## Highlights
- The traditional “Great Chain of Being” is usually given as something
like: matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. In the Vedanta, for
example, these are, respectively, the 5 sheaths or levels of Spirit:
annamayakosha (the sheath or level made of physical food), the
pranamayakosha (the level made of élan vital), the manomayakosha
(the level made of mind), the vijnanamayakosha (the level made of
higher mind or soul), and anandamayakosha (the level made of
transcendental bliss or causal spirit. Vedanta, of course, adds turiya, or
the transcendental ever-present Self, and turiyatita, or the nondual,
ever-present, unqualifiable Spirit-as-such, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdnsw4daacwkj0z2exf26z7))
- according to the traditions, this entire process of evolution or “un-
folding” could never occur without a prior process of involution or “in-
folding.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdpn84enm84r20wrt91a8gh))
- That is, the lower dimensions or levels are actually
sediments or deposits of the higher dimensions, and they find their
meaning because of the higher dimensions of which they are a stepped-
down or diluted version. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdpnf0m1042rakzb2qyf4nj))
- According to the traditions, before
evolution or the unfolding of Spirit can occur, involution or the
infolding of Spirit must occur: the higher successively steps down into
the lower. Thus, the higher levels appear to emerge “out of” the lower
levels during evolution—for example, life appears to emerge out of
matter—because, and only because, they were first deposited there by
involution. You cannot get the higher out of the lower unless the higher
were already there, in potential—sleeping, as it were—waiting to
emerge. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdpnw30fmcm2as9bgnw4598))
- If we can represent the major emergent stages in evolution as (A), (A +
B), (A + B + C), and so on—where the addition signs mean that
something is emerging or being added to manifestation—then we could
represent involution as the prior subtraction process: Spirit starts out
full and complete, with all of manifestation contained as potential in
itself, which we can represent in brackets: [A + B + C + D + E]. Spirit
first steps down into manifestation—and begins to “lose” itself in
manifestation—by shedding its pure spiritual nature and assuming a
manifest, finite, limited form—namely, the soul [A + B + C + D]. The
soul has now forgotten “E,” or its radical identity with and as Spirit,
and, in the ensuing confusion and angst, the soul flees this terror by
stepping down into mind [A + B + C], which has forgotten “D,” its soul
radiance; and mind flees into life, forgetting “C,” or its intelligence; and
finally life sheds even its vegetative vitality “B” and appears as inert,
insentient, lifeless matter, “A”—at which point something like the Big
Bang occurs, whereupon matter blows into concrete existence and it
appears that in the entire manifest world, there exists nothing but
insentient, dead, lifeless matter. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdpvmvzt23attb4qavc8sjk))
- Thus, what the premodern sages took to be META-physical realities are
in many cases INTRA-physical realities: they are not above matter, nor
beyond nature, nor meta-physical, nor super-natural: they are not above
nature but within nature, not beyond matter but interior to it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdr3v5aztm0venqz2pjy8kq))
- Postmodernism, on the other hand, is known for focusing on those
interior or cultural aspects of an individual’s being-in-the-world, where
it emphasizes that much of what any society takes to be “given,” “true,”
and “absolute” is in fact culturally molded, conditioned, and relative.
That postmodernism itself is often caught in its own quadrant ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdtrcdh4j1341r5y8hpx2xw))
- absolutism (where it tries to reduce everything to cultural constructions
in the LL) should not detract from the important truths that it has
contributed—all of which we summarize by saying that every occasion
has a Lower-Left quadrant or dimension. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdtrwqzx1xecwz2akhhnjw9))
- The problem here might be stated as follows. Given (1) the premodern
lack of clarity about the role of matter, and (2) the fact that the ancients
therefore pictured subtle energies as fundamentally meta-physical or
super-natural; but given (3) the modern understanding of matter as not
bottom but exterior, then (4) how can we re-interpret in a more adequate
fashion the relation of subtle energies to gross material forms? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdtxcdaq5hq076yjd2d112j))
- Increasing complexity of form (in the UR) is correlated with
increasing interior consciousness (in the UL). This was Teilhard de
Chardin’s “law of complexity and consciousness”—namely, the more of
the former, the more of the latter. As we might put it more precisely,
the greater the degree of exterior complexity of material form, the
greater the degree of interior consciousness that can be enacted within
that form (i.e., correlation of UR and UL). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdv56bqv84hhp7t08wxr157))
- Further—and this is the connecting hypothesis—increasing
complexity of gross form is correlated with increasingly subtlety of
energies. As evolution proceeds to more and more complex gross
forms, the increasing degree of gross complexity is accompanied by
subtler and subtler corresponding (or signature) energy patterns. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdv5qk9mzvyzyfrcza88cts))
- increasing evolution brings increasing complexity of gross form (in the
UR), which is correlated with an increasing degree of consciousness (in
the UL), and, in the UR itself, a subtilization of corresponding energies. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdv5za3nt7fe2r1cc1h7301))
- Thus, instead of interpreting higher levels as being essentially divorced
from gross matter or gross form, the complexification of gross form is
the vehicle of manifestation for both subtler energies and greater
consciousness ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdv69skjww6fnsssbs7m2dc))
- Common to many traditions is the idea that, in addition to a spectrum of
consciousness, there is a spectrum of energy. One such spectrum runs
from gross physical energy, to etheric energy, to astral energy, to
psychic energy, to causal energy. Without, at this point, arguing the
details, let’s simply accept that as a type of subtle-energy spectrum that
might exist. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdv8gh37y3szzn3bcsk5xxf))
- According to the traditions, these energies
are not the same as consciousness; consciousness cannot be reduced to
these energies; nor can these energies be reduced to consciousness.
Rather, these levels of energy accompany and support their correlative
levels of consciousness (so that a gross energy is the support of gross ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdvdg7krv7v5r49364xy2g7))
- consciousness, a subtle energy is the support of subtle consciousness, a
causal energy is the support of causal consciousness, and so on). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdvdk35s44ev1pz46a93xc3))
- The earliest forms of evolution—such as quarks, electrons, protons,
atoms, and molecules—are accompanied by the four, major, gross
energy-forces: electromagnetic, gravitational, strong and weak
nuclear. It is common to refer to these as “physical” energies or
“gross” energies, and that is fine, as long as we remember that these
“physical” or “material” energies are not the whole of matter-energy,
but simply the lowest levels of matter-energy ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdw4ehdkestk1kmetqr8v4q))
- With the emergence, during evolution, of the complex material forms
that we call “life” (starting with viruses and prokaryotes), a more subtle
energy—often called “etheric”—emerges. As indicated, these etheric
energy fields are said to surround the physical energy fields in a holonic
fashion (i.e., as spheres of increasing expanse). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdw5ynz7s933q527pfnmtwj))
- “Astral” can mean many things, but it
particularly means a powerful emotional energy field ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdwarhhyjj2b69qq8zgy0rm))
- To continue the natural history of subtle energies: at the point where the
evolution of increasingly complex gross form produces a triune brain, a
yet subtler energy—known as “psychic”—emerges. “Psychic,” in this
case, simply means “thought fields,” which are said to be produced by
sustained mental activity. These fields surround and envelop the
physical, etheric, and astral—but they ONLY emerge in, through, and
around material forms that are complex enough to include triune brains. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdwhbk06s9kaa1n82kqc87v))
- This is why the consciousness, forms, and energy fields are all
holarchical. They are all nested hierarchies of transcend and include.
In the exterior domains, which are marked by their extension in
spacetime, you can actually see many of these holarchies: in the UR,
cells physically envelop molecules, which physically envelop atoms.
Likewise, in the UR, the psychic energy field surrounds and envelops
(transcends and includes) the astral field, which surrounds and envelops
the etheric, which surrounds and envelops the physical…. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdwm54ke2904hyra0ppsmx4))
- In QM theory, the wave potential is a
vast source of creative energy that gives rise to denser material
particles, including, eventually, particles such as quarks, electrons, and
protons. It is this “creatrix” nature of the quantum potential that has led
many scientists to equate it with a spiritual potentiality, a type of vast
field of infinite potentials that is unbounded spirit or limitless
consciousness itself. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdxwszpv593grbz3n0r8emz))
- If that were the case, then the sequence of evolution would be
something like this: out of the spiritual/quantum potential comes
subatomic particles, which eventually gather together into atoms, which
then gather together into molecules, which then form cells, which then
form organisms…. In other words, in that scheme, the higher the level
of evolution, the farther away from God you get. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdxwwp3szax1b8861jqzwbm))
- In involution or creation, radically unqualifiable Spirit decides to play a
game of hide-and-seek, and hence “forgets” itself and throws itself
outward to create a manifest world of manyness and otherness. As we
saw, the first thing pure Spirit creates is soul, which then throws itself
outward to create mind, which throws itself outward to create life (or
prana), which then throws itself outward to create insentient matter
(quarks, atoms). At the end of that ontological sequence, matter blows
into existence as a crystallization and condensation of prana. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdxx2tda5x31ydwg50bsyf8))
- In other words, the quantum potential is not spirit but prana. More
technically, the quantum potential is not spirit-as-spirit, it is not spirit-
as-soul, it is not spirit-as-mind, but rather, the quantum potential is
spirit-as-prana, which gives rise to spirit-as-matter. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdxx646hf2j0g7sk20572gf))
- And, of course, the causal is implicate to the
psychic (and all lower) dimensions—“causal” is called causal because
it is the cause, the start, the creatrix of the entire manifest sequence. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdxwbg4s9mkxx51zgmsryea))
- As suggested, this equating of quantum (or subquantum, or string, or
symmetry) realities with some sort of nondual Spirit is perhaps the
single biggest theoretical confusion in the entire field. First, because it
confuses the nature of involution and evolution, and hence confuses the
beginning of the involutionary sequence—namely, causal spirit—with
the beginning of the evolutionary sequence—namely, the vacuum
potential (or some such), which actually represents spirit-as-prana, not
spirit-as-spirit. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdy2pz3ansd5sv2ypezmpnh))
- In chakra terminology, this view confuses the enormous
creative potentiality of Kundalini coiled at the base of the spine
(muladhara) with Kundalini at the top of the crown (sahasrara). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdy36q9ajh1kpee8vtwb23z))
- In the final analysis, the traditions are very clear that the “first step” in
involutionary manifestation is indeed a nondual Mystery and cannot in
any way be adequately captured (or even hinted at) by conventional
truth, including any sort of science, leading-edge or otherwise. The
reason is that the great traditions from Parmenides to Padmasambhava
are unanimous in what Vedanta calls the “two truths” doctrine: namely,
there exists absolute or nondual truth, and relative or conventional truth,
and they are of radically different orders. Relative truth is concerned
with states of affairs in the finite realm, such as “water molecules
contain one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms,” or “the Earth is 93
million miles from the Sun,” or “the quantum vacuum potential in one
angstrom of space is equal to 102300000 ergs,” and so on. According to
Nagarjuna, Shankara, and Plotinus, you can make definite true or false
statements about such finite events, and truth in the relative realm is
indeed a search for those conditions under which relative assertions are
true. This is relative, finite, or assertoric truth.
Not so absolute truth, about which literally and radically NOTHING
may be accurately said in a noncontradictory fashion (including that
one; if that statement is true, it is false). The great transcendental
dialecticians—from Nagarjuna to Kant—have thoroughly demolished
any such attempts, showing that every single one of the attempts to
categorize ultimate reality (as, for example, by saying it is a quantum
energy potential) turns on itself and dissolves in ad absurdum or ad
infinitum regresses. They are not saying that Spirit does not exist, but
simply that any finite statement about the infinite will categorically not
work—not in the same way that statements about relative or
conventional truth will work. Spirit can be known, but not said; seen, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdycszjbmbpa1b1b9fpwx2h))
- but not spoken; pointed out, but not described; realized, but not
reiterated. Conventional truths are known by science; absolute truth is
known by satori. They simply are not the same thing. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdyd104bn0qpdhdja8tbsbc))
- In short, there is nondual or absolute truth, and there is relative or
conventional truth, and one simply cannot take an assertion of the latter
and apply it to the former. When we use finite words to try to represent
ultimate Suchness, the most we get is poetic metaphor (or metaphoric
statements), but the absolute is known only by a direct realization
involving a transformation in consciousness (satori, sahaj, metanoia),
and “what” is seen in satori cannot be stated in ordinary dualistic words,
other than metaphors, poetry, and hints (if you want to know God, you
must awaken, not merely theorize). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdykag3xdkexset9dra6y4d))
- Even to call Brahman “infinite” is to miss the point ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdypt72wapnn2jsnrjy4g6f))
- entirely, since the word “infinite” only has meaning by virtue of its
opposite (“finite”), and therefore even statements like “formless, empty,
infinite, unqualifiable, nondual” are actually dualistic to the core. Zen
tries to hint at this by saying that the absolute is “not two, not one.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdypwnqr5cbkd9369ptzkz4))
- The vacuum potential, then, is part of the relative, finite, manifest
realm. For just that reason, it can be studied by science.
It is a reality
that, in at least some ways, is apart from other realities; it has qualities;
it has quantities; it has dimensions. None of those statements can be
predicated of Suchness, in any way other than poetic metaphors.
However, precisely because the etheric, astral, and psychic fields are
indeed part of the manifest realm, they are the proper object of study of
science. No contradiction is involved in saying that the quantum
vacuum is the protrusion into the gross realm of its immediate senior,
implicate order: namely, prana. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdyv5rr93aqymqcdc6ny0rf))
- Following the great philosopher-sages (such as Nagarjuna, Plotinus, and
Shankara), we can summarize the reasons that any sort of quantum or
subquantum events are not Spirit:
1. Any quantum reality has some sort of characteristics, qualities, or
dimensions that set it apart from manifest matter; but Spirit is
radically shunya of drsti (empty of any and all qualities, including
that characterization itself)—e.g., quantum vacuum has vast energy,
spirit is unqualifiable.
2. Any quantum reality is different in some important ways from gross
matter; but Spirit is not different from any manifestation, but is
rather the Suchness or Isness of whatever arises.
3. Quantum reality has an opposite (e.g., non-quantum reality), but
Spirit is radically nondual.
4. Spirit is dimensionless; quantum reality is merely in a different
dimension.
5. And, most important, quantum material energy comes directly out of
prana, not out of spirit (i.e., matter crystallizes out of spirit-as-prana,
not spirit-as-spirit). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdyx3v8y55fpxbrytzwj88f))
- Gross
mass-energy is a surface manifestation of etheric fields, which are
surface to astral-psychic fields, which are surface to causal, which is the ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdz0at3hmejsjprgxbv3rxn))
- mysterious first film on spirit’s Original Face as it manifests a world,
moment to moment to moment…. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdz0chqg69x5fnsem83jzfd))
- According to Vedanta/Vajrayana, there are three major states of
consciousness, correlated with three major bodies (or mass-energy
realms), and five major levels/structures of consciousness. The 3 states
are waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. The 3 bodies are gross, subtle,
and causal. The 5 levels/sheaths are the 5 koshas outlined earlier (gross
material, emotional-pranic, mental, higher mental, overmental). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdzd1fbvh26dn81ymx01gkf))
- The relationships, in the average person, are as follows: the waking
state, which possesses a material consciousness, is correlated with (and
supported by) a gross body/energy. The dream state—which contains
(or can contain) the 3 levels of emotional, mental, and higher mental— ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdzdspq7xtxh4evyeddgk54))
- is supported by a subtle body/energy. And the deep sleep state, which
contains an overmental consciousness, is supported by a causal body/
energy. See Table 2. (And note: the states and stages of consciousness
are UL; the bodies/energies are UR.) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01grdzdvqtgvw90drtxfjqv2r3))
- Start with a few uncontested facts: an infant wakes, dreams, and sleeps
—in other words, the infant has access to all 3 major states of
consciousness. But an infant does not have access to all the major
stages of consciousness (e.g., the infant does not have access to formal
operational cognition, which emerges or develops during adolescence;
nor does the infant have access to postconventional morality, nor to
hypothetical reasoning capacities, nor to the orange meme, nor the
green meme, and so on. The higher levels, such as manas and vijnana,
have not yet emerged).
So if we look at the contents of an infant’s dream state, what might we
find? Whatever we find, it will not be contents from the higher stages
of development: as research has made abundantly clear, the dreams of
infants and children do not contain formal operational thoughts, nor
postconventional impulses, nor turquoise visions, and so on. Rather,
the contents of the various states are provided by the stage(s) of
development that the person is at. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre1v2fr018pjyqvtdx6a2nx))
- This model allows us to see how an infant can have access to the 3 great
states and bodies of gross reality, subtle reality, and causal reality—but
not in any developed fashion that would allow it to permanently master
those realms. Permanent realization and mastery demands development
and evolution through the actual levels/stages, a development that
converts “temporary states” to “permanent traits.” Nonetheless,
according to Vedanta/Vajrayana, all of the structures/stages/levels of
consciousness—whether we say there are 5 of them, or 7 of them, or 12
of them, or more—are all variations on these 3 great realms of
consciousness and their 3 supporting bodies or energies. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre1zppb5tc5h7cq3asdbj1v))
- 1. The family gross-energy contains genus gravitational, electromagnetic, strong
nuclear, weak nuclear.
A. The genus electromagnetic contains:
species (1) cosmic rays, (2) gamma rays, (3) x-rays, (4) visible light,
(5) infrared, (6) microwaves, etc.
B. The genus strong nuclear contains:
species energies of (1) baryons, (2) hadrons, (3) mesons (etc.)
C. & D. (Likewise for any possible species in the genus gravitational and
genus weak nuclear)
2. The family subtle-energy contains genus etheric (L-1, biofield-1), astral (L-2,
biofield-2), psychic-1 (T-1), and psychic-2 (T-2)
A. The genus etheric ( L-1 or biofield-1) contains:
species energies of (1) viral, (2) prokaryotic, (3) neuronal, (4)
neuronal cord (etc.)
B. The genus astral (L-2 or biofield-2) contains:
species energies of (1) reptilian brain stem, (2) limbic system (etc.)
C. The genus psychic-1 (or T-1) contains:
species energies of (1) red, (2) blue, (3) orange, (4) green (etc.) 2
D. The genus psychic-2 (or T-2) contains:
species energies of (1) yellow, (2) turquoise, (3) coral (etc.)
3. The family causal-energy contains genus C-field (etc.)
A. The genus C-field contains:
species nirvikalpa, jnana (etc.) 3 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre24v7vgfvxz5tb4kx6nz6g))
- #4. Complexity of gross form is necessary for the expression or
manifestation of both higher consciousness and subtler energy.
Hypothesis #4 introduces the possibility that the higher forms of
consciousness and energy (i.e., higher than the gross-family realm) are
not tied to complexifications of gross form ontologically but rather as
vehicles of the expression of subtler forms and energies in that gross
realm itself. In other words, it is not that higher consciousness and
energies are bound to the complexities of gross form out of ontological
necessity, but that they need a correspondingly complex form of gross
matter in order to express or manifest themselves in and through the
material realm. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre2jrrzyd480pbtsr8wnfbt))
- One, ontologically, during involution—which is also essentially
the path that is said to occur in the bardo realm of the reincarnating or
transmigrating entity (see below)—when Spirit first throws itself
outward, it creates a causal bodymind. The causal bodymind clearly
exists without either a subtle bodymind or a gross bodymind, since
neither of them have yet been created. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre2y94rc7zvdxpg0epnxa6c))
- Two, phenomenologically, when you go to sleep each night and begin
dreaming, the gross bodymind does not exist and you reside primarily
as a subtle bodymind; likewise, as you pass into dreamless-formless
sleep, there is no gross or subtle bodymind, only a causal bodymind;
hence, phenomenologically, the senior bodyminds can exist apart from
the junior bodyminds. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre2ybmff9vayyf8as0nh3wa))
- Three, in certain nonordinary waking states—such as out-of-the-body
experiences (or “astral travel”)—one exists in a subtle bodymind, not
merely a gross bodymind. And in formless meditative states, one exists
in a causal bodymind, not a subtle or gross bodymind. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre2ydn401xqvk609hmtbr3p))
- Hypothesis #4, then, involves the suggestion that a subtle
consciousness, supported by a very real but subtle mass-energy, does
not itself depend for its essential existence on the gross realm, although
it does require a specific degree of complexification of gross matter-
energy in order to manifest in the gross realm. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre3314rhaahxqd5805e07by))
- If hypothesis #4 is true,
then we would have warrant to say that this is why these subtler
dimensions, although created and existing in potentia during involution,
cannot actually manifest themselves until evolution in the gross realm
reaches a required degree of complexification. Increasingly complex
vehicles are required for increasingly higher realms; when these higher
realms manifest, they are not apart from the complexification of form,
but shine through them and by virtue of them: again, even with
hypothesis #4, we would say that the higher realms are not actually
above matter, but within matter. The difference with hypothesis #4 is
that it adds: the higher realms, when they manifest, manifest within
matter, but in themselves, they can exist without gross-family matter. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre348j6r3v0fbtbh8vq1e6f))
- Even though these three family-energies
emerged or manifested only during the course of evolution, by the time
of human emergence, all three family-energies are therefore intrinsic to
a human holon. That is, gross family-energies emerged with the Big
Bang; subtle-family energies emerged with living cells; and causal-
family energies emerged with triune brains. Because each stage
transcends-and-includes its predecessors, all three family-energies come
with a human body (which is, in fact, a conjoining of three bodies). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre3fj6d1q7bs7z2v3r3sttc))
- Therefore, even an infant human possesses waking, dreaming, and
sleeping states, as well as correlative gross, subtle, and causal family-
energies—even though, again, the contents of those consciousness
states will be supplied by developmental stages, and the genus and
species of subtle and causal energies will likewise be supplied by the
specific stages of development (e.g., only as the human develops
concrete operational and formal operational thinking will the T-1 fields
begin to light up, etc.). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gre3g27yppw9v8yk27sktavh))