11/18 Ascension: Evolution of Consciousness and Spirit

Required Readings for this class

1. Toru Sato, The Ever-Transcending Spirit, p. 77-99

2. Ken Wilber on the Perennial Wisdom

3. Stanislav Grof, "Science and Spirituality: Observations from Modern Consciousness Research"

Other resources

4. The Voice of Alan Watts, powerful interpreter of the 'Perennial Wisdom' perspective on the Self and Reality.

Also, for your consideration:

5.  a collection of expressions from important religious religious and spiritual texts around the world which support the idea of a single shared truth behind many appearances. 

6. Father Thomas Keating's Guidelines for Interfaith Understanding.

1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality to which they give various names: Brahman, Allah, Absolute, God, Great Spirit.
2. Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.
3. Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.
4. Faith is opening, accepting and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes every belief system.
5. The potential for human wholeness (or in other frames of reference) — enlightenment, salvation, transformation, blessedness, “nirvana” — is present in every human person.
6. Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service of others.
7. As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.
8. Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment is not the result of one’s own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.