Education is a mess – is there an integrative way to teach?

I have updated an introduction to the SunWALK model of human-centred studies;Ā 

SunWALK: Summary of the main meanings of the components represented inĀ 
the model and its ā€˜logo-diagram-mandalaā€™ ā€“ providing a teacherā€™s process modelĀ 

Ā 

sunwalk-logo

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SunWALK: Summary of the main meanings of the components represented inĀ 

the model and its ā€˜logo-diagram-mandalaā€™ ā€“ providing a teacherā€™s process model

Give me a brief introduction:

SunWALK grew out of reflection on many years of teaching children and adults and particularly a period of five years teaching in a RC middle school ā€“ theorizing my practice via a PhD and practising my theory day-to-day.

SunWALK simply says that the quality of all of our lives will be higher if we undertake all education within the framework of deepening our humanity. Ā 

Deepening our humanity is a matter of developing technical competencies within the chief dimensions of the human spirit;Ā Caring (the Humanities), CreativityĀ (the Arts) andĀ CriticalityĀ (the Sciences & Philosophy) ā€“ all in local, national and world Communities. Ā These are the ā€˜4Csā€™ of the model ā€“ 3 intra-personal, 1 inter-personal.

We and our one planet will be better of if all of the technical stuff, from learning to read to Masters degrees in engineering, take place in the context of humanization/the 4Cs. Ā This requires international, national, school & classroom commitment to deepening the best of being human as the context for learning the technical.

We canā€™t afford to have character and morality and compassion asĀ hoped-forĀ accidentalĀ outcomes. Ā Moral Education, PSME, RE etc. donā€™t work as bolt-on extras. Ā They need to be the general context in which competencies are developed.

It is a model based on theĀ energy flowĀ of the human spirit ā€“ that is the given. That is physical, mental and spiritual energy that flows through all living human beings. Ā 

That energy, the human spirit, is the true ā€™stuff of educationā€™. Ā With the best of the past teachers need to equip children to face tomorrowā€™s challenges which will always be a mixture of new problems combined with eternally recurrent problems. Ā Building all education with will be the medium with which the teacher works to nurture and challenge balanced development.

Today we have lost the balance between specialization, and whole-systems thinking and acting ā€“ SunWALK model brings into harmony the best of ā€˜Westernā€™ & ā€˜Easternā€™ world-views.Ā 

OK ā€“ so whatā€™s the ā€˜Sunā€™ and the ā€˜WALK in the modelā€™?

The ā€˜Sunā€™ = the individualā€™s spiritual inspiration & values sources ā€“ accumulated and ongoing, as operating internally and as expressed in speech and behaviour.Ā 

WALK = Willing & Wise Action through Loving & Knowing ā€“ here seen as the general goal for education, and as the interiority, character and behaviour of the student.Ā 

The model/logo combines a range of sub-models including the following:

a) An ā€˜interiorā€™ model of the human spirit ā€“ in relation to ā€˜the worldā€™.

b) A model for re-positioning education within being & becoming human ā€“ in the world with others.

c) A general model of the curriculum ā€“ for primary, secondary and higher education.

d) A framework for the analysis and evaluation of teaching episodes or projects.

e) A model of education that makes non-faith-specific spiritual and moral education intrinsic to all learning.

Ā 

THE MODEL AND THE PROCESSĀ IN ONE (long) SENTENCE: –Ā 

The SunWALK model of spiritualizing pedagogy sees human education as theĀ 

storied

developmentĀ ofĀ 

meaning, which isĀ 

constructed, andĀ de-constructed,Ā 

physically,Ā mentallyĀ andĀ spiritually, throughĀ 

WiseĀ &Ā Willing

Action, viaĀ 

LovingĀ andĀ KnowingĀ ā€“ developed inĀ 

Community, through the

ā€˜Dialectical SpiritualizationĀ [1]ā€™ofĀ 

Caring,Ā CreativityĀ &Ā CriticalityĀ processes, all undertaken in the light of theĀ 

ā€˜Sunā€™ of chosen higher-order

valuesĀ andĀ beliefs, using best available,appropriateĀ 

content.

These underlined concerns are central components and focuses of the practice and theory in the model.Ā 

This is an intense combination of theory and practice. Ā It automatically requires the teacher to practice their theory and theorise their practice ā€“ dynamically as practice-based research. Ā It automatically enables the classroom to be connected to the school & community as a whole and to e.g. a relevant department in a university.

It attempts to suffuse all teaching with the demands, challenges and joy of being human in the world with others. Ā But it seeks to bring together the Whole and the parts, the ineffable and the concepts ā€“ not just concepts because as Heschel (1971:7) says, ā€œConcepts are delicious snacks with which we try to alleviate our amazement.ā€

The diagram/logo/

The outer ring of the SunWALK logo combines two dimensions:

1 ā€˜Community i.e. the social,interpersonal dimension of interaction with other individuals or groups.

2Ā  ā€˜Cultural sourcesā€™ including such dimensions as the traditions, the political & the legal. Ā 

The three major divisions of the arts,sciences and humanities are here thought of as the stored, yet potentially dynamic, accumulation of knowledge and beliefs and procedures ā€“ everything from galleries to written laws of physics that the individual can draw upon or be influenced by. This is the ā€˜stuff out thereā€™ rather than the interiority of consciousness in which there is the perpetual flow and re-shaping, focusing de-focusing etc. of heart-mind.

In SunWALK everything within the inner circle = a representation of ā€˜interiorityā€™, i.e. human consciousness ā€“ the human spirit.Ā 

The human spirit is presented intra-personally as 3 ā€˜voicesā€™ ā€“ 3 modes of being & of engaging with reality & of knowing.

The three emanate from the singleness of ā€˜heart-mindā€™, consciousness. Ā 

They are presented (metaphorically) as the ā€˜primary coloursā€™ ofĀ CreativityĀ (the yellow of inspiration),Ā CriticalityĀ (the blue of reason) &Ā CaringĀ (the red warmth of love).Ā 

Creativity is the ā€˜Iā€™ voice of subjective engagement via an artistic medium ā€“ it is concerned with subjective knowing and is particularly related to the core virtue ā€˜beautyā€™ and its products are of course ā€˜the Artsā€™.Ā 

Criticality is the ā€˜ITā€™ voice of objective engagement which enables progress in the Sciences ( & Maths., Philosophy and ā€˜criticalā€™ studies). It is concerned with objective knowing ā€“ and it is related particularly to the core virtue ā€˜truthā€™. Ā The products of course are the sciences and technology Ā – but also philosophy and critical studies.

Caring is the ā€˜WEā€™ voice which enables moral engagement ā€“ for progress in the moral domain and in service of others. It is concerned with social knowing ā€“ related particularly to the core virtue ā€˜goodnessā€™ and to ā€˜the Humanitiesā€™.Ā 

All three of course need to be conditioned by the pre-eminent virtue of justice. Ā All students need to have these ways of engaging with reality developed in a balanced way. Ā High technical competence combined with moral dwarfism leads to ā€¦ā€¦

The physical dimension is seen as the instrument for the flow of spirit in all of its forms ā€“ e.g. via dance, drama & PE and sports.

Each individual develops her/his I, WE and IT voices, the 3Cs, via socialization, starting in the family, the local community and then later in formal education. A sense of justice is seen as paramount intrapersonally as well as inter-personally i.e. it enables us to engage with that which is beautiful, good or true with balance, clarity & due weight.

The essential process in all 4Cs is multi-level dialogue. In the case of the individual dialogue is seen as meditation, reflection and inner-talk. In the case of groups it is dialectical process via consultation.

The ā€˜Celticā€™ knot that surrounds the central shield indicates that the 3Cs are simply aspects of the one human spiritā€“ the flow of ā€˜heart-mindā€™.

The white shield at the centre represents the meditative state in which there is no ā€˜focusedā€™ engagement via one of the 3Cs ā€“ and in which there is relatively little of the interference or chatter that we experience in the unquiet mind.Ā 

This can enable us to ā€˜go beyond ourselvesā€™, i.e. transcend our normal knowing ā€“ any of the 3Cs (I, WE or IT modes), as gateways, can be a pathway to the transcendent and to subsequent improved insight into reality.

The black dot at the centre is the ā€˜well-springā€™ of consciousness. For artists (and great scientists) it is the Muse. For religionists it is the voice of God within (albeit distorted by the dust of self). For non-religionists it is the inner source of spirit as energy & inspiration ā€“ the bits of realization and insight that come to us for which we donā€™t make an effort.

Educating the human spirit is seen as nurturing, and cultivating, the life-force which culminates in the developed human who, through higher-order consciousness, realizes abilities from within Caring, Creative or Critical engagements.Ā 

Teaching is seen as nurturing and cultivating what is normally present, almost from birth, & certainly by the time we go to school ā€“ namely the flow of spirit expressed in nascent forms of Caring, Creativity, and Criticality ā€“ in Community with others. Holistic Learning takes place when the learner uses Creativity, Criticality and Caring ā€“ in Community ā€“ inspired by higher-order values ā€“ in dynamic combinations such as Creativity providing texts for criticality ā€“ which then, via dialogue, produce/attract the spirit for more creativity.

In SunWALK spirituality is not a dimension; it is the model as a whole. In SunWALK moral education is not a dimension ā€“ it is intrinsic to all of its praxis.Ā 

The SunWALK logo can also be seen as a mandala, or even as a plan drawing for a fountain or an ā€˜arts centre of lightā€™! Ā 

SunWALK is a major shift to a process view of the world, of being human and of educating our young people. It rejects a worldview that is limited to the mechanistic, the ā€˜human-as-computer, the fragmentary and the materialistic; seeking instead modelling that is based on flow/process, holism and the spiritual. Ā Ā 

SunWALK is designed to enable teachers and students to become agents of change to transform a world that is still operated as atomistic, mechanistic and materialistic into one that is holistic, dialogic, and derived from the best processes and products of the human spirit.

The SunWALK logo and model of education Copyright Roger Prentice 1995 & 2009

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Ā 

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SEE ALSO these allied blogs –

Ā Human-centred coursesĀ ā€“

Ā Dictionary of Concepts

Home is HERE i.e. my ‘meta-blog’Ā -The Ā“1000 ways ā€¦of Celebrating the human spirit

Ā 

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Ā 

A slide version of the SunWALK holistic education model – on what it is to be fully and positively human

A slide version of the SunWALK holistic education model – on Ā what it is to be fully and positively human:

Ā 

HERE

Ā 

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Set your goals to motivate your success – through ‘singing’ your ‘uni-verse’

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In my work as a life-coach I lead people to develop and focus their life-force so that they can get from where they are at, to where they want to be.

Getting in tune with your self and your life’s purpose is central to such achievement and success.

Getting in tune with you self and your life’s purpose is a matter of harmonization ā€“ of vision, goals, plans and actionĀ  and of head, heart and circumstances.

To ‘sing one’s song’ is a metaphor for finding and staying tuned with your life’s purpose.

Harmonization is also a matter of getting in touch with our inner wisdom.Ā  Chinese wisdom places great emphasis on harmony.Ā  Inner and outer harmony are both important.

Outer harmony depends on inner harmony.
Inner harmony depends on being, doing and having in relation to our life purpose – i.e. getting alignment.

We need to get alignment between head and heart, and between the activities of our inner and outer lives. Then we get ‘flow’ – when we are able to function in energized harmony – like an athlete ‘in the zone’.

Episodes of silence are vital.

If we are in a situation we don’t see as getting us toward our dream then ‘see it differently’ – that is see it as a stepping stone, as opposed to a mill-stone!

Decide on your life’s purpose – don’t worry it will evolve via experience – and further reflection.

Locating, tuning and singing your ‘song’ also requires a sufficiency of silence and experiences of living in the now ā€“ see my Eckhart Tolle articles and better still read and listen to Eckhart Tolle.

Just DECIDE and START!Ā Ā  (‘Ready. Fire. Aim!)

Set your goals – and work your goals day by day.Ā  How? – here’s one way great way.

For every day draw 4 circles.

1st circle =Ā Ā  My Lifelong Dream,

2nd circleĀ  = My Year,

3rd circleĀ  =Ā  My month,

4th circle =Ā Ā  My day.

Keep the 4 circles of your personal universe in harmony via working to your daily goal-setting.

The ‘universe’ as Wayne Dyer reminds us means ‘one song’.

Live your life singing your single, harmonised, song and you will succeed.

Harmony here is what enables us to be focused, and motivated.

Plan and work every day to achieve toward your monthly goals – etc.

Periodically adjust them all according to each other, so you have the motivation of always operating in a single, harmonized universe.

Keep the dream sharply visualized.

Don’t be afraid of adjustments – think of life as a ship’s journey – course corrections are inevitable and necessary.

Occasionally remind yourself of these two quotations;

1 “If you don’t think about the future, you won’t have one.” Henry Ford

2 “The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke’s statement takes us even deeper by telling us that we create our future by what we are.

Balance doing, knowing and having with being.Ā  The current master of ‘being’ is – Eckhart Tolle.

If you don’t plan your journey don’t be surprised if you end up somewhere you don’t want to be!

Have fun singing your song – literally as well as metaphorically.

Keep the dream – even if a ‘credit crunch’ means you have to do stuff that is a temporary delay.

Sometimes just surviving is the biggest step you can make that particular day – but that day in the future will be seen as being just as important – because you didn’t give up!

Survival is sometimes progress.

Sometimes survival is the best singing of your song possible on that particular day.Ā  It’s still worth celebrating – you can’t sing at your own wake!

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I once used What’ll we do with a drunken sailor as a class song but be careful, a full rendition of all verses would remove all desire to go on living!Ā  Others might be shocked as to how brutal was the British Navy of that time.

What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
Earl-aye in the morning?

Chorus:
Way hay and up she rises
Patent blocks o’ diff’rent sizes,
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-aye in the morning

1. Sling him in the long boat till he’s sober,
2. Keep him there and make ‘im bale ‘er.
3. Pull out the plug and wet him all over,
4. Take ‘im and shake ‘im, try an’ wake ‘im.
5. Trice him up in a runnin’ bowline.
6. Give ‘im a taste of the bosun’s rope-end.
7. Give ‘im a dose of salt and water.
8. Stick on ‘is back a mustard plaster.
9. Shave his belly with a rusty razor.
10. Send him up the crow’s nest till he falls down,
11. Tie him to the taffrail when she’s yardarm under,
12. Put him in the scuppers with a hose-pipe on him.
13. Soak ‘im in oil till he sprouts flippers.
14. Put him in the guard room till he’s sober.
15. Put him in bed with the captain’s daughter*).
16. Take the Baby and call it Bo’sun.
17. Turn him over and drive him windward.
18. Put him in the scuffs until the horse bites on him.
19. Heave him by the leg and with a rung console him.
20. That’s what we’ll do with the drunken sailor.
Source

You won’t believe the background to this song see WikiPedia HERE

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NB This article was inspired by Steve Chandler’s brilliant ‘100 Ways to Motivate Yourself’, one of my Top 10 Personal Development texts.

Back to the Eckhart Tolle discussion – intellectuality & the mind are as spiritual as prayer & meditation

sun-and-plant

In the context of discussion with contributor ‘Patrick’ I offer a contribution to the issues I raised concerning the brilliant Eckhart Tolle. I do this via a beautiful poem that describes, with exquisite simplicity, the mystical experience of non-duality, or oneness. The poem is by the renowned Chinese poet Li Po;

The birds have vanished into the sky,

and now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountains and me,

until only the mountains remain.

Li Po (701-762)

IMHO

1 Clearly for Li Po there was, to start with, on that occasion, duality.

2 I’m assuming that Li Po returned from non-duality, back in to duality – unless he sat there until his bones turned to dust.Ā  I assume he returned in order to do the laundry, chop wood, carry water.Ā  Of course he would now do them on the bed-rock of enhanced consciousness derived from his mystical/aesthetic experience of non-duality.Ā  Both wings of being human would be beating ā€“ as he scrubbed and carried and chopped. Enlightenment is now ā€“ if we let it.

In this world – the contingent world, the world of duality, the ‘Kingdom of Names’ – the complementarity of duality and non-duality is the key. Duality is not a curse, or a failing. When in dynamic inter-relation with non-dual experience it is heaven and perfection. Without non-dual experience it is hell, including the hell of relativity. The purpose of life is not just transcendence and timelessness ā€“ it is also immanence and being in time, moment by moment. Complementarity is the key.

3 The non-duality or mystic state is the same as the state of creativity (or the truly aesthetic experience).Ā  We are ‘taken out of ourselves’ as we say in modern parlance.Ā  ArtĀ  and ‘religion’ are not similar, they are the same – as Coomaraswami says.Ā  It is the forgetting of self, a loss of ego boundaries, a letting go and letting God etc.Ā  But the artist as well as the mystic comes out of the non-dual state back into the dual state. – and s/he becomes someone who lives with what s/he has created. What s/he has produced might even be a bit of a shock – a bit like the dumb panda who jumps when she sees that something is moving on the floor beneath her i.e the cub to which she has just given birth.Ā  The artist becomes nurturer/appreciator/critic – more or less. They in duality are the left-brain evaluator (criticality mode) to complement their non-dual right-brain creativity mode. Complementarity is the key. One mode, and only one mode is in the foreground at any one time. Duration is from milliseconds to hours in the case of non-duality.

4 The question is are both states normal, desirable and, if the term is acceptable, God-given, i.e. both part of the life’s teaching-machine from which we are supposed to learn.Ā  Or is one state bad, immature, to be got rid of, so that we can be non-dual 24/7?

5 Intellectuality is not the same as intellectualism, just as individuality is not the same as individualism.Ā  In both cases the first is normal, healthy, proper, desirable.Ā  In both cases the second is excessive, unbalanced, undesirable and pathological.Ā  The same difference incidentally exists between sexuality and sexual-obsession. Tolle IMHO makes the mistake of not distinguishing between ego and the egotistic. He also can give the impression that he is trying to invalidate mind per se instead of distinguishing between true mind and the neurotic egotistical mind, trapped as it is by attachment.

Awareness, raised consciousness, is true mind. True mind is ‘xin’ heart-mind, interiority bathed in the light of the intellect and the warmth of true love, without attachment to forms ā€“ derived from the complementarity of the modes of duality and non-duality. ‘Without attachment to forms’ doesn’t mean without love of forms. Forms are the means (the only means) by which we can come to understand the essentiality of formlessness.

True love as Tolle says is realization of oneness ā€“ complementary to which is the glory of diversity.

God loves our celebrating diversity with Him as much as wanting us to realize oneness.

The one who is awakened is a one as well as a not-one ā€“ the Buddha was not non-Buddha ā€“ at least as a gateway, a pointer.

Spirituality or transcendence or consciousness is not increased by a diminution of intelligence, or more correctly a diminution of intellectuality. The intellect as enlightened heart-mind is the human spirit. Enlightenment comes from realization of the true Self, as opposed to self, that is the eternal. Unlimited Whole, the Silent One, God the Father, God without Name, the Nameless One etc.

Complementarity is the key. Yin is lovely only in the balanced presence of yang ā€“ and vice-versa.

6 ‘Before all else, God created the mind.’ (Koranic tradition)Ā  The intellect is the supreme gift of God to man, the pinnacle of the way in which we are made in His image – providing we realize that all rivers flow back to the one Ocean, from which those parts also have their origin. Complementarity is the key.

7 The fear and misunderstanding of the term ego. The ego is simply the part of the self ā€“ the dimension or mode ā€“ that deals with immediate reality. As such it is neutral ā€“ like the heart or lungs or kidney. Whether it is healthy or diseased – now that is a different matter. The ego is as much part of the enlightened one as with the crass self-obsessive.

God celebrates His Creativity in the uniqueness of me, as well as in His Creation of our species.

We believe what we believe – some we choose to believe, some is ingrained.

The happiest of worlds is one where we can believe different things without feeling an obligation to kill each other! Complementarity is the key.

The ultimate sickness is to know who you are through knowing who you hate.

Enough

Namaste!

Twenty things to remember about Eckhart Tolle

What isn't and what is this contemporary mystic teaching?
Eckhart Tolle

Ten things to remember about Eckhart Tolle.

What isn’t Eckhart Tolle saying and doing?

He has impacted on my life as he has on millions of others.Ā  In addition to his general spiritual illumination of our lives and of reality I am interested in how he can illumine specialist areas of life including teaching, parenting and management.Ā  However this first post is an attempt to separate what he is doing and saying from what he isn’t.Ā  Why?Ā  Well take a look at the cistern of hate and mis-representation that has poured out from ‘Christians’ and others on YouTube and elsewhere.

1 He is not a religionist.

2 He has not started a religion.

3 He is not speaking from the point of view of inter-faith but meta-faith or pan-faith and beyond.

4 He doesn’t speak from within a religion, or about others’ religious beliefs.

5 He avoids religion, and thereby teaches the purest heart of religion.

6 His life has been in three stages.

7 Before the age of 29, there was extensive ‘dark-night-of-the soul’ experience.

8 At the age of 29 he had a transformative experience.

9 The subsequent 35 years, his life’s work, has simply been a commentary on that transformative experience.

10 The 35 years is itself split into two phases, the first of which was 30 years processing the experience – via reflection, study and articulation.

11 The writing of his few books, has been over the last half decade, and the meteoric rise in their and his popularity over just the last year or two.

12 He is a Universalist, and one who most of the time avoids the trigger words that set off fundamentalists and ‘exclusivists’ and other professional haters. (That hasn’t stopped a rag-bag of fundamentalists and ‘exclusivists’ and other professional haters from attacking him, especially since Oprah gave him a platform!)

13 He is existentialist by tone and direction.

14 He is not a theologian (thank God), but he is closest theologically to panENtheism.

15 He avoids scholarship (thank God) as one of many ego-traps that potentially ensnare any of us.

16 He is quintessentially the doer as opposed to the talker ā€“ but via talking about non-talking and non-duality!

17 He is quintessentially a Universalist.

18 He is directly in the tradition(s) of all of the great mystics.

19

20

I haven’t decided on the 18th and 19th – which ones would you add to the list?

The WikiPedia entry on Tolle is a good place to start if you want to know more about him.

Photo source Flickr

Wilber – a key passage to enable us to discuss his work in relation to education?

For some time I have been looking for a key passage as a way into discussing aspects of Wilber’s work – especially in relation to education. This is the best I’ve found so far.

….according to the great sages there is something in us that is always conscious ā€“ that is literally conscious or aware at all times and through all states, waking dreaming, sleeping. And that ever-present awareness is Spirit in us. That underlying current of constant consciousness (or nondual awareness) is a direct and unbroken ray of pure Spirit itself. It is our connection with the Goddess, our pipeline straight to God.

 

Thus, if we want to realize our supreme identity with Spirit, we will have to plug ourselves into this current of constant consciousness, and follow it through all changes of state-waking, dreaming, sleeping ā€“ which will (1) strip us of an exclusive identification with any of those states (such as the body, the mind, the ego, or the soul; and (2) allow us to recognize and identify with that which is constant ā€“ or timeless ā€“ through all of those states, namely, Consciousness as Such, by any other name, timeless Spirit …..

 

The moment this constant nondual consciousness is obvious in your case, a new destiny will awaken in the midst of the manifest world. You will have discovered your own Buddha-mind, your own Godhead, your own formless, spaceless, timeless, infinite Emptiness, your own Atman that is Brahman, your Keter, Christ consciousness, radiant Shekhinah ā€“ in so many words, One Taste. It is unmistakably so. And just that is your true identity ā€“ pure Emptiness or pure unqualifiable Consciousness as Such ā€“ and thus you are released from the terror and the torment that necessarily arise when you identify with a little subject in a world of little objects.

 

Once you find your formless identity as Buddha-mind, as Atman, as pure Spirit or Godhead, you will take that constant, nondual, ever-present consciousness and re-enter the lesser states, subtle mind and gross body, and re-animate them with radiance. You will not remain merely Formless and Empty. You will Empty yourself of Emptiness: you will pour yourself out into the mind and world, and create them in the process, and enter them all equally, but especially and particularly that specific mind and body that is called you (that is called, in my case, Ken Wilber); this lesser self will become the vehicle of the Spirit that you are.

 

And then all things, including your own little mind and body and feelings and thoughts, will arise in the vast Emptiness that you are, and they will self-liberate into their own true nature just as they arise, precisely because you no longer identify with any one of them, but rather let them play, let them all arise, in the Emptiness and Openness that you now are. You then will awaken as radical Freedom, and sing those songs of radiant release, beam an infinity too obvious to see, and drink an ocean of delight. You will look at the moon as part of your body and bow to the sun as part of your heart, and it is all just so. For eternally and always, eternally and always, there is only this.

 

But you have not found this Freedom, or in any way attained it. It is in fact the same Freedom that has lived in the house of the pure Witness from the very start. You are merely recognizing the pure and empty Self, the radical I-I, that has been your natural awareness from the beginning and all along, but that you didn’t notice because you had become lost in the intoxicating movie of life.

 

With the awakening of constant consciousness, you become something of a divine schizophrenic, in the popular sense of ‘split-minded,’ because you have access to both the Witness and the ego. You are actual ‘whole-minded’, but it sounds like it’s split, because you are aware of the constant Witness of Spirit in you, and you are also perfectly aware of the movies of life, the ego and all its ups and downs. So you still feel pain and suffering and sorrow, but then can no longer convince you of their importance ā€“ you are no longer the victim of life, but its Witness.

 

In fact, because you are no longer afraid of your feelings, you can engage them with much greater intensity. The movies of life becomes more vivid and vibrant, precisely because you are no longer grasping or avoiding it, and thus no longer trying to dull or dilute it. You no longer turn the volume down. You might even cry harder, laugh louder, jump higher. Choiceless awareness doesn’t mean you cease to feel; it means you feel fully, feel deeply, feel to infinity itself, and laugh and cry and love until it hurts. Life jumps right off the screen, and you are one with all of it, because you don’t recoil.

 

p.45-6, EKW

This passage covers a lot – but that’s the point.

To be developed.

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All postings to this site relate to the central SunWALK model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE

Wilber, the Great Chain of Being and Reality

In any model having a clear notion of reality is vital. Wilber is a major source of inspiration for the SunWALK model. Here is one extract by Wilber on the nature of reality;

Central to the perennial philosophy is the notion of the Great Chain of Being. The idea itself is fairly simple. Reality, according to the perennial philosophy, is not one-dimensional; it is not a flatland of uniform substance stretching monotonously before the eye. Rather, reality is composed of several different but continuous dimensions. Manifest reality, that is, consists of different grades or levels, reaching from the lowest and most dense and least conscious to the highest and most subtle and most conscious. At one end of this continuum of being or spectrum of consciousness is what we in the West would call ‘matter’ or the insentient and the nonconscious, and at the other end is ‘spirit’ or ‘Godhead’ or the ‘superconscious’ (which is also said to be the all-pervading ground of the entire sequence)…………

Sometimes the Great Chain is presented as having just three major levels: matter, mind, and spirit.

P49 The Essential Ken Wilber: An Introductory Reader.

The simple visual analogy I use is that of a set of Russian dolls.

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE