Pluralism has massive structural flaws; perhaps the guru model only is the answer

Meaningful Enlightenment Chris Dierkes Wednesday, February 28, 2007

How do we actually ground truths in a post-postmodern world without returning to fundamentalisms, naive modernity, relativistic nihilistic postmodernism? Since consciousness and interiority has been so trashed for so long now and those who have returned to some form of phenomenology have usually done so in terms of states---all of the mysticism & phenomenology prior to Aurobindo it could be argued is states no stages and even with Aurobindo, they are stages already set that must be brought down and embodied not that are really evolved as we go along--what of stages?

Minus the kind of exploration I hear Cohen calling for, there will be the common focus on outer actions and policies: politics, social-cultural morals, movies, ideologies, etc. I think those modes of discourse are the only ones that allow us to begin to talk about qualia without ever really having to enter into its mystery or question the very ground we stand on.

I'm not saying those are bad conversations or that intelligent and thoughtful things aren't said in them. What I am saying is that by themselves I find them incomplete. To me that is what the post-metaphysical turn to the perspectival is about...inquiring into the ground/position of our experience simultaneous to elucidating our points of view. Learning to not only speak from a position, clarify that position, defend it, find the flaws in it, but janus-like with two heads, have one head focused on that while the other is always focused on learning the contours of where one is standing and how one arrived there. Both are equally important. Not a form/content thing, but a form-content/perspective dyad if you like...

In traditional spiritual communities there typically was no such discussion. The Guru, the Abbot, the Roshi's word was law. When that model came via Eastern religion to North America (and Europe) in the 60s, the word is law did not line up with the traditions of democracy, liberty, individual thought/expression, social pluralism. A detente was established to varying degrees (except for very strictly controlled sometimes cultish groups) whereby the guru/roshi dealt with states and the individual was in charge of his/her own life. This situation, whether it was the best that could be done or not, has massive structural flaws. The biggest being the question of authenticity (a buzzword of Cohen's):

• how do we know who is legit and not in all this particularly as major money, consumerism, and the multitude of paths and approaches took off?

More traditional North American faiths like Judaism and Christianity mostly stayed out of the spirituality issue and were more concerned with church/synagogue membership numbers, social actions, congregationalism, politics, fundraising, etc. There was a healthy move in the Abrahamic faiths to return to their own mystical sources and some major fruits have come out of that (Renewal in Judaism, Centering Prayer/Christian Meditation in Christianity). But it too has become cheapened in many ways, fadish, and still mostly in the head or temporary experiences...

As regards Schelling, Aurobindo, Plotinus in relation to their spiritual systemization only (their kosmology as it were) I agree with Wilber's analysis that they with plenty of reason projected out into the future the same process that had experienced by ascending the chain to the point they did.

The metaphor is an art gallery. All of the paintings are already complete. You walk through the halls and they begin to get more and more glorious until you reach a pure light room, then darkeness, then walk back through all the floors noticing a common essence to all. Or if Aurobindo you have already glimpsed the high level paintings and your job is to bring their truth down into the paintings to the lowest floors. But the paintings, the rooms, the situation of you walking and observing only, that is already all set and forever so in this model.

If you stick to that model, then perhaps the guru model only is the answer. Because one person could then abstracted from the paintings (in theory) carefully and perfectly remember all of them and memorize the path through the gallery and led you to the exact same places him/herself. But when the rooms are more like sand dunes, changing daily, when the paintings are being composed (in part) as we walk in the rooms, as the building itself grows like a plant, does this model make sense (alone) anymore? If that is the case, as I'm saying. If following the analogy, the paintings are being drawn, more to come, if the building is shifting, growing, if rooms are appearing as if out of nothing.

• In that image then how do we declare what is about anything?
• How do we express that truth in action?
• And how do we know when we are doing and when not?
• And who decides and how when there is (as there will) sincere genuine disagreement from roughly equally brilliant and equally flawed beings?

I'm interested to hear if anyone has been thinking about these things, come up with any ideas, etc. posted by CJ Smith @ 2:47 PM 1 comments Indistinct Union: Christianity, Integral Philosophy, and Politics Exploration of Unity Consciousness, Christian Life, Integral Thought, and the Future of Politics in a Post-Postmodern World