The Status of States

Or…  States and The Absolute

In Wilber’s model of evolutionary enlightenment, particularly the W-C Lattice, I have gotten the impression that the “states” component is intended to allow for the preservation of the “timeless” (formless, absolute) aspect of enlightenment, even while also incorporating the evolutionary, developmental dimensions of realization via the inclusion of relative stages. 

Is this your impression as well?

If so, I have a question – or the beginnings of a couple questions. 

Wilber refers to states as fluid but ever-present (or ever-accessible, at least to human beings), which reinforces the association of states with the “timeless” dimension of being.  But present understanding of states (see Charles Tart) indicates that states are not inherently unitary phenomena, but rather are highly complex constructions.  I believe there is a difference between certain affective or cognitive states, such as a depressive or altered state, and the so-called “natural states,” but all states appear to consist of multiple interacting elements.  (The fluidity of states, of course, is suggestive of this as well.)  

If states are best seen as complex, dynamic (psychoneurophysiological) patterns, rather than pre-given, unitary constants, in what way, if any, can they “stand in” for the absolute / timeless dimension of enlightenment?  They are arguably as “constructed” and “emergent” (relative) as structure-stages.

Many identified states, including altered states, appear to include cogntive and affective components (for instance) as well as neurophysiological ones.  This suggests that the “line” between states and structures is not hard and fast – so, it’s not simply a matter of having “something” independent called a state, which then gets interpreted conceptually.  Rather, the “state” itself seems to include affectivity and conceptuality as constituent aspects of its arising (as a dynamic, emergent pattern).  I am sure Wilber recognizes this, but it does seem to me that a “states and stages” model might tempt us to look at states as separate “things” that arise and then “get interpreted” through a particular conceptual framework, and this seems problematic to me.

What do you think?

Re: The Status of States

Re: The Status of States

Hi, Bryan, I think that’s a good point – even “stages” can be understood as states.  I was suggesting something similar when I said that the line between states and structures is not firm, that states have structure and that structures show up in/as various states. 

I did not quite follow your last point, however.  Can you expand on it or clarify what you were getting at?

Re: The Status of States

Thanks Balder!  Sure,

The axes of the Wilber COmbs lattice are said to depict two directions of two different “kinds” of “enlightenment,” and I find it agreeable: 
One “enlightenment” being furthered by the tendancy to evolve or develop.  I.e. the direction of evolution towards greater physical complexity (This is how I intereperet the term Eros - the seemingly innate urge that gets us out of bed in the morining to go out and create is connected to the urge of the first fish that jumped out of the water and started walking around on land a few hundred million years ago). 
The second “enlightenment” is the experience of “being”–for lack of better word–or the tendancy to return to the “primordial consciousness,” or a return to Spirit…  These subjective experiences are always hard to put into structuralized terms, since it is something prior to, or observing of, all structural things IMO.  But I think there is a longing for a freedom from the evolutionary game at times too… Maybe those two tendancies aren’t seperate after all, but they do produce phenomenon with differing characteristics and are justifiably yet loosely categorizeable as States or Stages.

-Bryan
  

Re: The Status of States

I say Alleluia brother Balder that you’ve finally come around! Wilber says in IS that even the nondual “state” in the lattice is interpreted and contextual, even so-called timeless and absolute experiences like nirvana, satori, primordial awareness etc. But as you note it is then problematic to say that enlightenment is the union of absolute and relative, and that states give us the absolute. So it’s all in how we contextualize and interpret the absolute, the timeless and transcendence.

One way to do this is to suggest that the eternal is not timeless but is ever-present, that the present moment, and experiences of such, are “timeless” in that they appear outside of time. In such a state experience we are present to our feelings, thoughts, etc. without attachment, just watching them go by. And watching the watcher. Of course we are familiar with this as vipassana meditation. And perhaps after such watching all such distinctions cease, where the watcher and the watched merge in a unitary state, the nondual. But as you noted, this too is a temporary state, and its contextual interpretation will in fact determine how we experience it as a state.

Not only that, it requires a recontextualization of the very idea of enlightenment. As you noted in the “end of enlightenment” thread such a notion, if it includes some given, timeless, absolute ground or spirit or whatever then it’s stuck in more traditional interpretations. And Wilber’s definition of enlightenment, although he gets the relative side right, is still interpreting the so-called absolute side via states in traditional terms that are not longer adequate to our task. Hence I’ve find the more “embodied” contextualizations more adequate, like Epstein, Mead, Caputo, Derrida, the CogSciPragos, Garfield etc. And forming an IMP with that base seems much more postmetaphysical than accepting traditional metaphysical notions of state experiences at face value.

Wilber seems to get this in his centaur level, body-mind integration. But his continuing traditional spiritual interpretation of states infects his so-called higher-than-centaur structural levels. That’s why I prefer the Model of Hierarchical Complexity’s postformal levels of systemic, metasystemic, paradigmatic and cross-paradigmatic. It is devoid of such traditional metaphysical interpretations, is empirically based, and is itself a cross-paradigmatic interpretation. It might be interesting to see how the MHC crowd views states. I have a good idea from my conversations with Sara Ross and I’ve encouraged her to write a paper on it, which she keeps threatening to do if she can find the time. I look forward to that paper.

Re: The Status of States

I say Alleluia brother Balder that you’ve finally come around!

LOL.  Well, yes, I’ve definitely been influenced in my perspectives by my discussions with you and others here.  But my “turn around” may not be as big as you imagine.  I think we’ve been talking past each other for awhile now, and I’ve been reflecting recently on how to try to remedy that.  I actually raised this issue about the status of states in discussions on the Multiplex when Integral Spirituality first came out, but the conversation didn’t go anywhere, as I remember.

In our discussions here on IPS, I believe it was a year or so ago on the meditation thread when I first tried to articulate my current understanding of a post-metaphysical, constructive, tetra-enactive form of Buddhism.  As I recall (I’d need to look for the post), I argued that, while we might reject the metaphysical dimensions of Buddhist belief, we could still see it as a transformative vehicle capable of helping practitioners construct or enact a new way of being.  My point was that both the contemplative practices and the various philosophical/deconstructive trainings have the potential to effect positive, creative changes in understanding and awareness (not separable from “translation,” but neither “merely” translation).  Carving a new way of knowing/being out of the malleable fabric of our being, rather than “discovering” some pre-existing (metaphysical) spiritual ground.

Regarding this thread, while I think it’s fair to describe certain dimensions of Buddhist (spiritual) practice as “state training,” I think we both recognize problems (post-metaphysically) with identifying states with the “absolute” stream of realization.  Like you, I also see value in certain modern embodied contextualizations of spiritual practice, and I’ve appreciated the many different excerpts you’ve posted here.  I think there are dimensions of human embodiment or potential that perhaps are still not as clearly recognized in these modern, non-contemplative traditions, but there are also clearly important insights and models that these modern (postmodern, cognitive-scientific) traditions make available that allow us, as you point out, to create a more adequate post-metaphysical recontextualization of ancient spiritual practices.

Re: The Status of States

Here are some excerpts from New Developments in Consciousness Research by Vincent Fallio (Nova, 2007). For me it indicates that so-called “spiritual” states of consciousness probably arise in very early levels of consciousness and associated brain structures. Hence there is a very real sense in which “primordial” awareness is ancient, in that it arises from these early brain structures. But it is not timeless or absolute; it is grounded in our psychoneurophysiology.

The excerpts:

…we think it appropriate to consider that consciousness is not something unitary but that it has several levels of complexity, and that these levels have been forming ontogenically and philogenetically.

On a lower level can be found the state of alertness or of being conscious, which refers to a basic level of consciousness or matrix as a generalized state in which the system is receptive to information. This aspect of consciousness is clearly related to the concept of tonic attention, and is also related to neural mechanisms in the stimulatory reticular system, the thalamus, the limbic system, basal ganglia, and the prefrontal cortex.

As well as this matrix attention, a vectorial function is necessary that must coincide with the subsequent attention concept of Posner and Peterson. Its main purpose would be the location of stimuli, that is to say being selective in order to capture priority information. This system would depend on the integration of right rear parietal cortex areas, the lateral pulvinar, and the upper culliculus.

Once the system is activated it is ready to be assaulted by a multitude of stimuli that will give rise to a conscious experience. In our opinion both the models of Crick, Llinas, or Edelman and Tononi satisfy this level of analysis, as although they differ in details they agree on the need for a pattern of synchronized brain activity that gives rise to the said conscious experience. As for its neuroanatomical substrate, this will depend on the thalamocortical networks.

At a fourth level of complexity we find self-awareness, that capacity of perceiving ourselves in objective terms at the same time as we maintain a sense of subjectivity. In a hierarchical organization of mental function this self-awareness if found in the vertex of the pyramid, as it controls mental activity, represents current experiences in relation to previous ones, uses knowledge to resolve novel situations, and guides us in the making of decisions for the future. In this sense self-consciousness overlaps with the concept of executive functions.

The critical neural system for self-awareness is found in the prefrontal cortex…. Other areas that are involved are…temporal lobes (especially in noetic consciousness) and the amygdala (related to the emotional valency of the conscious experience and the memory) (81 – 83).

Re: The Status of States

Here’s more on “tonic attention” from Fallio’s book. Sound familiar?

…a basic level of consciousness as a generalized state in which the system is receptive to information. In this sense awareness could be related to a tonic or basic attention; it is therefore important to realize that this type of consciousness should be understood as a “condition for” and not so much as a function or cognitive process. As a result of this it can be affirmed that this notion of consciousness, this state of being aware, is a state that does not contain information (68).

Re: The Status of States

Hi Balder,

I also see the difficulties here, and although my reasoning is very different, I seem to be in general agreement with Theurji.

There’s no such thing as Being, the way I look at it.  Anything that
can be labelled such is really a type of Doing.  And “pure” Doing makes
no sense.  Every so-called counter-example I’ve ever heard is actually
a type of Doing – a judgement (for an idealist) or mechanism (for a
physicalist)… or both (for a dualist).  I think higher states of
consciousness are just Doings of a certain kind.  They are capacities
that evolved, not pre-givens that we return to.  Take away all matter
(including subtle matter, if you believe in it) and you are left
with… nothing.  Or at least, nothing that we can know about.  Things
don’t exist IN Being.  Rather, Being, if we must use that term, is
always a Doing – an interaction, judgement or communication.  To
seperate Being from Doing, even if only metaphorically, creates an
uneccessary dualism.

That is one of my two major issues with Wilber’s philosophy.

Incidently, at a Theosophical Meeting today, the discussion group I was
with talked about Blavatsky’s attempt to link the Buddhist notion of
no-self with a Hindu idea of a reincarnating soul.  One person there
expressed the oppinion that this didn’t quite work.  I agreed with
him.  But he then asked the group what everyone thought of it, whether
they saw the self as a permanent (or long-lived) soul, or whether they
prefered the Buddhist idea of the “soul” as a bunch of aggregates that
form the illusion of an esential self because they have causal
continuity (even across different lifetimes).  Everyone then said they
thought the soul was an essence… except for me.  I defended the
Buddhist idea, which was strange to me considering I don’t have much
interest in Buddhism.  This scene made me realise just how diffiult a
truly non-dual metaphysics (free or homunculi and other
logocentricisms) can be.

Re: The Status of States

“This suggests that the “line” between states and structures is not hard and fast – so, it’s not simply a matter of having “something” independent called a state, which then gets interpreted conceptually.”



Wow, Bruce. Alleluia, indeed. ;-) 
This is a huge kettle of fish, one that I’d like to take on in all its smelly details, perhaps here as well as in a blog entry. 

Re: The Status of States

“Absoluteness” and “timelessness” are functions of the “logic” of a particular metaphysic, which in turn is the function of the demands of a particular soteriology, namely, the soteriology of moksha, nirvana, kaivalya.

In “The Ultimate State of Consciousness,” Ken says that the “ultimate state” is not a state, not an experience. This idea can be culled from several traditions; in that particular article Ken quotes Eckhart.

The analysis given in the Potthapada Sutta and Gaudapada Karika is that no “state” of the self can be ultimate since all states “come and go.” And that which “comes and goes” is anitya, impermanent, which is the mark of samsara, the opposite of release, which by definition must be permanent.

My take is that someone has a some kind of “experience,” say of “timelessness” or “spacelessness,” due to the action of some naturally occuring psychotropic compound (like eg.,  5 meo-dmt, the same compound responsible for so called “near death experiences”) which is released by some artificial means like yogic meditation, and then a kind of confabulation occurs wherein the experience is simultaneously interpreted-as and constructed-as an experience of “timelessness,” due in part to the inculcation of a particular soteriological “teaching.”

To me the interesting question is: why “timelessness?” What’s so special about that?  Is it as if we accidently experience timelessness, and then conclude we are free because that is our immortal nature? No; that would be backwards. Rather, we seek it out because we don’t want our consciousness to cease to exist. In other words, we go looking for timelessness. We then find some “experience” that indicates for us that it has this “timeless” quality — that “confirms” our wishes, really — and this then comforts us.

Thus, the procedure is exactly the opposite of how the mystical empiricists would have it. And there is every indication that this is precisely what the Upanishads, the source of this way of thinking, are up to: defining moksha in a certain manner, and then finding some condition that “fulfills” it. Time and again, in all the classic works, various conditions are rejected specifically because they do not meet the requirements of the definition, of the “logic” of release. This is not empiricism; it’s a-priorism in its most pure form.

Re: The Status of States

Just a brief clarification.  Wilber clearly doesn’t associate all states with the absolute.  He recognizes them as ephemeral, as passing, of course.  But he does associate the causal state (deep dreamless sleep) with the Absolute, and then Nonduality is the integration of the causal and the world of form.  So, there clearly is an identification of two states (causal and the state-that-is-not-a-state, nondual) with the absolute.  Here’s a brief discussion which illustrates this.



~*~



A MATRIX OF DEVELOPMENT

Wilber: First I’ll scope out the big picture, and then we’ll come back to some of the finer details. One of the important distinctions we make, and we’ve talked about this from various angles, is the difference between states of consciousness and stages of consciousness. For this discussion we can use a fairly simplified developmental scheme—we can just say egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric, and then we sometimes add something like Kosmocentric. Those stages represent one’s identity, moving from an identification merely with “me” (egocentric) to an identification with “us” (ethnocentric) to an identification with “all of us” (worldcentric) to an identification with the All (Kosmocentric).As permanent realizations, those are stages; they develop and unfold. States, on the other hand, can mean states of consciousness like waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and so on. You can usually experience these states at any stage—even an infant wakes, dreams, and sleeps.As professor and consciousness researcher Allan Combs says, states are free; stages have to be earned.
In any event, peak experiences or altered states tend to be temporary, transient—they come and go.They can be very important and very profound; it’s just that they don’t last.For example, an initial state experience of satori can be very important before it becomes a permanent or stage realization.

Cohen: Yes.

Wilber: But in relationship to what we are speaking about, if you look at the type of self or selves that a person can have in terms of states, in addition to stages, then it gets very interesting. For ordinary people in the waking state, the self they have is the ego. In the subtle or dream state, it’s the soul or what you’re calling the Authentic Self, which I refer to as the deeper psychic. And in the deep-sleep formless state, it’s the Absolute Self. Now if we describe those three as nirmanakaya, sambogakaya, dharmakaya, or gross, subtle, causal, then those are the three major, or basic, selves that every human being possesses. We have a gross self, or ego, a subtle self, or soul or deeper psychic, and a causal, formless absolute or atman Self, capital S, a transcendental witness. So even an infant has a soul. They’re not necessarily awakened to it, they’re not necessarily alive to it, but it’s there, yes. And they also obviously have an atman Self, even though they’re not awake or realized as that transcendental Self or witness.States are free; stages are earned.
So the interesting thing is that you can now do what we call a lattice or a matrix, where you can plot stages of development and then look at the selves or the states that are occurring. The essential point, as we were saying, is that a person at any stage can have a temporary experience of almost any state—so you can have an egocentric experience of gross, subtle, and causal; an ethnocentric experience of gross, subtle, and causal; a worldcentric experience of gross, subtle, and causal, and so on.We have an enormous amount of evidence that all of those occur.
On occasion, then, almost anybody at any stage can get a glimpse of the deeper psychic, or the soul. They can have that state experience, but it usually slips and fades away.It is merely a passing state and not a permanent trait, not yet a permanent stage realization. Now, what I think happens, and the way it ties together with what you’re talking about, is that at some point in actual development, between the worldcentric and Kosmocentric stages, the deeper psychic can awaken to itself, not as a temporary altered state but as a permanent realization or stage accomplishment.

Cohen: Right. And that’s a very significant moment.

Wilber: So at that point you are awakening to this self in the subtle dimension. It’s actually becoming alive to itself, even though in a sense it’s been there all along, even though it had this kind of wholeness all along. It’s been developing itself, because these stages have been developing as the vehicle through which it can express itself. But you have to be at least at a worldcentric stage of development or it’s not going to stick. You can awaken the deeper psychic, or the soul, and get a taste of it, but it fades. But at some point, as we were saying, between worldcentric and Kosmocentric, it can be awakened, and there’s a kind of flip. And then you hang everything off of your soul.

Cohen: Right, exactly!

Wilber: Does that make sense?

Cohen: Yes, perfectly.

Wilber: So theoretically that’s pretty good.


 
NO WAY BACK

Wilber: Of course, we’ve talked about what happens when people at lower levels of development have a temporary state experience of the subtle soul, or causal Self, and then they revert next week or the week after that, and then they usually feel pretty cranky about what’s gone on—

Cohen: Very cranky. Even more than cranky. You see, I’m starting to see that when people really awaken to the Authentic Self, they begin to see the world in a completely new way; they discover a new morality. Suddenly they discover a completely different relationship to mind, to emotions, to the purpose and meaning and direction of life. But when they fall out of that perspective, because maybe they didn’t want to face whatever they had to face in themselves—then what they do is fall back into the level of development that they were in before they had that realization. So suddenly they’re not seeing things in the new way anymore, and they embrace the psychology and worldview that they had before, and then they see the experience that they had in a higher state from the perspective of the lower stage. So of course, now it’s seen in a completely distorted way.

Wilber: Unfortunately that happens all the time.[Laughing] Happened to me just this morning at breakfast.

Cohen: [Laughing] It’s a very weird experience to watch this happen to people.

Wilber: Well, again, you’re looking at states and stages in what you’re just describing. And the thing is, stages can’t be skipped. For example, take atoms, molecules, cells, organisms. An atom can’t have an experience of a cell and bypass being a molecule. It just doesn’t work like that. So a person can be plunged into an authentic experience of a higher state—even of the nondual—at virtually any stage that they’re at. They can have that temporary state experience—but then what also happens is that if the person is ready to move to the next stage of development, that experience will help dislodge their identification with their current stage, and they will then start to actually move to that next stage, in addition to having the state experience of the nondual.

Cohen: Right!

Re: The Status of States

“We have a gross self, or ego, a subtle self, or soul or deeper psychic, and a causal, formless absolute or atman Self, capital S, a transcendental witness. So even an infant has a soul. They’re not necessarily awakened to it, they’re not necessarily alive to it, but it’s there, yes. And they also obviously have an atman Self, even though they’re not awake or realized as that transcendental Self or witness.”



Again, we see the same “logic” at work:  Release cannot be the result or effect (krta) of some action (kriya), including yoga, or have a cause (karana), because release cannot come into being. For, that which comes into being, must go out of being. Therefore, by definition, it must be “always already.” Thus, moksha can be “realized,” gnoseologically, but, as Shankara says, it cannot the result of an actual union (sampatti), or a “going” or path (gamana), or a “purification” (samskara), or an actual separation (vivikta), which are the answers of various other schools.

Re: The Status of States

“For ordinary people in the waking state, the self they have is the ego… And in the deep-sleep formless state, it’s the Absolute Self…. We have a gross self, or ego, a subtle self, or soul or deeper psychic, and a causal, formless absolute or atman Self, capital S, a transcendental witness. So even an infant has a soul. They’re not necessarily awakened to it, they’re not necessarily alive to it, but it’s there, yes. And they also obviously have an atman Self, even though they’re not awake or realized as that transcendental Self or witness.”
 
I wonder: What is the “realization” of the Absolute Self in Ken’s scenario? It seems that for Ken it is simply reflexive awareness in deep dreamless sleep. Bracketing, for a moment, whether or not this is even possible, to me this seems like the mere intrusion of the rational egoic mind into so called dreamless sleep. I know, for example, in my own experience that when I lucid dream, I often come to an awareness that I am in fact dreaming by means of a kind of inference; for example, flying when we know we can’t fly, falling but not breaking your leg, turning a light switch off when the room remains lit, snow on the ground when you know it’s summer, etc. To me, this is just Spock making his appearance in the dream state. I don’t understand what is so *special* about “lucidity” here.

Re: The Status of States

“So suddenly they’re not seeing things in the new way anymore, and they embrace the psychology and worldview that they had before, and then they see the experience that they had in a higher state from the perspective of the lower stage. So of course, now it’s seen in a completely distorted way.”



Well then, trash all this wankery and obession with “states” and focus on what’s important: the change of perspective! :-)

Re: The Status of States

isnt his point that the change in perspective only becomes possible because of the experience of the higher state? so the abillity to take different perspectives will not in itself lead to self-development, without some form of state-training. otherwise intellectuals and academics would be wise men instead of internally regressed narcissists (i generalise)

Re: The Status of States

“isnt his point that the change in perspective only becomes possible because of the experience of the higher state? so the abillity to take different perspectives will not in itself lead to self-development, without some form of state-training. otherwise intellectuals and academics would be wise men instead of internally regressed narcissists (i generalise)”

This is the so-called argument from “experience,” which stems from the most part from Vivekananda. It’s wishful thinking, really; the hope for a panacea, that so far, has not at all panned out the way many had hoped it would. As is evident, self-styled “yogis” are just as capable of glib, self-assured arrogance as are “intellectuals.”

The response of the jnanis, like Shankara or Nagarjuna, is that state training is not necessary; nor does ability, or even adepthood, with the manipulation of yogic “states” ensure realization. For the jnanis, there is no necessary causal relation between meditative capacity and wisdom.

Re: The Status of States

But Wilber might say, based on the lattice, that all structure-stages are only within the gross body and consciousness. They don’t touch on the subtle and causal bodies and consciousnesses. Yeah, right.

Re: The Status of States

Those ain’t subtle and causal bodies, remember, they’re subtle and causal “energies” which take off after death like a rocketship into The Given, which is made of chocolate.

Re: The Status of States

They’re “bodies” too. In IS Wilber refers us to Excerpt G for a fuller explanation of the relationship of states to stages.  In Part III he describes how Vedanta and Vajrayana relate them (I can already hear kela). In this scheme the structure-stages are contained within the subtle state/body/energy/consciousness. It’s only at the causal that the structure-stages drop away and we experience nirvikalpa. This really does seem like an extreme yogic contortionism to maintain so-called tradition when we have much better explanations now with (post)modern consciousness/brain science and philosophies of the flesh.

Re: The Status of States

Yes, he calls them energy-bodies, or something … Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me only matter can be a body.  More Wilber ascenderist Givenitis.

Re: The Status of States

My goodness: etheric, astral, and psychic energies? Chakras and reincarnation? It’s all beginning to sound like M. Blavatsky. 
 
In any case, the characterization he gives of the subtle state is traditional ala the Gaudapada Karika: the absence of gross objects. 
 
However, there appears to be the lingering idea here of “stages” as the “structures” of “states” becoming “permanent features.” This idea presents a few problems where the “subtle” is concerned. I’ll ignore that for now.
 
Here is how he resolves the issue vis a vis the “causal”:
 
“…therefore they can permanently access or Witness the waking, dream, and deep sleep states; such witnessing is called turiya (or “the fourth,” meaning the fourth great state beyond waking, dreaming, sleeping); and then unite the empty unqualifiable Witness with entire world of Form (a nondual realization called turiyatita or sahaja: “spontaneous”)….”
 
This kind of characterization is not traditional Vedanta and appears to be speculative, though it might resonate with Kashmiri Shaivism. (I’ll have to look into that.) It also provides a clever rationale for his theory. Since the “witness” is the “structure” associated with deep sleep (as per traditional Vedanta), the “stage” associated with it becomes “permanent witnessing,” our mysterious gerund.
 
But the witness is already “permanently witnessing.” Interestingly, in his comments on the Brhad, Shankara distinguishes two forms of seeing: “eternal” or absolute (paramartha) seeing and conventional seeing. “Eternal seeing” belongs only to the Supreme Self, the transcendental condition for knowing. There is no “access” to it, and one does not “experience” it in Shankara’s thought, because it is the condition of knowing. This seeing (drshti) is a “property” of the Seer, or to be exact, its true nature. Shankara explains that the subtle mind (buddhi) exists because it is “seen” or illuminated by the Witness through the capacity of “eternal seeing.”  (This all hooks up with Indian notions of darshana. Giving darshan does not mean that you see the guru; rather it means that the guru sees you. It is this “seeing” that confers reality upon you; in essence you exist because you are seen, which reminds me a bit of Hegel’s concept of “recognition”).  All of this goes back to the metaphysics of the Brhad: there are ultimately two “things” — the subject and the object. The self is pure subject and as such can never be “seen,” since the eye that sees cannot see itself. This is why Shankara rejects the reflexivity of consciousness in the context of the pure self: it is pure “seeing” and never the seen. Sound dualistic? It is.

Re: The Status of States

“In Wilber’s model of evolutionary enlightenment, particularly the W-C Lattice, I have gotten the impression that the “states” component is intended to allow for the preservation of the “timeless” (formless, absolute) aspect of enlightenment, even while also incorporating the evolutionary, developmental dimensions of realization via the inclusion of relative stages.”

This characterization would be a function of the panentheistic metaphysic, wherein Spirit, as the absolute, is both transcendent and immanent. In India, the panentheistic model derives for the most part from emanationist models such as that found in Vedanta, but also in Shaivism and Vaishnavism, wherein the absolute must simultaneously be the material cause of the world, and yet at the same time absolved of the conditionality of the world. The attempt to meet this condition results in the peculiar, and not entirely successful theodicy of the Brahma Sutras, which the Buddhist ridicule. The answer of the Advaitins is that “creation” as emanation is ultimately a myth, a mere propaedeutic teaching: true “being” (sat) never comes and goes.

Re: The Status of States

Now, what I think happens, and the way it ties together with what you’re talking about, is that at some point in actual development, between the worldcentric and Kosmocentric stages, the deeper psychic can awaken to itself, not as a temporary altered state but as a permanent realization or stage accomplishment.

This makes perfect sense if such states are in fact early developmental stage structures embodied in primitive brain structures. And that in the developmental process of evolution there is a differentiation phase in the infant cognitive ego that at least temporarily steps back from, or dissociates in dysfunction, with such earlier, lower, consciousness-brain structures. It also makes sense that it would require at least a more mature ego (synthetic) or beyond to integrate such lower consciousness-brain structures, or as Wilber says, between the worldcentric and Kosmocentric stage. I’m with him up to this point but differ on how he then interprets higher levels and states within the traditional metaphysical framework, including and especially the causal.

Here’s one neurophysiological explanation for our experience-interpretation of a timeless, formless, causal realm during meditation:

Dr. Newberg found that the front part of the brain, which is usually involved in focusing attention and concentration, is more active during meditation, but there was greatly decreased activity in the parietal lobe.

The parietal area of the brain is responsible for giving us a sense of our orientation in space and time. He hypothesized that blocking all sensory and cognitive input into this area during meditation results in the sense of no space and no time. When this part of the brain, which weaves sensory data into a feeling of where the self ends, is deprived of sensory input through the meditator’s focus on inward concentration, it cannot do it its job of finding the border between the self and the world. Dr. Newberg described how this affects consciousness:

“The brain had no choice. It perceived the self to be endless, as one with all of creation. And this felt utterly real. The absorption of the self into something larger [is] not the result of emotional fabrication or wishful thinking. It springs from neurological events, as when the orientation area goes dark.”

Re: The Status of States

From The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness by Philip Zelazo et al. (Cambridge UP, 2007):

A central goal of the practice of meditation is to transform the baseline state of experience and to obliterate the distinction between the meditative state and the post-meditative state…. Practitioners of Mindfulness/Awareness meditation aim to experience the present nowness, and this type of meditation affects the “attentional baseline” by lessening distractions or daydream thoughts…. These qualities are thought to gradually evolve into lasting traits.

From an empirical standpoint, one way to conceptualize these various meditative traits is to view them as developmental changes in physiological baselines in the organism (528).

Re: The Status of States

Edward, er, theurj, lured me to visit this thread. I’m glad. Balder, I think you’re highlighting key questions. I am a developmentalist, in the dynamic tradition of “genetic epistemology,” “constructivism” or “dynamic structuralism” and other labels that recognize the nonlinear, dynamical nature of humans (and other living systems) especially our increases in complexity if/when/as we develop in doing anything. These schools of thought recognize that humans construct their reality, and that there are different levels of complexity in doing so, with different results.

Relevant to mention right now, is that one thing I do is analyze the construction of terms we use, such as “states,” “stages,” “enlightenment,” as well as the active experiences we label with such terms. This thread indicates an almost “anything goes” sort of definition of states, and a perhaps unhelpful understanding of stages. Your post, however, gets appreciatively close to explaining how/why they are not very different at all, but rather labels with which people have come to associate different things. How different are they?

States and stages are two terms that originated from thinking at the Formal Operations order of complexity. Formal opns. thinking is basic logic, e.g., “if…then…”  High school stuff, if we went to a decent high school. Also like Cartesian reasoning, e.g., Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” (a point I’ll return to below in re meditation). In talking about this stuff, I’m using the math-based general theory called Model of Hierarchical Complexity here, Commons et al. It accounts for and measures all tasks of any complexity, for any entity that can act (humans, animals, groups, religions/belief systems, societies, etc.). They are very simplistic terms – static, we might note – which do not have any capacity to capture or describe, much less account for, the dynamics they are burdened by us to convey.

Terms constructed by Formal thinking are the result of putting together two or more abstract assertions that have no logic, but literally just assert something. For example, “state” would have arisen in English through an accumulation of ways such as this. “We are usually happy. But right now we are worried.” (state of worry)  “Usually, I am lazy. But right now, I am excited and have lots of energy.” (state of excitement, state of high energy) The term “state” functions to “earmark” an identifable condition that contrasts with another condition. It just serves to set one condition apart from another by labeling it. Well, any describable condition is different from all others, so why put “states” on a pedestal? A state is hardly a big deal. Unless we project all sorts of extra meaning on it. Which I venture to say is often the case when talking about spiritual things. But the more people talk about states in such everyday lived experience terms as here, the more obvious it becomes it is a rather useless term to emphasize. In summary, the term “state” is a simple formal operations construct used to indicate that the condition it’s associated with contrasts with other conditions in some way.

Your post, though, Balder, gets at the dynamics that support a stance
that the terms do us little good if we want to understand our own
behavior and experiences and how we construct both. (and perhaps
others’ posts do too, I skimmed the whole thread but I know I don’t
recall all I saw - apologies).

That might mean attention should go to specific states and analyze what’s happening in them. For example, how about the state of meditation, the ‘witnessing’ kind where the person watches their thoughts go by? It, too, is a formal operations activity, not “transcendent” at all unless someone wants to project “transcendence” on it (and we’d need to unpack what that word is supposed to mean). Let me explain. Back to Descartes. Formal operations is the first order of complexity (I am avoiding “stage” because until I would give the technical/theoretical meaning of it, best to use other terms) at which persons can reflect on their thought at all. Piaget called it “reflective abstraction.” Watching our thoughts go by in a certain form of meditation is not structurally different than realizing during the day that we are thinking to ourselves. Either way, we can observe our thoughts. We “dress” meditation with spiritual overtones, but forgive me for asking, why, pray tell, do we?

I would like to draw a parallel of that with notions of spiritual states, too. What are we actually “doing in them” - as infinitas (?) said below everything is doing - that makes them different, besides what narratives we tell ourselves about their meaning?

I guess I risk trying to pack too many points into one post. I’ll close for now, try to continue later and engage any push-back. My main objective was to lay some groundwork that I think supports some important insights showing up here.

These kinds of conversations too often don’t get beyond a certain point - maybe this one can prove “further” is possible?

Re: The Status of States

Sara, welcome to gaia!
from the quality of your first post i hope you stay, so i can learn.
im not a researcher or a specialist, nor as clever as balder, the urj etc. on this thread, so forgive the simpler nature of my observations.
firstly the distinction between states and stages, as temporary experience versus enduring feature of consciousness, is that really so problematic, poststructural anxieties aside?
next, ‘states’ are no big deal as you say, we’re in one or another at every moment. they are qualitatively different to each other though, and in a significant way. waking is different to sleeping is to dreaming. And my experience in meditation is unlike anything else i do in my daily round. The objects of my awareness pass and change until there is eventually a lack of objects, i am resting in and out of a lack of identifiable contents. Certainly ‘transcendent’ in the sense of not of a piece with my normal waking awareness. Whether we interpret this as pre- or post- rational is a nice question.
Personally, i regard my meditation expereinces as spiritual beacuse i feel more open to others, more loving of myself, brighter, calmer and more hopeful. All characteristic, developmentally, of a less ego-centred and more world-centred level of development, wouldn’t you agree?

Re: The Status of States

Hi goat, what you call your meditative experience seems to me to be of a piece with your normal waking awareness in that both depend on and correlate intimately with brain activity.  Bruce’s original post concerns pre-givens—or what we might call the activity of pre-given-projecting whereby something named as a “state” is projected having existence outside the person and activity giving rise to it, ie, as something merely perceived.  If we really want a thoroughgoing post-metaphysical spirituality, givens themselves have to be seen as constructed, not perceived.

Spiritual types often say that which they experience came to them from some or another “outside,” followed ironically by saying  they ultimately are that outside thing they experience.  That is curious position to take, because it posits an irremediable split between the processes engaged in the arising of that experience (brain activity, for instance) and “me.”  IMO, this split is but a slightly reworded Cartesian split that places (as Wilber more explicitly did in earlier years, more implicitly in his present notion of emptiness) matter on bottom, spirit on top.  And doesn’t Wilber love heirarchy?

I invite you to inquire into why you call your meditation experiences “spiritual” and not “material.”  Those experiences, seen from an UR perspective, seem to me irreducibly material.

Re: The Status of States

Sara, welcome to the IPS pod.  I’m glad you could join the discussion.  Edward/Theurj has shared some of your writings with me in the past and I’ve appreciated them.
You asked, “Why put states on a pedastal?”  The concern that prompted me to open this discussion was that it did appear to me that Wilber wanted “states” to stand in for the “timeless” (given, absolute) dimension of his model – which would, indeed, be putting states on a pedastal.  And is this warranted?  If “state” is defined (loosely) as “the identifiable condition of a system at a particular time,” it is hard to see how states could (or why they should) serve this function.  Unless some states are imagined to represent “universal conditions” that underlie and inform all other states.  I believe Wilber does want to suggest this – in keeping with traditional perspectives, which identify the major states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep with gross, subtle, and formless/empty/absolute realms or dimensions of being.  But, again, from a post/modern perspective, this identification is hard to maintain. 
Now, this aside, I think there might be good reason, within a particular contemplative/soteriological tradition, to emphasize certain “states” over others – and to encourage practices which help to cultivate certain identified states or dynamic conditions (of mind and body).  The cultivation of certain states (concentration, subtle bliss, certain affective states) can support other conditions or skills that are valued within the tradition.  In this thread (
http://groups.gaia.com/ips/conversations/view/397528#397528) [Editor on the flitz!], for instance, Mark Epstein outlines the potential value of certain blissful, stabilizing states of concentration as psychological counter-balances to the disconcerting experience of dissolution that other practices can generate.
I was intending to write more today, but I’ve just been too busy.  I’ll post this for now and will come back with further comments as soon as I’m able.

Re: The Status of States

Recall though my quoting Epstein as also saying the following: “While
recognizing the stabilizing impact of such experiences, traditional
Buddhist psychology rejects the sole pursuance of such states.” And by
such states he was specifically referring to concentration meditation
practices which fuse subject and object,  that “indeed evoke the ego
ideal and the oceanic feeling in a manner well described by generations
of analytic commentators.” That is, “preverbal, symbiotic union or
regressive oneness with the mother.”

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True, and I agree with him.  I have not come across any Buddhist teachings, or teacher, that emphasize sole pursuance of such states. 

Re: The Status of States

Yes, Buddhism is much vaster than just exploring meditative states of consciousness, rigpa or otherwise. I respect much about its religion for such variegated practices, like helping others, renunciation of greed etc. It’s not that I want to eliminate Buddhism, just recontextualize it. Or as Wilber says, free the paradigm by limiting it. Even state training is important in integrating earlier aspects of our psychoneurophysiology, helping us to redress some of the imbalances, dissociations and whatnot from our over-individualistic, body-neglected culture. Just as a means of stress reduction is a significant contribution to our over-stressed lives.

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But for me that’s why the postmetaphysical recontextualization is so important. Because states interpreted from the standpoint of metaphysics directly imply the following. 1) We are naturally dysfunctional, as we are. Not that we merely encounter some problems along the way but that the along the way is itself an error or wrong turn and that we must return to some “pure” or “spiritual” or whatever Origin or primordial state consciousness or whatever to be made whole again. 2) This “salvation” can only be attained through a select priesthood caste and one must not only undergo state training but imbibe the metaphysical underpinnings hook, line and sinker or they’re still tainted, debased and unsaved. Yes, Buddhists are compassionate and want to help us get off the wheel of suffering, but much like Christians if it’s not the “correct” way it’s the highway to hell. I really don’t want to be saved. And as fucked up as I am, I’m not inherently tainted.

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One can see the sociological function of metaphysical givens in such concepts as “correct view.”  A given, by definition, exists outside human interpretation, and is therefore to be accepted without question.  The given framework looks to me from this angle to be but a mechanical gene-spreading device in the realm of memes.  It’s meme transcription into you as the new carrier, where transcription efficacy is fired by force-notions of hell etc.  ”Now go off and tell two people yourself.”

Re: The Status of States

Hey,

Pre-Preface: Tom, You wrote: “Those experiences… seem to me irreducibly material.” I like that.


Preface: I’m driving my mother toward the house I had not long before
built outside Santa Fe, NM, USA, Fall, 1984. As we got close she said,
“It sure looks like a Nickeson outfit…last place off a bad road.”
(Maybe that’s why I’m now in Vla…vis à vis the Americas its the last
place off a bad road.)


Having been raised in such an isolated household where one might not
have to see but two others for a month, where the books on the living
room shelf ranged from works by Thomas A Kempis through Upton Sinclair
and Lawrence Ferlinghetti to a couple of Jungians, I learned early to
play with my mind, which leads me to suspect that stages and states are
more horizontal than vertical (and, parenthetically, it is all
generated from our material interior…there is nothing out there but
the out there, the entropic decay of all structural illusions…for
such blessings we give thanks). I knew how to meditate long before I
got to formal operations. With distinct 3-year-old intentions I would
draw my wicker rocking chair into exactly the right place, sit, close
my eyes and drop to the brim of the vortex and let go into nothing,
emptiness. With distinct 3-year-old intentions I would situate myself
below the dining room table where the table cloth fell almost to the
floor, sit, wait, then listen to the voice that arose from a spot
behind my right ear, speaking a language only I could understand,
telling me how things in the outside world really worked. (Years later
I would listen to my five-year-old daughter telling her older
brother–with amazing accuracy–how things in their outside world
really worked. But I didn’t have a younger sister, I just had the voice
behind my ear. And I also distinctly remember the day, below the table,
when I told the voice not to ever come back…I’d be taking it on my
own from here on out.)

Let’s think about this…Wilber’s highest state–nothing but a
regression to childhood tricked out in the diapers of some
dysfunctional old man from the depths of a dysfunctional old culture.


The next exhibit: functional non-duality–as non-dual as I would ever
get outside of all those countless by now dreams and daylight visions
that have come through with ecstatic possessions and apprehensions  and
dead-to rights certainties of universal cohesion and Spinozian singular
distinctions.
 

Tale of a functional state, pre-formal operation (from a blog post months ago):


“I discovered predator medicine when I was 11. I found myself making
it while hunting a man, a friend of mine, through the tangled, rocky
brush-land along the river that cut through the ranch. Time was
running, but I was running faster in an intense hurry to see this man
at his work. It was sundown, a January evening in the middle of the
mid-50s Rocky Mountain drought. The ground was frozen solid, but there
was no snow. The man left no track for a mile, but I found I could tell
exactly were he walked. I could see his footprint on the moss of a
rock, although on close examination that moss looked no different than
that on the adjacent rock. And I could see the willow and juniper
branches he had brushed against had a just barely noticeable glow, an
aura that faded on scrutiny. And the air through which he had walked
felt different than the air from off his trail. I was not astonished by
any of this. I thought it a little bit funny and it gave my
sensibilities this cold, brassy edge to which I’ve always sought to keep
close. Further, I took it all for granted; this is the way the world
really works and I like it…

“But I was not risking any time to think about it. I wanted urgently
to find this man before night fully fell, something that would happen
within minutes. Then I heard him and crept up past a couple of willows
and dimly picked him out from the background only by dint of his
movements. He was squatting at the river’s edge rinsing his scent from
a mink trap he had just set. I was not surprised at all at this point
in the hunt. He was, however. When I casually walked up and said “hi,”
he wanted to know how I found him. I told him, leaving aside the
details, that I had followed his trail. He said it was impossible, he
was certain he had left no tracks on the frozen ground. But I told him
where he had been, where he had set two other traps. He said I must
have better eyes than his and on the spot he made me a partner in that
trap line.”
This phenomenological take on the status of states; it is all there
coming in, nothing but us, subordinate to our will, all horizontal in
everything but the language of spiritually reinforced dysfunctions.

(God, have I had fun writing this, all done to the accompaniment of Shelby Lynn, Willy Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Kiri Te Kanawa…)

Ciao,
Steven


 

Re: The Status of States

Thanks for the welcome, GoatFish (interesting moniker),

you said “whether we interpret this as pre- or post-rational is a nice question.” Tom asked why isn’t meditation experience classifiable as material rather than spiritual. I think these can be related.

Since all human activity is “rational” for the one doing it (even infants’ versions of motor skills and cognitive action), I’m not going to tango with the pre-/post-rational framing, but I offer another angle. The lowest order of complexity (zero) is assigned to machines, which have only two action-options: “on” or “off.” Humans of any age with sight have capacity for visual-based symbolic representations (e.g., visual imagery), we know the reptilian brain processes basic sysatemic responses we call emotional reactions, and of course we know once language is acquired, we have words to think with.

So, if I’m in the “watching thoughts and objects” meditative mode, per above, I’m functioning with formal operations’ ability to reflect on thought. My physiological system is just humming along in “on” position, and my brain (neurological) is active, though will gradually slow to alpha wave, a nice and relaxed neurophysiological condition. When my thoughts and visuals cease, my neurological activity goes not “off” but to like an idling phase and my overt mental actions slide down the orders of complexity to doing nothing - order zero. Total inner silence, except for the awareness that there’s inner silence, nothing going on. While there is nothing going on, zero complexity. During or after (depending on the practice) formal operational reflection on the absence of thought, visuals, etc., along with enjoying the after-effects. In this analysis, rather than transcending (I cannot find anything that’s transcended - can anyone help me out here?) it is gradually turning off cognitive operations till maybe we hit zero complexity (with caveat repeated: if we are reflecting on the silence/void, we are performing formal operations cognitively and are still active, and something would likely be showing up on fMRI brain imaging).

The real-time experience is relaxing - as Tom points out, the entire system is relaxed. The after-effects are pleasant. So, might we conclude that *the subjective meaning* we later assign to that state of relaxation could be whatever we individually want it to be? (this reminds me of the very old song, “you say po-tah-to, I say po-ta-to”). Could be relaxing, spiritual, healthy, any number of classifications are possible, it seems to me.

Which leads me to ask, what is “spiritual” anyway? In your case, it sounds like it can be a sense of well-being leading one to feel more open to others, feeling good about oneself, relaxed and hopeful. Atheists and agnostics have those feelings, too.  What makes “spiritual” distinct?

To your last question, I would appreciate hearing more explanation to understand how those after-effects indicate less ego-centered and more world-centered - I don’t hear anything about the world or others, but rather about your personal feelings. Can you say a bit more?

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to engage!

Re: The Status of States

Sara said:

When my thoughts and visuals cease, my neurological activity goes not “off” but to like an idling phase and my overt mental actions slide down the orders of complexity to doing nothing - order zero.

This is what I was indicating about with the baseline consciousness of “tonic attention.”

Also Sara seems to agree with me that the “witness” is the rational ego of formal operations, or what the brain research quoted above calls “the fourth level of complexity.” It starts the process of meditation but then things unwind back down to tonic attention.

Sara: I’ve been having variations of this conversation with Balder and others for years, so much of what we’ve said before that is not in this thread is taken for granted. So while I haven’t mentioned the ego as witness in this thread the others know it’s an endless reiterative loop for me, i.e., a broken record.

Re: The Status of States

Just a note: Wilber’s use of the term “Witness” is not the same as Shankara’s use of the term sakshin. In some of his writings, Ken speaks of “witnessing” as something we do; he speaks, for example, of “bringing” it into the states of dreaming and deep sleep.  Apparently, what Ken has in mind here is the concept of reflexive awareness (svasamvedana) in which I am lucid of the fact that I am at present cognitively aware. This may to be the core idea behind the practice of Goenka style “mindfulness” meditation, but there is no gerund form of the term “witness” in traditional Advaita, no “practice” called “witnessing.” For Shankara, the term “witness” (sakshin) is a term used to gloss the term “Seer” (drashtr) found in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, and it stands for the idea that the Self is the transcendental condition of consciousness. So, for Shankara, the “Witness” is not something that we pack our lunch into and sling onto our back and “take with us” into dreamless sleep, since it is dreamless sleep insofar as for the Vedantins, deep dreamless sleep is pure consciousness itself, and as such is the causal “condition” of all the other states. For Shankara there is can be no such awareness in deep dreamless sleep since there is no object of consciousness at all in such a state, including the object that I am now cognitively aware.
 
Why I bring this up is that, from the point of view of traditional Advaita, there is the potential mistake here of conflating this empirical ego for the transcendental Self: “Today, in my meditation, I was the Transcendental Witness, witnessing all my thoughts as they presented themselves to consciousness.” For Shankara, this would be no less than a kind of inflation of the empirical ego.

Re: The Status of States

Ah, but I don’t buy a transcendental witness. I distinguish between the empirical ego observing itself as conflated by interpretations of such activity as a transcendental witness. And when we let go of this ego observer at least tempporarily in meditation and regress to level 0 we’re just idling away in tonic attention, which is a “condition for” higher functions without content, but again is no transcendental witness.
 
Recall its description from above: 
 
…a basic level of consciousness as a generalized state in which the system is receptive to information. In this sense awareness could be related to a tonic or basic attention; it is therefore important to realize that this type of consciousness should be understood as a “condition for” and not so much as a function or cognitive process. As a result of this it can be affirmed that this notion of consciousness, this state of being aware, is a state that does not contain information (68).

Re: The Status of States

Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether such a thing is really possible, I also would distinguish Wilber’s use of Witness from the “mindfulness” that you highlight as an ego-capacity, since development of the latter does not typically involve the emergence of the capacity to remain “aware” in dream and deep sleep states. 

Re: The Status of States

Hi Balder,
Are you saying that the reflexive awareness involved in “mindfulness” meditation is different from the quality of being “lucid” in a dream? If so, I wonder what sort of things you had in mind when you say they are different. Ie., what distinguishes the two or sets them apart?

Re: The Status of States

Even John Reynolds, Tibetan Buddhist scholar and practitioner, outlines rigpa as a base consciousness at level zero, albeit clothed in traditional terms. He says in “Dzogchen and Meditation”:

We may ask, what lies below or beyond this Level 1? That is Level 0 or what is called in Buddhist terminology Shunyata. This term literally means “emptiness”. But this does not mean just nothingness or mere absence. Rather, it means the pure potentiality for all possible manifestations. This level may be compared to an empty mirror that has the capacity to reflect whatever is set before it. Whereas the other levels, primary and above, are referred to as mind (sems), this level is referred to as the Nature of Mind (sems-nyid). The distinction between mind and the Nature of Mind are like the reflections and the mirror. This Nature of Mind has the capacity to be aware of whatever may arise or manifest. This capacity is called Rigpa or intrinsic awareness. Whereas Sutra meditation and Abhidharma psychology is concerned with the phenomenology of consciousness (Levels 1-4), Level 0 is accessed directly through Dzogchen practice.

Level 1 is the primary level of immediate experience in the present moment and the stream of consciousness. This is the pure phenomena of consciousness before judgment and concept comes into play. This is the moment of pure awareness or primary cognition (jnana, ye-shes) before the mind (manas, yid) comes into operation with its judgments and concepts. In a sense, we could say that this pure awareness is beyond the mind, at least in the sense that it occurs before the various mental processes of the mind come into operation. Sensation occurs at this primary level.

Level 2 is the secondary level at which the processes of perceiving, thinking, judging, and conceptualizing come into operation. Language and memory also come into operation here. Collectively these processes are known in Buddhist psychology as Samjna or functional perception. It is this meta-process that organizes sensation into a recognizable perception having an identity and a name. Collectively, the programs that accomplish this are known as Manas or the functional mind. In some ways this Manas may be compared to a computer with its basic operating system and word processing programs..

Level 3 is the tertiary level at which occur ego identification and emotional reactions. Ahamkara or ego identification is the process where we identify ourselves with each sensation, thought, or emotion that arise in consciousness. This false identification is then compounded by Atmagaraha or grasping at this fictitious “I” which does not belong to immediate experience. As a result, certain impulses, thoughts, and emotions arise out of unconsciousness as reactions to the perceptions constructed at the secondary level. These are known as samskaras or unconscious impulses. These impulses include both thoughts and emotions; they basically represent energy emerging from the unconscious. Action may occur at this point impulsively or there may occur a further elaborations in terms of thoughts and emotions.

Level 4 is the quaternary level at which the advanced programs are run, those relating to culture, social and personal interactions, as well as ethical considerations. Here commences the processes that elaborate thoughts, building the original perception into a concept and a thought construction. This is the meta-process of Vikalpa or discursive thought. It is on this plane that our consciousness usually dwells, the plane furthest removed from immediate experience in terms of time and space. When discursive thought is operating, the immediate experience is already long in the past. Therefore, our consciousness is living in the past, not in the present.

Re: The Status of States

Hi urg, not quite.  Mirror” reenacts the very problem we’re highlighting.  “Nature of mind” is equally problematic (metaphysical).

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Agreed. Note I was saying Reynolds posits the same “levels” but dressed up in traditional-metaphysical clothing. I’m all for a change of clothes.

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Ten four.

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Thanks for keeping the discussion on track, Ed. I have never seen this kind of analysis before, but it is much like the analysis of the skandhas or the Abhidharmic analysis of pratityasamutpada as a “chain” of 12 “links.”
 
I can see a kind of paradox developing here. The “levels” that Reynolds gives appear to refer to increasing degrees of complexity and abstraction. So, in this sort of analysis, meditation would have more to do with a kind of regressing back to discovering a primordial awareness as opposed to finding an endpoint in a hierarchical development; “depth” rather than “height.”
 
We find, I think, a similar paradox in the metaphor of the “subtle.” Wilber used to present the “subtle” as some kind of “higher mind” toward which we are moving in history. And yet the paradigmatic state for the “subtle” is dreaming, which is clearly more akin to the magical or mythical mind. In other words, dreaming is a kind of regression, associated with the subconscious rather than the superconscious. And deep sleep is something even more primitive. Even the term “causal” denotes something primitive or primordial.
 
The tradition of Advaita itself has the similar sort of problem with “turiya,” the so-called fourth. Turiya is spoken of as a kind of fourth state of consciousness identified with the state of nirvikalpa samadhi by some (following Vidyaranya, 15th century), and with so called “realization” (or “sahaj samadhi” by) others. And yet, the tradition also insists that turiya is not a state. Much like Kant, Shankara and other Advaitins are quite insistent that that which is the trancendental condition for consciousness cannot itself be accessed in experience, any more than you can stand on your own shoulders, even though the transcendental condition of consciousness is immanent in all states as their condition. So, there really is no such thing as the “fourth state,” and all such talk is, in the final analysis, metaphoric.
 
One other point. Reynolds writes:
“Level 1 is the primary level of immediate experience in the present moment and the stream of consciousness. This is the pure phenomena of consciousness before judgment and concept comes into play. This is the moment of pure awareness or primary cognition (jnana, ye-shes) before the mind (manas, yid) comes into operation with its judgments and concepts.”
This is the analysis of perception that we find common to both Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. The idea is that perception has two components: a “pure” indeterminate moment free from conception called “nirvikalpa pratyaksha,” and a second determinate moment called “savikalpa pratyaksha” in which the pure perception is “overlayed” with conception (vikalpa). I think that from the perspective of post-metaphysical thought, the idea that there is any such animal as a “pure” moment in perception is no less than the myth of the given.
 

Re: The Status of States

Kela, I agree that “pure perception” is more givenitis.  Think-in-itself.

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Hi Tom,

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Hi i, dodgy metaphysic, yes!  One might say Wilber’s is but a more subtly reworded nothing-in-itself Buddhism with ultimately little differentiating his resulting splits and hierarchies from those earlier forms. 

Re: The Status of States

Sara Ross: “Well, any describable condition is different from all others, so why put ‘states’ on a pedestal?”
 
Apparently, some states are special because they magically transform us.

Re: The Status of States

Sara Ross: “We ‘dress’ meditation with spiritual overtones, but forgive me for asking, why, pray tell, do we?”
 
Because we like to feel special?

Re: The Status of States

In Wilber’s model of evolutionary enlightenment,
particularly the W-C Lattice, I have gotten the impression that the “states”
component is intended to allow for the preservation of the “timeless”
(formless, absolute) aspect of enlightenment, even while also incorporating the
evolutionary, developmental dimensions of realization via the inclusion of
relative stages. 

 In metaphysics it has always been recognized that a very few
people will be enlightened in a blink of an eye, but the vast majority of
people will evolve through stages.

Though even in stages it is not them  that enlightenment
is based on, because enlightenment has no relationship with anything evolving
at all

It is based on expansion.

The paradox: One cant catch the gazelle by running after it, but the only way to catch it is to run after it.

Re: The Status of States

Zak: no relationship with anything evolving at all

Hi Zak, that’s pure metaphysics, the very thing Wilber says he wants to rid.

Re: The Status of States

Hi Tom
 

That’s Wilber’s problem he never understood metaphysics!

Enlightenment is a process that extends beyond perfection of the consciousness; therefore it has no direct relationship with “stages”

“Stages” are only the guide post to perfection; the “stage” before the fall of man, enlightenment is the reality of completion, which lies beyond perfection.

Re: The Status of States

You like Wilber label everything you can’t understand, myth of the given.

But there are some things that the intellect can’t grasp, you have to experience them!

Re: The Status of States

So sayeth that enactive thing called your intellect.  I presume your brain was operating in a specific fashion when you said that?

Re: The Status of States

That’s pretty good Tom, pretty good. I like wit

 It gets too sober in hear at times

 As Rumi says

WE NEED SOME REAL WINE!

 Anyway

Wilber’s Post metaphysics is an intellectual replacement for
experience

 He calls it monolgical awareness, but its experiences that can’t
be put in words to convey to another

 Like a thirteen year old trying to explain puberty to a kid
who hasn’t grown into it yet

 As for Wilber’s enlightenment ideas, I have refuted them
numerous times without any serious rebuke from him or his followers.

Re: The Status of States

Any idea of something evolving to “God” or enlightenment is impossible because that would infer an independence on that which is evolving, a gross contradiction of the concept of God or any idea of the absolute

Enlightenment is about seeing what “God” sees, and that is above and beyond states and stages.
It is not dependent on anything but itself

Re: The Status of States

Well, I just spent an hour engaging the Reynolds levels and kelamuni’s post to find the Gaia server ‘reset’ and the post disappeared rather than posting. Is this common here? Guess offline Word doc then copy/paste is the answer.

Re: The Status of States

Unfortunately, Sara, yes, that has become fairly common, especially since they made changes to the site within the last month or so.  So I would definitely recommend composing posts elsewhere first and then posting them here.

Re: The Status of States

Hi Sara,
 
I have written entire essays and lost them to this function. A somewhat unpleasant exercize in “letting go.” You’ll find that subsequent attempts to articulate your thoughts on the matter will be slightly more succinct. :-)
 
I’d be interested to hear what you have to say, Sara.
 
kela

Re: The Status of States

I am having similiar problems, though on advice from someone am trying to post from notepad, and so far it seems to be working

Re: The Status of States

Kela, I’d be interested to hear your take on this essay from the Advaita Ashram, especially vis a vis Shankara and the Wiber/Da Mix.

Re: The Status of States

Hi Bruce,
I’d love to provide a detailed commentary, if you like, in my blog.
 
The author’s “essay” is a traditional commentary on the Mandukyopanishad and Gaudapada Karika, and it represents the “developed” view of Advaita Vedanta that follows after Shankara. The philosophical portions, where he attempts to deal with the problem of ignorance or “nescience” (avidya), is a bit garbled, and he could have avoided this quagmire from the Vedantin nevers really emerges once he enters it.
 
For our present purporses, and our own ongoing conversation, the following segment at the end is interesting. I’ll highlight certain relevant terms.
 
The worlds taken as real in waking is really of the same status as dream world and the pre-supposition of such comic dreaming is the failure to see that the Atman is the sole reality.

This failure is most clearly illustrated in deep-sleep. We must pass into the frame of thought according to which our empirical life which is in reality a dream, is due to our being asleep to spirit, the fundamental substance of our being. We are most asleep when we fancy ourselves most awake. Even as the chanting of the sacred Pranava (AUM) culminates in the serenity of silence after the final sound M, the philosophic contemplation of man’s experience in its entirety must pass after the consideration of the state of deep-sleep into the unconditioned effulgence of the pure and transcendent Self.

The seed of phenomenal life namely ignorance most strikingly present in sleep must be destroyed and the sleeper must wake up to the infinite reality of the spiritual essence. This ultimate self-affirmation is the goal of contemplation. The agnosticism of sleep must be burnt up in this transcendent self-realisation.
Following the Pranava (AUM) in all its phases, and to its farthest merger in silence, one must review the spirit’s manifestation in the three states and up to its embodiment in the Nescience-body and pass beyond even that causal sheath into the utter freedom of its absolute illumination. An analysis of man’s three states does thus fulfil itself in the vision of his Divine essence in all the glory of its “stateless” eternity.
 
What this passage signifies is that while “experience” plays some role in traditional Advaita, it is really just an exemplary “handmaid,” as it were, to something else, denoted by the terms highlighted above. We can call it whatever we wish to call it; the above refers to it as “consideration,” “analysis,” “philosophic contemplation,” and “reviewing.” I also note the turn of phrase, “we must pass into the frame of thought…” which appears to denote a change of perspective.
 
For the Wilberian/Blavatskyian metaphysicians out there I can offer the following developments. As for macrocosmic equivalences, we can subdivide the “subtle” domain as follows: Sutratman = the macrocosmic equivalent of prana; Hiranyagarbha (the golden orb) = the macrocosmic equivalent of manas; Mahat = the macrocosmic equivalent of buddhi. The tract says that Ishvara is the macrocosmic equivalent of the causal body, karana-sharira, or Prajna. Another name for Ishvara is Saguna Brahman or brahman with form. But, if brahman with form is the equivalent of the causal body, how can we then speak of “causal formlessness?” This is the problem, outlined in my blog, which derives from the use of Da’s terminology, wherein he “ratchets up” the meaning of terms, calling that which was traditionally causal, “subtle,” and that which was traditionally transcendent, “causal.” Which is to say, that the tract confirms my analysis.

Re: The Status of States

Thanks, Kela.  That’s helpful.  I’d definitely be interested in a blog-length analysis.

Re: The Status of States

Hi Balder,
At Integral A. you quote the following:
 
And you can directly contact the Self you had before your parents were born by simply resting in the pure Witness right now…  By thinking of what you were like a thousand years ago or a thousand years hence, you drop your identity with the present body and ego, and find that in you which goes beyond you – namely, the pure, formless, timeless Self or Witness of the entire World.  And once every twenty-four hours you completely drop your egoic identity, not as a mere imaginative exercise but as a fact.  Every night, in deep dreamless sleep, you are plunged back into the formless realm of pure consciousness without an object, into the realm of the formless, timeless Self…
 
You then relate this to the essay in question. With respect to your question about the essay, I’m wondering what sort of things you might be interested in having me address.
 
I reread what you wrote above, in the initial post, and I`d like to try to take another crack at one of the issues that arises for me.
 
It seems to me that in certain forms of yoga, and specifically in the Buddhist jhanas, we find descriptions of a paring down of consciousness, as it were, to something basic or primordial. Each progressive jhana, for example, contains increasingly fewer cognitive components (thought and affection) than the one that precedes it. This process continues through the formless samapattis, through the 8th samapatti, neither samjna not not samjna, and finally to nirodha, which is the obliteration of samjna altogether. 
 
I guess one of the difficulties I have with this hierarchy of mediative states, as it is used by Ken, is that it does not appear to parallel the hierarchy of stages of thought. The stages of thought seem to involve increasing degrees of complexity, to me. Thinking dialectically, for example, seems to me to be a more complex operation that thinking in terms of Aristotelean logic. The difficulty I have here is with the metaphor of ascent. Each metaphor would appear to have its own content relative to its own description: one (thought) is describing increased complexity, while the other (meditation) is describing descreased complexity. So, I have trouble with the idea that they are somehow analogous or connected in some way. This is also why I have always had problem with the older idea that the subtle and causal domains are, somehow or other, entities that can stacked on top of dialectical thought, as if they follow from it. When you have an arrow describing some quality or change, I think it is desirable when the content of that arrow is consistent with itself. When we stack the subtle and causal on top of the various stages of thinking, it seems to me that the result is a description of increasing complexity followed by a description of descreasing complexity; i.e., when everything get thrown into the mix like this, it seems like we end up with an enormous mixed metaphor, which I cannot get my head around without some serious cognitive dissonance arising.
 
My issue is not your issue of course; I was wondering if you could explicate for me your questions, once again.

Re: The Status of States

Kela: ... one is describing increased complexity, and the other is describing a descrease in complexity ...

Hi Kela, this feels to me likewise incoherent.  It seems to me Wilber’s descriptions (timeless Self) arise from a style of mentating, for lack of a better descriptor, one notch more complex than the thinking style against which it works.  The latter looks to me to be naive thing-in-itself thinghood, inherent existence, etc.  Wilber’s formlessness dissolves this thinking style by negation, antithesizes it.

Antithesis is of course a mental activity.  Wilber then IMO projects antithesis-thinking outward as The Everything, called by any of many names he then, in an incomplete nod to post-modernism, calls “interpretations.”  The antithesis thinking itself, in Wilber’s language—the actual blacking out of form—is not an interpretation but is what he calls an “experience.”  This kind of experience, how did he put it above, “directly contacts” the reality of which he speaks, the reality that existed before the big bang, your original face, etc.  Direct contact is regression to modern, probably even pre-Newtonian.  We’re going way back, here.

This “reality” is off the AQAL chart, because it is the paper on which that chart is written.  This is a necessary dualism perhaps more the source than the product of his machinations.

His is thus a form of naive representationalism in negative guise, where he brackets out from his full understanding the practices (mental operations) by which the negation was accomplished.  To justify his position, he logically has to inject a pre-given somewhere into his theory, and that injection point looks to be his states understanding.  States, after all, are ever present, he says.

Re: The Status of States

Hi, Kela,
 
I guess one of the difficulties I have with this hierarchy of mediative states, as it is used by Ken, is that it does not appear to parallel the hierarchy of stages of thought. The stages of thought seem to involve increasing degrees of complexity, to me.
 
Yes, this is what Wilber’s Wilber-Combs Lattice (an amendment to his older theory) is meant to address.  Before the W-C Lattice, he stacked these states on top of his other stages, which indeed represent increases in orders of complexity.  But he also decided this was incoherent, and so now he places these increasingly subtle states out along a horizontal plane, “intersecting” the developmental trajectory at all points.  Stages represent a (vertical) hierarchy of increasingly complexity; the states (gross, subtle, causal) serve as (horizontal) constants, theoretically accessible at all times, representing greater stages of “paring down,” as you put it.
 
The problem I was trying to highlight here is the attempt to get states to actually serve this function as “timeless constants” or (at least in terms of the causal) as “stand-ins” for the Absolute.
 
About your possible blog on this topic, I was simply curious to read more on where the Advaita Ashram commentary fell in the spectrum of interpretations you’ve been highlighting here, from Shankara to Vivekananda to Da.
 
Best wishes,
 
B.

Re: The Status of States

Bruce: ... states (gross, subtle, causal) serve as (horizontal) constants, theoretically accessible at all times ...

Yes, and accessible two ways: via peak-experience (at-all-times accessible) and via meditative practice (stage-progression accessible).  The latter, as Wilber describes, generates an identifiable series from less to more complex. 

Re: The Status of States

His sources appear to be Sureshvara and Sarvajnatman. Sureshvara was a direct disciple, and Sarvajnatman follows his master Sureshvara for the most part; both attempt to address philosophical problems inherent in Shankara (re: the problem of ignorance); both also appear to introduce some new doctrines to make sense of certain difficulties. Both are closer to Shankara’s intentions than other commentators, such as Vidyaranya and Sadananda who attempt a synthesis with the classical yoga of Patanjali and Vijnanabhikshu. Sureshvara and Sarvajnatman are both subitists who allow that realization can occur all at once, and without the practice of meditation.
 
Some new features (not found in Shankara) introduced by the two include: the idea that ignorance is the cause of the world; that ignorance is “inexplicable” (where the term used to apply to brahman); that Ishvara is the formless brahman in conjunction with ignorance; and the two “forms” of ignorance, one that refers to/is that which is present in dream and waking (the apprehension of objects), and another, “primal” ignorance (ajnana), that refers to/is deep sleep.

Re: The Status of States

States and Stages are just matrixes for perception; it is the perception that matters. The states and stages can be veils for correct perception that is why we have the methodology of the path to rectify this, and cultivate stages and states where we can see reality as it is.

What is “timeless” about a state, or any state, is only the fact that it [potentially] can see reality from its perspective at any given time.

I would add, maybe if the casual can learn to see “God” and itself at the same time then maybe it can then see the absolute.
Though the casual seeing anything through its lens but reality [God] is the problem!