Jared B. Hobbs

Jnana Yoga: The Path to God Through Knowledge

Jared Hobbs — Sun, 15 May 2011 17:47:51 +0000

In Hinduism there is considered to be four fundamental spiritual personality types. For each there is prescribed a specific yoga. The ultimate goal of each is the mystic union with Brahma, with each representing a direct but distinct path to God. This is performed by preliminarily ridding oneself of destructive action and cultivating positive habits. [...]

On the Limitations of Worldly Achievement

Jared Hobbs — Wed, 04 May 2011 03:43:39 +0000

Throughout the internal progression towards maturity and wholeness, man first seeks pleasure. In this pursuit a growing person will recognize the vanity of the aesthetic life, of responding to impulses, instant gratification, and the basic rules of morality often broken in obtaining this pleasure. Hedonism is a valid aim of life, if checked by dignity, [...]

Enlightenment as a Lessening of Endarkenment

Jared Hobbs — Mon, 02 May 2011 02:07:51 +0000

Naive practitioners tend to believe, upon attaining enlightenment, that a person obtains knowledge of all there is to know. This is a misunderstanding of enlightenment, for enlightenment is not an apprehension of the entirety of existence, but a shedding of notions and ideas that leads one closer to the understanding that one ultimately knows nothing. [...]

The Exotic Theme of Entities

Jared Hobbs — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 02:08:00 +0000

In a series of lectures named the “Trialogues,” three acclaimed fringe thinkers shared views on a large variety of topics. In one of these discussions Ralph Abraham, chaos mathematician; Rupert Sheldrake, biologist and originator of the theory of morphogenetic fields; and Terrence McKenna, shamanologist and ethnopharmocologist joined in a engaging conversation on the subject of [...]

The Four Functions of Mythology

Jared Hobbs — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:19:18 +0000

Mythology is an interesting mode of communication that has been with mankind since before ordinary spoken language. Ordinary language employs aural and visual symbols as pointers to the experiential reality shared by its users. Mythology is a non-ordinary language of analogy, symbol, and metaphor pointing not to objective reality but to an invisible realm of [...]

The Purpose of Human Suffering: Wisdom and Compassion

Jared Hobbs — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 01:37:04 +0000

There are as many approaches to solving the problem of suffering as there are societies and cultures. Western attempts, such as the philosophy of theodicy, seek to rationalize the supposed attributes of God while accepting the realities of evil and suffering. It has also been argued that suffering is not a thing in itself but [...]

The Cross Sections of Higher Spacial Dimensions

Jared Hobbs — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 05:05:42 +0000

Whether by the fault of our limited mechanisms of perception or by some spacio-temporal parameter of this universe, in consensus reality for most highly functioning human beings it is accepted that there are three spacial dimensions to reality and one of time. As expounded in the philosophical discoveries of geometry, space as we perceive is [...]

Scrupulosity: Negative Religious Obsession

Jared Hobbs — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:37:32 +0000

Scrupulosity is a term derived from the Latin scrupulum, referring to a sharp stone. This is a stabbing stone on the sensitive and overactive conscience of the spiritual striver who battlles with negative religious obsession. These obsessions can impact the internal experience of a person so severely as to interfere with daily life and religious [...]

Traversing the Kardashev Scale

Jared Hobbs — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:57:35 +0000

In 1964, the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev established the Kardashev Scale, a system for rating the technological advancement of a civilization based on its usable energy consumption. The ability to transmute energy into a workable force is directly correlated to space colonization and having charge of the laws of the physical universe. This mastery increases [...]

The Evolutionary Crisis: Spiritual Emergence as Emergency

Jared Hobbs — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:07:21 +0000

The evolutionary crisis involves rapid personal development in the form of expedited consciousness growth. Usually termed a spiritual emergence, the sudden acceleration can quickly progress from emergence into a spiritual emergency. A spiritual emergence refers to a relatively slow process of personal awakening into stages transcending normal ego functioning. This expansion entails greater emotional, psychological, [...]

Karma and Dharma as Fierce Grace

Jared Hobbs — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 01:01:26 +0000

As a spiritual practictioner becomes more refined and perceptive, an interesting experience emerges. It is not externally verifiable, but it is not an internal experience. It requires an encompassing awareness of one’s own biographical history and psychological consequences thereof. The practictioner is acted upon through the combined efforts of the universal mediums of karma and [...]

Holarchy, the Nested Hierarchy of Holons

Jared Hobbs — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 08:50:20 +0000

Arthur Koestler coined the terms “holon” and “holarchy” in 1967 in his book The Ghost in the Machine. Most recently these words have been repopularized by the philosopher Ken Wilber. The word holon is a neuter form of the Greek “holos,” meaning “whole.” Holon refers to an entity or concept which is simultaneously a whole, [...]

The Masks of the Beloved

Jared Hobbs — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:37:49 +0000

In popular culture, Halloween is an occasion for indulgence in fear and shadow. Children and adults alike don the face and thus persona of another oftentimes more fantastical being. The word “persona” is of Greek origin, meaning literally “mask.” As the populous pretends for one night that they are other than they are it is [...]