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Someone held the view that through quantum physics, somehow our 'mind' is able to (somewhat magically) change the course of global events like global warming, simply through some kind of positive or more enlightened projection (reminds me of teachings like The Secret). His views are influenced by his study of quantum physics and use of psychedelics. I had a back and forth exchange with him.
In his last mail to me he wrote,
"Right, it is neither chosen nor random, but the result of
conditions. The question is, are these conditions fundamentally separate from
and external to mind? Wouldn't a full Buddha be able to know them directly and
completely? And in that moment of knowing, isn't there the possibility of
change?
You've already taken so much time to help me, so thank you.
No need to answer my questions above. I'll practice more and let the answers
come."
I just sent the following reply:
As Thusness wrote before, “what appears cannot be said to be
mind nor other than mind.” You will know this only later in your path, like
when you get to Thusness Stage 5 and 6.
Although conventionally we can say that all appearances are
mind (vivid clarity), we do not subsume everything into a ‘Mind’ or assert the
ultimacy of ‘Mind’ because ‘Mind’ too is empty no different from ‘Weather’.
What we call “mind” also does not exist in and of itself, being a mere label
for all the sensory appearances, and even the subtlest formless clear light or
sense of AMness is another appearance (seen to be so after anatta), there’s nothing
hidden – mind is empty of mind and hence like ‘weather’ when we speak of ‘mind’
there is just the transient appearances. The appearances are completely
interfusing of all dependencies and completely alive. The tree is not pre-given realities existing over there
waiting for me to reveal or experience its existence, for the green colors of the leaves are
the total exertion of my action of walking, my eyes looking at a certain
direction, my biological makeup (some other animals do not perceive green or even
colors), etc as a seamless activity where ‘consciousness’ is already implied as
the vivid luminosity of that whole seamlessly exerting appearance. Furthermore
not only is the ‘tree’ not existing inherently ‘there’ by itself, even
‘Consciousness’ does not exist inherently ‘here’ in and of itself independent
of conditions – for the respective consciousnesses (which are of six kinds)
manifest according to the total exertion of all conditions/dependencies at that
moment, which is why Buddha so clearly taught that consciousness is named after
its conditions/classified by its requisite conditions (see https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN38.html
) -- hence even consciousness does not exist inherently, independent of
conditions or unchangingly, in and of itself.
It is also important to understand that things/appearances are empty not because they are a mental projection like in a dream state or psychedelic state (which can induce a form of lucid dream state) but because whatever dependently originates are non-arising, nothing truly there existing in and of itself -- nothing is truly 'there' with its own Essence, besides an appearance involving the total exertion of all the conditions at that moment.
It is also important to understand that things/appearances are empty not because they are a mental projection like in a dream state or psychedelic state (which can induce a form of lucid dream state) but because whatever dependently originates are non-arising, nothing truly there existing in and of itself -- nothing is truly 'there' with its own Essence, besides an appearance involving the total exertion of all the conditions at that moment.
There is neither something there objectively (like a tree)
nor something here subjectively (like some sort of consciousness reified as an
unchanging Self) which exists independent of all the conditions/the whole
universe exerting an appearance, and consciousness is simply the vivid
self-luminous ‘taste’ or ‘quality’ of that vivid appearance of total exertion.
Each condition involved in the exertion themselves are also the seamless total
exertion of all dependencies, basically like a net of indra where the
dependencies ‘stretches’ throughout the whole universe without seams or end and
each single node reflects all node. This is why the taste of Total Exertion is
called ‘Maha’, there is a sense of infinitude involved (and Actual Freedom teachings
also speaks about this Maha taste of infinitude, except lacking the view of
Dependent Origination), where a single breathe or step or any single part of
the activity IS the activity of the infinite universe (i.e. dependencies). The
point being, everything is the seamless exertion of all dependencies, but it is
not by subsuming everything into a single source (like reifying ‘Consciousness’
as an absolute source) nor is it by subsuming everything into Mind. There is
not a single trace of ‘I’, ‘me’, or ‘my’ in total exertion when you know (and experience, and actualize)
everything has nothing to do with ‘you’ but with infinite and seamless
dependencies. There is no more over-emphasis on consciousness nor subsuming
everything to ‘my consciousness’.
The Buddha and his aide Ananda have rejected (and Ananda even
ridiculed) in the suttas, the possibility of anyone (including for Buddha
himself) to know all things all at once concurrently and constantly (see: https://suttacentral.net/mn71/en/sujato
and https://suttacentral.net/mn76/en/sujato
). However the Buddha qualified that he has attained the three knowledges, as
shown in the sutta MN71. Also in Kalaka Sutta, he claims to know all the
different realms of existences in the cosmos with its various types of beings, but this is not
the same as knowing all things all at once concurrently and constantly.
Furthermore, even though the Buddha was able to know these
beings and realms, it does not mean he can intervene directly in their lives.
If Buddha could do so, he definitely would have saved all sentient beings
instantly, made every single person enlightened instantly and made every single
sentient being attain Nirvana instantly just by ‘knowing’ them, and saved
himself of all the trouble of teaching the dharma tirelessly to sentient beings
for 49 years. There is a saying that even the Buddha was unable to save someone
who does not have the (karmic, and other) conditions. Also as the Buddha
taught, he cannot just relief the suffering of another sentient being by hand,
but by showing them their true nature there is liberation. All beings have
their karmas and lives to play out, but the Buddha can show the way, and once
we take that to heart and practice accordingly, there can be realization and
liberation.
By the way, I just found an article I read a decade ago by
Stuart Davis on Ken Wilber’s website. There is some similarity here to Buddha’s
teaching on karma as simply one of the many conditions involved - https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN36_21.html
There are many people that I’ve seen who has the mistaken
belief similar to ‘The Secret’ or ‘Law of Attraction’ sort of teaching. Intention/thoughts/karma
do play an important role in shaping our lives but is far from the only type of
condition. One has to be careful not to fall into magical thinking and overlook
the various types of conditions involved in any given arising. Our thoughts and
karma influence our lives/reality, but it is far from the ‘sole cause of
reality’. And likewise neither is ‘Consciousness’.
You see, once you realize Dependent Origination and actualize it as Total Exertion, there is no more singling out of one factor, one condition, no more exaggeration of anything as being some kind of sole cause of something. Not 'my thoughts' nor even some ultimate 'Divine Consciousness' can be attributed as some ultimate and sole cause of everything. Instead there is just total, seamless dependencies and exertion from moment to moment, which is wondrous in its own way. Each factor is equally important as any and all factors in contributing to an arising, just like each finger in a palm contributing to the exertion of hand grasping object. None of these factors -- Intention, or Consciousness, can be singled out as some sort of 'Agent' or 'Controller', there's simply the play of conditionality, empty phenomena rolls and knows according to conditions without an agent, doer, or knower.
You see, once you realize Dependent Origination and actualize it as Total Exertion, there is no more singling out of one factor, one condition, no more exaggeration of anything as being some kind of sole cause of something. Not 'my thoughts' nor even some ultimate 'Divine Consciousness' can be attributed as some ultimate and sole cause of everything. Instead there is just total, seamless dependencies and exertion from moment to moment, which is wondrous in its own way. Each factor is equally important as any and all factors in contributing to an arising, just like each finger in a palm contributing to the exertion of hand grasping object. None of these factors -- Intention, or Consciousness, can be singled out as some sort of 'Agent' or 'Controller', there's simply the play of conditionality, empty phenomena rolls and knows according to conditions without an agent, doer, or knower.
Ken Wilber is good at pointing out the fallacy of magical
thinking that egocentric intentions alone can create miracles, however he’s
fallen into another fallacy of treating life as the lila (play) of the Divine (Consciousness).
After Anatta, Emptiness and Dependent Origination, even that is no longer seen
to be the case. (Ken Wilber is at Thusness Stage 4, whereas anatta, emptiness
and D.O. is Thusness Stage 5 and 6)
As Thusness wrote in 2004 and 2006,
“Buddhism is nothing but replacing the 'Self' in Hinduism
with Condition Arising. Keep the clarity, the presence, the luminosity and
eliminate The ultimate 'Self', the controller, the supreme. Still u must taste,
sense, eat, hear and see Pure Awareness in every authentication. And every
authentication is Bliss.”
“there is another danger about just having the experience of
our luminosity and anatta without placing emphasis on our emptiness nature.
life becomes just a manifestation of the divine. the divine becomes like damn
great... actually the divine cannot do anything...lol. that is why there is never
an 'I'. and action is karma. and unwholesome action results in
suffering. this must be known”
(Commenting on Ken Wilber in 2006:) “Though non-duality is experienced,
it is not thorough. He sank back to a source and ding dong in between. Is there
Witness without conditions? Are there moments of manifestation without
conditions where Witness is experienced? If there is, then it is a game. If
not, then know the truth of Dependent Origination. There is a stage 6. The
nature of Presence is empty.”
Ken Wilber nonetheless has written a lot of good stuff in his books (and I have read a couple of them), like this from “Integral Meditation: Mindfulness as a Way to Grow Up, Wake Up, and Show Up”:
“…As with the Archaic, very few adults today remain totally at this Magic stage of development. It was quite common 50,000 years ago, but subsequent evolution has made it a rather junior level of overall development in today's world, and so again it is usually found, when at all, in instances such as patients with Alzheimer's or various types of brain damage, some extremely disturbed people, and so on.
On the other hand, mild aspects of this stage remain in adults who display superstitious, magical thinking, such as beliefs found in Voodoo and Santeria where, if you make an image of a person in the form of a doll, and stick a pin in that doll, it will actually damage the real person -- a holdover of this stage's magical thinking, in which all you have to do is wish something and it will magically come about. (Because self and environment, subject and object, thought and things, are still poorly differentiated, then to manipulate the thought or image of a thing is to directly affect that thing itself. Magic!) Every 3-year-old thinks this way - and so they will imagine that if they hide their head under a pillow so that they can't see anybody, then behold! magically, nobody can see them either - much to the amusement of adults looking at the kid's rear end sticking in the air while its head is under the pillow.
These examples also point out that some of the ‘narrative’ forms of religion that we talked about earlier are holdovers from this early Magic period in our evolution, because they take quite literally the miraculous stories in the Bible, for example (such as Moses parting the Red Sea). Even to this day, some adults are attracted to magical elements in their religion – they likely got involved with the religion in the first place because they are drawn to acts like magically walking on water, raising the dead, making the blind see, turning water into wine, and multiplying loaves and fishes. The religious practices of some sects might include things like handling live poisonous snakes, with the belief that their faith will magically protect them. (Unfortunately, a leader of one of the largest of these sects recently died, in his early 40s, after being bitten by a rattlesnake in one of these rituals.) And some present-day spiritual approaches, such as those described in The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know? Contain a heavy dose of this magic, which appeals, as we will see, to what’s called the egocentric or self-aggrandizing aspect of ourselves. This fantasy magic is a hidden map in much of the ‘law of attraction’ and several other New Age notions.
Now, this infantile word-magic
is quite different from actual paranormal capacities, such as real ESP,
precognition, or telekinesis, or the value of a strongly held intention in
achieving one’s goals. Strictly controlled scientific experiments have
demonstrated, beyond a reasonable doubt, that some of these capacities are
indeed very real.* But the success at these paranormal capacities seem to
dramatically go down when the person is motivated by purely selfish,
egocentric, narcissistic or power drives. There’s a big difference between
fantasy magic and real psychic capacities, so do keep that in mind.”
Anyway, the article I was talking about, by Stuart Davis for
Ken Wilber’s site:
(Editor's note: Be sure to tune into Integral Naked next Monday
(March 19) to hear Ken's own thoughts about The Secret, as well as the
much-anticipated debut episode of a new season of The Stuart Davis Show!
~cwd)
by Stuart Davis (cross-posted from StuartDavis.com)
The Secret. It's all the rage. The book and movie have garnered the enthusiasm of millions. Everyone from Oprah to Montel is extolling Rhonda Byrne's spiritual juggernaut. The premise of The Secret is simple; The Power of Attraction. Like attracts like. What we think, what we feel, acts as a magnetic signal, attracting its correlate from the Universe. The Secret says our thoughts and feelings manifest that which we desire. In fact, according to the teachers of the Secret, this works 100% of the time, for 100% of the people who use it. The Universe responds to our wishes, providing whatever we desire. This is because "we create our own reality", and The Secret says science confirms this.
As with most things, The Secret is a Good news / Bad news
scenario. First, the good news. The secret is (partly) true. Our thoughts and
feelings are of consequence, and positive thinking and feeling can
significantly characterize our experience of reality, even influence the way
reality unfolds. The Secret cites everyone from Martin Luther King to Einstein
as examples of people who knew--and employed--The Secret. Martin Luther King
had a dream. Einstein said God doesn't play dice. And so on.
The Secret uses valid (but partial) suppositions such as:
Our thoughts and feelings are powerful
and inflates them to a Kosmic (and false) scale, giving us: "Our
thoughts are the most powerful things on Earth."
The secret takes a statement like:
Thought can influence reality
and amplifies it to: "Thoughts create
reality." Not just any thoughts, but YOUR thoughts.
(By the way, are you a rape victim? I guess you created that
reality with your thoughts. Was your family member killed in Iraq? I guessed
you created that experience for yourself so you could learn from it. Wow. You
are one sadistic cat.)
The Secret takes a truth like:
The Self is one with the Universe
and then immediately inserts the wrong self: The Ego.
Throughout, The Secret conflates ego (the frontal
structure, personality) with Self (an unbounded, unlimited
reality which transcends but includes all qualities). In doing so it engineers
an unabashed Spiritual Narcissism. Ego is God. The vicissitudes of
your ego, its preferences, its unresolved cravings, become the vestments in a
regressive ritual. See? It's MAGIC. You cast a spell, voila, the Universe
responds. Cuz you're God. Why exactly an entity that IS everything would need
more is not clear, why a Divine Being that is all powerful would need to appeal
to another power is perplexing, but.. To cement this Kosmic Delusion, The
Secret hypnotically repeats "The Universe" and "Your thoughts,
your feelings" until the two are braided into a phantasm that places your
Ego squarely in the Center of Reality, in control of all that comes in and out
of being. What do you want to do with your Divine Power? Free all sentient
beings? Awaken every sister and brother from the Dream? Dissolve the source of
suffering? No. You want cars. And girlfriends, and boyfriends, and a new red
bike and a big new house.
The Secret snags the self by flattering it into masquerading as
the Self. As an egomaniac, I can attest to the efficacy of that strategy. And
also to its disastrous results.
Allow me to pause for a confessional tangent. Before you think I
am positioning myself as some spiritual fundamentalist who thinks materialism
is bad and "spirituality" is good, let me set things straight. Me,
Stuart Davis? I LOVE money. I LOVE sex. I want a new house. I'll take a shiny
red bike. I want to be rich, powerful, and successful. And I do not apologize
to anyone for that. I think the ego is good, I think it's games are legitimate
and should be engaged. You know what else? I want YOU to be rich. I want YOU to
be successful, powerful, and have every wish in the circus of your imagination
brought into reality. As long as we're not hurting anyone else, I say let's go
to town. I am the first to stand up and shout "THE EGO IS NOT EVIL!! THE
EGO IS NOT BAD!! IT HAS GOTTEN A SHITTY DEAL FROM SPIRITUALITY! LET THE EGO BE
WHAT IT ITS!!!" In fact, the ego is quite literally one of the most
astonishing miracles to occur in the history of Universe. No joke. Celebrate
it. It's time we ended the spiritual war with the ego, include it as another
facet of the Beauty in our Being. Why would we leave anything out? The self
counts. The ego matters.
I also have to say: The ego is not the Self.
The Secret is selling tools that supposedly fulfill wishes,
dreams, desires. But WHOSE wishes? What LEVEL of desire? What DEPTH of dream?
Well, here's what sucks about The Secret: There are many levels of
self, but only one which THINKS, and that's the Ego. Thinking, feeling,
thinking, feeling, these two conductors are the hub for all The Secret
espouses, and sadly thoughts and feelings (while important and valid) come from
an extremely shallow dimension of the self. Because of this, the Secret deeply,
sadly, entangles us further into suffering instead of liberating us from it.
The source of suffering is delusion--the illusion of separateness. It gives
rise to craving, longing, desire. It's the illusion that we lack something that
sends us on the Odyssey of Acquisition.
The Secret gives us a cure that's worse than the disease. The cure
for craving is controlling craving. The solution to hunger is famine. The
Secret speaks to materialism, narcissism, and other afflictions of self by
sanctifying them, exalting them. Rather than liberate us from the Source of
Suffering, The Secret reinforces it. It anchors us in the shallowest level of
our self (the Ego) and consecrates its preferences, its fantasies.
When someone asks you what you want, before you answer, ask
yourself What level of me are they asking? What level of me am I going to
respond from? If I had all the power to wish for anything in the Universe, what
would I wish for? Who am "I" anyway?
It is dangerous to insert the ego in the place of the Self--the
highest Self, the deepest Self, the one that is without a beginning or end. The
ego--the subject--is a boundary. It identifies itself by what is inside or
outside of it. Whatever is outside of the subject is an object. The small self
is a dynamic aggregate of qualities and preferences, locating itself anew in
each moment through a calculus of these subject / object distinctions ( I am
this, I'm not that, I like this, I don't like that, I want this, I don't want
that, this is me, that is not). The self depends entirely on boundaries.
Self, on the other hand, has no boundary. Self has
no "other". It cannot be reduced to any particular qualities or
characteristics, but all qualities and characteristics rise and fall within it.
Self includes vertical and horizontal coordinates that stretch as deep and wide
as the Universe itself. It is true that all Reality arises from and dissolves
into the Self. Not the ego, not the personality, not an individual, but the
Self -the Groundless Ground of all Reality.
The ego is defined by preferences, identified by desires,
determined by boundary.
The Self has no preferences, no desires, no lack, no inside, no
outside. It includes all preferences, but is not defined by them. Desire arises
within it, but it is not identified by it. Every imaginable boundary forms and
dissolves within the Self, but never parses its not-two not-one Nature. This
Self--the entire seen and unseen Kosmos--is the native endowment of every human
being. Our greatest depth is without bottom.
The good news: You can have your cake and eat it too. You don't
have to disown your self to be your Self. You have an ego. You are the
Universe. But don't confuse the two, and don't let anyone else confuse them for
you.
I have an ego, and it has desires, and it's healthy and
appropriate for that level of my being to seek fulfillment. My thoughts are
powerful, and my feelings matter. But the Universe does not reconfigure reality
to accomodate the personal preferences of my ego, my frontal structure, every
time an impulse comes through my reptilian brain stem. That is not just
narcissism, its KOSMIC narcissism, and that is what the Secret is selling.
Kosmic narcissism, spiritual materialism of the WORST kind. First, by ensnaring
me in my own ego with the promise of release, liberation from desire (while
addicting me to it) and second by getting me to forfeit my Self for my self.
Since my ego is now Divine, since my frontal structure is now Infinite -Stuart
Davis is God- why on Earth would I ever bother with finding my Self? Actual
awakening requires real development, years, decades of practice and evolution.
Continually moving my Subject through ever-expanding, ever-inclusive
transformations takes TIME and TROUBLE. Of course there is no such thing as
time, but authentically realizing that takes time. Of course there is no such
thing as suffering, but profound recognition of that Fact is exquisitely
painful.
Authentic spirituality is not a vending machine that spits out
cars, lovers, and shiny red bikes. It is not a wand we can wave to avert
discomfort, or acquire power. Actual awakening increases intimacy with all
suffering (and bliss), everywhere, without exception. It does not remove
struggle, but increases our devotion to and stewardship of all Reality.
Again, to be clear: I, Stuart Davis, want to be rich. I want to be
comfortable. I want lots of Prada shoes. Hell, as long as my cravings are
satisfied, I want that for everyone. That's not bad. I do not apologize for
that, and this is not hyperbole.
But call a spade a spade. I work with my ego, but I don't presume
the Universe is reinventing itself moment to moment in order to comply with the
minutia of my needy personality. There is the self, and then there is the Self.
I go to my therapist for one, I go to the Point of All Places for the other.
I, the Self, which also includes Stuart but is not defined by him,
was here before Stuart was born, and will be here after he dies. The Self is
the end of Suffering, and operates through all discrete agents as a means to
Awakening to Reality as it Is. I am that Self. I am radical, absolute freedom.
Incorruptible. Immutable. Every imaginable thing is that Self, equally without
exception. But not all things equally realize that. Not all beings are equally
awake. There is development. There evolution toward what already Is.
The Self is absolute freedom. The self is relative delusion. The
Secret is appealing to the relative self and pretending its the absolute Self.
The Secret crowns the Ego as God (I mean, YOU create Reality,
isn't that amazing? YOUR THOUGHTS are INFINITELY influential), then makes two
disastrous leaps.
#1, Now that you know YOU create your own reality through the
spiritual enterprise that is "thinking, feeling", what do you, the
Creator, want to create with your thoughts? Wealth. Money, power, influence,
status, and the luxury afforded the elite who amass fortunes. The Secret will
teach you how. Odd, isn't it, that your self is so spiritual and powerful, but
what it chooses to Attract with its Law is money, houses, lovers. Not the
liberation of all sentient beings, not relief for every creature, not the
cessation of that which is the Source of Suffering (clutching, desire, greed
arising from the illusion that there is an "other"), but a refinement
of the Source of Suffering. A manipulation of it. The Secret turns Desire and
Clutching into a technology you can wield, AND its Spiritual! The cure
is worse than the disease.
#2, Since YOU create your own Reality (Oprah went to pains to
stress and emphasize this point, and had Rhonda explicitly confirm precisely
that phrase: "we create our own reality") you are responsible as the
Source of whatever arises in your Reality. Every thing in your experience, you
created (merely using thoughts and feelings! Wow). Many of you reading this
right now may be astonished to finally understand you gave yourself cancer. You
caused yourself to be raped, robbed, murdered, stricken with every malady in
the canon of illness, beset with each kind of strife imaginable. The Holocaust?
Just something Jews brought on themselves, as they each apparently created
their own Reality. The Rape of Nanking? Bad Chinese, with their bad thoughts
and feelings, simply created their own reality and thus caused the unspeakable
murder of 350,000 innocent children, women, and men. Weird, the Reality people
create for themselves, ain't it?
Of course, it's hard to overstate how cruel and insulting such a
notion is. The impossibly sick premise that people in such situations create
their own Reality is so obviously wrong, so self-evidently false to our basic
intuition, that we can almost laugh it off. I mean, we could if Oprah--perhaps the most influential woman in the
Western World--hadn't gone to pains to repeatedly emphasize and confirm it with
Rhonda Bynre to an audience of tens of millions. Tens of millions of people who
literally orient their lives according to these sorts of
"discoveries".
There are not just many levels of smaller self (the ego is but
one), but different spheres, or dimensions. The Secret is not only selling a
shallow dimension of self, but it is also only acknowledges one aspect of self.
The Secret is working in one realm (interior-individual).
And it actually does a useful thing in that realm. Positive thought is
important. We can change the way in which our thoughts and feelings symbiotically
produce healthier behavior. That's good. But there is so much more to the
story. We have an inside, and an outside. We are individuals, and we are also
social beings. These realms are all part of who we are. All four realms come
together at once, they tetra-arise as Reality. No one domain
"creates" the others. Each is indispensable. The interior of
an individual (where thought occurs) does have correlates in the exteriorof
the individual (manifest as measurable biological change). We are beings with
an inner and an outer worlds. But Reality is not composed of
individuals. We are also collectivebeings, with shared
interiors, or inter-subjective domains, such as culture, collective
consciousness, and all that goes with the inner Word of We. That shared inner
world is complemented by the outer world, the inter-objective domain
of Nature, the biosphere, and all that can be seen and observed in corporeal
form. These FOUR domains:
*The Interior of an Individual (where thought
occurs, for instance)
*The Exterior of an Individual (the body, what can be measured and seen objectively)
*The Interior of the Collective (Culture, invisible features of mutuality, inter-subjective social)
*The Exterior of The Collective (Biosphere, planet, infrastructure, the inter-objective realm)
*The Exterior of an Individual (the body, what can be measured and seen objectively)
*The Interior of the Collective (Culture, invisible features of mutuality, inter-subjective social)
*The Exterior of The Collective (Biosphere, planet, infrastructure, the inter-objective realm)
While The Secret promotes itself as the magic wand for everything,
it actually deals with one part of one realm, and misrepresents itself while
doing it (by substituting self for Self).
To claim any one of them "creates" the other is a
disaster, and unfortunately fairly common occurrence. Any time you find a
discipline which FOCUSES on a particular domain (which is good) you find it is
tempted or seduced into claiming that ONE quadrant is the only "real"
one, or the only "true" one, or the only important one (which is
bad). That is another of The Secret's defects.. It takes one realm, one
perspective (The Interior of an Individual) and claims it creates all the
others. Wow. YOU, your thoughts, create your body. And the biosphere, and the
entire culture, and history of the planet, origin of species, all the cities
you could visit, all the planets in the Galaxy, all the Galaxies, all the...
and so on. And its wrong. Sorry. Your thoughts, your feelings, while being
important and valuable, are but two coordinates in one Quadrant.
Your thoughts and feelings are not the Source of Reality, but two
of its features. You do not "create" your reality, you participate in
it, and in certain circumstances, under particular conditions, you can
influence it. And it is good and useful to cultivate that influence, to
positively nurture those portions as much as possible, in the interest of love.
Rhonda Byrne's Secret is bad Self-Help masquerading as mysticism.
Broadly, "spirituality" can mean anything. So when we say spirituality,
what level of spirituality are we talking about? What altitude of awareness are
we coming from, what level of "spirit" are we referring to? I'm not
saying The Secret is not spiritual. I'm saying it's a very low-level of
spirituality masquerading as a high one. What it uses as enticements (become
wealthy, get a better job, get a lover) are very telling. It is appealing to a
person's desire to attain, achieve, and better their personal station. It is
promising you a better STORY. And that is indeed one altitude of spirituality.
But it's the bottom, and inflating it can end up keeping people stuck in the
cycle of suffering even longer. Because the self is addicted to its STORY. The
Self is the end of all stories.
Now contrast The Secret with The Mystery. The
Mystery, to me, includes all four domains (inner, outer, individual,
collective) and does not privilege one over the other. It engages them as
tetra-arising. It includes them as inextricably inter-woven, yet distinct in
important ways. The Mystery includes every altitude in every domain, and values
each of them, but also understand their differences. The Mystery includes every
methodology, every ontology or Way of Knowing, but at also understands what
they do, and what they don't do. The Secret is but a method, and it will not
set you free from The Story. In fact, it will probably suck you deeper into it.
It promises money, power, increased attraction, and tells you it is
"spiritual" practice. Your story could become so comfortable, why
would you ever forfeit it?
Here is an important question: What level of YOU wants to get
rich? What altitude of YOU wants a new house, a better lover, an improved
Story?
Here's what I feel is a healthier approach: use the right tool for
the right job. The right decoy for the right level. I think it is GOOD to
improve our financial station. I think it is GOOD to have an exciting love
life. That's why I have a financial adviser. That's why I see a therapist. I
need to work on my self. I want to improve my relative reality. But I don't
need to invoke "the Universe" or quantum-fucking-mechanics or
magical-narcissistic mysticism to do so. It's a LIE and it's misguided as it
gets. Fucking bloody hell. Want to find your Self? See Swami Sally. Want to get
a new house? A blow job? See Suzy Ormond and Sue Johansen. Stop it with this
Secret shit. It's offensive and detrimental to our work in the Mystery.
Perhaps worst of all, until we are truly FREE--free from the
Source of Suffering, free from desire, clutching, the assault of our false identities
and all their Stories--until we are that FREE, we cannot really be available to
help others become FREE. And that my friends, is the hokey pokey.
Stuart Davis
----
Q: But these approaches really do maintain that you create your own reality.
Ken Wilber: You don't create your reality; psychotics create their own reality. I know, the point is that a genuinely spiritual Self does manifest its own reality. So here's an old story from Vedanta Hinduism.
A man goes to an enlightened sage and asks, of course, for the meaning of life. The sage gives a brief summary of the Vedanta view, namely, that this entire world is nothing but the supreme Brahman or Godhead, and further, your own witnessing awareness is one with Brahman. Your very self is in a supreme identity with God. Since Brahman creates all and since your highest self is one with Brahman, then your highest self creates all. So far this definitely looks like New Age City.
Off goes the gentleman convinced that he
has understood the ultimate meaning of life, which is that his own
deepest self is actually God and creates all reality. On the way home,
he decides to test this amazing notion. Heading right toward him is a
man riding an elephant. The gentleman stands in the middle of the road
convinced that, if he is God, the elephant can’t hurt him. The fellow
riding the elephant keeps yelling, “Get out of the way! Get out of the
way!” But the gentleman doesn’t move – and gets perfectly flattened by
the elephant.
Limping back to the sage, the gentleman
explains that since Brahman or God is everything, and since his self is
one with God, then the elephant should not have hurt him. “Oh, yes,
everything is indeed God,” said the sage, “so why didn’t you listen when
God told you to get out of the way?”
It is true that Spirit creates all reality, and to the extent you identify with Spirit,
you do indeed find that you are within that creative activity. But that
creative activity manifests in all four quadrants, not just in or from
your own particular awareness.
Ken Wilber in his book, A Brief History of Everything, pg 289
----
Ken Wilber: Many people interpret these spiritual experiences basically in terms of only the Upper-Left quadrant - they see the experience in terms of a higher Self, or higher consciousness, or archetypal forms, or enneagram patterns, or care of the soul, or the inner voice, or transcendental awareness, and so forth. They tend to ignore the cultural and social and behavioral components. So their insights are limited in terms of how to relate this higher Self to the other quadrants, which are then often interpreted rather narcissistically as mere extensions of their Self. The new age movement is replete with this type of Self-only interpretation.
Others see these experiences as basically a product of brain states - the Upper Right. They attempt to interpret these experiences as coming solely or predominantly from theta brain wave states, or massive endorphin release, or hemispheric synchronization, and so on. This also devastates the cultural and social components, not to mention the interior states of consciousness itself. It is hyperobjective and merely technological.
Others - especially the "new paradigm" ecological theorists - attempt to interpret these experiences mostly in terms of the Lower-Right quadrant. The "ultimate reality" for them is the empirical web of life, or Gaia, or the biosphere, or the social system, and all holons are reduced to being merely a strand in the great web. These approaches poorly understand the interior stages of consciousness development, and reduce all Left-hand components to Right-Hand strands in the empirical web. This mistakes great span for great depth and therefore collapses vertical depth to horizontal expansion. This results in various forms of what many critics have called ecofascism.
Others attempt to interpret these experiences merely in terms of collective cultural consciousness and a coming worldview transformation - the Lower-Left quadrant. This overlooks what individual consciousness can do at any given point, and denies the importance of social structures and institutions in helping to support and embed these experiences. And so on.
Ken Wilber in his book, A Brief History of Everything
----
One should discern and realize that all phenomena arise are
non self, are not controlled by agent, but manifest due to conditions. Like
recently the alarm clock was sounding off very loudly. But I was still
dreaming, and I dreamt of an alarm clock, in fact many alarm clocks. I tried to
shut all of them, and the alarm clock is still sounding. Then I woke up and
turned off the alarm clock. No amount of mental projections are able to change
anything until the conditions for a given arising is addressed. In a sense, Zen
calls these projections ‘makyo’, or delusions. We should not invest too much
trust in them. Mental projections are only helpful only if it serves as a
condition to address certain conditions. Nothing has agency or own-power other
than serving as influencing conditions only. As Malcolm said – even siddhis
have causes and conditions, which is the attainment of samadhi.
Buddha:
"This humankind is attached to self-production
Or holds to production by another.
Those who have not understood this
Have not seen it as a dart.
But one who sees (this as it is),
Having drawn out the dart,
Does not think, 'I am the agent,'
Nor does she think, 'Another is the agent.'
This humankind is possessed by conceit,
Fettered by conceit, bound by conceit.
Speaking vindictively because of their views,
They do not go beyond samsara."
Or holds to production by another.
Those who have not understood this
Have not seen it as a dart.
But one who sees (this as it is),
Having drawn out the dart,
Does not think, 'I am the agent,'
Nor does she think, 'Another is the agent.'
This humankind is possessed by conceit,
Fettered by conceit, bound by conceit.
Speaking vindictively because of their views,
They do not go beyond samsara."
