Nondual Consciousness and its Significance for Eco-Philosophy and Eco-Theology: Toward a Deepening Aesthetic Consciousness and Ethic

Abstract

<p>This thesis explores philosophical ideas associated with a profound nondual state of consciousness, as a form of metanoia that is a potential for all human beings.</p> <p>We argue that this is an innate human faculty, available to religious and nonreligious individuals alike, and although this idea has usually been associated with Eastern traditions, we show how it has its own grounding in Western philosophy and theology, although it must, being a nondual consciousness, have a nature independent of any East-West binary.</p> <p>We offer a foundation for this hypothesis that draws on Western strands of aesthetics and ethics. Then, we consider how the influence of Socrates and Platonism, and the nondual teachings of Jesus, inspired the early theologians to engage with deep consciousness in their efforts to understand how humans relate to both God and Nature.</p> <p>With this background in place we explore Deep Ecology’s fresh focus on deep consciousness through Naess’s self-realisation and Mathews’ panpsychism, Lynch’s peak aesthetic approach and Rowe’s ecospheric mode. The interconnected threads of aesthetics, ethics and values cast light on deep nondual consciousness itself, suggesting a model by which humans might return to an immersive engagement with Earth and life through a deep aesthetic, contemplative approach grounded in a metanoia, an experiential shift in perspective.</p>