Sri Aurobindo is far more provocative, far more challenging to the secular/agnostic/buddhistic-advaitin mind than someone like Wilber

alan kazlev Says: March 15th, 2007 at 5:20 pm You are inspired by Derrida and Nagarjuna. Andy follows meditation practice and, maybe, 4th Way, but doesn’t want to write about it, which is a real shame. I have a spiritual connection with Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, and Ramana Maharshi. Joe Perez adopts a more mainstream Wilberian stance. And so on, each of us going our own ways. Can these ideas even be harmonised at all? The Aurobindonian revelation is so contrary to the secular agnostic consensus that it is rejected out of hand - divinisation of matter? ridiculous! What is self-evident to me is not self-evident to others. What is self-evident to you may not be self-evident to me...

It is true that you started a thread on Sri Aurobindo, which I was very pleased to see, but unfortunately our respective approaches are so different (i myself now find academic-mental study of an enlightened being’s words to be of little interest), so I didn’t get involved. Interestingly no-one else here did either. I don’t know if that’s because no-one else was interested in the style of presentation, or because Sri Aurobindo is far more provocative, far more controversial, far more challenging to the secular / agnostic / buddhistic-advaitin mind than someone like Wilber. This is not to denigrate Ken, who can, as I have suggested elsewhere, serve as a bridge-builder between the secular-materialistic and the authentic spiritual. And maybe now you’ve started a thread on Gebser, something will develop, if people can let go of their Wilberian preconceptions and read Gebser as Gebser.

alan kazlev Says: March 15th, 2007 at 4:45 pm I would strongly advise you against trying to interpret Gebser through Wilberian eyes. There is no better way to misunderstand someone! As Wilber has made a charicature of Aurobindo’s teachings, and of Darwinism too, it would be no surprise that he and his followers would do the same thing with Gebser. So if you want to understand Gebser, put away your Wilber books and don’t access the Shambhalla website for elucidation. Just read Gebser as he should be read, through the medium of his actual writings! It’s a hard slog, and I don’t claim to understand everything he says. Nor do I agree with everything I do understand! But I’ve read enough already to see that, like Sri Aurobindo, he is light years away from Wilber.