Aurobindo

I have read a dozen or so Integral Thinkers, but Sri Aurobindo seems to me to be the most expansive and deep. His words also give me an inspirational uplift which I don't always get with other persons. I have read Life Divine, Savitri, Letters on Yoga, a few compilation books including Aurobindo and the Mother, some free books available on the Internet, and am currently reading through Synthesis of Yoga for the third time. I now read Aurobindo every day as my main devotional/spiritual text. I admire Aurobindo, because he uses gentle persuasion. He seems stricter in some of his Letters, but in Synthesis of Yoga and Life Divine, he realizes how difficult it can be to transform and evolve a life. He realizes that each person has their own unique path, and has a choice to go with the flow of Prakriti into Inconscience or to reach the highest levels of the Supramental Mind in Ishwara/Shakti. I believe he said somewhere that even if you do nothing for your spiritual life, you will eventually transform, but it will take much longer and many lifetimes. So it is up to you. His approach seems to be to start with the Heart Chakra and move up, also then pulling the higher conscience down into the lower soul of desire and lower chakras. The psychic being is behind the heart, and this to me is somewhat our guide - and what goes with us from life to life. This is what transforms and evolves within us. I think of it as a kind of individual Akashic record - of our more significant experiences. I love Shakespeare, and art in general, and Aurobindo does not leave that out - and has passages of deep appreciation for art. I think he aspired to be a great poet himself. Like Shakespeare, he speaks on many levels according to what we are prepared to hear. On the issue of desire - I think he realizes that this is a great force with us – he wants us to transform rather than to cast off completely those things that make us lose focus. I think he does incorporate Tantra into his teachings - a broad all expansive acceptance. I am not saying I accept everything in Aurobindo, and I don't think that anyone should be worshipped as the only way - I think this can lead to a dogmatic and narrow view. It may actually help that I read his ideas from a distance in time and space, so that I don't have the temptation to lean on his ideas as static and complete. I still think we need to individualize our path and not swallow whole or imitate anyone. We can use his experience and spiritual force - that actually touches us when we read his words. It may involve adding something here, taking something away there - or merging some new ideas. I believe this is the way of evolution. Other Integral thinkers I personally admire are William Irwin Thompson and Gebser(Ever-Present Origin). I also like Jenny Wade's book. I think an Integral thinker should include Spirit, Art, Science, Psychology, and Cultural History. It seems rare to me, that someone has a deep appreciation for all of these - even though that is their claim. Some of the deepest truths are in art and literature and many Integral thinkers leave that out. Christopher Alexander’s four book series called The Nature of Order is great in explaining how the Spirit lives in centers of art and creation. We are also spiritual centers, and Aurobindo is a great guide to go up, outward, and deep.

Sages

I have found that the authors I admire the most and I think have the vastest knowledge and wisdom are all around 70 yrs old. These are Christopher Alexander, William Irwin Thompson, and Harold Bloom. These all have a deep sense of eternal values and an integral understanding of reality - Bloom in Literature, Alexander in Architecture and Painting, and Thompson in Cultural Studies. They are all integral in their understanding, and Gnostics. They all believe there is a light inside each of us - as I do. There is a genius, a guardian, an angel - a timeless psychic being (Aurobindo's term). The birthday cake is an offering to this genius, as we wish for what we want. This also fits with my supreme affinity to literature and painting - such as the works of Hesse, or the painting of Van Gogh. As Christopher Alexander used 200 yellows and reds to bring out the eternal coloration to bring out illumination - as Van Gogh did. I admire this complete consecration to an art, to a morality of truth - but yet keeping a free spirit.

Stay on this spot

Stay on this spot - internally, not moving. As the Buddha did not move from underneath the Bodhi tree until he understood. I must be a Buddha - in a different form, a different name, Western and Eastern, Male and Female - through pleasure and order, through the thoughts of all the centers, and I must be a center - as I have taken on the group mind, the morphic field of Sheldrake. This is a bifurcation point - NOW, as there have been many and are many - to transform, to understand the essentials:

Navigation of Values
Equinimity
Transformation and Bifurcations
Wholeness
Life; Spanda, the vibration, indulgence
Consciousness

*The eternal values - Nature of Order, Christopher Alexander (Cinema, Novels, Architecture, Paintings, Music, ...)
*Equinimity - Synthesis of Yoga, Aurobindo; and Rudolf Steiner, Zen
*Transformation - all the spiritual technologies of awareness, concentration, meditation
*Wholeness - Bohm and many others
*Life - the spanda of Tantra and Kashmir Shaivism
*Consciousness - Western and Eastern; the Essential Self, the Unique Self
*Total Inward Composure - Aurobindo and Steiner
*Insert oneself into the cosmic harmony - faith, a guide, grace.
*Use the Dragon, Shakti, the hot sensual beauty - deep inside; to move all the chakras

I am not alone - any thought, any action, any consciousness; I do for the whole, for my group; more than me alone in this life alone; and entirely within life.

Many books, teachers, thinkers - converge upon the same.

Stay connected to what makes me resonate; Dakota Fanning, Requiem Mass, Hermann Hesse, Kelly, Tammy, Nikki, Athletic competition, using the value of Pi; these different initiations into the Spanda, the Vibration, the Life and Consciousness, building patterns of order and beauty.

"we plant a seed in the soul in the very action of conscientious scientific research. He who is a serious scientist in this sense has within himself the germ of imaginative, inspired and intuitive knowledge. He needs only to develop the germ." - Steiner

Siddharta was also such an experimentalist.

I want to be born higher, but at the same time, I don't want to leave any feelings behind, at least any feeling that has value; as low as it may seem to others - spiritual or otherwise. And I don't want to leave any insect behind, any animal behind, and sentient being behind; this is somewhat a problem as the nature of order and beauty is to carve out the essential and let the shavings fall to the floor. What of these shavings - what happens to them? Maybe into a fire, the trash heap - and seperated from the beautiful carving of a shapely woman. How can I leave these behind, without knowing that they too will also be part of the beauty, the order in the same way. This is my soul mood - to respect all, but avoiding to get bound in some way, preserving a basic freedom, as truth and beauty, as boundless pleasure and bliss have degrees of freedom. And so I also embrace Lucifer; and try to see evil and good; but is this the way out? If I am water and I embrace the fire, what will become of me - a steamy vapor; but can I be of help that way? Control myself? What of bliss, what of sweet indulgence? What am I tranforming to - what pleasure will be left?

Order and Artistry

As I have thought - there is a value in art; in novels, paintings, architecture, music, cinema. This seems as important to me as religion, or even worship of god. For divinity is in these arts, and in the passion that is in seekers - artists, philosophers, scientists, evolutionaries, occultists. Aurthors that also have a feeling for evolution, spirit, and these artistic values of the soul are Gebser(Ever-Present Origin), Christopher Alexander (Patter Language, Nature of Order), and William Irwin Thompson (Coming into Being). And so my path should orient around these - and for order there is Aurobindo(Live Divine), and Rudulf Steiner(Knowing Higher Worlds). Where is this transformation - I think it is in order and artistry. But there seems to always be a problem, in that there are pleasures that seem to blank out the soul for a time - and yet these seem to also be a fuel for the life - so how to be One, and Participate.

Ego Inadequacy

I am working in several areas. One is by using the Diamond Approach [book/The Pearl Beyond Price]. This seems to be one of the most concrete psychological approaches that I have found. I am at the chapters which discuss Ego Inadequecy and how to resolve it. When we work through the merging vs indepence step in development, we will reach a place where our growth will hit a wall of inadequecy. It must happen to everyone who truly tries to develop and evolve themselves. The negative ways to handle this are to either merge back to some kind of feminine substitute - or perhaps a father substitute for women, or to cover up feelings of inadequacy by having a grandios trummped up ego. I think I have, more often than not, struggled with this phase called rapprochement and merged. I am now reaching a bifurcation where this is wearing thin and so I am trying to deal with this ego inadequacy directly. It takes some courage to do so, but there is a point where it has to be done. I will read on, and work on - and maybe get some help where I can - to go further, which is required for me to reach the authentic stage. I see it happening at work, taking on more responsibilities, learning, being creative - and also with social network such as Facebook.

In other areas, I am using the BodyScan/Mindfulness/Meditation/Yoga appoach as a centering of my self, and also to manage the headache pain. In conjunction with this is the FIT (focused intensity training) of the "Strength for Life" program.

A mental jazz - that rides the river of memoirs, thoughts, and ideals of the human drama. As William Irwin Thompson - who put Wilber in his place, abstraction built upon abstraction with his reserved for the top. This will not do - for reality is dynamic and nature does not rest - we go from light to light, dark to light, light to dark, and dark to dark in our search. Then there is something that is called love, for a dog or mother, a so called lover - that seems to illuminate; is this the weak support and hope Rilke is talking about in the Elegies? I pursue the integral, because I must to be whole - for why should I want to forego the soul, the Buddhist privilege in being human? But I can't repress the body, asceticism is economical it seems; but does not settle well. As Freud would say - expand the ego to include the super-ego and the id. I certainly have explored the depth of the id, as revealed in a dream of a deep pit in the supermarket parking lot - but in doing so, it makes walking difficult and also in providing for basic needs like food. So, some of the id has been brought to the ego, and also the spiritual quest I felt in reading and following Bonheoffer’s "Cost of Discipleship", then pursuing the radical idea of equal care and love for all. But at that time, all was only a group of "believers" that did not include all sentient beings, and had no sensibilities for beauty or the wider truth that is. The ideal has remained, which is also linked with the unique personality of the Stoics, the civil liberties of the French and American revolution - and the Aurobindo quest for the psychic being - but its unclear as to how individual is that psychic being

Second Face of God

There seems to be an entelechy within myself to explore possibilities and to experience pleasures of my own liking and taste. I believe that everyone should engage in this because everyone is unique at their deepest level. At the level where Self merges into Spirit. This can be viewed as narcissistic, but I believe that it is necessary and essential to evolutionary growth and development. At the same time, it is not a final practice to continuously explore new possibilities and to deepen pleasures. As we are all united as one in some way, I am part of a holarchy and need to understand and participate with the others that are around me. This need to submit to higher evolutionary stages and others is recognized by Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber in the latest issue of EnlightenNext, as the Second Face of God. I think that what they say is overstated and too simple or at the gross level as apposed to the subtle level. It is true that we need to submit to something that can lead us along and connect us to others, but by simply following a guru and those that are perceived as more highly developed is going to suppress our individuality if not done with the proper multi-perspectives and supra-high sensitivity to individual differences. We have to get past the gross level of guru and "God" worship and move to subtle and very subtle ways that can at the same time preserve the individual path, the mysteries of the universe, and the need to combine with others in higher holarchies. The entire purpose will be defeated with everyone submitting to a few gurus that will become puffed up with ego and cause stagnation because everyone will be suppressing the enlightened and individual parts of themselves for the mass ego that is following a couple worshipped leaders. I think a better approach is to start with love type relations - from pets, to children, partners, parents, and work from there - as far as deepening and having a more humble relationship to other. And to bow to the achievements of all others, in whatever form – gaining from them however one can – and not bow to one or two leaders. I want to bow to something, but not sure what. I don't think it should be a “God” (out there), but more of an internal force, internal master, internal dakini, or internal guide. The Tibetans have practices such as these, but they are too embedded in another culture and with too much restrictions and requirements. More to explore here, but having said this - I have listed a set of possibilities and pleasures for myself. Thirty-five higher possibilities so far. These are things I would like to do if I had no boundaries or constraints. Sometimes our boundaries and constraints are imaginary or easily knocked down and so this listing , I think can be worthwhile. What better than to do something that will inspire us. Only then could we be at our best and most worthwhile for the evolutionary whole of the universe and beyond. Some include:

- visiting my distant home town to gain perspective
- take a vacation to a place I really like
- write a book and get more involved in the integral community
- become a psychotherapist
- join a drumming group
- psychotropic drugs
- body therapy
- spiritual retreats
- engage in various erotic fantasies
- get more involved with online technologies
- become a volunteer or work a suicide hotline
- change my marital status
- change my look and style

, to name a few of them.

I think that exploring bliss is also a worthwhile pursuit and should be done at all levels or chakra levels. I will discuss more on that in a later post. So, does this make me a pluralistic, green meme, post-modern, luciferian, hedonistic, narcissistic, post-modern, anti-authoritarian. I think so, but I think that it is important to have elements of that in our make-up.