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Spiral Dynamics and Science of Mind (Part 1)

January 26, 2010 //
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[This is part 1 of a 3 part article on the basics of Spiral Dynamics and their relationship to the Science of Mind.  An edited version of this article appeared in Science of Mind magazine's April 2008 issue.]

One of the first things that attracted me to the Science of Mind was its view of God.  The idea that God is a power that moves in and through everything as that thing totally resonated with me.  I also loved that Ernest Holmes’ philosophy blessed all paths to God seeing how they serve the whole of life.  I often think that if everyone studied and applied the concepts of Science of Mind, we would bridge the differences of separation that appear to exist in the outer world.

But then I am hit by questions such as why do people think so differently?  Why is there so much conflict in the world between religions and between those of faith and science?  Why is it that people cannot see beyond their differences to their common unity?  Why do people have such drastically different visions of God?  In Spiral Dynamics, I found a theory that helps me answer those questions.  

Spiral Dynamics is a scientific theory derived from the work of Dr. Claire Graves in the early 1970s and popularized in the last 10 years or so by the work of Dr. Don Beck and Chris Cowan.  It describes a process by which humanity develops and moves through an upward spiral of emerging values or ways of looking at the world that come forth in response to our changing life conditions.   Applying the model can be useful (and has been) in the areas of breaking down cultural barriers, assisting in organizational leadership, meeting varying educational needs and more.

Moreover, I believe that understanding Spiral Dynamics allows us to enhance our use of Science of Mind principles.  We know that how people think creates their lives.  The better we understand how we and others think the way we do, gives us insight as to the underlying beliefs that may be limiting us.  It also opens us to compassion and understanding when confronted with the limited beliefs of ourselves and others.  And most importantly, Spiral Dynamics can help us bridge our differences in how we see God.  

Ernest Holmes repeatedly stressed that we were evolving and described where that evolution was taking us.  He stated both  “Evolution is the emergence of that which already is in form, in an ever-upward spiraling” and that “the whole process of evolution is to produce a being who can consciously co-operate with the Evolutionary Principle, which is Pure Spirit.”  Spiral Dynamics supports this.

Just as Holmes developed the cross-disciplined philosophy of Science of Mind based on the golden thread of truth he saw between science, religion and philosophy; psychologist Graves first developed his theory of human development based on years of research into human values that crossed into the areas of psychology, sociology and biology.  His data indicated that human beings exist at different “levels of existence” where we exhibit behavior and values that are characteristic of people at that level.   We learn our behavior and values in order to meet the needs of the life conditions which surround us.  Yet, as we meet our needs at one level of existence there emerges new life conditions which require us to grow. As Einstein said, “the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” 

Spiral Dynamics maps a system of nine or more levels of consciousness or worldviews through which humans move in order.  For ease in describing the levels, they are color coded, although the colors assigned have no particular significance. These levels alternate between a focus on the external world and attempts to change it and a focus on the inner world and attempts to come to peace with it.   When charted, this pattern of evolutionary consciousness resembles a spiral.  New life conditions bring new levels of thinking which bring new life conditions in an ever repeating pattern.

[Continued tomorrow....]

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Categories Consciousness, Science and Spirit

Is Reality Real?

January 25, 2010 //
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What the heck does that mean?  I guess I’m asking is what comes to us through our consciousness a true reflection of the world?  Or, is it somehow colored by factors of which we are generally not aware?

I’m sure most of you know that what is delivered to our consciousness by our senses is simply a limited snapshot of what is going on around us in the physical world.  Obviously, we only hear a small range of potential sounds and see only a small sliver of the light spectrum.  Dogs howl at sounds we cannot hear.  Our skin burns when we are outside on a cloudy day from ultraviolet rays cannot see.

Even within the sensory inputs that are within the range of our physical senses, we tune out most of it as unneeded background noise.  Our consciousness delivers to our awareness only those sensory inputs that are deemed important.  Simply consider those times when you’ve been in a crowded room and tuned out all the noise but immediately came to focus upon your name being spoken across the room.

So yes, there is a lot going on around you of which you are unaware.  Even so, can we rely on the validity of that which is both delivered to our senses and then delivered to our awareness?  More and more science is telling us no.  Studies have shown that our awareness is colored by our history, our background, our worldview.  These factors interpret our sensory input invisibly.

But what about the information that comes to us from beyond our senses?  What about that “inner knowingness”?  What about intuition?  What about spiritual experiences such as those received during meditation?  Can’t we trust those to be true and real?  Unfortunately, the answer according to Integral philosopher Ken Wilber is no, we cannot count on these experiences to be untainted either.

Wilber says that the failure to consider the extensive evidence that shows how our subjective personal reality is constructed by intersubjective cultural connections leads us into naïvely believing that there exists one purely objective, pre-given world for all to experience free of any cultural bias.  One of our greatest mistakes he believes is that we inaccurately think that our inner experience, no matter its original source, is a pure reflection of reality. 

The reality Wilber says is that no matter how much we meditate and develop our consciousness there will always be invisible structures which play a role in constructing our consciousness awareness.  Without an awareness of the impact of these structures, we may think something is ultimate truth when it is not.  Some of these structures include linguistics, cultural beliefs, and our level of development on what Wilber calls “lines of development.”  A simple way to think about these lines is like multiple intelligences… cognitive, social skills, moral, emotional, etc. will speak more of this at a later time (or you can go Google “integral lines of development”).

What I want you to consider for a moment is this….you are born on the planet and you are growing… not only physically, but that there are aspects of your being within you and your consciousness which are also developing through various stages… and these inner states of consciousness generally settle into one stage which then becomes predominant in “coloring” your awareness of life. 

One model which has been helpful to me in understanding these stages of development has been Spiral Dynamics.  An understanding of this model will help you better see how these invisible structures are at play. For the next few days, we will look at Spiral Dynamics and its relationship to the Science of Mind. I hope you will find it as fascinating as me!

Mark

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Categories Consciousness, Science and Spirit

Do you believe God exists?

January 23, 2010 //
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People are generally going to answer that question, one of three ways — – yes, no, or it depends.

When people ask me that question, I generally stop and ask them back, “what do you mean by God?”  The common definition of God in our current culture is of an old man with long gray beard who sits in the sky on a throne and judges us upon our death.  If that is the inquirer’s definition, then my answer is “no”.  Unfortunately, that old outdated myth is the common meaning of the word “God” that most people conjure up when they hear it.  It’s usually what the media means when they say God.  This meaning is usually what is in the mind of the person who unequivocally answers “yes” immediately upon being asked the question.  Obviously, Pat Robertson would answer yes.

Interestingly, the same meaning is usually what is in the mind of the person who unequivocally answers “no” to the question about God.  Rev Michael Dowd has a great line on this.  When people tell him they don’t believe in God, he asks them to tell him about the God they don’t believe in and says he probably doesn’t believe in it either.  Although he goes on to say he does believe in God.  Hence, the answer depends on your definition.

What this leads us to is the fact that there is a new vision of what God is.  Frequently people who hold this new vision steer away from using the word God because it conjures up the old myth.  I know I tend to use the word “Spirit.”  There are other words given to this new vision of God.  They include: Infinite Mind, Infinite Intelligence, Oneness, Suchness, Divine Being, Divine Mind and so on.

In this new vision of God, it is a power, a presence, a force, an intelligence, an essence.  One might think of it as an intelligent energy, which permeates everything.  This energy moves in and through everything and gives everything its existence.  This includes all of the world of matter and physical stuff that we can measure and see and sense and it also includes everything that is beyond the world of the seen.  Technically this is called “Panentheism”.

Here’s a few words from Wikipedia, on the definition of panentheism, which might be helpful (especially in distinguishing it from its close cousin “Pantheism”…pardon the technical jargon):

Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism , which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe. Briefly put, in pantheism, “God is the whole”; in panentheism, “The whole is in God.” This means that the Universe  in the first formulation is practically the Whole itself, but in the second the universe and God are not ontologically equivalent. In panentheism, God is not necessarily viewed as the creator or demiurge, but the eternal animating force behind the universe, with the universe as nothing more than the manifest part of God. The cosmos  exists within God, who in turn “pervades” or is “in” the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that God and the universe are coextensive, panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe and that the universe is contained within God.

So then, God is in everything and everything is in God but God is greater than everything.  The funny thing is many people have never heard this word or this definition, but it’s what they’ve come to believe through their life’s experiences.  Many scientists have come to the same conclusion on their pursuit of scientific truths.  For these people, something leads them to this conclusion (either an inner knowingness or their empirical evidence) that this is what God is… but again, they may not use the word “God”.

So where are we?  When asked “do you believe in God?”  The so-called “believers” who hold to the old myth will answer yes.  Those who hold to a strict materialistic scientific view (often called “scientism”) will answer no.  Then there are those who have let go of the old myth, but have questioned the gaps in the materialistic viewpoint.  They say, “it depends”.

So why do we have these different viewpoints?

In a sense we’re talking about “the evolution of God”.  Robert Wright, in his recent book by that name, tells us that it’s not God per se evolving but rather its humanity’s evolving worldviews that are leading us to see God in a different light.  Both Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory point us to the same conclusion.

The bottom line is how you answer the question depends upon your worldview.  We’ll look at that next.

Mark

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Categories Science and Spirit, Spirituality
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