Enlightenment as a Social Construct

"Gentlemen,
As the only non-enlightened contributor to this discussion I would like to forward this suggestion. Enlightenment only appears to be a social construct because we use those parts of the physical brain to access interpretations and understanding of it, this includes memory and pattern making. The absense of "I' phenomenon, the timelessness and boundlessness etc, are actually not those things, but possibly the raw, untouched, uninformed biological consciousness that is life, both physical and non-physical. When Kundalini runs in the body, it is apparant to me that it is independent of thought. So is my breathing and my digestion. Enlightenment then is the untouched unfolding of biological evolution that merely appears to be spiritual and or social in construction. The physical biology is first and foremost necessary, its material and immaterial form underlie all that is the manifest aspect of life. Once we start talking about it, it's not it. Like the good law of thermodynamics I think it is, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, ie, enlightenment? but can be transformed from one form to another, ie, cultural/traditional expressions. Of course, not knowing what enlightenment actually is, what I have just written causes me to giggle quite a lot. I find I do that a lot recently. Great reading your discussion. Thankyou
paul"

I wonder what survival advantage enlightenment confers?

Also, from the developmental model - why are we the only mammal that undergoes development after adulthood? Though it is clear that we do - there is a fronto-medial tract that develops until the early 30s, and undergoes some major change right around 18. This is part of the theory behind schizophrenia actually - most people come down with it right around then - seems to have some hallmarks of a developmental disorder.

I Iike it: "Enlightenment can never be created or destroyed, only contained by culture."

" Apparently direct face to face human interaction is necessary. Emotions seem to be directly tied to facial expressions neurologically which take place in microseconds as demonstrated by fast action photography. A mother can entertain her baby through close caption TV, but a video of the same mother cooing and so forth will cause the baby to cry uncontrollably. Real time reciprocal interaction is neccessary - and we are hardwired to need it.

This is why long distance relationships are notoriously unsatisfactory, and why email communication is problematic and leads to misunderstandings. It's why I can't do psychiatry over the phone or on a forum like this. We have a very wide bandwidth for communication.

Social relationships are so fundamentally hardwired into us biologically that it is difficult to find words that are emphatic enough. This is true not only of humans, but of mammals in general, with a few solitary exceptions, like bears. Mammals have to care for their young, and each other. They are designed to function in groups and need each other for survival. They universally vocalize, play, and care for each other."

Yes, real presence (not virtual or by telephone) with face-to-face communication is essential for sustained and satisfactory human relationships. It also helps tremendously to facilitate fruitful interaction between spiritual teacher and student. This is the secret behind practices like Zen dokusan (private interview with a Zen priest) and satsang (sighting of the empowered spiritual master).

I guess things can get to go around in a loop when one uses one view point to deconstruct another. The notion of advantage in evolution is a reductive model, not necessarily what evolution or its facets actually is. Quantum mechanical metaphors are sometimes usefuel here. QM tells us that the viewer's perspective is inherantly prejudiced by the apparatus through which he looks. Heisenberg tells us that at the quantum level, there are certain things that are unknowable in the uncertainty principle. I understand that full realisation moves one into a state of being that is beyond the known and hence transcends social and cultural precepts. The beauty in great science is simplicity and the smallest equations combine apparantly disparate phenomena, like speed of light and mass and harmonise them in energy. We might be able to say then that social, cultural and biological matter are harmonised and simultaneously divested in enlightenment. That is to say of course that enlightenment is actually more than a localised phenomenon, ie, beyond the brain or consciousness of each individual interacting person.
Paul

Hi, Cartago. You said:

"QM tells us that the viewer's perspective is inherantly prejudiced by the apparatus through which he looks."

The QM case is actually stronger than that. Much stronger. And I think it supports some of what we find in our practice. The viewer is not prejuduced - the outcome of the experiment is actually, and literally, predetermined by the viewer's choice of measurement systems. QM says that the choice an observer makes as to the nature of the experiment s/he performs determines its outcome. For example, a photon can be observed to behave as either as a particle or as a wave, depending on the circumstances of measurement. The circumstances of measurement is a choice the experimenter makes. That choice then decides the outcome - wave or particle. This puts consciousness smack dab in the center, of physics. Physics has historically circumvented this conundrum by ignoring it and focusing on purely practical applications of QM. But there are an increasing number of physicists who want to explore the idea that consciousness is somehow key to the universe as we observe it. Non-locality, remote interaction and non-causality are all part and parcel of QM.

Reference: "Quantum Enigma - Physics Encounters Consiousness" by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner ( quantumenigma.com/ ) and ( quantumenigma.com/nutshell/ )

Yes, thank you cmari,
Much more elagently put!! So, then my next question has to be, what is choice? How does it arise? Is it a response sensation, a primal sensation, is it beyond sensation? Is it involved with enlightenment? I've been reading your account of your fruitions with great interest and fascination and it appears to me that cessation is beyond choice?

I don't have answers to Cartago's questions, but I've been thinking a lot about his original suggestion that enlightenment may fill whatever cultural container is available.

It's possible that cultural context influences the content of spiritual experiences, but not the overall structure or process.

It may be that enlightenment is a "normal" part of our (neurological) development, but requires the proper environmental stimuli to emerge. This wouldn't be completely unusual - if you blindfold a kitten when young it will never develop sight. Shinzen Young suggests that tribal peoples probably had a large proportion of enlightened people. He claims the basic features of tribal life were that it was 1. uncomfortable 2. simple 3. mysterious (in the sense you did not understand much of the world around you). He claims civilization has moved towards greater knowledge, more comfort, and greater complexity. Tribal life on the other hand would tend to move towards even greater simplicity and discomfort in the form of ceremonies like the Sun Dance. He claims that this lifestyle tends to produce states of high concentration on a regular basis (as would great stress and danger, or starvation - and there's also good research to suggest that nature itself elicits concentration states).

Perhaps it is simply that civilization fails to meet some of our developmental needs, and we've evolved these practices to specifically cultivate what used to occur naturally over the course of 20-30 years living tribally. Again, there are other instances in which we can see civilization doing this - in the medieval period, peasants used to swaddle their infants and hang them on poles for the first two years of life while they worked the fields. From what I can tell, that would lead to some fairly serious neurodevelopmental problems.

Dave,
I was just thinking also in pre-industrial societies and also pre-agricultural there was a lot more silence in everyday life ie a lot of down time for the brain to naturally cycle through its processes unlike today where it hardly gets time to breathe!! Constant agitation perhaps prevents the brain from moving into deeper, spontaneous rhythms. Also, I was thinking, you mention neurological which is genetically based which has an evolutionary context??

"
I was just thinking also in pre-industrial societies and also pre-agricultural there was a lot more silence in everyday life ie a lot of down time for the brain to naturally cycle through its processes unlike today where it hardly gets time to breathe!! Constant agitation perhaps prevents the brain from moving into deeper, spontaneous rhythms. Also, I was thinking, you mention neurological which is genetically based which has an evolutionary context??"

Yep - there's a whole field called "Ecopsychology" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecopsychology which proposes that just being in nature induces concentrated attention (among other benefits). I spoke to a master fisherman and hunter today who confirmed that the part of both of these activities that he enjoyed was the high concentration states that they induced. Think about it, when you are in the woods, you notice everything, the snap of a twig, etc. You are completely absorbed. Think about hunting in pre-industrial societies - you often hear stories about people staying completely still for hours. If that's not a concentration state, I don't know what is.

Ramsey Dukes, the occult author, suggested in one of his talks that civilized life was actually understimulating - most people live in a box, and then they get in their car, go to another box to work for 8 hours, then go home to their box. At work, they are presented with charts, graphs, and other abstractions (which our brains may not handle as well as social relationships). The stimulation we are provided is often "noise" - not related to our survival in the moment or the "ecosystem" in which we participate. Yet if you spend a day in nature, you usually return refreshed at the end of the day.

What doesn't quite fit for me in this conception is the number of warrior cultures in tribal societies. Still even if you have one enlightened shaman per 50 people - that's 2% Cont

That would explain it - that a number of the youth had not become enlightened yet. Even if you only had two percent of the population, that's a damn sight better than the proportion we have today!

In terms of evolution, enlightenment would definitely have some survival advantages. From a social perspective, it would contribute to group solidarity and morale. The "empathy on steroids" effect would be pretty beneficial in terms of helping to settle disputes and manage the social relationships of your tribe. The increased psychic awareness (assuming you buy into that) would help with things like healing or finding lost people or food and water sources. Furthermore, there would be the ease of entering concentration states which helps with just about any skill, but would be particularly useful for things like hunting. The heightened intuition would come in handy on that account as well. Finally, it would be much easier to handle extreme discomfort - possibly even regulating metabolism to handle severe conditions as the Tibetan lamas do.

From a purely Darwinian point of view, assuming those traits would definitely persist - except that enlightenment does NOT, in my experience, increase your chances of getting laid. I'm going to go out on a limb here and propose that there may be more to evolution than pure natural selection - that the biosphere may have evolved as a whole, and that emergent forces are at work here. With that in mind - it may be that our role in the biosphere is to manage it - that we are supposed to be stewards of the Earth, and that this particular capacity is necessary to fulfill that role.
D

"From a purely Darwinian point of view, assuming those traits would definitely persist - except that enlightenment does NOT, in my experience, increase your chances of getting laid. I'm going to go out on a limb here and propose that there may be more to evolution than pure natural selection - that the biosphere may have evolved as a whole, and that emergent forces are at work here. With that in mind - it may be that our role in the biosphere is to manage it - that we are supposed to be stewards of the Earth, and that this particular capacity is necessary to fulfill that role.
D
"

Hey, David, from a sociobiological or evolutionary psychology perspective, if Enlightenment does not help you get laid then it's not favored by natural selection, so it (as a phenomenon along with all its human exemplars) will tend to decrease in a population (without disappearing).

Enlightenment may have been much more common in primitive, hunter-gatherer societies, but not all shamans were Enlightened. They could merely have been sensitives or low-grade magicians without having undergone deeper transformations.

We all enjoy and benefit from periods of time in nature, hiking or fishing and suchlike, but few of us would trade our comfortable beds and electric light for living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, which is exactly why that earlier way of life is under threat.

We are, I think, meant to be the stewards of this biosphere, as you suggest. But we're doing a terrible job of it! We are also doing a terrible job of managing our human community in such a way that we can stop living like caged rats pressing levers to get consumer s#!+ pellets. The best of the ancient ways can be combined with modern technology to give us the time, health and opportunity to live graceful and spiritually fulfilled lives. But we can't do it under the present socio-economic system.

More on this topic another time.

Regards,
Gozen

"if Enlightenment does not help you get laid then it's not favored by natural selection, so it (as a phenomenon along with all its human exemplars) will tend to decrease in a population (without disappearing)."

Well, if we assume that becoming enlightened is a trait we all share and that we have as part of being human then it doesn't matter if we procreate or not, or if being enlightened gets us laid or not. The capability to become enlightened just goes along with all the other DNA you get from your parents.. It's pretty much like having two arms and two legs. Of course, this changes if we're talking about some of us being more capable or less capable of being enlightened, or some of us being capable and some of us being incapable. Then Gozen's version is true, and this one is not true

Anyway, I think we NEED to be stewards of this planet.

"
"if Enlightenment does not help you get laid then it's not favored by natural selection, so it (as a phenomenon along with all its human exemplars) will tend to decrease in a population (without disappearing)."

Well, if we assume that becoming enlightened is a trait we all share and that we have as part of being human then it doesn't matter if we procreate or not, or if being enlightened gets us laid or not. The capability to become enlightened just goes along with all the other DNA you get from your parents.. It's pretty much like having two arms and two legs. Of course, this changes if we're talking about some of us being more capable or less capable of being enlightened, or some of us being capable and some of us being incapable. Then Gozen's version is true, and this one is not true

Anyway, I think we NEED to be stewards of this planet.

"

Chris,
You are more correct than I am here. Enlightenment is not mediated by genetics.

But let's take the matter into the realm of culture. If there is a unit of cultural transmission analogous to the gene (i.e. the meme) then some cultures are memetically endowed with practical information about how to approach Enlightenment. If cultures -- and therefore memes -- are in competition in the same way that human genes are, then cultures that memetically favor Enlightenment are under threat from the "warrior-dominator" cultures that memetically favor competition and blind faith. Those warrior-dominator cultures tend to believe in warrior-dominator gods who demand blind obedience and mindless adulation. What's more, they and their god claim dominion over all other cultures and peoples.

This is a recipe for trouble.

It's also the daily news.

We can do better.

Regards,
Gozen

"This is a recipe for trouble."

Yes, Gozen. It is. Definitely. We not only can do better we MUST do better. I have four children and the nature of the world they will face when they're my age hinges on what we do right now. I have a lot more to say about this but it's probably not appropriate here.

"
"This is a recipe for trouble."

Yes, Gozen. It is. Definitely. We not only can do better we MUST do better. I have four children and the nature of the world they will face when they're my age hinges on what we do right now. I have a lot more to say about this but it's probably not appropriate here.

"

Gozen - that's why I was suggesting that it might not merely be a matter of natural selection but that evolution was subject to emergent forces related to ecological holism. Radical theory, but if you buy into strong emergence, then not unfeasible.

I agree about the economic system as well. I think we are seeing how capitalism eventually undermines democracy up close and personal right now. People don't want to hear that, but it's true. Corporations have a life of their own. They are the new Gods.

If we were able to reduce enlightenment to it's biological roots - that would have tremendous strategical advantages in terms of promoting it (though there are obviously some things that might be lost as well).

What if we were able to secularize "enlightenment" to the extent that there were programs in the secondary schools to cultivate it, regardless of religious affiliation? Can you imagine an entire generation with a high proportion of enlightened people in it? It would solve a great many things. As far as I can tell, it may be the only way to solve a great many things...

"Gozen - that's why I was suggesting that it might not merely be a matter of natural selection but that evolution was subject to emergent forces related to ecological holism. Radical theory, but if you buy into strong emergence, then not unfeasible.

I agree about the economic system as well. I think we are seeing how capitalism eventually undermines democracy up close and personal right now. People don't want to hear that, but it's true. Corporations have a life of their own. They are the new Gods. ..."

David,
We are on the same page here. I'll have more to say in some future post about the world situation. For now, just a couple of things:

(a) Right you are about the corporations. They are legally immortal although (thankfully) in fact quite mortal. Few of them last more than 50 years. Collectively, however, they form a united front whose interests are contrary to the general human interest. Today they are in control nearly everywhere. They get their way with governments and others through the use of strategic payola (to academics who write fawningly about the free market and to politicians who need the money for their re-election campagns). Corporations must be made responsible and limited in power.

[con't]

Just to inject my own little prescription here: fund federal elections from the general funds of the government. Declare that corporations are NOT individuals under the law.

Sorry. Carry on

"D: If we were able to reduce enlightenment to it's biological roots - that would have tremendous strategical advantages in terms of promoting it (though there are obviously some things that might be lost as well).

What if we were able to secularize "enlightenment" to the extent that there were programs in the secondary schools to cultivate it, regardless of religious affiliation? ..."

(b) The biological roots of Enlightenment are probably sociobiological, in my view. I believe there are definite biological coorelates and physiological consequences of Awakening/Enlightenment. Certain biological conditions (for the body) and certain social ones (for the behavioral or mental aspect of the body-mind complex) are conducive to Enlightenment. Our contemporary culture inflicts almost the precise opposite of these favorable conditions. (BTW, I liked your quote or paraphrase about how we live in a box, go to work in another box, and then return home to the first box. We are literally boxed in. I notice this every time I walk out the door of my house a gaze up into the sky. The feeling of liberation is immediate.)

(c) Secularization of Enlightenment. Great topic! I have written about this (under my legal name Michael LaTorra) in a brief article titled "Cyborg Buddha: Science and Spirit" in the fall issue of h+ magazine, available at fine newsstands and digitally free at: www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/enhanced/...a-science-and-spirit

(d) Teaching Enlightenment in the schools. I've thought about this a lot. Also, like you (where you speculated about Enlightened shamans comprising perhaps 5% of the population) wondered what would happen if even 1% of the population were Enlightened worldwide and the distribution were uniform. School Board meetings would be much different than they are now! So would general elections. The world could change. It CAN happen.

(e) Enlight-o-Meter: Measure IT.

"
Just to inject my own little prescription here: fund federal elections from the general funds of the government. Declare that corporations are NOT individuals under the law.

Sorry. Carry on

"

Yes, Chris, I agree. Thanks for adding this.

I love this thread! Still overwhelmed with daily life business, but closely following developments here.

In gratitude,

Kenneth

David and Gozen, I don't disagree with anything you guys have said so far, but.... do you think being enlightened confers a special ability to govern or to care for others in a paternalistic sense? I'm curious. If we watch what happens among people who claim to be enlightened (I'm using "claim to be" because I'm not competent to make judgments about who is and who isn't) we see a lot of the same things we see among the population at large. Why would having many, mnay more enlightened people around be so critical? What are the assumptions you're making about a world where that would be the case?

My inner skeptic is speaking to me.

"
David and Gozen, I don't disagree with anything you guys have said so far, but.... do you think being enlightened confers a special ability to govern or to care for others in a paternalistic sense? I'm curious. If we watch what happens among people who claim to be enlightened (I'm using "claim to be" because I'm not competent to make judgments about who is and who isn't) we see a lot of the same things we see among the population at large. Why would having many, mnay more enlightened people around be so critical? What are the assumptions you're making about a world where that would be the case?

My inner skeptic is speaking to me.


"

Actually, I'd rather normalize the status - nothing special, just what always was, now you know it, kind of approach. Secularization would grant that. That way it would minimize the "I know it to be so because I'm more insightful than you" effect.

Barring that, perhaps there could be a certification process. (Ouch! I hate boards, the certification industry, and the guilding of knowledge).

Actually, yes, I do think authentically enlightened people would make better politicians and civil servants - the philosopher-king concept. My thought is that if you made enough of them, they'd make a difference in many many ways, and they would naturally gravitate towards social responsibility and community involvement - the last Zen Ox Herding picture and all that.

What you'd need is a fairly reliable system for producing enlightenment though to do anything like this though. Gozen, what do you think the socia/behavioral/mental elements conducive to Enlightenment are? I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate all this with psychotherapy. Maybe outdoor adventure therapy for adolescents? The other idea I had was trying to enlighten psychotherapists - have you read Deikman's "The Observing Self"?
D

"I do think authentically enlightened people would make better politicians and civil servants..."

My turn to ask a stupid question -- Why?

"

My turn to ask a stupid question -- Why?

"

Because theoretically, selfish motivations (such as power and money) would not play a central role in their decision making process.

The problem, as I see it, would be to motivate them to take on positions of responsibility at all. They'd have to sincerely believe they were the best person for the job.

I don't know - what do you think of the Dalai Lama as a leader?

Obviously, however, they don't make good generals.

David, I'm a high school teacher and I've been thinking about the socio/behavioural/mental attributes you asked about which would need to be present to make the pursuit of enlightenment an attractive sport!! I"ve been teaching for 14 years and I have noticed that when I introduce students to this stuff there is a a huge initial surge of interest and fascination when I make it pertinent to their lives. Fundamental training in concentration and insight inrtigue them. A stable background would help, emotionally and socially, curiosity beyond the material and the immediate senses, a sense of awe and a rugged refusal to give up. All of these attributes can be inspired. Of course, an all cultural awe of this process, such as is present in Tibet, would be the over riding catalyst. We are battling the legacy of the modernist age and now the post-modern age and technology and values that draws kids away from natural processes, calm and focus. A lot of kids are crushed mind, body and soul by competition and capitalism. The individual is not really valued here, in my opinion, only the reacting individual which consents through ignorance to being manipulated for the capitalist venture. The deeper individual remains unmined in schools but I hazard a guess that within ten to fifteen years you will see more and more of this 'enligthening' pursuit appearing in secular form simply because people are beginning to notice that kids are suffereing. Big time!!
Paul

"I don't know - what do you think of the Dalai Lama as a leader? "

David, you kind of got me here. This is a great question. I love the Dalai Lama. He's probably very, very enlightened. He certainly exhibits all the traits. I agree that selfishness, being centered on the self, acting from self-motivation, etc., is on balance a negative when it comes to governing. I agree that enlightenment, true enlightenment, might eliminate some of that as motivation for leaders of governments. But I'm still nervous about meritocracy. I need to think a little more about this. Again, what concerns me is that I see enlightened people being capable and acting out of all the foibles the rest of us have. What do you think of Richard Baker Roshi as a leader?

Stuart Lachs.... paging Stuart Lachs....