AUTHOR’s PROLOGUE:  Western Language-Induced Bipolar Disorder

dear reader,

This essay has been written from the point of view that popular WESTERN CULTURE investigation of ‘psychological disorder’ HAS ITS LADDER UP THE WRONG WALL, as suggested by Cochrane and Sashidharan among others;

From the outset it will be clear that most of the research in this field has followed the conventional epidemiological or medical paradigm by focusing on mental ill health as the dependent variable. It is, therefore, not surprising that there is a lack of empirically grounded research on mental well-being or the psychological resilience and survival of minority groups in this country” — R. Cochrane (University of Birmingham) and S. P. Sashidharan (North Birmingham Mental Health Trust) in ‘Mental Health and Ethnic Minorities’

That is, if the investigation orients to ‘what is wrong with this person?’, it is unlikely to deliver answers to the larger question of ‘what is wrong with us?’ (as a social-relational collective).  Jill Astbury raises the same question in ‘Crazy for You: The Making of Women’s Madness’ in her inquiry into the World Health Organization study showing that women have twice the incidence of ‘affective disorders’ (depression, bipolar disorder etc.) as men;

“The research stemming from this viewpoint had a systemic blindness. It could literally not see what it was doing, as the normative quality of its own presuppositions had made them invisible.” – Jill Astbury

In other words, by orienting the investigation to … ‘what is wrong with these ‘canaries’, we are doing the equivalent of investigating what is wrong with the oddly behaving miner’s canary out of the context of the variations in the ambient conditions (e.g. the web of relations) they are included in.  So long as we pride ourselves on our ability to push on  forward no matter how our actions may be cultivating a more toxic ‘normal’ ambiance (“when the going gets tough, the tough get going”), the more sensitive among us will progressively experience ‘breakdown’ (made less visible through pharmaceutical “numb-down”), a signal that should give us cause for reflection on ‘where we are going’ so that we do not put our children on a bus trip to hell.

The “ticket’ for such a “bus trip to hell” by way of Bipolar Disorder’ comes in the form of a ‘Declaration of Independence’ , the WESTERN CULTURE EGO-DEFINING ABSTRACTION which ‘makes sense’ only where intended in a relational context wherein the INDEPENDENCE is in terms of relational associations within the ONE Great Harmony (the Wave-field) where FIGURE and GROUND are ONE and NOT in the EGO based abstract sense of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO where the FIGURE is DECLARED INDEPENDENT of the GROUND, a conceptualization of reality which builds BIPOLAR DISORDER into WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENCE.

The consequence is that as psychological disorder brews up social disorder within the social relational dynamic and blatantly manifests through the rightly confused behaviour of sensitive ‘miner’s canary’, (who intuitively reject FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO) although trapped in a sea of WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS that embrace it as the NORM, these confused ‘miner’s canaries’ become centers of disturbance and the object of inquiry, however no amount of such inquiry into the workings of the individual, and no amount of ‘behavioural corrections’ made thereto are going to resolve the ‘core issue’ of the crazy-making split of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE into FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO by way of a DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE by ‘the FIGURE’.  Such declarations of independence ‘wallpaper over TRANSFORMATION with pictures portraying the binary dynamic of PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION wherein NAMING-instantiated things-in-themselves and their GRAMMAR mobilized dynamics (the ‘DOUBLE ERROR’) are substituted for, and displace, the natural dynamic of relational TRANSFORMATION.

The most sensitive of those ‘miner’s canaries’ that  intuitively reject the WESTERN CULTURE NORM of recasting oneself in a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO context and have trouble playing the ‘double agent’ game (the MAHAVIT or ‘fellow traveller’ role of Advaita Vedanta) succumb to bouts of wild wing-flapping disturbance which is identified from the point of view of the aberrant WESTERN CULTURE NORM as ‘aberrance’.  And while it may be ‘aberrance’ it is an aberrant WESTERN CULTURE induced aberrance.

The following is an extract from my conversation (inside a psychiatric hospital) with ‘Patty’, a ‘miner’s canary’, in the wake of her sixth suicide attempt which this time, had put her into a two week long coma.;

“Every time, after a few weeks in here, they say I am cured. Sure I am cured, for living in a highly empathic society such as the psychiatric ward tends to be, but I am not cured for going back into society which is a rat race made even tougher by my being marked as a defect and a loser. See, this bus pass is marked ‘handicapped’. I tried to get off handicapped and go on ordinary welfare even though it was $300. less but they wouldn’t let me.” She also expressed the view that society was moving in the opposite direction of ‘more empathy’.

Thus the deepening of inquiry into the ‘troubled miner’s canary’ in an attempt to discover ‘what is going wrong within the individual’ is not an orientation that can enlighten us on ‘WHAT IS GOING WRONG WITH US’ which is at the root of that which manifests as the aberrant behaviour of the most sensitive members of our social relational matrix.

For the sensitive ‘miner’s canaries’ and their supportive family and friends, the balance between the rough ground and their footwear has be managed. It may be more practical to strap leather on one’s feet (medicate) than to take the roughness out of the terrain (revolutionize) but that would be the binary analysis.  A relational understanding could lead the forging of one’s own ‘goat-path’.

Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder are names that are commonly associated with clinical definitions of a disorder that manifests in individuals who represent about 2 -4 percent of our WESTERN CULTURE ADHERING populations.  Of course, to put it this way is deveptive since it obfuscates that reality that this ‘disorder’ is a ‘disorder of the social-relational community’

My ‘philosophical investigations’, which are very much aligned to modern physics, indigenous aboriginal cultural, Taoist/Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta understandings, affirm that Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder, as known by their manner of manifestation (as distinct from clinical-theoretical definitions) are characteristic of WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENCE in general, and manifest more generally as the Conservative-Liberal political split; i.e. schizophrenia and bipolar disorder ARE THE WESTERN CULTURE “NORMAL”.

So, yes, I see myself, my friends and family, insofar as we are members in good standing of our WESTERN CULTURE SOCIAL DYNAMIC, as sustainers of social-collective-scale schizophrenia/bipolar disorder which, as discussed, manifests in the social collective en masse in the conservative-liberal split and not only in the clinical ‘bipolar disorders’ where the splitting is projected on the individual.

The conservative-liberal BIPOLAR split is strongly manifest in U.S. politics, underscoring the reality that BIPOLAR DISORDER has become ‘accepted’ as the ‘WESTERN CULTURE SOCIAL NORMAL’.

 What we call ‘normal’ is a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms of destructive action on experience.”  — R.D. Laing

In my view, initiatives like ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Indigenous lives matter’ and ‘Female lives matter’ and ‘Gay and Lesbian lives matter’ marching under the common banner of ‘correcting INJUSTICE’ is itself dysfunctional on the basis of the systems sciences finding as brought out in ‘The Name of Devil is Suboptimization’ (Martine Dodds Taljaard).  We cannot solve the problem of one corn ‘popping off’ by the removal of the offending kernal if the popping heat is being generated in the relational ferment of the collective.

It’s not that all these naming-instantiated ‘groups’ don’t have a complaint, it’s about the problem arising from thinking in terms of ‘all these groups’.  Is a group a ‘real thing-in-itself’ because we ‘give it a name’ and attribute certain actions and developments to it?  No! that is the DOUBLE ERROR of language and grammar pointed out by Nietzsche.  ‘Lightning flashes’ and Fire burns’ are examples of how the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR can impute the existence of LOCAL things-in-themselves with notional powers of LOCALLY SOURCING actions and developments.

In the reality of our actual sensory experience, everything is related (‘mitakuye oyasin’) so that rather than assessing the value of each individual’s actions and developments, it would make more sense to assess and nourish relational group harmonies which generally involve a diverse combination of contributions ranging through music and the arts to simple labors and also science and engineering; i.e. to sustain a full diversity as in indigenous aboriginal folk stories such as ‘My Father and the Lima Beans’.

Points made like those of El Salvadoran poet Claribel Alegria;  My father was a famous engineer, my mother had no name’ were not to promote ‘equal pay and recognition for males and females but to awaken us to the value of diverse contributions to harmony and resonance and inspiration in the relational dynamics of community.

‘EQUAL RIGHTS’ is NOT an orientation that would cultivate orchestral harmonies, but it is an understandable goal within a culture that is already committed to the DOUBLE ERROR view of reality based on NAMING-instantiated things-in-themselves with GRAMMAR given (notional) powers of sourcing actions and developments.   This DOUBLE ERROR schema is ultimately based on EGO which is the cornerstone of belief in one’s own NAMING instantiated LOCAL SELF as possessing powers of SOURCING actions and developments.  NAMING can anoint a person, social collective or hurricane as the notional author/sorcerer of designated actions and developments; e.g. Katrina (hurricane) is growing larger and stronger and is devastating New Orleans.

We are included in the TRANSFORMATION (the Wave-field, the Tao); …  we do not ‘really’ “SOURCE” anything; that is just DOUBLE ERROR-speak, and we invented the DOUBLE ERROR-speak because we wanted to LOCALIZE so as to EFFABLE-ize the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL; i.e. we wanted to REDUCE-TO-LOCAL and thus EFFABLE, … the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL transforming relational continuum aka ‘the Wave-field’ aka ‘the Tao’.

Our language allows us to construct intellectual representations such as GROWTH as in ‘the GROWTH of our farming operations, which would be fine if we lived in a FLAT SPACE of infinite extent, but since we live in the curved space of the Earth, the GROWTH of cultivated land is at the same time, the SHRINKING of the Wilderness land so that the overall reality is TRANSFORMATION.

Because the ‘big picture’ is that we are included in the transforming relational continuum, our talk of SOURCING the GROWTH of farmed land and the associated GROWTH of production and GROWTH of profits, … is FALSE because INCOMPLETE in that it DROPS OUT all mention of the SHRINKAGE of the Wilderness area and thus the REALITY of what is really going on, which is TRANSFORMATION.

Ok, excuse the too-long introduction to this essay pointing out how BIPOLAR DISORDER characterizes us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT social dynamics in general as is implicit in the conservative-liberal bipolar opposition.

The BIPOLAR DISORDER probing essay can be found at this following URL;

https://goodshare.org/wp/western-language-induced-bipolar-disorder/

regards,

ted lumley

June 19, 2020

* * * END of PROLOGUE * * *

The ‘conservative’ – ‘liberal’ POLITICAL split is the most OVERT manifestation of language-induced BIPOLAR DISORDER.  In this case, it is the WESTERN CULTURE iceberg that clinically-diagnosed BIPOLAR DISORDER/SCHIZOPHRENIA is the tip of.  A majority such as where WESTERN CULTURE prevails as a majority has no monopoly on what constitutes reality but it does have a powerful influence in shaping the OPERATIVE REALITY, as is well understood by indigenous aboriginals.

BIPOLAR DISORDER manifests as the conservative-liberal split and it is language and grammar based, arising from the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO split which contrasts with modern physics and indigenous aboriginal FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE understanding.

WE WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are using a bioolar-disorder distorting language-and-grammar in our articulated representations of reality, and while people like Nietzsche and Bohm who are AWARE of the BIPOLAR DISORDER EXPOSURE in DOUBLE ERROR based language usage, which can put one’s mind into the CONSERTIVE or LIBERAL mind-draw, can keep themselves from falling into the BIPOLAR DISORDER.

Those WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS who do not fall into the majority form of the BIPOLAR DISORDER, are not all ‘out of the woods’ because those exposed to the WESTERN CULTURE’s built-in BIPOLAR SPLITTING influence, who resist joining into EITHER the conservative camp OR the liberal camp, because they resist being polarized, are exposed to EMBODYING THE SPLIT  which is where the clinical diagnosis of BIPOLAR DISORDER and SCHIZOPHRENIA arises, which is agreed upon and supported by BOTH the conservative branch of the WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENCY, AND the liberal branch.

BOTTOM LINE: WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENCE is a BIPOLAR DISORDER INDUCING EXPERIENCE that is built into the DOUBLE ERROR of language and grammar.  The FIRST ERROR is NAMING that imputes local, thing-in-itself BEING to that which is NAMED, and this is conflated with the SECOND ERROR of GRAMMAR which imputes the power of SOURCING actions and developments to the NAMING-instantiated ‘thing-in-itself’ aka ‘the BEING’.

The BIPOLARITY that is built into WESTERN language and grammar via the DOUBLE ERROR is there for good reason; i.e. to render the INEFFABLE EFFABLE.  Reality of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum aka the Wave-field is INEFFABLE, or in other words, impossible to capture EXPLICITLY in language since, as has been pointed out since Heraclitus (500 B.C.), EVERYTHING IS IN FLUX.

But just because reality is fluid doesn’t mean that language is out of the question, it only means, as David Bohm’s modern physics research pointed out, that we need a language that is capable of dealing with purely relational (i.e. ‘fluid’) dynamics, which he proposed and called Rheomode.  As it turned out, his work had already been done, and the flow-based languages were Algonquin etc. etc.

THERE IS NO BIPOLAR CONSERVATIVE – LIBERAL SPLIT among those raised in the indigenous aboriginal language and culture tradition, and neither are there any individuals who ‘embody’ the split who WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS classify as THOSE WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER AND/OR SCHIZOPHRENIA.

The reader, if raised in the WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT SECTOR such as I was, may be wondering, if exploring this understanding, if she/he is infected with the WESTERN CULTURE NORMAL version of this BIPOLAR DISORDER?

Like many others, I am ‘at least’ “aware” of this WESTERN CULTURE NORMAL tendency based on perceiving FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO,  for either (a) BIPOLAR SPLITTING that gives rise to EITHER conservative OR liberal perception of unfolding reality (constituting the majority of the WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENCY, or (b) BIPOLAR SPLITTING that one ‘embodies’ so as to avoid committing to EITHER the conservative OR liberal POLES (a 2-4 percent minority of the WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENCY, … AND AM ALSO aware of the EASTERN CULTURE “MAHAVIT” and “ATMAVIT” options based on understanding FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE.

Modern physics has exposed the INCOMPLETELENESS of the WESTERN CULTURE BIPOLAR model of reality as BUILT INTO language and grammar by way of the DOUBLE ERROR described above, wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO, as an incomplete REDUCTION of Wave-field reality wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE.  It is this WESTERN CULTURE linguistic DOUBLE ERROR that is the source of BIPOLAR DISORDER that infect the WESTERN social collective, manifesting in the majority as the conservative-liberal polar split and in a minority as the embodiment of the split.  The conservative-liberal BIPOLAR split has been accepted as part of the WESTERN CULTURE “NORMAL” while the minority embodiment of the BIPOLAR split has been classified as ABNORMAL.

EXAMPLES of these different ways that LANGUAGE influences PERCEPTION and how the AMBIGUITY that leads to the BIPOLAR SPLITTING comes into play.

If one considers a raindrop, one might start one’s inquiry with;

FIRST OPTION: … the raindrop itself, (as if it ‘existed in its own right), exploring its shape and its contents and its ‘skin’.  This raindrop would thus, by implication, be ‘living in’ an absolute space which was not ‘part of the raindrop’.  Logically speaking the raindrop would be a solitary FIGURE or thing-in-itself within a GROUND that is separate and distinct from it so that we could understand the raindrop as if it were a ‘thing-in-itself’ as its NAME seems to imply; i.e. we have given it ‘it’s own name’ which imputes a ‘thing-in-itselfness’ to it.

SECOND OPTION (which subdivides into the 2a plus 2b options): … the atmosphere that includes the raindrop, (as if the raindrop were a development within the atmosphere and perhaps even a feature of the atmosphere, opening up the ambiguity as to whether raindrop and atmosphere are TWO or whether raindrop and atmosphere are ONE and merely have a distinguishable APPEARANCE; i.e. where the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO is only APPEARANCE and the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE is the actual physical reality.

SUMMARY: We have at our disposal, three options for capturing reality in language as have been investigated and documented, for example, by the physicist and systems sciences philosophical investigator Erich Jantsch in his work; “Design for Evolution”.  The ‘reality’ of our actual sensory experience is one thing (it is INEFFABLE since as modern physics informs us, we are transforming forms within a transforming relational (Wave-field) continuum) and the language and grammar stimulated EFFABLE REPRESENTATIONS of reality are another thing and the latter come in three (or more) differing forms, that Jantsch reviews in his ‘Design for Evolution’ treatise.

A ‘raindrop’ example

-3- The raindrop as thing-in-itself with no consideration of the space it is in. FIGURE ONLY.

-2- The raindrop as a precipitate of the atmosphere that is independent of the atmosphere. FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO

-1- The atmosphere with locally congealing and evaporating raindrops.  FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE wherein the basic dynamic is TRANSFORMATION.

AMBIGUITY arises in the reducing reality to language-based REPRESENTATIONS; i.e. the representation of reality of level 2 is AMBIGUOUS since we can consider EITHER the atmosphere being the SOURCE of the raindrops OR the raindrops as SOURCING the atmosphere understood as a blanketing of vapours.

THIS AMBIGUITY (arising from language-based (localizing) REPRESENTATION of the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL Wave-field dynamic always accompanies the REDUCTIVE imputing of existence of a LOCAL thing-in-itself which gives rise to the DOUBLE ERROR (of NAMING and GRAMMAR that implies LOCAL SOURCING).  For example, if we say that ‘the continents are drifting’ this implies as the same time, the ‘seafloor is spreading’, which is another case like the Zen ‘wind-and-flag’ koan, where language and grammar gives representations that incorporate a basic AMBIGUITY, which is the same BIPOLAR type as divides WESTERN CULTURE conservatives and liberals.

If we reflect on the origins of this ambiguity of the wind-and-flag SOURCING ambiguity and the continental-drift — seafloor-spreading SOURCING ambiguity, we can discern that it is coming from the limited architecture of our language and NOT from the physical reality of our sensory experience.

If we were to ‘open the door’ to understanding reality in terms of relational TRANSFORMATION as in the modern physics Wave-field understanding and also in the indigenous aboriginal ‘mitakuye oyasin’ understanding wherein TRANSFORMATION is the basic reality of our sensory experience, then we can see THE LIMITATIONS OF LANGUAGE as the source of the ambiguity because LANGUAGE cannot capture TRANSFORMATION, because TRANSFORMATION that we are included in is INEFFABLE, or in other words; ‘the Tao that can be told is not the true Tao’.

However, there is an approximative WORK-AROUND for devising an EFFABLE-because-EXPLICIT-because-LOCAL allusion to the INEFFABLE-because-IMPLICIT-because-NONLOCAL,… as is pointed out by modern physics philosophers whose approach is ‘THE SURPRISE VERSION OF THE GAME OF TWENTY QUESTIONS’.  This same solution of an EFFABLE-because-EXPLICIT-because-LOCAL approximating of the INEFFABLE-because-IMPLICIT-because-NONLOCAL has been proposed by philosophers such as Wittgenstein;

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)

He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

7.0 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

–Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

COMPROMISE VIA A FLATSPACE PSEUDO-REALITY and its AMBIGUITY SHORTFALL

Do CONTINENTS DRIFT or do SEAFLOORS SPREAD?

Take your pick because both ‘work’ within language and grammar REPRESENTATIONS of reality.  But be aware that this ambiguity has been problematic in WESTERN CULTURE since it divides the social collective on the basis of ambiguous personal preference as mocked in Gulliver’s Travels which satirized the division into conservative and liberal in terms of the people of Liliput and Blefescu that polarized against one and other on the ambiguous issue of whether a boiled egg should be opened from the roundy end or the pointy end.

We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS split nearly fifty-fifty into conservatives and liberals on the basis of whether the actions of the individual sources the actions of the social collective or whether the actions of the social collective sources the actions of the individual.  This is the same ambiguous dichotomy as in continental drift versus seafloor spreading (which SOURCES which?) and as in the Zen Wind-and-Flag koan (which SOURCES the movement of which?).

THE RESOLVING OF THIS AMBIGUITY COMES WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “SOURCING”, THERE IS ONLY “TRANSFORMATION”.

“Continents drifting” and ‘Seafloor spreading” is the REDUCED-TO-FLAT SPACE REPRESENTATION of RELATIONAL TRANSFORMATION wherein FIGURE (continents) and GROUND (seafloor) are TWO whereas TRANSFORMATION is where FIGURE and GROUND are ONE, as where in a spherical fluidity featuring EXTRUSION and SUBDUCTION as conjugate aspects of fluid TRANSFORMATION that is a THINGLESS CONNECTEDNESS.

So, as far as language and grammar FLATSPACE REPRESENTATIONS OF REALITY GO, the ONE (continental drift) is as just as legitimate as the other (seafloor spreading), … THE PROBLEM IS THAT BOTH ARE INNATELY INCOMPLETE in that the fail to capture the sensory experience of inclusion in TRANSFORMATION which is INEFFABLE and thus we do not have a language and grammar REPRESENTATION of it, so as Wittgenstein points out in his final proposition in ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’;

7.0 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

In other words, the reality of our sensory experience of inclusion in TRANSFORMATION is INEFFABLE and if we want to employ language to INFER what lies beyond the reach of EFFABLE-because-EXPLICIT-because-LOCAL representations of language, we can only use language for building relational inference of the INEFFABLE-because-IMPLICIT-because-NONLOCAL reality of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum.

The ‘surprise version of the game of Twenty Questions’ of modern physics is a means of using the EFFABLE-because-EXPLICIT-because-LOCAL to INFER the INEFFABLE-because-IMPLICIT-because-NONLOCAL, the latter describing TRANSFORMATION (the sensory experience reality of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum aka the Wave-field aka the Tao).

* * *

OVERALL SUM-UP: — THERE CAN BE NO LANGUAGE BASED ‘SUM-UP’ BECAUSE OF THE LIMITATIONS OF LANGUAGE.  The ‘last word’ on this is ‘NO WORDS AT ALL’, but the alternative of reflection on the intuitive grasp of TRANSFORMATION by way of relational inference of that which is not assertively deliverable in terms of explicit constructions but which is implicitly inferred in the gaps between/among the explicit assertions.

Of that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent’ – (“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen”) –Wittgenstein’s final statement (7.0) in Tractatus Logico Philosphicus).

* * *

EPILOGUE:

The ambiguity that arises in linguistic attempts at EFFABLE capture of the INEFFABLE can keep us talking to ourselves and using REASON incessantly without ever succeeding in a language based EXPLICIT capture of reality.  To persist in attempting such a breakthrough is a CRAZY-MAKER.

“Reason” in language!—oh what a deceptive old witch it has been! I fear we shall never be rid of God, so long as we still believe in grammar.  — Nietzsche

Reason can have one person contending the opposite contention leading to revolt or ‘revolution’, the takeover of one binary contention by another which is the EXPLICIT of the IMPLICIT dynamic of TRANSFORMATION, the former being the case of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO and the latter, FIGURE-and-GROUND as ONE.

The REALITY UNDERSTANDING CHOICES

-3- The LOCAL solitary FIGURE as the SOURCE.

-2- The AMBIGUOUS FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO LOCAL SOURCE.

-3- The FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE SOURCE (SOURCING AS NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION)

Reality as in -3- and -2- are EFFABLE and visually representable while reality as in -1- (NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION) is INEFFABLE and while it is available to sensory experience, it is not available to linguistic, nor visual representation; i.e. it is INEFFABLE.

BEWARE of all EXPLICIT-because-LOCAL REPRESENTATION as it is INCAPABLE of anything more than INFERENCE of the INEFFABLE-BECAUSE-NONLOCAL REALITY.

Do not deliver or accept personal CONDEMNATION or FORGIVENESS because it is a backhand way of establishing the pseudo-reality of explicit LOCAL SOURCING OF TORT!  Likewise, do not accept personal CONGRATULATIONS or CREDIT because it is a foreground way of establishing the pseudo-reality of EXPLICIT LOCAL SOURCING of BENEFICIAL actions and developments.  In both cases, the invoking of LOCAL SOURCING is unsupported in the reality of our sensory experience of inclusion in TRANSFORMATION.

Mitakuye oyasin.

* * * * *

APPENDIX 1. Erich Jantsch Three Levels of Understanding Reality (an ‘interpretation’ by Judith Anodea).

Erich Jantsch’s three levels of consciousness from ‘Design for Evolution’ .described in ‘Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System As a Path to the Self’, by Judith Anodea

Diving in the River of Consciousness

“Erich Jantsch, the late systems theorist, has outlined three distinct system levels of human consciousness: the rational [dualist], the mythical [non-dualist], and the evolutionary. If we imagine life in all its complexity as if it were water flowing in a riverbed, we can illustrate each of these levels as distinct operating systems that organize information and experience.

We begin by sitting on the river bank and watching the water flow by. This represents the rational system, where knowledge comes through science and other logical, empirical means. The essential activities of the rational mode are observation and enactment. Our method of inquiry is characterized by an I-it relationship—subject to object. We do things to it and observe its reaction. We observe and measure the water’s rise and fall, the stream bank and its erosion, the leaves and the sticks that go by. We learn as much as we can from outside the stream, but as we lean closer and closer to the water in an attempt to understand its deeper mysteries, we eventually fall in. Immersed in the river, our perspective shifts dramatically. This plunges us into the mythical system.

Many people choose to remain on the stream bank, forever gathering data. They think they will gain enlightenment simply by accumulating information. They watch and learn but never become a part of something larger.

When we fall into the river, we shift from observation to experience/ Immersed in the flowing water, we are no longer on the outside looking in, but are part of the mythical aspect of the stream, a force greater than ourselves. It cannot be explained in terms of gallons of water or rate of flow, but it comes through the realm of experience. If we embrace this mythic level and choose to swim in the river for a while, we no longer view our relationship with the river as I-it, but as I and thou. Here, subject embraces subject. The river has a life force of its own—it is going somewhere and it is taking us along with it. We can foolishly try to swim upstream, or we can allow its force to take us on a journey.

Archetypal consciousness emerges when we enter the river. At the archetypal level we identify with the river, identify with its fast and slow places, its dangerous rapids and sensuous pools. We identify and embrace.

“Without evolutionary inquiry, we lack a sense of direction.  Without mythological inquiry, we lack a sense of systemic existence.  Without both, we separate ourselves from the world we live in.” — Erich Jantsch

Our collection of data gathered at the rational level now assembles itself into an intuitive whole, a complete gestalt that involves mind and body simultaneously

It helps to know if a waterfall or rapid lies ahead. This knowledge is our foundation, the necessary lower chakra orientation of consciousness. Still, it tells us little about how to swim, a skill we can only learn by getting wet. Once swimming, we cannot explain how many gallons of water to push with our hands or even how often to stroke. We can only learn by feel and by doing, as it is with the stream of life as well.

At the mythic level, we battle forces that have lives of their own. In order to survive, we must become one with the force, but we have to leave the stream bank in order to have this experience. This is the aspect of spirituality that involves letting go. The stream bank is our familiar world, our rational mind, our safety and security. It is our body of knowledge. As we enter into mythic consciousness, the rational system does not disappear but is transcended by a deeper experience.

Becoming “one with the river” does not mean that we lose ourselves. If we simply gave up and surrendered to the water we could drown or be dashed on the rocks! This is the challenge that most of us meet on our spiritual path. How do we become one with a force greater than ourselves without losing ourselves? Our third chakra will has to engage and drive the feet to kick. We have to learn our relationship to the river and interpret our many feelings that tell us just how to move among the rocks. Once we jump fully into the stream of energy flowing through our bodies and our lives, we are forced to deal with larger challenges. We are forced to evolve.

By this merging—not just jumping in but learning to swim until it is a glorious free-flowing dance—we enter the third level of consciousness: the evolutionary system. At this point I and thou become we. This is the expansion into universal mind, the union with the divine, and the all-inclusive state of being where system boundaries have dissolved and reformed to a greater and deeper whole. Again, we do not lose the I, we reframe it. The I now includes the all. Here is our final transcendence into cosmic consciousness.

Many spiritual disciplines, especially those oriented towards ascendance, advise us to give up the self, to surrender all to a master, guru, or a particular concept of God. While it is important to give up the attachment to the lower egos, what is really called for is to become one with the divine. There is no we without an I. To become one with the divine is not to abandon the Self (as archetype of wholeness) but to realize that divine consciousness is who that Self really is.

To become one with the divine is to dissolve or transcend the boundaries that keep us separate. These boundaries exist in our mind alone. What we do need to give up is our attachment to the stream bank, our refusal to take the plunge and get wet, to take the chance on the unknown. We need to give up our clinging to the rational mode when it is unable to give us the deeper meaning of what it is like to be in the stream.

* * *

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FOOTNOTE: Commentary on ‘the DIVINE’ from GOODSHARE.ORG Website AUTHOR

References to ‘the DIVINE’ are ambiguous in that they may be understood (and often are understood) in the WESTERN terms of a LOCAL CENTRE of the SOURCE of EVERYTHING which is like a DIVINE EGO (as captured, for example, in the writings of Marianne WIlliamson), that one may invite to direct one’s actions as coming from a ‘hotline to God’, OR, ‘the DIVINE’ may be understood in the MODERN PHYSICS and EASTERN terms of NONLOCAL (Wavefield-immanence) SOURCING of EVERYTHING which is like a DIVINE PRESENCE or ONE-NESS-oF-EVERYTHING which INSPIRES how all things unfold through all things as in the ‘GREAT HARMONY’ of the indigenous aboriginal understanding of the DIVINE.

The difference here lies in the difference between the WEST’s DIVINELY INFORMED INTELLECT springing forth from the interior of the individual to source and shape his actions with the “WORLD AROUND HIM” and the EAST’s DIVINE ‘GREAT HARMONY’ that permeates all in the manner of a resonant Wavefield, inviting all to join in the GREAT HARMONY otherwise known as ‘GOD’.

In the words of Irwin Schroedinger;

… In Christian terminology to say: ‘Hence I am God Almighty’ sounds both blasphemous and lunatic. But please disregard these connotations for the moment and consider whether the above inference is not the closest a biologist can get to proving God and immortality at one stroke.

In itself, the insight is not new. The earliest records to my knowledge date back some 2,500 years or more. From the early great Upanishads the recognition ATHMAN = BRAHMAN (the personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was, after having learnt to pronounce with their lips, really to assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts.

 Again, the mystics of many centuries, independently, yet in perfect harmony with each other (somewhat like the particles in an ideal gas) have described, each of them, the unique experience of his or her life in terms that can be condensed in the phrase: DEUS FACTUS SUM (I have become God).

To Western ideology the thought has remained a stranger.  – Erwin Schroedinger, ‘What is LIfe’, ‘Epilogue: On Determinism and Free Will’

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