Ken Wilber, It's no fun having dinner alone

Pathways [magazine]: Why does Spirit bother to manifest at all, especially when that manifestation is necessarily painful and requires that It become amnesiac to Its true identity? Why does God incarnate?

Ken Wilber: Oh, I see you're starting with the easy questions. Well, I'll give you a few theoretical answers that have been offered over the years, and then I'll give you my personal experience, such as it is.

I have actually asked this same question of several spiritual teachers, and one of them gave a quick, classic answer:"It's no fun having dinner alone."

That's sort of flip or flippant, I suppose, but the more you think about it, the more it starts to make sense. What if, just for the fun of it, we pretend -- you and I -- blasphemously pretend, just fo a moment -- that we are Spirit, that Tat Tvam Asi? Why would you, if you were God Almighty, why would you manifest a world? A world that, as you say, is necessarily one of separation and turmoil and pain? Why would you, as the One, ever give rise to the Many?

Pathways: It's no fund having dinner alone?

Ken Wilber: Doesn't that start to make sense? Here you are, the One and Only, the Alone and the Infinite. What are you going to do next? You bathe in your own glory for all eternity, you bask in your own delight for ages upon ages, and then what? Sooner or later, you might decide that it would be fun -- just fun -- to pretend that you were not you. I mean, what else are you going to do? What else can you do?

Pathways: Manifest a world.

Ken Wilber: Don't you think? But then it starts to get interesting. When I was a child, I used to try to play checkers with myself. You ever tried that?

Pathways: Yes, I remember doing something like that.

Ken Wilber: Does it work?

Pathways: Not exactly, because I always knew what my "opponent's" move was going to be. I was playing both sides, so I couldn't "surprise" myself. I always knew what I was going to do on both sides, so it wasn't much of a game. You need somebody "else" to play the game.

Ken Wilber: Yes, exactly, that's the problem. You need an "other." So if you are the only Being in all existence, and you want to play -- you want to play any sort of game -- you have to take the role of the other, and then forget that you are playing both sides. Otherwise the game is no fun, as you say. You have to pretend you are the other player with such conviction that you forget that you are playing all the roles. If you don't forget, then you've got no game, it's just no fun.

....
Pathways Magazine interview reprinted in Ken Wilber's The Simple Feeling of Being.

Comments

[Tom Armstrong]

I LOVE Ken Wilber.

Reminds me of Hegel:

Everything that from eternity has happened in heaven and earth, the life of God and all the deeds of time simply are the struggles for Spirit to know itself, to make itself objective to itself, to find itself, be for itself, and finally unite itself to itself, it is alienated and divided, but only so as to be able thus to find itself and return to itself. Only in this manner does Spirit attain its freedom, for that is free which is not connected with or dependent on another.

[me]

Throughout certain Jewish thought there is this concept of God needing his creation either to allow God to experience the world or to help God finish what he started(tikkun olam). I also (vaguely) remember a hasidic tale that talks about God's creation being done solely for His amusement.

It always gave me this mental picture of God being a lonely child playing with his blocks. He creates things then sits there watching to see what will happen. Sometimes, if he's bored, he will add or subtract from the creation. Sometimes, like most children, he becomes distracted and picks up another toy.

[mahala]

Wonderful quote, Tom. I'm sure I came across Hegel in my college philosophy class, but never read anything of his. Makes me think I should start.

Me (or is it M.E.?) My family is Jewish, but I never learned any of this stuff. I sometimes wonder if I had heard the stories and the mysticism I would have stayed Jewish. Maybe not though. I'm a Buddhist at heart and clearly have a karmic connection to the teachers and teachings.

[me]

It's just "me"

Although I consider myself "Jewish," I feel a strong connection with Buddhism. There is an attraction that I cannot deny.

Namaste

[Richard]

What about just saying, "I don't know" as to rather than assuming anything about a 'creator' "playing" roles. I think humans like to think they can understand everything. Some things are a mystery.

[mahala]

Thanks for sharing your viewpoint, Richard. For me, these kind of discussions don't put the mystery into some neat, knowable package. They expand my wonder at being alive and conscious.