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9 comments

• Comment Link Monday, 21 November 2011 14:35 posted by Philip Corkill

  Powerful stuff Trevor! And moving music.
  
  I'm reminded of this idea of Adi Da being the one and only ever 7th Stage adept. He apparently alluded to this himself and of course it was welcomed as an incredible revelation by many of his devotees.
  
  To me, I think it's an unnecessary veil a sort of Ego trip shrouding the magnificence of great realisation. An ego trip passed on to the disciples. But perhaps it's not. I wonder how much Jesus was afflicted by this understandable vanity and how much of that "one and only son of God" image was added by those who received his blessings. And if it really is a vanity or just some expression of truth that I can't understand.
  
  Just had a look on Wikipedia to see if I can get any clues from this concept of the "Avatar". Found a link to this short piece by Meher Baba:
  
  http://home.online.no/~solibakk/firstava.html
  
  How does that stuff relate to your view of Jesus (or Adi Da, Neil Young or whoever)?
  
  One of my favourite analogies is from Osho (who didn't make claims at being extra-extra special). He likened the human spiritual quest to the journey of a seed into a large flowering tree with deep roots. The seed is in everyone but, so far, those who grow deep roots and blossom fully have been the exception. This need not be the case.
  
  What I like about this is that it integrates your concept of the divine being in everybody (it is, in seed, potential) with the idea of only few or one person fully incarnating the divine (a fully grown blossoming tree, releasing it's fragrance is a rarity).
  
  Also, this helps us value everybody at whatever stage of growth they are at. Seeds aren't less divine than trees. Without conflating the grandeur of a Jesus, or if you like a Tom Waits (;-), with every other Tom, Dick and Harry. There's a huge difference but not in potential.
  
  And even if Christ-Consciousness is available every moment to everybody that doesn't mean everyone will have the courage to demonstrate true power to the Kingdom of Wallstreet;-) Speaking truth is risky enough!
  
  And yet every analogy has it's limits. Maybe some people are born blossoming.
  
  What d'you think?
• Comment Link Monday, 21 November 2011 18:04 posted by Bruce Sanguin

  Thanks Trevor,
  
  Makes a ton of sense to me.
  
  I'm convinced that in the modern period the sky-gods began to fall from the sky and into the human heart. The whole, endless and tedious discussion about Jesus being fully human and fully divine (and him alone), is losing relevance, as we understand that this conversation was a projection of about our own natures. Jesus was a placeholder for this conversation. Today, (as Phillip points out) to own this fully human/fully divine status ourselves takes great courage, because to do so means that we are assuming great responsibility—like Jesus: "The Spirit of God is upon me!" Try owning that and see if you don't get metaphorically thrown off a cliff as Jesus' village tried to do to him when he dared to be Spirit in human form.
  
  Trevor, I hope your professors don't try and throw you off of a cliff. Seminaries still tend to be bastions of orthodoxy - even liberal ones I've discovered. Pick your spots my friend.
• Comment Link Tuesday, 22 November 2011 17:21 posted by TJ Dawe

  I'm reminded of something Elizabeth Gilbert said in her TED talk, about how the Spanish exclamation "Ole!" derives from the centuries of Moors (Muslims) in Spain, who'd call out "Allah!" when they perceived a spark of the divine in the motions of a dancer. This captures quite beautifully what moves me in any work of art, and is accentuated when I see the work of art performed. There are flashes of God.
• Comment Link Wednesday, 23 November 2011 22:39 posted by Chris Dierkes

  To speak in favor of particularity for a bit (and to be a bit of a contrarian I suppose :), it's not that I disagree of course with the notion of seeing the Divine present everywhere and in all. And I"m not advocating for a specific version of the scandal of particularity whereby a triumphalist theme is pronounced relative to Jesus.
  
  But on the other hand there is difference and uniqueness. I worry as a practical follow through to these kinds of notions we end up in a Perennial Philosophy position. While clearly there are deep, wondrous resonances in the contemplative/mystical traditions of the religions, the religions are different. They're not all just different versions of the same Ultimate Truth. They are distinct and I think that distinction is worth highlighting (and appreciating). I think diversity is good.
  
  Certainly different groups can and should work together for common aims: justice, peace, social harmony, etc.
  
  But I don't know how many interfaith gatherings I've been at where everybody talks all the time about how we all believe in the same things: Love, Peace, Mercy, Unity, etc. How The Divine Spark is in all of us. As beautiful as it is on one level, on another it's totally boring and doesn't generate any creative friction or tension. While true (at least among liberal types within the traditions), it's not all the truth. It's not recognizing the difference. I mean if we all do believe the same thing, then why are we talking to each other in the first place?
  
  I think a better focus is to see what are the unique gifts of each tradition and each offer their best. Being freed up by being limited in Wilber's language.
  
  In Wilber's terminology each religion creates its own morphogenetic stream. It creates its own line in the universe. And the Christian line only exists by those within that line saying that they place special emphasis on the life, teaching, suffering, death, and (believed) resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
  
  Other lines certainly can incorporate Jesus into their own lines (e.g. Hinduism as an Avatar, Islam as a Prophet, Buddhism as a spiritual teacher), but to really take up the way Jesus offered is to take him as a unique being. This is where I think early Christian Gnosticism, for all its intelligences (and there are many), was wrong. For the record, I also think Buddha is unique, Krishna's unique, and so on.
  
  The upshot of Wilber's view (in relation to inter-religious work) is that lines can't judge other lines. If we want to find out what it's like to walk on the Christian line, then we take up the practice, look to the experience, and enter the world of its interpretive structure.
  
  If we want to find out what life is like to be a Muslim, then we have to accept that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets, learn Arabic and start immersing yourself completely in the universe of The Quran.
  
  If Buddhist, you study the 4 Noble Truths, take up the 8 fold path. etc. etc.
  
  Those are different. They connect and overlap at various points sure, but they are really different things. They are radically different paths in many respects.
  
  In modernism (e.g. Hegel), there is a homogenizing tendency. And a de-materializing tendency. Postmodernism, in its better moments, has reminded us of the value of place, local custom, distinction, earthiness and so on.
  
  Hegel's interpretation of Jesus might be ultimately correct (or more fruitful), but it's not Jesus' understanding of Jesus. The opposition to the scandal of particularity--among modernist liberals whether Christian, secular, or otherwise--prevents us from getting a better glimpse of the historical Jesus and what he taught and believed. e.g. The liberal historical Jesus scholars John Crossan and Marcus Borg give us only (at best) half the picture of Jesus because the particularity thing rubs the wrong way socially.
  
  Without the particularity, Jesus gets turned into an image of what we already believe in anyway and he comes to fortify that belief. e.g. Crossan and Borg are California 60s Boomers and their Jesus is an anti-authoritarian hippie. Conservatives do the same thing with historical Jesus renditions in which Jesus supports their various conservative points of view.
  
  Why is the idea that God incarnated uniquely in Jesus scandalous? Or even that such an incarnation was a one-time event (maybe there would be other unique incarnations?). Unique is unique not necessarily once and forever--I think this was the major mistake of orthodox Christianity rather than particularity as a scandal per se.
  
  In the language of The New Testament, Christ is the first among many. So unique in place of primacy (first and most important) but not exclusive. Now of course if one wants to assess the truth or falsehood of that statement, then they need to take up the Christian morphogenetic stream. It's not a statement about Judaism or Sikhism or Buddhism--again a lot of otherwise intelligence people miss that subtle point. Christianity is in no real position to make any claims on those religions (and vice versa). It's a statement, that if true, would only be true from within the Christian stream.
  
  How the streams ultimately relate to one another in some uber-architecture of the universe, I have no idea and actually think is not really all that important, beyond some basic trust in the flow of life and that these streams are around for some good purpose.
  
  The danger I see in the Hegelian tradition is a tendency to imagine we have it all figured out. We may not know some of the details here or there, but on the whole, we know what's going on.
  
  The scandal of particularity position normally evokes in the minds of others conservative triumphalism. i.e. I have all the truth and you are living in illusion. That certainly exists and is wrong. But flipped, the scandal of particularity position I find brings more humility. Actually, we don't have the slightest f'in clue what is going on and how this all works out. So while we have trust in our various streams, we also have to be radically open to the existence of other streams, their value, their difference, and I think a kind of basic trust in mystery. And then the rest is just to live.
• Comment Link Wednesday, 23 November 2011 23:26 posted by Philip Corkill

  Lots of great points Chris.
  
  On thing I don't get:
  
  "In the language of The New Testament, Christ is the first among many. So unique in place of primacy (first and most important) but not exclusive. Now of course if one wants to assess the truth or falsehood of that statement, then they need to take up the Christian morphogenetic stream."
  
  Why would we have to do that to find out about Jesus/Christ? How much say did Jesus/Christ have in the cultivation of what is now the morphogenetic stream of Christianity? If Christ is in some way present, be it as a huge chunk of memories about the past or as an actual palpable presence right now, why can't I access the information about him by studying the historical man or turning towards his current reality directly, without taking up a morphogenetic cultivation that has been massively influenced by all sorts of other people and cultures too?
  
  I'm not saying I can but I wonder why I shouldn't be able to?
• Comment Link Thursday, 24 November 2011 00:24 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Hey all, thanks for the additions.
  
  Phil, thanks for the interesting stuff on Mehar Baba and the Avatar. This view, which I'm completely open to the possibility of, seems to say that once in a while the Divine incarnates in a particularly potent way in a particular individual; in some Incarnation comes more deeply you might say. I suppose that for the rest of us then, we can learn to participate in that Divine milieu to greater and lesser degrees given our life and efforts. But it might be worth keeping in mind that particular manifestations tap into/download it more fully/spectacularly.
  
  However, I really lean towards this statement you made, and the universality implied within: "The seed is in everyone but, so far, those who grow deep roots and blossom fully have been the exception. This need not be the case. What I like about this is that it integrates your concept of the divine being in everybody (it is, in seed, potential) with the idea of only few or one person fully incarnating the divine (a fully grown blossoming tree, releasing it's fragrance is a rarity)". I like the seed metaphor a lot (and by the by, I used to be a big reader of Osho. Maybe it's time for an Oshoian revival :))
  
  Bruce, thanks for the addition as always. I appreciate your point about personal incarnation and responsibility. And thanks for the words of warning regards picking my battles. I agree, but I also need to feel out how calcified the tradition is or is not. If evolving the tradition is very difficult or not on the table, then I think I'd prefer to serve Spirit in a different context, so part of it is a testing process. Plus, as you know, I enjoy a good tussle. :) Nevertheless, point taken.
  
  TJ, it's funny, I'd begun to think of the Gilbert TED talk too after posting this. Was even thinking of adding it as an update at the end. Her talk, and this point about the Ole/Allah, speaks nicely to the universality that I think is important in this context. The discussion of artists also points out that 'religious' experience doesn't always happen or have to happen within a religious context. Here's the video if others haven't seen it:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA
  
  Chris, thanks for sharing that perspective, I appreciate you pressing in against a pallid form of interfaith dialogue as you have before, and to which Bruce agreed:
  
  bits-a-pieces/item/432-interfaith-dialogue-sucks
  
  Let me just say that I'm very much behind the kind of vision you lay out. I heard Cynthia Bourgeault outline something similar at last year's ISE, where she spoke of the different religious traditions as the colors of a rainbow, each one of them adding something unique. I like this and support it as an interfaith principle moving forward.
  
  My problem with the view you've laid out is that it sounds like an over-corrective. It moves too far in the direction of the particular. I think a both/and is more valuable. Hegel insisted that the universal and the particular must always be held in tension, and I agree. Both poles must be present in our understanding.
  
  A few other things. You characterize Hegel as a modernist, but I would disagree with this assessment. Hegel's express project was to overcome the limitations he found in the modern mind, particularly Descartes and Kant. Yes there's a homogenizing universalism in modernism, but this was not the case in Hegel. He makes a distinction between two types of reason/understanding, verstand (the one you and he rightly criticize) and vernuft (his dialectical, synthetic thinking) at length to show this point.
  
  Also, Hegel doesn't necessarily think we "have it all figured out". Remember, "the owl of Minerva spreads it wings only at dusk". Philosophy or thinking (in Hegel's view) can only gain understanding by looking backwards, at the patterns of what's come so far; it cannot predict into the future, and as Hegel's view is a deeply process/evolutionary one, there's lots more to come that we have no idea about.
  
  Generally speaking, what I hear you saying is that the postmodern emphasis/truth of the importance of difference and particularity is still in need of great attention and promotion. For myself, I'm sick to death of the postmodern (over)emphasis on difference etc., and think a return to thinking universality is called for. In the end we're probably really in ultimate (integral)agreeance, but our emphases are currently in different places. I think the universality of what I point to in the piece is important, and can play an important transformative role in people's lives (particularly for secular folks or the SBNR crowd). This *does not* mean I want to water down the uniqueness of the traditions, as I said I agree with the general vision of yourself and Bourgeault. But ontological universals, and our access to them, are true too, and this shouldn't be overlooked or pushed out of the conversation in my view.
• Comment Link Thursday, 24 November 2011 17:03 posted by Chris Dierkes

  @Phil,
  
  Good question. Of course there has been a lot added on by humans--particularly around institutions and governance and custom--that doesn't lead back to Jesus. On the other the hand, the trend of historical Jesus scholarship since its earliest days in the 1800s has been to make a radical, if not complete, break between Jesus (of history) and Christ (of faith), and hence Christianity. As scholarship, that just isn't very good.
  
  In terms of the practices that Jesus initiated there are:
  
  baptism,
  sharing bread and wine,
  laying on of hands,
  connecting to the experience/world of the poor,
  study of the scriptures
  mystical prayer (especially the Our Father)
  communal worship,
  meal fellowship/hospitality,
  critiques of injustice
  the teaching of the reign of God
  the use of parables,
  the integration of women into the movement (contra the practice of the day)
  taking up one's cross/kenosis
  singleness (or nonduality)
  abundance (Cynthia Bourgeault's books are very good on the last three in particular).
  
  Those can all be reliably traced back to Jesus. Which is a pretty remarkable list it seems to me. How contemporary folks appropriate or incarnate those various practices is open to creative diversity but there is this thread of continuity.
  
  If a group of people take up those practices then I would call them Christians--whether or not they are affiliated with a large recognized denomination or not. Individuals can certainly explore but Jesus always called people into a movement.
  
  Now there is one other piece that needs mentioning and this I think gets at what we're discussing in the thread: Jesus' self-understanding.
  
  The liberal tendency has been to de-emphasize or outright reject the notion that Jesus had any self-understanding of his role as special or unique. Hand in hand with this school of thought is de-emphasizing Jesus' apocalyptic thought. As long as Jesus fits within a recognizable portrait of a mystic, prophet, social reformer, healer, spiritual teacher, then it all works out in terms of assimilating well to the contemporary world. Unfortunately that isn't true to Jesus' own understanding and I think that's problematic.
  
  But as one scholar rightly pointed out, the fact that Jesus was apocalyptic is not his problem but ours. And part and parcel of an apocalyptic worldview (which I think it can't be denied Jesus had) is a notion of special players in the drama. Now what precisely that self-understanding was is not totally easy to tease out. But clearly Jesus had some sense of his own role in the matter. Christianity took that thread from Jesus (in response to their belief that he was raised) and then that became the teaching about Jesus as Messiah and Lord. And from there the scandal of particularity.
  
  This is where people get off the boat generally. Though there are parallels in so-called cargo cult movements as well as apocalyptic traditions in shamanism in The Americas. Also (since you mentioned Da), two of his titles were Da Kalki and Da Maitreya, referring the belief of a final representative or manifestation in Hinduism and Buddhism. So the idea is around beyond Christian thought.
  
  Conservative Christianity has (generally speaking) keep the uniqueness angle but placed within an exclusivist and triumphalistic orientation. The liberal Christian tradition has rightly gotten rid of the exclusivist and triumphalist side but at the cost of its own uniqueness I think.
  
  I think a more integral or post-liberal and post-conservative Christianity would include the uniqueness/distinction and live that out without the triumphalism.
• Comment Link Thursday, 24 November 2011 17:27 posted by Chris Dierkes

  @Trev,
  
  Thanks for the reply.
  
  In Wilber's terms the vision-logic position is deep structures which are quasi-universal in nature always expressed via surface features. And those deep structures (a la Hegel) are only ever reconstructed. Moreover Wilber talks about them as probability waves of finding certain actions, thoughts, attitudes, systems, etc.
  
  I think the quasi in quasi-universal is important. Otherwise I think there will be a tendency (intentionally or otherwise) to interpret/embody universals in a modernist sense or even in a premodernist sense.
  
  I also think the notion of the probability waves are really important. Wilber talks about how the past is alive within us and yet any attempt to access it brings us to interpret it. So the quasi-universal deep structures are themselves not just historically reconstructed but partially interpreted.
  
  I see more like an asymptote--we're always getting (hopefully) closer to the line but never touching it.
  
  So I don't view what I'm doing as being a revival or retrenching of postmodernism--rather simply an inclusion of elements of it in a what I hope is a more construct-aware position.
  
  Simplistically, if we have universals from modernism and difference from postmodernism, then in quasi-universal deep structures with distinct surface features (reconstructed and probabilist in nature), then we have deep integral. We include the best of modernity and postmodernity without either of their downfalls.
  
  And as that relates to Hegel, I appreciate you bringing up the verstand-vernuft distinction, it's an important one. He's certainly way more nuanced than earlier modernist philosophers. I would say however there are tendencies in Hegel that (to me anyway) seem to express a certain kind of immanental eschaton---particularly in his sense that religion was simply philosophy crafted for the masses and his elevation of the German state. I would also say I think he tends to see the arrow pointing towards autonomy or greater and greater degrees of freedom (which to me is a heavily modern position). Though I admit all those points are controversial ones and I'm sure others have come up with other readings of Hegel.
  
  One other thing in relation to Hegel (and the German Idealists more broadly) is a point Wilber raises in The Marriage of Sense and Soul--he questions whether they really have a deep yoga/praxis. I think that's a valid concern with them. Again, that's a controversial point but worth consideration.
  
  Or as Phil pointed out vis Osho, not all the seeds grow to their mature flourishing.
• Comment Link Thursday, 24 November 2011 22:52 posted by Philip Corkill

  Oh my! Thank you so much Chris. I really am in the right place here! I'm reminded of a book review of yours published in the JITP that I found so brilliant that it's one of the factors that has had me stick around here.
  
  I could wholeheartedly dive in to what you would call being a Christian. I totally agree that the list is remarkable and that Jesus' self understanding has to be one of the most relevant pieces here. I'll have to save a lot of the places I would like to go with this for another time but I'm truly enthralled by this. Jesus increasingly means something to me and I'm really interested to discover more about that.
  
  To segue to Trevor's comment one of my reintroductions to Jesus was actually through Osho. When I heard him talk about Jesus I always had the impression his heart was aflame with the highest reverence. Similar to the way he would treat Bodhidarma. Of course he would sometimes criticise the hell out of Jesus, as he did with everyone, calling him patholigical and what have you but it was clear to me that that was largely aimed at our sensibilities. He would never strike at the heart. That burning respect for Osho had for the courage and authenticity of Jesus used to bring me to tears.
  
  @Trevor, this is quite uncanny. This Oshoian revival idea has been very present for me of late. To out myself even more, I've even been playing with the idea of offering you a Rajneesh Revisited column for the site but just cant imagine doing it justice. The old man has been knocking at my door rather loudly. Maybe that's because he would be celebrating his 80th birthday next month, had he not been poisoned to near death by the US government (or so say his physicians). Or maybe it's... no, I'll save that for another time.
  
  What invites me to mention him repeatedly here is that his contributions seems so relevant to this particular time. Plus, you people are capable of a nuanced look at spiritual teachers, such that we can excavate their gifts and contributions, whilst not denying their shadows. Osho is still largely responded to in a passionate black or white and I think that is why hardly anyone in the integral scene has had the guts to mention his influence (as far as I'm aware).
  
  There's all of Osho's flaws and if you give him responsibility for what went on around him too (which he wouldn't accept) they can be seen as disastrous.
  
  Nevertheless, his lifetime contribution to humanity is unfathomable, incredible, enormous, borders on the superhuman. And, in my view, the time to unpack those gifts is not 200 years from now (some have suggested he was that far ahead of his time). No, at least for those that can take it on intelligently, the time is right now. For me it would be THE test of integral consciousness to unpack and integrate that contribution in a healthy way. There is sooooo much there to celebrate. The way Chris unpacks and brings Jesus to life for me above makes me think that the project could be extended to many other controversial godmen and women. Adi Da is clearly knocking at the Beams door too.
  
  Yesterday an old friend of mine, Bodhena, called. Osho sannyasin from head to toe and to the bone. He does that occasionally, out of the blue, to check on my recovery and remind me to meditate (Bodhena sits 3 times a day every single day!) and to talk to someone who will soak up his stories about the man that who's work never ceases to amaze him. You can read about Bodhena's Adventure's In Sansara here: http://www.oshonews.com/2011/07/coming-back-for-more/ I love it. And this is one of hundreds of thousands of tales.
  
  This is one of the gifts I value most. The opportunity to learn from these seasoned elders on the path of life. Osho sannyasins come in all shapes and sizes and as a collective, have an immense treasure trove of experience and wisdom in all fields of life. Generally their an ageing global Sangha ready to share all the seeds of the new man that Osho planted in them. It's the juiciest bunch!
  
  Yesterday Bodhena pointed me to this piece of the Osho Koan. Osho was THE evangelist of the NO-Mind. One can easily get the inpression that he was completely and utterly against the mind! And yet check out this often neglected insight in to his intellectual activity:
  
  http://www.oshonews.com/2011/11/osho-lao-tzu-library/
  
  Boy did he know how to use the mind! Appart from reading 150 thousand books(!) the man made a spirited attempt to create 10 000 plus Zorba-Buddhas to usher in the new man in time, before systems breakdown. What could be more relevant than that today? And perhaps it wasn't such a failiure. Who knows what role all those two hundred thousand (Brockhaus) to two million (unofficial) sannyasins - many of them teachers in their own right - are playing right now. Whatever the case I personally feel blessed beyond belief by countless individuals from that crowd.
  
  So to cut a potentially endless story shorter: YES Trevor it is time for the Rajneesh Revisited Oshoian Revival!!!