Humanity is able to participate in the transformation of the world

Integral Metaphysics - outline of my current book in progress
Posted on Jun 10th, 2007 by M. Alan I haven't posted anything for a whiole because I've been so busy working on my book. The following is from the Introduction, and gives an outline of the book as it stands at the moment (for the table of contents see my Integral Transformation blog)...

Here four different creation stories about how things came about are described . These might be called “grand narratives”, or meaningful myths in the Jungian sense…. Rather than being contradictory, they are complementary, each different aspect of a larger multidimensional reality. .They describe the dynamic nature of physical and occult reality as process, rather than as static structures. These are Kalpas and Cycles (as described in Eastern philosophy, Jewish Kabbalah, and modern astrophysics such as the Big Bang in physical cosmology), Crisis and Restitution (as described in Gnosticism and again Kabbalah), Rounds or Dimensions (best described in the Theosophy of the Russian occultist Madame Blavatsky, and the Anthroposophy of the Austrian philosopher and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner), and Evolution (again as in modern science) and Hypostases (a technical term for the levels of reality that make up the previously mentioned “spectrum of being”).

The seventh part is called Divinisation. Many religions, and almost all spiritual teachings and yogas teach individual salvation and transcendence only, or else passively waiting for a Messiah. But both the Lurianic tradition of Kabbalah, and Integral Yoga, teach that humanity is able to participate in the transformation of the world. In Kabbalah this is only described in metaphoric and religious language, and there is also no concept of the divinisation of the body. In Sri Aurobindo's teachings it is described in a clear and practical way. This involves not just conventional Enlightenment, also spiritual stages of the evolution of consciousness beyond even enlightenment. …

By evolution is meant not just physical and biological evolution described in part five (although it is that too), but evolution on every level and aspect of the being, including spiritual and even divine Evolution. In Integral Yoga the sequence is Enlightenment and then even further Evolution, not just Evolution and then Enlightenment, as in New Age and the exoteric Integral philosophy. This is because Evolution extends beyond Enlightenment. Indeed, the most radical stages of Evolution are those that build upon and integrate Enlightenment. —Access: Public Add Comment Print Send views (25) Tagged with: Integral, metaphysics