shaman sun

It would be nursing a great illusion,
if the man of our times were to think
that, having attained a fuller understanding
of himself,
and of the world,
he had no further need of religion.

There has been a multiplication of systems
in which the existence of religion
has been interpreted as a psychological phenomenon
associated with the childhood of mankind.

At its maximum
when civilization is beginning
it should gradually fade away
giving place to more positive constructions,
from which God
(particularly a personal and transcendent God)
would be excluded.

In reality,
for those who can see,
the great conflict from which we will have escaped
will only consolidate in the world
the necessity of faith.

Having reached a higher degree of self-mastery,
the Spirit of Earth will experience
an increasingly vital need to adore;

out of universal evolution God emerges in our consciousness
as greater and more necessary than ever.

The only possibly Motive Power of a life
which has reached the stage of Reflection
is an Absolute, or in other words a Divine, Term.

Religion has sometimes been understood
as a mere antidote to our evils, an “opiate.”

Its true purpose is to sustain and spur on the progress of life.
It is the profound need of an Absolute,
sought from the start
through every progressive form of religion.

Once this starting point is realized,
it becomes evident that the “religious function”
born of hominization and linked thereto
is bound to grow continuously with man himself.
The more man is man, the more he will feed the need
to devote himself to something which is greater than he is.

It is not that which we can ascertain around us?

At what moment in the Noosphere
has there been a more urgent need
to find a faith, a hope
to give meaning and soul
to the immense organism we are building?

Hey folks, so I picked up a bunch of books from the library. It’s been a while since I’ve been blogging, but hopefully I’ll have more time to do so this summer. New ideas are brewing in my head, and hopefully new directions…

For the meantime, we can start with the books. I’m always checking out the latest books, as well as the forgotten ones. In my last librarian adventure, I discovered these…

1. Darwin’s Angels: a new but obscure book, written as an “angelic riposte” to The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It’s written by John Cornwell, who playfully but intellectually writes from the perspective of an angel. Overall, he goes through Dawkin’s major premises to ensure he’s getting them correctly, then proceeds to offer alternatives and the friendliest criticisms I’ve read so far. The author is writing from a relieving point of view. He does not partake in religious fundamentalism, but instead uses two thousand years of philosophical and theological traditions. One of the major responses to Dawkins’ arguments favors religion as something more like the arts than literalism. As a criticism to Cornwell, it would be fairer to acknowledge that not everyone appreciates the more subtle, esoteric dimensions to religion. In fact, many people often use religion as a more “exoteric” or surface literalism in which to help explain their world, and bind their society together. Religion has many forms, interwoven into society. That being said, I think that if we understand the benefits and pitfalls of religion, these sort of “faith vs. science” debates would hardly be prevalent.

He cites many authors, articulating and politely insisting that Dawkins review his arguments. There are times where he is sharply critical of his opponent, but compared to the level of bitterness that I felt was in The God Delusion, it’s really not too bad. Overall, I recommend this brief and intelligence response to Dawkins. It’s a relief from the constant polarization of faith vs. science so rampant in contemporary discussions. Here’s a good example,

Speaking inadequately of God, however, does not mean that religious believers never strive to articulate, and understand, as far as their intellects will carry them, even the deepest mysteries of faith. I note, however, that whenever you refer to the mystery of, for example, the Trinity – by which Christians believe there are three persons in the one God – you get abusive: you call it a “weird thing,” and you go on to write that believers “are not meant to understand.” Finally you lecture your readers: “Don’t even try to understand one of these, for the attempt might destroy it.” You add that believers think that they “gain fulfillment in calling it a mystery.” Go and sit in the reading room of the Oxford theology faculty library sometime. You might get a very weird feeling indeed when you look around and see the tiers and tiers of books dedicated to just such attempts to understand Trinity, and a great many other mysteries besides.”

2. Science fiction has always been an interest of mine. One of the latest projects it attempting to write some myself, so I’ve collected a few books to get tips on storytelling: Ben Bova’s “Venus,” Ursula LeGuin’s “The Telling” and Arthur C. Clarke’s “Cradle.” I’m not sure if I’ll read these through-and-through, or skim them for inspiration. We’ll see!

3. Eihei Dogen; Mystical Realist. This is a thick book, covering the philosophy of Zen Master Dogen with excellent detail. It’s written more like a western-philosophy book: attention to details, careful explanation, intellectual and analytical. Yet it also has an equally balanced expression of art, creativity and wisdom that words can’t hold. I’d never read much of Dogen’s philosophy before, but from what I’ve learned so far, it’s fascinating! Dogen taught that words and intellectual understanding shouldn’t be entirely shunned, nor should it be used as a “tool” for enlightenment or ultimate reality. Words themselves were expressions of ultimate truth. To Dogen, everything is a teacher. In that way, the Buddhist scriptures were especially a beautiful flowering of “spirit.” Even delusions, imagination, flights of fancy or as a common term, “sky flowers” – were all expressions of ultimate reality. Instead of seeing these things as objects to avoid, he saw them as inherently connected to emptiness and creation, void and manifestation. He likened the world to a dream, and thus dreams, he argued, were not so bad. They had the potential help radically transform our consciousness.

This wisdom or ultimate ground of “being” extended not only to sentient creatures such as ourselves, but non-sentient beings. Rocks, mountains, the Earth and other planets – grass, trees, entire forests. Life and non-life were expressions of ultimate reality. Dogen taught that everything was both illusion and reality, emptiness and form. There was a non-duality here that perhaps other Buddhist schools may have under-appreciated. Language, in particular, was seen more favorably to Dogen. Makes sense! After all, much of what we have to communicate is through words. If we speak from a “non-dual” perspective, could or words not be powerfully transformative? Words then would not just be technical nuances to help other minds, but flowers of the mind, each according to their nature – reality and illusion as one. More on Dogen later…

4.Becoming Enlightened. This book, by the Dalai Lama is written in a much simpler language, but eloquent nonetheless. The Dalai Lama is usually very humble with his words, but they carry a lot of wisdom with them. I haven’t had a chance to really delve into this book yet, but something about it drew me to it. Some books appear to have a life of their own, illuminating points for us to connect with throughout life. This might be one of them. More on this one later, too.

These are some philosophy notes I gathered during a writing exercise in our Paradoxes class. I was referring to the dictionary during this process…

To know something is to believe it is true -
What is truth?

Know - understanding something from experience. Ledge – lock – action or process.
Knowledge is the action of learning about the world/self through an experience. Perceiving and insight.

Truth – Faithfulness. Accuracy, correctness.
Sattva – “truth” meaning “reality” or “being,” – Notice that this term implies a more direct perceiving, without “gaining” anything or necessarily interpreting data, but “being” it itself.

Bodhi- “perfect knowledge” -

Bodhisattva - “one whose essence is perfect knowledge”

In other words, one who is BEING the knowledge, who is truth. Not perceiving, directing, gaining or experiencing, but being, and as a result any thing more is an extension or giving forth from that place.

The Bodhisattva as a sleeping buddha implies the idea we are already ARE being ultimate knowledge, which is beyond words, it is rather a process of returning to that source through recognition of the ultimate.

There’s been a discussion on open source integral about the limitations of Wilber’s theories. For any new folks who haven’t heard much of Ken Wilber or integral theory- it’s a philosophy which attempts to integrate various aspects of reality in a coherent, mapped-out way. Brain science and spiritual experiences, the various theories, literally, about anything and everything – for the first time in history, it’s all on the table. We can begin to look at the overall picture, if there is one, and see how things may fit together better than we think. This idea, to me, is great. I support the effort and discussion. But many folks have questioned Wilber’s attempts to be “integral” as either too simplistic, or too complicated. Neat boxed in maps of consciousness, interior experience, exterior, physical correlations, to some, confuse the map with the territory. The language of learning Wilber’s theories is heavy. You can get lost in labels and terms, and before you know it – do we have a coherent, reflective map of reality, or another abstract system?

I think there is some good in developing a map, like AQAL – which stands for all quadrants, all lines/levels. My previous sentence has three words that must be described in order to go forward (see what I mean?) Quadrants – there are four. Interior, personal. Exterior, individual. Interior, cultural, exterior collective. It might be nice to get a picture of it.

So there it is. AQAL. It’s a nifty map and helps you mentally navigate the space. I like it. On the positive side, it helps you connect the dots and at least encourages that differing theories about human beings, be they in psychology or sociology or philosophy, work together. That’s the good part. They have two aspects. Horizontal and vertical. Oh boy, more terms. Well, “horizontal” simply means non-developmental. Vertical means the developmental, growth-oriented aspect of human beings. Somethings are at higher stages or levels. for instance…

Galaxies
Star clusters
Solar Systems
Planets

A vertical map looks something like that. Or, you can think of it even more basically: Tadpole -> frog.

Now, Wilber argues we have many levels of development, and they exist on separate lines. Emotional intelligence. Physical development. Social intelligence. We can be strong or lacking in one, two or more. It’s a nice map, once again. You can use it for discussion, surely. And at this point there doesn’t seem to be too much wrong with it, if it is presented in a way that is not too bogged down in categories.

Wilber’s ideas go far beyond this. They go into things like, 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, and then the complex relationships between them. That’s when I need to sit down and concentrate hard. It may be more accessible to others, but to me it seems a bit hyper-rationalized, if that makes sense. At any rate, I do find Wilber, AQAL and the language to be somewhat necessary if you’re going to try to talk about grand-theories, big pictures, etc. But perhaps equally important is something that is often lacking in many traditional approaches to this subject: the messy, nearly chaotic reality underneath the surface of neat, boxy maps and “paradigms.”

It’s not to say that speaking of paradigms isn’t useful, but the one thing that has always been lacking in major social sciences and philosophies is tackling the messiness of it all. While “integral theory” claims to be able to tackle the relationships, the complex nature of differing perspectives, see underlying patterns – I wonder if something is missing from the mandala-like quadrants of AQAL? Could the theories be more balanced if they explored the chaotic, messy reality with an equally dynamic map? Can we offer a perception, an insight that’s aerodynamic, so to speak? Something that can naturally run with the rugged landscapes of the mind and the world. AQAL is like a mathematical representation of a landscape, a good map, but it might miss some of the finer points of the relationship between things.

As a sociologist I’ve read a good deal of thinkers who, while they may not have read Wilber, have tried to tackle this problem in their own field. History is often seen as a series of paradigms, with general ideologies dominating thought at a given time and place. One thinker who has attempted to open the hood and see the details is Manuel DeLanda. Although paradigms are good starting points, one has to observe the dynamic and complicated relationships between ideas, technology, society, counter-cultures: a culture and a civilization is an ecosystem of variables. We can’t just look at the parts that make something up, we also have to understand the relationship between the parts that brings something to life, whether it be a house, a car, or a human being. It’s not summative, DeLanda argues, but multiplicative. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

It’s not easy to begin studying society and human development this way. It requires us to think about the way we are thinking. It demands that we step out of our traditional, linear modes of analysis. Mathematically, summation is easier than multiplication. DeLanda hints that perhaps in the future, super-computers may help us dramatically understand evolution, biology, and the universe due to their ability to do infinitely complex, non-linear equations.

It might be easy to argue that postmodernists have done this, offering us a deconstructed, complicated worldview. But I believe they haven’t exactly done this, as much as they’ve been a reaction to linear ways of thinking about the world. They’ve broken down, pointed out the errors in our current way of thinking. What we need these days is something like an alternative, a way to navigate the dynamic reality of the world.

And so I think I can summarize my points so far in stating: Wilber’s ideas are wonderful, provocative even. They offer a stepping stone into a new mode of thinking, but one vital aspect that is often missing, and not just in integral books, is the dynamic relationship between things. I don’t believe we need to be harsh on Wilber in order to explore this. He’s offered us a library of material to work with. He should continue! And by all means he will. But so should we. Let’s do our best to contribute to the dialogue and offer different models, different perceptions. How can we learn to work better with the dynamic flow of life, the universe? Our theories won’t just have to change, but our way of thinking, and our attitudes will have to as well.

Note: As an example of what some theorists are doing to help evolve our understanding human societies, DeLanda has posited the “assemblage” theory.

To summarize: any given “paradigm” or ideology can be seen as an assembly of thousands, or millions of people, institutions, events – that help shape a dominant mode of thought. They aren’t homogenous either. In any paradigm, there are dozens of cracks, splits, counter-cultural movements, things happening under the surface. Things could go in different directions, if only a few variables shifted. This could be said for revolutions, wars or agriculture.

Societies evolve in messy ways, just like biological evolution does. This has encouraged me to think of human societies not as homogenous ideas or stages of development, but heterogenous and complex, dynamic and alive. There is a complicated flex and flow to the evolution of any society, and what we see as a “paradigm” or system is a “crystallization” of a set of beliefs, a congealing or cooling which settle into structure. It would be interesting to see a more dynamic theory of social science emerge in the 21st century, one that is more analogous to the messiness biological evolution while not getting lost. That would be integral thinking, too.

Song and lyrics by Stuart Davis,

in the pulsing
of a blue stream
till the ache lead
to a red pool
where the vein broke
and a lie bled
love

now your lips pursed
in the orchard
under moonlight
with an arm stretched
for a branch
with a ripe, white
plum

Album, “Something Simple” and clips available here.