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The Third Matrix: Humanity's Rite of Passage

Darrin Drda
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The following is an excerpt from The Four Global Truths: Awakening to the Peril and Promise of Our Times. Part of the Evolver Editions series, The Four Global Truths introduces a treatise on planetary transformation that views worldwide ecological suffering through the framework of the Four Noble Truths, which form the basis of all the Buddhist traditions. The book is thus comprised of four chapters: The Reality of Global Suffering, The Roots of Global Suffering, The Relief of Global Suffering, and The Road to Recovery. What follows is taken from Chapter Three.

 

When viewed through a wide lens, our current global situation can be framed as a kind of initiation process for humanity, similar to that faced by the archetypal hero. In many of the world's myths, the hero is forced to confront some dangerous challenge, endure some difficult ordeal, or complete some seemingly impossible task, after which he usually emerges triumphant and transformed. Often the initiation involves dismemberment and death, followed by a re-membering and rebirth into a more fully integrated form in which the hero realizes his true calling or higher purpose. Typically the hero experiences a diminishment of his own ego-based identity and a connection with the larger collective to which he belongs.

The process of initiation, which appears not only in myths but in shamanic rituals and mystery cults of the ancient Near East, seems to hold symbolic significance for the modern human. Certainly the current global crisis represents the greatest challenge our species has ever faced, with stakes that could hardly be higher. The very structures that support life -- the only known life in the universe -- are being rapidly dismantled, and our daunting challenge is to come together as a human family in order to engage our collective wisdom, compassion, and creativity to preserve as much life as possible. This would seem to require an authentic, heroic humility; a softening of the rigidified ego structure; and a recognition of an intimate interconnectedness and interdependence with everything.

Not coincidentally, a softening of individual ego that allows for a deeper communion with other beings lies at the heart of Buddhist practice. Whether conceived as detachment from ego or an expansion of the self to include the whole world or even the entire Cosmos, the process involves a transformation of one's usual identity as a "skin-encapsulated ego," to borrow a phrase from philosopher Alan Watts. The degree to which one can break free -- if even temporarily -- from this self-imposed limitation is the degree to which inter-subjective communion can occur and compassion can manifest.

From a psychological perspective, one's ability to transcend ego may depend, somewhat paradoxically, on the strength and stability of one's sense of self. A secure foundation must first be established before it can be surmounted. In thinking about this apparent conundrum of spiritual progress, we might consider the egolessness of an infant: as much as we might envy her beautifully open-hearted expressiveness and spontaneity, hers is not a wise, serene, and selfless state to which we should aspire but a naive, volatile, and selfish one out of which we have grown (but may of course revisit on occasion, whether intentionally or not). This conflation of trans-egoic consciousness with pre-egoic consciousness is what Ken Wilber calls the "pre-trans fallacy," a kind of false romanticism that is often extended not only to young children but to prehistoric and traditional cultures.

Humanity's initiation can be regarded as a culmination of the collective individuation process that has unfolded over the course of human history. Having evolved into self-consciousness at the birth of civilization, self-knowledge during the Axial Age, and greater independence and self-security throughout history, Homo sapiens is now being called to greater self-transcendence and selflessness involving a compassionate regard for all forms of life and the Earth as a whole. Again, what our situation asks is not a reversion to some imaginary Eden of yesteryear, but an advance towards what has been dubbed Homo universalis, a new stage of evolution that, in Ken Wilber's terms, both "transcends and includes" all previous stages.

 

In terms of the death/rebirth process, the world's leading expert would have to be Stanislav Grof, a Czech-born psychologist who has witnessed, facilitated, and undergone thousands of such experiences over the course of his long career. Working initially with LSD and eventually with a special breathing technique (dubbed "holotropic" -- towards wholeness), Grof has plumbed the depths of the human psyche and expanded the map of consciousness well beyond the limits set by his predecessors. While Freud highlighted the importance of early childhood experience and Jung emphasized the collective unconscious and its archetypes, Grof found a vital link between the personal and transpersonal realms in the birth process, which he separates into four stages. Each of these four "basic perinatal matrixes" (BPMs) is characterized by particular archetypes and images that may be experienced during holotropic states, especially if connected with trauma. The idea is that by consciously confronting such normally repressed, unconscious material, a person may achieve greater psychological integration, balance, and wholeness.

Grof's expanded model of the psyche can be depicted as an hourglass, with the bottom half encompassing the personal, biographical realm and the top half outlining the transpersonal, archetypal realm. Between these lies the narrow canal of death and rebirth, through which passes both the fetus on its way to "personhood" and the disembodied psyche on its way to "transpersonhood." One may also pass through this bottleneck during non-ordinary states or during what Grof calls "spiritual emergencies," both of which involve a dissolution of ego boundaries. Depending on how complete or rapid is this personal death/transpersonal rebirth, it may be experienced as either terrifying or liberating.

As for humanity as a whole, it seems that we are currently in the midst of BPM-3, the birthing process, which involves an intense struggle for survival that is usually experienced as simultaneously pleasant and unpleasant. This matrix (which combines elements of BPM-2 and BPM-4, dominated by feelings of fear and joy, respectively) is commonly associated with images of military and revolutionary battles, boxing matches, treacherous airplane, boat, and car rides, wild parties, and carnivals. In these scenarios, in BPM-3 in general, and in our current global crisis there is a clear and present danger accompanied by a heightened awareness, as well as a hopeful sense that the threat can ultimately be vanquished.

Teaser image by Ivan Walsh, courtesy of Creative Commons license. 

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Comments

the hero's journey

Submitted by adamastiamat on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 08:39.
The hero either wins or he dies, this is the nature of heroism, the delving into the psyche is the ultimate journey and the recovering of the gems after wading through the bloody chambers of hell is the job at hand. This has been my journey so i relate and it is the destruction of the concept of the self that allows us to embrace and become everything literally. The more diffuse the consciousness becomes the more all encompassing it is, until we find ourselves as the bacteria beneath the nails feeding upon ourselves. Very very liberating, the Tibetan practice of Chod leads us to this point, and for me it represents one of the fastest and cleanest ways through the messy process of ego dissolution. For a taste of this from my book check out http://www.buddhabrats.com/buddha-brats-book/free-chapters/the-left-hand... and http://www.buddhabrats.com/buddha-brats-blog-desert-chod/ We all want a fast and beautiful way through to liberation but unfortunately the coin that is required at the door is the self or the sanity, but once one offers this then one is free to ride the whirlwind for eternity. From the ashes of the atomic fires Adamas

Self and civilization

Submitted by Ray Wakila on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 15:38.

"Having evolved into self-consciousness at the birth of civilization..."

This is an idea I've been contemplating lately - the correspondence of the self as a mental-emotional psychic structure, arising as what might be considered an "orientation" to consciousness, and the creation of hierarchical systems of social organization (i.e. "civilization") projecting that self outward - and therefore the implications in terms of how we can change the world so that we can "preserve as much life as possible" (which sadly seems to be about the best we can hope for now).

To me, this is why we are hoping for, and working towards, a "new consciousness" (I personally think it's more like a new orientation to consciousness) - because we can't transform the systems unless and until we transform the self projecting them.

So given the general direction of my own thinking, this article was very interesting and I look forward to reading your book. Thanks for sharing this excerpt with us. Best wishes -

From Ego-centrism to Eco-librium

Submitted by Darrin Drda on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 17:17.
Thanks, Ray. That is indeed one of my premises -- that the human ego structure coalesced at the birth of recorded history and has solidified in various stages along the way, particularly during the Axial Age, when most of the world's religious and philosophical traditions were developed and codified. A collective ego structure can also be called a "worldview," and one that is out of synch with the natural and universal orders can be devastating, especially if it gains global prominence and power like the American (US) worldview. I also like your idea of a new orientation "to" consciousness, since ultimately it's all relationship and interdependence ("dependent arising" in Buddhist language).

Thanks for the article... I

Submitted by Bill Kilner on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 09:59.
Thanks for the article... I appreciate the vision, but I have several problems with it: 'the "pre-trans fallacy," a kind of false romanticism that is often extended not only to young children but to prehistoric and traditional cultures'. Buddhism says that all of life is suffering, get off the wheel of life. But many primitive cultures, I feel, wouldn't have found a need to focus on the suffering aspect. Life just was, flux, birth and death were a part of the process, part of nature. There was no need to label it as "suffering"... I'm interested in Buddhist practices and philosophy, but at the same time it seems to me very much a "religion" - it's only relevant once you have civilisation and all the suffering it entails. The roots of global suffering, as far as I can see, were leaving the garden. It's not some "pre-trans" fallacy to want to get back/go forward to something that looks less like civilisation and more like primitivism. People like John Zerzan have, from what I can see, a pretty good analysis and argument for why we should abandon civilisation. Your catchy, wave of the hand "pre-trans fallacy" skims over, rather abruptly, some very profound and difficult issues. It's troubling that you fail to mention any of them... imperialism, colonisation, the destruction of indigenous cultures and of the natural world... what do we have to learn from indigenous people? Or can Ken Wilber give us all the answers? Besides, who are you or anyone to say that the regard we have for primitive peoples is "false romanticism"...or that it is an imaginary Eden? when indigenous cultures are still out there, in the Amazon for example, trying to live in their traditional way, but are under attack from this death culture? Should they be part of our new glorious civilisation? Homo universalis? In Australia, the Aborigines lived for 40 000 years before white invasion, only 200 years ago. That "imaginary Eden" is awfully close - they didn't ask to be drawn our slow holocaust, to be part of our expulsion at the hands of Dog. Where was "global suffering" then? They didn't need Buddhism. They lived. Civilisation has been around for 10 000 years and this is where we are now. It was Europe who dragged the rest of the world into their hell through colonisation. Buddhism, as I see it, posits an a priori reality, outside of existence - nirvana, which it then privileges. I wonder if anyone else finds that problematic? I'm thinking of the Apollonian/ Dionysian thing...

Response to Bill

Submitted by Darrin Drda on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 14:54.
Thanks for your comments, Bill. Most of the issues you raise are actually covered quite throughly in the book (this is an excerpt, lifted out of context). Although it uses a Buddhist framework, the book is not traditionally Buddhist nor religious, and is explicitly against the notion of transcendence. My argument is that what we actually need to cultivate is a deeper and more intimate connection with the Earth, and in this sense there is indeed much to be learned from indigenous cultures (and from the Bodhisattva ideal, as pointed out directly above). All I'm saying by 'false romanticism' here is that no human culture has ever been perfect -- all have their unique insights and oversights, and yes, European (leading into American) culture has some of the most glaring oversights, the consequences of which we are experiencing all around us in what you rightly call a "death culture." As for 'imperialism, colonisation, the destruction of indigenous cultures and of the natural world,' I devote ample attention to those in the first chapter (The Reality of Global Suffering).

I feel that a great deal of

Submitted by Ray Wakila on Thu, 11/24/2011 - 10:45.

I feel that a great deal of "false romanticism" is coming from the other direction in that it seems people with a more "Buddhist-centric" view tend to not credit, nor even notice, the true sophistication of the framework underlying indigenous cultures and instead regard their balanced way of living a "deeper and more intimate connection with the Earth" as being something that happened by default as a consequence of circumstances. In other words, the admirable aspects of indigenous cultures are regarded as springing only from way of life rather than from an underlying framework of "way of being".

It's not a matter of hoping to go back to a way of life in a falsely romantic way, it's a question of bringing forth the way of being that produced the way of life. The real false romanticism seems to be in presuming that the way of life was not grounded in a sophisticated (and yet not overly elaborate) way of being, one that I think ought to be seriously considered as we propose a framework for the future.

One of the most prevalent "falsely romantic" ideas about indigenous cultures is that the sophisticated way of being was centered upon the use of entheogens rather than a deep understanding of both the "self" and its problematic aspects and means and methods of dealing with it, individually and culturally. There seems to be a general attitude that the absence of elaborate scheme equates to the absence of skillful means, and that is decidedly not the case. (I apologize for seeming to argue with a point you're not making; I'm just sayin' ... in general) 

I'm just attempting to add a bit to what I think Bill is getting at - perhaps a bit of frustration with the attitudes of some of those whose premises and proposals are grounded in the Buddhist framework (and not you in particular as I realize we're not getting the full picture of your work here).

R.S

Submitted by JupiterMoon on Fri, 03/09/2012 - 17:45.
R.S

From Ego-centrism to Eco-librium?

Submitted by Riversong on Wed, 11/23/2011 - 21:35.

Darrin, Not having read your book, I can only respond to the excerpt above, and I have to agree with Bill Kilner that all the psycho-social theories you refer to (including the Buddhist path from suffering to awakening) are human artifices created from the Axial, linear, self-reflective mind. You say, to support the "pre-trans fallacy" notion, that "no human culture has ever been perfect" - but that very notion of perfection is a modern, linear, evolutionary concept. A non-individuated, non self-reflective human culture that survived for 200 millennia in relative harmony with its environment may not be considered perfect by our standards - but it was, by the evidence of its longevity, perfectly adapted to this world.

 

Is it not arrogant of us moderns (civilized ones) to suggest that the enduring past be judged by our dystopian standards? While I appreciate your references to death and dis-memberment as an essential element of the passage (too many today believe it will be all light and joy), I can't help but chuckle at your post title which I've reproduced above. For it seems that much of the New Age movement has made the shift from "ego-centrism" to a drug-like anti-anxiety state of "eco-librium", allowing us to ignore that all that we know - including all the clever categories and stages and matrices you mention - will have to be relinquished as part of the coming cultural dissolution and rebirth (if, even, we make it through the ordeal).

Suffer the Bliss

Submitted by Pippalayana on Thu, 11/24/2011 - 09:56.

I think that the world is suffering in the sense that it is "inertial" in it's default backdrop in relation to consciousness. Similar to how in quantum physics there is the infinite wave of potential, and the finite particle manifestation dichotomy ... a phenomenonn that seems to be forever in flux in relation to the conscious observer ones self.

As soon as one focuses on the detail one looses the overall peripheral perspective ... like the faster one drives in a car the more narrow {less peripheral} conscious visual focus one has ... while when sittiing perrfectly still one has almost 360 degree awareness capacity.

Also in similar vain, the quieter ones mind the further down the stream one can hear the trickling of the brook. That these are inherent laws we are all subject to, and that the more one tries, individually or collectively to increase and expand the karma, the less inherent dharma can be realized.

So naturally, of course, the simpler jungle-small village cultrures have less "maya" {illusion} as compared to cities, kingdoms, dynasties etc.

Hence the hermits, monks, and forest sage, type acetics /reninciates etc, seem to always have the more all-nclusive dharmic philosophical realizations as opposed to the more "eat drink and be merry, short lived "life of the senses" karmas found in the more sophisticated city life. 

The more the gratification the more chance for argumentation and / or war ... hence the whole "duality as opposed to oneness" philosophies ... that these are not just ideological, but intrinsic laws of interaction.  

We are all subject to this principle to varying degrees. Yet there can be monks in the monastery who constantly think about life on the outside to the point of disturbing their chance for more meditative prowess, just as there can be some in the very midst of the city who do not so easily loose their center {their mind} to the fantasies and whims of an indulgent mega-metrapolis. {yin within yang within yin} 

In the 1960's, when the hippies first started to awaken, one of the most basic intial trends of such conscious expansion was to live more simply, back to land {"can you dig it brother" .. or is all just concrete and plastic} As the mind expands the life naturally simplifies.

The Hare Krsna's have the motto .. "Simple living - High thinking" as opposed to complex living - low mindedness. One can know the underlying nature {Tao} of all things while sitting in a cave ... or one can be in the most sophiticated scientific laboratory and be nescient of even the most basic sense of compassion.

The Buddhists certainly did not invent simple insightful living. No real philosophy outside of the most basic above mentioned "law of Tao" that pretty much exists as unspoken, unteachable, everywhere within everyone, as there is nothing individual, or collective, not subject to such interactive principle.

The Mythical Story of the two Trees in Eden ... same principle .. the more we try to tell ourselves who and what we are by eating the fruits of duality "tree of knowlege" ... {information-age humanism as a relative epitome} ... the less our actual, integrative life experience in the conscious moment. {tree of life}

Again, in the more Ancient Yoga traditions of "pre-hindhu" India, they have this phrase "acintya-bheddha-abheddha-tattva" ... "inconceivable, simultaneous, oneness and difference" ... or "unity in diversity" with a deeper, more expansive conjecture.

In other words according to these "Ayur-Vedic" life sciences there is "constitutional variety" forever found all throughout human society {all beings} in the sense that each school yard will have the same basic varieties of character varigatedness all throughout time.

Quiet ones, popular ones aggressive ones, funny ones, somber ones, ... "naturally and inherently" inclined towards labor, crafts, intellectual and administrative pursuits every society large and small, sophisticated or simplistic has some sense of this ... which can be repressed and or hyped out of context by all kinds psycho-sociological "ploys of propaganda" .. but inherently such is there.

The origins of the so called "caste" system had a more profound philosophy behind it, originally termed {Sanskrit} "Varnasrama-dharma" ... varnas are the more organic physical inclinations - writer, farmer, laborer, scientis, politician ... and asrama was the more subtle inclinations, karma, jnana, hatha, buddhi, bhakti - variouis yogas, or internal procilities to yoke or connect with "spirit" - "truth" etc.

So if a one is of more interactive, passionate inclination karma and bhakti yoga might be more appropriate, where as if one was more dry and detached by nature, jnana and buddhi yogas might be more appropriate.

There being no inherent nature that is without an appropriate path or yoga to acheive oneness with others. Every religious tradition still has the same variety of renunciates, priestcraft adminstrative, intellectuals, lay farmers and labors ... working buddhas, contemplative buddhas, lovemaking buddhas, emperor buddhas ... hence the much older "Buddhi yoga" which means basically that any nature of being is here for an intrinsic purpose and has a unique part to play at "every level"

This was never based on birth alone  according to the ancient texts, but was "qualitative" ... if a farmers son showed natural inclination for intellectual pursuits such was detected early on and catered to ... visa versa also apllies

The whole bloodline phenomenon is a total illusion, whether the caste / class system perversions found everywhere, or the inter-breeeding / eugenic fanatatical nesceience in relation to "population management" ... the same principle apllying to to sciences of select genetic breeding etc ... all having the same problem at the root. 

Long ago they knew better and instead of a democratic free for all - "anyone can be anything" ... or ther caste/class by inertia or birth .. both ends of this dual perspective ... well they just saw the natural inherent tendecies and selectively educated through apprentiship {guru to disciple} only those areas of compatible intrigue.

Another Sanskrit term "Caitanya" means immortal character, like how even tbough a person born with physical compromise {genes / chromozones etc} like having Down Syndrome ... but that they still have a very sweet disposition - personality-caitanya etc. , often even more so than those around them ... that like trying to remove certain traits by genetic engeneering, some even offer the opportunitry to abort such problematic distortions not realizing that they come also with blessings. 

  So caitanya trumps all else ... bloodlines, opulence etc .. in a qualitative society that is. Renunciates of highest order can still learn valuable life lessons from the most simple worker, and so there is never a linear path of evolutionary princpled progression outside of each of us, in our given point of reference in relation to "all others" seeing the revelation only ever possible amidst the variety of dispositions themselves ... having to always be there, as opposed to philosophically negated.  

Socrates used to hang out a fair amount with a local blacksmith, whom he liked because of his "sweat of brow" demeanor" .... quite different from his own, yet complentary in it's difference.  

One never actually "sees" a mandala or thanka painting without witnessing so many dimensional levels of cosmic interaction. As many versions of possibilities as one can imagine.  

Yet there is not one human being who does not have the ability to use that mandala to transcened the judgement of any particular dimensional area within as but the possibility for each and every being to occupy if they themselves eat of that pious or impiou karmic fruit.

In other words every culture, society, generation etc, will have their own mandala .... all of us acting forever in an interactive "cycle of life" with all others ... and that the getting out of it is no more than the getting deeper into it .. like ying within yang within ying ... oneness and difference infinetly interacting in all dimensional variations simultaneously ... the more "conscious version" of the  multiple universe / parallel universe speculations of the modern day physicist.    

"Wonder is what Mystery would do if it was conscious" ...

"Wandering is for every other possibility"

Pippalayana Muni 

"Pre-trans fallacy" fallacy

Submitted by paintedmaple on Thu, 11/24/2011 - 15:59.
You can add me to list of those with the cool response to the inclusion of one of Ken Wilber's more prominent machinations - the "pre-trans fallacy." I read Wilber for years and always seemed to me to be wink at neo-Darwinism that Ken could really tell the difference between the the lesser evolved and the more greatly evolved such as himself. Also, Wilber likes to misrepresent Buddhism to make it seem like it supports his thinking. I realize that this is just a outtake from the book, but leading off with this Wilberism is indeed troubling.

Clarifications

Submitted by Darrin Drda on Thu, 11/24/2011 - 18:03.
Thanks, everyone, for your thoughtful responses. There are too many ideas to address in kind, but I do want to clarify a few things. Again, my book is "Buddhist" mainly in its structure, and actually diverges from these traditions in appreciable ways, most notably in its adoption of an evolutionary paradigm and a full embrace of physical embodiment (an area in which once finds great variance among the traditions, and even within each). I agree that with JupiterMoon that the feminine perspective and ways of knowing are tragically absent from the praxis of our culture, and several sections of the book are devoted to bringing this imbalance and its consequences to light. But I disagree that Buddhism is mostly Apollonian abstraction; my experience has shown me how psychologically pragmatic and grounded (and ultimately transformative) are its practices. As for the controversial figure of Wilber, he is only mentioned in passing, mainly because I find many of his core ideas relevant, including that of the pre-trans fallacy. I have heard too many arguments for a return to pre-industrial/pre-modern/pre-Axial civilization, as if such a thing were desirable, let alone possible. As destructive as egoic-rational consciousness has been (thoroughly explicated in my book), it has also brought forth many gifts. The task as I see it is to synthesize the best of this rational knowledge with the best of ancient and indigenous wisdom. If the cultural aspects seem too problematic, then we can think about this synthesis in terms of brain hemispheres (more figurative than literal, as any neuroscientist would point out) or as integration of masculine and feminine within our selves and in the culture at large, so that we might arrive at a more holistic conception (and experience) of being human.

An evolutionary paradigm

Submitted by paintedmaple on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 13:21.
Rajajuju is spot on in noting Wilber's lack of intuition in his earlier unequivocal support of Adi Da as well as his ongoing support of another abusive "guru" - Andrew Cohen. We can decide for ourselves how this taints the rest of his ideas. Darrin you say that your book "actually diverges from these traditions in appreciable ways, most notably in its adoption of an evolutionary paradigm." Did you ever consider that the 'evolutionary paradigm' might be the current version of age old delusion? Is rational thought the gold standard by which all other thought/cultures are to be judged? While I certainly don't advocate a return to any mythic golden age (as if it where even possible); I think believing in and viewing reality from the neo-Darwinian lens of modernity (AKA egoic-rational consciousness) is problematic to say the least - not to mention the many 'gifts' you believe it has brought forth. That said - I appreciate your patient dialog on this thread. I sincerely wish that you and your book do well and are of benefit to all beings.

Evolution ... or Revolutuion

Submitted by Pippalayana on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 20:00.

 

Many theories of so-called linear  "evolution" have not ever really been advanced beyond the "theoretical" stage.  To date there has not been even  one confirmed find {archeology} of any "transitional" species which physically verifies these theories.

Same with cultural advancement.  Modern man as a general phenomenon has the same basic variety school yard character traits among children as there ever was.  

To think that the use of technology is "proof" of our  ever advancing momentum and not actually a crutch for our falling away from higher and higher instinctual abilities .. well all one has to do is look around and one can easily see such "fall from grace" becoming more and more evident all throughout global humanity.    

That revolutionary {revolve} cycles are all there has ever been {as opposed to all deterrministic and reductionistic linear evolutionary premises} .. like seasons don't just get hotter or colder ad infinitum but cycle .. or the colors of the rainbow manifest simultaneously and not in any top to bottom fashion .. humankind "forever" only has but the same self-manifested proclivities that we advance or fall in relationship to.  

As if peace and love are evolutionary epitomies rather than inherencies that are realized time and time again all throughout human exiistence.  So many even on so-called progressive thinking sites like this one  seem to maintain the basic party line that we "came from" hunter gathers and then evolved into farming etc... as if not all of these tendencies are inherent and manifest time and time, again over smaller and larger cyclic periods.       

Not that there isn't cycles of adaptation, like living closer or further away from the equator, one has lighter or darker skin.  That there is not many speicies of humans, just like birds or plants that have greater or lesser brain sizes. 

In the Ancient Vedic and Puranic Sastras {historical texts} of "pre-hindhu" India they knew of 400.000 possible variations on the human species potential. 

That humans knew of the atom, the mathematical zero, and the distance of the sun from the earth way back when but it became lost due to cosmic seasonal change {just like all the leaves fall off the trees in Winter but again returnn in the Spring} .. no one from this older time frame ever thought the earth was flat or the sun revolved around the earth as the "dark-age"  pre-Europeans" did, even though living 1000's of years earlier.    

One just has to have the more expanded frame of referrence, like thinking time and space are linear and do not cycle around like Eienstein later showed those progressing out of Dark-Age nescience and Quantum mechanics has taken even further.   

The old hippie musical group the Grateful Dead have a bass player {Phil Lesh} who had more formal Jazz and Classical musical training than others in the band.   

Jerry Garcia, the band leader - guitar player once said in an interview that when listening to the bands recordings they couldn't seem to follow Phils bass lines until they sped the tape up to double speed .. at which point it became obvious of the structured patterning to the bass lines ... from linear chaos to cyclic purpose took some expanded viewpoint to obtain the appropriate context. 

Yet for Phil, such was not required. So in a similar vain, not every culture needed the whole mech-tech world of modern science to verify inherent reality as many of the modern mentality seem to. 

That as our quantum views progress more and more we are also coming more and more able to see these greater and more subtle cosmic cycles of both gross and subtle interactions.

Just like virtually everyone who was brought up during the "earth was flat" conceptual season had a hard time making the transition initially, many who fell for the Darwinian perspective may find the greatest dificulty in the more quantum perspectives.  

As such "stuck in the muck" inertia is and has always been found throughout virtually all levels of these last few centuries of moderrn science ... at every single level one tends to think "eureka" .. until "oh shit" .. new evidence.   

Every single special, on Egypt I have ever seen has different evidential view points that fuel the ever speculating human mind .. the cells, the other species, the planets stars and galaxies .. the genes, the DNA ... there may not be one theoretical premise in any of these fields that holds true from more quantum perspectives in the decades/centuries to come.      

Every single human that ever lived is subject to such selective conditioning ... and I would postulate even further that outside of deeper, more intuitive subjective revelations, whether through meditational prowess or other Entheogenic realizations, that no objective relativity of "proofs" will ever actually trump such "intuitions" by virtue of definition.   

The intuition always being superior to the relativistic and deterministic "verifications"  .. like Albert Eiensteins "riding a light beam" in his own naked or virgin mind's eye will forever be of more intrinsic value than the actual E=mc2 formula.  

So some Indigenous person millenia ago may have "seen" in their minds eye things not able to be verified by present technologies, and/or even conceived by present psycho-socio mind sets. 

Similar to some of the recent discussions of how Entheogenic visionary states {like  LSD} effected  people like Steve Jobs and othen "high thinkers" ... that reality itself does not evolve but merely revolves ... and that such high states of revelation are eternal and absolute ... as the mind expands the linear becomes cyclic right before the eyes .. and such has "always been so"     

We are not "getting there"  due to our inertial progress alone any more than we are getting the seasons to change based on the strength of our own motivations.

Just like each generation tends to think that "they are it" modern humanism is but another verrsion forever lost unto their inherent sense of purpose until they mature to include both the past and the future into the "ever-awakening" of the present.  

 

 

"Wonder is what Mystery would do if it was conscious" ...

"Wandering is for every other possibility"

Pippalayana Muni 

 

 

 

 

 

"Wonder is what Mystery would do if it was conscious" ... "Wandering is for every other possibility" Pippalayana Muni

I'm a Heretic

Submitted by paintedmaple on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 19:19.
I'm a Heretic...I realize that the so called 'evolutionary paradigm' is considered by most to be a priori knowledge and to question is to be presumed stupid, crazy, or both. Just look at the way you presume your righteousness "Do you not agree that single celled life led to fish which led to reptiles which led to mammals which led to humans?" Kinda sounds like "Do you not agree that Jesus was the one true son of the almighty God? My questioning provokes a rather emotional response - does it not? Also, I do not assert that "rationality is the evil culprit of all our woes." Rationality if fine - it simply doesn't exhaust all of reality as we moderns like to believe. The evolutionary paradigm/neo Darwinism are currently fashionable ways of thinking about the origins of humanity - modern mythology really (and that doesn't mean that it doesn't have some truth to it). We really don't have a fucking clue as to our origins, hence the constant need for myth and it is the myths that truly evolve.

(r)evolution

Submitted by Darrin Drda on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 19:36.
Again, many excellent ideas for which I am grateful. As I see it, there is some truth to both the cyclical and linear views of time and experience, such that a synthesis (usually understood as a spiral -- cyclical yet different at each level or iteration) seems to most fully capture the truth of the situation. Even looking at our own lives, we know that we are different by degrees than we were yesterday or last year or last decade, yet we have the sense that something about us remains fundamentally unchanged (delusional or not, it's persistent). There is a direct parallel on the collective scale, yet I choose to emphasize the evolutionary aspect because I find it more compelling, empowering, and more relevant to an earth community facing a convergence of crises that is indeed unprecedented. Besides, the evolutionary perspective is the only way to account for a universe that was once comprised of clouds of hydrogen and helium and after almost 14 billion years is now capable of writing poetry and of reveling in the unfathomable mystery and miracle of existence. To say that we now understand that story from a scientific perspective (as well as a mythological one) is not to privilege our way of knowing but to invoke wonder and gratitude and to invite participation in the *process* we call the universe.

Spiraling Fossils

Submitted by Pippalayana on Sat, 11/26/2011 - 04:55.

Spirals ... yes ... but spirals can also cycle and repeat and even revert their direction from the more multi-dimensional "quantum" perspective ... "spiraling out of control ... or spiraling in to a apex point of epitome ... or back and forth into a  "zero point field state" of interactive dynamic.

For anyone desiring to gain a strickly scientfic alternative study of the actual history and / or 100 year evolution of "Darwinan Archeology" ... to really gain an overall context on how these theories have been advanced in direct relation to archeological digs ... in a step-by-step breakdown of each "find-to-theory" transitional interpolation, see the 800 page scholarly work "Forbidden Archeology"

This book, originally written for scholars {100% evidential - no hypothetical specultion} has turned the heads of many in these actual fields of study .. going quite a bit more into the conceptual details behind the actual technologies used as well as into the whole psychology behind the associative theories.

Most will never quite view this field of study the same after reading.

"Interpretation" beings ones greatest friend ... or greatest enemy ... depending only on the actual quality of this conceptual art and science itself ... subjective revelation as opposed to objective relativity.

 

"Wonder is what Mystery would do if it was conscious" ...

"Wandering is for every other possibility"

Pippalayana Muni 

Zero Point Field State

Submitted by Pippalayana on Sat, 11/26/2011 - 22:12.

The "Zero Point Field State" is the underlying "field of all potential" that exists before, after and during all interactive manifestaion.    

The term "zero point" is used because just like the mathematical zero is both before "1" {both positive 1 and negative 1} and also after every "9" - 99 {100} - 999{1000} ... zero does not mean "nothing" but the "potential for everything" ... individual and/or collective ... more potential after each and every "possibility of measurement"  as well as simultaneously previous to any/all probable cause and/or interactive effect.

"Field" because such is all-pervasive {omnipresent} within and without all things{transcendent to and/or including all time and space interaction} .. and "state" because as it includes all possibile manifestation ... "too much of everything to be anything" ... {similar to how white light is the source of all color while simultaneously having no manifest presence in the rainbow for example} .. no relative proof able to contain such an "absolute state" 

... well such can be only be known by conscious interaction having no individual identity or dimension outside of being the unifying source of all dimensional interaction and/or manifestation. 

All things of "relativity" {special relativity} can only be postulated in relation to an underlying and unifying "field state" of absolute zero ... containing all frequency and vibrational capacity without have a measureable frequency or vibration of it's own ... as all possible conceptual principle also exits there in pure potential form.

Like theorizing if the mind could ever know of it's own source as it can only really know of other things in relation to this source. Like the postulation "can fish know of water" as that is "all there is" for them .. no "knowing of water" separate from "being in water" ... too all-pervasive {again omnipresence}.  

Einstein though about this some, initiating much of the original curiosity along these lines, but this actual term was only used for such a potential description a bit later.

As much a purely conceptual possibility as the actual unifying state of all interactive probablilty .. known only by it's absence .. like only knowing of consciousness relative to the things one is conscious of ... purely by subjective revelation ... as opposed to any formula for relativity .. {hence the phenomenon of conscious synchronicity etc}  

 

"Wonder is what Mystery would do if it was conscious" ...

"Wandering is for every other possibility"

Pippalayana Muni

Evolution and the zero point field

Submitted by Darrin Drda on Sun, 11/27/2011 - 04:43.
BTW, when I say "evolution" I am not speaking of Darwinian / biological evolution but cosmic evolution as conceived by folks like Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin, who grappled with the eternal paradox of The One and the Many. This kind of evolutionary model stands in contradistinction to systems which are closed and "beginningless" (and therefore endless) like those proposed by certain Eastern religions including Buddhism (i.e. samsara). The Zero Point Field idea is fascinating -- thanks for that. If I'm not mistaken, it has also been called the 'Plenum-void' by Heraclitus , 'shunyata' by the Buddha, the 'implicate order' by David Bohm, the 'all-nourishing abyss' by Brian Swimme, and the 'Ground of Being' by various religious and philosophical traditions. 

I agree

Submitted by Darrin Drda on Sun, 11/27/2011 - 19:02.
...that the Ground of Being is unknowable. The names we have for "it" are just noises we make in the face of Mystery. By 'closed' I mean eternally recurring; thus the impulse to "get out of" samsara, to break free of the cycle.

Buddhist Truths

Submitted by ToreroSol on Sun, 11/27/2011 - 19:34.
The EGO is not to be soft-peddled relegated to a lesser position in man at all. It is to be disengaged and left behind without any place in man! The "ego" is an opportunity for the anti-truth to take control. Wisdom is not "Ego" -based, and never was. The Buddhist understands consciousness and soul as spirit etc. and needs to acknowledge there is no room for ego, AT ALL. Realize, the only need for this discussion of ridding onesself of ego is creted by ego. The inner You is not judging or expecting, only observing and with that incapable of disappointment or direction to follow any one path. The true journey is not linear but everywhere, but experienced only if you let go. Thanks. Great blog.