Wilberrrrrrrr

Wilber is very hard on Shamanism and other
spirits-oriented traditions in my opinion. This is a tricky question. To
what extent do these traditions typically include ultimate insights
such as are pursued in Buddhist and other contemplative traditions? What
is the relation between powerful non-ordinary experiences and powers
and awakening? Different traditions have different answers! From talking
with people who've travelled to receive teaching from indigenous
Shamans and Eastern meditation masters, I'm beginning to suspect that
although we represent these traditions a certain way in the modern west,
in fact, most Lamas and such do a lot of "shamanic" and other spirit
work, as well as ritual stuff for the community and individuals, healing
and the like; and likewise lots of Shamanic elders have deep insights
into "awareness", "nonduality", "interdependance" and other key
experiences of the contemplative scene.

Aurobindo: I think "The Synthesis of Yoga" is pretty good to start. Good
overview of how he integrates bakti, jnana, karma yogas (oh and hatha
and raja) and relates them to the different dimensions of human
body-mind. There is also a fascinating discourse on Shamatha (calm
abiding) somewhere which basically encapsulates an entire path of
realization from the normal starting baseline through stable nondual
realization endowed with positive characteristics like loving kindness).

His whole thing is that we each have all these different dimensions as
humans, so it is wise to develop them all holistically. He claims the
resulting fruits are more comprehensive and balanced. Another key point
of his is his approach to "Mind" as a facet of human being that is
basically suppressed by traditional cultures, but is the foundation of
the post-enlightenment West. He says the function of mind is to
question, explore, etc and that it reveals certain truths like equality,
fairness, and various democratic or otherwise egalitarian notions of
justice. So he sees an importance in empiricism, democracy, science,
etc.

jake1

-jake

Great! I'll take a look at Synthesis of Yoga.

Yeah it's funny how Wilber tends to be disparaging of shamanism and spirit-beliefs despite that his model is holonic: transcend and include, transcend and include. So the higher realms include the lower ones, including mythical worlds. But he seems to negate or at least minimize that. Wilber's managed to "disenchant the world" almost as much as modern science. Explains why he is so critical of Jung as well who he believes was a beastly victim of the pre-post fallacy. This is one reason why I also question the degree of his realization. Based one what I read, as one progresses spiritually, spiritual realms open to extrasensory awareness and can be interacted with. Therefore, they have some kind of ontological reality, unless EVERYONE I read is a pathological nut. So, Wilber's omission of this facet of reality makes me skeptical of his level of awakening. I think this omission is also a product of his tendency to emphasize the masculine over the feminine, that is, his tendency to organize and categorize rather than intuit as a means to knowledge.

I look forward to the day when I am able to interact with non-physical entities and provide spiritual counseling based on an individual's karmic makeup. Don't know if that will be this lifetime or not, but I am going to damn well try to make it so! I feel as though I can cut deeply into the origin of a person's troubles if I can access such knowledge.

JacquesDeux

Weird, the propensity to 'transcend and include' in such a way to be perched, sneering, above what you have 'transcended.'

On the other hand, someone of my FB acquaintance put something of his on that venue the other day, and he looked so old and shrinking that I felt like a jerk for getting exercised about how wrong I find him...

Time and suffering happens to us all.

[Still, will not be sorry when his ideas start seeming quaint and timebound.]

he looked so old and shrinking that I felt like a jerk for getting exercised about how wrong I find him...


-kategowen

What rubs you the wrong way about him and/or his work?

This, as you have noticed: "Yeah it's funny how Wilber tends to be disparaging of shamanism and
spirit-beliefs despite that his model is holonic: transcend and include,
transcend and include. So the higher realms include the lower ones,
including mythical worlds. But he seems to negate or at least minimize
that. Wilber's managed to "disenchant the world" almost as much as
modern science. Explains why he is so critical of Jung as well who he
believes was a beastly victim of the pre-post fallacy."

And what I said: "Weird, the propensity to 'transcend and include' in such a way to be perched, sneering, above what you have 'transcended.'"

And what Jake the first said:
"Wilber is very hard on Shamanism and other spirits-oriented
traditions in my opinion. This is a tricky question. To what extent do
these traditions typically include ultimate insights such as are pursued
in Buddhist and other contemplative traditions? What is the relation
between powerful non-ordinary experiences and powers and awakening?
Different traditions have different answers! From talking with people
who've travelled to receive teaching from indigenous Shamans and Eastern
meditation masters, I'm beginning to suspect that although we
represent these traditions a certain way in the modern west, in fact,
most Lamas and such do a lot of "shamanic" and other spirit work, as
well as ritual stuff for the community and individuals, healing and the
like; and likewise lots of Shamanic elders have deep insights into
"awareness", "nonduality", "interdependance" and other key experiences
of the contemplative scene."

And just generally his culture-blindness that leads him to vastly overestimate people like Adi Da and his students who can sling the integral lingo with the best of them-- without being fit to wash the feet of spiritual teachers who are actually performing vital community functions, out of the glare of the Western spiritual press.

"Based one what I read, as one progresses spiritually, spiritual realms
open to extrasensory awareness and can be interacted with. Therefore,
they have some kind of ontological reality, unless EVERYONE I read is a
pathological nut. So, Wilber's omission of this facet of reality makes
me skeptical of his level of awakening. "

Not (yet) knowing Wilber or his work itself, but just to comment on this as a person who has worked and continues to work extensively with "spirits":

-the process of awakening does seem to open and intensify and change certain kinds of experiences which IF one happens to be theistic can be understood as interactions with spiritual realms.

-even though I actively work with spirits, I do not necessarily have any particular belief in a lot of spiritual views. That is, things like astral bodies, afterlives, heaven, hell realms, ghosts, demons etc - the experience of these can exist for people. I have relationships with angels, gods, spirits, etc. But it is, I believe, equally a metaphor, a way of describing experience. It is not necessarily real (nor unreal) in some dogmatic way. I know people with very deep spiritual insight, even awakened people, who are not really into the idea of God or gods or angels or spirits. (I know one who claims to be an atheist.) If it suits you, most experiences, even non-duality, can be explained by whatever views, beliefs, religion or ideas you prefer to explain them with, including neuroscience or psychology, if that is what you prefer.

-for me, working with entities like deities and spirits is like painting or playing music - it's a celebration. It's also an expression of devotion and surrender to that which is, in all its variety. It's something I've been called to and involved with for years, and it's just what I do. It is also a way to help others sometimes. I happen to like it.

-I was at a museum a couple months ago that had some of the earliest Buddhist art known. Made only a few hundred years after the Buddha's death, the stone carvings were already depicting him walking on water and turning water into wine and so on. People love a good God, and are quick to turn a teacher into a Holy Guru. That's not always fair, and often just a projection of our imagined ideals - that an enlightened person should be invisible (or glow in the dark), walk on water, heal the sick with a touch, radiate amazing vibrations as he floats through the air, reads minds, etc. That kind of expectation is bound to lead to disappointment. I think if the pragmatic dharma movement has done one good thing, it's point out this common misconception.

Did you just put a stake in the ground? Ha! I chop your stake into leetle spleenters! Ha!

a mental snake??!! serrrpenttt! SERPENT!

[back into the teapot to doze...]

Is everyone drunk posting tonight?

I have relationships with angels, gods, spirits, etc. But it is, I believe, equally a metaphor, a way of describing experience. It is not necessarily real (nor unreal) in some dogmatic way. I know people with very deep spiritual insight, even awakened people, who are not really into the idea of God or gods or angels or spirits. (I know one who claims to be an atheist.) If it suits you, most experiences, even non-duality, can be explained by whatever views, beliefs, religion or ideas you prefer to explain them with, including neuroscience or psychology, if that is what you prefer.


-ona

Echoing Ona, I believe all things are parts of ourselves. There is no
inside or outside. It's all of a piece, interconnected, causal. Nothing
holy. We all have ways of describing the same things that reflect our
propensities, our upbringing, our education, our culture, but they are
interpretations. Everything is interpretation.

-cmarti

@Ona: How do you imagine you would describe your experiences if you were someone who did not believe in a spirit world inhabited by astral and causal spirits? Do you think you could do so? This discussion makes me think about the aliens in Contact and how they modified their world in consideration of human experience.

@Chris: Everything being interpretation does not preclude the existence of all things themselves, even if they are spawned from and ultimately reside in nothingness. It's just these things are filtered through our acculturated selves, as you stated. But isn't it also possible to achieve non-discriminatory wisdom, i.e. prajna, where things are experienced in their suchness without interpretation?

5 min 'till the year arrives, at least in EST. 2012 -- are you really going to be a turning point of some kind?

@Ona: How do you imagine you would describe your experiences if you were someone who did not believe in a spirit world inhabited by astral and causal spirits? Do you think you could do so? This discussion makes me think about the aliens in Contact and how they modified their world in consideration of human experience.



-sunyata

Well, aliens is actually a really good example. Centuries ago it was far more common for people to describe experiences of being taken to heaven by angels or meeting God than to describe being abducted by aliens from another galaxy in a flying space ship!! I would say it is quite likely both of those experiences are the same thing. A mental experience involving intense physical sensations and visions, interpreted in a way that fits the cultural context. Some people are inclined to believe those ancient experiences were actually alien abductions; others that the modern experiences are just a culture-based way of describing mystical experiences.

For example also, when I had certain difficult and physically uncomfortable periods in meditation, I sometimes had vivid visions of being attacked by demons or eaten by wild animals. But I read other people's descriptions of similar periods and if they are not so prone to creative imagination they might say instead "intense pains, twitching, tingling in my body; breathing hard; intense fear; body shaking; sudden memories of that time I was cornered at school by the school bully and he was hitting me".

When you are having a memory of the school bully hitting you, it is perfectly real in that moment, just as a vision of a demon is perfectly real in that moment.
Both are ways for your mind to match some images to the phenomena that are going on (sharp sudden pains, intense fear, etc.).

Now the advantage is that if you believe in things like demons (or are at least comfortable with that kind of paradigm) you can do a banishing ritual, invoke your guardian angel, and poof, bye bye. The more secular person doesn't necessarily have such tricks for coping with his fears or other strange experiences.

Okay, very brief take on Wilber, based on reading a bit about him on the internet: He is a guy who has had an awakening experience (or something very similar) and has constructed an elaborate way of explaining how he experiences reality, drawing on his background in psychology and the sciences. Such a description may be inspirational or useful to others, or not, depending on whether they resonate with his vocabulary and style. Personally I find it not so appealing. Too many charts and boxes and categories and definitions. Like Kabbalah for western secularists with an interest in psychology. But I'd love to hear more about what appeals for those who do like his work and how it has been helpful to you.

Ona, you'll like this: Alan Chapman on Wilber (at ~6:45).





Ken is probably quite advanced in his own way. He has done a solid 4 hours of meditation a day for much of his adult life.(Disclaimer: I'm not up to speed on the latest Wilber stuff.)

I like that; I hadn't seen it in a while. Alan was my main teacher. Perhaps my perspective on things has been pretty strongly influenced by his opinions.

@Ona: So you are saying that these experiences are "mind-only", that is, they have no matter-based reality at all. These spirits or aliens aren't "real" per se, but, as Chris said, they are interpretations of experiences, which are more or less universal. I guess this is possible, but it contradicts a lot of what I read. For example, in Robert Monroe's trilogy on out-of-body experiences, he chronicles his experiences with spirits over a 25-year period. Monroe developed binaural beat technology to facilitate OBEs during which time he would interact with spirits. He describes spirits as having human-like bodies with color and gender. They are capable of a number of extrasensory versions of the five physical senses. He also describes the habits of these spirits, including how they liked to travel and play.

To me, Monroe's work is one big data dump. You can take the yoga theory of the three bodies and apply it to Monroe's investigations and they fit seamlessly. This is despite that Monroe did not utilize this model. For example, Monroe's description of a spirit fits perfectly with Motoyama's description of an astral spirit. Moreover, Monroe reports that once in a while he noticed a white orb arising from Earth, shooting through the spirit world, and disappearing into a different realm. He never interacted with these orbs and didn't know what they were. He just saw them. However, Motoyama describes a causal spirit as being as a white genderless orb. So I believe Monroe was seeing causal spirits that had just died on Earth and were returning to the causal world. Monroe just didn't know this.

If you'd like to read up on Monroe and his work, he founded an institute to research OBEs:

http://www.monroeinstitute.org/

He has a pretty fascinating story.

@shargrol: Thanks so much for sharing that video. I enjoyed it immensely. Makes me think that the general expectation that enlightened person be perfect is a reinforcement of dualistic, either-or thinking. Enlightenment in the literature is associated with perfection of personality and perhaps this is possible if the enlightenment is cultivated to a very enhanced degree. So, either-or thinking leads people to believe that if you're enlightened, you're either perfect or you're not. But most people lie somewhere in between the tails on a spectrum of enlightenment. Thus, they are subject to the foibles of everyone else, although as Alan says, "probabilistically" these foibles are less frequent across the enlightened population. This dualistic thinking is probably a product of un-enlightenment. If they had an enlightenment experience, they would probably reconsider the requirement for an enlightened person to radiate absolute perfection.

I also notice, as Alan alludes to, that part of my distaste for Wilber arises out of my own shadow. For example, I find arrogance abhorrent and when I see Wilber seeming arrogant I find him distasteful by proxy. My dislike of arrogance comes from my propensity to hold hold humility in high-esteem. I don't allow myself to feel arrogance. And so, I don't like it when other people allow themselves to. I probably also have an inferiority complex, because Wilber is a super-brain and I'm not as smart as him. This plays into this too probably.

@Ona: So you are saying that these experiences are "mind-only", that is, they have no matter-based reality at all. These spirits or aliens aren't "real" per se, but, as Chris said, they are interpretations of experiences, which are more or less universal. I guess this is possible, but it contradicts a lot of what I read. For example, in Robert Monroe's trilogy on out-of-body experiences, he chronicles his experiences with spirits over a 25-year period. Monroe developed binaural beat technology to facilitate OBEs during which time he would interact with spirits. He describes spirits as having human-like bodies with color and gender. They are capable of a number of extrasensory versions of the five physical senses. He also describes the habits of these spirits, including how they liked to travel and play. ...


-sunyata

I guess I just don't separate "mind only" from "matter based reality". My experience of the sofa I am sitting on or my conversation with the person sitting next to me is merely data processed through the senses, too. I don't give it more or less validity than conversation with an angel or deity in a vision, for example. I guess there is this assumption that if something is "mind-only" it is less important or less real or less valid than if it takes place in the "matter based reality". I don't mean it that way at all. It's just as valid, just as important and so on. But I also don't think it's MORE important either.

What's important, I think, is how this practice or belief impacts your personal spiritual practice. What's your experience? What do you want to learn, do, try or explore? What do you hope to gain? What are you seeking? (I'm not asking you to answer, as it is none of my business, but just throwing these out there as the kinds of questions I think are more important than whether an angel or demon is "real" or "imaginary".)

Does that help clarify where I'm coming from? Just my perspective on things. No need for anyone else to share it.

I may start to believe in science then.

That all experience is mind is my stake in
the ground

- cmarti

Chris, are you familiar with Mind-Only Buddhism?
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogacara ) It takes this exact stance.
I guess the problem I see with this stance is that it is one-sided; it
emphasizes the mind at the expense of the body, aka matter. Mind-Only
adherents purportedly came to their mind-only conclusion because they found
that matter could be affected and manifested through mind. So they
concluded that matter must fundamentally be just mind. But that's a
fallacy. Just because matter can manifest through the activity of mind
does not require that matter is in itself mind. I feel as though the most
inclusive philosophical orientation is an holistic one that gives equal weight
to both matter and mind with the proviso that fundamentally they are absolutely nothing.

But I guess if you feel as though these experiences we speak of have no basis
in matter, then this all means very little anyway! Haha. I guess
such are the bounds of ANY philosophical orientation.

I greatly agree that our sensory perceptions are very easily fooled. But
then we don't often have a scientist tinkering with our synapses or subjecting
us to optical illusions. Just because the senses can be easily fooled under
particular circumstances does not mean they are often fooled. It just means under particular circumstances
they are easily fooled. Outside of those
circumstances, they could be quite reliable.

Also, are we talking only of physical sensory perceptions or
also of perceptions that appear in the mind’s eye ? In the latter case, my understanding is that
the extent in which images that appear in the mind’s eye correspond to life-events
increases as the practitioner purifies the personal and collective unconscious. Prior to purification, many of the images are
tainted by memory, both personal and collective, and reflect more the
practitioner’s existential situation.
These “corrupted” images could be considered more “mind-only” because
they have no connection to life-events.
As such, the practitioner may feel “fooled” by the images appearing to
him/her. However, when the practitioner
has sufficiently purified the mind-body, images appear that do correspond to life-events,
which Jung called instances of synchronicity.
Because these images have a connection to life-events, it would be difficult
to say that the practitioner was fooled by them and that the images themselves
were “mind-only.”