Integral Religion - Uniting Eros and Logos

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This is an interesting article recently posted at Integral World and brought to my attention by Integral Praxis blog.

Integral Religion

Uniting Eros and Logos

Daniel Araya

And [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
Genesis 28:12

Background

There remains a lingering need for further consideration with regard to the spiritual and transpersonal stages of humanity's sociocultural evolution. More to the point, it would seem that the discord between Ascent (Many to the One) and Descent (One to the Many) remains largely unresolved within Integral Studies thus far. This paper is, in part, an attempt to resolve this discord.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper will be to consider the potential realization of an integral religion. As the philosopher Ken Wilber suggests, human evolution is driven by the teleological ascension of Mind or Spirit. In this way, Mind is both transcendent as God and immanent as evolution. Following this understanding our thesis is simply that human evolution is the underlying principle of both Eastern and Western religious traditions. As this paper will show, Eastern religion demonstrates the spiritual psychology of evolution, while Western religion demonstrates the spiritual sociology of evolution. Eastern religion, following the course of Ascent, seeks to unite humanity's consciousness with God; while Western religion, following the course of Descent, serves God's manifest unfolding. The profound and engrossing work of Ken Wilber and his interpretation of the Eastern spiritual traditions will be examined here as the basic architecture for a transpersonal understanding of psychological development. In addition, we will attempt to decipher the Western spiritual traditions in terms of the transpersonal advance towards divine civilization. Finally, we will suggest a basic framework for uniting these two paths in one complimentary form, in one integral religion.

Read the whole article.

Tags: Integral Religion, Uniting Eros and Logos, Integral theory, Religion, Philosophy, Daniel Araya, Integral World, Ascent, Many to the One, Descent, One to the Many, Ken Wilber