damn, i was about to apologize for the length of the quote, and preface it by saying it was just something i thought many of you might enjoy. And, for clarification, when he mentions "I-I", it's like saying "the I that is aware of 'me'", if that makes any sense.... a metaphor for the effortless awareness that is always just there.

This is truly one of the best comment threads i've seen--i love all of your perspectives so much!

People typically feel trapped by life, trapped by the universe, because they imagine that they are actually in the universe, and therefore the universe can squish them like a bug. This is not true. You are not in the universe; the universe is in you.

The typical orientation is this: my consciousness is in my body (mostly in my head); my body is in this room; this room is in the surrounding space, the universe itself. That is true from the viewpoint of the ego, but utterly false from the viewpoint of the Self.

If I rest as Witness, the formless I-I, it becomes obvious that, right now, I am not in my body, my body is IN my awareness. I am aware of my body, therefore I am not my body. I am the pure Witness in which my body is now arising. I am not in my body, my body is in my consciousness. Therefore, be consciousness.

If I rest as Witness, the formless I-I, it becomes obvious that, right now, I am not in this house, this house is IN my awareness. I am the pure witness in which this house is now arising. I am not in this house, this house is in my consciousness. Therefore, be consciousness.

If I look outside this house, to the surrounding area—perhaps a large stretch of earth, a big patch of sky, other houses, roads and cars—if I look, in short, at the universe in front of me—and if I rest as the Witness, the formless I-I, it becomes obvious that, right now, I am not in the universe, the universe is IN my awareness. I am the pure Witness in which this universe is now arising. I am not in the universe, the universe is in my consciousness. Therefore, be consciousness.

It is true that the physical matter of your body is inside the matter of the house, and the matter of the house is inside the matter of the universe. But you are not merely matter or physicality. You are also Consciousness as Such, of which matter is merely the outer skin. The ego adopts the viewpoint of matter, and therefore is constantly trapped by matter—trapped and tortured by the physics of pain. But pain, too, arises in your consciousness, and you can either be in pain, or find pain in you, so that you surround pain, are bigger than pain, transcend pain, as you rest in the vast expanse of pure Emptiness that you deeply and truly are.

So what do I see? If I contract as ego, it appears that I am confined in the body, which is confined in the house, which is confined in the large universe around it. But if I rest as Witness—the vast, open, empty consciousness—it becomes obvious that I am not in the body, the body is in me; I am not in this house, the house is in me; I m not in the universe, the universe is in me. All of them are arising in the vast, open, empty, pure, luminous Space of primordial Consciousness, right now and right now and forever right now.

Therefore, be Consciousness.

http://kenwilber.com/blog/show/440

This book sounds totally fascinating--actually reminds me of two major concepts put forward recently by Ken Wilber - the first is called "The Three Faces of God" in which we can approach Divinity from either 1st-person, 2nd-person, or 3rd-person perspectives.

Spirit-in-1st person is typically the focus in Eastern traditions, with emphasis on meditation, awareness training, and finding the Self beyond the self. The emphasis here is upon direct personal experience with the divine.

Spirit in 2nd-person is much more sympathetic with Western religious traditions, which tends to be more devotional in nature, but "Spirit in 2nd-person" doesn't mean just the worship of a mythic personal God, but instead Spirit as it shows up in all of our community interactions, our friends and family, our teachers and leaders, etc.

Spirit in 3rd-person is pretty much what this book is getting at--understanding the "mind of God" (or Logos) in terms of objective qualities, including mathematics, cosmology, systems theory, evolutionary studies, etc.

The interesting thing is that different traditions emphasize these three dimensions differently from religion to religion, which is why it might be easy to think of Buddhism as a "1st-person" spirituality, and Christianity as a "2nd-person" spirituality, but they are all present in some way in all traditions.

Also, it is important to note that when most people react negatively to a word like "God," they are not actually reacting to spirituality itself--but the outdated, mythic form these religions are often associated with. The truth is, human consciousness evolves through many stages of growth and development--for example, using Jean Gebser's terminology, people evolve from archaic consciousness, to magic consciousness, to ego consciousness, to rational consciousness, to postmodern consciousness, to integral consciousness, and beyond.

And though most modern culture is tempted to jettison "spirituality" when we make the transition from mythic to rational, we must remember that there are forms of spirituality for every one of these different levels, even within a single tradition. So you can be a magical buddhist, a mythic buddhist, a rational buddhist, a postmodern buddhist, etc. Same with Christianity. In fact, any human endeavor can be seen playing itself along all these different developmental levels - art, politics, economics, etc. But since most people don't see the opportunity to retain a connection with spirituality after moving on to a rational stage of development, they take on the secular religion of atheism. And truth be told, a rational atheist is actually MORE spiritual than a mythic fundamentalist! But we cannot allow the "conveyor belt" of religion, divinity, and extraordinary state experiences to simply cut itself off at the mythic level, or else we remain locked into the exact same "my fundamentalism vs. your fundamentalism" that has defined so much of the past several millenia--which was a cutting edge way to approach the world TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO, but we have since found much more sophisticated ways to engage our spirituality, without having to choose this book over that book, this god over that god, this consciousness over that consciousness.

Sorry for the long drawn-out comment, but it's hard packing these thoughts into a little white window ^_^

Corey W. deVos
Managing Editor, Integral Naked
Managing Editor, KenWilber.com