Below is an extract from One Taste by Ken Wilber. It is part of an interview of him by Pathways magazine ('A magazine of Psychological and Spiritual Transformation'). It is interesting because Wilber believes that meditation can give you direct experience of what can be called either God or Brahman or Spirit (he uses all three terms in his book). He thinks that it can be proven in much the same way that any fact can be proven.
PATHWAYS: But what about the notion that these experiences of "One Taste" or "Kosmic Consciousness" are just the by-product of meditation, and therefore aren't "really real"?
KW: Well, that can be said of any type of knowledge that depends on an instrument. "Kosmic Consciousness" often depends on the instrument of meditation. So what? Seeing the nucleus of a cell depends on a microscope. Do we then say that the cell nucleus isn't real because it's only the by-product of a microscope? Do we say the moons of Jupiter aren't real because they depend on a telescope? The people who raise this objection are almost always people who don't want to look through the instrument of meditation, just as the Churchmen refused to look through Galileo's telescope and thus acknowledge the moons of Jupiter. Let them live with their refusal. But let us - to the best of our ability, and hopefully driven by the best of charity or compassion - try to convince them to look, just once, and see for themselves. Not coerce them, just invite them. I suspect a different world might open for them, a world that has been abundantly verified by all who look through the telescope, and microscope, of meditation.
PATHWAYS: Could you tell us ...
KW: If I could interrupt, do you mind if I give you one of my favourite quotes from Aldous Huxley?
PATHWAYS: Please.
KW: This is from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan:
"I like the words I use to bear some relation to facts. That's why I'm interested in eternity - psychological eternity. Because it's a fact."
"For you perhaps," said Jeremy.
"For anyone who chooses to fulfill the conditions under which it can be experienced."
"And why should anyone wish to fulfill them?"
"Why should anyone choose to go to Athens to see the Parthenon? Because it's worth the bother. And the same is true of eternity. The experience of timeless good is worth all the trouble involved."
"Timeless good," Jeremy repeated with distaste. "I don't know what the words mean."
"Why should you?" said Mr. Propter. "You've never bought your ticket to Athens."
PATHWAYS: So contemplation is the ticket to Athens?
KW: Don't you think?
The problem with this argument is that in reading Wilber's account of his spiritual experiences the only proof it offers is that there is a state of consciousness where you perceive that everything is part of you. That's all. It is not direct experience of God or Brahman or Spirit. It's not even proof that when you perceive that everything is part of you it is a correct perception: some perceptions are false.
I realize that part of his argument is that you're never going to see God. You can't see God, you can only be God, and look out on the world through God's eyes. He is the see-er who cannot be seen. I understand the meaning of this theory, especially after the 'pointing out instructions' earlier in the book. That doesn't alter the fact that God, Brahman or Spirit have not been proved.
Now that I know what pointing out instructions are in detail I am no longer impressed by them. I don't see how anyone is going to get a sudden enlightenment from them, which is what authors like Sam Harris believe. I have mentioned nondualists and their pointing out instructions in earlier posts on this blog, I doubt if I'm going to be mentioning them again.
There was a man who looked at Mars through a telescope and thought that he could see lines on the surface. He called them 'canali' which means 'channels' in Italian but which became translated into 'canals' in English. He believed they were evidence for a civilization on Mars. Many people believed years ago that there was proof of a Martian civilization that dug canals.
When you look at Mars through a telescope, you can see the disk of the planet and then perhaps shifting patterns of relative light or dark. That's all. They went too far in saying they had proof of a civilization there. So too people like Wilber go too far in saying they have proof of God, Brahman or Spirit. Or that there are higher levels of reality. Or that One Taste is something spiritual and not just neurological.
In the book he talks about the marriage of Buddha and Freud. Not a nice image. What he means is that Eastern mysticism should be combined with Western psychology to create a more complete system. You can be enlightened and still be selfish and immature. Without the ability to relax fully you will find it difficult to enter the depths of meditation. I used to believe that.
The interesting thing though is that Buddha did not teach a belief in God, Brahman or Spirit. Teachers in India who came before him taught the existence of Brahman, but Buddha went against that. This is the most important thing about Buddha, yet Wilber doesn't understand it. I know that his favoured forms of Buddhism are Mahayana and Vajrayana but even so he shouldn't be letting people think that all meditators come out of meditation with the same insights. That's not true.
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