Hi,

This is my first posting and having read several of Ken's books (having just finished Integral spirituality) I have a question about his writings on AQAL. When he writes about the different quadrants and zones, from what quadrant or zone is he viewing these from? To me it appears to be LL quadrant, which is perhaps postmodernist? Not sure.

This interests me in regard to spiritual development and going beyond what he calls the LLF. Would it not depend upon which quadrant you are viewing things from (with his analogy of climbing a mountain and having different views)?

Is there a place which sits outside the quadrants from which you can gain a view and what would that view look like?

Regards

Mark  

 

hi mark,

good questions! the answer, for now, has to be that we don't know and won't be capable of really understanding unless, and until, we reach a much better kosmic address than we're presently at. of course, we can have opinions and that's what i've just expressed. the challenge for us, i feel, is to include as much as we can of what he has laid out for us. the critiques i've seen of 'integral spirituality' fail at some point to do this, imo.

continuing with my limited opinions, certainly the realization of nonduality cannot be found within the quadrants, since they and aqal have the finite kosmos as referent.

still, that you could ask these questions in an open way is, to me, admirable.

ralph

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Ralph,

Thank you for that, I can see that in Ken's work, as I get the feeling that he gets mostly there, but not to a final point, and yes perhaps it is about being in a place which is actually outside of the quadrants, where we are be able to see it all.

I guess your response poses a question for me - is there something beyond nondual or even the kosmos. Who is "looking" at the kosmos?

Mark

I believe i've heard Wilber say many different times, something along the lines of: AQAL is a strictly right-quadrant system (it's an intellectual/objective map). However, what makes AQAL especially unique is that within that intellectual map it demands that one go beyond the intellect and into subjectivity and intersubjectivity to really grok it.

My impression is that there is no escaping the four quadrants, or, better said, there is no escaping the territory that they represent. The four quadrants are not actually real, they are a cognitive representation of something real (I am defining "real" here as something that can be located in time-space.) As human beings, we define ourselves by our limits, in this case those limits being our very neurology and biological make-up. It is our neurology itself that creates the boundaries that allow us to ask these questions. If we did not have these limitations, the argument would be irrelevant, there would be no questions because there would be no reference point.

Life is an Adventure!!

Just my thoughts, at the moment, anyways:)

-egg

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"Like the legendary Ko-ko bird, we follow our own tail around in ever-narrowing circles, but unlike that mythic bird we never complete the process by flying up our own rectums and disappearing."
-Robert Anton Wilson

I would agree with egg.  Although the map we see published, along with the explantion of each quadrant, is right quadrant (IT), the full understanding of the map requires that one travels through each quadrant, and confirm the experience described by Wilber and others from within that quadrant.

Sort of like getting a guidebook of Paris, reading it, familiarizing oneself with the landmarks, museums, restaurants, and description of the peole and key phrases in French gives you a vague understanding of what Paris is like.  But to fully understand what Paris is like, take a plane to Paris, and confirm each chapter by actually seeing the places mentioned, talking to the people who live there, eat their food, and so on. Only then do you get the full picture.

Wilber has often described himself humbly as a mapmaker but has encourage each of us to follow his map as a guide only.

Storch