Best Read of the Summer

Yes, I'm aware it is no longer officially summer, but it was warm enough this afternoon to sit on my deck and read - so I'm still counting it that way. In that light, let me share with you a quote from the best read I've had in a while - from "A Brief History of Everything" by Ken Wilber. I'd encourage anyone to pick up this book. A fascinating philosophical approach to a unified theory of the Kosmos (spelling correct). Anyway, here is a very provocative quote from p38:

(Speaking of the fact that self transcendence and creativity is woven into the very fabric of the universe), Religious creationists have seized upon the increasingly obvious truth that the traditional scientific explanation does not work very well. Creativity, not chance builds a Kosmos. But it does not follow that you can then equate creativity with your favorite and particular God. It does not follow that into this void you can postulate a God with all the specific characteristics that make you happy - God is a the God of only the Jews, or only the Hindus, or only the indigenous peoples, and God is watching over me, and is kind, and just, and merciful, and so on. We have to be very careful about these types of limited and anthropomorphic characteristics, which is one of the reasons I prefer "Emptiness" as a term for Spirit, because it means unbounded or unqualifiable.

But the fundamentalists, the "creationists", seize upon these vacancies in the scientific hotel to pack the conference with their delegates. The see the opening - creativity is an absolute - and they equate that absolute with their mythic god, and they stuff this god with all the characteristics that promote their own egoic inclinations, starting with the fact that if you don't believe in this particular god, you fry in hell forever, which is not exactly a generous view of Spirit. So it is a good idea to start simply, I think, and be very careful. There is a spiritual opening in the Kosmos. Let us be careful how we fill it.