Synthesis: Towards a Unifying Plan - Part 5

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 4 with:

 

(p.263) " Secondly, as we become conscious of our feelings, our sensations,

imagination and thought, we become conscious of ourselves as part of a

psychological organism. None of us is an independent reality. We are all parts

of a whole, experiencing ourselves through our heredity, our families, our

language, our race, our traditions, our customs. In this way we come to be aware

of ourselves as part of a psychological organism which eventually we realise

stretches right back in time to the beginning of humanity and looks forward to

the future. So each of us is part of this integrated whole which is both

physical and psychological. And, just as the physical organism is an organic

part of the physical universe, so this psychological organism is related to the

psychic organism of the universe. We are all members of a whole, interrelated

and interdependent. So far this is on a fairly ordinary level of consciousness

but we can now go to a higher level of consciousness such that we go beyond our

physical consciousness and beyond our normal psychological consciousness, and

then we become aware of a transcendent or transpersonal consciousness. (P.264)

Different terms are used for this level of consciousness: transpersonal,

suprapersonal, transcendent, spiritual, mystical, and so on. At this point we

begin to discover a deeper dimension of being. So far we have seen ourselves as

part of the physical universe, part of the whole psychological world, part of

our family and people and the human race, but now we begin to discover that we

ourselves are related to, and dependent on, powers and energies which are beyond

us and above us. "

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith) Chapter 12, p.263-264

 

Here now, is Part 5.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

Synthesis: Towards a Unifying Plan - Part 6

 

(p.264) It is at this point that meditation enters the scene, because in

meditation we try to become aware of this physical organism and of the

psychological level and then, as the mind becomes quiet and settled, we become

aware of our transcendent consciousness. This was the great breakthrough in

India in the fifth century, with the Upanishads and the Buddha: a breakthrough

beyond the level of ordinary consciousness into transcendent consciousness. This

has been explored in the East particularly but in many other parts of the world

as well, through many ages. It is a part of human experience, as we now realise.

We have our sense experience, our emotional and imaginative experience and the

intellectual and moral experience of human life, but beyond all these there is

transcendent experience which is just as real and well-established as any other.

In the East particularly the exploration of the psychic universe has been

particularly well developed, with Tibetan Buddhism probably going further than

any other tradition. In Hinduism much of this psychic world has been charted and

it has also been explored deeply in Christian and Islamic mysticism. It is

significant that today scientists are recognizing that what comes out of this

experience is a valid sphere of knowledge.

 

At this point an important distinction must be made. As long as we are in the

realm of physical being our usual methods of measurement and quantification, of

mathematical and logical thought, are all appropriate and ordinary scientific

knowledge results. (p.265) But once we go beyond that order into the

psychological, emotional or imaginative world those methods become increasingly

less appropriate, and when we come to transcendent, mystical experience they are

no longer valid at all. What is important is that we learn to interpret these

transpersonal experiences. We have to evolve a consistent conceptual system by

which we can interpret and integrate our experience of the transcendent. That is

exactly what was done in Tibet and also in other Eastern traditions. Tibetan

Buddhism is a completely consistent method worked out over hundreds of years,

exploring how to interpret and integrate these phenomena of higher

consciousness. This is in many respects a scientific method, just as valid in

its own sphere as the methods of the physical sciences, but it does not come

within the same frame of reference because the kinds of experience which are its

data cannot be measured or quantified.

 

This higher consciousness has been present in humanity from the earliest times.

A well-established example is shamanism, which has been investigated extensively

by Mircea Eliade, Joan Halifax and others, and is found to occur all over the

world. Shamans develop psychic powers and attain psychic knowledge, going beyond

the physical and the ordinary psychological domains, to experience the early or

lower levels of the transcendent. With such experience are associated what we

call psychic phenomena, like visions and revelations, knowledge of the future

and the past, and the ability to heal. These and many other parapsychological

powers have been developed by shamans over the ages and continue to the present

day. Such experiences are all part of what is called the subtle world and they

were, of course, developed further in the great religious traditions. There is

the gross world which is the world of the senses and of ordinary understanding.

Normal Western science belongs simply to the gross world. (p.266) But beyond the

gross is the subtle world, the sphere of the subtle senses, the subtle feelings,

the subtle imagination, the subtle mind and the whole subtle organism, and all

the forces of that world which are present and can be experienced. Many people

today are more and more commonly having these experiences, and we know that in

the past this was quite normal. The forces which are encountered in the subtle

realm are depicted as both good and evil. Some assist the growth of the

universe, of human evolution and of human persons while others prevent and

counteract such growth. So when we enter the subtle, psychic world we are

exposed, as we are in the ordinary human physical world, to both good and evil

forces. These are cosmic and psychological forces working in the universe and in

the human consciousness and we have to learn how to understand and how to relate

to them. Again in Tibetan Buddhism this complete grasp of both positive and

negative forces, and how to relate to and deal with them, has been worked out in

great detail.

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith) Chapter 12, p.264-266

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0