The Unexpected Comeback of the Conscious Universe - Pt. VIII
From theory to practice
The transition from a mind-matter-centric to soul-centric, multilayered worldview that includes besides the rational the suprarational also, will not only determine a new conceptual paradigm shift but also lead to a very concrete and practical transformation. Because how we think, and what we do, is largely determined by what we believe, feel, and know.
What follows are only a few examples of how a multi-modal and evolutionary cosmology that contains the superconscious plane could enlarge our vision and shed much more light on disciplines, sciences, and human activities.
Towards an integral psychology
From the standpoint of this integral cosmology also an entirely new dimension of human psychology emerges. Something that has been termed ‘integral psychology’ (not to confuse with Ken Wilber’s integral psychology.) If we go beyond a coarse-grained idealism that, inevitably, implies a coarse-grained psychology as well, we can go much deeper into the realms of our inner dimensions. Because we begin to see ourselves no longer as just a mind and a body but become aware of many levels of reality that determine us mostly beyond our surface awareness. Beyond body and mind, we are made of a life ’sheet’, a subconscious ’sheet’, and, most importantly, a soul-individuality and a superconscious ’sheet’ above the ordinary mentality. We are not made just of one or two blocks (only a brain, or only a body and a mind) but are a complex amalgam of several interacting and intertwined psychological dimensions that are, for the most part, ignored in conventional psychology and the philosophy of mind. But our inmost true nature and real identity is an evolutionary soul that, behind a veil and beyond our ordinary state of consciousness, determines, or at least tolerates, our life experiences in all their positive and negative shades. The central and most essential nature of our true being is, paradoxically, precisely what is still largely ignored in modern psychology. While, if we take this higher ‘bird’s eye’ perspective of our personality and our inner spiritual dimensions, a completely new and much richer understanding of the word ‘psychology’ would be possible. It would have an impact on how we see mental health (which is mostly not determined by the ‘mind’) and on the variety of psychological treatments and practices.
It would be a psychology based on a very different principle of organization of our being and that would recognize that we are an amalgamation of many selves or sub-personalities. In particular, it would not negate or ignore our innermost center of individual consciousness. It would embrace a very different notion of ‘change’ as a ‘transformation’ of all our parts of being in a framework of spiritual progress. A psychology that would base its principles on an evolutionary vision of life as an ‘adventure of consciousness’ from unconsciousness to super-consciousness by the integration of our personality from fragmentation to wholeness.
It is impossible to exhaust this rather complex but fascinating topic in a few paragraphs. A good introduction can be found in Don Salmon’s book “Yoga Psychology and the Transformation of Consciousness.”
Meanwhile, you can also listen to my conversations, in three episodes, I had with Bahman Shirazi a few months ago on an “Integral psychology as an experiential, whole person, soul & spirit-centered psychology,” here: link & link & link.
Towards a soul-centered education
Perhaps the most urgent and pressing issue nowadays is that of education. None of the changes we envisage will be possible unless we are willing to replace our encrusted and century-old mind-centered educational paradigm. A concept of teaching and educating children that has its roots in the Enlightenment, with the glorification of reason—that is, the mental plane only—and its industrial utilitarianism which, for about a couple of centuries, has served well the material and mental development of humankind but is now becoming the primary bottleneck that strangles the opportunities for further progress in all the other aspects of humans life.
As a former teacher, I couldn’t fail to notice how more and more children are affected by anxiety, depression, so-called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD), dyslexia, and other mental disorders. This should not be a surprise in a system that is still based on a mechanistic and rationalistic education paradigm. Once our inmost being, the evolutionary soul, begins to ask for the manifestation and development of itself on the surface, an inner longing of the child’s need for a self-unfoldment, self-expression, and self-development is claiming to be acknowledged but is, most of the time, ignored if not even vehemently repressed. At the bottom, this is why teachers are having an increasingly hard time explaining the aim and purpose of education itself to children and, even more, to high school teenagers. The answer that it supposedly helps us make a living and prepare ourselves for the future sounds increasingly unconvincing—and rightly so.
We must go beyond the fear- and certificate-based examination industry towards a soul-centered education in the light of an evolutionary concept in which curiosity, interests, passions, enthusiasm, and motivation from within will become the emotional drive in the learning process. The desire for inquiry, discovery, and exploration should be nurtured, and not that of learning stuff that does not relate to our inner calling, and that is only supposed to secure financial security or prepare us for a job that might soon not exist in a quickly and ever-changing world. Soul-based progress from within is the key to a modern concept of education that can cope with the challenges of the future. Unless chosen as a means of self-expression of the child, more IT and STEM or other, still more bookish knowledge won’t fix the void of our educational system.
If schools, high schools, colleges, and universities don’t change direction from a commercial mind-fear-certificate-based utilitarian idea of education, one can hardly expect future generations to conceive of, let alone set into practice, novel approaches in sciences and humanities that widen their view beyond an outdated, materialistic perception and conception of reality. Our education system increasingly feels like a straitjacket that hampers, discourages, and frustrates the spiritual evolution inherent in every human being.
What must come to the front now is the inmost soul that, having gone through a preparation stage through obedience and preconceived structures that made it grow, is now asking to be allowed to surface and determine itself. The intellect must not be abolished and not even replaced; rather, it is the soul-factor that must take the lead, honoring the mind’s role but also maintaining its action inside its proper natural boundaries. The first and most urgent action that society must take is to create an educational context and structures in which each soul can unfold and progress freely according to its inherent and individual nature.
How and under what internal and external circumstances can our intuitive knowledge develop harmonically, and how can it be put into practice in a living research and learning environment? How can individual potentialities be optimized and set free, evolving in a common activity, without damaging the freedom and rights of other individuals? What learning and teaching techniques are the most effective in uniting the necessity of intellectual growth with a desire for individual spiritual, intuitive, and practical self-expression? How can the practice of meditation be used to produce a scientific work? I have written extensively on this ‘free progress education’ paradigm and invite the interested reader to check it out.
You might say that, after all this is what every educator, more or less strongly advocates for. That’s right. Almost every teacher, professor, and pedagogician will tell you that self-expression is fundamental. But the question is: The self-expression of who or what? We still see a body or a brain, at best a mind, but never see it from the perspective of the evolution of the soul. That’s also why, nowadays, it has become almost a fashion to cite the findings of neuroscience invoking their application to educational methods. That’s fine. I do this also. But it all remains on the surface and firmly anchored in a naturalistic paradigm. Despite everyone agreeing for decades that education urgently needs a paradigm shift, little change has taken place. Because something is missing. Something is escaping our surface understanding of who we are, what we are, and, thereby, how we learn.
In the next part, I will show how the integral cosmology sheds light on several aspects of life and biological evolution that, otherwise, will remain forever unexplained.
Thank you for reading my work!
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On what you write about education: I am reminded of the final chapter of Whiteheads "Science and the Modern World" where he critiques the lack of "value" and an aesthetic dimension to the educational system of his day, a century ago now. «Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced development.» And the project of the book is in large part showing the limits to scientific materialism. These issues are timeless. What can be done differently in this century?