Skip to main content

New Transition

We return now to a personal account of the journey through the 3 main levels of Band 5.

Once again these bear a complementary relationship (on the spiritual descent) to the same three levels (on the spiritual ascent).

However whereas as the direction on the ascent is primarily of a transcendent nature, where nondual spiritual development is - to a considerable extent - at the expense of customary dualistic understanding, here a reverse immanent emphasis applies, where one now gradually attempts to incorporate the dual in a balanced manner with the nondual.

And once again, these 3 levels (of Band 5) are characterised by a special emphasis on each of the corresponding key polarity sets.

And just as with Band 3 the journey initially commences at Level 1 with intense exposure to the (horizontal) interaction of external and internal polarities, equally it is similar at Band 5.

However whereas at Band 3, this largely represents the gradual breakdown of rational analytic type appreciation in favour of a more intuitive - ultimately nondual - holistic worldview, here the reverse is in evidence as one attempts to indirectly communicate in a somewhat paradoxical fashion the nature of this worldview through the normal medium of rational interpretation.

Therefore in an important sense, this represents the first real attempt to properly harmonise both the analytic and holistic aspects of experience.

In my own case this initially coincided with the time of about 4 - 5 years (1996 - 2000), when I was intensely involved in day-to-day dialogue on the various integral forums.

For me the critical challenge that arose during this time was the requirement to effectively communicate my vision in a scientific objective manner, without becoming distracted internally by - at times - considerable personal opposition to my stance.

And though overall, I felt that I managed quite well in this regard, inevitably over time secondary attachment arose manifesting itself through a growing irritation in dealing with "difficult" participants and through suffering increasing levels of psychological stress.

In particular, I gradually had to face a crucial imbalance in that preoccupation with communicating an overall global vision of reality was interfering with my ability to properly carry out everyday responsibilities at a local level. Thus as my intuitive energy continued to be strongly focused on the former, more mundane activities gradually became drained of all inspiration.

This then led to gradual withdrawal from involvement on the forums punctuated by occasional returns on a less sustained basis.

However just as on the outward journey, this phase gradually ran its course with the realisation that once more deeper exploration of the unconscious was required in order to properly address the limitations that I had faced during the previous stage.


So a familiar pattern again reasserted itself. I had been working on a detailed account of the binary approach to development. Here every stage represents a unique configuration of both linear (1) and circular (0) aspects - representing both differentiation and integration - respectively, with a precise holistic mathematical rationale.

However having carefully mapped out the 21 levels (of the seven major bands) with respect to both (external) physical and (internal) psychological structures and then later both their characteristic states and structures, I found that my attention was becoming increasingly absorbed  by - what is perhaps - the key unsolved problem in Mathematics i.e. the Riemann Hypothesis.

I strongly sensed that issue was not only of fundamental importance in mathematical terms but was now - when properly understood - inseparable from my on-going psychological development.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Modes of Development (9)

We have looked now briefly at the modes of development both with respect to the primary "colours" (cognitive, affective and volitional) and the many - and somewhat arbitrary - list of secondary modes (i.e. "multiple intelligences"). And we have seen that as far as successful integration of the personality, the primary modes are vital. In fact the complete mature development of the personality requires that cognitive, affective and volitional be both differentiated successfully in a sequential manner with respect to each of the major bands (and accompanying levels) on the spectrum, while also being simultaneously integrated with each other. Now, while imbalances are indeed possible with respect to development of the three primary modes (up to and including Band 5), the final two radial bands would however require a high degree of integration with respect to all three modes. As we have seen, in terms of the secondary manifestations, a person may show special ...

Two Meanings of Bardo

The transition between Band 5 (level 3) and Band 6 (level 1) can be referred to as a bardo which resembles very closely indeed Buddhist notions of the transition as between death and rebirth. Now according to the Tibetan tradition this represents the state of existence as between two lives on Earth. Of course this presupposes the doctrine of reincarnation in its somewhat literal sense, to which I personally would not subscribe. However accepting the traditional accounts, the question arises as to how precisely this transition as between death and rebirth (in a new body) takes place. So on the one hand after death there is the clearest spiritual experience of reality of which one is capable which then gives way to terror arising from one’s previous sinful inclinations. So we have here in starkest form the battle as between the “higher” and “lower” aspects of the self. And the manner in which this is resolved then plays a key role in determining the nature of one’s next...

Nature of Addition and Multiplication

The two aspects of the number system that I have identified i.e. Type 1 and Type 2 respectively, are intimately related to the distinction as between addition and multiplication. To see this clearly, I concentrate on - what I refer to as - pure addition and pure multiplication. Pure addition simply relates to the successive adding of 1 to the previous unit (starting with 1). Pure multiplication by contrast relates to the successive multiplication by 1 of the previous unit (again starting with 1). In this way, we are enabled to generate both the Type 1 and Type 2 aspects of the number system. Thus through addition of 1 we obtain, 1 1 , 2 1 , 3 1 , 4 1 , ...... So in this Type 1 aspect, the base are the natural numbers, which are all defined with respect to the (default) dimensional number of 1. This defines the conventional mathematical approach to numbers where the natural numbers - and indeed all reals - are represented as lying on the (1-dimensional) number lin...