Article with Audio

Audio Discussion of Spirituality Beyond Religions

Group discussion of the UHU Session on Spirituality Beyond Religions 13 October 2007

Excerpts from the presentation:

"There was a suggestion to go deeper into the issue of different approaches that we represent, and how they can help us accept each other more easily and understand from which angle or perspective a person is speaking. If I develop this way of thinking in myself I can see clearly from which angle a person is speaking or arguing. This confusion of arguments is always the point of disunity in a group. Different approaches of knowledge could make us free to express ourselves and be understood. Really understanding the perspective from which another person speaks could be a central focus from which we will learn to be more integral and maintain the group. The exercise was proposed to be from many different angles, including bodily and even artistic – you see I have my preferences…" - Vlad

" We were asking ourselves the question, What are we doing? and I was seeing a process that I think will repeat itself time and time again for years. This thing that we are doing now is the research into knowledge, into being, into relating, into discovering. What we bring to it from our past and from our particular approaches I don’t think is as important as what actually happens in our process of discovering together, - the being of ourselves and the knowing of ourselves. When consciousness is evolving, it is evolving a relationship between what is and what is known. We are bringing the “subjecticon” and the “objecticon” into focus – we are bringing our consciousness into focus with everyone else’s consciousness and with the world. …We are allowing a structure to emerge that will determine innumerable other structures over the time and space of the university of human unity. It will be a sort of blueprint for research of all kinds that will grow out of this insemination or dissemination process that we are engaged in. There are moments when I feel that the subjecticon and objecticon are nicely engaged. Consciousness is the product." - Rod

"I asked Vladimir to help me understand the parameters of the discussion. And I came to understand that its about presenting certain domains of knowledge, and then there is the other dimension of the ways the learning process is activated through the different modes of knowledge. It is very different from sociology, linguistics, philososophy and psychology or music and arts or bodily activities. It is interesting to also ask how would you envision those different levels in the integral yoga – physical, vital, mental, spiritual are also represented in the different domains of knowledge and the specific ways of learning they access to develop the human being? …Nowadays what is a hot topic is emotional and social intelligence. It is based on good research we could use here in this group. If we are talking about the different levels of the being and try to strive to come from the highest part of the being, I have a sense that I am all over the place, there is a center but I have to notice there are parts of my being that want to communicate. And then it comes out in a certain way verbally as it is now, I am framing my reality. I am not making it known what my emotional level is or my heart rate. What I saw last week between R & A changed my biochemistry. I was affected on a cellular level. From a medical point of view when people get upset it reverberates and continues in email. So how do we share an awareness of where we are really coming from as we are presenting different avenues of creating and accessing learning and knowledge. I am sure there will be different reactions, responses, and resistances to what I have said. I would love to hear that because it might clear the field a bit more. It is a vast field of experiential learning that we are not accessing as a collective intelligence. Any topic of discussion should be possible here if its focused on a central theme. While we have different opinions about what our focus should be, for me it is about integrality. What does an integral approach mean today in Auroville, India and the modern world? How do we access that collective intelligence directly. Does what I am saying resonate with anyone? …(several yesses)" - Dhanya

"Yes I resonate very much with what you said. I would pick up the suggestion that we should not finish without some kind of feedback or making a round of seeing whether we feel OK to leave in the spirit where we are, …and the other thing you said, about the different realms of knowledge, …I also wanted to share with you that I met Roger Anger in is home this summer and talking to him I was struck by how he remembered Mother’s vision of the university. He said she wanted four different universities – physical, vital, mental, spiritual. What you are saying is very much in line with the original vision the Mother had. …anyway, he was so happy about the idea of the university and said it was really what Mother wanted and he was very encouraging. …I thought it was a wonderful suggestion made by Rakhal that after a break we could then go into small groups to talk more intensively. It is a suggestion we might come back to." - Rudy

"The knowledge that we want to focus on should be at all levels, from the physical to the spiritual. The abstract knowledge we all have. Last week Ananda asked the most pertinent question, How can we be? Even though we are conscious we aren’t able to answer that. I would like to move away from knowledge as an abstract thing and focus on how to be. We’ve got to carry something in us. The important thing is how one is." - Kirti

" Knowledge is a word which is a bit equivocal. It refers to outside knowledge and also to being a thing. I would like to put the question about consciousness. I think it is a process of consciousness which is the key to unity. Knowledge has a connotation which is very common and which should not be the focus. …(various comments follow)" - Rakhal

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