Hello all, My name is Hal Martin, the new organizer of Miami Meditation. I am inviting a co-organizer to the group, Laurie Wilson. What I have coming up is way bigger than my little self could possibly handle by myself.

I recently retired from Miami Dade Fire Rescue, after 28 years in the fire service. I spent the first 3- years with Hallandale Fire Rescue, then came to the county. It was a rewarding career and I cherish all the life experiences that it afforded me. Now I move on to my next adventure.

The form of meditation that is me in this now moment is the process of self inquiry. The simple process for knowing who you are. I found it through the teachings of ramana maharshi, who left his body in 1950, and was drawn to his ashram in India 17 years ago. My wife Marcia and I have continued going back every year since. There is a growing lineage of teachers that are sharing their own form of self inquiry. Some that resonate in me, some that do not. My intention is to share with you those that do. Not that I feel the others are wrong or bad. Its just that I want to share with you what I am passionate about.

I looked around the room and from our Meetup website, which is all I have to go by, it looks as if Candace, who I have never met, was sharing a particular style of meditation. I see this as a major change that I suggest we implement in this Meetup. I am open for suggestion. Even though I stepped up to keep this group going, I do not know anything about Clairvision, and I obviously cannot share a style of meditation I do not know. Although, there are many similarities between who I am what she appeared to be sharing.

With that said, here is a brief overview of what I would like to propose to you as a possible outline of Miami Meditation:

1. We are an open and diverse group of meditators, both in members and presenters. 2. Our calendar will offer a wide range of options to choose from allowing the group to find what works for them. 3. This calendar, like life, will be constantly changing.

I look forward to meeting you in the upcoming meetings and can only hope that our offerings can be of service to you in finding your Self through some form of inner experience.

Om shanti, shanti, shanti

Namaste Hal

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Miami Meditation (Miami, FL) - Meetup

You are in: Future Mindsets : Transhumanism

Transhumanism

Transhumanism represents the view that we should take a proactive role in upgrading the human species.

The word "transhumanism" was first coined by biologist Julian Huxley in 1927 when he wrote that "the human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself". He went on to add that "we need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will service: man remaining man, but transcending himself by realizing new possibilities".

In 1990 philosopher Max More wrote an essay entitled Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy that is regarded by many as the foundation of modern transhumanistic thought. Within, More defines transhumanism as "a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology".

Today, a 6,000 member non-profit organization known as Humanity+ provides a focal point for transhumanist activity. Formally known as the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), Humanity+ believes that the "human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase". It therefore advocates the "ethical use of technology to expand capacities" in pursuit of "better minds, better bodies and better lives".

Humanity+ maintains a detailed Transhumanist Declaration. This was first drawn up by an international group of contributors in 1998, and notes that humanity now stands on the brink of being able to overcome "cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our confinement to planet Earth". The Declaration goes on to state that policymakers need to exercise 'inclusive moral vision' in weighing the risks and benefits of new technologies. It also advocates the well-being of all sentient life -- including humans, non-human animals, artificial intellects and modified life forms -- and strongly favours "personal choice" in the adoption of enhancement technologies to advance and improve the human race.

The concept of transhumanism is of course not to everybody's liking. Taking a different viewpoint, many other people believe on ethical, moral, religious or other grounds that the human condition and human evolution are naturally "fixed" and should not be tampered with. Most people of course lie somewhere along the spectrum between these two extremes, and/or have never thought too deeply about the ethical dilemmas that technology developments now place before us.

Debates concerning the development, implications and public adoption of a genetic engineering and synthetic biology in particular are now moving from being of largely academic interest to being key inputs to fundamental government policy and multinational business strategy. An understanding of the transhumanism and its implications for the ethics and practice of human existence is hence becoming a prerequisite for all of us thinking about and planning for tomorrow.

More information on transhumanism can be found in my book 25 Things You Need to Know About the Future. A list of tranhumanism web references can be found here.

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ExplainingTheFuture.com : Transhumanism

Transhumanism and its associated philosophiescan be divisive. To be sure, the movement has some negative stereotypes attached to it. But nonetheless, its gaining traction in mainstream discourse.

After several decades of relative obscurity Transhumanism as a philosophical and technological movement has finally begun to break out of its strange intellectual ghetto and make small inroads into the wider public consciousness. This is partly because some high profile people have either adopted it as their worldview or alternatively warned against its potential dangers. Indeed, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama named it The worlds most dangerous idea in a 2004 article in the US magazine Foreign Policy, and Transhumanisms most outspoken publicist, Ray Kurzweil, was recently made director of engineering at Google, presumably to hasten Transhumanisms goals.

So, what are these goals and how does Transhumanism define itself? Well, since it is not some monolithic organization there are different definitions and declarations, but one of the oldest came out of The World Transhumanist Association, latterly re-branded HumanityPlus (Humanity+, or H+, being a shorthand way insiders generally write Transhumanism):

Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values. (Max More 1990)

Which sounds harmless enough and rather bland. What lies beneath is most definitely neither bland nor harmless and represents a potential change in life on Earth, and Humanity as a whole, which is unprecedented not only in the historical record but the geological. It is, perhaps, the single most momentous event in a billion years if its more ambitious goals can be realized. Indeed, these goals are so ambitious that they warrant the title of this article irrespective as to whether they are in any way feasible, and it will become abundantly clear that while we may talk of a philosophy what we have is a declaration of intent. They are aspirations that address questions that were once the sole preserve of religions, but unlike conventional religions they seek hard engineering answers rather than ill defined and ancient obfuscations. They address the deepest hopes and fears of the Human mind life, death, the afterlife, immortality, the nature of God(s) and the destiny of the universe.

So, who are the Transhumanists? Well, nobody really knows how many people define themselves as such. The best guess is probably less than one hundred thousand, mostly engineers and scientists and not as one might expect, science fiction fans. No doubt a much greater number agree with at least one or more H+ ambitions but who do not buy the whole package, which during its modern development since the 1980s has accrued its own stereotypes and its own folklore and mythology which is now intertwined with that bland definition above. For example, a standard belief within H+ is that we are all rational atheists, which is far from true. Hence we have organizations based around contemporary religions, such as the Mormon Transhumanist Association, Christian Transhumanism and others who see this for what just about every religious person throughout history would have seen it an apotheosis of religion itself. There is also a non-negligible contingent of current or former occultists, however one might define that term. There also seems to be no significant age correlation within the H+ movement beyond what one might expect from technologically savvy Net users. Conversely, there is a very significant gender bias towards males, although females have certainly made huge contributions over the past decades and hold prominent positions within various organizations. So, to start with the lowest common denominator

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Transhumanism The Final Religion? - disinformation

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Mentorship is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger, but have a certain area of expertise. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn.[1]

The person in receipt of mentorship may be referred to as a protg (male), a protge (female), an apprentice or, in recent years, a mentee.

"Mentoring" is a process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. One definition of the many that have been proposed, is

Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protg)".[2]

Mentoring in Europe has existed since at least Ancient Greek times. Since the 1970s it has spread in the United States of America mainly in training contexts,[3] with important historical links to the movement advancing workplace equity for women and minorities,[4] and it has been described as "an innovation in American management".[5]

The roots of the practice are lost in antiquity. The word itself was inspired by the character of Mentor in Homer's Odyssey. Though the actual Mentor in the story is a somewhat ineffective old man, the goddess Athena takes on his appearance in order to guide young Telemachus in his time of difficulty.

Historically significant systems of mentorship include the guru - disciple tradition practiced in Hinduism and Buddhism, Elders, the discipleship system practiced by Rabbinical Judaism and the Christian church, and apprenticing under the medieval guild system.

In the United States, advocates for workplace equity in the second half of the twentieth century popularized the term mentor and concept of career mentorship as part of a larger social capital lexiconwhich also includes terms such as glass ceiling, networking, role model, and gatekeeperserving to identify and address the problems barring non-dominant groups from professional success. Mainstream business literature subsequently adopted the terms and concepts, promoting them as pathways to success for all career climbers. In 1970 these terms were not in the general American vocabulary; by the mid-1990s they had become part of everyday speech.[4]

The focus of mentoring is to develop the whole person and so the techniques are broad and require wisdom in order to be used appropriately.[7]

A 1995 study of mentoring techniques most commonly used in business[8] found that the five most commonly used techniques among mentors were:

Different techniques may be used by mentors according to the situation and the mindset of the mentee, and the techniques used in modern organizations can be found in ancient education systems, from the Socratic technique of harvesting to the accompaniment method of learning used in the apprenticeship of itinerant cathedral builders during the Middle Ages.[8] Leadership authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner[9] advise mentors to look for "teachable moments" in order to "expand or realize the potentialities of the people in the organizations they lead" and underline that personal credibility is as essential to quality mentoring as skill.

Multiple Mentors A new and upcoming trend is having multiple mentors. This can be helpful because we can all learn from each other. Having more than one mentor will widen the knowledge of the person being mentored. There are different mentors who may have different strengths.

Profession or Trade Mentor: This is someone who is currently in the trade/profession you are entering. They know the trends, important changes and new practices that you should know to stay at the top of your career. A mentor like this would be someone you can discuss ideas regarding the field, and also be introduced to key and important people that you should know.

Industry Mentor: This is someone who doesn't just focus on the profession. This mentor will be able to give insight on the industry as a whole. Whether it be research, development or key changes in the industry, you need to know.

Organization Mentor: Politics in the organizations are constantly changing. It is important to be knowledgeable about the values, strategies and products that are within your company, but also when these things are changing. An organization mentor can clarify missions and strategies, and give clarity when needed.

Work Process Mentor: This mentor can speed quickly over the bumps, and cut through the unnecessary work. This mentor can explain the 'ins and outs' of projects, day to day tasks, and eliminate unnecessary things that may be currently going on in your work day. This mentor can help to get things done quickly and efficiently.

Technology Mentor: This is an up-and-coming, incredibly important position. Technology has been rapidly improving, and becoming more a part of day to day transactions within companies. In order to perform your best, you must know how to get things done on the newest technology. A technology mentor will help with technical breakdowns, advise on systems that may work better than what you're currently using, and coach you through new technology and how to best use it and implement it into your daily life.

These mentors are only examples. There can be many more different types of mentors. Look around your workplace, your life, and see who is an expert that you can learn something from.[1]

There are two broad types of mentoring relationships: formal and informal. In addition to these broad types, there are also peer, situational and supervisory mentoring relationships. These tend to fall under the categories of formal and informal mentoring relationships. Informal relationships develop on their own between partners. Formal mentoring, on the other hand, refers to a structured process supported by the organization and addressed to target populations. Youth mentoring programs assist at-risk children or youth who lack role models and sponsors. In business, formal mentoring is part of talent management addressed to populations such as key employees, newly hired graduates, high potentials and future leaders. The matching of mentor and mentee is often done by a mentoring coordinator or by means of an (online) database registry.

There are formal mentoring programs that are values-oriented, while social mentoring and other types focus specifically on career development. Some mentorship programs provide both social and vocational support. In well-designed formal mentoring programs, there are program goals, schedules, training (for both mentors and protgs), and evaluation. In 2004 Metizo created the first mentoring certification for companies and business schools in order to guarantee the integrity and effectiveness of formal mentoring. Certification is attributed jointly by the organization and an external expert.[10]

There are many kinds of mentoring relationships from school or community-based relationships to e-mentoring relationships. These mentoring relationships vary and can be influenced by the type of mentoring relationship that is in effect. That is whether it has come about as a formal or informal relationship. Also there are several models have been used to describe and examine the sub-relationships that can emerge. For example, Buell describes how mentoring relationships can develop under a cloning model, nurturing model, friendship model and apprenticeship model. The cloning model is about the mentor trying to "produce a duplicate copy of him or her self." The nurturing model takes more of a "parent figure, creating a safe, open environment in which mentee can both learn and try things for him-or herself." The friendship model are more peers "rather than being involved in a hierarchical relationship." Lastly, the apprenticeship is about less "personal or social aspects... and the professional relationship is the sole focus".[11]

In the sub-groups of formal and informal mentoring relationships: peer mentoring relationships are relationships where individuals are at the same skill training, similar positions and stages of career. However, one person may be more knowledgeable in a certain aspect or another, but they can help each other to progress in their work. A lot of time, peer relationships provide a lot of support, empathy and advice because the situations are quite similar.

Situational mentoring relationships are generally short term positions where a person mentors for a specific purpose. This could be a company bringing an expert in regarding social media, or internet safety. This expert can mentor employees to make them more knowledgeable about a specific topic or skill.

Supervisory mentoring relationships are 'go to' people, they are supervisors. These are people who have answers to many questions, and can advise to take the best plan of action. This can be a conflict of interest relationship because many supervisors do not feel comfortable also being a mentor.[12]

Especially in the workplace, there are many benefits to developing a mentorship program for new, and current employees.

Career Development: Mentoring employees gives the opportunity to align organizational goals to personal career goals. It gives employees the ability to advance professionally. This collaboration gives employees a feeling of engagement, which leads to better retention rates.

High Potential Mentoring: Top talent in the workplace tend to be difficult to retain. These employees have incredible potential to make great things happen for the company, and for themselves. With a mentor program, top talent employees can be guided into leadership positions, and give them new engagement for new roles that will attract them to stay longer.

Diversity Mentoring: One of the top ways to innovate is by bringing in new ideas. Mentors can empower diverse employees to share ideas, knowledge, experience to expand and innovate into the company. This also brings cultural awareness and a value of other cultures into the workplace.

Reverse Mentoring: This not so obvious benefit of mentoring is incredibly important. The younger generations can help the older generations to expand and grow towards current trends. Everyone has something to bring to the table, this creates a two way street within companies where younger employees can see the larger picture, and senior employees can see things from a different point of view.

Knowledge Transfer Mentoring: Employees must have a certain set of skills in order to accomplish the tasks at hand. Mentoring is a great approach to help employees get organized, and give them access to an expert that can give feedback, and help answer questions that they may not know where to find answers to. [13]

Mentorship provides critical benefits to individuals as well as organizations. Although the importance of mentorship to an individuals career advancement is virtually universal, in the United States it historically has been most apparent in relation to the advancement of women and minorities in the workplacebecause, until recent decades, American men in dominant ethnic groups had reaped the benefits of mentorship without consciously identifying it as an advancement strategy in the modern sense. American women and minorities, in contrast, more pointedly identified and pursued mentorship in the second half of the twentieth century as they sought to achieve the professional success they had long been denied.[4]

In a 1958 study, Margaret Cussler showed that, for each female executive she interviewed who did not own her own company, somethingor someonegave her a push up the ladder while others halted on a lower rung. Cussler concluded that the relationship between the sponsor and protg (the vocabulary of mentorship was not yet in common use) was the magic formula for success.[14] By the late 1970s, numerous publications had established the centrality of mentorship to business success for everyone and particularly for women trying to break into the male-dominated business world. These publications noted the many specific benefits provided by mentorship, which included insider information, education, guidance, moral support, inspiration, sponsorship, an example to follow, protection, promotion, the ability to bypass the hierarchy, the projection of the superiors reflected power, access to otherwise invisible opportunities, and tutelage in corporate politics.[4]

This literature also showed the value of these benefits. A Harvard Business Review survey of 1,250 top executives published in 1979, for example, showed that most had been mentored or sponsored and that those who received such assistance reported higher income, a better education, a quicker path to achievement, and more job satisfaction than those who did not.[15] The literature particularly emphasized the necessity of mentoring for businesswomens success.[4] For example, although women made up less than one percent of the executives in the Harvard Business Review survey, all of these women reported being mentored.[15] In subsequent decades, as mentoring became a widely valued phenomenon in the United States, women and minorities in particular continued to develop mentoring relationships consciously as they sought professional advancement.[4]

Research in the 1970s, partly in response to a study by Daniel Levinson,[16] led some women and African Americans to question whether the classic "white male" model was available or customary for people who are newcomers in traditionally white male organizations. In 1978 Edgar Schein described multiple roles for successful mentors.[17][clarification needed]

Two of Schein's students, Davis and Garrison, undertook to study successful leaders of both genders and at least two races. Their research presented evidence for the roles of: cheerleader, coach, confidant, counsellor, developer of talent, "griot" (oral historian for the organization or profession), guardian, guru, inspiration, master, "opener of doors", patron, role model, pioneer, "seminal source", "successful leader", and teacher.[18] They described multiple mentoring practices which have since been given the name of "mosaic mentoring" to distinguish this kind of mentoring from the single mentor approach.

Mosaic mentoring is based on the concept that almost everyone can perform one or another function well for someone else and also can learn along one of these lines from someone else. The model is seen as useful for people who are "non-traditional" in a traditional setting, such as people of color and women in a traditionally white male organization. The idea has been well received in medical education literature.[19] There are also mosaic mentoring programs in various faith-based organizations.[citation needed]

Corporate mentoring programs are used by mid to large organizations to further the development and retention of employees. Mentoring programs may be formal or informal and serve a variety of specific objectives including acclimation of new employees, skills development, employee retention and diversity enhancement.

Formal mentoring programs offer employees the opportunity to participate in an organized mentoring program. Participants join as a mentor, protg or both by completing a mentoring profile. Mentoring profiles are completed as written forms on paper or computer or filled out via an online form as part of an online mentoring system. Protgs are matched with a mentor by a program administrator or a mentoring committee, or may self-select a mentor depending on the program format.

Informal mentoring takes places in organizations that develop a culture of mentoring but do not have formal mentoring in place. These companies may provide some tools and resources and encourage managers to accept mentoring requests from more junior members of the organization.[20]

New-hire mentoring programs are set up to help new employees acclimate more quickly into the organization. In new-hire mentoring programs, newcomers to the organization (protgs) are paired with more experienced people (mentors) in order to obtain information, good examples, and advice as they advance. It has been claimed that new employees who are paired with a mentor are twice as likely to remain in their job than those who do not receive mentorship.[21]

These mentoring relationships provide substance for career growth, and benefit both the mentor and the protg. For example, the mentor gets to show leadership by giving back and perhaps being refreshed about their own work. The organization receives an employee that is being gradually introduced and shaped by the organization's culture and operation because they have been under the mentorship of an experienced member. The person being mentored networks, becomes integrated easier in an organization, gets experience and advice along the way.[22] It has been said that "joining a mentor's network and developing one's own is central to advancement" and this is possibly why those mentored tend to do well in their organizations.[22]

In the organizational setting, mentoring usually "requires unequal knowledge",[2] but the process of mentorship can differ. Bullis describes the mentoring process in the forms of phase models. Initially, the "mentee proves himself or herself worthy of the mentor's time and energy". Then cultivation occurs which includes the actual "coaching...a strong interpersonal bond between mentor and mentee develops". Next, under the phase of separation "the mentee experiences more autonomy". Ultimately, there is more of equality in the relationship, termed by Bullis as Redefinition.[23]

High-potential mentoring programs are used to groom up-and-coming employees deemed to have the potential to move up into leadership roles. Here the employee (protg) is paired with a senior level leader (or leaders) for a series of career-coaching interactions. These programs tend to be smaller than more general mentoring programs and mentees must be selected to participate.

A similar method of high-potential mentoring is to place the employee in a series of jobs in disparate areas of an organization, all for small periods of time, in anticipation of learning the organization's structure, culture, and methods. A mentor does not have to be a manager or supervisor to facilitate the process.[citation needed]

Mentees are matched with mentors by a designated mentoring committee or mentoring administrator usually consisting of senior members of the Training, Learning and Development and Human Resources departments. The matching committee reviews the mentoring profiles and makes matches based on areas for development, mentor strengths, overall experience, skill set, location and objectives for the mentorship.

Mentoring technology can be used to facilitate matches allowing mentees to search and select a mentor based on their own development needs and interests. This mentee-driven methodology increases the speed in which matches are created and reduces the amount of administrative time required to manage the program.[24] The quality of matches increases as well with self-match programs because the greater the involvement of the mentee in the selection of their mentor, the better the outcome of the mentorship.[25] There are a variety of online mentoring technology programs available that can be utilized to facilitate this mentee-driven matching process.

Speed mentoring closely follows the procedures of speed dating. Mentors and mentees are introduced to each other in short sessions, allowing each person to meet multiple potential matches in a very short timeframe. Speed mentoring occur as a one-time event in order for people "to meet potential mentors to see if there is a fit for a longer term engagement."[26]

In many secondary and post-secondary schools, mentorship programs are offered to support students in program completion, confidence building and transitioning to further education or the workforce. There are also many peer mentoring programs designed specifically to bring under-represented populations into science and engineering.[citation needed] The Internet has brought university alumni closer to graduating students. Graduate university alumni are engaging with current students in career mentorship through interview questions and answers. The students with the best answers receive professional recommendations from industry experts build a more credible CV.

The blended mentoring is a mix of on-site and online events, projected to give to career counselling and development services the opportunity to adopt mentoring in their ordinary practice.

In the reverse mentoring situation, the mentee has less overall experience (typically as a result of age) than the mentor (who is typically older), but the mentee has more knowledge in a particular area, and as such, reverses the typical constellation. Examples are when young internet or mobile savvy Millennial Generation teens train executives in using their high end Smart Phones. They in turn sometimes offer insight in business processes.[citation needed]

The concept of mentoring has entered the business domain as well. This is different from being an apprentice, a business mentor provides guidance to a business owner or an entrepreneur on the entrepreneur's business.[citation needed] An apprentice learns a trade by working on the job with the "employer".

A 2012 literature review by EPS-PEAKS investigated the practice of business mentoring, with a focus on the Middle-East and North Africa region.[27] The review found strong evidence to suggest that business mentoring can have real benefits for entrepreneurs, but highlights some key factors that need to be taken into account when designing mentoring programmes for this to be the case, such as the need to balance a formal and informal approach and to appropriately match mentors and mentees.

(1) http://www.masteryworks.com/newsite/downloads/Article3_EightTypesofMentors-WhichOnesdoyouNeed.pdf (2) https://research.wustl.edu/Resources/PERCSS/library/Pages/mentoringtypes.aspx (3) https://mutualforce.com/downloads/Top_26_benefits_of_workplace_mentoring_program.pdf (4) https://mutualforce.com/downloads/Mentoring_Program_Design.pdf (5) http://www.strategic-agent.com

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Mentorship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Developing Self Awareness A Historic Practice Self awareness is the key theme in the meditation practiced for centuries by the Buddhists. They advised staring back at your thoughts. Matthieu Ricard, a respected Buddhist monk said: "One may wonder what people do in retreats, sitting for eight hours a day. They familiarize themselves with a new way of dealing with the arising of thoughts."

"When you start getting used to recognizing thoughts as they arise, it is like rapidly spotting someone you know in a crowd. When a powerful thought or anger arises, you recognize it. That helps you to avoid being overwhelmed by this thought." Self awareness is a powerful method of controlling your mind.

Developing Self Awareness The Difficulty But, developing self awareness is not easy for everyone. Eugene Gendlin, created his Focusing therapy to help people to achieve self awareness. It is a psychotherapeutic routine, which has helped thousands of people to develop self awareness and to calm their distressed minds. But, Gendlin noted that only certain clients really benefited from his therapy. Such people had higher scores on intelligence, ego strength, character and self-control, emotional stability, tender mindedness and introspectiveness." They repressed less, were less defensive, more self-disclosing and were willing to attribute difficulties to internal causes.

Those who instinctively attribute their troubles to external causes may not benefit from these pages. Their minds reject the possibility of effective self improvement. But, dear reader, your interest in reading these pages indicates your suspicion that internal causes may also be the cause of your emotional problems. You fit into the category that can be helped. You can develop self awareness.

Developing Self Awareness The Importance Of Attention Self awareness depends on the innate ability of your mind to focus its attention. William James, the father of American psychology, defined attention as "the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneous objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration of consciousness are its essence." When you pay attention, you can instantly feel the touch of cloth on your shoulder, a tightness in your hands, or a thought as it arises in your mind. Attention is a neuronal process.

Maunsell discovered that attention triggers increased neural activity in the observed circuits within your mind. At the same time, attention inhibits activity in the immediate surroundings. Maunsell had studied neural signals in the visual area of the cortex of monkeys, when viewing a swarm of dots on a computer screen. He was able to correlate the firing of specific neurons, with recognition of the movement of specific dots. When the animal focused on just one of the dots, the directed attention caused the neurons that signaled its motion to fire more strongly. At the same time, neural signals related to other dots were attenuated. When you pay attention, you can highlight your thoughts and and your cortex perceives them.

Developing Self Awareness The Observer & The Observed Millions of years of evolutionary development assembled a triune brain within your mind. Within it, a rational prefrontal intelligence and lower level mammalian and reptilian brains constantly develop competing survival strategies. Typically, the common sense in your prefrontal regions seeks a rational strategy. Anger searches for a successful aggressive strategy and fear, for a sound defensive one. If these searches fail, your feelings of fear, anger, or disappointment become more intense. Your turmoil increases, when fear or anger instinctively trigger visceral reactions. But, your common sense sees failure as merely another event.

Your prefrontal brain also brings you your conscious awareness. That awareness can be overwhelmed by your sensation of fear, anger and the related visceral reactions. But, the same region can direct attention to isolate and observe your own emotional responses. I can feel the fear. With practice, you learn to observe the impulsive thoughts arising from lower levels. You learn to sense the visceral responses of your body. The common sense of your prefrontal regions is responsible for such self awareness. Since that observing region is independent of the lower levels, your viewpoint becomes free from troubling emotions. Self awareness frees you from torture by your animal instincts. All it needs is a little practice.

Developing Self Awareness Proprioception And Relaxation Developing self awareness merely requires systematic observation. But, it takes a few days. As a first step, use your sensory ability to become aware of the position of your body with your eyes closed. Proprioception is the distinct sensory ability, where nerve impulses from the stretch receptors in your muscles inform your brain of the beginning and end of each joint movement. Lying in your bed in a dark room, you have the capacity to become aware of the position of your limbs with your eyes closed. Sense this feeling. This can be your first step into self awareness.

Also become aware of any tightness in your muscles. Consciously tighten and relax your muscles. Such a practice will enable you to better control the responses of your body. While lying in bed, practice tightening and relaxation all the way from the muscles in your toes to those in your neck and eyes. Within a couple of weeks, you can learn to relax on demand. Tensed muscles can trigger angry, or fearful thoughts without your awareness. Relaxing your body is the first step in removing the chatter of troubling stress messages. It is then easier to pay attention to the vast inner worlds within your mind.

Developing Self Awareness The Cause Of Stress Your mind works at lightning speed by actively searching for solutions to the problems faced by you. An animal escapes from danger by finding a suitable hiding place. It searches its own memories for the nearest shelter. Animals have hiding places. People are less fortunate. In the modern world, running away is not an option and problems have no immediate solutions. There are no instantly available hiding places. Your mind searches for ways to escape from your problems, or to remove obstructions. Emotions are triggered, when these internal searches lead to frustration.

Emotions often have an unpleasant quality. Medical texts report that pain is felt in two waves, separated by an interval of a few tenths of a second. The first is a sensation of pain, which is sharp and localized. The second is an emotional drive signal, which patients report as being a more disagreeable sense of hurt. Stimulation of certain nerve cells in the temporal lobe causes a patient to feel the awful dread emotion. Emotions are real nerve signals in your nervous system. Self awareness is the ability to independently identify emotions as and when they occur.

Developing Self Awareness Identify Your Primary Concerns Self awareness becomes easier, when you categorize the storm of emotions within you. The Self Improvment Plan presented in this website can put you quickly in lucid touch with your most troubling concerns. This method of self assessment depends on the capacity of your mind to get swiftly to the essentials, such as when you prepare a simple shopping list. The procedure will bring to your notice troubling issues such as the conflicts between career and personal life.

When you evaluate the list subsequently, RI, your common sense, takes charge, differentiating the facts from your emotional responses. Self awareness is the skill of consciously identifying your emotional outbursts. You gradually become familiar with the viewpoints of the animal intelligences, which attack you with their warped strategies for survival. In the process, self awareness isolates your common sense, and frees it from emotional turmoil.

In subsequent steps, the Self Improvement Plan lists the various options available to you. Reality will then dawn on you that there are no immediate solutions to quite a few of the problems you face. Acceptance of such unpleasant facts in life will help still the emotional storms within. Settling your primary concerns will lead your attention to uncover the simpler emotions like envy, jealousy, guilt or irritability, which trouble you. Self awareness is the key to stilling such emotions, which spoil your calm.

Developing Self Awareness Envy And Jealousy For most emotions, we experience only a mild sense of discomfort. But, such emotions like envy and jealousy trouble many good natured people. These emotions are not shameful feelings. They are the responses of the deep wisdom within your mind to personal failure. Jealousy originates from fear or anger over the prospect of failure in achieving a desired goal. Career growth, a partner's love, or a mother's undivided attention are usually the threatened goals.

Envy originates from regret, leading to anger, over one's powerlessness to get an alluring asset owned by a perceived equal. Self awareness helps you to notice your discomfort over such events. Identify the failures in life, which haunt you. Then you can act to prevent failure in future, or learn to come to terms with it. When such failure does not trouble you, envy, or jealousy will not trouble you again.

Developing Self Awareness Low Self Esteem Some people are burdened by persistent internal voices, which tell them that they are failures. Their low self esteem may be caused early in life, by bullying even as they were too timid to fight back. They may be very successful people, but these early critical voices persist. For every success story, there are many ordinary workers. Low self-esteem can punish them with crippling reminders of being failures.

Self awareness can recognize these troubling messages. Recognition of such messages will quiet the harsh voices. Common sense will put their lives in proper perspective. Overcoming low self-esteem will not work miracles. It will not convert quiet people into extroverts. But, it will still turmoil. They will feel comfortable about not being the life of the party. Not burdened by persistent inner criticism, they can go on to discover and exploit their innate talents.

Developing Self Awareness Empathy Self awareness can improve your capacity to communicate with people. The human brain has a mirror neuron network, which uses sensory clues to enable a person to experience the feelings of another person. In experiments with monkeys, researchers report that specific neurons fire when an animal reaches for a peanut, pulls a lever, or pushes a door. Iaccomo Rizzolati and Vittorio Gallasse discovered that neurons in the same regions also fire, when the monkey watches another monkey perform similar actions. In humans, neural signals, which signify pain were reported when watching another person being pricked by a needle. Your mirror neurons enable empathy by making you experience the feelings of the people you communicate with.

Self awareness can strengthen your sensitivity to people, when you pay attention to sensing their feelings. Insensitivity to this massive world of information, which is available to you within your own mind, can weaken all your interactions in life. How do they feel about your decisions? What are their motivations? Strengthen your capacity to empathize by being open to the nerve signals, which your brain sends you, based on its assessments of their objectives and motivations. Become aware of the feelings of others.

Developing Self Awareness Controlling Anger Anger is merely a punishing viewpoint. It destroys your peace of mind and ruins your relationships. Self awareness can change that viewpoint. Once changed, your mind will not shrink back to its narrow views. The stressful anger signals originate from the amygdala, an almond sized organ in your brain. When they are stilled, controls pass to the common sense of your prefrontal brain. You can't wish your anger away, because your mind disregards such wishes.

You mind will respond intuitively to practical experience. First, your mind needs to be convinced that anger is a problem and not a solution. Second, you need to come to terms with the pivotal sources of your anger, reducing its causes. Third, you need to become aware of and detect the onset of anger, whenever it raises its head. Your attention to the telltale signals from your amygdala will gradually still any remaining anger signals. Each time your common sense wins, your neural circuits will have put an end to one knee jerk response. Self awareness can save you from seething against the inevitable thorns and barbs of life and accept it as it is, with its many unexpected potholes.

This page was last updated on 31-Dec-2013

Back in 1902, the great sage Ramana Maharshi offered to his pupil a method of reaching an enduringly happy state, where there is no mind.

Developing Self Awareness Developing self awareness makes you understand your feelings, your behaviour and your actions. It gives you the clarity and freedom to change all those characteristics you want to change to achieve your goal.

The Body Window Find health and healing through the use of your body as a tool for intuition. Your body is a 'window' to your true self or your soul. You can be free of pain and dis-ease by learning how to use this intuition!

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Developing Self Awareness - Effective Mind Control

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. ~ Carl Gustav Jung

Yesterday I was at a birthday party of one of my best friends, who just turned 30. One of the guests asked me what I currently do, so I told him Im building something in Personal Development

which earned me a blank stare from him! As the seconds ran by I could literally see him articulating the question: What is Personal Development?

So I was trying to find common ground by telling him Personal Development is a bit like Self-Help, but more proactive from my perspective. Just like Self-Improvement, which he had an understanding for. The fact that he obviously was lacking some real personal development of his own, got me into elaborating on the topic more and more, earning more and more interest from him

Personal Development is theconscious pursuit of personal growth by expanding self-awareness and knowledge and improving personal skills.[Tweet this!]

Those skills include my mind, my body, my spirit as well as my level of success in all areas of life, however I may define that. The ultimate goal of Personal Development for me is to be a self-realized human being. That means living consciously at my full potential and reaching real happiness in my life.

By progression I mean that there are essential steps to take when starting out with Personal Development. I believe thatin the process of personal growththere are specific milestones to reach, and that without tackling these, personal growth is not really possible or at least not complete.

Maybe you are still not convinced that Personal Development is for you and you may still ask Why? The reason is simple:

Life is just better when we have done work on ourselves.[Tweet this!]

And that includes our mental, physical, emotional, social and financial life. I think its fair to say:

Personal Development makes you happy.[Tweet this!]

You cant really argue with that goal

So how can you get started on your own journey of personal growth. Or if you have already started to consciously follow personal development, how can you get to the next level? During my now over 10 years work on that topic, I identified several of those milestones mentioned above.

There is the basic motivation to improve yourself. Its either coming from inspiration and you are looking to get better than you already are, or it comes out of desperation: something unpleasant challenges you to grow. For instance, what brought you here today?

One of the first things you need is something I would sum up as acceptance. Acceptance means to see your life / your situation as it really is and accept that. Stoprationalizing things you are truly unhappy about and tell yourself the truth. That may also mean you have to look at areas of your life where it really can be painful to accept the status quo. If you connect to the truth you have laid the most important basis to really grow.You have to know where you stand. From there you can move forward. Without that its just not working. Period.

I think the most essential things in Personal Development deal with how you look at the world and how you see yourself in the world, which then determines how you act in the world. Are you a victim or a winner? Do you see yourself as self-confident or not? Are you in control or not? Are you successful? Are you happy or not, and in what parts of your life.

Much of it is about making the unconscious conscious. Thats what this blog is really all about (and then to do the work). Its always the first part to become conscious of how we really work on the inside. Only then we can get control over it. For instance the idea from above of telling yourself the truth, acceptance, is just the same: to make the unconscious reality, that we may haveignoredbefore, conscious. Just that we can make progress now, while before it wasnt even on our radar in was just unconscious.

In psychology this is calledthe four stages of competence:

Quote from Wikipedia:

Makes sense. And in Personal Development we are talking about this process for our whole personality.During this process we make unconscious beliefs that limit us conscious (see my articleHow to Change Self-Limiting Beliefs). We take responsibility for ourselves and stop pointing to others for results that we are responsible for. (see Take Responsibility in Your Life). This moves us back to power again, since we are the one in the driving seat. We are response-able, which enables us to dream again, set a life-vision and set some exciting new goals for our life (see The Fastest Way to Set Motivating Goals).

We learn to get more energy (see How to Increase Your Energy) and how to use it intelligently. We get more self-awareness and improve our mental focus (see How to Develop a Laser-Sharp Mental Focus). We develop a personal development plan that will guide us to where we really want to go.

There are a lot of more things to improve in our own personal growth. But with those mentioned tackled, I think we start to lay a strong the foundation for Personal Development.

So, next time someone asks me What is Personal Development? I may just give him a link to this post.

And coming back to the question, what would you have said? What is Personal Development for yourself?

The rest is here:
What is Personal Development? - Myrko Thum

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EVOLUTIONARY, SPIRITUAL CONCEPTIONS OF LIFE

SRI AUROBINDO, TEILHARD DE CHARDIN AND KEN WILBER

IN COMPARISON

Final paper for an individual

Advanced Course in Integral Philosophy,

Sri Aurobindo Darshana -

The University of Tomorrow

Online Programme

SACAR

(Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research)

Pondicherry, India

With Ananda Reddy, Ph.D.

Michael Leicht

Zurich, October 2006

Contents:

Contents 2

Theories of Evolution 4

Spiritual Evolution 7

Theories of Existence 10

Idealism and Theories of Causality 12

Ken Wilbers Integral Vision A Holarchy 15

The Pattern that Connects the Web of Life 18

The Depths of the Divine 19

Wilbers Synthesis of Stages of Moral Development. 21

To Close with Wilber Wilber and Aurobindo in Comparison 22

Kant, Aurobindo and In Between 23

Critique of Superstitious Illuminations (Continued) and Alternatives 25

The Big Picture The Evolutionary Process according to Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin 27

Sri Aurobindo - Basic Tenets 28

Some Important Differences 33

An Alternative View of Holism and Integral Thinking - Elmar Holenstein 37

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Basic Tenets 38

A Critical Assesment of Teilhard de Chardins and Sri Aurobindos Theories of Evolution 40

Literature 42

Perhaps the greatest and the most universal of the problems which have infrigued the mind of man are those which deal with his own place in the world in which he lives. The greatest, vastest, and most difficult of all cosmic problems is that of the origin and development of the world the question of creation, in a word (Reddy, 2004: 28). Central for a present-day cosmogony is the theory of evolution. The special stress of this paper lies on theories of evolution, which are spiritual, too. Like this, they distinguish themselves from standard evolutionary theories, which are materialistic and mostly mechanistic, and seen from an integral perspective reductionistic and thus have lost the spiritual candle.

But what is important, too, is that we keep some rules of thumb in mind about intercultural communication. This since our three heroes of evolution come from different cultures (East and West) and are imbedded in different religions (Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity). Most important for a modern enlightenment philosophical approach in this matter is the agnosticism rule. Of course, it sounds a little bit like a contradiction: the aim of this paper is to try to shed some light on the question of origin (and destiny) of this world. But ultimately, we think, it is best to stay with methodological agnosticism. This approach to truth, aiming for it, but knowing that man does never find absolute truth, has become the master approach in philosophy (i.e. love of wisdom - philosophy in contrast to theosophy knowledge about God). We stress this so explicitly at the beginning, since all three have not done that! Those following the Eastern approach (Aurobindo and Wilber) think that they have direct mystical revelations about ultimate truth. And Teilhard is to closed in his limited Christian framework. But I keep with them nevertheless, since they are originators of important impulses in thinking evolution spiritually. But let the mystery of this world be a mystery. If the following thoughts can stimulate thinking and show some light into the right direction, that would be already more then can be expected.

There are mysteries that remain mysteries in all cultures and across cultures, transculturally. Of course, proofs of indeterminacy or undecidability can be based on false presuppositions and thus deceive. Still, one must be prepared for the fact that a satisfactory answer to Leibnizs question (Principes de la nature et de la grce, 1714, 7/8) will not be found in any culture: Why is there something and not nothing? The same holds of Lockes question as to how it is possible that bare incognitative matter should produce a thinking intelligent being (Holenstein, 2003).

Theories of Evolution

The world evolution comes from Latin evolvere, which means to process and to develop. Evolution is based on three requirements. (1) A replicable information complex, which must be able to reproduce its-self - the medium. (2) A copy-process which does not work totally correct/ or has as aim directly a reshuffling of the merging information (e.g. heterosexuality). There is variation generated along with the duplication process. (3) There is selection. Not every new unit will have the change to reproduce its-self once more. (1) to (3) is leading to adaptation and higher development. In philosophy, the development of the universe and of consciousness through time is referred to as evolution, too.

The modern evolutionary synthesis (often referred to simply as the new synthesis, the modern synthesis, the evolutionary synthesis, neo-Darwinian synthesis or neo-Darwinism), generally denotes the integration of Charles Darwins theory of the evolution of species by natural selection (the mechanism of evolution), with Gregor Mendels theory of genetics as the basis for biological inheritance (the unit of evolution), together with random genetic mutation as the source of variation, and mathematical population genetics (Wkipedia, en/de, Evolution, Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, Evolution (philosophy)).

The theory of evolution has become the central organising principle of modern biology.

Because of its potential implications for the origins of humankind, evolutionary theory has been at the centre of many social and religious controversies since its inception. But by spiritual in connection with evolution we mean, that evolution theory does not erase the claim for life being divine. But there are some views according to which evolution theory makes a divine origin of life obsolete. Thus, first a look at these:

(1) The theory of evolution makes as such other stories about the genesis of life redundant. The most prominent example is the Genesis Story of Adam and Eve of the Abrahamitic religions. Where it was supposed that a god-power has created earth, plants, animals and men. And this story of creation was later written down, together with the incident of the Fall, in the book of Genesis of the Bible. The Bible text is assumed to be a correct account of gods work as a creator. Thus, this school of thought is called creationists.

(2) In the simplistic manner variation, based on mutation and selection, leading to adaptation is seen as completely random. Science and the modern mind seem to claim that the universe just occurs. There is nothing behind it. It is all ultimately accidental or random. It just is, it just happens oops (Reynodls, 2004: 222). There is no divine power anymore behind the evolutionary process and no teleology left. There is no fitness for a purpose anymore.

(3) Only mechanistical selection is left. This is the standard modern, secular so called scientific theory of evolution.

(4) The believe in god is an illusion. This because the promise of eternal bliss can be seen as being only an evolutionary advantage for a thoughtful, doubting man. This is the advanced atheistic evolutionary theory with two subtypes the cultural and the genetic one.

We want to go into more detail in the following concerning proposition (3). The first question in this evolutionary theory about god is, whether the concept of god is only a cultural product? In that case proposition (3) is the result of cultural evolution. Or if proposition (3) is based on some spiritual experiences, which have their basis in the genes. Thus the theory would be at the same time cultural and genetic.

This theory is based on the assumption that man is able to conceive god. For that, he must have first of all the cognitive capacities to think about god. In the following we will assume that this capacty is not only based on some general cognitive capacities of the brain. We assume rather that there could be even some genes responsible for our possibility to think about god. Genes function in making possible certain states of consciousness, which build the basis for spiritual experiences. In this extended theory spirituality would not only be something you learn from your cultural environment. No, it is assumed that there are some god genes which build the basis for spirituality. We will follow this assumption, because spirituality means that you can get some higher, mystical experiences, which are quiet different from everyday experiences. But by saying this, we dont mean the great mystical experiences of the Eastern Hindu or Buddhist traditions, which lead you far beyond what a conventional brain normally can conceive. Also by claiming a spiritual approach, we will never forget, that all states of the brain have their neuronal correlative. Thus, no Buddha-enlightenment or for our paper important: no Aurobindo-enlightenment is possible.

Important for this approach of god genes is the distinction of spirituality from religiosity. Religiosity is related with certain imaginations (images of god, dogmas, histories of salvation, etc.) and practices (prayers and rituals). Religiosity is something, which is conveyed culturally in all its richness. Spirituality on the other hand, is something, which has to do with feeling related to the bigger whole. Spirituality has a b genetic component. However religious spirituality can be enhanced, like moral virtues, through practice. We can rise in faith - to believe, to love and to hope. We have most likely a genetic predisposition for spiritual faith. This faith is formed through individual experiences and cultural environment. The genes act in influencing the different states of consciousness, which build the basis for spiritual experiences. It is important to distinguish the question Why do we believe in god? from the question Is there a god at all?. How thoughts and emotions are generated in the brain is something science can research. But science can not tell whether these convictions are true or not? Spirituality is ultimately a question of believe, not of genetics! (Gehirn und Geist, 2005:?).

The advanced atheistic evolutionary theory is something, which is at the moment hotly debated in Western academic circles. Most prominent are people like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. I dont want to go into too much detail here. Just one more elaborated sociobiological theory might be quoted here. It is the one of Richard Dawkins from his famous book The Selfish Gene (Lw, 1998: 129/130). How did the concept of God develop? Once the idea of a higher or highest being appeared to early man. This being can have totally different attributes, since it is a random product. [But dont forget the innate moral sense, like Dawkins is doing in the following!] God can be benevolent or cruel, omniscient or cheatable, mild or envious, etc. In the struggle for existence there is a premium for certain attributes of god. There will be more brave men, defending their families and villages, if faith is promising the brave warrior, with the sword in his breast, an eternal heaven. On the other hand there will be more cowardliness if there is the prospect of a cruel god of the dead. This is the reason why step by step, from battle to battle, the believe in eternity and rewarding and punishing gods is gaining, leading ultimately to Christianity. (Sorry, I dont know Hinduism not good enough to develop this pattern at the example of it, too. But it reminds me to the famous battle in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna is instructing Arjuna. And it doesnt surprise me that the message to battle, too, is kept in Hindu religion. Even though Gandhi sees in the Gita a spiritual battle; see below.) Dawkings conclusion is: earlier it was said that God has created man, later it was said man has created god. But in sociobiological thinking the truth is that none has created anything. It is just left over something.

Spiritual Evolution

Next we will try a fresh look and think about philosophical theories of spiritual evolution. Trying to leave the camp of materialistic reductionism and nihilism. Evolution is not a mechanical movement without any purpose. It is a movement towards a goal. If evolution means merely the adaptation of the organism to a rigid physical universe, then there can be no talk of any moral or social evolution. (Reddy, 2004: 153/154). When science can not explain the how of the evolutionary process, it calls all growth and evolution of new forms accidental. And when spirituality explains the why, it calls all evolution as conscious evolution. It is the involved spirit that makes sense to the evolutionary process. And it is spirit which makes evolution meaningful and not accidental (Reddy, 2006a). The realm of consciousness in the long run necessarily becomes manifest in the material world, indeed creates the material world in its own image. Consciousness is cause and not effect, and can develop autonomously from the material world. (Fukuyama, 1989: 6).

Our starting point will be the assumption of a spiritual sense. This in analogy to the famous moral sense of the Scottish Enlightenment; or following Ananda Reddys (2006a) description: It is the innate sense of the Infinite that is in mans soul that is behind all religious seekings for the higher and the beyond. [The] emergence of the Divine in the creature must be that high-uplifted goal and that supreme significance. (Aurobindo, 1920/1990: 280). The presence of god-genes and a spiritual sense should be seen first of all as a positive sign and not as a deceptive illusion. And these god-genes can be seen as being responsible for our predisposition of spirituality. But we can increase this spirituality, too, through training (like muscles). A spiritual sense might be understood as a hint that the normally so quiet nature is talking to us. A spiritual sense has developed most likely during the process of evolution to get a better understanding of the world we live in, like sight helps us to orient in our environment. An indication for the spiritual-sense-theory is the essential identity of all great religions. A famous topic of Ramakrishna. Man could most likely never experience something as senseless if he had not the certainty that life is not meaningless. Thus unto you, you have created us. And impatience is our heart, until it will find calmness in you. Augustine, Confessions, first page (my translation from a German edition, 1989: 33).

Having ruled out the reductionist camp of evolution theories, we will now look at more spiritual ones. A very prominent try is Alfred Whitehead. He sees reality not as mechanistic. Biology means more becoming, the principle of creativity.

His goal is a rationalisation of mystics. That does not mean to explain away, rather to introduce new linguistic characterisations, which are rationally ordered (Hffe, 2001: 289). Who knows how new is emerging, gets a feeling for the surprise of becoming out of nothing. The evolutionary process gets a deep-dimension. The emergence of new is the creative trace of god. It is less about why new is developing the explained way. It is more about the weight of the emergence of new. It opens up a room for believe in, that the natural process of creation of new gives hope for a transient human being (Weder, 2006: 31).

But the only stress on creativity leaves me dissatisfied. And rationalised mystics is missing the emotional part, which is so important for the spiritual-sense-theory. I think there is much left to learn from the heroes of spiritual evolution, i.e. Sri Aurobindo, Teilhard de Chardin and Ken Wilber. Each of them is complementing the others. Aurobindo writes from a Hindu perspective with an all-consciousness Brahman at the base. For Ken Wilber the Buddhist emptiness is at the core. And Teilhard writes from a Christian perspective, with the stress on the Jesus figure. But to get the best of all, I am convinced, it is necessary to reinterpret them all. Taking just one of them literally, leads astray. Aurobindo and Wilber have unbelievable mystic visions. And Teilhard has a quirk with Jesus. I know, there is no possibility in this realm to get secure knowledge. The best we can get, is good speculative philosophy. And for this reason they are all good inspirational material! So lets start with the deconstucting and reconstructing.

Spiritual evolution is the idea that nature and human beings and/or human culture evolve along patterns or ascend in accordance with certain potentials, pre-determined or not. Theories of spiritual evolution are very diverse. They can be holistic, holding that higher realities emerge from and are not reducible to the lower, idealist, holding that reality is primarily mental or spiritual, or nondual, holding that there is no ultimate distinction between mental and physical reality. All of them can be considered to be teleological to a greater or lesser degree. Just not to forget, we will at this place remind to the simple fact that spiritualisation is also a material process. More wealth allows for more education and for more creative liberties.

With spiritual evolution goes often the idea of progression and development of the individual along, either after death or through successive reincarnations. Often ideas of a cyclical cosmos go along with spiritual evolution. There is the concept of progressive deterioration of the universe, sometimes also of the Fall.

But which might be balanced by a corresponding ascent to more spiritual stages and a return to paradisical conditions. Common is also the concept of emanation. Creation proceeds as an outpouring or even a transformation in the original Absolute or Godhead. Then higher levels of Enlightenment or God-realisation lead to a progressive evolution towards Godhead. The common theme is the evolution or the transcendence of the human or collective planetary consciousness in a higher state. In New Age it is a New Heaven and a new Earth and a divinisation of man. Humanity is on the verge of undergoing a change in consciousness (Wikipedia, Spiritual evolution, 3.6.06).

Theories of Existence

According to Aurobindo there are three types of theories of existence: (1) the supracosmic, (2) the supraterrestrial, and (3) the cosmic-terrestrial theory. (I have change the order and switched the content of the two theories: the cosmic-terrestrial theory with the supraterrestrial theory. So I will present you at place (2) the supraterrestrial theory instead of the cosmic-terrestrial theory. But on the level of content I present you the description for the cosmic-terrestrial theory instead of the supraterrestrial theory. You will better understand the reasons for this, when you are going to read the explanations in more details.)

(1) The supracosmic theory of existence: The reality is beyond our universe, whether it is real or illusory. The Western philosophers term it the Absolute, the Ultimate, beyond which you cannot conceive anything, which you cannot describe, either, much less grasp it. This reality is beyond the universe. All else is not real. We are not related to the supracosmic. One striking result of this movement of conviction of things here of unreality and the assertion of the sole reality beyond, was the doctrine of Buddhism, leading to self-extinction. As you know, Buddha came to say that there is no creator, there is no beginning. Each individual is a product of a movement which starts with desire. One desire leads to another. And this continuity of desire leads to an illusion of permanence. Cut out the root of desire, the movement comes to a stop and on day you find things extinguished. In this whole operation the individual loses his significance. This is the supracosmic theory.

(2) The supraterrestrial theory of existence: Oposed to the supracosmic theory is the supraterrestrial theory. It is about earth-based creation. The supraterrestrial theory holds that the reality is here. All else is imagination, speculation, to find a way of escape from the challenges and the problems of life. The ideal is in making most of life.

And in-between between the theory that the reality is elsewhere and the opposite theory that the reality is here is the cosmic-terrestrial theory.

(3) The cosmic-terrestrial theory of existence: To start with, this material cosmic creation is true, but there are other worlds, more permanent and eternal in their duration and it is they that form the link between the reality above and the reality here. There is also the claim of immortality of the soul. Death is not the end. Man dies, but he does not cease to exist. He lives in other worlds. His soul continues its life on other planes. And the true home of man is beyond. This world is a preparatory stage, the destination is there.

Earth-life is meant to qualify yourself for a berth in heaven. From this point of view, the earth-life is an episode. Some philosophers say it is a deviation. A soul comes to birth here because it has deviated from the law (cf. e.g. eating the forbidden fruit in Christianity). Another view is that this whole creation is a Lila of Divine Being. It is a sport of God. Whether he likes the sufferings, pains and the groans of his creatures is another matter.

All of us have origin in the supracosmic reality - the Brahman. But we are also part of the cosmic and the terrestrial. The journey of life is not concluded in one birth. Earth cannot be perfect unless the heavenly dimension is added to it. But also Heaven itself is not perfect without the earth. There is a constant interaction from both ends, from there to here and from here to there. Sachchidananda (Existence, Consciousness and Bliss) is the highest formulation of the Absolute when it moves into manifestation. And also all the self-revelation: we come to know because something reveals itself. In our egoism we pride ourselves on our intellect, but we can know, we can see, we can feel only that which reveals itself (Pandit, 2000: 16-28)

Idealism and Theories of Causality

Spiritual development includes the aim to achieve a closer connection to God and remove illusions or false ideas at the sensory, feeling and thinking aspect of a person. The Plato cave analogy (book VII of The Republic) is one of the best examples of what spiritual development can entail. It is the story about men who first see only the shadows of things, but which manage - with difficulties - to turn around and to see things as they are in sunlight. Other conceptualisations see spirituality as a two-stroke process: the upward-stroke is inner growth in the physical reality around oneself as a result of the inward change and the downward stroke that is manifesting improvements, changing oneself as one changes his relationship with the external universe. One reason for such change might be the realisation that all is oneself (Wikipedia, Spirituality).

Hindu idealism is a precursor of western idealism and the philosophical opposite of materialism. To remember, by German idealism we understand the philosophies of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer. Hindu idealism is the basis of most religions of India and the far east. The debate about the true nature of the world typically boils down to materialism or idealism? Idealism espouses the view that consciousness, which at its root emanates from god, is the essence or meaning of the phenomenal reality. Idealism is superior to materialism in explaining the creation because whereas the mind is able to judge matter, matter is unable to judge the mind (Wikipedia, Hindu idealism). In Sri Aurobindos philosophy, and in the approach of all spiritual philosophies of the evolution of conscious life, it is the consciousness that is prior and the form comes later. That is where we differ from the western philosophy of evolution and also of existentialism (Lxistence prcde essence, Existence is preceding essence., Sartre). To put it simply, the coat is cut according to the wearer, the wearer is not cut according to the coat (Pandit, 2000:49). Materialism treats consciousness as a by-product of material existence, which has no purpose other than what we imbue the life with. For materialists, there is no continuum of existence or conscious experience beyond this life, and certainly no god. Morality becomes a matter of subjective reasoning.

Idealism sees on the other hand that the existence has a purpose that transcends any particular life. Even if each expressed living entity holds itself to be unique, it is an expression of an immortal soul on an evolutionary journey towards the God-consciousness. The driving force of evolution is the desire for love and the pain of separation from Gods love.

The most evolved form of consciousness on this planet, is a reflection of the God-consciousness. (So there is some support for the Christian believe, that man is built according to the image of god). The more developed the soul, the more clearly reflected the consciousness. For this reason, the moral judgement and wisdom of actions for any person will depend on their spiritual development, their god-realisation. Through spiritual practices and righteous conduct, the development of the reflected consciousness is believed to be accelerated towards unity with the infinite love of the God-consciousness. In Hindu idealism, as in most religious thought, the attunement to the divine is seen to reconnect the moral judgement with a higher law. (Wikipedia, Hindu idealism).

Theories of causality are so important, since they are junctions in the creation of new. Decisive for Aurobindos theory is ancient Indian theory of Samkhya pre-existent effect theory (Sat Karya-vada). (For Aurobindo is the spirit unfolding in evolution). It states that everything that emerges must pre-exist in the cause. Lw (1998: 137) terms this type of causality reductionist since the new can be totally infered from the old. This is akin to the Aristotelian theory of causation that advocates actualisation of potentiality, which is built on an internal perfecting principle. That which realises or makes actual what is otherwise merely potential. A form-giving cause is a specific forming immaterial entity e.g. entelchy, lan vital, super mind, etc. And a final, but very important aspect of Samkhys theory of pre-existing cause is, that nothing can really be created from or destroyed into nothingness. All evolution is simply the transformation of primal nature form one form to another (Reddy, 2006b, Wikipedia, Samkhya). The other extreme is, that ultimately there is nothing inherent. There is only emptiness. This is the Buddhist version. We want to clarify this statement at the following example of a seedling. The seedling has grown out of a seed. We can realise that the seedling can not be grown out of causes which are like it (problem of change of being). Neither can it be grown out of causes which are inherently different from it (problem of change of becoming). Nor can it have been caused by causes which are both, or which are none without causes. Something non-existent can not be cause. And something that can exist inherently out of its own powers does not need to be generated by causes. If you analyse things like this, you understand the reason why becoming can not be understood (Dalai Lama, 1992). This is the Buddhist problem of emptiness of becoming. Humes critique is something in between. It can be seen as another reason why we have wrong conceptions of reality.

The causal succession of two things is only appearing to us, as if there would be something causally reacting. But in reality we are not able to say if there is a necessary cause-effect relation between two things? Causality can also be seen as being only a habit. Finally, there is the possibility that in each case of causality there is new creation a b form of theism (Lw, 1998: 142). This type of causality would be involved in emergent development. But to sum up we will point at a (partial) reversal of causality: teleology. Teleology is about why things develop towards the realisation of ends internal to their own nature. Where as causality is a push-factor, teleology is a pull-factor. And somehow they complement each other, too.

Ken Wilbers Integral Vision A Holarchy

Wilber alludes that there is something else going on behind the happenstance drama. It is a deeper or higher or wider pattern or order or intelligence, at least the possibility of a deeper order. What becomes a pradox in Wilbers work, is his ultimate Buddhist stance of Emptiness. What more does he tell than the modern atheist project? Atheism normally goes along with agnosticism. Modern reductionism, Wilber maintains, has not only lost the Light and the Height; but more frightening, we have lost the Mystery and the Deep, the Emptiness and the Abyss.

Wilbers goal is an overall, new integral vision, a new synthesis of these various holarchies the sciences, value judgements, and the great wisdom traditions (cf. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, 1995). Therefor he is first distinguishing all three Great Realms of evolution: the physioshere (matter, material, physical, cosmic); the bioshpere (life, biologcial, biosocial); and the noosphere (mind, psychological, historical, sociocultural). These nested domains are seen as one continuous and interrelated manifestation of Spirit, one Great Chain of Being, that reaches from matter to life to mind to soul to spirit.

Wilber suggests that in order to get rid of the problem of hierarchy we should use instead Koestlers more holistic term holarchy (rooted in the ancient Greek word holos or wholeness; But we should also not forget Leibnizs Monade which has many similarities with a holon). In fact, hierarchy and wholeness are two names for the same thing, and if you destroy one, you destroy the other. In other words, holarchy actually reflects a natural hierarchy. A heterarchy, on the other hand, is the horizontal arrangement of holons existing within a given level of any hierarchical pattern. In brief: within each level, heterarchy; between each level, hierarchy. So far Wilber. But it looks to me as if holarchy would better go together with hetearchy. Hetearchy is about mutual dependence. There are no higher levels without the lower ones. And lower level can give birth to higher levels!

A holarchy itself is composed of holons (another Koesterian term) meaning whole/parts, which Wilber uses to mean that which, being a whole in one context, is simultaneously a part in another. But he is stressing that holons are something different from things or processes. The whole, in other words, is more than the sum of its parts. An important point Wilber always emphasizes is the fact that these hierarchical networks necessarily unfold in a sequential or stage-like fashion. In other words, growth occurs in stages, and stages, of course, are ranked in both a logical and chronological order.

The more holistic pattern appear later in development, because they have to await the emergence of the parts that they will then integrate or unify. The value of the concept of higher is that it adds something extra relative to the previous (and less encompassing) stage. Indeed, the only way to get to holism is via a holarchy (Reynolds, 2004: 223-225, 227). One important limitation of Wilbers conception of holon is his neglect of the process-character of the world. He only stipulates a development towards the higher. Aurobindo, in contrast, gives with his involution-evolution-approach a much more dynamic picture. And the spiritual part behind evolution is in Aurobindos conception much ber present. Comparable with this long-term dynamic approach is only Teilhard de Chardins conception. But more on that later.

Wilber argues that the within of things, the interiority of individual holons, is in essence the same as consciousness. The without of things is form. The within of things is depth, the without is surface. But all surfaces are surfaces of depth, which means, all forms are forms of consciousness. The greater the depth of evolution, the greater the degree of consciousness. Importantly, he notes that it really doesnt matter how far down you wish to push consciousness, since the lowest or most primitive holons have the least depth, the least consciousness, yet, (in agreement with Whi) even they posses a form of prehension. Having made the distinction between interiority and exteriority, he points out that interior holons have nothing to do with size or spatial extension, but instead each new and emergent interior holon transcends but includes, and thus operates upon, the information presented by its junior holons, and thus it fashions something novel in the ongoing cognitive or interior stream. Wilber is expressing, in other words, Teilhard de Chardins law of complexity and consciousness, which in essence means Depth = Consciousness or, again, greater depth, greater interiority, greater consciousness (Reynolds, 2004: 235). But the same is true for the vedantic approach of Aurobindo. He does not only emphasises that all reality is consciousness, but he goes further and says that the measure of reality of anything is determined by the nature of consciousness that is revealed in it. The higher the position of anything on the scale of reality, the deeper and more unified is the consciousness that is revealed in it (Reddy, 2004: 146/147).

Wilber has developed the four quadrant approach to define the inside and the outside of a holon, in both its individual and collectively forms. The upper left quadrant covers the inner-individual aspect of human consciousness, as studied by developmental psychology, in both its conventional and contemplative forms. The upper right quadrant covers the outer-individual aspects of human consciousness, as studied by neurology and cognitive science. The lower left quadrant covers the inner-collective aspects of human consciousness, as studied by the sciences of culture: cultural psychology and anthropology.

The lower right quadrant covers the outer-collective aspects of human consciousness, as studied by sociology. One way to make sense of the four quadrants model is to see the upper left quadrant as primary, and the other three quadrants as the various ways individual human consciousness is conditioned, by the material brain, cultural influences and social structures. A more radical view is to see the four quadrants as the four ways in which universal spirit is expressed simultaneously. All of the quadrants mutually interact with each other. A given stage of individual development (e.g. abstract mind) will be reflected in a stage o neurological development (e.g. the neocortex), a stage of cultural development (e.g. rationalisation) and a stage of societal development (e.g. industrialisation). Each quadrant consists of nine levels/stages. Combining quadrants with levels gives the all quadrants, all levels approach of Wilbers Integral philosophy (Integralworld, Core Concepts: The Four Quadrants).

The Pattern that Connects the Web of Life

1. Reality as a whole is not composed of things or processes, but of holons (wholes that are part of other wholes).

2. Holons display four fundamental capacities:

a) self-preservation (or agency);

b) self-adaptation (or communion);

c) self-transcendence or self-transformation (or Eros);

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Evolutionary Leaders: In Service to Conscious Evolution