Ken Wilber has a new (free) teaching available on the Integral Life website, referred to in some places as "Five Paths to Enlightement" and elsewhere as

Five Reasons You're Not Enlightened

I support and appreciate the effort here to identify and correlate common  (say, homeomorphically equivalent) elements across disparate traditions, and to situate them in an integrative, trans-lineage view or understanding.  However, while I haven't had a chance to listen to the full talk yet, what I've read and heard so far appears to presuppose or suggest one common soteriological end -- one common realization or enlightenment -- for all traditions.  In other words, the perennialist view that says that all paths ultimately meet at the same mountain peak.  I don't think such a view is adequate, and appears also to be out of step with Integral theory's own integral, postmetaphysical, enactive orientation.  What do you think?

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I don't know of a Christian mystic who experiences led them to believe that God doesn't exist. Surely, within the academic study of this field scholars would confirm the truth of this statement. 

From a Christian layperson perspective, I would think that calling the God experience  Unity consciousness would be acceptable. But that Unity spirit within A Christian context still allows for the person of God working within the hearts of human beings. How God does this is a mystery and can't be known through human methods of knowing. IMO., it's the heart where the mystery of God resides; this is what God CARES about. Also,  I've talked to thousands of people in my life who do say that they have experienced God working  in their life in a personal way. So, who knows? I also like the seven days of agnosticism doctrine! 

Let's imagine that I met up with a practising Buddhist on the road in the middle of nowhere . What I would like to imagine that meeting being like is a good natured communion on the awesomeness of the earth and universe. Ultimately, hopefully, the Buddhist and i could part in a good natured way agreeing to disagree on any final authority on the nature of God. We would recognize that the buddha and jesus would not want us to argue over cosmic uncertainties. But we could both agree that love and compassion are integral to both our paths. Notice that the issue of Gods existence or non existence remains unresolved between the two parties and that that is okay. I find for myself, that this method does respect to both paths without asking either party to change their core convictions.

I was an esoteric Christian mystic* and I no longer believe that God exists.** In this wiki one can see that there was a revival of esoteric Christianity with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, which was a heavy influence on Rosicrucianism, which in turn was a heavy influence on the Golden Dawn, BOTA and Freemasonry. I was a member of all three of the latter. PF Case was the founder of BOTA, previously a member of the GD. His book The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order was required reading. Regardie, a member of the GD, wrote My Rosicrucian Adventure, also required reading. The inner order of the GD was called Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis (the Ruby Rose and Cross of Gold) and its lamen is depicted below.

* Ok, technically mystics and magickians are not exactly the same.

** Or in enlightenment, for that matter.

Well, you are rather unique , sir! I certainly know one now. Do you mind if i ask if there was something definitive that made you move away from various forms of theism or traditional metaphysics?? One of my ex's and I wrote a song called 'it's all bullshit'. Also, are you 100% convinced or 99.9999% ? Is there the slightest possibility within you that would concede gods existence?

I was thinking about the idea of non-attachment and was wondering if there might be the possibility of being attached to the idea of non- theism? 

Your second point at the end is worth noting. Kenny still frames the big 3 here in eastern religious jargon. The last thing that most practitioners in CIJ are going to do is convert to esoteric eastern philosophy, so i don't get it. Enlightened atheism might be a better path:)

Does anyone see any utility in this paragraph? 

Let's imagine that I met up with a practising Buddhist on the road in the middle of nowhere . What I would like to imagine that meeting being like is a good natured communion on the awesomeness of the earth and universe. Ultimately, hopefully, the Buddhist and i could part in a good natured way agreeing to disagree on any final authority on the nature of God. We would recognize that the buddha and jesus would not want us to argue over cosmic uncertainties. But we could both agree that love and compassion are integral to both our paths. Notice that the issue of Gods existence or non existence remains unresolved between the two parties and that that is okay. I find for myself, that this method does respect to both paths without asking either party to change their core convictions.

"Are you 100% convinced or 99.9999% ? Is there the slightest possibility within you that would concede gods existence?"

The point is the difference between metaphysics and postmetaphysics. In the latter there is an acceptance of fallibility, that there is always room for progressive knowledge. So it is always open to new evidence and change accordingly. But it also acknowledges that knowledge progresses, hence postmetaphysics is an advance over metaphysics. One of those advances is no longer accepting God as some sort of unchanging essence. And/or creator of the universe. It goes beyond the binary logic of two separate realms of absolute/relative, the former as creator of the latter. We still see this form of logic in kennilingus and the traditional systems he lists above. One can still allow for God in the sense of universals, but not in the metaphysical sense. I equate theism with the latter sense, so in that way atheism is not the equal and opposite of theism but the same advance from metaphysics to postmetaphysics.

But this is also fallible and will progress again with new evidence. Will it likely regress into metaphysics? Unlikely.

Also of note is that the Lingam does not list the sort of process Christianity* of Faber, Keller et al. as one of his paths, and to me this is a much more postmetaphysical form of faith. Unfortunately the only way metaphysical kennilingus can translate this type is as a sort of green relativism when it is in fact popomo.

* But he does list esoteric Christianity, and it is like his other choices metaphysical to the core as I've expounded at length elsewhere. And why I eventually left it when I went postmeta. And which still allows me to accept at least some of the process Christians like those mentioned, and especially Caputo. Although he's technically a de/reconstructive Christian, another branch within my balliwick. Also Cameron Freeman of the latter sort.

Correction. The five paths Kennilingam mentions are not per se metaphysical, just in how he chooses to translate them. I made an extensive case* that Madhyamaka can be interpreted postmetaphysically, but also metaphysically and the Lingam chooses those branches that do the latter.

* In this thread and its predecessor Gaia thread.

FWIW- I line up with your way of thinking on these issues more than Wilber's way. There is to me, something inherently wrong about the way Wilber tries to frame IS to CIJ. It doesn't work! And that is not even bringing up the leave science alone issue. I'm not not sure why a conveyer belt Integral alternate faith won't work. This to me is an easier move for CIJ's than post metaphysical atheism. And it is far less destructive to society than traditional forms of these faiths. I agree with your pomo christian's, too; but not all CIJ's have IQ's over 150. If humanity does survive the next century and I don't think we will, a part of our possible survival will entail religionists becoming non-toxic.

Andrew said:

Does anyone see any utility in this paragraph?

Let's imagine that I met up with a practising Buddhist on the road in the middle of nowhere . What I would like to imagine that meeting being like is a good natured communion on the awesomeness of the earth and universe. Ultimately, hopefully, the Buddhist and i could part in a good natured way agreeing to disagree on any final authority on the nature of God. We would recognize that the buddha and jesus would not want us to argue over cosmic uncertainties. But we could both agree that love and compassion are integral to both our paths. Notice that the issue of Gods existence or non existence remains unresolved between the two parties and that that is okay. I find for myself, that this method does respect to both paths without asking either party to change their core convictions.

If the so-called "Buddhist" is at a barbarian or traditionalist level of emotional development then this meeting will not lead to such agree-to-disagree conviviality.  But if the so-called "Buddhist" is at a humanist or higher level of emotional development than such an outcome is virtually guaranteed regardless of the differences in viewpoint.
Assuming that there are such differences. The Buddhist Order in which I was ordained was, like many, quite open and happy with the concept of God. 
 
But I am now a proponent of "RELIGION, per se". That is to say I view it as the enhancement of the total cultural field which appears as the background of human reality in any epoch.  In our epoch this background is planetary.  Thus my firm position is than an INFIDEL is any person who believes in the existence of religious alternatives. A sectarian is, first and foremost, one who accepts a divide between styles of religion and on that basis ceases to function as a religionizing agent relative to the cultural background.
The very concept of "the indecision between parties about the existence of God" fundamentally mistakes the nature of God.  The two infidels in your story agree about the existence of a Contested God.  But the Contested God is not worth affirming or denying.  Only an Uncontestable God has the philosophical potency to enable the religious convergence of humanity. 
However, there is a temporary and part-way position (which your paragraph articulates) whereby at least open hostility is put aside in favor of a convivial and mutually productive peace between fellow human spiritual practitioners.  This is an old thing.  It is the simplest form of interfaith and one shudders to think that there is anyone who would not desire that interfaith encounters should be at least as pleasant as the one you imagine. But of course we do not yet dwell in the planetary wisdom-civilization!
What you suggest is so easy to embrace that many who would certainly affirm it would also not bother to do so.  It is so readily commended as necessary that one is tempted to secure it by accepting it as "too obvious to even mention".  But the world is NOT yet governed by the subtle!
Since "we all" (sic) affirm such conviviality, what comes next?  It does not go nearly far enough.  We must grow the capacity to inwardly exceed that initial platform of trans-lineage embrace.  The next step will require both an awakening to the generic terminology of enactive spirituality-in-culture AND the acquisition of that sort of ultra-courtesan flexibility which exceeds mutual affirmation in the attempt to integrate even those who cannot tolerate mutual affirmation.
The kernel of apparent incommensurability, the natural antipathy between human types, must be enfolded into the higher interfaith sensibility. The Other's rejection must also be proof of your shared embrace.  Then we have a very strange but potent new basis for interfaith fraternity.

Hi - I'm perusing a few topics this morning as I look for an appropriate thread in which to place a Buddhist Geek's analytical piece on mindfulness.

I find that the occasional perusing of a few of the so many that you all have developed over some years does bring me slightly more up to speed on some ongoing themes. In this case, t's continued distinguishing of post-metaphysical from metaphysical, particularly as it relates to Ken's writing/thinking tendencies, is one theme.

theurj's background in esoteric religions is almost needless to say impressive, including his later post-metaphysical move that can look like atheism.

Andrew produced a personal parable that is easy to relate to.

And as usual, for me, LP informs and invites a fuller more textured integration of oft difficult-to-integrate situations and circumstances. His demand for current appropriate language of radical inclusion becomes an example for this integration (though his language is sometimes hard for me to follow :)) So conviviality, yes, but also being able to feel and know of commonality with, to include, another person or tradition that wants to stay separate and even exclude. It sounds to me to be an analogous degree of difficulty as, "Love thine enemies."

As the thread turns.

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