Talk:Spiritual evolution

2005 discussion
A surprisingly thick, glossy magazine I stumbled across, "What is Enlightenment?" (Issue 24, April-March), has a long article called "Shifting Modern Ground: The Dilemma of Ethics in an Out-of-Control World" by Elizabeth A. Debold, p. 51. The piece doesn't just define spiritual evolution but puts it into a 2004 context, with examples! Good discussion of how we make moral choices in the postmodern "Developed World," how we can get beyond the fucking crazy-awareness that holds us back from serious involvement, and how to embrace cultural and religious otherness'' without being afraid to take a stand. Challenging and uplifting. (But why so glossy? Who's paying for it?)

LisaHelenW@aol.com
 * It's 2016. In answer to who's behind "What is enlightment?", it's Andrew Cohen, guru, somewhat disgraced for power/control issues,... just search engine aroung. FYI. GangofOne (talk) 03:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

We need someone to do stuff like German Idealism and so on for the article. I only added to material on subjects I'm familiar with M Alan Kazlev 04:59, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Goethean :-) M Alan Kazlev 00:01, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I never miss a chance to mention my namesake. --Goethean 02:37, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Energy Driven Evolution
I've just taken out all the material which I know to be innaccurate in the section, which was almost all of it. The misrepresentation of science was nearly total. If Nijhout was to hear that his work on envirnmental cues was being presented as proof of cosmic rays driving evolution he would be shocked, and not just because it's completely unrelated to his work. Looks to me like covert spamming, frankly. Jefffire 10:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Can someone clean this up a bit? The "New Age Ideas" is especially snarky and inaccurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.184.146.227 (talk) 00:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Removing Aristotle from the list of proponents
I do not believe that Aristotle could have held that "nature and human beings and/or human culture evolve along a predetermined cosmological pattern or ascent, or in accordance with certain pre-determined potentials". It is true that Aristotle believed that living things had certain potentials which they ought ideally to develop in certian ways. However, this was in no way an '[evolution] along a predetermined cosmological pattern or ascent' the fact that it is in accordance with pre-determined potentials does not make it an example of 'spiritual evolution'. (Aristotelian souls are odd things to associate with spirituality at all, being mere functions rather than things, but that is almost besire the point.) If you revert, please include a reference to the place where Aristotle supports this theory. Anarchia 10:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

A predetermined cosmological pettern could mean human thought or of the elements. The evolution of consciousness is observable and not neessarily religious. I think Aristotle would fit into this understanding and is a valid proponent. Lbuntu (talk) 05:23, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

This page would be enriched by including a discussion on 'Spiritual Evolution' as being based on Free Will
In its current incarnation, this page offers a very interesting / diverse array of Modernistic vantages on "spiritual progression", or spirituality as a purely teleological exercise. So, it would be truly fascinating if this page would go further and include a look at the obverse; at the notion of spiritual evolution as being based largely upon free will. There is a huge cannon of Western thought which argues that human culture has the capacity to evolve towards something greater than what it is; however, this capacity is something that will not necessarily be realized - it is ultimately the choice of the person, not an external metaphysical determination, which enables spiritual evolution. In this light, "spiritual evolution" is not something that can be taken as a given. I'm thinking here along the Socratic line of the experience of periagoge, or even the Christian notion of "Ask and ye shall receive": Unless there is a deeply felt need to question, to "evolve", or go beyond socially entrenched conventions, the possibility of spiritual evolution (whether it is conceptualized as the attainment of truth, "enlightenment", or consciousness or reality) most likely will not come about. A vast contingent of Modern philosophers including (but not limited to) Henri Bergson, Eric Voegelin and Michael Polanyi speak at lengths about this, so it would great if this page had the intellectual strength to veer towards such a broader discursive direction. Thank you, and kudos for the page's content thus far. Steven M. Varga 13:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.158.72.24 (talk)


 * I wholeheartedly agree. With these edits, I just took a first step toward opening the article up for inclusion of non-predetermined versions of spiritual evolution theory by broadening the terminology found in the lede.--Tdadamemd (talk) 22:10, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I also agree with your edits, Tdadamemd. Somehow the article sounded biased by the use of the words "predetermined", "predeterminism" in the lead. Hoverfish Talk 22:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Evidence for Ken Wilber's ideas being largely based on Tibetan Buddhism?
I think the article as it stands at present is a reasonable summary of the topic. However, I was surprised to learn that Tibetan Buddhism plays a large part in Wilber's scheme of things. He draws on all kinds of traditions, but his main inspiration for this topic seems to be Aurobindo, not Tibetan Buddhism. The causal body thing is also present in Leadbeater's Theosophy - though Ken Wilber would not claim that as an influence.

62.131.115.68 (talk) 15:34, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That was added by User:M Alan Kazlev back in 2005. Personally, I think that Wilber's theory is mostly derived from that of Adi Da, but I don't think that I can provide a reilable source for that opinion. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 15:42, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Goethean, for more along that line, see http://www.integralworld.net/benjamin80.html re influence of Adi Da on the early books of Ken Wilber. But also consider Da  has degrees from Columbia, Stanford, and can be presumed to be widely read himself, and thus have picked up stuff from the world corpus. GangofOne (talk) 04:00, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Please
discuss addition of un-sourced at minimum, rather than revert-warring to push it. &#x222F; WBG converse 17:26, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Per WP:BURDEN (vide The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution), I am going to re-remove the content after a passage of ~12 hours, since the restoring editor has extensively edited after I have opened this t/p section including having reverting my deletion. &#x222F; WBG converse 11:55, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I hadn't seen that you had come to the talk page until long after I'd edited, my apologies. I've added the source of the information brought from the linked page, the 1955 book God Speaks. The link contains the descriptor which fits well into this page (the words "God realization" are in the section but are not linked to its article, although they should be, and I'll do that next). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:14, 11 October 2019 (UTC)