Big-picture philosophies, are they coming back?

I just listened to this philosophical dialogue on the Integral Life website. If you aren't familiar with this philosophy/group, the "integral" folks grew this community around Ken Wilber's ideas. The central idea is that there is finally the ability to study "big picture" or "meta-narratives," in human existence, consciousness, reality.

I have my qualms with how they're handling the ideas. For instance, Wilber has developed a deeply complex system to navigate different "levels" in our own consciousness, and help cultivate and develop one's own perspective, through spiritual practice, psychological tools and good physical health. But I think I found myself agreeing with a lot of the audio clip. Their ideas feel intuitively right for me. Wilber mentions that the original meta-narratives were monolithic and "clunky," in that they missed the details. More modern social studies deny the possibility that there is any direction in social studies, or any evolution for that matter. Instead it's just focusing on case-by-case. Relative. I don't feel this is the deeper truth. Now there's the possibility for "seeing the forest through the trees," but acknowledging the details too. There have been so many changes, and so many valid possibilities about the human endeavor, the fact that Wilber and his supporters are trying to bring the idea of a perennial, universal, and evolutionary reality to the table is much needed.

Not that I wouldn't try do this in different ways. Getting hung up on systems, even something as age-old as the chakra system, can be dangerous. My question is, what do you think of the integral movement, and is there deeper truths that are shifting modern civilization's consciousness?

 

i like scientology's aproach better, minus the ripping people off part.

 

Wilbur seems to have got the basis for his 'integral' ideas from the Indian seer and yogi Sri Aurobindo.

Myself, I don't think a new system is what we need but a wider overview of existing systems. In the end, to reach a supra rational knowledge or state it is necessary to go beyond the rational or discursive intellect. Too much systemization can very easily become a block to this.
I don't think a grand narrative that 'explains' eveything is possible.

 

Totally agree with you here! Spot on!

This is my opinion too, from reading the entirety of this article. We have to work with what we already have, not develop new systems.... Over developing a system is definitely a block to greater understanding.

 

Agreed. I don't mind big picture philosophy...but I think the biggest picture is that you can't possibly dissect the human mind. I wish this fact was acknowledged academically. They just run around like rats in a maze.

When it comes right down to it, you have your own understanding. There's not even any point in accepting anyone else's universal understanding, because that's just giving up.

 

Yes - I think we all have to develop our own understanding of things.

It's useful I think to look into diverse systems, philosophies, psychologies and so on because we need to have as big a picture as possible. At the same time, I think it's good to be able to detach from systems. It's only then that we get direct experience - lived knowledge rather than just mental pictures.

A lot of the trouble in the world comes from people imagining that their system of belief, or way to organize human life is the 'one way'....you know who I mean..

 

The usefulness of metaphor is that it allows an observation the maximum opportunity for comprehension.

 

I'm not exactly sure what Wilbur means when he says old religions dealt only with the inner world. There are many examples of civilizations, India being one, where the social order etc was very much determined by structures coming out of the 'religious' tradition. Mohamed too had his vision of society and how to regulate it. The ancient Egyptians organized their whole society around their belief systems, as did innumerable others.
Christianity had the division of church and state, but that was the exception it seems, rather than the rule.

It led to somewhat narrow and constricting societies in many cases. And in some cases, religion became really just a set of external observances with no real inner content at all other than perhaps guilt, fear or other emotional junk.

Perhaps Wilbur means they had no way to look at 'society' from a kind of outside objective viewpoint - but do modern sociologists? They're just as much part of, and conditioned by that which they are studying as were the Mayans.

 

I think the problem for religions with things like brain scans etc of people in meditative or altered states is that they really don't want to believe it's the brain, or changes in the brain, that lead to such states, as such knowledge would only help loosen even further their monopoly on all that. They prefer to see it as dependent on them as intermediaries.
IMHO that is one of the reasons they don't like entheogens. They are addicted to control, and don't want people having any kind of awakening or spiritual experience they can't control or sublimate to their own belief systems and 'authority'.

I think such research should definitely be taken forward, but at the same time, I see the positive results as being possibly a better understanding of how such states can be induced. I don't think such results feedback much into the experience itself.

On the question of the relations between religion and society, my view is that we'd be better off if we were like a lot of tribal peoples who don't compartmentalize things in the same way. Their spirituality is already integral.

I don't think that in england the church ever became wholly one with the state, despite the best efforts of the Tudor dynasty in that direction - they certainly tried to ursurp to themselves the power of the church - but it didn't stick, and led ultimately to the civil war.
Nowadays, the thing is a shambolic farce, and most brits have no religion (unless we count consumerism as a religion) other than on application forms etc.

 

On the opposite end of a particular spectrum one can often find similar results produced by entirely dissimilar motivations. In this case, we find that those who have long since overcome their societal and religious conditioning arrive at a similar conclusion regarding dependency on etheogens: the chemical alterations of the brain that accompany higher states of consciousness are a byproduct, rather than a root cause of the shift in consciousness. Of course, at this stage in one's spiritual evolution, interest in belief systems or controlling and sublimating the spiritual experience is a motivation that no longer exerts any influence upon them. Instead, their understanding of the brain's secondary role in one's being is a result of the direct perception that universal consciousness transcends all external conditions.

Not according to Wilbur and his cohorts it isn't. Tribal spirituality would fall under the "magic" category on the scale referenced by Meagain earlier in this thread and the Purple meme on the spiral dynamics "holarchy", a system which Wilbur has repeatedly endorsed.

As far as my answer to this thread's initial question goes, though I actually agree with Wilbur with regard to the above issue (i.e. tribal spirituality does not qualify as integral), I also have some serious misgivings as to the authenticity of many of his philosophical stances. When it comes to assessing the level of consciousness some one is operating at, I tend to use a combination of logical deduction and intuition in order to arrive at a conclusion. With Wilbur, it's actually relatively simple:

A: Claimed to have attained "non-dual" consciousness in the mid-nineties
B: Non-dual consciousness is by almost any spiritual traditions' definition accompanied by a very high level of awareness
C: During the summer of '06, Wilbur slept-walked into his bathroom and stumbled in such a way as to produce a massive bruise that covered at least half of his torso.
D: Sleep-walking occurs when the subconscious mind has subjugated the conscious mind, a state which can only exist during periods of significantly diminished awareness.
E: Wilbur has deceived himself into believing that he has attained states that he has not.

And it is as a result of observations like this, as well as all of the intuitive red flags that are triggered when I watch his lectures with the public (in this case egomania, particularly in the form of ego-based mimicry of its perception of enlightened behavior), that leads me to feel that he has largely confined himself to the conceptual level of awareness and does not demonstrate the level of consciousness necessary to accurately assess the spectrum of itself (which very well may be no level of consciousness .)

Travis

 

I just don't buy this.

Personally, I think that it's nonsense to categorize tribal spirituality as 'magic' and developed religion as... well, something else I assume. It's all magick.Unless and until they loose the magick, as most have done. Then it becomes just a negative power heirarchy.

Basically I agree that Wibur is not 'enlightened'. He is an intellectual who is keen to show us how enlightened he is........
And actually, not that astute in that department either to judge from his appraisal of the work of Sri Aurobindo, whom he clearly totally fails to comprehend.
In effect I think your judgement of Wilbur is about right.:cheers2:

 

So, you believe that we must first establish a certain array of conditions in order to experience something that every spiritual tradition in the world has portrayed as being eternal and all-pervasive, then? Kind of short-sighted, don't you think?

You can categorize it however you want. The point is, regressing to the level of tribal sprituality is not part of the spiritual trajectory that we as a collective consciousness are currently on. Salvaging the insights that those traditions offered, in all likelihood, but not regressing.

Travis

 

The spiritual traditions all establish their own conditions. Take Indian yoga for an example. Pranayama causes chemical changes in the brain which result in altered consciousness.
Fasting, an old fave of many religions similarly changes the brain chemistry giving rise to experiences. Probably pain etc can do the same thing. Not enough research has been done into brain changes during deep meditative states.
I don't think there are that many examples of people just going into higher consciousness spontaneously, although that may happen to some.

Who said anything about regressing? I certainly didn't. I said, or implied that we'd be better off if we had a consciousness which didn't differentiate between the 'mundane' and the 'spiritual'. That to my mind might be called integration.
However, I think we've already regressed - western culture has lost touch with the spirit and with the natural world. We mass produce low quality consciousness, low quality people living low quality lives.

We can't go back, that's pretty obvious, but we don't have to be tied to the old religions which in my view have done, and continue to do, a pretty dismal job. Nor do I think big new intellectual systems will help much.

 

Belief occupies the space in our minds where knowledge is not apparent. To become enlightened we open our eyes. Love being without condition is beyond what can be taught, but we can remove the barriers we build against it.

 

Even if you have knowledge, you still have to believe in it, or at least believe in the possibility of knowledge.

You're right though - we have to open our eyes. And our eyes can be opened in many different ways. Same with barriers, there are different approaches to removing them. Generally, they don't just fall away by themselves.
Truth can't be taught, but perhaps methods of getting to the truth can be taught.

 

Only the corrupted versions establish conditions. All authentic spiritual traditions will always acknowledge the all-pervasive, unconditional nature of Spirit/God/Love/Tao.

Pranayama is an energetic practice, not a spiritual one. Energy is the most subtle manifestation of the material plane, but is still subject to the laws of impermanence and alteration, and is therefore incapable of producing awareness of the fundamental nature of reality.

Again, both fasting and pain induced states of consciousness are corporeal in nature.

Spontaneity is the only way to get into higher consciousness. Anything else is simply a process, technique, practice, or methodology, all of which are instrinsically bound by the constraints of temporal awareness.

You said that tribal spirituality can be equated with integral spirituality, which it cannot. To attempt to reestablish a culture that revolves around a tribalistic spiritual sensibility, or even to glorify the surviving forms of this sensibility, would be to regress.

Absolutely. However, the state of integration between the mundane and the spiritual isn't fully present in a tribalistically spiritual mentality.

I couldn't disagree more. As I observe the mass consciousness, I see more and more cross-cultural integration, more and more embodiment of the shadow self, and less and less emphasis on materialism -- to name but a few of its merits -- with each year that passes. Sometimes, when I reflect upon how far we've come in just the past 50 years, I find myself in a state of reverie.

The old religions are in their death throes -- they will become entirely incapable of being sustained as the the higher levels of consciousness are established as the status quo. "Big new intellectual systems" are just crutches for those with intellectual dispositions, and will also become obsolete in the coming years.

Travis

 

Do you believe you know how to tie your shoes or do you know it? Knowledge is, being shared. We can be taught the language we knew before we imagined we had learned to lie. The reason for the confusion is that we use the same words for both a lie and the truth.

 

What do you mean by this?