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Kingdom Come: Postmetaphysical Inclusivism?

Posted October 19th, 2009 by Balder in Integral Spirituality

The following post is in response to Father Greg Mayer's letter to me ("For Bruce") in his recent blog, Jesus Is Not Your Usual Lord.  I am posting it as new blog entry because I would like to invite comments and participation from others as well.

 

 

 

Hi, Greg,

I am enjoying and benefitting from our exchanges as well.  I'm grateful for this opportunity, particularly since a number of my thoughts on these issues are still in a formative stage.

In this entry, I'll include bits from our recent exchange so it will be easier to follow.

I asked:  The immediate question that arises for me is, in such a vision, what pins everything exclusively to Jesus in paradoxical identity, rather than to, say, Muhammad, or Adi Da (others who have claimed to be the 'ultimate' or 'final' revelation of God), not to mention to anything else (the Indra's net image)? ….. In other words, why is this uniquely the case,if you are describing the 'deep structure' of reality, as you say, and nothing 'causal'?
 
You replied:  “Exclusively” is the wrong word. “Inclusively” is the right one. Maybe Adi Da is the unique 7th Stage Avatar, the final Self-Revelation of Reality Itself. How would I know? But he is that in, with and through Jesus, and he doesn’t have to know it, much less proclaim it. Why? Because God is Love. Love is God. And Jesus is the perfect manifestation of that.... The problem I have is with the descriptive label “triumphalism.” It is not one I would use or have used. (If I have used the word or its synonyms, I take them back)...

In my earlier discussion with Cameron, I raised the question of inclusivism and asked whether it was a viable approach for a tradition which aspires to be integral or (post-)postmodern.  As I'm sure you're aware, in the history of interfaith dialogue, the modernist inclusivist strategy was criticized by postmodernists for its subtle (if not overt) triumphalism.  As I mentioned to Cameron, I understood why he was not comfortable with the way Christianity had been 'included' in the more Eastern-leaning Integral model to date.  If Christ is 'accommodated' in this model as a 'nondual realizer from Nazareth' (rather than as the Messiah or the Only Begotten Son of God), that 'inclusivism' understandably comes across to the Christian as subtly if not overtly triumphalist:  Advaita Vedanta or Buddhism is privileged, and Christianity is 'included' within that framework as a second-player, with Jesus cast as a Jr. Buddha or a Jewish yogi.  Many Christians understandably balk at that.  Why should the Eastern worldview with its presuppositions about divinity and reality be taken as ultimate?  That's a good question. But moving in the opposite direction is no better, in my opinion.  Trying to put the Judeo-Christian narrative at the center of human history instead is just as triumphalist in its inclusivism, because it privileges an historical set of presuppositions about reality -- about divinity, about human nature, potential, and values -- and assumes that they are representative for all human beings at all times.  In other words, it subscribes here to the 'myth of the given,' to the extent that it takes its vision of reality as non-enacted, trans-historical, 'given.'

So, if inclusivism has problems, but postmodern relativism or pluralism is also found wanting, what comes next?  What is the 'integral' solution?  I'm still exploring this question, myself, so I can only offer some speculations at this point.  But I feel fairly clear that this approach won't simply be a return to modernist inclusivism (although it may 'reflect' it in some ways, just as it may reflect pluralism in others).  I'll offer a few of my thoughts on this below.

You wrote:  I think the words I’ve used have been: completeness, fullness, and such. There is a big difference. Let me explain by way of analogy. Barnes and Nobles has a wonderful section for recently printed classics. I can buy the Shakespeare’s Comedies, Shakespeare’s Tragedies, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and finally the Complete Works of Shakespeare. The Complete Works of Shakespeare doesn’t take anything away from the editions of his comedies, tragedies and sonnets. It is just a more complete edition of his artistry.  In the same way, I think you find the fullness of reality in, with and through Jesus. I see it as neither exclusive nor triumphant, just complete. What Buddha showed is absolutely remarkable, the highest human achievement. And Jesus is the fullness or completeness of that in a way that Buddha never claimed to be.

I don't think the difference is that big, as I explained above.  The fulfillment doctrine, as it has commonly been articulated, is still inclusivist and triumphalist.  In your analogy, the collections of sonnets and the full collected works were both authored (arguably) by the same person.  But what if you have two very different bodies of writing, say, the Old Testament and the Mahabharata?  Which one is the "most complete"?  Will you include one in the other?  On what basis?

You wrote:  Thank you for understanding my love life. Is this a subjective reality? Yes. Is it an objective reality? Yes. When we are talking of the “deep structures of reality” we are talking on different planes other than objective and subjective. That dichotomy dissolves into objectively subjective, or subjectively objective. It is analogous to quantum physics: subject and object can’t be separated. It is definitely not one or the other. This is where the rational level consciousness goes berserk. It can’t see the paradoxes and because it can’t see them, it denies them, or what is much worse, reduces them to what it can see. And I have no debate with you over your beliefs. A quote I recently heard on NPR is applicable here: It’s all going to work out in the end; it’s just not the end yet. I’m not trying to convince you, I’m secretly praying to convert you. (No put down intended - take it as my way of hoping for the very best for you).

Yes, I understand what you are saying here about the inseparability of subject and object.  But when you assert the primacy of a particular worldview over all others, such that the only relationship that others can have to it is to be 'included' within it, you are not acknowledging the enactivity of the play of subject and object; you are privileging a particular historical enactment, divorcing it from or ignoring its enactive context and asserting it as a 'given' for all. 

I wrote:  Do you still maintain that this self-described 'offensive'statement does not contain propositional truth claims or assertions?  How is it not a propositional statement?  What is the relationship between this sort of assertion and the more direct, intuitive form of knowing you say is necessary to grasp what Mumon is saying, or what you are saying about paradoxical identity with Christ?
 
You replied:  That’s the damn thing about Christianity, it is just like relationships, as soon as you pin it down, you’ve lost it. It is like nailing down mercury. I have an image of you and me moving into a new apartment. You are insisting that this particular piece of furniture belongs in that particular corner, and I am insisting that it is way too big for that corner. You’re pushing on one end, and I on the opposite. We are destined to wear each other out on this particular issue. Show me how to prove a negative and I’ll prove it is not a propositional statement.

I follow what you are saying, and agree that it's rather pointless to ask you to prove a negative.  But the reason I copied my original question up above is because I didn't only ask you to prove a negative.  I asked several other questions, and it seems to me you're being a bit evasive or slippery here.

Here is my concern:  Christian scripture makes certain propositional statements about the nature and status of Jesus of Nazareth.  I believe I understand what you mean when you say that these claims constitute an announcement (kerygma) rather than theoretical or propositional statements.  But an announcement only makes sense within a given shared context, and as soon as you take it outside of that context -- as soon as you try 'announcing' it to alien cultures, insisting on its veracity and import for them as well, you've got a very different animal on your hands, in my opinion.  That's why I'm saying you've got to come to terms with the 'propositional' nature of these statements as well.  You can ignore their propositional content when you simply 'announce' them within a community with shared pressupositions, but you can't really do so outside of that community because now you're doing more than making an announcement; now you're asserting the primacy of a particular worldview, set of values, and narrative of history.  So, my concern is that the 'propositional' elements of the announcement are simply presupposed, and they also 'piggyback' on certain mystical experiences (as the presupposed context of said experiences) but are treated as if they are actually 'given' by those experiences.  And that, in my view, is a further example of the myth of the given in operation.

You wrote:  To really know Christianity you must know it with yourself, by means of yourself, blessed by grace. Mumon is not using intuition. He actually sees what he says in his verse. He sees clearly, but at a plane very few see. So does Paul. And Clement of Alexandria …and the Cappadocian Fathers, etc.

This is a subtle issue, because a lot of people claim to 'know Christianity from within themselves,' but many still have a hard time agreeing just what it is.  But that aside, if you are suggesting that Mumon simply sees a subtle plane of reality, without any interpretation and outside of all contexts, that would be yet another example of the myth of the given, in my opinion.  I believe he sees what he says, but that is different from saying he simply sees 'what is.'

Your interest may not be to find an 'integral postmetaphysical' articulation or expression of Christianity.  That may be one reason we're talking past each other a bit.  But if you are interested in Wilber's integral postmetaphysical project, then I offer the following thoughts:

While Wilber's model is not the same as Ferrer's pluralist 'participatory spirituality,' the postmetaphysical, tetra-enactive emphasis in Wilber-5 does entail a view that is at least somewhat similar, in my opinion, to the participatory (enactive) vision Ferrer proposes, or to Fr. Panikkar's integral pluralist (trinitarian) vision of radical relativity.  In each case, the naive assumption of a single shared 'world' or 'history' or 'reality' is replaced with a relational, dynamically enactive perspective, which holds that we participate in the (historical/evolutionary) enaction of different (in some ways, incommensurate) worldspaces and horizons of meaning.  Worldspaces are not wholly invented from personal or cultural cloth, of course (that's the point of tetra-enaction), but neither can we decisively separate out the constructed aspects from the non-constructed ones (that's would be a fallacy of division). 

To the extent that the inclusivist or fulfillment approach presupposes a pre-given history and universal (non-enacted, non-evolutionary) worldspace -- saying that everyone participates in this 'ultimate history' or 'ultimate narrative' whether they're aware of it or not -- I would argue that that approach is still metaphysical, e.g., non-enactive and subject to the myth of the given.  It allows the speaker to pretend that they are simply reporting on 'the structure of reality' itself, instead of being an involved participant in the perichoretic enactment of an intersubjective/interobjective worldspace. 

I think it's quite appropriate to engage in interfaith debate and inquiry and to explore possible homeomorphic equivalencies 'across' worldspaces or topologies, as Panikkar suggests (which, once established, could then also be comparatively evaluated and 'weighed').  But to simply presuppose one worldview as the 'ultimately real' background of all others is a regressive move (and a hegemonic, triumphalist one), in my opinion, if we are aiming at articulating a genuinely postmetaphysical, integral, enactive spirituality.

Does this mean that, in a postmetaphysical world, a member of a given religion would therefore be wholly barred from speaking in terms of fulfillment or inclusion?  No, I don't think so.  I just think you need to switch from the language of presupposition to the language of promise.  You can't presuppose a pre-existing shared history or worldspace, but you can invite others to the co-creation or the enactment of a new one -- into the enactment of the Kingdom-come vision, you might say.  In line with the marriage metaphor I offered earlier, if I were proselytizing for Christianity in a postmetaphysical world, I would do it as an offered betrothal, an invitation to a transformative love relationship.  What happens in that relationship, how that fulfillment looks, is not yet written.  The other's history therefore is not erased or subsumed, but rather invited into the relationship as part of the creative love-play.  You aren't absorbed into the old; you are invited to give yourself to the upwelling of the new.

With warm wishes for you, Father Mayer,

Bruce

 

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Re: Kingdom Come: Postmetaphysical Inclusivism?

Posted October 22nd, 2009 by Greg Mayers

 

Dear Bruce:
 
Thanks so much. I, too, am enjoying myself and you very much, and learning as we go along together in this exchange. This is a hell of a way to communicate, stripped of all non-verbal cues, but it is the best we can do.
 
Am I the only one to spot the flaw, the only privileged position is the unprivileged one or the unarticulated Integral one? What privileges the unprivileged perspective? Why should the unprivileged perspective triumph over and/or include other privileged ones? Because Derrida says so? (I could get cynical here and ask: did he died on the cross for our sins?)
 
You are going to insist on locating Christianity in the world of propositional truths. By doing so you are actually dislocating it. You can, of course, insist on locating it there, but you will not be dealing with Christianity. You will be dealing with your idea (or an idea) of Christianity, and Christianity is not a good “idea.” It is not Hegelian philosophy writ large (or small).
 
You remind me of Nassrudin who was found on his hands a knees searching at night under a lamp post. When asked what he was doing, he said he was searching for his key. Where did you lose your key? He was asked. Over there in the dark. Why are looking for it here? He was asked. Because there is more light here. Yes, there is more light in the world of propositional truths, but that isn’t where the key is. In the early church, you had to be introduced to the mystery of Christianity, before you were allowed to participate. Well, as we all know all the “mysteries” of the Great Traditions are out in the open now, but unfortunately they don’t fit well into the world of the rational, the world of propositional truths.
 
In your analogy, the collections of sonnets and the full collected works were both authored (arguably) by the same person.  But what if you have two very different bodies of writing, say, the Old Testament and the Mahabharata?  Which one is the "most complete"?  Will you include one in the other?  On what basis?
 
What you have shown is that all metaphors limp, and then have taken the part of my metaphor, the written word, that doesn’t apply to the point I was making to destroy the inclusive analogy I was making. Now who is evading? The part of the metaphor that does apply is the artistry of Shakespeare found recorded throughout the various editions, and recorded fully in the complete works edition.
 
I know the inclusive thing is offensive. It wasn’t invented by 20th century evangelicals. It was there from the beginning. It was called catholicos, catholic, universal. It is not a universal proposition. It is a universal reality, like the universe is a universal reality. If that’s a pre-given, so be it. What’s the alternative? Of course the universe is a universal reality. And the sun rises every morning, and it sets every evening.
 
But an announcement only makes sense within a given shared context, and as soon as you take it outside of that context -- as soon as you try 'announcing' it to alien cultures, insisting on its veracity and import for them as well, you've got a very different animal on your hands, in my opinion.
 
Oh? Paul of Tarsus would be very surprised at your opinion. That is exactly what he did, “...announced the good news to alien cultures, insisting on its veracity and import for them as well...” According to your principle Christianity should have died out a long, long time ago with Paul’s failure. Theory is fine, evidence is better. I’m starting a study of Sinic Christianity which begins around 600 CE. How strange that this alien announcement should begin to take hold in Taoist, Buddhist, Confucian China, which doesn’t look Jewish. Nor, as a matter of fact, does India. The Syro-Malabarian Christians there claim that St Thomas the Apostle, the brother of Jesus, brought the faith to them, from Jerusalem no less. How could that culturally alien religion take hold in India, in the 1st century? As a matter of fact, how do you explain Buddhism spreading beyond India, into China, Tibet, and Indonesia? According to you, it doesn’t make sense. That’s the problem with “ideas,” propositional truths, they just don’t always hold up to reality.
 
...if you are suggesting that Mumon simply sees a subtle plane of reality, without any interpretation and outside of all contexts, that would be yet another example of the myth of the given, in my opinion.  I believe he sees what he says, but that is different from saying he simply sees 'what is.'
 
You are wrong about Mumon. He is reporting exactly was he sees, non-dual reality as it is, not the “idea” of a pre-given. Mumon is not Hegelian either. Buddha teaches exactly what he sees, and so do the Patriarchs, etc. The stunning thing about this culturally speaking, is that kensho is exactly the same for everyone down through the millennia, without disturbing the variables of time, culture and personality. Otherwise there could be no transmission of the Buddha’s realization and Bodhidharma couldn’t have brought Buddhism from the West to China.
 
I would do it as an offered betrothal, an invitation to a transformative love relationship.  What happens in that relationship, how that fulfillment looks, is not yet written.
 
Wrong again. We do know what its fulfillment looks like and it is already done. That is what Christianity is about. It isn’t something we do. It isn’t something we can do. It had to be done to us, for us, then we can by grace and our choice participate in it. That participation is the part that hasn’t been written yet. Christianity is already done and not yet completed. It is analogous to cosmology. There are a lot of unknowns, but the end is clear – the universe is destined to be a burnt out cinder. (I don’t believe it, but that is the best science can do at this moment in time).
 
The other ideas you bring up about Ferrer and Panikkar, I am unfamiliar with. Nobody seems to be asking the hard questions. It seems pretty obvious to me that a world centered on ideas, Hegelian, is dead. It proclaimed the death of God, then expired unexpectedly. Why are we bothering with this corpse? The only way to “know” the truth is through the instrumentality of the self. The rational can only play an auxiliary role, post factum, to that. Shuffling around concepts from one great tradition and inserting them into another is just a mind game about as significant as a twit (as in tweeter).
 
I wish I was Jewish or Muslim. I wouldn’t get mugged so much on this site. (I know… I’m going to get it for that remark).

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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Re: Kingdom Come...

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Balder in response to Re: Kingdom Come: Postmetaphysical Inclusivism?

Dear Greg,

This is the first time in our exchange when I strongly felt we've reached a dead end.  It's clear that, to some extent, we're talking past each other, and I'm not sure how fruitful it will be to continue.  As I was writing the letter below this morning, I was thinking to myself it might be better to find a briefer approach -- a few key questions, perhaps, instead of the more tedious back and forth we've been doing.  But ... well ... I'm still waiting on inspiration for those few key questions, so I'll post this other stuff for now.
 
You asked:  Am I the only one to spot the flaw, the only privileged position is the unprivileged one or the unarticulated Integral one? What privileges the unprivileged perspective? Why should the unprivileged perspective triumph over and/or include other privileged ones? Because Derrida says so? (I could get cynical here and ask: did he died on the cross for our sins?)

I don't really follow what you're asking, since I am trying to articulate an integral position, and since I don't think the unprivileged position should or will necessarily triumph over the privileged ones.  (Though that does sound like something Jesus would say!)

You said:  You are going to insist on locating Christianity in the world of propositional truths. By doing so you are actually dislocating it. You can, of course, insist on locating it there, but you will not be dealing with Christianity. You will be dealing with your idea (or an idea) of Christianity, and Christianity is not a good “idea.” It is not Hegelian philosophy writ large (or small).

I am not trying to locate Christianity exclusively in the world of propositional truths; I recognize that it includes non-propositional elements as well.  But Christianity does make certain fairly definitive claims about the nature of the world; the human condition; our relationship to reality and divinity; the nature, role, and ultimate status of Jesus Christ; Christ's relationship to God; etc.  If you do a quick Google search on the phrase, "propositional truth," you'll see that plenty of Christian teachers and theologians agree.  For instance, you'll find arguments that the Bible consists of "revealed propositional truth," that "loving Christ includes loving true propositions about Christ," and that holding certain incorrect propositions about Christ or God can send you to hell.  You may not agree with these statements, but in that case, you probably shouldn't say that "Christianity doesn't involve propositional truths," but rather "my understanding of Christianity does not involve them," since clearly many Christians believe otherwise. 

You said:  You remind me of Nassrudin who was found on his hands and knees searching at night under a lamp post. When asked what he was doing, he said he was searching for his key. Where did you lose your key? He was asked. Over there in the dark. Why are looking for it here? He was asked. Because there is more light here. Yes, there is more light in the world of propositional truths, but that isn’t where the key is. In the early church, you had to be introduced to the mystery of Christianity, before you were allowed to participate. Well, as we all know all the “mysteries” of the Great Traditions are out in the open now, but unfortunately they don’t fit well into the world of the rational, the world of propositional truths.

Yeah, I know that story.  Okay, let's say I'm behaving like the fool, Nasruddin.  What should I be doing instead?  What sorts of questions should I be asking?  Where should I be looking?  Please help me find my way in the dark.

Several times you've mentioned the "hard questions."  What hard questions would you like to be asked?

You wrote:  I know the inclusive thing is offensive. It wasn’t invented by 20th century evangelicals. It was there from the beginning. It was called catholicos, catholic, universal. It is not a universal proposition. It is a universal reality, like the universe is a universal reality. If that’s a pre-given, so be it. What’s the alternative? Of course the universe is a universal reality. And the sun rises every morning, and it sets every evening.

If you are asserting the Christian worldview as 'universal reality,' rather than a set of propositions or interpretations, then yes, that is a 'pre-given' -- "the myth of the given" in action.

I said:  But an announcement only makes sense within a given shared context, and as soon as you take it outside of that context -- as soon as you try 'announcing' it to alien cultures, insisting on its veracity and import for them as well, you've got a very different animal on your hands, in my opinion.
 
You wrote:  Oh? Paul of Tarsus would be very surprised at your opinion. That is exactly what he did, “...announced the good news to alien cultures, insisting on its veracity and import for them as well...” According to your principle Christianity should have died out a long, long time ago with Paul’s failure. Theory is fine, evidence is better. I’m starting a study of Sinic Christianity which begins around 600 CE. How strange that this alien announcement should begin to take hold in Taoist, Buddhist, Confucian China, which doesn’t look Jewish. Nor, as a matter of fact, does India. The Syro-Malabarian Christians there claim that St Thomas the Apostle, the brother of Jesus, brought the faith to them, from Jerusalem no less. How could that culturally alien religion take hold in India, in the 1st century? As a matter of fact, how do you explain Buddhism spreading beyond India, into China, Tibet, and Indonesia? According to you, it doesn’t make sense. That’s the problem with “ideas,” propositional truths, they just don’t always hold up to reality.

My point had nothing to do with whether a message might be successfully spread to other cultures.  I was saying that an announcement, when it is presented in alien contexts, will necessarily involve propositional elements as well, as it 'contends' with alternative worldviews and presuppositions.  The history of Christian apologetics shows this is indeed what happened.  It is still happening.  Right now, in my wife's country of Nepal, Catholic and Protestant missionaries are telling villagers that their Hindu gods are really deceitful demons, that following those demons will only lead to hell, and that the only real God is found in the person of Jesus Christ.  In other words, they are  asserting the truth of the Christian worldview and the falsity of the Hindu one. 

You said:  The other ideas you bring up about Ferrer and Panikkar, I am unfamiliar with.

Well, let me recommend that you take the time at least to familiarize yourself with Panikkar.

You wrote:  Nobody seems to be asking the hard questions. It seems pretty obvious to me that a world centered on ideas, Hegelian, is dead. It proclaimed the death of God, then expired unexpectedly. Why are we bothering with this corpse? The only way to “know” the truth is through the instrumentality of the self. The rational can only play an auxiliary role, post factum, to that. Shuffling around concepts from one great tradition and inserting them into another is just a mind game about as significant as a twit (as in tweeter).
 
What has been revealed to you through the instrumentality of the self?  Is there any direct or definitive link, for you, between this truth disclosed via the instrumentality of the self and the Christian tradition?  Are you suggesting we are able, via the (transrational?) knowledge or insight gained through instrumentality of the self, to ascertain or confirm the following claims (taken from your previous blog): "There is no one in history like Jesus of Nazareth who is uniquely completely human and totally divine. He gave himself up to the will of his Father in order to save everyone without exception from our deadly self-deception and for the transformative love of God. It is through Him, his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, that this redemptive act of each particular human person 'happens'"?

Best wishes,

B.
 

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Responding to Kingdom Come.

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Re: Kingdom Come...
Dear Bruce:
 
I first want to respond in a general way to all the passionate posts “Jesus Is Not Your Usual Lord” has generated. Brendan’s shadow work dialogue with Cam and me below really touches and captures my soul. I feel and owe her a deep appreciation for doing “her” work, which also feels like her doing “my” work. Strange, how when one really touches their own heart, they touch all hearts.
 
Secondly I am so please that I’ve generated so much heat. At least people aren’t indifferent, or what is almost as bad, polite. They are engaged. Beautiful. I’m glad they think me obnoxious, frustrating and infuriating. That means something important is being touched on, something deeply somatically part of them, something worth “losing it” for. There’s hope for the world, if that kind of passion exists. This is disputational discourse in the old Rabbinic tradition. (Cf. The Bible, by Karen Armstrong). No one “wins” or “loses”. It is a method of learning that pushes the participants further inward to reach for resources they didn’t know they had, helping them to clarify their own cherished assumptions and to bring forth new insights for themselves. If the participants can bear and get pass the “passions barrier,” so to speak, this can be a very fruitful method. “Learning maketh a bloody entrance,” writes Shakespeare. No one is convinced by the argumentations on a blog, unless of course, they support their own assumptions. As KW points out, rightly I think, it takes 5 years to move through a stage. A set of arguments ain’t going to do it. At best, these exercises help clarify and further one’s own thinking. So, I hope, Bruce, you don’t give up on these exchanges out of frustration. I hope others don’t give up, take their toys and go home. Nothing worthwhile is easy.
 
Thirdly, this whole thing started out with “Offensive Christianity” (seems like way back when – ah, the internet’s brevity). What’s so offensive about that, some asked. Then it got side tracked into triumphalism, then inclusive/exclusive, then propositional truths… Well, I think that all the responses so far are evidence in favor of the original title: there is something at the heart of Christianity that is offensive. Someone will say that your Christianity is offensive, not Christianity in general. There is no Christianity in general out there, or in books. It is my Christianity. And Cameron’s Christianity. And a whole bunch of others’ Christianity. Christianity is only found in the particular. You will be a sign of contradiction, Jesus says. (It kind of gives me the sense that I might be doing something right, when I get mugged on this site).
 
Fourthly, I think people miss what my concern is because I speak so passionately about the Christian message. I’m not worried about Christianity surviving. Down through the centuries it has outlived innumerable obituaries written by influential men of intellect and of awesome political power. In our own lifetime, atheistic communism put the last nail in Christianity’s coffin. Then after perestroika Metropolitan Alexius II of Moscow over saw the greatest mass conversion in the history of Christianity. The story of the martyrs in the 20th century has not be told yet, and as Tertullian said: the blood of martyrs is the seeds of the Church. Christianity is a disturbingly resilient tradition. Many scholars of world religions would agree with Professor Samuel Hugh Moffett of Princeton Theological Seminary that Christian is the most influential religious tradition the world has ever seen. I want Integral Theory to account for it, for its own future’s sake. By discounting it or underestimating it Integral Theory is in danger of heading off into the sunset like so many other momentarily interesting theories. I don’t think that people on this site realize what is before them when they say, think or write about Christianity. Who is going to die for Integral Theory? Will Integral Theory survive when they pull out the first finger nail? After Jesus died on the cross, Christianity exploded across the world, all the way into India, and following the Silk Road, into China. After KW, will Integral Theory explode, or deflate like so many other philosophies?
 
Christianity is a proselytizing religion. That pissed off people from the very beginning. It ain’t going to change. And Christianity is uncomfortable with comfort. (Thus the reason for its waning in the West – but it’s waxed and waned before in its long history). It is a hardy plant that thrives in adversity. It’s like a weed that is impossible to kill off. Its message is scandalous: God became man as the historical Jesus of Nazareth, died on the cross, rose from the dead and thereby saved us all. That’s not its only scandal. Christianity is not concerned with the trans-rational, with transcending the self, with trans-egoic consciousness. It is anti-egoic. To describe it in modern terms, Jesus is a high maintenance lover. He demands everything of us. Follow me! In contrast to get enlightened and try to be kind to others. What is more irritating and scandalous than turning over my will, my future, my life, myself to another? Furthermore we never get the pleasure of knowing that we’ve finally done it. Our inability to love as we are loved is probably the most humbling aspect of Christianity. Yet, Jesus is the typos of being human, who emptied Himself and requires us to empty ourselves for Him.
 
Many of the posts on this blog seem to be from refugees from Christianity. I sympathize with them. I’m truly sorry they were hurt, neglected or abused by narcissistic Christians or flawed Christian institutions, or just bored out of the tradition. While I can emphasize with them, I’m not going to learn Christianity from them. If I want to learn about Buddhism, I’ll go to the Dalai Lama. I’ll listen to his teaching. I’ll observe his life. I’ll learn it from someone whose words are rooted in their practice of their Tradition. (The Dalai Lama is only representative of many living examples of Buddhism). If I want to learn about Christianity I’ll go to Mother Teresa, listen to her teaching, observe her life. We think of her as her popular image portrays her, a gentle, compassionate soul who took care of society’s unwanted and unloved. She was also fierce and fearless in her Catholic faith. (Early on she had a few weeks of mystical insight, but spent the rest of her “interior life” in utter abandonment and darkness, even undergoing exorcism before her death). There are many more Mother Teresa’s out there who don’t capture the media’s spot light. Let Integral Theory account for these Christians who literally lay down their lives for the faith. That’s live Christianity and many smart people have grossly underestimated its transformative powers.
 
Several times you've mentioned the "hard questions."  What hard questions would you like to be asked?
 
If you’ve read this far, you’ve read some of the hard questions. But the really important hard questions are the one’s individuals ask of themselves. No other person can formulate these questions for an individual. It has to arise from within. It will probably have no particular significance except to one individual, but finding its solution or resolution will make all the difference in the world and will benefit many others. For myself, the important hard question came like this. When I took up the practice of Zen Buddhism some 40 years ago, it popped into my head: How can I a Catholic priest consider zazen prayer? Later when I discovered KW and devoured his writings, taught what he was writing as near gospel, I asked, how is this clarifying the Christian faith? Somewhere along the line I unwantingly realized I was bending Christianity to fit a theory I found so thoroughly exciting in so many ways. The hard question for me has been: What is Christianity, what does it mean, why has it endured, and especially what is it demanding of me? It was the hard question that wouldn’t let go of me.
 
What has been revealed to you through the instrumentality of the self?  Is there any direct or definitive link, for you, between this truth disclosed via the instrumentality of the self and the Christian tradition?  
 
Outstanding questions! I am not sure I should answer them. Some things should be kept secret and revealed only to those who are prepared for them. “They are as tardy who arrive too early as they who arrive too late,” writes Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. Prudence is doing the right thing as the right time St Thomas Aquinas teaches. These very important questions should be taken up in the privacy of a teacher student relationship. Outside of that, I am working on a paper addressing the question: how do we know ultimate reality? At this time I am not prepared to say anything about it.
 
Much peace and love, 

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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Not responding to Kingdom Come

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Balder in response to Responding to Kingdom Come.

Dear Greg,

I appreciated your general reflections here and agree with you that it is often worthwhile to persevere through the hard places, to 'stay engaged,' as Brendan put it.  But your letter, while addressed to me, didn't actually respond to much of the content of my previous letter, except at the end when you said, "I know how to see 'ultimate truth,' and I have the answer to your question, but I'm not going to tell you."  That's sort of a dialogue killer.  So, I really don't have anything more to say at this point.  If you post any future papers, I'll probably read them, and will respond if so moved.  But as for this conversation, you haven't contributed anything that would actually move it forward, that I can see.  You have consistenly evaded some direct questions, and I am not going to ask them again.

Best wishes,

Bruce

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Re: Not responding to Kingdom Come

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Not responding to Kingdom Come

Dear Bruce:

"I know how to see 'ultimate truth,' and I have the answer to your question, but I'm not going to tell you."  Not only did I not write this, but it misrepresents what I did write.

I have spent a lot of time addressing your questions. It is just not the answers you were looking for, evidently. I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't play the puppet well.

I have personally benefited enormously from our exchanges and will dearly miss your withdrawal.

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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Re: Not Responding to Kingdom Come

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Balder in response to Re: Not responding to Kingdom Come

Greg, do you think your latest letter actually responds to what I wrote to you?  If you think so, I'll go back and look at it (a third time), but it doesn't seem responsive to me.  I've also asked several times for you to explain the nature and epistemological basis of the knowledge claims central to Christianity's 'offensive' message, and you first told me you'd get back to it when you had time, then that you'd address it in the paper you were writing; and then you put up the paper (Jesus is Not Your Usual Lord), and it still didn't address the question; so I asked again, and you have again refused to answer it (referencing yet another forthcoming paper).  I have never expected or asked you to play 'puppet' in these exchanges, and I don't think it's fair to suggest that I have.  I have asked you several questions, and you have refused to answer them.  If "I can't or won't tell you now" is your answer to these questions, well, then, yes, that's not what I was looking for -- and it does spell an end to this discussion, or at least this 'leg' of it.

You mentioned in your letter that you were not interested in 'learning Christianity' from disaffected Christians.  I am not sure if that was in reference to me or not, but if it was, then let me say, no, I'm not presuming to teach you about Christianity.  The only thing I see myself doing is attempting to explore certain implications of an integral, post-metaphysical approach. 

So, that does lead to some possible other questions I could ask you (especially if you're not going to answer my other ones!).  What do you think of Wilber's call for an 'integral postmetaphysical' approach to spirituality?  Do you think such an approach would have any impact on Christianity, as you understand or conceive it; or do you think Christianity already accounts for it; or do you think Christianity is beyond it or that it occupies an entirely different "sphere" and so it is really irrelevant?  You have also suggested several times that you think some of your experiences, and Christianity in general, fall outside of AQAL, so I would be interested to hear more of your views regarding that.

Best wishes,

B.

 

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The Answers

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Re: Not Responding to Kingdom Come

 

Dear Bruce:
 
I've also asked several times for you to explain the nature and epistemological basis of the knowledge claims central to Christianity's 'offensive' message, and you first told me you'd get back to it when you had time, then that you'd address it in the paper you were writing; and then you put up the paper (Jesus is Not Your Usual Lord), and it still didn't address the question; so I asked again, and you have again refused to answer it (referencing yet another forthcoming paper).
 
I have specifically addressed the question you raised regarding the “propositional truth” of Christianity, which is what I assume you are referring to in the above italics when you write “the nature and epistemological basis of the knowledge claims…” I wrote that it can’t be located in the “rational world space,” and continuously pointed out that you were trying to do something that can’t be done, namely cram Christianity into a too small rational box. You call that being evasive. I call it not misleading you. But I did not leave you hanging there. I wrote specifically in response to you that there is a way to verify Christianity for yourself and that you could follow the instructions I detailed, or other ones, and that it would take time and the investment of yourself. Now, if you want to say that is not an answer to your question, then there is nothing I can do about your perception.
 
Jesus Is Not Your Usual Lord, was written specifically to answer your question about the scandal of Christianity. The first half locates the scandal historically and the second half locates it philosophically using a Zen Buddhist text. If you can’t spot the answer to your question about the scandal of Christianity in that piece, there is nothing more that I can do to help you. But I answered your question. (I also specifically referred to Christianity – cf above - as being anti-egoic as part of the scandal in order to bring the scandal into the lived Christian experience).
 
What do you think of Wilber's call for an 'integral postmetaphysical' approach to spirituality? 
 
I’m not that interested in it. I like Cameron’s work in that area, however. I find his writing challenging and uplifting. But for myself, I wouldn’t bother with post-metaphysics. I’ve dismissed it as a corpse. (That doesn’t mean I am correct in my dismissal). What I am interested in is how to live Christianity. The experience precedes the expression. Then explaining the experience to help others live it too.
 
Do you think such an approach would have any impact on Christianity, as you understand or conceive it; or do you think Christianity already accounts for it; or do you think Christianity is beyond it or that it occupies an entirely different "sphere" and so it is really irrelevant?
 
No I don’t think post-metaphysics will have an impact on Christianity. It’s a fly on an elephant. Christianity has its own deep thinkers (and I’m not referring to contemporary ones) who never got caught in the being/non-being traps and as far as I can tell Wilber either misunderstands them or is ignorant of them. Outside of an appendix by John Chriban in “Transformations of Consciousness” and a few references here and there to a few very select Christian mystics, he doesn’t move the understanding of the Christian reality forward. I would call his references to Christianity superficial, something you might get in a class or two on a survey course on mystical elements in Christianity. Hey, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s a limited thing. You only have one life time and you’ve got to dedicate yourself to something. Wilber does a really outstanding job on what he’s dedicated his life to. But Christianity ain’t it.
 
You have also suggested several times that you think some of your experiences, and Christianity in general, fall outside of AQAL, so I would be interested to hear more of your views regarding that.
 
I have sent you privately a rather long paper, plus the post on Jesus is Lord, both of which were inspired if I do say so myself. One doesn’t just churn these things out each morning before breakfast. I am working on other things which you complain about in your post, and they take time. I have some very general sketches about Christianity and AQAL that I’ve shared with others, but I’m not ready to say anything public about it. It could take weeks or months to work through these things. But I am not going to spend my time on stuff that I do not find fruitful for living out a Christian life.
 

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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Re: The Answers

Posted October 25th, 2009 by Balder in response to The Answers


Gassho, Greg,

Thank you for this response; it was helpful to me.  I will do my best in this response to be as clear as you were in your letter.
 
You said:  I have specifically addressed the question you raised regarding the “propositional truth” of Christianity, which is what I assume you are referring to in the above italics when you write “the nature and epistemological basis of the knowledge claims…” I wrote that it can’t be located in the “rational world space,” and continuously pointed out that you were trying to do something that can’t be done, namely cram Christianity into a too small rational box. You call that being evasive. I call it not misleading you.

Yes, I recall you had said that the Christian claims can't be located in the rational world space.  I don't consider such a statement to be evasive in itself.  But I was both questioning that assertion and asking you to say more about it, and that's where I was feeling frustrated.  I believe the first time you answered with a reference to your preference for an apophatic approach, and I asked you how the apophatic approach could specifically lead to the sort of 'knowledge' at the heart of the 'offensive claims' you had described.  You indicated you would come back to that later.  In our more recent exchange, when I asked you if there was any link between the knowledge yielded via 'instrumentality of the self' and the Christian tradition in particular, you said you were not willing to talk about that at this time, and also did not respond to the bulk of my letter to you.  That's why I felt you were avoiding or evading my questions.

But these things aside, I'll try to make it clear where I'm coming from in my questions.  You say that Christianity can't be fit only into the "rational world space."  I agree with that.  As I think you also agree, Christianity is not a single, monolithic entity.  There are, in a sense, many Christianities.  Some forms of Christianity seem to be largely mythic and pre-rational.  Some forms involve a mix of the mythic and rational, where rationality is used to defend mythical claims or perspectives and to challenge alternative perspectives or contenders.  Some forms are more strictly rational and verge even on the 'secular' side of things, such as Bishop Shelby Spong's interpretation of Christianity.  There are a few that bear the postmodern stamp, as in the 'emerging church' movement.  And there are some more esoteric forms or interpretations of Christianity which are trans-rational, which disclose the sorts of insights you described in your paper on Jesus and Mumon.  But because there is no single Christianity and some forms of it have not yet integrated either modern or postmodern insights, much less transrational contemplative ones, saying, "Christianity can't be fit into the rational worldspace" and offering no other defense or argument is not really very helpful, in my opinion.

The 'scandalous' claims at the heart of Christianity at least pretend to be objective historical statements, and many Christians actually present them in a straightforward way as propositional truths.  I'm not making this up or forcing Christianity into a box when I say this.  You can see for yourself that many Christians make this claim.  If these claims can also be understood in a different light, not as the all-trumping historical facts and propositional truths that many Christians assert they are, then I think it would be helpful to differentiate your interpretation from these common ones, rather than simply saying "Christianity is beyond this" when, as I discussed above, there is no monolithic Christianity, and clearly many Christians are NOT beyond understanding or arguing these things propositionally.

You wrote:  But I did not leave you hanging there. I wrote specifically in response to you that there is a way to verify Christianity for yourself and that you could follow the instructions I detailed, or other ones, and that it would take time and the investment of yourself. Now, if you want to say that is not an answer to your question, then there is nothing I can do about your perception.

I also recall the instructions you provided me.  I am, of course, familiar with those instructions, having once been a practicing Christian.  I was raised Christian, but I only consciously chose Christianity after experiencing some personal tragedies and simultaneously coming to perceive my own fragmentation and limitation.  I was a passionate, dedicated Christian for seven or eight years of my life.  I ended up leaving Christianity for a number of reasons, and from the perspective of other Christians, I may not have practiced or studied Christianity 'long enough' to realize its fullness, but I was Christian long enough to come to appreciate it as both a deeply challenging and deeply beautiful "way."  But while I came to appreciate it as a profound spiritual path (with, of course, various limitations), I never found through my application of those 'instructions' anything that would definitively confirm the truth of the 'offensive' claims at its heart.  Rather, I found that living "as if" those claims were true, in faith and openness, bore certain real fruit in my life (and was limiting and limited, in other ways).  But that, to me, doesn't confirm their historical truth or their objective validity over other spiritual claims or views or accounts of history; that only confirms their enactive potential. 

My concern, as I stated previously, is that there is a problematic lack of differentiation of types of knowledge claims and forms of confirmation going on if you say that following these instructions will deliver a type of knowledge which could actually confirm the objective truth of the scandalous claims at the heart of Christianity (Jesus of Nazareth was God-in-the-flesh, a direct historical intevention of God in the world, God's only begotten son, the only source of salvation for humanity, who died and was resurrected on the third day, etc).  Yes, living in faith, living 'as if,' will enact a particular subjective-objective horizon or worldspace, and likely allow for certain kinds of spiritual 'flowering' unique to Christianity, and one can argue passionately for this; but this is, in my view, quite different from saying this demonstrates that Christianity is the 'real truth,' the ultimate truth, what is 'really the case' behind everything no matter what other traditions say. 

You said:  ...I don’t think post-metaphysics will have an impact on Christianity. It’s a fly on an elephant. Christianity has its own deep thinkers (and I’m not referring to contemporary ones) who never got caught in the being/non-being traps and as far as I can tell Wilber either misunderstands them or is ignorant of them. Outside of an appendix by John Chriban in “Transformations of Consciousness” and a few references here and there to a few very select Christian mystics, he doesn’t move the understanding of the Christian reality forward. I would call his references to Christianity superficial, something you might get in a class or two on a survey course on mystical elements in Christianity. Hey, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s a limited thing. You only have one life time and you’ve got to dedicate yourself to something. Wilber does a really outstanding job on what he’s dedicated his life to. But Christianity ain’t it.

Here, again, I don't think it's helpful (or accurate) to speak of Christianity as a single, monolithic entity which is already beyond anything modern or postmodern thinkers might have to contribute.  It's an elephant, yes, but it's a multi-colored elephant, the bulk of which is Blue.  I believe you that there are certain deep thinkers in the Christian tradition who were not caught in the being/non-being traps, having read a lot of Christian mystical literature when I was Christian, but these thinkers appear to be still largely hidden or unknown.  Also, from what I've read, however -- and I would have to ask you for guidance here, if I'm wrong about this -- there are still certain modern and postmodern insights (evolution, intersubjectivity, etc), which an integral approach would want to include, which are not yet recognized or well-developed by either Christian or Buddhist traditions.

Best wishes,

Bruce

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the one and only source of salvation

Posted October 26th, 2009 by Dee Black in response to Re: The Answers

greg had said "i don't think post-metaphysics will have an impact on christianity" and that is quite correct regarding any christianity which holds to the scandalous claims

an interesting question to me is "can there even be a christianity without the scandalous claims? or is it out there already?

i wonder what roland stanich's views are on this question ?

 

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Perspective-Dependant

Posted October 26th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to the one and only source of salvation

Don't you think the answer to that question basically comes down to where you are standing?

For anyone whose perspective holds that the "scandalous" claims are core to Christianity, the answer for them is no.

Other perspectives will see (and have seen) Christianity in a different light.  Does this make them not Christian?

There certainly is a pluralistic truth applicable here, who is to say what "really" is Christianity.  Unless Christ comes back and informs us what he really meant, any interpretation has some legitimacy.

The only option we have that I can see it to rank those perspectives.  Certainly there are a number of ways to do that.  (Consensus, historic accuracy, authority i.e. the Vatican, developmentalism, personal preference, etc.) I personally think developmental psychology provides one of the best means to doing so.  The problem I see is that if I am a Christian, than I will most likely interpret anyone's "Christian perspective" from a higher stage than myself as "not Christian."  People at a similar stage but higher state I may respect as a teacher or luminary, but individuals at higher stages I am going to, at the very least, be suspicious of.  

The thing here is that developmental ranking is basically only valuable to individuals who see its value.  It does little good in a discussion with someone who rejects its explanative power.  And I think people have a right to be blind if they so choose. 

The point is, that barring the return of Christ (and actually probably even if this were to happen), there are always going to be a plurality of perspectives because people will always interpret their experiences through the perspective (which includes level) they are at.  So I really don't think we can talk about a monolithic answer that "THIS" perspective is Christianity.  We have to understand Christianity as a meshwork of persepctives.  We can certainly talk about what Christianity is coming from perspectives at Unitive (turquoise) stages.  But this is very different from positing that a final (meaning one perspecive) understanding of Christianity can be reached. People at other stages will always have a different interpretation.

I think we need to do more to develop cross-level dialogue techniques.  Keeping in mind that we aren't going to find any individual who is simply "at" one level.  I personally think part of the frustration in some of the discussions on this website comes from thinking we can just explain a perspective that comes from a persepctive at a developmentally different stage.  And then, I think when the recognition of this possibility is realized, it is sometimes used as an excuse to disengage/put someone down (often unintentionally I think)/not really hear or learn from another's perspective.   I think if we find ourselves internally feeling like a problem might be due to talking at different stages, the answer is not necessarily to just point this out but to take not of internally and make an effort to adjust our communication to try and account for this.

Sorry Dee, this is not directed at you as if you don't understand this.  I just got on a roll and couldn't stop talking. Silly me.

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The imposibility of communication

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to Perspective-Dependant

Hi Brendan. I understand this would need a new post (because it is a different subject), but I would say that what you propose is, developmentally, impossible.

We can adjust our level "down" to engage someone "flying" at another altitude, but there is no way you can point your finger to realities above their altitude before they reach there, so in the end the question arises:

Is not only an illusion the idea of cross-level comunication?

Is it really possible?

I mean, it is very valid, and compassionate, to try.
I personally did it all my life and will possibly continue to do it until I die. "Engage..Engage".

But, I came to the point to ask myself if I'm only doing that for my own benefit.

Developing compassion, patience, etc.

But, I am doing that for "them"? ("them" meaning, people at lower stages of development than myself)

Can they really see what I am trying to explain?

I sometimes tend to believe that there is not even a reason for trying to do so. That, it is OK and GOOD that there are peoples at all stages. That we should not do anything to try to change this, because that is (hiddenly) a selfish desire of not being alone ("I need more people to understand me") and not really that "altruist" desire of helping.

Why helping? what is bad on being blue? What is bad on being a child? Is just (developmentaly) natural. It is a step.

If we believe in reincarnation (as I tend to do in the last years because it is the only way I can really understand certain problems of developmental theory) we could imagine that people take time to grow from one stage to the next, and that time could vary from 5 years maybe, to 5 lifes...

And that anyway, it is ok to take 5 lifes.
It is ok!

And the only point I guess in wich we can "help" is when there is actually something in the person him/herself that start to somehow realize the higher stage and in someway starts to look for "help" to be borned in that next stage.

At that point yes, I think someone can help another to grow (but only if that person is at that point, not before).

As an example, Wilber helped me grow in a moment I was already looking for "something like this"; but before, It woulded be just something that I woulded hate and not understand at all.

I say/write all this maybe with some air of confidence but really it is only my believes of this lasts years.

I would really like your opinions on this (Brendan, Bruce, and others).

I usually call it the "Impossibility of comunication".

And I tend to think it is a reality that we have to face, as we face the crude reality that people die, and so on.

A dramatic and horrible "characteristic" of growth itself: that one that is higher can't really communicate "fully" with someone that is lower developmentally until this last person, alone, make it to certain point of the way by him/herself.

And, seeing my life from that perspective, I recognized how much times I engaged in discussions very passionatly, even coming to the point of hearting the feeling of the other person with my views, believing I could really change something and, at least, that I was doing a good for that person because, If I could make him/her grow that would be "always" a good thing.

Now, from my actual perspective I think: yes?
How about "natural" grow, some kind of "personal eros" guiding every one at his own time; maybe not the time we want (we being somekind of "elite", ugly word Ken use much) because (again) we are very much alone (there are not much yellow and beyond people around...) but, if we are doing all this (really) only for not being alone...is not to "altruistic" isn't it?

opinions?

another post only on this?

THANKYOU very much for being there.

Federico

PD: sorry for my "argentinian" english again

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Hey there

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to The imposibility of communication

No worries about your Argentinian English which might be better than my American English lol.

Thank you for making a lot of my points more clearly than I was able to articulate.

When I am talking about cross-level communication, I am not talking about communication with the intent to help someone grow.  While on the surface, I think this intention sounds nice, I think it almost immediately acts as a block to hearing what the other person is saying.  Because we have already formed a concept about where they should be instead of just listening to where they really are.

I think this has a lot of negative consequences.  Number one is this:

-Misunderstanding/Misusing developmental models.  They are a good generalization tool.  But they don't necessarily get you in relation to what a person is really saying.  In other words, they lack granularity.  So there is the constant danger of under-ranking whomever one is ranking, and over-ranking oneself.  Now this is not to state that you can't be right in your assessment.  But what is the value of stating that you see yourself as developmentally higher to the person you are in discussion with?  What is the desired effect of this?  It seems like a good way to piss someone off.  And a good way to end a discussion.  But if we are confident that it really is a developmental issue that is blocking the conversation, why can we not more skillfully choose to just drop out of the conversation?  Why do we have to insist to the other person that we don't want to talk to them because we are more developed than them?  If it really is true, then in my opinion, in most cases it should just be kept to oneself.  Of course there may be exceptions but I think these are very rare.  If I may be blunt, I think abuse of developmental models has to do with some repressed material from the "green" spiral dynamics stage.  Which brings me to my next point.

I think there are at least two more flaws with using developmental levels as a reason to disengage.  First is that people are way more complex than simply being at some stage or another.  And you can't accurately assess someone without giving them the actual assessment.  So I think it is irresponsible to weild these without noting the speculative quality of casual use.  (I am guilty of this myself) Additionally, using developmental models in such a manner can be blinding because it gives us an excuse to discard anything that doesn't "resonate" with our perspective.  Additionally, if the perspective really is coming from a lower level, why the dismissal?  Why not learn more about whatever particular level it is we think we are in contact with? 

Also, we ourselves don't simply exist at a higher level.  In certain ways, that may be the case.  But it is extremely likely there is still a lot to be learned from other individuals and by recontacting parts of ourselves. 

And I think one other misunderstanding that I notice when using the levels to give up on communication is what a complex achievement those levels are.  Particularly anything world-centric and beyond deserves at the very least our curiousity. 

But back to communication.  Cross-level communication does not mean constantly trying to pull people up (or down) to "my" level.  What I think it constitutes is working at really hearing what is being said.  If you are really at a higer level, at the very least you should be able to resonate and offer the individual at the lower level a sense of understanding they are not familiar with.  Basically, genuine listening is what I think is most valuable.  Give people a chance to be heard in a world that normally appears (illusory) very lonely. 

Or if you so choose, stay disengaged.  But telling someone they are at a lower level and then going away is not really staying disengaged.  It is pissing on them and then going off to enjoy our own glory.  If you are willing to call someone out on being at a lower level, I think this is a case in which you had better be willing to stand by that person.  What if they listen to you?  What if they accept what you have said?  What will I say once someone admits I am at the higher perspective?  Is that all it is about is being seen as being at the highest perspective?  Am I talking to myself right now?  Hmm, I think I am running into some shadow stuff myself now so I will leave you with this for now.

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to Brendan

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to Hey there

Brendan! THANKYOU for asnwering!

you said:When I am talking about cross-level communication, I am not talking about communication with the intent to help someone grow.  While on the surface, I think this intention sounds nice, I think it almost immediately acts as a block to hearing what the other person is saying.  Because we have already formed a concept about where they should be instead of just listening to where they really are.

Is that possible? "Just listening"? No interpretations? some kind of "direct understanding"?
I know may be it's not what you meant to say...but then what is the way to "listening to where they really are" without
letting interpretation in?

ALL people interpretates. It's not "the person above" that do it, and the other the poor one
that is interpretated. Both do the same. Everybody do the same.

As an example, at the same time a person say "you don't get it because you are not integral" the
other one is saying (even before) "you don't get it because you are not christian" (wich is their
own rule to measure people).

Everybody have this kind of distinctions/measures that act inmediatly; if I didn't get it wrong,
one of the most important messages of Post-modernity is that the kind of "direct knowledge"
and "direct knowing" thing that was present in a lot of mystical writings, is just impossible;
humans can't do that. There is always something in the middle between me and you when we
talk (more if it is in a blog without other kind of metha-lenguage things happening!).

So, being integral, the measure ruler could be "Spyral Dynamics"; being a traditional Crhistian, it could
be Christian traditional Ethics (you are a "good christian", or you are not) and being a traditional
Buddhist it could be traditional buddhist ethics and so on.

As Bruce noticed, and as Tom put's it very clear: Integral (Spyral and so on) is also
inclusivist and triumphalist; as any "big picture" will always be!

So, we can't scape the "translating" stuff. We can't really "only listen".

So, and I think if we are honest some at least have to agree with me:
I was not the onlyone that was thinking about "altitude mismatch" here.

I just putted it into words.

I think that is moral? Ethic?

Well, in "normal life" i would NEVER do that, and i NEVER did.
I never told someone that I thought he "couldn't get it" because I was
"higher" than him.

But this is Integral forum. As Ken said in his blog (http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/46),
there is PLENTY of "blue clubs", "Orange clubs", and "green clubs".

So what is Integral Life? It is a "second tier club".

Is that bad? Why it would be?! Every community have a place to meet, share ideas, and so on..

So, I understand (and want!!) that the "integral club" have "open doors".

But, that is not to say that anyone can enter, do whatever and no one will say anything to him.

Try to go into a church and start writing on the walls "Jesus is NOT the Lord. All paths leads
to the same place. We all are god...Ken Wilber say that.."...

At best you will finish in prison. If we were 150 years ago you would well finish tortured
and burnt.

So, Greg did exactly that.

He started slowly, wrote at least 4 or 5 REALLY provocating, sometime offensive posts, and he, little by little,
showed his really intentions: "to convert us"

He said his "truths" over and over again, and even when most of all here thought "the same" -as most of the posts
of "greg haters" and voting prove- and were very frustrated, Bruce, as a kind of "Integral Friends Representative", continued and did an REALLY HARD and honest work to come to an understanding with him.

(About the "Integral Friends Representative" thing...you can check by yourself the votes upon Bruce and Greg
posts..and notice the "casuality" that Bruce post/answer to "Jesus is not your usual Lord" made it to the
cover of Integral Life Website almost instantaneously and get an instant feedback from Robb Smith...Integral Life CEO..
endorsing his view on the subject (just to make it clear: I'm not suggesting Bruce have anything to do with this; I am only saying that naturally he defended so brillantly and honestly the integral point of view that he came to be some kind of representative of the general thinking of the "organism" that forms Integral Life, from we the "bloggers" up even to the organizers)

So, again; Greg entered the "integral club", painted all the walls; our representative talked
to him very calmly and gently during months; but he became more and more "offensive" in his responses (choosing
to respond or not depending on his will...saying things like "good that you are offended" (implying "good! that's mean
you are learning") and stuff like we all have seen (the reports on "frustration" may back up this..).

So yes, at one point I came to him and say: "Hey, did you noticed you are in the "integral club"?
ok, say write in the walls whatever you want but notice this: you don't get the CORE message of this place yet, because
you are still too young".

Is that so bad? I'm still reflecting on it (and will continue to do so).

I am certain I would NOT do this in another context.

Almost the contrary, I feel "normal life" is almost NEVER an Integral Club, so we have to engage almost ALL THE TIME
others levels wordviews, as alien as they could be to us.

But this is "our church" (to continue the methaphor) and at some point we have to really
quit our own green relativistic past tendencies and use some "friendly" violence (like a father that
tries to explain a boy 10 times that he mustn't touch the fire; but, seeing he don't get it,
finally take the boy to another place by force (wich is implying "I'm bigger than you; I know things (fires burns)
that you DON'T know because of your age, so if you cross the line I have to put a limit).

Wich takes only to more questions.

Hierarchy, maybe the more controversial (and fruitfull) "aknowledment" of Integral theory,
suggest responsability and some kind of political acts (like mine, for good or wrong, saying
to Greg the discussion was nonsense because of altitude differences).

We know this is actually a hot topic on integral discussions (like the "world goberment" Wilber and others
are discussing).

I think we all have green traces that catch fire with this kind of things (I personally get sick
and my stomach gets upside down when i read from Ken's texts words like "elite", "cultural edge", "second tier",
"0,02 percent of word population", or WORLD GOBERMENT!).

But I think it is a "false alarm" caused by old pluralistic-relativistic thinking in our past.

At the end, if we are really in second tear (and if such thing really exist) at some point we
would have to assume that (if we think we are there) we have some kind of truth or "bigger picture"
that others don't and assume some political endeavor about it.

Please, Bruce, put yourself limit to me if you think I am going to far from the topic of the Post!

Sorry for that.

Please, please, give me your thoughts on this (all of you!!).

I'm not sure of ANY of all this. It is too new for me.
I really apreciate feedback on all this thoughts!

THANKS and blessings.

Federico
 

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Yes I understand

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to to Brendan

As you know, I agree in many ways with the things you have said on this blog.

I guess I just didn't agree that they NEEDED to be said.  I understand wanting to be able to point that kind of thing out if one wants to attempt to continue a conversation.  But if I want to back out of a conversation because I think it is going nowhere due to a "levels" issue, I personally think the more skillful decision would be to just sit back quietly.  But this is just my opinion and you still of course have the right to respond how you choose. 

Different points: I think there is some truth to the "integral church" metaphor.  But an "integral church" by its very nature is a different kind of animal.  It draws upon existing "material" to constantly strengthen, reflect upon, and modify its structure and message.  

The listening thing: I wasn't suggesting it is possible to hear someone without an interpretation at all.  But there is a shift in attitude and intention that can be made.  If I think it is a levels discrepency in a conversation and that I am not going to "develop" someone in the span of a conversation, one of my choices is to shift my intention from arguing my perspective to attempting to listen and understand another's position.  By this, I mean, I attempt to notice where I initially interpret the individual.  Instead of then settling for that interpretation and arguing with them from that place, I am going to consciously choose to continue listening to what the other is saying.  Perhaps this will vstrenghten my initial interpretation or perhaps it will modify it in some way.  But if I settle for the initial interpretation, it blocks the possibility of modification.  It blocks out subtlety as well.  I'm not pretending that this means I have subtracted myself from the equation.  In fact, attempting to listen more genuinely is an many ways one of the best ways to learn and take in new information to reflect upon and articulate my opinion. 

Just to make my point clear one other way.  In all honesty I agree with a lot of what you have said about levels.  In general, I think you are on the mark.  But that is the thing, it is too general.  It doesn't go deep enough and it doesn't recognize that Greg and Cam are both much more complicated than a one paragraph dismissal (speculative and unsupported by verifiable evidence I might add) could possible convey.  I go back to the frustration I expressed in my shadow post.  Is it possible that by continually arguing with their position might be backing them into a corner because it is threatening. 

This all being said, yes I agree that this website is a very different kind of place.  I think it is a place we should not be afraid to try and put things out there and learn from.  Which I suppose is what I am trying to do.  At this stage in the learning process from this blog, these are the "lessons" I would put forward.

Thanks for pointing out where I was not communicating clearly.  And don't let me change your mind if you are certain in your position.  And I think it is right to not be ashamed about using developmental hierarchy.  I'm just exploring what it means to use that skillfully.  Particularly if you do (like myself) find yourself in support of a world government.  I think we do have to be careful about alienating this community from the general public.

P.S. I hope you get that the "Greg-haters" thing was a joke.  I know you don't hate them.

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listening

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Dee Black in response to Hey there

gorgeous exchange federico and brendan ..and i love the way u put it brendan to offer a sense of understanding rather than pissing on them and going off to bask in one's own evolved glory .. a great metaphor for all of us to keep in mind

 

 

 

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Hi Dee

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to listening

Thanks, and thanks to Federico, I should make it clear that the evloved glory thing can actually be that case.  I guess I am just suggesting evolved beings piss in the toilet and not on people.

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haha Good point!!

Posted October 28th, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to Hi Dee

Brendan, thankyou very much. I will continue reflecting on this,

thanks again.

And, about the toilet thing: it just don't work at home!

I have to call the plumber..

So in the meantime...

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Haha

Posted October 28th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to haha Good point!!

Hey Federico, that is hilarious!

I also am still reflecting on this: here is where I am at this point.

Thank you for saying what you have said.  I feel like I agree with mostly everything you have said.  By saying it, you have made it so I didn't have to say it.  You gave me the option of feeling like the good guy. And I apologize if I have painted you as the bad guy.  If anything, you are the courageous guy. 

Are we possibly speaking from two sides of the same coin?  I.e. does typology play a role here?  I am thinking masculine/feminine though not necessarily those labels.  I suspect this might be the case but just offering it as part of my reflection.

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Cross altitude problem

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to Re: Kingdom Come: Postmetaphysical Inclusivism?

Hi Greg.

I think this is the core of the problem in this discussion:

In http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/46 Wilber wrotes:

"...These critics simply cannot see these phenomena, which are �over their heads,� to borrow Kegan�s felicitous phrase�and they get absolutely furious, and I mean furious, when this is pointed out or even mentioned.

But furious or not, that happens to be a completely valid critical approach. So I�ll stop teasing the animals for a moment and get serious. For the developmentalist, some ideas are not at the altitude of those they are criticizing, and those criticisms, in those specific aspects, are nonsensical. Strictly speaking, they are neither true nor false, but empty.

For example, if a blue vMEME says to an orange vMEME, �Excuse me, but I can prove that your entire notion of evolution is wrong, because it is not in the Bible,� then that statement, qua criticism, is not so much false as nonsensical: it is not even in touch with that which it is criticizing, and thus this �cross-level� problem is a paradigm clash, and it cannot be decided with any amount of facts that blue will accept.

In other words, blue will continue to believe that evolution does not exist, no matter how much evidence you produce to the contrary. Blue will actually produce a ton of what it considers to be facts; it will quote the Bible chapter and verse, bringing forth what are indeed actual phenomena and actual facts at that blue level, facts that are absolutely true at that level. So these types of arguments are futile as regards their core claims (although you can always learn something from both sides, simply because they are both producing interesting truths and facts and evidence at their own levels.) But when it comes to cross-level truth-claims, neither side will reach a happy resolution to their core disputes. Orange will not be happy because blue does not accept evolution; blue will not be happy because orange does not accept the Bible. Nor will they be happy until blue evolves to orange (or orange regresses to blue)�. But absent that, both of these less-than-integral levels violate, among other things, the principles of integrative epistemology (see excerpt B).

Thus, it is a completely valid argument for a developmentalist to point out that fact (i.e., the cross-level or paradigm-clash intractability). There is nothing that turquoise or indigo can ever say to green that will make it happy. Thus, the idea that, for example, turquoise is supposed to enter a �dialogue� with green is nonsensical, and nothing in that dialogue will change green�s mind fundamentally (unless green transforms to turquoise). Turquoise can see green and its facts, but green cannot see turquoise and its facts, and thus this cross-level altitude problem jams any real dialogue in that capacity�and yet all that green does is scream for dialogue, dialogue, dialogue�. which in these cases are empty, empty, empty."


I know this can make everything explode, but continues to

be very valid. Greg, I think you are not Integral yet (in developmental sense), you are not in
that stage, and therefore you can't undestand Integral theory wich is only an expression of that Integral stage that is arising in some people around the world, most of them without knowing Ken Wilber.

In Integral stage, you have a natural impulse (from inside, not coming from any other person or theory) to look at contradictory truths and to try to find wich are the connections, wich are the "bigger pictures" that arise from putting one infront of the other; as an example, a person at Integral stage would naturally have a need to ask him/herself "if Buddhists tell me that everyone is in grace because everyone have a Buddhanature; and Christian says that everybody is in grace because Jesus saved us; then both are wrong at least in part and I would like to know what the truths behind this is".

This kind of need for joining peaces of "reality" to see a bigger picture (and a natural rejection of any "little part" to pretend being the "big picture") is Integral impulse and is borned (as I understand it) naturally as a process of development in a specific stage studied by different psycological studies.

And, by the way you write (and I readed everything you wrote in this forum), I guess you are not in this stage yet.

Just to continue to be offensive (I think I'm becoming your disciple in it!):

You will become Integral sometime, but in the meantime, I think any discussion regarding Integral ideas is nonsense.

Blessings,

Federico

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Re: Cross altitude problem

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Cross altitude problem

Federico:

You sound like a fundamentalist thundering anathemas at unbelievers. "The bible (i.e. Integral Theory) tells me so, that ends it." I thought Integral Theory was meant to be used to understand, not to condemn, or judge. And who blessed Integral Theory with infallability?

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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Offensive Integrality!

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to Re: Cross altitude problem

je :-)

So now YOU are infuriating!

So offence appears to be working! You were right!

I could continue (at the risk of sounding "too Greg") to say:

"even if you dislike what I said, it happens to be valid from a developmental point of view. So if I am right with you not being yet in an Integral stage, then it's true that you will simply don't get a clue of what this theory really points out, It doesn't motter how hard everyone struggle to point it out to you"

Don't feel so good, right?

so may be you can at least START to understand what happens with "inclusivity" and "triunfalism" and "offence"...

note: for those that loose the "offence is the way" "teaching" by Greg, you can check http://integrallife.com/member/greg-mayers/blog/offensive-christianity

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Re: Offensive Integrality!

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Offensive Integrality!

Not offended. This is fun. Testosterone play. Bucks locking horns. Its all a game, Frederico. Enjoy it.

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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follow the power

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Tom Clearwater in response to Re: Kingdom Come: Postmetaphysical Inclusivism?

Greg, your question 'what privileges the unprivileged position' is answered by me below.  The so-called unprivileged position isn't unprivileged; rightly seen, it claims priority---privilege---and does so IMO by being more developed and more powerful.  Your Christian view is simply old, and too narrow for these modern times.  It worked in previous times, but is now what Newtonian physics is to relativity and quantum physics: something that works well for pouring concrete, but sucks for anything that powers the modern economy.

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My 3-2-1 Process On all of you Hoolagins :)

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Brendan LaChance

Well I had been planning on doing 3-2-1 shadow process a lot more with perspectives I find on the internet and post them here, and while I was reading this here, it dawned on me I will just start doing 3-2-1 process about people's posts on this site.  So here follows my process aimed at 3 identities: Bruce, Greg and Cam, and the Greg and Cam haters....

Bruce:

3rd person- I sympathize with what Bruce is doing here and I agree almost entirely with him theoretically.  But I am a bit annoyed that he is insisting on still arguing with Greg especially and Cam as well.  Doesn't he notice that they aren't listening to his point at all?  I mean, he has made it perfeclt well and clear and they still don't agree.  Why doesn't he just give it a rest?  In my opinion, it may just be acting as a block to provide these guys with something to argue with.  As long as they have some other to argue with, I think they can project the discrepancies in their own worldview onto Bruce.  I feel both slightly annoyed and kind of bad for the guy.  I mean, he puts in all this effort and nothing seems to come from it.  I am confused as to why someone so intelligent might be doing this.

2nd person-Me: Hey Bruce, I have to admit, I don't really get why you are doing this.  Why are you insisting on engaging Greg and Cam like you are?

Bruce: Well I feel like I have some challenging and constructive arguments to what they are saying.  I also see this engagement as an opportunity to explore some of the areas that are not resolved for me as well.  I agree in many ways with Cam and Greg that Christianity is not being treated rightly by Integral theory.

Me: Yeah I get that and I also agree in many ways.  But I think the way in which you think Christianity is not being treated properly is very different from Cam and Greg's perspectives.  I think they are coming at this from within the tradition, wanting to defend it from Integral supercession and you are defending it more in the light that all traditions have claims that a post-metaphysical theory needs to look at much more closely if there really is a way to integrate them.  I don't get why you don't see this.

Bruce: No, I do get what you are saying.  But I also think that is part of how an integral theory needs to work.  It needs to genuinely engage all of the perspectives and not simply in a "lets find common ground and then quit" kind of way.  I think staying engaged along these difficult faultlines is mostly beneficial to all parties.

Me: Yes I see what you are saying.  But I think maybe you are providing Cam and Greg with a wall by holding the perspective that you do.  I think maybe being left alone to really think things out is sometimes the best way for someone to review their own stances.  Sometimes I get the feel that these discussions are ironically empowering their perspectives, similar to backing someone into a corner.  I think sometimes you are talking in a way that is threatening to Greg and Cam's beliefs and this is bringing out a defensive response that is very proud and secure with its position.  I just am frustrated because I think you might be locking them into place at times.  This frustrates me because I have expectations of how exchanges should occur on this website.

Bruce: I know what you are saying but I still want to stay engaged.  I hope I am being flexible enough to not only be locking perspectives into place like you say. 

1st Person: I have a need to stay engaged.  Staying engaged is valuable to potential growth.  Non-engagement seems to me to be a waste of time.  I want to be present with people and engage with their perspectives even where we don't agree.  I don't want to give up on things so easily, especially when I still feel a big sense of possibility located.  I know that if I stay engaged, I will learn something, even if it isn't necessarily helpful to whomever I am in exchange with.  I am engaged, engaged, engaged.

Greg and Cam

3rd Person: Greg and Cam really frustrate me and get on my nerves.  They seem so sure of themselves, but blindly so.  They seem very certain of a lot of things that I think it is hard to be so certain about.  The thing that annoys me most is not that they hold the perspective that they do about Christianity but they seem so sure that they have the right perspective on Christianity.  I understand that at some point you have to have confidence in your own perspective, but I think some of this confidence needs to be complimented with a respect for perspectives different from your own.  They don't seem to value any Christian perspective that does happen to find similarities with the Eastern traditions.  I don't find them so much offensive or scandalous as I do obnoxious.  The thing that really annoys me is that I think they know I am annoyed and they somehow twist this into evidence that they are being scandalous.  I guess the other thing that really bugs me is that I don't sense an attitude that is really open to other possibilities.  I feel like they come into the argument already 100% decided and so maybe the conversation is of benefit to everyone else, but for them it seems to me that it is doing nothing more than perhaps an exercize in vocabulary skills.  That is another thing that annoys me.  The word kergyma.  I don't really know what it means.  I feel like they have been using it as if it is some special word that somehow makes them not have to really explain what they mean.  And that is what I find most annoying is that they both seem to ignore the direction of what people are really asking them.  I don't see why this is necessary.  If they are so confident in where they stand, then why can't they face those things?  I understand that at some point rationality is not enough, but I feel like they have been using that as a cop out of actually answering legitimate questions they are being posed.

2nd Person: Me: Hi Greg/Cam, you guys really annoy me with the way you present your persepctives.  You act as if it is not a perspective but simply a given truth.  Why do you do that?

Greg/Cam: Well I am just secure in my perspective.  I am confident that Christianity is inclusive of everything.  There is nothing greater than the Lord Jesus.

Me: Well I understand you believe that, but why are you not listening to why that can't necessarily be supported as a truth for other perspectives?  Why are you so sure thatyour perspective and your tradition is the greatest and highest perspective?

Greg/Cam: Well I don't think my particular perspective is the greatest or highest, but it is Christianity that can do this. 

Me: Well how do you think Christianity could ever be seperated from the perspectives on it?  I mean, I don't care how far back you go, or what great realized Saint you quote, I just don't see where there is a way that a truth could be presented free of filters.  I am not suggesting that there is no such truth or that any such truth can not be realized in full by an individual, but once an individual comes back into the world, how could they possibly communicate it in a way that is not limited?  How can you really express infinity free of a perspective?

Greg/Cam: Well Jesus solved this for us whether or not you believe in it.  In fact, you don't have to believe in it.  I didn't ask it to be this way or anything, it is just how it is.

Me: That brings up something else that you do that annoys me.  Why do you avoid the entirety of the question that people are asking you.  You really drive me crazy when you do this.

Greg/Cam: I am not really avoiding it persay.  But do you think I should give the time to all these distracting modes of thought that are just going to get us farther from what Christianity is really saying?

Me: I didn't say anything like that.  I don't see why answering a question, even briefly would detract from the overall goal.  Most of these are questions that if you answered would most likely open up the listener to actually hearing what you are saying.  But you don't really seem interested in that.

Greg/Cam: I think you are really misunderstanding me.  I am not doing this just to change everyone's beliefs.  But I am trying to make it clear what the Christian truth is.  I am not looking to compromise or make any modification of what Christianity tells us because it is already complete. 

Me: But how are you so sure of that?  Because of state experiences you have had of experiencing God talking to you?  Well how are you so sure you aren't just interpreting those through the structure of the stage you are at?  I mean I have had mystical experiences involving Jesus as well and those in no way made me want to convert to Christianity or see it as the greatest, most inclusive truth.

Greg/Cam: As I said before, this isn't based just on my experience, but on the entire Christian wisdom tradition.

Me: But who in the Christian tradition aside from Jesus is held to be free of perspective?  And as many people have pointed out, Jesus himself isn't too clear on what he came and meant to do.  There are a variety of perspectives on that.  I am not saying yours is wrong, but you are denying the possibility that yours is wrong.  Well actually, you are basically denying that yours is a perspective even.  Which I find ridiculous by the way.

Greg/Cam: I am not here to please you.  But this is the funny thing about Christianity.  It just won't go away.

Me: Kind of like an annoying little brother that just won't shut up.  But that doesn't make Christianity the greatest perspective.  And just because you say it can't be included in a greater model doesn't make that any more true either.  It certainly seems to work for many people who call themselves Christian.  I am curious what you think is so wrong with them and their interpretations?

Greg/Cam: I never said it was wrong.  But it is just not complete.  If they really understood Christianity, they would see it this way. 

1st Person: I am very confident in my position.  This is a confidence that can not be shaken.  This confidence stands up to the test of time.  I attribute this confidence and strength to what I know to be true.  What I can hold to be true, I can find solid ground on which to build my strength.  I am very strong and confident.  I don't need to cater to everyone who wants to question this solidity due to my certainty.  I don't have much doubt as to the truth that I have found.  I know I can come across as arrogant, but this is not my intention.  In fact, if someone could really show me a better answer than this, I would be willing to hear it and let go.  But I have not found that.  I do not think it is possible actually.  I think I have found a truth that is timeless and unshakeable.  I am not ashamed of this.

Greg and Cam Haters

3rd person: The Greg and Cam Haters really annoy me because they think they are actually doing something constructive when clearly they are just making this a more decisive argument.  They are casting Greg and Cam as an outside minority which actually acts to strengthen their argument, even if it is baseless.  They empower Greg and Cam by reacting so heatedly and aggressively.  This attack gives Greg and Cam the chance to feel even more confident in their perspective because it fulfills their prophecy that Christianity is offensive and scandalous.  By not keeping their cool, the Greg and Cam haters are actually making some of Greg and Cam's perspective seem true.  The frustrating thing to me is that if this dynamic was different, we could have made a lot more progress in this arena.  Why can't they live up to the philosophy they claim to be defending by finding some partial truth in what Greg and Cam are saying?  I mean, I understand they are frustrated because Greg and Cam refuse to admit they are partial, but the old saying two wrongs don't make a right feels appropriate to me.  I wish they would just take a little more time before they would respond like they do.

2nd person: Me: Hi, why do you insist on acting so angrily and aggressively towards what Greg and Cam are saying?  How does this help?

Greg/Cam hater:  I didn't realize I was really being that aggressive.  Actually, I don't think I am that angry.  I am just noticing some fallacies and gaps in their arguments and pointing them out.

Me: Well it feels angry to me.  But besides, even if you aren't angry, what do you think this is going to actually do?  Do you think you are going to change their minds?  Don't you know no one changes overnight?

Greg/Cam hater:  Well I really don't feel that angry.  Maybe it is you who feels angry.  But if I do feel angry it is because I am upset at how Greg and Cam present themselves as absolute truth and seem totally rigid and unable to change.  And I know no one changes overnight, but does that mean I shouldn't point out things from my own perspective?  I mean, there is always the chance that what I say might ring a chord.  And cumulative effort has to at least put some amount of question into Greg and Cam's head about the certainty of their perspective.

Me: Well I get what you mean, but I think it is more likely that you are just setting up an opposite that pushes them into a corner and enables and empowers them to hold onto the perspective they are at.  So in many ways, I actually share your motives, just not your methodology I suppose.  I think letting Greg and Cam just have time with themselves might be more beneficial.

Greg/Cam hater:  You really think that is going to help?  I am they have come to hold this perspective and maybe because it has never been appropriately challenged.  AndI certainly don't intend to empower them.  I intend to challenge them.

1st person: I am angry when someone can't admit to being partial.  I have the need and desire to challenge the absolutity (?) of that position.  I feel like I should be able to present the perspective I hold without having to worry about whether I am backing someone else into a corner or not.  I am making an effort to provide the opportunity for change.  I am just arguing from the perspective that I hold.  I am okay with this too because at least I hold that it is a perspective.

Summary/Review/Final Words

Well I think I have found that there is a fairly clear pattern in myself as I relate to this blog.  I feel like this exercize has helped me get to a place where I can read all of the responses slightly more "objectively."

I want to make it totally clear that I don't pretend like I really know what is going on in any of your heads.  The second person step is recognized as being my projection onto you.  I hope nothing I said is too offensive.  I hope this is useful to someone else.

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Thankyou

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to My 3-2-1 Process On all of you Hoolagins :)

Just amazing.

By the way, you could (maybe) change the "Greg - Cam haters" label,

it doesn't sounds too "nice"

Federico

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Haha sorry

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to Thankyou

Sorry Federico but I thought the "haters" label was slightly amusing...

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Spectacular!

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Mary Williams in response to My 3-2-1 Process On all of you Hoolagins :)

Wonderful 3-2-1 shadow process, Brendan! Thank you for writing it out. It has shed light on my own thoughts and emotions concerning this frequently frustrating conversation -- and is very useful to me.  :)

Bows,

Mary

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No Problem!

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to Spectacular!

I'm just glad you found it helpful!  I'm also glad we can be frustrated together!  Feels somehow less frustrating...

I am curious.

Is infinity frustrated?

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Very cool

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Balder in response to My 3-2-1 Process On all of you Hoolagins :)

Thanks, Brendan!  This was great.  It doesn't matter if your imaginary dialogues line up with where I or others are 'really' coming from (though I think you did a pretty good job of anticipating my responses to your questions!), because the benefit of your post (for me) is elsewhere:  through your example, you've invited me, and all of us, really, to similarly attempt to face and 'own' our projections.  To take this exchange to another level.  Thank you.

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You're welcome

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to Very cool

And thanks for pointing out the truth about it not mattering whether I am really lining up with everyone's perspectives (well in reality, I know I am not).  I just wanted to make it super-extra-crystal clear! 

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Re: My 3-2-1 Process...

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to My 3-2-1 Process On all of you Hoolagins :)

Dearest Brendan:

I can't speak for others in your dialogue, but I feel completely understood and appreciated. Are you a therapist? Just beautiful. Strange what comes out of relating to others honestly. It's hard, it hurts, we get infuriated, but we get closer too. I think the only part you missed is the testosterone game, you know... the guys grunting loudly, bumping each others chests... something like the "Fight Club."

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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you mean like the guys in the picture down there?

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to Re: My 3-2-1 Process...

Greg, you tell offence is the way and then cry about the fight club.

No one wants to fight, at the core of the Integral impulse is the burning desire

to respect as many points of view as possible, to understand as many

perspectives as possible, for being up to love as much of the world as possible.

I don't know if the "Greg haters" title is figurative and nothing more than

humor (as my image downthere); if it is, bravo, it really made me laught.

If it is not, I would like to openly declare I don't hate you,

even if I get sometimes frustrated by your way of writing,

wich I don't have to describe as many had done very well;

You were offensive all the time, and you get some offense back.

Now, I'm a little tired, to be honest, of your games.

"hey pal, I feel very near you now". "hey, you are offended, cool, means you are getting the message"

"hey, all people here attack me". "hey! I feel we are understanding each other! sharing profoundly (but remember Jesus rules and could beat your god in a second!)" 

You are intelligent and act like a polititian for spreading your "religious partie".

It's ok, I played a little to see if this could lead somewhere, now I think

it can't, it is only the game for the game, wich is useless.

Anyway, thankyou so much for make me think about all this subjects and

win some insight about it.

If you were worried about 10 people hating you, from this instant on you can be worried

of only 9; I love you pal.

Take much care,

Federico

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Fight Club

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to Re: My 3-2-1 Process...

First of all, I am glad you feel understood and appreciated.  But no I am not a therapist!  I'm just lil ol' me! 

Second, yes, how could I miss the "fight club" aspect!  That is the coolest part!  Yes, that part frustrates me too, just like that movie (notta huge fan).  Grrrrrr

Well I feel like a walk in some flowers or something.  But no flowers in winter.  Oh well, Black Moth Super Rainbow instead...

"We're standing in a field
The sun is all we feel
If you'll just come with me
A sunflower is what I'll be"

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And to Unique Self...

Posted October 19th, 2009 by Robb Smith

Bruce, I am impressed by the clarity of your articulation of this complex territory.  We encountered a similar issue this year as we really dove into the terrain of Unique Self.  I and a few others kept noting that some of what was coming out of U/S dialogue was articulated in language that was overly metaphorical to the point of sounding mythical.  It has been a healthy process to explore how we make the exact move you spell out below:

"Does this mean that, in a postmetaphysical world, a member of a given religion would therefore be wholly barred from speaking in terms of fulfillment or inclusion?  No, I don't think so.  I just think you need to switch from the language of presupposition to the language of promise.  You can't presuppose a pre-existing shared history or worldspace, but you can invite others to the co-creation or the enactment of a new one -- into the enactment of the Kingdom-come vision, you might say.  ... The other's history therefore is not erased or subsumed, but rather invited into the relationship as part of the creative love-play.  You aren't absorbed into the old; you are invited to give yourself to the upwelling of the new."

Something like this is where ended up with U/S, recognizing it as a process, a living koan, over and against a reified concept that might weigh down its creative potential.  Said differently, we knew the territory was both important and basically characterizable, that if True Self is a realized state of identity with the mystery in every moment than when we add in your own unique perspective (subject, obviously, to the unique evolutionary history of the 4 quadrants of your life and being) than we end up with a Unique Self realization.  (And further, this expression is understandably different in 1p, 2p and 3p.)  But we wanted to be careful not to drag this possibility for being alive to one's Unique Self expression back through the mythical constructs of yesteryear (always a real risk because the spiritual traditions inherit their lineage constructs and hermeneutics from a mythical heritage).

Moreover, we wrestled whether to emphasize the transcend or the include in the "Integral Spiritual Experience:" how do we find room for metaphysical expressions in an event of this kind (i.e., include) or do we try to exclude them in a move to pure post-metaphysical design (i.e., transcend: pure integral expressions of spiritual experience)?  And how to do so?  In any case, we are trying for a healthy combination of both: include but situate, include but coach, include but aspire.  I love the distinction you make here about language of presupposition versus the language of promise.  Many will not understand how this will be the front line of humanity's spiritual struggle in a few short years and I am nourished by the few who see the territory and can articulate healthy solutions through it.  One provocative articulation that comes to mind: it's not "Come follow Jesus." 

It's "come follow me..."

Robb Smith

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Re: And to Unique Self

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Balder in response to And to Unique Self...

Hi, Robb, thank you for your feedback.  Your application of similar perspectives to the understanding and articulation of Unique Self work sounds timely and important.  I am unfortunately not able to attend the upcoming Integral Spiritual Experience workshop, which I know is emphasizing the Unique Self, but I will be watching for further writings and discussions on the subject with interest.  Working through the implications of postmetaphysics (and evolutionary and enactive perspectives), while seemingly quite abstract and even arcane, has felt to me to be akin to a deepening in intimacy, an opening or letting go that simultaneously blesses each thing in its shining particularity. 

Best wishes,

Bruce

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And To Unique Self.

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to And to Unique Self...

Hi Robb:

Do Bruce, Cameron and I get finders' fees for drawing traffic to the site? :-)  More later...

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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enactment and emergence perichoretically dancing with givens

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Ambo Suno

Hi Bruce - this fine, passionate, courageous and respectful dialogue over some time between you and Greg is stimulating, and maybe helpful to me and us. I have had a number of thoughts and questions stimulated and I'd like to write them. However I need to rush off now. So I tried to scribble some notes as a reminder and as a nudge for me to write later. I fear that I may not get back to this for awhile so I'm going to paste my quick notes here, hoping that they will be a little intelligible. Maybe I can come back and make complete sentences and thoughts about them later. Sorry if they sound like gobbledygook in this form.

 

"'Myth of given' emphasis, distinct from an enactive process - tricky part has to do with our almost given human propensity to make our last mental construction persist. It has to do with images holding together in the mind. So does that have to be  addressed too - in a conversation where we go back and forth, as though we are not trying to persuade (or pray for conversion), and the need for continuance and cohesion is there for conversation over time to persist (which is maybe prototype of 'given'). it seems to me a perichoretic dance of given and enactment, of permanence and temporariness. then do we continue with attachment to this new apparently more inclusive construction/enactment.

Perichoresis is another metaphor - a good one to help visualize and thereby maybe allow into oneself a new way of accomodating seemingly undigestible views.

I had to look it up http://arstheologica.blogspot.com/2005/12/perichoresis.html It understandably resorts here to a kinetic metaphor, maybe not quite as subtle as say 'alchemy' metaphor. A dance, in its original usage of three. It reminds me of one of my daughter's marriages where they made their marriage rings of a weaving of the three stands, of different metals.

Metaphors are difficult.

The marriage metaphor helps and maybe limits.

The doesn't 'subsume' is tricky because many of the metaphors used to help us understand AQAL are kinetic, material, even mechanistic, and thereby easily visualizeable, in a form that embeds them a bit as almost givens in memory for future use - like 'conveyor belt', like 'tipping point'. holarchy is less subsuming as hierarchy, but with an asserted vertical dimension emphasized in AQAL, the 'sub' metaphor almost inevitably is conveyed.

We are trying to find understanding of transcend (which often translates within us as ascend because of the given vertical dimension) and include and integrate/being integral, so we use metaphors (which are intrinsically fundamental to language whose basis is largely association). marriage, perichoretic intertwining, promise - metaphors.

Enaction and emergence intertwining with givens."

ambo

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re: enactment and emergence perichoretically dancing with givens

Posted October 22nd, 2009 by Balder in response to enactment and emergence perichoretically dancing with...

Hi, Ambo, your notes and thought-sketches are intriguing and I hope you have time, eventually, to write a little more.  I agree with your observation regarding the 'inherited givens,' so to speak, of our past constructions, which persist in some way and provide a sense of cohesion and continuity.  Wilber refers to these inherited givens as evolutionary givens.  In my understanding, these givens are different from the metaphysical givens critiqued by Sellars or Wilber or others, which are presupposed as self-existing (non-enacted, e.g., the 'view from nowhere'); whereas evolutionary givens are still understood as aspects of enacted worldspaces.

I also agree the 'marriage' metaphor is limited, as I believe all metaphors are.

Concerning my use of the word, 'subsume,' yes, any movement towards transcendence would also necessarily involve subsumption or inclusion.  In my post, I maybe should have worded it differently; what I was trying to emphasize was an open-ended, evolutionary, co-enactive merger as opposed to the simple subordination of the 'other' to a metaphysical given.

All the best,

B.

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understood

Posted October 22nd, 2009 by Ambo Suno in response to re: enactment and emergence perichoretically dancing...

Balder. I am pleased and not surprised that you understood generally what I was wanting to get at in my sketchy notes. Thanks for being willing to suss them out, adding your own knowledge and understanding to them. I'm not sure entirely where I would have gone with these bits and pieces in relating them to attempts to distinguish the value of one POV and set of constructs from another. I am now supposing that mainly I was engaged in further postmodern deconstruction and the difficulties of asserting or privileging one set of ideas over another. I appreciate that you were willing and able to engage my curiosity and ideas on thought, metaphor, and language.

I do think that you have so respectfully explained and 'logicked' exceedingly well fallacies of Christian assertions of the exclusive status of Jesus as God and of a Christian faith being the one true faith. You and the Christian presenters have been so artful in discussion and debate. In dialogue. It seems that the sequential impasses that the dialogue balks at keeps crawling further than I thought it could before the utility of language would implode, along with my individual capacity to grok.

I didn't know about Wilber, Sellars, and others' thoughts about the distinctions of "givens". There probably is good basis for that. My first reflexive take is that the distinctions made will be convenient for whatever POV wants to be made. And, granted, very premature of me, I am imagining these distinctions as being a somewhat subjective cutoff point on a scale of gradations of what is to be called a "given". An analogy in anatomy is of transitionary cells that morph so subtly that it takes a few increments before one might finally say that structure and particularly function is significantly different. I suppose that this could be one of the post-modern traps that I deal with of not wanting to declare significantly discrete nominal identity and distinct value at a particular point. (Unless part of this is impelled by an extremely early-life sticking point of undifferentiation.) So maybe if I could stay with this theme far enough, I would get it.

I may have gone as far into this as my current attention and interest allows. For now. And yet maybe someone or something will tickle me further as you have done. Thanks.

ambo

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universal nonduality

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Dee Black

hi bruce

nonduality isn't considered an eastern approach is it?

my understanding is that christian monks are very familiar with nonduality .. am i mistaken in that regard ?

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Re: universal nonduality

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Balder in response to universal nonduality

Hi, Dee, experiences of mystical forms of union or oneness are common across Western and Eastern traditions, of course.  But the particular concept of nonduality (Skt. advaita, "not-two-ness") comes from Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

Best wishes,

B.

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thanks as always bruce

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Dee Black in response to Re: universal nonduality

your statement "your interest may not be to find an integral postmetaphysical articulation or expression of christianity" was answered with "i'm secretly praying to convert u"

god help us all

xo

 

 

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transcendent jesus

Posted October 20th, 2009 by Dee Black

today's jesus has emerged from the bible .. has transformed into a post post modern being .. and includes all his great sayings .. do unto others as u would have others do unto u

 

 

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What is the Christ?

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Richard Bull in response to transcendent jesus

Hi All,
Firstly, my apologies for my limited ability with philosophical languaging. It seems to me that we humans have a tendency to 'overcook' with the mind, and forget that the true state of Mind is silence. It is too easy to get lost in the play of words.
Also, it seems to me that our ability to express spiritual concepts, especially in English (or the West), is still very limited. This is demonstrated, for example, by the multiple meanings that we have for the word 'spiritual'.
In my opinion it is true that there is only one Son (Child) of God, and the 'thing' is that we are all It.
When Jesus said, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life", it was the Christ who was speaking. The Edgar Cayce material tells us that Jesus came as an Exemplar/Elder Brother who became the Christ, or the Way, and what the Christ was saying with these words was, that in order to follow him we must become Christed Beings as he was. And indeed, this seems to be the only way that we can truly follow Jesus.
And what is a Christed Being? It seems to me that a Christed being is one who is in the non-dual state, as expressed in Jim Marion's book Putting on the Mind of Christ, and is constantly so, and they thus imbibe the state as what Wilber calls 'a trait'.
So it seems to me that Christianity also speaks of the non-dual state, using the word Christ to express it.
I hope that I'm not being too simplistic, and that this makes sense!!
Kind Regards,
Richard.

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a passion for the impossible...

Posted October 21st, 2009 by camfree

Thanks Bruce, Robb and others for another stimulating and thought provoking thread

 

There may be another way of looking at this that hasn’t been properly set out just yet. I see a distinct tendency in the Christian message to take the “myth of the given” – the basic presuppositions of any cultural world-space (Jewish, Greco-Roman, Christendom, Modern-Secular, etc) – and turn it inside out and upside down with what Bruce and Robb call the language of a promise – what I call a poetics of the impossible. At its best the Gospel does this by holding up Christ – the invitation to love that is freely offered in God made flesh, who remains an enigma... an unanswerable question, a dangerous perhaps, an irreducible singularity, or the un-objectifiable centre of a radically empty horizon...
 
That is, the Gospel announcement/keryga/proclamation does not secure itself with a metaphysical anchor – a new myth of the given... The Gospel does not privilege a set of presuppositions about reality (divinity, human nature, potential and values) it completely shatters and overturns the co-ordinates of whatever is taken to be the “myth of the given”, the default world of conventional wisdom... and holds us in the creative tension of a passion for the impossible. That's precisely what Jesus of Nazareth was doing throughout his public ministry and particularly in the Easter events...
 
For example, take the Hindu/Buddhist notion of Karma – we all know what it means: what goes around comes around, you get what you give, or one is rewarded in life according to their merits.... Many New Agers believe this, but the Gospel of sheer Grace utterly explodes this set of assumptions, breaks open this pre-given horizon of meaning... Our good works are filthy rags: we cannot merit our own awakening, we can only accept the free gift of God’s own self in Christ... But again this does not provide one with a new “non-enacted or trans-historical given” but an invitation to enact faith, hope, justice and love in the world...  and this can take many different forms.
 
There is a problem here, but it maybe only an apparent one. If Christ calls us to receive reality as a gift – how do we do this without invoking the “myth of the given”?
 
As a related point, there are some really good questions you (Bruce) raise about whether or not the Christian kerygma involves propositional language – which I take to mean objective statements about a state of affairs in the world. I would say no, not completely... Christianity is not about “what is” – but a promise, a passion for the impossible, a hope against hope... and that takes faith not empirically verifiable facts. We can establish some central historical facts (Jesus was crucified, the empty tomb, etc) but this only sets up the conditions of possibility for the movements of faith... But the event itself cannot be reduced to what post-modern philosopher Alain Badiou calls the order of Being (metaphysics) without remainder.
 
So I tend to agree with you when you say that the 'propositional' elements of the announcement are simply presupposed... treated as if they are actually 'given' by those experiences.  But in response, I would say that the scandalous pronouncement that founded the early Church (the Incarnation) can find a home within a variety of different contexts and world-spaces... Traditionally Christian theology has developed precisely this way - by taking the core message of the Gospel (God became a man) and appling it to a variety of changing historical circumstances – different cultural contexts, often finding new and unexpected meanings and enactments... That’s how liberation theology came about, as well as the Reformation, etc... Now this process may indeed expose previously held “givens” as historically contingent constructions – and I applaud this – We can re-configure such so called “givens” (sacrificial atonement, second coming in violence and glory) in a way that is more authentic and transparent to both the original meaning of the Christ-event and present day realities... but at the centre of all this remains the Mystery, a passion for the impossible, the un-objectifiable enigma of Christ, the inscrutable and unsearchable love of God in the person of Jesus.
All of this will be set out much better in a couple of book that are being published in the next year or so... I hope that you all buy a copy so that I can make a profit out of the crucifixion...
 
Cheers,
 
Cameron

 

--

"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)

 

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christ & karma

Posted October 21st, 2009 by Dee Black in response to a passion for the impossible...

hi cam .. just some thoughts that came to me as i read your post

to me it appears christ was big on karma .. as u sow so shall u reap

good works are filthy rags when they are done with the wrong intention .. done with the sole purpose of what u will get back

as well we can't lump all christianity (or any religion for that matter) into one group .. remember the conveyor belt ?

and at some point .. faith and hope are non-issues as they are the opposite of always already

thanks for jumping in on this fascinating thread

 

 

 

 

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Law and Grace

Posted October 22nd, 2009 by camfree in response to christ & karma

Hi Dee,

Good to hear from you - and thanks for adding to these sometimes lop-sidedly heady discussions...

When I used the word "karma", I was really referring to the standard Gospel distinction between Law and Grace... In this sense, it hardly needs to be argued that Jesus, Paul and the early Church were all about Grace (which is synomymous with Non-dual in many respects) not Law - or the law of karma, cause and effect, what you reap you sow... Can you tell me where Jesus actually says this? All I can find is:

Luke 12:24 “Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!”


But "Reap what you sow" - which maybe true enough in some respects - is probably more akin to 1st century folk psychology rather than the radical message of Grace... I mean "what goes around comes around" its hardly something that would create much or a scandal or disruption to the status quo in 1st century Palestine - whereas forgiving an adulteress that deserved to be stoned to death certainly would... Do you see what I mean? Grace turns the whole notion of karmic law upside down....

I'm not sure where this distinction between Law and Grace fits on the conveyor belt - but I liken it KW's distinction between Relative and Absolute - or conventional knowledge and radical awakening.... so its right up there, and it seems to be integral to the early constitution of the Christian communities as well - especially in Paul.

There's a few other things in yr post that I want to respond to, but this will do for now. Cheers,

Cameron

--

"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)

 

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This "grace" that radically "brakes" karma...

Posted October 22nd, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to Law and Grace

Hi Cameron.

Did you here about this story?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angulimala

Is really one between others but it shows the point (the karmic "law" can be also broken in Buddhism as well, so there is no "unbreakable" spiritual law whatsoever (the relative world, like the Matrix, apparently could make a full shift in a second when Absolute interplays).

Blessings,

Federico

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luke & matthew

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Dee Black in response to Law and Grace

hi cam .. luke 6 and matthew 7 .. both say the measure u give is the measure u get back

regarding the conveyer belt .. because there is a red jesus .. an amber jesus .. an orange jesus .. etc .. it can get confusing when one person is talking about for example, amber christianity and another person is talking about for example turquoise .. well both are right .. from the perspective they are coming from

 

 

 

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Re: a passion for the impossible

Posted October 22nd, 2009 by Balder in response to a passion for the impossible...

Hi, Cameron, thank you for joining this discussion; I was hoping you would!

You said:  The Gospel does not privilege a set of presuppositions about reality (divinity, human nature, potential and values) it completely shatters and overturns the co-ordinates of whatever is taken to be the “myth of the given”, the default world of conventional wisdom... and holds us in the creative tension of a passion for the impossible. That's precisely what Jesus of Nazareth was doing throughout his public ministry and particularly in the Easter events...

I expect you will probably "unpack" this idea in your forthcoming books, so I may need to wait till they come out to get a full idea of what you mean.  But in the meantime:  Looking at the history of Christianity, it seems to me that it would be fair to say that the Gospel challenged a particular set of prevailing presuppositions or 'givens,' but in doing so set up another set of metaphysical givens and even mythical structures and expectations (the second coming, the day of judgment, etc).  The Christian community became very sure of exactly what the truth was, what the gospel message was, what the correct order of things was, etc. 

So, would you be able to say what you mean by the 'gospel' or 'good news'?  What is the news?  Is there any content to it, or would you say that the gospel exists apart from any particular 'news' or 'content' and is, perhaps, more of a strategy?  If the 'gospel' has content, does it have a Kosmic Address?  If it is imagined to serve equally as a 'disruptor' of all worldviews, is it imagined in some way to exist outside of any Kosmic Addressing system?  Is there only one gospel?

You wrote:  We can re-configure such so called “givens” (sacrificial atonement, second coming in violence and glory) in a way that is more authentic and transparent to both the original meaning of the Christ-event and present day realities...

What is the original meaning of the Christ-event, and how do you ascertain that?  I'm not saying it's impossible to make a good guess, but I'm wondering on how you arrive at that.  Appealing to a 'foundational' or 'originary' meaning of something is a strategy that has been challenged by a number of the postmodern thinkers that you use in your own work, so I don't expect you mean this in any naive sense; but I'm not sure in what sense you do mean it.

Related to this, I have some questions about Badiou's work, which I posted earlier; I will copy them again here:

Tentatively, given my lack of familiarity with Badiou's work, I would suggest that, in a post-postmodern approach, we would still need to be cautious about treating an historical situation or event as a universal truth-event-in-itself.  By this, I mean declaring a particular historical event a truth-event for all people, once and for all, as if it could stand by itself as such an event apart from particular subjects (e.g., as if it could be declared an objective, transhistorical truth-event, independent of all historical subjects).  Such a move would still be metaphysical.

My thought here, and it may very well be Badiou's as well, is that we cannot leave out the question of “for whom” in a post-metaphysical, enactive forumlation.  Which would mean that the Christian truth-event is not an event fixed once and for all in the past, but something that emerges anew in the encounter between a particular subject and (a particular expression of) the Gospel.  One cannot “encounter” an historical event directly, but only a (developing, shifting, evolving) account of said event.  The historical event cannot be separated decisively from the account, in other words, and the rupturing truth-event that is the Christian experience of metanoia is thus both unique and universal.  Unique because both the individual and the account encountered (the Gospel message) are historical, particular, evolutionarily and contextually situated; and universal because common patterns of experience can nevertheless be traced across the Christian community.

Does this make sense to you, or am I missing something?  (I'm sort of shooting blind, knowing so little about Badiou's philosophy).

I make these points in part because a metaphysical, totalizing interpretation of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as an objective truth-event-in-itself is one which I believe would tend to incline one (in interfaith contexts) in the problematic direction of triumphalism, as we've been discussing.  But also simply because the concept of an historical event as an objective, universal truth-event-in-itself is metaphysical and still subject to the myth of the given.

Best wishes,

B.

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Orthodoxy Heresy and Christian Origins

Posted October 27th, 2009 by camfree in response to Re: a passion for the impossible

Hi Bruce,

 

Thanks for your questions , I always look forward to reading your posts and reflecting on what you have to say. There’s a lot of other things that I’d like to write about some recent posts on this thread, but it’s best we just stick to your questions and focus on the ideas rather than the purported motives or ‘level of consciousness’ of the people expressing them.
 
However, I will say that what I enjoy about the posts of yourself and Greg in particular is that you both have a capacity to invite me into a deeper, larger world... to see things I hadn’t previously noticed... and that’s why I got swept up into the Integral vision in the first place.
 
Bruce:  So, would you be able to say what you mean by the 'gospel' or 'good news'?  ... Is there any content to it, or would you say that the gospel exists apart from any particular 'news' or 'content' and is, perhaps, more of a strategy?...  If the 'gospel' has content, does it have a Kosmic Address?  Is there only one gospel?
 
And your related question: What is the original meaning of the Christ-event, and how do you ascertain that (particularly in the face of the post-modern critique of “origins and foundations”?)
 
I will attempt to treat these two questions together – and I have a few interrelated points to make here in response:
 

 

Now when it comes to the question of origins (what is the gospel?), the obvious point is that it is Jesus who is constitutive for Christian thought. The “good news” that grounds the Christian tradition began with a revelatory event of reconciliation/rupture – i.e. the life, death and resurrection of Jesus brings with it a shattering disturbance of all existing forms of meaning-making and social belonging, so that the Gospels are testaments to the sheer impossibility of articulating the Easter event itself...
 
That is, a new form of speech (and praxis) has been generated by the radical disturbance and discontinuity of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. And this proclamation is neither metaphysical (in the sense of removing all contradictions in a state of final clarity that lifts us above and beyond the fray of actual human life) or triumphalist (in the sense of seeking to dominate and have power over others: Christ is not Caesar).
 
But the Christ event it is an unconditional - or even universal - invitation to receive creative gift which sustains the entire universe. Again, what God is doing outside of this relationship is God’s business – I don’t know, but no one is in principle excluded from the invitation to Love (Paul: no Greek nor Jew, no slave nor freeman, no male nor female, etc).
 
So when we “return to Christian origins” (speak of the good news) we encounter not a metaphysics a presence – direct access to the Real is its full immediacy and plentitude - but an enigmatic and perplexing story/challenge/invitation – Jesus of Nazareth preaching the Kingdom of God, forgiving sinners and subverting the socio-religious hierarchy, his brutal crucifixion by the powers that be - and his resurrection from the dead...
 
But I am the first to admit that this parabolic event – the life, death and resurrection of Jesus - has been remembered in diverse and less than wholly coherent narrative forms, whose historical foundation is uncertain. So no, there is not one pure original Gospel cut off from the vicissitudes and contingencies of human history. There’s at least 4 that are all bound by their various socio-political contexts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
 
At the same time, in my own work I am attempting to show that the Christ-event is an Absolute paradox, so that we can indeed re-activate the authenticity (radical origins) of the Christian faith tradition – and I do this by way of a critical-historical re-construction of the paradoxical ‘deep structure’ of the parables of Jesus himself. This is work in progress, but we need to be very careful here about precisely what this ‘absolute paradox” consists in – and it is certainly not a timeless truth cut off from the contingencies and ambiguities of actual human existence. It’s a view that begins in and with the midst of the pain, messiness and difficulty of actual human existence.
 
However (and this is to cut a long story short), once we make this move then Jesus “uniquely” reveals the God whose nature is NOT to make the claim of unique revelation as total and authoritative meaning. Rather there is a radical singularity (Caputo) or “unanswerable question” (Pannikhar?) at the heart of Christianity – and in my scholarly work I further on to argue that this paradoxical language is post-metaphysical – it slips through the grasp of metaphysics as an abstract system that provides a fixed and stable centre of meaning that makes everything make sense.
 
But what we most need in this dialogue (and I thank you for helping me clarify this) is a certain distance from the underlying attitude which assumes that doctrinal statements are there first and foremost to assert a position which may be accepted or contested, like other positions – rather than being there to place us in a certain kind of relationship to truth, such that we can be changed by it...
 
Orthodoxy and Heresy
 
Now, to be introduced into relation with the person of Jesus is to encounter what is not exhaustible in word or system – or so Christians have concluded: it is to step into faith (rather than definitive enlightenment).
 
And in this respect, in so far as certain features in the development of Christian orthodoxy paradoxically worked against the absorption of Jesus into a “system of ideas” (metaphysics) they preserved the possibility of preaching Jesus as a questioning and converting presence in ever more diverse cultures and periods - as well as the possibility of intelligible debate and self-criticism within Christianity.
 
So the fragile norm that Christian orthodoxy constructs is not any “finally reconciled metaphysic” in which every wrinkle of discontinuity is ironed out. In fact the heretical impulse lays in a destructive longing for final clarity, a totality of vision in which all tensions and ambiguities are eliminated. So the Gospel message (the original meaning of the Christ-event) remains fragile, held together by means of paradoxical and apophatic language; and heresy, with its too-rigorous systematizing impulse, threatens to dissolve this essential precariousness... (There are some further questions to be explored here about the relation between Integral AQAL and the Gospel)
 
But there is a fundamental criterion by which the authenticity and legitimacy of the original meaning of the Gospel message can be measured, and that is the paradoxical event through which the early Christian communities were created – the radical singularity, the shattering disruption that occurred in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the criterion that stands in judgment over all Christian speech... And since this Absolute paradox is the ultimate criterion (particularly if we remain faithful to the parabolic teachings of Jesus himself), the Church can never rest assured in its possession of “orthodoxy”, i.e. the church must be unceasingly disturbed and unsettled and brought to judgment...
 
Therefore, in following the way of Jesus, the establishment of Christian orthodoxy (proclaiming the original Gospel) can only be accomplished by a risky and precarious invention that exceeds tradition, by an inventive improvisations that remain faithful to the past only by virtue of something unfounded and excessive, something that involves the irreducibility of a decision that is not the necessary outcome of any rational process, and so cannot be rendered safe and assured in its newness and its non-necessity.
 
In other words, the decision for Christ refuses all guarantees – which is simply to say that theology is a venture of faith, and thus always “dangerous thought”, thought balanced on a knife edge[i]... and it also means that the tradition constructed and defended by Christianity is distorted whenever its apocalyptic, paradoxical and discontinuous moments are domesticated...
 
 So to answer your question the Gospel message (the original meaning of the Christ-event) holds to a centre only in so far as it is open to being itself constantly broken and remade... Orthodoxy must itself constantly die and rise again, must be ever transformed - it’s what Chesterton called the “eternal revolution”...  So if you do believe in and commit yourself to this frame of reference, this point of judgment, you may expect to live with a continuing breaking and recovery of this same frame of reference, at deeper and deeper levels.
 
There are few more things that I’d like to explore further with you – especially our different takes on what a “post-metaphysical” spirituality might look like. But my main concern is to expose those uneasy paradoxes that the Church (and others) would prefer to keep buried... where success in the spiritual life often looks like struggle and weakness, just as failure in following Christ often looks like a self-satisfied complacency with one’s own accomplishments.
 
Thanks again for your own challenge/invitation... and honestly I am all thumbs and mumbles when required to stand before my God
 
Warm regards,
\
Cameron

[i]Williams, “Adult Geometry: Dangerous Thoughts in R. S. Thomas,” in The Page’s Drift: R. S. Thomas at Eighty, ed. M. Wynn Thomas (Bridgend: Seren 1993, p. 82-98

 

--

"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)

 

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very interesting

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to Orthodoxy Heresy and Christian Origins

Hi Cam, I think this post is really helpful for me in getting some clarity on your position.

I don't mean to get in between you and Bruce here so I hope you guys will bubble around me.

I would like to double-check my understanding with you and then mention a few things that this brought up for me.

So could you let me know if I am in the right ballpark of understanding you here:

Now when it comes to the question of origins (what is the gospel?), the obvious point is that it is Jesus who is constitutive for Christian thought. The “good news” that grounds the Christian tradition began with a revelatory event of reconciliation/rupture – i.e. the life, death and resurrection of Jesus brings with it a shattering disturbance of all existing forms of meaning-making and social belonging, so that the Gospels are testaments to the sheer impossibility of articulating the Easter event itself...

I think I can buy this.  Are you saying that the Easter event itself is not metaphysical?  But that every interpretation of that event is from the moment it gets "distance" (in other words the moment it is a perspective and not the moment/event itself) from the actual event, it is incomplete?  So this is why you later mention that there is no such thing as a "pure" gospel cut of from history?

Okay, if I am understanding you correctly, I am with you there.  Any event/moment itself is not metaphysical because it is simply what is.  So the Christ/Easter event simply is.  Obviously, the element of faith is critical here since no one can "prove" the event actually happened.  But this is not necessarily a problem as long as this point is kept intact I think: direct access to the Real is its full immediacy and plentitude - but an enigmatic and perplexing story/challenge/invitation.  If one can accept the Christian invitation, it can be a doorway back into the present or the "presence" of Jesus as I think you have suggested.  

Okay, a question.  I think I understand now why Christianity has to be understood as unique (well one reason).  Because it is based on a unique moment.  So here is my question: is not every moment completely unique?  Every event?  I think Christianity can serve as a reminder of this truth.  But what is it that you are opened up to once one has entered into relationship with Christ?  What is on the other side of the door?  Why does Universitas-Multiplex not apply?  Is what is behind the Christian doorway something different than what is behind a Buddhist doorway? 

I guess I don't see how this is much more than arguments about the surface rather than the heart of reality.  When in Unio-mystica or Satori, is one really concerned with their own special doorway?

That being said, I understand not wanting to reduce the doorways into one another. 

And I understand questioning what is being said when people are coming out of these states (i.e. non-dual is the highest reality or something like that).  This just speaks to the inherent limitations of language.

This also gives me some thoughts about the inter-religious dialogue or whatever we are calling it.

If the following is true: that traditions are basically invitations, and you can't walk through two doors at once.  It is useless to try and argue about the differences in the doorways or even to pretend that the doorways are the same.  We have two options.  I think we should choose both.  Start building new doorways.  And walk through the old doorways and be with each other on the other side.  I know Greg had essentially suggested taking both doorways.  This is also a good idea except it isn't really possible.  Once you have walked through one, it has essentially altered your experience of walking through the second.  I.e. if you have entered a Christian doorway  and then walk through a Zen doorway, you didn't really walk through merely a Zen doorway.  You walked through some type of hybrid.  This is where the "triumphalist" tendency comes from I think.  I think we tend to forget that once you walk through two doors, you have essentially modified the existing architecture.  If you prefer the word Zen, you might say that the Christian door is inside of Zen.  Or vice versa.  But how can we ever determine which is the case?  Walking through these multiple doors is actually constructing new doors once we start interpreting what we have seen.  A "doorway" or tradition is essentially a product of an experience or an event.  Because the tradition is not the event itself. 

Okay, I think I need to pause for a moment to reflect.  I think you have probably considered everything I have said Cam.  At least, things in your post suggest it.  But let me know if I am totally off of understanding you.  I apologize in advance for the places where I have misrepresented you.

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response to Brendan...

Posted November 2nd, 2009 by camfree in response to very interesting

Hi Brendan

Thanks for yr patience and soory about my delayed response, I dont have the time to get online as much as I would like...

But yes you are in the ball park as far as I can tell. To answer yr questions:

Are you saying that the Easter event itself is not metaphysical?  But that every interpretation of that event is from the moment it gets "distance" (in other words the moment it is a perspective and not the moment/event itself) from the actual event, it is incomplete?  So this is why you later mention that there is no such thing as a "pure" gospel cut of from history?

Yes, as soon as we enter into language we are taking a perspective. The Easter event itself is not metaphysical - but neither is the paradoxical language of Jesus, Paul and the Christian mystics, etc... There are also perspectives on this radical singularity that are not metaphysical (at least from a Heideggerian/Derridian point of view)...

You say: I think I understand now why Christianity has to be understood as unique (well one reason).  Because it is based on a unique moment.  So here is my question: is not every moment completely unique?  Every event? 

Yes, I would call this the cruciform nature of existence... Ken talks about each and every moment 'transcending and including' its predecessor in the excerpts to Volume 2 - an idea he gets from Whitehead - the Christian process theologian... So every 'actual occasion' in its immediacy is a kind of crucifixion/resurrection event, as you suggest.

So yes, you get my drift here... Thanks for following this thread, I enjoy your own posts very much too, even if I don't always respond. Kind regards,

Cam--

"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)

 

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I missed this!

Posted November 2nd, 2009 by Balder in response to Orthodoxy Heresy and Christian Origins

Hi, Cameron, I responded below that I would look forward to a response from you, not having seen this previous one you had just offered!  I apologize about that.  I just discovered it this morning and found it engaging and beautifully written.  I will write a response to it soon...

All the best,

B.

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coming soon

Posted October 25th, 2009 by camfree in response to Re: a passion for the impossible

Hi Bruce,

I just want u to know that I will have a response to yr questions in the next couple of days, I have a few other deadlines to deal with as well at the moment, but am enjoying the psycho-spiritual fireworks. Cheers,

Cam--

"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)

 

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Re: coming soon

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Balder in response to coming soon

I look forward to it, as always, Cameron.  :-)

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Integral triumphs with power

Posted October 21st, 2009 by Tom Clearwater

Hi Bruce, thanks as always for your insightful post.  I wanted to reply by saying something like, yah, those tradition-specific inclusivist approaches look to me to be but another form of projecting me onto you, a kind of tradition-based ethnocentrism that sees its own particularity as the centre of the world, no, the universe, and thus closely analogous to what is often branded egoism.

Then it occurred to me that an integral 'solution,' if you will, does the same thing, is in its own way inclusivist and triumphalist and all that.

But I prefer an integral approach, so what's the difference?

The difference, to me, is an integralist approach is more powerful, more explanatory, and more inclusivist.  If these characteristics mark holonic development, an integral approach is more developed.  It seems to me that tradition-specific inclusivism misses or uncomfortably dismisses or overlooks an implication from history.  That implication for me arises within this experiential sequence:

  1. I Christian think my Christian view rocks, is IT, is The Way;
  2. but lo, you-over-there Muslim think the very same about your Muslim view;
  3. and look, I can reasonably conjecture that had I been born and raised as you-Muslim were born and raised, I would hold not my Christian-The-Way view, but your Muslim-The-Way view.
  4. Implication: my view is conditioned and conditional.

Tradition-specific inclusivism disregards, or otherwise interprets, the above-named implication.

In comes an integral inclusivist who says, hey, you're all wrong, err, actually, you're all right, but only so far as my interpretation allows, but on the other hand you're all wrong in thinking you're the centre: my way is the new centre, or reference point perhaps.  Whatever the shape of the positive outlines of an integral view, such as it may become and evolve, integral-negative seems well-formed in certain sectors: the old triumphalism is too small.  But now comes the real work of defining integral-positive, which I find nicely articulated, in at least framework form, here:

In each case, the naive assumption of a single shared 'world' or 'history' or 'reality' is replaced with a relational, dynamically enactive perspective, which holds that we participate in the (historical/evolutionary) enaction of different (in some ways, incommensurate) worldspaces and horizons of meaning.  Worldspaces are not wholly invented from personal or cultural cloth, of course (that's the point of tetra-enaction), but neither can we decisively separate out the constructed aspects from the non-constructed ones (that's would be a fallacy of division).

Enactivity takes up where my above-posited implication leaves off: history and context must be generalized across.  This generalizing of course negates any tradition-specific claim to generality.  Any such claim becomes but a particular data point in the new integral-positive generalization.  Homeomorphism is but one type of such negating generalizing.

We thus seem to be left the task of massaging older generalizations---in the new integral seen as restrictive and development-retarding---into particularities that, while not negated out of existence---these particularities will be the base for the new generalization, the new transcend-and-include---are yet reduced to but lines of inquiry, or some such, bearing some real (ie, homeomorphic or other) equivalence to other lines, any remaining particularities notwithstanding.

Thus does the more powerful integral perspective triumph with a markedly diminished disposition to evangelize.  Christian and other evangelism is old hat, a horse run its course and ready to retire to a more carefree life in the pasture, hey Cam?

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Re: Integral triumphs with power

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to Integral triumphs with power

Huh? Can someone translate this into English?

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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...

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Tom Clearwater in response to Re: Integral triumphs with power

It means what it says: integral is the more developed, more powerful perspective.  It eats other perspectives like a Pac Man.

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Well, I am not pacman generation but...

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Federico Parra in response to ...

 

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: )

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Tom Clearwater in response to Well, I am not pacman generation but...

Nice picture.

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RE: ...

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Greg Mayers in response to ...

So the answer to "What privileges the unprivileged perspective, the Integral one?" is: It's privileged! No "pre-givens" to exaimen. No shadows to uncover. WOW! That certainly leaves poor old Christianity in the dust.

--

Greg Mayers
Zen taught me everything I can do.
Christianity taught me everything I can't do.

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New Wine

Posted October 21st, 2009 by Mary Williams in response to Integral triumphs with power

Hi everyone –

Thanks to each of you for this conversation. It is really making me think!

I'd like to offer a contemporary interpretation of one of Jesus's parables as a possible injunction, from within Judeo-Christianity, to go beyond the old structures, beyond the old triumphalism, and beyond narrow inclusivism, and possibly into that “more carefree life in the pasture” that Tom alluded to…

This is actually an excerpt from one of Fr. Thomas Keating's books, The Kingdom of God is Like …  Keating is discussing the parable from Matthew 9: 14-17 –

“Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, 'Why do we and the Pharisees fast often but your disciples do not fast?' Jesus said to them, 'The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Keating's commentary:

John the Baptist made quite a stir in Israel and attracted many disciples. Jesus was baptized by him and drew his first disciples from among John's followers. John was austere. He wore a loincloth and ate only locusts and wild honey. He practiced much fasting and expected the same of his disciples.

When there are two spiritual teachers or religious communities in the same neighborhood, the loyalties of one group may conflict with the loyalties of another. There may be some mutual denigrating and backbiting. Comparisons may be made between our observance and their observance, our spiritual teacher and their spiritual teacher, our tradition and their tradition.

In this incident, John's disciples were sniping at the disciples of Jesus. They said, “How is it that the Pharisees and we fast and you folks do not?” – implying that Jesus' disciples were not measuring up to the high standards of John's. “Who are you” is the implication of the question, “compared with us?”

Jesus graciously adjusts himself to these human foibles. He responds with a question of his own, “How can the wedding guests go mourning while the bridegroom is with them?” By this question he implies that John's disciples are not seeing the whole picture. They are looking for holiness, but in the wrong place….

Jesus continues, “Nobody sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. That will only make the rip bigger.” And he adds: “People do not pour new wine into old wineskins.” An old wineskin dries out, shrivels, and cracks. If we put new wine into it, the chemicals that are still being processed in the new wine will burst the old skin. The old skin does not have the flexibility to expand with the effervescence.

New wine is a marvelous image of the Holy Spirit. As we move to the intuitive level of consciousness through contemplative prayer, the exuberance of the Spirit cannot be contained in the old structures. They are not flexible enough. They may have to be left aside or adapted. The new wine … breaks out of categories and cannot be contained in neat boxes.

Jesus points out to John's disciples that they have a good practice but are too attached to fasting as a structure. The wine of the Spirit that Jesus brings will not fit into their narrow ideas. They must expand their views. Otherwise, the new wine of the gospel will give them trouble. It will burst the narrow confines of their mindsets, and both what they have and what they are trying to receive will be lost.

Jesus suggests a solution: “Put the new wine into new wineskins.” … If the new wine is to be preserved, new structures have to be found that are more appropriate than the old ones. If we lean too heavily on the old structures, the new wine of the Spirit will be lost…

Is it possible to renovate old wineskins? With a lot of greasing they may regain some flexibility, but not as much as new ones. The process may also take a long time.

What will happen with the renewal of contemplative life among lay folks? We will see new forms of contemplative lifestyles that better serve the new wine with its tendency to expand, to excite, and to go to one's head, so to speak. The new wine is the contemplative dimension of the gospel. Its basic act is consent to the presence and action of the Spirit within us. This consent is directed not to our intentionality but to God's intentionality. The Spirit who loves us first is pouring the wine, not we …

If we consent to God's intentionality, God works in us through the fruits of the Spirit: boundless compassion, joy, peace, and the others enumerated by Paul. No structure can contain such wine. Paul adds, “Those who are moved by the Spirit have no Law.” They are beyond any law because they fulfill the purpose of all laws, which is the continuous flow of divine love and compassion. Thus they fulfill every just law spontaneously.

My thoughts: Although Keating is talking specifically about the effects of contemplative prayer in his commentary here, I wonder if we could also read that passage of scripture, in light of current understandings, as an integral wisdom message: new recognitions and new perspectives – the “new wine” – cannot be contained within old structures. They actually cause the old structure to “burst.” Only more flexible and expansive – enacitivist? – “open pastures” are able to contain the new wine.

And I think we are seeing “new wine” in some of these passages from previous postings in this thread:

“if I were proselytizing for Christianity in a postmetaphysical world, I would do it as an offered betrothal, an invitation to a transformative love relationship.  What happens in that relationship, how that fulfillment looks, is not yet written.  The other's history therefore is not erased or subsumed, but rather invited into the relationship as part of the creative love-play.  You aren't absorbed into the old; you are invited to give yourself to the upwelling of the new.”  
                                  –Balder

“In comes an integral inclusivist who says, hey, you're all wrong, err, actually, you're all right, but only so far as my interpretation allows, but on the other hand you're all wrong in thinking you're the centre: my way is the new centre, or reference point perhaps.  Whatever the shape of the positive outlines of an integral view, such as it may become and evolve, integral-negative seems well-formed in certain sectors: the old triumphalism is too small.”
                                 –Tom

Cheers,

Mary

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Just a note

Posted October 21st, 2009 by Hokai

Thanks, Bruce. Good work!

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Very nice!

Posted October 24th, 2009 by David Marshall

 

Bruce, very nice blog and comments. I think you articulated those ideas very nicely.
 
There is one thing I would like to add with regard to your discussion with Dee, which I gather is in reference to the bias some perceive in AQAL toward the Eastern traditions.
 
It seems to me that at least with Meister Eckhart we have nondual teachings like those in Advaita and Buddhism. There is a discussion about that here. At one point in the discussion Meister Eckhart is quoted as saying, to give just one example, "In truest reality there is no duality."
 
Also, even when the idea wasn't articulated quite so thoroughly and neatly as in the case of  Meister Eckhart, even when Jesus, for example, in the Gospel of Thomas said:
 
When you make the two into one,
And when you make the inner like the outer,
And the outer like the inner,
And the upper like the lower,
And when you make male and female into a single one,
So that the male will not be male nor the female be female,
Then you shall enter the kingdom,
 
aren't they basically referring to the same idea? Isn't that also "not-two-ness," as you say? It may not be "not-one, not-two-ness," but isn't "one without a second" saying the same thing, even though it may sound to some a little more dualistic?
 
They weren't all monists, Angelus Silesius, for example, who said,
 
God is a pure no-thing,
 concealed in now and here:
the less you reach for him,
 the more he will appear.
 
Some nondualists, like Adi Da and Shibayama (the Zen master Wilber speaks of in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality), use the phrase "absolute subjectivity" to describe nonduality. Doesn't this amount to the same idea that at least some of the Christian mystics speak of, which is beyond description in any case?
 
Best,
 
David

 

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Representation of Jesus

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Balder in response to Very nice!

Hi, David, yes, as I said to Dee, there are certainly individuals within the Judeo-Christian tradition who have experienced and described various states or forms of mystical union.  But traditionally, Jesus has not been conceived of as a 'nondual realizer,' and 'nondual enlightenment' has not historically been the aim of orthodox Christianity.  Meister Eckhart and the Gospel of Thomas are both 'fringe' voices in the Christian tradition.  I'm not saying that Christianity doesn't have anything 'like' nondual mystical experience in it; it does.  Rather, I'm saying that, by starting from the position of traditions which consider 'nondual enlightenment' to be ultimate, and then looking for examples of that in Christianity and identifying those examples as the 'heart' or the 'real depth' of Christianity, we are taking an approach which privileges an Eastern soteriological model. 

I'm personally sympathetic with Eastern approaches, and I also prefer to understand Jesus as a mystic of sorts (among other things), but I recognize that Christians feel some misrepresentation going on when we do that (as some Christians on this website will testify), and so I'm trying to honor that.

Best wishes,

B.

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...

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Tom Clearwater in response to Representation of Jesus

I find it interesting that Christianity, in the round, has not developed the mystical union aspect of Jesus' teachings, as that aspect seems to me the core of his stance and perspective.  The western world has of course bent its path strongly toward objecthood and science, which a 2P perspective---that is, an otherness stance---supports.  It looks to me that Christ's teachings were thus subsumed into a large current traveling largely away from, or ignorant of, his basic I and the Father are one teaching.  This is not to undermine the scientific view, which I personally quite appreciate.

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yes

Posted October 24th, 2009 by David Marshall in response to ...

Tom, yes, to a large extent that's how I see it. I acknowledge the point Bruce makes, but at the same time I think it could be said that Christians have often misrepresented Jesus' message and that the integral interpretation is more in line with his view rather than some sort of Eastern-influenced revisionism or distortion.

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wailing & gnashing of teeth

Posted October 24th, 2009 by Dee Black

for one thing .. people have to let go of the bible as the final and only word .. like we once did with the old testament .. it is said love thy neighbor but it's easy to love yours .. the depth comes in how u love those that offend u

there are so few gems as these left in the bible which has become too primitive

too much hellfire and brimstone and wailing and gnashing of teeth for this day

but jesus remains .. he has emerged with us and he's not speaking about who will be cast to the torturers .. he is saying this global community rocks ! more of us to love ! women and blacks and gays and people of every country and even geeks !

and now we have more conscious awareness of the soil of the planet to love and to extend our care and partnership to