Lion Kimbro's Wiki: SpiritualPsychicMaterial

I am using (here, circa 2008) the terms “Spiritual,” “Psychic,” and “Material,” in a particular way.

Overview

By my construction:

Spiritual = The health generating, the inspiration, the spirit, the vitality, the meaning, the way, the rapture, the creativity, the generative source.
Psychic = The mind, the mechanical, the manifest, the nature of daily life, the mundane, the way things (such as society,) work, the cybernetic, the “living systems,” etc.,.
Material = Rocks, rivers, planets, stars, houses, etc.,.

Spirit lives in the Psychic & Psychic lives in Material.

Note that there’s nothing outside of naturalism here. By “psychic” and “spiritual,” I’m talking about things that happen in the brain. (See: EvolutionarySpirituality.)

Note also that this isn’t dogma; This is just a particular map, metaphor, language, for talking about existence that I have made & like. It helps me express what I think. (See: ParadoxOfExpression.) You can treat it like “a useful art project,” if that helps.

Imagery

The psyche is a gigantic garden, full of all sorts of different things, resting on an asteroid (the material.)

Think of an asteroid like in “The Little Prince,” perhaps a little larger, and then put a walled garden on the top of it.

In the center of the garden is a fountain, the spiritual.

We could also replace the fountain with a warm fire, that never burns, or a warm glow, if you liked. (To avoid being water-centric, or whatever our metaphysical concern may be.)

This is my own personal map of the cosmos, and it’s what makes sense to me. Use it if you like.

TheSpiritualIsNeverPainful

The spiritual is never painful, never brings pain. But our lives are made of spirit, psyche, and matter.

Pain can lead us to the spiritual, but the spiritual itself is never pain, and, rather, completely – you never feel pain, and when you see pain from the perspective of the Spiritual, you see it with benevolence, compassion, but are not distracted into joylessness; you see pain but briefly, with faith and trust in Life, eventuality, and so on.

Other then that, you’re having much too much of a good time, to really dwell on pain.

The Spiritual brings joy and life to everything it touches. Whatever it touches, blooms. And it never brings death.

In ECKANKAR terminology, it’s “pure positive god world.”

Anyone, from any walk or position or circumstance in life, can be touched by the Spiritual.

But none of this is to be taken to mean that “we shouldn’t feel pain,” or “we never feel pain,” or that “pain is bad,” or “if someone said something mean, it means they’re not spiritual,” or if someone’s mad at you, that we can somehow dismiss them, because they’re “not spiritual.”

We live in the psychic and material worlds, made possible (supported by, founded by,) the material world.

If you stub your toe, you get hurt, and it’s important that you feel that pain, so that you know not to damage your foot. It’s not “spiritual,” it’s clearly psychic. But it’s certainly not bad. In fact, it’s very good that you feel pain, when you stub your toe.

"Don't we need to experience pain, to get to the Spiritual?"

Not really, but often times, yes.

Because, to get to the spiritual, you have to walk through the garden. (Unless you happen to be hanging out close by, which is okay, but not necessarily virtuous.)

Pain is something that you sometimes find in the garden (in the psychic.) So we have these daily experiences, and sometimes we’re in pain. But the fountain itself is never pain. It’s purity.

If we can get through the garden to the fountain when we’re thirsty, without any pain, that’s probably a good thing. But in reality, the garden is alive, things are crawling around, the landscape keeps changing, (because the spirit’s watering it, after all,) and there are thorns and stuff. So you’ll probably get hurt some times.

Some parts of the garden are just really fucked up, and there are long-term projects to fix those parts of the garden. The garden is, on the whole, important. Getting some thorns and pain while taking care of the garden, that’s just going to happen. And tons of people are trapped in these parts of the garden.

Metaphors all grow weak at some point, but I hope that the basic idea is communicated.

"Shouldn't we always be spiritual?"

Well, wait: You always are. The spiritual is your heart.

“But should we always be thirsty? Should we only ever hang out around the fountain?”

I don’t think so.

My sense is that the spirit keeps the garden going, but isn’t meant to replace it.

We should clean up the garden, make it nice as can be, and we will always always always move as the spirit commands. (It’s impossible to resist, really; It’s really the core of our heart.)

I suspect that humanity (or some other race, or some further race) may transcend the psychic one day, and find a way to live entirely in the spirit. Negative war & violence of all forms, emotional and physical, may entirely give way, and we could live in a truly EudaimonicSociety. That’s what we strive for!

What then?

I suspect that, at that kind of new existence, we may find that there is a fountain within the fountain – something that we can’t even conceive of today. (I don’t care how developed a yogi you are, you haven’t seen it, because we have not achieved global peace & global enthusiasm here in Reality yet – so neener neener, there’s still work to do.)

In fact, I think existence is an eternal project, and there will always be greater life as we go further in & higher up.

That is, I think CS Lewis is basically right, with respect to the never-ending depths of existence and grace. (My only substantial difference, is that if I were Christian, I’d believe in Universal Salvation.)

SpiritualPsychicMaterial