Terry Patten – Beyond Awakening
Omtimes: You coined the term “Meta-Sangha”. What does this mean and how does it relate to “collective awakening”?
Terry: I coined the term Meta-Sangha because I felt there needed to be a term that captured both a profound devotion to your own path and a recognition of the authenticity and profundity of another’s devotion to their path. Many of today’s aspirants circulate in an ecosystem of many schools and teachers and that is a kind of Meta-Sangha. Meta is a Greek prefix that essentially means “about.” So the term Meta-Sangha, like so many terms in spirituality, has an exoteric meaning that includes everybody. This is the larger sangha of all the people who have a progressive spiritual practice that is rationally informed and has an open heart and a synthetic intelligence.
Then there is the esoteric Meta-Sangha. When someone’s practice has reached a certain level of recognition, and they are alive to spirit and to reality and to their own responsibility at a high level, there is a certain glint in their eye. And when two such people recognize each other, they recognize that they participate in a sangha that has no walls.
This is the beginning of a cultural transformation and the creation of a more awake human culture. Sometimes people imagine that there might be an almost magical collective awakening and that there will be a time in our history in which many of us will simply arrive at a higher consciousness. I don’t think we can look to anything quite so magical.
However, we are awakening. Culture is evolving and consciousness is evolving in us as individuals. And this esoteric Meta-Sangha is the beginning of a collective awakening that I think ultimately may have profound cultural significance.
