john heron on relational spirituality

7/30/2019 John Heron on Relational Spirituality

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08/15/2007 02:otes on Spiritual Leadership and Relational Spirituality, John Heron, Integral Leadership Review, December 2005

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Notes on Spiritual Leadership and Relational Spirituality, JohnHeron

NB: This is a revision and integration of interrelated sets of notes that have appearedover recent months in Michel Bauwens Pluralities/Integration online newsletter[[email protected]]

The Guru Phenomenon

The traditional oriental guru represents a form of spiritual leadership in which so-called advanced spiritual states of being are transmitted from guru to disciple. Thisrequires the disciple to be present with the guru, physically or psychically, to projectonto the guru the disciples latent divine nature, to be obedient and devoted to theguru, and to practise the disciplines he prescribes. There is a hierarchical, charismaticrelationship to affect the disciples shift from an ordinary to an extraordinary state of

being enlightened. A favourite candidate for enlightenment is the so-called non-dual

state, in which spirit and any kind of form are known to be not two.

There seem to have been four phases of the guru phenomenon in the West.

(1) In the late decades of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentiethcentury, there was just a small guru-invasion from the East with key players like

Vivekananda and the spread of the Vedanta movement in the West.

(2) Then post-war from 1945 with the publication of Huxley's The PerennialPhilosophy, there started a major guru-invasion from the East, including the dramaticspread through the 60s and the 70s of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism in the USA and

Europe.

(3) In the third phase over the last thirty years or so, alongside the guru-invasion fromthe East there has been the growing phenomenon of homegrown Western gurus andspiritual teachers claiming the special status of 'enlightenment'.

(4) The fourth phase is just getting under way. It seems to be distinguished by fourfeatures.

Integral Leadership ReviewVolume V, No. 5 - December 2005


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(a) The erosion of guru status as a result of a continuous stream of sexualand financial abuse and bullying scandals among both Eastern andhomegrown Western gurus and spiritual teachers.

(b) The erosion of 'enlightenment' claims by the proliferation of the numberof people, especially in the West, making the claim: the more people who

make the claim, the more its narcissistic inflation stands revealed. For the'enlightenment' claim is also an authority-claim to have followers, arecruiting drive to gather in spiritual projections. The more claims that aremade, the stronger the competition among claimants in the market placefor attention.

(c) A growing awareness that spiritual authority is within and that toproject it outward onto teacher, tradition or text is an early, adolescentphase of spiritual development in the one projecting, and counter-spiritualmanipulative abuse in any guru/teacher who seeks to elicit, to appropriateand to sustain the projection.

(d) The emergence of peer to peer spirituality, which democratisescharismatic, enlightened leadership, and realizes that it is a role whichdifferent persons assume at different times, either in the initiation of a peergroup or in the continuous unfolding of its process.

The Fallacy of Non-dual Individualism

Wilber has given an account of human spirituality in terms of lines and levels ofdevelopment (Wilber: 2000a, 2000b, 2002). Theses lines and levels become an

incoherent tangle because of an untenable status afforded to the non-dual and the pathof individual meditation. Let me explain.

The lines are relatively independent kinds of human development, and the levels arestages of development through which the lines proceed. So the different lines all gothrough the same levels. Wilber defines spirituality in five different ways, but two ofthem are key ones in his system: spirituality as the highest levels of any line, andspirituality as a separate line itself. He thinks these two definitions are mutuallycompatible components of his integral psychology.

But in the way that he deploys them, they lead to very serious difficulties. Wilber needsspirituality as a separate line, to explain how it is that people can be spiritually lop-sided. The various human lines he mentions include psychosexuality, socio-emotionalcapacity, communicative competence, creativity and many more. The independentspiritual line is primarily contemplative/meditative. Wilber acknowledges thatsomeone can be highly developed on this line, that is, competent at subtle, causal andnon-dual awareness and still be spiritually undeveloped in other crucial lines ofdevelopment, including psychosexual, emotional or interpersonal skills. This


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imbalance he characterizes as One Taste sufficiency that leaves schmucks as it findsthem (2000b: 131) One Taste refers to the non-dual state.

Wilber evaluates the non-dual state as the highest estate imaginable (2000b: 130).Yet at the same time he believes it can co-exist with a complete absence of spiritualityat the top end of the interpersonal line and of other lines absolutely central to humandevelopment. This admission immediately dethrones the non-dual state from the

supremacy he claims for it, and makes it appear as dissociated and quasi-pathological.

This dethroning also means that the highest estate imaginable is really the integrationof all the different facets of human spirituality to be found at the top end of all therelatively independent lines. Furthermore, it cannot be the business of just one of thoseindependent lines to define in advance by what stages all the other lines will reach theirtop ends. But Wilber tries to promote just that kind of business.

In his system, the separate contemplative line, which can become so dissociated fromthe development of other lines, is at the same time the sole source for deriving the

higher transpersonal levels (psychic, subtle, causal, non-dual) through which all theother lines must proceed. But how can a contemplative line, which by definition isindependent of the other lines, be a valid source for categories that prescribe the higherlevels of these lines in which it has no competence? Indeed the relative independence,or dissociation, of the contemplative line calls in question the validity of the levels itclaims to establish and whether indeed the levels are spiritual when they are theproduct of such a non-integral, separate line. The claims this line makes improperlyand prematurely assume that the nature of the spiritual can finally be determined bythe exercise of the skills of separatist contemplation, when the potential for developingspiritual skills on other relatively independent lines has not so far been fully explored

by the human race.

Thus Wilber tries to argue that the basic categories for integrating all the lines inhigher unfoldment have been uncovered on a single line that has no experience

whatsoever of such multi-line integration. The way out of this tangle is gently andradically to propose that the contemplative line is not a spirituality line, thatspirituality is not about states, however remarkable and extraordinary, that people getinto by a lifetime of individual meditation.

Relational spirituality

A more convincing account of spirituality is that it is about multi-line integraldevelopment explored by persons in relation. This is because many basicdevelopmental linese.g., those to do with gender, psychosexuality, emotional andinterpersonal skills, communicative competence, morality, to name but a few unfoldthrough engagement with other people. A person cannot develop these lines on theirown, but through mutual co-inquiry. The spirituality that is the highest development ofthese lines can only be achieved through relational forms of practice that unveil thespirituality implicit in them (Heron 1998, 2005).


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In short, the spirituality of persons is developed and revealed primarily in theirrelations with other persons. If you regard spirituality primarily as the fruit ofindividual meditative attainment, then you can have the gross anomaly of a spiritualperson who is an interpersonal oppressor, and the possibility of spiritual traditionsthat are oppression-prone (Heron, 1998; Kramer and Alstad, 1993; Trimondi andTrimondi, 2003). If you regard spirituality as centrally about liberating relations

between people, then a new era of participative religion opens up and calls for a radicalrestructuring and reappraisal of traditional spiritual maps and routes.

Certainly there are important individualistic developmental lines that do notnecessarily directly involve engagement with other people, such as contemplativedevelopment, and physical fitness. But these are secondary and supportive of thosethat do and are in turn enhanced by co-inquiry with others.

On this overall view, spirituality is located in the interpersonal heart of the humancondition where people co-operate to explore meaning, build relationship and manifest

creativity through collaborative action inquiry into multi-line integration andconsummation. I propose one possible model of such collegially applied spiritualitywith at least eight distinguishing characteristics.

(1) It is developmentally holistic, involving diverse major lines of humandevelopment; the holism is both within each line and as between the lines.Prime value is put on relational lines, such as gender, psychosexuality,emotional and interpersonal skills, communicative competence, peercommunion, morality, human ecology, supported by the individualistic,such as contemplative competence, physical fitness.

(2) It is psychosomatically holistic, embracing a fully embodied andvitalized expression of spirit. Spirituality is found not just at the top end ofa developmental line, but also in the ground, the living root of its embodiedform, in the relational heart of its current level of unfolding, and in thetranscendent awareness embracing it.

(3) It is epistemologically holistic, embracing many ways of knowing:knowing by presence with, by intuiting significant form and process, byconceptualizing, by practising. Such holistic knowing is intrinsicallydialogic, action- and inquiry-oriented. It is fulfilled in peer-to-peer

participative inquiry, and the participation is both epistemic and political.

(4) It is ontologically holistic, open to the manifest as nature, culture andthe subtle, and to spirit as immanent life, the situational present, andtranscendent mind. It sees our relational, social process in this presentsituation as the immediate locus of the unfolding integration of immanentand transcendent spirit (Heron, 1998, 2004, 2005).


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(5) It is focussed on worthwhile practical purposes that promote aflourishing humanity-cum-ecosystem; that is, it is rooted in an extendeddoctrine of rights with regard to social and ecological liberation.

(6) It embraces peer-to-peer relations and participatory forms of decision-making. The latter in particular can be seen as a radical discipline inrelational spirituality, burning up a lot of the privatized ego.

(7) It honours the gradual emergence and development of peer-to-peerforms of association and practice.

(8) It affirms the role of both initiating hierarchy, and spontaneouslysurfacing and rotating hierarchy among the peers, in such emergence. Moreon this later on.

Memes Without a Relational-Spirituality Warrant

It is notable that Wilbers account of levels has no clear place for relational forms ofspiritual practice. His account of the green meme bypasses the depths of the sacredrealm of the Between and superficially reduces the relational self to the worldview ofpluralistic relativism (Ferrer, 2002: 223-5). His description of the yellow and turquoisememes is strong on systemic and holistic rhetoric about the interweaving of multiplelevels, but is curiously devoid of any sense of interpersonal or political reality (Wilber,2000a: 52).

Once it is grasped that the spirituality of persons is developed and revealed primarilyin the spirituality of their relations with other persons, that as such it is a form ofparticipative peer-to-peer inquiry, and that all this is a new religious dawn, without

historical precedent, then it is reasonable to suppose that any authentic development ofhuman spirituality in the future can only emerge within the light of this dawn. In other

words, if a form of spirituality is not co-created and co-authenticated by those whopractise it, it involves some kind of indoctrination, and is therefore, in this day and age,of questionable worth.

On this account, the whole meme system collapses, with its claim to portray anevolutionary logic. The green meme description is superficial, and is itself green in thesense of callow, inexperienced and immature, because it cannot grasp the depths andthe challenge of relational spirituality. The yellow and turquoise memes, as described,

simply have no warrant or grounding in any kind of relational spirituality, and readlike the conceits of self-appointed philosopher-kings. The edifice is doomed to an earlydemise, which is just as well, since, given its radical omissions and distortions, its useis bound to be counter-productive.

Spiritual Leadership Within an Extended Doctrine of Rights

I prefer to think of the spiritual development of human culture as rooted in degrees of


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relational, moral insight and not in an evolutionary logic. Evolution as a concept seemsbest left to natural processes. Otherwise intellectual bids to know what evolution is upto and what is coming next culturally rapidly convert into hegemonic arrogance andattempts at social and intellectual control. The developing of the human spirit incultural forms is a different category and is very close in my view to the way in whichour realization of an extended doctrine of rights, in theory and practice, unfolds.

There seem to be at least four degrees of such unfolding:

(1) Autocratic cultures which define rights in a limited and oppressive wayand there are no rights of political participation.

(2) Narrow democratic cultures which practise political participationthrough representation, but have no or very limited participation of peoplein decision-making in all other realms, such as research, religion,education, industry, etc.

(3) Wider democratic cultures that practice both political participation andvarying degrees of wider kinds of participation.

(4) Commons peer-to-peer cultures in a libertarian and abundance-oriented global network with equipotential rights of participation indecision-making of everyone in every field of human endeavour, in relationto nature, culture, the subtle and the spiritual.

These four degrees could be stated in terms of the relations between hierarchy, co-operation and autonomy (deciding for others, deciding with others, deciding byoneself).

(1) Hierarchy defines, controls and constrains co-operation and autonomy.

(2) Hierarchy empowers a measure of co-operation and autonomy in thepolitical sphere only.

(3) Hierarchy empowers a measure of co-operation and autonomy in thepolitical sphere and in varying degrees in other spheres.

(4) The sole role of hierarchy is in its spontaneous emergence in (a) theinitiation, and (b) the continuous flowering, of autonomy-in-co-operation,of spirit-in-manifestation, in all spheres of human endeavour.

To elaborate this last point: those who launch and empower co-operative groups ofautonomous people take creative leadership initiatives. Charismatic empoweringleadership of this kind is fundamental. Once the groups are up and running, charismadevolves and rotates: developmental initiatives are taken spontaneously by differentpeers at different times, and with respect to varying issues, in order further to enhance


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the flourishing of autonomy and co-operation within the group, within networks ofgroups, within the parity of spirit (Heron, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2005).

References

Ferrer, J. N. (2002) Revisioning Transpersonal Psychology: A Participatory Vision ofHuman Spirituality, Albany: State University of New York Press.

Heron, J. (1997) 'A Self-generating Practitioner Community' in R. House and N. Totton(Eds,), Implausible Professions: Arguments for Pluralism and Autonomy inPsychotherapy and Counselling, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Heron, J. (1998) Sacred Science: Person-centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and theSubtle, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Heron, J. (1999) The Complete Facilitators Handbook, London: Kogan Page.

Heron, J, (2004) A Revisionary Perspective on Human Spirituality, www.human-

inquiry.com/thoughts.htm

Heron, J, (2005) Papers on the Inquiry Group,www.human-inquiry.com/igroup0.htm

Kramer, J. and Alstad, D. (1993) The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power,Berkeley: Frog Ltd.

Trimondi, V. and Trimondi, V. (2003) The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magicand Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, http://www.trimondi.de

Wilber, K. (2000a) Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy,Boston: Shambhala.

Wilber, K. (2000b) One Taste: Daily Reflections on Integral Spirituality, Boston:Shambhala.

Wilber, K. (2002) An outline of integral psychology, Shambhala website.

John Heron can be reached [email protected] and [email protected]

john heron on relational spirituality

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