Postmodernism and other complicated words

As rational thought and logic come to the fore in Stage 4, lots of interesting advances in technology and other areas of study come into being. As we are seeing today, there is an explosion of both positive developments and negative ones which threaten to destroy everything. Religion, which is seen by Stage 4 people as an annoying and deadly relic of the past, tries to make a few last gasps at preserving itself, and the rational Stage 4 opponents fight to crush it even more.

It is almost like there are two arcs of spirituality dueling there. There is a pre-personal arc, or magic/mythic arc, where people maintain that reality is some concrete magical existence run by mythical beings. Then, there is a rational arc, or personal arc, which sees reality as a concrete physical existence grounded in logic and reason. The media absolutely loves this shit too. The "conservatives" fight to advance their magic/mythic arc, while the "liberals" fight for their logical one. Then occasionally they throw in the New Age nutcases who are basically Stage 2'ers masquerading as something that is neither.

In all that fray, the third arc is completely lost, and as Stage 5 emerges, people start to find it. The third arc of human spiritual/psychological development begins with Stage 5, and in this part of the developmental path you start seeing Reality as grounded in a timeless eternal nondual reality. The mythology of the early stages seems silly and literal, while the rationality of Stage 4 seems empty and without meaning. In fact, I can remember clearly what the boundary between Stage 4 and Stage 5 feels like: all physical things are a crock, and nonduality is perfect already, so what's the point of anything?

Stage 5 often contains folks that claim to be "spiritual but not religious", and that is a phrase that typifies this stage. Dogma no longer makes sense, and rationality is not quite enough. However, some of the ideas in the dogma of the lower stages, like being a productive member of society and taking care of your family while getting along with others, are extremely useful for a happy life. Moreover, the level-headedness of the rational stages is useful for solving problems without violence and destruction. In that regard, the lower stages are transcended and included in Stage 5.

In another way of looking at it, Stage 5 starts to regard most religious practices as valid means of developing. The stage includes them all. In Stage 5, Reality is very BIG. It is so large, in fact, that it cannot be encompassed with a single faith, and people in Stage 5 start to wonder whether all faiths are simply looking at the same thing from a different angle, but getting wrapped up in the emotional garbage.

Reb Zalman Schacter once gave the analogy of the "Circle of Truth". Reality is a circle. For most of human history, we've known about a 5-degree arc on that circle. The rest of Reality was unknown to us. Over time, people and religions have explored more of Reality and uncovered more of the circle, and right now in our history, we are getting past that 180-degree arc point, so we are beginning to see points on the circle that are directly opposite to each other but BOTH true. "This is True... but.... this opposite is also True." One of my senseis, who was probably quoting another Buddhist somewhere was fond of telling me "Everything and its opposite is True, Josh."

In Stage 5, logic is only part of the pie. Your capacity for understanding Reality reaches beyond logic and dogma, and you are able to experience the truth of opposites.