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questioner is expressing, and that is
largely taken for granted as the way
present-day humanity views the world. At
first glance the modern view seems to be
in direct opposition to the dominant,
scripturally-based, religious view of
antiquity. Yet, on careful examination of
the historical unfolding of events,
modernity emerged, in significant measure,
from the ongoing search for truth and the
valid methods for its attainment, from the
need for a more accurate understanding of
self, nature and the world, from the value
newly assigned to individual fulfillment,
distinct from a person’s collective worth,
and from the hard-fought right to question
and expose dogmatic and oppressive
authority. The pioneers of modernity, men
like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton
and Descartes were all deeply spiritual,
and, according to their own accounts, it
was precisely this orientation that led
them to new discoveries that yet
challenged the traditional religious
authority and world view of the day.
From this perspective, modernity can be
viewed not retrogressively, as a movement
away from Spirit, but rather, a forward
step of Spirit awakening further to its
own fundamental nature. The move away from
traditional religious authority, though
carrying with it the possibility of
rejecting the transcendent altogether,
freed the human psyche from the oppression
of a merely conventional, culturally
inherited or imposed religiosity. This
individuation of self, rooted in the
ever-expanding refinement of awareness and
discrimination, is crucial to the growth
of mature spirituality.
Let us, then, build on the gains inherited
from the modern tradition to investigate
the possible relevance of scripture today.
From this perspective, it would serve the
purpose of objective study to approach
scripture as a body of evidence left by
past researchers of consciousness, and
subject it to the criteria of genuine
scientific inquiry, rather than demand
that it be upheld as a source of
infallible knowledge to be accepted on
faith alone, thus precluding any
possibility of invalidation. A substantial
body of research on altered states of
consciousness across various traditions,
from shamanism to Christian mysticism, to
Kabbalah, to Buddhism, to
Yoga-Vedanta-Hinduism, already exists.
Increasingly, this will become a major
field of study, as the modern world
reconnects with its ancient roots.
The basic components of the scientific
method include: hypothesis, the
proposition to be proved or disproved;
experiment, by which the theory can be
tested and repeated by others who subject
themselves to the same experimental
criteria; and a body of data, the
experiential findings, leading to
validation or refutation of the theory.
Applying this methodology to scripture, we
can objectively investigate its claims to
valid knowledge. Since scriptures are of
many varieties, offering different
perspectives, some apparently more
comprehensive than others, our
investigation would be enhanced by opening
it up to a broad range of scripture across
various traditions, rather than limiting
the discussion to a single tradition.
Scriptures themselves cover a range of
topics, including, epistemology, ontology,
cosmology, moral and ethical principles,
methods of practice, such as ritual,
worship, prayer, contemplation and
meditation, and the progression of
consciousness through ever more refined
states of being, from psychic awakening,
to subtle, archetypal awareness, and
onward to liberation, nirvana,
satori, mystical union, ecstatic love of
God, or Nondual awareness. For the purpose
of this brief discussion, we can focus,
particularly, on the methods of practice,
correlating them to the states of
awareness disclosed by those methods. This
has been the focal point of study already
undertaken in most of the research
conducted to date. It is also the part of
scripture most readily amenable to testing
and repetition, and hence, to validation
or refutation.
The basic claim of scripture, especially
those of mystical orientation, is that
anyone who undergoes the methodology,
while meeting the emotional, moral,
volitional and mental conditions required
by that methodology, will experience a
successive freeing of consciousness into
correspondingly subtler and more expansive
states of awareness and being. In their
book Transformations of Consciousness,
Jack Engler and Daniel P. Brown have
reviewed a cross-cultural study of
meditative states comparing the paths of
Yoga-Vedanta, Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism
and Pali Theravada Buddhism. The
evidence not only validates the claims of
these traditions, but also indicates that
in spite of divergent doctrinal views of
reality, meditation in all three
traditions proceeds through the same basic
progression in terms of the deeper,
underlying structures of consciousness.
When these findings are considered in the
light of developmental theory, as posited
by the growing field of transpersonal
psychology, it would appear that
meditation is a subtle technology for
disclosing the higher reaches of
consciousness. With this understanding,
the scriptures delineating these methods
can be viewed as a vast body of evidence
pertaining to the highest potentials of
human unfolding, and worthy of minute
investigation and reevaluation in modern
terms, free of dogmatic and oppressive
claims.
The central concern of scripture, then, as
the common thread running through
divergent wisdom traditions, is not merely
to access higher or altered states of
awareness, but to shift the entire context
of awareness—attention, feeling, volition
and action—to a new and higher center of
gravity. The aim, in other words, is to
effect an integration of mind, body and
soul within the all-encompassing ground
and context of Spirit. In essence, the
scriptural record is an investigation of
this hidden, yet innate, human capacity,
and it is the legacy left by past
explorers of consciousness, as our common
inheritance. To neglect it, is to deny and
limit the fulfillment of our human
potential, to impoverish our lives and the
world in which we live.
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