The Future of Spirituality

[Balder]

 

I received the following announcement from Integral Life regarding a new Integral discussion series entitled, The Future of Spirituality.

 

For those of you who are just hearing about this landmark series for the first time, Ken and Tami explore the development of contemplative practices that open us up to the infinite freedom at the very core of our consciousness (waking up) while also reminding us of the need to fully participate in the ongoing evolution of our lives (growing up).

“The enlightened person of today and of 2,000 years ago is equally free. But now, for the first time in human history, we have the potential for a far more expansive, fuller spiritual experience than ever before possible.” –Ken Wilber

Here's some of what Ken and Tami cover in this remarkable six-part video series:

• Why does spirit want to evolve?
• What is the difference between "waking up" and "growing up" as two distinct and essential processes of evolutionary spirituality?
• How does our place in history and culture shape our personal developmental path?
• How are science and western psychology transforming spirituality?
• Why do spiritual teachers sometimes fail to live up to our expectations?
• Do all spiritual paths lead to the same destination?
• What can we say about reincarnation and life after death?

The Future of Spirituality: Why It Must Be Integral video series begins September 4th. Reserve your place today to experience this new teaching of Integral spirituality from world renown philosopher Ken Wilber.

Learn more and watch a short trailer of the video series.

[Edward theurj Berge]

I agree with the broad parameters but have argued in the forum against the kennlinguist variety on at least 2 fronts. That the contemplative states so achieved (waking up), while certainly necessary to re-connect us to our compassionate roots, needs to be de-mystified and postmetaphysicalized, something not happening in this community.* And that our growing up has to involve (evolve to) the kind of P2P political economy being not only visualized but enacted by the likes of Rifkin and company instead of investing in conscious capitalism.

* Still the emptiness/form dual-nondualism I've examined in depth.

[Balder]

I plan to sign up for this, and look forward to hearing what they discuss, but also wonder if it will contain much that is new.  From the outline above, it sounds largely like a review -- or perhaps a more in-depth discussion (which would be great) -- of material covered in Integral Spirituality and A Sociable God.  Like you, I do not share Ken's particular way of framing / holding Emptiness.  In a recent communication with me, Jorge Ferrer remarked that Wilber has consistently presented a single view of Emptiness (a Zen/Advaita amalgam) and has never discussed the many meanings of this term within Buddhism (as we have covered in many threads on this forum and its previous incarnation).  I think this might be a slight exaggeration -- I would have to look, but I think Wilber might touch on several conceptions of Emptiness in SES -- but still I agree it is largely the case: even if several understandings of Emptiness are acknowledged, basically only one has been presented as valid and "timelessly true" in the bulk of Wilber's writings.

Regarding the bullets above, I am interested in hearing

1)What they mean when they say spirit wants to evolve, and whether he acknowledges this as a metaphysical position.  (I would not object in any way to him holding metaphysical commitments -- as we've discussed, I think they are necessary and generative -- but I nevertheless wonder how this particular commitment is held and justified in a postmetaphysical context...if he gets into that in this discussion). 

2) How they will relate, and differentiate, waking up and growing up (I see them as somewhat entangled)

3) What he will say about the perennial philosophical notion that all religious paths lead to the same destination.  (I think this is still the dominant view within the community.  It is the view presented in a new book on Integral spirituality and inter-spirituality that I just reviewed, pre-publication.)

[Layman Pascal]

In keeping my own ideas about the variations of discourse I feel like contemplative states need be supplemented by a de-mystified, post-metaphysicalized interpretation but this interpretation needs be retroactively understood as what everyone meant all along... but doubtless it is equally or more important to enhance the collective intelligence protocols of so-called capitalism and so-called democracy.  Only an enhanced market-democracy can operate as the mutually generative operator of a contemplative culture.

>How they will relate, and differentiate, waking up and growing up (I see them as somewhat entangled)

I'll bet no one can articulate a non-entangled relationship between these two.

>What he will say about the perennial philosophical notion that all religious paths lead to the same destination.  (I think this is still the dominant view within the community.  It is the view presented in a new book on Integral spirituality and inter-spirituality that I just reviewed, pre-publication.)

It is easy to believe that different variations of the algorithm of practice enact different fractal attractor outcomes.  But it is just as easy to believe that, given time, these variations are so interactive with contingent factors that they "normalize" by increasingly approximating a central variant.  We mustn't be hasty to accept that a pluralist naturalism of religious outcomes is a superior notion to a generic set of phased outcomes.  What we should demand, however, is the minimum fact of having considered the possible variation of plural outcomes.  After that, any claim builds this skepticism into itself.

[Balder]

Pascal:  I'll bet no one can articulate a non-entangled relationship between these two.

I raised the question because of the language in the promotion for this series (and also found elsewhere), where the "horizontal" side of realization (waking up, freedom) is presented as always-the-same, unchanging, which appears to suggest (or can give the impression that he means) that it is wholly independent from growing up (if it is "the same" regardless of how far along the growing up path we have moved).  It doesn't have to be interpreted this way, though, so I'm curious how, and whether, he'll present this.

Pascal:  It is easy to believe that different variations of the algorithm of practice enact different fractal attractor outcomes.  But it is just as easy to believe that, given time, these variations are so interactive with contingent factors that they "normalize" by increasingly approximating a central variant.

By this, do you mean to suggest that it is likely that enough time has already passed that practitioners of various paths all already realize the same normalized central variant?

[Layman Pascal]

Yes, I'm curious as to how he'll present it.  The entanglement must be addressed overtly or covertly.  There isn't much of an option.  Even the totalizing rhetoric of horizontal realization rapidly gives way to a discussion about its simultaneity and/or non-difference from the dynamic realm of differences.  This must be said.  It's all that there is to say in such discussion.  Yet, as you say, we away the style...

>It is easy to believe that different variations of the algorithm of practice enact different fractal attractor outcomes.  But it is just as easy to believe that, given time, these variations are so interactive with contingent factors that they "normalize" by increasingly approximating a central variant.

>By this, do you mean to suggest that it is likely that enough time has already passed that practitioners of various paths all already realize the same normalized central variant?

I mean that either (or both?) divergence or convergent normalizing of paths occur in the degree to which they are implemented.  So, in the case of normalization, it would occur in proportion to the enactment of any particular path by any particular practitioner.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Perhaps a review of Desilet's Integral World excerpts from his latest book Radical Atheism might be of use? On Wilber's use of language on emptiness and form from '06 (but it's apparently the same according to the free snip above):

"His spirituality remains within what Derrida calls a restricted economy. There are two primary indicators for assessing Wilber's approach to spirituality as consistent with a restricted economy: 1) the implicit assumptions about the deep structure of basic oppositions such as Emptiness and Form, timeless and temporal and 2) the dominant role of notions such as unity and union."

More on Desilet here.