Top 10 Spiritual Mistakes

This is to be a lengthy response to a blog by Julian, called Top Ten Spiritual Mistakes…

(I've divided them into seperate posts so that I can divide them into seperate threads later if need be.)

Re: Top 10 Spiritual Mistakes

Okay, here we go with the first few…

10) “You create your own reality” is proven by quantum physics.

I am suprised that this one didn't get a higher ranking than ten. There are two  misaprehensions at play in this common spiritual mistake:

Firstly, there is a confusing of relative and absolute truth (as in the Vedantic Two Truths Doctrine). Spirit - absolute truth - is completely unaffected by one's thinking and psyche (which are relative).

To oversimplify: Spirit is the Thinker (not the relative thought) and subsumes and permeates all of the relative realms of manifest reality. Aurobindo's involution, where spirit gives rise to all manifestation occurs transcendant of time - it is an ontological structure, not a relative process.

Thus one can create one's relative self - the psyche - by influencing one's interpretation of relative events and thus one's own experience; and this makes no difference to the absolute at all. The metaphor that is commonly used is that the ocean being wet - one cannot discover wetness on the quantum level and the ocean does not arise out of wetness.

Secondly, there is a confusion of 1st and 3rd person perspectives where interiority (1st person perspective) is also taken to mean spirt. The spirit ios not inside the body, as iterated above, the closest approximation would be to think of it the other way around.

Regardless, one does not get to an interior perspective by studying progessively small chunks of the exterior. Also interior does not cause exterior nor visa-versa, they are two different perspectives on the same relative form.

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9) Change your thoughts intentionally and all else will follow.

I generally agree with Julian's assesment of change needing to occur deeper in the psyche here and would like to add…

The perception of subliminal consciousness (that of which one is unaware and/or has misinterpreted) has to do with stopping one's thoughts, not with changing them. One is permanently in the enlightened mind, the reason why this isn't obvious is because one is being distrated by relative forms and “noisily” thinking about them.

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8) Everyone's opinion is equally valid because all truths are relative.

Yes, it should read: All perspectives are valid. There is a difference between validity and operational effectiveness, as Julian points out. That hierachy that he refers to (Spiral Dynamics) is a structure of the breadth and multiplicity of possible perspectives.

Essentially: all perspectives are valid because they hold existential, relative truth. Some are two narrow and/or distorted and/or misdirected to be practically effective, nonetheless, they are subsumed by wider, more comprehensive perspectives. (I'll supply examples of this subsuming from Spiral Dynamics if anyone is interested.)

This has some serious implications in a “one man one vote” democratic system. Am I the only person to realise that those best capable of ruling will always be the minority in any society?

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7) All Religions are Really Saying the Same Thing: God Wants Us To Love One Another

Well they generally are, the problem is that, in practice, they generally defines the “anothers” as people of their “one true” religion. The problem here is ethnocentricity: in this value system (blue on Spiral Dynamics) people of other ethnicities (or in this case religions) are not considered to be human in the sense that they are cast as unworthy of moral consideration.

I lament the gaping dissonance between the theology and practice of most religions.

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6) If I Were Really Advanced Spiritually, I Would be Healthy, Wealthy, In Love With My Soul Mate and Happy All the Time

Again I am going to insist that spirit does not advance. What does advance is one's psyche's ability to comprehend truth (both absolute and relative). This does mean that one experiences more joy; and more pain.

This seems to point at the general misconception that psychological maturity starts after the completion of physical development. They develop in paralell (one's physical actions - behaviour - changes as one matures psychologically. “Dirt does not get up and start writing poetry.” (Ken Wilber)

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5) Rationality and Spirituality are in Direct Opposition

Most religions are/were an attempt to fit trans-rational truths into a pre-rational box. Then the “western enlightenment” happened and scientists (the modern and post modrnn ones) deicded that anything that is non-rational is prerational. (Well they have evidence of prerational behaviour from many religious praticioners.)

So the mistaking of prerational for transrational and visa-versa remains.

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5) Rationality and Spirituality are in Direct Opposition

Maybe true from a rational point of view…
Its like saying that apples and pears are in opposition.

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my point here though is that this statement is in error - it is a  mistake.

the point of view of the post is spirituality.

it is spiritually a mistake to think that rationality and spirituality are in opposition.

in fact rationality only deepens and strengthens spirituality while stripping away superstition, wishful thinking and regressive fantasy…

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6) If I Were Really Advanced Spiritually, I Would be Healthy, Wealthy, In Love With My Soul Mate and Happy All the Time

Probably this doesn't belong in the top 10… not in those parts of the world I know (Northern Europe) well enough… except for “happy all the time”. But that is what Enlightenment is supposed to be, isn't it? Bliss - Ananda.
Can you blame people for then taking that statement - Sat-Chit-Ananda - a bit too literal?

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well in my part of the world - california, this is a big one!

yeah europe is a lot more grown up about this sort of thing.

you have had the advantage of freud, marx, the existentialists and postmoderns having a massive impact.

most new agers in L.A. especially have this kind of prosperity, happiness, perfect relationship, synchronistic perfection idea about spiritual enlightenment….

and yeah sure the bliss idea from the east - but my point is that this is very unintegrated and makes u sprone to massive denial and delusion - because we are trying to fit into a one dimensional idea of what it is to be spiritual…

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8) Everyone's opinion is equally valid because all truths are relative.

The strange thing about this top ten truth is… it is at max. on the top 500 and than rather in the region of say, (thumb in the air) 450.
Seriously, I've never met anyone out of Integralist Academia (and I only meet these people on the Internet) who even knows people who actually hold, that “everyone's opinion is equally valid” or Darkchanter's “all perspectives are valid” - which, by the way, says as much as, “the moon is always round.”

The statement - and the integralists that then deconstruct it - serves an important purpose though, as far as I can see. It serves as a flag of 'integralist correctness' and mostly just seems to signify, “I (the one demasking the absurdity of the claim) have developed beyond green … and I certainly haven't got the mean-green-meme-disease.”

But maybe I live in too ordinary a world…

Much Love,
Mushin

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hmmmm actually mushin - i wish you were right. perhaps you are in your neck of the woods.

although this one was very active in my discussions about bashar with you, sandra, mary, michael et al..

this is a very popular position in both the new age and just general population who like to talk about god and spirituality.

it is a spiritual mistake because it limits further inquiry into where beliefs come from, the nature of psychological defenses and the problems with unreasonable beliefs.

it is an inquiry ending belief that people fall back on when they dont want to THINK.

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Oh, I get attacked from both sides about that “all perspectives are valid” thing (4th precept of internalism, incidentally.)

The integralists immediately, as the word “valid” leaves my mouth (or is typed), accuse me of being green. They then start applying universal contexts to it - a mean green meme trait, which they refuse to acknowledge as such and vehemently deny that they have subsumed green logic. Such actions are impossible - in contravention  - of on my cognitive model, Spiral Dynamics and Wilber's AQAL.

The best I've managed to get out of any of them, after showing that they simply cannot disproove the precept is “you should change the word valid”. Nope, sorry, validis exactly what I mean. (Perhaps I'll explain how I came by the 4th precept after this minor rant, nm enough on it in the previous post on it on this thread.)

New agers agree with me but don't seem to comprehend that it negates their sword of choice; which is a term I use for them blaming and condemning everybody for every action that they (the New Agers) don't agree with because “it was their choice to do that”.

Now I'm all for choosing how to interpret one's own experience and taking responsibility for it but that doesn't give you the right to insist that I choose the way you do. You do not have an eternal intersubjective connection with me and my experience and therefor don't even have the evidence to compare your context and choice to mine.

It seems to me to be a matter of extreme extremes on both sides. The irony is really rich when considered in the context of my wider model.

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9) Change your thoughts intentionally and all else will follow.

Not a mistake - or indeed a mistake. Depends very much on what is meant by “all else”.

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well i go into some detail about this underneath the heading - although perhaps you havent seen the actual post that darkchanter is riffing on?

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10) “You create your own reality” is proven by quantum physics.

Me too, I'm surprised of the low ranking…
But what does “proven” mean? It shows the general slant in our culture towards the belief that those things that can be “proven” are somehow superior than those things that can't be (like love, for instance… or compassion…)
The very high score this top ten mistake should have points towards the enormous prestige that science and especially quantum physics have. Does anyone of those that state this 'noble mistake' have any knowledge of quantum physics? (I don't; although I can probably say a lot of things about it…) Or even worse, does anyone know what constitutes a proof? (I don't.) And then, what kind of proof - maybe like the one that is in the eating?

What is expressed in this noble mistake is a longing for deep certaincy. And since science has been promising us this - I say it in a populistic way, I know - since 200 years or so it shouldn't surprise us…

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mushin and darkchanter you are right.

this one was first on my mind, because it is so problematic - so it started at ten.

but i am happy we all agree that this one is a BIG DEAL.

:O)

thanks for the chat.

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very good observations and context darkchanter. bravo!

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Oh, I get attacked from both sides about that “all perspectives are valid” thing (4th precept of internalism, incidentally.)

I was wondering…

What is meant by 'perspectives'?

What is meant by 'valid'?

New agers agree with me but don't seem to comprehend that it negates their sword of choice; which is a term I use for them blaming and condemning everybody for every action that they (the New Agers) don't agree with because “it was their choice to do that”.

I didn't quite get this - can you give an example of a new ager using this 'sword of choice'?

I understand what you mean by 'sword of choice' ( a rhetorical “weapon” that is preferred or used a lot in internal or external dialogs), but I don't undestand what you mean by this.

blaming and condemning everybody for every action that they (the New Agers) don't agree with because “it was their choice to do that”.

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Perspective means point of view, worldview, mindset. And valid means exists as described. Pretty much the dictionary definitions.

For example, a common rhetoric of a new ager is: “What you think of me is your problem, not mine.” The implication here is “My worldview is like so and anyone who has a different worldview is wrong.” I know that what I think of the new ager is not a problem to me at all - it only shows up as a problem in their worldview.

Here's another example from a conversation I had some time ago where I was posed a (hypothetical) question about physical fighting. She (the one asking) was convinced that anybody who hits someone else is in the wrong because they made a choice to do so.

How does she know that a choice was made when she does not have an inter-subjective connection with the mind of the one doing the hitting? How could she know? This is why, for example, there is a difference, in law, between murder and manslaughter - murder is premeditated, i.e. a choice was made by the perpetrator.


Does that clear it up?