Towards an Integral Gnostic Community
M. Alan
I'm double posting this on Integral Transformation blog as well.
Having participated in and checked out a number of "integral" forums and on-line communities, I am intrigued by the fact that there is one thing that seems to be missing. Gnosis.
By Gnosis I mean an inner certainty and spiritual knowing that goes beyond the endless futile turnings of rational argument.
These words - when divorced from the content of their experience - appear shallow and new agey and thus can be misinterpreted by those who lack Gnosis and coming only from the sceptical rational mind. Because, as with all things, they have meaning through experience. You need to have Gnosis to understand Gnosis. Elitism? Perhaps. But if that's how it is, that's how it is. You cannot say that the state of gnosis is the same as the state of lacking gnosis. When there is an lack of gnosis, all that understanding has to rely on are endless intellectual theories, abstractions, dogmas, of which one is chosen as the mental truth, and the others denied or subordinated to that. Sure there are degrees of gnosis too; it's not like anyone who has Insight is the same or in agreement or lacks ego. This is only the very first step.
And this, I contend, is where the current Integral movement totally fails. The latter is based on academic and quasi-academic thinking, and heavily influenced by the intellectualising of the Wilberian/Post-Wilberian paradigm, an intellectualising that seeks with great good will to understand. But which cannot understand the transcendent, because the transcendent by its very nature is beyond such intellectualising. All that the best intellectualising can do is point to the infinitely manifold Supreme. In the words of the old cliche, the map is not the territory. And philosophy and academia fails when it remains fixated on the map, and ignores - or still worse in the case of radical agnosticism, materialism, or religious fundamentalism, denies - the territory.
This is not to denigrate the many wonderful people I have met in the Integral community, or to deny the influence Wilber's work has had on my own way of thinking. However for me Wilber's influence has been more along the lines of a catalyst - the immensely inspirational idea of bringing everything and everyone on the cutting edge of human and collective evolution together. Unfortunately I consider Wilber's own philosophy - his integral theory - an intellectual dead end. His theory, with all its lines and levels and quadrants and stages and states, is much too tiny and much too inflexible for this vision. And his ego, sorry to say this Ken, is much too big. Without humility, nothing can be achieved.
This is why I advocate not a mental integral theory, and not egotistic pomposity, but a spiritual gnosis, an integral insight that goes beyond all such limitations. I have yet to see anyone do a better job at pointing the way than Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. What Wilber fails to do, philosophically, spiritually, esoterically and occultly, they succeed in doing.
So okay, if the Wilberian/Postwilberian movement isn't the way (at least not for me; there are many for whom it is the way, and it is good and right that they are there, because they are exactly where they should be), what about the Integral Yoga community? Wouldn't they constitute the sort of thing I am talking about?
Well, much as I am grateful to share this planet with others inspired by the same twin avatars as I, and very glad that they are carrying on the message, there is also a danger here. It is exactly the same danger the Wilberians face; the danger of becoming fixated on a single teaching. And sure in this case it is a genuine teaching, not an intellectual dead end. But there is still the fact that if you follow those two great teachers literally, you'll be stuck yet again in another limited religion. And you'll only be able to approach the Supreme through a limited perspective, that is, through the mental filter of a literal reading of only one set of teachings, rather than an unlimited one through the experience of all teachings and all teachers. Also, just because someone follows Sri Aurobindo and the Mother doesn't mean they ave gnosis! It may simply be an intellectual attraction, or an emotional affiliation, or a combination of factors that have nothing to do with spiritual insight.
Now, I'm not saying that following Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to the exclusion of all other teachers is no good. First, esotericism has always worked that way. You attain enlightenment through a fundamentalist approach to Vedanta, a fundamentalist approach to Sufism, a fundamentalist approach to Kabbalah. The rigid and inflexible Thoughtform leads beyond itself to the Supreme. And those who are fundamentalist Aurobindonians are following the path that is exactly right for them, and honouring that path and that teaching, and I would be the last one to try to dissuade them. Also, there are those Aurobindonians who are aware of the danger of literalism. So I am not saying everyone in Integral Yoga only follows the one thing, absolutely not.
And second, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother truly did bring something new, the Yoga of Descent, the Yoga of the Divinisation of the Body and of Matter, which marks a complete break with old spiritualities and yogas, which were only concerned with the attainment of a nirvana or enlightenment that renounces the world (or in the case of the bodhisattva ideal defers liberation until everyone else has been enlightened and entered nirvana and disappeared from the world). In this regard, Wilber, for all his claims to be the most advanced, the most integral, etc etc, is totally stuck in the old idea of the highest state (what he calls nondual, Spirit, One Taste, etc) as one of transcendence of the world.
But even so, for me, and for many others, there is the need to go beyond the reliance on one teacher or teaching only. Sure you may still honour that teaching, and that teacher. It may be your primary orientation to spirituality and gnosis and the Supreme. For me Sri Aurobindo and the Mother always will be. But it is not the only one. Your spiritual conscious is wide enough to take in many authentic teachings and teachers, and see the Supreme in each. For example, I see Ramana Maharshi as equal, that's right, equal, to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. This is a paradox since mentally I consider Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings superior. And I am always open and receptive to further teachers and teachings, who would likewise be equal in status, because all partake of the Supreme through their complete Enlightenment. You may have similar experiences with different teachers and teachings, or with the same ones, it doesn't matter. What matters is the Gnosis that goes beyond words. And beyond focus on a single external form.
Nor does this mean that everyone has the same gnosis, the same experience, and will attain the same enlightenment. We are all different, unique, and so are experiences and our gnosis are too. It is not a bland uniformity. It is the exact opposite.
I do envisage a very new type of spiritual community emerging, a community of gnostics, not bound by religious or philosophical limitations. There have always been such esoteric groups, but in the past they were limited to a particular tradition, no matter how authentic that tradition was or is. The Supreme however encompasses all traditions, and infinitely more besides. And a community of gnostics connected over the Internet would indeed be something new. The work of transformation is still done in one's own self first and foremost. But the synergy of spiritual exchange between gnostics all over the world may lead to a totally new emergent phenomena, new spiritual evolution, quite different to the current mentally-based noosphere. And this would aid in the work of global transformation, a community of Gnostic Lightworkers.
Such are my thoughts. I look forward to your feedback on this :-)
Access: Public
aurobindo
April 2008
Hi Alan
Alan I have been taught that there are two kinds of teachers: the one who can only teach through his own tradition, and another teacher that can teach one through all the traditions. That guy is of course the supreme sage. That shouldn't diminish the other guy though. Because his method leads to the same thing as the sage who has the capacity to teach anyone through any method.
Also I have been taught that it comes a point in the students teaching where he no longer needs a teacher, he or she becomes there own master.
In Sufism often times the teacher will send the student to various teachers to learn certain things from certain people who are expert in a given field of knowledge
The student in theory is given what they need.
But it takes a perfect master to know what the student needs!
The student doesn't really know what they need, that's why they are a student.
As for Gnosis
Gnosis is based on direct perception. Wilber states that perspective trumps perception. I have yet to figure out what context he means this in, but I hope it is not a general context.
Perspective to me is only the place you are in at any given time. To me this doesn't have to affect anything necessarily, let alone perception.
The grand thing about true mysticism divorced from Wilber's scientism, is that the mystic is with god all the time so it doesn't matter what perspective he is at, to be with god is an absolute perspective of truth. And since the true mystic knows that god is everywhere than he is always in the truth and the truth is in him.
The Prophet Muhammad said: Oh lord show me things as they really are!
That is ultimate Gnosticism to see reality as it is divorced from subjective veils that distort it.
It is funny that people don't realize that this is the essence of the path. That is this prayer of Muhammad: to see reality as it is. Now that's direct perception - Gnosis.
The path is not all this elaborate stuff, it is simply to purify your inner heart, mind, and soul, so one can see or perceive reality as it is.
Then one can be on their own and seek more of the sublime!
Do you think Wilber's Vision Logic is his version of Gnosis?
zak
the real neo
It sounds to me that what Alan is referring to is simply authentic nondual mystical experience.
Zak what you say about two types of teachers rings very true to me.
re KW's Vision-Logic. I am not a wilber expert of course, but I understand by this, a sort of intuitive attempt by the rational mind to arrive at a larger perspective of things, while still remaining within the realm of the rational or surface mind. Nothing I have read or heard about Wilber indicates he has ever gone beyond the rational mind. Sure he is pretty skilful at shutting off his mental activity for a while through samadhi. According to The Mother Rabindraneth Tagore could do that too. But it is not an ascent or progression beyond mind, nor is it a spiritual state of consciousness. It's just keeping the mind still. As The Mother says, there are people who meditate profoundly, but go into a rage if anyone disturbs their meditation. Meditation is useful, but on its own doesn't confer enlightenment.
By Gnosis I mean an inner certainty about spiritual realities that has been very real to me since i was only 20 or 21. It pertains to the inner mind (to use Sri Aurobindo's terminology). I have never been a “seeker”, because a seeker doesn't know. Rather I have - ever since the “scales fell from my eyes” when i was about 20, known, not in a rational sense., But in a sense that when i read spiritual knowledge it was like a remembering. A bit like in the Platonic sense that all true knowledge and education is remembering what we knew before. When I read Tibetan Buddhism, Jung, Sri Aurobindo, Henry Corbin, whoever, ah - of course, how obvious! Why didn't I see that before. That's what I mean when I speak about Gnosis. I have found on forums like Open Integral it is impossible to convey this concept. There is only one other person frequently on OI, Marco, who doesn't post much, but he understands the spiritual traditions in the manner I do (he is a student of A. H. Almaas).
But my gnosis is just one form of gnosis, one facet of gnosis. And as Goethean points out, authentic nondual mystical experience is also gnosis (obviously more profound than mine). An example of this is enlightenment, for example the state of being of Ramana Maharshi. The ascent to the Supermind in Aurobindonian Integral Yoga is an even more profound gnosis again. Sri Aurobindo even uses the term gnosis. So I wouldn't say that gnosis is only this but not that. There are many forms and types and grades of gnosis.
Two things can be said about gnosis
o It conveys a sense of certainty, but this is very different to the certainty a fundamentalist gets from their religion, or a materialist from their materialism. It is a certainty of spiritual truths that at the same time is open to other realities, other possibilities and truths, even those from traditions antithetical to one's own. It is never egotistic or exclusivist or authoritarian
o it is transformative in its very nature. The very fact and experiences of gnosis changes one's consciousness and being, and the more profound the gnosis, the greater the change (until with Supramental Gnosis the body can be divinised and ultimatley the entire world can be transformed)
Of course it is easy for the ego to hijack gnosis, then you have the “intermediate zone”, the mixture of truth and falsehood taht characterises most gurus.
Dear Alan,
slightly adapted from a recent article:
All these spiritualities are still enthralled by the perennial philosophy happily believing itself to aspire to, be informed or blessed by, and basically move around a singular Transcendent Sun common to all faiths, creeds, mysticisms and spiritual paths and practices.
This spirituality seems to resonate with the situation in astronomy when we believed that our sun was the center of the universe. We have had to learn, though, that obviously this universe does not have a center at all or, to put it differently and just as true: the universal center is everywhere. And yet, when it comes to our spirituality we are very reluctant to take serious what we have learnt from studying the heavens astronomically. We object to the image that there are numerous Transcendent Suns around which meaning, understanding, love, devotion and divine, true and valid mystic experience revolves. And even then, surrendering one's defenses against this understanding, one still would love to salvage some of perennial philosophy's tenets by believing these Suns to turn around a common Center. And indeed, it seems that some Suns do; for instance the Suns of most Christian, Islamic and Jewish faiths turn around the Monotheistic Galactic Center. Yet, other Suns do not turn that way, they participate in and form other constellations in different Galaxies of our local cluster.
The present day spiritual explorer, teacher and finder is having to face a huge challenge - to come to grips with the undeniable non-centeredness of the cosmos, the plurality of suns and galaxies, the undoing of all 'cosmic justifications' for vertical structure and certainties. This might be as scary for us as it was when it wasn't possible anymore to reasonably doubt Kepler's, Copernicus' and Newton's discoveries. The beautiful certainties of old are evaporating, and with it what gave purpose and meaning to life. All of a sudden we find ourselves in an endlessly open universe that doesn't turn around us or around what we hold sacred anymore. The One Transcendent Sun setting and a multitude of Stars lighting up the mysterious darkness we now find ourselves in.
Starry NightThis is the challenge: seeing that there are no pre-given and objective constellations in the skies anywhere, and wholeheartedly facing and embracing this freedom; moving from a bi-directional, vertical understanding of the Highest and Lowest towards an omnidirectional, participatory, co-created, radically pluralistic reality.
Dawning on us is a cosmos with innumerable Suns; stars around which constellations of experience, understanding, faith and meaning are configured and brought forth in the dynamic matrix of the mystery we call reality.
And regarding some possibilities of exploring this:
Helen has written a beautiful article about ”Women Moving the Edge”
You also find my take on this and Andrew Cohens approach along these lines here.
And a huge repository about many methods here.
m.a.
You have put into words so much that is felt within me. I hesitate to even say 'me' as it doesn't seem accurate. Thank you.
Mushin, thanks for your wonderful words too, and the links. I loved Helen's post. And I'm curious about your specific response to what m.alan writes here. Something feels a bit opaque to me - perhaps I'm simply being dull-headed? My sense is that you have something quite simple and direct to share regarding m.alan's post?
Hello M.Alan, I love your post. It speaks to me in a profound and deep way. You can count me in on this pod of gostics!
I'm not totally sure that you mean the same with gnosis, what I call 'Wholeness of Knowing'. As a lot of people, I never felt at home in the Wilber or Andrew circles. Way too mental for me. Not that I didn't learn from them; I sure did. But it is not my 'home' where I can contribute the wholeness of myself. I am a woman, and I am very bodily orientated, meaning that my way of knowing is basically through the body. I refined this kind of knowing by becoming an emotional bodyworker. Recently I try to integrate the knowing of and by the body in some gatherings that I am part of or that I initiated, like in Women Moving the Edge (referred to in previous comment).
In my view we need a lot more of this inner knowing, or what can be called the 'Felt Sense', to balance the mental superiority that is so common in our Western culture today. How can we ever be whole in ourself, if we don't integrate the physical and emotional and subtle knowing of the body? And how could we come to whole solutions for the probems of our world, if we are not whole in ourselves?
Another line of inquiry for the ones who don't know about it is the Systemic Constellations Work. Mostly known as Family Constellations, but the last years so much 'extrapolation' is done to other areas of life. But what is fascinating is what we are possible of knowing inside, if we are 'set up' as part of any kind of system!!
I intent to write an article about integrating Theory U of Scharmer, the wholeness of knowing, the Art of Hosting and Spiral Dynamics. I don't know if I will succeed, the structure is not very clear yet…
With love,
from Belgium,
Ria
Mushin said:
———————————–
“All these spiritualities are still enthralled by the perennial philosophy happily believing itself to aspire to, be informed or blessed by, and basically move around a singular Transcendent Sun common to all faiths, creeds, mysticisms and spiritual paths and practices….
The present day spiritual explorer, teacher and finder is having to face a huge challenge - to come to grips with the undeniable non-centeredness of the cosmos, the plurality of suns and galaxies, the undoing of all 'cosmic justifications' for vertical structure and certainties.”
———————————–
Mushin, this is so true. Yes, exactly. This is what I mean too. Each spiritual sun is a mental approach to one particular aspect of the transcendent. But none can embrace the Supreme in its totality, precisely because the mind itself is limited and can only understand one thing at a time.
I have to thank Sri Aurobindo for this insight. I've posted a relevant quotation of his on Open Integral (witha few comments). The excessive intellectualisation and lack of gnosis among most participants of Open Integral is such that only one person to date has commented, and that is Tusar, who is very much an orthodox aurobindonian who seems to annoy the other people on the forum with his references to the superiority of Sri Aurobindo's insights over Wilber and modern philosophy (they seem to prefer a merely mental relativism, inspired i guess by postmodernism and criticism of wilberism)
Thanks for the links too. Man, there is so much information out there! lol! I find it impossible to read everything! I'll add a link to your wiki from one of my kheper webpages. Yes, the participatory approach is what it is all about.
Sandra, yes, Helen's post as a lot of authenticity about it. I need to find the focus and headspace to read it properly. That's the problem I was saying, there is so much information out there, I mean *good* information! How can one process it all?
And no Mushin isn't being opaque, unless I've misinterpreted him :-) But see my comments and the quote on Open Integral by Sri Aurobindo. And no you;re not dull-headed either!
Hi Ria! Welcome to the Gnostic Community :-) Interesting what you say about body consciousness. Yes, there is this ascetic spirituality that denegrates the body, and that denegrates women, and that denegrates the world. I have never felt a commonality with that, even though it is ubiquitous. You may be interested in the work of The Mother regarding the divinisation of the body and the enlightenment of the cells of the body. It is recorded in a massive 13 volume work called Mother's Agenda, but there is a condensed version by her disciple Satprem (who compiled the Agenda). It's called The Mind of the Cells, and it is unfortunately full of Satprem's mental interpretations which i find annoying and very limiting (although others like his ideas and find him inspirational). So its best to just read it for The Mother's quotes alone. Or there is this book which is online, Life Without Death
http://www.godconsciousness.com/life_without_death.htm This is written by Staprem's associate Luc Venet. Here there is much less Satpremism, and with Satprem there is a very useful chapter at the end which elaborates on his worldview and experiences.
It's great that you can realise the superficiality of Ken and Andrew's mental approach. Although with Andrew it seems not so much mental-only (qas it is with KW) as a partial inner opening. (Although due to his sycophancy to Wilber - see the Guru and Pandit talks - he has taken on board Wilberian memes, also he seems to have adopted with only a very shallow mental understanding some ideas from Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine, e.g. in one of his blog posts he speaks about “delight”, an Aurobindonian concept, but without Sri Aurobindo's profound insight) That is, unless he is lying or self-deluded, he does have (or at least claim to have) some superficial experience, but one in which a huge amount of ego remains. In fact the ego seems to have been inflated, ditto with Ken. With Adi Da (who Ken admired for a long time but then came to feel ambiguous about) this seems to have gone a step further with a sort of egotistic identification with (or being swallowed up by) archetypal forces, what I call (using the language of Chaos Theory) an “attractor”, hence his belief to be the one and only 7th stage adept of all time. Sri Aurobindo's concept of the Intermediate Zone is very appropriate here, in order to understand where Andrew, Adi Da, and even Ken (his One Taste etc) are coming from.
Theory U - I've never heard of that, before being pointed at Helen's post. Family/Systemic Constellations, I've never heard of that either. Just goes to show how much knowledge is out there, in the noosphere! It reminds me of Science, where there are so many specialised fields and subfields! But all this New Age / New Consciousness / Integral movemnet / etc stuff has yet to be integrated (actually I'm working on a book with Scott Zimmerle that will be a start there).
I'm sure your article will be very interesting too!
love & light
m.a.
Dear m.a. Lovely comment. As to my dull-headedness, well it is often a bit 'opaque' inside there ( my brain !) I'm glad what Mushin wrote spoke to you.
Yes there is SO much out there! I also had never heard of the Theory U and went and checked it out - thanks Ria. Very interesting. I didn't get far beyond the home page, but that alone spoke to me. I have done Family Constellation work and it is excellent, and I suspect, becoming more and more available worldwide because it is so remarkable.
I ditto m.a.'s comments about the work of the Mother and it's pertinence to the 'feminine' felt
experience of consciousness. Have a look at my post on Satprem - Life Without Death, where I talk about how much I felt supported by his and The Mother's work.
Thanks all!
Love, Sandra
Yes I found Sandra's post on Satprem very inspirational!
Without Satprem there would never have been the Agenda, and The Mother's beautiful words recorded therein would have been lost forever. And much as I criticise Satprem's mental viewpoint as being simplistic (to refer to “the next species” and so on doesn't do justice to the enormity of the event; although to be fair to Satprem he isn't using these words in a scientific sense, but in a mystical sense) I, like all fiollowers of this path, .owe him a great debt!