Things are returning to normal.  I've gotten back to writing my book and being on the internet, but my arm still has some way to go before it is completely mended.  Nevertheless I'm able to type fine (as long as I don't overdo it, I still can't yet type as much as I used to).  However I no longer have such an addiction to the internet as I had before.  The challenge still remains as to how best to balance sadhana (spiritual practice) and intellectual work.

Coming back to my book after a period of almost 2 months, I look at it differently.  Before I broke my arm, I had actually become really bogged down and the whole thing was feeling really stale and offputting, a burden.  Now I have new ideas and insights and it feels fresh again.  So hopefully I will be able to finish this book by the time it takes my arm to completely heal.  Then I'd like to go travelling and also devote my self very intensely to sadhana

As the weeks stretch on, and my arm slowly mends (although so slowly that it is hard to notice it day to day, which can be frustrating!), I am being forced to confront various aspects of my nature that I was not aware of, as well as weaknesses that I am.  This morning when I was meditating, the most extraordinary uprush of negativity flooded over me.  Despair, rage, doubt, all a big mass, you wouldn't believe it!  I tried offering it to the Supreme, but even that was difficult (had difficulty getting centered).  So I just held the thoughts "this is not me" and "I am the witness".  After a while it went and was replaced by joy.  The transition was quite quick, and amazing, with a mild undercurrent of feeling spiritually "high". 

Not every meditation is that striking in the flip from negative to positive, but I was really impressed by the experience.

Thus my accident of 1 1/2 months ago, and enforced and self-chosen solitude and inactivity is enabling me to understand various aspects of my being, and work on transforming them.  This process seems to be accelerating, or at least becoming more marked, i.e. in the weeks immediately after the accident there wasn't that much change in my inner being.

One interesting change that has occured over the past few days or week or so is that I notice I am now no longer interested in regrets over past mistakes, or fantasies over future adventures, or longings for possible parallel realities where everything is better.  Reality contracts to the point in which "I am", the Present Moment, which is the only authentic Reality.

I won't say that I am a saint or wonderful, beause there are also many periods of despair and frustration and impatience (the latter especially has to be worked on), but now I am more committed (I am forced by circumstances to be more comitted) then I ever have been in my life. 

I changed my profile page to reflect this, adding something on the "new me" to distinguish me from the "old me".  What isn't described is the difference in attitude in that the old me was full of fantasising, mentral distraction, lack of centeredness, etc.  So although I still agree with everything I said under the "old me", all that intellectualising is less important to me now then it was then.  This intellectual internet phase was something i had to go through, including my long (2 years) dialogue with the integral movement, but now I am much more enthusiastic about attaining a state of greater Consciousness

An unexpected accident threw all my well planned plans into chaos

Had an accident on my pushbike 3 weeks ago (actually shortly before my 50th birthday, rather unexpected birthday present!). Had a heavy unbalanced rucksack, was going downhill, pulled out my mobile phone, went off balance and came off my bike, breaking my arm near the shoulder. So i couldn't use my right arm, and the pain when i moved it was excruciating for a few days. They put it in a sling but not a caste because i have to have the mobility of the shoulder joint so it will heal properly.  Anyway it's a lot better now but my arm will still be out of commission for another month or so.  This is the first time i've been on line since the accident.  i deliberately stayed away from the internet because i just wanted to be in the moment, not get caught up in head trips etc.  For the first week or so i just stayed at home because it was too painful to move much (because if my arm moved it was very painful), couldn't sleep properly, etc.  Now that it's mending there's much less pain and i can lie down whereas before i could only sleep sitting up.  It's amazing how the human body can heal itself.  And it's given me a new level of empathy that i never had before.  e.g. i was reading extracts of U.S. Republican canditate John McCain's book Faith of our Fathers  and how he was captured by the Vietnamese when his plane was shot down, and when he spoke about what he went through i could have some idea (although his suffering w as far far worse mine because he had more injuries and was in a  filthy shack and not given proper medical treatment).  So i thought wow, what this guy went through...Maybe i have a totally different ideology and politics and all the rest, but i could empathise in a way that would have been impossible before.  It's the same elsewhere where people go through great suffering.  Because you don't really realise what pain is unless you've experienced it, that is the only way one can empathise.  Likewise grief and loss; you can't know what others feel if you haven't yoursef felt it as well. 

Then you consider the animal kingdom and all the rest; there is so much pain and grief and suffering on this one small planet; it must be because, as The Mother says, it is a special place where things are concentrated for the purpose of Transformation

One effect of the accident has been to disrupt my previous tenious attempts at meditation.  At first I had to take painkillers and that really stuffed my concentration.  Then afterwards i couldn't focus even when i didnt take painkillers, because i wasn't getting enough sleep.  So i reverted back to the old distracted monkey mind, all i did was read newspapers, watch TV, sit around etc.  All of which only accentuated the boredom and frustration.   Anyway the accident has forced me to sit around, with each day dragging on, and each week seeming like a month or even a year.  My only escape was when i would sometimes go for a walk (and even then not too far because my arm and shoulder would ache).  So  I'm only now getting back into meditation. 

All this seems to be part of an ongoing series of events for me that began in January, which are motivating me to really be serious about my sadhana.    So it's forced me to be contemplative, but in a non-meditative way; in the sense of being really hurled into a restrictive situation, being immersed in that, going throught it, living through that, in order to understand what others less fortunate than I have to go through

It goes without saying that I can't wait to be up and about again.  At present I can't write much because i still only have complete use of my left arm (i can use my right hand but not too much) , can't ride a bike, can't drive etc.  So i will truly value things, and also be much more motivated (ok i was motivated before but i'll be even more motivated)

A number of things have come up, almost synchronistically forcing me along the path of spiritual realisation.  I'm a private person and i don't say everything on blogs the way some do, but suffice to say that several events have brought things to a head... So I'm cutting back on the internet, and aspiring much more intensely than I ever have for Self-realisation (capital "S" self; i.e. the atman).  Currently Ramana Maharshi is my guide in this.  I haven't abandoned Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and never will.  But their sublime path of Integral Yoga is so advanced that one can only really take it up when one has already attained self-mastery (because their Yoga only truly begins where the others end; i.e. at Enlightenment and Liberation.  And when it comes to attaining the Self,  Ramana is the purest teacher i have ever come across; not only a truely enlightened being, but also - and this is most important for me - the one who most embodies universal love and compassion for all sentient beings with equal consideration, regardless of external form.  Once Self-realisation is attained then i can go from there to the even more challenging and even more rewarding path of Integral Yoga.  But for now it is Raman's path that beckons.  So this is what i am dedicating myself to.

It's not that i intend to give up the internet; i can't see myself ever cutting myself off from the world; that sort of otherworldly renunciation holds no appeal, nor is it any use for transforming this world.  But it is all a question of priorities.

More to say, but i'll wait and see how things develop

Open Source Integral looks like being among the most (if not the most) exciting and lively forum in the Integral Movement.   The thread I started - "Some challenges that may face an Integral Alliance of Evolutionary Allies" has been generating a lot of interesting discussion. 

The only complaint I have is that the facebook-like format plays havoc with my low bandwidth dial up connection!

In working on my book Integral Metaphysics & Transformation I've been brushing up on Plotinus and Ibn Arabi; because their insighst should be incorporated (especially since they are so little known and understood in the West today).   It's amazing coming back to this stuffa fter a period of several years (i last studied them when putting up the Keper pages); I now have these further insights from Sri Aurobinbdo, and everything appears ina  new light, with further levels of insight and meaning.

Yesterday and this morning I was been reading a book about ibn Arabi (he is too complicated to read straight, unless you want to devote years studying him), and been noticing amazing parallels with Sri Aurobindo, just as there are between Plotinus and Sri Aurobindo.  Not that i know enough to write in detail, it will be rather as just basic pointers,  Hopefully in the future others can make more detailed comparisons (just as comparisons made between SA and Teilhard, and Whitehead and SA too).   I've read one essay comparing Plotinus and Sri Aurobindo but didnt find it very inspiring.

Significantly, none of the other esotericists has the understanding of the Supramental Transformation of matter, that seems to be Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's great contribution.   Isaac Luria seems to be the only one, and even he (or rather his followers!) describe things very vaguely

But yeah, when reading Plotinus, Proclus, ibn Arabi, Kashmir Shaivism.... it is such amazing stuff, so profound and uplifting, it makes me wonder why I even bothered with the Integarl Movement and people like Wilber.  Not meaning to put the guy down; like i said in another blog post i am now more interested in cooperation rather than criticism; but compared to the summits of esoteric and mystical thought, it si so dull, so dry, so limiting

And then i had the answer.  Sure Ibn Arabi and Plotinus and the rest have far vaster and profounder insights, but they are so far above the average humanity that no real connection can be made.  And this is Wilber's contribution, and others in the New Paradigm, New Consciousness, and New Age movement, to present a dumbed down and materialistic  version, to serve as a bridge or link.  It's like emanation too; there is the original source, then the various layers or rings or spheres around it which convey the Light in a diminished manner, but which is still necessary for the niourishment and sustenance of lower (in the sense of material, phenomenal, manifest) beings.  Okay I'm playing fast and loose with the metaphor, but yeah, the idea is that people like Wilber and Cohen, the New Paradigmers, etc serve an important purpose, and in pave the way for a more complete understanding, even if this more complete understanding is far above their insights.

This raises the possibility of a truely integral society or culture, not just the Wilberina/Upper Tier Integral which is still exoteric, but an esoteric Integarl based on isnighst of esotericism and of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's profound and still unsurpassed Integral or Supramental Yoga.  it is not that the people in this society will have attained that level (when that happens it is the Divinisation of the World), but they are "informed by" (to use the Wilberian phrase) Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings (and esotericism in general), in the same way that people in the Mainstream Integral Movement are informed by ideas proposed by Wilber and Beck.  How long will this take to come about?  Well we are talking about post-(IM Movement) Integral, and the Integral Movement itself is not properly developed (maybe in 10 years it will be).  So I don't know.  But if there is a process of spiritual ascent and a collective movement to Divinisation, then this may consitite a transitional stage (all this will have to go in my book as well  :-)

Well, I've been - and still are - extremely busy on my book, Integral Metaphysics and Transformation.  As always, it's turned out much harder than I thought,. because my obsessive perfectionism won't let me just writre a basic rough intro.  Instead I have to revise and add more insights, more material.  Sometimes I end up reorganising stuff.  I had hoped to finish it before the end of this year, but that doesn't look likely now.

I can however promise you that, when it's finished, this will be an amazing book.  If anyone is intersted in reading some chapters, let me know.  Mostly I've been working on the subject of emanation, hypostases, involution.  I compare different teachings, as well as proposing my own synthesis.   The emphasis is esotericism, especially from the Integral Yoga perspective. 

So far I'm working with the idea of five major hypostases.  These are (with Sri Aurobindo's terminology in brackets for the first three)

o The Unmanifest Absolute Reality (Sachchidananda)
o The Manifest Absolute Reality (Supermind)
o The Noetic Reality (Overmind)
o The Nondual Reality (standard Enlightenment)
o The Prakritic Reality (the Cosmos, planes of existence, gross and subtle matter)

Readers familiar with the traditional meme of the "Great chain of being" or ontological spectrum will understand what is being described here.  More unusual, to those unfamiliar with Sri Aurobindo's insights, is that the "nondual" state of Enlightenment (normally considered the very highest state of consciousness, the Absolute Reality) has a relatively  low position, second from the bottom.  If this arrangement seems strange, especially to those used to the comparison tables and charts provided by Wilber and others, consider that none of the popular Gurus in the West, and none of the main writers and teachers in the Integral Movement so far, really understand what Sri Aurobindo actually taught (on my website I mention the misunderstandings of Adi Da, of Osho, and of Ken Wilber in this regard). 

This is in no way to criticise the sincerity of those Integralists who study Sri Aurobindo  from an intellectual perspective only.  But inevitably mistakes creep in, because Sri Aurobindo represnets a much higher level of consciousness then that attained by even the most enlightened in the cutting edge consciousness paradigm in the West.  Pop Gurus (1960s onwards), New Paradigm transpersonal psychology and spirituality (1970s onwards), the Integral Movement (1990s onwards),  and all the rest, go as far as the Nondual stage, but no further.  What is described here will be the esoteric perspective, based on Plotinus (another great teacher who has been misunderstood in the mainstream Integral Movement), Sri Aurobindo, and other teachings.
 
I also do refer to the Integral movement later in the book, when i talk about planetary transformation or global mindshift.  It is here that the Integral Movement comes into its own.  As mentioned in a previous blog post, i am now much more interested in collaboration, rather than criticism.  I have been meaning to write an essay showing parallels between Andrew Cohen's concept of evolutionary enlightenment and my own ideas, but haven't because I've been so busy on the book, which is my first priority here. 

Well, my new essay - Evolutionary allies - is up on Frank's Integral World website, dfor anyone who is interested.  It marks an official change of policy for me regarding my position in the Integral Movement; from critic to collaboration.  I don't in any way regret the critiques I wrote; in fact they were and are necessary to distinguish my position, and to show that the Integral Movement isn't limited to the mainstream Integral (or Integral sensu stricto - see my previous essay Redefining Integral for more).  But having done that, written my criticism, and showed the relevance of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings (in that they are more inclusive/integrative, more radical, and also encompass the transformation of the world and of matter, not just a world-negating transcendent liberation), I cabn focus now both on cooperation and friendly dialogue, and also on writing my books, which will present a synthesis of esotericism, science, and spirituality, presenting a new worlkdview inspired by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings and the path of Integral yoga they initiated.

Haven't posted anything for a while because I've been busy; both on my first book (Integral Metaphysics and Transformation) and on a new essay for Frank Visser's Integral World.   Also been reading, corresponding etc.  Anyway just finished the first draft of the chapter on "Metaphysics", but i need to rewrite the chapter on "What is Integral?" because I've revised some of my ideas.  I find I'm moving towards a more purist and intense Aurobindonian position; Wilberian Integralism is much too exoteric and non-spiritual and not many of the people involved would be receptive to radical esoteric, occult, and yogic ideas.  i'm not saying that's bad, not at all; there's absolutely a place for all that; and many are inspired by AQAL and Spiral Dynamics to work for a better world.  It's just that I myself am more interested in true esotericism.  So I'm much less interested now in attempting any sort of "compromise" position between Wilberian and Aurobindonian.   The Aurobindonian tradition (Integral Yoga and Integral philosophy) really is unparalleled in its insights, inclusiveness, and confronting understanding of spirituality and what is required for the Divinisation of the world.

This blog past is subtitled "Can an abusive guru contribute to global transformation?"

Yesterday I watched an interesting YouTube video.    Here is an interesting case.  Andrew Cohen, a well-known abusive guru talks about evolutionary enlightenment and transformaing yourself to change the world.   Apart from the rather materialistic identification with the Big Bang cosmology (as opposed to involution), which seems inspired by the "Great Story" pantheism of Berry and Swimme (I'm not saying it's wrong btw, only, to borrow a phrase from Wilber, that it's partial), I really found the first half of the video quite inspiring, an in tune with my own understanding and experience.  I wa sthinking wow, this is incredible.  But then the second half launches into a sort of worshipful phase with various global evolutionists (Dan Beck (Spiral Dynamics), Jim Garrison (president of World Forum), etc) saying how wonderful and enlightened Cohen is.  It is pretty sad, that these intelligent guys should feel the need to bow down to this guy like that.  I mean, it's not like he has any sort of Wilberesque charisma, just view a video of Cohen and a video of Wilber if you doubt me.

Then right at the end, bizarrely, there is footage (but with special effects, like through an old fashioned TV set with bad reception) where a woman, i guess one of Cohen's devotees, starts talking about what all this cosmic evolution means to her, and rather than let her speak, Andrew Cohen cuts her off, as if he can't stand to hear the sound of anyone else's voice, talking over her in a really arrogant way, and she just shrinks into this passive and disempowered devotee saying "right...right...right..." each time he pauses.  I never saw anything like it.  And if I ever had any doubts about the claims by ex-devotees, these were instantly removed at that moment.

But what is really wierd is that Cohen actually included this on his video.  You'd think he;'d be embrassed, and want to keep all this stuff hidden.  But no, he is so unconscious of his own narcissism, and his devotees so sycophantic and passive, that they cannot even see what is happening.

I believe the same thing happens with abusive gurus, and even with folks like Wilber, taht happen with these celebrities who are out of control.  Surrounded by minders (with their own agendas) and sycophants and wannabes, they lose touch with the outside world, and retreat into a narcissistic bubble in whicjh they have no responsibility for their actions.  The difference is that with celebrities the law does catch up with them, and they spend a brief stint in jail or (as with Brittney) have their kids taken away.  But this doesn't happen with abusive gurus like Cohen because they are completely unknown outside a very small circle or subculture such as (in this case) the integral movement, so no paparazzi are going to pursue them and no one finds out about them - except through the courageous actions of ex-devotees who spill the beans.   The real difference of course is that celebrities only harm themselves, whereas abusive gurus harm others.  That's the difference.

Cohen is also editor-in-chief of What is Enlightenment magazine, which mixes narcissistic worship of himself and sometimes sloppy scholarship with some very good articles.  Ina  sense it is the journal of the integral movement (although many would see it as "New Age, there is a lot of overlap).

So this is how the guy who is the main inspiration behind the Integral Movement's most popular magazine behaves! 

What does that say for the Integral Movement?  What does it say for leadership of that movement?

I've been involved with the "Integral Movement" for several years, because I see a lot of promise there, and a lot that corresponds to my own thinking, and also to integrate Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings (the mainstream integral movement has no idea about SA & M, they respect SA but are absolutely ignorant, and except for brief mentions on Cohen's WIE magazine and website, ignore the Mother altogether).  Here is my latest essay on Integral World  

The high profile of people like Cohen in the Integral Movment is due to the fact that there is a poverty of moral leadership in the movement in America (the Europeans in contrast have it together a lot better - look at Laszlo and his Club of Budapest).   This will only change as the integral movement outgrows its infantile roots, and new integralists like Steve McIntosh and Mike Psyka & co (Integral Praxis) are able to provide a healthy alternative to the Wilber-Beck-Cohen "old guard".  In addition, there are highly admirable people like Robb Smith within the Integral Institute itself (see Robb's statement on Open Integral).  So I'm pretty optimistic about how things will work out.