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progress is not a vertical
lift-ride to the `roof' of enlightenment. It also
has a circular dimension, so that overall it is a
`spiral-like progression'. One passes again and
again through a similar series of challenges and
experiences, but each time on a more sublime
level.
I described the three trainings of ethics,
meditation, and wisdom as a broad division of the
whole of higher evolution into three segments.
Using the spiral image, however, Lama Govinda
shows that one can regard the path as passing
through the three trainings several times, `in
which the same elements reappear on each higher
stage in greater intensity'. He gives three to
four turns to his spiral, but one can discern
more and more turns if one focuses down to the
streaming succession of mental states flickering
past faster than the frames on a film.
Here, ethics, meditation, and wisdom merge into
the states of consciousness that these practices
correspond to. Each choice of a constructive
action (deed, word, or thought -- ethics)
produces a more positive state of mind
(meditation). In this state, experience can be
appreciated a little more clearly and deeply
(wisdom). A more adequate view of the world leads
to a clearer insight into how best to behave, and
if one chooses (ethics) to follow this insight,
the spiral starts another turn, a little higher
this time. One is making use of the progressive
or spiral form of conditionality described in the
last chapter. The sequence is easy enough to
describe, but it is far from easy to achieve.
The spiral way of progressing can be seen in a
rudimentary form in lower evolution as well as
higher. Like human beings, lower organisms
normally follow a circular path of habitual
responses to repeated situations. But
occasionally a new factor is somehow introduced,
such as the behavioural innovations discussed in
chapter 4, and an evolutionary advance results.
The biologist Robert Reid describes evolution as
a spiral, or `irregular gyre' in his excellent
survey, Evolutionary Theory: The Unfinished
Synthesis. He says that there is a sort of
vertical jump as new qualities emerge, and then
the species goes around in a cycle in which it
takes advantage of and adapts to the new
situation, specialising to its new ecological
niches. In its scope, however, each cycle, Reid
asserts, is progressively more adaptable than the
last.
(Continued on
page 22)
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