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Letter regarding how to start with IPK
Hi, this is a copy of the email I just sent to the IPK group on January 22.
SUGGESTIONS
- On Wednesday morning, instead of trying out 6 perspectives, take ONE, starting with Vladimir and each of us TRY in our own words to describe the topic or object from that perspective. If we go around one or more times and EVERYONE feels they’ve “got it,” perhaps go on to a SECOND perspective.
- Make the topic or object VERY simple – instead of a cell phone, perhaps a paper clip, a book, an apple.
Ok, here’s the longer version:>))
Hi folks:
I’ve been having a most enlightening discussion with Vladimir on the Integral Paradigm of Knowledge. I”m going to try later today or tomorrow to write something on this topic on the LaGrace blog site.
I have a suggestion: Since despite our last group meeting, nearly 20 years (not continuous!) reflections on what IPK is about, and the fascinating and rather intense exchanges I’ve just had over the last day or two with Vladimir, my understanding of what I would say as a “psychologist” in this context is still almost non existent.
It’s feeling to me that for those of us who are relatively new to this, to try an exercise where we go around and try to speak on a topic from 6 different perspectives would be like a graduate or post-graduate level experience.
I wonder if perhaps for this first attempt at a group exercise, we might try something that I think would be much simpler:
Take ONE perspective. It seems like the philosophic one would be the most likely place to start, but given my minimal understanding (and likely misunderstanding) I’m happy to start with any one that you more experienced folks choose.
But let’s say it’s the “philosophic” perspective.
Next, take a SIMPLE object ( I think a mobile phone is already too complex). A book, a pen, a piece of paper, or perhaps – a little more complex but still simple – a piece of fruit – an apple, or perhaps as I did in the talk I gave at the IP conference in Auroville – a mango! Whatever the. object is fine.
Now here’s my understanding of what IPK is about. It all seems to boil down to different ways of attending. So the “apprehensive” movement seems to be precisely what Iain McGilchrist describes as the way the left hemisphere attends to things; it detaches, grabs hold of in order to control and manipulate. The “comprehensive” movement sounds very much what McGilchrist describes as the way the right hemisphere attends; it immerses itself in experience in order to appreciate and understand.
Similarly, the other perspectives also seem to be ways in which consciousness (or Consciousness – I’ll get to that in a moment) attends.
But there’s a further dimension, which I think has to do with the 6 disciplines Vladimir refers to, but which I think I keep getting confused about because ALL the ways of attending are used by ALL 6 disciplines, and I don’t see any one way of attending as primary. For example, I am trained as (a) a psychotherapist, and there the primary mode of attending is very much that of the right hemisphere (that is, if I’m a half way decent therapist!); (b) as a psychometrician (using statistically based measurements to evaluate the mental health of an individual); and (c) as a researcher, primarily using left hemisphere attention to measure and analyze observable behavior as well as physiological, emotional, volitional and cognitive correlates.
SUMMARY:
- Each of us take ONE mode of attending, starting with Vladimir and then taking turns.
- The “mode” of attending involves “HOW” we attend. But there are two crucial additional aspects to this: (a) WHAT we attend to; and (b) WHO is attending and from WHERE?
WHAT: Am I attending to a physical object, a vital emotional, mental image or idea;
WHO/WHERE Is the attention from a stance in the outer or inner consciousness, or from the psychic consciousness or pure Consciousness? Is it from the physical, vital, mental, higher mind, illumined mind level, etc?
This mini-summary SEEMS to me (and please forgive me I may be totally off) to capture the essence of the movements of Consciousness. more than the names of disciplines.
Namaste to all,
Don
PS: The use of various disciplines that were developed by the outer collective consciousness to describe these profound movements of Consciousness Vladimir is pointing us to seems to be quite similar to how Sri Aurobindo described his switch from the traditional terms of Indian psychology (buddhi, manas, etc) to the terms he developed some 10 to 20 years after the Arya.
A disciple wrote him in one letter trying to correlate the systems (ie manas = physical and vital mind; buddhi = thinking mind) and Sri Aurobindo quite explicitly told him it was a mistaken effort.
The Sanskrit terms, he said, were developed primarily in reference to the outer nature, whereas a term like “vital mind” was intended to alter the individual to the fact that our “outer” mind is always being influenced by subtle, inner vital vibrations/movements.
It feels similar to me, to try to take a rich, inner/higher describe of a movement of apprehensive and comprehensive Consciousness and correlate it with anything the modern psychologist does, which around the world is at least 90% wholly on the surface.
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1 Reply
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The comparison of the apprehensive and comprehensive cognition with the workings of the left and right brain is very relevant. I think that biologically it is partially true, but psychologically it is absolutely true and these are the two parts of our cognition. In the language of the Upanishads these are seeing and hearing, form and name, self and spirit, artha and shabda.
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