Basic informations to
the "Three Steps into Oneness"
Introduction into the Holistic Spirituality*
We want to approach the main issues of Holistic Spirituality and the book "Three Steps into Oneness" by first getting an intellectual understanding of it (see below). But as you may want to know more after beginning to read and get further into the book, you may find yourself also invited to enter a meditative, mystical, and experiential view on awakening that is outside of a purely intellectual understanding. Most of us have had some access to this non-dual state at some point in our lives, even if it was fleeting. The idea here is that a meditative or contemplative practice gives us a more reliable, sustainable, and steady access to the experience of awakening, something utterly beyond a mental map of it. To get meaningful answers towards the questions of “Who am I?” and “What’s the purpose of my life?” we need to make our way into both: the relative world we live in and the absolute world where we originally came from.
The Ground
The basic mystical view is:
There are two levels or worlds
that belong together similar to how a bird can only fly with two wings.
The RELATIVE The ABSOLUTE
the material world we life in the immaterial world we life in
To elaborate Spirituality
We are being called to elaborate on and deepen our understanding of
an insight into the world's spiritual traditions.
We must practice and live as members of the modern world, with all of the powerful traditional and modern insights we’ve gained into the Relative - relative wisdom. And we must integrate this knowledge into the timeless essence of the Absolute, as practiced by many ancient wisdom traditions.
We are invited to perform this "updating" through the "Three Steps into ONENESS" of Holistic Spirituality*, a new view of awakening that includes Indigenous, traditional, and modern wisdom.
The two Dimensions
of the Relative
The horizontal dimension - blue arrows -
refers to our everyday, commonplace, relative reality, in which we can only discern superficial structures. On the horizontal dimension, our daily lives take place - we sleep, go to work, eat, exercise, clean our teeth, and so on. But on this dimension we are also bound in limits such as the Buddhist "Three poisons": greed/attachement, hatred/aversion and delusion/ignorance. The horizontal dimension manifests itself as the four cardinal directions and are represented by the four blue arrows on the image.
The vertical dimension - red and white arrow -
is the spiritual dimension, where there are two fundamental sources of truth and wisdom - the Relative and the Absolute. The white arrow pointing upwards to the heavens connects us to absolute wisdom, whilst the red arrow indicating downwards links us to the earth and its relative wisdom. Reaching towards the vertical dimension, we discover how to break through and balance the above mentioned "Three Poisons" by recognized, integrated and lived wisdom.
*** So on the level of the Relative we have both - the horizontal dimension, which most people recognize simply as „the world“ - and relative wisdom as part of the vertical dimension.
The three steps of Holistic Spirituality*:
Step 1
is all about balancing the minor polarities within the relative, horizontal dimension and to discover
relative wisdom
as a part of the vertical dimension within it
By experiencing both qualities of the
minor polarities, i.e.
- Hot <-> Cold
- Dark <-> Bright
- Humanly altered <-> original nature
- Traditional <-> modern spirituality
- Male <-> female emancipation
- Old age <-> elderhood
- etc.
... some of us have the chance to uncover relative truth and wisdom.
Example for Step 1 - out of "Elderhood and Old Age are not the same thing" (Book page 85 ff.):
"Looking at this issue we can see a listing, one-sided, unbalanced polarity within the relative Western world of today — the one between old age and elderhood — hollowing out, cutting off our societies from essential roots and important sources of relative wisdom. The same unhealthy powers that put Indigenous people all around the world into the position of being not accepted and honored as potential root-cultures — we have been illuminating some chapters before — is consequently and logically not honoring elderhood as well.“
Step 2
Is about consciously balance the major polarity by bringing together
relative and Absolute wisdom
means to bring the balanced horizontal dimension (step 1) into balance within the entire vertical dimension.
Examples for balancing major polarity, where relative and Absolute wisdom connect are:
- Awakend, profound science <-> mystical experience
- altruistic skillful methods <-> space of wisdom
- Mindfulness <-> deep meditation
- Religious rituals <-> mystical space
- the combined use of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual items of the Vajra (method) & Bell (wisdom)
Example for Step 2 - out of "An Oscillating Pendulum" (book p.105):
„A pendulum swings always, because there are multiple impacts — on behalf of the two dimensions of the Relative and the Absolute in our lives, every day, all along our life-span — that keep it moving. The movement varies in the width of the spike, but it is always moving as long as we live. With the width of its spike we get into the polarities in various depth, informing us about the qualities of the relative and the absolute world and their wisdom. When we try to negate one pole of these two aspects of the major polarity, then as human beings there is no development, no growth, no deep life possible and the pendulum is „dead“, rests static in the middle.“
Step 3
To talk about the unspeakable for some of us there might be the experience of
ONENESS
as a stable undescribable state of unified wisdom beyond all dimensions
Inspirational examples for states of Oneness:
- Melting the balanced minor and major polarities into a giant space of unborn and unceasing ONE-NESS
- Experience Ultimate Unity as a state of slow flowing
- Being suddenly blessed by Enlightenment
- From the Ground we practise our spiritual Path and finally reach Fruition (Tibetan Buddhism, Dzogchen) in ONE-NESS
- etc.
Example for Step 3 - out of "Contemplation on Balancing the Scale" (Book p.131)
„We can also contemplate on ONENESS by visualizing a scale getting balanced. It is no static state, when the scale balances. It is a soft or sometimes fierce movement the two poles of the scale perform. Normally, working with the two wisdoms, studied and learned about within step one and two, these wisdoms — relative and absolute wisdom — balance naturally and quickly when we use this picture as balancing the scale between them. There, at the middle point, the scale is almost still, but when watching it up close never completely without any movement. We can see a very gentle, almost invisible swinging, representing the simultaneous peace, complete relaxation and silence of the space together, simultaneous with the presence, a vital, mirror-reflected creativity and appearance that characterize ONENESS.“
To read, to experience, meditate and contemplate the full taste of Holistic Spirituality*, you may want to read the book "Three Steps into Oneness".
E-Book - Softcover - Hardcover