Integral Spirituality News

Finally, a New Integral Definition of Peace and Normalcy that Reflects both Reality and Life!

Fri, 9 May 2008 10:39:55 -0600

What if the current Webster's dictionary definition of peace and the popular definition of normalcy were so wrong that if you used them to evaluate your life or the world you would probably not only come up with incorrect evaluations, but you most likely would also feel deeply frustrated about how things are going. What if simply knowing what science has discovered about the deepest success patterns of 14 billion years of evolution and what those success patterns indicate about what the real definitions of these words should be could radically enhance your whole perspective and attitude about your life and the world? Would you take 3 minutes to explore this new information...

The scientists who study the universe and its history on both macro and micro levels tell us that one of the deepest reoccurring patterns in the ongoing greatest system success of all time --- (our 14 billion years of universe evolution,) is near continuous dynamic tension and balanced turbulence between sub-systems or groupings within the universe trying to establish higher levels of complexity, integration and dynamic equilibrium. Put more simply, as it is currently and commonly defined, there is no peace in the most successful living and non living system ever existing!

For 14 billion years, peace in the real universe and in real life has required continuous dynamic tension and balanced turbulence between sub-systems or groupings trying to establish higher or larger levels of complexity, integration and dynamic equilibriums. Science has proven dynamic tension and balanced turbulence be the best peace and normalcy that the universe has every wisely evolved.

Why should that not be the real and rational gold standard for judging the current peace, normalcy and even success in your own life and it the world around you?

But it gets even better, the same scientists studying the deepest reoccurring patterns of the 14 billion years of successful evolution of life tell us that in addition to the dynamic tension and balanced turbulence --- reoccurring bad news, catastrophe, destruction and death are also absolutely continually necessary for new life, releasing new creativity and finding new adaptive solutions. 14 billion years of evolutionary universe success resoundingly demonstrates that these combined stresses are absolutely essential to help life and the universe grow. It is not an exaggeration in any way to say that without these vital stressors continually existing life, the universe and yes even you would simply not be here today!

So take a new look at your life and get more real about what these words really dynamically mean. Consider changing your life perspective about peace and normalcy will always look like in both your life and the world. See what this does to how you see and feel about your life and the world and all of the success and successful process that surrounds us at ever moment that we often do not even see.

If these new, more reality and truth reflecting definitions of peace and normalcy were used on everything from how we feel about the state of politics to the success and quality of our interpersonal relations would be dramatically changed and improved. Maybe the ancient mystics who prayed for adversity to help them reach the Divine knew this all intuitively.

Empowered Integral Spiritual Lifestyle Basics, Part 1: Spiritualize Your Life by Spiritualizing Your Desires!

Mon, 7 Apr 2008 14:17:07 -0600

Almost everyone has had an experience where they skipped or underestimated a simple earlier step and then noticed that everything later becomes considerably harder or less effective until they go back and fix or do the skipped or under done earlier step. This principle is just as true with building an empowered and authentic spiritual lifestyle. Consider the following 5 minute exercise and see if there a simple and easy way to expand your spiritual lifestyles' richness and effectiveness�

(Editors Note: This is the first in a series of 5 minute motivational, inspirational basics for building an empowered and authentic spiritual lifestyle. We suggest you sign up for our RSS feed for these articles at the bottom of the page to get all of them as they are released.)

Thomas Merton is the omni-denominational theologian who is credited as being the first to call attention to the essential truth that to spiritualize your life; you first need to spiritualize your desires. While most individuals sense this feels right they nevertheless do not actually take the time to list out their spiritual desires or ask themselves what spiritual desires are not on the list.

To help you do this simple 5 minute spiritual desires exercise it is good to be aware of the benefits of a spiritual lifestyle. We have included this partial list of benefits to help you do this exercise.

The Amazing Personal Benefits of an Empowered and Authentic Spiritual Lifestyle:

A new, revitalized or expanded sense of:

inner peacefulness, hope and calm,

self esteem, purposefulness, meaning and knowing your personal destiny,

releasing untapped personal potentials,

personal effectiveness,

being able to implement wise and balanced applications of the virtues to resolve life�s relationship, career, financial and other challenges to achieve your most important and enlightened goals,

emotional and mental balance,

physical well being, (this includes everything from improving your nutrition and fitness to paradoxically feeling younger in heart, form and energy as you age,)

present moment consciousness and awareness,

delight and joy in the beauty of life,

improved interpersonal relationships and experiences in the NOW, and

personal autonomy, freedom and self control.

The Amazing Spiritual Benefits of an Empowered and Authentic Spiritual Lifestyle: :

A new, revitalized or expanded sense of:your most authentic spiritual self --- your highest identity and dignity,

interconnectedness to all of life,

a tangible healing or lessening of the sense of fragmentation and personal isolation (an epidemic in today�s post modern world,)

present moment consciousness and awareness,

delight in the art and beauty of life,

improved inter-personal relationships and experiences in the Now,

compassion and personal peace,

personal or transcendent connection, relationship and union with the Ever Present Origin such as:

1.     a visceral experience of God and/or the Buddha,
2.     a personal connection with God and/or the Buddha,
3.     a personal relationship God and/or the Buddha,
4.     union with God and/or the Buddha,
5.     a transcendent experience of God and/or the Buddha,
6.     personal ecstatic experiences of God and/or the Buddha,
7.     knowing more about God and/or the Buddha through direct experience,
8.     finding a presence of God and/or the Buddha within oneself (or, even as them,) 9.     ultimate connection with God and/or the Buddha,
10.     having new cycles of personal renewal and empowerment in the form of feeling energized, motivated, inspired and rekindled hope,
11.     an expanded living of the virtues in a balanced way. So that in your personal and social behavior and attitudes you are being like what God and/or the Buddha is like.

We believe that spirituality is the center pole that supports, nourishes and uplifts the whole spiral of life. It not only better interconnects us to the Great Mystery it also better connects us to ourselves and others as well.

When one authentically progresses in their spirituality one improves their ability to successfully create every single thing that is:

worthwhile to be or become,
worthwhile to do or be done and,
worth having ---
both in the here and now and, throughout eternity!

The Amazing Social Benefits of an Empowered and Authentic Spiritual Lifestyle:

co-creation of an equitable, just and sustainable world,

better interpersonal relationships and connection with kindred spirits --- through supporting their spiritual evolution while expanding your own,

a tangible healing or lessening of the sense of fragmentation and personal isolation plaguing today�s post modern world,

co-action with other spiritual pioneers and cultural creatives in life affirming social service through spiritualized collective social activism,

sharing your personal life, spiritual and social wisdom with others to help expand the global spiritual commons.

The Final Spiritualizing Your Desire Step:

A.) Now that you have reviewed some of the benefits above, print them out. When you print them out be sure to leave some room to add any additional benefits that you are seeking in your spiritual life that are not listed.

B.) Next, go over the list and mark the ones most important and that you desire most. You can use a 1-10 scale of desire if you like.

You now have your list of personal spiritual desires! You even have which desires are most important to you if you did the 1-10 scale part of this exercise.

Keep this list where you will see and review it regularly! Watch what happens in the quality and results of your spiritual life now that you have renewed, clarified and/or expanded your real spiritual desires.

As soon as the next Empowered Spiritual Lifestyle Basics, Part 2 is released, you will learn more about how to further strengthen and supercharge the reality-creating power of your noble and beautiful spiritual desires.

The Practical Virtue Proofs of an Authentic and Effective Integral Spirituality Lifestyle

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:59:01 -0600

When lived in a balance, the list of virtues and values found in this article are the resultant authentic fruits of the Spirit. These fruits of classic, modern and post modern virtues are a reliable and observable broad spiritual community validity "proofs" for the results of authentic and effective spiritual practice, spiritual growth and a congruent spiritual lifestyle for an individual within the world. Compare your current spiritual lifestyle against these virtues criteria now...

Within the majority of world religions they also are considered to be the time-proven community validity and reality tests for the legitimacy of the results that are to be achieved if one is xperiencing authentic spiritual practice and spiritual growth. In the list below you will find some virtues and values from the modern, postmodern and integral worldviews not specifically mentioned in earlier classical or traditional worldview lists of virtues and values.

The virtues below do not absolutely imply belief in a God/Buddha or being self-aware that one is on a "spiritual" path. People can embody or practice these values and virtues as asecular humanist. The values and virtues can be also thought of as one of the best results and proofs of authentic "enlightenment."

For ages, these virtues and values have been called the "fruits of the spirit" in humanity�s religious materials. While one could live and demonstrate these virtues without being spiritual, claiming to be spirituality growing or having an authentic and congruent spiritual lifestyle and practice without increasingly manifesting living more of these virtues lived in balance is a spiritual incongruity.

Click here to use our online tool to rate your relationship and life application of the virtues listed below. This will make it easier to see just how balanced your application of them actually is.

Accepting - tolerating without protest, on a deeper level recognizing the inherent and neutral truth/existence/"isness" of every occurrence

Adaptable - capable of adapting to varying conditions

Altruistic - unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others

Amiable - being friendly, sociable, and congenial

Appreciative - having or showing gratitude

Attentive - heedful of the comfort or condition of others

Authentic - true to one's own personality, spirit, or character

Autonomous - existing or capable of existing independently

Aware - having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge

Balanced � mental, spiritual and emotional dynamic steadiness

Benevolent - disposed to doing good

Capable - having general efficiency and ability

Centered - emotionally stable and secure

Charitable - merciful or kind in judging others

Committed - able act with deliberation

Communicative - able to transmit information, thought, or feeling so that it is satisfactorily received or understood

Compassionate - showing empathy

Competent - having requisite or adequate ability or qualities

Considerate - thoughtful of the rights and feelings of others

Consistent - marked by harmony, regularity, or steady continuity

Cooperative - a willingness and ability to work with others

Courageous - mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty
Co-Responsible - being a co-responsible agent doing at least your approximately one six billionth fair share part to co-evolve our shared world toward the necessary improvements that you see and know need to be made.

Creative - an ability to create beauty and or art in one�s life as well as bringing increased levels of creativity or co-creativity to solving the problems of life

Decisive - to find out or come to a decision about by investigation, reasoning, or calculation

Devoted - consecrated to a purpose

Direct - free from evasiveness or obscurity

Discerning - showing discriminating insight and understanding

Eco-Friendly - displaying environmental co-responsibility and sustainability

Ethical - guided by that which is morally good

Evolving - moving oneself forward physically, mentally and spiritually

Fair - characterized by frankness, honesty, impartiality, or candor; open; upright; free from suspicion or bias; equitable; just

Flexible - characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements

Forgiving - allowing room for error or weakness and to give up resentment

Generous - showing or suggesting nobility of feeling and generosity of mind

Good - possessing moral excellence or virtue

Grounded - having a firm foundation

Honest - free from fraud or deception. Marked by integrity. Marked by free, forthright, and sincere expression

Hopeful - desiring some good, accompanied with an expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable

Humane - compassionate, sympathetic, or considerate towards humans or animals

Humble - not proud or haughty: not arrogant or inappropriately assertive

Inclusive - broad in orientation or scope

Integrative - forming, coordinating, blending or integrating parts into a functioning or unified whole

Interconnected - to be or become or understand our mutually connectedness in the web of life

Interdependent - understanding that both or many parties are needed to be successful

Just - rendering or disposed to render to each one his due; equitable; fair; impartial

Loving - feeling or showing affection

Loyal - true to any person or persons to whom one owes fidelity, especially as a wife to her husband, lovers to each other, and friend to friend; constant; faithful to a cause or a principle.

Ministering - to supply or to things needful; esp., to supply consolation or remedies

Open-minded - ready to entertain new ideas

Patient - good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence

Peaceful - peacefully resistant in response to injustice

Productive - producing, or able to produce, in large measure; fertile; profitable, also creating or maintaining productive, equitable and ethical relationships of exchange with others, society and world

Responsible - to be reliable; to be trustworthy

Self-Disciplined - correcting or regulating oneself for the sake of improvement
Sufficiency - the quality or state of being sufficient, or adequate to the end proposed, knowing when "enough is enough" particularly in relation to the excesses of materialism

Tolerant - showing respect for the rights or opinions or practices of others

Trustworthy - taking responsibility for one's conduct and obligations. Worthy of trust or belief

Truthful - conformity to reality or actuality

Willing - voluntarily disposed or inclined towards

If you have not done so already click here to use our online tool to rate your relationship and life application of the virtues listed above. This online rating tool will make it far easier to accurately see just how balanced your current application of the virtues actually is.

For more recently added information on the values of an integral citizen in the integral age,click here.

For information relating to where the virtues have come from and their relation to both spirituality and nature click here for more on Evolutionary Spirituality. To discuss your ideas on the virtues, click here.

Make the Institutional Church History, says Theologian

Mon, 3 Mar 2008 18:46:47 -0700

A Protestant theologian, who has written provocative books about Archbishop Rowan Williams and the disestablishment of the Church of England, says that Christianity must dismantle the concept of church and become a faith of spontaneous celebration and action.

Theo Hobson is author of 'Against establishment: An Anglican Polemic and Anarchy', 'Church and Utopia: Rowan Williams on Church'. Writing recently in The Guardian newspaper, he claims that "the dominant trend of contemporary Christian theology might be called ecclesiastical fundamentalism."

Hobson criticises forms of church life that model top-down approaches to power, reproduce rigid thinking and exclude those who think or behave differently. He says that Christianity must move beyond institutionalism, taking the experience of Carnival as the appropriate contemporary idiom for Christian expression.

Hobson says that "Christian culture needs to cultivate an anarchic lightness, a lust for freedom, a celebratory spirit." He cites Glastonbury, Notting Hill and Gay Pride carnivals and Chinese New Year as having something of this ethos.

In recent years there has been a huge turn away from �institutional religion�, especially amongst the young. Sociologists of religion often speak of the shift from traditional belief to new age style spirituality, and towards �believing without belonging�. But there is also a significant trend towards �alternative church� and �emergent church� in the post-Christendom era.

Another writer, Alan Jamieson, has described the phenomenon of Christians who have stopped going to traditional churches altogether. Sometimes they form small groups, support networks or internet communities to express and explore faith.

Theo Hobson ends his call to make the centralised church history by calling for Easter Day 2006 to take place in Hyde Park, London. He writes: "There will be drumming, dancing and parades. Let�s have 2 million of you out there."

If Hobson�s plea works, it might turn out to be the first mass expression of Christian community constituted by �flash mobbing�, the spontaneous gathering of crowds through mobile phones and email.

Theological news from ekklesia

How Effective and Integral are Your Current Spiritual Practices? Find out Now!

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:18:25 -0700

How much of your current spiritual practice incorporates the 18 most validated methods for building a spiritually congruent life and an authentic and empowered spiritual lifestyle? We invite you to review the 18 central practices used by history's greatest spiritual leaders, mystics and saints and compare your current spiritual practices to theirs. You might just find out that you are doing a lot better than you ever dreamed...
Building an Effective, Balanced and Integral Spiritual Lifestyle

There are many spiritual practices and forms of worship that one can use to build a congruent spiritual lifestyle that are far more effective, comprehensive and more fully demonstrative of loving and honoring the Infinite Oneness, others, self and life than just weekly group or individual worship in the form of traditional singing, praising, praying or ceremonial rituals.

The most effective and authentic forms of spiritual practice and worship are really about creating a congruent everyday spiritual lifestyle that embraces love in union in all types of relationships! The 18 central practices for creating an authentic spiritual lifestyle are constructed from many congruent practices and attitudes that both support and integrate a non dualistic, oneness consciousness and unity approach in relation to the Infinite Oneness, other, self and life on each of the levels of being, doing and having. These 18 practices and attitudes fall into two main relationship perspectives:

a.) your direct spiritual experiences with the Infinite Oneness --- the Great Unity and Consciousness that interconnects us all and,

b.) the quality of your day-to-day relationships --- how you relate to or are actually in loving union in the now with others, life and physical universe that we all share.

In the following list of 18 practices for living a congruent spiritual lifestyle numbers 1-7 focus mostly on your relationship with and to the Infinite oneness. Numbers 8-18 focus mostly on your relationships to others and the physical universe (including how you relate to yourself spiritually.)

As you are reading each of these 18 practices, ask yourself how much or how often are you currently using, doing or being each one of them. Make notes as you have ideas about where your current spiritual practices can be strengthened or expanded.

The 18 Central Practices for Building an Integral, Effective (R)evolutionary Spiritual Lifestyle are:

Part A: Your direct spiritual experiences and relationship with and to the Infinite oneness:

1.) learning and thinking more about the nature, states, qualities, and purposes of the Infinite oneness that connects us all in both its personal or impersonal forms using all of the life affirming wisdom from both the western and eastern spiritual heritage of humankind.

2.) regular individual and/or group meditation or contemplation that spiritualizes your desires and honors admires, respects and contemplates, the many states, qualities and aspects of the Infinite oneness in its absolute personal or impersonal forms.

3.) bringing pleasure to the Infinite by maintaining an appropriately trusting, authentic and growing direct relationship of service toward and with the Infinite oneness,

4.) being grateful to the Infinite oneness for your life and the great evolutionary adventure of the physical universe,

5.) present moment attentiveness to finding the truth, beauty, goodness and very Presence of the Infinite oneness unfolding in each moment and, in all things,

6.) allowing the Infinite oneness to co-act with you as a partner and in partnership to co-evolve all of life toward greater truth, beauty, goodness and consciousness of The Infinite oneness,

7.) becoming more like the Infinite Oneness each day by authentically living the discernable purposes, values and natural laws of the Infinite oneness most practically achieved by living the classical virtues in a balanced way and, by also being in continual conscious loving union with the Intinite oneness, others and yourself!

Part B: Your relationships to others and the physical universe:

8.) being conscious of and living from your highest spiritual self, dignity and true identity in relation to the Infinite Oneness, appropriately loving yourself as that, and then, living from that consciousness of love, beauty, goodness and truth,

9.) living a daily life that authentically demonstrates loving others and being compassionate as well as being conscious of the highest spiritual self, dignity and true identity of others in relation to the Infinite Oneness,

10.) building and living a life of affirming, balanced and sharing authentic relationships, partnerships and unions that reflect increasing truth, beauty and goodness and Infinite oneness consciousness because of your presence and the vital spiritual value of being in and creating loving relationship itself i.e. family, marriage, team, community, company, (Authentic relationship is a place where people share their experiences at a heart to heart level and help each other in reciprocal ways. It is a place where they can get completely honest about who they actually are and what is going on in their lives. It is a space where they can reveal their feelings, hurts, doubts, fears, and weaknesses as well as find mercy, be forgiven and ask for help. It is a space where acceptance and allowances are made for their imperfections. It is the initial place of willingness truth and healing where everything is first embraced and fully accepted as it actually is without resistance, denial or judgment!)

11.) serving and contributing to the needs of others and life in balance with caring for your own needs,

12.) bringing delight to both yourself and the Infinite oneness by living an artful life that appropiately enjoys life's many appropiate pleasures while you are participating in the great educational "university" and great spiritual co-adventure of evolutionary existence,

13.) maintaining an embodied, fully attentive engagement of being present in and fully aware of each present NOW moment, (Being fully present in the now, letting go of fear and fully accepting the "isness" of all things as they occur may be the greatest form of worship and trust in the Infinite oneness of all!)

14.) ongoing informed and wise decision making that effectively supports your partnership with the Infinite in co-evolving the universe toward greater truth, beauty and goodness and a greater shared awareness and consciousness of the Infinite Oneness itself,

15.) regularly re-experiencing in the awe, wonder and beauty and pleasures of the body, nature, life and the sciences,

16.) sharing your spiritual experiences and successes with the Infinite Oneness with others individually and in spiritual community,

17.) almost anything you can do or experience with an embodied attitude of love, present attentiveness, willingness, acceptance, spiritual consciousness and gratitude, and finally,

18.) gathering in spiritual community for traditional singing, praying and other worship rituals. (These 3 forms of traditional worship are not recommended to be used just by themselves or substituted for using most if not all of the usually deeper and more effective forms of building a spiritual lifestyle listed above. What you see above are most of the real daily practices of living like the greatest spiritual saints, founders and mystics of the great religions of the world. )

Well, How did you do? Do you have some new ideas on practices or attitudes on how to improve your current spiritual lifestyle?

Authentic empowered spiritual practice is not a building a ritual, a formal prayer or a dogma. It is the intention, the how and the result that you awarely live in each now moment of your daily and often mundane relationships.

We highly recommend that you print out this 18 point list and use it as a checklist reminder. This way you can review it regularly to remind yourself how well you are doing or, how much you are improving your spiritual lifestyle. In improving your spiritual practices this checklist can become an effective support tool for keeping you focused on being in loving union by regularly honoring the Infinite Oneness that interconnects us all, your truest self, others and all of life.

The article was created by Lawrence Wollersheim for Integrative Spirituality. For more information on creating or expanding your personal spirituality see www.IntegrativeSpirituality.org .

OSCAR WILDE: THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:45:35 -0700

by Oscar Del Santo

Ever since our remotest ancestors began to cover the walls of the caverns they inhabited with their primitive paintings, beautiful as they were in their simplicity, Life and Art have had at best an uneasy relationship. Unlike Art and its finished perfection, Life � as we all know from painful experience - usually botches its own narratives and in the end, despite our best efforts, never fails to disappoint. We can confidently state that our forebears drew not in order to somehow reflect reality � as it was once believed � but in order to influence it. At the dawn of civilization, they were beginning to discern what we now know for certain thanks to the man that occupies us here: that it is not Art that imitates Life but Life that imitates Art. And it is only in those unique, precious moments in which they are in unison when we are allowed to fully comprehend the wonder and the majesty of both.

Nature had to labour patiently to produce, in the fullness of time, a man who would reconcile Life and Art and bring to fruition the work initiated by our cave-dwelling forefathers. Through supreme effort and sacrifice, he succeeded in making his entire life a work of Art. That true friend of freedom brought us ever closer to the Source by proving like no other that it is only through Art that our individual lives, if they are worth anything at all, find their true purpose and become worth living. His name was Oscar Wilde.

Playwright, critic, novelist, conversationalist, philosopher, aesthete: Wilde�s genius was only matched by his genuine love of Beauty and the sincerity with which he chose to live in a society tainted by hypocrisy and prejudice. Our modern Socrates, we can rest assure, never aged: as he once wrote in one of his many witticisms, he was blessed with that inordinate passion for pleasure that makes one remain young forever. Generosity, courage, dignity, nobility of spirit, tolerance, charm, an innate elegance and a truly friendly disposition: rarely has such a collection of virtues been found in a single human being. Yet, as Marcus Aurelius knew, great vices always lurk in the shadows great virtues cast and are ready to manifest themselves given the slightest of chances. And in the case of Oscar, that chance came as a result of his entanglement with the insufferable Lord Alfred Douglas, affectionately known as Bosie; a young man whose external beauty, just as in the parable told by the Christ, acted as a fa�ade for a corrupt and decadent interior.

It is well known that great vices are the prerogative of great men. Just like Benvenuto Cellini - the Renaissance silversmith Oscar admired - and under the influence of his attachment to Bosie, the otherwise devoted husband and exemplary father let himself become a profligate by committing almost every vice known to man (�There was no pleasure that I did not experience� he would later write in De Profundis ). The long list includes underage and group intercourse, drug consumption, engaging the service of male prostitutes, reckless extravagance and all sorts of what in his time were deemed �debased pleasures�. Such was Oscar�s fascination with Bosie that he let himself be dragged to the least salubrious parts of Victorian London and soiled his reputation by acquiescing in the many sins of his beloved.

Just like the sea god Glaucus, who according to Plato�s story stayed so long under the sea that the rocks, the seaweed and the shells that attached to his body made him unrecognizable when he eventually came out and showed himself, so did Oscar become a stranger to his closest friends and admirers, who by 1894 were becoming increasingly aware of the destructive effect that his liaison with Douglas was operating in his character. Caught in the whirlwind of unbridled passions, it was only a matter of time before disaster would strike via the infamous libel action and subsequent trials instigated by Oscar himself following Bosie�s incessant demands.

We can only speculate as to the catalogue of horrors that a man of Oscar�s supreme sensitivity and love of freedom had to endure while he remained in a XIX century prison. May they serve us as a sobering reminder that natural horrors never quite compare to the ones that we humans seem only too ready to inflict upon one another. The forced labour, the inhumane conditions, the isolation, the mockery. Only such a noble creature as Oscar would still find the compassion to think of the children imprisoned with him and act swiftly to secure their release.

Before we begin to sorrow for Oscar � something he would have found fault with � let us not forget that it is only to the ones amongst us who have suffered the scorn and derision of our peers; who have been betrayed by those we trusted; who have lost all that we held dear; who once descended into that deep valley of total rejection and utter despair; to those of us whose tears were unwiped and whose cries went unheard that the Universe, as an impenetrable and yet kind and compassionate mother, saw fit to grant that unique depth of feeling and sincerity of intention that - disarming all the self-deceiving stratagems under which we lead our daily existences � bring forth true love.

That love, so pure, untainted by any of the motives that presently cloud our judgement; that love, so real, sublime, ever comforting, eternally present, able in our despair to make us soar above the miseries of our existence while infusing our hearts with a rush of life-giving force; that love, forever beyond our comprehension, the most precious gift given to us while we remain in the realm of the living, came to aid Oscar in his darkest hour.

First came the intellectual realization of the supremacy of Love: �It seems to me that love of some kind� he wrote, �is the only possible explanation for the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.� This illumination was followed � as it is always the case - by that true happiness that, not depending on external circumstances, flows from the depths of our being, is born out of the full acceptance of our destiny and connects us with the origin of all that exists. Despised, forgotten, abandoned, his children forever removed from his presence, Oscar came to achieve the peace that had eluded him in the past: �Curious as it will no doubt sound to you� he told a friend, �I have been happier. It was of course my soul in its ultimate essence that I had reached. In many ways I had been its enemy, but I found it waiting for me as a friend.�

Spirit, as Hegel reminded us, unfolds gradually in the course of human history; and history � this is our only true hope � eventually undoes all of our individual and collective errors and ushers in justice and truth. Now that � with a moving performance by the multitalented Stephen Fry - Oscar�s life has reached the big screen, that his plays fill the theatres of Europe and America and that the city of London he so much loved has come to celebrate his life with a fitting monument not far from the Savoy Hotel he liked to frequent, Oscar has finally achieved the restitution and the worldwide recognition he always deserved. And his posthumous triumph is nothing but the triumph of love. May he rest in peace forever enfolded in the warmth of that heavenly, divine, endless love.

� Oscar Del Santo 25/11/07

Peer to Peer Relational and Participatory Spirituality Emerges, Part 2: Participatory Spirituality

Wed, 6 Feb 2008 15:58:42 -0700

Is there a unique new form of absolute God, Buddha or Consciousness emerging both in our inter-relationships and through our collective group US-ness? Is there a unique new form of God, Buddha or Consciousness emerging both into individual and collective consciousness which is only concerned with the wellbeing of humanity as a whole? Is this new co-creational form of spiritual relationship as well as this new form God, Buddha or Consciousness emerging a completely new form of evolutionary spirituality? If this is real, how can you become an active, equipotential partner in this exciting relational and participatory peer-to-peer spiritual evolutionary process?

Integrative Spirituality is posting parts 1 and 2 of the peer to peer (P2P) relational and participatory spirituality articles in part because o�ne of the goals of our organization is to support the process of making known what we believe to be an emerging "new" state or quality of God, Buddha or Consciousness that is focused exclusively the success of humanity as a whole in the form of our collective evolutionary progress. This group-focused state of God, Buddha or Consciousness may very well be the emergence of a unique and new evolutionary stage of spirituality as well as a completely new state of God, Buddha or Consciousness to the general awareness of spiritual individuals.

It appears that this emerging new evolutionary state of God, Buddha or Consciousness acts as a co-creative partner to humanity in the evolutionary process through each individual first becoming aware of it and then by each individual co-creating with others and this new evolutionary state of God, Buddha or Consciousness through a relational, participatory and integral spiritual partnership. We believe that in mature spiritual individuals all over the world, this unique group-focused God, Buddha or Consciousness state may also be emerging into their spiritual consciousness at this time in history in direct response to what is needed to resolve the serious global challenges humanity as a collective now faces. This emerging state of a group-focused God, Buddha or Consciousness also appears to be the next natural stage in the long evolutionary process of ever new states of God, Buddha or Consciousness emerging, being revealed and coming into the consciousness of increasing numbers of spiritually mature individuals as part of the next appropriate developmental stage (meme level,) to meet the critical needs, life conditions and circumstances of each of their particular time eras. Until now, almost all of these emerging new states of God, Buddha or Consciousness were directly or were focused mostly o�n the spiritual and physical needs and wellbeing of the individual.

This may be the first time in history that large numbers of spiritual mature individuals have ever become aware of an emergence of a new group-focused God, Buddha or Consciousness state, which deals exclusively with the physical needs and spiritual collective wellbeing of humanity as a whole and co-creates in a new form of partnership with individuals in and as groups. That this state of God, Buddha or Consciousness is emerging at this moment in history may also be the harbinger of a whole new evolutionary stage for our understanding of what spirituality is becoming and the possibilities of a new relationship to God, Buddha or Consciousness in an equipotential partnership with humanity as a whole.

This new group God, Buddha or Consciousness partnership relationship with humanity as a whole appears to be potentially present in each of us individually needing o�nly information, processes and situations to facilitate drawing this new and natural emerging spiritual reality out of us. We hope you will enjoy the 2 articles o�n this subject and the new spiritual possibilities they present�

PARTICIPATORY SPIRITUALITY

Definitions

Definition by Jorge Ferrer

As defined by Jorge Ferrer: Spiritual knowing is a participatory process. What do I mean by "participatory"? First, "participatory" alludes to the fact that spiritual knowing is not objective, neutral, or merely cognitive. On the contrary, spiritual knowing engages us in a connected, often passionate, activity that can involve not only the opening of the mind, but also of the body, the heart, and the soul. Although particular spiritual events may involve only certain dimensions of our nature, all of them can potentially come into play in the act of spiritual knowing, from somatic transfiguration to the awakening of the heart, from erotic communion to visionary co-creation, and from contemplative knowing to moral insight, to mention only a few (see also Ferrer, 2000a, 2002).

Second, the participatory nature of spiritual knowing refers to the role that our individual consciousness plays during most spiritual and transpersonal events. This relation is not one of appropriation, possession, or passive representation of knowledge, but of communion and co-creative participation.

Finally, "participatory" also refers to the fundamental ontological predicament of human beings in relation to spiritual energies and realities. Human beings are - whether we know it or not - always participating in the self-disclosure of Spirit. This participatory predicament is not only the ontological foundation of the other forms of participation, but also the epistemic anchor of spiritual knowledge claims and the moral source of responsible action.

Spiritual phenomena involve participatory ways of knowing that are presential, enactive, and transformative:

1. Spiritual knowing is presential: Spiritual knowing is knowing by presence or by identity. In other words, in most spiritual events, knowing occurs by virtue of being. Spiritual knowing can be lived as the emergence of an embodied presence pregnant with meaning that transforms both self and world. Subject and object, knowing and being, epistemology and ontology are brought together in the very act of spiritual knowing.

2. Spiritual knowing is enactive: Following the groundbreaking work of Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991), my understanding of spiritual knowing embraces an enactive paradigm of cognition: Spiritual knowing is not a mental representation of pregiven, independent spiritual objects, but an enaction, the bringing forth of a world or domain of distinctions co-created by the different elements involved in the participatory event. Some central elements of spiritual participatory events include individual intentions and dispositions; cultural, religious, and historical horizons; archetypal and subtle energies; and, most importantly, a dynamic and indeterminate spiritual power of inexhaustible creativity.

3. Spiritual knowing is transformative: Participatory knowing is transformative at least in the following two senses. First, the participation in a spiritual event brings forth the transformation of self and world. Second, a transformation of self is usually necessary to be able to participate in spiritual knowing, and this knowing, in turn, draws forth the self through its transformative process in order to make possible this participation. (http://www.datadiwan.de/SciMedNet/library/articlesN81+/N83Ferrer_part.htm)

Definition by John Heron

"The parties involved in a co-creative, enactive, transformative relation reciprocally and dynamically shape and reshape - in and through the process of meeting � how they understand each other, the regard they have for each other, and how they act and interact in relation with each other.

This definition is framed to apply to the central person-to-person relations. It can, with appropriate modifications, be applied to relations between ways of knowing, to relations between persons and their worlds, and, including and transcending all these, to the relation between persons and the divine.

Person-to-person relations are central because they are a precondition for setting the scene for divine self-disclosure and for persons to participate in it. In previous epochs this precondition was met by teacher-disciple hierarchical relations. Today divine self-disclosure can manifest through person-to-person peer relations, serviced from time to time by temporary hierarchical initiatives rotating among the peers.

Person-to-person peer relations are central, in my view, because of the intimate relation between epistemic participation and political participation. Epistemic participation is about the participative relation between the knower and the known. Political participation in this context is to do with participative decision-making among those involved about how we know and what we know. If participative knowing between persons is consummated in fully reciprocal encounter, then co-operative decision-making, both about how to engage in such reciprocal knowing and about what it reveals, is necessary for authentic interpersonal knowing - the realm of the between where divine self-disclosure can manifest."

Spiritual practice: A primary ground for the practice of participatory-relational spirituality can be cultivated by collaborative peer-to-peer relations between persons engaged in fully embodied, multidimensional, transformative flourishing in and with their worlds. See [1]

Discussion

John Heron's critique on the relation between participatory and Relational Spirituality

Ferrer's account of participatory spirituality - in the passage quoted above � fails, from my point of view, to bring out the centrality of co-creative/collaborative relations between persons as central to the meaning and the practice of participatory spirituality. If you read the whole passage very carefully you will find that this is indeed the case. Thus, and crucially, person-to-person collaboration is absent from his account of "some central elements of spiritual participatory events". Elsewhere he refers to "self and world", and nowhere to self and other selves. I think he would argue that person-to-person co-operation is implicit in phrases like "other forms of participation" and "responsible action", but, if so, this buries it in unstated implications and makes it appear very subsidiary - instead of central. A few pages earlier in his book he writes of transpersonal events as multilocal, including the interpersonal and the communal, yet makes no explicit reference to any of this when he comes on to the passage quoted above."

The Relational Dimension of Participatory Spirituality: Reflections by Jorge Ferrer on John Heron�s Critique

1. Although my theorizing has always been grounded in collaborative interpersonal spiritual practice (plus my own personal spiritual inquiry, extensive reading, and dialogue with others), John is correct stating that the relational or interpersonal dimension of participation is not emphasized in Revisioning Transpersonal Theory (RTT, 2002). I see RTT and Sacred Science very complementary in this respect.

2. I stress the importance of relational spiritual work in later writings that deal with more practical, less philosophical issues than RTT. See, for example, my essay on "Integral Transformative Practice: A Participatory Perspective," published in The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology (2003), my co-authored essay on "Integral Tranformative Education: A Participatory Proposal,‿ published in The Journal of Transformative Education (2005), and, to a lesser extent, my recent essay on �Embodied Spirituality: Now and Then,‿ published in Tikkun. Of related interest, I wrote another essay on spirituality and intimate relationships, whose shorter version will be published in the next issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and the complete one in Tikkun a few months later.

3. In my talks and conferences, I have found very helpful to introduce the notion of participatory spirituality in terms of three forms of co-creation: (1) intrapersonal co-creation, i.e., of the various human dimensions working together creatively as a team; (2) interpersonal co-creation, i.e., of human beings working together as peers in solidarity and mutual respect; and (3) transpersonal co-creation, i.e., of both human dimensions and collaborative human beings interacting with the Mystery in the co-creation of spiritual insights, practices, expanded forms of liberation, and spiritual worlds.

4. On a practical level, many of my courses at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, and the integral transformative work I facilitate, are deeply relational and stress the centrality of interactive embodied meditations, interpersonal and group dynamics, collaborative spiritual inquiry, among other dimensions.

In sum, though I don't see the contrast between my participatory approach and relational approaches to spirituality as sharp as John paints it, it is accurate to say that the presentation of participatory spirituality in RTT did not stress the practical, and strongly relational, dimension of my participatory perspective.

John Heron's account of the relation between participatory spirituality and relational spirituality

The simplest provisional account I can give of this relation is as follows:

Participatory spirituality is inherently relational in four ways:

1. It involves a co-creative, enactive, transformative relation between persons and the divine.

2. This relation transcends and includes the relations between multiple ways of knowing within the person.

3. And centrally the relations between persons and other persons.

4. And the relations between persons and their worlds.

In one sentence:

Participatory spirituality involves a co-creative, enactive, transformative relation between persons and the divine, a relation which transcends and includes: the relations between multiple ways of knowing within the person, centrally the relations between persons and other persons, and the relations between persons and their worlds.

Jorge Ferrer's take on the The Participatory Turn in Spirituality

"Ferrer argues that spirituality must be emancipated from experientialism and perennialism. For Ferrer, the best way to do this is via his concept of a "participatory turn"; that is, to not limit spirituality as merely a personal, subjective experience, but to include interaction with others and the world at large. Finally, Ferrer posits that spirituality should not be universalized. That is, one should not strive to find the common thread that can link pluralism and universalism relationally. Instead, there should be emphasis on plurality and a dialectic between universalism and pluralism.‿ (http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/ferrer/index.cfm/xid,76105/yid,55463210)

J. Kripal summarises Ferrer's vision:

�Ferrer's participatory vision and its turn from subjective "experience" to processual "event" possesses some fairly radical political implications. Within it, a perennialist hierarchical monarchy (the "rule of the One" through the "great chain of Being") that locates all real truth in the feudal past (or, at the very least, in some present hierarchical culture) has been superseded by a quite radical participatory democracy in which the Real reveals itself not in the Great Man, Perfect Saint or God-King (or the Perennialist Scholar) but in radical relation and the sacred present. Consequently, the religious life is not about returning to some golden age of scripture or metaphysical absolute; it is about co-creating new revelations in the present, always, of course, in critical interaction with the past. Such a practice is dynamic, uncertain, and yet hopeful�a tikkun-like theurgical healing of the world and of God." (http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0303/article/030352.html )

J. Kripal's critique of the insufficiency of the Participatory Turn

J. Kripal on the necessity to reject the emancipatory illusions in religion and mysticism:

"Ferrer � ultimately adopts a very positive assessment of the traditions' ethical status, suggesting in effect that the religions have been more successful in finding common moral ground than doctrinal or metaphysical agreement, and that most traditions have called for (if never faithfully or fully enacted) a transcendence of dualistic self-centeredness or narcissism. It is here that I must become suspicious. Though Ferrer himself is refreshingly free of this particular logic (it is really more of a rhetoric), it is quite easy and quite common in the transpersonal literature to argue for the essential moral nature of mystical experience by being very careful about whom one bestows the (quite modern) title "mystic." It is an entirely circular argument, of course: One simply declares (because one believes) that mysticism is moral, then one lists from literally tens of thousands (millions?) of possible recorded cases a few, maybe a few dozen, exemplars who happen to fit one's moral standards (or better, whose historical description is sketchy enough to hide any and all evidence that would frustrate those standards), and, voil�, one has "proven" that mysticism is indeed moral. Any charismatic figure or saint that violates one's norms�and there will always be a very large, loudly screaming crowd here�one simply labels "not really a mystic" or conveniently ignores altogether. Put differently, it is the constructed category of "mysticism" itself that mutually constructs a "moral mysticism," not the historical evidence, which is always and everywhere immeasurably more ambivalent. Ferrer, as is evident in such moments as his thought experiment with the Theravada retreat, sees right through most of this. He knows perfectly well that perennialism simply does not correspond to the historical data. What he does not perhaps see so clearly is that a moral perennialism sneaks through the back door of his own conclusions. Thus, whereas he rightly rejects all talk of a "common core," he can nevertheless speak of a common "Ocean of Emancipation" that all the contemplative traditions approach from their different ontological shores."

Ferrer argues that we must realize that our goal can never be simply the recovery or reproduction of some past sense of the sacred, for "we cannot ignore that most religious traditions are still beset not only by intolerant exclusivist and absolutist tendencies, but also by patriarchy, authoritarianism, dogmatism, conservatism, transcendentalism, body-denial, sexual repression, and hierarchical institutions." Put simply, the contemplative traditions of the past have too often functioned as elaborate and sacralized techniques for dissociating consciousness.

Once again, I think this is exactly where we need to be, with a privileging of the ethical over the mystical and an insistence on human wholeness as human holiness. I would only want to further radicalize Ferrer's vision by underscoring how hermeneutical it is, that is, how it functions as a creative re-visioning and reforming of the past instead of as a simple reproduction of or fundamentalist fantasy about some nonexistent golden age. Put differently, in my view, there is no shared Ocean of Emancipation in the history of religions. Indeed, from many of our own modern perspectives, the waters of the past are barely potable, as what most of the contemplative traditions have meant by "emancipation" or "salvation" is not at all what we would like to imply by those terms today. It is, after all, frightfully easy to be emancipated from "the world" or to become one with a deity or ontological absolute and leave all the world's grossly unjust social structures and practices (racism, gender injustice, homophobia, religious bigotry, colonialism, caste, class division, environmental degradation, etc.) comfortably in place."" (http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0303/article/030352.html)

Owen Barfield on Participation

Defining Participation

"Participation is the extra-sensory relation between man and the phenomena."

The world as immediately given to us is a mixture of sense perception and thought. While the two may not be separable in our experience, we can nevertheless distinguish the two. When we do, we find that the perceptual alone gives us no coherence, no unities, no "things" at all. We could not even note a patch of red, or distinguish it from a neighboring patch of green, without aid of the concepts given by thinking. In the absence of the conceptual, we would experience (in William James' words) only "a blooming, buzzing confusion." (Poetic Diction; Saving the Appearances)

"The familiar world -- as opposed to the largely notional world of "particles" which the physicist aspires to describe -- is the product of a perceptual given (which is meaningless by itself) and an activity of our own, which we might call "figuration." Figuration is a largely subconscious, imaginative activity through which we participate in producing ("figuring") the phenomena of the familiar world. (A simple analogy -- but only an analogy -- is found in the way a rainbow is produced by the cooperation of sun, raindrops, and observer.) How we choose to regard the particles is one thing, but when we refer to the workaday world -- the world of "things" -- we must accept that our thinking is as much out there in the world as in our heads. In actual fact, we find it nearly impossible to hold onto this truth. In our critical thinking as physicists or philosophers, we imagine ourselves set over against an objective world consisting of particles, in which we do not participate at all. In contrast, the phenomenal, or familiar, world is said to be riddled with our subjectivity. In our daily, uncritical thinking, on the other hand, we take for granted the solid, objective reality of the familiar world, assume an objective, lawful manifestation of its qualities such as color, sound, and solidity, and even write natural scientific treatises about the history of its phenomena -- all while ignoring the human consciousness that (by our own, critical account) determines these phenomena from the inside in a continually changing way". (Worlds Apart; Saving the Appearances)

"Our language and meanings today put the idea of participation almost out of reach, whereas the reality of participation (if not the idea) was simply given in earlier eras. For example, we cannot conceive of thoughts except as things in our heads, "rather like cigarettes inside a cigarette box called the brain." By contrast, during the medieval era it would have been impossible to think of mental activity, or intelligence, as the product of a physical organ. Then, as now, the prevailing view was supported by the unexamined meanings of the only words with which one could talk about the matter." (Excerpts collated at http://www.praxagora.com/~stevet/fdnc/appa.html; More about Barfield at http://owenbarfield.com/)

Evolution of Participation

Summarized by Gil Agnew at http://newinnergy.com/blog/?p=11

�Owen Barfield. British barrister and philosopher, said we�ve had two great stages of consciousness in human history, and of course it�s always generalizations, but � it rang true for me. First stage of human consciousness, hunter-gatherer � consciousness. We had intimate participation with the natural order. We were a part of it. But we had no sense of self. We revered the generativity of nature.

Second stage of history, we reduced nature from a generative force, including our own nature, to a � productive force. And that�s the great break in consciousness, from generativity � to productivity. And in the process, we learned, from Neolithic agriculture until today, the end of the pyrotechnical era, the nuclear era, we learned how to detach ourselves from nature, control it from a distance, and in the process we developed a sense of �I‿ and �it.‿ The self emerged in history. We became � the captains of our fate. But in the process, we lost intimacy. We lost the sense of participation. We lost the early bonds of generativity.

What�s the third stage of consciousness? A transformation to a species understanding, which is � a self-aware choice. By volition, not by fear as the early Paleolithic tribes, but a self-aware choice by volition, for a generation to reclaim a sense of participation with the community of life. We maintain our individuality, we don�t go back to the pre-modern moment. We maintain our sense of self because that provides us with the opportunity, the challenge, the responsibility, to make decisions. And the decision we make is to reclaim our relationship to the generativeness of the creation. Self. Community. Future generations. Our children�s world.‿ (http://newinnergy.com/blog/?p=11)

Peter Reason on Participative Embodiment

Peter Reason on embodiedness:

�Of course the systemic worldview, originated by Gregory Bateson and others and championed in particular by Fritjof Capra in The Web of Life (HarperCollins, 1996) does offer an important counterpoint to both the mechanical and relativist worldviews. However, systemic thought can remain quite abstract, and miss the important point that we are embodied participants in the co-creation of our world. The human mind makes its world by meeting the given and participating in its being. Our theories and models of the world are grounded in our experiential participation in what is present, in what there is. The notion of participation must be central to the emerging worldview." (http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mnspwr/Papers/Participatoryworld.htm )

David Peat on the Monological Gaze of the West

The opposite of participatory consciousness? David Peat on the monological gaze of the West:

"Time was abstracted from space and painting was left with the single viewpoint, a frozen world seen though a window. With the device of perspective one longer enters into to painting but views it with an objective eye. Mirroring the metaphysics of the period, nature has been projected away from us and the world is experienced as something external.The mathematical basis of perspective is called Projective Geometry. This term says it all. One no longer engages directly with an object in its natural, essential form, as something that can be explored and touched, instead it becomes a surface that must be distorted to fit the global logic of mathematical perspective. The rich individualistic inscape of the natural world had given way to a uniform perspectival grid of logic and reason. How well perspective parallels a science in which nature obeys laws that are, in some metaphysical sense, external to matter's essence. As Bacon argued, these laws are to be discovered by placing nature on the rack, another sort of grid, and tormenting her to reveal her secrets." (http://www.fdavidpeat.com/bibliography/essays/black.htm)

More on David Peat at http://www.fdavidpeat.com/bibliography/bibliography.htm

Key Authors

Jorge Ferrer

Jorge Ferrer is the author of Revisioning Transpersonal Theory: A Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality (SUNY Press 2002), a landmark book that established the new epistemological requirements needed to develop an open and participative spirituality. Within the specific tradition of transpersonal psychology, this book is an argument to go beyond the dominating influence of Ken Wilber.

Ferrer is part of the core faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies and is currently co-editing (with Jacob Sherman] an anthology of original writings on participatory spirituality, The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies. He is also the editor of a monograph of the journal ReVision on "New Horizons in Contemporary Spirituality" (Fall 2001). In 2000 he received the Fetzer Institute�s Presidential Award for his seminal work on consciousness studies. He is on the editorial board of Journal of Transpersonal Psychology: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation.

Bibliography on Jorge Ferrer

Received from the author:

�Some shorter introductions can be found in the following sources:

Ferrer, J. N. (2003). Participatory Spirituality: An Introduction. Network: The Scientific and Medical Network Review 83 (Winter), 3-7.

__________. (2002). An Ocean with Many Shores. Tikkun: A Bimonthly Jewish Critique of Politics, Culture & Society, 17(5), 60-64.

__________. (2001). Towards a Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality. ReVision 24(2), 15-26.

A further elaboration and application of my participatory perspective can be found in the following articles:

Ferrer, J. N. (2003). Integral Transformative Practices: A Participatory Perspective. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 35(1), 21-42.

(This article may be especially relevant for your inquiry into peer-to-peer spirituality)

Ferrer, J. N., Albareda, R. V. & Romero, M. T. (2004). Embodied Participation in the Mystery: Implications for the Individual, Interpersonal Relationships, and Society. ReVision 27(1), 10-17.

Ferrer, J. N., Romero, M. T. & Albareda, R. V. (forthcoming). The Four Seasons of Integral Education: A Participatory Proposal for the New Millennium. ReVision.

John Heron

John Heron presents a person-centred account of a participatory spirituality in his book Feeling and Personhood: Psychology in Another Key (Sage Publications 1992). He originated the influential and radical participative research method of co-operative inquiry and gives a full account of it in Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition (Sage Publications 1996). He has since 1978 pioneered its application to human spirituality as reported in Sacred Science: Person-centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the Subtle (PCCS Books 1998), and in Participatory Spirituality; A Farewell to Authoritarian Religion (Lulu Press, 2006).

He is currently a Co-director the South Pacific Centre for Human Inquiry in New Zealand. He was Founder and Director of the Human Potential Research Project, University of Surrey, UK; Assistant Director, British Postgraduate Medical Federation, University of London; Director, International Centre for Co-operative Inquiry, Tuscany, Italy. He is a researcher, author, facilitator and trainer in co-counselling, co-operative inquiry, educational development, group facilitation, management development, personal and transpersonal development, professional development in the helping professions. His other books include The Complete Facilitator's Handbook (Kogan Page 1999) and Helping the Client: A Creative, Practical Guide (Sage Publications 2001).

He takes the view that participative knowing is closely related to participation in decision-making, and has introduced radical participative decision-making practices in higher and continuing education and training, in medicine, in counselling and psychotherapy, in management, in professional organization, as well as in the human sciences and spiritual inquiry.

Go here for the source article: ParticipatorySpirituality

Peer to Peer Relational and Participatory Spirituality Emerges, Part 1: Relational Spirituality

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 18:35:30 -0700

Reaching The Source through Art and Beauty

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:18:07 -0700

This brief article explores some of the hidden aspects the life of famed renaissance artist Michaelangelo, weaving in philosophy, spirituality, psychology, and what art really is. Because we promote the vital role of art with spirituality this article offers fresh insights into this relationship from one of the most recognized artistic geniuses in history.
MICHELANGELO: THE EPHEMERAL AND THE ETERNAL

by Oscar Del Santo

How brilliantly perceptive of the last of the great philosophers of antiquity Plotinus to realize that the challenge each and every one of us faces and that constitutes the kernel our shared human condition is that of finding ourselves � at least in this seemingly unending stage our evolutionary odyssey � half way between the animals and the gods. No wonder that human nature and human psychology are so complex and that the integration of the disparate elements that continuously exert their influence upon us � our material body, subject to decay, and the experience of consciousness with its associated sensations, emotions and desires - becomes a hero�s task only attained by the best amongst us.

Arguably no one embodied the inherent contradictions of our human condition in his time as he who, after a long and complex life and an artistic legacy without match, came to be regarded as the greatest amongst the great of the Renaissance. I am of course referring to Michelangelo, a man who exerted a decisive influence not only in the history of Art but crucially � even though this has remained largely unknown to the general public � in its philosophy.

In 1532, at the age of fifty seven, the immortal Florentine fell desperately in love with the young Roman aristocrat Tommaso Cavalieri, thirty four years his junior. Michelangelo saw in him the epitome of the physical and spiritual male perfection he had ardently pursued throughout his life. Unlike some of his predecessors, who had self-servingly taken advantage of the old master�s recurrent infatuations, Tommaso grew to respect and appreciate the sincere devotion of which he had become the object.

The sonnets the Italian genius wrote for his beloved have stood the test of time and reached us in their full splendour in English thanks to the work of the notable Victorian poet John Addington Symonds, who lifted the veil of censorship after a spell of almost 300 years and ended once and for all the discombobulation by replacing every feminine pronoun with the original masculine one. The impassioned verses reveal the profound and genuine love that Michelangelo felt for the �infinitely beautiful� Tommaso:

Just as the moon owes its illumination
To the sun�s light, so I am blind until
To every part of heaven your rays will reach

It is highly unlikely that the love between the two ever led to a physical consummation. Tommaso was to marry later in his life, though we are told that his sincere devotion for Michelangelo never dwindled. �I have never wished for a friendship more than wish for thine� he wrote to him on one occasion. The increasingly melancholy, socially isolated and tormented Florentine must have found great comfort in this heartfelt appreciation in his twilight years, spent as we know fully consecrated to his art.

And to what effect. The passing of time has not diminished the indelible impression that his colossal David leaves upon us. Even today we are held in awe not only by that unmatched nobility of form but also by the profound symbolism the great master imparted to his celebrated masterpiece. And what shall we say of the monumental Dome of St Peter�s Cathedral, the Medici Chapel, the Sistine chapel frescos and so many other incomparable works? From what seemingly inexhaustible source of creativity and talent did they originate?

It is precisely while articulating an answer to this question that Michelangelo was to make a contribution to philosophy and to psychology that � inconceivable as this may sound � matches and even outshines his artistic production. For it was him who dared to once and for all correct Plato and establish the foundations of a new conception of Art that � thanks largely to the work of Walter Pater � would be almost unanimously adopted by the Victorians and later divulged and popularized by amongst others Pater�s famed pupil Oscar Wilde. This is the view of Art the great public overwhelmingly subscribes to and that makes us spontaneously rebel against those sorry spectacles we are often exposed to in contemporary art galleries and museums - like the scattered rubbish or the cows cut in half.

Let us follow Michelangelo�s reasoning. It is widely known that Plato did not held artists or art in particularly high esteem. For the classical philosopher, art strived to transmit the perfection of that true and eternal world our senses can never fully experience or comprehend and which can only be grasped through mystical union or an enlightenment experience. The beauty conferred by the artist to his creation would not therefore be more than at best a copy, an imitation, a pale reflection of the Beauty that is the Source of all that in our world can be deemed beautiful. And as we all know an imitation can never be superior to the original it is based upon. On these premises, Plato disdained art as an inferior means of knowledge.

Using as a metaphor one of the blocks of Carrara marble he habitually used for his sculptures, Michelangelo was to forever reinterpret the role and the true value of Art. For Art is not an imitation, as Plato wrongly believed � he declared � but it is precisely through Art that Beauty is revealed in our world when the artist (in proportion to his talent) gives shape to a sculpture, freeing in the process a Form that was already latent in that noble material and impatient to be manifested and brought to life for our benefit.

This interpretation may initially sound disconcerting. Upon closer reflection, however, we will come to realise that it is due to its implicit acceptance that we intuitively know that a work of art - unlike any other object � is a given that cannot be altered or improved in any way, for it belongs to the realm of the Absolute, from which it is an incarnation. This is precisely why each and every true work of art (speaking in the broadest sense and including the seven Arts) possesses an incalculable intrinsic value not just in the material but also in the historical and spiritual senses. As Michelangelo realized, Art uses the ephemeral to bring us ever closer to the eternal. We can all ascertain the validity of this statement when we so to speak �connect� with a painting, a sculpture or a song and experience a true spiritual communion that lifts us to much higher planes. Art transports us to the Source of everything and it is there that its unique value lies.

It is no coincidence that five hundred years later another adopted Florentine � the former disciple of Freud Roberto Assagioli � would create a school of psychology that explicitly defends the value of Art as a tool of choice to succeed in solving the challenge Plotinus referred to of integrating and developing the various elements that make up our personality. In Assagioli�s system, which he suitably named Psychosynthesis, the therapeutic value of Art is recognised and applied for the benefit of all. As Michelangelo intuited, self-therapy based upon deep reflection and meditation on images or melodies that have left their mark upon us has the potential to act as both a catalyst and a lighthouse that will guide us to the best of ourselves, to the plenitude of our existence.

Michelangelo lived a life full of passion, with � just as the rest of us - successes and failures, joys and sorrows, loves and disappointments. A life, though, in which Beauty always shined and was never to abandon him. �It was conferred to me at birth the Idea of Beauty� he once declared, �which has ever since remained a mirror and a lamp to my art.� This light, never to be extinguished, continues to shine today with the same brilliance that inspired Michelangelo, inviting us to follow in his footsteps and to be willing participants � as spectators or creators � in its eternal radiance.

� Oscar Del Santo 11/11/07

Ockham's Razor: Can Science & Religion Coexist?

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:07:18 -0700

The following is an interview from the Australian branch of the ABC television network on December 23, 2007. Dr. Richard Eckersley was kind enough to give Integrative Spirituality persmission to reprint the transcript.

Dr Richard Eckersley researches progress and well-being and is a Visiting Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the ANU in Canberra. In this talk he ponders the question whether there is a road to peace in the war between science and religion. Dr Eckersley suggests that science and religion can co-exist, but both sides need to give ground.

Ockham's Razor: Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Robyn Williams: God has figured large this year, in good ways and bad. He's had a bad press, from some authors. He's also had a large following here and abroad. And his birthday is coming up, next Tuesday.

But what can we make of the attacks on religion we've seen, and where does all this leave science?

Here's an opinion, as we end 2007, from someone who thinks about this a lot: Richard Eckersley is a fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health in Canberra.

Richard Eckersley: In The Decline of the West, published in 1918, Oswald Spengler predicted that the demise of science and the resurgence of irrationality would begin at the end of the millennium. As scientists became more arrogant and less tolerant of other belief systems, notably religions, he believed society would rebel against science and embrace religious fundamentalism and other irrational beliefs.

Spengler's prediction has proved to be at least partly right. The new millennium has seen a dramatic political resurgence of fundamentalist beliefs; science is under attack, from within the West and without. Old-time religion and talk of God flourish in the richest, most powerful and technologically sophisticated society in the world, the United States.

Scientists are joining the battle, as are atheists. My local paper, The Canberra Times, has published reviews of at least four books attacking religion: Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian National, Michel Onfray's Atheist Manifesto, Tamas Pataki's Against Religion, and Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great. Richard Dawkins' tirade against religion, Root of All Evil, was broadcast on ABC-TV. There is also a book.

As is often the case these days, it seems to be a battle waged between extremes. Dawkins is feisty, but comes across as fundamentalist in his thinking as those he attacks, pitting the best of science against the worst of religion. However science is as vulnerable as religion to co-option and corruption by the human hunger for power and riches.

The picture Dawkins painted would have been very different if he had compared the worst of science (for example, its development of weapons of mass destruction, its sometimes brutal and inhumane treatment of experimental subjects, or its contributions to corporate greed and consumer excess) with the best of religion (for example, its role in social justice and human welfare, and in giving deeper meaning to our lives.)

Is there another way, an alternative to science and religion once again slugging it out for social domination? Several of the recent critiques dismiss any notion of reconciling scientific and religious world views. Yet, as a scientist, I have no trouble doing this (although I am not myself religious).

For the scientist, this means accepting there are other ways of seeing or interpreting the world. Science often struggles with those aspects of life that are subtle, intangible, tenuous, abstract, subjective. These qualities make up a big part of the human condition. The Australian biologist, Charles Birch, has written that there is an enormous gap between what science describes and what we experience, between the mechanisms of life and what it is to be alive.

In my own work, I often feel that the complex effects of social change on health and wellbeing are better expressed through literary metaphor and allusion than in the precise, objective language of science: the effects are so hard to pin down, and to try doing so risks losing their essence.

Being human and human wellbeing have multiple dimensions or sources: material, social, cultural and spiritual. We are material beings with needs for nutritious food, clean air and water, and adequate shelter, as well as physical activity and sleep. We are also social beings who need families, friends and communities to flourish. We are cultural beings: of all species, we alone require stories, beliefs, myths to make life worth living. And we are spiritual beings, psychically connected to our world.

So science must accept that, whatever else we humans are, we are creatures who feel a deep, but not always consciously expressed sense of relatedness to the natural world in which we live. Religion, an institutionalised system of belief and ritual worship that usually centres on a supernatural God or gods, is the most common cultural representation of the spiritual.

Religious belief and practice enhance health and wellbeing, although aspects of this relationship remain contested. The scientific literature suggests that the benefits to wellbeing flow from the social support, existential meaning, sense of purpose, coherent belief system and moral code that religion provides. All these things can be found in other ways, although perhaps less easily; religions 'package' many of the ingredients of health and wellbeing to make them accessible to people. This, historically, has been their social role.

For the religious, the challenge is to abandon notions of God as a supernatural being, somewhere 'out there' controlling the universe and our lives. It means accepting that our ideas of who or what 'God' is are metaphors for something we grasp only very imperfectly. This is not to suggest God is not real, just a phantom of our imagination, but that the way we think of God or gods, as our Father in Heaven, superhuman beings or animal spirits is figurative. Even concepts of God as a Universal Consciousness or Creator remain figurative, metaphorical. We are naming, giving external form or shape, to something we do not fully understand.

My own metaphor for the spiritual experience, inspired by a stint of living in a cave in Crete in my youth and a scientific background, is that it is like tapping into a sort of 'genetic memory', which reaches back forever and connects me to everything else that has come before me. But this description of the spiritual as an intuitive awareness of our evolution is also inadequate and incomplete; it still doesn't capture the depth and power of the spiritual.

The American physicist Freeman Dyson, who describes himself as a practising Christian, not a believing Christian, has said, 'To me, to worship God means to recognise that mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our comprehension.' Former Episcopalian bishop, John Shelby Spong, who visited Australia recently, argues in his new book Jesus for the Non-religious that God is an internal presence, not an external one. God is the source of life and love that permeates the whole universe.

Similarly, the Australian writer David Tacey says in The Spirituality Revolution that the new spirituality is 'existential rather than creedal'. 'It grows out of the individual person from an inward source, is intensely intimate and transformative, and is not imposed upon the person from an outside authority or source'.

Maybe it is okay to think of God, and to relate to God as if 'He' is our Father in Heaven (or any other image you like) as long as we always remember the 'as if'.

I recognise this is a massive shift for many religious people, and anathema to the fundamentalist; it may be a long time coming. However, both Western and Eastern theologies acknowledge God is unknowable, and beyond images and thoughts.

Accepting this would remove the great danger of religious extremism and fundamentalism: mistaking the religious 'metaphor' for the spiritual 'truth', and so giving too much power to those who claim to speak for God. The consequences are made plan in other recently reviewed books, such as Alan Dershowitz's Blasphemy and Michael White's Galileo Antichrist.

The religious need always to be aware of how vulnerable to distortion and corruption is the spiritual impulse. Societies and cultures can 'hollow out' the spiritual content of religion and fill it, instead, with other things, including materialism, nationalism and fanaticism. Another metaphor is of religion as a vessel or jug, the spiritual contents of which can become spoiled or adulterated by other belief systems. At worst, religions can be transformed into potent ideologies of repression and abuse.

This corruption may help to explain a puzzling feature of the association between religion and health and wellbeing: when we shift perspective from the personal to the social, the association seems to change from positive to negative. In other words, research shows individuals benefit from their faith, as I've already noted, but that at a population or national level, religion seems to be a health burden. It is the more secular nations that tend to be more civil, just, safe, humane and healthy.

Now it might be that this outcome is due to qualities other than secularism - for example, greater wealth, better education, more democracy and so on. But it could also be the case that religion, especially fundamentalist religion, influences these other qualities, so it could be at least partly responsible for poorer social conditions.

Furthermore, the negative relationship between religion and wellbeing emerges even among otherwise similar nations. For example, Americans stand out from the people of other developed nations in the strength of their religious belief and observance. While, generally speaking, the importance of religion declines with increasing income, the United States is the exception, an island of religiosity in a sea of secularism. And yet the United States compares poorly on many social indicators, including life expectancy, crime, poverty and inequality.

One interpretation of the results of these international comparisons is that they reflect a difference, not so much between religious and secular nations but between more rigid and authoritarian fundamentalist religions and the more personal, less literal expressions of religious faith that characterise so-called secular societies.

This question of the cultural form of religious belief and practice extends beyond fundamentalism to other influences. Cultural qualities such as individualism or materialism can lead to change and compromise within religions. This includes a greater tolerance of consumerism and self-gratification, so removing any need to choose between 'God and Mammon'. Or perhaps these cultural qualities create tension, conflict and confusion when their messages run counter to religious beliefs and teachings, making it harder to integrate religion into our lives.

To take the example of the United States once again, Americans' religiosity has not protected them from the rise in youth suicide, one of the most dramatic adverse health trends of the past 50 years in many Western nations (now, thankfully, being reversed). At least part of the explanation can be found in an analysis a colleague and I carried out a few years ago of the cultural correlates of youth suicide in developed nations: there was no statistical association between suicide and the importance young people attached to God in their lives, but strong, positive associations with several different measures of individual freedom, or independence. The more individualistic the society, the more suicide there was among young people.

In other words, when we look at religion's social role, we have to take into account the entire cultural context, notably the effects of other belief and value systems.

It seems to me that religion serves humanity best when it embodies and expresses the spiritual as purely as possible, with only a limited influence of institutional and political agendas. The Jewish prayer book Gates of Prayer captures well this essence: 'Religion is not merely a belief in an ultimate reality or in an ultimate ideal', it says. 'Religion is a momentous possibility ... that what is highest in spirit is also deepest in nature ... (and) that the things that matter most are not at the mercy of the things that matter least.'

We need science and religion to work together if we are to ensure our future. But this outcome requires both to show humility. There are things we mere humans cannot know, and it is hubris to think we can; and when we think we can, it becomes ultimately self-destructive. This is the real danger of fundamentalism - whether scientific or religious.

Robyn Williams: And Amen to that. Richard Eckersley is at the Australian National University in Canberra and a version of that was published just now in the Medical Journal of Australia.

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