A Sociable God - Ken Wilber

A summary of a great work by a great man. Note that it was published in 1983, and extensions of the ideas contained herein can be found in Wilber's later works, in particular Integral Spirituality (2006).

A brief tome for Wilber, in this book we see the author outline a heuristic framework for a popular sociological hobby of the time, comparative study of 'the new religions', offered from a transpersonal psychology perspective. We see a blending of perennial philosophy with functionalism, hermeneutics, and developmental structuralism in order to arrive at a set of methodologies that the author proposes can be used to test, and validate, the legitimacy and authenticity of the resurgent religious movements that have been a feature of approximately the last forty years.

In my brief one year of exploring Integral Theory, one notable aspect has been the focus on interiority of the subjective experience, and in unpacking the phenomenological hermeneutics of religion Wilber asks that if we are to approach empathic interpretation of the Buddha, Krishna or indeed any religious leader, we're required to achieve an inside understanding and interpretive, intersubjective engagement. We can acknowledge the historical context, the 'symbolic realism' we encounter, but any external judgment is deemed, always, to be partial. Cultural relativism falls completely away in this moment. Squarely against this the author sits the notion of a hierarchy of psychosocial development, and it is purported that, insofar that we see a development of consciousness that in every individual represents a growth in awareness from sensorimotor to pre-operational to operational to formal operational and post-formal operational, so too does religion as a social phenomenon follow a developmental path. Each higher stage is said to transcend and include the lower, and the developmental structures of the lower are always available to the higher but not vice versa (until transformation is reached).

Religion is purported to be a component of the 'food' encountered at each developmental level - so a 'magical' god in a pre-operational child is the 'food' of that consciousness (food = the symbolism as needed by the process of thinking undertaken by the organism at that point in time). We typically, as humans, move through a process of increasing recognition of differentiation (nope, God's not magical, and further, I'm not God, you're not God and us, we're not God either) but as we develop so too does our capacity to recognise a coherence, a oneness towards which all things vibrate.

Movement through deep structures is entitled 'transformation' (vertical), movement around different surface structures (different religions for example) is deemed 'translation' (horizontal), the relationship between the deep and the surface structure is 'transcription'.

Mana and taboo are key terms used to differentiate between horizontal and vertical structures, where Mana is the cohesive horizontal food of religion that keeps society together, legitimises the purpose of that particular group. Taboo provides the means of authentic spiritual growth, in deeming particular symbolisms as transcendent, spirituality is recognised with an increased valence for compassion and a decreased representation of violence, for example. Death-apprehension of the psyche, that fundamental terror, drives us towards life sustaining activity. Part of that requires the sustenance of a social group that protects 'our' needs. Great liberation only takes place when we are completely free of this organism sustained subject and object relationship, where we realise that we are the Godhead.

To transcend the levels of development, we need to construct a little 'death and rebirth' at each level. Whileever we retain conscious lives, we retain the use of all the internal structures we've collaborated on to date.

Religion is defined by the author as:
1. Non-rational engagement - faith as a type of magic-voodoo belief;
2. Extremely meaningful engagement - the mana of a horizontal level of constructed understanding of the world;
3. An immortality project - a death denial to assuage anxiety;
4. Evolutionary growth - increasing self-realisation in movement to higher structures of understanding;
5. Fixation/regression - an extension of 1. and 3.
6. Exoteric religion - a belief system to support faith, often in preparation for esoteric experience;
7. Esoteric religion - inward aspects of mystical experience;
8. Legitimate religion - validating translation, crises in legitimacy and degrees of legitimacy refer to the degree of integration of the religion with other, currently understood, symbols;
9. Authentic religion - validates transformation, again, crises and degrees of authenticity refer to actual transformative value as achieved/able.

Distinction is made between belief, faith and experience, where belief is chiefly a fund of immortality symbols that the conscious will not allow to be questioned, faith allows for doubt to arise, for questioning to be posed against an intuition of God, and experience, with direct authentic peak religious experience illuminating the intelligence of the person. Vertical insights attributable to experience will be healthily integrated into the psyche to the extent that a reasonable level of psychological development has taken place beforehand.

A review of the work of Robert Bellah is offered, though it is surmised that an improvement on this work is achieved through the work of Anthony and Robbins (!) with a focus on structuralism and deep and surface patterning.

So in conducting a sociological structural analysis of any religion, the author proposes determining:

A. AUTHENTICITY

1. Structurally analyse the occasion that defined membership in the group - what series of interactions or belief structures must be internalised by a person to be socially recognised as a member? What is the mana that the person must digest to have base level initiation?

2. Once central structure has been established, determine it's developmental level - archaic, magical, mythical, rational, psychic, subtle or causal? Are there archaic fusion elements? Delusional reference systems such as totem confusion, animism? Extreme mythic membership conformity in cults and passive dependence on authority? Neuroses in adoption of rational structures? Alienation from the mainstream in psychic, subtle or causal structure?

3. In order to ascertain developmental potential of a given religious order, with regards to the higher levels it is proposed that research is undertaken via:
a) Hermeneutical reading of authentic texts - following the work of Daniel Brown with respect to the Mahamudra, observing deep structures in cross cultural parallels to draw conclusions;
b) Direct investigation - of populations of exemplars;


B. LEGITIMACY

1. How well integrated is the group in and of itself (content) , and then within the wider society (context)? Normative structures are sought for tension management, pattern maintenance, boundary determinations, latent and manifest functions so that full-time observable interaction patterns can be validated.

2. An array is proposed of interaction - pre-law, counter law, law, anti law, trans-law on one axis and legitimate or illegitimate, read within the group itself and across the broader societal background.

C. HERMENEUTICAL MOMENT

1. In the final analysis, a phenomenological hermeneutical moment consists of us reading another human being, while the human attempts in the same moment to read us.

2. Because of the importance of historical syntax in the formation of any given symbol for a person's own subtext, knowledge of the hierarchical structuralisation can provide clues as to where shadow might hide (un-digested, un-transformed symbols, isolated and privatised either to the individual or to the group).

3. Inevitably the map is not the territory, so the hermeneutical moment is extraordinarily difficult to assess in validity whileever we're on the outsides of each others' skins.

D. EMANCIPATORY MOMENTS

A desire to clear up past failures of horizontal-emancipatory moments (mistranslations) in an effort to achieve vertical-emancipatory advances is proposed in principle as a part of a developmental evolutionary drive.

E. THE METHODOLOGY OF DIRECT GNOSTIC VERIFICATION

Spiritual gnosis is not in itself symbolic,m and to validly utilise mandalic-logic to represent it's incurrence we require:

1. Injunction - an act
2. Apprehension - a cognitive awareness of the proposed change state
3. Communal confirmation - with others who have completed 1. and 2.

Good-o.

So do I continue to pursue both Gnosticism via St Uriels and Buddhism via the Tibetan Buddhist Society?

Quite rhetorical, that question is, methinks!

Hsing Hsing Ming

 

The Great Way is not difficult

for those who have no preferences.

When love and hate are both absent

everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Make the smallest distinction, however,

and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth

then hold no opinions for or against anything.

To set up what you like against what you dislike

is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood,

the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.



The Way is perfect like vast space

where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.

Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject

that we do not see the true nature of things.

Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,

nor in inner feelings of emptiness.

Be serene in the oneness of things and such

erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity by passivity

your very effort fills you with activity.

As long as you remain in one extreme or the other

you will never know Oneness.



Those who do not live in the single Way

fail in both activity and passivity,

assertion and denial.

To deny the reality of things

is to miss their reality;

To assert the emptiness of things

is to miss their reality.


The more you talk and think about it,

the further astray you wander from the truth.

Stop talking and thinking,

and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find meaning,

but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.



At the moment of inner enlightenment

there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.

The changes that appear to occur in the empty world

we call real only because of our ignorance.

Do not search for the truth;

only cease to cherish opinions.



Do not remain in the dualistic state.

Avoid such pursuits carefully.

If there is even a trace of this and that,

of right and wrong,

the mind-essence will be lost in confusion.



Although all dualities come from the One,

do not be attached even to this One.

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,

nothing in the world can offend.

And when a thing can no longer offend,

it ceases to exist in the old way.



When no discriminating thoughts arise,

the old mind ceases to exist.

When thought objects vanish,

the thinking-subject vanishes:

As when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.

Things are objects because of the subject (mind):

the mind (subject) is such because of things (object).

Understand the relativity of these two

and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.

In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable

and each contains in itself the whole world.

If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine

you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.



To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult.

But those with limited views are fearful and irresolute:

the faster they hurry, the slower they go.

And clinging (attachment) cannot be limited:

Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment

is to go astray.

Just let things be in their own way

and there will be neither coming nor going.



Obey the nature of things (your own nature)

and you will walk freely and undisturbed.


When the thought is in bondage the truth is hidden

for everything is murky and unclear.

And the burdensome practice of judging

brings annoyance and weariness.

What benefit can be derived

from distinctions and separations?



If you wish to move in the One Way

do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.

Indeed, to accept them fully

is identical with enlightenment.

The wise man strives to no goals

but the foolish man fetters himself.

There is one Dharma, not many.

Distinctions arise

from the clinging needs of the ignorant.

To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind

is the greatest of all mistakes.



Rest and unrest derive from illusion;

with enlightenment

there is no liking and disliking.

All dualities come from ignorant inference.

They are like dreams or flowers in air -

foolish to try to grasp them.

Gain and loss, right and wrong,

such thoughts must

finally be abolished at once.



If the eye never sleeps,

all dreams will naturally cease.

If the mind makes no discriminations,

the ten thousand things are as they are,

of single essence.

To understand the mystery of this One-essence

is to be released from all entanglements.

When all things are seen equally

the timeless Self-essence is reached,

No comparisons or analogies are possible

in this causeless, relationless state.



Consider movement stationary

and the stationary in motion,

both movement and rest disappear.

When such dualities cease to exist

Oneness itself cannot exist.

To this ultimate finality

no law or description applies.



For the unified mind in accord with the way

All self-centered striving ceases.

Doubts and irresolutions vanish

and life in true faith is possible.

With a single stroke we are freed from bondage:

Nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.

All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,

with no exertion of the mind’s power.

Here thought, feeling,

knowledge and imagination are of no value.

In this world of suchness

there is neither self nor other-than-self.



To come directly into harmony with this reality

just say when doubt rises "not two".

In this "not two" nothing is separate,

nothing is excluded.

No matter when or where,

enlightenment means entering this truth.

And this truth is beyond extension

or diminution in time and space:

In it a single thought is ten thousand years.



Emptiness here, emptiness there,

but the infinite universe

stands always before your eyes.

Infinitely large and infinitely small;

no difference, for definitions have vanished

and no boundaries are seen.

So too with Being and non-Being.

Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments

That have nothing to do with this.



One thing, all things,

move among and intermingle without distinction.

To live in this realization

is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.

To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,

because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.



Words!

The Way is beyond language,

for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.

Recognise Spirit

One way to view man is as a Spiritual being, clothed in flesh. Throughout our observed world, we can see energy, recognisable in the collection of electrons on the negative terminal of a battery, to pass to the positive and cause light to emit from your torch, and recognisable in the pot plant that responds to water on a hot, dehydrating day.

Different frequencies seem to give rise to some different qualities. I'm proposing that Spirit has an operable frequency, a capacity that can be activated by intelligence. Our capacity to activate Spirit by intelligence is not innate and can be developed and built so that man can serve the function of Spirit in the world of physical matter.

One outstanding characteristic of being a developed human is our individuality - we have a variety of choices of action open to us as a result of understanding our own behaviour. With time, we can grow the understanding that we have of our own, and then the outside worlds', operations. This individuality, registered in our consciousness, is one possible indicator of an existence that lies beyond the physical body. When we humans replicate (wow, erm, let me try that again), when we are born and grow as people, we grow in a variety of ways so disparate that it would seem that we're responding to an environment much larger than the one that we can just view with our eyes, and hear with our ears. Individuality grows as our intelligence grows, and learning, responding to the environment continues throughout a human lifetime. Our choice is to whether we consciously engage with the accumulation of intelligence, and individuality, or not.

Consciously grow Spirit, or not. Each individuals' choice. We can use the higher rungs of illuminated intelligence to come one step closer to the oneness of real understanding. Wisdom.

Pick up the Tao, the Way, and know that it is consciousness.

Pick up a quote from Einstein: 'the meaning of human life....a single hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature'.

Visit Teilhard de Chardin: 'The principle is that consciousness is the peculiar specific property of organised states of matter'.

Recognise that our individual human brains make the patterns that we see in nature, in our observed environment.

If meditation helps clarify the perception, or the patterns, indeed it would seem useful to calm down, and slow down the world to the pace of a meditation cushion as often as possible. Yeah.

Living Attunement

"It is in the direction of a dynamic and progressive neo-humanism (one that is, which is based on man having become conscious of being the responsible axis of cosmic evolution), that a mysticism of tomorrow is beginning to assert itself". Teilhard de Chardin - 'Toward the Future'

There's a hippy legend of the day students put flowers in the muzzles of rifles held by the National Guardsmen at the Kent State University in the USA. Tradgedy had been high in the proceeding few days. The guileless innocence in the message of the Flower Children was pretty clear:

"Love one another".

So the 60's and 70's came and went, and guru after Eastern guru, Nature ritual after Nature ritual, LSD high after LSD high and even a turnaround in science where we saw the observer in the observed, all of it has failed to hold the echo of that one message in any well sustained way through to today.

Caring, wholeness, brother/sisterhood, heartfelt compassion. Planet Earth matters. People matter. Sentient beings matter. Care, care, care.

Love in action, through the Christ within. The Living Attunement.

And here we are today, with mobile phones and laptops and double glazed windows to keep out the noise and the strong beat of the suns rays. Post the Wall Street crashes, post the Iraq war gnashes, with a call, still a call to do the same. Attune. Daily.

The work is so simple, and yet so easy to be distracted from, with our bright shiny world of advertisments and iPod tunes......

"The brotherhood of man exists and is ready and equipped to be lived consciously." Carl G Jung