Integral Metaphysics - outline of my current book in progress

The title, "Integral Metaphysics", refers to the synthesis of two topics that have grabbed my interest over the years. "Integral" (in the philosophical and spiritual context) is a poorly defined concept that refers to a universal explanation of everything in terms of an evolutionary philosophy of personal and social transformation. "Metaphysics" refers to all the big questions about the nature of life, the universe, and Reality as a whole. It pertains not just to the visible physical world, but the invisible, non-physical reality as well. "Integral Metaphysics" combines both these themes. It also describes an evolutionary transformation culminating in personal and global divinisation....

The second part of the book is called "Integral". This is about Integral philosophy, the Integral paradigm, as opposed to Integral yoga. Integral philosophy,  in this context, is Exoteric. Exoteric refers to the outer, ordinary or public understanding. It is the opposite of Esoteric. "Esoteric" here refers to the "inner" mystical or occult teachings, and the subtle, transcendent, or spiritual and metaphysical dimension of being.  When considering exoteric and esoteric , it is not that one is bad and the other good or "better". The exoteric provides the outer form or structure, the esoteric the inner experience of enlightenment and transformation. Both are absolutely necessary.  This distinction is very important and will appear a number of times in the present work.

Integral philosophy is presented as an alternative to the two standard world views of modern society.  By "worldview" I mean the overall explanations or belief-systems  we use to explain the world around us.  ...  It might be science or it might be a particular religion and belief in God, or anything else.  The two worldviews by which most people today tend to make meaning of their lives and of the universe (and everything else) are agnosticism1 and materialism, which takes its justification from the discoveries of science, and religious ideas of a supreme deity, as revealed through religious scriptures, on the other.  It is argued that neither dogmatic religion nor materialism and scepticism can provide an overall explanation....

The third part of the book is called "Metaphysics." This is about the "esoteric" perspective, as opposed to the exoteric Integral movement. "Metaphysics" is a technical word from philosophy which is given many different meanings (some of which are "exoteric" and others "esoteric"), .... "Esoteric" is based on spiritual knowledge, called gnosis, and "inner" (metaphorically speaking) and occult realities. By "occult" I do not mean the sort of sensationalist nonsense about devil worship and so on propounded by strict and conservative religion and the mass media, but rather the art and science of non-mundane realities. Also described here is what is called the "perennial philosophy". This is the idea that there is a common and universal truth found in all the different philosophies and spiritual teachings.

The esoteric aspect of the Integral path builds upon but also goes beyond the "outer" theory and practice, because it includes spiritual, metaphysical, and transformative elements. By "transformative" is meant becoming something else, a metamorphosis, like a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly. Integral esoteric metaphysics and practice constitutes a spiritual philosophy and description of the universe that is able to incorporate various esoteric, occult, mystical, and spiritual teachings. Indeed, it can incorporate every possible teaching and experience.

As a concession to academia, I have also included a chapter that replies to the sceptical, agnostic, or materialistic arguments....

The fourth part of the present work, "First Philosophy", presents the foundations of metaphysics. Metaphysics is grounded in questions concerning the nature of Being or Reality. In this I take my inspiration from Aristotle's definition of theology and metaphysics, which have nothing to do with later religious interpretations. As presented in this book, "First Philosophy" is about not only to the nature of Absolute Reality, but also to the origin of everything from the Absolute Reality. This process by which creation comes about is called "emanation". Emanation means that creation is an outpouring of the Supreme. ...Causality, which is the explanation of how things come about, is explained as both "vertical" (through emanation, from the Supreme) and "horizontal" (in that everything also causes everything else, as in the Buddhist idea of "dependent origination" or karma. Causality means that everything is in a process of constant change...

The fifth part, "Being", provides a description of the nature of both individual and cosmic reality that builds on the metaphysical foundation laid out in part four, and also builds on the underlying philosophical, spiritual, occult, esoteric, and methodological premises of part three. Although Reality (capital "R") is one and indivisible, it can be viewed has including a number of branching and converging domains (or worlds, planes, aspects, states; dimensions...) or realities (small "r"). Together these constitute what is poetically known as "The Great Chain of Being" or "The Spectrum of Consciousness". Each of these small "r" realities can be experienced as the big "R" Supreme Reality, depending on where your consciousness is at (in other words, "God" or "The Absolute" or whatever you want to call Him/Her/It is not something different or separate from where you are at). And each have qualitative differences.... In the present book, eight such primary domains are described. Our familiar physical world is presented as the "outermost", the most "dense" or "gross" of the four states of the "lowest" of these primary realities.... Each reality, and each sub-reality and sub-sub-reality, has its own particular unique characteristics, phenomena, laws, and even beings. And if that sounds all too strange, then you have to read the other parts first!

But this description of Reality is still artificial, because it describes a static model. Whereas the nature of being is as dynamic, consisting of a series of processes or metamorphoses. At best then, the spectrum of being refers to a description of manifest Reality as it is now; a snapshot of consciousness. But because everything is a process of change (as described in part four), this cannot be a complete explanation. Therefore the sixth part, "Process", describes Reality in terms pf dynamic change and metamorphosis.

Here four different creation stories about how things came about are described . These might be called "grand narratives", or meaningful myths in the Jungian sense.... Rather than being contradictory, they are complementary, each different aspect of a larger multidimensional reality. .They describe the dynamic nature of physical and occult reality as process, rather than as static structures. These are Kalpas and Cycles (as described in Eastern philosophy, Jewish Kabbalah, and modern astrophysics such as the Big Bang in physical cosmology), Crisis and Restitution (as described in Gnosticism and again Kabbalah), Rounds or Dimensions (best described in the Theosophy of the Russian occultist Madame Blavatsky, and the Anthroposophy of the Austrian philosopher and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner), and Evolution (again as in modern science) and Hypostases (a technical term for the levels of reality that make up the previously mentioned "spectrum of being").

The seventh part is called Divinisation. Many religions, and almost all spiritual teachings and yogas teach individual salvation and transcendence only, or else passively waiting for a Messiah. But both the Lurianic tradition of Kabbalah, and Integral Yoga, teach that humanity is able to participate in the transformation of the world. In Kabbalah this is only described in metaphoric and religious language, and there is also no concept of the divinisation of the body. In Sri Aurobindo's teachings it is described in a clear and practical way. This involves not just conventional Enlightenment, also spiritual stages of the evolution of consciousness beyond even enlightenment. ... By evolution is meant not just physical and biological evolution described in part five (although it is that too), but evolution on every level and aspect of the being, including spiritual and even divine Evolution. In Integral Yoga the sequence is Enlightenment and then even further Evolution, not just Evolution and then Enlightenment, as in New Age and the exoteric Integral philosophy. This is because Evolution extends beyond Enlightenment. Indeed, the most radical stages of Evolution are those that build upon and integrate Enlightenment.

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