Gaia: The Integral Pod - Chapel Perspicacious - enlightenment?

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 03:18:22 GMT

the difference between healthy transrational and psychotic experiences?

the psychotic believes in a literal interpretation of their altered state that is full blown and remains active, distrubing and disruptive to their interaction with reality.

the healthy transrational mystical experience, while very convincing and powerfully meaningful in the midst of the psychedlic, or holotropic, or yogic, meditative, or other process, is then interpreted with a degree of psychological depth and cognitive clarity that enhances their interaction with reality and is not disruptive of the barrier between the conscious and unconscious or the archetypal and the ordinary domains.

of course there is some continuum and many otherwise sane people will hold pretty whacky interpretations of their altered states.

this is explainable by wilber's oibservation thart anyone anywhere anytime can have a peak experience of any of the different levels oir stages, but how they then interpret the experience is entirely reflective of their devlopmental altitude.

the kind of conflation that you two are suggesting here has been the subject of much clarifying debate in transpersonal circles for decades. no-one of any repute still takes seriously the r.d. laing idea from the 60's that mental illness is just an unenlightened diagnosis of a mystical experience.

there are many clear indicators of the difference between psychosis and mystical states, between paranoid schizophrenia and transrational illumination, between bipolar disorder induced mania and genuine healthy genius, between disorganized insanity and a higher level of cognitive and spiritual organization.

to suggest otherwise is not only naive and irresponsible but incredibly uninformed. have you guys known any people with serious mental illness who believed and got others to believe they were having some really special spiritual experience, all thewhile causing themselves and others incredible suffering?

wilber, grof, engler and others have addressed this beautifully. wilber devotes a large part of integral psychology to discussing the pathologies of the higher levels and their correlation with regressive and primitive material.

christian mystic meister eckhart understoood it when he said "the madman is drowning in the same water the holy man is swimming in."

Re: enlightenment?

http://riversong.gaia.com — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 03:03:30 GMT

Thanks Trans....The difference between a 'mystical' experience and a 'psychotic' experience....this is generally not a problem in the psychiatric world, as in the psychiatric worldview, there are no mystical experiences.....they have not yet tetra-arisen into the field of vision......an as a result, they do not exist. And there is a real resistance to their existence too, explained nicely by the level/line fallacy. Mysticism does not fit in the rational orange scientific paradigm, and rather than staying with the discomfort of the non-fit, hanging out and having a look-see, the psychiatric paradigm solves the difference by not being able to see it. I think some guy in Harvard is presently trying to get a DSM V category for 'spiritual disorder', and this is an interesting development....but it is really not much of an open investigation. I love how Wilder Penfield did all the great brain work on his patients, discovering the various neuronal connections with curiosity and confidence that it would make sense.
I don't know how much of Jana Dixon's work will end up being scientifically 'proven' or if other explanations might be more true, but her work 'the biology of kundalini' is really fascinating.....and fascinating because she insists upon looking at her experiences in all the quadrants that they manifest.....Instead of lumping it into 'psychotic'.....she actually wonders and investigates what is likely happening.
I have to run off again, things are heating up in here at work.

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:29:49 GMT

ahhhhh we need a lot more from you in the pre/trans thread transient!

Re: enlightenment?

http://transient.gaia.com — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 22:36:51 GMT

Jane: "if enlightenment was a gallstone attack, there would be signsand symptoms identified, an easily recognizable pattern of events, some simple tests to confirm...and then there would be some research done wondering why did this particular person get THIS....maybe there would be some straight forward answers maybe not....but still there would not be this big deal about it."

I saw where you paraphrase Grof in another place Jane, and thought of this when I read your quote above:

Grof:
"At the cradle of each major religion are direct spiritual or transpersonal experiences of the founders, saints, and prophets. Buddha meditating under the Bo tree experienced the onslaught of Kama Mara, the master of the world illusion, and his terrifying army. The Koran and the Moslem religion were inspired by the "miraculous journey of Mohammed", a visionary experience during which he was guided by archangel Gabriel through the seven heavens, the paradise, and the infernal regions of Gehenna. Similarly Jesus, according to the Bible, had a powerful visionary encounter with the devil during which he was exposed to his temptations. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament abound in descriptions of transpersonal experiences reflecting connection and communication with God and with angels. We have seen many similar experiences in the holotropic breathwork sessions, in psychedelic therapy, as well as during spontaneous psychospiritual crises ("spiritual emergencies"). We could add to the list St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Anthony, and many other Christian saints and Desert Fathers, as well as Ramakrishna and Shri Ramana Maharshi-they all had powerful visionary experiences of one kind or another.

According to traditional psychiatry, all these people would be seen as psychotics or people suffering from some other serious psychiatric condition. We actually have many psychiatric articles and books that discuss which psychiatric diagnosis would be most appropriate for the founders of various religions, their prophets, and saints. Franz Alexander, a famous psychoanalyst and founder of psychosomatic medicine, even wrote a paper entitled Buddhist Meditation as an Artificial Catatonia, putting spiritual practice into a pathological context.

Similarly, anthropologists argue whether shamans should be viewed as hysterics, epileptics, schizophrenics, or maybe ambulant psychotics. Many people who have transpersonal experiences are automatically treated as psychotics, people suffering from a mental disease, because psychiatrists do not make a distinction between a mystical experience and a psychotic experience. "

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:31:49 GMT

intertesting reflections jane. yeah, i actually know jana from a different forum. she has some good stuff...

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:29:01 GMT

no thank you keith.

yeah i hear you.

i think it's all good though. we get to refine our communication skills, polish our thinking, get feedback that eiether resonates or doesnt and fine tune a lot of stuff that most of the rest of the world doesnt want to chat about....

i love it.

sorry if i offended in any way.

~j

Re: enlightenment?

http://riversong.gaia.com — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:35:39 GMT

Julian wrote: "i like the fact that your teacher doesnt claim nor define enlightenment - a good sign imo.
again i have noticed that the teachers who do claim and define this big old red herring tend to be suspect and to use it in a way that makes their usuallly quite gullible followers apt to accept all kinds of unethical behaviour and cultic situations that do the opposite of healing or awakening anyone...."

It is funny about the 'voodoo' around enlightment.... if enlightenment was a gallstone attack, there would be signsand symptoms identified, an easily recognizable pattern of events, some simple tests to confirm...and then there would be some research done wondering why did this particular person get THIS....maybe there would be some straight forward answers maybe not....but still there would not be this big deal about it. I have loved the brutual inquiry that Jana Dixon insists upon wherever she writes..... (google: "the biology of kundalini" if you are not familiar with her work, and otherwise she continues to post brilliant and brutally honest synopses of her experience on the HeartMind Community Forum).

Nobody immediately suspects a person having a gallbladder attack of being a Narcissistic Asshole about to vie for power among a bunch of gullible sheep.

Maybe it is time to take Enlightenment off the pedistal and have a nice hearty look at it.....maybe it is time for the 'hero to return' and instead of 'playing the fool in front of the sober (unenlightened) eyes of the jury', it is time for all of us with our various myriad of experiences(narcissitic assholean experiences included) to welcome them back , 'hail fellow, well met!' and have a look-see at what they came up with on their adventures..... I'm just sayin' ..... :)

Re: enlightenment?

http://geomo.gaia.com — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:15:18 GMT

Thanks for the reply, Julian. I think we probably agree more than not. I get a bit frustrated (having fun with it mostly, but a little frustration does arise) at the medium of forum posting. Most of the time when there appears to be disagreement it can be easily sorted out by some dialogue. My guess is that if we could explain ourselves in a more freeform way (unconditioned??? how appropriate) we would be in a much better position to get our points across. Maybe not. I don't know;-)

Peace

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 03:28:48 GMT

well i think what i missed keith was the goood natured humor in your last two posts. this time around i enjoyed that! thanks.

i still think you are mistaken in calling my attitude toward the concept of enlightenment a "myth".

i still think what you presented (humor and all) was a fralse dichotomy and a circular argument.

now your position may well be correct - you are right i actually dont know. but your argument does not back this up.

the examples i used apply to this problem.

another angle on my central premise in this discussion:

by definition enlightenment (in the spiritual, not commonplace or historical meaning) is beyond dualistic concepts.

therefore it follows that any attempt to define enlightenment will be inadequate.

therefore my point stands that the amount of energy people put into trying to define and attain enlightenment in some concrete dualistic way is in fact a blind alley.

i think it is better understood in an archetypal/symbolic way. i think it is also a good idea to investigate this fasacination and longing for holy enlightened messiahs and ask ouselves how realistic this is and what if any actual experience it is based in...

i like the fact that your teacher doesnt claim nor define enlightenment - a good sign imo.

again i have noticed that the teachers who do claim and define this big old red herring tend to be suspect and to use it in a way that makes their usuallly quite gullible followers apt to accept all kinds of unethical behaviour and cultic situations that do the opposite of healing or awakening anyone....

this is based on the history of the term in our weastern adoption of all things eastern - not in my believing or not believing anything at all.

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:06:36 GMT

oh ok keith - i will go back and see what i missed!

i must have misunderstood something.

apologies.

~julian

Re: enlightenment?

http://geomo.gaia.com — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 00:40:55 GMT

I have read this entire thread and been engaged in it from the start, so I think I know what the gist of the arguments are. Respectfully, yes, I read the links before my previous post, though I already know what circular logic is. Then, I wrote what I wrote in my previous post (which I still think is a valid argument and not at all like the Poseiden myth or the lawyer question). Then I read your reply. Then I wrote a bunch of stuff in this reply but deleted it all. Fun stuff, indeed.;-)

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:39:01 GMT

ma

rip

pa

i'll

take

it

!

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~

J

Re: enlightenment?

http://ma-rig-pa.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:32:57 GMT

Hi Julian

Sorry, not had time to repond to your earlier response to my ... you know wot I mean ... yet ...... I've been too busy reading all the great posts (yours included of course) on various threads ...... but this I find I can respond to reasonably easily!

If your position is simply as you state here:

"my position again: the literalist and fetishistic way that the word enlightenemnt is used in popular spirituality is highly problematic, regressive and idealizing of states and individuals in a way that is often quite destructive and ironically limiting of authentic growth, healing and awakening."

I have no difficulty with it whatsoever ..... apart from a small matter of wanting to subtitute the three usages of 'is' with 'can be' x 2 and 'can (often) be' .

Lol

Re: enlightenment?

http://ma-rig-pa.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:15:56 GMT

Hi Balder,

This is quite topical actually!

I was listening to my teacher the other day, via a live webcast. At one point he said "I am not a modern person" then later, when talking about some people's difficulty in accepting the possibility of other kinds of beings on/in other worlds or dimensions, he asked them to look up at the night sky, take in the countless stars and ask themselves whether it's likely that our sun is the only star with a solar system, or even if they accept that there are other solar systems, whether it's likely ours is the only one that can support intelligent life. Of course this is by no means an original idea or argument, but it's maybe significant that it's coming from an almost septuagenarian Tibetan lama. Or maybe not.

I share your objection ..... and, recognising that your last 'perhaps' is tongue in cheek ..... even though I haven't even yet got my copy of I S, let alone read it (or S E S for that matter), it seems to me that our Ken's primary concern at the moment is to present perspectives that are palatable to all those post-modernists out there.

Loving your work over on this thread's companion, bro.

Lol

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:04:34 GMT

false dichotomy.

see above. :O) did you read the links? fun stuff...

ummmm the whole previous thread is an elaborate exploration of what the word enlightenement might mean and on my end what i think the problems are with the concept in practice.

have you heard the one about the lawyer who asks the person on the witness stand - "sir when did you stop beating your wife?"

your question feels reductionsistic and assumes a dichotomy i don't agree with. i have already gone into some detail on my actuall thoughts in the matter and don't want to repeat them too much.

as per my previous post, let's insert poseidon.

so you say: neither i nor you know if poseidon is a myth or not. becareful julian not to pretend to know this....well, sorry - poseidon is a mytrhic figure, an archetype, a symnbol that is not literally real.

even in the language common to discussion of enlightenement there is the central idea that it is not what you think it is.

the finger pointing at the moon etc...

as such (and from the point of view of some serious teachers of enlightenent) it is definitely a mythic symbol that represents something one has to go beyond the mythic symbol and the limited beliefs of your present state/stage to experience, - yes?

as such it is explicitly part of any serious earch for illumination to deconstruct and go beyond mythic images as literally interpreted facts...

in campbell's words - good myths are masks of god that are still transparent to transcendence.

i am happy to claim the more conventional western meaning of enlightement here as having to do with knowledge.

critical thinking and a willingness to deonstruct the myth of the given (in this case the aspect that has to do with the concept of enlightenment) allows knowledge/awarenes to emerge that is enlightening...

semiotics anyone?

:O)

my position again: the literalist and fetishistic way that the word enlightenemnt is used in popular spirituality is highly problematic, regressive and idealizing of states and individuals in a way that is often quite destructive and ironically limiting of authentic growth, healing and awakening.

Re: enlightenment?

http://geomo.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:35:49 GMT

Julian,

I think you missed my point...maybe I did too;-) Maybe I was unclear. I'll state it in as clear terms as I can.

Regarding enlightenment as myth or not:

I don't know, and you don't either.

Nevertheless, you are certain that your position is right. I am certain that I do not know (and circularly so....I don't even know if I am certain). Certainly, we can disagree. Or is it a myth to suppose that there is a we than can disagree? ;-) (guess what...I don't know)

One thing I have learned in this life (not sure how many others): Beware of one who claims to know the Truth. Are you making such a Truth claim? That there is Absolutely No Such Thing as Enlightenment? What makes you so sure? (topical answer....ego...same thing that makes me so sure that I don't know....weird, but fun;-))

I love my teacher, because he always says he hasn't a clue what he talks about. He only relates his own experience. I'll follow that example, because I find it beautiful, as I reiterate my previous statements. I really don't know....anything.

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:56:23 GMT

hmmmm keith this is very fishy. :O) ya not pissing me off...

let's play: logical fallacies anyone?

it's just a little bit of a circular argument. ummm it's also a false dichotomy.

let's change some of the words:

either poseidon exists or poseidon does not exist.

both these ideas are myths that one chooses to believe. even not believing is a choice to believe in amyth - that which says poseidon does not exist.

since neither are provable and nobody really knows, i am going to choose to believe in poseidon.

i think the ancient greeks were onto something.

or how about:

either you think there is a soulmate out there that you are destined to find or you think there is not.

either one is a myth and you cant avoid belkieving one or the other.

personally i like to think that there really is a soulmate i am destined to meet so i choose to believe it and you can't prove there isnt....

or we could go to:

either you're going to heaven or you're going to hell.

i believe in jesus because that's the way to heaven, - where are you going after you die?

**please bear in mind these examples illustrate the form and do not suggest identity with your content** in fact , they are purposely using ideas i think you do not agree with to illustrate the problem with these logical fallacies....:O)

so as per the defintions i linked to:

your argument is circular becuase it presupposes the existence of enlightenment in the premises - your belief in enlightenment is also your conclusion - so your argument proceeds by circular logic and proves nothing.

your argument is a false dichotomy because it supposes that there are only two options, when in fact the question is very complex and tehre are in fact multiple options, you then atttempt to prove that one of those two options is true based on making the other seem silly.

in both the circular argument and the false dichotomy logical fallacious nature of your argument there exists also straightforward myth of the given material in that you are assuming the concept enlightenment as a given, even though you discuss it as a myth your argument is about wether or not "it" exists.

Re: enlightenment?

http://geomo.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:02:44 GMT

Regardless of how one might define "Enlightenment," there does seem to be no way out of the myth of the given when attempting to "prove" it.

Myth 1: Enlightenment exists.

Myth 2: Enlightenment does not exist.

To make any argument for or against must pre-suppose one of those myths.

Possible solution to this conundrum: Enlightement is the Reality/Realization that transcends all myths.

This does not answer the question whether or not there is such a Reality. My answer to that question is that there is Something. Whether it is Allness or Nothingness or "frisky dirt" or whatever is of no concern to me. There is a Truth about this Something. I don't know what that Truth is, but it is nonetheless. Isn't it?

Soooo, choose your myth. I'm gonna hedge my bets with this simple statement of surrender: I don't know.

And I'm gonna piss off anybody who is attached to their particular myth: You don't know, either;-)

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:49:12 GMT

Ma Rig Pa, although this is somewhat of a trivial observation, one objection I've had to Wilber's claims about enlightenment consisting of realizing "oneness with the highest level in the Kosmos to have emerged at any given time" is that it limits the perspective to the development of consciousness on Earth. Of course, we do not know anything about consciousness on other planets, but it is certainly possible that there are higher forms of consciousness out there in our enormous universe. Wilber does not answer whether the attainment of higher levels at any location within the Kosmos opens the window, evolutionarily, for a similar emergence on other worlds. Perhaps he is relying on Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance, and therefore doesn't think we would resonate with alien forms of consciousness -- but then it doesn't make sense to speak in terms of "realizing oneness with everything in existence in the Kosmos."

Or perhaps he thinks the Earth is the leading edge of evolution in the universe.

Or perhaps he hasn't considered this question!

Re: enlightenment?

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 16:52:56 GMT

shit - wrong thread......

i know i know - the topic is not the myth of the given yet - even though we did move some of the conversation over that way....

seriously though ma rig pa - i am interested in your thoughts.

peace
~julian