Born Again

I have been taking time out for several months now - as dictated by the nature of present development unfolding - from contributing to any of my various blogs.

However as always one of the advantages of this “enforced idleness” is that I have been enabled to look at some developmental matters from a new perspective (once again reflecting personal experience of the various stages of the overall spectrum).

And when I was last writing I was especially identifying the (default) nature of Band 5 (Level 3) .

In many respects this is the most empty of all levels where the conscious experience of phenomena (of a direct and indirect kind) become so dynamically interactive that they seem to scarcely arise in experience.

This equally culminates with a very close balancing of both the transcendent and immanent aspects of spiritual development. Any remaining distinction as between - relatively - “higher” transcendent and “lower” immanent aspects are now dissolved with both emanating in harmonious fashion from the spiritual centre of one’s being..

Therefore the emptiness that is now experienced is as a plenum-void where emptiness is equally seen as the potential for the emergence of all form.

In holistic mathematical terms it represents the true holistic appreciation of the binary digits.   

Just as in analytic terms all information can potentially be represented through the binary digits 1 and 0 (considered as separate independent entities) likewise  in holistic terms all transformation processes can equally be represented through the same binary digits (now mutually fully related in an interdependent manner).

So in this undivided state, the spiritual void i.e. nothingness (0) equally represents the potential for the spiritual unity of all form (1).

This then serves as the prelude to the emergence of the Radial Bands (i.e. Bands 6, 7 and 8) where the full flowering of both the highly refined differentiated and integrated aspects of experience can now freely unfold in harmonious fashion.

This indeed represents a true “born again” experience where the (personal) self is inseparable from the (impersonal) world in the emergence of a new cosmic mystical identity.

However in my approach the actual unfolding of the first of the radial bands (i.e. Band 6) remarkably mirrors the corresponding unfolding of the earlier Band 1 (Levels 1, 2 and 3)

So for example if we take the initial level of Band 6 to illustrate, this is concerned with the development of the radial body self, which mirrors the corresponding development of the ego body self (Level 1 of Band 1).

However whereas the earliest emergence of the ego body self represents a highly primitive stage where structures are still largely undifferentiated (and therefore not capable of proper integration) the later emergence of the radial body self represents a truly mature stage where structures - now specialised with respect to both differentiated and integrated aspects - can start to harmoniously interpenetrate with each other.

Therefore in the account that I have given of development, five major bands are required to unfold before being truly “born again” in a manner where one can freely and productively engage in an enhanced creative manner with the world of diverse phenomena. 

Now when one considers that “normal” adult development in our society is largely confined to Bands 1 and 2, this implies that for those who do seriously engage with the more advanced bands on the spectrum, that perhaps even a long lifetime would not be sufficient to traverse the radial stages (where one is truly “born again”).

And in this regard I have been led recently to reflect again on the nature of my own personal development.

Though I am now in my 70’s, it feels very much as I have spent my entire time up to this point progressively ironing out many personality faults through the various bands that were preventing a healthy relationship to reality. And I am only now reaching that stage where I can feel that this work has sufficiently reached completion so as to enable me finally to move on to proper engagement with the world (with the hope of corresponding appropriate fulfilment).

So even though I am now chronologically quite old in years, I have a strong feeling that my life has yet to really begin. And in that important sense I remain therefore very much as one who is “young at heart”.

However realistically, even if enabled to live to a very old age with the most optimistic expectations regarding future development being realised, there certainly will not be enough time remaining to advance to a significant extent along the radial path (that I can already clearly envisage).

And I must admit there is a certain frustration and sadness in this realisation which I am learning to accept is an inevitable part of the human condition. For most people die with hopes and dreams still unfulfilled.

It is in this state of mind that I have recently come to reflect in a different light on the notion of reincarnation.

Though it is not part of the Christian tradition (with which I am most identified), I have long been fascinated with Eastern religious notions of reincarnation (which would on the face of it offer a certain solution to the dilemma I have posed).

In other words having attempted to live the “good life” through realising advanced notions of spiritual attainment, one would then have the expectation of coming back in future lives to continue this progress ultimately enabling one to escape all karma.

Because our lives are necessarily interrelated with each other (so that we can only enjoy a separate independent existence in a merely relative sense) all lives are therefore in this sense reincarnations of each other.

However the notion of reincarnation as generally portrayed e.g. in Hinduism seems to me somewhat fanciful.

Now there  may well be someone in the near future, strongly sharing a common interest in my particular ideas and concerns with the capability to advance them much further. I can even accept that this person would therefore loosely represent a reincarnation of my present identity. However this would not imply any linked identity (in the sense of that person being aware of inhabiting my body in a previous existence). 

Now again there is a certain mystical sense in which we all necessarily inhabit the same body (through our shared existence).  However from this perspective we can give no precedence to any one existence over another. So each one of us is thereby reincarnated in every life that lives (human and otherwise).

However there is another novel way in which the traditional notion of reincarnation might indeed make sense.

As we know life expectancy has greatly improved in recent years, so much so that the according to present estimates a girl born in a developed country like Ireland today has a 50% chance of reaching 100.

Therefore through exciting new medical advances, it is conceivable that in the not too distant future, life expectancy may improve considerably further so that one might be eventually able to envisage an average life span of perhaps 400-500 years.

This would pose very interesting issues for the  psychological development process.

If one accepts - that certainly among those sufficiently gifted - that the full cycle in development i.e. of 5 Bands can already unfold in a lifetime (of considerably less than 100 years) with one spiritually “born again”, then if one could perhaps in future live to 500, this would enable (again for the spiritually gifted) a number of these cycles to unfold with each representing a much greater degree of overall spiritual attainment.

So with the completion of each cycle, the “born again” experience would lead to a new radial life of further enlightenment with one becoming an ever finer superconductor of spirit.

Of course one would also have to accept in this context that where development goes wrong that pathological problems could steadily increase over a much longer life span creating ever more significant problems for the person involved and for the society he/she inhabits.

So it seems to me that the emergence of greater levels of good in society through spiritually enlightened individuals is always in the context of corresponding levels of evil.  For it is only through the awareness of evil that good can emerge.

The very same idea can be applied to the Universe at large.

According to present scientific understanding, our present Universe started some 13.8 bl. years ago with the Big Bang. And the sheer vast immensity of this Universe is almost impossible to comprehend. For example within our own local galaxy the Milky Way, there are estimated to be approximately 200 billion suns, a great deal of which - like our own Sun - will entail complex planetary systems.

And it is now estimated according to recent research  that the total number of galaxies in the Universe could be perhaps 10 times what was previously estimated numbering two trillion.

However if we adopt the same approach as for personal development, the present evolving Universe represents just one particular cycle with respect to a process which is endlessly repeated.

At present we are on the expansion phase with respect to this cycle. However this will come to an end with contraction then taking place leading to an eventual Big Crunch.

However this will then inevitably serve as a prelude to the unfolding of the next cycle of the Universe through another Big Bang.

And so it will endlessly continue.

However just as with personal development one can, through this cyclical process, reach ever more advanced stages of human development, likewise with respect to the Universe the spiritual development with respect to a previous cycle is thereby emergent in the corresponding next cycle.

In this way the possibility of ever more advanced spiritual civilisations evolving with respect to each future cycle is assured.

However there is no inevitability about this process. It is also possible that during a particular Universal cycle that the level of spiritual evolution could decrease (rather than increase).

So the constant war between good and evil applies not just on a personal level but with respect to the entire universal cosmos.