Quest Magazine

VOLUME 95, NUMBER 2

CONTENTS

Living Waters
By Betty Bland

Humans, Apes, and the Felix Culpa
By John Algeo

The Dual Nature of Reality
By Richard Smoley

The Self, Science, and Religion
By Anna F. Lemkow

Religion in the World Today
Robert Ellwood

Guilt, Anger and the Human Condition
By Sam Menahem

Science and Theosophy: the Challenge of Unification Part 2
By Michael Levin

Saving Nature: In Praise of Frugality
By James L. Bull

Anna F. Lemkow

Originally printed in the MARCH-APRIL 2007 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Lemkow, Anna F. "The Self, Science, and Religion." Quest  95.2 (MARCH-APRIL 2007): 47-51.

What has become apparent to me is that much of the turmoil of the modern world arises from the bitter conflict between the two fields that have come to be known as modern science and religion and how they relate to Self. The bridging of these two great domains would be a boon for humanity and by the evidence shown, human consciousness is inexorably, if unevenly, evolving toward this sought after integration.

How We Define the Self

The common understanding in many fields of knowledge is that the nature of our Self is composite; that is, the different constituents of our makeup correspond with and serve as our means of contact with different levels of reality.

Huston Smith, renowned explorer of comparative religion, displays in his book, Why Religion Matters, an extraordinary mandala that depicts this universal vision of the relationship between reality and selfhood. Smith's mandala includes all the major religious traditions: namely, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and the Chinese complex of religions. The mandala indicates the four major levels of reality and the corresponding four levels of selfhood for each of them. In Christianity, the four levels of selfhood—body, mind, soul, and spirit—are correlated with nature, angels or demons, Christ, and Godhead, respectively. Hinduism, to take another example, posits the gross body, the subtle body, the causal body, and atma or turiya which correspond respectively to prakriti, deva lokas, Saguna Brahman (God attributes) and Nirguna Brahman (ultimate infinite, formless, Godhead)—the latter two levels of deity reflect the exoteric and the esoteric stream, respectively, found in each world religion.

Concerning the nature of reality, Smith points out that its "domains are not identical in worth. . . Being infinite, the Godhead is more complete than God . . . who in turn is more important than [this world] " (225). The mandala accords, not surprisingly, with the millennial idea of the Great Chain of Being—the idea that reality is a hierarchy of interwoven levels of consciousness reaching from matter to body to mind to soul to the ultimate divine source.

The Anatman or no-self doctrine of Buddhism is illuminating. What it maintains is that the small or personal ego is impermanent—that it has no abiding reality—that it is empty of any self-nature. John Engler, who is a Buddhist and a trained psychologist, states in Paths Beyond Ego that: "in both psychologies the sense of being the same "self" in time, in place, and across states of consciousness is conceived as something that is not innate in personality, not inherent but that evolves developmentally. . . [It] is actually an internalized image, a composite representation, constructed by a selective and imaginative 'remembering' of past encounters with the object world. . . [it] is viewed as being constructed anew from moment to moment" (118).

Mahayana Buddhism, unlike Theravada Buddhism, while similarly denying the small ego, strongly affirms that a true self is discoverable, though only after a prolonged and painful inner search. Robert Thurman of Columbia University (who studied Tibetan Buddhism with the Dalai Lama) describes the discovery as liberating. It liberates one from the need to shore up the small ego, the false entity and its false pretensions, and from the need to be somebody instead of just being. Thurman characterizes the true self as boundless and intimately connected to the entire universe.

Lama Anagarika Govinda, a gifted expositor of Tibetan mysticism, stated in Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional Consciousness: "When the Buddha put the annata-idea in the center of his teaching he took the decisive step from a static to a dynamic view of the world, from an emphasis on "being" to an emphasis on "becoming," from the concept of an unchangeable, permanent "I" (ego) to the realization of the interdependence of all forms and aspects of life and the capacity of the individual to grow beyond himself and his self-created limitations" (6).

Interestingly, both Buddhism and contemporary psychoanalysis study the self but they study two different levels of the self. The goal of both is the easing of human suffering, yet for Buddhism this goal is radical transformation of consciousness, while for psychoanalysis the aim is to eliminate neurotic suffering that may and often stems from early childhood traumas and distortions. Each system duly has its own method. Buddhism advocates meditative practice, while psychoanalysis tries to strengthen the ego. (Paradoxically, the personal ego—that dubious or false entity—must nevertheless be strengthened before it is reduced to size.) The two systems are complementary.

Buddhist Theosophist, Christmas Humphreys distinguishes three main levels of selfhood in Studies in the Middle Way: Atma—the SELF—which shines on all and is the property of no one; the Self, which moves from life to life—a continuous, complex, changing flow—"a becoming, a ceaseless growth, an endless process of becoming what it really is" (47), and the self, the personality which "acquires experience through the five senses and the mind, and therefore provides a workshop for the growth of character" (46). The acquired experience is absorbed by the Self and is then stored in memory. Another way this configuration has been interpreted is thus: the SELF is both the (causal) top rung of the ladder in the spectrum of consciousness and that of which all the rungs are constituted.

H. P. Blavatsky remarked in The Key to Theosophy that the SELF or Higher Self, as she called it, can never be objective for it is Atma, which is really Brahma, the Absolute, and is indistinguishable from it. Blavatsky refers to it at times as "the God within us," and as "our Father in Secret." She also borrows the term "oversoul" from the great American transcendentalist philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It occurs, notably, in the Proem to The Secret Doctrine: "The Secret Doctrine teaches...The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Oversoul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root. . . " (13).

Ken Wilber writes in his book Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution: "In philosophy a general distinction is made between the empirical ego, which is the self insofar as it can be an object of awareness and introspection, and the Pure Ego or transcendental Ego which is pure subjectivity (or the observing Self), which can never be seen as an object of any sort. In this regard, the pure Ego is virtually identical with what the Hindus call Atman or the pure Witness that itself is never witnessed—is never an object—but contains all objects in itself" (227).

Psychologies of East and West allude to the process of decentering from the empirical ego. Wilber, a Zen Buddhist, remarks that the more we decenter from that ego, the closer we approach "an intuition of the very Divine as one's very Self . . . . The completely decentered self is the all-embracing Self (as Zen would say, the Self that is no-self)" (231).

Some of us today have begun to de-center from the personal self or the small ego to some degree. When we stand back and look at ourselves somewhat objectively—we notice negative emotions and obsessive concern with ourselves—i.e., we begin to notice a kind of I/me divide.

A related perception that some of us have is that one's truer identity, whatever it is, is scarcely captured in any conventional way, e.g., by such data as place and religion of birth, skin color, sex, address, occupation, affiliations, and any other personal attributes. Using myself as an example, I am white, female, of Russian-Jewish extraction, a United States/Canadian citizen, a planetary citizen, a life member of the Theosophical Society, but I often feel that I am somehow different from and also more than the sum of these personal attributes.

It is not, I believe, that our personal particulars are insignificant. On the contrary, they are potent and dynamic. They are the rich soil of our present incarnations. Moreover, it is the unique combination of personal attributes that makes each individual unique. No one could be mistaken for someone else no matter how much change they undergo in body and mind during the course of a lifetime. And yet, none of one's personal attributes are absolute.

Significantly innumerable individuals across time and culture have reported having a spontaneous glimpse of a Self totally unrelated to their biographical history. I have experienced such a glimpse at least once; I felt a oneness with everything and everyone, a blissful sense of total self-acceptance as well as an acceptance and love of everyone else. I wish to not forget this peak experience because it is an illuminating peek at my true nature.

Modern Rationalism: The Self Dumbed Down

We know that evolution is an incontrovertible fact; even just how it happened and how it proceeds are a matter of controversy. Its course appears unpredictable. Take what happened to the notion of Self in recent centuries by a passage from The Passion of the Western Mind by the historian Richard Tarnas:

Science replaced religion as preeminent intellectual authority, as definer, judge, and guardian of the cultural world view. Human reason and empirical observation replaced theological doctrine and scriptural revelation as the principal means for comprehending the universe. Conceptions involving a transcendent reality were increasingly regarded as beyond the competence of human knowledge. While modern rationalism suggested and eventually affirmed and based itself upon the conception of man as the highest or ultimate intelligence, modem empiricism did the same for the conception of the material world as the essential or only reality—i.e. secular humanism and scientific materialism, respectively. (286)

The advent of modern science was a watershed in human history that ushered in a wealth of new truths and discoveries. In its wake, the self-evolution of consciousness paradoxically seemed to take a regressive turn—i.e., obscuration, at least for many and for the time being, of the transrational (transpersonal, contemplative, mystical) levels of consciousness.

Scientific materialism states that matter-energy is the only reality, that only matter exists and that consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon that somehow issues from the physical brain. If there were no brain, the argument goes, there would be no such thing as sentience or consciousness. Scientific materialism is still the official view of modern science, notwithstanding that it is scientifically obsolete. It was, in effect, refuted as early as the twentieth century upon the discovery of the dynamic nature of matter, whereupon the cosmos ceased to look like a dead machine and began to look instead like a great thought or like mindstuff. Science could no longer claim to know matter. The mystery has deepened—even a subatomic particle can display instant correlation or synchronization of events over long distances; the finding known as non-locality.

Yet self-evolution continues. At the frontiers of science, theorists are vigorously searching for unified theories—in all disciplines. There are some theories that promise or claim to unify matter, life, and mind. But the materialistic/mechanistic view remains entrenched among many conventional scientists and other mechanistically-minded thinkers.

In a recent article on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, Daniel C. Dennett, the well-known American philosopher, argues passionately that while nature displays "breathtakingly ingenious designs," these have all, including the development of the eye, been generated by processes that are themselves without purpose and without intelligence. The long-inculcated mechanistic/materialistic view, with its disavowal of purpose in nature, can apparently produce downright irrationality even in some philosophers although it is only rational to see machines as devoid of rationality! Nature in fact displays countless and remarkable examples of purpose and a number of examples are cited in my book, The Wholeness Principle: Dynamics of Unity within Science.

A widely influential "ism" related to empirical science that scientists do not necessarily claim is scientism. Scientism holds that what science does not discover is not true. As Huston Smith remarks in The Way Things Are, this stance "reduces the stature of the human self. The highest reaches of humanity are beheaded, you might say, by a single stroke of the scientistic sword" (270). Smith calls scientism "tunnel vision." He documents its pervasiveness in academia. Wilber often expatiates on what he calls flatland (reflecting the absence of the vertical dimension of consciousness). Plato's metaphor, remember, was the cave.

Another "ism" we can look at is secular humanism. According to Frederick Edwords of the American Humanist Association, in his article "What Is Humanism?" there are many types of humanism, including cultural, secular, and religious humanism. All types of humanism place reliance alone on "human means for comprehending reality . . . [making] no claims to possess or have access to supposed transcendent knowledge." Religious humanism, states Edwords, regards religion as "functional," (i.e., pragmatic)—it "serves the personal and social needs of a group of people sharing the same philosophical world view." "Secular and Religious humanists both share the same worldview and the same basic principles." Edwords quotes the definition of modern humanism of Corliss Lamont, its chief proponent: "a naturalistic philosophy that rejects all supernaturalism and relies primarily upon reason and science, democracy and human compassion."

While secular humanism is greatly superior to pure mechanism, some strains of it lack awareness of the Self and its incomparably richer transrational experience. Yet, secular humanists or modern rationalists seem to constitute the major segment of the population of the Western world. Many scientists fall into this category, as do many academicians, and liberals.

Another prominent "ism" of our time is of course religious fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalism is resurging strongly just now. Common to religious fundamentalists, whether Judaic, Christian, or Muslim, is the proclivity to stigmatize their opponents by labeling them as apostates from the one true way. In reality, this deeply polarizing phenomenon often represents tribal strife over material resources and power rather than over religion. (Is loving to hate others for the love of God consistent with religion?) On the other hand, scholars point out that fundamentalism is the very opposite pole of secularism, and that these two prominent "isms" trace back to the rise of modern science (which would accord with the view of Tarnas).

Smith, in The Way Things Are elucidates: "Fundamentalists see their traditional values threatened by scientistic, humanistic secularism. Of course their ways of reacting can be very unbecoming and very scary . . . [Yet] the climate of modernity and post modernity is excessively naturalistic and scientistic, and liberal intellectuals have played a part in making it so" (158).

Trans-rationalism or the Higher Reaches of Self

Wilber remarks in his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, "The capacity to go within and look at rationality results in going beyond rationality... If you are aware of being rational, what is the nature of the awareness, since it is now bigger than rationality?" (258). He points out that all of the contemplative traditions start with reason—with the notion that truth is established by evidence, by experience—but "their teachings, and their contemplative endeavors, were (and are) transrational through and through." They all claim "that there exist higher domains of awareness, embrace, love, identity, reality, self, and truth." These are not dogmas but conclusions "based on hundreds of years of experimental introspection and communal verification" (265).

Reason is a marvelous and indispensable faculty. Together with experiment, it is indispensable for modern science. It is the mode for philosophical discourse. But while reason is the faculty we use for discussing truth, goodness, beauty, love, and compassion, it alone cannot make them realities in our life. It is an indispensable but limited faculty. We do not love our child, our lover, or a friend because it is reasonable to do so. Reason alone can neither produce a great work of art nor understand unity with others beyond all differences.

Toward the Integration of Western Science and Non-Institutional Religion

In his Lowell lectures of 1925, Alfred North Whitehead said, "When we consider what religion is for mankind, and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them" (181-182).

Half a century earlier, Blavatsky raised the same issue. As is evident in both The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, she undertook the formidable task of demonstrating the intercompatibility and complimentary relationship of the world religious traditions themselves and the harmony in principle of (non-institutional or mystical) religion and modern science. The subtitle of Blavatsky's masterwork, The Secret Doctrine, is "The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy."

Happily, modern science has been wonderfully harmonizing itself over the past many decades with spiritual principles—unintentionally, of course. This is most evident perhaps on the frontiers of science, as distinct from its mainline or Darwinist theory of evolution. The newer theory depicts evolution as a dynamic whole-making process that generates a continuum of wholes-within-greater wholes—in the parlance of science, holons-within-holons. (A holon is an entity that is both a whole and a part of a greater whole; in fact we know of no whole that is not also a part of a greater whole.) These theorists see the myriad holons as self-organizing, self-differentiating, and self-evolving.

With these insights, the word "self" assumes a wonderful new status that reflects the evolution of empirical science beyond materialism and mechanism—beyond the still-reigning scientific worldview of the primacy of matter. This theory sees evolution as a living, dynamic, process wherein the myriad selves (wholes/parts) self-differentiate only to self-transcend for the sake of the next higher—more embracing—holon-in-the-making. As Arthur Koestler, who introduced the word holon, once remarked that unity seemed to be achieved by a detour through diversity. Each emergent level transcends but includes the previous level. These are successive stages of the evolution of consciousness along the hierarchical, universal spectrum of consciousness. All holons, all existents, in effect, participate in a co-creative learning process—all, even molecules, atoms, and elementary particles, seem to have, to some level of evolution, a mind of their own; nothing is divorced from consciousness.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

In The Spectrum of Consciousness, Wilber defines evolution as "the movement of Spirit, toward Spirit, as Spirit, the conscious resurrection, in all men and women, of the Supreme Identity, an Identity present all along, but an Identity seemingly obscured by manifestation, seemingly obscured by the limited view from a lower rung on the ladder" (xvii).

Blavatsky described evolution as proceeding "from within without." Regrettably, Wilber never alludes to Blavatsky but he characterizes evolution similarly as a process of "within-and-beyond"—it "brings new withins and new beyonds." It is integral, we see, to the afore-mentioned "decentering" process. In Theosophy, and similarly in the integral worldview of Wilbur, the "within" reflects the postulate of involution as the necessary precedent to evolution. By contrast, science does not claim to know what preceded the Big Bang. It speaks in the language of theories, not in terms of transcendent reality. The process of evolution from the standpoint of science is in effect a process of the more coming from the less whereas in Theosophy or perennial philosophy the less comes from the more.

Mechanistic/materialistic thought dies hard, but modern science at its frontiers has outgrown mechanism/materialism. Leading integral thinkers are at one in discerning significant signs of a unitive movement in thought—an evolution toward the reconciliation of modern science and authentic or mystical religion—a kind of spiritual renaissance. Think of the dozens of comparative/integrative books, especially books on bridging science and religion, including many best sellers, which have been published in the past half-century.

Concerned integral thinkers often employ the phrase integrating science and religion. This may seem puzzling; after all, these are two very different pursuits employing two very different methodologies. Ravi Ravindra, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Dalhousie University, Canada—and also a theosophist—explains in Science and the Sacred that what is meant is a harmonization of the scientific and religious aspirations in the soul—the Self, we might say—of one and the same person. For Ravindra there is an essential complement between a great scientist and a great spiritual aspirant: "The spiritual aspirant's concern to know the self—both the ordinary self and the non-personal Self of all that exists—and the scientist's concern to know the world" are mutually supportive and complementary.

Ravindra also remarks: "... all spiritual traditions assert that there are many levels of being and consciousness within a person as well as in the cosmos, and that the highest can be experienced only in the deepest part of the soul. Also, all the traditions say that there is something, variously called Spirit or God or Allah or Brahman, which is above the mind. It cannot be comprehended by the ordinary mind but can be experienced by human beings whose consciousness has been radically transformed. . . In this traditional perspective, science needs to serve the Spirit; otherwise it ends up serving, almost by default, the natural human tendency towards self-centeredness, resulting in violence against and exploitation of other humans, cultures, other creatures and the Earth" (114-115).

Michael Levin

Originally printed in the MARCH-APRIL 2007 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Menahem, Sam. "Science and Theosophy: The Challenge of Unification Part 2." Quest  95.2 (MARCH-APRIL 2007): 59-63.

Opportunities for Integration from the Study of Physics

How are the seven planes of existence to be understood? They are most usually described as being made up of more rarefied matter vibrating at higher frequencies. This metaphor allows people to visualize the existence of many different things that interpenetrate but are oblivious of each other's existence unless they are at the same rate. The problem is that modern physics has a very clear understanding of the modes of existence of matter and challenges us to clarify and formalize this mental image. What exactly is vibrating, and along what metric? Most crucially, this rarefied stuff somehow has to interact with real matter—otherwise, mental/astral events could not exert causal effects in the brain. Surely these interactions would show up in the experimental and conceptual paradigms that comprise conservation of mass/energy, thermodynamics, and the structure of space-time.

Another way to understand this is as real orthogonal dimensions, in the sense of multidimensional spaces of relativity (Abbott, 2005). This is the approach taken by Ouspensky, who suggested that the different planes are spaces of which we are unaware because we are trapped within three-dimensional space, much the way ants on a table-top are oblivious to events below and above the surface. This approach allowed Ouspensky to develop some very interesting models of psychical phenomena, which are more easily understandable in a universe of additional spaces (Ouspensky, 1961; 1970). However, modern cosmology has a pretty good handle on how many dimensions there actually are. A working description of the physical world (driven by the data of astrophysics) needs at least eleven dimensions, with seven having atomic-sized dimensions and are rolled up into tubes. Macroscopic additional dimensions are ruled out based on the stability of planetary orbits in an inverse square law of gravity. Regardless, it is surely crucial to develop models of the planes and propose testable and coherent theories of how they relate to physical matter and the structure of the observed universe. These will have to encompass the data of cosmology, which currently points towards an ever-expanding universe that eventually encounters a cold death, and not the cyclical bounce universe which sounded so compatible with the breathing cycles of Brahma.

The problem of space is related to the problem of time. General relativity has eliminated the flow of time. The macroscopic universe is a Parmenidean block where time is a linear dimension—everything has "already" happened and exists somewhere along the time axis. True, some spiritual traditions hold that time is an illusion, but Theosophy is pretty clear on making the right choices with respect to karmic consequences, future progress as a result of time and effort, and so on. Even if one is willing to say that the consequences of all our actions, and the final spiritual progress of all the monads, already exists eternally and unchangingly, it is still necessary to develop a coherent model for the illusion of time which is so central to our consciousness as human beings who need to make choices based on thought and will. Moreover, Special Relativity has shown that there is no preferred "now" —events are ordered depending on the relative motion of the observer. Consider two differently moving observers. Since the state of our body is, as we are told, related to the spiritual evolution of our soul, will one observer see a given body as belonging to an adept while the other sees it as crude and at the very beginning of its evolution? How does the timeless Monad whose state is reflected in the physical body cope with this relativity? Theosophy certainly sounds like it is dependent upon a linear, absolute flow of time; if this is wrong, then the models of evolution, karma, cycles, etc. need to be drastically modified.

The problem of time and making choices is intimately bound to the issue of free will. Physics shows us two types of processes: deterministic ones, in which the outcome is completely dictated by the prior state of the system, and random ones, in which the outcome is in principle, not predictable. Where in this picture is what we know of as "free will," according to the action of which we generate positive and negative karmic consequences? Quantum mechanics is often thought to provide a way for consciousness to escape physical determinism, although new approaches involving decoherence offer promising ways to remove the need for an "observer" to collapse the wave function.

Mostly what quantum theory adds to this discussion is an element of fundamental unpredictability. But randomness is hardly what is meant by free will. What properties does a "free will" have? Theosophically compatible models of free will have to not only merge with physics (since presumably our free choices control what our body does), but also have to navigate the sharp philosophical distinctions between randomness and determination. Neither will do, by itself, and currently there is no conception of any other kind of causation. Moreover, determinism is a concept applicable to the state of the mental body, as well as the physical one, and we must begin to try to sketch an account of will, that is, what it means for a spiritual essence to make a decision related to, but not fully determined by, the current state of its components.

Quantum mechanics also achieves remarkable ability to accurately describe microscopic behavior based on the fundamental principle that certain events are fundamentally unpredictable. Can these kinds of events be perceived by clairvoyant faculties? What is the nature of the "knowledge of the future" which a Master may have? And, can spiritual development help surmount other kinds of unpredictability and unknowability revealed by the theory of computation and the fundamentals of mathematics?

Perhaps the biggest issue relates to the question of causal closure of the physical world. At the smallest scale, are the laws of physics enough to predict and explain all physical events with only information about the state of objects on the physical plane? If so, then the non-physical objects Theosophy spends so much time on are epiphenomenal and have no power to affect what goes on in the physical world. This profoundly undermines its importance and makes it completely unclear how anything we do in our minds and spirits ever matters here. If on the other hand, influence is passed down from the superphysical worlds, that is, events going on in the mental and astral bodies, perhaps working through the etheric, do ultimately exert an influence on the atoms of brains and thus the behavior of living things, then it is imperative to ask why this influence has not been noticed and how it might be accommodated within the mature science of thermodynamics and the conservation of mass/energy.

Opportunities for Integration from the Study of Biology and Medicine

Considerable success is being made in keeping mammals' heads alive without their bodies. If and when this experiment is perfected, what would one say about the other five chakras—are they not needed for life? How about animal group souls—they cannot correspond to species, since it is now known that there is no such sharp distinction. It is now possible to make embryonic chimeras, say between mice and chickens. What group soul is working through that living creature, especially since no such creature ever existed in the history of the universe, until it was created, and no other such creature exists in the world to share its group soul?

Cryogenics is also advancing. Once it is possible to successfully freeze and thaw a viable human being, what happens to their soul? Is it in limbo during the time that its body is frozen? What if a human body were frozen in a way that it could be later reanimated, but then sent to spend eternity frozen on Pluto—is that Monad barred from evolution until the end of the Universe or does it eventually disengage from the frozen body? And if it does disengage, how long before it does so? Can this be verified experimentally by showing that after such a time period the body cannot be brought back to life?

What exactly does the mental body do? If someday neurobiologists are able to show that the physical brain can successfully perform all of the input/output relations that are necessary for behavior without recourse to any non-physical components, why are the mental and astral bodies necessary? Admittedly, we are nowhere near achieving this yet, and in fact may never get there, but what if engineering and computer science produce a robot that is indistinguishable from a human being on the basis of behavior, conversation, etc. Shall we say that it is a clever simulation but has no consciousness, or that a human-level monad has learned to function through it? Would a gifted clairvoyant be needed to look at it and find out, or can this question be answered somehow on first principles? Are astral and mental bodies dependent on a particular kind of physical body or can they be adapted to bionic creations?

Imagine a Star-Trek-like matter duplicator that is used to make an exact particle-for-particle copy of a person's body. When assembled, will that body get up and function, and claim that it is the real person? Admittedly, this is an empirical question, and if an exact matter copy turns out not to be alive, this would be powerful evidence for the spiritual world-view and the lack of causal closure of the physical. This would be an excellent example of a result that would run counter to the current arrow of scientific consilience—everything we know suggests that this would not happen. All scientists would bet money on the opposite outcome; all of the findings of modern biology suggest that the processes of life are carried out by the chemical and physical components of cells. If the exact copy is indeed alive and well, does the copy "connect" to the monad of the original person and inherit the karma of that person? And what happens as their behaviors begin to diverge and generate different karmic forces?

What if a human egg is fertilized in vitro, and allowed to divide (first cell division), and then a quantum coin-tosser (random number generator) is used to decide whether or not the two cell embryo is to be split it in half, i.e., separated into the two distinct cells. If it comes up heads, the embryo is left intact, implanted and born as one person. If the quantum generator comes up tails, the cells are separated and implanted separately, resulting in twins. This can be done today, in fertility clinics. The decision and the splitting procedure can take place in about ten minutes. When are the life-plans that match souls to incipient conceptions made? When are the life-paths which those souls need for their next lessons determined? How many actual souls are there, in total? Presumably a finite number, if they are supposed to reach certain levels of progress through a finite number of life-times before the end of the universal cycle. Once space travel becomes practical, and humanity spreads out into space, reproducing exponentially to fill endless available space, will we reach a limit on the number of human-compatible monads? And if so, once we run out of souls, what will happen—will conceptions suddenly stop being viable?

There are also a number of miscellaneous puzzles. The Fermi paradox asks (as Theosophy affirms) if life is prevalent in the Universe, where is everyone? Surely some of these civilizations are also physical, and sending out radio or other signals that should easily be detectable. Why do we seem to be alone? And, closer to home, our tradition is full of stories of powerful ancient civilizations such as Atlantis. The disconnect between these claims and the modern understanding of paleontology, archeology, and anthropology needs to be addressed. Is it really plausible that we know so much about life forms that lived a billion years ago but have missed completely all the advanced civilizations and any of the artifacts that would have been left behind from that time?

Conclusions

These issues were chosen from a long list of places where Theosophy and science intersect and must be reconciled. These are not just koans, brainteasers, or crazy puzzles for people with nothing better to do. The question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is not pointless sophistry—whether angels take up any physical space or not is a deep and important point; just as the paradoxes of Zeno, which must have been annoying in his day, now speak to fundamental questions about the granularity of space and time.

These questions allow us to get at the root of things that really are important. For example, if we can show that neurons compute, process data, hold memories, etc., what is left for the mental body to do? Entities without useful jobs get fired from our ontology; could the whole pantheon of Theosophical belief be gone some day because it simply is not necessary? Someone with an ancient Greek bent of mind might say that Einstein explained how rocks move in gravitational fields, but that his account left out the rock's soul that seeks its rightful place on the earth. True enough, but the fate of this kind of argument is clear—elimination of things that are completely useless for understanding leads us to do away with the soul of the rock (at least as far as impacting its behavior in any of our experiments is concerned.) Progress must be made so that theosophical subjects that do no useful work are not relegated to epiphenomena.

One wants to be a theosophist if and only if this system is useful in understanding the real world; in the long run, there is no room in our brains for facts about planes and devas if they do not help make sense of what we observe. Most of us, having no direct access to superphysical reality, rely on people like C. W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant to tell us about those things. If they are proven to be completely wrong on specifics, does it really make sense to spend a lot of the time worrying about other things they have said about how we are to live, and about the context in which we should understand our short lives?

Theosophists cannot afford to keep separate from scientists. Whatever else one can say about it, science works. Therefore, if one really believes that Theosophy has something to say to us about the physical world (and the old authors wrote volumes about "how the world is" and very little about "how to meditate" —they were clearly a very "scientific" or at least, "naturalist" bunch), then one cannot afford the stance of the old Christian church, i.e., that spiritual matters and physical matters are distinct realms of inquiry. It is imperative that we develop a way to merge; otherwise it will not be science that is left in the dust. Sure enough, science eventually will come to subsume everything that is real and tractable by rational methods, including the spiritual, but "eventually" can be a very long time. There is little indication that science is going in this direction at all, and that must be changed. Of course, the onus of initiating the change is mainly on our shoulders. Insofar as it is believed that Theosophy is valuable for humankind, theosophists must make sure that its gifts integrate into the best understanding of the world which we have, and as soon as possible.

This is a tiring journey. The effort must go both ways—Theosophy has to be thought about more deeply in light of modern science, but also may provide new ways to think about some aspects of science. We must establish a theosophical research program, identify the most promising areas for unification, recruit bright young people to work on it, and focus on developing proof-of-principle areas, which will bring the whole effort into greater contact with modern science. It has been previously argued that aspects of parapsychology provide one very promising inroad. A greater involvement of high-grade clairvoyants in laboratory research will also pay off greatly. Science has been tremendously successful in explaining the world with no need for those "other hypotheses" we all know and love. But of course there is a flip side to this coin—much has remained left out of the scientific picture of the world. Some of it has surely been left out for the best reason of all—it is not real. But much of it is true, and just needs to be brought to the forefront. It is here, if we choose to take up the challenge, that we as theosophists can truly shine.

Of course, thinking about theosophical details from a critical and scientific perspective is surely not for everyone, and represents only a portion of what Theosophy offers us. There is much to be gained from the non-fifth ray (i.e., scientific) approaches to spirituality while all these subtle issues remain unresolved. Although it is not the kind of inspiring message to which many of us are accustomed, this overview is not meant to be pessimistic. The "all will be well if we just wait long enough" mentality will not serve us well here (it almost never does.) However, there is reason for optimism because by asking these questions, light is shed on the road by which progress can be achieved. There is hard work that is necessary, but the rewards are great.

And surely that is the essential message of Theosophy as a whole.

By Sam Menahem

Originally printed in the MARCH-APRIL 2007 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Menahem, Sam. "Guilt, Anger and the Human Condition." Quest  95.2 (MARCH-APRIL 2007): 65-67.

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, read on. If you answered "no" to all of them, you are either a very happy person or you are in denial. It is likely that you are in denial, but please read on anyway; you may discover some inner guilt. After all, most guilt is unconscious. It is often just too painful to feel the brunt of our guilt.

Psychologists since the time of Sigmund Freud have been trying to educate us about the ways in which we protect ourselves from feeling the pain of guilt. The number one defense mechanism is denial. Young children often deny doing things they just did right in front of adults. Even when confronted, they deny it. Only with maturity do people begin to admit what they have done. With even greater maturity, they learn to accept the consequences of what they have done. This does not usually occur until adolescence, often later, and sometimes never.

There are those who never admit responsibility for anything. Schizophrenics, criminals, alcohol and drug abusers, and narcissists all deny responsibility for their actions. The fear of the consequences of their actions is too great. To feel guilty is to think you did something wrong. In a court of law, guilt requires punishment. Life is like a court of law. If you believe you are guilty, you will find some way to get punished for it. Most of the time the punishment comes in the form of other people or life in general, giving you problems, situations, and feelings you do not want.

If you are completely unaware of your own guilt and need for punishment, you will see no connection to it when the troubling person or situation gives you a hard time. For example, you may be harshly criticized by a spouse or boss, and react with righteous indignation or anger: "How dare he attack me? I didn't do anything wrong. I am angry and going to stay angry until he apologizes."

You may rant and rave, or turn it inward and get depressed, or develop a physical condition like a headache, stomachache or worse. You may also develop anxiety out of fear of retribution for the retaliatory anger. It is a vicious circle. The tragedy of it all is that neither party realizes that the whole conflict has to do with unconscious guilt and self-hate. The one who is more aware of the guilt, sometimes called a depressive, victim, loser, or schlemiel seems to attract other people with unconscious guilt. These people are so unaware of their guilt that they unconsciously project it outward onto someone else. The angry person proclaims: "It isn't my fault, it is your fault."

This is projection, an attempt to remain unaware of guilt and self-hate. The ball is now in the depressive's court. The depressive might respond by counter-attacking, becoming more depressed, or getting sicker in some way. The vicious circle may spiral out of control, with all parties feeling misunderstood, victimized and unhappy.

This is the dynamic behind all human conflict. It leads to the entire range of human misery, depression, anxiety, divorce, illness, and, on a global scale, war. All of it is caused by one simple human emotion—Guilt!

Guilt is an emotional discomfort that arises when we feel we have not lived up to some responsibility or that we have done something wrong. It does not mean we actually did something wrong; we just have to think we did something wrong. This is an important distinction. To paraphrase the great philosopher Rene Descartes; I think I did something wrong—therefore I did do something wrong—and I am guilty! But why do so many, if not all, of us think we have done something wrong in the first place? There are two levels to be explored, the psychological and the spiritual.

Psychological guilt develops as we adapt to the physical world after we are born. Psychologists call this process, "separation-individuation." This term means that in order to survive in the physical world, we need to gradually realize that we are separate individuals. We need to identify with our bodies, realize we are physically separate from mother, and learn how to deal with and cope with all the other seemingly separate individuals in this world of, as William James says in Principles of Psychology, "blooming, buzzing confusion."

Under ideal conditions, our caretakers show us warmth, love and compassion. They guide us through all the difficulties of toddler-hood and early childhood. They give us appropriate limits at each age and enforce the rules consistently. They never use guilt or fear to control us. We grow up to be happy, healthy, young adults with high self esteem and great caring for others.

Those of you who were raised this way are lucky indeed. As for the rest of us, we were raised by immature and inconsistent parents who had plenty of their own insecurities and issues. They tried their best, but were often overwhelmed by the process of making a living and raising a family. Although they tried to love us and set limits, they did so inconsistently. In coping with alcohol or drug related problems, they may have used fear and guilt to control us just as their parents did with them. They just did not know any better. And sometimes, parents might have treated us with outright abuse or neglect.

The result is that we were traumatized. Each time we were yelled at, hit, or told that we were not good enough, we took it to heart. It is the nature of children to think the world revolves around them. If they are being mistreated, they believe they deserve it.

Guilt may be described in this parody of the introduction to the old 1950s TV show, Superman. More powerful than a locomotive! Able to destroy whole populations like an epidemic. Look! Out in the world, it's Super-Guilt! Yes, Guilt; strange emotion from another planet with power and ability to destroy mortal humans. Guilt, destroying all who feel it or deny it, disguised in everyone as they suffer with fear, anger, and the physical way.

Seriously, it is almost impossible to grow up without trauma, guilt, and fear. Parenting is a very difficult job; however, many parents are in denial when it comes to thinking that they might lack parenting skills. Consequently, their kids feel guilty because the parents indirectly tell them they are guilty. Parental blaming, plus the normal narcissistic nature of childhood equals a very guilty populace.

Am I blaming the parents? Actually, no; this is just the way it is. And human life is difficult because of the way it is set up. Most of us grow up in the competitive world of school and work, trying to prove that we are good enough, while feeling inside that we are not.

Guilt is the Human Condition. Now, this is much too painful for most of us to bear. We tend to deny our guilt; pretend it does not exist, and blame someone else. We do this by using the defense mechanisms of denial and projection mentioned previously.

At this point, I must add in the granddaddy of all defenses: Repression. This is the automatic pushing of pain into the unconscious. We can be very guilty without realizing it. All of this inner guilt and turmoil results in fear, hate, and conflict in the outer world. Guilt is the source of all human conflict. While I have outlined the psychological reasons for guilt, which are important, they do not go deep enough. We must also explore the spiritual basis for guilt.

The spiritual basis for guilt is a feeling of separation from our Source, God, or the Infinite. Our materialistic western culture would have us believe that we are nothing but biological creatures, with an ego to guide us through life, after which we are obliterated. This is the paradigm of life we are taught in the American school system. This is often taught side by side with some religious teaching which mentions a God who is basically loving and powerful, but is also judgmental. Since God knows all about us, we are punished if we are bad. If guilt is the root of all suffering, and there is some spiritual basis for guilt, let us root it out and heal it. The point is that this feeling of separation from God causes all suffering.

Therefore, healing the split with God is the central task for healing each person's pain. Indeed, it is the central task for healing the persistent conflict among individuals and nations. In order to accomplish this, we must stop projecting God as a separate being who is punishing us for our guilt, as our parents do on the psychological level. The ultimate answer for humanity is to wake up and realize that, on the spiritual level, we are one with God. That is to say, we are emanations of all that is—our Source—God. God's nature is love, peace, and power. Thus, our nature is also love, peace, and power. But, since we are alienated and think we are separate from God, we feel guilt, fear, and anger on a regular basis.

The first step in eliminating guilt is to admit our underlying guilt to begin healing our emotions. Secondly, we must heal our relationship with God, developing our spirituality. Spiritual-psychotherapy can help. It involves releasing our feelings of separation from others and from God. In other words, true forgiveness. Meditation and prayer are invaluable tools in this process. They help us to promote spiritual values. We need to learn to release the negative emotions and negative beliefs caused by guilt. As we make progress in letting go of negative emotions, we will forgive and develop compassion for others.

We must also look for the lesson and meaning in each life-event. Our idealized human lesson plan is to try to pray away all problems and to sail through life easily and happily. If that does not occur, we begin to doubt the efficacy of prayer and the power of God because of our misunderstanding about what prayer is and how God answers prayer. God simply has a different lesson plan.

To God, prayer is not a simple "get-rid-of-suffering" technique. Rather, it is an alignment of our values with spiritual values. Every time we have a problem, we need to better align ourselves with God or Spirit. If we do not experience any spiritual learning, repentance, or rethinking, we may not experience any change on the physical or psychological level. Thus, we have been given the answer—and the answer is "No." If we have not yet let go of the guilt, anger, or fear, we will not begin healing.

"Keep trying," God replies, "I will give you strength." Keep praying and the answer will change as we are healed spiritually. Remember, we are spiritual beings first and foremost. The realm of changing physical phenomena is just an arena for our spiritual learning.

The ultimate goal is a sense of oneness with the source, God. In more pragmatic terms, this translates to feelings of happiness, joy, even bliss; not all the time, but anytime we are properly aligned. Our physical and ego selves exert a tremendous pull to move us away from spirituality and move us toward the pleasures of sensory gratification. We need to gradually move away from spending all of our time gratifying the senses and to spending more time in contemplation of the spiritual side of ourselves. Over time, spiritual therapy, prayer, and mediation will show us who we really are: spiritual beings, on a human adventure. It is time to let go of our hidden inner guilt and develop our spiritual side. It is our only chance for real happiness. The fate of humanity awaits our collective decision.