Institute for Real God Comparative Spirituality COMP102: Three Views of Reality and Human Potential

OVERVIEW: Taken together, all the great wisdom traditions around the world and throughout history offer a wide variety of views on (and experiences of ) the nature of the Greater Reality and human potential in the context of the Greater Reality. In this course, we make sense of and compare the differing views. We place particular emphasis on the views of materialism, esoteric spirituality, and exoteric religion.

• Materialism, the view that what you see (or hear, or touch, or taste, or smell) is what you get (or all that is real), is seen to have many limitations, including its tendency to insist on reducing everything to its own materialistic terms; and its inability to adequately account for human consciousness and hence, human death.
  
  
• Esoteric spirituality deepens human potential by acknowledging the Greater Reality, and providing the means for experientially embracing It. We briefly touch on four different dimensions of the greater Reality — psycho-physical, Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine. Follow-up courses (COMP201 - COMP203) will elaborate upon these dimensions, their Realization, and the means for Realizing them.
  
  
• Exoteric religion is understood to derive from an originally esoteric source (such as a great Spiritual Master or a shaman). The practitioner of a legitimate exoteric religion — one that is still in touch with its esoteric roots — engages disciplines aimed at bringing him or her to full human maturity, in preparation for taking up the esoteric practices of his or her tradition. When an exoteric religion loses touch with its esoteric roots (e.g., by being “re-shaped” for the sake of political and social survival), it can devolve into an illegitimate exoteric religion that may be socially and politically influential, but is spiritually bankrupt.
  

REQUIRED READINGS:

• Chris Tong, Ph.D., Three Views of Reality and Human Potential, The Practical Spirituality Press, 2001.

• Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, Perennial, 2001.
• Andrew Newburgh, M.D., Eugene D'Aquili, Ph.D., and Vince Rause, Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, Ballantine Books, 2002.
• Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, HarperCollins, 1990.
• Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Vintage Books, 1989.
• Avatar Adi Da Samraj, The Seven Stages of Life, The Dawn Horse Press, 2000.