More on metaphysical instincts

Following up on this post and its predecessor, more from Shirazi:

"The various levels of the unconscious (lower, middle, higher in Assagioli, or inconscient, subconscient, and superconscient in Sri Aurobindo) are in actuality not neatly divided and compartmentalized. They are in fact a ‘mixed bag’ of tendencies beyond the reach of the conscious, egoic will" (111).

Earlier he noted that the higher unconscious has its origins in involution, consistent with Aurobindo's (and Wilber's) metaphysics. In my view the reason the levels are mixed is due to my ruminations in this thread, sans the metaphysical involution. Hence the reason he sees both as forms of 'instinct' but only because they are both unconscious. My theory is that the lower unconscious is transformed into the higher unconscious via the conscious, and not that the higher involutionary unconscious does the work from an a priori realm.


Now he is right that some traditional methods bypass the body due to this literally metaphysical premise. But while we must integrate both the higher and lower unconscious for him there is still the same metaphysical basis at root. Where I differ is that we create the higher unconscious; it is not an a prior given we discover or that guides us on its own. And again, his metaphysics of presence taints the project with a firm belief in "making the instinctual processes of both the higher and the lower unconscious fully conscious" (112). This misses entirely the embodied and immanent withdrawn we've explored at depth elsewhere that is not just unconscious but never becomes conscious, at least not anywhere near in entirety. Even though it too is immanent and conditioned and not in the least metaphysically absolute, transcendent or eternal, it is virtually limitless in possible actualities.