The Kosmos Trilogy, Vol. II, Excerpt G: Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Subtle Energies

Part I.  Introduction: From the Great Chain of Being to Postmodernism in Three Easy Steps

Overview

Before we look at what modern science has brought to the picture of subtle energies, let’s look at what the great wisdom traditions have to tell us.  We will then attempt to bring both of them together in an integral theory of subtle energies.
 

The traditional “Great Chain of Being” is usually given as something like: matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit.  In the Vedanta, for example, these are, respectively, the 5 sheaths or levels of Spirit: annamayakosha (the sheath or level made of physical food), the pranamayakosha (the level made of élan vital), the manomayakosha (the level made of mind), the vijnanamayakosha (the level made of higher mind or soul), and anandamayakosha (the level made of transcendental bliss or causal spirit.  Vedanta, of course, adds turiya, or the transcendental ever-present Self, and turiyatita, or the nondual, ever-present, unqualifiable Spirit-as-such, but the simpler five-level scheme will work for our introductory purposes.  We will return to the more “complete” version later.)
 

This five-level Great Chain of Being can be represented schematically as in figure 1.  Although we have to be very careful with cross-cultural comparisons, interpretive schemes similar to this Great Chain or “Great Nest of Being” can be found in most of the wisdom traditions of the “premodern” world, as indicated in figures 2 and 3, which are diagrams used by Huston Smith to indicate the general similarities (or family resemblances) among these traditions.
 

With reference to figure 1, notice that the Great Chain, as conceived by its proponents (from Plotinus to Aurobindo), is indeed more of a Great Nest—or what is often called a “holarchy”—because each senior level goes beyond its junior levels but envelopes them (or “nests” them)—what Plotinus called “a development that is envelopment.”  Each higher level, however, also radically transcends its juniors and can neither be reduced to its juniors nor explained by them.  This is indicated in figure 1 as (A), (A + B), (A + B + C), and so on, which means that each senior level contains elements or qualities that are emergent and nonreducible.
 

For example, when life (A + B) emerges “out of” matter (A), it contains certain qualities (such as sexual reproduction, interior emotions, autopoiesis, élan vital, etc.—all represented by “B”) that cannot be accounted for in strictly the material terms of “A.”  Likewise, when mind (“A + B + C”) emerges out of life, mind contains emergent characteristics (“C”) that cannot be reduced to, nor explained by, life and matter alone.  When soul (“A + B + C + D”) emerges, it transcends mind and life and body.  Evolution, then, is this “unfolding” of Spirit from matter to body to mind to soul to Spirit itself, or the realization of the absolute Spirit that was the Goal and Ground of the entire sequence. 
      

The best introduction to this traditional notion remains Schumacher’s classic A Guide for the Perplexed, a title borrowed from Maimonides’s great exposition on the same topic.  The general idea is of a great holarchy of being and knowing, with the levels of reality in the “outer” world reflected in the levels of self (or levels of “interior” knowing and being), which is particularly suggested by figure 3.
 

But, according to the traditions, this entire process of evolution or “un-folding” could never occur without a prior process of involution or “in-folding.”  Not only can the higher not be explained in terms of the lower, and not only does the higher not actually emerge “out of” the lower, but the reverse of both of those is true, according to the traditions.  That is, the lower dimensions or levels are actually sediments or deposits of the higher dimensions, and they find their meaning because of the higher dimensions of which they are a stepped-down or diluted version.  This sedimentation process is called “involution” or “emanation.”  According to the traditions, before evolution or the unfolding of Spirit can occur, involution or the infolding of Spirit must occur: the higher successively steps down into the lower.  Thus, the higher levels appear to emerge “out of” the lower levels during evolution—for example, life appears to emerge out of matter—because, and only because, they were first deposited there by involution.  You cannot get the higher out of the lower unless the higher were already there, in potential—sleeping, as it were—waiting to emerge.  The “miracle of emergence” is simply Spirit’s creative play in the fields of its own manifestation.
 

Thus, for the traditions, the great cosmic game begins when Spirit throws itself outward, in sport and play (lila, kenosis), to create a manifest universe.  Spirit “loses” itself, “forgets” itself, takes on a magical façade of manyness (maya) in order to have a grand game of hide-and-seek with itself.  Spirit first throws itself outward to create soul, which is a stepped-down and diluted reflection of Spirit; soul then steps down into mind, a paler reflection yet of Spirit’s radiant glory; mind then steps down into life, and life steps down into matter, which is the densest, lowest, least conscious form of Spirit.  We might represent this as: Spirit-as-spirit steps down into Spirit-as-soul, which steps down into Spirit-as-mind, which steps down into Spirit-as-body, which steps down into Spirit-as-matter.  These levels in the Great Nest are all forms of Spirit, but the forms become less and less conscious, less and less aware of their Source and Suchness, less and less alive to their ever-present Ground, even though they are all nevertheless nothing but Spirit-at-play.
 

If we can represent the major emergent stages in evolution as (A), (A + B), (A + B + C), and so on—where the addition signs mean that something is emerging or being added to manifestation—then we could represent involution as the prior subtraction process:  Spirit starts out full and complete, with all of manifestation contained as potential in itself, which we can represent in brackets: [A + B + C + D + E].  Spirit first steps down into manifestation—and begins to “lose” itself in manifestation—by shedding its pure spiritual nature and assuming a manifest, finite, limited form—namely, the soul [A + B + C + D].  The soul has now forgotten “E,” or its radical identity with and as Spirit, and, in the ensuing confusion and angst, the soul flees this terror by stepping down into mind [A + B + C], which has forgotten “D,” its soul radiance; and mind flees into life, forgetting “C,” or its intelligence; and finally life sheds even its vegetative vitality “B” and appears as inert, insentient, lifeless matter, “A”—at which point something like the Big Bang occurs, whereupon matter blows into concrete existence and it appears that in the entire manifest world, there exists nothing but insentient, dead, lifeless matter.
 

But this matter is curiously frisky, is it not?  It doesn’t just seem to lie about, on unemployment insurance, watching TV.  This matter astonishingly begins to wind itself up: “order out of chaos” is what complexity physics calls it—or dissipative structures, or self-organization, or dynamic becoming.  But the traditionalists were more straightforward about it: “God does not remain petrified and dead; the very stones cry out and raise themselves to Spirit,” as Hegel put it.
 

In other words, according to the traditions, once involution has occurred, then evolution begins or can begin, moving from (A) to (A + B) to (A + B + C), and so on, with each major emergent step being but an unfolding or remembering of the higher dimensions that were secretly infolded or sedimented in the lower during involution.  That which was dis-membered, fragmented, and forgotten during involution is re-membered, reunited, made whole, and realized during evolution.  Hence, the doctrine of anamnesis, or Platonic and Vedantic “remembrance,” so common in the traditions: if involution is a forgetting of who you are, evolution is a remembering of who and what you are: tat tvam asi: you are That.  Satori, metanoia, moksha, and wu are some of the classic names for this realization.