Being in the present moment 29 July 2005
Posted by integralscience in Philosophy, Spiritual Practice.add a comment
Many spiritual teachers advise students to “stay in the present” or “be in the present moment.” But why is “staying present” considered important or valuable? In short, this teaching is an antidote to the habit of being lost in thoughts (which are usually about the past and the future). To help us become more aware of this habit, the teaching of “stay present in the moment” is given as a kind of precept to help us notice our thoughts and not be as caught up in them. The goal is not to get rid of thoughts or stop thinking, but just to be more aware of thinking and not so lost in it. This is important because so much of our suffering is caused by being caught up in thoughts and mistaking our thoughts and thinking for what is really going on. The more we are able to see our thoughts as just thoughts, the more free we are, and the more happy we are.
There is also a deeper truth to be discovered when we are no longer caught up in thoughts. It is seen that time itself is imagined. The past and the future are, by definition, not presently being experienced. And we never experience anything other than the present. The “present” is then no longer experienced as a limited point in a temporal continuum extending from a distant past into a distant future, but is revealed to be an open space beyond time in which everything arises and passes. This “present” is a timeless present, what some call the “eternal now.”
Beyond belief 27 July 2005
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Teachers often say that mystical experience is something that ultimately cannot be described in words, and one has to directly experience it for oneself. It seems that without one’s own experience, then, one is left to either believe such experiences exist or not. So, how is this any different from a believer in unicorns telling us they have had a direct experience with unicorns, citing all sorts of evidence for their belief, and telling us we should believe also?
First, genuine mystics do not tell us we should believe, but tell us we can test out their teachings if we want to. Granted, to be motivated to seek Enlightenment or Gnosis it is helpful to at least believe it is possible. But this is not blind belief, but the kind of belief a scientist has when testing a theory. It might be found to be wrong.
At a deeper level, though, one should realize that the teaching “one has to directly experience it for oneself” can be a useful teaching, but like all mystical teachings it is relative and limited. So if we cling to it as absolute, then it will lead us into contradictions or inconsistencies. The analogy between Gnosis and other kinds of experiential knowledge is just an analogy, and it breaks down at a certain point. Why? Because, unlike ordinary experience of things, Gnosis is not an “it” to be experienced by “oneself.” Gnosis is not some “thing” one experiences or believes, like how one experiences or believes a UFO or anything else. It is not comparable to knowing or believing anything because it is not any “thing” at all.
If we think Gnosis is a thing, then we inevitably get caught up in thinking what it is and is not, how to get it or lose it, what it is and is not like to experience it, who has it and who doesn’t, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Although it can be of relative value to talk at times as if Gnosis were something, we can quickly get lost and confused if we grasp onto Gnosis as some definite thing to be experienced or attained or defined or whatever.
In short, it is helpful to keep in mind the saying of the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna: “Whether any teaching is true or not depends solely on whether one is non-clinging or clinging in regard to it.”
What is true nature? 20 July 2005
Posted by integralscience in Philosophy, Science.add a comment
Each of us is drawn in our own unique way to the spiritual life. Perhaps a personal crisis suddenly forced you to ask deeper questions about existence. Maybe your longing for more meaning in life gradually increased to the point where you could no longer ignore it. Or you might have simply exhausted all other options.
It may seem paradoxical at first, but science can also lead one to the spiritual life. The ancient Greeks called the study of the nature of things physics. Like ancient physics, modern physics is the search for an understanding of the universal principles and laws that govern the world. It looks beneath the surface of things to discover their true nature, or what the Greeks called their physis. Since the desire to know the true nature of things is fundamentally a spiritual longing to know Reality, at the root of physics is the seed of the spiritual life.
Modern physics, however, is not the physics of Reality, but the physics of the material world. Although it has answers to questions about the nature of matter and energy, it can not answer questions about the nature of your own awareness, the nature of God or Reality. There is more to the nature of things than what is contained in the laws of modern physics.
True nature, thus, has a double meaning. On the one hand, it refers to the true laws of the natural world, i.e., modern physics. On the other hand, it refers to your own true nature, or the true nature of God or Reality. So, in its most general sense, the true nature of things is at once both physical and metaphysical, scientific and spiritual. And, more profoundly, this hints at the possibility that, ultimately, your own true nature has some hidden identity with the true nature of the world.
