2. consciousness as the centre of one's identity

 
mainstream physicalism — One's identity is one's "self-construct": an assemblage of contents of consciousness related to one's ego.
 
exclusive spirituality — While Ignorance lasts, one identifies first with the ego and later with the jīvātman. After overcoming the Ignorance, one realises one's identity with the universal paramātman, which is the same for everyone, eternal, immutable and one with Brahman.
 
integral spirituality — While Ignorance lasts, one identifies with the ego. After overcoming the Ignorance, one realises one's identity with the individual jīvātman, as well as with the universal paramātman. Both are eternal, immutable and in their essence one with Brahman.
(See also 19.)

3. consciousness as power — I

 
mainstream physicalism — Consciousness is only awareness.
 
exclusive spirituality — Consciousness is only awareness.1
 
integral spirituality — Consciousness is both awareness and force (cit is also cit-śakti).

the presence and role of consciousness

4. the presence of consciousness in the world

 
mainstream physicalism — Consciousness is the exception in an otherwise unconscious universe. It occurs only in humans or at most in a few other animals and machines.
 
exclusive spirituality — Consciousness is primary and its existence is not questioned. According to Vedānta, the existence of the universe is dubious as it is seen as a product of māyā. According to Sāṁkhya, the universe (prakṛti) also exists (eternally), but it is unconscious (and not very interesting).
 
integral spirituality — Consciousness is all-pervasive. It exists not only in individuals, but throughout the cosmos and even in the transcendent beyond. While it is understandable why the physical world looks unconscious to some and unreal to others, it actually is conscious in its own way.

5. ultimate reality: consciousness or matter

 
mainstream physicalism — The ultimate reality is matter.
 
exclusive spirituality — The ultimate reality is saccidānanda: consciousness and delight are intrinsic to ultimate reality.
 
integral spirituality — Same as Exclusive Spirituality.

6. what is taken for granted and what is in doubt

 
mainstream physicalism — Matter is primary and taken for granted. The existence and relevance of consciousness are open to doubt. According to some, consciousness emerges out of unconscious material processes at a certain level of complexity.
 
exclusive spirituality — Consciousness is primary and its existence not doubted. According to Vedānta, ultimately, a divine consciousness is the cause of everything, but matter and energy are in doubt and widely ascribed to Māyā. According to Sāṁkhya, matter and Energy (both part of prakṛti) are eternal and uncreated.
 
integral spirituality — Consciousness is primary and not doubted. Matter and physical energy are the end product of a process of exclusive concentration within the conscious existence of the Divine. Both Matter and Consciousness are real and divine.

7. consciousness in matter

 
mainstream physicalism — Matter is unconscious (except, perhaps, the human nervous system).
 
exclusive spirituality — According to Vedānta, some schools same as integral spirituality; other schools see matter as an illusion. According to Sāṁkhya, matter (as part of prakṛti) is unconscious.2
 
integral spirituality — Everything is conscious. The consciousness in inanimate things is the secret cause of their "name and form."

conceptual issues and secondary characteristics

8. consciousness and mind

 
mainstream physicalism — Mind is the wider concept: consciousness is a property of some mental states and processes.
 
exclusive spirituality — According to Vedānta, consciousness (cit) is a fundamental aspect of reality. The word Mind (manas) is either used for a type or plane of consciousness (as in the manomaya kośa of the Taittirīya Upaniṣad) or, more commonly, in the narrower sense of the sense-mind. Either way it is a much smaller concept than consciousness. According to Sāṁkhya, consciousness belongs to the Self (puruṣa) and as such is infinite. Mind (consisting of manas, buddhi and ahaṅkāra, sense-mind, intellect and ego-sense) is a relatively small part of Nature, (prakṛti) and as such finite.
 
integral spirituality — Here too, consciousness is an infinitely wider concept than mind.

9. consciousness, happiness and suffering

 
mainstream physicalism — Emotional states are dependent on brain states and tend to be described in functional terms.
 
exclusive spirituality — Suffering arises through identification with the ego. Happiness arises out of detachment.3 Most schools take embodied life as intrinsically sorrowful.
 
integral spirituality — Here too, suffering is seen as arising from identification with the ego. Happiness arises out of Love. It is part of the basic stuff of all that is: ultimately consciousness and delight are one with being.

10. consciousness and love

 
mainstream physicalism — Selfless, "true" love is not understandable, and whatever can be understood instead tends to be described in utilitarian and pragmatic terms.
 
exclusive spirituality — Except for love for the Divine, its stress is on purity and inaction. This tends to push love out of sight, though perhaps more in theory than in practice. In Buddhism, love's "spinster sister", compassion is encouraged.
 
integral spirituality — Love is the dynamic side of delight, and as such intrinsic to existence and pervasive throughout the universe. In humans, however, it tends to be corrupted by ego, ignorance and other leftovers from our evolutionary past.

11. consciousness, thoughts and feelings

 
mainstream physicalism — Thoughts and feelings are looked at as physical processes taking place in our nervous system.
 
exclusive spirituality — Humans have the illusion they think and feel when (in their ignorance) they identify with thoughts and feelings, which may well have their own existence, independent of any individual human being who hosts or expresses them
 
integral spirituality — Same as Exclusive Spirituality.

12. consciousness as power — II

 
mainstream physicalism — Consciousness is only awareness. In the field of Consciousness Studies one would say, consciousness is epiphenomenal, that is, it is not causally active.
 
exclusive spirituality — The human consciousness is habituated to being enslaved to the workings of the nervous system, but it can liberate itself and become free.
 
integral spirituality — The human consciousness is habituated to being enslaved to the workings of the nervous system, but it can liberate itself and then become both free and active.

13. consciousness and the individual

 
mainstream physicalism — Consciousness is located in the individual.
 
exclusive spirituality — In the ignorance, consciousness is the individual; ultimately is it is only the Transcendent.
 
integral spirituality — Consciousness is the essence of the individual, the cosmos and the Transcendent.

14. consciousness and the brain

 
mainstream physicalism — Consciousness is dependent on a working nervous system. As such it has to belong to a living human being (or other animal).
 
exclusive spirituality — Consciousness as such is not dependent on a working nervous system. As long as it is ignorant, the individual, human consciousness identifies with the workings of a nervous system.
 
integral spirituality — Same as Exclusive Spirituality, except that ones' consciousness cannot only free itself from its physical embodiment, but can also become its master.

15. types of consciousness

 
mainstream physicalism — The ordinary, mental awareness of ourselves and our surrounding is the norm. The few states recognized as different from the ordinary waking state, such as dream, sleep, coma, trance, and altered states, tend to be considered as less than the ordinary waking state.
 
exclusive spirituality — Consciousness is pure awareness: no types, no content, no movement. Any intrusion of content is ultimately a sign of ignorance.
 
integral spirituality — There are many different ways of being conscious. Some of them could be considered less than our ordinary waking state, some richer in terms of beauty, truth, love, and power, or a more integral identification with the Divine.

16. intentionality

 
mainstream physicalism — Intentionality and the distinction between subject and object are considered defining characteristics of consciousness and mind.
 
exclusive spirituality — Intentionality belongs to the mind. Consciousness has no intentionality; it simply is. (The idea that consciousness has intentionality is due to the error of confusing consciousness with the mind.)
 
integral spirituality — Intentionality and the distinction between subject and object are considered typical of the ordinary mental consciousness, but are absent in higher ways of being conscious.

17. the subliminal

 
mainstream physicalism — The physical and mental processes of which we are not aware are classified as preconscious or as unconscious. Preconscious processes are being explored by cognitive psychology in laboratory experiments. Some dark corners of the unconscious are studied by depth-psychology through free-association, dream-analysis and sometimes hypnosis.
 
exclusive spirituality — One strives to arrive at pure consciousness. The subtle worlds are as irrelevant as the physical world. According to Sāṁkhya all mental processes are by themselves unconscious; they appear conscious when lighted up by consciousness.
 
integral spirituality — The physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual processes of which we are normally not aware can be called subliminal in the sense of being subconscious or superconscious to us, but they are not unconscious in themselves. Through the various processes of yoga, one can get access not only to darker and lesser types of consciousness but also to higher forms, and to whole worlds of inner light, power, beauty, knowledge, love and joy, which go far beyond anything one can even imagine in the ordinary waking state.

Numerical issues: none, one and many

18. Emptiness: the transcendent

 
mainstream physicalism — Consciousness is dependent on a working brain; so, consciousness is intrinsically limited to the individual, "skin-encapsulated".
 
exclusive spirituality — Beyond the individual and the cosmic consciousness, there is the Transcendent consciousness.
 
integral spirituality — The individual, cosmic and transcendent consciousness are seen as One and valued equally.

19. one, two and many

 
mainstream physicalism — There are many individuals, each with his/her own private and skin-encapsulated consciousness.
 
exclusive spirituality — It depends on the school. According to Advaita Vedānta, there is ultimately only One: once Ignorance is left behind, the jivātman merges and effectively disappears into the paramātman and then the Divine. Saṁkhya takes the many seriously. Some schools consider others a support (e.g. the sanga); others consider them a distracting encumbrance. For the bhaktas, there are only two: oneself and the Divine.4 For the Buddhists, none.
 
integral spirituality — Each individual has a distinct, individual Self, the jivātman, which is an eternal portion of the Divine with its own, unique, svadharma and svabhāva. There is also a single, identical Self for all, the paramātman. In levels of consciousness beyond the mind, oneness and multiplicity do not contradict; they are different aspects of the same underlying reality. To live wisely is both: to feel love and oneness.5

20. the unitary character of consciousness

 
mainstream physicalism — The unitary character of consciousness has been acknowledged as the "binding problem", the as-yet-unanswered question how a mass of parallel neurological processes gives rise to a single conscious experience.
 
exclusive spirituality — The entity that combines all the different sense-impressions and mental processes into one mental state is called the manas. In Vedānta, on a more elevated level, the unitary character of consciousness has been acknowledged as the possibility for the individual to merge back into the Divine.
 
integral spirituality — The unitary character of consciousness has been acknowledged as the essential oneness of the individual consciousness with the consciousness of the Divine (and all other beings). In states entirely beyond the mind, Oneness and diversity don't contradict each other any longer.

21. human relationships

 
mainstream physicalism — Relationships tend to be seen pragmatically in terms of their evolutionary functionality.
 
exclusive spirituality — Same as Integral Spirituality, except that in some more strictly impersonal schools, the love would be rejected as part of māyā
 
integral spirituality — As we are all part-manifestations of the same Divine consciousness, one can recognize (and love) the Divine equally in oneself, in everyone else and in everything (see also 10 and 19).

22. the other as object of psychological inquiry

 
mainstream physicalism — Classical Behaviourism: If you want to be objective, then "you … must describe the behavior of man in no other terms than those you use in describing the behavior of the ox you slaughter" (Watson, 1930). Later schools are more respectful (e.g. client-centred therapy, collaborative inquiry).
 
exclusive spirituality — There is little interest in individual differences, apart fom the different ways needed to arrive at moksha, liberation.
 
integral spirituality — Given the ideal of a triple transformation of human nature, there is a deep commitment to psychological research. By transforming one's nature into a precise and reliable inner instrument of knowledge, one can study inner realms through the sakshi, the witness consciousness, or still deeper, through vijñāna, knowledge by identity.

Consequences and implications

23. consciousness at the time of death

 
mainstream physicalism — When the body loses its ability to maintain sensorimotor contact with its surrounding, e.g. under narcosis or at the time of death, it is said that the person "is losing consciousness". In other words, the mainstream view identifies the person with the body.
 
exclusive spirituality — In the same situation, it is said that the person "withdraws from the body". In other words, the spiritual view identifies the person with the centre of his consciousness, and asserts that it can continue to exist without the body.6
 
integral spirituality — Same as Exclusive Spirituality, except for a different conceptualization of the Self.

24. the purpose and meaning of life

 
mainstream physicalism — If nature is an unconscious machine, evolving through brute laws of chance, then pursuing one's own (or one's group's) desires, survival, fitness and ability to procreate, even at the cost of others, is the most appropriate natural expression of the laws of nature, while qualities like truth, love, and beauty are secondary and worth pursuing at most for pragmatic, commercial or hedonistic purposes
 
exclusive spirituality — Given the sense of absolute Truth and infinite Bliss that arises in pure consciousness, ascetic withdrawal from nature is the only thing that makes sense.
 
integral spirituality — If nature is gradually evolving towards an ever more perfect and complete manifestation of consciousness, truth, love, and beauty, then our individual aspiration for them is the natural expression of nature's own will.

25. the aim of life

 
mainstream physicalism — If our ordinary waking consciousness is the only way of being fully conscious, then striving for anything higher is an error.
 
exclusive spirituality — If pure consciousness is the only thing real, then withdrawing from activity is the best thing to do and all other human pursuits are vain.
 
integral spirituality — If there are ranges of consciousness beyond our ordinary state, then pursuing them is the most sensible thing to do. All events in one’s life, good, bad or indifferent, are then occasions for growth, and there are no limits to the heights of joy, light, love, power, and right action one can develop.

26. the future

 
mainstream physicalism — If each centre of consciousness is intrinsically locked up in a separate brain and dependent on its survival, then people are intrinsically separate from nature and from each other, and doomed to an unending battle for resources.
 
exclusive spirituality — If consciousness is the only thing real and permanent, then striving not to be reborn is the right thing to do, whether individually (as in most schools of Exclusive Spirituality) or collectively (as in Mahayana Buddhism).
 
integral spirituality — If consciousness is ultimately one, and quite independent of the body-minds with which individual portions of it temporarily and ignorantly identify, then people are intrinsically and intimately one with each other, one with nature and one with the Divine. Love and cooperation are then the natural outflow of the underlying unity, and nature's own striving after truth, love and beauty will inevitably prevail in the end.

overall evaluation

27. contributions to our theoretical understanding

 
mainstream physicalism — The physicalist approach simplified the development of an incomparable, ever-growing amount of theoretical and practical knowledge about the physical side of reality.
 
exclusive spirituality — The exclusive spiritual traditions have produced an incomparable knowledge base on the highest ranges of spiritual development.
 
integral spirituality — The integral view has provided a detailed description of the entire territory between the highest peaks of spiritual realization and the lowest depths of our ordinary human psychology as well as of the processes required for a radical transformation of life.

28 can it provide a comprehensive framework for the whole of reality?

 
mainstream physicalism — It is too limited to form a good theoretical foundation for psychology or life in general.
 
exclusive spirituality — It is too limited to form a good theoretical foundation for psychology or life in general.
 
integral spirituality — It provides one single frame-work wide and deep enough to incorporate the physical, social and spiritual realities as seen by science as well as by the various existing spiritual traditions.

29. future role in society

 
mainstream physicalism — It is likely to continue to play a diagnostic role in emergency medicine, and in providing practical techniques for psychological and physical health and well-being.
 
exclusive spirituality — It is likely to continue to provide useful techniques both, for "ordinary" mental health and well-being, and for specialised forms of spiritual development.
 
integral spirituality — It can provide the theoretical framework as well as the technology of consciousness to effect an — at present almost inconceivably radical — triple transformation of our individual and collective existence.

30. prospects for research

 
mainstream physicalism — Future, more refined physiological research of the brain may help create a bridge between physical science and applied spirituality.
 
exclusive spirituality — Future research may help to get a better understanding of pure consciousness.
 
integral spirituality — The integral approach may provide both the theoretical framework and the psychological know-how required to take every aspect of psychology further and reintegrate spirituality with our public life.

 

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Endnotes