As a fan of his previous book, The Passion of the Western Mind, this book was a big disappointment. How can anyone in the 21st century write a book about cosmos and psyche and take almost no account of the vast knowledge systems of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, yogas and meditation practices, especially working in the Centre for Integral Studies? Although Depth Psychology drew on theosophy, theosophy is based on a very simplistic and distorted understanding of the full depths of Buddhist and Hindu philosophical insights into the relationship with psyche and cosmos. Western modes of thinking and practice can no longer claim for themselves universalist truths. Just as Buddhist mindscience is having to encounter and take account of modern science, so western ways of understanding the meta narratives of human culture must now address the deep and profound insights encoded in Eastern thought. For example, any contemporary writer in this area of intellectual exploration must surely take account of the Buddhist tradition where the understanding of the inseparable union of 'emptiness' and 'inner luminosity' and the relationships between the inner and outer cosmos enacted in Buddhist tantra profoundly challenge western scientific materialism and attempts at the post modern transcendence of its limitations.
