Thank you, Gorakh Hayashi, for that poignant reflection on Brother Wayne, and for your introduction. It's good to be here and it's always good to hear more and more about Brother Wayne's vision. Those of us who knew him, and those of us who didn't, all gain so much by this ongoing sharing and elaboration of his vision.
So, since my time is limited, I am going to jump right in. I want to share in about 50 minutes what is really designed for 5 hours. But I am very confident that the big-big picture I'm going to overview briefly here, based on Wayne's vision of a better world—so anchored in the heart—and the comprehensive big-mind/big-view visions of Ken Wilber and the other integral thinkers, will be really enlightening to all of us and also fun.
I want to start simply by reading Wayne's poignant declaration in his book The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions, about the process of world transformation.
"We are at the dawn of a new consciousness, a radically fresh approach to our life as the human family in a fragile world. This birth into a new awareness, into a new set of historical circumstances, appears in a number of shifts in our understanding:
Each of these shifts represents dramatic change; taken together, they will define the thought and culture of the third millennium.…All of these awarenesses are interrelated, and each is indispensable to clearly grasping the greater shift taking place, a shift that will sink roots deep into our lives and culture. Taken together, they are preparing the way for a universal civilization: a civilization with a heart."
So, we are compelled to ask: what are the elements of this shift?
Well, bottom line, and this is what keeps it real simple, is that its all about how we process information and this is the key to understanding the conundrum in the world right now.
Reality is co-created by the perceiver and the perceiver—the cardinal principle of Cognitive Psychology, Quantum Mechanics and Nondual Spirituality, among others. It sounds complex but it is really simple.
Everyone, now and through history has processed experience and information differently. We don't always agree with even our closest friends or family; we process something differently and have a different view, a different preference or reaction.
And beyond that, we don't even choose the same sets of friends to build our collective experience, meaning that, worldwide, we are part of building very different institutions, world views, religions, locally, nationally or globally. It's kind of like dropping a pebble into a pool. In all arenas of experience, we process things at our individual—or "I-space" level. We then immediately share with others, our wider collective or "We space" level, find those who agree and disagree with us and those who become our fellow travelers. Then, eventually these "We's" build organizations, institutions and so on, which grow and grow over time and space into big things like nations, governments, cultures, religions and so on—al the "Its" of this world. This is really the simple, common sense, way that complexification goes on.
Now, interestingly enough, we not only have this fact but, at the same time, the great paradox that everyone, everyone in history, is and has been "the Main Event." That is, it is natural that everyone can claim their way of processing information is normative and right. They can even fight over it if they want to.
A major understanding in psychology, sociology, and evolutionary biology is that it is natural, a result of the evolutionary process, for all units of organization, like each of us, to process information as, and to assume from this processing, that our experience is right, normative and complete. There is actually an important term in the consideration of systems, called the "holon," that identifies that the normal process of processing information by any unit of organization, for many reasons—well-being, safety, survival etc.—is to think that that experience is normative.
So, the world and history are the accumulation of all this processing. You have to imagine this diagram going out from the epicenter of billions of people and billions and billions of people over time.
Therefore, big picture, it's important that we "get real." Think for a minute about this scientific fact. If a dot the size of a period on a piece of paper, or a freckle on your arm of that size—take a look at your arm right now and locate such a small dot—if that little dot included the entire space of our solar system, from the Sun to Pluto, what is the size, you think, of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Well, the fact is that if our solar system is completely contained in that pencil dot, just our galaxy alone is the size of the United States, the continental forty-eight.
And yet, here we are, in this room also looking at this globe next to me which shows all these national boundaries across which are all these complex and quite different cultures, beliefs and ways of life.
There is a "method in the madness" of this introduction—with diagrams and globes, because if you came down to observe this planet, as an extraterrestrial (or "ET") right now to see how this species is doing, you'd not only see all these countries, cultures, languages, religions, armies, flags etc., you'd also observe the fact that many of these "It's," created by all the I's and We's over time have, in many ways (1) taken on lives of their own (certainly obvious from or political system) and (2) often are not serving either the original intent, or the needs and wants, of the I's and We's that created them. This is certainly true of governments, and probably true of many religions as well.
It's obvious on many levels that those "It's"—things people and collectives of people create—most often have traits and characteristics that are independent of the I's and We's that created them. As time goes on, they take on a life of their own—certainly true of the religions, which is the topic of our discussions here at this retreat.
The other thing that is important here is that if we look at our planet right now, we find that 70–80% of the world's population is in the cultural context of some kind of religious narrative about who we are, where we came from, and where we might be going,
And, if we jump ahead, since I have only an hour, we also see that right now there are two great counter-momentums on the planet right now: those persons who want to defend, or even fight or kill for, their religious view—very typical of fundamentalists of any kind (those who think their way is the only way), and those who want to find a way that we can have all of these different worldviews, God-views, etc. without conflict.
So, to take a next step in our discussion it's important for us to ask how all this operates in each of us. Well, in our own Consciousness and Heart, we operate simultaneously in several realms—but it's useful to recognize three of them.
Now this might all seem complex but it's very simple actually and here is a simple example—Rogers and Hammerstein's famous song from South Pacific, "Some Enchanted Evening." Everyone loved this song; it's considered a classic. Well, why is this, and what does it say?
"Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger; you may see a stranger across a crowded room"—Gross/Physical!
"And somehow you know—somehow you know!—you know even then"—Subtle!
"That somewhere you'll see her, again and again"—Causal!
We experience this kind of thing all the time in our life. For instance, all of us who have either intervened in someone's life to be of help to them, or when someone did that for us—it was something they did or said—often operating in the subtle realm of our experience—ended up forming up what caused us to take this or that action. It's the same when you work with, study with, or are compelled by, a so-called teacher or guru—something is going on in the subtle realms of the two physical bodies being together and chatting etc., that seems to be compelling you to deeper and deeper understandings or appreciations.
So, how does this processing operate in religions? And most importantly to our message here today, how does this help us understand the difference between "religion" and "spirituality" and why this is so important.
Well, to get an overview of this we go to this next diagram which is about the natural bifurcation of "religion" and "spirituality."
Religions (and it's also true of ideologies, like Marxism, for instance) over time inevitably end up becoming a story about reality, a narrative, and what becomes considered most important is adherence to this story. This is about "Right Belief" and "Right Creed"—agreeing with the right Creed etc. In a sense, this is religions telling you what is true, and insisting that you agree with it (notice the "It"!).
But, simultaneously, there is always another side that develops, particularly at the I and We level. This is the level more in synchronicity with the original intention of the religion or the original intentions of its founder. This is what we call "spirituality"—the world of the heart, the world of compassion and concern. Here the emphasis is not about the story or narrative but about "Right Being" and "Right Action," compassion, love, the heart, service etc.
Now, and most importantly here, is that this experience of ever deepening spirituality leads to, in all the the traditions, this phenomenon call "Awakened Awareness" or "Heart Oneness," "Nonduality" or "Enlightenment," whatever words are used. And it is this shared experience, in all the traditions, that the experience of separation profoundly drops away and there arises this experience of all "other" as Oneself. In this experience it is seen that it is not about the story but something much much deeper—about who we are, who are all are—call it "Divine Nature," "Buddha Nature," "Christ Consciousness," "the Self," or whatever.
And this is what is pointed to in the work of Brother Wayne as the great leveler and the great hope for the world's religions having a potential positive role in world transformation—what Ken Wilber also refers to as the religions possibly being able to the the "Conveyor Belt" for our species to this higher experience of Consciousness and Heart.
So, in summary, this is the natural, innocent that all the traditions have taken. And, it is also the larger map of where people are at in the larger world today—somewhere on one of these paths.
Now it's important for us to consider what this looks like in the context of all the world's religions. This is the reason we are here this weekend, the reason people of spirituality hope that the world religions can still be vector for transformative change in the world and the alleviation of suffering.
Let's let take look at the world's religions—an "operational look"—operational meaning not about what true or not true, or right or wrong, but just how various religions have originated and how they operate. Again, its kinds of like our ET coming down to visit our planet to get a sense of how this species Homo sapiens operates— phenomenologically.
So, let's examine this next diagram, which is a simplification of a much more complex and interesting diagram of what appears to be going on in all the world's religions. This is drawn from Brother Wayne's view of world religions in the context of his book subtitle: "Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions."
If we look at the world's most prominent religious traditions, we see they fall into two very general categories.
On the one hand you have the "Big Three" of what are call the "Revealed Religions"—Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. And, on the other Hand you have the "Big Two" of what could be generally called the "Consciousness Religions"—Hinduism and Buddhism and all their varieties.
Now, what typified the Revealed Religions? Well, very generally, someone historically reported an experience with some "heavenly being" who revealed some kind of "Truth," some comprehensive story about reality, who we are, etc. etc. In these traditions there usually a historical narrative, or "revelation," that considered normative. These traditions are also usually Theistic—in the case of the "Big Three," in fact, monotheistic. They have one "God" and also a "cast of characters" (including prophets and "messiahs" etc.) and usually also "end-time scenario" (and idea of how the world will "end') in their narrative.
So, in the sense of our natural bifurcation of the religions, these are ones far more apt to insist in the "truth" of the religious side of their experience, one that has to do with Right Creed and Right Belief. This is actually quite true of these communities in the world as we see them today. And, this becomes a problem when it is insisted that only one of these views can be true. Obviously, at least in the big objective picture, if you look at all of it, it would not be possible for all of these exclusive claims to be true.
Now, what typified the Consciousness Religions? Although this has gotten somewhat confused with time, generally these traditions are about inquiry into what Consciousness and Existence are about. Because this at least their original or general thrust they are usually non-theistic (in that you could pursue their practice without necessarily believing in a "God"). However, as is well known, many of these traditions, with time, have also accumulated some culturally or politically based stories which cannot only lead to them also being quite exclusive in some microcosms but to be sometimes considered "polytheistic" because they often has historically stressed various aspects of divinity in characteristics of gods or goddesses. But, generally, these traditions are about an inquiry into Consciousness.
There are fewer stories about "how things are" and, especially, there are usually no "end-time" scenarios. Thus, these traditions are, in the sense of our diagram about the natural bifurcation of religion and spirituality much less apt to insist of the absolute rightness of their beliefs. I think its fair to say that you probably seldom hear of a "Buddhist terrorist."
To be fair, all of these traditions worldwide have their fundamentalists.
But here is the major point of Brother Wayne's entire vision. For Wayne, as just emphasized by Gorakh Hayashi, the entire point of this overviews and understanding of the world religions, as also stressed by Ken Wilber and others, is this point about the common experience of "Awakened Awareness," the common experience of this deepest of experiences which radically transforms the human heart and will. It is this context that the world's religions, the reservoirs of the mythological heritages of our species, harbor this chance to become a major asset, not a liability, in the possibility of world transformation.
Here is where we see the hub of the conundrum the world is in today. Will we end up fighting over our differences, and fighting over them in a context of both weapons of mass destruction and every shrinking space and resources? It's an important question, because as Ken Wilber points out, it is not only a fact that 70–80% of people on the planet today live within the cultural context of some kind of religious understanding of reality, 70–80% of these are still living within the experience that they are right and someone else is wrong.
What will our ET report when he goes back to his planet—that he observed a species that drove itself to extinction fighting over its mythological stories?
The importance of this observation is that it brings up a very important question, what some call the key "anthropological question" about our species Homo sapiens right now on this planet.
When you go around to meetings worldwide about the possible future of our species, there are three major extinction scenarios that are on the table with regard to our species:
That we, knowingly or unknowingly make our environment
unlivable;
That we fight over our national allegiances with weapons of
mass destruction; and
That we fight with weapons of mass destruction over our
religious and mythological heritages.
Notice that two of the three extinction scenarios have to do with the problem of exclusive claims. This is a huge challenge.
So, in culmination of this discussion, how do we come to understand this problem about exclusive claims? And how can we possibly get by it?
To get some understanding of this we need to jump ahead because, so far, we have talked only about the world in the context of the religions of planet earth. If we are talking about world change, world transformation, we have to also take look at the secular world, the huge sector of human activity that is not necessarily anchored in religious narratives or experience. Because time in we will do this very briefly.To do this it's helpful we look at the experience of I, We, It and Its in Four Quadrants because, if we do, we come up with some very interesting insight, especially about how we got into this worldwide mess.
First, take a look at this diagram, where the experience in the realms of I, We, Its and Its are arranged as four quadrants. "I" can be considered the realm of the interior of every individual—what could be referred to as interior "Subjective," "Self," "Heart," "Consciousness," etc. "We" is the interior collective, not only the world of friends and family but fellow travelers of all kinds—the world of culture and worldview. As show by the diagram these experience are more internal. Note that when you go out with friends to a concert, a movie, or a poetry reading, yes, you are, in a sense, having an "It" experience, but you are expecting something that internally moving, inspiring or entertaining. You wouldn't necessarily go to the grocery store or the train station for this experience; those are over on the other side in the more exterior world of "Its." "It" is in the upper right because it represents a great number of experiences in the physical or objective realm: the material, the technological, the intellect, the world of observation, concepts and ideas, and all the various institutions that go with these—science, governments, religions and so on. "Its" is simply the conglomeration of all these in the exterior collective, most specifically for reference here, things like social systems and the environment.
Now, in considering this diagram there is an important insight about how we have gotten into the situation we seem to be in worldwide today, one that is characterized by the last several centuries having seen our species become more and more centered on mental and material things. Noticing this natural but gradual shift to a more mental emphasis on understanding who we are also helps us understand why and where there seem to be so many disconnections with things like values, fairness, equanimity, etc. the things that have to do with general human well being, peace and so on.
If we go back to the Renaissance and then up through the so-called "Enlightenment" of the 17th—19th centuries, and then the industrial revolution and the rise of modern science, we see a turn in the species from an emphasis on a more subjective understanding of reality to what is now perceived as a more objective understanding.
For example, remember that during the Renaissance perspective was discovered and it revolutionized engineering and building. In the area of human care people discovered that instead of turning to astrology or witch doctoring you could go out and dig up a body, dissect it, and discover all this stuff about the body which has led to modern western medicine. This story goes on endlessly in the rise of science during those eras. This was a necessary evolutionary step for the species.
But what it brought with it was something, an assumption we really need to question, called the "mapping paradigm" or the "representational paradigm." What that refers to is that the species really came to believe that if we understand the world externally, it will tell us what we need to know about ourselves.
What is interesting is that this paradigm also left us with some big big problems, ones we see clearly illustrated in many of our clichés today, clichés like "we can put a man on the moon but we can't get along in own neighborhoods," "Joe Blow made a billion dollars but was still a very unhappy person," or Joe Some became famous, in fact a celebrity, but then he committed suicide."
So, it is not "rocket science" for us to understand that there has been developing from some time a fundamental disassociation among our arenas of experience, with the lion's share of our world packing so much of what we think we are into this external or "It" realm of experience. Not only this, but this increased emphasis on generating experience and things in the arena of "It" has also brought us this huge volume of institutions—businesses, corporations, governments, religions, etc.—which seem to no longer be anchored in the needs of the I's and We's that created them and not serving the futures of these I's and We's as well. In fact, if we honestly look at many of the world's economic, cultural and political problems we see that they are widely perceived now as incoherent, directionless, and simply hurtling the species on toward a dubious future without anything seeming to be in control. What we face is a fundamental disassociation and incoherence among these basic realms of experience. Such incoherence could perhaps go on with an unlimited space worldwide. But, in a world where both space and resources are rapidly shrinking, the eventual consequence of this incoherence are now widely recognized. The worst of these consequences is the possible extinction of our species.
So, in closing our morning together, what should be our approach? What is the possible positive role of the world's religions in our predicament right now?
Well, what is interesting to me is that both Brother Wayne, along with many of the holistic and integral thinkers of today, like Ken Wilber, Don Beck and so on, observe a number of the same things.
First of all, as Brother Wayne emphasized, what is required by us is what he called a "two-pronged approach." If you look at what he said it was really saying that we need an approach that addresses both, and simultaneously, the left and right sides of this quadrant diagram. We need attention to the interior, especially at the "I" level of experience—the mature use of spiritual practice which can lead to that awakened experience of non-separation and the open and welcoming heart at the individual level. And, we need attention to a new story (or narrative) about who are species is, on the right hand side of the quadrants—a narrative about our species that points to our true potential as species able to integrate and balance all these aspects of experience. With regard to the religions, Brother Wayne saw this as a need for all the traditions to turn to their shared core values, which (like the "Golden Rule," for instance) are universal, and away from the need to make exclusive claims. These are also the essentials that Ken Wilber points to in how the religions of the world could be part of the transformative "conveyor belt."
Secondly, and growing from the fact of the fundamental shared experience of awakened awareness, or Oneness awareness, in our species, Brother Wayne, in the year before his transition asked poignantly, in something he called his "Omega vision" (about which Gorakh Hayashi and I will be writing more) whether it is actually possible for our species to come to the kind of higher Consciousness and Heart which would allow him to drop the need for exclusive religious claims. Brother Wayne envisioned that at the higher levels of Consciousness and Heart it must be possible for every human being to comprehend that all these different and exclusive claims made by different religious experiences today cannot be true per se. He noted that all persons of awakened consciousness recognize that the problem here is not the experiences people have had but the stories they have wrapped around them over historical time. And, even more importantly, he noted that all persons of awakened consciousness recognize that stories about who we are pale in importance compared to the fundamental fact of "who we all are" as the precious human community of this planet, be it defined as "divine image" or not. For Brother Wayne this recognition of "who we are," and the fundamental equanimity inherent in that, was really a matter of reality, not just spirituality or religion.
Ken Wilber addresses a very similar point in what he calls "kosmic address." Consider the diagram below.
This is also quite a simple but profound insight. Remember what we said back at the beginning of this presentation—that reality is co-created by the perceiver and the perceived, and that experience and information are differently processed by different persons at all the levels of experience, I to We to It to Its?
The dots in the diagram above simply represent all the many aspects that make up how a human being processes experience and information leading to some kind of concept or belief. Wilber points out that just as we all live at different geographic addresses where, if spelled out, are made up of independent items of information each giving a different kind of hint about where we live—name, street number, apartment number, city, county, country, zip code etc.—if we looked at all the elements of experience and information that people have processed to arrive at this or that complex concept or belief, it is really a matter of how they have linked information. As with different geographical addresses, experientially people are just located at different "addresses" in the wider human matrix of experience, information and information linkage.
Would it actually be possible for our species to rise to such a level of Consciousness and Heart that the above kind of comprehension about "who we are" would be normative for the kind of world we co-create? Will our visiting ET be able to go back to his planet and report this good news? It would be quite a different world. I must admit that this discussion was a major topic at the 2004 Parliament of the World's Religions where so many people were asking "can we believe what the Heart is telling us about our potential as a species or is this just dreaming." I found it interesting that in a discussion of this very point most persons agreed, yes, we have to believe what the Heart is telling us about what we can be. It is just that we may not comprehend the amount of time that may be involved for us getting there (not to mention, if we have the time).
Brother Wayne pointed out that the question of whether the world's religions could become part of such a transformative change for our species was really a question of courage, and one anchored in the nature of religious experience itself. Of this he said:
"If transformation is only a matter of consciousness, then there is always the risk that the change may never touch the deeply hidden intentions of the heart. If the will is not involved in the radical change the spiritual process initiates, then the resultant "enlightenment" is only partial....Clearly, if the mystical process is to be complete, it must include a profound transformation of the will." (Mystic Heart, p. 89)
He noted there were many many matters of entrenchment within the world's religious establishments that might argue against this possibility. And he pointed out that if religions could not take up this challenge, it would have to passed to others—what he called another "front," one based on individuals' work through circles, networks, coalitions and other grassroots organs of change.
One of the most poignant passages in The Mystic Heart is Wayne's challenge regarding this to his own religious community, the Roman Catholic Church which ended with this reminder:
"It will take enormous vision and courage to walk this path in history. It brings to mind Christ's words" "Unless a grain of wheat fall into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain, but if it dies it yields a rich harvest" (Mystic Heart, p. 248).
Brother Wayne was heartfelt about this concern because he also intuited, as do many other writers, that if the world's religious traditions, because of their entrenchment, cannot take up this universal role, that role would be passed to some other historical vector. In fact, there is ample evidence that this is already happening, quite in synchronicity with the ongoing questions about how much the world's religious heritages may be able to do. But there is some good news here.
You may know of Paul Hawken's recent bestseller Blessed Unrest. In this book Hawken, an environmental activist now bent on combining the energies of environmental, social justice, and spiritual activities worldwide, reports that there are currently over one million organizations, NGO's, networks, coalitions and circles working for transformative change worldwide and that "this is the biggest movement in history and, more importantly, no one saw it coming." Of this he further says "this is a shift between a world created by and for privilege to a world created by community and it details the rise of over one million organizations in the world who address equanimity, civil liberties, social justice and the environment....due to modern technology—cell, texting, internet—they're starting to intertwine, morph, and come together in ways making it much more powerful then [ever] before." [source: www.wiserearth.com].
So, as Gorakh Hayashi indicated in his reflection on Brother Wayne, Wayne was not only a mystic and a contemplative but, in the most profound sense, also one with prophetic voice. And Brother Wayne was not naïve; he knew how difficult this process might be. But one could not be around Brother Wayne without experiencing what many of us called his "sense of the imperative." Those of us who knew him knew well how intent his heart and vision were on what he believed was the actual possibility of a full transformation for this planet.
With this in mind, I close with one passage from Brother Wayne's Mystic Heart, which says this so profoundly, marking some of the words for emphasis:
"We need to understand, to really grasp at an elemental level, that the definitive revolution is the spiritual awakening of humankind. This revolution will be the task of the Interspiritual Age. The necessary shifts in consciousness require a new approach to spirituality that transcends past religious cultures of fragmentation and isolation. The direct experience of interspirituality paves the way for a universal law of mysticism—that is the common heart of the world" (Mystic Heart, p. 12).
The Common Ground Conference was held at The Crossings on December 7 through 9, 2007. View The Crossings' full calendar of programs and events.