We tend to think that with enough knowledge, shared experience and psychology experiments, we’d be able to agree on such basic terms as self, consciousness and reality. From many different traditions, we hear that truth is Absolute. Ah. Perhaps not so much.
Here’s how the rug of certainty gets pulled.
As you may know, in Einstein’s Relativity, it’s not enough for A to say “I’m moving, and I see that B is at rest.” One has to specify the frame of reference for both A and B.
You are not some mini-you looking out from behind your eyes and recording everything.
You don’t perceive the world directly, but as the “qualia” of shape, color, sound, texture, weight, movement, etc.
You relate to the world more like a perception-processing wave passing through a cosmic information field.
In normal life, we tend to assume that A’s experience of ‘self’ is much the same as B’s, if they had much the same developmental sequence and education, and neither have psychiatric pathologies. In listening to people describe their process, it becomes clear this isn’t adequate.
We also know that what works for one person in terms of awakening consciousness may have no relevance to the next.
The experience and definition of “self” and “consciousness” can be hugely different, so, to talk about these areas and make sense, the observer’s frame of reference has to be specified. Spirituality and personal transformation are also subject to Relativity’s frames of reference. And although my frame of reference isn’t explicitly stated here, I’m aware that what I’m saying is subject to the same relativistic constraints. Ideally, that frame would include the person’s conceptual model, and also indicate their level of awareness.
The holistic system of the cosmic information field and a vast number of percption-processing waves (like you and me) is an evolving sytem, only without a starting point or fixed end goal.
In the process, the psychospiritual experience of the past, even from enlightened and realized teachers, even from ten years ago, may not be any reliable indication of experience in the future evolution of human consciousness.
All our ideas of what spiritual experience or awakened consciousness are like, come from cultural conditioning and may be completely redundant.
The experience and definition of “self” and “consciousness” can be hugely different, so, to talk about these areas and make sense, the observer’s frame of reference has to be specified. Spirituality and personal transformation are also subject to Relativity’s frames of reference. And although my frame of reference isn’t explicitly stated here, I’m aware that what I’m saying is subject to the same relativistic constraints.
Because of the relativity of viewpoint, if, individually, we rubbish someone else’s experience, or say that their interpretation is ‘wrong’, we’re gaslighting.
One way we do this to ourselves seems innocuous. We get different teachings and practices from different traditions, and unconsciously homogenize them into one because of – or to create – apparent similarity.
In a group conversation, you can hear this going on, either because someone wants to assert the value of their particular experience, or as we try and create a consensus understanding. The danger is of robbing both teachings of their true depth and value.
At various times we may think we understand something, only to stumble across the same idea years later and get it in a totally different way.
We might be getting a bit too ecumenical for our own good.
If we try and impose a scientific and phenomenological meta-structure across experiences and resulting insight, we strip them of meaning. This is particularly the case when we try to reduce consciousness and all its experiences to psychology and brain activity. We can end up with a model with explanatory and predictive power, but zero value: spiritual gaslighting.
© Malcolm Fraser 2022. All rights reserved.
