Thursday, October 02, 2008

In 1999 some Sri Aurobindo followers expressed concern at Ken Wilber using the term "Integral Psychology"






Wilber uses the word "integral" - meaning "to integrate, to bring together, to join, to link, to embrace. Not in the sense of uniformity...but in the sense of unity-indiversity, shared commonalities along with our wonderful differences" [A Theory of Everything] to describe his philosophy.

In 1999 some Sri Aurobindo followers expressed concern at Ken Wilber using the term "Integral Psychology" as a title for one of his new books, as this term has already been used by the Aurobindo community to refer to a spiritual/esoteric/occult psychology based on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In the 1960s Swami Satchidananda had also adopted the Aurobindoan term "Integral Yoga" for his own completely unrelated teaching). However, Wilber himself actually adopted the term from Swiss cultural historian Gene Gebser (1905-1973) as early as the mid 1970s [Where's Wilber At? p.28 n.8]

Wilber-IV and AQAL marks the beginnings of Wilber's Postmodernism, and postmodernistic techniques of criticism are enthusiastically applied to all fields of knowledge. Through his model, Wilber claims to have deconstructed the compartmentalized, disconnected worldview of science (objective), religion (subjective), and ethics (intersubjective) and replaced it with a more unified
integrated one, with each area of knowledge going in one of the quadrants. Each quadrant has its own validity claim, its own relative, partial, but still totally authentic truth. With each type or knowledge there are specific types types of evidence and validation procedures.

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October 2, 2008 Hinduism and Mystic Judaism Posted by Benjamin under blog, dharma, hindu, kabbalah, mysticism Hinduism and Mystic Judaism by Chris (posted Monday, September 24th, 2007 on chrisqq.wordpress.com

This view certainly coincides with very closely with Hindu views of God. I think that the Judaic tree of life is described in abstract terms because of the biblical dictates against making images of God. This prevented Jewish mystics from using straightforward images as Hindus do.
This aspect of the Kabbala corresponds closely with the Hindu Jnana Yoga. Judaism also has equivalent ideas to Bhakti Yoga. The founder of Hassidic Judaism Baal Shem Tov saw prayer and devotion as more important than the study of the Talmud and the tree of life. He also saw great importance on purity. He declared the whole universe, mind and matter, to be a manifestation of the Divine Being; that this manifestation is not an emanation from God, as is the conception of the Kabbalah by Mitnagdim (religious Jews who opposed Chasidism), for nothing can be separated from God, echoing Advaita Vedanta.
There have also been attempts to show that the tree of life reflect the Yogic chakras. Altogether, there are striking parallels between Judaism and Hinduism. Some of these certainly emerged as mystical revelation. It is also possible that some of these concepts were within Judaism from the beginning, echoing the original true world religion.

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