Brief Update

Just recently I added new material through a blog entitled “Stages of Development”.

This had been previously been made available on a companion web-site (unfortunately no longer available).

However because the material is closely related to “Spectrum of Development” I have decided to republish it in blog form.

The “Stages of Development” were written over the period 2005 - 2008 representing what I then referred to as a Radial 1 (R1) approach.

During that time I came to include 7 major bands (comprising the full spectrum of development) with three levels in each band.

However subsequently I came to realise the existence of another important band that is required before the radial levels can properly unfold.

So this new band (Band 5), which I now commonly refer to as the spiritual descent, is designed to complement the corresponding spiritual ascent (taking place during Band 3).

Formerly, I was under the mistaken impression that Band 4 - representing the specialisation of spiritual contemplative understanding - would pave the way directly for true radial development. Here I believed that (dualistic) activity and (nondual) contemplation would dynamically interpenetrate with each other in a refined harmonious manner.

So I was already clearly aware at Band 3 of both the transcendent and immanent aspects of development and looked on Band 4 as the means through which their proper integration would occur.

However I gradually came to realise that I was still attempting such integration mainly in a top-down fashion (where the transcendent aspect tended to dominate its complementary immanent aspect).

This therefore was to lead to a prolonged attempt (stretching over 20 years) to fully uncover the “lower” primitive instinctive aspect of personality so that it could speak with its own unique voice (without the attempted censorship of the “higher” rational self).

This was in turn to lead to a remarkable sustained odyssey to discover the true holistic significance of the Riemann Hypothesis.

Now one might initially question the significance of the Riemann Hypothesis for human development.

However when the famous German mathematician Hilbert was once asked to nominate the most important question in mathematics he is reputed to have answered:

“the problem of the zeta zeros, not only in Mathematics but absolutely (the most important)”!

The prime numbers are often referred to as the atoms of arithmetic in that they comprise the fundamental building blocks of the natural numbers. The zeta zeros are then the mysterious solutions to a certain important equation which explain how the primes and natural numbers are related. And the Riemann Hypothesis points to the important presumed linear manner in which these zeta zeros behave.

And as the natural numbers form the subsequent basis for quantitative order in both mathematics and its related sciences it is easy to appreciate the conventional analytic significance of the Riemann Hypothesis.

However an important holistic significance - all but unrecognised - attaches to  every mathematical symbol and relationship. So I was to gradually discover how the Riemann Hypothesis in a marvellous holistic manner relates to a supremely important complementary type of qualitative order. And an important example of such order regards the manner in which primitive instinctive behaviour can be successfully related to rational conscious type reality.

So most of my recent blogs (especially “The Riemann Hypothesis”) written over the last 10 years or so, tell the story of this gradual unfolding in appreciation of the holistic significance of the zeta zeros.

In brief the zeros relate in psychological terms to the apparent random nature of primitive impulses that yet can be seamlessly integrated with conscious behaviour in a spiritually refined manner. In this way the holistic interdependence of all sensations (where no specific impulse is unduly honoured) is successfully maintained.

Thus the bottom-up - as well top-down - integration of all levels on the spectrum can be enabled.     

I believe that this is a key issue that has been greatly neglected in all the traditional accounts of spiritual mystical development that I have studied. Whereas I do not doubt that with the great saints and sages, extraordinary personality integration was indeed successfully achieved, formalised accounts of the nature of this development tend to represent a significant transcendent bias.

I would not therefore see my earlier “Stages of Development” as representative of a true radial interpretation. In more accurate terms they represent a Band 5 (Level 1)  account with subsequent blogs more representative of Band 5 (Levels 2 and 3).

So I would see now that true radial development - in my approach - properly commences with Band 6 and subsequently encompasses both Bands 7 and 8.