7.1.3 What are the primary points of similarity between Implicate Technology and the existing Eastern models of reality?

Implicate Technology is a Western-originated model of reality, reflecting the experiences, and adapted to the needs, of everyday Western life. The language of Implicate Technology largely comprises words used in ordinary life. There are, however, three exceptions – three Sanskrit terms imported from Eastern implicate technology systems and used freely in Implicate Technology.

This sparse use of the rich and fruitful language of the Eastern implicate technologies is deliberate. Implicate Technology is not a hybrid of various Eastern systems, relying for its authority on the ancient authority of the venerable Eastern technologies. Rather, Implicate Technology is a spontaneous evolution of Western spiritual understanding, relying for its authority on the depth of spiritual experience it provides for those who practise its meditative techniques.

We in the West are subject to a form of spiritual imperialism, which is the analogue of the commercial imperialism through which the West still exploits and ransacks the East. Sensing the failure of the currently available Western religious and spiritual systems, many in the West have adopted wholeheartedly the methods and beliefs of Eastern systems. This transportation of the spiritual products of one culture to another is rarely harmonious or successful.

The East has sensed this deep need in the West, and we have seen an influx of representatives of Eastern models of reality seeking to persuade us of the value of their systems. Aware of the authority and accuracy of the various systems they represent, they come to the West in genuine humility to try to bring us the benefits of spiritual civilisation. Quite unconsciously they also condescend to us, as they treat us like the spiritually backward peoples we actually are.

Much thoughtfulness, consideration and caution is necessary when attempts are made to introduce products of implicate or explicate technologies from a culture developed in the use of these products into a culture unused to and unprepared for them. Just as the villager in a less developed part of India has no application for cheap mass-produced personal computers, so, too, the average spiritually impoverished Western city-dweller has no appetite for highly sophisticated meditative systems. Economically impoverished and subject to disease from unsanitary conditions, the Indian villager needs a clean fresh supply of water, a simple reliable means of producing cheap electricity and an understanding of basic health care and nutrition. Spiritually impoverished and subject to disease from an environment polluted by ignorance of the organic unity of reality, the Western city-dweller needs pure and simple meditative exercises to deal with Western experiences and perceptions of reality.

Without a sense of equality and shared responsibility, cultures simply exploit and damage each other as they barter the products of implicate and explicate technologies. The poorly paid worker in the East spends relatively large amounts of money on useless products of Western explicate technology such as heavily advertised, manufactured, soft drinks, instead of consuming the traditional, cheaper and more nutritious local alternatives. The spiritually ignorant Westerner, desperate for fulfilment and meaning in life, has a tendency to become absorbed into wholly inappropriate Eastern-based spiritual systems, resulting in much unhappiness both to the seeker and to his or her family and friends, from whom there can soon be estrangement.

If such destructive imbalances in cultural trading patterns are to be effectively dealt with, we need to develop ways to discuss, analyse and understand the interactions between the various dominant models of reality. Such a politics of transcendence requires a basic understanding of the elements and practices common to all fully developed models of reality. With a knowledge and understanding of the roots common to all implicate technologies, it becomes possible to recognise and respect cultural differences on the basis of a shared sense of fundamental equality.

Implicate Technology imports only three fundamental Sanskrit terms from Eastern models of reality – karma, yoga and samadhi. A term for the fundamental implicate law known as karma, for the practical implicate disciplines known collectively as yoga, and for the state of undistracted alertness known as samadhi, in which the implicate nature of reality is consciously and continuously experienced, must exist in any fully developed model of reality. Implicate Technology uses the ancient and well suited language of Sanskrit for these terms in order to emphasise the common ground between this Western model of reality and the older Eastern paths to understanding the spiritual truths underlying material reality.