Including but also Transcending the rational intellect

Ok I know a few blog posts back I said I was spreading myself too thinly, and will be contributing less here blah blah, but it seems that am inspired or compelled to continue blogging here!  I suppose the best approach is to retain Zaadz for my more personal-spiritual comments, and Integral Transformation for the intellectual-spiritual work.  Obviously there is a lot of overlap.  So this rule won't always be followed!

Apology over, I can get on with the blog post :-)

I'm just elaborating and rewording here a comment I made on Open Integral

Open Integral is a non-partisan multi-authored blog.  While a very promising forum, there is also a lot of intellectualism there, and I personally feel that this tends to sqaush the spiritual element (others may disagree).  Because if you are in the mental all that you do is go round and round, unless you have some inner or higher Light - whether of the Inner Divine Presence or the Higher regions of Gnostic consciousness, or both

Although I do consider myself an intellectual of sorts (albeit a spiritual-esoteric intellectual) I do get bored with too much mental debate.  Especially where the emotional being gets involved, then you have a big argument, with lots of hurt feelings, shadow projection, misinterpretation, etc.  That's why it's better to follow the pure spiritual path and access the reality behind the words.

This is not to buy into Rajneeshist and similar such denials of the intellect, like the famous sign at the gate of the Osho ashram at Poona that said "shoes and minds are to be left at the gate".  That's just cultic garbage, a good way to be brainwahsed.  No, this is nothing about denying the rational intellect, which is one of the most powerful and potent faculties we have.  It's about including it, but also going beyond it.  So to see the reality beyond the words does not mean anything about denying and rejecting the words.  It means embracing the theory, but also going beyond the theory..  Adding new faculties, not throwing away faculties one already has.

So what I'm trying to do is, while not rejecting the intellectual component, also bring the mystical and esoteric and spiritual element into the Integral movement.  Because there is still too much emphasis on theory without that inner spiritual Light and guidance.  It's still all about what Ken says and what someone else says and so on.  And sure that's fine on the relative level, but once you go beyond that, who cares what they say? Because what really matters at the end of the day is how you can apply these things in your life, and cultivate selflessness and compassion for all beings, aspiration for the Supreme, and wideness and plasticity of the adhar (the outer personality and body). Those are the only things that matter, everything else is an amusing game, nothing more.

And when you have that, and when you attained the state of the Silent Self, as Sri Ramana and other great teachers show, then you can, if that is your purpose and path, be receptive to even higher gnostic states and bring down that even higher Light to the physical, culminating ultimately in the Divinisation of Matter itself