States of Awareness and the "Spirit" (ritual, moral)

[doppelgänger]

From my blog:


http://agnosticgnostic.blogspot.com/2006/10/theology-and-process.html



"Theology" and process

Though it may sometimes sound like I write about "theology," I really don't. As I've alluded to in a few posts, my approach to religious symbolism, language and ideas is mythological and psychological, but also non-Theistic. So when I talk about a "Spirit" I mean it in the sense of a "state of awareness" or "interpretive template" that governs the way I think about who I am. In short, the "Spirit" is a symbolic construct to represent certain progressive milestones along the spectrum of moral awareness.

The pioneering psychologist Jean Piaget performed extensive research on the spectrum of cognition, which he theorized consisted of an arc of development in identifiable stages. Others since Piaget have applied a similar methodology to the understanding the development of ego and moral awareness.

For example, Lawrence Kohlberg's research led him to conclude that moral development could be understood in essentially six stages grouped into three levels:

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
2. Self-interest orientation

Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(a.k.a. The good boy/good girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(a.k.a. Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles
(a.k.a. Principled conscience)

Though there is some overlap with Kohlberg's stages of moral development, Jane Loevinger theorized what I think is a more nuanced differentiation in her theory about the "stages of ego development." These stages are not solid in any individual. Anxiety can cause regression back to prior stages and not every person advances through all of them, though most people will reach at least the level of self-awareness and consctientiousness as adults (levels 5 and 6, respectively).

Because of my interest in symbolic language and the meaning of mythology, I am particularly intrigued by a subtle addition to Loevinger's stages of ego development proposed by Harvard researcher Susan Cook-Greuter. Cook-Greuter's Construct Awareness is described by Queen's University psychologist, Dr. Ron Irwin, as follows:

In the period of life with which we are concerned (the post-conventional or post-personal stages, what Cook-Greuter calls the Construct-Aware), people are described as changing in a number of significant ways. One aspect of such a change is a new attitude toward language. In earlier stages of development, language is valued because it affords communication, enabling people to cognitively package reality into discrete entities on their conceptual maps. In later mature stages, language is experienced as filtering the underlying reality and therefore leaving out the richness of experience. People at the Construct-Aware stage yearn to apprehend an unfiltered reality, a reality of flux and change not tied down with conventional labels and definitions.

People experience a new attitude toward the functioning of ego at higher stages as well. Whereas in earlier stages of development, people take a certain self-reflective pleasure and delight in working with their complexity and contradiction—that is, in thinking about themselves—with higher development in the Construct-Aware stage, people question their "objective self-identity" altogether, no longer wishing to be in control in the ways they have been. From the point of view of an emerging maturity, self-control has required being too watchful, too vigilant, of the image of self as presented in the social theatre of the mind. Self-consciousness is experienced as a form of limitation. People at the Construct-Aware Stage intuit another mode of being based on non-control, on an “un-boundedness,” a mode of experiencing liberated from deep-rooted habits, a mode of existing that does not require effort, that is grounded in "radical openness," a mode of being that is not grounded in ego. On the down side, however, this change in attitude toward ego can increase levels of anxiety, lower self-esteem, heighten loneliness, and even lead to moments of the feeling of being "nothing."

Cook-Greuter labels this level the Construct-Aware. She notes that this transition is equivalent in significance to the development from the pre-representational to representational stages in childhood, which required extensive social mediation in the form of language learning. Likewise, the Construct-Aware transition, as the linking stage from what is termed representational to post-representational development, may require very specific cultural supports, supports of an altogether different nature from those required in childhood, supports that do not require further socialization. Cultural supports are needed that go beyond the simple internalization of norms and rules. These supports include meditation techniques, lineages, and teachers.

Cook-Greuter shows that the Construct-Aware self is aware of the filtered nature of its world, contingent on language and on maintaining the illusion of a stable ego that is in control. When such a self is weary of its old habits and longs to break through to a more im-mediate reality, I would like to suggest that we describe the self as ready to take up spiritual practice. Switching our metaphors from auditory to tactile, we can describe the mature self as longing for a naked mode of experiencing. Meditation can be characterized as a disciplined practice in keeping contact with sensations at the raw and un-mediated level, without the need for protective covers, without the need for conceptual filters.

You can read more about Cook-Grueter's application of ego development theory in a paper she wrote on what she considers the Nine Action Logics where she describes the "concept awareness" of the ninth action logic (part of her "Stage 6" in ego development) - an action logic she calls "The Ironist":

The quest for meaning and connection is an essential aspect of the human condition. Stage 6 Ironists feel interconnected with others as all sentient beings struggle to survive and make sense of their existence. Persons at the Unitive stage feel tolerance, compassion and an affiliation with all manifestations of life. The simplest flatworm is in some way as close to the truth as the most sophisticated thinker. Peak experiences no longer have an out-of-this-world quality, they have become a familiar way of being and experiencing. The present is where the past and the future interpenetrate. Total openness releases individuals to be in tune with truth and beauty, to have visionary experiences, that is, to comprehend things in a holistic, analog way in addition to apprehending them through the filter of the rational mind.

Ironists can shift focus without effort and behold the whole simultaneously with its constituting variables. They operate within an expanded time frame which includes all of earth’s history and its future. Life is seen as a form of temporary and sometime voluntary separation (Bodhisattva vow) from the creative ground to which it will eventually return. Though the Ironist is aware of him or herself as such a separate and unique embodiment, he or she identifies more and more with all other living beings. The separation of self from others is experienced as an illusion, an invention to safeguard the ego’s need for permanence and self- importance and to defend against the fear of its death.

This "Spirit" about which I speak is a constantly evolving process. As the nature of my "moral awareness" develops, so too does my understanding of "God" and my relationship to the symbol. But, at some point, I may become aware of "God" as a linguistic concept embodied in and caused by my subjective experience of my own being, rather than "God" as a thing.

Consequently, the "God" of each individual "theologian" ends up being a reflection of the theologian and the state of awakening to the "Spirit" in the individual. The resulting "theology" may be a reflection his or her culture and times, or it may be timeless and eternal, depending both on the writer of the mythology and the person perceiving it - and the creative mythmaker and the perceiver of the myth need not share that level of awareness. Different people can "get" a timeless, eternal myth in different ways depending on who and where they are in their approach to self. In short, the "God" one constructs is a reflection of one's own self.

And that "God" evolves as the person changes. Thus, the requirements for "God" and the motives and purposes imputed to "God" evolve as the psychological needs and moral awareness of the individual change. So, every "theology" is "process theology." "God" always ends up being a reflection of the individual "God" observer, and since an individual's identity is always in a constant state of change - so too is the "God" of one's reflection.

[Comet]

(nice MC E avatar... I do enjoy his works)
All religions are an on-going and changing process (except perhaps Jainism). Every individual has its own way back to GOD and its own God or Gods...

Why do you say:

an individual's identity is always in a constant state of change

Some individuals know who they are and some are just dead....

I suppose I agree with most of what you posted, but what is your point? (or question or discussion topic?)

[doppelgänger]

The point is as stated. A modern mind can understand awakening to "the Spirit" (i.e. the symbolic centerpiece of Paul's Christianity) through a post-theistic lens and make it genuine and meaningful again.

[Jaiket]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

The point is as stated. A modern mind can understand awakening to "the Spiriit" (i.e. the symbolic centerpiece of Paul's Christianity) through a post-theistic lens and make it genuine and meaningful again.

Is that worthwhile?

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by Jaiket

Is that worthwhile?

Not if you don't think it is.

What is worthwhile?

[Jaiket]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

Not if you don't think it is.

What is worthwhile?

Would it be useful?

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by Jaiket

Would it be useful?

Sure. It may allow people who are fond of Chrisntianity to reconcile their goodwill associated with Christian imagery and ideas with their actual presence in the modern world - thereby stripping out the anachronistic supernaturalism and perhaps even the authoritarianism that puts "traditional" Christianity out of place in a world come of age.

For some it may make no difference at all. For those who have no favorable feelings toward Christian writings or philosophy, they might feel more inclined to flush the whole thing.

But how is such a person viewed by Christians? Is that a way for us to communicate with one another?