無 / 有 – Sungwon Peter Choe Online

Freedom: Self-Development, Anarchy and Spirituality

Freedom is understood in many different ways by different people at different levels of intellectual, moral and spiritual consciousness. It is the masculine in us all that seeks autonomy and freedom (as noted by David Deida and others). The feminine yearns for fullness and relationship. This is yet another manifestation of emptiness and form as the masculine and feminine. We all have both the masculine and feminine within us whether we are men or women, but these aspects of us may be at very different stages of development. Nevertheless, the masculine within all of us seeks freedom.

Revolution

When I first started ‘waking up’ a few years ago, I became interested in Anarchism. Like many people with a liberal background (see previous article on the individual and socio-cultural environment), I was impressed by how social structures constrain and limit people. 

Most people who don’t take the time to think about themselves and their environment simply adopt the values and culture supported by the social structures around them. Using our individual-environment model, we can say that the environment feeds strongly into the individual, but most individuals simply regurgitate this feed of values and culture back into the environment, contributing little to its growth and evolution. Most of us are like the human batteries in the Matrix (what would we ever use for analogies had that movie never been made? , never questioning the reality or legitimacy of the environment presented to us.

At the time, I determined that if the social structures were forcibly changed, that individuals could be changed, in this case freed, as well. This is true to a large extent, of course, but it also neglects the role of the autonomy of the individual, one of the very ideals we are trying to realize through social change in the first place. That is, it focuses solely on how to change the society to effect change in (”freeing”) the individual. It does not consider how it may be possible to develop the individual to change society.

The Individual is the Society

I became conscious of problems with a solely revolutionary approach to freedom as I began reading Krishnamurti. As a rational Atheist kneeling at the altar of Science, I was naturally skeptical of this don’t-follow-gurus-preaching-guru. But as I read The First and Last Freedom, my skepticism turned to confusion (I was largely inspired to begin having an open relationship even though it has almost nothing to do with what Krishnamurti was saying) and then interest and respect. Although the romantic notion of revolution was alluring, Krishnamurti’s cautioning that all revolutions lead back to the status quo resonated with me. He noted that the means are the end (violence leads to violence) and that revolution, as it is a reaction to a tyrannical government, is ultimately defined by it. A revolution is often just that. Another turn of the wheel. How can revolution effect real change if the individuals in that society don’t also transform themselves?

The T.A.Z.

I reread Hakim Bey’s (pen name of Peter Lamborn Wilson) T.A.Z. and his poetic argument that the individual himself need only free himself to live as a free Anarchist. He simply need not accept the given social structures and cultural values to determine his own freedom. T.A.Z. also takes the Anarchist dinner party analogy to its artistic conclusion. Bey, in his beautiful poetic essays, explored how spaces (like pirate utopias) and the collection of people who inhabit them can espouse many Anarchistic ideals through their emergent behavior. He called such spaces Temporary Autonomous Zones (T.A.Z.s). Early ravers, the Burning Man Festival, the music of Bill Laswell (which is how I came to first know of Bey back in high school) and many others have been influenced by the T.A.Z.

Self-Development

Following Krishnamurti into the present through Deepak Chopra (Chopra was inspired by what Krishnamurit had to say, but believed he would be better able to express it to people) and through Steve Pavlina (his article on 10 reasons never to get a job was the catalyst that first began my journey of awakening in the first place), I was led into the world of self-development. I had once been extremely skeptical and dismissive of self-development material, but I was soon reading and gaining respect for even the likes of self-help giants like Anthony Robbins. Soon, it wasn’t just self-actualization, but other specialized areas like personal finance, seduction and fitness. 

Self-development is ultimately about taking control of your own life according to a lifestyle of your choosing. Its practices and philosophies can be tools in discriminating in what values you choose to inherit from your culture and what you develop in yourself. As you change and become more conscious of yourself and your relationship to society, you influence your environment in turn. This is, of course, the opposite of a political approach to freedom like revolutionary Anarchism, focusing on changing the individual rather than society, with complementary strong and weak points.

Spirituality

Another path opened up to me through Krishnamurti and Chopra, that led me away from faith-in-Science Atheism and towards Spirituality. Many spiritual practices are approaches to finding higher levels of spiritual freedom beyond rather than within the feedback cycle of individual and environment. Traditional approaches have largely found this freedom in the ground of being (ultimate freedom and emptiness before time or space). However, most serious modern spiritual practices are concerned with how to manifest this freedom in the world of form as well as being able to realize your true self in the ground of being. Andrew Cohen interprets this as a Kosmic evolutionary drive towards freedom. Ken Wilber sees this drive as unfolding through the lines and levels of development and quadrants of Integral Theory.

Libertarian Socialism

Earlier this year I finally got around to reading Chomsky on Anarchism. Chomsky is sympathetic to forms of Anarchism that are related to Libertarian Socialism in a lineage that goes back to the Enlightenment. It’s interesting that he stresses both the libertarian, i.e. focusing on the autonomy and freedoms of the individual, and socialist, i.e. celebrating the communion and society of individuals, traditions. Indeed, any philosophy of freedom must understand or at least recognize both sides of the individual and environment relationship to be effective in the world of form (though this understanding can simply be a context for a specialization in either side). 

Integration

Reading Chomsky again after several years and within the context of a more spiritual and integral understanding, I realized many of my interests over the past few years were related in terms of this common theme: the search for freedom. I began to see how these different levels of freedom related and flowed into each other. I believe there is a progression, albeit rough and overlapping, in searching for and understanding freedom.

Spiral Dynamics provides a useful model for understanding this progression, as does any other developmental model like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

The basic freedom is freedom from want. Once you have your basic needs of food, water and shelter satisfied such they are not short-term concerns, you are probably living in a structured society that helps provide these resources. But although such a society frees you at one level (basic needs), it imposes restrictions that constrain you in other ways. This is true going all the way up the hierarchy of freedoms to spiritual forms of freedom, each level solves problems of the previous level and creates new ones for the next level to solve.

With this understanding, we can see how self-development tools helps free the individual in several important ways. Self-imposed individual psychological restrictions can be broken through with psychotherapy, dream analysis, seduction community “inner game” techniques, meditative exercises and behavior and habit changing methods. Personal finance, Tim Ferris-style Lifestyle design, and entrepreneurship can help free the individual from debt and time- and wage-slavery. When “free time” is abundant and finances under control and sufficient, one is free to discover one’s own creative passions (one of the Anarchist ideals). As more individuals on the leading edge achieve self-determination and self-actualization, the society and culture itself will advance.

This doesn’t mean that bottom-up change is the only way to go. Top-down approaches are also needed. Chomsky argues that Anarchists and Libertarian Socialists should support social programs in government if they are aligned with their values even though they increase the scope of government and its involvement. Whereas the ultimate goal of an Anarchist agenda is to be free of hierarchical government, religious and other forms of control, the path towards that goal follows a progressive hierarchy of steps. Within a Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory understanding, this makes perfect sense. There is no “skipping levels”. From “blue”, a society must progress to “orange” and then “green” (though of course, in any society you will have individuals at many different levels). This is why if you have a revolution attempting to build new social structures to match a Utopian Anarchist (or other ideological) ideal, it doesn’t work and you get something that is pretty similar to what you started with. The level of social consciousness must develop progressively through a hierarchy of developmental levels before the society at large is ready and responsible enough for such an ideal. That being said, we need the leading edge of social activists and revolutionaries to ensure not only that a society’s social structure upholds its values and morals, but stretches them and pushes them up towards the next level.

The modern spiritual practitioner, if she is serious, can find freedom in the ground of being through meditation and contemplation. Spiritual practice alone helps to literally raise the level of consciousness of a culture. But the spiritual practitioner can bring more to the world of form by developing her other lines (moral, psychological) or by engaging in social activism. By doing so, she expresses compassion for the world of form and those within it by helping them reach the next level of freedom.

As in Defined by Limitations, in each level in the hierarchy she pushes beyond the limits of the previous one, embracing a bit more of the world in compassion. The search for freedom in this world is, like the limitations it pushes past, never-ending, but that does not mean that there is no progression. We can continue to discover and expand into higher levels of freedom, becoming progressively more loving and compassionate for all of manifestation.

Aligning Yourself with the Creative Impulse: The Birth of 無/有

Some spiritual philosophers, like Andrew Cohen, teach that it all began with a creative impulse, a “must” akin to God becoming sexually aroused to the point of imperative action. He argues further that the universe has a direction, an evolution that we are not only part of but indeed responsible for. But the creative impulse, that is the stuff universes are born of.

Flow

Can we get a taste of this universal creative impulse as individuals? Can we drink from the celestial creative juices of the Gods? But of course, my love. We often feel the creative impulse coursing through our being when we are “in state”, when we experience “flow”, or the “nimbus” as known in some seduction circles. 

Creativity and Competence

Creativity is the defining characteristic at the pinnacle of achievement. It’s almost cliche. The highly-educated physicist who receives an insight from a chocolate doughnut in a dream. The free, flowing improvisational technique of a jazz guitarist after years of calloused-fingered training. In NLP, they have a model for competence within a deep skill: 

• unconscious incompetence – unaware that you’re a bumbling fool
• conscious incompetence – aware that you need a lot of work
• conscious competence – aware that you’re kickin’ ass, and knowing how you do it
• unconscious competence –  not even thinking about it how you naturally excel

Flow occurs, of course, when you have reached unconscious competence. A few people seem to be born naturally in touch with the creative impulse, most of us can reach it by training in a skill or art until we’ve reached unconscious competence (yet again few do, I urge you to be one of those few, commit to your love of an art or other deep endeavor). And nearly all of us have had a glimpse of flow no matter how skilled or not we may be at the time, just as many of us have had glimpses of higher levels of consciousness from time to time before, if ever, we reach them (see the work of Ken Wilber).

Following the Creative Impulse

There is, though, another way to feel the flow of the creative impulse. That is simply to do what you want. When you follow your passions, you are driven by a rush of motivation and creativity. This begs the question, though, what do you really want to do?

Here you have to trust your heart, I’m afraid.

Going Astray

Several months ago I decided to start a blog. I wanted to express myself in writing and make some money on the side, as it were. I had a few different ideas for blogs, this being one of them, as well as an English language blog about investing and personal finance in Korea. I talked to some friends about my ideas, and most of them suggested I start the investing blog. It did indeed seem like the most practical route to go.

It was fun setting up the blog and at first it was satisfying to publish articles that could potentially be of help to people. Over time, however, the articles I wrote got fewer and far between.

Researching and writing articles for the blog began to feel like work. It had become a burden I’d placed on myself, taking time away from doing the stuff that really inspired me. Now I’ve decided to put that blog aside altogether. I still think there is a need for the information the blog aimed to provide, so I hope that someone else will take it over or start something similar, but my heart, as they say, is not in it. 

Finding the Way

My main interests for the past couple years have been in spirituality and self-development. In the Fall of last year, I was browsing through the Integral Theory websites and found one that offered Integral Life Coaching classes. Looking over the program, I realized I really want to do something like this. 

That seed of an impulse started as an interesting idea that I was toying with in how I could integrate my various interests and practices, but over the months, it has grown now into my mid-term life goal. I started to tell others about this goal, tentatively and almost embarrassed at first, now fully and confidently almost as if it was so apparent that the question didn’t need asking. I have made this goal part of my identity.

Defining Identity to Refining Action

The more I identify with this new role, the more I am driven to take action to actually manifest it. The area where I seek to specialize in is in integrating various interests and areas of your life so that they have a synergistic rather than antagonistic relationship. This means that I necessarily will be continuing with my diverse interests and practices, but I realized that some of my activities, like the investing blog, were diverting my energies away from my passions. 

Aligning with the Creative Impulse

When I started thinking about writing down my thoughts in the form of this blog, I began to feel excited and happy about the possibilities. When you are filled with such positive energy, you know that you are indeed aligning yourself with the creative impulse.

My point is this: take the time to evaluate your life and where you are directing your energies. When you strip away all that you “should”, all that is “work”, does your passion emerge naked and radiant, free to embrace you in the flow of the creative impulse?