I like very much the idea that neither science as it is nor religion as it is is enough.
Regarding even a small contribution from psychology or neuroscience in understanding our psyches, you may be surprised to hear I think it is a VERY small contribution - spoken as someone who has worked as a Ph.D level psychologist for 25 years and has conducted research. I use neurological terms as a placebo, because people are willing to listen to contemplative discussions more, not because they provide new insights.
regarding the relationship of science and religion, you might be interested in Ian Barbour. A physicist, he has written quite a bit on this topic.
He has several categories;
1. Science religion as hopelessly in conflict
2. Science and religion politely co-existing, dealing with different realms (Stephen J Gould's 'overlapping magisterial")
3. Science and religion dialog
4. Science and religion integration. He advocates for this, but primarily from the view of Whitehead's process theology and the various process theologians like John Polkinghorne, both of which I find extremely superficial compared to the integral view you put forth.
I just thought you might want to glance at some of it as a number of your readers will likely be familiar with it.
I didn't read the book of Barbour, but on the topic of science and (or vs.) religion, I know that there have been gazillions of debates, books, conferences, papers, blog posts, etc., especially in the last two-three decades, and rarely anyone attracted my attention and I never found it particularly insightful. The supporters of ID are obviously keen on that, and I don't find their approach convincing. And if someone speaks of the "integration of science and religion" my gut feeling isn't good either, since I advocate for going beyond both instead of trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Yes, also the modern obsession with Whitehead goes beyond my understanding (e.g., I do not understand M. Segall's passion for process philosophy, considering that he knows Sri Aurobindo.) Ok, true.... not everyone must love Sri Aurobindo if one reads him (there are people who are utterly unconvinced by his vision) but... Whitehead? I think J. Gebser or T. de Chardin are much better replacements.
I would say at least 2 or 3 gazillions, but yes:>)) Not particularly insightful and I only mentioned Barbour because some of the things in your essay reminded me of him - but yours were not lacking and mostly were much richer than his, so there.
For some reason, Ulrich likes the ID folks but I think he's reading a lot of his own insights into their rather deistic/mechanistic approach to "God."
Ah, Whitehead. I was astonished 30 or so years ago when Ken Wilber went through a Whitehead phase. Though, I have to say, I thought Wilber's critique of Whitehead was quite excellent (Matt S and I have had a few exchanges about that)
I tried over several years to understand what Rod's fascination with Whitehead was - finally I asked him if he thought Whitehead truly understood anything about yoga, would he have even a glimpse of what the Self is (not sure how many of the major IY speakers do, but we'll not touch that for now:>)). Rod said no. But why, I asked him, do you spend so much time with him? Well, Rod thought that he was a good bridge.
I've never understood why you would think someone who is SO confused about so many aspects of spirituality, who is obviously a great intellect, would be useful as a bridge. As for Rod's interest in Hegel - utterly baffling!
Not a great fan of de Chardin.
There's, unfortunately, very little out there. Craig Holliday - not for intellectual reasons; one could argue any number of fine intellectual points. But for genuine spiritual insight and a true understanding of dynamic spirituality AND the fundamental importance of the supramental descent - I don't know a single writer in the history of IY writing (except Them, of course:>) that even comes close!
And actually, I don't think I would have "gotten" it from either of his books. It's only been after a few months of watching and participating in his satsangs - even more so, his guided meditations - that I've been stunned to see how much more deeply he understands the Yoga than anyone else I've ever come across.
I think I'll add one more thing. He started out in his late teens in a more traditional yoga type path. After a few years of studying with his teacher, David (David prefers to stay anonymous so I don't know his last name), one day they were sitting together and they both see - quite vividly, right in front of them - an image of an Indian yogi.
Some time after, they realized it was Sri Aurobindo, and I don't think it was through reading - somehow the whole path" was "downloaded" and David kind of guided Craig through it but after some years Craig seems to have a direct connection to the Divine Mother.
I think it is a matter of degree. If we look for a figure, philosophy, theory, or spirituality that matches IY, nobody seems to be getting anywhere near it. Nevertheless, I'm trying to be not too harsh with different viewpoints and see that there could be parallels and interesting insights coming from other still limited frameworks as well. For example, true is that T. de Chardin saw everything from a Christian-centered perspective, but at least he acknowledged the spiritual dimension of evolution. Considering that still nowadays most of the people in the non-dual tradition, or idealists a la B. Kastrup are still stuck in a pre-evolutionary conception of spirituality, Chardin seems to me much ahead of his times. Same for the ID folks, who stubbornly cling to an anthropocentric Christian-Bible-centered worldview (it is incredible to see how really smart people are, nevertheless, utterly unable to get rid of their religious social conditioning.... after all, those are the target of this post) but that, at least, are looking for a teleology in Nature. I couldn't find a movement or a philosophical current that takes a trans-religious AND scientific approach elsewhere. This is something lacking and, IMO urgently necessary. That’s why I have some sympathies for ID people, even though I'm carefully distancing myself. I don’t know too well Craig Holiday, followed him only through some of his YT videos. So, I can’t say much about him…, will eventually look him up again.
Of course, one doesn’t need all the above-mentioned people and their philosophy or vision, IY is a perfectly self-contained teaching. The point, however, is that many might not be willing to make that huge paradigm shift from a physicalist worldview directly into IY. Many claim to have done so but are nevertheless with one foot in the old paradigm. I know of people who vehemently disagree with the “philosophical” writings of Sri Aurobindo (“he is no longer actual,” “science has falsified him,” “he has a too hierarchical conception of humanity and reality,” etc.) but love reading Savitri. Something that, in my view, is utterly contradictory because Savitri is the overmind poetry form of what he wrote in prose.
I assume you don't put too much stock in Theosophy, Gurdjieff, Anthroposophy - I think for good reason but I include them because they have evolutionary views.
DeChardin, yes, I agree, evolutionary
Some more:
Llewellyn Vaughan Lee (Sufism)
David Frawley (Ayurveda, Astrology, Vedanta and Vedic vision)
Robert Thurman (Tibetan Buddhism AND evolutionary view - sees IY and TB as perfectly compatible)
Roy Eugene Davis and much if not most of the Kriya Yoga tradition (if you're seeing a common thread here, all of the people we've studied with - even Andrew Hewson who appears to me to be awake and also has a VERY unpurified vital/mental consciousness, lost in the intermediate zone) - have evolutionary views.
Steve Taylor (direct student of Eckhart Tolle - major psychologist in England, I find his books boring and not terribly inspired yet overall he has a decent spiritual/evolutionary vision - AND a good critique of Bernardo K!)
I know there's a few dozen more - I think Ed Kelly's group (the folks who did Consciousness Unbound, Beyond Physicalism and Irreducible Mind, all accept Michael Murphy's "Evolutionary Panentheism."
Don't need to "read" Craig - as I said he's not a good writer and his writing is mostly about waking up and healing the mental/vital/physical - beautiful but not likely to be helpful for your science/spirituality project. But for practice, I know of none better. Now or in the 20th century, apart from Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
and for what it's worth, whatever his (many) limitations are, Ken Wilber's many thousand - perhaps 50,000 or more? - followers all take an evolutionary spiritual view. I wouldn't write them off, nor Bernardo's followers nor those of McGilchrist. whatever the limitations, there are probably now some millions of people ready to hear a more integral IY view if presented appropriately, much thanks to Ed Kelly, Ken Wilber, McGilchrist and Bernardo (need I add that part of the reason all these people opened to this vision is because of the neurological research underlying some of it!!!?:))))))))))
Well, it mostly depends on how seriously we consider these people/theories (you forgot to mention the hundreds of channelers on YT who speak about “spiritual evolution”… 😉 ), and what kind of futuristic vision they have (not), and how they were able to synthesize it within the scientific understanding of the time. But I'm not speaking of people who "are open to a spiritual vision" (I guess almost all are nowadays.) I look at those who have developed something that goes beyond a "yes, evolution is true" statement.
In Theosophy and Anthroposophy I see more of a simplistic occultism than a higher mind seeing. Especially Steiner sounds to me like someone having an occult vision with zero discernment, coming up with lots of confused theories.
Llewellyn Vaughan Lee I follow him, extremely inspiring, I love him. But I would not see much of a spiritual and physical evolutionary vision and teaching in him, other than predicting a sort of subjective age.
Where do you see in the Kriya Yoga tradition an evolutionary spirituality? Yogananda was one of my first readings, I loved him too, but surely not for the evolutionary vision of his yoga.
Steve Taylor’s panspiritism is a theory about the ‘flow of the Spirit’ everywhere, very much in line with an animist tradition, but not much of an evolutionary vision either.
Yes, contemporaries like Ken Wilber and Michael Murphy’s panentheism come a bit closer to what I mean, but as far as I can see, when it comes to an evolutionary vision they made not much more than a scholarly collection of what people said before them (and Murphy relies very much on De Chardin).
But how many of these did already speak of evolutionary spirituality, with a sort of vision of a subjective age, a noosphere and ‘planetization’ with life rising to a new level of consciousness and even being able to systemize it in the frame of a scientific view in or before 1955? Ahh.. Oh… Nietzsche….? 😉
This kind of comparative debates (who said what? Who is what? Who said it first?) seem to be tremendously subjective. Those kinds of debates remind me of those who say that Sri Aurobindo didn’t say anything new. What he said was already all there in Vedanta, Buddhism, and it is the same teaching of all spiritual masters. I don't think so. But then I keep my mouth shut because then people will play the “arrogance card” (you should not arrogantly believe that your master did something more, is better or “superior”….)
At any rate, I don’t want to convince you. Who cares about de Chardin? I’m not interested in determining the Formula 1 pole position of the evolutionary spiritual teachings! 😉
I like very much the idea that neither science as it is nor religion as it is is enough.
Regarding even a small contribution from psychology or neuroscience in understanding our psyches, you may be surprised to hear I think it is a VERY small contribution - spoken as someone who has worked as a Ph.D level psychologist for 25 years and has conducted research. I use neurological terms as a placebo, because people are willing to listen to contemplative discussions more, not because they provide new insights.
regarding the relationship of science and religion, you might be interested in Ian Barbour. A physicist, he has written quite a bit on this topic.
He has several categories;
1. Science religion as hopelessly in conflict
2. Science and religion politely co-existing, dealing with different realms (Stephen J Gould's 'overlapping magisterial")
3. Science and religion dialog
4. Science and religion integration. He advocates for this, but primarily from the view of Whitehead's process theology and the various process theologians like John Polkinghorne, both of which I find extremely superficial compared to the integral view you put forth.
I just thought you might want to glance at some of it as a number of your readers will likely be familiar with it.
I didn't read the book of Barbour, but on the topic of science and (or vs.) religion, I know that there have been gazillions of debates, books, conferences, papers, blog posts, etc., especially in the last two-three decades, and rarely anyone attracted my attention and I never found it particularly insightful. The supporters of ID are obviously keen on that, and I don't find their approach convincing. And if someone speaks of the "integration of science and religion" my gut feeling isn't good either, since I advocate for going beyond both instead of trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Yes, also the modern obsession with Whitehead goes beyond my understanding (e.g., I do not understand M. Segall's passion for process philosophy, considering that he knows Sri Aurobindo.) Ok, true.... not everyone must love Sri Aurobindo if one reads him (there are people who are utterly unconvinced by his vision) but... Whitehead? I think J. Gebser or T. de Chardin are much better replacements.
I would say at least 2 or 3 gazillions, but yes:>)) Not particularly insightful and I only mentioned Barbour because some of the things in your essay reminded me of him - but yours were not lacking and mostly were much richer than his, so there.
For some reason, Ulrich likes the ID folks but I think he's reading a lot of his own insights into their rather deistic/mechanistic approach to "God."
Ah, Whitehead. I was astonished 30 or so years ago when Ken Wilber went through a Whitehead phase. Though, I have to say, I thought Wilber's critique of Whitehead was quite excellent (Matt S and I have had a few exchanges about that)
I tried over several years to understand what Rod's fascination with Whitehead was - finally I asked him if he thought Whitehead truly understood anything about yoga, would he have even a glimpse of what the Self is (not sure how many of the major IY speakers do, but we'll not touch that for now:>)). Rod said no. But why, I asked him, do you spend so much time with him? Well, Rod thought that he was a good bridge.
I've never understood why you would think someone who is SO confused about so many aspects of spirituality, who is obviously a great intellect, would be useful as a bridge. As for Rod's interest in Hegel - utterly baffling!
Not a great fan of de Chardin.
There's, unfortunately, very little out there. Craig Holliday - not for intellectual reasons; one could argue any number of fine intellectual points. But for genuine spiritual insight and a true understanding of dynamic spirituality AND the fundamental importance of the supramental descent - I don't know a single writer in the history of IY writing (except Them, of course:>) that even comes close!
And actually, I don't think I would have "gotten" it from either of his books. It's only been after a few months of watching and participating in his satsangs - even more so, his guided meditations - that I've been stunned to see how much more deeply he understands the Yoga than anyone else I've ever come across.
I think I'll add one more thing. He started out in his late teens in a more traditional yoga type path. After a few years of studying with his teacher, David (David prefers to stay anonymous so I don't know his last name), one day they were sitting together and they both see - quite vividly, right in front of them - an image of an Indian yogi.
Some time after, they realized it was Sri Aurobindo, and I don't think it was through reading - somehow the whole path" was "downloaded" and David kind of guided Craig through it but after some years Craig seems to have a direct connection to the Divine Mother.
I think it is a matter of degree. If we look for a figure, philosophy, theory, or spirituality that matches IY, nobody seems to be getting anywhere near it. Nevertheless, I'm trying to be not too harsh with different viewpoints and see that there could be parallels and interesting insights coming from other still limited frameworks as well. For example, true is that T. de Chardin saw everything from a Christian-centered perspective, but at least he acknowledged the spiritual dimension of evolution. Considering that still nowadays most of the people in the non-dual tradition, or idealists a la B. Kastrup are still stuck in a pre-evolutionary conception of spirituality, Chardin seems to me much ahead of his times. Same for the ID folks, who stubbornly cling to an anthropocentric Christian-Bible-centered worldview (it is incredible to see how really smart people are, nevertheless, utterly unable to get rid of their religious social conditioning.... after all, those are the target of this post) but that, at least, are looking for a teleology in Nature. I couldn't find a movement or a philosophical current that takes a trans-religious AND scientific approach elsewhere. This is something lacking and, IMO urgently necessary. That’s why I have some sympathies for ID people, even though I'm carefully distancing myself. I don’t know too well Craig Holiday, followed him only through some of his YT videos. So, I can’t say much about him…, will eventually look him up again.
Of course, one doesn’t need all the above-mentioned people and their philosophy or vision, IY is a perfectly self-contained teaching. The point, however, is that many might not be willing to make that huge paradigm shift from a physicalist worldview directly into IY. Many claim to have done so but are nevertheless with one foot in the old paradigm. I know of people who vehemently disagree with the “philosophical” writings of Sri Aurobindo (“he is no longer actual,” “science has falsified him,” “he has a too hierarchical conception of humanity and reality,” etc.) but love reading Savitri. Something that, in my view, is utterly contradictory because Savitri is the overmind poetry form of what he wrote in prose.
Hmmm, let's see - evolutionary view:
I assume you don't put too much stock in Theosophy, Gurdjieff, Anthroposophy - I think for good reason but I include them because they have evolutionary views.
DeChardin, yes, I agree, evolutionary
Some more:
Llewellyn Vaughan Lee (Sufism)
David Frawley (Ayurveda, Astrology, Vedanta and Vedic vision)
Robert Thurman (Tibetan Buddhism AND evolutionary view - sees IY and TB as perfectly compatible)
Roy Eugene Davis and much if not most of the Kriya Yoga tradition (if you're seeing a common thread here, all of the people we've studied with - even Andrew Hewson who appears to me to be awake and also has a VERY unpurified vital/mental consciousness, lost in the intermediate zone) - have evolutionary views.
Steve Taylor (direct student of Eckhart Tolle - major psychologist in England, I find his books boring and not terribly inspired yet overall he has a decent spiritual/evolutionary vision - AND a good critique of Bernardo K!)
I know there's a few dozen more - I think Ed Kelly's group (the folks who did Consciousness Unbound, Beyond Physicalism and Irreducible Mind, all accept Michael Murphy's "Evolutionary Panentheism."
Don't need to "read" Craig - as I said he's not a good writer and his writing is mostly about waking up and healing the mental/vital/physical - beautiful but not likely to be helpful for your science/spirituality project. But for practice, I know of none better. Now or in the 20th century, apart from Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
and for what it's worth, whatever his (many) limitations are, Ken Wilber's many thousand - perhaps 50,000 or more? - followers all take an evolutionary spiritual view. I wouldn't write them off, nor Bernardo's followers nor those of McGilchrist. whatever the limitations, there are probably now some millions of people ready to hear a more integral IY view if presented appropriately, much thanks to Ed Kelly, Ken Wilber, McGilchrist and Bernardo (need I add that part of the reason all these people opened to this vision is because of the neurological research underlying some of it!!!?:))))))))))
Well, it mostly depends on how seriously we consider these people/theories (you forgot to mention the hundreds of channelers on YT who speak about “spiritual evolution”… 😉 ), and what kind of futuristic vision they have (not), and how they were able to synthesize it within the scientific understanding of the time. But I'm not speaking of people who "are open to a spiritual vision" (I guess almost all are nowadays.) I look at those who have developed something that goes beyond a "yes, evolution is true" statement.
In Theosophy and Anthroposophy I see more of a simplistic occultism than a higher mind seeing. Especially Steiner sounds to me like someone having an occult vision with zero discernment, coming up with lots of confused theories.
Llewellyn Vaughan Lee I follow him, extremely inspiring, I love him. But I would not see much of a spiritual and physical evolutionary vision and teaching in him, other than predicting a sort of subjective age.
Where do you see in the Kriya Yoga tradition an evolutionary spirituality? Yogananda was one of my first readings, I loved him too, but surely not for the evolutionary vision of his yoga.
Steve Taylor’s panspiritism is a theory about the ‘flow of the Spirit’ everywhere, very much in line with an animist tradition, but not much of an evolutionary vision either.
Yes, contemporaries like Ken Wilber and Michael Murphy’s panentheism come a bit closer to what I mean, but as far as I can see, when it comes to an evolutionary vision they made not much more than a scholarly collection of what people said before them (and Murphy relies very much on De Chardin).
But how many of these did already speak of evolutionary spirituality, with a sort of vision of a subjective age, a noosphere and ‘planetization’ with life rising to a new level of consciousness and even being able to systemize it in the frame of a scientific view in or before 1955? Ahh.. Oh… Nietzsche….? 😉
This kind of comparative debates (who said what? Who is what? Who said it first?) seem to be tremendously subjective. Those kinds of debates remind me of those who say that Sri Aurobindo didn’t say anything new. What he said was already all there in Vedanta, Buddhism, and it is the same teaching of all spiritual masters. I don't think so. But then I keep my mouth shut because then people will play the “arrogance card” (you should not arrogantly believe that your master did something more, is better or “superior”….)
At any rate, I don’t want to convince you. Who cares about de Chardin? I’m not interested in determining the Formula 1 pole position of the evolutionary spiritual teachings! 😉