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  • shamansun 2:49 am on November 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , teilhard,   

    “Hymn of the Universe.” 

    “Son of earth, steep yourself in the sea of matter, bathe in its fiery waters, for it is the source of your life and youthfulness.

    You thought you could do without it because the power of thought has been kindled in you? You hoped that the more thoroughly you rejected the tangible, the closer you would be to spirit: that you would be more divine if you lived in the world of pure thought, or at least more angelic if you fled the corporeal? Well, you were like to have perished of hunger.

    You must have oil for your limbs, blood for your veins, water for your soul, the world of reality for your intellect: do you not see that the very law of your own nature makes these things a necessity for you?

    Never, if you work to live and to grow, never will you be able to say to matter,”I have seen enough of you; I have surveyed your mysteries and have taken from them enough food for my thought to last me forever.” I tell you: even though, like the Sage of sages, you carried in your memory the image of all beings that people the earth or swim in the seas, still all that knowledge would be as nothing for your soul, for all abstract knowledge is only a faded reality: this is because to understand the world knowledge is not enough, you must see it, touch it, live in its presence and drink the vital heat of existence in the very heart of reality.”

    Second excerpt:

    Hymn to Matter

    “Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock: you who yield only to violence, you who force us to work if we would eat.

    Blessed be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untameable passion: you who unless we fetter you will devour us.

    Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of truth.

    Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards or measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God.

    Blessed be you, impenetrable matter: you who, interposed between our minds and the world of essences, cause us to languish with the desire to pierce through the seamless veil of phenomena.

    Blessed be you, mortal matter: you who one day will undergo the process of dissolution within us and will thereby take us forcibly into the very heart that which exists.

    Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of us, we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God. You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ: it is you, matter, that I bless.

    I bless you, matter, and you I acclaim: not as the pontiffs of science or the moralizing preachers depict you, debased, disfigured–a mass of brute forces and base appetites–but as you reveal yourself to me today, in your totality and your true nature.

    You I acclaim as the inexhaustible potentiality for existence and transformation wherein the predestined substance germinates and grows.

    I acclaim you as the universal power which brings together and unites, through which the multitudinous monads are bound together and in which they all converge on the way of the spirit.

    I acclaim you as the melodious fountain of water whence spring the souls of men, and as the limpid crystal whereof is fashioned the new Jerusalem.

    I acclaim you as the divine milieu, charged with creative power, as the ocean stirred by the Spirit, as the clay molded and infused with life by the incarnate Word.

    This is taken from a prolific chapter from Teilhard de Chardin’s Hymn of the Universe.

     
  • shamansun 11:34 pm on November 16, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gayatri, mantra, poems, rumi   

    Found these along the way… 

    These are just some nice poems I found while doing some thesis research.

    But the body’s desires, in another way, are like
    an unpredictable associate, whom you must be
    patient with. And that companion is helpful,
    because patience expands your capacity
    to love and feel peace.
    The patience of a rose close to a thorn
    keeps it fragrant. It’s patience that gives milk
    to the male camel still nursing in its third year,
    and patience is what the prophets show to us.

    -Rumi

    We meditate upon the spiritual effulgence of that
    adorable supreme divine reality
    Who is the source of the physical,
    the astral and the heavenly spheres of existence
    May that supreme divine being enlighten our intellect,
    so that we may realize the supreme truth.

    -Gayatri Mantra

    Seeds feed awhile on ground,
    then lift up into the sun.
    So you should taste the filtered light
    and work your way toward wisdom
    with no personal covering.

    That’s how you came here, like a star
    without a name.  Move across the night sky
    with those anonymous lights.

    -Rumi

     
  • shamansun 6:44 am on November 15, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: aqal, , ,   

    Compassionate Challenge for Integral 

    This was originally posted on Integral Life. The topic is how the integral community may creatively engage the mainstream. It turned out to be a bit of a critique as well. Feedback here or at integral life is much appreciated!

    • To sum up everything I whole heartedly feel: Focus on the content, not the framing of integral. This means that yes, you can express integral’s heart without its maps. Maps are secondary, you’re standing in the territory! Come back down from the mountain and challenge yourself to speak from the heart. The maps are tools, not crutches (or bedrocks, for that matter). I’d like to see a more organic-oriented integral, focused on cultivating and engaging the culture without first needing AQAL, SD, etc, etc. If used up front, those can serve as a barrier rather than a stepping stone. Some people may like maps and are quickly oriented to them, but this is not the most universal approach. Integral is more than an “operating system,” because we are vital-systems, messy, non-linear, emergent. Let’s explore new ways to express what integral means!
    • So, “more bottom” up approaches would keep the current “top down” approach (utilized by the theory and the websites, business, etc) in a healthy, vibrant balance. Roots and branches!
    • It would be nice to see the academic journal use Open Access. This would encourage more contribution and be utilizing the changing cultural/collaborative atmosphere the internet is cultivating (like twitter).
    • I really don’t want to sound outspoken or overly critical, though I do feel some things that are going on in this particular integral community might be masking the valuable content. A more open-source approach might help the integral community evolve. For example, one good idea by CoreIntegral, is to try to reach out without the complex methodology and linguistics that come with Wilber’s integral. By reaching out more, integral folks are learning new ways to communicate, and also limitations they may not have been thoughtful of. I know this is happening unofficially on twitter, or other sites, but it’d be nice to see if Wilber and the Integral organization officially engage these ideas.
    • Oh, I know this is an oldie, but I’d love it if Wilber blogged.

    I don’t mean to belittle the complex theory and “mapping” that Wilber and subsequent theorists have done. Not at all. I think mapping and navigating have validity, but that doesn’t mean this is the universal approach that will “spark” this emergent consciousness in the mainstream. That will take time, trial and error, evolution of our own methods and development of new ones. I often think of Wilber as someone (Like many of the earlier theorists) who has paved the way. By all means pioneers. Sometimes it just takes future catalysts to help that first spark become a flame.

    Alright, I hope everyone doesn’t eat me alive!

    [Note: I've also been told that embracing more "open source" and collaborative methods is really just articulating a shift from linear "rational/orange" to "green" meshwork emergence in civilization. Integral is already "past" that so I should give it more credit. This is a good point but it also seems partial. If this is the way society is going, then using the "mapping" language we would be wise to start utilizing these "green" networking tools.

    As far as the theory goes, is IOS too top heavy? Are we drowning out the experiential/spiritual intimacy? Is the navigation system too logical/rational and less heart-felt/organic/intuitive? I'd like to discuss that with everyone, or maybe save it for an upcoming post.]

     
    • Duff 8:39 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink

      Good thoughts. One of the reasons I stopped being interested in integral is because it is a closed, top-down hierarchy with a fair amount of corruption and power plays, and no real access to the dialogue from participants who don’t already have money or power and aren’t willing to kiss Ken’s butt.

      I’ve found that almost all notions that integral is “beyond” green are pre-trans fallacies. Integral culture is mostly orange and blue (and I refuse to call it “amber”), as stated by Don Beck himself. Beck’s description of yellow in SD is that of a ecosystems-thinking forest ranger, a description that would be rejected by nearly all integral community members as being too “green.”

    • Bob D. 5:18 pm on November 16, 2009 Permalink

      I couldn’t agree with you more, although I think you’re being a bit too kind and apologetic toward the Integral Institute approach toward mainstream engagement. When Integral Naked first came out five or so years ago, there was so much potential to take Integral into the mainstream. Since then, Wilber’s style has gotten increasingly insular and self-referential. Eventually I just got sick to death of the Integral Naked dialogues, which didn’t seem dialogical at all, but rather just exercises in translating various issues and topics into AQAL-ese. Perhaps this has changed with Integral Life, but I’m not paying money to find out. Of course, it’s not all about what I like or don’t like, but I’m a person sympathetic to the Integral cause, and a huge fan of Wilber’s books (at least through SES). So if I feel disengaged by the Integral Enterprise, I can imagine how tough a sell it must be to Joe Mainstream. I doubt I-I will open up in the way you suggest, although that would be awesome. Jon Kabat-Zinn is a good model, I think, of how to successfully engage the mainstream. And Alan Watts too, albeit in a different way.

    • shamansun 5:42 pm on November 16, 2009 Permalink

      @Duff: Interesting that you mention the integral culture is orange and blue. I thought of something similar. AQAL/SD and the language in Wilber’s books are heavily rational-oriented, all theoretical. So it’s no surprise a community built around that would tend to be top heavy, or watered down theory into “blue.” Even using these terms at this point isn’t really comfortable/natural for me. But at any rate, I do like Don Beck’s description of “integral,” being more like a forest ranger or someone who has returned to nature consciously.

      @Bob: You’re probably right about me being too soft. I didn’t want to seem too overbearing at the outset of the discussion. I definitely agree that Integral Naked had so much potential (the list of celebrities and musician dialogues was a lot of fun).

      You hit the nail on the head about the “core” problem with this organization. It’s like it’s trying to engulf the world by translating popular culture into its own meta-theory. But a theory is just a pile of words, after all. What about the experiential component? It seems that has become secondary. I don’t think this is truly the original spirit of Wilber’s books or integral. What about igniting the consciousness that is “already” present? They recently interpreted Eckhart Tolle’s dialogue into an “integral” perspective, but in my opinion, Tolle is already doing what the Integral Enterprise wants to do: help people shift their own consciousness.

      Alan Watts definitely had a good way to “engage mainstream.” It’d be nice if Wilber left the nest and went on a book/speaking tour, I’m sure many universities and colleges would love to host him. The potential is there, or rather was there. My question is, what’s going to happen now? Is I-I headed for a dead end? My gut tells me more creative, open engagements will pop up eventually. It’ll happen naturally, not in an overtly insulated, over-engineered way.

  • shamansun 2:04 am on November 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    Ice King. 

    O, the King stood tall against the Winds
    And asked,
    “Have I not built a grand kingdom, worthy of the Lord of Lords?
    Day may become the eve’
    And my Kingdom should stand even in distant seasons!”

    But Winter came,
    And The King shivered his first,
    “Tighten the doors, build the fires! Keep the warmth to us!” he shouted, and his subjects bolted the doors and carried in the fire wood.

    “Certainly my Kingdom will reign now!”

    The King stood proudly,
    And yet his heart grew great shields of ice,
    “Tend to the fire!” He shouted,
    And yet he grew ever colder.

    “A thousand fires in our Kingdom’s name! A thousand walls and a dozen arms for every Knight!”
    And his word was done.
    The King grew colder still.
    And distant lands knew not how to greet him.

    “A thousand titles, in our Kingdom’s name! A thousand names for a each man, woman and child!”
    And his word was done.
    The King grew colder still.
    And distant lands knew not what to say.

    Only a dozen Blizzards passed,
    And the King stood still,
    As silent as the ice before him,
    His subjects huddled to their fires,
    And the livestock grew ill.

    “What has become of our king!” Asked his people,
    But he did not respond.
    Cold as the ice before his feet, his eyes a frozen blue.

    “Would a kingdom last,” asked a solitary monk, “If the King had not first tended to the fire of the soul?”

    “Alas, we had built our Reign upon an icy heart.”

    Months would pass, and come the spring,
    the fires would quiet and the King,
    made of ice, would stand no more.

    Had he from the very start, seen how ice and fire,
    lightning and streams,
    do come and go,
    he might had built his Kingdom
    upon the untouched warmth of soul!

     
    • esprit 9:09 am on November 14, 2009 Permalink

      Beautiful, love the implied metaphor!

  • shamansun 9:05 pm on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: bahai, bahaullah, ,   

    “The Sun of Truth” 

    “It is evident and manifest unto every discerning observer that even as the light of the star fadeth before the effulgent splendour of the sun, so doth the luminary of earthly knowledge, of wisdom, and understanding vanish into nothingness when brought face to face with the resplendent glories of the Sun of Truth, the Day-star of divine enlightenment.” -Baha’u'llah

    Sounds very Zen! Thought I’d share this on the birthday of Baha’u'llah, founder and prophet of the Bahai Faith.

     

     
  • shamansun 8:46 pm on October 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , open access, renaissance 2, terry patten   

    Is integral an open source project? 

    Terry Patten just posted this newsletter, “Exploring Big Questions in the Integral World.” I’m sort of glad that these are being brought up in the first place. Patten says integral themes are emerging naturally around the world, a “loosely-defined Integral movement seems to have appeared, and within it, the related field of Integral spirituality.” Cool! Yeah, that’s us. Popping up everywhere. Although let’s think of this carefully. The essential point he’s making is that the idea behind integral, or rather, just seeing underlying truths is becoming more recognizable for more people. Makes sense. We’re living in a digital age, we surf through information daily, and many of us are now more capable of discerning underlying patterns, not to mention developing new ways to synthesize information. We’re truly becoming planetary citizens.

    Integral is inherently an “open source” movement: On the one hand, Integral intellectual property falls into two categories: (1) There are copyrighted recordings and publications, and testing instruments, which are all necessary and completely non-problematic. (2) There are attempts to trademark or copyright important insights or good ideas in and of themselves. Such ideas may even be essential truths. Where would we all be if Ken Wilber had copyrighted the idea of the four quadrants? Or the notion of altitudes? This latter category is more analogous to patenting pieces of genetic code. By its nature, this tends to constrain the free flow of ideas, and inhibit the co-creative process at the heart of a thriving Integral community.

    Integral IP is healthy and necessary: On the other hand, serious intellectual creativity requires full-time dedication, which implies a successful business model. The Integral movement has come to life in the midst of the world economy at a time when innovative business models are primarily based on developing valuable IP. To make this distinction between two kinds of IP and to take one of them off the table is entirely impractical. It can’t and won’t happen. Moreover, any attempt to do so would be foolish. It would disincentivize innovation and constrain the ability of Integral leaders to monetize their creative contributions. If the IP has enough value, people will, and should, pay for it. And the public Integral conversation will go on; it is hardly in need of protection.

    A lingering question I had was, okay, it’s inherent, but what about manifest? If integral is inherently “open source,” in that the ideas are there, but the services are what we pay for (Integral Life, for example), is this truly a manifestation of Open Source? Aren’t there more wide-reaching models that rely on micro-transactions, blogging, twittering, live-feeds, and most importantly, open access?


    To me, it seems like Integral Institute and its associates are going down the well-trodded path. They want to be formally recognized, so they are taking on the traits of any traditional university, business or institution. Maintain control of intellectual property, to some degree, allow access for a fee, etc. But what if those models are dated? Wouldn’t the integral theorists do much better to embrace more collaborative, and technologically enhanced ways to share their work? Open access would, at least I believe, do the Integral folks wonders. I’m sure their intentions are benign by embracing traditional business and intellectual models, but it might end up serving as a road block to becoming true cultural catalysts.

    [Also, utilizing new legislation, like the creative commons, can protect intellectual property and at the same time make it more open source.]

    We live in an internet age, why embrace the old paradigm when new means of organization are capable of so much more potential? Just think, it’s the difference between “an institution and collaboration.”

    “New technologies are enabling new kinds of cooperative structures to flourish as a way of getting things done in business, science, the arts and elsewhere, as an alternative to centralized and institutional structures, which he sees as self-limiting.” Clay Shirky

    If there is to be an integral movement, if they really want it to be a catalyst for the greater culture, it’s time they smart up and utilize new ways of thinking and organizing.

     
  • shamansun 1:00 am on October 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: blogging heads, evolution of god, , robert wright   

    Robert Wright and John Horgan, discuss “Spiritual Warfare.” 


    I just watched this interview between John Horgan and Robert Wright, author of The Evolution of God.

    Very interesting discussion, although I was frustrated at times, primarily with Horgan’s skepticism and sympathized with Wright’s tenseness at certain points in the video.

    Gurus and pandits might abuse the spiritual teachings, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t valid. If you’re unfamiliar with Horgan’s view, he sees himself as a skeptic of sorts, questioning both science and spirituality. He sees Buddhism as, like other religions, human inventions, and any real insights don’t have to do with the religions themselves. I could agree with this–we invent systems, we create religions. They have limitations for sure. Horgan, however, goes another step and confuses a lot of the practices without understanding what and why they are.

    For instance, the discussion gets into a debate about what meditation actually does. Horgan appeared to dislike meditation and saw it as a way to escape reality, and enlightenment claims to be too detached, missing the direct, personal life experiences and reaching for some heavenly “other.” At one point, he asserted that Robert Wright simply had gotten “nicer” after his Vipassana retreat, and that was not the result of Buddhism.

    I find myself a bit perplexed by Horgan’s understanding, just as I was when I read his book, Rational Mysticism.

    If I can throw in two cents here, isn’t meditation about becoming more familiar with ourselves, our habits, our emotions? A way to quiet the mind and learn to listen, instead of fill the world with sound? There are spiritual teachings too, such as satori or kensho. This is also taught, that we perceive deeper layers to the mind and reality, and help us live more presently, personal and collectively.

    By diving into the Whole, we can appreciate each moment and relationship, and learn to accept ourselves too. A lot of emotional and psychological baggage can drop that way. True meditation isn’t an escape from ourselves or the world, it’s confronting, diving deep, introspection. That being said, it seems like Horgan is confusing spiritual practices with the more negative forms of gnosticism, which found the physical world repugnant and sought something greater. But it’s pretty basic in all the world’s major religions that divinity is immanent as well as transcendent. “The Kingdom of Heaven” is here, as Jesus said.

    At any rate, I’m glad Wright is getting the lime light and presenting these ideas and possibilities to the public. It seems like it’s a wonderful catalyst for exploring spiritual questions.

     
  • shamansun 10:34 pm on October 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Autumn Dew 

    It’s funny. I often come here in the heat of analytic passion, sharing with my readers whatever book or new philosophy I’ve come across, or continuing down one certain line of thinking.

    Some recent personal insights have caused me to reflect on this, and the least I can say is I feel refreshed, breathing anew. This blog will still be important to me, to share things–but in a way that psychological push I’ve had (knowledge as a never ending banquet for my mind) has eluded me. I still absolutely love delving into a good book, particularly a philosophy book, but something has really changed.

    In philosophy, we’re often identifying our reality with a way of seeing the world. We question things, equate knowledge with analysis, insight and perception. This is a great tool for unlocking new knowledge, personally and with others. But we’ve often heard of another kind of wisdom, one that doesn’t entirely equate reality via thinking about it.

    Thought, often enough is considered to be a primary tool of the mind. I think we can take a lesson from eastern philosophers when they speak of duality and paradoxes. Often, a paradox is a sign of harmony: night and day, dark and light, aggressive and passive. They compliment and define each other. If we apply this to human nature, we might see ourselves as thinking, feeling beings, punctuated by quiet stillness or silence. Deep sleep, followed by a flurry of words and emotions. Might it be good to explore this other side, to balance a chattering mind with a still one? Both surely have their purpose and contribute to a harmonious lifestyle.

    And so one of the major breakthroughs, for me at least, is attuning myself to the silence as well as the chatter. It soothes the mind like a good song; a dance between silence and musical notes. This brings a certain joy to one’s life, a creative, intuitive component to life often misunderstood as idleness or sloth.

    It can help center you, giving energy to your thoughts and spurring insight, both in philosophical ventures and in friendship.

    I had been reading B. Alan Wallace lately, and learned Pythagoras was not only a philosopher who utilized intellect, but a mystic who listened to silence. Cultivating this into a modern lifestyle can truly help, not merely for psychological well-being, but as insight and transformation for our contemporary culture as a whole.

    Coming back around now, I think I’ve finally learned to appreciate the wisdom in, “Know thyself,” which isn’t merely intellectual knowledge but insight into one’s nature. Couldn’t we take ourselves further, deeper if we were not always filling the world with words, but listening to it too?

    Sometimes we identify ourselves too strongly with our words, our ideas. Psychologically, we do this often enough not with abstract ideas, but thoughts in the form of memories, experiences, associations. “I am ___.” We also identify ourselves with the emotions that accompany and interweave this. All in all, this makes a nifty not or web we call “me.” What meditation does, or really, what silence does is help us recognize the human experience has the potential to be something that is not quite a “thing.” It’s more of a state, a knowING, rather than the known, a beING rather than an object of being. This may sound complex, and yes, often words trip up in attempting to describe this surreal, serene state of presence with ourselves.

    All in all, silence and meditation loosen our bonds with the sense of Self, which can often become so wound up, we become bound in anxieties and psychological baggage. So much so, that some of us may defend ourselves, “but, this is who I am!”

    Taking a moment to observe ourselves through meditative practice, the person taking the time might notice that he or she is capable of observing their thoughts and feelings, but what then is the observer? A deep state of awareness may follow, like a cool river washing away the fragments of anxieties we were originally hung up on. This open, flowing state is equated with the “bliss” in spiritual practices, but to me it is also expressing the potential for human beings to mature into something beyond words, beyond names and limited concepts. It is that wordless, nameless state that more profound experiences may occur–satori, enlightenment, meeting God.

    Of course, all such names are not present, at least, not in focus as much anymore, we are taking flight, the “flight of the eagle” as Krishnamurti had once described. Dare we, for a moment, not limit ourselves to being lost in the self?

    On a purely physical level, we might say that the mind is associating neural pathways that are more integrative, less fragmented, more active and less reactive. The human being stepping up into their great potential through self-insight. One thing we are often afraid to do is just that–look into ourselves.

    PS: I’m putting together a thesis right now. Trying to balance out the heavy studies with meditation practice. How do you handle a heavy mental work load? Upcoming writing will probably include Jean Gebser’s work, Ever Present Origin, Wallace, and Teilhard. Thanks for dropping by!

     
  • shamansun 8:43 pm on September 25, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Quick updates. 

    Hey everyone,

    I’ll be posting more blogs shortly. Lots of work to do with school, but part of my research entails writing about Teilhard. I hope to write another essay for Integral World concerning a “follow up” analysis of integral theory, and modern ecological problems. Sounds messy, but it could be fun.

    Til then!

     
  • shamansun 11:13 pm on September 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: buddha nature, , , , omega point, teilhard de chardin   

    Selections from Teilhard, The Birth of Thought 

    “It is true that in the end, from the organic point of view, the whole metamorphosis leading to man depends on the question of a better brain. But how was this cerebral perfectioning carried out–how could it have worked–if there had not been a whole series of other conditions brought together at the same time? …Surely the smallest thing formed in the world is always the result of  the most formidable coincidence– a knot whose strands have been for all time converging from the four corners of space. Life does not work by following a single thread, nor yet by fits and starts. It pushes forward its whole network at one and the same time. So is the embryo fashioned in the womb that bears it. This we have reason to know, but it is satisfying to us precisely to recognize that man was born under the same law of maternity…

    …Without trying to picture the unimaginable, let us nevertheless keep hold of one idea–that the access to thought represents a threshold which had to be crossed at a single stride; a ‘transexperimental’ interval about which scientifically we can say nothing, but beyond which we find ourselves transported onto an entirely new biological plane…”

    …In the first place it involved a change of state; then, by this very fact, the beginning of another kind of life–precisely that interior life of which I have spoken above…”

    …the psychic center, once turned in upon itself… at the same time centers the rest of the world around itself by the establishment of an ever more coherent and better organized perspective in the realities which surround it. We are not dealing with an immutably fixed focus but with a vortex which grows deeper as it sucks up the fluid at the heart of which it was born. The ego only persists by becoming ever more itself, in the measure in which it makes everything else itself. So man becomes a person in and through personalisation.”

    “…Above the point of reflection, does the whole interest of evolution shift, passing from life into a plurality of isolated living beings?

    Nothing of the sort. Only, from this crucial date the global spurt, without slackening in the slightest, has acquired another degree, another order of complexity. The phylum does not break up like a fragile jet just because henceforward it is fraught with thinking centers; it does not crumble into its elementary psychisms. On the contrary it is reinforced by an inner lining, an additional framework.”

    I scooped up these excerpts from the Phenomenon of Man, the chapter entitled “The Birth of Thought.” Interesting points to consider. My mind dwells on these ideas:

    The emergence of thought is an organic process, a whole slew of different processes combine to form consciousness, which is then, so to speak, a thing in itself, although entirely dependent upon the environment which formed it. Self reflection, self-consciousness, self-awareness are synonymous with this. Also, the interesting case that throughout evolution, the emergence of consciousness (according to Teilhard) seems to be general direction. But, it doesn’t stop there. The general direction of matter to animate, to become sensitive and dynamic, integrated, and gradually sentient is a fascinating cosmology–although some argue entirely human-centric. I would argue that it is rather “conscious-centric,” in the fact that, life isn’t linear, and so many other creatures may have also been the ones to evolve minds, selves, and eventually cultures.

    There is also a possibility that life is a rarity, that in the universe, life does not have the tendency to become more complex over time. There are inhibitors; cosmic rays, differing conditions, lack of atmosphere, etc. that would stop emerging complexity. Or, in Teilhard’s conception, the universe appears mostly hostile towards life, and any “law of complexity consciousness” arising would be as rare as a diamond in the ocean. That may be the case, but given favorable circumstances, isn’t it still fascinating that life does have a non-linear, emergent direction?

    Another interesting idea Teilhard presents is the interdependence of life. No creature that has ever lived has “come onto its own.” Each organism is intricately connected to the surrounding environment, and, temporally, to the decisions and mutations of its ancestors. It suggests the idea that even consciousness is not a mere, unique diffusion of “mind,” but instead an emergent and new layer of life. Vastly more complex than biological, but not disconnected from it. Also, the idea of plurality only makes sense in this point of view, if we acknowledge that plurality is also interdependence, and emergence. Or, as Teilhard has mentioned, the point from which many, non-linear processes converge, and something new is born. Thus, we are not isolated societies destined to stretch infinitely on in our own ways, removed from each other. We come together, we meet and are changed by that meeting. Communion is the guiding force of evolutionary processes. Scientifically, there is the ecosystem, tit-for-tat, interdependence–and hopefully in the future as we discover the vastly complex processes underlying evolution, and integrate them, this may help us have a better sense of ourselves and the whole of life.

    This raises other points, but I think they can be mentioned in a future blog. Particularly, claims by B. Alan Wallace on the nature of consciousness. He argues that consciousness is beyond the brain, and in fact something “before,” the brain. Consciousness, then, is a convergence of matter, arranged in such a way to gain sentience of some underlying reality, also known as Buddha-nature (Could that be related to Omega point?). Fragments of light shining through. Are these claims valid? They’re huge claims, and I think require anyone exploring them to delve into huge, cosmological and spiritual questions. Definitely the subject for another post!

     
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