print permalink 1 day later arachnid said
Hey alan,What you say about Open Integral really is true. I was so inspired reading a lot of things you wrote on kheper and etc, but when I turned to OI, I just felt paralyzed by the terminology and just the overall feel of the site as a whole, and I'm a bit of an expert in spiritual philosophy. As you know, I'm also very drawn to Aurobindo's vision, and I'm not sure if Wilber, who I do not like, ties into Aurobindo's thought just because they both use the term integral. Any thoughts? Maybe I'll be tarred and feathered for that thing about Wilber… =)print permalink 1 day later ~C4Chaos said
cool. godspeed on your writing bro :) keep it flowing…print permalink 2 days later M. Alan said
Hi Arachnid - re your question whether any simlarities between Aurobindo and Wilber go beyond just use of the word “integral”, yeah I've wrestled with this question too, and in the end I came down to the decision of defining “integral” in keeping with the original Integral yoga teachers, scientists, and process philosophers (i.e. Aurobindo, Mirra, Whitehead, Vernadsky, Teilhard, and Gebser); then for the heck of it I added on Max Theon and his wife/co-worker Alma Theon, resulting in a nexus of themes and ideas and teachings developed in the first part of the 20th century. Then from that foundation I include the New Age movement of the 70s, the Great Turning/Eco-Social movement (Thomas Berry, Joanna Macy, David Korten, etc), the Wilberian movement, and the P2P movement (Michel Bauwens etc), and so on. This is the thesis I propose in The Integral Paradigm. As far as I know this is the first such attempt at defining the Integral Movement. So it isnt that Wilber and Aurobindo are similar, but that Wilber (like Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, David Korten, etc etc) incorporates certain themes (such as a panentheistic and/or evolutionary cosmology based on specific individual and collective stages of consciousness) previously proposed in different degrees by Aurobindo, Whitehead, Vernadsky, Teilhard, and Gebser. re OI, yeah, this is what is wrong with Academia in general.Thanks ~C for the words of support! :-)print permalink 4 days later arachnid said
Oh, I get it. So the book will be more like an original synthesis that you will make? That I look forward to. You seem to have a good ability to compare/contrast and uh, integrate diverse thinkers, alan. About Whitehead: Maybe I'm too stuck on “liking” or “not liking” different thinkers, but I've looked into Whitehead and I think there's a fundamental flaw. He attributes a “change” or “movement” to God that to me just cannot be. God already is there. Even though the Divine manifests as this world, in Aurobindo's thought, and I totally agree, that doesn't diminish the transcendence of God in any way. God cannot go through any process, because by definition, God is beyond change. That's the difference between matter and spirit in the first place. Aurobindo says, the only motive behind the manifestation of the Divine is the delight or joy of creation or manifestation itself. Therefore, there is no such linear “process” that the Divine undergoes.
Hey alan,What you say about Open Integral really is true. I was so inspired reading a lot of things you wrote on kheper and etc, but when I turned to OI, I just felt paralyzed by the terminology and just the overall feel of the site as a whole, and I'm a bit of an expert in spiritual philosophy. As you know, I'm also very drawn to Aurobindo's vision, and I'm not sure if Wilber, who I do not like, ties into Aurobindo's thought just because they both use the term integral. Any thoughts? Maybe I'll be tarred and feathered for that thing about Wilber… =)print permalink 1 day later ~C4Chaos said
cool. godspeed on your writing bro :) keep it flowing…print permalink 2 days later M. Alan said
Hi Arachnid - re your question whether any simlarities between Aurobindo and Wilber go beyond just use of the word “integral”, yeah I've wrestled with this question too, and in the end I came down to the decision of defining “integral” in keeping with the original Integral yoga teachers, scientists, and process philosophers (i.e. Aurobindo, Mirra, Whitehead, Vernadsky, Teilhard, and Gebser); then for the heck of it I added on Max Theon and his wife/co-worker Alma Theon, resulting in a nexus of themes and ideas and teachings developed in the first part of the 20th century. Then from that foundation I include the New Age movement of the 70s, the Great Turning/Eco-Social movement (Thomas Berry, Joanna Macy, David Korten, etc), the Wilberian movement, and the P2P movement (Michel Bauwens etc), and so on. This is the thesis I propose in The Integral Paradigm. As far as I know this is the first such attempt at defining the Integral Movement. So it isnt that Wilber and Aurobindo are similar, but that Wilber (like Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, David Korten, etc etc) incorporates certain themes (such as a panentheistic and/or evolutionary cosmology based on specific individual and collective stages of consciousness) previously proposed in different degrees by Aurobindo, Whitehead, Vernadsky, Teilhard, and Gebser. re OI, yeah, this is what is wrong with Academia in general.Thanks ~C for the words of support! :-)print permalink 4 days later arachnid said
Oh, I get it. So the book will be more like an original synthesis that you will make? That I look forward to. You seem to have a good ability to compare/contrast and uh, integrate diverse thinkers, alan. About Whitehead: Maybe I'm too stuck on “liking” or “not liking” different thinkers, but I've looked into Whitehead and I think there's a fundamental flaw. He attributes a “change” or “movement” to God that to me just cannot be. God already is there. Even though the Divine manifests as this world, in Aurobindo's thought, and I totally agree, that doesn't diminish the transcendence of God in any way. God cannot go through any process, because by definition, God is beyond change. That's the difference between matter and spirit in the first place. Aurobindo says, the only motive behind the manifestation of the Divine is the delight or joy of creation or manifestation itself. Therefore, there is no such linear “process” that the Divine undergoes.
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