By Ken Wilber (from One Taste)
Monday, September
29
"It is not what a person says,
but the level from which they say it, that determines the truth of
a spiritual statement." He was a young professor, from a local
college, and I had agreed to chat with him for an hour or so, late
this afternoon.
"How do you mean that?" he
asked.
"Well, anybody can say, 'All
things are One,' 'All sentient beings possess Spirit,' 'All things
are part of a great unified Web of Life,' or 'Subject and object
are nondual.' Anybody can say those things. The question is, do you
directly and actually realize that? Are you speaking with any sort
of awakened authority, or are these just words to you?"
"What if they are just words?
What does it matter?"
"Well, spiritual realities involve not merely statements about the
objective world, but also statements of subjective facts, interior facts—and for those statements to
be true when they come from your mouth, you must be
directly in touch with those higher, interior facts, or else you
are not being truthful, no matter how 'correct' the words might
sound. It is the subjective state of the speaker, and not the
objective content of the words, that determines the truth of the
utterance."
"Yes, I see. But could you give
some examples?" He was furiously scribbling, but I was not sure if
he was taking notes or recording his own thoughts.
"Okay. Anybody can say 'All
things are One,' so you have to determine the subjective state of
consciousness—or the level of consciousness—of the person making
the statement in order to judge its actual truth value, its
truthfulness. We need to know the level of consciousness of the
speaker in order to know what he or she actually means by 'All
things.' Do they mean all gross-level things are one? All
subtle-level things are one? All causal realities are one? Do they
mean all of those taken together? You see, the simple statement
'All things are One' actually has a number of quite different
meanings, and those meanings depend, not on the
objective content of the words—which are the same in each case—but
on the subjective level of consciousness of the speaker, which
varies dramatically. You might be one with everything on a
given level, but what if there are higher and deeper levels that
you don't know about? You're not one with
those, you see?"
"Yes. So how can you
tell?"
"There are several tip-offs.
Most of the books written about systems theory, Gaia, the Great
Mother, ecopsychology, the new paradigm, and so on, are all written
with reference to the gross, waking state. You can easily tell this
because they never mention any of the subtle realm
phenomena—nothing about the various meditative states, samadhis,
interior illuminations, the extraordinary states of dream yoga,
transcendental awareness, and so on. Nor do they mention the even
higher states of causal formlessness. So when they claim to be
'holistic' and 'nondual,' they really aren't, not in any full
sense. At best, they are at the level of nature mysticism, where
consciousness is confined to union with the gross, waking state.
This is fine as far as it goes, it just doesn't go very far. It is
the shallowest of the spheres of mystical Oneness in the Great Nest
of Spirit."
"How can you tell if their
consciousness extends beyond the gross realm?"
"Once consciousness becomes
strong enough to persist from the waking state into the dream
state—once you start to lucid dream, for example, or once you enter
into various types of savikalpa samadhi (meditation with form)—an
entirely new realm becomes available to you—namely, the subtle
realm—and this is unmistakably reflected in your life, your
writing, your theorizing, your spiritual practice. You are no
longer confined to thinking about the gross sensorimotor realm—
your god is no longer merely green—but rather an extraordinary
interior landscape opens to the mind's eye. If you are a painter,
you are no longer confined to painting bowls of fruit, nature
landscapes, or nudes. You can paint the subtle interior scenes, as
with Surrealism and Fantastic Realism, or the interior meditation
objects, as with Tibetan thangka painting. But none of those subtle
objects can be seen with the eye of flesh."
"So when somebody at that subtle
level says 'All things are One,' they mean something different than
when the gross-realm theorist says that."
"Yes, quite different. Usually,
when someone whose access consciousness is confined to the gross
realm says 'All things are One,' they mean something like systems
theory or ecopsychology—they mean all empirical phenomena are
aspects of a unified process. But when someone also has access
to subtle-realm consciousness, they mean all empirical and all subtle
phenomena are aspects of a unified process. This is a much deeper
and wider realization, which transcends and includes the gross
realm."
"So their consciousness is
actually stronger."
"In a sense, yes. Their
awareness does not blank out at the threshold of the dream state.
Because of their own development and evolution of consciousness,
they can remain 'awake' even as the dream arises—or they can enter
profound states of savikalpa samadhi and not go blank. And this
'strength' of consciousness becomes even greater at the causal
stage of development, because you reach a type of 'constant
consciousness' or 'constant witnessing capacity,' which means you
are 'awake' or conscious through all three major states—waking,
dreaming, and deep sleep. So consciousness becomes stronger and
stronger, persisting through more and more changes of state, and
this is reflected unmistakably in your life, your work, your
theorizing, and so on. These signs are hard to miss."
"Yes, I can see that. So if you
are at the subtle stage, you have access . . . ?"
"At the subtle stage you have
access to a variety of forms of deity mysticism—interior
illuminations, nada, shabd, various samadhis or meditative states,
saguna Brahman (Deity with Form), prayer of the heart, dream yoga,
most of the bardo realms, and so on. This is the subtle realm
of deity mysticism. Because the subtle-soul transcends but
includes the gross-sensorimotor realm, at the level of deity
mysticism you also have access to nature mysticism, so those are
not exclusive. But the lower, nature mystics tend to think you're
nuts."
"And the causal..."
"Is the home of formless mysticism—pure Emptiness, the
Abyss, the Unborn, ayn, nirodh, nirvikalpa, jnana samadhi,
classical Nirvana or cessation. This experience (or
'nonexperience') of cessation is unmistakable and indelible. And
when somebody has directly experienced that state, and they are writing
spiritual books, believe me, they will write about that! And you
will intuitively feel that they know what they're talking
about."
"You also mention the
nondual."
"Yes, once you push through
causal formlessness—which is the home of the pure Witness—then the
Witness itself collapses into everything that
is witnessed through all three
states. Vedanta calls this sahaja,
which means the spontaneous union of nirvana (emptiness) and
samsara (form); the Tibetans call it One Taste, because all things,
in all states, have the same flavor, namely, Divine; the Taoists
call it tzu-jan, which means 'of itself so,' or perfectly
spontaneous. So when a person here says 'All things are One,' they
mean every single thing in the gross and in the subtle and in the
causal has the same One Taste. And that is very different
from somebody awake only in the gross realm saying 'All things are
One.' "
"I see, yes. That's why you said
that"—he glanced at his notes—"it is the subjective state of the
speaker and not the objective content of the words that determines
the truth of the utterance."
"Yes, that's right."
"So we have a type of Oneness at
the psychic level, at the subtle, at the causal, and at the
nondual."
"Basically, yes. And those cover
just the transpersonal, transrational types of Oneness or Union.
There are also the primitive, prerational, prepersonal forms of
'oneness' or fusion. There is archaic or pleromatic fusion, or oneness with the physical world
(which is typical of the first year of life). There is magical animism, or the indissociation of emotional
subject and object, a type of vital-level oneness (which is typical
of 1-4 yrs). And there is mythic syncretism, or the oneness of symbolic fusions
(typical of 4-8 yrs). Of course, as Jean Gebser emphasized, these
primitive types of cognition—archaic, magic, and mythic—are still
available to all of us, although nested by deeper developments. And
then we reach the rational forms
of Oneness, such as systems theory, which are achieved by mature
reason (or vision-logic)."
"Could you just list them
all?"
"Pleromatic fusion, magical
animism, mythic syncretism, rational systems theory, psychic or
nature mysticism, subtle or deity mysticism, formless or causal
mysticism, and nondual One Taste."
"And all of those," he said,
"can make statements like 'All things are One,' and yet they all
mean something totally different."
"That's it."
"Yes, I see, I see." He
continued scribbling.
"Look, here's the point," I
suggested. "There have recently been a plethora of books about how
all things are part of a unified whole, we are all strands in the
web of life, all things are aspects of a great unified process, the
world is an organic living system, and so on—all of which are
variations on 'All things are One.' But that statement in itself is
perfectly meaningless, as we have just seen. Its truth depends
entirely on the level of consciousness of the person making the
statement.
"And that means two things:
First, when you read these books, try to judge as best you can the
actual depth of the writer—anybody can say 'All things are One.'
Most of the books written about 'oneness with the world' are
written from, and about, magical animism, mythic syncretism, or, at
best, a type of rational systems theory. So try to find a writer
addressing the transrational, not just the rational or prerational,
levels of awareness. And second, the writer should be giving you,
first and foremost, practices to
help you awaken to a higher level of Oneness in yourself. Not just
a new objective description of the world—that's worthless in this
regard—but a series of subjective practices to change the level of
your own consciousness.
"So these writers should be
awakened to a higher Oneness—psychic or subtle or causal or
nondual—and they should be giving you practices to help you awaken
as well. At the very least, these writers should be giving you, not
merely new ways to translate the world, but new ways to transform
your own consciousness. And if they don't directly give you these
practices, they should make it clear how centrally important they
are."
I made him a cup of green tea,
and we silently watched the light slowly fade as the sun
disappeared behind the mountains. He seemed lost in intense
thought, as if wearing an invisible Walkman receiving a song only
he could hear. "Thank you," he finally said, and I walked him to
the door.