Big Mind As Empty & Full And Evolving

Big Mind (God, Existence) can be said to have two aspects: emptiness and fullness, or formlessness and form.

In its emptiness and formless aspect, it is beyond change and no change. It is empty of any characteristics. It is beyond time and no time. It is that in which time and space arises.

In its fullness and form aspect, it is always new and different, and - as far as we can tell - always evolving into increased complexity.

When Big Mind awakens to itself, through a human being, it awakens to itself as a whole beyond and including these two aspects of form and formlessness. The formless is beyond change and no change. But the form aspect - in our case this manifest universe - is always changing and evolving, always manifesting itself in increased complexity.

So what is shared by all awakenings is that it includes emptiness and fullness, the formless and form - in whatever way and whatever level of complexity this form is expressed at the time.

What is not shared by all awakenings is exactly this level of complexity in the world of form. A thousand years ago, it looked different from what it does today for us humans. We have evolved, in terms of culture and individual development, from that time. And a thousands years from now, the same will be the case.

So this means that although the "ultimate truth" - of Big Mind being beyond and inclusive of emptiness and fullness - may not change, the particulars of how it is expressed, in words and life, will and do.

And this is of course what the various strands of developmental psychology is looking at, including Spiral Dynamics. A couple of thousand years ago, our collective developmental phase of law & rules was the leading edge (blue), while today it is the early second tier levels.

The historical Buddha, and other founders of the current great spiritual traditions, lived in a very different situation from what we do today. They had a quite different raw material to work with, in terms of where they and the rest of society were at in terms of this development.

Spirituality then and now - although sharing the basic "perennial truths" - then naturally looks quite different. Today, we have a quite different raw material to work with in terms of what levels of developmental complexity are currently unfolding.