More posts on Wilber, Developmentalism, and Non-dualism

Various recent posts I've made on other sites re non-dualism, mostly in dialog with others:

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“...however, like Dzogchen recognition and abidance in rigpa, this doesn't need to exclude other practices that might assist it, and one's wellbeing in general. I mean if it is truly nondual then it can be "not-two" with any activity, right?”

Wrong. The essence of non-dual practice is inactivity, or really, “not doing”. This is why teachers like Papaji are against ALL forms of practice. His recommendation is to do nothing, literally, not even think a thought. Of course, he doesn't consider self-enquiry to be an activity, so that implies how different self-enquiry is from anything else one might “do”. The point is that self-enquiry can't be prepared for or approached by any other means. It's a stepping out of the whole world of ego-activity, even if at first it merely seems to be another activity one “does”. With practice, it becomes clearer, however, that this is simply not the case. But you are right that enquiry can be practiced in the midst of any activity, and is not incompatible with anything. It just isn't compatible with anything either, meaning it doesn't “interface” with any other activity, except perhaps at the level of the witness.

Now of course its true that some practices can be said to assist enquiry. A good diet, basic health practices, etc., but on the other hand none are really necessary. People have become realized with lousy diets and bad health. The point is that such practices are best left to nature. In other words, don't think you have to do ANY of those things in order to be realized, just practice enquiry and surrender. The thing is, if you practice enquiry and surrender, you will find yourself naturally moved to do all kinds of sensible and appropriate things that assist your practice of enquiry. But that's exactly the point, you don't “do” those things, the enquiry moves you to do them spontaneously. A natural integrity begins to come over you, a natural functionality, and you start doing appropriate things without thinking about it, without making systems about it, without some agenda in mind. In the absence of enquiry, all those things have to be organized into a system, an institution, a “tradition”, which is really a way of making the secondary features of true practice the primary activity of religion, and relegating what is at the core to the periphery, even eliminating it altogether. So you end up with all kinds of rules for the things you would naturally do if you practiced simple enquiry, and none of the enquiry. In fact, you usually end up with all kinds of things on your list of practices that you never would have done if you'd actually been practicing enquiry, but somehow the mind began to imagine that these thngs would “help”. Most such help is actually detrimental, and so spiritual traditions are filled with rules and practices that are actually detrimental to the core approach that would have made the way true.

“Perhaps a better analogy than the bungy cord is that of a vessel, a boat. If we want to ride the ocean of life, we need a seaworthy vessel. Even if we realize that we aren't ultimately the boat it will still sink if it has leaks, so at the very least relative world practices provide one with a stronger bodymind vessel. A healthier "me." We are both the ocean and the boat; absolute and relative.”

No, we are not both. We are the ocean. There is no boat. The body-mind is not a boat, it's just a wave in the ocean, not in the least bit apart from it. There is no “wave” as an entity, there is just the ocean in motion, which creates the illusion of a separate wave. But there is no point at which the wave ever becomes a thing, an vessel floating on the ocean that we could call a “boat”. The idea that we need a boat to get “there”, is the primary illusion to be overcome. And that is exactly the point. The building of better boats actually increases one's deluded idea that one is a boat, that one needs a boat, and that we have to study all the details of boat-building in order to reach the other side of the ocean. In fact, we need to stop dreaming that we are boats, realize that we are waves of ocean, completely inseparable from the ocean, and that there is no other side to the ocean to get to. All we are trying to “get to” is our real nature, and the boat-illusion is actually the primary obstruction to seeing our real nature, which is a wave of ocean. So there is no “relative” world. The relative world that thinks we are boats on the ocean is simply a fantasy world. The wave is not “relative” to the ocean, it is the ocean. And the boat is not the ocean, it doesn't even exist. There is no boat, only an ocean in motion.

“Furthermore, leaks are distracting to say the least; following Maslow's basic hierarchy of needs, the higher needs don't become relevant until the lower needs are adequately met, or least come to terms with. For example, if you're hungry you generally don't care about self-actualization; if you don't have a roof over your head--or more accurately, if you deal with basic survival issues and the accompanying sense of fear--then self-transcendence is meaningless.”

I don't consider non-dualism, or self-enquiry, to be a higher practice, or the fulfillment of a higher need. To do so would be to place it in opposition to lower practices and lower needs. This is part of Wilber's error. Non-dualism is a fundamental need, not to be confused with a higher need. It's simply the need we all have for reality. It's applicable to everyone, regardless of whether they are at a “higher” or “lower” level. By placing non-dualism at the apex of his system, he's made it into an elitist phenomena only for the “higher types”. Adi Da makes the same error. And he's also made it into something other than non-dualism. He seems not to understand the relationship non-dualism has to the hierarchies of life. It isn't in the hierarchy, it isn't a part of that game. It's the reality in which hierarchy arises. It's the reality in which the dream arises. So it plays no favorites within the dream, and it isn't attainable by rising through the hierarchies of the dream. Again, it's simply reality, what is, rather than what the mind thinks and perceives.

Non-dualism isn't in conflict with conditional needs. It just isn't one of them, and it doesn't respond to them specifically. It treats them the same way the body treats digestion. You don't spend time thinking about it, it just happens in a fairly orderly, automatic way. As Nisargadatta says, he doesn't really pay any attention to all his worldly interactions, even though to others it seems that he's sharp as a tack and on top of it all. In his view, he's hardly aware of all that, the same way we aren't aware of our digestion for the most part.

The kind of problem you are talking about, I think arises when people have misconceptions about non-dualism, and as Wilber or Da does, tries to put it on the top of a hierarchical pyramid, which only serves those who think of themselves as top-of-the-pyramid types. It confuses everyone, including themselves, and makes nothing but problems. The solution is simple, but most of these types don't want to take it because it means giving up their privileges and status. And ordinary people are confused because they think they have to someone “balance” their higher and lower needs, The primary need we all have is for reality. Everything else is secondary. You can't play a balancing act with primary needs. Oxygen, for example, is a primary bodily need. Food is secondary. You can't balance your need for oxygen, it's a fundamental need that can't be compromised. You can go without food for days and weeks, but you need oxygen every minute. You can balance your need for food with your need for exercise, say, but you can't balance your need for oxygen with anything else.

“I tend to agree with Gurdjieff when he said that freedom is not de-programming, but being free to choose what program one is running. To be completely de-programmed is not only a myth, imo, but not necessary or desirable (if I may use that word in a positive sense ).”

I don't think deprogramming has anything to do with it. It's about transcendence. Which to be honest isn't something I think Gurdjieff knew much about. I agree that one can't be fully deprogrammed, but one can transcend all samskaras, which is a bit different.

“As I see it, nonduality and integralism aren't antithetical. Just as "striving" and "abiding" (or resting in Self) aren't contradictory, because striving is the movement of the Self in time and space.”

The Self doesn't move through time and space. The Self doesn't exist in time and space. Time and space exist in the Self. These kinds of misunderstandings lead to all kinds of problems. The one who strives in time and space is not the Self. That's the ego, the false sense of being a separate self. That whole perspective is an illusion that can never be made real. It doesn't mean that reality sees illusion in opposition to itself. Nor does it mean that the needs of the body are illusory. But the needs of the ego are. I don't really know what “integralism” means, but I gather it means regaining the integrity for the body-mind. This is a project that can never be accomplished by trying to integrate all one's parts and pieces. Real integrity comes from reality itself, from being real, which makes one honest and strong in all the most basic ways. Non-dualism is the nature of reality, and if the integral movement bases itself in non-dualism, then it will achieve integrity. But if it bases itself in a dualistic striving for integrity, for wholeness, it won't ever get there. I think there are problems with Wilber's approach that he is blind to, because he doesn't want to give up the things which the dualistic approach seem to offer him. Of course, that's true of all of us in our own way.

*****

I think you bring up a lot of good questions.

1) I don't think many teachers do exhibit clear non-dual realizaiton. The only living ones I've come across right now are Lakshmana Swami and Muthra Sri Sarada. There are probably more of them, I just don't know of any. There are of course quite a few others who have left books and instructions on non-dualism behind, such as Ramana and Niz.

2) I think the best non-dual teachers really only teach about non-dualism. They don't seem to bother with developmental teachings. And likewise, I think it may be true that the best developmental teachers only teach that, and don't try to mix non-dualism in with it. Ramana and Niz and their like don't seem to bother teaching developmental processes. It's not that they are opposed to it at all, it's just not something they feel they need to discuss. Why should they? They are two entirely different approaches. I think WIlber and Da get into big problems by trying to mix the two. It gets heavily into that "have your cake and eat it" mentality that produces spiritual psychosis. I think the problems WIlber tries to address in Da - what he sees as highly developed spiritual capacity along with poorly developed human capacities, is actually not that at all - its just what happens when you try to mix developmentalism with non-dualism. THe two simply do not mix, and they produce a psychosis when anyone tries. Da's psychosis is a product of that attempt to mix the two, to have one's cake and eat it. And Wilber is actually experiencing problems of his own, to a much lesser degree, because he is trying to mix the two also. It seems to produce a kind of megalomania of developmentalism, blocking both, actually.

I think those teachers who try to teach about all aspects of life are heading for trouble, since illusion and reality simply don't mix. If one is going to teach the ego how to be the ego, it's best to do that right. If you want to learn how to transcend egoity, you do something entirely different. And that's as it should be.

3) I think people who practice enquiry tend to become more sane and balanced in their lives, and this in turn helps them practice enquiry with greater strength and clarity. There's no need to try to become more sane and balanced to help prepare for enquiry, it will happen naturally if you simply practice enquiry. The approach is to simply be free, and this allows a natural development of the person without trying to direct it or "integrate" it in some self-conscious way.

4) This is a contradiction. Why would anyone who is inquiring into the non-dual eschew other development? They may not put much attention on personal development, but one will develop in any case. Life is a pattern of growth, it can't be stopped unless one obstructs it. Enquiry isn't a way of eschewing development, its a way of eschewing seeking, including seeking for development. But even if one doesn't seek development, it occurs naturally, and actually more sanely and simply than it might otherwise appear.

5) I think it does make sense to attend to the core primarily, and let the periphery develop naturally in tandem with the core work. I wouldn't say the core is all that matters, but it's what makes the rest work out. If the core is healthy, it will bring the rest of the being into a state of health. If the core isn't healthy, no amount of developmental work will do any good.

As for the approach to non-dualism, I think the best way of describing it is not as the pinnacle, or the goal, but as the foundation, the base, the core, of any developmental path. It certainly is true that development proceeds best, I think, from a non-dual base. It's just that such a system would have no "plan", other than to practice the non-dual base, and let life naturally build from there. You would find out in due course what developments will occur, and which are necessary and which are not. My guess is that very little is actually necessary, but much will simply happen in due course anyway. All kinds of things will likely arise spontaneously, from simple human development to God knows what kinds of talents and abilities. Or very little of it will appear. But really, who wants a developmental path in which you don't even try to develop, where development just happens naturally? How are you going to get anyone to tithe? Who will pay $50,000 to get monthly conference calls with you to help guide their development, when it all comes naturally and effortlessly? I don't see much of a future in such a developmental process.

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Jimsun,

I really like this:

Mainly the point seems to be that inquiry could sometimes be practiced to only a limited degree and with some murky motives lying unnoticed deep within. If that's the case, then folly will proceed from there, even while the person may realize to some degree and express that

I think that hits the nail on the head. That seems to be the general usage of non-dual practice among the "integral" set, WIlber included. They notice that a little bit of non-dual practice actually jumpstarts the whole developmental process, but then instead of keeping the focus on the non-dual process itself, they leap onto the developmental possibilities unleashed, and try to make themselves into ubermensch integral people, the "fantastic" types of guys you see in the David Deida, Wilber, Tony RObbins crowd. This is just seeking going by the name "integral". It isn't actually integral at all, but trying to develop the ego into a great guy with a finger in every pie.

All the development schemes among people who acknowledge the non-dual seem to be an attempt to reduce this folly

Yes, they do try to reduce the folly, because they don't want to be fools. They want to be righteous and great men and women. But what they are really trying to do is trying to have their cake and eat it, and also not get fat to boot. So they not only use non-dualism as a fuel for their cake eating plans, they also think they can avoid the consequences of that. The problem is, this is not possible. You can't have your cake and eat it, and if you do, it will bring harm to you over time. You will not integrate, but begin to dis-integrate. You will begin to show the signs of psychosis, megalomania, and general problematic living that attends every kind of seeking. They notice these problems in others, like WIlber noticing Da's problems, and they want to avoid these problems by better "integrating" themselves, but they don't comprehend that the root of their problem isn't uneven development, it's choosing developmental practice over non-dual practice, and making developmentalism a form of the search rather than simply a natural and homely outgrowth of non-dual practice.

Da once had a great line about this kind of thing, in one of his poems:

Those who do not understand only find power for their lust in holy places.

Too bad he didn't heed his own warnings.

I think Da is simply an extreme example of this problem. He knew something of non-dual practice also, but he was more interested in personal development, becoming the Great Avatar. He never gave that up. Even after his "realization", he continued to pursue a developmental approach, not only for his students, but for himself. And development conceived on a grand, imperial scale. This is an example of trying to mix egoity and non-dualism. One gets merely a hugely inflated ego, the more one is "successful" at it. But that ego then disintegrates, rather than integrates, and you see the long slow degeneration of Adidam, and something on a much simpler scale with Wilber and I-I. This is what happens when the non-dual process is made secondary to the developmental process. It reverses the order of things, and this then reverses the benefits of non-dual practice. One can only suck off that juice for a time before it turns toxic. True realizers know this, and never reverse their priorities. So they neither become developmental
"giants", nor do they turn into monsters. How many realizers were "great guys" on the order of Tony Robbins? None. They were pretty ordinary, reasonably friendly and so on, but not "great guys". They didn't much care about extending the developmental process beyond what was naturally fruitful. They let it be whatever it was going to be. They didn't try to be rich and famous as Wilber and Da are trying. Sometimes that happened, but with little effort on their part.

As for the traditional structures, yes, there's something saner about some of them, but let's not pretend the traditions were all about realization either. They had lots of problems, lots of abuses, lots of seeking. and few of them were pure about the non-dual approach. Ramana's teaching is a way of purifying a lot of that, as with others of the neo-Advaitic approach. But these guys were not fully familiar with the new forms of egoity the west would bring to the table, and use even their teachings in a degraded form, as with Andrew Cohen bastardizing Papaji's teachings, etc., and then of course Da, Wilber, Deida, Bonder, etc. What's needed is a western realizer who can address these kinds of things. Da was supposed to be that guy, but turned out to be a false prophet. The only westerner I've heard of who became realized is Maurice Freedman, who was with Ramana and later became Niz's translator. Niz himself said theat Freedman was a jnani, about the only guy he ever acknowledged as such. Niz's "I Am That" book was compiled by Freedman, and it's an incredible book for that reason perhaps. David Godman says there was one other westerner he saw Niz seem to acknowledge as being realized, but he never became a public teacher to his knowledge. So it seems like we all just have to make do with the mess we have, and not wait for the messiah to come and straighten it all out for us.

*****

Heru,

I haven't forgotten our other thread. I have a half-written reply I'll post later, but I thought I'd butt in here myself between you and Kang.

If you are talking about consciousness itself than I agree; if you are talking about individual bodyminds, than I don't agree (that duality/life is our own creation).

You can disagree if you like, but these are the basic teachings of the non-dualists such as Ramana and Niz, and many Buddhists as well (not all though). And this is one of the problems with non-dualism: it contradicts our common-sense view of the world. Rejecting it is fine, not only as far as I am concerned, but as far as Ramana and Niz are concerned also. They don't recommend that you just accept and believe this as a matter of dogma, but that you investigate it. But they also say you shouldn't accept and believe that the world exists on its own either, unless you have actually investigated and determined that it is so. So the non-dualists aren't asking you to reject the world as unreal, but to find out what is real. What they will point out to you is that whether the world is real or not, it isn't YOU, and therefore you can't directly determine its reality. You have to first determine your own reality, and then see what the world is. They say that having done that they can clearly say that the world is simply a projection of the Self via the mind.

But are we creating reality moment to moment? Or is it creating itself and "we" are experiencing it, part of it?

Good questions. How will you answer them? The non-dualists suggest you must investigate the nature of the "I" first, that the world of objects is essentially an unknowlable mystery until you have discovered your true Self. Do you have some other plan that doesn't involve simply accepting the world as something that creates itself and that "we" experience?

What is your vision of what "enlightened life" would look like? In other words, if one realizes what you are talking about, how would they live? And if an entire culture realized this, what would it be like?

It's fairly simple. Look at someone you have some trust in as a realizer. Look at Ramana, Niz, Papaji, Lakshmana, Annamalai, Anandamayi Ma, etc. I would gather that's what enlightened people look like. How did they live? Fairly simply. They were teachers of course, so that took up a lot of their time, but their living was relatively simple, modest, with a great deal of integrity and responsibility. They didn't pursue much, they didn't avoid much, they lived with clarity and love and an attitude of helping others. I think that looks pretty good. They were not perfect, or pursuing perfection, but they had no serious faults that I'm aware of. As for an entire culture, well, just imagine a lot of people like that. Sane, happy, responsible people who have nothing to prove or attain, and don't need very much either. It wouldn't look much like today's world, or anything like Adidam either. It would probably be incredibly boring to most people who weren't realized. And it probably wouldn't last long either. Why would those people want to extend their lifespans. Dying means nothing to such people, and living is just the perpetuation of an unnecessary dream. If you were lucid dreaming, would you stay asleep any longer than you had to? No, you'd wake up. The real question, the unanswerable question is, what do they wake up to? What is existence like without this dream going on? That we can't answer in the dream itself. Only on waking can we say, but who will we say it to?

I am reminded of the somewhat famous Ramakrishna quote: "I don't want to be sugar I want to taste it!" The nonduality that you describe seems to equate with "being sugar," whereas "tasting sugar" is duality. Why not both?

Someone once asked Ramana about his famous quote, and his answer pretty well demolishes Ramakrishna's presumptions. He pointed out that the analogy is a false one, because sugar is an inert substance, whereas consciousness is the living substance of reality. So "being consciousness" is not like being some inert substance that can't be aware of itself, that can't enjoy itself, like sugar. Being consciousness is being fully conscious of oneself, tasting oneself continuously, without any intermediary, no tongue and spoon necessary, no object to have to put attention on, but constantly being the very thing one is tasting. So having both means being consciousness, just as Ramana said.

So we have a few options:

1) Duality, or conditioned existence
2) Nonduality, nonconditioned existence
3) Duality enfolded within nonduality, or "integral nonduality"

As I see it, "true" nonduality is number 3 anyways and includes embodiment--so why not embrace that? It seems an artificial, even conditioned, construct to try to rest in nonduality without embracing the arising currents of duality.


The problem here is that you are conceiving of non-duality as a philosophical issue, and treating it as a logical paradox that excluding anything, even duality, makes it non-duality. And it's true, from the perspective of non-duality, there is nothing to exclude, there is no dualistic world, there is only non-dual reality. But non-dual realizers are aware that non-realizers don't realize non-duality, they don't grasp who they are or where they are, or comprehend the nature of the world. So to teach dualists living in a dualistic illusion about non-duality, they have to teach them to discriminate, to reject what is unreal, and put their attention on the real, which is only found in the Self position, not in objects. Living in dualism negates the unity of non-dualism, so the non-dual teachigns can't be approached by the internal logic of non-dualism. They have to be approached through the lense of dualism, which means they have to exclude, rather than include, what is dualistic. The non-dualist realizer doesn't include the dualistic either, simply because he can't find anything that is dualistic. He sees no objects, he has no mind, the world that we see is not visible to him, he sees another world entirely, a real world, a non-dual reality. It's not as if he sees objects, but excludes them somehow. Da's "sixth stage exclusion" critique doesn't apply. These guys are not excluding anything. They simply understand that no "things" exist. They see only what does exist. When they teach others, they are not aware of those people being "other". They seem to be themselves. They are teaching themselves to recognize themselves. The dualistic vision isn't something real which can be excluded, its a dream which simply evaporates, like the snake mistakenly seen in the rope. Are people who see only the rope, and not the snake, excluding the snake from their consciousness? Of course not. There's nothing to exclude. The snake never existed. Likewise, the dualistic world never existed. All our fears and convictions based on separation are imaginary ande baseless. So realizers don't teach you how to develop powers of snake-charming, how to integrate the snake into the non-dual view, or how to integrate non-dualism into the snake view. You can't integrate reality and an illusion. All you would get then is an illusory form of non-dualism, which unfortunately is what you get with Da, Wilber, and their like. Real non-dualism is pure and true to itself, and does not compromise with dualistic views. It doesn't try to integrate dualistic views, and dualistic "realities" into its view. And it won't allow dualistic views to co-opt its reality for dualistic purposes, however well-meaning.

Wilber and evolution

I thought I'd repost a few posts I did recently on the Lightmind Wilber Forum regaridng Wilber's views on evolution:

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Wilber says he did grad work in the field, but wouldn't that have been back in the '70's? True, back then neo-Darwinism had lots of holes in it. Since then, a lot of the holes have been filled, and more are getting filled all the time with research on the genetic and micromolecular side of things. I don't think it's true anymore that privately evolutionary biologists have any great problems with neo-D or with natural selection. The way proteins evolve and operate in the organism is being uncovered, and these processes put the creationists, integral or Christian, to shame.

My own view used to be somewhat similar to Wilber's and Da's. But as these advances have shown, it's actually entirely possible to see natural selection working with the chemistry available on earth to evolve all the creatures from black dirt to human beings. There really is no need for intelligent design in the process. Which means that if we still want to see a consciousness principle at work, I think we have to take a step back, and realize that if the phsycial universe arises from consciousness, doesn't it make sense that it would necessarily arise with all the capacities, in and of itself, to produce conscious creatures like us, without some kind of "outside" help? Wilber is still holding out for some kind of conscious "life principle" that is apart from matter which produces consicous beings and guides the forms as they evolve. But why wouldthat have to be? Isn't matter, by its very nature, conscious? And if it is conscious, isn't it possible for it to evolve into conscious forms all by itself? Why would it need someone or something "else"?

*****

I think you're right about Wilber's intentions. The problem is that he looks for "holes" in the science in order to introduce a metaphysical solution. He doesn't think that science can actually come up with sufficient scientific answers to explain physical processes, and so science must be integrated with metaphysics, and concepts such as eros. Here's where I think Wilber goes wrong. His concept of integration is falsely applied at the wrong level. He's trying to introduce metaphysics at the level of the evidentiary argument, which it has no place in. The evidentiary argument leads to theories of evidence, not metaphysical theories. Eros is not an evidentiary argument. He woud be fine arguing that the metaphysical conclusions of many scientists are wrong, and that they shouldn't interpret the scientific evidence as meaning that the universe is a dead end of mere matter without consciousness playing a role. But he shoulodn't try to argue that by suggesting that holes in the evidentiary arguments mean that his metaphysical argument carries more weight. It doesn't at all. Holes in Darwinian theory can only be filled by evidentiary arguments and theories, not by metaphysical theories. What holes exist in Darwinian theory can either be filled by evidence supporting Darwinian theory, or evidence supporting some other mechanism for evolution, or for mutations, etc. It can't be filled by an "erotic" theory of evolution, unless of course there is a postulated mechanism that can be tested and proven more true than Darwinian theory. As it stands, his "eros" theory is nothing but a hole, it has no proposed mechanism at all, just like ID theory. Both are metaphysical theories, not evidentiary ones, and so they are neither supported nor denied by evidence, except to the degree that they claim the evidence supports or denies them. That can be refuted easily enough, since there is no evidence supporting or denying them.

Who's to say, for example, that the grand "design" of God, Yahweh, or Consciousness, isn't a universe where matter is able, all on its own, to create living forms that evolve without any other guidance but their own "nature", meaning natural laws of physics. If Wilber is so sure that consciousness is the foundation of all life and the universe, why doesn't he give matter itself credit for being conscious, and for being full capable of evolving into intelligent beings as a simple expression of its own nature? Why must he try to look for evidence of holes in Darwinian theory through which he can push through some "erotic" principle. Maybe the true "erotic" principle of the universe is the capability matter has for forming greater and more complexs conscious forms, including biological life? If science hasn't yet fully understood the ways in which matter does this, why presume this means some "other" eroticism must be responsible. Perhaps matter is erotic enough all on tis own, and the capability matter has to evolve is promiscuity enough to create all the life we know, and all that we have yet to know, by all the complexities of natural law, including mutation and natural selection.

Or am I missing something here?

*****

I don't have a problem with WIlber's metaphysical eros principle. It's similar to shiva-shakti, and other sexual metaphors for the metaphysics of the universe. But I do have a problem with his mixing metaphysics with physics, at least without evidentiary foundations. I think its fine for him to criticize the metaphysical conclusions science comes and suggest a far better metaphysical view. I too think that many scientists get a lttle bonkersw when they think they can draw metaphysical conclusions from their physical theories and evidence. Stephen Hawking's metaphysicas is puerile, I think, even though his physics is sublime. And likewise, I think Wilber runs into real problems when he tries to impose his metaphysical explanations for evolution on the physical sciences, or tries to look for holes in the science through which to drive a metaphysical truck. Holes in science can only be filled with scientific cement. The metaphysical relationship between matter and subtler principles of consciousness has yet to be well understood, but the idea that there is some "intelligence" out there directing evolution is sorely lacking in evidence. THere is every appearance of randomness and chaos being sorted out by physical law and natural selection.

Again, what is so "unconscious" about matter? IF consciousness is the foundation intelligence of the universe, why shouldn't it be fully able to fiunction not only through, but as physical matter? Is not all matter actually consciousness? Is not the mathematics of physical law evidence enough of the "intelligence" of the physical universe? The universe functions by a mathematics far more abstruse than our minds seem able to fully grasp - isn't that the sign of a highly intelligent consciousness? In other words, the erotic theory of a universe in action is neither at war with a universe functioning by physical law, nor does it point to a "higher" principle. Matter is the higher principle already.

In other words, the problems of evolution, the "half-wing" contradicitons that Ken sees, do not need a metaphysical explanation. They need physical mechanisms. I know what Wilber would like to find: some kind of subtle intelligence that draws out "directed" mutations, and favors them for natural selection. This is no different than the primitive, mythic creator God in new age garb, interferring somehow with the physical world to guide the evolution of higher intelligence. Well shit, if that were the case, why would God take 4 billion years to evolve us from the primordial soup? Withthat kind of help, you'd think it could be done a helluva lot faster. Fact is, there is no evidence of such "intelligent guidance" of any kind. There is evidence of a truly random, chaotic wheel of physical laws spinning out forms in a very slow-moving natural process.

Perhaps what WIlber really doesn't like about all this is the same thing that Einstein didn't like: the notion that "God doesn't play dice". Randomness and chaos seems to be an affront to all things spiritual. But that doesn't mean that randomness and chaos aren't the way the universe works, or even that randomness and chaos aren't a form of spiritual intelligence. Coming to grips with the sheer randomness of the contents of consciousness is, I think, one of the great steps that has to be taken to deal with reality, and to transcend the illusions of hw othe ego would like the universe to be. My sense is that the great realizers were those who observed and accepted the universe as a random process, and didn't react to that, but transcended it instead. An orderly universe suggests that we could make sense of it, rather than transcend it, whereas a chaotic universe can't really be manipulated to our benefit, not eternally at least, and not even for very lopng before chance just wears you down and breaks you.

So in some ways WIlber's whole systematizing project is an attempt to bring order out of chaos, but ultimately it's just a futile enterprise. Vanity of vanities. Transcending chaos doesn't mean bringing order to it.

Burning Out

Kang said...

Well, this is very nice. Of course, you don't need my support on this, but what the hey, it doesn't hurt, does it?

Actually, I don't think there is anything I would add to what you've said here. "Releasing the core identification with the feeling of 'I' ". Indeed!!! Brilliant.

So we must (ironically) view these developmental apologists as immature, mustn't we? But that implies that they will mature into enlightenment, which would give credence to a developmental view. Or is it more accurate to say they are a phenomenon of maya? I support the latter. One continues striving toward a mirage as long as there is hope that it will quench our thirst. When the contrary is realized, all striving and willful developmental progress come to an end.

That brings up another question that came to mind while I was reading your entry. There must be some operative notion in these developmentalists that "free will" is true, that they can choose or not to engage in the process. Oh, it is all nothing more than elaborations on the feeling of "I" after all, isn't it.

It all becomes moot once that root is recognized and released.


Broken Yogi replied:

Kang,

It is nice to get feedback, especially of the positive variety!

You're right that there's no sense in considering the developmentalists as "immature". They are just going down a particular path of seeking that suits them for karmic reasons. It's a samskara is all. I'm of the view that virtually all paths of seeking are pretty much the same, and all of them eventually burn themselves out, and reveal their inadequacy. At that point, they begin to fall in on themselves, and that's when this core practice of feeling and releasing the "I" sense comes more and more into consciousness, and begins to crowd out everything else. So it's not as if there's a particular path of seeking that is closer to that than any other path. We can "burn" out while seeking beer and cigarettes just as well as while seeking higher stages of consciousness. And many realizers have basically jumped off at that stage. I was corresponding with a guy at Ramanashram recently who pointed out that the saint who actually made tiruvanamalai famous 4 centuries ago waa a thief and general bad guy who suddenly just threw it all away and went down the non-dual path to realization. Similar stories hold=s true for some of the great mahasiddhas of the past.

Papaji used to say that the spiritual path you take up, the practices you take on, are completely beside the point, what matters is the intensity of your desire and need for freedom. It's that impulse that actually carries you through to realization, not the path. Eventually, all paths end up at self-enquiry, not because that's the developmental peak, but because when everything else falls apart, that's all that's left. It's at the bottom, so to speak, of everything.

So Wilber I would say is really not doing so bad in that sense. True, his developmental model is wrongly conceived, and it simply won't get him to enlightenment, but the intensity with which he pursues it speaks well for him.

Papaji used to practice devotional worship all day long, doing the Ram mantra 100,000 times a day, until one day he just couldn't do it anymore. THe words wouldn't come, he couldn't even think the thought Ram. So he went to Ramana for help, explained the situation, and Ramana asked, "How did you get here today?" Papaji said he took the train from Madras. Ramana asked, "Where is the train now?" Papaji said, "It's gone back to Madras." Ramana said. "It's the same with your mantra. It's taken you as far as it can, and now you don't need it anymore, so it has gone away." Ramana then gave him the most basic instruction in self-enquiry, and in a flash Papaji realized the Self. He said later that it was obvious that his practice of mantra and devotion had actually done nothing for him in itself, it was just the sheer intensity with which he engaged it that brought him to the "end of the line".

So I don't think that we can really look down on anyone's search. Some seem more ridiculous than others, but none get to the goal. Only the intensity that results in complete frustration with the path of seeking gets one to the door, and only enquiry into one's self-nature opens the door. But we can of course become completely disenchanted without our seeking at any time. One need not wait. But complete disenchantment is indeed necessary. That's why I say the "developmental" path, if you could call it that, for non-dualism, is a negative one, the dropping away of all things, all levels and ideas and conceptions, all seeking, not the fulfillment or the integration of them. Unless of course one conceives of integration itself in purely negative terms, which I don't think Wilber does. The old Hindu/Buddhist view of all levels and attainments as simply vasanas or samskaras is the correct view, and enlightenment is the nirvanic ending of all such things, which is the same as simply practicing radical self-enquiry or self-surrender.

Transcending identification and all spiral paths

For some reason I keep wanting to write about the Wilberian integral theory. First, let me repeat that I'm not opposed to most of what Wilber says and thinks. I don't even know most of what he says. I'm not opposed to developmental theories either. I think they are important and useful. I just think they need to reflect realities rather than nice neat theories.

As said already, I don't think mixing developmental theory with non-dualism works. But I can understand the desire to make it work. When I was younger I too thought it would be a good project to try to bridge the gap between academia, western philosophy, and spirituality, and to extend the reach of spiritual development beyond the backwardness of western monotheism to eastern non-dualism. That's part of why I became involved in Adidam. I imagine similar notions attacted Wilber to Adi Da also. It took me decades to grasp that the project doesn't work. I was helped along by Da's own breakdown into such an extreme of fundamentalist megalomania that I had to start asking some very basic questions about what went wrong. Part of that involved a study of cultism and fundamentalism, and part of it involved a study of more pure non-dualist teachings. And part of that led me to question many of the features of Da's teachings, not just the obvious cultist errors. One of those features was the whole developmental model. At first I simply looked at the insufficiencies of the seven stages model. It's obvious that the seven stages model carries with it all kinds of political and cultic baggage, but that alone isn't enough to discredit it. What really breaks it down is the whole notion of developmentalism itself and its relation to non-dualism.

To give Adi Da credit where credit is due, he doesn't actually subscribe to his own seven stages model. He just uses it to criticize other teachers and teachings. His own model for spiritual development has a relation to the seven stages model. but basically it doesn't go by the same stages and levels. It's a complex model, and not worth going into here, but its still a developmental model. It has some serious defects to it, but it at least goes partway towards trying to resolve the "you can't get there from here" problems of Wilber's developmental model. He seems to understand something of the problem of trying to practice the development of our human potential as a springboard to non-dual realization, that this simply doesn't work, because it places too much attention on the conditional self. His idea is to introduce what he considers the primary non-dual practice - contemplation of the Guru - as the context of all other practices. The problem is that he mixes this practice in with all kinds of problem-solving attention to the most mundane level of nonesense - not just personal development nonsense, but ridiculous forms of "service" to the Guru, cultic worship of the Guru, etc. But at least there's the seed of a true approach there. With a better Guru, one without all kinds of egoic needs and demands, the principle could hold true.

That principle is brought out most effectively in the non-dual teachings of some of the other modern teachers I've come across. In the teachings of Lakshmana Swami, an enlightened devotee of Ramana, the Guru-devotee relationship is considered supremely effective. His principle devotee, Muthra Sri Sarada, practiced nothing but devotional surrender to him. In her case, the process completed itself in just four years, and she realized the Self at the age of 20. It contained none of the nonsense one finds in Adidam, and a relationship of simple integrity and one-pointed practice. Devotional surrender of this kind is not different from enquiry itself, it's just a different form of the same basic practice. But the principle is that one does just that, and essentially not much else except for basic common sense and support. There's no grand developmental modelling necessary, no oedipal considerations necessary, no passing through all kinds of stages and levels. Of course, to be sure, there's got to be some kind of growth in the process of surrender in her case, and that probably does involve growth through some kinds of levels and maturity. Just not of the variety and complexity that either Da or Wilber describe.

The non-dual process isn't the same as the human evolutionary developmental process. Wilber doesn't seem to understand that. He seems to look upon non-dual realization as the ultimate stage of human development, like Da, whereas it isn't within the evolutionary process at all. It's a transcendent step outside the evolutionary process. It can take place at any time within the evolutionary process, from the lowest to the highest phase of complexity and development. Among humans, it generally appears only when a basic maturity takes place, but not much more than that seems to be required. The sign of it is not great evolutionary development, but a disenchantment with evolutionary potential and its promises of ever "higher" achievement. Human evolutionary development is a great and good thing, but that's the problem - greatness and goodness are dualistic qualities. Non-dualism is neither great nor good. It transcends them.

That said, I have no problem with developmentalism itself, with helping it along as best as we can. If Wilber can help that process, bully for him. I can't really say how good Wilber's integral theory and map are. I do see some basic problems with it, just at the level of structure. As mentioned, I see a lack of appreciation for the cyclical nature of development. Wilber tries to include this by describing a spiral of development. But this doesn't take into account the fact that spirals are just a way of travelling in circles, and don't ever get anywhere. The idea, I guess, is that if you keep spirally outward, eventually you will get to infinity. After infinite time passes, unfortunately. But this doesn't acknowledge that levels can be lost, that as far as one might spiral outward, one will eventually spiral back inward. Whatever goes up, must come down. This should be a fundamental law of any integral theory that really wants to be taken seriously. This truth is found in many spiritual traditions. In Hinduism, for example, it is acknowledged that there are great heaven worlds that one can attain, but that even these are only temporary, and eventually one will fall back into human birth, or even less. So development does travel in spirals, ups and down.

I'd like to suggest another kind of spiral, using a different set of standards. When I was doing astrology for Adi Da and readings for others, I noticed the spiraling phenomena, but I conceived of it differently. Instead of looking at development in terms of "progress", I used Da's concept of the self-contraction, and the release thereof, to describe development. So the outward "spiralling" was measured in degrees of release of the self-contraction. I modified that at a certain point by seeing progress in terms of freedom from identification with the observed phenomena. Thus, a stage of development was not "passed through" by achieving some level of proficiency in that stage, or attaining the point of view of that stage, but quite the opposite - not identifying with that stage anymore, not identifying with that category of content anymore, releasing that point of view, and not identifying with that point of view. That process doesn't put you into the next higher stage, it just sets you free from some conditional view. Being released from one view doesn't mean that you are released from all views. In fact, trying to release oneself from one view at a time results in being bound even more deeply to them. As Ramana says, the only view that, if released, releases all views, is the view of the "I" itself, the feeling of "I"-ness, the source of all other views. So practice isn't about playing the developmental game with levels and growth, but really its about releaseing the core identification with the "I". Everything else is just part of the processs of riding the wave of consciousness up and down from crest to trough.

Non-dual exchange with an Integralist, I think

Here's a post from the Wilber forum in an exchange with Heru that came out of the Wilber fracas. I hope I'm making sense here, but again, I'm not entirely sure.

Heru's Post

“...however, like Dzogchen recognition and abidance in rigpa, this doesn't need to exclude other practices that might assist it, and one's wellbeing in general. I mean if it is truly nondual then it can be "not-two" with any activity, right?”

Wrong. The essence of non-dual practice is inactivity, or really, “not doing”. This is why teachers like Papaji are against ALL forms of practice. His recommendation is to do nothing, literally, not even think a thought. Of course, he doesn't consider self-enquiry to be an activity, so that implies how different self-enquiry is from anything else one might “do”. The point is that self-enquiry can't be prepared for or approached by any other means. It's a stepping out of the whole world of ego-activity, even if at first it merely seems to be another activity one “does”. With practice, it becomes clearer, however, that this is simply not the case. But you are right that enquiry can be practiced in the midst of any activity, and is not incompatible with anything. It just isn't compatible with anything either, meaning it doesn't “interface” with any other activity, except perhaps at the level of the witness.

Now of course its true that some practices can be said to assist enquiry. A good diet, basic health practices, etc., but on the other hand none are really necessary. People have become realized with lousy diets and bad health. The point is that such practices are best left to nature. In other words, don't think you have to do ANY of those things in order to be realized, just practice enquiry and surrender. The thing is, if you practice enquiry and surrender, you will find yourself naturally moved to do all kinds of sensible and appropriate things that assist your practice of enquiry. But that's exactly the point, you don't “do” those things, the enquiry moves you to do them spontaneously. A natural integrity begins to come over you, a natural functionality, and you start doing appropriate things without thinking about it, without making systems about it, without some agenda in mind. In the absence of enquiry, all those things have to be organized into a system, an institution, a “tradition”, which is really a way of making the secondary features of true practice the primary activity of religion, and relegating what is at the core to the periphery, even eliminating it altogether. So you end up with all kinds of rules for the things you would naturally do if you practiced simple enquiry, and none of the enquiry. In fact, you usually end up with all kinds of things on your list of practices that you never would have done if you'd actually been practicing enquiry, but somehow the mind began to imagine that these thngs would “help”. Most such help is actually detrimental, and so spiritual traditions are filled with rules and practices that are actually detrimental to the core approach that would have made the way true.

“Perhaps a better analogy than the bungy cord is that of a vessel, a boat. If we want to ride the ocean of life, we need a seaworthy vessel. Even if we realize that we aren't ultimately the boat it will still sink if it has leaks, so at the very least relative world practices provide one with a stronger bodymind vessel. A healthier "me." We are both the ocean and the boat; absolute and relative.”

No, we are not both. We are the ocean. There is no boat. The body-mind is not a boat, it's just a wave in the ocean, not in the least bit apart from it. There is no “wave” as an entity, there is just the ocean in motion, which creates the illusion of a separate wave. But there is no point at which the wave ever becomes a thing, an vessel floating on the ocean that we could call a “boat”. The idea that we need a boat to get “there”, is the primary illusion to be overcome. And that is exactly the point. The building of better boats actually increases one's deluded idea that one is a boat, that one needs a boat, and that we have to study all the details of boat-building in order to reach the other side of the ocean. In fact, we need to stop dreaming that we are boats, realize that we are waves of ocean, completely inseparable from the ocean, and that there is no other side to the ocean to get to. All we are trying to “get to” is our real nature, and the boat-illusion is actually the primary obstruction to seeing our real nature, which is a wave of ocean. So there is no “relative” world. The relative world that thinks we are boats on the ocean is simply a fantasy world. The wave is not “relative” to the ocean, it is the ocean. And the boat is not the ocean, it doesn't even exist. There is no boat, only an ocean in motion.

“Furthermore, leaks are distracting to say the least; following Maslow's basic hierarchy of needs, the higher needs don't become relevant until the lower needs are adequately met, or least come to terms with. For example, if you're hungry you generally don't care about self-actualization; if you don't have a roof over your head--or more accurately, if you deal with basic survival issues and the accompanying sense of fear--then self-transcendence is meaningless.”

I don't consider non-dualism, or self-enquiry, to be a higher practice, or the fulfillment of a higher need. To do so would be to place it in opposition to lower practices and lower needs. This is part of Wilber's error. Non-dualism is a fundamental need, not to be confused with a higher need. It's simply the need we all have for reality. It's applicable to everyone, regardless of whether they are at a “higher” or “lower” level. By placing non-dualism at the apex of his system, he's made it into an elitist phenomena only for the “higher types”. Adi Da makes the same error. And he's also made it into something other than non-dualism. He seems not to understand the relationship non-dualism has to the hierarchies of life. It isn't in the hierarchy, it isn't a part of that game. It's the reality in which hierarchy arises. It's the reality in which the dream arises. So it plays no favorites within the dream, and it isn't attainable by rising through the hierarchies of the dream. Again, it's simply reality, what is, rather than what the mind thinks and perceives.

Non-dualism isn't in conflict with conditional needs. It just isn't one of them, and it doesn't respond to them specifically. It treats them the same way the body treats digestion. You don't spend time thinking about it, it just happens in a fairly orderly, automatic way. As Nisargadatta says, he doesn't really pay any attention to all his worldly interactions, even though to others it seems that he's sharp as a tack and on top of it all. In his view, he's hardly aware of all that, the same way we aren't aware of our digestion for the most part.

The kind of problem you are talking about, I think arises when people have misconceptions about non-dualism, and as Wilber or Da does, tries to put it on the top of a hierarchical pyramid, which only serves those who think of themselves as top-of-the-pyramid types. It confuses everyone, including themselves, and makes nothing but problems. The solution is simple, but most of these types don't want to take it because it means giving up their privileges and status. And ordinary people are confused because they think they have to someone “balance” their higher and lower needs, The primary need we all have is for reality. Everything else is secondary. You can't play a balancing act with primary needs. Oxygen, for example, is a primary bodily need. Food is secondary. You can't balance your need for oxygen, it's a fundamental need that can't be compromised. You can go without food for days and weeks, but you need oxygen every minute. You can balance your need for food with your need for exercise, say, but you can't balance your need for oxygen with anything else.

“I tend to agree with Gurdjieff when he said that freedom is not de-programming, but being free to choose what program one is running. To be completely de-programmed is not only a myth, imo, but not necessary or desirable (if I may use that word in a positive sense ).”

I don't think deprogramming has anything to do with it. It's about transcendence. Which to be honest isn't something I think Gurdjieff knew much about. I agree that one can't be fully deprogrammed, but one can transcend all samskaras, which is a bit different.

“As I see it, nonduality and integralism aren't antithetical. Just as "striving" and "abiding" (or resting in Self) aren't contradictory, because striving is the movement of the Self in time and space.”

The Self doesn't move through time and space. The Self doesn't exist in time and space. Time and space exist in the Self. These kinds of misunderstandings lead to all kinds of problems. The one who strives in time and space is not the Self. That's the ego, the false sense of being a separate self. That whole perspective is an illusion that can never be made real. It doesn't mean that reality sees illusion in opposition to itself. Nor does it mean that the needs of the body are illusory. But the needs of the ego are. I don't really know what “integralism” means, but I gather it means regaining the integrity for the body-mind. This is a project that can never be accomplished by trying to integrate all one's parts and pieces. Real integrity comes from reality itself, from being real, which makes one honest and strong in all the most basic ways. Non-dualism is the nature of reality, and if the integral movement bases itself in non-dualism, then it will achieve integrity. But if it bases itself in a dualistic striving for integrity, for wholeness, it won't ever get there. I think there are problems with Wilber's approach that he is blind to, because he doesn't want to give up the things which the dualistic approach seem to offer him. Of course, that's true of all of us in our own way.

A poster below has asked me to respond to a set of questions posed by another blogger, mushin, who has been involved with I-I and Wilber, and has some doubts about the scene. His blog post is at::

http://www.mushin.eu/en/blog/2006/06/15/abuse-in-spiritual-circles/

His questions are:

1) What is the effect of the prolonged distancing of the observer (”I am not his body; I am not these feelings; I am not these thoughts; etc”), the prolonged ‘neutral witnessing’ of the phenomena inside/outside in a ‘mirror of pure consciousness’?

It depends on the way it is practiced. Traditionally, niddidyasana is a renunciate practice taken up by people who have no wordly involvements. It would certainly tend to lead to a detached life-perspective, something akin to a monastic disposition, as it is intended to do. Doing it in the midst of a busy, householder-style life would tend to make one a little psychotic, I think. If Wilber is indeed practicing this, or recommends it, I would suspect it's a bit aberrating, especially if practiced intensely. A mild, occasional use of it in the midst of situations in which one is intensely identified with problems is probably fine, and even helpful. I recall Papaji recommending it under such circumstances. But even the traditional niddidyasana (not this, noth this) approach has problems, at least according to Ramana. He was strongly against the use of that practice. He claimed that it would only tend to fixate attention on the very objects one was trying not to identify with, and was therefore counterproductive. His description of self-enquiry is of gentle, silent inspection of the self-position that has nothing to do with niddidyasana, which he found to be a rather violent and forceful method.

Nisargadatta's description of enquiry was a bit more open to a niddidyasana-like approach. He said that it was necessary to both reject what one was identified with, and also enquire of the self. He summarized it at times as “I am not this, what am I?”. But with him also, the emphasis was on the second half of that method. The “I am not this” part was merely a preparatory segue into self-enquiry. It wasn't meant to be a method of going around trying not to identify with objects and be left in “nothing”. It was merely a way to stop identifying with objects enough so as to facilitate real enquiry into the self. In both their cases, enquiry was seen as a process that takes place in the midst of a very active life, and both were basically against the formal renunciate practices associated with traditional advaita. So I think niddidyasana is basically not compatible with an active life unless it is merely a segue into self-enquiry.

2)What is the effect of the ‘trans-ethical’ stance that regards all human values as merely relative, and only the Spirit as absolute?

I'm not familiar with Wilber's references to such “trans-ethics”, but I don't think there's anything wrong with seeing human values as merely relative. They are, as far as I can tell. The danger would come in, I think not from regarding Spirit as absolute, but from identifying Spirit with any relative values, such as one's own values, as tends to be the case. One then begins to see oneself as the embodiment or vehicle of Spirit, and one's own views as somehow more worthy than anyone else's. The corruptions that are potential in this view are obvious. That's why its important not to identify with Spirit, or with Brahman, or with That. Again, teachers like Ramana and Nisargadatta did not recommend identification with Spirit or Brahman, etc. They simply asked devotees to find out who they were without making any presumptions.

Nisargadatta's teacher told him he, Nisargadatta, was Brahman, but this didn't inspite N to go around telling himself he was Brahman. He said it merely convinced him that he should find out, that he had faith in his teacher and couldn't see why he would lie to him, so he devoted himself to finding out who he was by meditating on “I am”, and it led to realization. That kind of practice brings with it immendse integrity, becomes integrity comes from being who you are, not trying to be something in the mind. The problem with I-I approaches, as far as I can tell, is that the transformations tend to be in the mind, and the mind produces the results one was looking for, and calls that “realization”. Papaji warned that there were real dangers in having an idea or concept of what realization was, because the mind would produce the states and experiences desired, and one would realize only a “mind” realization that had no spiritual reality to it. Spirit too can be a mind-generated phenomena, as can ethics. Real ethics proceeds from self-knowledge.

3)Are so called higher levels of evolution (yellow, turquoise etc. in SDi language as used by Wilber and his adherents) right in using all kinds of violence to raise lower levels up to their standard?

I'm not familiar with the violence of these methods in I-I, but in my view, yes, the creation of moral hierarchies of right and wrong is almost always motivated by the desire to establish superiority over others, and is an example of Niezschean will-to-power. I don't find Wilber's typologies to be anything more than a naked assertion of will-to-power, regardless of how much truth or falsehood is in them. If violence is used in the process, this only confirms the diagnosis. Gurus who use these methods without clearly demonstrable results, such as Cohen and Da, are simply addicted to will-to-power.

4)Is the non-participatory nature of the ‘pure witness’ in situations and phenomena in ‘the world’ - which will eventually dissolve according to Wilber et al in non-dual One Taste - maybe a cause for the kind of abuse we have recently seen in the integral world of Ken Wilber?

The pure witness is NOT non-participatory. Those who think they are practicing the pure witness, while being detached and non-participatory, are simply deluded fools, to put it politely. The pure witness is utterly participator in nature. That may seem like a paradox or a contradiction, but it is not. It is the ego that is detached and non-participatory. The ego interferes with life, with relationship, with functioning. The pure witness does not interfere at all, and allows all of life to proceed with integrity and full, unobstructed participation. The pure witness has surrendered egoity, has surrendered his resistance to life, has surrendered his likes and dislikes, his desires, his aversions, his identification with what appears, and thus allows all of what appears to continue as it would, openly and freely. People who are actually living the pure witness are remarkably alive, spontaneous, participatory, and full of love and happiness.

But I think you are referring to people who are simply trying to be the pure witness, or what they imagine the pure witness to be, whether with good intentions or not. People like that, and maybe Wilber is one, I don't know, are susceptible to all kinds of delusions, especially if they think it involves some kind of non-participatory detachment from life and mind. This is why Nisargadatta called his practice “the natural yoga”. He didn't advise any kind of unnatural disidentification with life, but a purely natural approach. And the pure witness is the most natural approach anyone could take, because it requires no effort, certainly not an effort of disassociation. The witness is simply what we are at any moment, so it's simply a matter of noticing who we are, not of trying to be the witness and disassociating from life to achieve that goal. That's why they argue against the niddidyasana “not this, not this” approach.

So yes, if Wilber's understanding of the witness, and his practice thereof, is off, and what little I've read of Wilber suggests that it is, then it's certainly likely that it would produce aberrated effects in his life, his teachings, and his relations, which would include I-I. You have to watch people who promote themselves as having the answers to life very closely. Most of them are self-deluded and looking for people to take draw into their delusions as a way of affirming and strengthening them. Unenlightened people who devise their own method for achieving enlightenment are to be treated with great skepticism. You have to ask yourself why they aren't enlightened if they seem to understand things so well that they can take the great teachings of the enlightened and bend them to their own purposes, creating a “superior” path in the process.

Even Astrolgy Beats Wilber's AQAL system

In the aftermath of my post on Wilber's developmental AQAL theory I had some thoughts about systems altogether, and it reminded me of my own, private venture in systems-making. As some of you may know, in my last phase of involvement in Adidam, I became Adi Da's personal “court astrologer” by an odd happenstance. Never having been into astrology, and having been a lifelong scoffer at all things astrological, I decided one day to investigate it, and ended up writing a long paper on it for Adi Da, which he seems to have been impressed by, and made me his astrologer. Thus began a crash course in learning astrology, much of which I felt was such bullshit that I felt compelled to come up with my own understanding of the subject, and ended up over the next few years creating an astrological system which tried to base astrology in a spiritual understanding of consciousness. In the end it wasn't a bad system altogether, and probably has the best approach to astrology I've ever seen, though of course that isn't saying much.

I did get to appreciate some of the advantages of the astrological way of looking at things, especially in relation to psychology and human development. I won't go into details, but I began to see the astrological “chart” as a map of human development from birth through death in endless repetition that described the basic “pattern” of an individual in consciousness, as a combination of energy and attention. I even created my own understanding of these in “quadrant” form, which is of course natural because of the two axis of any astrological chart, the ascendent and midheaven. I assigned the ascendent to “attention”, and saw the houses (which are based on the ascendent position) as the cycle of attention from the bare birth of attention to its fixation on objects, its development of relationship to objects, its discovery of the “other”, its development of relationship to the other, and its dissolution, from which proceeds a new form of attention. The Midheaven axis represents energy descending into life, and the signs represent the cycle of energy through the constellations. The intersection of the two, of energy and attention, houses and signs, represents the particular way these two manifest in the individual. Anyway, that's probably more information than most people can process without knowing the details of astrology, but the point is, as mundane as it is, using something as absurd as astrology as a model for the developmental process turns out, I think, to be superior to Wilber's AQAL model.

Why? Because as silly as astrology can be, it at the least is based on a view of nature that is more realistic than Wilber's. By that, I mean that astrology sees nature as a series of endlessly repeating cycles, rather than as a linear developmental process that moves from lower to higher. It's not that astrology sees no levels, quandrants, or types, it's full of such things. It's just that it doesn't see any of them as inherently higher or lower than any others. The cycle of the constellation signs begins at Ares and ends at Pisces, and in some sense they are the “low” and the “high” points of development, but not in absolute terms, because Pisces leads right back into Ares, and the cycle renews. This is aligned to the cycles of nature, in which Ares comes at the spring equinox, representing the rebirth of life in the springtime, and then matures through the signs until it dies, because universal, and then is reborn again the following spring. And this, I would suggest, is actually a better way of looking at life, if one must create a system around it, than seeing it in the AQAL model Wilber has created. It's more natural, it has deeper resonance, and it includes the qualities of tragedy, impermanence, and repetition that life is most deeply characterized by.

Even the astrological view of character and types is superior, I think, to the psychological, developmental view that Wilber uses. In astrology everyone is a combination of qualities in balance or imbalance with one another, and these are not in themselves changeable. Each person has a basic character that is unique, but only because there are endless combinations of energy and attention that nature can spit out, endless combinations of star and planetary patterns that can be manifested in various houses. The purpose is not to evolve one's pattern into some higher pattern, but simply to understand that pattern for what it is and not react to it, but simply observe it.

When I used to give astrological readings, I found it very interesting that merely bringing attention to a person's own pattern was quite “liberating”. The problem I encountered there was that people, deep down, are really nuts, myself included. Just doing astrology readings gave me a window on the dynamics of the cult of psychology, of workshops, of gaining insight, of how desperate and seeking people are, and how ready they are to put themselves at the mercy of a charismatic “teacher”, me, if only for a couple of hours of an astrology reading.

When I gave up the practice, it was for that reason most of all – I didn't like the dynamic of using a system combining with charisma and insight to “wow” people. I didn't like what it said about me, about other people, about the desperation of human beings to find an “answer” outside themselves. I could see the potential for such at thing, and Wilber's integral institute is of course a natural outgrowth of that kind of desire, the kind of thing I wanted to stay away from. It's a business, like the astrology business, that takes advantage of a certain dynamic potential in the creation of any “system” for reading people. And ultimately, like the cycles of nature, it just repeats itself ad nauseum. It may appear to help people in some respects, but it basically locks a person into a cycle that leads nowhere. The good thing about astrology in my view is that its basic structure points this out – the cycles of astrology, after one views them with any depth, reveal a univese that really is Buddhist in nature, and endlessly repeating wheel of signs and symbols that simple entrap consciousness in its own mire.

It's a narcissistic enterprise, in other words. The advantage is that the structure of astrology points this out rather readily, whereas the AQAL structure leads to the illusion of finality, of continuous upwards and outwards growth, culminating in a final realization of infinite consciousness. Astrology is more honest in its bullshit, one could say, whereas AQAL tries to mask its bullshit behind ultimate developmental notions. Studying astrology actually helped me to see that what I was up to lead nowhere, and that the only real “answer” was to get off the wheel. In some very real sense it helped me get off the wheel of Adidam, the wheel of all the things I had been up to, and at the very least consider those spiritual teachings which are more serious about bringing samsara to an end, rather than perpetuating it.

Wilber doesn't seem to have gotten to that point, and part of the reason is that his system is masking the real nature of conditional life, which is cycles of repetition rather than ongoing development in ever higher stages and levels. That maskign allows him to think he can have his cake and eat it, he can develop himself as an individual and also transcend his individuality in ultimate non-dual realization. He can't. No one can. That's simply not the nature of this maya. It ensnares anyone who think they can beat the game. That's how it ensnares us, by holding out the goal, and seeming to provide a path to the goal, all of which is merely an image in a mirror that is dangled in front of us, which we chase, and seem to ever get closer to, but all that does is involve us further in the chase. Wilbber doesn't realize that it's a circular path, that the tiger's tail he thinks he's gotten hold of is just his own tail, that it leads nowhere but back to himself, that he's no “higher” than he ever was, but no “lower” too. Coming to realize that is part of the enlightening process that allows us to simply stand in place, going nowhere, neither up nor down, simply examining ourselves instead as we are, not trying to develop ourselves or change ourselves, but letting all those fantasies go. Anyone can do that at any time. They don't have to develop themselves to do it. They just have to get off the wheel.

Ken Wilber's Grand Developmental Theory and Non-Dual Realization

Seems I haven't written here in a few months. My how time flies. Sorry for the abrupt departure. It wasn't intentional, I just got caught up in work and many things, and as noted before, my attitude towards blogging is a little ambiguous to begin with. Last week I decided to start again, but wasn't sure what topic to start with. I'd like to write on the non-dual material I've been reading a lot of lately, but there's no easy way to segue into that. Then, while reading some forums, I came across a recent Ken Wilber posting, a reaction to his critics, that got me thinking a little about that particular “integral” path, and realized I needed to post something about it. So a long post will follow this one shortly discussing Wilber, his AQAL map, and how it relates, and doesn't relate, to non-dual reality (or is that simply redundant?). Also included will be my thoughts on developmental approaches altogether, including Adi Da's seven stages theory.

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Ken Wilber's Grand Developmental Theory and Non-Dual Realization

Recently I came across Ken Wilber's website and his recent counter-attack on his critics, linked to here:

http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/list/1

There's actually several posts, the first being “What we are, that we see”, and several follow-ups.

Apparently Wilber is upset at a long series of attacks on his work, and even on him personally, by critics he feels are undeserving of any serious response, and so he lets loose with a frustrated outburst punctuated by admonitions such as “suck my dick”. I've never read Wilber in any serious way over the years, and I have no idea what his critics' views are, so I can't really respond to either of them. Wilber only mentions that many of his critics seem to object to his “theory of everything” basically being a developmental theory, and this of course got me thinking about why it is that I don't feel interested in Wilber's line of thinking, even though he seems to share so much in common with me – a wide interest in just about any topic of interest, and inclusive approach to things, and a spirituality that runs from the rudimentary to the purest forms of non-dualism. It also got me thinking about what seems off with Wilber's whole approach, and so, I end up writing this post.

Let me say first off that I have nothing personally against Wilber. I can fully understand mouthing off against one's critics, especially internet bloggers and forumites. I've been there, done that, and probably will again. I have to say also that I share a lot of faults with Wilber. I too am proud, arrogant, cutting, condescending, ambitious, and feel that I usually am more self-aware than anyone else I'm talking too, that I know their criticism before they say it, that I've applied it to myself already, and so why the fuck don't they realize that and just shut up? Reading Wilber's reactions sounds like hearing a tape of myself from not too long ago. So it's funny, sad, and a little wearisome, but also instructive. Is that how I sound? No wonder people always ragged on me more than I thought I deserved. Apparently I actually deserved it.

Anyway, what I really want to comment on isn't Wilber's personal problems with his fans, his critics, the integral psychology movement, all that. I'm not a part of that world, and I doubt I ever will be. I'm not even qualified to make serious scholarly arguments about Wilber's work, his models, his whole theory. I don't know enough about it, and I probably never will. So if any Wilber students ever read this, don't expect anything approaching a serious critique of Wilber overall. I'm going to confine myself to just two basic areas. The first is Wilber's use of a developmental theory that includes non-dual understanding within its map, and the second is the fallaciousness of using a linear, developmental theory rather than a cyclical theory of change which includes not only development to higher levels, but regression to lower levels, including death, the dissolution of levels and changes.

I was going to begin with the first point, because that's how I got started thinking about this, but I think I'll mention the second point first. After reading Wilber's posts, I went through some of his more recent writings posted on his website, just to refresh my self on Wilber's current theories. Basically, it's an attempt to be as inclusive as possible of all of human knowledge and experience, and to organize it in a manner that makes practical sense. So far, hat's off for trying. When I first encountered Wilber back in the mid 1970's, when I was a teen-aged student of Bubba Free John (Adi Da), my basic reaction was, thank God someone's doing this kind of thing, now I don't have to. I had, over the years, flirted with the notion of doing just what Wilber was doing, immersing myself in all the fields of knowledge and art, and becoming an uber-cultural critic, including of course the full range of spiritual traditions, including the non-dual traditions of enlightenment. Not having to do that was a relief, so I have to thank Wilber for taking on a task that someone probably had to do, and thank God it wasn't me.

The task of including all knowledge and experience in a single model seems both exciting and a little quaint. There's a kind of charming 19th century naivete in it, a sort of Newtonian dream of understanding everything just so. There's also a great deal of hubris in it, but so what, give it a try. That's my superficial attitude, at least. Deeper down, I have to say: watch out, Icarus. Don't fly too high. And then I read on and on in his intro to AQAL, and I have to say it starts to get depressingly cheery, like a Tony Robbins infomercial for the End Times. See, we have all these answers right here, we have the technology that will allow you to break through any problems you might have, and become the awesome Master of the Universe you always knew you could be! But these are just tonal impressions. The real criticism I have is in the use of a developmental model itself.

What's wrong with a developmental model? I would agree with Wilber that on the face of it, nothing. Everything in the universe goes through a developmental process of some kind. Everything can be broken down into pieces and parts, levels, types, categories, and placed into various conceptual slots. Wilber has tried to map out all these levels, types, quadrants, processes, categories, etc., with great attention and common sense. In fact, if I were to categorize academics in general, I'd say there at two types. The first, are ones who try to challenge common sense by introduce theories which defy our accepted way of doing things. The second, are those who try to reign in the challengers by reapplying common sense, throwing out the nonsensical theories, and grounding what was useful in the challengers in a modified form of common sense. Wilber is of the second variety, and I admire him for it. The world needs common sense, especially now, which I think explains Wilber's popularity. But it's important to realize that he's not a revolutionary thinker at all, he's not a truly innovative genius, as some would like to posit, he's a second order thinker, a common-sense thinker, who is trying to systemitize and organize a lot of very weird material in an orderly and common-sensical way. That's a good thing, but not a great thing. A common response to Wilber's work is similar to my own, “I could have done that, if I'd wanted to.” Whereas, I'd never think to myself that I could have come up with Einstein's Theory of Relativity on my own, if only I'd been doing physics around the turn of the century. The reason why I think I, or any other really smart guy, could have done what Wilber has been doing is simply because he really is just applying good, common sense to a lot of material that has been lacking common sense for a very long time. Reading what is good in Wilber involves a lot of “yes, of course” kind of responses, which I think is why I find it uninteresting. I'm not much interested in reading affirmations of what I already know, or systemitizations of such things, I want to read things that I don't already know. Others I'm sure differ, and maybe I'm just not recognizing Wilber's originality, but I think he's purely a derivative thinker. His originality, if one could call it that, is in trying to be a comprehensive, all-inclusive derivative thinker.

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit condescending myself. I warned you, didn't I? Doesn't that make it okay? Don't get me wrong, I think Wilber is brilliant, and really, I couldn't have done things the way he's done them, not only because I wouldn't have wanted to, but because I don't have the gifts he has. And yet try as he might, Wilber himself doesn't have the gifts he really needs. He doesn't have the genius of an original viewpoint, only the ambition to have one, and the idea that by incorporating everyone else theories into one grand theory, that will constitute an original theory. Sorry, it doesn't. Wilber will never make the top ranks of world geniuses, and he will undoubtedly shed a few tears over that. I can understand. When I realized I wasn't even going to play big-league baseball, it came down hard on me too. Some people like that become sportswriters, and some become systemitizers, but it's not the same thing.

So that's part of the problem with creating a developmental system, the system part. Systems just don't cut it. They are second-level orders of understanding. They are useful to a degree, they are even important to a degree, but they aren't core, they have no heart, they can never be central to a truly meaningful life. Wilber's model reads too much like an L. Ron Hubbard sales pitch, it tries too hard to win you over, it promises too much. Real understanding doesn't promise anything; it already is what it promises. It doesn't have to aspire to be meaningful, it is meaningful, already. Systemization is so bourgeois. It's what people settle for when they can't really make the big bucks, and it's based on the same fear of losing what little wisdom one has. The idea is, if one systematizes it, one doesn't lose the wisdom, one can retain it better. This is useful in mechanical processes, but life is not a mechanical process.

But let's accept Wilber's program for what it is, a system, and not condemn it for that. Systems, while not being the ultimate answer, are certainly necessary to some degree, even inevitable. I know I was certainly attracted by them when I was younger. One of the great attractions of Adi Da's teachings was that it was a systematic approach to the spiritual process that tried to address everything. So what's wrong with creating a developmental system? After all, Adi Da's system was essentially a developmental model also. His “seven stages of life” looked at the spiritual cosmos and tried to create an orderly developmental model for the growth of the human being that started at birth and ended in full enlightenment. Wilber was undoubtedly inspired by Adi Da's example, even if he didn't agree with the model itself, and went off on his own tangent. But they both shared the idea that development and growth were the keys to the spiritual process, and that by understanding all the levels and types and processes involved, one could ensure that one's own spiritual growth was complete, full, and not lacking in any of the fundamentals necessary for spiritual advancement. Da went even further, creating an elaborate model for spiritual advancement itself, based on his own ideas, that involved tremendous examination of every detail of an individual's life, for the purpose of eliminating any obstructions to spiritual growth.

The problem with developmental models is this: they ignore the flip side of development, which is decay and regression. One of the primary faults I could see in Wilber's presentation of his ideas is the claim that any level one achieves cannot be lost. One is expected to glide over that, breezily accepting it as real wisdom, when in fact it is sheer poppycock. Are we really expected to believe that levels are objectively real, and that the attainment of a level is a permanent achievement? Has Wilber never heard of the Buddhist concept of Impermanence? Certainly he has, he's studied Buddhism far more than I have, he knows these things inside and out, supposedly, but what the eff? I understand what he's trying to say, and it makes common sense to be sure. When you become an adolescent, you don't go back to pre-pubescence. We all go through changes in our lives after which there is no going back. And once we start to see things a certain way, we can't return to our old way of seeing things. Except, except for decay and death. In other words, nothing lasts, not even our wisdom. We grow old and die. We lose what we have gained, completely, including all our levels and typologies and understandings. What have we gained in this life that we will take with us into the next life? We might as well ask what we brought with us into this life? Not much. We had to learn most everything all over again. And the same will happen next lifetime. Yes, the developmental model is a good one, for a part of the cycle of life, but only for a part of it, the upward cycle. It fails for the downward cycle.

And that is one of the major faults with Wilber's model. It posits a series of linear developmental processes, moving from the infantile to the Centauric, and beyond that to full non-dual enlightenment. It doesn't acknowledge that life is cyclic in nature, however, that all of this cosmos not only develops, but decays and dies. As Buddha said, life is a great Wheel, everything moves in cycles, nothing moves in straight lines. Progress is meaningful only relative to regression. And that is the meaning of duality – there are two sides to everything. There are no arguments that cannot be countered, no creations that cannot be invalidated by death. Wilber may think he has the tiger by the tail, but no sooner than the next step the tiger may turn around and devour him. As the Hindus say, there is no end to this Maya.

The human potential movement, of which Wilber has seemed to position himself as a leading figure, is not part of the enlightenment tradition that Wilber has the deepest sympathy for. Enlightenment is not potential in human beings. It is either already the case, or it is not at all. This brings us to the second problem I see in Wilber's approach. He has tried to include non-dual wisdom in a developmental model, when non-dualism is not a developmental process. In fact, the very attempt to see non-dualism as a developmental process kills non-dualism, and simply turns it into a dualistic process, while yet mouthing the truths of non-dual reality.

It's clear that Wilber still thinks non-dualism is the ultimate nature of reality. He simply thinks that non-dualism is inclusive of dualism. This is a huge error. Non-dualism is not inclusive. That's why they call it non-dualism. It means, not-dual. Wilber tries to get around this by suggesting that by being inclusive of everything, he's being truly non-dual, that non-dualism is simply about not being attached to only one side of anything, but seeing both sides, including them both, and thus transcending the conflicts of dualism. But this is simply not the case. It is an attempt to turn non-dualism into a philosophical exercise of logic, in this case, the logic of inclusion, rather than see non-dualism as its greatest exponents and realizers have seen it: as an end to all illusions, including the illusion of inclusiveness.

Here's the problem Wilber faces. The great exponents of non-dualism argue, and quite persuasively I might add, that the entire cosmos is a dream, an illusion of mind, manufactured out of fear and desire, and nothing more. They do not advocate a developmental process within the dream that ends up at enlightenment. They advocate immediate awakening. They do not tell people to go about a long developmental process, looking at all their developmental shortcomings as part of a process of balancing themselves, becoming Centauric, and then moving up through the great ladder of being to the top. They tell people to jump off the ladder, that if they jump from the developmental cycle of birth and death, grace with catch them and enlighten them, but only if they jump off. They don't say, climb a little further, come to a nice clearing, make a nice little house, then jump off the ladder. They say jump off now, right away, don't waste another moment. They point out that trying to climb the ladder further before jump will just enmesh you in more karmas, more attachments, more attainments, all of which simply lead to death and decay over time. Some people are going up the ladder, they acknowledge, but they also point that some people are going down, and whatever goes up, must also go down some day. That's the law of karmic gravity. Duality always has two sides that alternate one after the other. One can grow for only so long before things fall apart and die. Growth does not lead to enlightenment, it leads to death. The human potential movement is an attempt to stave off death, but that is all it leads to, as does every other human enterprise. The action of birth eventually leads to the action of death, that is karma. Getting off the wheel doesn't mean finding a way to grow past all death, it means literally getting of the wheel. And that is what the non-dual traditions point to.

If one looks at the non-dual realizers, from Buddha and Shankara to Ramana and Nisargadatta, they seem fairly unanimous in their advice: don't go down the developmental path, it's a trap that only deludes you further. They certainly didn't take that path. They didn't bother developing themselves in any exceptional ways. Many of them were very ordinary people with unexceptional talents. Some were criminals, degenerates, murders, etc. They didn't begin a process of trying to clean themselves up, develop themselves into better, fuller, more integral human beings, and then take the non-dual message seriously. They started off taking it seriously, and that's what made it work for them.

What I find objectionable about Wilber's use of non-dualism in his model and his overall philosophy and teachings, is that it doesn't actually take non-dualism seriously. It can't, because to do so would be to negate his whole system. It would require him to throw it all out, to get off the developmental path, to get out of the systematizing business, and really just drop out altogether. That's of course why very few people take non-dualism seriously. It costs everything. It negates everything that we do, every motive we have, every desire and fear we respond to. Wilber doesn't want to give that up. But he still really digs non-dualism, and so he feels he has to incorporate it into his model. I'm not sure how he rationalizes it, but I am sure it is a rationalization, because non-dualism simply can't be put on the shelf, even the top shelf, of any system or developmental process. Reality is not the goal, it's the root of all things. The only way in which anything can be seen in reality, is to realize reality as its base, its root, its source, which is ourselves. Our Self. Without that, nothing is real, no experience is real, no system is real, no life is real, no attainment is real. All passes, except That which was already here, That which cannot pass.

I have mixed feelings about Wilber's use of non-dualism. On the positive side, I think its good that he's introducing non-dual teachings to many people who might not have heard of them. It's also good that he's acknowledging that enlightenment is the true and ultimate purpose of life. But in so doing, he's also introducing a lot of misunderstandings about enlightenment, particularly that it is the result of a developmental process. It's a common misperception of course, not one that is unique to Wilber, he's just more professional than most in propagating it. But that's why he's due for some serious criticism. He's one of the biggest voices out there talking about non-dual truths, and he's spreading some serious misunderstandings about it simply because he wants to have his cake and eat it.

Wibler can talk the non-dual talk reasonably well. He gives a quick talk-through of the basics, as if talking through the basics means much of anything. He makes it sound as if getting a basic intellectual grounding in the non-dual truth of “I Am” is enough, now let's move on to developing your ordinary character and personality. This is now a non-dual teaching, it's a betrayal of it. It would be better if Wilber would just sever non-dualism from his presentation, because it's not what his model is about. His model is about developing the conditional self into a better, more advanced conditional self. That's not a bad thing at all. I'm all for it, up to a point. I don't look down on that kind of thing. I may snicker at Oprah, but I still think she does good things for people. And Wilber is sort of a more scholarly, intellectually sophisticated version of Oprah, or of his friend Tony Robbins. These aren't bad people at all. I'm sure Wilber is a great guy personally. And I'm sure that if anyone really wants to be a great guy, they can do it, and Wilber and Robbins and Oprah can help. But enlightenment isn't about becoming a great guy. It's about getting off that whole train. It shouldn't be associated with the whole great guy program. It's not like becoming the ultimate great guy. Non-dualism is for people who are disenchanted with that.

I guess I see it that way now, after having gone through a lot of infatuations with developmentalism myself. I was never a Wilberite, but I was a devotee of Adi Da for almost 30 years, and I followed that developmental path until it fell apart for me. A lot of that of course had more to do with the corruptions of the path and the teacher and the sangha in Adidam, and I've written about that here and elsewhere quite extensively. But another aspect to my leaving Adidam had to do with falling out of sympathy with the developmental approach altogether. Reading about Wilber's path coincides with a process I've been going through and thinking about for several years now, of how I not only don't buy anymore the details of Adi Da's developmental stages and levels, I even disagree with the whole approach. I feel a much greater sympathy with the approach the non-dualists take, the modern Advaitics particularly, which is a direct approach, rather than a developmental approach.

Self-enquiry as taught by Ramana and his devotees is not a developmental process at all. It's a way of letting all that go, and simply and directly examining the core feeling of self, of being, of I-ness, using raw attention, and allowing that to purify and strengthen oneself. In some sense, by letting oneself go, one also allows oneself to develop freely. It's not as if the approach is anti-developmental. It's just that whatever development occurs is incidental to putting one's attention on what does not develop, what is always the case, what is prior to all development, the ground of reality itself, pure awareness, consciousness itself. And that's the essence of the problem with developmental approaches. They require you to put attention on things that are not yourself, that are simply part of the dream-world of the body-mind, the false self. In doing so your identification with them increases, as does your fixation on your desires and fears and their objects. It's only by taking attention away from such things, and allowing attention to settle into its source and root, that one becomes free. Attention is of course the key, and attention has great and miraculous power. If you put attention on the self-root, simple development of the human person does occur, not in any intentional way, but it happens all the same. Realizers are by and large smart and capable people. But they didn't try to be that way, it's just a natural result of not giving all of that any thought at all, but instead being absorbed in the Self.

The conflict of trying to have one's cake and eat it too is not new to the spiritual scene. It's an age-old problem. Wilber isn't the first to suffer it, and suffer the consequences of it, and he's far from being the worst offender. The charges of cultism and elitism he gets seem in part justified, but that's just the natural result of doing things in this compromised way. Da had the same problem in spades, and if Wilber is trying to create actual institutions around his system, and make it into a religion-type business, there's simply no way he can avoid it. He can minimize it by being more honest about it, but Wilber strikes me as being genuinely conflicted, like Da, to such a degree that I don't think he really can minimize it. Wilber really does dig non-dualism, and he really digs the developmental model, and all that he thinks it can do for them. He probably can't even allow himself to see how completely incompatible the two are. If he did, he'd be forced to drop one of them, and if he did that, where would he be? Caught between a rock and a hard place. The truth is, Wilber has already made the decision, he probably just doesn't like to admit it to himself. He's chosen the developmental process. The karmic process. He's going to see how far up the ladder he can get before he jumps off. Which isn't really such a bad thing. I recall Papaji saying that rather than trying to forcefully give up one's desires, one might as well fulfill them. Either way, one has to be free of desire. There's no end to desire, even the desire to be integral, until one sees that they never end, and they never get fulfilled ultimately. So Wilber has a few more desires left in him.

He might pay attention to the cycles of decay that set in among spiritual types like himself. As with Da, there is often a degeneration into narcissism and cultism. Some of what is coming out in these wars with his critics is his own degeneration, even in the midst of his developmental efforts. This is not his fault really, it's just a sign of dualism reasserting its ugly head. He should take it as a sign that there's no such thing as a free lunch, that for every step up the integral ladder one takes, there's also a falling down the other side. Narcissistic cultism is just the other side of the coin he's on, and it will become the side he's on one day, if he continues trying to climb the ladder, because it's really a circular ladder, it just always seems that one is always going up. Even the people going down are just turned upside down. They think they are growing and developing also. Such observations should be taken as a sign of grace, that one should get off the ladder altogether, and not waste any more of one's time on the futile task of trying to get to the top of a circular ladder.