You guys have some great posts and I love hearing different opinions so keep'em coming. First of all thanks Tim for your concern but I am not too detached (definitely not Enlightened!) but I am quite Free from  heavy concern and seriousness in a very healthy way that has been good for my well-being and has been good  in a small way for my family and friends as well for because of it our relationships have gotten better and easier. I recall Ken describing the different tiers by comparing it to a person (let's say you :) ) climbing a mountain (the following is my take on it).

First tier is you climbing the mountain believing in it, blinded by it, suffering  because of it, getting your ass kicked by it  but with some good days, good weeks, good years, and good times......  but this is SAMSARA and it Sucks. There is Maya (illusion) disease death ignorance embarassment pain and worst of all Attachment to these things, and Identity with these things. Second tier is making it all the way up the mountain and standing on the edge of the cliff, Third Tier is plunging off the mountain   into Absolute Freedom from the mountain. So to break it down into stages I say 1st-tier would be 100% of your Being is lost in Samsara, 2nd-tier is when half of your Being is Free (climbed and on top the mountain staring into the Abyss) and the other half is still in Samsara (feet planted on the mountain) and 3rd-Tier is nearing 100% of your Identity being Free from Samsara.

Now you ask what do I benefit from saying I think I am Integral? Good question, it's personal with me because since I was 16 I was reading mystics and many years I tried to understand them and be like them so being Integral has been and amazing step along the journey. It is just my passion to be into this stuff and passion was something missing from most of my early childhood environment.  The reason I said it like such an ass is because the person who started the post was  making a big deal about me referring to Obama as Teal or  anyone as any stage it reminded me of how limited my thinking was on these issues  years ago and how serious I took the colors and how rigid my mind was at understanding them. So I feel what your saying in how so many people can mess up what Integral means especially the tricky stages. To me you have to be INTEGRAL to understand INTEGRAL and I don't mean cognitively but in your "core" self identity your core values. When you approach politics philosophy relationships self-image and  when you walk and talk and breathe and sneeze you should be INTEGRAL. Biased thinking? You Bet. INTEGRAL is just simply better.

First the I will talk colors then Wyatt.  I am not one to say you are or are not Integral but sorry I just don't think you get it. What happens when you make that leap to 2nd-tier and look at the world through colors and stages you naturally see them in fluid cloud-like ways. When I say you are teal or she is mythic jon is red ken is indigo Cowan is mythic-turquoise(just kiddin with ya on that one) I am not pigeonholing them or limiting them at all but "centering" them in my mind about how they think operate and behave. Obama to me is Yellow/Teal but I don't think he is 100% all the time and will always govern in a second-tier way but from my perspective he is quite Yellow. Go read Audacity of Hope and you'll see why I see that. To me a 2nd-tier life is just not living so "heavily" anymore and I am a male so it is expressed in a more masculine way for me so Freedom is a word I use alot, but there is still ambition and love and nostalgia and fear and hope in my life but a radical experience happened to me where half of me is just fuckin free and lovin it. Maybe since I meditate as well as try to understand Integral thinking my interpretation is a little different.

Now on to Wyatt and my boy Ken Wilber. I was a little boy lost in flatland and nihiilsim coupled with loneliness and depression. My thoughts and my philosophy were my life and it was coming to an end but with nowhere to go because my green interpretation was all I can see. Then came along the bald boy wonder and his crazy Integral view of the Kosmos. It gave me a philosophy a world view with structure and a sense of purpose for the world. He spent his life trying to see what came after Postmodernism and he discovered it as well as helped create and push it forward.

I read Wilber for years and did not really get what he was saying until many years later when it was just my time to grow I guess. I feel I understand Ken maybe in ways not many others do and I'll tell you why. I was always disappointed with him in his writings because he always had a 1st and 3rd person-perspective of God in his writings and being a westerner who longed for God in the Judeo-Christian sense I never knew why until I learned of his illness and Treya. When you spend years of your life trying to learn Love and get others to Love and do good things with yourself while so much of the world is not and you get struck by Samsara you get spiteful. Especially when what hits you makes no sense and there is no end or cure in sight. Now I don't have any serious disease but it's  serious enough to ruin many areas of my life for the past year and the rest of my life and scare the shit out of my family and I  especially when the health care and economic system works against you. A word to the wise, you want to grow? get sick. Your little view of God as daddy with perfect plan for your ego will go to shit and you'll start to wake up and begin the real work. You'll learn why you should either chase Freedom or die.

I hated Wyatt Earpy at first until I got it. I was mad that Ken was telling critics to suck his dick especially now when there is so much buzz around him with people like Gore and Clinton pushing his name, but guess what? they should suck his dick and mine too if they're still thirsty. Before Wyatt Earpy I read some of the criticisms on the WORLDOFKENWILBER.COM site and my initial reponse was ''wow these guys have shadow problems and are soooooo green " They are so penis envy of Ken and stupid enough to think he was wasting his time going against the MGM instead of the neo-conservatives in the white house. Obviously not being  smart like Ken to know that the MGM is why the neo-cons were able to rise to power in modern America and wreck our country because the MGM destroyed Americans values of purpose and sense of something higher than ourselves which caused Americans to not care about the government and the ways of the world. The MGM left us careless and let these people run wild, MGM is the true enemy.

  Wyatt Earpy was about 2 things: recognizing our shadows and our green limits. And all the anger and disappointment that arose during your reading of the blog was what was supposed to happen to make sure that we know Integral is not about knowing the intricasies of SD or AQAL but is taking ONE STEP CLOSER TO SPIRIT. By the way Don Beck gets red in the face when you criticise Spiral Dynamics as not being the only true line as well as Chris Cowan doing nothin to further INTEGRAL but simply just teaching what Clare Graves taught decades ago.  Ken is a generalizer which is why he is criticised the most but that is his job and the details in your own field is up to you.

So what did we learn? The MGM sucks Samsara sucks, dick sucking sucks, you can't know INTEGRAL until you are INTEGRAL, stages are the biggest pain in the INTEGRAL ASS, INTEGRAL is not knowing how Spiral Dynamics works but is just taking one step closer to Enlightenment, the MGM ruined our country and made us  the fattest and stupidest country in the industrialised world which let the neo cons run wild, OBAMA is Teal and the greatest thing to happen to our country in decades, the critics of Ken need to stop being babies and do some ILP with us, Chris Cowan seems Mythic-Turquoise, (Ken didn't respond to Cowan because he said it was his last response to critics and also Cowan said he himself is beyond the world of Ken Wilber and was not a critic so......) if Kens critics are dehydrated they have an open invitation, ya'll need to MEDITATE ,  and I am going to go find one of those WYATT EARPY  t-shirts I saw online a while back because I am even more inspired by it now than ever as well as donate another 10 bucks to BARACK OBAMA.COM,  I owe Ken a big thanks for his work and I'll just say it kept one unimportant lost soul around a bit longer :)  and one last thing I Love you all keep pushin further and don't forget to meditate. Oh yeah INTEGRAL really isn't that important so don't take any of this too seriously or you'll give yourselves ulcers.

I told a friend of mine yesterday he was too serious of a person and he asked me if that was a bad thing, I responded with a thought.

 

 

---

Rocco

Great Post, Rocco!

Really liked the analogy about Integral and the mountain.  And you're right about wanting to know what it feels like to "get integral."  One thing is for sure, if and when one does have the unenviable experience of getting sick enough to know that the only way out is to go as deep down into your soul as you possibly can, it's the most sobering experience you'll ever have.  You'll find out but fast just how integral you really are, and just what it means to be in the Void.   Afterall, if it can be considered a blessing to find oneself in the Void, then the illness is that side of Samsara that tells you something about yourself that you would never have learned otherwise.  In a very real sense, the illness becomes like unto what Ken describes in A Brief History of Everything, Realms of the Superconscious, Part 1:

   "The idea is based on the central tantric notion, found from Sufism to Buddhism, that if you enter a lower state or even a defiled state with clear awareness, then that state will transform into its corresponding wisdom.  So if you enter passion with awareness, you will find compassion. If you enter anger with awareness, you will find clarity.  And so on."

Likewise, if you enter illness with awareness, you will find that which really matters.

Illness becomes the teacher; Samsara is Enlighenment.

---

The yoga of light and sound is really only one event. It's the frequency of their vibrations that is different.

rocco.

when i was sixteen years of age, my mother was diagnosed with melanoma, skin cancer. a few months later, just after my sophomore year of football, i was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, lymphoma. Within about sixteen months, I was cured of my disease (thank God. seriously.), after undergoing bi-weekly chemotherapy and radiation for that period. My mother passed away the day after I had my last surgery. When I was eighteen, my father, re-married for four months, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After another eighteen months, the first half devoted to a cure, the second half devoted to incredible pain control, he passed away, on January 3, 2024.

and i stood at the front of that funeral, and wept when his favorite songs were sung by the church choir (and i was "fucking" serious about it), and I smiled as they laid him to rest because I knew his pain was over; that now life moves on and life will continue to teach. Please do NOT tell me to "get sick." Been there, seen that, lived that, loved that. And as for this whole comment, "A word to the wise, you want to grow? get sick. Your little view of God as daddy with perfect plan for your ego will go to shit and you'll start to wake up and begin the real work. You'll learn why you should either chase Freedom or die," I just want to say that if Integral, Ken's Integral, has made you be so absolutely insensitive without knowing a single thing about me, then I want nothing to do with any of it.

and I want you to know that it wasn't anger or disappointment that drove me to response to the Wyatt Erp issue the way that i did. it was a simple frustration and lack of accountability. are you saying that, because someone is "integral", the standards of scholarship are negated? Because being integral isn't about SD, Ken has the right to misconstrue it's principles and act upon false premises? so he can run around touting states-stages and then tell me that none of it matters? i find it comical that you think i was truly upset over this. I know it's not about this argument. I have seen too much life and too much GOD to think any of this has anything to do with AQAL, or SD, or any of that. I don't think a man should have to explain that to someone, and I hate talking about my"self" in these ways, but since you seem to have to come out and say it, I guess I must, too.

When a man writes a book and purports it to be the new, the say-all, and does not even accurately portray the information and theories he uses, there is a problem. In my eyes, it is disingenuous. Please note that you didn't address any of the arguments that Cowan made about SD, none of the points anyone on this forum raised, either, probably because, in your mind, being integral isn't about having all the specifics right. We know that! But doesn't a reader have the right to demand authenticity from an author? If it isn't about that to Ken, then he should just stop with all of this. I find it almost comical that you comment about Beck's being red-faced because the vMeme isn't the only line (that is silly of him), or of Cowan's neglect of the "integral movement" (i can understand that...). When did I say a single thing about these issues? Please, point it out if I did.

I am glad to hear about your detachment from things and their seriousness. I was hesitant to even say anything to you about that, but let myself anyways. I would like you to know that, despite all the sickness and death I have witnessed, I, too, share in your "seriousless-ness." But I do feel like that is a wrong way to go around talking about it. My father's death was serious. The repercussions of the timing and conditions of it will reverberate throughout my entire life (how couldn't they?). But we share in what is important (certainly not semantics/word-games), and that a fundamental trust. perhaps we could say faith. Whatever the disclaimer, what allows you to stand on top of the mountain and contemplate jumping off in to freedom (this is what 2nd-tier is all about?), is faith that the fall will not be a descent, but an ascent. that our identity is with the mountain and the falling, not the "person" plunging off the edge...

your portrayal of the mountain and how it relates to 2nd- and 3rd-tier is spot on. I also could not agree more with, "we know Integral is not about knowing the intricasies of SD or AQAL but is taking ONE STEP CLOSER TO SPIRIT." AQAL doesn't have a thing to do with my daily life, neither does SD (aside from the occasionaly wondering, What is Ken up to, anyways?). As I tried to make clear in my last posts, all these things/conventions break down into arbitrary maps. Nothing to do with the territory (despite being the "most accurate maps" possible). And I think what you were saying is that an integral person is concerned with the territory, no longer concerned with the map. I could not agree with you more. But that doesn't mean we leave ourselves with a shitty, generalized, un-researched map. If anything, this will simply mislead people who "aren't integral," thus slowing down the whole process of the emerging consciousness. [And if you don't think the Wyatt Erp incident turned people away from integral...]

I would like to thank you for an odd, opening-of-eyes. I am still confused as to why (and I am really being detached here) you seem to come off as so arrogant, high-and-mighty, and uncaring. I really am not saying you are, at least not in your "real" life. But why the, "they can suck my dick, too, if they're thirsty"? Because you aren't so serious about your self-image and Who/who you are identifying with, that it doesn't "mean anything" to you? Well what if it means something to someone else? If integral means disrespect and insensitivity to "get a point across"... then what has it all come to? And what is this about all those guys having penis envy of Ken? Do you know them? Or are you guessing about their lives and their consciousnesses, just as you have guessed about mine?

"INTEGRAL is just simply better." I'm glad you feel that way. And by the way, OBAMA ALL THE WAY!

god bless,
tim


postscript: I really do owe you alot of thanks rocco. I've mentioned what I didn't understand about your response up there, maybe we can discuss these things. but I want to make clear that what you said hit a place deep in me and you deserve my dual thanks. i imagine i sounded harsh up there, but I hope we are on the same page with "seriousness." and with that said, not knowing what you and your family are going through, but guessing that it is, well, some "serious shit" (ha?), may god bless you and your loved ones, and bring to you a pervasive peace.

"if you enter passion with awareness, you will find compassion. If you enter anger with awareness, you will find clarity." almost too poignant.

---

"identity which is not convulsive ceases to exist" ---breton

Nine Ways Not to Talk about God

Oops on the systems thing.  I saw systems and immediately thought lower right quadrant.

 

However, while I'm visiting,

"The point of that comment is to make it entirely clear that "Green" and all these colors do not fundamentally exist until we conceive of them, research them, and make clear their properties as they arise in people. People are not colors!"

Isn't Wilber strongly associated with Post-metaphysical thinking?  That's what "tetra-enact" means.  That there is no pre-given world lying around and so on and so forth.

People are not anything!

Know what I mean?

I'm not offended that you call me "Jeffrey".  The only reason to use this map of  "altitude" is because it is useful.  For the most part the usefulness of it outweighs the harmfulness of it. Just like you calling me by my name.  It hurts a little bit because I don't want you to think that I'm just my name but I must admit that it seems to be a  pretty useful designation and therefore I forgive you.  In fact, I'm beginning to think that when you use the word "Jeffrey" you are not necessarily pigeon-holing me.  But if you were using it to pigeon-hole me I would feel very upset about it.  I would feel like you were being a great big jerk because you would be reducing the entire mystery and expanse of my being to a little written and/or spoken word.  You would be equating all that is me with that one designation.  That would be so barbaric, actually.  More barbaric then arrogant even. 

 

I have to go now.  I'm sorry I can't finish this post.

-Jeffrey

After reading the following article I am afraid I have to reconsider this whole colors thing.

 

what follows is a work of fiction. Think "Onion" newspaper.

 

American Philosopher Ken Wilber on his "Theory of Everything"

 

When I asked Mr. Wilber to sum up his so-called "theory of everything" he had this to say, "You know, although my system is really really complex, I guess I could sum up the whole thing in the following words- "People are colors!"  Somewhat confused by this proclamation, I asked Mr. Wilber if he could elaborate.  "Sure, If you look at the pioneering work done by Clare Graves in the realm of psychology you can see that he had a color scheme that he used to describe certain categories or stages in a person's thought processes.  Well, I changed his color blue to amber and now I have my own color scheme.  That may seem insignificant and I guess it is but what is really important is that for a long time mystics, philosophers, scientists, thinkers of all kinds assumed that what we call a "person" was a complex, dynamic, everchanging being.  That's where my new theory can shed a lot of light and clear this up this rampant misunderstanding.  In my view, which I sometimes refer to as "pigeon-holing" and I think it will become clear what that term means in a moment, I see "people" to be more like things or entities.  You see, basically a person is AT a particular stage of development on my color scheme and therefore you can refer to them as the particular color that I am using to designate which stage they are at.  As soon as you've studied these stages or "colors" enough you start to see them all over the place, so much so that you can actually know more about a person than they know about themselves just by knowing my "map" as it were.  This leads to my second main point.  What I'm calling the "map" is actually the same thing as the "territory".  This is another common misunderstanding these days. That our description of things is somehow not the "thing" itself. 

Still very confused about this news from the frothy edge of evolution I asked, "but aren't people more complex then your map allows for?"

Mr. Wilber replied, "Well, no, they're not.  You see that's just what I'm talking about. This idea of people being complex is so far flung in our society that it's really hard to grok exactly what I'm getting at.  What I'm saying is that people are colors! 

"What?"

"Listen, I'll try and make it even more simple for you.  Look at the definitions of the colors on my map.  Look at every "person" you see out there in the world.  Take whichever definition comes closest to that "person" and then see which color they are most like on my map and Whala!  You know everything there is to know about them.  For all intents and purposes they are no longer a person but a color!  Isn't that brilliant!?

 

Well, that's not the whole article but I think you see what I mean. 

-Jeffrey

Interesting...link please.

I'm not offended that you call me "Jeffrey".  The only reason to use this map of  "altitude" is because it is useful.  For the most part the usefulness of it outweighs the harmfulness of it. Just like you calling me by my name.  It hurts a little bit because I don't want you to think that I'm just my name but I must admit that it seems to be a  pretty useful designation and therefore I forgive you.  In fact, I'm beginning to think that when you use the word "Jeffrey" you are not necessarily pigeon-holing me.  But if you were using it to pigeon-hole me I would feel very upset about it.  I would feel like you were being a great big jerk because you would be reducing the entire mystery and expanse of my being to a little written and/or spoken word.  You would be equating all that is me with that one designation.  That would be so barbaric, actually.  More barbaric then arrogant even. 

Hey Jeff - thanks for the succinct and well articulated comments. I completely agree with situational/contextual values judgements on whether or not using arbitrary distinctions and labels is useful in a given situation, and I also think you have created a very clever analogy here with the name thing. It would seem silly to get angry at someone calling you "Jeffrey." - of course! Yet I observed myself and others getting very angry over no greater crime, every day at work, at home, and on these boards.

Personally I embrace the ancient-stoic perspective on these things, and so in that light i'd like to suggest that its not possible for someone to pigeon-hole another - it just seems that way. The only time you get pidgeon-holed is when you try to read into the other persons motivations for saying what they said, etc. The solution to that is to own your own mind and mind your own business - to know that trying to infer meaning in someone elses confusion is a complete waste of time because the source(s) of their own confusion in that moment are infinite, and its never actually personal. I assume there is confusion, because if they were not confused about their identity in that moment then they would be giving you a hug instead of talking shit. Even if they seem to be attacking "you" very directly, they are not really attacking "you" - they are attacking an idea they have about you in their head (and if you also identify with yourself as that idea then it hurts). Attacking the "real you" would be equivalent to attacking themselves, because aside from distinctions we make for the sake of convenience there is no sharp line between "me" and "you" - at least not in terms of physical reality. The only thing for anyone to attack is concept - and if you are identified with that concept - it always feels personal.

When I find myself fighting with someone I see that kind of thing is just living irony, like someone screaming at the top of their lungs "I'm not mad! Your the one thats mad!" or pressing someone "No, really, seriously, I don't care what anyone thinks - don't you understand that?!"

Just some off-the-cuff thoughts to add to what has already been said so well. Cheers:)

-g

---

Something does not become real by talking ABOUT it, it becomes real by being it; only then does that possibility exist in physical reality. So live your life as a being of integrity; your words and actions as one.

Jeffrey-- thanks for that article, maybe if you could find the whole link? Those comments really confuse me, too. "Take whichever definition comes closest to that "person" and then see which color they are most like on my map and Whala!  You know everything there is to know about them. For all intents and purposes they are no longer a person but a color!" What on earth has his thinking come to? Perhaps this is why it is so easy for Ken to be so disrespectful to everyone-- he has no value for them as a person, simply another little figure in the colors game. Seems delusional to me.

I can only think of Brother David Stendl-Rast and his final comments at ISC3 (or was it a video on ISC? I can't remember) where he discussed how unfathomable every human being is, how every person, whether they realize it or not, has an incredible depth and complexity they carry around everywhere with them. I guess Ken was spacing off or quietly disagreeing with Br. David that whole time. I look at my parents, or at most of the people I see generally, and find instances where they appear to be thinking through an orange lens, or thinking through a green lens, then often times small glimpses where I do see integral thinking coming from them. I could not imagine "pigeon-holing" them. And what differentiates pigeon-holing from just plain judging people? As far as Ken goes, "I changed his color blue to amber and now I have my own color scheme," that comment sounds almost childish to me.

But I do not know what to think of all this, now. Jeff, I'm sorry if you were hurt by my using your name. In the past, I too have felt odd when called by my name, or even "accepting" something with my name on it. I agree that it always feels odd, and a name doesn't say a single thing about me-- but without knowing someone, it's really all that we've got. My biggest confusion about this color thing is that I don't think you can know everything about a person just by how they think, what color they are. Isn't THAT quadrant absolutism? To ignore a person's history, their cultural upbringing, their biological health, their relationships and connections with other humans-- all to deny their very person-hood so that it is easier to "know more about them than they know about themselves"? I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't be offended by that proposition.. evidently unless he or she is "integral"....

I found this link, which seems worthwhile to throw into the mix here:

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/07/18/ken-wilber-critique-part-1/

tim

---

"identity which is not convulsive ceases to exist" ---breton

Nine Ways Not to Talk about God

Okay, now I'm confused.  I can't tell if you are being serious.   

The Ken Wilber article in my above post is something I made up.  Think of The Onion newspaper.  The positions I show Ken taking were done because I thought it would be funny since they are so much the opposite of his actual thought.  They are an extreme version of what I perceived as your "problem" with how Ken use(d)s Spiral Dynamics and by pointing out the obvious silliness of such views I was hoping you would notice how out of it someone would have to be in order to hold them.

In any case, I had a lot of fun writing it.  I made myself laugh over and over.

 

Don't you think the "article" is funny?  I'm not quitting my day job or anything but seriously...

 

-Jeffrey

well... looks as though a fast one has been pulled on me!... though I don't feel too idiotic for believing that was real and you were trying to add to the discussion... yet add to it you did.. beneficial, quite funny, good work man, really... of course, we come around... thank you...

all this and that said, Ken on the matter, "The important point is that these various waves of existence (or stages of development) are not just passing phases in the self's unfolding; they are permanently available capacities and coping strategies that can, once they have emerged, be activated under the appropriate life conditions (e.g., survival instincts can be activated in emergency situations; bonding capacities are activated in close human relationships, and so on). We can be red in one context, green in another, turquoise in yet another. Moreover, as Beck puts it, "The Spiral is messy, not symmetrical, with multiple admixtures rather than pure types. These are mosaics, meshes, and blends." from the intro to collected works, 7.

So someone tell me if my logic here is correct. green (green thinking, not a "green person") assumes that in Ken or someone else's calling someone else a color, be it green, orange, or whatever, first-tier takes that labeling to be an actual label, because green is used to combating labels on all fronts in the name of pluralism, relativitstic equality, etc. What green fails to understand is that Ken or whomever is not saying the person is the color, they are saying that that color of thinking happens to be arising in the person. it is irrelevant if that color of thinking will arise for a day or for a year in that person-- when Ken or whomever meets them again and sees a different color of thinking (perhaps the move from green to teal), they will automatically, and easily, adjust to the new level of thinking and embrace it; if he sees the same, then so-be-it, keep living integral! The reason green backlashes (and perhaps what you, Jeff, rocco, have seen in me) is because green takes the "label" to be a real ("serious") label, when in reality it is just a convention. Second-tier allows itself to use conventions because it simply makes life a bit easier, calmer. The color label is only hurtful if you take it to be a pigeon-holing label, but if you are beyond being offended by a label, then it becomes a cloudy, fluid convention, used only to further love, creativity, understanding, and ultimately push the evolution of the emergent consciousness, however that needs to happen. The "centering" that rocco talked about must take place in the confines of his own mind, and as long as it is not used to "guess at the motives" (and as was suggested, the sources of any confusion must be infinite and outside of our true selves), then the centering is also simply a convention to make our human-to-human relationships more beneficial and productive. It is only pigeon-holing when it is treated in a wrong manner (like if it is misused by red and orange to their own ends, red/orange being me-oriented vMemes), or if it is taken to be a method of offense or to marginalize groups of people (the typical green response, being commune-oriented). The point of using the colors in second-tier is to both show first-tier that they these distinctions don't have to be marginalizing, offensive, or negative in any manner, and that second-tier vision-logic can use these distinctions to help themselves to operate more efficiently, to help first-tier see that life isn't always "angry" or self-centered, to advance the cause of the Kosmos as well as possible...     (and I do want to understand this correctly.. set it straight in my mind.. so please continue the great feedback..)

i would also like to echo rocco with Ken's words, with which i agree with whole-heartedly. "The major reforms do not involve how to get a handful of boomers into second-tier, but how to feed the starving millions at the most basic waves; how to house the homeless millions at the simplest of levels; how to bring healthcare to the millions who do not possess it. An integral vision is one of the least pressing issues on the face of the planet...Nonetheless, the advantage of second-tier vision-logic awareness is that it more creatively helps with the solutions to those pressing problems. In grasping big pictures, it can help suggest more cogent solutions." The advantage of integral is its simple ability to just not get too upset with things, enter them with awareness, and to learn without being offended by getting deep into the mindful awareness of each moment. It is so comforting to see that happening here in the forum.. thanks again to all of you with responses.. so helpful i think for so many... such odd dialectical learning.. i love it..

i never had an aversion to using the colors, but felt it important for some reason to defend cowan and others who do find the colors marginalizing.. i guess it truly is just a matter of what perspective you choose to approach the issue.. I have witnessed a healthy flip-flopping on my own part with regards to this topic. and i owe it to all of you on this forum.. my deep thanks, again...

bless, tim

---

"identity which is not convulsive ceases to exist" ---breton

Nine Ways Not to Talk about God

Zneval your post was terrific, it inspired me and humbled me.  I am very sorry for your losses and your own health troubles I honest to God can't imagine going through that. Thanks for your passion. I absolutely 100%  did not want that post to sound personal, it was not directed towards you personally at all. Just to say real fast my little health problem I have is nothing but a painful nuisance and compared to what you went through I am humbled and embarassed. My best friends mother passed away last year to lung cancer and was such an  unbelievably tough time for him, watching him go through that is as close as I can come to understanding you which is not much.

It was insensitive but like I said in the post I tend to see things through a more masculine perspective which focuses on Freedom more than Love although when your Integral you experience both though one may take center stage. It also likes to make its points by being more disciplinary and tough rather than the more motherly way of walking one through it compassionately. I am like that because my whole life I was fearful and weak and let people walk all over me so I guess the penduluum swung the other way so I am enjoying a more masculine approach. I have also gone through a very feminine  phase of the 2nd person perspective view of God and I don't miss it very much. But I must say I do Love people and the world and all the Kosmos and I hope to make a positive impact  in a larger than average way some day but I am in love with this period in my life where I like to be a little more detached for once and it feels good.

I'm sorry it comes off as arrogant for I am not perfect nor do I feel I am "in the right" about things but I guess you and I just have different perspectives right now which is not just okay but good because people of different perspectives need to respect each other and see eye to eye. Speaking with passion on these things and risking not getting your point across because you sound like a dick may not be the best move but I am so sick of people in this world not having enough passion, not being pissed off enough about anything, so telling people to suck your dick is to me a clever way of showing your anger and helping the reader see how they respond to it, because if you respond with anger or major suprise or something then maybe, not definitely, but maybe you have shadow stuff to work on or you still have some Green issues if your taking the comment so seriously. Ask yourself "why am I so upset at that repsonse? Is it not professional or responsible or mature? Why does it bother me so much? " and find out if it really is that big of a deal.

 I do take life and death seriously and am not that detached like some ascetic but I can't help it because I spent years and years reading spiritual books influencing me to not take myself and life and death so seriously, which a part of me doesn't but believe you me that I very much am in my body on this earth and I do take life and death seriously which is the paradox, that we are Heaven and Earth, Masculine and Feminine, Spiritual and Earthly, Small self and Big Self. I remember being 16 and writing in my journal trying to sound like I was so smart and a Zen master saying things like I exist and do not exist, I cry and yet I am not crying, I am angry yet I am beyond my anger. Those things are true whether we are aware of  it or not because we are creations of God and human beings on this planet living our little human lives yet we are something else, we are something that our rational minds can't understand and so I am sorry Zneval for coming off arrogant for I did not mean disrespect but at this moment in time I am a little more attached to my detachement than the ground I walk upon but I'm sure you know very well  that the journey goes on and on and maybe tomorrow something will happen to a family member or freind that will change my life and I will be more attached to them than my childish Freedom and I will laugh at my current immaturity on this discussion and I will wake up to a new beginning, a newer more serious and inclusive perspective, a newer purpose that will be guided by Love. 

Thinking of  when I jumped on the spiritual journey I am reminded of Shunryu Suzuki saying that entering the spiritual path is like jumping on a moving train that you will never be able to jump off because once you do jump on it it will be a part of you for the rest of your life.  I jumped on it because I was looking for God and the Truth and so everyday I am reminded that the whole purpose is to recognize that God is forever and His Creation is not, my ego is a part of His Creation so I can try to  respect God  by recognizing that everyday. And Zneval I hope through your Love and Losses that you will find your path to God if you haven't already and  that it will bring you to a point where you will wake up every morning not painfully in search of something but already fulfilled if you don't already, and you will wake up laughing at impermanence and Samsara (all the way to the bank! Just Kiddin) while realizing just how silly and yet serious this whole thing really is. :)

I will go back and reread the Cowan page over the weekend and post some thoughts.

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Rocco

I am simply sitting here, feeling very blessed. I am thinking alot about that quote from Ken, "if you enter passion with awareness, you will find compassion. If you enter anger with awareness, you will find clarity." I think the depth of that ability, to enter every situation with awareness, being mindful of our snap reactions and how vast they can differ from the non-reactive response... it just morphs reality and your sense of self right before your very eyes. It also makes me glad to go back and read previous posts and remember how I felt then and how just responding and having to work through these ideas has really done one simple thing: freed. To remember how different you can truly feel from the time you hit "reply" to the time you hit "post."

You are too right in your concern about the lack of passion. I am still a young man in college, so I witness all-too-often people in my generation who just seem to have nothing to live for. To me, it is that life has not given them anything to fill the fundamental emptiness of all our existences, so it is subsequently filled with sex, "stuff", alcohol. And without a theory of life that doesen't extend past your own small self, how could they find any meaning, if not empty? It is so hard because as Ghandi and all the Mahatmas from all the spiritual sects say, "only you can change your own heart." But at the same time, I know that in a profound way, they are me, and that the seperation and sin that I see is intrinsically woven into my own struggle with impurity. Tolstoy says of Christianity that there was only one teacher, and that was Christ. The rest of us are bound to the engagement which is life, to live the example of a humble and loving God-man. What I am trying to say is that I've realized you can't go around trying to change people, But you can go around doing all you can to engage yourself. I am so thankful for this venue to allow us to engage ourselves in such a way; that without even knowing eachother we feel so compelled to just be honest because honesty is the only method that words. And in engaging ourselves in a passionate (and compassionante) way, others cannot help but be sucked in to the truth of Spirit, the reality of God. It is a train you cannot get off. My life's hope is to simply engage people with the Spirit, however I can,  best as I know how, because I know that once one's head has been turned towards God in a Truthful way, then God rides with them/us on that train, conducting it as only S/he knows how. I owe so much to Ken for simply letting me know it's okay to honor tradition, that there is such a thing as trans-rational thinking, that we aren't crazy or bi-polar or losing our minds. We are just realizing Big Mind, so to speak, the One Mind from which all our knowledge and faith in knowing stem. So thankful..

It is God who allows us to ask those questions like, 'why am I so mad?' and answer them with simple awareness of ourselves. Then, it is less a matter of finding an answer, but of erasing the question. I think that is a good metaphor for this whole path we're all traveling together; so many questions, heavy heavy questions, and yet faith erases the questioning and it becomes a simple and silent knowing. As you say, "The whole purpose is to recognize that God is forever and His Creation is not, my ego is a part of His Creation so I can try to  respect God  by recognizing that everyday." Please don't be sorry for what you've said at all. It's brought us both here, hasnt it? You came off as arrogant because I could not see where the words were coming from and was personally hurt, but knew that I had no reason to be hurt whatsoever and that was the confusing part that awareness had to iron out for me. Know that it was always obvious that you did not intend hurt.. that I felt hurt because I had to.. felt hurt because we are suppose to not hurt.. felt the Samsara so we could see the Samsara.. .asked the question just so I could let it go... And I was about to apologize for some things I said above that were admittedly dramatic, but shit man.. you know what I've got to say about the heaviness... haha...

Well, we have a bit of a hermenutic going here now, eh? Thank you for your vision of, belief in, and living through Freedom and for letting the passion through. God is so committed to us. All we've got to do is stay committed to awareness and we have His blessing to live and love. so God bless you, and peace. I would also like to tell you something you probably already know... to just trust your sense of Freedom and to always be cognizant of the God who gives you the Freedom, to always approach it with awareness. I will say that much as Freedom and Fullness are interwoven, they still both make very different demands of our own souls, and make their demands known at different times and in different ways. Thankfully, awareness will always lead us to the river..

Tim

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"identity which is not convulsive ceases to exist" ---breton

Nine Ways Not to Talk about God

Your post was right on. Because of this forum and conversation I think we've grown, and correct me if I 'm wrong but I think that's a good thing.

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Rocco

To respond directly, James, on why certain people are describing Obama as coming from 2nd Tier:

I share with the intitial poster the feeling that he has an integral intuition.  He's obviously not using AQAL explicitly, and many of his policies seem to come straight from traditional green-liberal playbooks.  That said, he talks openly about the internal quadrants (from his personal spiritual sense to the role of culture in education), he seems, in my opinion to recognize that truth can come from any perspective (witness his recent comments speaking semi-favorably of Reagan and the last 10-15 years of the Republican party, which drew harsh criticisms of the form of "how dare you suggest Reagan and the Republicans have any value!" from Clinton and Edwards), he's been direct about recognizing the partialities of particular viewpoints (witness his speech to auto execs calling for higher fuel standards), and he's been extraordinary in recognizing the truth of criticisms against him (personal favorite: on the Daily Show, he discussed the lack-of-experience criticism and noted that people appropriately want to be confident in a candidate's judgment, and then discussed why voters can be confident in his judgment despite less national experience).  Perhaps more than that, I think a number of us resonate with his message of a way forward beyond left and right, Republican and Democrat, Red State and Blue State (see, e.g., his 2024 convention speech).  Again, I don't think he's firmly settled in second tier, but I hear a lot more of it from him than anyone else, personally.  Senator Obama certainly might lead us into an administration of traditional Democrat/Liberal policies; but everything I've heard from Clinton and Edwards tells me they definitely would.

Is there a particular reason you think he's not coming from second tier, or (more importantly) another candidate that is more so?  Also, if I may ask, is it so wrong for someone to use the "best hope for Teal" label without laying out the evidence at the outset, and to respond if and when someone disagrees?  I understand your critiques of using only labels; but at second tier, of course, we know that labels are useful while holding them lightly, correct?

And this is a summary, of course - more on Obama, Huckabee, etc. on the original thread:
http://multiplex.integralinstitute.org/Public/cs/forums/2/36919/ShowThread.aspx