientific materialism with its emphasis on the senses of perception and an objectifying and externalizing of everything to the exclusion of humanity’s inner life and resources.

The political cycle described by Putnam and Garrett and possibly the tug-a-war described by McGilchrist seems likely to be linked to how we form identities and worldviews. Before proceeding, it is necessary to provide some background. I will attempt to describe identity formation through the lens of psychological development. I will begin by mentioning the French developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget, who sequenced cognitive development into a four-tiered structure. The first tier was sensorimotor, then preoperational, then concrete operational and finally the formal operational tier. While there have been criticisms of the model and suggestions for one or more additional stages the original model, in practice, has held up robustly.

For example, the Harvard psychologist, Lawarence Kohlberg, adapted Piaget’s scheme to his study of moral reasoning. He structured moral reasoning into a three-tiered sequence. The first tier was pre-conventional, then conventional and finally post-conventional. Each tier was divided into two stages for a total of six stages. The sixth stage is often omitted from the developmental sequence. This omission occurs because its achievement is so rare that there are not enough examples of it available to study and give it a firm empirical basis (see Addendum I at the end).

Kohlberg’s developmental model for moral reasoning has been widely studied and validated in cultures around the world, including both developed and emerging societies. The structure and stages have held up across cultures. The primary differences found between cultures has been the rate of development through the stages and the stage that emerges as the dominant typical stage in any given culture.

Further, studies have confirmed a relationship between moral reasoning and behavior, though it is a complex relationship. Studies have found deficits in moral reasoning in psychopaths as compared to neurotics. Research also shows a significant difference in moral reasoning between delinquents and non-delinquent adolescents. A common finding in these studies was an association of preconventional reasoning with antisocial behavior. Development of moral reasoning has also been found to be slower and more variable in troubled children relative to typical children.

Research has also supported structured, developmental discussions of moral issues as a method for stimulating development of moral reasoning. This has been shown to be supported in programs with public school students, emotionally disturbed adolescents, college students, delinquents and prisoners. In a study to see if public school teachers could implement a moral education program, teachers successfully conducted the program and produced significant changes, which upon a two-year follow-up were either maintained or continued to progress. One caveat is that research found that moral reasoning in a natural context with real life content was lower than moral reasoning in an educational setting with hypothetical content.

The primary criticism levied against Kohlberg’s model was from a former student of Kohlberg’s, Carol Gilligan. Her criticism was not about the model structure but of the assessment content used to place individuals in the scheme. Her criticism was that the assessment material was male-centric. Her argument, which was shown to have merit, was that moral reasoning in men tends to be best assessed through issues related to rights and justice, while moral reasoning in women tends to be best assessed through issues related to care and responsibility. She would rename some of the stages in Kohlberg’s model when applied to women using names related to care and responsibility.

Here it is worth mentioning another example. A student of Kohlberg’s, Robert Selman, developed a model of social reasoning. At the end of this essay, Addendum I provides an outline of Kohlberg and Selman’s models based on material in a textbook that I wrote in 1989.

The psychologist/philosopher, Ken Wilber, suggests that about 40% of the U.S. population is at stage four and has an ethnocentric personal identity. This stage marks the transition from preoperational to concrete operational thinking. Ethnocentrists identify with others from similar backgrounds and with similar attributes. People at this stage can take a second person perspective. This stage is often described as being populated by “true believers” and conformist. They are literal thinkers that view the world through narratives (a.k.a. myths). Moral behavior is governed by internalized rules, which are rigidly held and enforced.

Wilber indicates that about 50% of the U.S. population is at stage five, which is based in thinking at the formal operations level and is associated with a worldcentric personal identity. Persons at this stage can take a third person perspective. One identifies with an integrated and unified view rooted in a concern for the wellbeing of the whole. Whereas stage four might be called an “us” stage, stage five could be called an “all of us” stage. It is an orientation that views the world as rational. Moral behavior is governed by strongly held principles or ideals. This stage did not start to take root in the west until about 300 years ago.

The third relevant stage to this discussion is stage six. This stage did not begin taking root until the middle of the twentieth century. It was first evident in the revolutionary youth movement and counterculture of the 1960s. The ability to take a fourth person perspective at this stage led to criticism of and deconstruction of third person perspectives that arose out of stage five. This stage led to an emphasis on egalitarianism, cultural relativism and multiculturalism. Wilber suggests that this group represents about 25% of the U.S. population. While the percentages for the stages discussed add up to more than 100%, it must be taken into account that due to transitions some people are double counted. The above configuration sets up a perfect situation for a clash between traditional, rational and multicultural values.

Wilber’s model is more complex than the simple and brief description above. Wilber’s full analysis is detailed and quite complex. If you’re interested in the detailed analysis, I suggest that you read it for yourself. Probably the most comprehensive presentation is his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution. If you are put off by the word spiritual, I don’t think Wilber would mind if you simply substitute the term “consciousness,” where the term has a much broader meaning than merely being the opposite of unconscious. I have included a brief description of all eight stages in Wilber’s model below as Addendum Two.

Back to the “war” of political cultures. The bad news is that the research indicates that in American society, the majority of adults function at either stage four or stage five. This means that most Americans will have either a conformist attitude toward life or an individualist attitude. These two groups are supported by value systems that clash — traditional versus rational. The conformists depend upon mythologies or stories about the nature of the world, how it operates, what is necessary and so on. These narratives provide their blueprint for understanding the world, which can be a fairly simplistic such as “my country right or wrong.” The individualist depend on logic and rational analysis, which can be fairly complex such as scientific materialism, which assumes that everything arises from matter and that everything can be understood by objectifying it, isolating it, reducing it to its constituent parts and examining the relationship of the parts to one another. The important point here is that these beliefs or assumptions, if you prefer, are a product of an attained pattern of thinking. One does not change such patterns of thinking by persuasion or by coercion. One must develop or evolve beyond them.

If one thinks that they can be changed otherwise, I would ask you to consider the ethnic conflicts that erupted in eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The USSR had largely suppressed ethnic conflicts for many decades through its coercive domination of eastern Europe. However, as soon as the external inhibition was removed, the conflicts soon bubbled to the surface because the patterns of thinking of the involved populations had not evolved but had only been suppressed. They may have even regressed under authoritarian domination. On the other hand, let’s look at scientific materialism as an example of the failure of persuasion. For over a century evidence has been accumulating that scientific materialism cannot account for all the phenomena being documented. I have two large volumes in my personal library cataloging evidence that can’t be explained by scientific materialism, persuasive evidence developed through the methods advocated by science and meeting and exceeding the criteria established for judging such data. The response has largely been to ignore the data, discount the data, attack the researchers producing the data and so on. It is no wonder that it has been said that science progresses one funeral at a time. It almost seems that death is the only way to overcome the resistance to different ways of thinking.

Which brings us back to the American culture war. What we have here is a conflict grounded in various conflicting identities. The difficulty of ending this conflict is evident in the observation of the French philosopher Francis Jacques, who noted that participants in such identity-based conflicts usually see only two options. Either they can assimilate the worldview of the opponent or they can impose their world-view on the opponent. We see very little if any migration of members of the Red tribe to the Blue tribe or the converse. So, the exercise of the first option doesn’t seem very likely. What we do see are attempts to implement option two. Both tribes strive to attain the political power necessary to impose their worldview upon the other tribe. Even if one of them succeeds it will be a temporary victory. There will not have been a fundamental change in the pattern of thinking in the “suppressed,” nor will they cease seeking a way to regain the upper hand.

So, is there a way out of this dilemma? There may be but it isn’t a quick and easy fix. The way out is to evolve out of current patterns of conventional thinking. I mentioned research that suggested that evolution of thinking can be stimulated by educational programs. Broad-based education efforts with children is one strategy. Targeted educational programs for adolescents and adults is another strategy. The late and renowned physicist and philosopher David Bohm attempted to address this problem in his book On Dialogue. This book discusses a format for large group dialogue intended to alter patterns of thinking. His is not an educational or a persuasive approach but rather an exposure and assimilation approach. The main thing that he thinks must be overcome is thinking that one’s opinions or assumptions are necessary and therefore justify anything in their defense. He finds that sitting in a large diverse group and listening to but not challenging the freely expressed assumptions of group members will in time bring the members of the group to a level of understanding of one another and a softening of the certainty of their assumptions. Once one becomes less dogmatic about and less identified with one’s assumptions then the path toward evolution in one’s pattern of thinking becomes a possibility. It is mentioned that this careful examination of one’s assumptions can be done individually but lacks the breadth and diversity of a group process. As Bohm says, “[a] problem is insoluble as long as you keep producing it all the time by your thought.”

Ken Wilber has also suggested that on an individual level an effective strategy for changing one’s pattern of thinking is meditation. He says this because meditation is an introspective observation of the arising and dissolving of one’s thoughts. Such observation leads to a clearer understanding of the nature of thought and its influence over you. One of the principle experiential insights that meditation can produce is the recognition that at root you are not your thoughts. Another is that your core identity is non-conceptual. The operative word is experiential. This recognition is not an idea, concept or belief but an experience. You might think that skydiving would be exhilarating but until you actually have the experience it is just an idea. The meditation strategy is associated with quadrant one in Wilber’s map of human knowledge and experience shown below in a simplified format.

Internal External

1. Interior-Individual-Intentional (I)	3. Exterior-Individual-Behavioral (It)
2. Interior-Collective-Culture (We)	4. Exterior-Collective-Social (Its)

Wilber suggests that part of the problem we face is an overemphasis on exteriorized products of thinking, especially objective knowledge. He doesn’t think objective knowledge is bad, just that it has been emphasized to the point of crowding out other equally important aspects of being human. His meditation strategy belongs in quadrant one, representing individual interiority. As the ancient Greek aphorism says, “Know thyself.”

Any attempt to implement programs like those mentioned above are certain to be met by resistance, especially large-scale educational programs imposed on the unwilling. Voluntary programs are more likely to be accepted. If such programs produce positive results, then more people are likely to be open to participation. Probably the easiest group program to implement would be a group dialogue program such as proposed by Bohm. These should be community-based to ensure that sufficient diversity of views are represented. Of course, the suggestion by Wilber to undertake a systematic observation of one’s own thought processes through a meditation program has only one person’s opposition to overcome – yours. Should you be interested in a solo exploration, I recommend his book Integral Mindfulness.

It appears to me that the only way to resolve the dilemma that we face is to evolve our way out of it. This may be a difficult solution and perhaps we lack the foresight and long-term perspective needed to succeed. All other tactics, even when they appear to be successful, will in the end prove to be temporary and we will find ourselves cycling through the same struggle again and again. How long this can be sustained without imploding our civilization is difficult to say but that is the probable price of failure.

If this post has stimulated your interest, I recommend you to read the books mentioned and draw your own conclusions. I also suggest that you take a look at the two addenda below, especially Addendum II.

Addendum I

Levels I,II, III. Stages 1, 2, 3… Models (a) Kohlberg, (b) Selman

I. Pre-conventional

1. a. Punishment-obedience orientation. What’s right is what avoids punitive consequences.

b. Individuals as physical entities. One socially interacts with others who have similar superficial and observable characteristics, such as sex, skin color, etc.

2. a. Instrumental-Relativist, exchange orientation. What’s right is what secures a reciprocal exchange; i.e., I’ll scratch your back, if you’ll scratch mine.

b. Individuals as intentional agents. One socially interacts with others to temporarily secure their support or assistance.

II. Conventional

3. a. Good-boy, good-girl orientation. What’s right is what is consistent with social expectations, especially with family expectations.

b. Individuals are introspective. One employs mutual perspective taking as a strategy to further one’s self-interests in specific situations.

4. a. Authority-rules, law and order orientation. What’s right is what conforms to the rules set by authorities, especially social institutions such as religious authorities or legal authorities associated with the community in which one lives.

b. Individuals have relative stable personalities. Social interaction arises out of mutual interests and sharing with others. Relationships have duration over time based on the expectation that the other will continue to conform to one’s expectations.

III. Post-conventional

5. a. Social-contract orientation. What is right is what satisfies standards examined and agreed upon by society.

b. Individuals are complex self-systems. Social interactions are recognized as involving complex and often conflicting needs met through a variety of relationships.

6. a. Universal Ethical Principles, personal conscience orientation. What is right is what is consistent with comprehensive, self-evolved and logically consistent ethical principles.

b. No parallel.

Addendum II

Stages of Growing Up from Ken Wilber’s AQAL Model

Introduction

The following stages are based upon a large body of research by a variety of developmental researchers, such as Jean Piaget among many others. Note that developmental stages imply a progression where one must begin at the initial stage and then through developmental experience move up to the next stage in the sequence. When a move up occurs the lower stage is absorbed by the new stage rather than the previous stage being left behind. Thus, someone at a higher stage can understand where someone at a lower stage is “coming from,” so to speak. However, a person at a lower stage has little or no basis for understanding where someone at a higher stage is coming from. Further, one cannot skip stages in a developmental sequence though movement through a stage can be sped up. There is no guarantee that one will move through the entire developmental sequence. Typically, one arrives at what will be one’s final stage by late adolescence, however, there are emerging methods for stimulating development into adulthood. Keep in mind that except in transition periods, there is usually a dominant developmental stage evident in the majority of persons in a population. This does not mean that other stages aren’t present during a given period just that they are less common or in some cases even rare. Finally, note that the descriptions below are brief stage summaries and are fixed descriptions of what is a dynamic process during the developmental period.

1. Archaic (Infared) : The most fundamental stage and the least significant. One exist in a state of fusion with the environment. At this stage, when an instinctual drive arises one becomes that drive; e.g., one isn’t hungry one is hunger. Normally only seen in infants prior to individuation. It is never seen in a typical adult. It is possible for typical adults to carry fixations from this period, which means that the person is still identified with some part of this stage.

2. Magic Tribal (Magenta) : Very few adults will be found at this stage. It is the beginnings of a separate self. There is a fundamental distinction between self and other at an emotional level, but there continues to be some confusion around self and the exterior environment. This confusion gives rise to animistic thoughts in which human qualities are attributed to things in the exterior environment; e.g., Lightening strikes because it wants to kill me. Magical thinking also occurs in this stage; e.g., if I hold a wish intensely enough I will manifest what I wish for. If I pray hard enough I will be cured.

3. Magic Mythic (Red) : A person at this stage engages in preoperational thinking and has an egocentric identity. A separate self is more fully developed in this stage and this leads to a concern with security and self-protection. At this stage a power drive emerges. An exaggerated power drive often produces an inner critic that may create feelings of inferiority. For someone at this stage what they want is what is right and this justifies simply taking it. They tend to be not only egocentric but narcissistic. They are only capable of taking a first person perspective (me/mine). They are incapable of being empathetic; i.e., seeing and feeling a situation from someone else’s perspective. Joseph Stalin is often offered as an example of this stage.

4. Mythic Traditional (Amber) : This level can also be described as the conformist stage. Cognitive processing shifts from a preoperational mode to a concrete operational mode. Thinking is now capable of performing cognitive operations on things in the external world. A person at this level has developed some capacity taking a second person perspective. This marks the shift from an egocentric to ethnocentric identity. This means that such an individual can now find belongingness in groups; e.g., family, clan, tribe, nation, religion, political party, etc. Wilber indicates that about 40% of the American adult population is at this stage, which includes people not fully transitioned into it and those beginning to transition out of it. People at this stage are highly rule governed and believe in stringent enforcement of rules. They are concrete thinkers and hold unquestioned belief in cultural narratives, which are viewed literally and held as absolutely true. They are easily led to place all power and authority in a single person who is viewed as omnipotent. People in this group may become true believers in a fundamentalist religion, political movement or scientism (scientific dogma).

5. Rational Modern (Orange) : Cognitive processing shifts from a concrete operations mode to a formal operations mode. Thinking is now capable of performing cognitive operations on thought. A person at this level as developed some capacity for taking a third person perspective. They can now step back from themselves and come to a relatively objective opinion about themselves. This leads to the development of self-esteem needs and true individuality. For such an individual there can now emerge a drive for excellence, achievement and progress. Wilber indicates that about 50% of the American adult population is at this stage, which includes people not fully transitioned into it and those beginning to transition out of it. There is a shift from an ethnocentric to a worldcentric identity, which means the person is capable of taking an objective, scientific and universal perspective. This stage marks a move to an ability for greater inclusiveness; i.e., from “us” “to all of us.” Stage 5 didn’t begin to emerge in any significant degree in the west until about 300 years ago. It is viewed by Wilber to be a highly significant development. Stage 4 (Conformists) and Stage 5 (Individualists) together make up a majority of the current U.S. population and should be expected to be in direct and regular conflict.

6. Pluralistic Postmodern (Green) : With this stage there arises an ability for fourth person perspective taking, which can reflect on, analyze,, critique and deconstruct third person perspectives. People at this stage only began to show up in any numbers around the middle of the twentieth century. The emergence of the youth revolution and counterculture movement at this time marked the arrival of the first postmodern stage. The fourth person perspective of this stage led to an emphasis on relativism and multiple approaches that rejected any universals or unified views. All viewpoints are seen as local and culturally constructed. Postmodernism especially rejects any “-isms” of any type. The pluralistic view is egalitarian and sees everyone as absolutely equal and no culture is superior to any other culture. Thus the emergences of multiculturalism in the late twentieth century. Members of this stage lead with the heart and rely on feelings rather than the head and logical analysis. Another characteristic of this stage is the rejection of all hierarchies as evil. What it fails to do is differentiate between “dominator” hierarchies and “growth” hierarchies. The self-contradiction in postmodernism, of course, is that it holds and promotes its view as being superior to all others. Wilber indicates that about 25% of the U.S. population can be classified at Stage Six. While Stage 4 at 40% and Stage 5 at 50% and Stage 6 at 25% exceeds 100% bear in mind that there are people in transition and likely counted twice. Some writers on developmental stages use notation along these lines 1, 1/2, 2, 2/3, 3, etc. This sets up the perfect storm of a clash between traditional, rational and multicultural values.

7. Integral (Turquoise) : This stage has only begun to be noticed by developmental researchers in the past few decades. It is still quiet rare and probably evident in less than 5% of the population. It is a second tier stage and the major mark of this stage is a drive for wholeness. One result of this is that the Integral stage is the only stage that sees the value of all the lower stages and their necessity for the developmental process. Bearers of this stage function at next to the last step in Maslow’s needs hierarchy — self-actualization. At this stage, thinking and feeling for the first time are brought together in a tight integration. This stage’s value for wholeness and inclusiveness leads people at the integral level to look at issues and problems in large, broad contexts, such as seeing environmental problems as a biosphere problem not purely a local issue. This broad perspective leads to little sympathy for partisan politics either nationally or globally. As an established stage it is the stage with the greatest depth of all the stages to date.

8. Super Integral Stages (White) : This represents possibly as many a four additional stages that would be tier three stages. These projections are based on the assumption that the universe is inherently loving and creative otherwise evolution would never have gotten underway and produced anything new at all. These stages are thought to be driven by an increasing focus on wholeness, inclusiveness, increasing consciousness, increasing love and care and concern, which is inherently built into the universe as we know it. It is thought that persons operating at this level currently exist but are very rare and represent significantly less than 1% of the population.

Awakening Reflections Uncategorized

Night Owl Interviews Jessie Christenson on Shamanic Energy Fields #1

By admin on Friday, December 7, 2018

It is my pleasure to present the first and long-awaited interview with Jessie Christenson, the world-renowned author and playwright. Jessie’s work is often acclaimed for its authenticity and remarkable insight into the dynamics of human personality and culture. In this interview, I’ll try to drill down and tap into the source of knowledge that allows him to create remarkable works of art that have garnered almost every literary award worth mentioning. For brevity, I’ll simply use initials to indicate who is speaking. The following is a transcript of the live interview done with Jessie over Zoom. Subscribers can watch the video of the interview on the Night Owl web site. Let’s dive in.

NO: Jessie, can you fill us in a little on your background. I have heard that both of your parents were cultural anthropologists. Were you able to spend much time with them as you grew up?

JC: Yes, both of my parents were anthropologists. They spent a lot of time in the field studying indigenous people and especially their language and culture. I was fortunate to be able to go along on all of their expeditions.

NO: You obviously are educated, so how was this accomplished in the field?

JC: Pretty much the way education took place for most of human history. You might think of it as a community effort. I was taught formal skills such as composition, grammar, mathematics and science by my parents. Most of my formal education was through independent study materials under the supervision of my parents. However, there was a much broader informal dimension to my education that came from immersion in the culture around me and guidance from members of the indigenous community.

NO: Was there any informal component in particular that was, in your view, especially important to your development as a writer?

JC: Yes. I think the experience that was most transformative for me was an extended expedition that my parents undertook to study a group of indigenous people who were very isolated and had had very limited contact with the world outside of their village.

NO: How long did this extended expedition last?

JC: We lived among The People for six years.

NO: That is a long time for a kid. How old were you during this period?

JC: I lived with The People between the ages of 12 and 18.

NO: You refer to your hosts as The People. Do they have a name?

JC: Of course, but their name for themselves, in their language, simply means The People. Thus, I just refer to them as The People because the word in their language is difficult for English speakers to pronounce and would be a meaningless sound in any case.

NO: So, what was the nature of the transformative educational experience that you had while living with The People?

JC: It was grounded in a relationship that developed between myself and a person that I will call the village shaman, though The People used a different name. Their shaman was a very old and very wise woman who served as a combination physician and spiritual guide. Before you ask her name, I’ll just say that I came to simply call her by the word in The People’s language for grandma.

NO: Grandma?

JC: Yes. Many of the young people in the tribe referred to her in that way, and I did as well. Also, she was certainly old enough to be my grandmother, and given our life style, I had little opportunity to cultivate a relationship with my actual grandmothers who were thousands of miles away for most of my life.

NO: OK. So, Grandma it is. What did you learn from Grandma that gave you such a deep insight into people and their ways?

JC: At first, I just hung around her some when I wasn’t doing schoolwork. After a year or so, I had picked up enough of the language for simple communication. She began to take an interest in me and helped me with the language. Eventually, I became adept enough with the language and the culture that I was able to question her about her activities. This is when she began to mentor me in her perspective on the world and when my true education began.

NO: What did you learn from her that was so transformative?

JC: To begin with, she began teaching me about the nature of the world as she understood it. She talked about what would translate into English as “spirits.” The basic system she taught was that all life is the manifestation of what I would describe as an energy field, though in her language it was called the spirit realm. Humans, she taught, have seven major points of connection with this field. In her terms, we are potentially under the influence of seven spirits. Each connection links to what might be described as a drive or program. Again, Grandma talked in terms of the guidance or influence that flowed from each of these spirits. How you function depends on which of these connections (spirits) is dominant.

NO: What was it about this system that she taught you that gave you such a solid grasp of human beings’ motivations and behaviors?

JC: I learned from her that virtually all of humanity is dominated by one of three programs or drives.

NO: So, pretty much everyone is driven by one of these three programs or drives?

JC: That isn’t quite right. Everyone is dominated by one of the three, but the other two serve in a supporting role. Thus, the underlying dynamic is a triad. Think of a triangle where the focus is the apex of the triangle.

NO: What are these three basic drives or programs?

JC: Each of the core drives can be associated with a function. The first is safety. The second is sex. The third is status.

NO: So, these three drives are all that one needs to understand human motivation and behavior?

JC: Yes, or at least almost. There are other connections that can activate and come into play, but the vast majority of human beings and their cultures are entangled in these three core programs.

NO: Okay, let’s take one of them and unpack it. Why not the first one — safety.

JC: Fine. Safety is a biological imperative. If one isn’t safe then there is little if any hope for success at sexual reproduction or of achieving social status. The drive for safety leads to fear of anything that can be imagined to pose a threat. Most individuals and most cultures are strongly influenced by fear. From fear comes suspicion of others and their motives. This in turn leads to defensiveness, which can be no more than a psychological attitude or can progress to more overt forms. Fear- driven defensiveness leads to prejudgments about people, usually grounded in superficial characteristics such as race, ethnicity or class. The result is an “us” against “them” mentality.

NO: I think I see how fear unfolds from a drive for safety in individuals. How does this translate into culture?

JC: Fear at the cultural level is usually exhibited as aggressiveness, which can range from violent behavior to “friendly” competition. You know the old saying that the best defense is a good offense. Culturally, this aggressiveness will show up in some sports, movies, television and video games, to name a few. On another level, one can see it clearly in institutions such as police forces, Homeland Security and in military organizations. All of these institutions need an “enemy” to employ their protective mandates against. These can range from criminals, individuals from a cultural outgroup, terrorists who are acting out of their own safety drive and fear and finally, state actors who can be cast as a large scale evil that threatens the nation and are targets for major military campaigns, or at least preparation for one.

NO: This drive appears to be almost fractal in the way that it grows and expands into evermore complex patterns that acquire all kinds of rationales as it evolves. But, if we understand this, isn’t that the key to deconstructing it?

JC: You and I might be able to deconstruct it, but most people are totally oblivious to the underlying dynamics. They see only the surface manifestations without ever drilling down to the roots from which these surface manifestations spring. One might say they act as if they are blind or asleep.

NO: I think I’m beginning to understand what some people mean by “waking up.” Let’s delve into another drive. What about the second drive? What about sex?

JC: This one is much easier to observe because it has become ubiquitous, in Western life, through mass media. Evolution has given humans a strong sex drive that is largely motivated by pleasure, but there are some other factors such as a commonly experienced biological impetus in women for children. The underlying purpose of sex is reproduction, but pleasure is a potent reinforcing motivation for engaging in sex, which frequently results in conception whether intended or not.

NO: Modern contraceptives seem to have undermined this drive to a large extent, as evidenced by falling birth rates around the globe.

JC: That is true, and it may be a good thing given the pressures of over population. However, a decline in reproduction will have no impact on pleasure-driven sex as a major motivating drive. While reproduction was the primary evolutionary goal, the method used to achieve it continues to apply with or without reproduction.

NO: So, with reproduction declining, what other role does the sex drive play in motivation and culture?

JC: A very big role. Think about all the permutations that sexuality has undergone. If you examine the stories that surround biologically based sex-related behavior, what you see is an explanation generated by culture with individual adaptation to the cultural story about that behavior.

NO: Could you give an example of what you mean by cultural explanations or cultural stories?

JC: Sure. Take for example sexual attraction. The biology of sexual attraction is designed to direct one toward sexual partners that are likely to produce viable and successful offspring. This is a biological program that the individual and culture needs to explain. You have this set of preferences and behaviors that seem to mysteriously arise from outside of awareness. The individual experiencing them didn’t arrive at these preferences and related behaviors by any rational or thoughtful process. They just asserted themselves. The human ego evolved to mediate between our internal programs and the environment. The ego likes to feel it is in control of what is going on. A spontaneous arising of preferences and behaviors demands an explanation that rationalizes them. Early on in our species history, individual egos set out to generate a plausible explanation or story governing how these preferences and behaviors are actually “chosen” by an individual. Over time these individual stories aggregate into a cultural explanation and individuals acquire the story through enculturation.

Once the explanation or story is in place, it is dynamic. This means that it evolves and adapts over time and may become, to some degree, divorced from the biological program, which was its initial reason for being. Thus, we see different cultures employ somewhat different stories and different expectations based on those stories but almost never a variation that is contrary to the biological imperative for reproduction. The dynamic nature of these stories also results in all sorts of effects. Explanations for sexual attraction lead to effects on social behaviors, mannerisms, notions of attractiveness, clothing styles, hair styles, cosmetics and grooming in general, which in turn impacts businesses, entertainment and the economy. Thus, the fractal nature of the permutations referred to earlier.

NO: Well, that is fascinating. I had never thought about how so much of what permeates everyday life is actually generated by a basic biological program. Can you give a couple of more examples?

JC: OK. Another permutation with its origins in the basic biological program that motivates reproduction also impacts what culturally we often label “mother love.” There is a biological program that kicks in when the sex drive achieves reproduction. Hormonal changes are elicited in both sexes, but especially in the female, that has a bonding effect between the mother and the child. Along with this bonding effect comes a “halo effect” so that the child is viewed as “perfect or precious.” The hormonal changes also produce a strong positive affect toward the child. These feelings motivate nurturance and protection of the child so that it can develop into an adult and repeat the process. This whole process has been explained through the cultural stories concerning the “joys” of motherhood, the “gift” of children, the importance of family, and so on. However, to keep things brief, I’ll bring this example to a close. Based on the discussion above, I think you and your audience can work out any further details for yourself.

Briefly, I’ll mention one more cultural theme tied to the basic sex program embedded in our biology. This one relates to the cultural stories or rules that have evolved to manage marriage and family. The rules relating to marriage generally are tied to the story about sexual attraction. Under the best of conditions, the cultural story about who one should be attracted to and why are interfaced with who one should marry. For example, in some cultures, the story employs the notion of “romantic love” to tie together the rules of attraction and marriage. In other cultures, the story employs the notion that this is a matter for the family to decide based on the “better judgment” of the parents. In such cases, the role of economics and social status have become the dominant themes in the story. This can create conflict when the cultural story doesn’t interface very well with the “laws of attraction” grounded in the basic biological program. You can no doubt think of other stories.

NO: Your mention of social status reminds me that status is the third program or drive that you mentioned as forming the basic motivational triangle. Let’s talk a little about this program.

JC: OK. The next step in the base motivational triangle is social status. The drive for status within the social group has obvious ties to the other two programs, that is, safety and sex. Status is one way of enhancing one’s importance to the social group and thereby gain better control of resources needed for safety. Status also generally plays a role in determining one’s attractiveness as a sexual partner.

NO: So, social status is basically a way to enhance one’s position relative to safety and sex?

JC: Yes. You can see the importance of status by looking at almost any social organization, whether it is social class, professional, religious, business, political, military or some other type of social organization. All of these organizations have hierarchies based on the relative prestige of the levels in the hierarchy, usually based on the associated decision-making power, economic power or a combination of both.

NO: Can you give us a couple of examples?

JC: Sure. Take one of the most obvious such as a military organization. Almost everyone is already generally familiar with the ranking structure in a military organization. Clearly, as one’s rank rises, decision-making power increases as well as income. The relationship of military organizations to national safety or defense issues is obvious.

NO: Yes, that one is pretty obvious. How about one less obvious?

JC: How about a social institution such as academia. This is an institutional structure about which a lot of people have only a vague knowledge but is as complex or more complex than a military organization. I won’t bore you with a lot of detail, but there is hierarchy between institutions and specialty areas within institutions. This is further stratified by ranks within the teaching faculty and research faculty. Institutional administration is largely independent of faculty and has a hierarchy of its own. This could be explicated further, but I think you get the idea. You can drill down for the complete details easily enough, if motivated to do so. Decision-making power exists within these institutions, but the institutions as represented by individuals within them also can exercise power in the society at large. One example would be consultants whose expertise and opinions are widely sought and respected by people in government, business and even the military.

NO: Let’s see if I can summarize this for our viewers. Almost everyone is controlled by three basic biological drives or programs. These are safety, sex and status. The first ensures that one reaches sexual maturity and at least has a chance to become sexually active, which increases the probability of the second (reproduction). The third provides a method for improving one’s chances for safety and of becoming sexually active. All of this is to a large degree opaque due to the degree of cultural elaboration built up on these three basic programs. The cultural customs, taboos and formal rules are secondary to the basic programs but help explain, structure and justify the behavior motivated by the basic programs. Most of us are totally absorbed in playing out our lives within the cultural narrative that we live in and using that narrative to derive contextual meaning for our lives. Most people are “blinded” for their entire lives by their identification with cultural and personal narratives.

JC: That seems like a fair summary. Keep in mind that the secondary elaboration on these three basic programs is very diverse and complex, which makes the basic processes less obvious than one might suppose. This complex is often what is meant when we invoke the concept of “world.” The world in this sense is a complex of ideas, concepts, beliefs and expectations that govern a drama called “human culture and civilization” performed on a stage called earth. Whatever aspect of the world you might have a question about, you could do worse than deconstructing it with the goal of finding the underlying biological programs and how they relate to the phenomenon motivating your question.

NO: In your comments, you have hedged a bit here and there about just how pervasive is our entanglement in cultural and personal narratives. Do you wish to comment on that?

JC: All right. I have hedged about pervasiveness because there are always a few people, during any period of time, who rise above cultural and personal narratives and see beyond them.

NO: How do these people rise above narratives?

JC: These people are known in some circles as awake. What they have awakened to is their narratives and their entanglement within them. Once awakened, the individual gains a new perspective on life that helps him or her see through the filters imposed by personal and cultural narratives. One also becomes more aware of the basic drives or programs underlying the narratives and thereby less subject to their demands.

NO: So they are no longer responsive to narratives and their underlying programs?

JC: They may still respond to bio/social narratives with discernment when necessary. Just because one can see clearly that one is living in a complex drama doesn’t mean that it no longer can affect you. Thus, to live in the “world” is of necessity to play a part in the drama. However, even one who is aware of being an actor in a complex drama must be careful not to get lost in the drama. This is best avoided by acting only in situations where it is truly necessary, acting as impeccably as possible and having no expectations about the outcome. In short, not getting emotionally attached to any one possible outcome in the situation. One might described this approach as being in the world through a state of “compassionate indifference.”

NO: I see how acquiring an objective perspective on learned personal and cultural narratives can be liberating. However, can one liberate oneself from biological programs?

JC: Yes, however, I would like to point out that we are all threads of Consciousness making use of complex biological avatars that have evolved specifically to provide us a vehicle through which we can gain experience. Thus, one should not have as a goal to liberate oneself from biological programs just because such liberation is possible, at least in some cases. To be aware of biological programs and how they operate through you is desirable. To selectively choose, on a rational basis, not to be “driven” by a biological program is reasonable. Tinkering with a biological program, when such tinkering is possible, can be justified. This is clearly another case for the application of discernment.

I also would make a distinction between biological programs. There are what the researcher John Lilly called “death” programs that simply can’t be eliminated, for example, the program that lies behind thirst. Then there are all the other innate biological programs such as those related to sex and reproduction. Finally, there are acquired programs that have a biological substrate but aren’t in and of themselves innate, for example, addictions. Discernment can be applied to both biological and learned narratives. One does not have to respond to impulses arising from biological impulses, whether they are innate or acquired, as is the case with addictions. One can even choose not to respond to impulses from “death” programs but only for short periods of time.

NO: I would imagine that it is difficult to choose not to respond to biological impulses.

JC: Some impulses are, of course, more powerful than others, and this can vary across individuals. However, the first step is to inhibit an automatic reaction to the impulse. I should say here that a distinction needs to be made between impulses and reflexes. When you have an impulse to eat a piece of cake or smoke a cigarette, that is different from a reflex that pulls your hand back from something hot.

One probably should not try to inhibit a reflex unless it is clear that the reflex is dysfunctional. There are ways of “unlearning” or counterconditioning reflexes that have become associated with inappropriate eliciting antecedents. However, in the case of unwanted impulses, modification or even elimination is possible. One can sometimes inhibit emitting a response by “force of will,” which is a skill that is poorly developed in most people and may actually have the opposite result. That is, trying to will the impulse away places intense attention on it and this can actually give it strength. But, if that works for you, then go with it.

Another approach is becoming present with something other than the impulse that is in the moment. Think of this as a diversionary tactic. For example, becoming absorbed in the smell of a flower, the sound of a bird chirping or watching your pet play with a toy. It doesn’t matter as long as it is available now. Of course, it is easy to be present with the impulse but becoming present with the impulse is a bit like unpacking a thought and becoming entangled in it. It takes over. Keep your attention off of the impulse even though you may still be aware of it. If not given attention, it will naturally subside just as it naturally arose — independent of your volition.

One caveat, if you have developed your ability to monitor your thoughts, emotions, impulses and so forth objectively as a mere observer or witness, then you can successfully give that form of attention to an impulse as a way of letting it run its course without responding to it. Many dedicated meditators have acquired this mode of self-monitoring but most people can’t do it.

NO: Does “waking up” imply arriving at some other level of motivation?

JC: Yes, at least in a manner of speaking. There are “spiritual energies” that lie above the basic programs. One of these is compassion.

NO: Could you elaborate a bit on compassion?

JC: Yes. Compassion is a combination of empathy and a predisposition toward supportive actions. A deep feeling of compassion can lead to living a life rooted in unconditional acceptance of others and a willingness to help them, if possible. This means acting from Love, not to be confused with biological bonding or cultural notions of love, whether romantic, religious or familial.

NO: How does the transformation from living through personal and cultural narratives to living through compassion come about?

JC: The core levels are bio/social and mostly reactive. Spiritual unfolding takes one through Grace. One can, however, prepare oneself to be ready to best take advantage of Grace, if it happens. Compassion (a.k.a. the state of “I AM-ness”) is a midpoint between the core motives and true spiritual unfolding. I often refer to this state as the natural mind by which I mean one has reacquired the ability to enter unconditioned awareness.

NO: What do you mean by reacquire?

JC: Infants and very young children live in a state of unconditioned awareness. This is sometimes described as a state in which bottom-up perception dominates. This state is eroded as the core motives are activated and especially when these begin to elicit an evolving personal narrative and to engage the extant cultural narrative.

What begins to develop with narration is a large repertoire of conditioned or learned ways of seeing and responding to events within oneself and the environment. With this development there is a shift toward top-down perception. In short, perceptions are filtered through both personal and cultural constructs or, as some might say, through stories about the world and ourselves. Thus, if one learns to voluntarily shift from top-down perception into bottom-up perception, then one can be said to have reacquired a previous state of being.

NO: Since you use the term “reacquire,” I assume that this is neither a reflexive state or a state of Grace?

JC: Correct. This is something that one can directly influence.

NO: How?

JC: First, you need to carefully observe and consider the drama unfolding through your life and come to see and recognize when learned constructs are guiding your perceptions. When those constructs are recognized, especially as dysfunctional, you need to desensitize yourself to their control over your thoughts, emotions and behavior. Contemplative and meditative practices, among others, can be useful in initiating and working through this process.

Second, you need to work toward learning to make decisions and take actions using discernment. By this, I mean seeing situations as they actually are, not as they are construed through narrative filters, and then arriving at an appropriate response. In many cases, an appropriate response will be no response. In other cases, if your compassion arises, you take the most compassionate response available to you.

Third, your response should be performed with impeccability and followed with equanimity. The former means to the very best of your ability and the latter means without an emotional attachment to the outcome. Equanimity is especially important because it is your defense against becoming entangled in the narrative context that you have, of necessity, engaged.

NO: What are the transformations beyond compassion?

JC: There are three states beyond I Am-ness. The fifth state is Self-realization by which is meant that one experiences one’s higher Self or a state of pure being. After that comes what some might call God Consciousness or Christ Consciousness, in which one fully experiences non-duality and Divine Love. Finally, there is Unity Consciousness, in which one experiences merger with the whole and knows that ultimately there is nothing but Source, Consciousness or God, as you will. A state of Love-Bliss.

NO: Wow. That takes us a long way from where we started. Would you care to elaborate on any of these?

JC: Not really. These last three conditions, in particular, affect very, very few people and play little role in coming to see how I understand humanity and express that understanding in my work. However, if enough people were to work toward and reacquire their natural mind, civilization and humanity would be transformed for the better regardless of what transformations may lie beyond.

NO: Thank you for sharing with us.

JC: It has been my pleasure.

Meditation Related Reflections

The Purpose of Meditation (Conclusion added Dec 2018)

By admin on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Meditation began moving westward from Asia in a serious way in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An early example that has persisted to this day is the Kriya Yoga of the now deceased ParamahansaYoganada. Kriya Yoga is rooted in the Vedanta teachings of India and specifically the yoga sutras of the sage Pantanjali that were written around 400 CE. More recently Siddha Yoga (a.k.a. Tantric Yoga) was introduced in the west by the late Swami Muktananda. Tantric Yoga has its roots in the Tantra teachings of India. As early as the 1970s, the eastern process of meditation was being westernized. The Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson transformed eastern meditation into The Relaxation Response about which he said, “We claim no innovation but simply a scientific validation of age-old wisdom.”

Eastern meditation was thus on the slippery slope that led from a phenomenological way of directly experiencing alignment with the source of all being to a medicalized, objectively validated way of managing stress and anxiety. Today it can be found under “scientific” scrutiny in universities and employed as an intervention procedure by clinicians. Western science has turned a spiritual practice into a scientifically validated health procedure and redirected its age-old wisdom from transcendence to stress management. For those who prefer dancing with shadows, I will leave you here with the sanitized version made “safe” for western peoples.

What I will now do, in a generic way, is introduce you to how I see the true purpose of eastern meditation. To begin with, let’s examine the worldview that lies at the root of meditation. In the origination stories of eastern traditions we find an explanation for the world that runs more or less along the following line. The material universe is a manifestation of a source state from which everything arises. This is often described as a primal vibration, frequency or sound. Interestingly, this has a parallel in western science by way of string theory in physics, which posits that everything in the material universe arises from vibrating stings of energy.

The source sound is often represented by the Sanskrit symbol for the sound “Om.” While everything that manifests has its own unique sound or frequency expression, at its core or root is the primal vibration of “Om.” The source state has many descriptions and names, which can include: The Ground of All Being, All That Is, The Consciousness, Nothingness, Emptiness, Universal Mind, God, and so on. Let’s just call it Source.

Mystics throughout the ages, including some western mystics, have taught that a direct knowing of Source is available to each and every human being. To know Source one should look for it within. First one should “tune in” to one’s own unique vibratory pattern and then follow that inward to its core expression, which will be the primordial vibration of Source. In short, the way to Know Source is to come into harmonic resonance with the Source frequency, which is within yourself. Mystics often describe resonance with Source as a merging with the absolute and a feeling of unconditional love. The only other way to Know Source is to experience it indirectly through experience of the personal expression of Source by one who is in harmonic resonance with it.

Looking at meditation from this perspective suggests that the purpose of meditation is to turn within and silently listen for one’s unique connection to Source. If one has “ears to hear,” then one will begin to move into harmonic resonance with one’s underlying vibratory nature. The greater the state of resonance the purer the reflected expression of Source.

Mystics describe several states that can be thought of as changing levels of resonance. To illustrate these states two charts adapted from two different perspectives are provided. Assuming that one begins in the ego state (fictive-self) where one is identified with the body/mind, then the state prior to Self-realization is what I have called the natural mind and others have described simply as I AM. One is on the cusp and in a state of consciousness in which the dominant mode of being is presence, a state in which one has recovered the state of resonance with the natural self into which one was born. Such a shift moves one away from always using the enculturated top-down perception learned during development to the ability to employ the bottom-up perception of a young child whenever desired. In other words, you can see the world clearly as it is and unencumbered by beliefs, stories and conceptual schemes.

While meditation can be made into a complex subject, it is simplicity itself. It is not a doing but a being. It is not had by mastery but by surrender. Transformation, when it comes, takes one. It is not an achievement. Or, in the words of Michael Valentine Smith, “With waiting comes fullness.”

The essence of meditation, inclusive of its many variations, can be thought of as a doorway into Presence. Or, as I sometimes say, “meditation is Presence on training wheels.” It is not surprising then to find that there are teachers who de-emphasize formal meditation and advocate for immersion in Presence. In other words, life becomes your meditation. Meditation isn’t something you add to your life and engage in daily at 7 am. It is not another of your activities. It is not a search for something that isn’t here. It is your way of being in the world.

When life becomes your meditation, you become a state of present awareness, observing your life unfold in the moment. You monitor to learn when your awareness is no longer focused on the moment, that is, when you have left a state of Presence. Where can you go, you might ask? One teacher, Richard Moss, answers this question through the Mandala of Being. A mandala is often described as a circle. Think of yourself as standing inside of and in the center of a circle. When you are fully focused and centered in the circle, you are Present. You are fully aware of what is right here, right now. If your focus shifts to the rear, you are focused on the past. You are engaged in memory. If your focus shifts to the front, you are focused on the future. You are engaged in imagination. If your focus shifts to the left, you are focused on your personal story. You are engaged with your identity-self or fictive-self, that is, who you think you are. If your focus shifts to the right, your are focused on narratives about the external world. You are engaged in your beliefs, opinions and concepts, that is, explanations you’ve created or adopted about the nature of things in your world.

The teacher, Leonard Jacobson, points out in his book Journey into Now that, at root, there is only one place you can escape to from presence and that is into the mind. Memory, imagination, identity stories, beliefs, opinions and concepts are all products of the mind. He suggests that most of us, most of the time, are lost in the mind. We become deeply immersed in our memories, imagination, stories and beliefs. We are too self-absorbed to be truly conscious of our life as it unfolds in the moment. Jacobson doesn’t teach abandoning the mind but rather learning to recognize it for what it is — a tool. We use it when it is appropriate and then set it aside. Do you need to plan a trip? The mind is a great tool. Do you need to find an error in a computation? The mind is a great tool. However, we actually need this tool far less frequently than we think. We are susceptible to overusing the mind because we’ve become addicted to thinking and conflate ourselves with our thoughts.

You are not your thoughts. You are pristine awareness or as Ram Dass says, “loving awareness.” One benefit of being fully aware in the present moment is that you become an observer of thoughts arising and subsiding in your awareness. You neither cause them to arise or subside. Typically, you can and usually do focus your attention on them and begin unpacking them, which is analogous to chasing after a butterfly through a tangled forest. You usually spend endless hours lost in pursuit of elusive “butterflies” and become lost in the forest of the mind.

Jacobson simply asks that we learn to be aware of when we are lost in the mind and bring ourselves gently back to the present without self-judgment or self-criticism. For those of us strongly addicted to thinking, it may be necessary to find some way to cue ourselves periodically to monitor our thought. To reconnect with Presence, Jacobson suggests that we find something in the moment to be Present with to help us focus in the now. It doesn’t matter what it is. It can be a tree, a pet, a child, a spouse, a friend, the feel of bread dough being kneaded, the smell of onions being grilled, the sound of a piano playing, the feel of our body resting against a chair, the unfolding of the road before us as we drive, the feel of our breath moving in and out of our body and so on. Jacobson does not object to using meditation as long as it is focused on Presence.

The program that Jacobson offers is first to return to Presence any time you become aware that you have left it, other than to accomplish a task. This is continued until being Present becomes habitual. The second aspect of his program is to become aware or conscious, if you prefer, of the things that, unnecessarily, pull you out of Presence. Of these things, he asks that they be examined for commonalities so that patterns of “seductive” thoughts or escapes from Presence can be identified, examined, understood and released. One handy clue about when you’re being seduced by your mind is when you find your thoughts cluttered with personal pronouns. The second activity is an important part of becoming anchored in the Present. Once you are at home in Presence, Jacobson says that the deepening process begins. The deeper into Presence you settle, the greater your resonance with Source. At the deepest levels of Presence one’s harmonic resonance with Source may bring you into unity with All That Is.

If you find it useful to begin with a program of meditation, there is no reason not to do this. You should go into a meditation program with the recognition that it isn’t an end in itself. Once you’ve acclimated yourself to being Present for short periods of time during meditation, you should consider weaning yourself off of a formal meditation process. If you need a transition between meditation and being present in your daily life, I would suggest that you use a Buddhist meditation called rigpa, for which there is an example at the end of The Looking Glass. From a foundation in rigpa you can begin the transition to being Present as frequently as possible in the course of your daily life. This is where the real action is and the sooner you can get there the better.

In conclusion, I should mention that in some traditions that employ meditation there is another goal that should be briefly discussed. This goal is to become so intensely focused on or Present with an object of consciousness that one fully merges with it. This can be either an “objective object” or a “subjective object.” By objective I mean an object in the consensus environment that most everyone is aware of or could be aware of, whereas a “subjective object” is phenomenological, private or personal. The meditator becomes one with the object. Development of this level of Presence leads not only to becoming one with the object but the realization that there is only one object — consciousness itself. The meditator ultimately becomes one with All That Is.

In western philosophy, this is similar to what Immanuel Kant meant by “knowing a thing in its self,” which he thought was not possible, and therefore, our ability to know anything was always “second hand,” so to speak. If you cannot know a thing in its self, you can only know it indirectly or by inference. To offer an analogy, suppose you were one of those rare people who have no ability to feel sensations elicited by objects. Thus, you would not, for example, be able to feel heat coming from an object and would be susceptible to having your fingers burned, though you would not feel it. In other words, you would not have any sensory awareness of heat. You could infer it by the effect that it has on your fingers, or you could infer its presence from the reading on a thermometer.

Kant argued that we are forever like the person described above relative to the world and universe at large. We can know nothing about a thing in its self. Our knowledge is always limited to what we can gain indirectly through our senses and by inference from data gathered through instruments that extend our senses. Some of the yoga traditions of India would say that this is a mistaken conclusion on Kant’s part and that it is in fact possible to know a thing in its self under the proper circumstances. The knowledge thus gained, however, is phenomenological and not public in the same sense as scientific knowledge. If you are intrigued by this notion, I recommend that you read this free e-book, What is Science?

Essays

What Is in the National Interest?

By admin on Monday, June 25, 2018

The above question was recently put to me. At the time, I had no ready answer and some will probably conclude from this essay that I still don’t have an answer. However, after thinking a bit about it, I have arrived at an answer of sorts, and it is likely the best I’ll be able to do. It is not a delineation or a prescription but an attempt to suggest a way of thinking about the question.

I think the essential ingredient in an answer for what is in the national interest is to focus on the principles laid out at the nation’s inception. In short, follow a path that best exemplifies our principles. To do this I think requires meeting two primary goals. The first goal is to preserve the nation in order that the second can be carried out. The second goal is to firmly root the nation in its core principles. The first in the absence of the second seems to me almost pointless.

Let’s take a brief look at the first goal. Preservation implies two essential things to me. (a) A basic defense capability, which I think David Stockman has aptly described, “Indeed, in the post-cold war world the only thing the US needed was a modest conventional capacity to defend the shorelines and airspace against any possible rogue assault and a reliable nuclear deterrent against any state foolish enough to attempt nuclear blackmail.”

(b) To be a good shepherd for the resources inherent in the land mass that provides the stage for the political, economic and cultural activities we refer to as the nation.

Given that we already have more than sufficient capability for meeting part (a) of goal one for a basic defense capability, the primary activity related to defense should be the downsizing of our military forces until we have met the minimum requirement for a basic defense guided by the definition given above. One thing this should do is free up a lot of human and economic capital to be deployed otherwise.

To be a good shepherd, part (b) of goal one, first and foremost, requires that we preserve and conserve our resources. This entails having a rational plan for exploiting resources. Renewable resources, e.g., farm land and forest, should be used in a sustainable manner. Non-renewable resources, e.g., metals and minerals, should be used only for necessary activities and with the maximum efficiency possible with the intent of extending them as far into the future as reasonably possible. It goes almost without saying that inherent in being a good shepherd is minimizing pollution of the environment and making good faith attempts to clean up past pollution. It also means that going forward we avoid new pollution to the extent possible and clean up any pollution that can’t be entirely avoided. In short, be able to defend the nation, if necessary, use resources wisely and maintain a healthy environment. Much of the freed up capital referred to above should probably be dedicated to the preservation goal.

This brings us to the second goal. A nation rooted in its originating principles has three parts. (a) The first step in meeting this goal is to consider the originating principles. I will offer here a definition that some might disagree with but makes sense to me. I arrive at this definition by an extraction of general principles from the founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and, in particular, the initial amendments referred to as the Bill of Rights. In short, I offer my sense of what these documents imply.

To me it seems that the founding documents imply as paramount a citizenry of sovereign individuals. This is the core ingredient in the evolution and development of each person as a human being. A sovereign individual is one who is free to exercise control over his or her decisions about all manner of things, such as what he or she does or agrees to be done to their body, how they conduct themselves, how they support themselves, what they think, what they express and how they express themselves, among others. The obvious limitation upon this freedom is that it reaches a limit when it clearly impinges on someone else’s rights to their personal sovereignty. The principle of personal sovereignty should not extend to organizational entities, for example, corporations.

Part (b) of the second goal recognizes that government has as its basic function responsibility for the preservation functions described above. One likely point of conflict between individuals and government in the question of defense is that of governmental violations of personal sovereignty in the name of defense. Personal sovereignty trumps government in such cases. Another likely point of conflict is intervention in foreign countries to protect personal or business interests. The principle of individual sovereignty requires that individuals assume responsibility for their actions. Thus, one should use discretion in making decisions to put personal or business interests at risk in foreign countries. Perhaps one can find an insurer that will assume the responsibility for a price. Otherwise, citizens should act prudently and not expect to be bailed out by the government or saved by the military. Another potential point of conflict is calls for intervention in countries experiencing internal strife. This should be considered only when the situation is dire enough to generate an international effort to bring it under control. This would be best handled through an organized international body that can make a relative objective determination that the effort is necessary. We should, however, always be willing to offer temporary or permanent sanctuary, as required, to persons fleeing persecution, natural disasters, war and so forth. We should also be willing to offer a helping hand to those in need of material assistance, whenever possible. and hopefully as part of an international effort.

The second function, part (b) of goal two, of government should be to have an active role in regulating activity inconsistent with the principle of preservation, where that activity can be clearly demonstrated to be inconsistent with the principle. These conflicts are most likely to be related to property and its use and in how individuals conduct themselves. The burden of proof should be on the government, not on the individual, and when there is doubt the decision should go to the individual. In all matters in which government regulation is permitted, it should be constrained by maintaining, to as great an extent as possible, the personal sovereignty of its citizens, while still meeting the goal of preservation. Regulation should also ensure that citizens operate on a “level” playing field, where no individual or group is permitted an advantage not available to others due to government regulation or failure to regulate in favor of preservation.

The third function of government, part (c) of goal two, should be to conduct the nation’s relations with other nations. The original question about national interests had inherent within it a question about “foreign policy,” which is where we have finally arrived. The nation should conduct itself with other nations in a manner that is consistent with how it conducts itself with its citizens. It should recognize the sovereignty of other nations as being an important principle to be followed. When matters arise with other nations that would be regulated among our own citizens, the nation’s policy should be to lead by example and through persuasion. Under no circumstance should force, coercion, deception, or manipulation be employed, unless the activities of the errant nation clearly impose a direct threat to our preservation as a sovereign nation. In such cases, the nation will conduct itself with the restraint necessary to meet and neutralize the threat and no more. In short, the view taken here is that to affect others, the first step is to put one’s own house in order and then let your conduct serve as a model to others; i.e., be an exemplar of your own ideals.

One caveat is that there are serious hurdles to implementing such an approach to governance. The reason for this caveat is the influence of the “deep state,” which has already spread throughout our society like a metastasizing cancer and has probably so corrupted the body politic that all of its vital systems have possibly been compromised beyond repair. In my view, there are already arising corporate structures that, in effect, subjugate traditional nation states to corporate interests. These structures are subverting the interests of our nation and and its citizens as well as other nations and their citizens. An example is recent trade agreements that permit legal action by corporations against governments who are party to the agreement and pass laws that are viewed to be in conflict with the interests of the affected corporations.

I think we are already in a transition phase that is well on the way to the death of sovereign nations and their replacement by zombie states. The only hope for reversing this process, in my mind, is a widespread grass roots movement of citizens intent upon seizing back control of their lives and creating new structures through which to lead those lives. The last time such a movement occurred was the rise of the counterculture in the 60s and early 70s. In its failure should be found lessons to be learned.

Essays

Sex, Sexuality and Philosophy

By admin on Monday, January 29, 2018

To follow the analysis that will be presented below, it is necessary to first briefly and broadly summarize two philosophical positions. The reader is asked to bear with me through these summaries. There are two opposed worldviews that one might take as a guide to understanding the nature of reality.

The first worldview is that of Western culture. Historically, this was a theological conception that saw the world as consisting of God and God’s creations, which included humanity (a dualistic view). This conception began to be challenged by naturalists, seeking to understand God’s creation, whose findings conflicted with the understanding adopted by religious authorities. The view adopted by religious leaders was not that of God; i.e., was not based in scripture, but largely borrowed from earlier Greek philosophers. However, this clash grew more intense until the “great compromise” offered by Rene Descartes. His compromise proposed that matters of the material world should be left to the naturalists (subsequently scientists) and that matters of the spiritual world should be left to theologians (also a dualistic view). The divide between science and religion grew until science largely dismissed religious views as irrelevant. This led to the evolution of a perspective that excluded anything non-material from reality.

Scientific materialism posits a point of initiation for matter that is called “the big bang.” When a renowned physicist, who supports this model, was asked where the big bang came from, he replied that its origin was spontaneous creation from nothing. In short, it was a random event with no known cause, though once set in motion, the result is a deterministic unfolding whose final outcome was built into the point of initiation. This view assumes that everything in the universe is composed of material elements and assembled from the bottom up. Thus, everything can be understood by breaking it down into the pieces that it was assembled from and studying the relationship of the pieces to one another. This is what is called reductionism. This view assumes that everything, including life and the universe itself, arose through a random event and has no purpose and therefore no fundamental meaning. Contemporary Western culture has been strongly influenced by the materialist perspective while retaining a dualistic view of how things are structured.

Scientific materialism is the current paradigm of science with the core assumption that matter is all that exists; i.e., monistic materialism. There are opponents to this view who root their opposition in the inability of a materialist paradigm to account for consciousness. Thus, the old dualist division persists to this day, though spirit has been largely replaced by consciousness. Some scientific materialist have attempted to resolve this problem by asserting that consciousness is an illusion. This solution has not been accepted very widely because it is at odds with personal experience. More importantly, there is considerable evidence that consciousness is a reality that must be dealt with, not the least of which is the role consciousness appears to play in the outcome of some quantum physics experiments. At root, these experiments clearly suggest that consciousness is required for matter to come into existence. In short, the collapse of a “wave of possibilities” into an outcome in the material world appears to require consciousness. In other words, consciousness is primary.

From the perspective of materialism, consciousness is an epiphenomenon or an emergent property of matter. It assumes that consciousness is individually generated by aggregates of matter that have achieved a sufficient level of complexity. Implicit in this view is the idea that complex order is the source of consciousness. How consciousness could arise from the combination of elements of matter is unknown. Faced with the inability to posit any explanation, short of magic, for how consciousness might arise from complex arrangements of matter, some “materialists” have hypothesized that every particle of matter contains a degree of consciousness. Thus, it is suggested that complex arrangements of elements of matter that already contain some degree of consciousness produce conscious awareness. This hypothesis fails to explain where any degree of consciousness, no matter how insignificant, came from in the first place. It also has no explanation for how the combination of elements of consciousness containing matter results in conscious awareness. This idea is somewhat analogous to suggesting that if one takes small units of biological matter, such as bacteria, and aggregate enough of them together, a living animal will emerge from the complexity.

There are many scientists, though still in a minority, who consider the current scientific paradigm, rooted in the belief that matter is primary, to be a “dead man walking.” This view is predicated upon an ever accumulating body of evidence that falsifies the paradigm’s assumptions. A noted physicist recently published a paper in a major physics journal in which he unequivocally stated that the evidence supports the view that reality is essentially mental. This doesn’t obviate the accomplishments of science under the current paradigm. It does, however, suggest that the new emerging view makes clear that the current paradigm has limits on what can be known and understood and that those limits are being reached.

The second worldview we’ll discuss is monistic idealism¹ (see the referenced note for a fuller explanation), which is the view that everything exists within Consciousness². This is one of the challenges to the current paradigm of scientific materialism. The core assumption of this view is that Consciousness is all that exists and that it is both infinite, eternal, inherently intelligent and creative. This view does not posit a point of origination for Consciousness. In short, it is assumed that it has always existed. This view assumes that the universe is at root an indivisible whole in which every particle of matter is entangled with every other particle. In this view, matter is a contraction or concentration of Consciousness. The apparent separate constituents of the universe are at root an “illusion.” This view posits that the “illusion” is created by the appearance of complementary pairs reflected within Consciousness. These pairs create contrast effects, which make possible experience. This view suggests that Consciousness created the possibility for experience for the purpose of self-examination, self-awareness and enrichment. This view implies that the universe did not arise by chance, has a purpose and a fundamental meaning.

The view of idealism is that matter is an epiphenomenon or an emergent property of Consciousness. It assumes that Consciousness is a ground state from which everything arises. Thus, everything that exists arises within Consciousness. The closest analogy to this process is probably a dream. Dreams arise in your consciousness and during the experience appear to be quite real. Thus, in a manner of speaking, monistic idealism would say that you are a “dream” character in Consciousness or in Universal Mind. For those familiar with virtual reality games, one might say that you are an “avatar” in a virtual reality³ created by Universal Mind or Consciousness (see the referenced note for a fuller explanation). Material “reality” could be thought of as being generated from a basic division of thought within Universal Mind into a complementary pair such as physical versus biological. From contrasting pairs, experience evolved ever more complex forms, which produced their own sets of complementary pairs. The biological or living forms became “receivers” for Consciousness, which was experienced as an individuated consciousness that is functionally independent from Consciousness. The more complex the life form the more “bandwidth” the “receiver” could accept. In the end, however, there is only one Consciousness (a nondual perspective). Traditionally, this view has been largely that of some Eastern traditions such as yoga. Many readers will immediately think of the Western version of Hatha Yoga with its emphasis on the body. What is referred to here are the traditions within yoga that emphasize a nondual philosophical view similar to monistic idealism and teach practices for the refinement of consciousness; i.e., mental yoga.

Now, let’s examine the implications for the above for one complementary pair that we all have some experience with — sex (male and female). Recall that complementary pairs make experience possible by the contrasts that they impose. To clarify, consider another pair associated with temperature: hot and cold. Without the contrast produced by the pair, temperature could not be experienced. It is also clear that the pair represents a range and does not represent dichotomous categories. In short, there are degrees of temperature along the continuum between the polar anchors for the complementary pair. The greater the points of difference along the continuum the richer the possibilities for experience. Without the experience of the full range of the continuum between the polar anchors for a complementary pair, one can not truly understand the unity from which the pair was derived. For those familiar with the Chinese yin and yang symbols, recall that those symbols for opposites are an abstract representation for complementary pairs. Each symbol contains a component of its opposite and both are contained within a circle representing the whole or unity of which each member of the pair is a partial reflection.

The continuum between the anchor points of male and female includes all sexual variation possible. For purposes of this discussion, the experiences placed under the umbrella term “transgender” (TG) will be considered. The view offered here is that gender is a socially constructed expression of sex and sexuality. While there is some limited variation in sex, there is more variation in the experienced sense of sexuality. The former is anatomical and the latter is probably due to atypical hormonal effects on a developing organism. Gender in this discussion is considered to be a social expression of sex and sexuality, which are convergent in the majority of people but divergent in a minority. Thus, gender is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, though it may come close to that in many people’s experience. By way of analogy, consider the biological experience of hunger. The body generates this experience, which is variable in its intensity. However, the body does not dictate, except in the most general way, what should be eaten to satisfy hunger. How hunger is satisfied is socially constructed. Society determines what should be considered “food.” It also creates customs around how food is prepared, when it is eaten, how it is eaten, with whom it might be eaten, and so on. Likewise, societies have socially created ways in which sex and the experience of sexuality should be expressed — gender. Generally speaking, there is usually a very tight correlation between the appearance of anatomical sex, experienced sexuality and gender.

What are the implications of the above discussion for TG?

Lets look at the implications of taking the position of materialism. For our purposes, a TG individual is someone who experiences some degree of male sexuality while living through a female body or experiences some degree of female sexuality while living through a male body.

Consider a TG individual who is a materialist. Such an individual has to consider his/her experience to be the result of a random and meaningless biological variation — a victim of circumstance. There are some who would argue that their experience is a deliberate choice, not the result of a random biological variation. The choice is often justified on political and or social grounds, which probably serves to give the experience contextual meaning. I don’t doubt that there may be such individuals. I think that most TG individuals, however, feel that their experience was imposed, not chosen, and usually leaves them feeling like a victim, not an agent for social change. In fact, one could posit that taking the position that one’s experience results from a sociopolitical decision is a coping mechanism. A way of negating the feeling of being a victim and constructing some meaning from the experience. Second, scientific materialism is reductionist and therefore depends upon studying relationships between clearly defined elements, which are strictly controlled to minimize variation. The continuum of variation for sex is therefore, from a scientific perspective, a messy affair making well controlled studies of sex and sexuality only possible by focusing on the anchor points and excluding everything in between as confounding variation. It is no wonder that persons on the excluded portion of the continuum have been prone to being minimized, pathologized and criminalized. Fortunately, modern day society is not as tenacious about pathologizing and criminalizing personal expression as it has been in the past. This is not to suggest that it isn’t still a problem of significance.

Now, let’s look at the implications of taking the position of idealism.

Consider a TG individual who is an idealist and especially one who understands idealism through nondual philosophy⁴ rooted in some Eastern tradition or in one of the increasing number of Western expressions of nondualism. S/he does not view everything as due to blind chance. Such a person is considered to be an individuated manifestation of Consciousness. Such a consciousness is a vehicle through which Consciousness gains experience of its own potential and the unfolding of that potential. If one is a manifestation of Source Consciousness or of Universal Mind, then your experience is not random and one is certainly not a victim of circumstance. Usually, one’s personal condition is viewed as having its origins in a choice made by the meta-self⁵ prior to individuated consciousness being expressed in material form. In short, there was an agreement to the current manifestation as a vehicle for the experience possible for that form. This is probably only one of many previous and different expressions and possibly of many more to come. Why this particular choice was made, in any specific case, lies within one’s consciousness but outside of awareness. There are ways of accessing such material but that is beyond the scope of this essay. From this perspective one does not have to take pathologizing and criminalizing by society of one’s being as a judgment of one’s personal worth. This is not to minimize the social injustice that such judgment produces or its impacts. However, if one views oneself as a unique expression of Consciousness and takes one’s sense of personal worth from that understanding, then one has a more positive basis for one’s sense of self and a degree of insulation from the injustices implicit in society.

Finally, let us turn to an analysis of some possible outcomes for a TG individual. There may be outcomes not covered here, but one should be able to work them out from this illustration. Some of the following options will probably only be open to someone who subscribes to a nondual worldview or will certainly be facilitated by such a worldview. As the progression unfolds, a nondual worldview increases in importance.

First, consider an individual on the continuum in unresolved conflict. This conflict comes down to a perceived dualistic choice between the two anchor points (male/female or masculine/feminine). The conflict between the dichotomous anchor points for the continuum is driven in large part by the social narrative about the continuum. The person in conflict is strongly drawn toward the anchor point in conflict with anatomy, which is nonconforming to the social narrative. Such an individual is strongly imbued with the social narrative. The stronger the social pressures the greater the conflict. The social pressure can come from external sources policing the social narrative but will also involve one’s enculturation and internalization of the social narrative. It is probably from this type of conflict that what is often referred to as gender dysphoria arises. Clearly, minimizing susceptibility to external policing efforts will help. Equally if not more important is deconstructing the internalized policing established through enculturation. Psychotherapy, drawing on narrative psychology, can be helpful with the latter.

Second, consider an individual on the continuum who is only moderately drawn to the anchor point in conflict with anatomy. Such a person often will resolve to end the conflict by choosing one anchor point and suppressing the other in this dualistic dance. If the person is male bodied and the choice is to suppress the intrusive sense of femaleness, the conflict is repressed and one’s focus becomes on living through the anatomical sex. There is still potential for negative psychological effects from employing repression, but the immediate conflict has been resolved. The same analysis would hold if the person was female bodied and chose to suppress an intrusive sense of maleness.

Third, consider an individual on the continuum similar to the person in the previous analysis, except the person is strongly drawn to the anchor point in conflict with anatomy. In this case, the decision may be to suppress and modify the anatomical sex and give full expression to the intrusive sense of sexuality. This is what is often referred to a transsexualism. This is a choice that may reduce the conflict one feels between anatomical sex and an intrusive sense of sexuality, but it is fraught with many new potential conflicts. It may also entail a lifetime of pursuing adjustments trying to achieve the perfect approximation to one’s idealized self-image.

Fourth, consider an individual who is a bit more psychologically sophisticated and makes the choice not to suppress but to simply witness and thereby neutralize a choice. In the case of a female bodied person, she lives through her anatomical sex and becomes simply an unresponsive observer (witness) to the arising and subsiding of her intrusive sense of male sexuality. The converse analysis would apply to a male bodied person with an intrusive sense of female sexuality. This approach has the potential to minimize the conflict without the potential problems associated with repression. However, witnessing is a learned skill that makes this a choice only for someone aware of the skill and willing to devote the time and effort to establish it.

Fifth, consider a person who is living through a nondual narrative about his or her life. Such an individual would reject the dualistic choice posed by the anchor points of the continuum. The decision in this individual might be to unify the apparent dualistic choice presented by the continuum. The individual neither vacillates between the apparent choices, employs repression, embarks on bodily modification or sets out to utilize neutralization. In this individual the choice is to integrate the conflicting demands and give expression to a blend of both, which may be made explicit to varying degrees. This might be thought of as a non-binary life-style. Such an individual would also be largely free of or at least largely indifferent to the dualistic demands of social presentation in forms dictated by society.

Finally, there is one additional option available from the nondual perspective but one probably chosen by very few. This is to shift identification from the body/mind to fully identifying with pure awareness. Through identification with pure awareness, there is a merger of the self with the meta-self, to as great an extent as is possible, and still live in the world, transcending duality. In such a state the dualistic world of complementary pairs is transformed into a holistic understanding and perspective. A view from which the pairs creating the potential for experience are seen as mere mirror reflections within the whole. Pure awareness is characterized by neither maleness nor femaleness but rather the whole from which they are reflected into the material world.

Notes:

1. For an excellent video presentation by a leading proponent of monistic idealism click here.

2. Consciousness with a capital “C” is used to indicate a reference to the unified and infinite field of Consciousness or Source of all that is. The use of consciousness with a lower case “C” is used to indicate an individuated contraction of consciousness within Consciousness.

3. Tom Campbell’s metaphor of reality as a computer simulation

4. Below are links to some sources of teachings on nondualism:

5. Meta-self refers to that which is beyond or behind the self. This is somewhat analogous to some people’s use of the terms soul and oversoul.

Essays

Is Economic Growth a Viable Long-Term Goal?

By admin on Tuesday, September 12, 2017

To begin, let’s distinguish between economic activity for expansion, economic activity for maintenance and economic activity for sustainability. Expansion is how the standard of living in a country is increased. In short, when economic activity exceeds what is required to maintain a baseline level for a population of a given size, the result is greater affluence per capita in the population. Think of affluence as that portion of income that can be devoted to discretionary spending beyond meeting truly basic needs. On the other hand, maintenance merely keeps up with population growth, or lack thereof, and maintains the status quo. Depending on where you live this could be well beyond or below basic needs. Sustainable economic growth would be economic activity that for a given population size and life style could be continued indefinitely. An economic model that could continue indefinitely would require a lifestyle that rests upon a sustainable draw on resources and waste generation that can be absorbed and processed by the planet.

Presently, a minority of the world population enjoys an affluent lifestyle that was generated by the expansion model and depends upon an unsustainable draw on resources and waste generation. Many such developed economies are having difficulty, for various reasons, with expansion and may be reluctantly trying to hold to a maintenance model by default. There are a number of impediments to economic activity based on expansion. These impediments open up an opportunity to consider the possibility of developing an alternative model, which should focus on sustainable economic activity. It may be possible for sustainable activity to also maintain some level of affluence, given a small enough population, or significant improvements in technology and its application.

Several factors currently depress expansion of economic activity, especially in the developed economies, which are responsible for a major portion of the world economy. In no particular order of importance, the first of these is debt. Almost all of the developed world’s economies are heavily in debt, both public and private. Heavy debt is also widespread in the developing world. In January, 2017, Reuters News reported that total global debt had reached 325% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and rose by 11 trillion dollars in the first nine months of 2016 alone. The report also indicated that approximately half was public (government) and half private debt. Few embrace the implications of this situation, but it seems obvious to me that a sound economy cannot be built upon a foundation of burgeoning growth in public and private debt. Generally, debt is most defensible when it is put to productive purposes. The underlying premise of capitalism is that capital is accumulated through saving surpluses and then lent to productive enterprises that will yield sufficient return to, at minimum, repay the debt plus a reasonable return on the loan. The developed economies have drifted so far from this view of debt that to call them capitalist economies is laughable.

The second factor is birth rates (see Figure below). Again, virtually all developed countries are at or below the replacement rate for their population, which is on average 2.1 children per adult female of reproductive age. This has two obvious consequences. The first consequence is that the size of the population in developing countries is either no longer expanding, is static or is declining. For example, according to data reported in Wikipedia, as of 2005, the fertility rate in Europe was down to 1.41, in North America down to 1.99, in Japan down to 1.5 and in China down to 1.6. When population is expanding in developed countries, it is almost always due to immigration. The mere shifting people around doesn’t, in itself, affect total world population to any significant degree. It does, however, increase the demand for resources as immigrants move to developed countries with the expectation of being able to improve their lifestyle, a goal that they often achieve. This could have an effect on total population because there is a close relationship between improvement in lifestyle and lower birth rates. Lifestyle, of course, includes more income but also includes other factors such as better health care and greater personal sovereignty, especially for women. The decline in fertility rates is a global phenomenon illustrated by a worldwide fertility rate of 5.02 in 1950 and a rate of of 2.65 in 2005. It is estimated that the worldwide rate will be down to 2.05 by 2050. This rate is slightly below the projected replacement rate of 2.1. Even so, large portions of Africa and the Middle East are projected to remain above their replacement rates.

The second consequence of the decline in birth rates is to increase the proportion of older people in the population. An examination of spending by age cohort indicates that spending begins to pick up for people in their 30s as a result of career progression and family formation. Peak spending occurs in people in their 40s and 50s. People moving into their 60s and beyond, as a group, make fewer purchases in the consumer economy than do younger people. Thus, as a population ages and becomes progressively older, on average, there is a reduction in demand for consumer goods. As the demand for consumer goods falls, this further suppresses the potential for expansion of the economy.

A third factor is the proportion of the working-age population that is employed. It is obviously difficult to be a consumer of any consequence if one has little if any discretionary income or perhaps no income at all. Governments are prone to manipulate economic statistics such as unemployment rates so this problem is a bit difficult to appraise. However, an independent estimate from Shadowstats for the U.S. put the true unemployment rate at approximately 23% in 2016. At the same time, U.S. government statistics suggest that unemployment in 2016 was 4.7%. This discrepancy is due in part to Shadowstats including discouraged and displaced workers in its estimate while the government only counts individuals actively seeking employment within the past four weeks. If you’re unemployed and haven’t sought employment in the past four weeks, you aren’t counted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as unemployed. Whatever the true figure, it is clear that declines in economic activity will further increase unemployment.

To add fuel to this already bleak outlook, a recent estimate put the loss of jobs to automation, worldwide, at over one million per year, with acceleration likely going forward. This will have its biggest impact on older workers who are less able to retool for alternative employment. This is due to time constraints relative to remaining working life, existing financial demands and lack of resources to pursue such training. Many of those unemployed now and not counted because they have given up seeking employment probably belong in this group. Even for those older workers fortunate enough to retrain for alternate employment, they will be facing new careers at the entry level that seldom provides the income and benefits lost. This is not a solid basis for expanding economic activity.

A fourth consideration is resource limits. The World Population History site defines ecological footprint as the rate of consumption of natural resources and the generation of waste, together with the planet’s ability to replenish those resources and absorb the waste. Carrying capacity is an estimate of how large a population can be supported by the available resources and their replenishment, along with the capacity to reabsorb waste. The Population Institute estimates that the human species’ ecological footprint is currently between 140% and 150% of carrying capacity. Further, they estimate that before the population expansion stops and begins to decline, the total population will be between 9.5 and 11 billion people (see Figure below) and will be at approximately 300% of carrying capacity. In short, to maintain the status quo now requires the resources and capacities of 1.5 planets and will soon require the resources and capacities of 3 planets. Obviously, this is not sustainable. Perhaps the load can be reduced by greater efficiency and new technologies, but if not we may be in a race. A race to see which line we cross first — an ecological or a population implosion. If the latter comes first then the former might be avoidable. If the former comes first the latter may be far greater than expected from a decline in fertility rates.

Fred Pearce, in his book The Coming Population Crash, offers a couple of interesting statistics. First, the figures he presents indicate that the ecological footprint of the average U.S. citizen is just shy of ten times that of the average Indian or African. He further compared the world’s wealthiest one billion people with the remaining people and found that the ecological footprint of the wealthiest is 32 times that of the remaining population. If you, as an individual, have an income of at least $12,500 (just above the U.S poverty criterion for an individual), you can count yourself among the top one billion. He offers the following illustration.

“A woman in rural Ethiopia can have ten children and her family will do less damage and consume fewer resources than the family of the average soccer mom in Minnesota, Manchester or Munich.”

In short, the suggestion was that a decrease in the number of affluent persons would do more to reduce the ecological footprint of the human species than to merely decrease the size of the overall population. Perhaps this will be accomplished independently of any policy initiatives or programs. A demographer recently pointed out that demographic trends, especially in the developed countries, foretell an impending world population implosion. He thinks this could begin as early as 2050 while others think 2100 is a more likely date for population declines to begin. Fortuitously, the leading edge of the predicted decline will be in the developed countries with the most affluent populations. Longer term, the trends will impact the overall world population. The critical question is whether or not this population decline and lessening of the demands on the environment will be large enough and occur soon enough to save the planet from ecological disaster.

Given all the factors potentially contracting economic activity, especially in the developed countries, one must consider whether the goal of expansive economic growth is truly a viable concept except perhaps temporarily for the most impoverished countries. Over the last decade there have been massive attempts by governments in developed countries to stimulate economic growth through lowering interest rates and by infusing money into their economies, which has been “borrowed” through various mechanism and thereby further increasing levels of government or public debt. The premise that lies behind these moves is that lower interest rates and more money available for lending will result in more borrowing and spending for consumption. The hypothesis is that this increase in spending using borrowed money will in turn stimulate economic activity. The simple fact is that private debt is already excessive. If this strategy yields any positive effect on discretionary spending, it is likely to be limited and of short duration. One technique that is invariably turned to under such circumstances is to lower credit standards to stimulate borrowing. This often has the desired effect short-term but makes likely further undermining of the economy through subsequent credit defaults.

It would appear that it is past time for the developed countries to wake up to the fact that expanding growth economies based on consumption simply can’t be sustained. Where resources should be focused is not on how to bring back expansive growth but rather on developing a new economic philosophy that is not consumption and growth-oriented. What is needed is an economic philosophy that is oriented toward a sustainable standard of living. Such a philosophy would, on average, result in a lower standard of living in developed countries and a higher standard of living in developing countries. This clearly will not come about under an economic model that emphasizes consumption and expansive growth. Whatever form such an economic philosophy might take, it will likely meet with massive resistance on many fronts. There are billions of people who aspire to an affluent life- style, many of whom will not be happy to hear that it is not possible. There are many hundreds of millions of people who enjoy affluent lifestyles who will not be happy to hear that it cannot be equitably justified nor environmentally sustained. In addition, there are huge vested interests in the business community, government and social institutions that will fight change to the bitter end.

At present, economic thinking holds that the goal should be to raise the standard of living in economically depressed countries to one approximating that in the developed countries. However, it seems highly unlikely that the resources exist to make this a viable goal. Even should it be accomplished, the demand on resources would, in all likelihood, result in an environmental collapse. Even if the environment proves more robust than believed, the current and anticipated future consumption of resources isn’t likely to be sustainable.

Presently, it is estimated that between 800 million and one billion people live lives in which hunger is a regular experience. In a recent article (March, 2017) in the New Scientist magazine, it was suggested that enough food is being produced now to meet the needs of those people short of sufficient food. All of the food necessary to feed the hungry is lost through waste, according to the author of the piece. However, the problem isn’t simply to stop wasting food, because there are coincidental factors such as infrastructure, distribution and payment for the food even if made available. It is estimated that to meet the growing needs moving into the middle to the end of the century will require an increase of 70% over current agricultural production levels.

One major problem area going forward is Africa. Africa presents a special problem for several reasons. The two most critical problems are robust population growth and failure of the green revolution, that has ended hunger in other parts of the world, to penetrate into Africa to any significant extent. However, it is time for green revolution 2.0. The first version of this revolution has relied upon intensive agriculture employing manufactured fertilizers, pesticides, new crop strains, massive amounts of water for irrigation and mechanization. All of the components comprising green revolution 1.0 pose problems that need to be addressed in version 2.0. According to the New Scientist piece mentioned above, one solution is to develop an intensive and precision-based approach to agriculture. This would include new types of food crops relying on things like algae and genetically modified crops that require less use of pesticides, fertilizers and water. Further, such crops should not require expansion of the amount of land under cultivation. Version 2.0 should also employ technology to provide precision amounts of pesticide, fertilizer and water only to the plants that need it and only in the amounts needed (see an example of precision agriculture). Finally, while 2.0 needs to be adopted throughout agriculture, it especially needs to be implemented in the areas where the need is greatest and by the people in need. To do this successfully will require overcoming political, cultural and attitudinal obstacles.

Another area that will surely become more problematic as we move deeper into this century, with growing population pressures, is farming animals for meat. This practice is a highly inefficient method of producing food. Animal farming uses more energy and water than growing crops like wheat or potatoes. Further, it puts significant amounts of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere. The US DOE estimates that there is three times as much man-made methane as man made CO2 being released into the atmosphere. Sooner or later, efforts to reduce greenhouse gases will have to come to bear on methane and that means on animal farming. The worst offender is beef. Of popular meats probably the best environmental choice is poultry. If you want to make a personal contribution to reducing greenhouse gases, perhaps the best contribution you can make is to become a vegetarian, at least until cultured meat becomes viable.

We do not presently have a sustainable economic model, especially in the developed world. Keeping everything as it is now leads to projections of a doubling of the demands above equilibrium by the end of the century or earlier. We may somehow manage to meet the needs of a world population that is expected to expand, at least until mid-century, if not to the end of the century. However, it is unlikely that we will reduce resource consumption to a sustainable level, even if we manage to cut in half resource consumption through greater efficiency while demand doubles or even triples. Likewise, it seems unlikely that we will be able reduce pollution of the environment to a sustainable level given the needs and demands of an expanding population. Perhaps, abundant additional resources can be obtained and processed off-planet. That would reduce pollution and lessen the strain on this planet’s resources and still permit a high standard of living for everyone. A scientist and science fiction writer, Ben Bova, wrote a book, The High Road, outlining such a plan several decades ago, but it did not garner much interest. Critics think this approach is not truly viable at present and they may be correct. However, plans exist to begin exploiting asteroids for resources. If not viable, then there is always the hope of salvation by new planet-based technology.

Assuming that we manage to survive until world population goes into decline, the next big problem is to determine what would be the most realistic economic model that would permit sustainable economies. I am not an economist and won’t even hazard a guess as to what such a model might be (an alternative model). I’m just an observer commenting on things as I perceive them. However, I think the model would need to accomplish at least three things. First, it would need to adequately meet the material needs of everyone, which I would define in terms of providing a level of resources necessary for good health. Second, it would need to provide the opportunity for everyone to have a constructive role in society, which could include what has traditionally been viewed as work but would not be limited to such activities. Third, there would need to be enough opportunity for flexibility in lifestyle to provide for individual differences and freedom of choice without placing unsustainable demands on the environment. A model of this sort is probably not a realistic goal for a world population anywhere near its current size and expanding. Thus, the model would need to be implemented to coincide with the low point in the predicted population implosion. Some estimates put that low point at a worldwide population of approximately five billion, which would be about half the maximum of 10-11 billion projected for the end of the century. Some studies suggest that the upper limit on population, consistent with attaining sustainability, is about 7.5 billion. The goal would be to hold population, once down, to between 5 and 7 billion people. A population that stays within this range is probably the best hope for a sustainable economy and a healthy environment.

The second big problem is to get a large enough buy-in to such a model that it can be successfully implemented. On this point, I will hazard a guess that, when proposed, it is highly unlikely to be freely embraced by a majority, especially in the developed countries. In my view, for such a model to be freely embraced would require a significant shift in attitudes. For this to happen, I think there would have to be a change in the prevalent philosophy underlying the thinking of a significant percentage of the world population. The current philosophical underpinning of thinking for many people is materialism. While this has been a productive way of looking at the world for science and technology, it has a significant downside. Implicit in scientific materialism is the view that the universe and life within it came about accidentally and has no inherent meaning or purpose. At the level of the average individual, this leads to the bumper sticker philosophy of “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” In short, the average person, especially in developed countries, derives meaning and purpose from consumption and accumulation. As long as this is how many people find meaning and purpose in their life, there is no hope for acceptance of a model for a sustainable economy and healthy environment that ultimately depends more on cooperation rather than on competition.

If a sustainable model isn’t freely embraced, which doesn’t seem probable, then when circumstances reach a crisis level sufficient to make it clear to most people that there is no alternative, except the collapse of civilization and perhaps extinction, then an alternative model might be embraced. Such a crisis might be sufficient motivation, but species-suicide is not off the table. Leaving aside “crisis motivation” as the solution, what are the other options? I will answer this in terms of my own value system, which places a high value on individual sovereignty. One can use force, threat or intimidation, contrived incentives or persuasion to influence people’s behavior. Clearly, the first two options are coercive and inconsistent with the principle of individual sovereignty. Albeit more subtle, the third method is also coercive. The use of contrived incentives to influence a person’s choices is an effort to manipulate the person and therefore represents a soft form of coercion. The final method, persuasion, may be the only method that is consistent with individual sovereignty and is fully acceptable to me. However, this is an approach that takes long-term thinking and planning and cannot be implemented quickly.

The mostly likely approach that I think governments will take, if they act at all, will be coercion by “police” action broadly applied and possibly leading to what might become a military dictatorship. Such an approach, I think, would require coordinated action by most of the world’s governments. It seems to me this would be very difficult to bring to fruition. There would probably also be massive resistance, overt and covert, to a broadly coercive approach. Whatever your position is on “climate change,” it serves as an illustration of how an activity requiring restraint that has to be implemented worldwide can generate resistance on many fronts. Widespread resistance would probably undermine the imposition of a sustainable model. Further, the stronger that governments become, the more susceptible they are to intellectual, economic and political corruption. Even if a strong arm approach should be initially successful, I think it would be eventually doomed to failure.

Economist Steve Keen is optimistic about the final outcome, with a caveat, “Ultimately I believe we’ll work out a means to live sustainability on this planet and, in the very distant future, to live beyond it as well. But to do so, we have to understand our current situation properly. There is no chance to move towards a better future if we misunderstand the situation we are currently in.” See the Addendum at the end of the essay for a perspective on the current situation.

I am not at all optimistic that a workable solution can be found and implemented in a successful manner quickly enough to save the planet and save Western-style civilization. I am reminded of a comment by Terrance McKenna, a commentator on culture, who described technological civilization as a cultural temper tantrum. This brings us to the most basic question of all and one that many might avoid — does it really matter whether we save the planet and ourselves or not? The quick and thoughtless answers is yes. However, consider two diametrically opposed ontologies. One has already been alluded to above — scientific materialism, which sees reality as having an independent existence, external to ourselves. The reigning paradigm posits that the material universe came into existence as a random event. As luck would have it, it just happened entirely by chance, to be organized in such a way that it would unfold with the necessary conditions present for life to evolve. Finally, again by chance, the random interaction of elements in the universe combined in such a way as to yield living cells. These living cells evolved through mutation, adaptation and reproductive fitness into ever more complex biological structures until self-aware and intelligent life arose and eventually became us. The crowning achievement of chance.

Under the materialist scenario, I think humans are a species without purpose and therefore without meaning beyond the existential meaning that each of us can wring for ourselves from our brief existence. As individuals and as groups, we weave narrative stories that give our lives meaning but only within the context of the narrative. These narratives are, after all is said and done, just stories. We are a species in a habitat subject to extinction at any time by a cosmic roll of the dice. Without belaboring the point, I suggest that you consider recent examples of some past events that without much ramping up could, under today’s conditions, have a civilization-ending impact, if not extinguish the human species. As relatively recent examples, consider super volcanic explosions such as Krakatoa in 1883, coronal magnetic ejections from the sun like the Carrington event of 1859 or incoming space debris such as the Tunguska explosion of an asteroid over Siberia in 1908. If you’re unfamiliar with these, look them up and then consider their potential impact on modern technological society. A catastrophic result would be even more likely should the event be much larger like some that have occurred farther back in the past. Then there is always the possibility that we’ll follow one of our narratives into a blind alley and destroy ourselves. We have many options for self-destruction among which we can also count the effects of nuclear weapons, weaponized biology and environmental overload and collapse. Of course, even should we survive all rolls of the dice and suicidal behavior, science predicts that the universe will eventually end. The nature of its termination is not certain but it could expand until it exhausts itself, grows cold and dies with a whimper, or it might contract, implode and die with a bang.

The second ontology and counterpoint to scientific materialism is what I have written about as panentheism and others as monistic idealism. One contemporary proponent of this worldview is Bernardo Kastrup, whose several books (amazon.com) and papers (academia.edu) I recommend to you. He has a short video summarizing monistic idealism (see links page). If one looks at the the two ontologies as pyramids, they look very similar but hold radically different implications. Before describing the pyramids, recognize that all ontologies make assumptions. If there is only one base assumption, it is termed an ontological primitive. Such a base assumption is necessary because you can’t go on indefinitely explaining one thing in terms of another (e.g, where does X come from?, from X1, where does X1 come from?, from X2, where does X2 come from?, from X3 and so on ad infinitum). The “buck” has to stop somewhere and that is at the ontological primitive or base assumption. The materialist pyramid begins at the base with the assumption of space/time, which reminds me of Einstein’s remark, “Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” Moving up the pyramid toward the apex, we come to energy & matter, then atoms & molecules, then chemistry, then biology and finally mind. The pyramid for idealism is almost identical except that it begins at the base with the assumption of awareness or consciousness and then moving toward the apex comes space/time and so on. Everything moving up the pyramid is derivative of the base assumption n_xtimes removed.

Briefly, the big shift with this change in base assumptions is that now instead of thinking of reality as something “out there” it is something “in here.” That is, what you take to be an external reality actually is a manifestation in consciousness, and you likewise are a manifestation in consciousness. By way of analogy, think of reality under idealism like a virtual reality, computer game. If you don’t have any experience with these games, it may not be a good analogy for you. If you want to explore this analogy further, one source you might look into is the book My Big T.O.E. (theory of everything) by Tom Campbell. An analogy that has been used for millennia is that of a dream with which you probably do have some experience. However, whether you are in a dream or a virtual reality game, everything would seem real to you. The game runs under a set of rules and if the rules won’t allow you to walk through walls, you will be deflected by a wall should you walk into one. It would seem like a “real” wall but it is actually just an illusion created in a “computing” space by a computer. Essentially, the same applies to a dream, except it is being created in your consciousness by mind. In fact, some have suggested that one function of dreaming is to remind us that consciousness can generate “realities” and thereby serves as a hint for recognition of the actual nature of our perceived reality.

Under the idealism scenario, there is meaning and purpose, which for brevity’s sake I’ll just say is Awareness’ way of generating experience for itself and the opportunity to evolve. Put another way, we and our world are illusions within an infinite, eternal, intelligent and creative Awareness or Consciousness exploring itself. Thus, the illusion, like a virtual reality game, once set in motion plays itself out according to the defining ruleset governing it. Should, for example, the evolution of the universe, under the ruleset, happen bring into our orbital path a large asteroid or engage in a nuclear war and life on this planet is extinguished or even if the entire planet is destroyed, it doesn’t really matter in any fundamental sense because Awareness or Consciousness goes on and you are a thread within it. It is like failing the fifth grade — embarrassing but not fatal. There will be a new game or dream on a new planet, perhaps even in a different universe.

Addendum

“The standard run represents a business-as-usual situation where parameters reflecting physical, economic, and social relationships were maintained in the World3 model at values consistent with the period 1900–1970. The LtG standard run scenario (and nearly all other scenarios) shows continuing growth in the economic system throughout the 20th century and into the early decades of the 21st. However, the simulations suggest signs of increasing environmental pressure at the start of the 21st century (e.g., resources diminishing, pollution increasing exponentially, growth slowing in food, services, and material wealth per capita). The simulation of this scenario results in ‘‘overshoot and collapse’’ of the global system about mid-way through the 21st century due to a combination of diminishing resources and increasing ecological damage due to pollution.

“The comprehensive technology approach attempts to solve sustainability issues with a broad range of purely technological solutions. This scenario incorporates levels of resources that are effectively unlimited, 75% of materials are recycled, pollution generation is reduced to 25% of its 1970 value, agricultural land yields are doubled, and birth control is available world-wide. These efforts delay the collapse of the global system to the latter part of the 21st century, when the growth in economic activity has outstripped the gains in efficiency and pollution control.

For the stabilized world scenario, both technological solutions and deliberate social policies are implemented to achieve equilibrium states for key factors including population, material wealth, food, and services per capita. Examples of actions implemented in the World3 model include: perfect birth control and desired family size of two children; preference for consumption of services and health facilities and less toward material goods; pollution control technology; maintenance of agricultural land through diversion of capital from industrial use; and increased lifetime of industrial capital.”

David Center Dot Com

Search Results for: The Natural Mind

Ego Is the Mask God Wears While Pretending To Be You – Revised

What are the goals for a spiritual practice?

Noetic Events

God and the Problem of Evil

Ethics, Morality and Worldview

The Great Illusion

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.

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?

1. Interior-Individual-Intentional (I)

3. Exterior-Individual-Behavioral (It)

2. Interior-Collective-Culture (We)

4. Exterior-Collective-Social (Its)

What Is in the National Interest?

(b) To be a good shepherd for the resources inherent in the land mass that provides the stage for the political, economic and cultural activities we refer to as the nation.

Is Economic Growth a Viable Long-Term Goal?

“A woman in rural Ethiopia can have ten children and her family will do less damage and consume fewer resources than the family of the average soccer mom in Minnesota, Manchester or Munich.”

Addendum

Turner, G. M. (2008). “A comparison of The Limits to Growth with 30 years of reality.” Global Environmental Change 18(3): 397-411.