The Courage to be Clear

 

When I was doing research my for my doctorate I came across a piece of writing that intrigued me. It was written by somebody with a passion for the very things that I am passionate about, and arguing for many of the things I argue for in my writing. I would like you to consider her argument.

I… advocate an ontological agnosticism regarding who or what exercises agency and suggest a spectrum of agentic capacities instead. Commending a phenomenological approach, I then suggest that agentic capacities emerge and interact across this spectrum. At one pole I envisage pre-personal, corporeal processes and at the other, a transpersonal, intersubjective interworld that requires a novel social ontology. I locate individual or collective agents in the middle of the spectrum where they emerge as contingent singularities (Diana Coole,  2002).

You probably had a little trouble understanding that the first time through. Coole is saying that we should be open-minded about the intelligence that lies behind human evolution. There may be both physical and spiritual processes involved, and we may have to develop new theory to understand it. Unfortunately, I suspect that not many readers would be willing to battle through the rest of the text to try to grasp what she is saying. 

Some less kind individuals might just call it a piece of bullshit. There's a lot of that going around in the academic world.

There is often a certain amount of fear for people like me who write and talk about intuition and spiritual experience. There is the temptation to use overly-wordy prose. If you are able to confuse people enough, maybe nobody will really know what you are actually talking about. And there is another advantage in dressing up what are essentially spiritual concepts in intellectualism. The critics and skeptics might be thrown off for long enough to allow us to make our getaway unscathed. Or maybe they will be really, really impressed with how smart we are.

I prefer not to disguise what I think. My goal is to be perfecctly intelligible, and to actually make criticism (in the true sense) easier. And that is the way it should be. Understanding will not grow if we deliberately (or unconsciously) foster confusion.

The other factor at play here, I suspect, is that advocates of concepts related to the mystical/spiritual worldview are scared that they will be labeled “stupid” for their views. After all, only stupid and backward people could possibly believe in stuff that is spiritual, right? Parapsychologist Dean Radin has made this point often. So the psi proponent may feel a little insecure and try to demonstrate that he is just as smart, if not smarter, than the psi skeptics.

I like to skip that part of the script.

We need to be clear here, and move beyond ego. What is at stake is something bigger than the human individual and fragile egos. The discussion of the frontiers of human intelligence, including the concepts and the tools which enhance it, should not be an exclusive club accessible only to an intellectual elite. It must be available to all who have a desire to know and understand it.

And especially to practice it.

In short, some people writing in spiritual and transpersonal fields are overly wordy or just plain wishy washy. The advantage then, is that in being vague they can disguise the precise mystical and psychic elements of their theory, and thus divert potential criticism.

I say “Here it is, as it is.”

To be clear is to be vulnerable. That is the price one has to pay.

Marcus

Killing Minds

Have you ever noticed that you can only think of one thing at a time? You can't think of your mother and the Chinese economy at the same time. You can flip between them, but you can't actually simultaneously bring both to attention. This is a very simple, powerful and liberating realisation. It means that when you are lost in negative thinking, all you have to do is bring to attention something positive and preferable, and the negative focus dissipates.

There are of course many kinds of ‘negative’ thinking that are embedded in deeper psycho-spiritual issues that will definitely not go away simply because you change your focus. If you carry a deep hurt about your relationship with your mother for example, then just thinking about your kind father will not change the underlying pain. To heal that pain, you have to allow it to express itself, to be heard and honoured.

But an awful lot of rubbish thinking doesn’t fall into that category.

I hate this job.
Mary is so immature.
Christians are delusional.

I hate atheists.
Why do we pay so much tax?
What the hell is wrong with this place (office, city, country, planet)?
My eyes are too small and my nose too big.

And so on. Note most of this kind of thinking is about what is wrong. What passes as ‘thinking’ for most people is rarely constructive, and most of the time there is no intention to come to a deeper understanding of the problem being thrashed over and over again.

It is not difficult to change such thinking. You just have to be willing to pay the price: allowing the ‘mind’ to die - at least for as long as you commit to the alternatives.

The alternatives are to focus upon something positive; or even better, to bring the mind into presence, where it is silent and still. When you experience being fully present, it is absolutely clear that the mind is a well of delusion. It is a world of phantasms and fantasy. It is not real.

Try this. Bring your attention to an object close by you, say a pen, a notepad, your shoe etc. Without moving your eyes AT ALL, keep your full attention on that thing. Then, without moving your eyes or taking your attention away from the object, try thinking of what is wrong with the US economy. Go on, do it before reading the next paragraph. Remember, YOU MUST NOT MOVE YOUR EYES AT ALL.

Do it now for thirty seconds.

Did you notice that you cannot analyse, abstract, or think of past or future while your attention is on the object? The mental world of illusion disappears.

It disappears because it was never real.

When you focus on what is actually here, when you are present, the ‘mind’ dissolves.

Next time you find yourself in some silly online argument, arguing with the other side of the ‘issue’, or fretting over something that has no meaning, just bring yourself to attention... and watch the illusion disappear. The only question then remains is whether you will choose to return to the world of illusion, or in what way.

Of course your mind will try to draw you back into the delusion, because you are attached to it.

Some time ago I attended a conference on transhumanism - people who want to upload their consciousness onto computers so they don't die. However as I observed the speakers I realised that they did not understand the nature of consciousness at all. What they were trying to preserve was not consciousness, but their attachments. 

It's the same agenda all minds have.

Marcus