The Conveyor Belt (Apr 14 2007) part 4

7:34 - variety of definitions of spirituality

7:56 - the contemplative tradition doesn't accept dogma, it accepts an individual's experience

9:09 - God the father, God the son and God the Holy Spirit is 1st, 2nd and 3rd person in the contemplative Christian tradition

10:16 - mysticism is a technology of interior development

13:55 - monotheistic traditions fight state and structure growth

22:06 - science was open to experimental / contemplative religion

The Conveyor Belt (Apr 14 2007) part 3

3:46 - compassion is wishing to remove others' suffering; love is wishing to positively embrace them

The Conveyor Belt (Apr 14 2007) part 2

3:29 - second tier seems to naturally acquire a spiritual awareness, a spirituality of consciousness, compassion, transcendence, timeless truths, etc.

20:08 - the knowledge quest proceeds funeral by funeral

39:04 - significant, large-scale change needs to come from the top down

51:44 - good definition of first tier: the levels that think that their truths are the only truths; second tier: the levels that see that all truths are valuable

53:22 - states are exclusionary and structures are inclusionary

53:35 - the transpersonal structures start making states permanently available

The Conveyor Belt (Apr 14 2007) part 1

6:59 - it's common for people who have moved on from traditional, mythic religion to still find depth and meaning from it

8:30 - prerational spirituality is a concrete, mythic form, transrational spirituality is an interior, contemplative form

9:15 - Buddhism does not cover transrational structures of development; it covers nonrational lateral states

15:34 - recognition of your primordial nature is effortless, but then you have to manifest it in the relative world

15:41 - if you want to bring anything into manifestation, including the dharma, effort and achievement is required

18:35 - The Secret, again, The Secret; oy vey

18:44 - a better understanding of quantum mechanics is needed here

19:04 - consciousness does not collapse the wave function; stop saying that it does

31:12 - satori doesn't tell you anything about the content of the manifest world

33:31 - Big Mind is a progressive disidentification with subpersonalities

The World of the Terribly Obvious (Mar 31 2007) part 5

0:03 - an individual at a level tries to understand other levels, but holds that understanding at the space they are at

1:11 - this has been a major tripping point for the whole mythopoetic movement: the pre-trans fallacy rears its head again

1:24 - Joseph Campbell: when myths are taken as literal, that perverts the meaning of the myth

1:46 - Campbell is attempting to make prerational myths carry transrational truths: a classic pre - trans fallacy mistake

3:03 - Campbell is saying that only myths held in a rational space are real

5:31 - few myths are generated at a transrational level

7:53 - only at second tier does perspective become expansive enough to allow for hermeneutics

14:51 - Krishnamurti didn't recognize relative levels of development

16:47 - you can't see structures - they're not in given awareness

17:19 - the individual subject is used by the structure

18:14 - but deconstruction of the self is not the same as the Buddhist no-self

18:32 - structures are intersubjective systems - a nexus agency

21:46 - the postmodern exploration of phenomena has divorced itself from state training

30:33 - each transpersonal structure transcends and includes the previous states; as you go through the higher structures the previous states become permanently available

32:05 - the more you can attain deeper transpersonal states, the more freedom and creativity you have in shifting your awareness

33:15 - traditional levels of the subtle body: the etheric, the astral, the mental, the psychic

39:44 - green is susceptible to pre-modern myths and other aspects of the pre-rational world (the eco-primitive purism, "yesterday was one with source", etc.)

40:44 - green is also susceptible to the anti-rationality of the boomers (just trust your feelings, don't think, etc.)

40:44 - feelings can't take the role of other (which is kind of important)

46:21 - art connects with an audience when some part of it resonates at their altitude

50:23 - an artefact is something made by a sentient holon whose agency or form is imprinted on it

1:00:15 - reality is not only physical, it is psychophysical -Adi Da

1:00:32 - but don't take that to mean that we are creating phenomena (e.g. The Secret)

1:00:44 - what it means is we are co-creating our experience of phenomena, and we can shift our world by shifting our perception

1:04:25 - The Witness, no-mind, is absolute subjectivity

1:04:33 - that doesn't mean it's a subject - it's nondual, neither subject nor object

1:04:39 - what it means is that it lies in the direction of subjectivity (I Am-ness)

1:04:45 - when you objectify everything and enter absolute subjectivity, then you hit the nondual

1:04:51 - in absolute subjectivity all subjects and objects are arising within it

1:07:00 - The Witness is usually looking through a relative I

1:07:11 - but the feeling of The Witness is not there - it is vast emptiness

1:07:17 - The Witness is that which you can't see or feel

1:07:32 - who am I?

1:15:15 - there can be an art, morals and science in all four quadrants

1:17:27 - in modernity, the it domain (science) took over the I and the we domains; that's a problem

1:17:39 - but don't make a worse mistake by then condemning all of modernity

The World of the Terribly Obvious (Mar 31 2007) part 4

0:50 - just being aware of transpersonal structures helps our working with transpersonal states

1:06 - that alone can increase our depth and our height

2:26 - an understanding of all four quadrants can help any one quadrant evolve

3:04 - you don't see the level you're at

6:00 - that's why having a map is important; it helps you see subject as object, helping you transcend

10:08 - there's a dialectical process between agency and communion and Eros and Agape

10:37 - agency is the drive to be a whole, to maintain integrity, autonomy and freedom

10:45 - communion is the drive to be a part of a larger culture

11:37 - Eros is the drive upward, to let go of objects and negate the lower

12:02 - Agape is the drive to identify, feel into awareness, reaching down to embrace lower levels

13:03 - it's healthy to alternate between all of these

14:31 - it's possible to be at a nondual state and have let go of all objects in your awareness

14:41 - but that's the trick; your awareness is still at a particular level, and thus all that's in your awareness are the objects below that level

21:35 - structures are referred to as higher or lower, states are referred to as deeper or shallower

21:44 - when the we space is at a specific altitude, it will exert a pull on your I space

22:48 - more than a help, the we space is essential for growth and transformation

23:00 - the I, it and we are Buddha, Dharma, Sangha

27:19 - how do you reach all levels of development on their own terms?

30:14 - zen thinks you can look within and see your true self - the myth of the given

30:55 - the relative, finite self is ultimately false, when compared to the absolute self - but you can get that false self wrong

31:42 - inside the relative realm, there's a true and false

32:55 - we work to get the relative world right

33:23 - Marx was looking at unfreedom in the social realm; Freud was looking at unfreedom in the personal realm

33:41 - when we say the shadow is producing a false self, a self that is not the true self, that true self we are talking about is not the absolute Self, we are talking about the relative true self

34:20 - there are two forms of falseness, relative falseness and ultimate falseness

34:29 - two goals: the relative goal is to make the four quadrants as healthy as we can; the absolute goal is to drop them

41:44 - history is a chronicle of men and women born too soon

42:33 - let's get one thing straight: we are not on the verge of a global outbreak of consciousness expansion that is going to liberate everybody

46:32 - green looks at teal and thinks it's seeing red

54:45 - the various dimensions of existence, body, mind, soul, spirit, are held in consciousness in ways particular to each level

58:04 - contemplatives, when they describe stages / levels, are almost always describing state-stages

58:48 - the world coemerges differently based on the structure of consciousness

The World of the Terribly Obvious (Mar 31 2007) part 3

2:22 - placing your separate self at the center of the kosmos, rather than placing the kosmos at the center of your separate self

3:44 - lower holons determine the possibilities of the higher; the higher determines the probabilities of the lower

11:20 - delusions of reference; the delusion that something happening in the exterior world is there for a special reason just for me

11:53 - examples: six-month-olds, paranoid schizophrenics, purple / magenta magic, The Secret / Law of Attraction

12:20 - the magic level of consciousness has it that wholes with similar parts are equated

13:00 - also it confuses whole and part

14:21 - green was trying to transcend distancing, monolithic orange thinking, and made two mistakes

15:09 - it confused transrational feelings with prerational sensations

16:18 - and it confused synchronicity with nondual holism

18:43 - when you drop your everyday, ordinary awareness / consciousness / sense of self, whatever structure / level attempting to emerge is all that is left

22:22 - when the next phase of growth is about to occur, it may be triggered by an event that wouldn't have been noticed earlier

29:53 - quantum mechanics does not cause the higher levels - pranamayakosha causes quantum mechanics

30:14 - quantum mechanics has nothing to do with spirituality, other than it is a manifestation of spirit like everything else

32:08 - all this is Eros

51:44 - the question of freedom is how do we transcend; the question of fullness is how do we embrace

51:58 - the answer to the first question is the subject of one level becomes the object of the subject of the next level

51:34 - development through states is important (meditation)

51:37 - but you also want to have the states contribute to the growth into structures of consciousness

51:45 - you need both

52:48 - you can go through all transpersonal states and become further cemented in the dogma of your surrounding culture

53:57 - intellectual, conscious awareness of the structures does help you move through them

54:12 - without a good map of horizontal state-stages and vertical structure-stages, meditation can often keep you just on the horizontal path (through the transpersonal states)

54:37 - let's get some terminology for the differently-state-centered types of self-sense down

54:47 - a self-sense oriented at gross state is ego

54:58 - a self-sense oriented at soul / subtle state is soul

55:01 - a self-sense oriented at causal is Self

55:06 - a self-sense oriented at nondual is suchness

55:26 - meditation moves you through these states

55:48 - states are exclusive

56:23 - good definition of structure: a pattern of wholeness

56:57 - evolution is the process of states transforming into structures

57:12 - there are potentially many different structures possible

57:39 - having a peak experience can help you advance through the structures

58:14 - the contents of enlightenment can change as time passes

58:24 - an enlightened shaman at 4,000 BC is red - because that's all that was available at the time

59:18 - Gautama Buddha: orange structure, causal state

The World of the Terribly Obvious (Mar 31 2007) part 2

6:56 - you can have a state of consciousness when the structure of consciousness is not yet ready to hold it

8:04 - higher states and higher structures can presage themselves; tragically, contemporary psychiatry interprets this as a breakdown

24:05 - postmodernism gives us some profound insights, along with some bad mistakes

24:25 - the pre-trans fallacy; pre and trans look similar, so tend to get confused

25:01 - which leads to either elevating pre to trans status

25:33 - or reducing trans to pre

41:40 - the myth of the given is that my perceptions of the world are correct, the world is not partially a construction of my consciousness

47:14 - some of what science sees is culturally constructed

47:46 - postmodernism threw out monolithic interiors

48:54 - a quick summary of postmodernism: all structures and states have a lower left quadrant

49:19 - Foucault's archaeology of knowledge focuses on zone four; his genealogy focuses on zone three

55:32 - why the given is a myth: there is no single pre-given world that's universally true for everybody; the given world is different at every stage / level / structure

55:55 - pre-human stages are shared by everyone (interpretations of those stages will be different at different levels, of course)

The World of the Terribly Obvious (Mar 31 2007) part 1

2:10 - intersubjective dialogue is important in our deepening our spiritual practice

2:13 - we can only hold our own perspective; sometimes it takes an outside perspective to clearly see what's happening

7:20 - Idealism means setting the bar above where you currently are, with some assurance that you can reach it

16:00 - zones three and four: cultural anthropology is looking at the lower left from the outside (objective), hermeneutics is interpreting the lower left from the inside (subjective)

17:37 - pluralism starts with an important insight: all cultures are different and cannot be bound by any universal principles

17:54 - but that insight quickly slides into relativism: no truth is better than another, there is no objective truth, etc.

18:03 - and that of course leads us to the performative contradiction: you're asserting that there are no universal truths applicable to all cultures, and that truth is universally applicable to all cultures

18:20 - green wants us to believe that it is freeing all viewpoints: it isn't

24:22 - second tier has nested hierarchies, not monolithic hierarchies, hierarchies of internal growth, not of external oppression

24:40 - all growth hierarchies are non-oppressive

24:45 - oppression is a pathology within the actualization or growth holarchy

26:08 - the paradigm of the pre-post fallacy: they (green, usually) understand the problems with modernity, but they romanticize pre-modernity

A Miracle Called We (Mar 11 2007) part 5

0:12 - taking a second person perspective is to move from egocentric to ethnocentric

0:19 - there is third person awareness, but not a third-person perspective

0:32 - which come with formal operational cognition / orange / adolescence

0:54 - the quadrants are always present, but they're not self-reflexively aware (until a certain stage of development)

10:21 - an eight-year-old may be in a hermeneutic space, but that doesn't mean they can do hermeneutics

16:22 - there's no freedom involved

17:34 - quadrant absolutism is denying things in other quadrants

17:51 - freedom is in zone one

19:07 - our freedom is not as clear-cut as we would like to think

20:41 - but let us not eliminate freedom entirely

21:01 - if freedom is to some extent defined as indeterminacy, there is some in every holon

23:00 - how is it great meditators did not advance through the stages / structures / levels?

24:22 - they didn't because conditions have to be right in all four quadrants

24:54 - meditation is a help, but is not a cause (of growth)

24:59 - it's possible meditation can reinforce a level

25:24 - a state of consciousness will be interpreted by the structure of consciousness that holds it

25:33 - if you are in an environment that encourages freedom, growth and exploration, meditation will increase the likelihood of advancement (but not be the cause)

26:13 - in an ethnocentric, traditional environment, higher states will be interpreted according to the dogma

27:20 - all of which goes to show once again that structures of consciousness and states of consciousness are independent

28:17 - if you are inside an amber / blue / mythic membership culture and meditate, you won't attain higher structure; higher structures don't exist in that culture

28:30 - meditation fundamentally encourages horizontal movement through states of consciousness

28:57 - meditation can exert a micro-transformative vertical pressure (if the quadrants are not directly opposing it), but the results are spotty

34:40 - a good theory is a theory that can last long enough to get you to a better one

36:00 - there are 8 fundamental methodologies - use them

36:25 - traditional Zen teaching tells you to just drop everything, which is really pretty unhelpful

37:21 - in Buddhism, there is a relative truth and an absolute truth

37:33 - in the absolute realm, there is no qualities, no division, all is eternal, timeless emptiness

37:53 - in the relative, manifest realm, we have politics, society, environment, psychology, health, etc.

38:03 - saying "just drop all that" is outright unethical - http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/daido/teisho57.php

38:14 - yes, it's all a dream, it's all an illusion, maya, to be dropped, okay, cool, we got it

38:21 - once you achieve that awareness, you have to integrate emptiness and form

38:27 - easing relative suffering is an ethical demand; the relative world of form requires scientists, educators, politicians who can work toward this

38:43 - sitting and achieving nondual awareness is an individual achievement; it gets you off the wheel, but helps no one else

39:25 - there are currently popular teachers of the nondual path; Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, etc.

39:52 - but where they're lacking is in the integration of emptiness and form

40:25 - we need to get people well-rounded and awakened; not just awakened

40:57 - the Lankavatara Sutra integrates emptiness and the manifestation of the world of form into a complete holarchy

A Miracle Called We (Mar 11 2007) part 4

3:27 - is the student-guru relationship one of I-thou? does this get confused with a second-person relationship with God?

3:34 - yeah, pretty much

3:38 - in the ideal, theoretical student-guru relationship, the relationship models the relationship to God in the second person by seeing the guru as spirit incarnate

3:55 - thus helping students find their own spirit in first person (because eventually you identify with the guru)

4:08 - note that it almost never works out this way

6:09 - it doesn't seem like groups have stages, exactly

13:22 - how do you move a dominant mode of resonance up?

24:13 - mature monogamy: the other person is a partner in awakening (Robert Masters' work)

35:26 - skillful means: how do we communicate 2nd tier concepts to 1st tier?

36:39 - first, know the audience: one on one or a group or an informal gathering, etc.

36:55 - translate 2nd tier ideas into 1st tier versions

55:49 - self-awareness is not present at all levels

58:54 - first person perspective develops at age three to five, egocentric