Beyond the Dominant Paradigm: Embracing the Indigenous and the Transcendental
Ramana Williams is a spiritual teacher and freelance writer currently based
in Brisbane, Australia. He has an academic background in political science
and, more recently, in communications research, working with the Communication
Centre at the Queensland University of Technology. The predominant influences
on his work come from the socio-spiritual teachings of tantra, from his practical
background in Maori mysticism, and from the neo-humanistic philosophy of
P. R. Sarkar.
The Western modernist-postmodernist project is in crisis. Integral to that
crisis is the “crisis in communication”. This paper seeks to
expand the communication futures discourse by moving into non-Western cultural
spaces, those of indigenous and mystical traditions. Here we examine the
communicative potency of silence, transpersonal communication with Self,
and a vastly expanded communicative community. Are these diverse, transcultural
approaches to communication reconcilable, or is cultural diversity synonymous
with cultural relativism? Do we, in fact, require a new conceptual map
of human knowledge which includes different communication paradigms, capable
of embracing the mundane and the material as well as the subtle and the
spiritual? Answers to these questions, it is suggested, will be crucial
in allowing meaningful alliances to be forged with the Other, with whom
our preferred futures can become potent realities.
If humanity is successful in building an enduring civilization on the Earth,
then it will come from the synergy of the collective experience and wisdom
of the entire human family.
Duane Elgin, Awakening Earth
In search of balance
In the midst of unprecedented material wealth, the Western (post)modernist
project has become strangely pathological, “predatory” even,
as one writer recently put it: “L.A. drive-by shootings, a “gulf
war” fashion show; serial killer trading cards...”. And yet it
is not only the Western centre that has manifested the symptoms of cultural
collapse. We find similar realities in such peripheral zones as Australia
and New Zealand where the second biggest killer of young people today is “self-inflicted
death”. In the face of these shocking statements of cultural malaise
the non-West might well be declaring “We told you so!”. Still,
one is left wondering how it all came to be so spectacularly out of balance.
Progress towards answering this question would seem to be an indispensable
part of working towards it’s solution.
One such domain of thought that seems compelling in this regard, asserts that
the definitive clue to understanding this complex matter, lies at the level
of cultural consciousness. That somehow, these realities are self-created -
the materialisation, if you will, of a pervasive cultural thought-projection
- the origins of which lie at the core of a cultures belief systems - its ontology,
cosmology and epistemology, that is to say, the fundamental premises of its
worldview.
This model implies self-responsibility: we in the West have knowingly or unknowingly
created this reality by virtue of how we, as a culture, have come to think
about the world, how we understand the world, and what passes as truth within
that world. By cultural consciousness we are, therefore, substantially speaking
about cultural epistemologies - our “ways of knowing”, and how
these ways of knowing perpetuate, and then legitimate certain cultural and
material activities in the world.
Within the West the epistemology that came to assume prominence in recent centuries
has been overwhelmingly materialist and reductionist in nature, be it the empiricism
of the physical sciences or the dialectical materialism of Marxist thinking,
which along with empiricism, enamoured much of social science. It was this
predominance of philosophical materialism, that Bateson declared to be “central
to - at the root of - the epistemological nightmare of the twentieth century”.
Lewis Mumford in concurring with Bateson, pointed to the need for “a
new metaphysical and ideological base... a new picture of the cosmos and the
nature of man”.
The present paper is equally motivated by this seeking out of a more enlightened
perspective, this “new metaphysic”, but seeks to do so, in relation
to a single and specific domain of human activity, namely, human communication.
While progress will inevitably be required in all domains of human life both
- intellectually and practically, as well as at the individual and collective
level - there can be little doubt that how we communicate, and what we understand “communication” to
be, will be pivotal to this broader process of social transformation - the
pervasive shifting of the cultural paradigm. Indeed, it has convincingly been
argued that communication - and the paradigms that define it - are so fundamental
to the human experience that “homo narrans” (communicating beings)
stands as a close contender to “homo sapiens” as the correct designation
of our species.
However, as one might expect, a significant body of communication scholars
have asserted that the “nightmarish” deficiencies Bateson identifies
at the meta-level of Western philosophy is well discernible within communications
discourse. Sensing something of the theoretical limitations currently afflicting
the field Rice and Williams asserted cautiously that “we may have to
not only rethink current communication theories but, indeed, borrow from other
disciplines...”. Other communication scholars identified dominant ways
of knowing as being crucial to the conceptual limitations confronting the field.
Hamelink asserted that a fuller understanding of human communication - other
dimensions and possible futures - might be realized once the “methodological
exclusivism” apparent in Western scholarship, is critiqued and broken
out of and alternative ways of knowing explored. In a similar vein Jones (1993:
435) called for “... an epistemological break with the pre-given constructs
through which we are allowed to perceive the world”.
In seeking out such a decisive break with dominant frameworks, the focus of
this paper is on alternative cultural experiences of communication. We look
at three non-Western cultures, Maori and Aboriginal and the socio-spiritual
culture of tantra. What emerges from this broad, transcultural purview of the
field is the presence of a range of powerful communicative concepts which motivate
quite different communicative practices and possibilities. These alternative
conceptions cannot meaningfully be understood in isolation from the approaches
to knowing that underlie them. To this extent, we consider, also, their epistemological
origins. Our consideration of these non-Western models works, by implication,
to deconstruct Western approaches to communication. However, as will clearly
emerge as we progress, the tenor of this paper is not to limit the discourse,
by denying Western models, but rather, to expand it by considering alternatives
which complement present understanding. This suggests an integrated conceptual
model sufficient to the task of reconciling these different communicative realities.
The paper concludes with a consideration of one such model that attempts to
do this.
Reclaiming Silence
There has been, in recent years, a renewed interest within Western communication
discourse, concerning the significance silence plays in how we communicate.
The question has been asked, “Can communication be a silent - non-sensory
- activity?” Tehranian asserts that it most certainly can be, that
everything human beings do has some communicative dimension to it, leading
to the assertion that, “we cannot not communicate”. While we
find within Western discourse an emergent acceptance of this concept, when
placed within the larger domain of transcultural approaches to communication,
we find that Western conceptions of silence carry rather a rationalist
inflection, reflecting, arguably, their origins within the dominant approach
to knowing. Hence, silence has often been considered important because
it denied the voice of the other - women, minorities, alternative epistemic
communities. This was silence as oppression - negative silence. While this
has been a rich and important part of the journey to more fully understand
communication, it cannot be said to capture the fullness of the communicative
potency of silence. This becomes the inevitable conclusion once we place
this insight alongside non-Western experiences of communication.
The indigenous experience of silence, reveals, a great richness and depth.
Lawlor reports that silence plays an important part in Aboriginal culture,
being observed by newly initiated boys while living together for many days
in seclusion following their circumcision initiations. Here only sign language
is used for communicating. Widowed women, Lawlor further reports, “express
sorrow publicly by maintaining vows of silence, even after remarriage, for
months and sometimes years after the death of a husband”. He suggests
that this parallels Indian yoga - that is tantra - where “vows of silence
are believed to instigate rapid inner changes”.
Maori culture likewise attaches great significance to the epistemological qualities
inherent in silence. It is through deep silence - a deep inner stillness -
that other knowing spaces open up. It was through the medium of silence that
the deep communicability of the natural world was known to Maori, where, the
inner voice of nature becomes perceptible. It is an expanded awareness of the
communicability of the entire natural world. This, however, is not something
that is intellectual rather it is experiential and intuitional. It is a subjective
realisation that comes through living with the rhythm of the land, hearing
the “voice” of the earth, the sky, the ocean, the rivers - knowing
the interconnectedness of all things through experiencing the state of Oneness
with all things - a state known to initiatic cultures. It is a voice that is
heard through silence, a deep inner stillness. And it is in silence that it’s
mana is retained.
Silence and the transcendental
In Eastern traditions we likewise find a tremendous richness attached to
silence. Taoist thought, for example, posits that the highest knowledge
- the Tao “... can neither be seen nor heard” - silence taking
up, where sense-based communication leaves off. In Vedic culture, the communication
of meaning is considered to be only weakly linked to language, it’s
fuller expression lying beyond language. Interpersonal communication stands
as secondary to intrapersonal communication which is itself consummated
only in transpersonal communication - “in which oneness of the world
is unambiguously perceived”. As such “truth” is not considered
to relate closely with either language or rational logic, being more fully
realised in the intuitive realm - something experienced inwardly. Ralph
Waldo Emerson was also sensitive to this point: “Good as is discourse,
silence is better and shames it”. In Buddhist cultures the highest
form of knowledge - absolute knowledge - is believed to be intuitional
in nature, and the means by which it is communicated is through the medium
of silence: “true communication is believed to occur only when one
speaks without the mouth and when one hears without the ears” (Yum,
1987: 83). This point is well attested in the silence evinced by the Buddha
when asked “Does God exist?”, to which he gave no reply. When
asked, “Then God does not exist”, he chose again not to enter
into the limited spaces of verbal communication, thus privileging silence
over sense-based communicative forms. Speaking to the same issue, tantric
philosopher P.R. Sarkar asserts:
The world of spirituality is far subtler than the world of intellectual
ideation. The cruder aspect of the mental world comes within the power of
expression of the indriyas [sensory and motor organs], but the spiritual
world is totally beyond the scope of externalization. The subtler the feeling,
the greater the difficulty in expressing it... Hence, the scriptures say
that Brahma [the Supreme Entity], will never be polluted by words... the
spiritual world is beyond the scope of verbal externalization.
While it is possible within Sarkar’s
cosmology for that Supreme Entity to be subjectively experienced - Eastern
spiritual culture has attested to
this for millennia - it is not possible, for that experience to be objectively
communicated to others. Thus he writes:
The human intellect cannot say anything final about the Supreme Entity because
human beings cannot perceive [that Entity] through the vibrations of body,
mind and speech... The Guru tries to say something about the Supreme Entity
but cannot because the moment he tries to explain the Supreme he comes within
the scope of verbal expression. The disciple has the capacity to hear a discourse
about the Supreme Entity, yet cannot because the discourse comes within the
temporal factor. That's why I say that the absolute cannot come within the
scope of relativity. Under this circumstance the preceptor becomes dumb and
the disciple becomes deaf.
Layers of consciousness and communication
In asserting, in the manner of indigenous and Eastern traditions, that whole
worlds of communicative phenomena exist beyond the scope of the sensory
and motor organs, is not to suggest that such subtle worlds cannot be known.
For Sarkar, indeed, for Eastern transcendental traditions generally, reality
is held to extend hierarchically across many vibrational spaces. Within
this conception sensory and rational experience correlates with a vibrational
field that is apprehensible via the sensory organs and rational consciousness.
More subtle vibrational fields require for their apprehension a more subtle
consciousness. Hence, we find in ancient and modern tantric tradition the
notion that human beings possess a layered consciousness which extends
from the “crude”, instinctual mind through, ultimately, to
the transcendental or superconscious mind.
Hence, we find in ancient and modern tantric tradition the notion that
human beings possess a layered consciousness. This idea of multiple levels
of being
is not unknown within Western accounts. Habermas, for example, delineates three
levels of consciousness at which human beings exist, and which are amenable
to three different types of enquiry: the cognitive-instrumental, moral-practical,
and the aesthetic-expressive dimensions. Tehranian advances four very similar
layers of human consciousness: “practical consciousness”, “instrumental
consciousness”, “critical consciousness”, and “communicative
consciousness”.
Sarkar’s alternative model, however, looks rather different. He uses
sanskrit terminologies of tantric discourse to denote five distinct levels
of consciousness at which human beings exist. Each of these strata are amenable
to a particular type of knowing. The first of these levels is the material
or conscious layer of being, which is made knowable through reason and sense-inference.
The second level is the subtle layer of being which correlates with rationality,
logic and the intellect. The third, forth and fifth levels are collectively
termed the causal - relating to the supramental, the subtle-subliminal and
the subtle cosmic minds respectively. These three higher layers of consciousness
are not amenable to sense-based or intellectual investigation requiring, instead,
the use of intuitional capacities. In this manner, for Sarkar, the self is
understood to exist vertically and simultaneously across many different epistemological
spaces, thus concurring, somewhat, with Nietzsche’s hypothesis that “The
subject is a multiplicity”.
We find within Aboriginal culture a similar acceptance that human consciousness
extends beyond the domain of the conscious and subconscious states accepted
within Western tradition. Indeed, the very notion of the Dreamtime is premised
upon a layered approach to consciousness, where human beings possess a “Dreaming
consciousness”.
This is reflected in the practice of ritual where participants enter states
of trance consciousness, such as the circumcision ceremony where “death
itself is confronted”, opening the way for one to be reborn into a higher
- initiatic - consciousness. The sleep state, also forms part of the Aborigine’s
tapping into higher consciousness:
Sleep is but one entrance into
the Dreaming. The Aborigine’s education
begins in developing awareness during sleep and during the hypnotic state.
Becoming increasingly lucid in sleep - to the point of being able to act
consciously in the dream world and to bring symbolic messages received while
asleep into the awakened world - is the beginning of the initiation process
for every tribal person.
Myth and Ritual as communicative agencies
It is due to the realisation that verbal expression and rational intellection
suffer substantial communicative limitations that recourse is taken to
myth, symbolism and ritual These become the means by which deeper realities
are experienced - not through the descriptive and objective medium of analytic
language (an “intellectual”, rational experience) - but through
the synthetic and mythic medium of ritual (a participatory and “meta-rational” experience),
as well as symbolic meaning. In connection to the myth and metaphor of
Aboriginal Dreaming, Lawlor makes the following insightful comment:
A dreaming story is not necessarily factual or moralistic; rather, it is
designed to open thoughts beyond conventional horizons and make visible the
patterns underlying the history of the cosmos, earth, and humankind.
As Lawlor further reports, it
is through myth, symbolism and ritual that the Aborigines sought to capture
the “internal-external reciprocity
between humans and the creative forces of nature”. To live and experience
the Dreaming is about “maintaining a sensitivity to an invisible, metaphysical
prototype”. Gregory Bateson was sensitive to this indigenous worldview
and their accompanying communicative genres such as ritual in their capacity
to capture deeper meaning as “ritual statements of unity, involving
all the participants in an integration with the meteorological cycle or with
the ecology of totemic animals”.
Ritual likewise plays an important part in the communicative culture of Maori.
The simple act of entering into the meeting house is, at the mythic level of
the culture, to enter into the “body” of an ancestor, thus does
one symbolically merge with - pass under the shelter of - that illustrious
personality. We find a similar metaphor used in Aboriginal myth where the ancestor
entered into may be a totemic animal, such as in the Rainbow Serpent stories “in
which initiates are swallowed and disgorged... [illuminating] how in ritual,
initiates enter an ancestor in order to be born again”. In tantra the
only being with which one seeks to merge is the Supreme Being, and this takes
place in the ideative realm, a profound communicative practice that unleashes
tremendous spiritual energies, which can become demonstrably manifest within
the initiates psychic and even physical structures.
An expanded communicative community
Implicit in much of the foregoing is a clear challenge to the Western conception
of the communicative community. Within Sarkar’s tantric worldview,
Western society has been animated by the ideal of humanism, as has, it
can be contended, it’s conception of the communicative community.
Here the communicative community embraces all other human beings and gives
communicative rights to the polities from which they come. Sarkar, in his
elaboration of the ethical system he calls “neo-humanism” seeks
to substantially expand these boundaries, whereby the sentiment of human
love and affection is now to be directed towards all beings - animate,
inanimate and supersensible. Thus is the way opened for expanding the communicative
community to embrace all beings, all life-forms, all existentialities.
Sarkar’s ontology of consciousness, wherein, even inanimate phenomenological
forms gain existential (rather than merely utilitarian) value, is substantially
shared with Eastern and indigenous cultures. Thus we find in Chinese tradition
the notion that: “all things are ultimately one, for all come from the
same ch’i”. The old songs of the Aboriginal Dreamtime, tell of
this same oneness: tjukurrtjana, that fundamental stream of being from which
all differentiated expression arose. For Maori it is wairua, “the non-material,
inseparable, metaphysical linkage of everything”.
It is this idea of interconnectedness that so baffles the German philosopher
and communication theorist, Jurgen Habermas. Indeed, to the rational and analytic
mind these subtle realities remain cloaked in mystery. For Habermas these are
merely symptoms of the “totalising power of the savage mind”. Even
while Habermas asserts a commitment to “emancipation” - an “ideal
speech situation” - it is not one in which indigenous and mystical cultures
can share. Gregory Bateson, in contrast, displays a greater subtlety of thought,
recognising both the limitations - the dogmas - manifest in the indigenous
world, as well as their profound strengths. For Bateson, it is this loss of
the sense of fundamental interconnectedness, that marks Western ontology from
the non-West:
I hold to the presupposition that our loss of the sense of aesthetic unity
was, quite simply an epistemological mistake. I believe that that mistake may
be more serious than all the minor insanities that characterise those older
epistemologies which agreed upon the fundamental unity.
Given the interconnectedness principle
of these “older epistemologies” along
with the idea of higher and lower states of consciousness, which they likewise
share, it ought not be surprising that communicative possibilities are held
to exist beyond the domain of the human family. One such example of non-human
participants within the expanded communicative community would be what Hindu
tradition refers to as devas - non-physical, intelligent life-forms with
which communicative possibilities exist. Sarkar invokes another term: luminous
bodies. These communicable beings appear to have equivalence in many other
cultures, such as the jinns of Islamic tradition, angels of the Christian
tradition and atua of Maori culture.
In relation to Aboriginal culture, Roland Robinson tells the following story:
Leodardi, an Aboriginal singer and dancer at Milingimbi, told me that he did
not compose his song-dances. They were given to him by spirits in the bush.
These spirits, ritually painted, emerged and danced and sang as he stood silently
watching them. Leodardi “caught” the song, the dance, and the painting,
and brought the song dance back to his tribe.
A similar story is told by the
Maori scholar and political leader, Sir Apirana Ngata (1961). In his Nga
Moteatea collection of traditional Maori songs,
several are reported to have been given by “kehua” or supernatural
beings. Tantric tradition likewise admits of the possibility of communicative
interchange between the human and non-human worlds. Sarkar relates a number
of episodes from his own life. In one such encounter he relates an experience
in a forest where he heard beautiful instrumental music: “I was sitting
there alone when that intoxicating melody, that rapturous sound, came floating
over the forest...”. Presently he happened upon the owner of these
subtle sounds: “a young man about my age... His body was like a motion
picture, a play of light and shadow”.
What again distinguishes tantric tradition, however, is the placing of this
type of communicative practice within the context of the spiritual. For Sarkar,
human communication, when all is said and done, is only truly consummated when
communication with Self is attained. It is a rare communicative moment, when
the dualism of “I-Thou” gives way to merger in the transcendental
Source. All other communicative interactions - whether with physical or non-physical
participants - ought not disturb that deeper communicative journey. Thus, does
the communicative community ultimately come to embrace the Supreme.
Mantra and the communicative community
As we have seen, there is within indigenous cultures a clear openness to
expand the communicative community to embrace non-physical life forms.
To walk onto the Maori marae (the forecourt fronting the meeting house)
amidst the incantative wailing of old women is for the living to walk with
the dead, for both have been summoned and both can quite discernibly be
present. In this respect, there is clear evidence that the architects of
the Maori language were aware of the science of sound vibration - the mantra
of tantric tradition. In the West this knowledge belonged to the earth
or pagan religions, which were, of course, ruthlessly extirpated by the
zealots of Christian orthodoxy, culminating in the spectacle of the European
witch hunts. The same necrotic tendency manifested more recently in the
rapacious drive by European cultures for colonies, leading to the suppression
of indigenous mystical wisdom: witness such anachronistic legislation as
New Zealand’s Tohunga Suppression Act, 1907, which criminalised the
Maori shaman. There is still, in the West, however, a memory of the communicative
potency of mantra and incantation. These we find in the story books of
children where tales of charms and spells abound.
Towards communicative integration
While the foregoing appraisal has tended towards dichotomising the world
into consciousness-based and material-based approaches to communication,
this, of course is a simplification. Just as Eastern and indigenous communicative
cultures are not only spiritual and silence based, nor are Western communicative
cultures only material and instrumental based. The deeper need of the moment
is for an alternative conceptual map of human knowledge that acknowledges
the epistemological “unity in diversity” - the coherent multiplicity
of knowing spaces - and which includes different communication paradigms.
What follows is an attempt at providing the outline of such a framework,
one that does allow the subtle to exist alongside the material, the mundane
to share space with the supra-mundane and the spiritual. As a mere outline
the following model will raise many more questions than it will answer,
however, it is hoped that it will provide, at least, an inspiration to
others to refine and evolve this idea further.
Figure 1 here
Figure 1: A layered approach to communication - multiple communication fields
spanning the mundane, supramundane, psycho-spiritual and pure-spiritual spheres.
Figure 1 diagramatically seeks to capture the range of epistemological and
communicative spaces that opened up in our review of Western and non-Western
approaches to communication. In this model, communication is acknowledged
to exist in a range of different strata and spheres. After tantric and
indigenous tradition we can understand these to exist as vibratory fields.
Hence, it becomes possible within this model to place a broad range of
transcultural communicative phenomena within one or other of these interconnected
vibrational spaces.
In the light of our preceding consideration of Western, indigenous, and mystical
cultures, we are obliged to acknowledge four different spheres within which
human communication can proceed. Sarkar provides the clearest articulation
of these various spaces, to which we can apply the following terminologies:
the mundane, the supra-mundane, the psycho-spiritual and the pure spiritual.
We will see from figure 1, that each of these spheres (with the exception of
the pure-spiritual) are depicted in our diagram as being comprised of different
strata, what we have termed the lower stratum, the middle stratum and the higher
stratum. This is to acknowledge the qualitative differences that exist between
communicative phenomena occupying the same sphere. For example, a communicative
interaction with an ATM - an Automatic Teller Machine - consisting of a simple
question-answers interchange, (“Do you want a receipt”, Yes or
No) and the relative sophistication, say, of a highly rational discussion of
theoretical physics, might both be happening within the mundane sphere, however,
there would clearly be a qualitative difference between the two. Hence, the
above model provides three delineations by which qualitative differences can
be negotiated.
Further subdivisions within each sphere (again excluding the pure-spiritual,
and this time, the higher stratum of the psycho-spiritual sphere), would again
emerge as necessary to further differentiate communicative acts within respective
stratum. These further subdivisions - what we might call “aspects” -
can be termed “integrated”, “neutral” and “negative”.
Negative-aspect communication could be defined as communication proceeding
from the ego which has the effect, intended or otherwise, of asserting a “power-over” relationship
with other participants disposed towards self-gain. These are, of course, highly
subjective categories, however, within this model subjective experiences are
accorded considerable validity. Hence, manipulative communication guided by
a sense of obtaining something for one’s self would fall within this
negative aspect. An avidya tantric using hypnosis to extort money from another
could be said to be occupying the lower (or even higher) stratum of the supra-mundane
sphere in it’s negative aspect. The scene in the recently re-released
movie Star Wars where Darth Vader holds up his thumb and forefinger leading
to the death of one of his subordinates could likewise be considered as depicting
a supra-mundane, negative-aspect communicative episode. The earlier quoted
example of Leodardi, the aboriginal singer who “caught” his songs
from spirits, points towards a type of supra-mundane communication, in it’s
neutral or integrated aspect. The same could be said for the visionary insights
of thinkers such as Darwin and Einstein who, reports Anandamitra, acknowledged
that intuitional flashes (communication from the supra-mundane sphere) played
a far greater part than did rational logic (mundane sphere) in evolving their
ideas.
Psycho-spiritual communication concerns the movement of the mind from the psychic
to the spiritual plane. The use in many Eastern spiritual traditions of mantra,
wherein the concentrated mind of the meditator, intones a certain potentized
sound vibration disposed towards lifting the mind from a conscious to superconscious
state, would be an example of psycho-spiritual communication in, we could say,
it’s positive (integrated) aspect. The intoning of the mantra is clearly
a psychic process, however, the destination (that towards which the mantra
is disposed) is the pure-spiritual. Hence, it pertains to the psycho-spiritual
sphere.
In contrast, the yogii who’s unit mind merges into the non-qualified
state of pure Consciousness - transcending the boundaries of knower and known,
transcending the psychic plane altogether - can be said to be undergoing a “meta-communicative” experience
in the pure-spiritual sphere. At this level communication, in the sense contemplated
in this paper, ceases - the duality of subject and object having been transcended.
While mind can internally experience “the Other” - all of that
outside of itself up until the psycho-spiritual sphere - such that a communicative
exchange can potentially take place (including the purely internal exchanges
within an individual), in the pure-spiritual sphere this “dialogue” ceases.
Hence, it is fitting to describe this state - it being the culminating point
in the communicative journey - as being “meta-communicative”.
A multiplicity of communication fields
The present model, in it’s abbreviated and undeveloped form, identifies,
twenty-seven different communicative spaces from which human communication
can proceed and be received (across four spheres, three strata and three
aspects). A more elaborate model would include, potentially, many more such
fields. Clearly, a good many points emerge which this brief elaboration leaves
unaddressed. For example, where the communicator is acting out of, say, the
lower stratum of the mundane sphere in it’s negative aspect (engaging
in, say, verbal abuse), the question arises as to the different possible
places in which one could receive the interaction. Every day life shows us
that negative or abusive communication typically leads to a similar response.
This model clarifies the many other spaces that are potentially available
by which the receiver in the above communicative episode could receive the
exchange.
The example of Buddha remaining silent when questioned by his disciples regarding
the existence of God, suggests that the communicative space occupied by the
disciples (which privileged the verbal) was very different from the space in
which Buddha was situated (which denied the verbal). A good deal of apparently “failed
communication” can be traced to the different communication fields in
which the communicating parties are situated, each of which privileges different
communication practices. This accounts for a good deal of the difficulty indigenous
peoples (with clear roots in the supramundane) have communicating within more
rational and mundane Western spaces. The present model provides novel insights
as to why this could be so.
Learning from the Other
As we come together across cultural, subcultural, civilizational and gender
boundaries to create new futures we need to be aware that consigning that
collective process exclusively to any one sphere (typically the mundane),
is to perpetuate a form of cultural and communicative violence. This seriously
mitigates against transcultural involvement and the pursuit of a potent unified
diversity. At a time when we desperately require an alliance with the Other
- a harmonious blending of all progressive voices - we can scarce afford
to ignore this point.
This is not, therefore, merely a request to accommodate the communicative
needs of the mystical and the indigenous. Many other spaces need to be negotiated
to include such communities as the elders of all cultures, children, youth,
the marginalised and incarcerated, those with disabilities and women. Viable
communicative spaces need to be evolved and processes explored whereby meaningful
connections can be established between these disparate communities.
What will
not suffice at this critical juncture will be continued separatism and receding
behind the veil of a “negative” silence. While it may be true that
this ideal of a diverse, but unified, communicative community speaking - and
not speaking - in many different tones, in many different rhythms, from many
different communicative spaces, may well be without precedent in human history,
need not deter us. The times that are upon us are in many and profound ways
without precedent: these are, indeed, epoch making times.
The future is ours to make: a personal comment
As futurists have long contended, if we do not make the future is will be
made for us. We are all well aware of the tremendous resources, material
and human, wielded by those vested interests arrayed across this planet
for whom “preferred futures” means - emphatically - more of
the same. And yet, in the light of what has preceded, it can meaningfully
be said that most of those resources are of the mundane sphere - being
material and instrumental (psycho-rational) in nature. Just as the subtle
and spiritual spheres are vastly greater in their communicative expansiveness,
than is the mundane (see Figure 1), so too are the potencies they yield
forth. It is not at all, in this model, a quantitative question - it is
far more a qualitative one. Very few people consciously and concertedly
acting out of an integrated subtle and spiritual space can, in this model,
exert a profoundly disproportionate impact on things. However, history
graphically reminds us that human beings have the capacity to wield this
tremendous potency in absolutely negative ways - the hypnotic oratory and
occult symbolism of Adolf Hitler being the best known in recent times.
This ought to dramatically alert to the need to remain ever within integrated
rather than ego space as we carry out our work - so much more so when we
enter into the subtle spheres. It is well arguable that we do not have
unlimited amounts of time to move into these new spaces, to take up these
new ways of working, these new ways of communicating. The crisis of the
West demands inspired action now.