Connecting to the pulse of freedom the work-ins of metaReality and Integral Life Practice

www.alethic-coaching.org
Gary Hawke

Connecting to the Pulse of Freedom: The
Work-ins of metaReality and Integral
Life Practice.

Creating a metaPractice of
Transformation and Emancipation.
Gary Hawke
Cri5cal Realism Reading Group
London 2015

Overview

•  Back ground on Dramatherapy in rela5onship to Cri5cal Realism
•  Integral Life Prac5ce
•  A view of Prac5ce
•  The Work ins of metaReality
•  Using metaReality and Integral Theory

The Therapeu5cs Encounter or the
research of the interior

The four dramaturgists that inﬂuence
dramatherapy and how their work might relate
to Cri5cal Realism.

The ques5on, then, for the theater, is to create a
metaphysics of speech, gesture, and expression, in
order to rescue it from its servitude to psychology
and "human interest." But all this can be of no use
unless behind such an eﬀort there is some kind of
real metaphysical inclina5on, an appeal to certain
unhabitual ideas, which by their very nature
cannot be limited or even formally depicted.
These ideas which touch on Crea5on, Becoming,
and Chaos, are all of a cosmic order and furnish a
primary no5on of a domain from which the
theater is now en5rely alien.
Artaud A 1958: pp 90, The Theatre and Its Double, Grove Press, Inc.
Antonin Artaud

Jerzy Grotowski
…the ques5on is: what do you want to do with
your life; and so – do you want to hide, or to
reveal yourself? There is a word which, in many
languages, has a double meaning: the word
discover/ uncover. To discover oneself means
to ﬁnd oneself, at the same 5me uncover what
has been covered: to unveil. If we want to
discover ourselves […], we have to uncover
ourselves (unveil, reveal ourselves). “Find out –
unveil”. There is something excep5onally
precise about this double meaning.
(Cited in) Schiecher R 2013: pp 219 The Grotowski Sourcebook, London, Routledge

Hegel asserted that the character is free, that is, that
the inner movements of his soul must always be
capable of being exteriorised, without hindrance. But
to be free did not mean that the character could be
capricious and do whatever he wished: freedom is
the consciousness of ethical necessity. He must not,
however, exercise his freedom with regard to the
purely accidental or episodical but only regarding
situa5ons and values common to all mankind or to
na5onality – eternal powers, moral truths such as
love, ﬁ lial love, patrio5sm, etc.
Boal A 2008: pp 63, Theatre of the Oppressed, London, Pluto Press
Augusto Boal

hip://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/interview-director-peter-brook
“We have to stage the visible,
and through it, show the
invisible.”

Peter Brook

The Dramatherapy Interven5ons
Ritual
Drama Games
Puppets
Performance Myth
Constella8on

Let us begin with Integral Life Prac5ce

“ILP integrates our basic human
aspira=ons. ILP does not view the
impulse to grow (to become all that
you can be) as if it is separate from the
impulse to contribute (to make a
diﬀerence, to be of service to others
and our world.) We cannot live a fully
self-actualized life without making
contribu=ons to others and our world.
We cannot make our fullest
contribu=ons to others and our world
without growing and waking up and
actualizing our poten=als” (Terry Paien 2009)
Paien T, What is Integral Life Prac5ce? hip://www.integralspiritualprac5ce.com

“The universal star5ng point for ILP is the 4 Core Modules. That’s because they
relate to four primary dimensions of your individual being: body, mind, spirit, and
shadow. They don’t require anything or anyone else but you. So you can, if you
wish, work on them by yourself. If you consistently engage prac5ces in each of
these four areas, you’ll empower and turbocharge your overall development.”

Excerpt From: “Integral Life Prac5ce: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emo5onal Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual
Awakening.” p 61

Nonexclusion - guides us in accep5ng the valid truth claims of each
prac5ce but only insofar as they make statements about the existence of their
own axiology, and not when they make statements about the existence of
phenomena enacted by other prac5ces.

Enfoldment - suggests that all prac5ces are in themselves true and
adequate; but some prac5ces can be more encompassing, more inclusive,
more holis5c than others.

Enactment - suggests that one prac5ce will bring forth a par5cular set
of experiences and, accordingly, one prac5ce does not give “the correct
prac5ce” and therefore it cannot be used as if it did, in order to negate,
cri5cize, or exclude other experiences brought forth by other prac5ces.
Integral Life Prac5ce makes use of Integral Theories Integral
Methodological Pluralism

Suppose one dis5nguishes:

prac5ce1 , as the transforma5ve
capacity analy5c to the concept of
agency, or that when we prac5ce we
are increasing our rela5onship to an
intrinsic aspect within our dialec5c of
the desire for freedom.

prac5ce2 is prac5ce as a structure of
domina5on, exploita5on,
subjuga5on and control, in which I
see my prac5ce as the only thing that
can bring me freedom, leading to
freedom not as a transforma5ve
capacity but something that is given
to me.
The Two Version of
Prac5ce

And moving on to The Philosophy
of metaReality

“Meta-reality presupposes that accessing the ground
state iden5ﬁes the transcendental real self, which is
our domain of non-duality where our ‘capacity for the
right ac5on’ can be achieved (Bhaskar 2002b: 38).
However, the ground state is usually obscured by a
combina5on of our ego and our complex embodied
personality, which are the product of our
contemporary social sepngs.”
Haji-Abdi. A 2014 pp 182 (iBook) “Cri5cal Realism, Somalia and the Diaspora Community, Routledge.
The shedding of the contradic5on of the ego allows for a greater
expression of the transcendental real self.

Or to uses Roy’s words
We can, must and will be re-united, as embodied
personali5es, with our transcendentally real selves
which are our ground-states and our self-
aliena5on terminated.
Bhaskar, R 2012: pp 39 The Philosophy of MetaReality: Crea5vity, Love and Freedom Routledge

Bhaskar, R 2012: pp 280 The Philosophy of MetaReality: Crea5vity, Love and Freedom Routledge
When we understand reality as
not just cons5tuted by four-
planar social being, but as
cons5tuted by n-dimensionally
generalised four-planar social
being, that is all these planes
understood as incorpora5ng
also an emo5onal, mental and
in principle intervening and
further levels, ul5mately
grounded by the cosmic
envelope, then we see the full scale of the task of self-realisa5on or
freedom for any and therefore all human beings.

The aim of prac5ce1 is to absent the conﬂict and contrac5on at the demi real or
the world of dualism, crea5ng a self reﬂec5vely consola5on at the actual or dual
world, and allow a re-enchantment of the meta Real at the level of the non dual.

“… tradi=onal forms of Non-Dualism are, in actuality, founded in the eﬀorts to exclude
condi=onally manifest reality and (therefore) seclude oneself in the Bliss of contempla=ng
the Transcendental “Self”. Thus, such tradi=onal forms of Non Dualism are “non-dual”
only by virtue of excluding or inten=onally ignoring the condi=onal aspects of reality. Such
tradi=onal forms of Non-dualism are, in fact, s=ll “built” on an essen=ally dualis=c
concep=on of existence – a concep=on that pits “self” against “not-self” and aOempts to
resolve resul=ng conﬂict by focusing en=rely on the “inner world“ of the self and exclude
involvement in the “outer” world of “not-self”.” (Adi Da Samraj: The Aletheon 2009, pp 2070n5)
As we prac5ce we need to be mindful of
escaping into the bliss of the non dual as an
escape from the dualis5c world of
contrac5ons. However the more we express
our desire for freedom through prac5ce, the
more we are able to create a deeper rela5on
to the four planar of the constella5on of the
world of dualism and embody a re-enchanted
reality as the non dual.

Of course the mutual entailment of inner and outer implied by the theory of co-
presence means that whenever we are working on ourselves, we are not only
immediately working on the world (obviously insofar as we are part of the world)
but working on that aspect of being which is enfolded within all other like beings
too. In this perspec8ve from the theory of co-presence there is actually no such
thing as solitary or individual ac8on. We are always, even in our most private
moments, aﬀec8ng (or poten8ally, that is tenden8onally) a momentous change in
the world. We are never alone when we are all one. When we are whole, that is
free, then we are at one with the cosmic totality. (Roy Bhaskar 2012 pp 152 n25)
Bhaskar, R 2012 The Philosophy of MetaReality: Crea5vity, Love and Freedom Routledge
Prac5ce1 is a process in
which we work on
ourselves, the world,
and all beings.

1)  Concentra8on, single-pointedness,
mindfulness and the power of
aIen8on.
2)  Exercises in the mo8lity and
universality of consciousness.
Exercises in iden8ty consciousness,
transcendental iden8ﬁca8on and co-
presence.
3)  The crea8ve power of thought,
including visualisa8ons.
4)  Koans and ways of subver8ng the
egoic mind.
5)  Prac8cing watchfulness; just
observing.
6)  Witnessing. (Bhaskar R 2012 pp 174)
And to support the
process of self realisa8on
the philosophy of
metaReality oﬀers a set
of prac8ces that just as
we work out in the gym
we can work in the
realism of the non dual.
Bhaskar, R 2012 The Philosophy of MetaReality: Crea5vity, Love and Freedom Routledge
“…I see the whole process of
self-realiza=on and
emancipa=on as necessarily
coming from within.” Bhaskar, R and
Hartwig, M. 2012. Beyond East and West. In: Harwig,
M. and Morgan, J ed. Cri5cal Realism and Spirituality,
Routledage, pp. 221.
1
2
3

1M - Begins with the moment of calling to prac5ce as a desire or will to become free.
Our prac5ce as being in movement
2E - Moving to the crea5on of our prac5ce, or exploring the edge of working toward the
lepng go of that which holds back our freedom.
3L – With love we bind ourselves to the totality of a new level of being as our prac5ce
begins to open up a deeper rela5onship to freedom.
4D – As our prac5ce deepens we become a transforma5ve agent, and express freedom as
the domain of right ac5on.
5A – Awakening to the understanding that to be fully free means that we have to expand
out inten5on for freedom to all, and that our being free is a condi5on of the freedom of all.
This allows out prac5ce to become a prac5ce of spiritual emancipa5on.
6R – With freedom as our emancipatory prac5ce for all, we able see reality as re-
enchanted.
7Z – Our prac5ce now bring us to our ground state as we express freedom as the zone of
the non dual.

Bringing together
Integral life prac5ce
oﬀers a ﬂexible frame
work in which to set our
prac5ce.
The Philosophy of
metaReality provides
the levels of being
that we want to
prac5ce in.

Connecting to the pulse of freedom the work-ins of metaReality and Integral Life Practice

Dic5onary of Cri5cal Realism - taken for the entry on Agency

Bhaskar, R 2012: pp 309/310 The Philosophy of MetaReality: Crea5vity, Love and Freedom Routledge
“Ul5mately to be a reflexive being you must be able to adopt
the first-person standpoint for every being in crea5on, that is
to say you must overcome every egocentricity, every binary
opposi5onality within and between yourself, your class, your
caste, your occupa5on and the rest of the world, and you must
overcome the binary opposi5on between god and yourself or
the rest of the world. So the ideal of reflexivity is something to
be striven for in prac5ce and not just theory.”

Why is prac5ce important if we want to understand
how someone encounters , experiences and
embodied their world.

Emancipa8on can be seen as a trialec8c of being, in which we
create a new perspec8ve, which leads to a new ac8on, which
leads to a new being.

Integral Life Prac8ce aims to develop and expand the legi8macy
and authen8city of the agent’s perspec8ve, through
developmental growth.

Cri8cal Realism exposes the importance of maintaining
noniden8ty and absence as an exposi8on of the unblocking of
oblivion, leading to the agent as an open totality expressing their
causal inten8onality as right ac8on on all aspects of 4 planar
social being.

And through Philosophy of metaReality’s Workins, the agent is
able to begin the process of re-enchantment of the world as
iden8ty over diﬀerence from the inside out, as their pulse of
freedom.

Where next
If it is embodied inten5onality which
earths social life, (Bhaskar 2008 p164)
then prac5ce is the process in which we
work towards the right ac5on of an
emancipatory inten5on for freedom at
of the 4 planar social being.
Bhaskar, R, 2008 Dialec5c: The Pulse of Freedom Routledge

Chris Smith 2010 pp 18
Conclusion
Humans are profoundly ﬁnite creatures, in both
body and mind. The tensions arising between
human capaci5es and human limits—between
the vastly capable and severely ﬁnite in human
life—give rise through emergence to crea5ve
paierns of lived prac5ce that oten solidify into
what we call social structures.
Smith C (2010) What is a Person, The University of Chicago Press

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