Beyond The Phenomenology of Spirit, Part 1

[This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Nonduality and Mind-Only through the Prism of Reality.]

Hegelian Idealism and Dialectic

You’ve now considered nonduality and Mind-Only in the contexts of Yogacara (Lankavatara Sutra), Zen (Huang Po), Kashmir Shaivism, and Kabbalah. What’s left for you to complete your considerations?

As I stated at the end of our Kabbalah discussion, Hegel is next on our agenda. After Hegel, I’ll then seek to tie together the different schools of thought that we’ve considered. The end product might be less than satisfactory, but it will be fun to see what happens when we attempt to integrate these various perspectives. Independent of this synthesis attempt, I’ll then critique some of the prominent current voices on nonduality and Mind-Only.

Hegel, considered by many to be the most important philosopher since Kant, was a theologian devoted to philosophy as a means to disseminate gospel on God’s work in the world. In a lecture, he preached: “Philosophy has no object but God and so is essentially rational theology and, as the servant of truth, a continual divine service.”

Hegel, who was steeped in Eastern philosophy, espoused a view very much in accord with Kashmir Shaivism: that God became man so that man could realize God. Hegel called this realization Absolute Knowledge, and his magnum opus The Phenomenology of Spirit is extensive discourse on man’s progress through stages, in a social and historical context, toward this Absolute Knowledge.

For Hegel, God is Spirit or Mind (Geist), which is equivalent to Kashmir Shaivism’s Siva-Shakti (Consciousness-Energy). And Geist, or Spirit, in the form of the “World Spirit,” is imbedded in man, teleologically instigating his evolution from the “fall” to “God-Union.” The “World Spirit,” as Hegel conceives it, is the “programmed” unfolding of Spirit in time, through man. It is God surreptitiously influencing man’s consciousness, driving his evolutionary ascent, through the ages, to Absolute Knowledge.

Hegel’s optimistic view of mankind as ever-evolving is contrary to Schopenhauer’s, which rejects the idea that humanity is on a God-ordained ascent to Divinity.

Very true. Whereas we see philosophers such as Hegel and Ken Wilber (who champions an “up from Eden” view) arguing for the historical progress of humanity, on the other side of the coin, we see those such as Schopenhauer and Gurdjieff, who reject their view. It should be noted, however, although Hegel embraces the upward arc of humanity, he makes it clear that the path to Absolute Knowledge is a rocky one, with temporary downward and sideways steps on the way.

Hegel is most famous for Hegelian dialectic, meaning the triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. What can you say about this in relation to the attainment of Absolute Knowledge?

Dialectic in Western philosophy goes all the way back to Plato. But Hegel, employing the formula “abstract,” “negative,” “concrete,” popularized a new form of dialectic, which was modified into “thesis,” “antithesis,” “synthesis.”

In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel uses his dialectic to explain the (postulated by him) workings of the World Spirit through the vehicle of humanity, which is an unwitting instrument for the telos that has been “programmed” into it. Per Hegel, man’s consciousness, which seeks to evolve, is designed to function dialectically, which means that it lurches from one “extreme” (thesis) to another (antithesis) before it finds a “balance” (synthesis). This synthesis then becomes the thesis of another dialectical iteration, resulting in another synthesis, which, in turn, becomes the thesis of yet another dialectical iteration. According to Hegel, it usually takes three such iterations before a final, satisfactory synthesis (balance) is attained.

Hegel’s idealism (at least in theory) is wholistic on a worldly level, meaning that the evolutionary dialectical process intersects every area of human life: art, literature, religion, law, economies, social structures, states and communities, human relations, et al. Per the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hegel considers the Absolute an "unconditioned reality which is either the spiritual ground of all being or the whole of things considered as a spiritual unity." But Hegel’s idealism doesn’t provide a methodology to move beyond mundane wholism and unveil the unconditioned Reality, or spiritual Ground, underlying phenomenal reality. His vision of dialectical evolution doesn’t transcend change-of-state becoming (mere improvement of man’s lot) and yield apprehension of unconditioned Reality, or Absolute Being, without which Absolute Knowledge cannot be attained. His metaphysics is limited to episteme, to a philosophy of mind which explains the dynamics of thinking as a means to evolved conditional states, but which doesn’t yield gnosis, mystical knowledge of the Absolute, of Mind (or God) as Holy Spirit. The World Spirit is not the Holy Spirit, and it is only through the descent of the Holy Spirit (Divine Shakti) into the human soul that the radical leap to Geist-realization can be consummated.

Zeitgeistians, Trans-Zeitgeistians, and Geistians

What can you say about Geist-realization?

There are three basic levels of civilized humans: zeitgeistians, trans-zeitgeistians, and Geistians. Zeitgeistians are the “unwashed” masses. They are unwashed (meaning un-baptized, or un-awakened) both spiritually and socioculturally. They are Matrix-bound, brainwashed to differing degrees by Big Government, Big Education, Big Media, Big Corporations, and Big Religion. As the iconic Zen master Huang Po said, the fur are many and the horns are few. The zeitgeistians are the fur.

In contrast to zeitgeistians, trans-zeitgeistians have “cracked the code” socioculturally and are not “hypnotized” by “the spirit of the times,” the sociocultural Matrix that engulfs and conditions the masses. As free-thinking non-conformists, they think outside the box and value truth and liberty more than faith and security. They prefer being disenfranchised outsiders to compromising their values to fit in with the zeitgeist.

Geistians are those rare beings, the “horns,” who, by virtue of being Blessed by the Holy Spirit, utterly transcend conditional existence when they are immersed in the Divine downpour. Although they are usually also trans-zeitgeistians, they understand that Salvation cannot be gained by either transforming or rejecting the mainstream, but only by perpetual abidance in the Divine Stream.

You said that Hegel, whose dialectic is limited to episteme, doesn’t provide the method that yields Spirit-gnosis. Do you?

I’ve done what Hegel doesn’t: provide the dialectical methodology that explains how a zeitgeistian or a trans-zeitgeistian can become an unconditioned Geistian by uniting his soul (or consciousness) with the Holy Spirit. This dialectical methodology, or spiritual dialectic—thesis (presence), antithesis (absence), synthesis (power)—which yields mystical gnosis, will be elaborated in the final chapter [Chapter Sixteen] of Nonduality and Mind-Only, which will be titled “Power-of-Now Meditation (Holy Communion).”

Logos Versus Logic

Hegel, famously, said, “The rational is real, and the real is rational.” Is he right?

Decide for yourself. Here are two differing answers that may help you to determine if he’s right or wrong.
1) No. I contend that whatever exists is real, though the ontological status of existents clearly differs. The real is neither rational nor non-rational; it just is what it is. Rationality is simply the human mind objectively making sense of what it perceives and thinks. It does this through the practice of logic, the non-contradictory identification of the facts of reality. Finally (as quantum theory confirms), “God” does play dice with the universe, and this demonstrates that rationality does not cohere with the chaos that we observe in the universe.

2) Yes. Because existence/reality has been “measured out” from the Immeasurable, the Divine Existent, it is inherently rational in nature. Moreover, the Law of Karma (the Law of Cause and Effect) informs us that the universe is “lawful,” and thus rational. Finally (as Einstein contended), God does not play dice with universe: from the Divine viewpoint, there is always only cosmos, a higher rational order behind seeming chaos.

I’ve seen Hegel’s statement interpreted as “God is logic, and logic is God.”

For Hegel, the Logos is God’s “logic,” conveyed through the World Spirit, and played out by man, across the ages, through Hegelian dialectic, via ideas and language. In other words, it (putatively) is Divinely originated evolutionary intelligence operating through the human vehicle in a societal context, with the end goal of Absolute Knowledge.

I see two problems with Hegel’s conception of the Logos. First off, though Hegel conflates logic with his dialectic, in truth, it has nothing to do with it. In fact, his dialectic, for the most part, produces illogic, along with the potential for catastrophic misuse (as I shall subsequently explain). Unless one postulates a valid thesis/antithesis, the synthesis will have no connection with logic and reality. For example, Hegel’s fundamental dialectic—thesis (being), antithesis (nothing), synthesis (becoming)—is an invalid one, because “nothing” is a non-existent with no ontological status.

True logic is simply, and only, the non-contradictory identification of the facts of reality. And true logic is applied by adhering to Aristotle’s three fundamental laws of logic: “A is A” (Identity), “Nothing is both A and non-A” (Non-contradiction), and “Nothing is neither A nor non-A” (Exclusion of the Middle). These laws are not mere hypotheses, but incontrovertible axioms. To deny their validity is to deny the identity of existents and man’s cognitive ability to identify these existents and the properties they entail.

In his book The DIM Hypothesis, Dr. Leonard Peikoff, the preeminent Ayn Rand scholar, identifies and examines five different modes of thought that have dominated four different cultural areas during six different Western periods. Peikoff’s in-depth analysis makes it clear that when the Aristotelian mode of thinking, which involves “Integration” (the “I” in DIM), is dominant, a civilization flourishes; but when other modes of thought, all of which involve either “Disintegration” (the “D” in DIM) or “Misintegration” (the “M” in DIM), prevail, a civilization decays. The upshot is that the evolvement (or devolvement) of cultures across history is more a reflection of their adherence (or lack thereof) to Aristotelian logic rather than it is to the effect of Hegelian dialectic. And, as history makes clear, the epitome of the Aristotelian mode of thinking is the Enlightenment, the acme of Western civilization.

So does Aristotelian logic represent the Logos?

The Logos is the incarnate Word/Christ/Son/Self/Buddha, meaning nondual, pure Consciousness itself. Logic, on the other hand, is dualistic, involving “impure,” or thought-implicated, consciousness. One could say that the Logos, enacted by a yogi or a mystic, is an act of onto-logic, of thought-free Self-expression, whereas (Aristotelian) logic is the thought-full act of identifying the facts of reality.

Dialectical Marxism

Karl Marx took Hegel’s spiritual idea of dialectic and converted it into a materialist one. Instead of a dialectic devoted to man’s spiritual evolution, Marx, and the Marxians who followed him, applied, and apply, Hegelian dialectic, to the Godless goal of utopian socialism. The result has been an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions, with mega-millions of people dying in the name of, and under the thumb of, Marxist-inspired revolutions and governments. And now, cultural Marxists, practitioners of the religion of “Wokeism,” continue to employ invalid Hegelian dialectic in their impossible quest for “social justice,” meaning DEI, the misguided and societally destructive ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

I know more than a little about Marxism (including cultural Marxism); I studied it directly under the iconic Herbert Marcuse at UCSD. As an ignorant and naive 18-year-old freshman, I bought into the “repressive tolerance” preached by Dr. Marcuse and participated in on-campus demonstrations aimed at shutting down free speech. But by my junior year, I realized that Marcuse’s playbook for the New Left (which is now being implemented by cancel-culture leftists) was really fascist, and I was on my way to becoming a right-libertarian.

The fundamental dialectic of Marxism—Dialectical Materialism—is an invalid one, and some staunch proponents of Marxism even grudgingly admit this. The idea that the exploited, poor working class represents the thesis, the exploiting rich capitalist class the antithesis, and (after the revolution), the rich, class-free Communist social order the synthesis, is laughable to anyone with a brain and/or who has studied history. And the procession of “creative” new, but invalid, dialectics by the “woke” neo-Marxists has further exposed the shortcomings and potential misuse of Hegelian dialectic. In short, this misuse of Hegelian dialectic by the left represents the antithesis of Aristotelian logic and Enlightenment values; hence it portends the destruction of Western civilization.

Anyone interested in Hegelian dialectic and the history of its application (really misapplication) by classical Marxism, and then cultural Marxism, should check out the New Discourses YouTube channel, which features the brilliant James Lindsay, the foremost contemporary critic and deconstructor of Marxism in all its forms, past and present. I especially enjoy listening to Lindsay expose the fascist ideas underpinning the putatively “liberating” neo-Marxist ideology popularized by my old professor, Dr. Marcuse.

You’ve just reamed Hegelian dialectic, yet you employ it not only in your Electrical Spiritual Paradigm (ESP), but sociopolitically [in your article “Buddhist Politics 501,” which can be found in Chapter Eleven or Googled online] with individualism/capitalism as your thesis, and statism/socialism as your antithesis. How do you justify this?

Simple, Hegelian dialectic is a tool, which, like fire, can be used “lawfully” and constructively, or “unlawfully” and destructively. Unlike the Marxists and neo-Marxists, I employ it not only “lawfully” and constructively, but also innovatively.

Okay, a final question: What can you say about Hegel’s idealism in relation to nonduality and Mind-Only?

Hegel understood that the manifest world is a reflection of unmanifest Mind, which alone is ultimately Real. He rightly held that manifest existence derives from and is subsumed by the unmanifest Existent, which implies nonduality. While I’m critical of some aspects of his philosophic idealism, I applaud his inventive effort to explain the “phenomenology of Spirit,” and aim to build upon parts of it.