Wars on Earth are initiated in Heaven

About a month back, one of my Kabbalah teachers stated that wars on earth are initiated in Heaven, (as opposed to in the psychological or physical universes ; see my blog posts 'The Four Universes' and 'A Spiritual Cosmology'.)

I have taken a little while to think about this. My teacher was referring, among other things, to the role of Providence, something I’ve already touched on in this blog (see 'Vegetable, Animal and Human People'.) Wars ‘stir up’ ‘vegetable’ people, affording them opportunities to become’ animal’ or ‘human’ people. They move populations around, face them with new situations, speed up the introduction of new technology, and test the mettle of all those involved. Like natural disasters, they provide opportunities for acts of courage and love, and not just towards our family or our comrades, but towards our enemies as well.

And of course, wars are responsible for terrible suffering and loss.

How I long sometimes for the God of my childhood, for ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ (his smashing things up in the Temple in anger was swiftly glossed over). God did not start wars, humans did, in strict disobedience of Him. God was Love.

Of course ‘he’ is, and a whole lot more.

Even as a child I knew that there was something awry with the view of God that my Sunday School teachers were giving me. So a lot of evil might be down to humans using their free will, but what about the natural world? Did it become red in tooth and claw because Eve ate the apple and, if so, wasn’t that a bit ‘unfair’ on animals? Furthermore, if God cared so much, why didn’t He intervene more to stop really terrible things? But it didn’t matter because, when we died, we would all go to heaven and live in bliss and splendour for ever and ever, so that was all right then.

It was via James Hillman’s writings, such as his book ‘The Soul’s Code’ that I first became aware of just how ruthless the soul can be in pursuit of its Divine purpose, and what it can put its various earthly incarnations through in the process. When I came to study Kabbalah I learned that existence in its fullness is manifested between the two opposing poles of mercy AND severity (force and form, see my blog post 'A Spiritual Cosmology') The aim of the kabbalist is to help to keep these two poles balanced, to proceed in consciousness back up through the universes, using a path centred between the two poles, to reunite again at one with the Divine, bringing with us all our experiences of those realms. And while we make our journey upwards, we act to ‘bring down’ the freedom and glory and Divinity of the upper universes to this material one.

Each incarnation is an adventure. Don’t get too attached to it, or anything in it because, like a dream, it will all dissolve. Throughout this life, and many others, you’ll win some, you’ll lose some. It is all simply a process which you can use to become more and more fully human, wiser, more loving, more aware of who you really are. Like childbirth, it’s going to hurt and, yes, you’ll voluntarily go through the whole thing again.

Betwixt and Between

In my last but one post, ‘Mr. James’ Best Friend’, I commented on the convoluted lengths that materialists, i.e. those who believe in physical existence only , are prepared to go to in order to ‘explain away’ certain phenomena.

This leads me onto another personal gripe. I sometimes get very frustrated with the media for acting as if there are only two camps to choose from e.g. science OR religion; evolution OR creationism etc. etc. Furthermore there is often an assumption that if you ‘believe’ in evolution, you don’t believe in anything but scientific materialism.

Like many people, I think the evidence for the evolution of species is overwhelming. I do however have some questions around the mechanisms by which evolution happens, or the circumstances in which evolution of particular types takes place, (which are all to do with ‘What came first, the chicken or the egg?’ type questions.) For scientists like Richard Dawkins, who wrote ‘The God Delusion’, I am committing the heresy of wondering if the laws of nature are as fixed, and if the universe and evolution are as accidental or as mechanistic as he claims. Of course, if you’ve read my other posts you will know that I don’t think they are. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in evolution.

And I also ‘believe in’ the first chapter of Genesis, but as ‘mythos’ not ‘logos’. Nowadays if we refer to something as a ‘myth’ we are usually saying that it isn’t true, but in fact myths are designed to represent truths which are too deep for individual words, via images and stories. Music can do the same, especially when it comes to demonstrating and representing emotions that are hard to put into words.

As a student of Kabbalah, I take the ‘seven days of creation’ story to represent the creation of the spiritual universe out of the Divine. There is a second creation story in Genesis chapter 2 (starting about half way through verse 4 - the New Jerusalem Bible sets this out very clearly) which represents the creation of the psychological universe (the universe of mind) out of the spiritual. Finally the physical universe comes about in Chapter 3 v.21 when Adam and Eve leave Eden (yet another name for the universe of mind), putting on suits of skin;-  I wrote about this process of universes emerging from one another in ‘A Spiritual Cosmology'.

Only a few hundred years ago, many religious people would have been amazed to learn that vast swathes of Christians in the future would be interpreting Genesis literally, and believe the world was created in 7 days. For a start they would point out that there are, in fact, two creation stories in Genesis, as I have pointed out above. I sometimes wonder if this is why a lot of learned people thought that it would be dangerous to translate the bible into everyday languages that everybody would be able to read for themselves….and start to take literally!

But basically it comes down to the big question which is completely outside of science’s remit (though try telling that to Dawkins or even Stephen Hawking) why is there something, rather than nothing?

Oh,- one last thing... I do tend to grind my teeth when scientists (Freud and Hawking included) announce, as if they know, that there is no life after death, but that some of us are too weak, too afraid of dying to face up to that. I think the possibility that there IS something after death also takes real courage to face.

Which Tribe is Yours?

I’ve written before about three different kinds of people – vegetable, animal, and human, - see 'Vegetable, Animal and Human People' and 'Are you Potentially Human?'

All three are present in most cultures (or collective value systems,) that is, you’ll find examples of vegetable, animal, and human people wherever you are or whenever you are.

There are however some interesting theories about how cultures evolve. It would appear that, over time, if a culture is going to change, it will do so in a certain and predictable way.

The idea of cultures evolving is heavily influenced by the work of Clare Graves, and his successors, such as Don Beck and Chris Cowan(Cowan and Todorovic 2005, Beck and Cowan 1996). Now better known as ‘Spiral Dynamics’, these theories are concerned with the innate values of any collective, and how they develop.  Applying Graves and similar theories, Wilber (2001) suggests the following stages  of development, or evolution:

• Cultures, as we understand them, begin as survivalistic, and are preoccupied all day everyday with the practicalities of staying alive. If these evolve, they will evolve into
• Cultures which have developed magical thinking. These cultures are animistic, and very concerned with ‘kin spirits’. Such cultures ‘have a name for every bend in the river, but not for the river itself’. These tribal cultures develop in turn into  
•  Exploitative power seeking cultures, sometimes known as warrior cultures, as represented in the Iliad and the Odyssey, (but also represented today in street gangs, and several City organisations) in which strength takes priority over justice. These eventually become
•  Law ruled cultures, usually referred to as ‘traditional’, or ‘people of the book’ (the Torah, the Ten Commandments, the Koran for example). In organisations these tend to be bureaucracies which emphasise formal procedures. In turn, these evolve into
• Materialistic and rational cultures, usually referred to as ‘modern’, and ‘achievement orientated’. Empirical science takes pride of place, and there is talk of ‘conquering nature’. These evolve into
• Pluralistic cultures, which are often referred to as ‘postmodern’ and relativistic. Nature is cared for, rather than there to be ‘conquered’. All people are equal and all values are relative.
• Flex-flow cultures, the first stage at which a society or community can appreciate all the stages that it has been through, and what it has gained from each of them, rather than denigrating them as ‘inferior’. This level or stage, and the stages above which will not be referred to here (as being beyond most collectives’ experience at the moment,) are also often referred to as ‘Integral’ or post-post-modern.

Each stage is necessary to the stages that follow, and none can ever be ‘skipped’. A society or community successfully moving from traditional to modern will not abandon the rule of law, but will subject that law to rational analysis before legitimising it.  All stages, even the highest we know of at present, have their weaknesses, dangers and paradoxes, the resolution of which is what usually forces a culture or community on to the next stage (Beck and Cowan 1996, McIntosh 2007).

Research undertaken independently to the work of Graves, Beck or Cowan, and apparently with no knowledge of it, by Ray (Ray and Anderson2000) identified three cultural sub groups within the USA, which Ray called the Traditionals, the Moderns and the Cultural Creatives, with the latter being the last to emerge to a significant degree (in the 1970s.) These three groups correspond with Spiral Dynamics’ traditional, modern and postmodern/pluralist stages.

As I mentioned earlier, vegetable, animal and human people exist at all stages, though a number of human people have come to a sticky end in tribal, warrior and traditional cultures; think crucifixion, shot to death, burned alive etc.

How lucky are those of us who live now and in liberal, democratic regimes??

So, having established if you’re a vegetable, animal or human person, which of these cultures would you most feel at home in? And what culture, overall, do you think you’re actually living in?

There is a really good application of these stages by Paul Smith to religion, specifically the organised Christian Church on the Integral Life site here. I think you could easily apply the same sort of analysis to any organised religion.

Your opinions and thoughts, as always, would be welcome.

Mr James' Best Friend

In the Sunday Times Culture Section a couple of weeks back, there was a review of Oliver Sacks’ latest   book “Hallucinations”. Oliver Sacks is the physician and neurologist who famously wrote “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat”.

The reviewer, James McConnachie, summarises the various categories of hallucinations to which Sacks refers, as well as the possible causes. Throughout the book Sacks stresses that the “phantoms are born in our brains” and refers to sensory deprivation, drugs, migraines and stimulation of different parts of the brain as being among the causes.

This is all fascinating and I would personally go out and buy the book, except it would be a bit like buying a book on how a car engine works when one is much more interested in who made the car, who drives the car, and how and why.  What does it mean that there are cars with engines that function the way they do?

According to the review, one of Sacks’ blind patients ‘sees’ “children in bright eastern costumes, walking endlessly up and down stairs. Fascinatingly, her eyes dart here and there, as if she is watching a real event; people who merely imagine visual scenes do not do this.” “One migraineur described seeing writing on a wall that was too far away to read; yet on walking up to the wall he was able to read the text aloud.”

I have absolutely no doubt that one can bring about the sense of a “shadow-person” by electrically stimulating the left temporoparietal junction in the brain as Sacks reports but, as the reviewer notes at the end of his article, it does not consider whether all these ‘causes’ are “simply creating conditions in which we are able to see beyond our accustomed reality.” 

In other words, much as opening our eyes enables us to see, stimulating certain brain junctions enables us to sense presences that we cannot when they are  unstimulated.

I think it would be unfair to hold this against Mr. Sacks. He is only interested in the mechanics of hallucinations. The consideration of why our senses are ordinarily restricted, and what it is exactly that we perceive when some of those restrictions are lifted, is rather a different book.

And maybe some people are born with irregularities in their brains that enable them to see and hear things (and/or smell, taste and feel them)which most of us can't. 

The great early psychologist, William James, made a pact with his best friend that the first of them to die would come back and tell the other about the afterlife. The best friend died first, and James waited in vain for a visit. Are we to conclude from this that the afterlife does not exist?  

Personally, I conclude nothing of the sort but, in my imagination, I envisage James’ best friend, disembodied, jumping up and down in front of him and desperately trying to let James know he was there. But for 

"those who have eyes to see, let them see.” Because not everybody has the ‘equipment’ working to see such things (and think how distracting it would be if we all could) it does not mean such things do not exist.

(For those who have not read my earlier posts about how the mind brings about the brain, rather than the other way around, see my post ‘A Spiritual Cosmology’ at http://seekerinthfoothills.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/i-intend-to-be-little-bolder-and.html.

For a brief account of an attempt to increase my own capacity to see things most people don't, see my post 'Psychic Phemomena' at http://seekerinthfoothills.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/psychic-phenomena.html.)

Are You Potentially Human?

In my last but one post ‘Vegetable, Animal and Human People’ I wondered aloud how one could tell which of these one is.

Since then, I think I may have found a way for finding out if I'm potentially fully human!

The psychologist Oliver Burkeman mentioned some important research in his newspaper column last week. As part of this research, people were asked to choose between the two following options.

Either:

a)      A smaller rise in income, leaving them wealthier than those around them;

Or

b)      A larger rise in income, with others receiving even more.

If answer b) to you seems obvious, and furthermore would give you considerable pleasure, even if nobody else ever finds out you’re responsible for their extra wealth, I want to be your friend!

I have previously blogged about the Higher Self in 'The Human Being'. Discussing the Higher Self’s indifference to the ego’s seeming preference, not only to have lots of things, and/or power, but for others to see it has lots of things or power, a friend remarked that within his particular community, masculinity was judged by the car you were driving; i.e. the more expensive it is, the better provider for your family you must be, and therefore the more of a man you are. There are some illogicalities in this – a man’s money might have all gone on the car, rather than on his family for example. However, a flash car seems to be one of the main things by which a man is judged. A ‘merely’ adequate car with efficient fuel use would not cut the mustard.

So, could I suggest that one way of identifying oneself as a vegetable person is by wanting to keep up with the average level of possessions in one’s community, even if that's more than one needs. One way of identifying ourselves as animal people might be that we only feel worthwhile or happy if we have something more in the way of possessions or power or fame than our peers. This not the only way of identifying ourselves as 'animal' though.

In the research to which Burkeman refers it was found that ‘many people’ (he does not say how many) would choose option a) above, rather than b). Frustratingly, he does not say whether the respondents thought their choice would be broadcast. I think I know a few animal people who would choose option b) ‘because it’s the right thing to do’ but would not be particularly happy in that choice.

Burkeman suggests that, to make our lives easier, we ‘comparison-proof’ our lives, for example, be seem to be consciously ‘opting out’. In a way I guess this is what aiming to identify with your Higher Self rather than your ego is all about. And when by meditation, contemplation, prayer and/or practising living a good life, you get to the point where you  would joyfully choose option b) over a) you and everybody around you is in a win-win situation.

OK. So I’ve a little way to go then….

'Out of the body' in a different way

In my post ‘Vegetable, Animal and Human People’ I spoke about the importance of gaining greater awareness of your soul. Today I’m contemplating how many of us (oh ok, me) need to be more aware of our bodies.

In the series of meditations I’m doing at the moment (I’m using Headspace), there is an emphasis of staying aware of the body as much as possible while awake. At the moment the meditation is requiring only that I am aware of my body whenever I go from sitting to standing, or vice-versa, or from movement to stillness. I have been trying to do this for over a week now, and haven’t succeeded even once.

A few days ago, my close friend and yoga teacher, Lorraine, advised me to check, just before I got out of bed each morning, which nostril I was breathing the most strongly through. If it were the left, then I should put my left foot on the floor first; if the right nostril, then the right foot first. She advised this would help to keep me aware of my body throughout the rest of the day as well.

I’ve not succeeded in even managing that yet either!!

I am so unaware of my body generally that, when I take my clothes off each night I always find new bruises, and have no idea how I got them. And I’ve nothing against physical exercise, except I find it so boring, unless it involves dancing, or is yoga, where you have to use your head as well. (The fibromyalgia is ruling out such exercise at the moment anyway.)

Spiritual advisers often tell us that we should pay full attention to what we are doing, including physical tasks, and I do understand why they say that. It is spiritually good practice to 'stay in the moment'. But I dislike doing any sort of housework or manual work unless there’s something absorbing on the radio, or I can follow a particularly interesting train of thought, (in which case, pen and paper have to be nearby as well.) I could not bear the tedium of such work otherwise. I know that other people manage to train themselves to get satisfaction out of feeling their muscles working while doing such tasks, or take pleasure in the finished results. I’ve somehow missed out on both.

However, we are embodied creatures, not just brains moving around with our bodies hanging beneath us, as Ken Wilber once said. I have a feeling this might be something he knows about, as a philosopher, i.e. a worker with his head. He advises all to include physical exercise in their daily spiritual practice.

I wonder if singing counts?

Vegetable, Animal and Human People

According to at least one version of the kabbalah (see Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi’s book “The Way of Kabbalah”), people can be classified as ‘vegetable’, ‘animal’, or human. (My friend Francine, on reading this, asked, ‘What about us minerals??’ Unfortunately, there’s no such classification….!)

It does seem to be a rather insulting way of labelling people, but it is worth thinking about these classifications, even while emphasising that all people are aspects of the Absolute Ground of All Being, or ‘God’ for short, and all of equal value.

The term ‘vegetable people’ is used to describe those whose main concern is with the outer world, and conforming to their ‘tribe’. They eat, grow, reproduce and die. A predictable, safe life is the main priority. After death, vegetable people tend to be re-born very quickly, often into the same society.

‘Animal people’, while also needing to eat, grow, reproduce (and die), seek more from life such as becoming rich and/or powerful and/or famous, even if there is risk involved. These people leave more of a mark, often as leaders. Nevertheless they are still slaves to their own egos, ids andsuperegos.

Human people are those who are less identified with their egos, and are further along the way to achieving their full potential as a human being. They direct their lives from a place that oversees and directs their ego, superego and the id. Furthermore, from this level of consciousness they are also in touch with their own souls. This is something I have already written about in ‘The Human Being’ and earlier, in ‘A Spiritual Cosmology and the Problem of Suffering’.

I have been contemplating for some time where I might be in this scheme. I think, like a lot of people, I might slide back and forth between ‘animal’ and ‘human’. It is only now, when I have the time and the inclination to regularly meditate, pray, and go to Kabbalah meetings, that I feel I am more than just occasionally in touch with my soul. Singing in a choir helps in this endeavour as well, though I hadn’t anticipated that before I joined one.

I have also come across the belief that Providence only works for individuals once they have achieved ‘human’ status. Until a person reaches that level they are simply subjected to ‘general Providence’.  General Providence affects people en masse. Providence as you would expect provides. It makes things possible and makes the necessary resources available, either for entire populations, or for individual people who have ‘become human’.

My own observations however suggest that Providence works for individuals who are not yet in touch with their souls in order to actually help with that process, though I suppose It has to see potential in that person. I’ve written about how I think this happened to me in my post ‘So What Now?’. My worry is, in this profoundly materialistic age, that many people just don’t see the many opportunities offered to get in touch with their souls. Especially when so many people no longer entertain the idea they have one.

I would be very interested in other people's ideas and experiences.