The Circle (or Spiral) of Understanding

...so I keep thinking about this stuff...and just loving it!

But actually before launching into this, I feel the need to quantify why I'm even writing this stuff...this blog, which 'cause I'm the only one writing so far, and it's got my frickin' name on it...feels a little pretentious.

But actually the answer to that question is relievingly right in front of us. We've had some very meaningful discussions on these weighty subjects. And in some instances, as perspectives get caught wrestling each other for understanding, and even sometimes domination, I'm challenged to find some resolve in those conflicts.

The conflicts aren't malicious or offensive, they're just a matter of us being without mutual understanding on some things. So I think about what's missing toward that resolve, that understanding, and with that I bumped into the following idea.

With our respective perspectives on things, I am beginning to recognize a distinctive difference between perspectives, and I’ve bumped into an idea on how to categorize those perspectives.

First, consider the pathways to understanding to be circular. For simplicity's sake, a single circle will suffice, but actually Cecilia offered an even better model in conversation yesterday that I'll add to the bottom of this description.

Starting at the top of the circle...ground zero and moving in a counter-clockwise direction (for argument's sake), the first unique pathway toward understanding might be categorized as a rational perspective; an analytical perspective; one which uses math or science as the primary basis for understanding that for which understanding is being pursued.

The other, opposite pathway (moving clockwise in this example), pursuing understanding on the same subject, might be categorized as an intuitive perspective; perhaps emotional; even irrational as it’s juxtaposed against the former.

Both perspectives attempt to understand a subject, but each approaches that understanding on a unique pathway – each exclusive of the other - but eventually pursuing holistic understanding by broaching the bottom and progressing up the opposite side of the circle.

Let me offer an example of this juxtaposition, and then how that might relate to our mutual quests here concerning an understanding of our universe and the esoteric considerations.

As an example, musicians each approach their art and their craft differently in this way. Many approach music from their earliest exposure by a rational and analytical method. They learn to read the notations for tone and rhythm on a page. They learn that the notes connote tone and rhythms as they’re played on the instrument. They learn the notational relationships between the notes and rhythms to make up patterns, scales and chords. They learn the mathematical theory behind the melodic and harmonic qualities of music, and they memorize and play from this perspective by reading music from the page. These musicians read the music and play the music – fluidly at best, but nearly always from the page. You can ask musicians of this analytical method to play without music, and many will undoubtedly struggle – unless of course they’ve broached the bottom point of the circle, but I get ahead of myself....

Conversely other musicians approach music from their earliest exposure by a non-rational and intuitive method. They hear a tone in their head, or via some outside source (an instrument; a voice; a radio) and they discover they can play that tone on an instrument to match the tone in their head - by accident, almost. Soon the intuitive approach enables such a musician to play what they want to hear from their instrument very fluidly. But ask them to name the notes they’re playing or to attempt reading any musical notation, and of course, they will certainly struggle – unless of course they’ve broached the bottom point of the circle themselves and begun to approach their understanding of music by adding some rational analysis to it.

So if you take the two halves of perspective – the analytical from the left, and the intuitive from the right – and from pursuit in either direction you reach the bottom and begin your counter approach to the top, reaching full-circle you will have gained a whole-brain perspective to your pursuit, a holistic perspective, if you will.

With this example, and in context to our pursuit of these esoteric explanations of the universe, I offer that I tend to bring an intuitive perspective to all this stuff. As mentioned in the last post however, this isn’t necessarily a God-based perspective, because I think we all tend to agree upon the God-myth as we’ve qualified it.

But when asked originally, if I “believe in God” – which started this whole discussion those years ago – I didn’t say “no.” I said, “...not in the way God has been identified and understood to date.” Which has taken this long to attempt explanation. :) I mentioned then, and have maintained qualification of a “spiritual” approach to this understanding of mine. Unfortunately, “spirituality” has too often been co-opted by religion, and as such, it gets bastardized as religious and thus God-based. I maintain that a “spiritual” connection to the universe does not have to contain a “God-basis” but rather an intuitive basis perhaps.

In my last post, I suggested the confident existence of many of the esoteric quantities of life – the notions of thought; intention; prayer; the energies of love...and of hate for that matter; of giving and of greed; we might as well include the paranormal; the psychedelic; and even the essence of emotions – not where their physiological triggers can be found in the grey matter of the brain, but the feelings themselves – all of the so-far-to-date (as far as I can tell) unquantifiable quantities of this life experience, and how they exist, regardless of some of their traditional God-context.

Let me quickly explain that idea of God-context. Traditionally these quantities – these qualities – get wrapped up in a religious context - prayer belongs to God; Love – Agape – also belongs to God; Ghosts, spiritual manifestations, even Karma all have been saddled with a God-context. Of course my suggestion is that none of this belongs to the myths we’ve used to explain these unexplainable aspects of our existence. I suggest no God is necessary to understand them. Rather that we can experience all these phenomena in the intuitive and emotional realm of understanding and through recent discoveries (for me), namely quantum wave-form theory, I think we can quantify these phenomena rationally as well.

I discovered this difference in approach just this past week or so, in thinking more about the books that led me on my personal discovery, which currently includes a science-basis to explain such things - but orginally my path was emotional, spiritual and non-rational.

I offer this long-winded theory on the approach to understanding, simply to add perspective to the possibility, that if certain of my precepts aren’t quite resonating – especially as they may bring into conscience certain unknown quantities, such as the notion of Karma, or prayer, or intuition, or intention – it may be because those quantities may reside on the other side of the circle/spiral.

My take on this may be like asking a well-trained sight-reading musician to break from the page and start intuitively improvising over chord changes that come at them only by ear. It’s nearly impossible for such a musician to tackle, wonderfully fluid as they may be at sight-reading and performing from the page.

So it may be a little demanding to suggest that one can understand such irrational quantities as intuition and prayer and other such “spiritual” enigma from a purely rational approach. But for me, having experienced much of these enigmas in an intuitive capacity first – either from some “quasi-spiritual epiphany” or from having read some incredibly insightful stories and works which have expressed even more intuitive understanding of these enigma – works such as:
The Tao te Ching (of course);
The Teachings of Buddha (including Siddhartha by Hermann Hess and others);
The Wandering Taoist by Deng Ming-Dao (an incredible story);


...and having come from the right-brained approach, I believe I reached the first bottom of my circular journey about twelve years into it, at which point I began discovering Carl Jung and practical adepts of his philosophies, including:
James Allen;
Brian Tracy;
Deepak Chopra;
Dr. Wayne Dyer;

...and countless more in innumerable coincidental discoveries in libraries and bookstores on every occasion on which I happened upon a book shelf. It was an incredible period that took place over the next twelve years actually. Now, I feel I’ve come through the bottom and have been moving steadily up the left side of my circle of understanding, as these scientific theoretical applications on the quantum level are making more sense to me – hopefully approaching some holistic sense of it all.

This is not in any way to suggest I’m nearing the end of my journey. I think, the process of my rediscovering some of these early perspectives and their resonance, leads me to believe I may be broaching the top again, and rediscovering the intuition to which I was once familiar, but perhaps forgot in the analytical pursuits of late...and it proves that the basis of knowledge is many, many circles deep.

In fact, discussing this yesterday with Cecilia, she deftly pointed out the circle is actually a spiral that continues in its third dimension. So round and round we go ever forward toward greater and greater understanding (as long as we keep moving).

I love that Cecilia brought the spiral to this model. Recognizing that it's actually a spiral - fits in so well with so many other phenomena - and further to the core of this model, I can see it's actually a double helix, depending upon the direction of your pathway to understanding. If each pathway pursues its own circular progress, then the double helix is formed through progressive and mutual understanding as understanding is gained.

Do you follow? Any additions or contradictions?

I love this stuff, and haven't pursued it to this degree with others since college it seems.
So thanks.