I’ve been listening to Ken Wilber’s Kosmic Konsciousness on SoundsTrue the last couple of days, and am trying to sort out levels and lines.
This isn’t what he wanted me to get out of it at all.
It is my understanding that a spirit can be limited by the vessel it finds itself under some circumstances. It says something important about my unrealistic expectations that everyone can evolve. Some just can’t, they don’t have the proper structures for it. I just have to figure out exactly what that all means in terms of human potential. Can it be true that large numbers of humans don’t have the potential for enlightenment? When do we accept that we’ve gone as far as we can? Isn’t it a sort of surrender to settle into complacence, when we can’t know whether we’ve hit the glass ceiling, vs. whether we are merely at a plateau?
It also comes back to a previous conversation I had about animal intelligence. Some animals may happen to have brain structures that give them better reasoning skills, or the higher emotions, or perhaps an unusual capacity for understanding human language. Imagine owning a veritable Da Vinci among dogs. Would he get bored easily?
It convinces me all over again that intelligence is a continuum. All types, even the ones where I personally have severe deficiencies.
While humans are unmistakably at the top of the food chain, it is likely that there are animals that are more highly evolved in other lines. For instance, can you conceptualize a chair as a pattern of echoes rather than as a visual construct? Can you describe a chair by duplicating the sound reflections off that chair? Dolphins can and do. But they won’t be building any libraries any time soon.
Into the Void
Back off, man, I'm co-creating my reality.
Kosmic Konsciousness
One Response to Kosmic Konsciousness
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Interesting stuff, and it begs the question – what is meant when we say evolution? It becomes mysterious and sort of fuzzy, per your blog entry, when we think of it as just a function of intelligence.
Considered from the perspective of enlightenment, the equation shifts. Enlightened does not equal highly intelligent. Often the two do go hand in hand, but they are certainly not the same and often intelligence, and higher mental functioning can be one of the bigger roadblocks of the quest for higher consciousness. The mind is very powerful and seductive, and loves to have us believe that not only is it in control, but that it *is* self.
Spirit/soul is limitless. There is no end to the quest of becoming more Godlike/spiritually aware/enlightened. The human form is the best vehicle for this mission; however, soul’s possession of same does not guarantee it advanced states of awareness. Spiritual evolution is a function of karma, motivation, and elbow grease.
Thanks for the morning contemplation seed.
jeff
http://eckankar.org