[Buddha-l] Religious, But Not Spiritual

[Joy Vriens]

>> According to Wilber one can talk about tattva (he uses another word, but I forgot what it was ;-)) from a pre-rational (magical, mythical), rational and trans-rational or integral perspective. You are obviously talking from a (pseudo) rational perspective. What would you tell us from a trans-rational perspective? And is there anything Buddhist in nirvana? 

>this is to complicated for an old simple minded philosopher like me. I  
>never succeded in reading any substantial text from Ken (does he come as  
>a Barbydoll as well?) because I always fell asleep after three pages.  
>Perhaps I should first study 'Isis unveiled' in order to get a grip on  
>this trans-thing. 
>As for your last question: I don't know if I'm a Buddhist, it depends  
>hwo asks, and I don't know nirvana, so maybe you're asking the wrong  
>person. But if you find out, I'll be very interested to know :-) . 

Old simple minded philosophers are my favorite ones, especially ones that can resist sleep through 3 pages of a Wilber book. The fragment of which I posted a link interested me in that it made the distinction between religion and spirituality, although both speakers seemed to suggest there was no access to spirituality outside religion, which I don't agree with. In another extract on the same website (http://padmakara.zaadz.com/blog/2007/9/the_future_of_spirituality) the view on pre-rational, rational, trans-rational development is further explained. I find the idea of classifying different aspects, periods, beliefs and techniques of a religion in those categories quite interesting, but I don't agree with seeing this as a general progress or "vertical" development. I also disagree with his idea of immortality. Of course immortality exists as a mode of experience (like "spirituality"), but to treat them as things and to project thing-like geometrical qualities onto them... 

I see the trans-thing as an integration of something as another perspective. I consider seeing things only through a rational perspective as an impoverishment or an amputation. 

>From a kneejerk perspective I do think Wilber is a windbag, from a rational perspective I use him as one of many stimuli (I am a waste recycling eclictic) and from a non-dualist perspective he is a Buddha.

Joy