Saturday 19 August 2006

Pic of the day: Are you still in control of yourself when you feel like this?

States and stages

Ken Wilber has an amazing revelation that he shares in the summer issue (33) of What is Enlightenment magazine. He says that enlightenment can be horizontal or vertical, and these are not the same.

I will explain it largely in my own words, because in a way I already knew this, I had just never thought about it. Perhaps this is so with us all, or at least many of us. We shall see.

At any time, we can have one of several states of consciousness: Busy, relaxed, sleeping, dreaming, drunk, stoned, meditating. This is the horizontal plane. You don't need to be super intelligent or experienced or educated to have these different states of consciousness: They are part of the human experience. These can be explored in a number of ways, but the meditation techniques of eastern Asia are generally considered the best tools for this. These techniques often have a religious element, we'll get back to that. But this element is not necessary, and has been weeded out by some schools of meditation. It is all about exploring, training, integrating the self. When this process is finished - whether it happens by rigorous training, spontaneously, or a combination of these - you are enlightened.

The horizontally enlightened person is the same in all states of consciousness. Busy or meditating, sleeping or hallucinating or dying, his core consciousness is the same. His sense of self does not waver, his values are not changed, his calm is not broken. Obviously the body's capacity for action is different, including speech and problem-solving thought. But the core sense of being there is the same, and he is never a stranger in his own mind. All these various states are like the rooms in his home, they have different content and different uses but he is at home in them all.

Horizontal enlightenment brings a tremendous benefit. As I've mentioned in the past, humans normally have "hot" (emotional)and "cold" (rational) states. Promises given in one of them are nullified or at least weakened when moving to the opposite. Two men desperate from hunger act much more like each other than the same person does when not hungry. The same goes for lust, sadly, and even anger. From this comes much of the suffering in our world. When people become enlightened, they still experience those feelings, but their sense of self is not swallowed up by them, and they are not taken prisoners by the illusions.

***

In addition to the horizontal dimension, Wilber adds a vertical. As he points out, people go through different stages of development. As small children they are egocentric and have a problem understanding fairness unless it benefits them. Some people show traces or more of this their whole life, among them many criminals. But later you learn to identify with family, friends, perhaps your church or your town or even your country. You learn to play by the rules and see the value of this even when it benefits others at a cost to yourself. Clearly this is a higher level of development, and there are degrees of it too. Some only care for their own family, while others think it is perfectly OK to sacrifice their life for something as abstract as democracy. There are even higher levels, where you identify with all of the world, and where you don't consider yourself the main character of the world's drama. Supposedly you can become One with All that Is, though it is unclear as of yet what the value of this may be.

The point is, these different levels exist in a human life, and some never rise to the highest levels of understanding, or of morality, or of cooperation. In the same way some societies simply are less advanced than others, no matter how cruel it may sound to say so. Likewise our own society in the past was less advanced than now. While the trend is generally upward, societies can also sink down, as may have happened to parts of the Muslim world. These stages of development are the same that we refer to with various color codes in Spiral Dynamics.

By horizontal enlightenment you may be able to balance your different sides on the level where you have your center of gravity, so to speak. So if your morality is lagging behind your understanding, enlightenment may help you live the life you see. This is a good thing, no doubt! But what if you just don't see enough? What if your whole society lives in the Middle Ages and there is no one to teach you otherwise? Despite your enlightenment, you may still be medieval at heart. This is the case with some of those eastern religions we mentioned. You may read the teachings of some highly enlightened lama or guru, and he has these awesome insights, but he is ignorant of obvious things in the world and thinks cow dung is a great way to treat wounds for instance. And westerners are impressed by his enlightenment and so they take his superstitions on the same spoon.

So if you exist on an ethnocentric level and you become enlightened, you are enlightened on an ethnocentric level. You can be a saint and still think the negroes are under God's judgment, as seen in our not-too- distant past. You can be the most honest man for miles in every direction and still honestly believe that homosexuality is contagious. The lower on the ladder you are, the fewer humans you can understand. On higher levels you may be able to understand them all, and perhaps some animals too. This would surely help. It is better to be enlightened on a level where you understand more.

***

As for myself, I am probably not a perfect judge of my own soul, nor is anyone else. But I think we can agree that I am more "enlightened" or integrated vertically than horisontally. Because I really do understand many different types of people from different cultures and times. (Just not women when they act all womanly. There are limits!) I can understand those who kill for a just cause, and those who kill just cause. I can understand those who sacrifice and are sacrificed, but I can certainly understand those who prefer to leech on other people's sacrifice. The angry and the fearful, the arrogant and the humble, I have been there. I understand not just in the abstract way of "well, I guess you can do that too" but as in "that could have been me" (and sometimes it was). It is the same way with my own past. Even when I was very different from now, I do not rewrite my past. I have forgotten much of it, true, but the parts I remember are not the most rosy or those that fits my current profile.

And when I met people who saw wider than I did, I tried to understand also them. I did this at great personal sacrifice, I think we can say, for I have lost pretty much all the friends I knew in the fleshworld because I could not in good conscience follow the currents that moved them, but had to go my own way. I loved my friends and I guess I still do, but there is no way they could see the things I see and still retain their happiness. Doubt is their enemy, but doubt is my teacher. Even the things I do believe without proof, I do with the knowledge that this is my choice, it is not something given, and those who believe otherwise are not deluded fools, much less enemies. (OK, some of them are deluded fools, but for other reasons.)

When it comes to horizontal integration, or enlightenment, the picture is less flattering. I may be less divided into hot and cold states than the average person, may retain more of my personality during different condition than is the norm. But there is far, far, far more to go. And there may be parts I have not even touched. For instance, until my involuntary weight loss (when I could no longer eat fat foods), I did not know the power of hunger. I had an abstract idea that being hungry was a bother and a serious distraction, but I did not know the desperation of the body seeking to overrun the mind and grab what it sees as its right. I did not know the disconcerting feeling of seeing my hand shuffle food into my mouth, knowing that in theory I could stop at any time, but I just did not feel like it. Perhaps this is why fasting is a part of almost all religions at some point, although I guess most people through history knew hunger even without wanting to.

The fact is that my understanding is so far, far ahead of my life in so many ways, it is not even funny. I guess that is where I have my work cut out for me now. I doubt I will rise any further on the Spiral Dynamics scale. Today, Yellow seems to be as far as you can go alone. We simply lack the tools of thought to go further. The next stage is collective again, and I would need a trusted group of likeminded people to move on upward. I doubt I will find that. But if I could integrate at this level, I would still be a force for good. It's a bit off though. For instance, you can find in my journal the year or so of transition where my shopping habits started to turn from Yellow ("it's my money and I'm proud of it") to Green ("I am ashamed of being rich when others are poor"). I am not even sure what the Yellow equivalent will be, though I have a suspicion.

Oh man. A human life really is short. And when it is over, perhaps I can take it with me where I go? But that's a matter of faith. And not much of a help for those who remain. "We must say all the words that should be spoken, before they are lost forever."