METAREALITY: the so-called spiritual turn
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“MetaReality aims to be maximally inclusive,
aspiring to develop an outlook that will appeal
to those of no faith and all faiths.”
Bhaskar, Enlightened Common Sense, p. 159
Why the "so-called" spiritual turn?
One of Bhaskar's main motivations to develop metaReality was: "to increase the cultural resources of emancipatory movements". He wanted to "identify and remedy" the conceptual absences that had played a part in the failure of previous emancipatory projects - and it was clear to him that spirituality was a precondition for emancipation. He had also had a spiritual experience in 1994. MetaReality provides an outlook that is “maximally inclusive” – it potentially appeals to everyone and therefore many atheists as well as those of faith are comfortable with its central tenets.
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Why "so-called"?
Bhaskar sometimes referred to his spiritual turn as "so-called" because he felt that his philosophy had always been spiritual. We can see this tendency towards spirituality in Bhaskar's drive "to overcome dualism, alienation, and split in practice as well as theory”. Note that atheists can also see the virtue of overcoming such splits, and that, as such, this position is compatible with many atheists' beliefs. It is also why Bhaskar was confident that his metaReality could appeal to people of faith and people of no faith.
Books dealing with metaReality
From "East to West", published in 2000, presented a position that Bhaskar described as transcendental dialectical critical realism. It represented the first exploratory phase of the spiritual turn. This was followed by a second phase, represented by the philosophy of metaReality. This was outlined in three books published in 2002: ‘Reflections on MetaReality’, ‘From Science to Emancipation’ and ‘The Philosophy of MetaReality’.
Objectives of metaReality
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To promote critical religious literacy, understanding and tolerance.
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To challenge the taboo on talking about the spiritual which left religion with a near monopoly on the topic, thus articulating a spirituality that would not be hostage to institutionalised religion.
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To critique much actually existing religiosity and its organisational forms, since “Religion includes much that is false in its teaching and, as a social institution, much that is oppressive and exploitative, mired in the wider context of master–slave-type social relations”.
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To promote the idea that it is only when human beings can both see themselves - and act as - a contingently emergent part of the cosmic totality, in no way split off from it, that we can achieve universal flourishing. That is, we need to overcome dualisms and alienation.
The philosophy of metaReality
MetaReality sees spirituality as ubiquitous and as necessary for everyday life. It seeks to underlabour for religion – it not against religion at all. However, it differentiates between spirituality and religion, holding that, whilst the two are connected by a notion of the absolute, the former is essentially concerned with transcendence (of dualism and oppositionality), the latter with the transcendent (what lies beyond human experience or comprehension or existence).
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MetaReality and Non-duality
A key concept in Metareality is that of non-dualism (Bhaskar 2002, p. 70-1):
"1. It’s necessary for any social interaction or any human agency;
2. It underpins everything else that exists or happens; and
3. In a non-dual moment—if we just focus on this (and this is really extraordinary)—in that non-dual moment you have—for a second, and in an aspect—a flash of the experience of enlightenment. In fact, in that flash—that flash of eternity—you’re enlightened and in resonance with your ground-state, which has always been, and has never not been, enlightened; that divine you in which you wish to embed, recursively embed, your embodied personality, so that in this life, in this world (the only one we know), you’re free, as an embodied personality (and not just in your ground-state). You’re free to enjoy and fight in the relative field of existence as an enlightened being."
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For Bhaskar, once we realize that we are essentially non-dual beings, we also realize that we no longer need gurus or priests to achieve self-realization. The extraordinary thing is that non-duality is always part of everything we do and everything we think. This does not mean that political parties or religions or other social organisations are not important, it just means that there is something more basic, which is part of everyday life, and which is a fundamental part of our being.
How does Bhaskar differ from some versions of religion?
We can answer this question from both the stand point of ontology and the standpoint of epistemology:
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From the standpoint of realist ontology, Bhaskar perhaps only differs from some religious beliefs in that he thinks that nothing transcends the cosmos, that is, he thinks that there is nothing beyond the cosmos; nevertheless he is not against the idea that there are transcendent things (in fact, his realism provides an ontology for the transcendent – that which is not empirical) and he uses the concept of transcendence to overcome dualisms
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From the standpoint of relativist epistemology, the only religious position that Bhaskar differs from is absolutism (fundamentalism) or the notion that "my way is the only way and yours is definitely wrong", which he refers to as "uniquism".
That is, Bhaskar's concept of spirituality, like the rest of his philosophy, is ontologically realist and epistemologically relativist.
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A key concept in metaReality: The cosmic envelope
Although metaReality accepts the religious ideas of the immanence of the divine and the actuality of enlightenment, it replaces the religious concept of God with the secular concept of the cosmic envelope. Some might see the cosmic envelope as another name for the connectedness of all beings, perhaps related to concepts in ecology. Others might see this as another name for God.
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(See Bhaskar, R. 2016. Enlightened Common Sense. London: Routledge, Chapter 7, pp.144-176.)
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