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Friday, April 27, 2007
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The following quote was recently shared by Lex Crane:
"Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reasons for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world can be analyzed with concepts (this is science), or it can be experienced free of concepts (this is mysticism). Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is the denial--at once full of hope and full of fear--of the vastitude of human ignorance.
A kernel of truth lurks at the heart of religion, because spiritual experience, ethical behavior, and strong communities are essential for human happiness. And yet our religious traditions are intellectually defunct and politically ruinous. While spiritual experience is clearly a natural propensity of the human mind, we need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to actualize it. Clearly, it must be possible to bring reason, spirituality, and ethics together in our thinking about the world. This would be the beginning of a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns. It would also be the end of faith." - Sam Harris,The End of Faith, p221
These are some reflections on the Sam Harris quote that Lex Crane shared recently.
I have not read the Harris book. In my view, religion is a part of the human experience which is not so easily dismissed – I recommend Ken Wilber’s recent book “Integral Spirituality” for a realistic and constructive perspective on religion.
I agree with Harris’ observation that reason, spirituality, and ethics are essential human concerns. This reminds me of Tom Owen-Towles’ book on UU’s, “Free Thinking Mystics With Hands”. In philosophy, this is expressed as “the true, the good, and the beautiful”. Wilber sometimes summarizes his four quadrant integral framework within this same construction.
Harris says that the world of concepts is science and consciousness prior to thought is mysticism. In my view, ethics and philosophy, and arts and the humanities, clearly involve extensive conceptual thinking – that is why colleges award degrees in arts and sciences. It seems hugely reductionist to limit conceptual thinking to only the sciences.
I also think that there are many types of mystical experience which have conceptual aspects – including experiences that arise from practices and traditions and involve various forms of symbolic experience. For sure, there is nondual experience and witness consciousness which involve awareness prior to thought. However, the range of experience that may be thought of as mystical should not be reduced solely to these experiences. Also, Harris seems to equate mysticism and spiritual experience. Wilber’s distinction between states and stages of consciousness is useful in explaining that states of consciousness are an insufficient basis for understanding spirituality – which is ultimately less about particular consciousness states than it is about an evolutionary process of multidimensional structures.
Indeed, Wilber is a great example of the intermixture of mysticism and conceptual thinking – Wilber is a very prolific writer and has constructed a whole school of integral concepts. Most mystics that I know have fairly large bookshelves with writings that explore how we deepen our consciousness and integrate it with our conceptual existences. While direct experience can be viewed empirically, there are also many difficulties in doing this.
Most of us want a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns, but logic does not explain the beautiful, and even if it did, it is totally barren without the experience of the beautiful. I often use beauty as a metaphor for mystical awareness. For me, there is a faith aspect to beauty and mysticism – a faith that these deep feelings have ultimate meaning which I cannot prove by logic. There is also a faith aspect to ethics, for we are always dealing with limited perspectives and experience and need to trust at some point in goodness that we cannot know for certain. For me, mysticism is about a feeling of connection with something larger that is ultimately unknowable – and having faith in my conviction that this is a supremely important aspect of human experience. Einstein talks about this as a feeling of awe – something he refers to as cosmic religion.
2 comments:
The following quote was recently shared by Lex Crane:
"Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reasons for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world can be analyzed with concepts (this is science), or it can be experienced free of concepts (this is mysticism). Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is the denial--at once full of hope and full of fear--of the vastitude of human ignorance.
A kernel of truth lurks at the heart of religion, because spiritual experience, ethical behavior, and strong communities are essential for human happiness. And yet our religious traditions are intellectually defunct and politically ruinous. While spiritual experience is clearly a natural propensity of the human mind, we need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to actualize it. Clearly, it must be possible to bring reason, spirituality, and ethics together in our thinking about the world. This would be the beginning of a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns. It would also be the end of faith." - Sam Harris,The End of Faith, p221
These are some reflections on the Sam Harris quote that Lex Crane shared recently.
I have not read the Harris book. In my view, religion is a part of the human experience which is not so easily dismissed – I recommend Ken Wilber’s recent book “Integral Spirituality” for a realistic and constructive perspective on religion.
I agree with Harris’ observation that reason, spirituality, and ethics are essential human concerns. This reminds me of Tom Owen-Towles’ book on UU’s, “Free Thinking Mystics With Hands”. In philosophy, this is expressed as “the true, the good, and the beautiful”. Wilber sometimes summarizes his four quadrant integral framework within this same construction.
Harris says that the world of concepts is science and consciousness prior to thought is mysticism. In my view, ethics and philosophy, and arts and the humanities, clearly involve extensive conceptual thinking – that is why colleges award degrees in arts and sciences. It seems hugely reductionist to limit conceptual thinking to only the sciences.
I also think that there are many types of mystical experience which have conceptual aspects – including experiences that arise from practices and traditions and involve various forms of symbolic experience. For sure, there is nondual experience and witness consciousness which involve awareness prior to thought. However, the range of experience that may be thought of as mystical should not be reduced solely to these experiences. Also, Harris seems to equate mysticism and spiritual experience. Wilber’s distinction between states and stages of consciousness is useful in explaining that states of consciousness are an insufficient basis for understanding spirituality – which is ultimately less about particular consciousness states than it is about an evolutionary process of multidimensional structures.
Indeed, Wilber is a great example of the intermixture of mysticism and conceptual thinking – Wilber is a very prolific writer and has constructed a whole school of integral concepts. Most mystics that I know have fairly large bookshelves with writings that explore how we deepen our consciousness and integrate it with our conceptual existences. While direct experience can be viewed empirically, there are also many difficulties in doing this.
Most of us want a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns, but logic does not explain the beautiful, and even if it did, it is totally barren without the experience of the beautiful. I often use beauty as a metaphor for mystical awareness. For me, there is a faith aspect to beauty and mysticism – a faith that these deep feelings have ultimate meaning which I cannot prove by logic. There is also a faith aspect to ethics, for we are always dealing with limited perspectives and experience and need to trust at some point in goodness that we cannot know for certain. For me, mysticism is about a feeling of connection with something larger that is ultimately unknowable – and having faith in my conviction that this is a supremely important aspect of human experience. Einstein talks about this as a feeling of awe – something he refers to as cosmic religion.
David Gonci
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