Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum

Anyone here looked at D.S. Barron's ideas regarding "Theohumanity"?

http://enhearten.org/project%5FTheohumanity/

Bit of a different map here, but interesting. I'd be interested in feedback, both positive and negative.

Hi Haquan,

Careful there with copyrighted words. It's "Theohumanity©"! There may be good reasons for coining a new word and then claiming very tight control over it, with "certified facilitators" to facilitate it... Theohumanity? Anthroposophy reloaded? Hmmm. Three bodies, eh?

So this is my initial impression: slap new words on some of Steiner's ideas, control the vocabulary, build a sales force.

Scratching a few monolayers deeper, this seems to be solidly on the "True Self" side of the spectrum. While completely neutral itself, combined with the commercial / tight control overtones, this readily fits certain prejudices I hold.

So what is it all about? "Enheartenment, a newly defined state of the summit of human spiritual maturity beyond enlightenment that has been heretofore unattainable".

Big claims. Here's how it works: "Theohumanity demystifies the state of enlightenment and shows why Nondual-enlightened teachers who inappropriately elevate enlightenment to the overly significant spiritual proportions they do have so little to offer others in terms of real change"

I can't help myself, but this seems to be along the lines: "The unrealistic models of enlightenment, such as the limited emotional range model, really aren't unrealistic, it's just that they aren't about *enlightenment* but about *enheartenment*". How they become less unrealistic by changing the name didn't become clear to me from my admittedly limited reading.

Wow, this turned into a rant! To mellow up things, I'll say this is just my first impression, and I'm eager to see more balanced reactions.

Cheers,
Florian

Hehe... I love rants.

I ran across this stuff when I was browsing through some of the Adavaita literature online last night. I tend to be drawn to anything iconoclastic, and I like Steiner's ideas, particularly his treatment of the chakras, but there's definitely a few things about this guy's tone that arouses my suspicions. i read one review that said that he systematically disses EVERY other guru and spiritual system (along with the fairly negative stuff about Western psychotherapy, which is an extremely broad well intentioned field if misguided in places).

In particular, is his depiction of vipassana meditation accurate, in the "Sage" section? http://enhearten.org/enheartenment/sagehood/meditative.html He claims to have achieved non-dual enlightenment in the Zen tradition - and then moved "beyond" it.

It's difficult to see how he can be so critical of a non-dual perspective, and then incorporate it as a major facet of his schema - and then how do you incorporate non-duality as a facet of something else? That seems, well, dual. In this case, triadic I suppose. As much as I schemas based on three things, this seems a bit inconsistent - maybe it's three things which is one thing, which is three things, which is one thing....