(For pretext look here.... and then here....)

Have you heard that the 'map is not the territory,' that the 'menu is not the meal?'

The finger pointing to the moon is not the essential element. Of course if we are unaware of the moon then a finger may be necessary in alerting us to the existence of said moon. And yet saying just that is not sufficient enough to aware us to the problematic nature of maps relative to numerous human pursuits and adventures.

For instance, or example, does a map tell us how to relate, to be, to travel, to exist? Is there any meaning or significance in a map or a model? Or might we more honestly confess that maps are empty of meaning and significance--whcih is to effectively say, 'empty of any and all humanity.'

Think about it for just a minute, if you will. What is the nature of a map? What does a map do? What is a map for?

Isn't the nature of a map to point out and indicate the whereness of objects? Isn't a map all about the spatial and temporal relations of objects one to another. Isn't that even the case for 'maps of consciousness' or 'maps of the psyche?' Don't even those hold to the rule that maps are about the whereness of objects in space and time? 

Can A Where Be A How?

Now I am getting into the juice of what I initially started conveying in the two previous entries (those linked above). I know realize that the trouble I have been having with reconciling my prior affection for all things Integral, via Ken Wilber, with a more recent welling up of dissonance with the same became, is a result of my previous ignorance regarding this distinction between 'where?' and 'how?'

I was so enthralled with the nature of 'maps of consciousness' and 'models of the human psyche.' It was captivating to me how someone like Ken Wilber was even able to approach a mapping of the whole Cosmos. Or, should I say, Kosmos... from---as he has put it---its dust to its Divinity.

What a grand vision this was for me to ecounter in my early adulthood! What a grand vision for anyone to encounter! One can suddenly comprehend how it all is related. You see on the map how these different 'holons'---a term Ken Wilber borrowed from Arthur Koestler--are all related. Even the holons--or can I simply say... objects?--that reside in different domains. Objects that arise in consciousness are related somehow to objects that arise as instances of--what is deemed, through a more staunchly material perspective--a material world. Dreams and Deserts are related. They exist as different expressions of a Greater Whole--as instances of Eternity.

Yet for all of the grandness of the vision unfurled before my eyes there is this matter of how. How do you walk, live, sleep, eat, and fuck? Yes, the map can tell us where objects are located in space and time. Yes, the maps can tell us the relative position of vision-logic to subtle or psychic. Yes, the maps can tell us that this is left of that and that is right of this. But the maps cannot tell us the most important and crucial truths of all: the maps cannot tell us how to be.  

I never personally considered that so much could rest behing the visage of a question. Peel back the surface of a question, feel into that question, sense its nature, and you really can discern so much more than what at first may seem obvious.

For example, questions that begin with a 'What...?' tend to arise from and compel what I'll call here a seeker's mentality. These can run the gamut, from 'What is enlightenment?' to ' What is Love?' to 'What is Truth?' to 'What is Integral?' to even that now infamous Zen koan, 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'
 
The 'what-questions' seem to imply that there is a 'thing' that will be the answer to the question. You see, the very nature of the 'what-question'--such as 'What is Enlightenment'--implies that there is a single answer to that question, i.e., that there is this object called 'enlightenment' that we can definitively point to and say, 'That... that is enlightenment.' 

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A question that begins with 'Where...' is similar in nature to a 'what-question.' The difference is that the 'where-question' is about locating that 'what' in space and time.  For example, 'Where is God?' or 'Where are my car keys?'

More seriously and gravely, we might ask 'Where is my true calling?' or 'Where is my soul-mate.' The hope is that we can find out 'where.' Is it in Egypt? Is it in Topeka? Is my true calling on Planet Zemeldon in the Gamma District of Quadrant 18.63 of the Andromeda Galaxy? Amd if so.... can you tell me where the bleep that is!!

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Seeking. Searching. The seeker's mentality. That perpetual search. The unquenchable thirst. Who would have thought that the nature of the questions we ask reveals the 'state of our consciousness.'  What, implies that an object is the answer--a thing... a some-thing. it is a consequence of living in/as/through a state of consciousness that objectifies Life in toto, perhaps.

Where does much the same. We might even get a sense of how the 'what-question' and the 'where-question' are related; in that they both reinforce a sense of seeking for the precious object that we hope to relieve us of our suffering--be it a person, a place, or a thing. Objects all.

One can imgaine a day arriving when human-beings are so alienated from the direct experience of consciousness itself that there is an increasing emphasis placed upon seeking consciousness through the marketplace. Perhaps that day has arrived. Perhaps that day is already here! A day that could well stand to live in infamy; a turning point.

You would think--or assume--that the experience of being conscious, of being a sentient creature, would be innate and natural. You might even suppose that it is not that which needs to be sought out; which requires purchase in the marketplace. And yet look at the marketplace. Just look at the all of the consciousness-commodities being offered.

Just realize how much we have to spend and how desperately we have to seek for that which is clearly ever-present. Consciousness. Awarenesss. The basic fact of sentient existence. So decidedly alienated from the basic fact of sentient existence has humanity increasingly become that there is now the clear and unadulterated pursuit of the experience of consciousness--as if it were a special commodity reserved for the few, the elite, the well-to-do.

The more exalted experiences of consciousness itself are spoken of--by that I mean, 'pitched,' 'marketed'--being special states that can only be attained through special processes that can only be discovered via special teachers for a very special fee.

That exaltation of consciousness is where the money is at, where the apparent prestige in being a 'teacher for the Ages.' Not in the ordinary, basic, mundane fact of being-itself... but in the rarified atmosphere of special Evolutionary Enlightenment Processes and Integral Life Practices.

The 'how' of this is all in the seeking. It is not in the realization. It is not in the cessation of the anxious pursuit of greater and greater spiritual attainments. The 'how' of the commodification of consciousness is the same as the 'how' of the rest of the process of commodification as it pertains to the so-called 'objective world': ceaseless and unending consumerism. 

Karl Marx was the first we know of who spoke of the consequences of what happens when the value of a human-being's labour is not fully realized by that person. His contention was that in a Capitalist System much--if not most--of the value of a person's labour is accumulated by the capitalist.... as capital. This leaves the labourer in a state of deprivation: the total value of his or her labour has not been granted to her. The so-called 'surplus value' has been divided up amongst the capital investors... again, as capital.

The worker ends up leaving his or her job with an emptiness---with a value deficit. That deficit, like all vacuums is one that Nature abhors. The result is the desperate attempt to deal with that 'value-deficit' through the consumption of other commodities that have been manufactured and produced by other workers in a similar situation---i.e., commodities that they helped produce, but which left them with a deficit.

Mark spoke of the process of commodification as it pertained to the material world. He was dealing in the realm of objects and natural processes. My hope is to show how that same process Marx described now pertains to the spiritual world---in the realm of subjects and psychological processes.  That not only are we alienated from our labour by the Capitalist System.... but that when this same Capitalist System is applied to what we might call 'the spiritual' it serves to alienates us from the most basic fact of our existence.... sentience.... consciousness.

In the summertime here in Michigan, as elsewhere, you can often hear the approaching roar of man and machine. I often hear this roar pour down through the valley as if Odin himself were coming. But I know better. It's just a group gathered together atop their Harley-Davidsons.

The thunder rolls down the blacktop. Moving from town to town. That uniting element: it is the machine: it is a commodity.

You will often hear talk of Doctors and Lawyers hooking up with Mechanics and Oil-Rig Workers. Here the different classes mix. Here the socio-economic divide collapses. White-collar and blue-collar converge atop the unifying commodity: the Harley-Davidson.

Your leather. Your sunglasses. Your lid. A Harley. An open road. That's it. That is all that matters. And when you ride you ride with those who understand. When you ride, you ride with those who know what you know.

You ride with kin.

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Part of me wonders if the experience itself is the unifying element; or, if it is the machine--the commodity, the consumer item purchased from the showroom or the dusty barn. In short, would these people gather and unite without the presence of a Harley-Davidson?

Would we be able to see a socio-economic divide collapse short of the unifying element of the commodity in question? Is the commodity responsible fopr bring people together? Are commodities vacuums in which communion forms?

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It feels to me like there is at least some partial truth to this realization: that people gather around commodities now as an excuse to connect to some more basic, fundamental, primitive.... and dare I say, essential?

It's as if 'things' are capable of gifting us with a reason to commune: we have some 'thing' to connect over. In this view commodities act as bridges that unite the separative ego with others of its kind or ilk.

In one sense this is sad and speaks to what we have lost: that we are incapable of basic human connectedness; that we now need the crutch of a commodity to connect--i.e., an iPod, a Mac, a Movie, a Harley-Davidson. Which says to me that we are not entirely capable of connecting any longer without and apart from commodities--even spiritual commodities we find and discover in the spiritual marketplace (after all, let's not kid ourselves here that we are above it all!!)   ;  o )

And yet that is not the whole of it. I also feel a sense of hope in the possibility offered to us by 'things.' It is as if there is a power of communion lying in wait in the 'stuff' of the world... so that when two or more notice a 'thing' they are unified in and around.... neigh, because... of that 'thing.'

It's as if commodities can allow us access once again to the very experience of communion and connectedness with others that we maybe assumed at an earlier historical period commodities would replace.