Full discussion: https://integrallife.com/cancelled-the-battle-for-free-speech-in-the-integral-age/ In this thought-provoking episode, Keith Witt and Corey delve into the complex and contentious issue of cancel culture, examining its implications for free speech, academic freedom, and social cohesion. They explore why understanding the nuances of cancel culture is crucial in today’s polarized environment and how an Integral perspective can provide a holistic view that embraces complexity, encourages growth, and seeks balance. This approach helps make sense of the divisive issues at hand by considering multiple dimensions of human experience and societal structures, aiming to find pathways toward more inclusive and constructive discourse. Dr. Keith brings to the conversation a deep analysis of the psychological and cultural dynamics at play within cancel culture, emphasizing the importance of embracing dialectic engagement — a method of conversation that seeks to integrate opposing views — to foster our personal and collective evolution. He also highlights the ways in which educational and professional institutions have become battlegrounds for ideological conflict, the detrimental effects of cancel culture on academic freedom, and the necessity for individuals to embody their principles courageously. Corey, meanwhile, focuses on some of the core polarities at play in our cultural regression toward illiberalism, noting how the decentralization of information in the social media era inevitably fragments our sense of shared reality, and amplifies perspectives that are as divisive as they are diverse. He describes how the democratization of information results in an overall diminishment of our collective discourse, allowing pre-rational views and narratives to flood into our informational terrains. This in turn provokes something like a collective defense mechanism in the rest of society as our shared standards of inclusion and exclusion recalibrate to these new realities, often resulting in an unfortunate overcorrection toward illiberal solutions. This episode offers a rich and nuanced exploration of cancel culture through the lens of Integral Theory. Keith and Corey’s insights illuminate the complex interplay between individual beliefs, cultural dynamics, and systemic structures, underscoring the importance of fostering open dialogue, critical thinking, and empathy to navigate the challenges of the postmodern media era we find ourselves in.

The Seven Sins of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) — Highlights by Integral Life

The Seven Sins of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) by Integral Life

Watch the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/how-to-awaken-and-empower-the-integral-man/ Keith Martin-Smith and Jason Lange explore the challenges and ongoing evolution of masculinity. Watch as they delve into topics such as the impact of societal norms on men’s behavior, the importance of emotional intelligence, and the journey from traditional to more integrated forms of masculinity, bringing a wealth of insights to help men navigate their roles and identities in a rapidly changing social landscape.

Watch the full episode here: https://integrallife.com/transforming-self-society-and-the-spaces-between-us/ In this enlightening episode of The Ken Show, hosts Ken Wilber and Corey deVos embark on a profound journey through the multifaceted realms of systems theory, communication, and social evolution. They dissect the nuanced perspectives of “inside” and “outside” views in systems, delve into the transformative power of communication paradigms throughout history, and critically examine the influence of social media on the overall emergence of integral consciousness. The conversation ends with a powerful discussion on the symbiotic relationship between personal transformation and social transformation, advocating for a holistic approach to finding radical wholeness in an increasingly fragmented world. This dialogue serves as a beacon for those navigating the complex interdependencies of self, society, and the emerging global community.

Watch the full presentation here: https://integrallife.com/awaken-your-integral-heart In this profound presentation by Brad Reynolds, we explore the essence of integral consciousness and its implications for personal and societal transformation. Delving deep into the heart's role in spiritual awakening, the conversation emphasizes the interconnectedness of the head, heart, body, and spirit, with the breath as a conduit for circulating spiritual energy. The discussion touches upon the rich tapestry of human development, drawing from the wisdom of ancient traditions and modern integral thought. Brad's emphasis on love as a transformative force is particularly moving, with the assertion that to truly be integral, one must embody love. Brad repeatedly underscores the importance of genuine spiritual practice, urging individuals to find their path to access higher states of consciousness. As the world stands on the cusp of a new integral age, the responsibility to infuse love into the fabric of our civilization becomes paramount, potentially serving as the salvation of our society. This presentation serves as a beacon for those on the integral path, offering insights and guidance for deepening one's understanding and practice. Watch the full presentation here: https://integrallife.com/awaken-your-integral-heart

Explore the profound intersection of consciousness, responsibility, and human relationships. https://integrallife.com/why-greater-depth-means-greater-responsibility Watch as Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos delve into the profound interdependence between human development and responsibility, exploring how our deepening self-awareness shapes our relationships and societal roles in an ever-evolving world. At the heart of the discussion is the compelling notion that as we evolve in our understanding and self-awareness, we bear a greater onus to guide, uplift, and positively influence those around us. This responsibility is especially important in the realm of relationships, where the path to trust and understanding is often fraught with challenges, yet rich with opportunities for growth. This episode delves deep into Keith’s concept of the “Wise Self,” an intrinsic wellspring of wisdom and insight that transcends mere life experiences. The talk also addresses the often-unseen barriers we erect, from “fortresses of hostile beliefs” to societal pressures, and offers insights into dismantling these barriers for genuine connection and understanding. This discussion is not just a reflection on consciousness and relationships; it’s a call to action. It challenges listeners to introspect, to recognize and nurture their innate wisdom, and to actively engage in practices that foster growth, empathy, and authentic connection. In a world where individualism often overshadows collective well-being, this talk serves as a timely reminder of our shared responsibility to contribute positively to the tapestry of human relationships and society at large. Watch the full episode here: https://integrallife.com/why-greater-depth-means-greater-responsibility

Watch the full presentation here: https://integrallife.com/meta-ideological-politics/ In a time where information is abundant, society faces the unintended repercussions of ideological rigidity, tribalism, and deep-rooted discord. The initial promise of social media to nurture connections and global understanding has, in many cases, led to the opposite effect. Rather than bridging gaps, these platforms often widen them, creating ideological echo chambers where individuals are only exposed to congruent views, thereby reinforcing and intensifying their existing beliefs. This tribal mindset not only hinders genuine dialogue but also exacerbates societal divisions, leading to a polarized world where anything like a “middle ground” seems harder to find than ever. Ryan’s presentation delves into the complex nature of ideology and its profound impact on our perceptions, interactions, and behaviors. He underscores the human brain’s inherent tendency to seek patterns, elucidating how ideologies aid us in deciphering the world but can also misguide us. Ryan describes three definitions of “meta” to elucidate the concept of meta-ideological politics: “meta” as transcending, “meta” as between, and “meta” as self-aware or self-referential. He then defines ideology as “a constellation of foundational premises about politics and society, often which are contested by others, that form the basis for normative prescriptions.” Through interactive exercises and discussions, Ryan emphasized the necessity to transcend (and include) our entrenched beliefs, and to approach political and social issues with greater maturity, empathy, and nuance. Ryan calls us to rise above the conflicts and limitations of conventional ideological frameworks. By recognizing the pitfalls of tribal thinking and the distortions of social media, there’s an opportunity to foster a more inclusive, more understanding, and more holistic worldview. Embracing this meta-ideological approach can help us extend our empathy and more fully inhabit each other’s point of view, while paving the way for more constructive dialogues and a more unified approach to addressing the pressing challenges of our time. Through the lens of meta-ideological politics, individuals and communities can navigate the complex ideological landscape with confident humility, avoiding the pitfalls of homogeneity and fragmentation, and fostering a culture of open dialogue and mutual respect.

Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/integral-perspectives-on-alcoholism/ Alcohol addiction is a deeply entrenched issue that affects a significant portion of the population, with around 10% of children being raised in a family with at least one alcoholic parent as of 2019. In this episode of Witt and Wisdom, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos undertake a comprehensive exploration of alcohol addiction, its effects, and the recovery process through the lens of Ken Wilber’s integral theory, which encompasses all four quadrants – individual (internal and external) and collective (internal and external). This approach facilitates a deep understanding of the issue, shedding light on the personal experiences of the addict and the broader societal implications, and offers a more holistic view of the complexities involved in alcohol addiction. The conversation is not just a deep dive into the negatives associated with addiction, but also offers a hopeful perspective on recovery, emphasizing the transformative power of integral awareness in finding more fulfilling and healthier solutions. By examining the effects, addiction, and recovery through all four quadrants, Keith and Corey offer a rich and nuanced understanding of the issue, encouraging a more inclusive and empathetic approach to dealing with alcohol addiction. This discussion stands as a vital resource, not just for those grappling with addiction, but also for their families and society at large, fostering a deeper understanding and highlighting pathways to healing and recovery. It calls for a collective effort, urging everyone to be more aware and to actively participate in the transformative journey from addiction to recovery, thereby nurturing a society that is more understanding, compassionate, and equipped to handle the complexities of alcohol addiction.

Watch the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/from-socrates-to-social-media/ In this episode of Integral Justice Warrior, hosts Mark Fischler and Corey deVos are joined by Nadine Strossen, a renowned advocate for free speech and former president of the ACLU, to traverse the rich history and the evolving frontier of free speech — a legacy that reaches from the philosophical debates of ancient Greece to today’s postmodern social media platforms. Together, Nadine, Mark, and Corey illuminate the critical importance of free speech, celebrating it as a beacon of individual rights, a testament to the unyielding human pursuit of truth and self expression, and a crowning achievement of the rational Orange stage of individual and collective development. Freedom of speech is not something to be taken for granted. It is, in fact, the cornerstone of democracy itself, and a principle that needs to be fought for and renewed with every new generation. As speech itself continues to evolve, so do the sorts of challenges that come along with it — and in today’s information age, those challenges have become as complicated and entrenched as ever: - the propagation of hate speech, misinformation, and propaganda, - “flooding the zone” with speech that normalizes extremist views and values, - undermining trust in our academic, media, and political institutions, - the paradox of tolerance and the delicate task of delineating the boundaries of acceptable discourse. These issues require solutions that are at least as complex and nuanced as the problems themselves. To many, it seems that censorship represents a quick and easy way to cut through those challenges — but of course censorship typically gives rise to far more severe problems, stifling open dialogue and eroding the foundational principles that uphold democratic societies. Drawing from the profound insights in her book Hate: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship, Nadine Strossen articulates that the remedy to things like “hate speech” is not suppression, but instead fostering a richer, more inclusive discourse. She advocates for a greater embrace of free speech, seeing it as a pathway to understanding and social harmony. We find ourselves at a pivotal juncture in history. In a world transformed by the digital revolution, offering unprecedented avenues for self-expression, there are more flavors and varieties of speech than ever before — and also more efforts to silence that speech. We can see this schism running throughout the American political landscape, where both major parties perceive themselves as the last guardians of free speech who are defending this sacred right from the opposing party, a testament to the deeply polarized nature of contemporary discourse. The conversation deepens as Nadine, Mark, and Corey examine a number of landmark Supreme Court rulings, including Brandenburg versus Ohio, New York Times versus Sullivan, and Buckley v. Valeo, each a pillar supporting the intricate architecture of free speech in America. These cases beckon us to engage more profoundly with the nuances of free speech, urging a deeper understanding and commitment to this fundamental right. This episode invites you on a journey of reflection, urging a renewed commitment to the principles of free speech — a commitment grounded in understanding, respect, and the unyielding belief in the transformative power of words. Tune in to be part of a conversation that spans centuries, yet is as relevant today as it was in the time of Socrates. We hope you enjoy.

Toward an Integral Meta-Psychotherapy [HIGHLIGHTS] by Integral Life

Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/pearl-jam-restoring-idealism-to-rock-and-roll/ Every now and again, pop culture reinvents itself. Our collective tastes are born, destroyed, and reborn again, swinging like a massive pendulum from one aesthetic extreme to the next. As a new cultural niche becomes more and more popularized, fierce artistic independence eventually devolves into reckless overindulgence, and creative novelty slowly bleeds away until all that is left is a formulaic husk used to manufacture tomorrow’s next fads. It is usually at this point, when a particular scene becomes so over-saturated that it can no longer support the weight of its own excess, that the entire scene dies an often-humiliating death, bloated and alone on an unflushed toilet. In the 1980s the music scene in America was dominated by the glut and theatrics of “glam metal.” For nearly 10 years, most of popular music was defined by sex, drugs, and machismo-in-drag, and an entire generation of youth nearly lost themselves within a cloud of hairspray. There was a void in the cultural heart of the musical mainstream that was dying to be filled—an utter lack of artistic interiority, emotional depth, and authenticity. Untold millions were craving artistic substance, and were only offered artificial decadence. Then along came grunge, taking the entire world by storm in the early 90′s. From the rain-soaked streets of Seattle emerged a new voice for American youth. In much the same way that punk music arrived just in time to offer salvation for our Disco-era sins, grunge music promised to completely cleanse our cultural palette, placing an aesthetic imperative upon more simplicity, more spontaneity, and more sincerity. And so bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Pearl Jam crashed into the mainstream, forever changing the landscape of American music. From behind a tsunami of massively distorted guitars, hallowed vocals, and countless acres of flannel, appeared an unmistakable return to introspection and idealism — even while cloaked by themes of angst and despair, the natural result of our collective interiors being ignored for almost a decade. Few bands of the era embody this move toward introspection and idealism as strongly as Pearl Jam. As the grunge scene continued to explode, it was becoming apparent that the inherent iconoclasm of the scene was ill-suited to handle the immense pressures of fame, and many artists found themselves circling the drain of inevitable self-destruction — for many, Kurt Cobain’s suicide was a morbid reminder of what can happen when artistic ideals are reduced to mere currency for the status-sphere. One by one the originators of grunge began to fall away, and an impossibly huge body of talent was forever lost to suicide and drug addiction. Not many bands survived as the industry began churning out the newest grunge-inspired fads, marketed (ironically) as “alternative rock.” Pearl Jam was one of the few who did make it through this period of intense commodification. Unlike most others from the Seattle era, they were able to prevent themselves from being crushed by the enormous pressure that their celebrity brought to their personal and professional lives. While they did in a sense try to distance themselves from their own fame, they were also simultaneously using their celebrity as a platform for their idealism, soon finding themselves fighting “on all fronts” for initiating real change in the world. From their famed battle with the corruption of the Ticketmaster venue monopoly, to publicly berating the policies of George W. Bush, to expressing pro-choice sentiments in concert, to promoting awareness around Crohn’s disease — Pearl Jam was helping to return rock and roll to its roots, in terms of both the profoundly personal and the deeply political. And they continue to do it to this day, more than 30 years since the band first formed.

Brendan Graham Dempsey is a writer whose work focuses on the meaning crisis and the nature of spirituality in metamodernity. Brendan is also very active in the Metamodern community, which many people recognize as an “integrally-adjacent” constellation of hearts and minds that are trying to usher in a more meaningful and fulfilling way to participate with humanity’s unfolding — not just to navigate the extreme complexity of our times, but also striving to find the simplicity on the other side of all that complexity. Sound familiar? Metamodernism and the integral paradigm share a lot in common, yet also differ in important ways. To what degree should these terms be conflated or kept apart? What unites them, and what constitute the meaningful distinctions? What role do things like sensibility, generation, emphasis, and epistemology play? This gathering provided an opportunity to dig into this topic. To this end, metamodern thinker Brendan Graham Dempsey offers some history and a bit of compare/contrast perspectives on the topic. So is metamodernism integral? Is integral metamodern? Watch this discussion with Brendan Dempsey, and let us know what you think!

Watch the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/sex-identity-gender-beyond-wokism-and-trumpism/ Following Keith’s table-setting discussion of sex and gender last month, in this episode we push even further into the front lines of the culture war skirmishes that have become so plentiful over the last several years. Corey deVos joins Keith to discuss how our notions of sex, gender, and identity apply to some of the most contentious and pressing issues of our time — gender education in schools, men’s rights issues, the banning of drag shows, trans people participating in sports, the availability of gender-affirming care for young people, the impact of social media on gender identity, and more. In order to answer the question “what is a man” (or “what is a woman”), Keith and Corey carefully track sex, gender, and identity as fundamental aspects of the self that can exist in a state of fusion, differentiation, dissociation, or integration, depending on the developmental stage(s) the question is being asked from. This is one of the most common causes of conflict around this issue, as people have very different meanings of words like “gender”, which can refer to biology, identity, or the various social constructs we have inherited, depending on where we are in this sequence. Which is why, when it comes to the question of gender, people are constantly talking past each other, and why the conversation often stalls at the level of ideological doctrine and debate, which we see so often in the culture wars. How can we elevate the discussion into a more fruitful dialogue, discourse, and dialectic? By properly differentiating and integrating these factors into a more coherent vision of sex, gender, and identity. In a world where these topics often generate more heat than light, our aim is to bring clarity, insight, and a spirit of inclusive dialogue to the conversation. Our focus, as always, is bringing our most integral hearts and minds to these conflicts, so that we can provide the greatest opportunities for happiness, fulfillment, and freedom of expression for the greatest number of people, while also minimizing harm and promoting understanding, empathy, and respect among all parties involved. Watch the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/sex-identity-gender-beyond-wokism-and-trumpism/

Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/its-not-easy-being-turquoise-jim-henson-muppets-and-art-integral-puppetry Steve Whitmire spent 14 intense and creative years with the extraordinary Jim Henson before his passing. As of 2008, Steve has been the animating force behind, most notably, Kermit the Frog, for nearly two decades. This was not something Steve planned for in any way. Jim passed away at the age of 53 from an infection that no one could have seen coming—although it later became revealed that Jim had been considering Steve for the puppeteer of Kermit, so that Jim could explore other creative endeavors. However, their connection had started decades earlier. When Steve was a scant 10-years-old, he wrote Jim a letter to express his appreciation for his work, and to ask if he had written anything on the construction of puppets. In fact, Jim had not written anything on the construction of puppets at that time, but responded personally to Steve’s letter, and directed him toward some simple Muppet patterns that had been published a few years ago in a magazine. Thus started the career of a life-long Jim Henson puppeteer, aided by Steve’s mother’s sewing machine. As Ken comments, puppeteering can be, and has been, looked at by the world’s great Mystical Traditions as a metaphor for ultimate Spirit being the transcendental Puppeteer of all worldly phenomena. And there is much truth in that observation. Spirit, if nothing else, inhabits a massive number of multiple perspectives, and in order to perform puppeteering successfully, one literally inhabits, and becomes one with, the puppet’s personality. It is a minor re-enaction of what Spirit does moment-to-moment spontaneously, throughout the entire Kosmos. As with Jim Henson, Steve Whitmire is a very humble soul. If nothing else, Steve is honored to carry on a tradition started by a modern-day master, by whatever name. Jim’s productions have been among the most successful television series in history: Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and Fraggle Rock were all international sensations. Sesame Street alone has aired more than 4,100 episodes over a 38-season run, winning 109 Emmy Awards in the process—and it’s still going. To say that Steve is a modern-day backbone of the Muppet tradition is in no way an exaggeration. You may not see his face, but you can see Steve animating Kermit the Frog in a musical duo with Kylie Minogue on YouTube, along with many other notable appearances. Kermit the Frog was, and is, a public, (inter)national expression of the pluralistic, green worldview—but always with a subtle reminder of how multicultural expressions can be reconciled and brought together with an Integral View. It may not be easy being green, but it’s ever harder being teal (where an Integral understanding begins and expands). With the spirit of growth that Jim Henson embodied and intuited, and that Steve Whitmire carries on in an evolutionary context with a clearly Integral perspective, we invite you to celebrate this artistic and creative dimension of puppetry, and the “taking the perspective of other” that it implies, in this one-of-a kind-dialogue…. Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/its-not-easy-being-turquoise-jim-henson-muppets-and-art-integral-puppetry

Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/the-art-and-science-of-the-intentional-love-affair/ Our intimate relationships are typically the most important, challenging, transformative, frustrating, and fulfilling parts of our lives. Every relationship is a testament to the “miracle of we” — somehow, out of billions of people on the planet, we find each other, we share all of our hidden parts with each other, and we create entire new realities between us. And these relationships are never static. They are constantly shifting, morphing, and evolving as we both grow together, or as we grow apart from each other. And the more intentionality we can bring to our relationships, the greater the chances that our intimacy can not only survive the inevitable challenges and frictions of our lives, but actually thrive because of them. In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos delve into the intricacies of intimate relationships, exploring the concept of “intentional love affairs” and how they can be cultivated to deepen connection and intimacy. They discuss the importance of fostering better friendships, nurturing love affairs, and developing the ability to solve problems so effortlessly that they may not even appear as conflicts to others. Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/the-art-and-science-of-the-intentional-love-affair/

Watch the full episode here: https://integrallife.com/what-is-a-man/ What is a man? Vulnerable? Gentle? Powerful? Big biceps? Tall? Strong? Innovative? Loyal? Logical? On the Left, more and more say a man is whatever you want it to be — penis or vagina, boobs or pecs, loaded with testosterone or almost none of it, masculine or feminine — it makes no difference. A man, or a woman, is a form of self-identity, freed from any biological constraints. If you say you’re a man, it’s my job to accept it and society’s job to validate it. On the Right, more and more say that a man, or a woman, are constrained by their biology if not outright defined by it, and all of this talk of “identity” runs the range from irritating to an existential threat on traditional gender roles. Conservatives say that a man and woman are defined by their biology first and foremost, and that there is no burying or obfuscating that truth. Who should we believe?

Watch the full episode here: https://integrallife.com/what-makes-us-happy-growing-toward-anti-fragility/ In this captivating episode of Witt and Wisdom, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos engage in a thought-provoking dialogue that addresses the critical themes from Jonathan Haidt’s and David Brooks’ recent articles on the mental health of young liberals and the self-destructive effects of progressive sadness. Both Haidt and Brooks examine the increasing rates of anxiety, depression, and despair among young people, particularly in liberal communities, and the potentially maladaptive nature of their mindset. The conversation delves into the complexities of mental health and resilience among young people, emphasizing the powerful concept of anti-fragility and its role in balancing the poles of fragility and resilience, with the ultimate goal of addressing these primary pain points. Drawing inspiration from Haidt’s and Brooks’ articles, Witt and deVos explore the different happiness strategies associated with each stage of cognitive development, including creating community, practicing empathy and compassion, and pursuing personal transformation. By understanding and applying these approaches, individuals can effectively strive for progress, self-improvement, material success, empathy, and social justice throughout their lives. The dialogue also highlights the importance of adult guidance and mentorship in nurturing young people’s development. As teenagers face unique challenges and seek autonomy, it’s vital for adults to recognize the inherent tension between providing guidance and allowing young people the freedom to navigate their own paths. By offering support and challenge tailored to each individual’s needs, parents, teachers, and mentors can help cultivate healthy growth and resilience in the next generation. Please join Keith and Corey in this enriching dialogue, as they bring forth an integral perspective on the pressing issue of mental health and resilience among youth, and explore the transformative potential of anti-fragility and the happiness strategies that can empower us to create a brighter future for ourselves and the generations to come.

You can find the full 1-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/the-highest-stages-of-conscious-development/ Terri O'Fallon and Keith Martin-Smith dive into a deeper and more detailed exploration of Terri's STAGES model, focusing on a smaller section of the model: stages 3.0 – 6.0 (roughly Amber/Orange to Turquoise/Indigo). Terri outlines what makes each level of her model unique from the last, what causes people to shift from one level to another, as well as what the mature expressions look like for 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 stages. She goes on to explain how people can use the model’s parameters to determine the developmental expression of others in coaching, psychotherapy, parenting, teaching, negotiating, etc., and how the STAGES model's perspectival parameters can be a tool for generating more empathy and compassion. In the STAGES model, structure-stages (Amber, Orange, Green, Teal, etc.) and state-stages (Gross, Subtle Causal, Witness, Nondual) begin to merge and stabilize. Terri explains exactly how this happens, and how both states and stages underlie the developmental process. Finally, Terri explores her idea of developmental bypassing, and why we need spiritual work, shadow work, and developmental guidance to all in order to produce an integrated human experience.

Watch the full 1-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/navigating-the-meaning-crisis/ John Vervaeke, PhD is an award-winning lecturer at the University of Toronto in the departments of psychology, cognitive science and Buddhist psychology. His work involves constructing a bridge between science and spirituality in order to understand the experience of meaningfulness and the cultivation of wisdom so as to afford awakening from what is often experienced by members of society as “the meaning crisis.” In 2022, Nomali Perera facilitated a study group at Integral Life using the teachings of John Vervaeke from his Awakening from the Meaning Crisis YouTube video series. This video is from Mr. Vervaeke’s visit with study group participants for a lively Q&A. In the first half of this very rich discussion, John talks with Nomali, Jeff, and the rest of the group about his three major concerns about stage models, and why he doesn’t emphasize them in his own work: - Psychometric skepticism – uncertainty around how we are measuring and validating these measurements, - The problem of the “monolithic mind” — the idea that the mind is a “whole”, which wholly moves from one stage to the next, - Underlying founders’ bias — stage models often bias the model-maker, who tend to represent themselves as the highest stage(s) in the model. Whether we agree with John’s criticisms of stage models, or we see these criticisms already being addressed by other elements of Integral metatheory, these nonetheless offer some exceptionally important guardrails around how we wield and communicate these ideas. Integral theory in many ways represents a “simplicity on the other side of complexity” — but if we are being overly simplistic with these ideas, then we begin to lose some much-needed resolution, and are left only with a blurry map that can be misread and misapplied in all sorts of ineffective or even abusive ways.

“Tapping into Divine guidance” is a term most of us in the Integral family are familiar with. But what is the difference between that and prophesy or prophesizing? And what would practicing a prophetic modality entail? Join Lisa and Kevin with guest practitioner Rodrick Chambers, an ordained minister and spiritual coach, as we dive into the role of prophesy in the 21st Century.

Watch the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/perspectives-on-develoment-introducing-the-stages-model/ Terri O’Fallon takes us on a guided journey through her STAGES model, an integrally based development model that charts human development from infancy to the highest levels of development that humans are capable of. Terri’s research is based in the number of perspectives a person can take (1st through 7th) – and she explains how different levels of fluency with these perspectives can often cause us to talk “past” or “over” one another, and how familiarizing ourselves with these perspectives can help us stop doing that. Terri and Keith start with a brief overview of what exactly adult ego growth is, and why it matters. They also explore why adult developmental psychology — despite being part of the academic culture for more than 100 years — isn’t more understood and used by mainstream therapist and psychologists. Terri also explores how many of our culture wars are generated from conflicts between these stages — certain perspectives are able to see (and therefore respond to) social challenges that other perspectives simply cannot yet Finally, Terri spends some time unpacking her data on a 5th person perspective (mature Integral, or Turquoise) what that perspective sees, how it relates to the Wilber-Combs Lattice and to Post-Modernity (and to Integral), and how one might know for themselves what this means.

Watch the full 2-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/transform-the-police-a-more-integral-approach-to-law-enforcement/ Mark and Corey are joined by Chris Orrey, a retired police lieutenant with over 30 years of service with the Hayward, California Police Department, to discuss the abuse and resulting death of Tyre Nichols, who was severely beaten by five Memphis police officers after a routine traffic stop. What allowed this tragedy (and others like it) to take place, and what sorts of institutional transformation are necessary to prevent them from occurring again? We were very excited to have Chris join us for this discussion — not only because of her experience as a former police lieutenant, but also because she is leading the Integrative Policing Transformation Initiative over at the Institute of Applied Metatheory, designed to map the fuller complexity of policing in the United States and examine how a transformation toward a fuller guardian model of policing might be achieved. If you are at all interested in supporting this tremendously important and timely endeavor, we encourage you to get in touch here: https://instituteofappliedmetatheory.org/donations/integrative-policing-transformation-initiative/ One of the primary factors we discuss is how our modern Orange standards of law and justice depend on Amber enforcement agencies being healthy, trustable, and reliable — otherwise the entire system breaks down as the public looses confidence in the police’s ability to serve the community. And without this Orange-stage accountability and oversight, Amber groups often go bad fairly quickly — we don’t only see this in policing, but also in organizations such as the military, the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, and others. Closed-off Amber groups often tend to normalize, justify, and cover for all sorts of abuse within the group — even when that abuse is coming from a small number within the group. There is a natural Amber drive to protect the group at all costs (such as the “blue line of silence” within policing culture) which prevents real accountability from taking place, and which in turn drives more resentment and mistrust between the population and the police in general. We go on to talk about a number of other critical factors and leverage points in each of the four quadrants, including: UL (Intentional problems/solutions) * Creating more support and healing for officers (e.g. helping officers with accumulated job-related traumas), * Training greater emotional intelligence to help with empathy and  de-escalation of violence * State training to help officers better regulate and manage intense emotional and psychological states of consciousness (e.g. the natural fight or flight response) in both officers and criminal suspects)
 UR (Behavioral problems/solutions) * Managing physiological states associated with interior mental/emotional states (e.g. adrenaline, overall physical health of the officer) * Identifying multiple skillsets to deal with different kinds of confrontations and social challenges, * Recruitment strategies to attract more healthy and ethical officer candidates LL (Cultural problems/solutions) * Expanding officers' sense of "we" to include the communities they are protecting, * Restoring trust by creating more connective tissue between police and the communities they serve, * Dismantling internal "blue wall of silence" culture within police culture, LR (Systemic problems/solutions) * External social/environmental conditions (overall social violence, proliferation of guns, race and racism, etc.), * Outmoded social inertias from previous policing eras that remain with us today, * Rethinking “qualified immunity” that often prevents abusive officers from being held accountable, * Various forms of corruption and bias in justice systems, * Bringing more Orange-stage accountability to Amber-stage police organizations

Listen to the full 1.5-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/escaping-the-comfort-zone-motivation-shame-and-the-will-to-transform/ How do we cultivate the will to transform? How can we consciously step out of the safety of our comfort zones, and into our greater purpose and potential? Dr. Keith and Corey explore the complex psychology of motivation — the various sticks and carrots we use to get out of bed in the morning and keep ourselves moving forward in our lives, sustaining the inertia we need to push us through any number of hardships, setbacks, and growth opportunities. And of course these sources of motivation are as multifaceted as the human mind itself. We can notice interior motivations and exterior motivations, individual and collective motivations, motivations to feel more whole, motivations to feel like we are part of a greater whole, etc. — all focused, enacted, and enforced in very different ways at each stage of development. So how do we as integralists navigate and reconcile this vast array of motivations, both within us and outside of us? How can we better align ourselves with our deepest, most purposeful motivations so that we can more fully contribute our gifts to the world? Watch as Dr. Keith and Corey explore these questions, and more.

Listen to the full 1.5-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/how-to-build-a-conscious-community/ What Would a Genuinely Integral Spiritual Community Look Like? You may be surprised to learn one is actually being built — and launched — right now! Keith Martin-Smith talks with Dr. John Churchill about the themes in Keith’s latest book, When the Buddha Needs Therapy: shadow and awakening, the problem and promise of spiritual communities, the state-stage model as it relates to trauma and growth, narcissism and other personality disorders inside of spirituality, the power and trap of lineage, and what a fully Western version of an awakened spiritual path might look like.

Find the full 1.5 hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/psychedelic-therapy-and-the-politics-of-consciousness/ In the recent 2022 midterm elections, Colorado joined the state of Oregon in its decriminalization of psychedelic substances for therapeutic use. Here Dr. Keith and Corey explore some of the major implications of this profound legal shift, both in terms of our overall emotional, psychological, and spiritual health, as well as our rapidly evolving “politics of consciousness” — those states of consciousness that are sanctioned by the state, versus those that are not. Watch as we take an in-depth look at the many growth opportunities being surfaced by these changing laws, and how integral concepts such as quadrants, states, and developmental stages help us better understand the effects these substances have on us, as well as the role they have played throughout history.

Holidays can be tough. For many the holiday season can be the some of the most hectic and challenging weeks of the year, as the accumulated stresses from travel, seasonal affect disorders, and various childhood wounds come to the surface. And these things often have a way of knocking us off of our game, destabilizing our practice and distracting us from our wisest self. Join Lisa and Kevin for a look at not just how to survive the holidays, but how to genuinely thrive and deepen your commitment to practice.

You can find the full 1.5-hour conversation here: https://integrallife.com/the-maturing-test-how-developed-is-the-worlds-most-advanced-ai/ We just subjected the world’s most advanced AI to the world’s most sophisticated test for human maturity. We call it the Maturing Test. Could the results transform our world? Developmental psychologists have demonstrated that a human being grows through a successive progression of increasingly complex stages of meaning-making. These stages of ego/self-identity development can be thought of as coherent structures or patterns of how the “self” of each stage organizes and navigates itself in relation to the world (e.g., think of how the 3 year old self organizes itself and its world versus the 12 year old self versus the 30 year old self, and you’ll begin to appreciate the progression of qualitatively more advanced maturity that occurs). Maturity of a given adult’s ego/self-identity is assessed through language, specifically how they reply to a set of specific sentence prompts, prompts like “A true friend…“, “My mother and I…“, “Rules are…” and a few dozen others. Using this same method, we just assessed GPT-3, the world’s most advanced sentence-generating Artificial Intelligence, having it complete sentence prompts for the Maturity Assessment Profile developed by Dr. Susanne Cook-Greuter. This test and its resulting data has been collected on hundreds of thousands of sentence replies over the course of four decades, and shows that more mature “selves” evidence a growing sophistication, self-awareness, sensitivity and perspectival fluidity as they progress to later, more complex stages of self-development. So what is the maturity level demonstrated by the world’s most advanced AI? It is impressive, promising, and thought-provoking — and in this very special discussion we reveal the results and discuss what they mean, where it may go from here, and how this might impact our world.

You can find the full 2 hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/therapy-awakening-a-new-integration/ Keith Martin-Smith speaks with Chad Bennett, a psychotherapist and ordained Zen priest, about why our existing ideas of therapy are often limited and keep us bound inside of the therapeutic relationship, unable to learn the skills necessary to continue our own growth towards psychological wholeness. They also discuss the necessity of “Waking Up” practices as a vital part of any therapeutic practice, and how the very idea of liberation needs to be understood as awakening through the ego, not from it. It seems more and more clear that to truly awaken from suffering, a new kind of therapy and a new kind of meditation must be practiced — and that they must be done together. This talk explores how to make this possible for yourself. We hope you enjoy this wide-ranging and deep dive into Waking Up, Cleaning Up, and Growing Up. https://integrallife.com/therapy-awakening-a-new-integration/

What would it look like to re-imagine and redefine the very ways we relate to and participate in our work? In the aftermath of the great resignation, and with headlines talking of “quietly quitting,” what has become clear is that we are in the middle of a global crisis precipitated on a decade or more of rising levels of dissatisfaction with what we call “work.” And while the pandemic was the proverbial straw in this case, the fundamental issue is that we want more from our relationship with work - especially given that it is the place where we spend the majority of our waking hours each week. In this episode Lisa and Kevin speak with Kent Frazier, founder of Fully Human at Work, to understand what practice looks like in this context of our lives.

The WHAT, WHY, and HOW of Integral Practice by Integral Life

“Every moment is a bardo. Every moment is a death, and an opportunity for new life.” —Corey deVos In the Buddhist tradition, the “bardo” refers to the transitional state between lifetimes, a liminal state (or series of states) between death and birth. There are no shortage of practices designed to help us prepare for this ultimate transition — to “practice dying”, as Plato instructed his disciples to do. As Ken Wilber says, “All spiritual practice is a rehearsal—and at its best, an enactment—of death. As the mystics put it, ‘If you die before you die, then when you die, you won’t die.’ In other words, if right now you die to the separate-self sense, and discover instead your real Self which is the entire Kosmos at large, then the death of this particular bodymind is but a leaf falling from the eternal tree that you are.” However, this is not a conversation about death. It is a conversation about life. It’s about recognizing the fact that every moment is a bardo, a transition from one state of being to another state of being — and within these ubiquitous transitions there are opportunities to transcend the karmas of our conditioning, and to channel new kinds of creativity into the world. This discussion is an open-hearted celebration of transition, an appreciation of the fact that there is never any real solid ground beneath our feet, because nothing is truly solid or lasting in this manifest world. We know that, in this reality, “energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed” — which means that only the changing is real. Creation and destruction, birth and death, are illusions arising from the temporary semi-stable patterns of organization that forever exist in their own perpetual state of transition. The only truly permanent ground we can ever hope to find is the Ground of Being itself, which never actually enters the stream of time to begin with, but nonetheless infuses and envelopes the whole of manifest reality. We hope that this conversation will help you participate more consciously with the ever-changing flow of your own life, and to find new ways to harness the creative engine at the very core of this transitional moment right now.

Watch as Dr. Keith offers a "Psychotherapy Masterclass" that helps us work with various personality types as a foundation for healing, change, and self-actualization. While intended for other psychotherapy professionals, this discussion offers valuable insight for all of us, and can be immediately applied to our personal transformational work, whatever that may be.

Find the rest of the 2-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/in-pursuit-of-wholeness-making-room-for-everything/ Today we are going to talk about one of the most important and central ideas in all of integral theory: holons, which are wholes that are simultaneously part of other wholes. This notion of holons — the idea that the universe is fundamentally made of whole/parts within whole/parts within whole/parts, turtles all the way up and turtles all the way down — this isn’t just important in a theoretical or philosophical sense. Understanding holons also helps us make better sense of the world that we live in, and our inner worlds as well. It’s immediately relevant to any number of culture war issues that we see these days, from abortion to immigration to vaccination to the various rights and responsibilities we have as national and global citizens. And it’s an idea that helps us recognize the many different kinds of “wholeness” we can see in the universe, and that we can pursue in our own lives — in our interiors and in our exteriors, both personally and collectively — and helps guide our own growing up, waking up, and cleaning up process. Ken introduces the topic by describing the major themes of his latest book, Making Room for Everything, recently submitted to Shambhala to be published in 2023. This new book works directly with these different kinds of wholeness, and the different ways we can pursue wholeness in our 1st-person experience, in our 2nd-person relationships, and in our 3rd-person work and environments. Watch as Ken describes how the paths of Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Opening Up, and Showing Up all lead us to different kinds of wholeness. Find the rest of the 2-hour discussion here: https://integrallife.com/in-pursuit-of-wholeness-making-room-for-everything/

This week I share our collective outrage and heartbreak over the shooting of the Texas schoolchildren and teachers, and manage to offer some hope that this time it will be different, that this shooting will heighten a social pain-point – unstable young men equipped with weapons of war – sufficiently to transcend political polarities. In this episode I ponder: - America’s enneatype, frontier culture, “traditionalism with guns” - Integrating the MSNBC and FOX News worldviews - Recognizing budding criminality - Matthew Yglesias’s positivity blowback - How about the first part of the second amendment? - The ever-widening circle of moral consideration - What our grandchildren will know - Blessings to all

Sometimes in our psychological development the way forward requires us to go back, to re-explore earlier stages of life to see what is distorted or left unintegrated. This is the theme of the work of my guest today, developmental psychotherapist Kim Barta. He discusses his approach to personal growth, which is based on the STAGES Model of Development created by well-known developmental theorist Terri O’Fallon (who is also Kim’s sister.). Using psychotherapeutic practices, shadow work and meditation, Kim has devised a comprehensive system of self-exploration with stopovers at every stage of development, designed to bring the gifts and powers of that stage online. Shoring up our developmental scaffolding in this way makes us able – and worthy – to grow into the higher stages of integral consciousness, which Kim and the STAGES model also beautifully illuminate. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kim Barta! – Jeff Salzman

For the second episode, we discuss the distinction between absolute and relative in traditional and modern metaphysics, the Two Worlds mythology, and the Ascender and Descender paths, and we consider some historical and contemporary approaches to reconceiving their relations. In the second half of the dialogue, we turn towards the emotional or 'felt' dimensions of a fundamental shift in perspectives, including David Michael Levin's notions of 'crying for a vision' and gelassenheit as the resolution of dualism; and we begin to touch on the importance for a Religion that is Not a Religion of 'moving into the lack' and fully grieving the death of God. You can find other parts of this series here: https://integrallife.com/re-thinking-religion-integral-postmetaphysical-spirituality/

What are the unique challenges that prevent you from inhabiting your most authentic and embodied voice, and how can integral thought and practice help us to overcome those challenges — in our society, in our communities, and in our own consciousness? Ryan and Corey begin by taking a look at some of the central cultural, technological, and behavioral challenges that take us further away from our most authentic expression, wonderfully illuminated by Jonathan Haidt’s recent article, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid”. We were both very excited about Jonathan’s piece, which deeply resonates with so many of the critical themes we’ve explored in the Inhabit series over the months and years. In his article, Haidt identifies three primary factors that bind society together — social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories. He then explores how each of these became so compromised in our civilization, and suggests some possible interventions (what I often call “enfoldment mechanisms”) in order to get things moving in the right direction again: “We must harden democratic institutions so that they can withstand chronic anger and mistrust, reform social media so that it becomes less socially corrosive, and better prepare the next generation for democratic citizenship in this new age.” —Jonathan Haidt In our conversation, Ryan and I try to pick up where Jonathan left off, suggesting that we actually need to install these sorts of enfoldment mechanisms in our own interior operating systems, as much as in our exterior/collective operating systems. In other words, we cannot transform these systems “out there” unless we work to transform our own consciousness and communities “in here”. How do we do so? Ryan and I try to answer this question by looking at two fundamental lines of development — the intrapersonal line (how we relate to ourselves), and the interpersonal line (how we relate to each other). We begin with the intrapersonal, distilling some timeless wisdom from two different spiritual lineages — the notion of “Right Speech” in Buddhism, and the Quaker practice of “letting your next words come from your highest Self” — two complementary micro-practices that can help us to better align ourselves with our own inner source of wisdom and compassion, to communicate with greater authenticity, and to bring as much conscious embodiment to our online engagements as we unconsciously do when we are face-to-face. Next we take a look at our interpersonal capacities, and how we can use Integral ideas to facilitate more healthy and rewarding community experiences. When I was interviewing Stefan Schultz for our Journalism in the Disinformation Age discussion, he included some different strategies that each developmental stage uses for what he calls their “conference culture”, which Ryan and I unpack in this episode. All of us have likely seen each of these strategies playing out in our various online community spaces, and therefore may be helpful to make some of these nested subjects into objects in order to create more shared agreement around the sorts of standards we want to hold ourselves to when interacting with each other.

In this episode of the Shrink and the Pundit, Dr. Keith Witt and I discuss a powerful realization emerging at the leading edge of culture regarding the role of trauma in our lives. Dr. Keith is writing a book on the subject and has mined various psychotherapeutic modalities to create an integral approach to using trauma as a portal to health and higher consciousness. In our wide-ranging conversation we address: Trauma and resilience as forms of memory * The differences – and similarities – between ongoing trauma and “major event” traumas such as accidents, violence and illness * Trauma through human history * Sensitive vs sensitized: the healthy and unhealthy poles of postmodern consciousness * What child-centered parenting misses * The biological drive to have a spiritually-awakened brain * Updating your autobiographical narratives * Trauma and the self-transforming mind. I really loved this conversation and I hope you do, too! – Jeff Salzman

The sexual evolution continues! This week I look at the controversy raging over the dramatic emergence of transsexual identity and gender fluidity, particularly among young people. I place it in the context of the stage transformations of sex and gender through history, and even get a little personal. I hope you enjoy the episode! –Jeff Salzman

John Vervaeke joins Bruce Alderman and Layman Pascal to explore possible points of contact and confluence between their respective approaches to religion and spirituality. For this inaugural episode, we feel into some of the commonalities and differences between Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality and Integral Life Practice, and John's "religion that is not a religion" and his work around developing an ecology of practices suitable for addressing the meaning crisis. We touch on a number of related themes: - the creative deployment of mythic or literary figures, from Cthulhu and zombies, to the Centaur, the Minotaur, and the khora - the importance of wrestling with existential and epistemological limit conditions - the role of ambiguity in higher forms of rationality - the relation of non-theism to classical theism and atheism - the history of integrative practices - the 'traps' in conventional practice that can thwart balanced development ...and much more. John Vervaeke is a professor of psychology at Toronto University and creator of the popular YouTube series "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis."

As Albert Einstein famously said, “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”. The same can be said for the imbalance we sometimes see between the Integral Mind and and the Integral Heart. The Integral mind differentiates, carefully separating reality into its most fundamental structures, factors, and patterns that help us better understand the staggering complexity we are surrounded by. But without the Integral Heart, this understanding can easily become cold, distant, and brittle — and if we allow ourselves to identify with the products of mind, it more often than not ends up creating more division between us, because no two people will ever enact this complexity in the exact same way. The Integral Heart integrates, bridging the gaps between perspectives by pulling all of the differentiated pieces back together into a coherent whole, while also preventing us from succumbing to the grasping tendencies of mind that often cause us to maybe take ourselves just a little too seriously and dismiss each other’s points of view. Without an equally Integral Mind, this heartfelt wholeness we feel can easily become directionless and undiscerning, resulting in unwise displays of sentimentality, inaction, and idiot compassion. And of course, while we want to consciously work to keep our heart and mind integrated, they are also are in many ways inseparable. The Integral Heart is the natural emanation of an awakened mind, and is given its shape by the many natural intelligences we possess — our cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, our interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence, our moral and ethical intelligence, etc. All these multiple intelligences intersect in the innermost core of the Integral Heart, and each offers a unique vehicle that allows us to express our heart in the world, and expand that heart to include the vast multitudes of the Kosmos, however we conceive of it. The Integral space is inherently a multi-perspectival space — meaning a place where we can exchange perspectives freely, and then do our best to fold these perspectives together so that we can walk away with a deeper and hopefully more comprehensive understanding of a given topic. When our minds and hearts are integrated together, we naturally try not to be hostile to each other’s views or insulting to each other personally, as we can recognize that there is a very good change that each of these perspectives has something valuable to be included, something that the rest of us are missing — and also some parts that may need rethinking. Which is why we try to engage with each other in good faith, with both open minds and open hearts. The goal of an integralist is not to “be right”, but rather to “get it right” through an ongoing process of examination in all four quadrants, constantly pulling in new data and new perspectives as they presents themselves. This requires both a rigorous Integral Mind that very much wants to get it right, as well as a brave and curious Integral Heart that isn’t afraid to admit when we might be getting it wrong. So this discussion is an invitation to continue opening your own most Integral heart, and allow it to infuse and inform all of our actions and interactions together — to lead our lives with both wisdom and compassion, with both discernment and tenderness, with both insight and humility — so that we may use our integral minds and hearts to recognize, appreciate, and incorporate the partial truths that each of us are trying to bring to each other.

In this series of discussions, Daily Evolver host Jeff Salzman talks to Corey deVos and Nomali Perera about some crucial perspectives and practices to help us bring more clarity to our thinking, and more depth to our hearts, as we witness the brutal realities of war in Ukraine.

In this series of discussions, Daily Evolver host Jeff Salzman talks to Corey deVos and Nomali Perera about some crucial perspectives and practices to help us bring more clarity to our thinking, and more depth to our hearts, as we witness the brutal realities of war in Ukraine.

In this series of discussions, Daily Evolver host Jeff Salzman talks to Corey deVos and Nomali Perera about some crucial perspectives and practices to help us bring more clarity to our thinking, and more depth to our hearts, as we witness the brutal realities of war in Ukraine.

In this series of discussions, Daily Evolver host Jeff Salzman talks to Corey deVos and Nomali Perera about some crucial perspectives and practices to help us bring more clarity to our thinking, and more depth to our hearts, as we witness the brutal realities of war in Ukraine.

Learn more about the Flourishing LIVE training here: https://integrallife.com/flourishing-live/ Lee Mason talks to Corey deVos about Lee's new Flourishing LIVE training — an online group coaching program to help you develop a personalized strategy to thrive optimally across all areas of your life. If you’re interested in living a life that is as healthy, happy and meaningful as possible, then join Lee Mason for this dynamic online live experience. Over the course of 12 sessions (2 hours each), you’ll connect with people from all across the world and engage in inspiring dialogues and exercises together. You’ll also benefit from the wisdom and life-experience of your fellow participants, while you explore what Integral Flourishing means to you personally. Learn more about the training here: https://integrallife.com/flourishing-live/

"The long-awaited emergence of 'Teal' as a shape of consciousness, set of life conditions, and accompanying techno-economic structure is upon us, and will increasingly emerge with the rise of The Transformation Age. The Integral Philosophy movement inhabits just one small niche of this broader phenomena that inside Integral Life we simply call 'Emergent Teal'. Populated by a diverse set of people and organizations, starting this year Integral Life has begun opening its platform to a broader set of voices, hosts and activities—look out for many exciting announcements coming your way soon—and also begun to engage with some of these talented people, like the one here, an “open class” format which arose from an interaction among Perspectiva’s Jonathan Rowson, The PopUp School’s Bonnitta Roy, GameB’s Jordan Greenhall and myself on Twitter. I was excited to join this conversation because our host, the brilliant Bonnitta Roy, intentionally focused on the personal and concrete among the three guests—all of us fathers—on what it means to be a father, raise children, and take on the responsibility of intergenerational transmission in this time between eras, and whether it holds lessons for being a leader today." —Robb Smith

Wang Huning is arguably the world’s most influential and powerful intellectual. And you’ve probably never heard of him, as he has sat quietly at the top of China’s power structure, advising three presidents over 30 years. The architect of many of China’s most significant contemporary ideological and strategic efforts, he’s deeply studied in the philosophy and ways of the west. Long before Robb’s own analysis that the west is amidst a monumental breakdown he called a “Great Release”, Huning came to the conclusion that the decadence of the United States, its culture and capitalism will lead it to ruin, and China must be steered in a different, and in some ways more integral, direction. The stakes couldn’t be higher: to understand this century, we have to understand the geopolitical and philosophical power struggle between China and the United States and the differing global “Operating Systems” they’re fighting for. And to better understand that struggle, we have to better understand whether the cognition of China’s leaders are integral or not: are they capable of bringing the Teal “Power to Integrate” to bear on the world system? For that answer, we must look to Wang Huning. Join Robb as he holds an impromptu commentary-monologue on a recent profile of Wang Huning published in Palladium Magazine: https://palladiummag.com/2021/10/11/the-triumph-and-terror-of-wang-huning/

How do polarities help us see ourselves and our world more clearly, and more completely? Watch as Beena Sharma answers your questions about her Integrating Polarities training, while offering a simple introduction to the practice. Integrating Polarities is designed to teach you the higher-order thinking common to individuals at the integral stage of development. By learning and practicing the cognitive processes that come naturally to integral thinkers, this training can accelerate your own development toward integral stages of being and doing. Learn more about the training here — and remember, supporting members of Integral Life can enroll for only $50! https://integrallife.com/integrating-polarities-training/ Topics include: - How to embody these polarities in your life - The Integrating Polarities practice - Calibrating our polarity map - Integrating Polarities across multiple altitudes - Can our polarity maps include multiple topics? - Masculine and feminine polarities - Using polarity thinking in diversity training - Core polarities to consider - How can polarities help us navigate the culture wars?

Corey and Ryan discuss the importance of cultivating and inhabiting a “confident humility” with relation to our own physical bodies, mental processes, and spiritual health. We also have a fun segment at the end designed to put your own humility to the test by looking at 10 common integral caricatures — stereotypes that many of us fall into at one point or another during our Integral lives. There is a phenomenon that has become fairly well known in recent years known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. If you are not familiar with that term, it describes the fact that, on average, people tend to greatly overestimate their own capacities and competences. In other words, the majority of us are completely out of our depths when it comes to some important aspect of our lives — our work, our skills, our overall sense-making and maps of reality, etc. — and we surround ourselves with any number of cognitive biases that prevent us from seeing just how limited our views and our self-concepts truly are. In other words, “the first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re in the Dunning-Kruger club.” It’s one of the well-known traps of Integral — because it is so comprehensive and includes so much of our inner and outer worlds, it can tempt us into thinking we know… well, everything. What’s worse, if we don’t keep a careful eye on our ego, it doesn’t take too long before we’ve wrapped an entire identity around our epistemic over-certainty, which only leads to further social fragmentation, tribalism, and culture wars — even within the integral space itself. Because make no mistake, this phenomenon is not describing “dumb people” or people who are “less developed” than yourself. It also describes doctors, PhDs, philosophers, artists, and many of the greatest minds of our time, regardless of where they are in their own growth and development. The sorts of cognitive biases that produce the Dunning-Kruger effect are legion, and made all the more ubiquitous by social media and all the various selection pressures that come with it. So if you are able to take a moment to pause and reflect on where you might be on the Dunning-Kruger path — congratulations! You are practicing healthy epistemic humility right now at this very moment. So how do we prevent ourselves from falling into the trap of over-certainty? By committing to the ongoing work of growing up, cleaning up, and waking up within our own interiors, and then bringing more flexibility, curiosity, and multi-perspectival awareness to our epistemic maps of reality. In other words: cultivating our interior confidence, and then aligning that with humility when it comes to how we navigate the world around us.

We are blessed to live at a time when virtually all of the world's practices from all of the world's cultures and spiritual traditions are freely available to us. In fact, we have so many different kinds of practices it can be downright intimidating: Which should I do? How many should I do? How do I know they're working? Where do I begin? How am I even going to find time for all this? This is what makes this week's discussion so important, as Terry Patten and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at their book Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening. ILP is a highly distilled, easily customizable, and radically inclusive approach to practice, based on the most comprehensive map of human potentials we currently have. It is neither "map" nor "territory", but the vehicle by which we find, refine, and deliver our unique gifts to the world.

We are blessed to live at a time when virtually all of the world's practices from all of the world's cultures and spiritual traditions are freely available to us. In fact, we have so many different kinds of practices it can be downright intimidating: Which should I do? How many should I do? How do I know they're working? Where do I begin? How am I even going to find time for all this? This is what makes this week's discussion so important, as Terry Patten and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at their book Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening. ILP is a highly distilled, easily customizable, and radically inclusive approach to practice, based on the most comprehensive map of human potentials we currently have. It is neither "map" nor "territory", but the vehicle by which we find, refine, and deliver our unique gifts to the world.

We are blessed to live at a time when virtually all of the world's practices from all of the world's cultures and spiritual traditions are freely available to us. In fact, we have so many different kinds of practices it can be downright intimidating: Which should I do? How many should I do? How do I know they're working? Where do I begin? How am I even going to find time for all this? This is what makes this week's discussion so important, as Terry Patten and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at their book Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening. ILP is a highly distilled, easily customizable, and radically inclusive approach to practice, based on the most comprehensive map of human potentials we currently have. It is neither "map" nor "territory", but the vehicle by which we find, refine, and deliver our unique gifts to the world.

We are blessed to live at a time when virtually all of the world's practices from all of the world's cultures and spiritual traditions are freely available to us. In fact, we have so many different kinds of practices it can be downright intimidating: Which should I do? How many should I do? How do I know they're working? Where do I begin? How am I even going to find time for all this? This is what makes this week's discussion so important, as Terry Patten and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at their book Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening. ILP is a highly distilled, easily customizable, and radically inclusive approach to practice, based on the most comprehensive map of human potentials we currently have. It is neither "map" nor "territory", but the vehicle by which we find, refine, and deliver our unique gifts to the world.

We are blessed to live at a time when virtually all of the world's practices from all of the world's cultures and spiritual traditions are freely available to us. In fact, we have so many different kinds of practices it can be downright intimidating: Which should I do? How many should I do? How do I know they're working? Where do I begin? How am I even going to find time for all this? This is what makes this week's discussion so important, as Terry Patten and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at their book Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening. ILP is a highly distilled, easily customizable, and radically inclusive approach to practice, based on the most comprehensive map of human potentials we currently have. It is neither "map" nor "territory", but the vehicle by which we find, refine, and deliver our unique gifts to the world.

Our dear friend Terry Patten has completed his human journey, and has now passed on from this world. By all accounts Terry made his transition with tremendous grace and courage, guided as he was by his many years of integral and spiritual practice. We miss this man enormously, and feel deeply grateful for his friendship, as well as for the limitless passion, care, and spirit that he brought to the integral movement over the last two decades. So that Terry’s life and death can continue to be a source of meaning, inspiration, and awakening for us all, we want to release the following meditation to the world. Listen as Terry offers a short guided meditation to help you reduce the existential fear, dread, and anxiety surrounding death, by shifting your attention and identification to the indestructible presence at the very center of your being. We love you, Terry Patten. Your light will continue to shine in our hearts, in our spirit, and in our practice. Blessings to you, our cherished friend, teacher, and partner.

Full episode here: integrallife.com/the-science-of-subtle-energy/ In this episode of The Ken Show we take a look at an essay by Ken Wilber titled “Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Subtle Energy” (available to download for free!) which offers an elegant summary of how these energies might be accounted for by integral metatheory and integrated with our scientific understanding of the universe. Throughout Ken’s career, he has been very careful to include only those dimensions of experience and reality that have a rigorous body of evidence behind them (and of course that evidence can come through any coherent methodology in any of the four quadrants/eight zones, and can be enacted by either the “eye of flesh”, the “eye of mind”, or the “eye of spirit”.) But when it comes to things like subtle energy, it’s much more difficult to find this sort of repeatable and rigorous evidence. We have tons of interior-based anecdotes from people throughout history about their experiences with subtle energies — however, because the field is also littered with all sorts of magical thinking, charlatans, and snake oil, we need to be that much more careful about how we go about collecting evidence. What’s more, because we are discussing exterior-quadrant realities here (we’re really talking about various forms of matter-energy) this means that we ultimately require exterior-quadrant methodologies in order to verify and/or falsify the existence of subtle energies. Which means that, until we are able to produce instruments capable of registering and measuring these phenomena in a clinical setting, the question of whether or not subtle energies exist seems to remain largely unverified and unfalsifiable. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use the evidence we do have in order to come up with some strong hypotheses about how these energies might work, as Ken does in this essay. Who knows, perhaps these hypotheses will help guide the future of subtle energy science — simply by telling us where to look, and what to look for. Full episode here: integrallife.com/the-science-of-subtle-energy/

What does it mean to be a bodhisattva in the 21st century? In the Buddhist tradition, a Bodhisattva is someone whose pursuit of enlightenment has become inseparable from the enlightenment of other beings, and have dedicated their lives (multiple lifetimes, in fact) to practicing compassion and helping others to wake up — even postponing their own “final” enlightenment until all other beings have become similarly awakened. In this episode Ryan and Corey are joined by our very good friend Vincent Horn, co-founder of Buddhist Geeks, in order to discuss Ryan and Vince’s decision to fully embrace the Bodhisattva Vow in their lives and in their spiritual practice. What unfolds is a fun and fascinating conversation about compassion, commitment, purpose, meaning, and skillful means — as well as some much-needed guidance to help us bring ourselves into deeper alignment with our own inner Bodhisattva, regardless of whatever spiritual tradition (or lack thereof!) that we find ourselves in.

Watch as Lisa and Corey preview the new season of Integral Life Practice Experiences now available on Integral Life, taking you deeper than ever before into your own growth, awakening, and life purpose. Lisa also discusses her exclusive new program, which she is calling Live Your Deepest Yes, a 12-week live group coaching series that will help you better align yourself with your innermost truth, your passion, and your own unique contribution to the world. What is your Deepest Yes? Deep within, at your very core, there is a voice. This voice is the guiding wisdom that we all have access to. When you clarify and attune to that place inside, you gain access to that voice – learning first how to listen and then speak and act from it. This is the source of right speech, right action and right livelihood. It is the ground from which your purpose, values and ethics arise organically across the various domains of your life. When your heart, body, mind and soul are aligned, you experience a profound sense of rightness all the way down. This is your truth. The truth about who you are, what you want and why you’re here. This truth is the very thing that has been guiding your quest for authenticity, purpose and meaning. When you touch this truth, you experience it like a tuning fork sounding from the core of your being that reverberates out to dynamically interact with life. I call this truth your Deepest Yes.

In this very special episode of The Ken Show we are joined by Aissatou Diallo, Zoe Tray, and Noah Delorme, students at Choate Rosemary Hall who have been studying Ken Wilber’s seminal book, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality for their senior year project. Watch as Ken, Aissatou, Zoe, and Noah unpack many of the core insights of SES and discuss the unique value Integral work holds for a new generation of thinkers, leaders, artists, and scholars. We were absolutely blown away by the depth, care, and curiosity that shone through these students’ questions, as well as the obvious enthusiasm they have for the integral project. We are always trying to find new ways to bring integral ideas to new generations, and presenting these ideas in a way that speaks more directly to the unique life conditions each generation is facing. Seeing these young faces light up behind their masks as they engaged with Ken was a pure delight, and offers a new source of hope for the ongoing unfolding of integral ideas, as well as for our shared future on this planet. Topics include: 0:00 – Ken’s writing process while working on SES 10:43 – Why is spirituality important to the integral model? 26:52 – How do we know how many people are at each stage? 42:09 – How important is community for spiritual awakening? 53:45 – How can Integral help people become better activists? 1:10:22 – How do we integrate relativity? 1:16:01 – Can Integral help people with poverty and substance abuse? 1:29:37 – How does emotion influence our development? 1:40:36 – How do we communicate integral spirituality to non-religious people? 1:43:24 – How does awakened love influence our relationships? 1:52:00 – How does Ken manage fear?

Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/practice-the-wound-of-love/ “Real love hurts; real love makes you totally vulnerable and open; real love will take you far beyond yourself; and therefore real love will devastate you. I kept thinking, if love does not shatter you, you do not know love. We had both been practicing the wound of love, and I was shattered.” —Ken Wilber Watch as Ken and Corey explore the ongoing unfoldment of love along the paths of Waking Up, Growing Up, Opening Up, Cleaning Up, and Showing Up. What follows is one of the most powerful, transformative, and touching conversations that Ken Wilber has ever recorded. We begin this long discussion about the Integral path of conscious love with a heartfelt discussion of the Grace and Grit film that just released, as well as the underlying and undying love that Ken and Treya shared — bringing us right into the heart of this conversation and setting the tone for everything that follows. Part 1: The Timeless Love of Ken and Treya Part 2: Waking Up to Love: Spirit in 2nd-person Part 3: Growing Up to Love: The Unfolding Heart Part 4: Opening Up to Love: Multiple Intelligences Part 5: Cleaning Up Our Love: Obsession, Narcissism, Fear, Pain, and Resentment Part 6: Showing Up as Love: Inhabiting the Heart Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/practice-the-wound-of-love/

Watch the video version here: https://integrallife.com/inhabit-your-perspective/ Most of us are already familiar with Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrant map, but this presentation goes one step deeper — we aren’t just looking at the quadrants themselves, but the “inner” and “outer” dimensions of each quadrant (i.e. looking at each quadrant from the 1st-person, and from the 3rd-person). Taken together, these eight zones refer to the most fundamental perspectives that we can take on any phenomenon, and are most often used to organize and situate all of the major methodologies and schools of thought that we use to generate and confirm our knowledge. But these aren’t just boxes on a piece of paper; they represent the fundamental perspectives that are available to you right now. We unconsciously slide through these perspectives all the time, and all we need to do is recognize what sorts of perspectives we are taking, so that we can use and inhabit them more consciously. Which is why we wanted to do this episode — to step beyond a mere cognitive understanding of these zones, and instead help find a way to feel into these perspectives and to experience them from the inside out. We want you to become more fluent in this sort of perspective-taking, without requiring a working knowledge of Foucault, Varela, Luhmann, etc. In other words, this isn’t another hyper-cognitive discussion of integral theory. This is more of a “perspectival yoga”, and we hope that by the time you have finished watching this episode you will be more familiar with these fundamental dimensions of your experience, right now in this very moment. One of the very best and most common applications of the eight zones is to art, as has been very thoroughly explored by minds like Ken Wilber, Michael Schwartz, and others. In this episode we are doing two things simultaneously — using these perspectives in order to more fully appreciate the art we love, while also using art in order to more fully understand and inhabit these perspectives. We do so by boiling these perspectival zones down to some very fundamental questions we can ask about any artwork or object we happen to be looking at. Listen as Bruce, Ryan, and Corey help make these perspectives a bit more intuitive by noticing how often we are already taking them in our daily lives, how to apply them to any of our experiences.

We invite you to meet the maker of the movie, Grace and Grit, Sebastian Siegel, in Q&A with Nomali Perera, followed by a session of Integral Life Practice. Inspired by one of Ken Wilber’s most beloved and acclaimed books, Sebastian Siegel set out on a decade-long journey of dedication and commitment, ultimately, to Love. In this conversation, Sebastian shares his brave decision-making process around committing to this project, what writing, producing, and directing this movie has meant to him, and how he steps into his work--no matter what that might be--as an Integral Life Practice. Sebastian also discusses several other themes of the movie such as the challenging aspects of how he attempted to include the many voices of Treya and Ken Wilber as subjects and authors, the meta-voice of the transpersonal, plus, Sebastian's own voice as the creator of the movie. We also heard from Sebastian--after having been in this project for a decade--what "grace" means to him, and who Treya has become to him, a beloved woman in the integral community that not many of us had the privilege of meeting. Once the interview ended, Nomali then led a short contemplative practice in exploring the topic of grace and grit as something we all need in order to live purposefully, face challenges and birth our dreams in the same way Sebastian did, and in how Ken and Treya exemplified in this profound story of transcendent love. Released on the 4th of June, 2021, starring Mena Suvari and Stuart Townsend, with Frances Fisher, Rebekah Graf, Nick Stahl, and Mariel Hemingway, the movie Grace and Grit is now available on Amazon Prime, Apple and other streaming services, as well as in select theaters.

Forgiveness — it is easy to say, but how many of us actually know how to do it? Forgiveness is a deceptively complex act, involving a complex calculus of developmental intelligences — including our cognitive intelligence and emotional intelligence, our spiritual intelligence and self-defenses, our intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences, our moral and ethical intelligences. All of these are being “lit up” in different ways by the act of forgiving, and each is exerting its own influence upon the depth, span, and quality of our forgiveness. What’s more, if we are not engaging in a consistent Cleaning Up practice, then genuine forgiveness is that much more difficult to find, as resentment has a funny way of wrapping itself around the hidden residues of our unexamined shadows. To authentically forgive — what Barbara describes as “the absolute refusal to hold ill will against someone for what they did or didn’t do” — can actually be tremendously challenging. Fortunately Barbara Hunt is with us to help make it simple. Watch as Barbara talks to Lisa and Corey about forgiveness as an integral “master practice” — a practice that scaffolds and supports the rest of our various waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up practices. We currently live in a culture that has taken a healthy Green-altitude ideal — “I am responsible for not offending other people” — and twisted it into a self-serving stance that says “you are responsible for not offending me”. This has resulted in a collective regression away from a healthy pluralism that can tolerate multiple discordant points of view, and toward something like the “grievance culture” (or “apology culture”) that we find today. But without an underlying “forgiveness culture” to support it, “grievance culture” can only end in more fragility, more tribalism, and perpetual resentment. Can we forgive ourselves and our own shadows in the Upper-Left quadrant, while still holding ourselves accountable to our own transformation? Can we forgive our shortsighted behaviors in the Upper-Right quadrant, while holding ourselves accountable to our own transformation? Can we forgive each other for our failings in the Lower-Left quadrant, while holding each other accountable to our mutual transformation? Can we forgive the historic currents and inertias of our society, as well as the flawed systems they have produced in the Lower-Right quadrant, while holding civilization itself accountable to transformation? Can we forgive a God who inflicts such terrible suffering and heartbreak upon our lives? In an era that is becoming increasingly fragile with every social media post, forgiveness has become the ultimate practice of anti-fragility. And it is exactly the panacea we need in order to liberate ourselves, to heal our cultural traumas, and to enact a more just society for all of us.

In this episode, Corey deVos and Ryan Oelke explore how to more fully inhabit our art and entertainment. We tend to think of “recreation” as a passive activity, but we actually share an active symbiotic relationship with our art and entertainment, both personally and culturally. We create art, which in turn re-creates us. We are constantly taking in the symbolism and themes and ideas from our surrounding cultural artifacts and reconstructing them as reference points for our own thinking, which then shapes the way we interpret and make sense of the world, whether consciously or unconsciously. We are re-creating ourselves time and time again every time we engage with our favorite films, music, books, television shows, etc. The goal here is to escape the cynically critical inertias of a culture that tends to define its tastes in negative space, and find a way to bring this ongoing cycle of re-creation into consciousness as much as we can — the art of conscious recreation. After all, who among us doesn’t have both an inner Tiger King and an inner Ted Lasso living somewhere inside us? Art is not inert, and our enjoyment of art is anything but passive. We have a deeply psychoactive relationship with our art and entertainment, often revealing territories within us that we never knew were there, and these psychoactive qualities largely depend on the kosmic address of both the artist and the observer. In this episode we hope to make some of these psychoactive properties a bit more noticeable, and demonstrate how integral perspectives can radically increase our enjoyment and appreciation of art and culture. It’s not just about enjoying integral art, but enjoying art integrally. Topics include: 0:00 — The Art of Conscious Re-creation 21:39 — Why Are We Talking About Entertainment? 29:31 — Grace and Grit: A Personal Appreciation 44:52 — Enacting Integral Art vs. Enacting Art Integrally 49:23 — Nine Inch Nails and the Path of Awakening 1:01:22 — Cutting Through Cynicism: Ted Lasso, Life Coach 1:05:50 — Looking Forward

Marxism, also known as “dialectical materialism”, continues to exert a tremendous influence in our society, both in terms of pro-Marxist ideas on the left and anti-Marxist positions on the right. One of the simplest ways to define Marxist epistemology is the following statement: “Examine any alleged state of affairs as related to and distinguished from a total environment, and you will know whether or not the sentence alleging that state of affairs is true.” What are the positive contributions of Marxism that we want to include in a more integral epistemology? What are the unhealthy or negative limitations that we want to avoid? This is a continuation of the previous episode of The Ken Show, where we walked through a dozen major schools of epistemology and took note of their strengths, limitations, and how they fit into a more comprehensive and Integral method of sense-making. If you haven’t watched that episode already, we highly recommend you do so! Why is this important? In an age where legacy media is on the decline and has being largely replaced by social media, we are currently experiencing a total epistemic collapse of historic proportions — resulting in a collective state of aperspectival madness that Ken has been warning us about for decades. The world is broken, and no one can quite agree how, which makes our most pressing social and planetary problems (particularly the truly wicked ones) almost impossible to solve. But don’t worry, this could actually be good news. Our present epistemic breakdown is one of the central life conditions of our time, and Integral metatheory is uniquely positioned to help us piece our fragmented and fallen world back together. While things will almost certainly get worse before they get better, these are precisely the sort of conditions that call integral solutions forward, and the sorts of conversations where those solutions will eventually emerge.

Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/integral-epistemology/ How do we know stuff? Like all of the great philosophical quandaries, it’s a fundamentally straightforward question that can lead us into an endlessly branching series of chicken-and-egg meditations on the nature of existence (ontology) versus the nature of knowledge (epistemology). And it’s a topic that is immediately relevant to today’s world, to our understanding of current events, and to our various strategies and processes of sense-making. This is particularly true here in the social media age. It’s always been the case that we’ve had multiple conflicting epistemologies, but until recently we’ve generally lived in a far more curated media space. We’ve relied upon informational referees who would enforce certain epistemologies over others (for better and/or for worse). But civilization itself is now operating on fully postmodern media platforms with no built-in curation or enfoldment mechanisms at all, where everyone with a smart phone can either contribute to, or corrupt, our sense of shared reality. We are now curators of our own informational terrains. Our online media habits quickly become epistemic silos, reinforced with every click by the hidden algorithms of Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc. This has resulted in the total epistemic breakdown we are now in the midst of, giving rise to everything from Flat Earthers to delusional QAnon conspiracies — all products of broken epistemologies. Ironically, it may be the phrase “do your research” that brings about the death of knowledge. This is why this discussion about epistemology is so important. These aren’t just stodgy schools of philosophy to be discussed in lecture halls — all of us are walking around with our own personal epistemologies we use to make sense of the world, whether consciously examined or not. And these personal epistemologies are at least partially informed by these major schools of thinking — often inherited in their general forms, but inconsistently and idiosyncratically assembled — as well as any number of pre-rational forms of sense-making. The hope here is that by better understanding and applying all of these different epistemological lenses we can achieve a far more comprehensive and integral view, while bringing more awareness to our own epistemological assumptions, biases, and blind spots. At its core, our clash of civilizations is a clash of truth-claims — a clash of epistemologies — made all the worse by our current epistemological crisis and collapse. Aperspectival madness, as we like to say. In this fascinating episode of The Ken Show, we take a look at a dozen of the most popular schools of epistemological thought — idealism, pragmatism, empiricism, constructivism, etc. — noting their respective contributions and limitations, and how they can all be pulled together into a more Integral epistemology that can help us take the next step out of the aperspectival madness we are all currently immersed in. Listen to the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/integral-epistemology/

In this provocative and exhilarating dialogue, Jun Po Roshi and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at Keith Martin-Smith’s new book: A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi. For most of us, we would need to reincarnate at least 50 times in order to attain such an incredible volume of experience. But for whatever reason, it seems that Jun Po went a slightly different route, and chose to live all 50 of those lives at once. Here is his remarkable story—a riveting tale of enlightenment, debauchery, and infinite jest. One of my favorite encounters with Jun Po Roshi was a night I spent driving him from the San Jose airport to Pacific Grove, during our last Integral Spiritual Experience event. A few minutes into our three-hour drive, I asked him what his favorite Beatles album was. “Sgt. Peppers,” he replied, so I played the album on my iPhone. I explained to him that I was raised on a steady diet of this music, and had always felt a slight envy that his generation got to experience the explosion of rock and roll culture firsthand. “This music—it makes me feel nostalgic for a time before I was born,” I told him. “Well get ready,” he shot back, “because that time is coming sooner than you think.” At that moment it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. A perfect Zen joke. A surge of laughter bubbled up from my belly, and as it erupted out of my face, something *popped* inside my consciousness. For just a second, reality flipped itself inside-out, and all that remained were the trembling aftershocks of laughter and a big, beautiful Buddha smile radiating from the back seat of the van, as we continued down the black highway that stretched before us. This perfectly-timed sense of humor, of course, is one of Jun Po’s finest and most endearing qualities. There’s no denying it: the man’s got jokes. But these are not just your standard gags and quips—there is transmission in Jun Po’s humor. In fact, his wit is almost as important to his teaching as his wisdom, and he uses it to set the ego at ease while preparing it for it’s own oblivion, leading us to the infinite absurdity at the very core of our existence. Samsara is a joke, and this very moment is the punchline. Another remarkable quality of Jun Po Roshi that really comes through in this dialogue: he is not the type of guy to sweep his shadows beneath the rug of enlightenment. Rather, he chooses to meet them head-on, using the curative, self-liberating quality of consciousness to extract transcendent light from some of the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche. These might very well be the most admirable aspects of Jun Po’s character: his unabashed and unflinching honesty, his willingness to confess and take full responsibility for his own flaws and mistakes, his unshakable presence and courage as he embraces the pain and stands in the purifying flames of redemption. Jun Po Roshi accepts light and shadow alike as intrinsic elements of his spirituality, exemplifying the Tantric ideal of “bringing everything to the path” by neither avoiding nor excluding the more onerous and destructive facets of our lives. Instead, he urges us to face them directly, to work with them intimately, and to ultimately transmute them into wisdom, virtue, and compassion. Jun Po Kelly Roshi’s story is truly remarkable, and when coupled with his radiant personality and wily sense of humor, would no doubt make for a wildly entertaining and enriching Hollywood blockbuster. Even more intriguing, his story echoes a narrative even greater than his own (as all truly great stories do)—it is hard to think of anyone who better personifies the remarkable progression of American spirituality from the 1960’s until today, standing as he does with one foot firmly planted in the sixties counterculture, and the other in today’s Integral renaissance. Written by Corey deVos

In this provocative and exhilarating dialogue, Jun Po Roshi and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at Keith Martin-Smith’s new book: A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi. For most of us, we would need to reincarnate at least 50 times in order to attain such an incredible volume of experience. But for whatever reason, it seems that Jun Po went a slightly different route, and chose to live all 50 of those lives at once. Here is his remarkable story—a riveting tale of enlightenment, debauchery, and infinite jest. One of my favorite encounters with Jun Po Roshi was a night I spent driving him from the San Jose airport to Pacific Grove, during our last Integral Spiritual Experience event. A few minutes into our three-hour drive, I asked him what his favorite Beatles album was. “Sgt. Peppers,” he replied, so I played the album on my iPhone. I explained to him that I was raised on a steady diet of this music, and had always felt a slight envy that his generation got to experience the explosion of rock and roll culture firsthand. “This music—it makes me feel nostalgic for a time before I was born,” I told him. “Well get ready,” he shot back, “because that time is coming sooner than you think.” At that moment it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. A perfect Zen joke. A surge of laughter bubbled up from my belly, and as it erupted out of my face, something *popped* inside my consciousness. For just a second, reality flipped itself inside-out, and all that remained were the trembling aftershocks of laughter and a big, beautiful Buddha smile radiating from the back seat of the van, as we continued down the black highway that stretched before us. This perfectly-timed sense of humor, of course, is one of Jun Po’s finest and most endearing qualities. There’s no denying it: the man’s got jokes. But these are not just your standard gags and quips—there is transmission in Jun Po’s humor. In fact, his wit is almost as important to his teaching as his wisdom, and he uses it to set the ego at ease while preparing it for it’s own oblivion, leading us to the infinite absurdity at the very core of our existence. Samsara is a joke, and this very moment is the punchline. Another remarkable quality of Jun Po Roshi that really comes through in this dialogue: he is not the type of guy to sweep his shadows beneath the rug of enlightenment. Rather, he chooses to meet them head-on, using the curative, self-liberating quality of consciousness to extract transcendent light from some of the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche. These might very well be the most admirable aspects of Jun Po’s character: his unabashed and unflinching honesty, his willingness to confess and take full responsibility for his own flaws and mistakes, his unshakable presence and courage as he embraces the pain and stands in the purifying flames of redemption. Jun Po Roshi accepts light and shadow alike as intrinsic elements of his spirituality, exemplifying the Tantric ideal of “bringing everything to the path” by neither avoiding nor excluding the more onerous and destructive facets of our lives. Instead, he urges us to face them directly, to work with them intimately, and to ultimately transmute them into wisdom, virtue, and compassion. Jun Po Kelly Roshi’s story is truly remarkable, and when coupled with his radiant personality and wily sense of humor, would no doubt make for a wildly entertaining and enriching Hollywood blockbuster. Even more intriguing, his story echoes a narrative even greater than his own (as all truly great stories do)—it is hard to think of anyone who better personifies the remarkable progression of American spirituality from the 1960’s until today, standing as he does with one foot firmly planted in the sixties counterculture, and the other in today’s Integral renaissance. Written by Corey deVos

In this provocative and exhilarating dialogue, Jun Po Roshi and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at Keith Martin-Smith’s new book: A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi. For most of us, we would need to reincarnate at least 50 times in order to attain such an incredible volume of experience. But for whatever reason, it seems that Jun Po went a slightly different route, and chose to live all 50 of those lives at once. Here is his remarkable story—a riveting tale of enlightenment, debauchery, and infinite jest. One of my favorite encounters with Jun Po Roshi was a night I spent driving him from the San Jose airport to Pacific Grove, during our last Integral Spiritual Experience event. A few minutes into our three-hour drive, I asked him what his favorite Beatles album was. “Sgt. Peppers,” he replied, so I played the album on my iPhone. I explained to him that I was raised on a steady diet of this music, and had always felt a slight envy that his generation got to experience the explosion of rock and roll culture firsthand. “This music—it makes me feel nostalgic for a time before I was born,” I told him. “Well get ready,” he shot back, “because that time is coming sooner than you think.” At that moment it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. A perfect Zen joke. A surge of laughter bubbled up from my belly, and as it erupted out of my face, something *popped* inside my consciousness. For just a second, reality flipped itself inside-out, and all that remained were the trembling aftershocks of laughter and a big, beautiful Buddha smile radiating from the back seat of the van, as we continued down the black highway that stretched before us. This perfectly-timed sense of humor, of course, is one of Jun Po’s finest and most endearing qualities. There’s no denying it: the man’s got jokes. But these are not just your standard gags and quips—there is transmission in Jun Po’s humor. In fact, his wit is almost as important to his teaching as his wisdom, and he uses it to set the ego at ease while preparing it for it’s own oblivion, leading us to the infinite absurdity at the very core of our existence. Samsara is a joke, and this very moment is the punchline. Another remarkable quality of Jun Po Roshi that really comes through in this dialogue: he is not the type of guy to sweep his shadows beneath the rug of enlightenment. Rather, he chooses to meet them head-on, using the curative, self-liberating quality of consciousness to extract transcendent light from some of the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche. These might very well be the most admirable aspects of Jun Po’s character: his unabashed and unflinching honesty, his willingness to confess and take full responsibility for his own flaws and mistakes, his unshakable presence and courage as he embraces the pain and stands in the purifying flames of redemption. Jun Po Roshi accepts light and shadow alike as intrinsic elements of his spirituality, exemplifying the Tantric ideal of “bringing everything to the path” by neither avoiding nor excluding the more onerous and destructive facets of our lives. Instead, he urges us to face them directly, to work with them intimately, and to ultimately transmute them into wisdom, virtue, and compassion. Jun Po Kelly Roshi’s story is truly remarkable, and when coupled with his radiant personality and wily sense of humor, would no doubt make for a wildly entertaining and enriching Hollywood blockbuster. Even more intriguing, his story echoes a narrative even greater than his own (as all truly great stories do)—it is hard to think of anyone who better personifies the remarkable progression of American spirituality from the 1960’s until today, standing as he does with one foot firmly planted in the sixties counterculture, and the other in today’s Integral renaissance. Written by Corey deVos

In this provocative and exhilarating dialogue, Jun Po Roshi and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at Keith Martin-Smith’s new book: A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi. For most of us, we would need to reincarnate at least 50 times in order to attain such an incredible volume of experience. But for whatever reason, it seems that Jun Po went a slightly different route, and chose to live all 50 of those lives at once. Here is his remarkable story—a riveting tale of enlightenment, debauchery, and infinite jest. One of my favorite encounters with Jun Po Roshi was a night I spent driving him from the San Jose airport to Pacific Grove, during our last Integral Spiritual Experience event. A few minutes into our three-hour drive, I asked him what his favorite Beatles album was. “Sgt. Peppers,” he replied, so I played the album on my iPhone. I explained to him that I was raised on a steady diet of this music, and had always felt a slight envy that his generation got to experience the explosion of rock and roll culture firsthand. “This music—it makes me feel nostalgic for a time before I was born,” I told him. “Well get ready,” he shot back, “because that time is coming sooner than you think.” At that moment it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. A perfect Zen joke. A surge of laughter bubbled up from my belly, and as it erupted out of my face, something *popped* inside my consciousness. For just a second, reality flipped itself inside-out, and all that remained were the trembling aftershocks of laughter and a big, beautiful Buddha smile radiating from the back seat of the van, as we continued down the black highway that stretched before us. This perfectly-timed sense of humor, of course, is one of Jun Po’s finest and most endearing qualities. There’s no denying it: the man’s got jokes. But these are not just your standard gags and quips—there is transmission in Jun Po’s humor. In fact, his wit is almost as important to his teaching as his wisdom, and he uses it to set the ego at ease while preparing it for it’s own oblivion, leading us to the infinite absurdity at the very core of our existence. Samsara is a joke, and this very moment is the punchline. Another remarkable quality of Jun Po Roshi that really comes through in this dialogue: he is not the type of guy to sweep his shadows beneath the rug of enlightenment. Rather, he chooses to meet them head-on, using the curative, self-liberating quality of consciousness to extract transcendent light from some of the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche. These might very well be the most admirable aspects of Jun Po’s character: his unabashed and unflinching honesty, his willingness to confess and take full responsibility for his own flaws and mistakes, his unshakable presence and courage as he embraces the pain and stands in the purifying flames of redemption. Jun Po Roshi accepts light and shadow alike as intrinsic elements of his spirituality, exemplifying the Tantric ideal of “bringing everything to the path” by neither avoiding nor excluding the more onerous and destructive facets of our lives. Instead, he urges us to face them directly, to work with them intimately, and to ultimately transmute them into wisdom, virtue, and compassion. Jun Po Kelly Roshi’s story is truly remarkable, and when coupled with his radiant personality and wily sense of humor, would no doubt make for a wildly entertaining and enriching Hollywood blockbuster. Even more intriguing, his story echoes a narrative even greater than his own (as all truly great stories do)—it is hard to think of anyone who better personifies the remarkable progression of American spirituality from the 1960’s until today, standing as he does with one foot firmly planted in the sixties counterculture, and the other in today’s Integral renaissance. Written by Corey deVos

In this provocative and exhilarating dialogue, Jun Po Roshi and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at Keith Martin-Smith’s new book: A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi. For most of us, we would need to reincarnate at least 50 times in order to attain such an incredible volume of experience. But for whatever reason, it seems that Jun Po went a slightly different route, and chose to live all 50 of those lives at once. Here is his remarkable story—a riveting tale of enlightenment, debauchery, and infinite jest. One of my favorite encounters with Jun Po Roshi was a night I spent driving him from the San Jose airport to Pacific Grove, during our last Integral Spiritual Experience event. A few minutes into our three-hour drive, I asked him what his favorite Beatles album was. “Sgt. Peppers,” he replied, so I played the album on my iPhone. I explained to him that I was raised on a steady diet of this music, and had always felt a slight envy that his generation got to experience the explosion of rock and roll culture firsthand. “This music—it makes me feel nostalgic for a time before I was born,” I told him. “Well get ready,” he shot back, “because that time is coming sooner than you think.” At that moment it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. A perfect Zen joke. A surge of laughter bubbled up from my belly, and as it erupted out of my face, something *popped* inside my consciousness. For just a second, reality flipped itself inside-out, and all that remained were the trembling aftershocks of laughter and a big, beautiful Buddha smile radiating from the back seat of the van, as we continued down the black highway that stretched before us. This perfectly-timed sense of humor, of course, is one of Jun Po’s finest and most endearing qualities. There’s no denying it: the man’s got jokes. But these are not just your standard gags and quips—there is transmission in Jun Po’s humor. In fact, his wit is almost as important to his teaching as his wisdom, and he uses it to set the ego at ease while preparing it for it’s own oblivion, leading us to the infinite absurdity at the very core of our existence. Samsara is a joke, and this very moment is the punchline. Another remarkable quality of Jun Po Roshi that really comes through in this dialogue: he is not the type of guy to sweep his shadows beneath the rug of enlightenment. Rather, he chooses to meet them head-on, using the curative, self-liberating quality of consciousness to extract transcendent light from some of the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche. These might very well be the most admirable aspects of Jun Po’s character: his unabashed and unflinching honesty, his willingness to confess and take full responsibility for his own flaws and mistakes, his unshakable presence and courage as he embraces the pain and stands in the purifying flames of redemption. Jun Po Roshi accepts light and shadow alike as intrinsic elements of his spirituality, exemplifying the Tantric ideal of “bringing everything to the path” by neither avoiding nor excluding the more onerous and destructive facets of our lives. Instead, he urges us to face them directly, to work with them intimately, and to ultimately transmute them into wisdom, virtue, and compassion. Jun Po Kelly Roshi’s story is truly remarkable, and when coupled with his radiant personality and wily sense of humor, would no doubt make for a wildly entertaining and enriching Hollywood blockbuster. Even more intriguing, his story echoes a narrative even greater than his own (as all truly great stories do)—it is hard to think of anyone who better personifies the remarkable progression of American spirituality from the 1960’s until today, standing as he does with one foot firmly planted in the sixties counterculture, and the other in today’s Integral renaissance. Written by Corey deVos

In this provocative and exhilarating dialogue, Jun Po Roshi and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at Keith Martin-Smith’s new book: A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi. For most of us, we would need to reincarnate at least 50 times in order to attain such an incredible volume of experience. But for whatever reason, it seems that Jun Po went a slightly different route, and chose to live all 50 of those lives at once. Here is his remarkable story—a riveting tale of enlightenment, debauchery, and infinite jest. One of my favorite encounters with Jun Po Roshi was a night I spent driving him from the San Jose airport to Pacific Grove, during our last Integral Spiritual Experience event. A few minutes into our three-hour drive, I asked him what his favorite Beatles album was. “Sgt. Peppers,” he replied, so I played the album on my iPhone. I explained to him that I was raised on a steady diet of this music, and had always felt a slight envy that his generation got to experience the explosion of rock and roll culture firsthand. “This music—it makes me feel nostalgic for a time before I was born,” I told him. “Well get ready,” he shot back, “because that time is coming sooner than you think.” At that moment it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. A perfect Zen joke. A surge of laughter bubbled up from my belly, and as it erupted out of my face, something *popped* inside my consciousness. For just a second, reality flipped itself inside-out, and all that remained were the trembling aftershocks of laughter and a big, beautiful Buddha smile radiating from the back seat of the van, as we continued down the black highway that stretched before us. This perfectly-timed sense of humor, of course, is one of Jun Po’s finest and most endearing qualities. There’s no denying it: the man’s got jokes. But these are not just your standard gags and quips—there is transmission in Jun Po’s humor. In fact, his wit is almost as important to his teaching as his wisdom, and he uses it to set the ego at ease while preparing it for it’s own oblivion, leading us to the infinite absurdity at the very core of our existence. Samsara is a joke, and this very moment is the punchline. Another remarkable quality of Jun Po Roshi that really comes through in this dialogue: he is not the type of guy to sweep his shadows beneath the rug of enlightenment. Rather, he chooses to meet them head-on, using the curative, self-liberating quality of consciousness to extract transcendent light from some of the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche. These might very well be the most admirable aspects of Jun Po’s character: his unabashed and unflinching honesty, his willingness to confess and take full responsibility for his own flaws and mistakes, his unshakable presence and courage as he embraces the pain and stands in the purifying flames of redemption. Jun Po Roshi accepts light and shadow alike as intrinsic elements of his spirituality, exemplifying the Tantric ideal of “bringing everything to the path” by neither avoiding nor excluding the more onerous and destructive facets of our lives. Instead, he urges us to face them directly, to work with them intimately, and to ultimately transmute them into wisdom, virtue, and compassion. Jun Po Kelly Roshi’s story is truly remarkable, and when coupled with his radiant personality and wily sense of humor, would no doubt make for a wildly entertaining and enriching Hollywood blockbuster. Even more intriguing, his story echoes a narrative even greater than his own (as all truly great stories do)—it is hard to think of anyone who better personifies the remarkable progression of American spirituality from the 1960’s until today, standing as he does with one foot firmly planted in the sixties counterculture, and the other in today’s Integral renaissance. Written by Corey deVos

Free video version here: https://integrallife.com/from-languishing-to-flourishing/ We were amazed at the serendipity when we opened the New York Times this morning and read Adam Grant’s article “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.” In it, he describes the feeling of languishing, something between not-quite hopeless depression, but far-from-thriving flourishing that he and millions of others have felt the past year during the pandemic. The reader comments to the article lit up with agreement and relief that readers weren’t alone in feeling joyless, listless, and aimless this past year. In a word, millions of us are languishing. The timing couldn’t have been better. Watch as Robb Smith talks with Lee Mason about what an integral approach to flourishing looks like, and what we know about the science of getting out of languishing. Learn more about The Essence of Integral Flourishing: https://integrallife.com/the-essence-of-integral-flourishing/

Nomali Perera has been a dear friend to the Integral project for nearly 20 years now, and we are delighted to have her as one of our most prolific Practice Leaders on our new Integral Life Practice platform. Having been part of the integral movement for so long, Nomali has special insight into the underlying needs and challenges faced by the community, and hosts a full suite of practices that help us meet those needs and challenges and take the integral vision more fully into our hearts. In this episode of The Art of Practice, Nomali talks to Lisa and Corey about the many opportunities and obstacles we face in our practice, and how to deepen our commitment to our own process of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up. We follow the subtle threads of love, death, and vitality that weave through each of our practices and connect us together as a community, while reminding each other that we can only truly be ourselves if we are willing to actually get over ourselves. And this is one of the central polarities we face in our ILP — we want to be more of ourselves and less of ourselves at the same time. We want to more fully embody and inhabit our own unique kosmic address so that we may bring our gifts to the world, while also getting ourselves out of our own way and following a path of self-transcendence and selfless service. We want to make our egos bigger and brighter and more capable than ever, before but also more transparent to the inner light that is trying to shine through these illusions of separation. This is the riddle at the heart of our practice — and it’s one that ILP is uniquely qualified to answer. Watch as Nomali, Lisa, and Corey explore these questions — and why it’s always important to wear your clown nose while practicing.

Are you concerned about things like social justice, wealth inequality, and the continuing cultural inertias of racism and bigotry? Have you ever wanted to, say, reform a police department or two? Are you interested in protecting voting rights for particular groups of people? Are you naturally inclined to want to relieve suffering for people by “bringing the most depth to the most span”, as we say here in Integral Land? Congratulations, you might be woke! Are you equally concerned about the sorts of extremism that we are seeing on the Left — performative virtue signaling, growing intolerance for conflictiing perspectives and free speech, a backslide away from healthy green pluralism and toward totalizing amber narratives? Well, maybe you’e not so woke after all. Maybe you are actually “post-woke”, and have been waiting for discussions like this one to come down the line. Which is why Ryan and I wanted to help clear this space and invite all of us to inhabit our own most embodied leadership within an authentically “post-woke” space that allows us to recognize and rescue the most important babies of “social justice” from the bathwater of political extremism. How do we do so? By getting “wokeness” (and the green altitude as a whole) out of our shadows, while bringing more caution and discernment to the inherent shadows of the woke movement itself. And one of the best ways we can get the Green altitude out of our shadows is to simply shift our frame just little bit: Rather than thinking off the green altitude as "post-modern", let’s simultaneously think of it as being “pre-integral". There is something about that reframe that reminds us of our obligation to properly transclude the green altitude in our integral embrace and get it out of our own shadow. Because at the integral altitude, all of these previous stages become part of our own interior anatomy — which means that if we are engaged in unconscious warfare against the Green altitude, we are denying one of the highest stages of our own being. It’s like walking around with your head cut off. The Green altitude, after all, is also associated with “early vision-logic”, which is why a great number of important green terms, concepts, and deep structures are maintained and updated at the integral altitude — concepts like "pluralism" (which, for example, then ripens as "integral methodological pluralism"), as well as "constructivism" and "perspectivism". Even the woke emphasis on "identity" is taken up again at the integral stage, which simply offers a broader spectrum of identity to draw upon beyond our typological intersectionality — a spectrum that takes us all the way to the Supreme Identity itself. This reframe may also help better facilitate "post-woke" discussions, while helping us to better regulate the green altitude by reminding it of who and what it is actually supposed to be (pluralistic, empathetic, and tolerant).

Inhabit: Your Practice by Integral Life

“There are a lot more sightings than have been made public,” says former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. In the midst of America’s total epistemic collapse into the pits of disinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theory, somehow belief in UFOs and alien contact continues to find more and more legitimacy. Some say we are even ramping up to a “soft disclosure” as the U.S. military prepares to release a full report of their own observations and interactions with anomalous craft. "Some of those have been declassified,” Ratcliffe continues. “And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain. Movements that are hard to replicate that we don't have the technology for. Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.” Stuart Davis has been tracking these phenomena for a very long time, and in fact has launched an entire podcast, Aliens and Artists (it’s the #5 podcast in Vietnam!) in order to chronicle, explore, and make sense of his own experiences, and to interview various subject matter experts on similarly strange encounters. He has also recently kickstarted an entire online community for people who have had any number of anomalous experiences, which he calls The Experiencer Group. In this fun and fascinating discussion, Stu and I take a deep dive into these cosmic mysteries, exploring the many ways the Integral framework helps us illuminate and interpret the full enchilada of human (and non-human) experience, from the ordinary to the extraordinary to the extra-extraordinary. If you are already a believer in these kinds of phenomena, you will find this discussion to be a fascinating exploration of the contours and consequences of these experiences. How can we make better sense of these encounters, and what are the possible implications for the rest of society — and to civilization as a whole? And if your personality type is more Scully than Mulder and have a hard time entertaining extraordinary claims without equally extraordinary evidence, then we invite you to hold this entire discussion as a thought experiment. How can the integral model expand our imagination? What kind of predictive power might Integral possess when it comes to things like alien evolution or inter-species communication? How integral can “integral” be, if it cannot be applied to an intergalactic context? Our universe is very big and very dark. It contains multitudes. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your Integral philosophy. So let’s see just how far into the mystery Integral can take us. Regardless of where you may land on the issue, we hope you enjoy the adventure. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

What exactly is the Enneagram, and what makes it such a helpful tool when it comes to our ongoing growth and awakening? Watch as Lisa and Corey offer a broad introduction to the Integral Enneagram, as well as to the many Enneagram offerings we currently have available on Integral Life, including: - A self-assessment test that allows you to better discern your own Enneagram type, - A monthly “Harnessing the Power of Your Enneatype” practice session, available to all supporting members of Integral Life, - A series of monthly Enneagram sessions that focus on each of the nine types — a monthly session for Type 1, another monthly session for Type 2, another for Type 3, etc. Click here to learn more: https://integrallife.com/your-enneagram-type-an-introduction/

*We highly recommend that you watch the video version! You can find it here: https://integrallife.com/inhabit-your-game/ In this continuation of our "integral media" series, Ryan and Corey take another look at the major stages of human development, this time using a series of 33 video games in order to illustrate the qualities and characteristics of each stage. All of this allows you to not only observe these stages within you, but to actively inhabit, engage, and play with them as well.

Join Lisa Frost and me in a new monthly series that will explore how to bring more depth and artistry to our Integral Life Practice — the very best and most effective practices to help you Wake Up, Grow Up, Clean Up, and Show Up in your life, your relationships, and your work in the world. Integral is itself a practice-based theory. “Integral Methodological Pluralism” is just a fancy way of saying, “here are all of the available practices that are available to us — practices that reveal everything we know about life, the universe, and everything. And here’s how to put all of those practices together, so we can better understand our reality, lead better/more fulfilling lives, and leave the universe and everything in better shape than we found it.“ In other words, practice is at the very core of integral. How do we grow up? We practice. How do we wake up? We practice. How do we clean up? That’s right, practice baby! How do we show up? Practice, practice practice, practice — and allowing the fruits of our practice to spill over into all four quadrants. These aren’t just conversations about the integral map — they are about living in the integral territory. Watch as Lisa and I take an in-depth look at our new Integral Life Practice platform, which offers a vast collection of self-guided practices as well as calendar of live daily practice sessionss led by skilled practice leaders from around the world, attended every day by a powerful community of like-hearted people who are profoundly committed to their own growth, awakening, and impact. Visit https://integrallife.com/calendar for the full Integral Life Practice session schedule.

We highly recommend you watch this instead of listening! You can find the full video here: https://integrallife.com/inhabit-your-inner-theatre/ Corey and Ryan take you on a cinematic journey through the stages of human development, using a series of 21 carefully-curated film clips to illustrate some of the most important qualities of each stage. Why film clips? Simple — it’s fun! Plus, these clips are from some of the most popular films from the last 80 years, commonly-shared reference points that most of us are already familiar with. This gives us the opportunity to put together one of the most accessible, friendly, and entertaining ways to introduce these important ideas to newcomers. And for those who are already familiar with integral thought and practice, this discussion will still be fascinating, fun, and occasionally moving, while also helping you more deeply contemplate the important difference between enjoying integral artenjoying art integrally. And as you watch, try to remember: all of this is actually happening inside of you. You may be viewing these film clips on a screen in front of you, but the stages we explore here are all alive within you right now, either as capacities you’ve already developed or as potentials that are waiting to be unleashed. 

The Witness itself is the ultimate movie screen — the effortless, simple feeling of being behind all of our perceptions. All of this is just a fleeting dance of light, sound, and shadow projected within your consciousness against that empty, all-pervasive awareness. So grab some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy this very special tour of your own inner theatre.

Robb Smith on Bitcoin by Integral Life

The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. The “Darth Vader move” is what happens when someone with an exceptionally high level of development uses the skills and capacities of that level for purposes generally deemed to be “wrong” — often the result of a highly developed cognitive intelligence combined with a poorly developed moral intelligence (Nazi scientists being the classic example). What happens when our higher angels get hijacked by our lowest demons? What is the cause of the Darth Vader move, and how can we prevent ourselves from being seduced by the Dark Side of the Force?

Excerpted from the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/capitalism-growth-became-enemy-prosperity/ "To use the metaphor of our era, we are running an extractive, growth-driven economic operating system that has reached the limits of its ability to serve anyone, rich or poor, human or corporate. Moreover, we’re running it on super computers and digital networks that accelerate and amplify all its effects. Growth is the single, uncontested, core command of the digital economy… An operating system designed by 13th century Moorish accountants looking for a way to preserve the aristocracy of Europe has worked as promised. It turned the marketplace into one giant debtors’ prison. It is not only unfit for the needs of a 21st century digital society; central currency is the core mechanism of the growth trap." Douglas Rushkoff, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus To be alive in today's world is to be living through a raging, roiling argument about money: how it’s generated and how it will be distributed in the 21st century. Money dominates the changing politics and economics of the western hemisphere. Whether jobs, free trade, taxes, student debt, housing prices, AI-based automation, wealth disparities, educational funding or any of dozens of other headline-topics, how society will create and share value and resources sits at the forefront of our current moment.

Watch as Beena Sharma, Susanne Cook-Greuter, and Corey deVos offer a must-see presentation to help us understand the many healthy and unhealthy responses we are seeing to the coronavirus pandemic, all the way up and down the spiral of development. Chances are you are already seeing all of these responses surfacing all around you: in your social media feeds, among your friends and family, and even within yourself. And it can be confusing at times, seeing all these different and often contradictory responses flooding into your consciousness all at once, and trying to navigate our way through them in order to figure out which are more true, which are more partial, and which you resonate with the most. This presentation will help reduce that confusion for you — giving you a way to fold all of these different views and values into a greater sense of wholeness and meaning, while also giving you permission to return to some of these earlier stages in order to tend to the many concerns and anxieties that may be present for you there. It’s important, after all, to remember that none of these stages are inherently “better” or “worse” than any other. Although there are certainly healthy and unhealthy expressions at each stage, and our capacity for both complexity and compassion both increase as we move into the later stages of development, we can nonetheless also find within each of these stages a series of responses that are perfectly appropriate for the various life conditions we may find ourselves in. Sometimes the intelligences and capacities associated with earlier stages are best suited for a particular set of problems, and less suitable for other problems. Sometimes only later stages are capable of handling a certain magnitude of complexity, and other times these later stages can over-complexify certain problems and make things worse. Which means that all of these stages have their appropriate place, both out in the world and within ourselves. So join us as Beena and Susanne help us sort through all of this, taking us on an intimate 1st-person journey from the earliest stages of growth all the way to the deepest transpersonal stages of unity consciousness.

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” ― Ernest Hemingway Our crisis of trust has been rapidly compounding in recent years, as the internet has delivered us into an age of aperspectival madness — an epistemic breakdown where shared reality becomes splintered into hermetically-sealed social media silos, where all enfoldment between opposing perspectives breaks down completely, and where evidence-based truths become sacrificed on the altar of narrative beliefs. “Trust” is something like an immune system for our society. It prevents our collective body from being infected by propaganda, zealotry, and social regression. Here at the tail end of 2020, it is clear that we are experiencing a crisis of truth, as well as a crisis of meaning. And underlying them both is an even deeper crisis — a crisis of trust. Trust, of course, is a paradox. We live in a highly complex and highly specialized civilization. Our daily lives depend upon us being able to trust a massive interconnected system of strangers and institutions, just to be able to put food on the table every night that won’t end up making our families sick. And yet when our fundamental trust in those same strangers and institutions begins to collapse, so do the foundations of civilization itself. When our fundamental trust in each other becomes completely dismantled, then so does our capacity to perceive and understand truth. After all, our perceptions of “truth” depend on a mutual recognition of “truthfulness” — another word for trust. And when we allow ourselves to believe that everyone is always already lying to us from every direction (other than our own preferred media silos, of course), then our reality suddenly becomes unknowable. As President Obama recently said: “If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition our democracy doesn’t work. We are entering into an epistemological crisis.” This is a truly wicked problem. It is a tremendously complex and multivalent challenge, with causes and effects that can be tracked through all four quadrants. And like any other “wicked problem”, it is not something that can be solved in a piecemeal fashion: focus too much on any single variable and all the other variables change immediately — which means that partial solutions actually risk making things worse. Watch as Ryan and I take a deep dive into the wicked problem of social trust, looking at this meta-crisis through each of the four quadrants, as well as some key practices and perspectives that can help us restore our trust in each other, in our institutions, in ourselves, and in the grand evolutionary unfolding itself.

Watch as Ryan and Corey reflect on the results of the 2020 Presidential Election, exploring its implications for the world and within our own hearts, while also creating a space where we can begin to release some of the fears and anxieties many of us have been struggling with during these chaotic and uncertain times. What is our work going forward? How can we begin to heal the deep ruptures that have formed in our society? What sorts of personal and political shadows have emerged for us over the last few years, and how can we better manage and re-integrate those shadows? How can we learn to set our political views and identities aside, so that we can find a deeper and more fulfilling connection with each other? How do we skillfully engage with friends and family members who subscribe to unfalsifiable narrative realities such as QAnon? After years of social fragmentation and media balkanization, how can we possibly begin to put Humpty Dumpty back together again? We hope you enjoy this special post-election episode of Inhabit! Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Corey deVos and Mark Fischler discuss how best to expand and embody our most integral influences and intentions. Excerpted from the full 2-hour conversation here: https://integrallife.com/the-fierce-urgency-of-now/

In this very special episode of Inhabit, Ryan and I focus on one of the most essential elements of any Integral Life Practice — directly engaging your democratic systems and showing up to cast your vote. Watch as Ryan and I discuss the following: -Why it’s never a good idea to base our electoral decisions on the current state of the culture wars - Why it’s important to differentiate “politics” from “governance” - Why it’s important to differentiate ordinary people on the left and the right from the social holons of Democratic and GOP political parties. - Can a person’s political views be used to assess their overall development? - Can a solidly integral person be a Trump supporter? (Spoiler: of course they can.) I also offer an in-depth exploration of cynicism — how to recognize it in our own lives, and how to escape its corrosive influence. We do this by drilling down to a more fundamental polarity — the “trust but verify” polarity, which shows how trust and assumptions of good-faith should be integrated with healthy skepticism and critical thinking. But when this polarity becomes disintegrated and balkanized, it inevitably takes us into the negative poles of naïveté and cynicism. The good news is, by understanding this core polarity we can wrap some healthy guardrails around our own enactment of political reality, and catch ourselves when we feel ourselves sliding toward one of these unhealthy poles. Why is this important? “Corruption” and “cynicism” are related in many important ways. Many of us feel like our cynicism is a natural response to corruption — why should we trust a system that is so obviously rigged against us? However, the opposite is equally if not more true: it’s not so much that corruption results in cynicism, but rather cynicism creates a vacuum that gets immediately fillled with corruption. Which makes “escaping cynicism” absolutely paramount right now, as it is one of the most significant obstacles preventing so many of us from fully inhabiting this democracy, making our voices heard, and choosing the deliberately-partial actions and decisions required to move the political pendulum where we'd like to see it to go, rather than waiting for the world to catch up with us before we are willing to participate. Finally, I take a few moments to present my “3-Point Plan to Save Democracy” — the three most crucial systemic changes we need to make in the Lower-Right quadrant in order to restore healthy political enfoldment, de-escalate the culture wars, and rehabilitate our democracy. You don’t want to miss that.

Fear: it gets a bad rap in many spiritual communities. In fact, it’s often seen as anti-spiritual — “the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s fear.” “Wherever there is another, fear arises.” And so on. All of which is absolutely true — on an absolute level. On another level, the level of ordinary, everyday relative truth, fear is a powerful motivator — and when it’s properly managed it can even be a superpower, allowing you to respond to danger with greater speed, strength, and agility.

Imagine your car breaks down on the highway. You get out to inspect the damage, and as you look up you see another car barreling down the highway right at you. In that moment, you have two choices. You can drop your fear, knowing that ultimately there is no separation between you and the speeding car. And the good news is, in just a few seconds you will be proven right. Or you can listen to that ancient feeling of dread rising in your body, and get yourself out of harm’s way just before you actually do become one with the car, smeared across the windshield. So fear is an incredibly important evolutionary defense. But when we are not fully conscious of our fear states — when we find ourselves in fear, rather than finding fear within ourselves — it robs us of our ability to respond. And when that fear begins to move through the collective it becomes an ever-present background radiation in our lives. It clouds our judgment. It makes us suspicious of other people and perspectives. It becomes an ongoing source of cynicism and despondency. It erodes our capacity to listen and empathize. Sound familiar? Welcome to life in 2020! We are surrounded by truly terrifying realities, and regardless of your own ongoing sources of fear — whether it’s COVID, climate change, your health, your employment, or culture war issues like MAGA extremism, Antifa violence, white supremacy, or cultural Marxism — these fears tend to haunt us from somewhere in the background of our consciousness, exerting a corruptive influence that can distort our lens and pollute our informational terrain. We search for a sense of certainty, some solid ground where we can find traction against our unconscious fears, often resulting in an elaborate labyrinth of half-truths, false equivalencies, and confirmation biases that cause us to overemphasize certain realities while dismissing others. Which is why Ryan and I wanted to do this episode. Because when you do not allow yourself to confront and fully own your fear, you immediately push it into your shadow, where it begins to infect and reorganize your unconscious attitudes and biases in order to protect you from some looming, unseen threat. This is how we bring natural evolutionary fear and spiritual fearlessness into alignment. You don’t need to push away your fear, neither do you need to surrender to it. All you need to do is to inhabit your fear – allow it to freely move through you, allow yourself to respond however you need to respond in the moment, and notice any interior frictions as it passes through your system so you know nothing is getting “stuck” or pushed into shadow. So we hope you enjoy this very special episode of Inhabit, and that it helps you to use your own fear as a superpower to get you more engaged, direct your skillful action, and create a better and more just world for everyone else.

Julia Ormond interviews Sebastian Siegel at the 2020 Integral European Conference about the film adaptation of "Grace and Grit". Bence Ganti facilitates with an introduction to Ken Wilber. They discuss book-to-film, acting, directing, producing, characters and set, filmming, and pivotal elements of production.

“Shadow” refers to any of the hidden allergies, addictions, biases, or blind spots that may be kicking around in our consciousness, distorting our perceptions and limiting our capacity to find genuine happiness, fulfillment, and self-transcending wisdom. Often our shadows are the result of some hidden, unintegrated piece of ourselves that we are projecting outward onto the world around us, and sometimes they are the result of internalizing shadows that are not our own, but infect our self-concept nonetheless. In both cases, we have a simple but elegant practice to help us re-integrate our shadows, what is commonly known as the “3-2-1 shadow process” — a practice that helps you to recognize your shadow in 3rd person, to relate with your shadow in 2nd person, and to finally reclaim and inhabit your shadow in your own 1st-person experience. Watch as Ryan and I explore the following questions: - How often should we practice our shadow work? - How can we keep our perceptual lenses clean and clear from shadow residue? - How can we better manage our informational terrain so it does not become distorted by ideological shadow? - How can we cultivate more “epistemic humility”, and more of the wisdom that comes from recognizing just how partial our own views and biases can be? - What are some of the common shadows we see in the larger integral community itself? - How can we bring more embodiment to our shadow practice, so it’s not just a “neck-up” exercise? - Why is it rude to make objects out of other people’s subjects? - Can we up-level “Woke culture” by holding their core values as an invitation to do our own shadow work, rather than as an excuse to self-righteously bludgeon everyone else for their shadows? - Why do spiritual communities often seem to be a breeding ground for shadow? We didn’t want this to be just another abstract discussion about the various tender parts and blind spots in our psychology, so Ryan and Corey put a bit of their own skin in the game by offering some examples of their own shadow challenges, both large and small, and how they have worked with these shadows over the years*. It is an invitation for all of us to cultivate the strength, vulnerability, and humility to bring our shadow work further into the light, and to practice our own growing capacity to manage shadow material as it emerges in real time. As I often like to say, if you are someone who is trying to shine a light on the various “collective shadows” we are all suspended in, one of the best ways to do so is to simply perform your own shadow work publicly, if only to demonstrate your capacity to discern where your personal shadow ends, and the “collective shadow” begins. We hope you enjoy the discussion! Let us know what you think in the comments below. *And if you watch really closely, you might notice another one of my own shadows that went completely unseen during this show: at multiple points in this episode, I refer to the year as 2019 (it’s 2020) and I say I am 42 years old (I am 43). What’s that all about?

Ed Kowalczyk is the lead singer/songwriter of the rock group Live, who at the time of this recording had just released their sixth studio album, Birds of Pray, and whose first single “Heaven” had already topped the Liquid Audio Download charts for digital singles. Live has had a phenomenal success, selling over 20 million albums worldwide, including two #1 albums on the Billboard charts (Throwing Copper, Secret Samadhi) and five #1 singles. Ed Kowalczyk is a pioneer in integral art, attempting to bring a spiritual edge to that most raucous of art form—rock and roll. We caught Ed on his cell phone the day before he and the band left for a six-week European tour with Bon Jovi. In this intimate discussion of the heart of a rock and roll (that actually has heart), Eddie talks about how the very essence of an authentic performance is awakening and sharing with the audience a glimpse into that one-ness that is everybody’s natural condition. If you don’t think rock and roll can do this, you haven’t heard Live….

How do we stay centered and grounded, when the ground is constantly being moved from under our feet? With so much bias, polarization, and radicalization taking place all around us, how can we prevent our own views and values from being hijacked and pushed to their extremes? When we are drowning in so much information, misinformation, conflicting narratives, and conspiracy theories, how can we prevent our own informational terrain from becoming distorted by propaganda, partial thinking, and malevolent influences? Watch as Ryan and Corey explore how Integral Practice allows us to more fully inhabit our ground by helping us bring more awareness to the most fundamental dimensions of our own lived territory: - Waking Up to the Absolute Ground of Being, the unmovable mountain at the very center of you, the groundless Ground that can never be taken away from you;
 - Understanding how the multiple stages of Growing Up allow us to see and enact the world in very different ways, preventing us from getting swept up by unfalsifiable narratives and low-resolution views;
 - How the practice of Cleaning Up allows us to recognize and reintegrate our own shadows that we might be projecting onto the world around us (lack of control, lack of certainty, suspicion of authority, etc.) as well as the cultural shadows we may have introjected, internalized, and made our own;
 - How properly identifying and integrating polarities helps prevent us from getting blown by the winds of radicalization that are pushing people toward one extreme pole or another;
 - How the Integral Sensibility allows us to more fluidly navigate this complex informational terrain with more compassion, discernment, and strategic action;
 - How the Integral View helps us replenish our optimism while also placing guardrails around disembodied and untenable idealism (“Here’s where I want to go, and I refuse to get in the car until we get there”). We are also joined by our friend Marshall Aeon, who tells us how his own Diamond Approach practice has helped him find the ground he needs to explore the complexity of our world and its many rabbit holes with curiosity, careful discernment, and integrity. We also discuss one of the central polarities and sources of conflict within the integral community — the tension between “orthodox” and “heterodox” sources of information. What is an appropriate balance to strike between “consensus reality” and “conspiracy theory”, both in terms of how we seek out new information and how we enfold that information into our overall view of the world? How can we keep an open mind, but not so open that our brain falls out completely? We hope you enjoy this fascinating discussion with Ryan Oelke, Corey deVos, and Marshall Aeon!

“‘Paranormal’ is a term that came up in the history of these things to mark off phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis. But what I’m proposing is that those sorts of capacities are within the normal range of human functioning, and I do believe they’re operative in animals before humans. Now I’m absolutely convinced of the evidence on that.” —Michael Murphy Mike Murphy is the leading integral theorist of his generation; Ken Wilber is the leading integral theorist of his. Their conversations are unlike anything you will hear anywhere else. These dialogues are warm, witty, loving, and vibrant. They are not, however, for the intellectually faint of heart.

In this lively conversation, Surya Das recounts his own personal story on the spiritual path, from seeking to realizing, with all the trials and tribulations inherent in a journey without a goal. In this wide-ranging discussion of the obstacles and opportunities of bringing a new religion into a culture — in this case, Buddhism into America — Surya Das covers a multitude of critical issues, issues that confront not merely Buddhism but spirituality in general as it encounters the modern and postmodern world. One of the major difficulties is the reluctance of the older culture (such as Tibetan and Japanese) to release their teachings to “barbarians” (that would be us). Yet once the leap is made, the religion lands in a new culture where the obstacles can be even greater. Foremost among these include the dilution of the dharma; popularizing it to the extent that it no longer possesses any depth or liberating power; and “boomeritis Buddhism,” which Ken covers in galvanizing detail.

Serj Tankian, lead singer of System of a Down, voted the #1 band of 2002 by leading critics, is one of the most original and passionate of today’s artists, and one of Integral Institute’s favorite contributors to our ongoing conversation on the avant garde. With a surging and cacophonic presentation, System of a Down simply can’t be pigeonholed—a type of genre-busting transcendental howl. Rolling Stone magazine called System’s sophomore effort, Toxicity, “a bouquet of smart rock and ardent social comment.” In this surprisingly touching dialogue, Serj speaks about some of the most important aspects of his life that contribute to the “post-everything” bouquet of sound that is System of a Down. All four members of System are of Armenian heritage, and Serj begins the conversation by commenting on their activities with the Armenian National Committee of America and its efforts to hold the US to its commitments to the Genocide Convention. Encyclopedia Britannica estimates that the Ottoman/Turkish government was responsible for the deaths of 600,000–1,500,000 Armenians from 1915-1923, and yet, as Serj points out, this tragedy is “not recognized by the United States officially as a genocide.” Serj and Ken go on to speak of how a creative response to injustice is central to their work, whether musical or academic. What they both have in common is an integral-aperspectival space—a holding space in consciousness—that rebels against the marginalization of any views, and one of the views most marginalized in today’s world is the integral. Both the culture and the counterculture actively oppress it. But the conversation is far from morbid. “I think the most open times for me have been when I’m completely goofy and creative… and the most serious and powerful things can come through that goofiness.” The conversation dances from the beginnings of System, to Serj’s eclectic musical interests, to the vital role of a spacious—and integral—consciousness in living and creating in today’s world. Many people listen to System of a Down and think, “How could you be so angry?” In this dialogue Serj explains, “I’m not angry.” The expression of a deeply caring consciousness can be a passionate shout or a compassionate whisper; they go together. What is so moving about this conversation is the depth of heart-felt compassion and justice expressed by Serj Tankian. “I’ve never spoken so personally about these issues,” he told us. After hearing this dialogue, we think you’ll be glad that he did….

Diane and Corey are joined by guests Greg Thomas and Mark Palmer in this groundbreaking discussion about racism, anti-racism, and racial integration, highlighting a number of critical views that have been largely missing from the larger conversation that’s been taking place culturally in recent months and years. Watch as we bring some integral understanding to ideas central to anti-racism and the pluralistic discourse itself — ideas like critical race theory, dismantling white supremacy, eradicating systemic racism, overcoming white fragility, and addressing social privilege. Which pieces we might want to include, and which do we likely want to transcend altogether? We also address how the conversation about race can be easily reduced to a grievance discourse that fails to recognize the dignity, resilience, artistry, and spiritual power of the black community. So enjoy the following discussion with Greg, Mark, Diane, and Corey as we try to create a space where we can unite multiple divergent perspectives on race and racism, reignite our sense of shared humanity, and expand our circles of care.

 If you enjoy this episode, be sure to check out more episodes of Integral Justice Warrior. Watch them all for only $1! https://integrallife.com/category/perspectives/integral-justice-warrior/

Brother David Steindl-Rast, the author of Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer and a practicing Benedictine monk for over half a century, discusses why a new understanding of God is needed to carry spirituality into the future. “There are at least three ways of talking about Spirit: You can say what Spirit is like, you can say what Spirit is not, or you can have a direct experience of Spirit. And the best way to say what Spirit is like in today’s world, is evolutionary panentheism….” Brother David begins by telling Ken about his website, Gratefulness.org. He touches on its role as a forum for what The New York Times refers to as the “2nd Superpower,” or those people across the globe committed to peace, and how something as simple as the act of lighting a candle can be a powerful expression of gratefulness in an agitated and agitating world. Ken discusses religion on the world scene, pointing out that there are actually levels, or stages of spirituality. What this means in practical terms is that each higher stage of spirituality is capable of and committed to more inclusive understandings of love, care, and compassion. The great irony is that while the lower levels of spirituality lead human beings into war, the higher levels lead them into peace. It is here that Brother David introduces what he calls the Godview. The Godview refers to the way a person conceives of God, just as their worldview refers to the way they conceive of the world. In lower levels of spiritual development, the Godview is comprised of “unexamined assumptions,” whereas in higher levels the Godview is born of a direct experience of the numinous. Like the worldview, the Godview is not merely an intellectual construct but an organizing principle for the way life is lived. Explaining further, Brother David goes on to contrast theism (positing a transcendent God, whom one may know on personal terms) with panentheism (literally, “all in God,” or the divine as both transcendent and immanent). It is the latter Godview, Brother David suggests, that will carry spirituality into the future and that has far-reaching implications for inter-religious dialogue. Ken agrees, and goes on to explain that even though God is unfathomable, there are better and worse ways of conceiving that which is ultimately inconceivable, and that if individuals must have a “positive” image for God, that evolutionary-informed panentheism is the most accurate expression. Only through panentheism, affirms Ken, is science and spirituality reconcilable as an evolutionarily unfolding of Spirit-in-action, and only through such a Godview can religion shake off its pre-modern, pre-rational, superstitious roots that have been erroneously elevated to post-rational glory. In closing, Brother David and Ken discuss the significant implications of evolutionary panentheism for inter-religious dialogue, particularly as related to the Christian tradition, the world’s largest organized religion. Until we find ways of presenting our common religious roots in postmodern packaging, concur Ken and Brother David, we are in trouble. We invite you to explore with us the ancient roots of the spiritual quest, and the new branches that are growing to support this endeavor in today’s world….

As many people know, Billy Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins burst on the scene with their first album, Gish, in 1991, which shot to the top of the charts, which is where the Pumpkins remained for a decade, all the harder in that critics considered them “sophisticated,” “complex,” “with great depth,” words usually reserved for artistic success and commercial failure. Billy and the Pumpkins achieved both, as did his next group, Zwan…. In this inside look at this own artistic unfolding, Billy discusses why he formed, and then dissolved, the Pumpkins, and likewise Zwan, as his own artistic crest (or leading edge or avant garde) moved forward. He and Ken talk about the leading edge of consciousness evolution and why artists are so often riding that edge — hence, the avant garde. To be on the crest of one’s own unfolding consciousness is not to guarantee creativity, or greatness, or even talent; it is, however, necessary if not sufficient for such. Since dissolving Zwan, Billy has been experimenting with a succession of avenues for creating new forms of music. He has quietly recorded new solo material, and is planning on re-entering the studio this month to record what he and Ken refer to in the dialogue as the “futuristic rock record.” Billy also plans on experimenting with small groups of audiences who can participate in a type of co-creation of music—”I’m still working on ways to integrate the opinion or the feeling of the audience into its own living art.” Whether or not any of these experimental forms succeed is not the point; the point is exactly as Billy says in this dialogue: “Even how I approach composition, I’m going at it from a different angle from how I would normally do it. Different process, different results.” And the different process is surfing the leading edge, whether you wipe out or not.

Spiritual conversations often emphasize the importance of overcoming our resistance and accepting the world for what it is, exactly as it is. However, there are times when we don’t need to overcome our resistance, we need to fully inhabit our resistance. We can’t simply accept what is, we need to put ourselves on the line for what can and should be. How can we bring more mindfulness, skillfulness, and embodiment to our resistance, even while seeing everything as always-already perfect? And what is the role of violence in protest culture? Is some degree of violence necessary in order to create real social change? When is violence appropriate, when can it help your cause, and when can it only work against your cause? These are not easy questions to answer. Which is why Ryan and I wanted to talk with our good friend Justin Miles about all this. Justin stands in an extraordinary confluence of spiritual, political, and cultural lineages — he is an avid Integralist, a practicing Shambhala Buddhist, an active member of the Black Panther Party, a local community leader, the founder of a Black Power Meditation group in Baltimore, and a prolific hip hop artist. All of these divergent and sometimes conflicting influences have given Justin a unique full-spectrum perspective on the #BLM protests we see erupting all across the country. Watch as Justin shares his own views on this new wave of social resistance and gives voice to the incredible pain, trauma, and frustration that black Americans have been living with for generations. One important note — although we talk openly in this episode about the possible role(s) of violence in protest culture, in no way are we actually condoning violence. Attempting to understand violence — even asking whether some degree of violence might be necessary in order to overcome our social inertia and get the gears of social transformation moving — is very different from actually justifying violence. And of course there is a fairly wide spectrum of violence, from physical assault to property damage to resisting arrest to self-harm, not to mention the accumulated interior violence of discrimination, disenfranchisement, and dehumanization. All resistance is inherently violent, on some level — but how much violence is necessary in today’s resistance movements? This may very well be one of the best measures of just how functional and healthy a society is — how much violence is required in order to enact social change? — in which case, our hope is “as little as possible”.

Although there are many facets to this wonderful discussion, the central idea is that there are masculine and feminine expressions of Spirit, whose respective qualities are often referred to as consciousness and light, agency and communion, solar and lunar, Emptiness and Manifestation, Freedom and Fullness. Both the masculine and feminine types develop through three basic stages or levels. David refers to these three basic stages by many different names, including gross, subtle, and causal; preconventional, conventional, and postconventional; personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal; or simply body, mind, and spirit. Thus, there are masculine and feminine expressions of body, of mind, and of spirit. Further, there are healthy and unhealthy forms of the masculine and feminine at each of those three levels. As David articulately explains, there are ways to spot those pathological forms and experientially redress them, thus finding and fulfilling one’s deepest gift and potential. In part two of the discussion, David continues his fascinating account of the masculine and feminine faces of Spirit, with particular emphasis on the unhealthy or pathological forms of each—along with direct experiential ways to redress or correct those imbalances. The relation (and deep connection) of sexuality and spirituality is a topic strangely ignored by most spiritual teachers, which creates a lack or gap that desperately needs attention. David explores the ways in which traditional spiritual concerns can be integrated with the bodily existence of men and women in the here and now. The overall view is one of an integral approach that unites masculine and feminine in body, mind, and spirit. David and Ken also discuss David’s essay, “Ken Wilber is a Fraud,” which caused a huge ruckus when it was released. Believe us, you don’t want to miss this one.

The creator of some of the most transcendent art of our time explores why it is necessary to go beyond the faded postmodern milieu of today’s art world, how psychedelics can play a role in discovering and manifesting one’s deeper realms of being, and how the “two kinds of higher” can impact artists and their work. In the foreword to Alex’s book The Mission of Art, Ken stated: “Alex Grey might be the most significant artist alive.” At first glance, this can appear to be pure hyperbole, expressing the understandable enthusiasm of a long-time friend and colleague. However, with an Integral Approach, Ken explains, “significant” has a specific meaning, and it was this meaning alluded to in the foreword. “Significant” refers to the degree of depth of an occasion (how many levels of complexity does it contain?), and “fundamental” refers to the span or breadth of an occasion (how many of them are there?). Atoms, for example, are extremely fundamental to the universe—and have enormous span (there are zillions of them)—but they are not very significant (containing little complexity). Humans, on the other hand, are not very fundamental to the universe (e.g., there are far fewer of us than there are atoms), but we are uniquely significant (no other thing or organism in the known universe contains more levels of depth and complexity than a human). So, how is Alex Grey possibly the most significant artist alive? Looking at the territory we have covered so far, the answer is actually quite simple and elegant: Alex has explored and to various degrees mastered all five states of consciousness, and has grown to integral and transpersonal levels of development, the current leading edge of consciousness evolution. (In Ken’s book Integral Spirituality, these two axes are likewise called “the two axes of Enlightenment,” and no spiritual realization is complete without both.) Particularly when it comes to the forms of reality disclosed by non-ordinary, meditative, and peak states of consciousness, Alex is unparalleled in his ability to translate what he sees in his “eye of spirit” to a work of art, which then often has the extraordinary ability of evoking similar kinds of states in viewers.

Caroline Myss, one of the best known (and highly researched) medical intuitives, presents a fast, wild, rich, and rollicking narrative of her personal struggles with spiritual intuition and the dramatic growth and unfolding that often resulted. Caroline begins with a compelling account of how she came to a fundamental change in her own spiritual understanding and teaching: not that people need to learn how to be more intuitive, but that people are already abundantly intuitive but spend their time trying to deny it. “I am now beginning to believe the you are so intuitive, that‘s the source of your misery. You‘re so intuitive you‘re imploding, so you try to numb yourself to it instead of going with it. Every choice most people make is to block that level of timeless guidance.” Caroline then focuses on the unfolding of awareness from prepersonal to personal awareness to transpersonal, and, as a dramatic example of the latter, recounts here, for the first time in public in any detail, the ordeal of her own near-death experience. The nature of her realizations and the profound switch in her own teaching are recounted in a riveting tale… accompanied by unrelenting humor and a lightness of being that is simply infectious. Caroline and Ken go on to explore how the grace of Spirit motivates the teaching impulse, and how a genuine spiritual teacher often isn‘t interested in telling anyone what to do, but rather in sharing the insight that has blessed their lives, laced with a redeeming honesty. Caroline speaks of how, for her, the impulse to share truth is the manifestation of a kind of spiritual contract with God — one which may or may not fit in with your personal life plans: “I think that the nature of contracts is that they are meant to disappoint the ego but fill the soul. And therein lies the intensity of life, which is: this isn‘t what I asked for, but it is what I need.” With humor and unapologetic enthusiasm, Caroline touches on everything from the hell of unresolved resentment to the joy of renovating her newly acquired 1885 Victorian house. But through it all, Caroline and Ken keep pointing toward a recognition of the always-already free nature of our deepest Self, and away from the superficial light-and-love posturing common in the new-age community. We hope you enjoy this energetic and unabashed perspective on the trials of life, the glory of Spirit, and why a house can be as satisfying as a baked potato.

Rick Rubin has produced some of the most influential and creative albums of the past two decades, from artists such as The Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slayer, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Nine Inch Nails, Audio Slave, Jay-Z, Saul Williams—and the list just keeps on going. But what kind of producer works as easily with Johnny Cash as with Nine Inch Nails? And what kind of producer has Johnny covering a NIN song? Quite simply, a producer who follows the trail of excellence, no matter how many boundaries are broken in the process. “Every step of the way I’ve been told I can’t do what I do, because people tend to have their niche, and that’s it.” Rick’s niche just seems to be great music, and what he does is create a space for artists of any genre to be as great as they can possibly be. Intuitively, Rick has been acting on a kind of integral impulse for years. Even as a kid in his early twenties, Rick would work simultaneously with the rap group Public Enemy and the metal band Slayer, and think that was perfectly normal. And rap-rock? Yup, his idea. He got Run-DMC together with Aerosmith to record “Walk This Way,” and the hard-hitting sound of the rap-rock fusion would go on to dominate the late 90s. As someone who has explored so many types of music, Rick has a few things to say about what makes for great music in any genre. And it’s this kind of insight that exposes the integral thread running throughout his work, because without a way to hold all of these things together in a way that makes sense, you don’t have art, you have a fifty-car pileup. A mind that can understand the unique value of each different style of music is a mind that can know how to bring those different styles together in an act of true creativity. But as he notes, there are indeed a couple of important factors in creating great art that appear to apply to the music business in general. For example, if you want to make music you’re proud of, get in the habit of living as a songwriter, and always be in that mode. When it comes time to record an album, you’ll have several dozen songs at your disposal, and you can pick the best twelve. Unfortunately, he also notes that record labels today tend to encourage artists to create one or two radio singles, rush through the rest of the album, go on tour, and then not write again until two months before it’s time to record the next album. The result? Artists learn to devalue their work and consumers learn it’s not worth buying albums since 90% of the songs aren’t very impressive. Sure, you can make just about anything catchy if you throw in 20 different audio elements to gloss over mediocre song-writing, but Rick follows a different philosophy: “If it’s not good in its simplest, barest, most immediate form, then we discard it.” Well, this Rick in his simplest, barest, most immediate form—we hope you enjoy the dialogue….

Distilled from the profound teachings of the Christian contemplative heritage, Centering Prayer has aimed to bring a living spirituality into an age where God is typically reduced to the New-Age vicissitudes of emotionality, if not simply pronounced dead. Listen as Fr. Thomas Keating and Ken Wilber discuss the remarkable history and importance of Centering Prayer. Father Thomas Keating has been a key figure in the Centering Prayer movement since its early beginnings in the 1970s. Distilled from the profound teachings of the Christian contemplative heritage, reaching from the early Desert Fathers and Mothers to The Cloud of Unknowing, St John of the Cross, and St Teresa of Avila, Centering Prayer has aimed to bring a living spirituality into an age where God is either reduced to the New-Age vicissitudes of emotionality or simply pronounced dead. Although it would embarrass him to hear it, many people consider Father Thomas Keating to be a living Christian saint in the truest sense of the term. We at Integral Life certainly do so, and it is therefore with honor and humility that we present a conversation with this deeply realized human being. Father Thomas Keating has been a key figure in the Centering Prayer movement since its early beginnings in the 1970s. Distilled from the profound teachings of the Christian contemplative heritage—reaching from the early Desert Fathers and Mothers to The Cloud of Unknowing, St John of the Cross, and St Teresa of Avila—Centering Prayer has aimed to bring a living spirituality into an age where God is either reduced to the New-Age vicissitudes of emotionality or is simply pronounced dead. It was as a freshman in college that Father Thomas was forced to confront “the death of God” in the form of a modern philosophy course. Having been raised a Catholic, but “without a profound understanding of its historical or theological background,” the assaults on religion by the likes of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were quite unsettling. Having resolved to confront this dilemma through study, Father Thomas returned to the work of the early Church Fathers and their understanding of the Gospel. As a result of this research, It became clearer and clearer to me that the Christian religion was really about transformation…. I got thoroughly convinced that the contemplative dimension of the Gospel is what Christianity is really all about. It’s the heart of the Gospel. But when I started looking around for how I could get some help developing a contemplative life, there wasn’t anybody…. Thus, the seed that would eventually bloom into Centering Prayer was sown deep in Father Thomas’s heart. Even though he has spent the whole of his adult life in monasteries, Father Thomas’s gift to the world has been to help bring God back within reach of the average human soul. As he points out, the contemplative faculty is not a reward for austerity, but is fundamental to human nature. Father Thomas touches on many subjects in this dialogue, ranging from the effects of Vatican II, to the influence of Eastern traditions, to the need for an integration of the contemplative heart and the discursive head. His is a beautiful story, drawing on a lifetime’s worth of experience and yet always grounded in the timeless Mystery of God. As Father Thomas reminds us, “It can’t be expressed as it actually is, but you have to say something!” And may we respectfully suggest that you listen to the soul behind those words, to the depth and presence of one in whom God shines?

“Integral doesn’t tell us what to believe, it tells us how to believe.” —Corey deVos It’s harder than ever these days to tell fact from fiction. Our lives have become so inundated with information — some good, some bad, most biased, all partial — at the end of the day it can be hard for some people to tell up from down. And as we spend more and more of our time on the deconstructive postmodern platforms of social media, truth becomes increasingly fragmented and balkanized and reduced to all sorts of low-resolution narratives. All because we lack any real social mechanism for enfoldment, the process whereby multiple partial and even contradictory truths can be assembled into a more complex and coherent understanding of reality. Take “conspiracy theories” for example. Everyone knows that genuine conspiracies occur behind the scenes all the time. We can talk about dozens of proven conspiracies that have come to the light over the decades. And at the same time, we can talk about hundreds of other conspiracy theories that are just plain silly. The problem, of course, is that few of us possess the epistemic tools required to discern genuine plots from paranoia and propaganda. Which can be a major problem when the Dunning-Kruger effect (the inability to discern when one is “over their heads”) confidently assures us that we do. And so without these basic epistemic guardrails, a segment of our population has swerved off the road into conspiracy thinking, all while real-world conspiracies are taking place in plain sight, right before our very eyes. Life in the “Information Age” seems to resemble fundamentalist religion more than some technocratic utopia: - Separates people into “believers” and “non-believers”, - Reduces meta-systemic complexity, real-world pressures, and power dynamics to oversimplified black-and-white narratives, - Only supports data that reinforces their narrative beliefs, and rejects data that goes against that narrative, - Resists ambiguity and prefers narratives that create a false sense of certainty. Which may be because we really aren’t in the Information Age at all, and haven’t been for some time — we are now living in the “Attention Age” where depth is replaced by volume, where facts are replaced by feelings, and where an increasingly noisy minority sets the frame and tone for everyone else. Which is why Ryan and I wanted to do this particular show, around the theme of fully inhabiting, embodying, and enacting truth — how to find it, how to wield it, and how to avoid the false certainties fed to us by both mainstream and fringe media. We don’t try to tell you what to believe, but rather try to help you avoid overly identifying with the contents of our views and to liberate yourself from your beliefs, whatever they happen to be.

The Integral European Conference is quickly approaching! And what’s more, you can attend from the comfort of your own home. Integral Europe has gone global, as COVID-19 has forced the IEC event planners to shift gears and move to a 100% streaming conference. While it is unfortunate that the conference will not feature the face-to-face community experiences that integral events are so well known for, it is also exciting to think of all the people who may not have been able to attend a live event in Europe, but who may now have the opportunity to participate with the conference remotely. And what a conference it’s going to be! Watch as Bence Ganti and I take a sneak peak into the IEC lineup (which will feature over 70 presenters and a full range of activities including workshops, games, and even live concerts) and discuss the many challenges of transitioning from a live event to a streaming-only event. For more information about the event, click here. https://integraleuropeanconference.com/

Here we feature a selection of performances by Saul Williams, including live recitals of several of his most well-loved pieces — Black Stacey, Sha-Clack-Clack, Twice the First Time, and Telegram — as well as a collaboration between Saul and Stuart Davis on a track titled “Easter”.

Art as contemplation. Poetry as incantation. Relationship as enlightenment. Such are the words and experiences of Saul Williams. Though digitized, synthesized, and edited into bit-sized segments, the man and the trans-man-transmission are as clear as ever. Here you will find a stream of consciousness shared between two conscious brothers exchanging soul-symbols over copper wires, molding verbal form to the demands of that which cannot be expressed, and yet must be. As Saul says in “Untimely Meditations” (Amethyst Rock Star, 2001): "Mere language is profanity, I’d rather hum, or have my soul tattooed to my tongue, and let the scriptures be sung in gibberish, as words be simple fish in my soul aquarium." -Saul Williams, Amethyst Rock Star And yet, the dialogue continues. Thomas Edison: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” In the world that we live in, it is the individual’s job to translate that sliver of inspiration into a creative act that lives up to the original brilliance of that divine spark. Saul: “Where I am now is at the point of realizing that I have to harness this sense of discipline, that it is my duty, my dharma, so to speak, to write all these things that come to mind.” Complementary to that conversation is one concerning the value of being in intimate relationship. Often, intimate partners are much quicker to spot the ways we are lying to ourselves than we are. They can help us serve that one percent of inspiration, because they can keep us honest. Saul goes on to share the rather extraordinary circumstances surrounding how he and his then-girlfriend Varshini came to be together. The lesson learned: Be careful what you write poetry about, you might just get it…! When Ken and Saul first met, they talked nonstop for four hours, only interrupted because Saul had a gig. All Ken said about that meeting was, “That might be the most beautiful human being I’ve ever met.” Please join us in sitting with this extraordinary soul….

Robert Kegan, the author of The Evolving Self and In Over Our Heads, explores the vital role of interior development in creating a more inclusive and integrated world, as well as the importance of the appropriate use of discriminating awareness. Robert Kegan is a founding member of Integral Institute and the author of the critically acclaimed books The Evolving Self, In Over Our Heads, and How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work. Bob is also the first-ever Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As the holder of this endowed chair, Bob has the official support of HGSE to pursue developmental studies for the rest of his career. This is significant. For the past several decades developmental studies have fallen upon some hard times in academia. For many, to have a developmental view is to be hierarchical—and to be hierarchical is to be oppressive, regressive, patriarchal, and a direct contributor to the suffering of untold millions. The fact the HGSE has decided to so clearly support Bob’s work is a welcome sign that the winds may be shifting. It’s important to note that there are (at least) two significantly different ways that “hierarchy” can be understood: as it exists in the exterior structure of a society and as it exists in the interior structure of an individual. Historically, enormous abuses of power have occurred by those at the top of a societal hierarchy—but those who would do so are by definition not at the higher stages of the interior, developmental hierarchy. Psychologically, people grow through stages of increasing competence, care, and concern. Each stage transcends and includes the function of what came before, but excludes an exclusive identity with that function. As Bob and Ken discuss, an important element of worldcentric consciousness is the contributions of postmodernism, including feminism, civil rights, and, among other things, the understanding that a substantial amount of human knowledge is context dependant and culturally bound. But postmodernism then stepped beyond what it had evidence for and claimed that all knowledge was relative, and therefore nothing could be said to be better than anything else. In fact, a fellow researcher, Clare Graves, called this level of development relativistic (Spiral Dynamics green), which research has shown accounts for about 20% of the American population. But as Ken points out, that means that about 20% of the population has gotten confused about how to make conscious, explicit judgments. Most of the people in this group would agree that a worldcentric embrace of all cultures is better than ethnocentric racism, but postmodern relativism won’t be able tell them why it’s okay to think this way. When all judgments have been outlawed, even sensible examples of discriminating awareness rightly applied have nothing to stand on. A more mature, integral form of worldcentric consciousness acknowledges that there are different levels of consciousness existing in the world today, and that encouraging growth towards greater care, concern, and wholeness is entirely appropriate. No one is required to change the way they are living, but everyone is invited to discover for themselves these higher territories of human potential. For anyone interested in exploring the possibility of further growth and transformation, it never hurts to have a good map of the terrain ahead. We hope you enjoy this dialogue between two of the best mapmakers out there for the ways we can all inhabit the deeper levels of consciousness this world so desperately needs….

In this classic dialogue — so classic, in fact, it was the very first dialogue we ever published! — Stuart Davis discusses his music and creative process in intimate detail and offers an intimate performance of 8 of his songs, including a incredibly touching version of “Swim”, based on the death of Treya Killam Wilber.

We live in an infinitely creative universe — and with every passing moment we have the option to actively and consciously participate with that creativity. We can either follow the familiar rhythms of our own habituations and comforts, or we can make a different choice altogether — we can do something new, something unpredictable, something that allows this creative novelty to work through our own nervous system and spill new forms of beauty into the rest of the world. Because we are all artists at the end of the day. We are constantly creating new realities and conjuring new possibilities, both for ourselves and for the rest of the world. Every decision we make is a creative act, whether we are aware of it or not. Sometimes we live our art in unconscious ways, following a path of least resistance as far as we think it will take us. But we are also invited to bring more embodied awareness to our creative expression — harnessing the untamed sounds, colors, and energies of nature and willing them to bend in the service of beauty, meaning, purpose, and connection. This is what Ryan and I explore in this special episode of Inhabit — how to more fully align ourselves with our own deepest source of beauty, inspiration, and creative emergence. Watch as we discuss: - The creative confluence that exists between beauty, evolution, and spirit, - The importance of a 2nd-person perspective to your creative process, - How the neoliberal commodification of art influences and/or limits our own creative expression, - How the integral mindset allows us to increase our enjoyment and enactment of art, - How our immersion in entertainment culture can make us overly critical of art, - The importance of beauty and aesthetics for the healing process, - How work with our own creative blocks and ruts

Habituation is the enemy of growth. It is rare for any circumstance to force us completely out of our accumulated habits, patterns, and comfort zones — which is exactly what is happening right now, as people all over the globe are having to drastically alter their lifestyles and livelihood in response to the corona pandemic. The good news is, when this happens and our normal day-to-day inertias are interrupted, it’s also an opportunity to make new choices: to recognize the patterns that haven’t been working for you, and to begin cultivating new patterns that work better, that take you farther, that bring you greater resilience, deeper compassion, and more skillful responsiveness. In times of extreme fragility such as these, it becomes all the more important to find new ways to practice our own anti-fragility. In this episode of Inhabit we are joined by special guest Keith Martin Smith, an acclaimed author, teacher, and dear friend to the show, in order to explore key practices and postures to help us maintain our physical, mental, and spiritual health while enduring the painful realities that all of us are so immersed in right now.

Robb Smith and Corey deVos discuss what's really going on deep in the heart of the world system as we get ready for The Transformation Age.

Jeff Salzman takes a look at the Coronavirus pandemic, humanity’s response to it, and how the integral lens helps us see more clearly the myriad forces and opportunities rising out of this crisis — which increases our wisdom, compassion, and resilience while dealing with it.

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.” —Richard P. Feyman “Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” —Tony Schwartz “We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!” —Douglas Adams Human beings abhor uncertainty. Ego and civilization are both built upon the illusion of certainty, cushioned by pleasure and comfort and designed to reduce uncertainty wherever possible. We try to rationalize uncertainty, placing ambiguity into discrete mental categories like “worst case scenarios”. Our society has become so addicted to predictability that, when predictably unpredictable events shake the foundations of our reality, we suddenly feel like we no longer have any place to stand. And when that happens, our ego’s first reaction is usually something like panic, fear, and self-preservation. Sound familiar? Have you had any trouble finding toilet paper recently? But there is another way to manage uncertainty — to surrender to it, to fully inhabit it, to embrace ambiguity and discover the incredible source of wisdom, curiosity, and anti-fragility that can only be found in the heart of the unknown. Because when the ground opens beneath our feet, there’s an opportunity to make contact with a far deeper and more enduring ground — the Ground of All Being, the unmovable mountain at the very center of you. Watch as Ryan and Corey invite us to deepen our practice in the face of uncertainty, finding strategies in all four quadrants to help us better acclimate ourselves to the massive pressures, social responsibilities, and societal realignments that are coming to the surface as we plunge into the opening act of the Transformation Age.

All politics are personal. But does that mean we need to take it so personally? In this episode of Inhabit, Ryan and I explore ways to bring more embodied awareness and skillful discernment to our political lives, overcoming the corrosive and often paralyzing effects that both our cynicism and our idealism can have upon our political decisions and our willingness to engage our most fundamental civic responsibilities. Watch as Ryan and I discuss: - How to remain an idealist when the world constantly refuses to live up to our ideals. - What happens when our mechanisms of enfoldment completely break down, both in our governing systems and in our media platforms. - How lack of enfoldment leads to mistrust, misinformation, false equivalence, epistemic collapse, and aperspectival madness. - How to relate to postmodern media platforms where contradictory truths are no longer enfolded with each other, but instead slide frictionlessly across one other. - How to develop a more anti-fragile sensibility that can begin reducing fragility in the world. - How the left has created a culture of fragility, and the right a culture of resilience — and why both are anti-growth. - Why Trump, and not Hillary, was seen as the transformation candidate in 2016. - Why we need another genuine transformation candidate for 2020 — and who we think that is. Join us in this exceptionally rich and hopeful exploration of our inner political landscapes!

Jeff Salzman talks to Bence Ganti, the driving force behind the upcoming Integral European Conference, a major six-day event for the Integral community which will commence on May 26th at the Azur Resort at Lake Balaton in Hungary. This fourth biennial conference will be the biggest and most comprehensive yet, with over 700 participants from 50 countries. Titled Global Integral Awakens, the conference will offer 250 programs on a wide range of integral issues, from contemporary politics to organizational development to art, culture and spirituality, in a potent goulash of presentations, workshops and experiential processes. And there’s goulash night too, the Hungarian specialty cooked in cauldrons over an open fire … then trance dance … then a firewalk! To extend your integral immersion, consider the pre-conference training on human development with Dr. Robert Kegan, as well as a post-conference 3-day sightseeing tour by bus. Click here to find out more about the Integral European Conference: https://integraleuropeanconference.com/

Without wisdom, knowledge becomes dangerous. This is as true for integral knowledge as it is any other. When our knowledge so far outpaces our wisdom, we can fall in all sorts of traps — including know-it-all arrogance, spiritual bypassing, self-aggrandizing mysticism, bad interpersonal hygiene, and possibly even diabetes and tooth decay. This can be a challenge for all communities, including the integral community. Especially when we are living at a time when information is so overabundant. We are drowning in information, and most of it is bad and broken information, and it takes a fair amount of wisdom just to be able to tell the good from the bad. Which is why Ryan and I wanted to do this special episode of Inhabit — to take a fuller look at what exactly “integral wisdom” means, and what sorts of wisdoms tend to naturally fall out of the integral map itself — quadrant wisdom, stage wisdom, shadow wisdom, type wisdom, polarity wisdom, etc. — all of which help us to enact that integral map in increasingly skilllful, friendly, and effective ways. Watch as we explore a number of practices and perspectives to help you bring your own wisdoms to the surface, allowing you to move through the world with more skill, compassion, and humility.

In this free discussion, Ryan and Corey offer some simple practices and perspectives to help keep us grounded and engaged during this transition not only into a new year, but into a whole new decade, with a whole new set of possibilities, challenges, and life conditions emerging all around us. Whenever our environment changes around us, even something as simple as the calendar moving into a new year, it’s an opportunity to also do some work to change our interiors. We tend to move naturally into a more reflective space, reviewing the previous year and imagining the one to come, cycle through this process of making an entire year’s worth of accumulated subjects into objects — all of our decisions, all of our successes, all of our regrets, etc. It’s a chance to take inventory of our own lives — where we’ve been, where we’re at, and where we would like to go next. Just because the world around us seems to be in more turmoil than ever before, doesn’t mean our inner lives need to feel that way too. And as the world continues to become more and more chaotic, conversations like these invite you to discover the unmovable subject within yourself, so that you can cultivate the resilience, equanimity, and stamina required to bring your gifts more fully into the world. Because now more than ever, the world needs you. Something new is trying to emerge. And it can only emerge through you.

We all possess a unique constellation of traumas, enacted by your own unique kosmic address, and which can lead to your own unique wisdom. This is what we hope to help you uncover today.

As the star of Judge Judy, Judith Sheindlin presides over the #1 show in US daytime television, where she rules on small-claims disputes drawn from real-life litigants across the country. Now in its 23rd year, Judge Judy attracts 10 million viewers a day who are eager to watch the 76-year-old grandmother transform into a Valkyrie for Justice, laying waste to the mendacities of cheating lovers, thieving landlords, lying teenagers and meddling mothers-in-law. In this episode I examine her genius and her enormous contribution to the evolution of consciousness and culture. —Jeff Salzman

Many integralists are fans of Otto Scharmer, MIT professor and developer of “Theory U”, a brilliant tool for activating higher stages of consciousness that has gained wide acceptance in organizations. As a leading public intellectual Dr. Scharmer also writes about politics and culture. In this episode, integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt and I discuss Scharmer’s political theory as presented in a popular and much-shared article, Axial Shift: The Decline of Trump, the Rise of the Greens, and the New Coordinates of Societal Change.

In this special Devil’s Night interview, our good friends Bruce Alderman and Layman Pascal talk to Hofman and Daemon, former members of The Satanic Temple in New York, and founding members of the Satanic organization LORE: The Satanic Collective of NYC, about the history of Satanism and the new Integral and Metamodern-ish forms that are currently emerging. These ain’t the baby-sacrificing satanists your mother was afraid of in the 1980s. They’re the sort of satanists who build statues of Baphomet outside of government courthouses in order to protect free speech and the separation of church and state from religious fundamentalists who are determined to legislate their own mythic morality. They are not anti-Christian, anti-spiritual, or even anti-religious — in fact they want to help integrate the apparent polarities between spirituality and sensuality, between masculine and feminine, and between light and shadow, pulling all of these together into a sort of “transcendent hedonism” that fully honors the dignity of the separate self even while plunging it into a far more expansive space of selfless awareness. Their approach is something we might call a “social tonglen” — becoming the darkness, playing the scapegoat, and consciously taking the hits, all in service of achieving greater social good. “Everybody kind of knows the Socratic ‘daemon’ — that there’s some kind of higher indwelling spirit that may have been unnecessarily excluded throughout history, and to which we might turn for real guidance in ourselves or as the essence of ourselves. But we also know what it means for a drug addict to go to a self-help program and says ‘he’s got a demon inside him’. So there’s a way for the darkness to draw you down, or to draw you up, and there’s an archetype or a figure that can represent either of those. And for most people they’re very conflated. People who are hyper-reactive against something like ‘satanism’ — even very sophisticated people can be weird about it — and one of the reasons is their own non-integrated shadow, but another reason is they’re aware that there’s a tangle between the evil they don’t want, and the evil they do want.” —Layman Pascal So join us as we take a short walk on the dark side, where demons and daemons alike dance to the throbbing rhythm of a living, breathing, ever-evolving universe.

The Integral Vision: Origins and Applications — 04 — The Architecture of Growth by Integral Life

The Integral Vision: Origins and Applications — 03 — Taking Perspectives on the Culture Wars by Integral Life

The Integral Vision: Origins and Applications — 02 — Communism, Postmodernism, Women's Leadership by Integral Life

The Integral Vision: Origins and Applications — 01 — The Origins of the Integral Vision by Integral Life

How do we better manage the inherent fractures and fragmentations of the digital world while bringing more embodied wisdom and compassion to our online interactions? One of the central dilemmas facing the integral generation is the fact that the integral project is largely taking place via the internet, using platforms like Facebook that are ill suited to healthy integral discourse — a sprawling flatland where misinformation spreads like wildfire, where the loudest voices dominate the discussion, and where narrow views receive more attention than nuanced arguments. Platforms like these are designed from the top down to provoke strong emotional reactions among its users, governed more by extractive social engineering algorithms than by the natural nexus-agency of the communities that convene there. It’s no wonder that we are seeing study after study about the deleterious effects social media is having upon our culture, our lives, and our own sense of happiness and belonging. Which is why Ryan and Corey wanted to take a closer look at this issue, and try to provide some fairly simple perspectives and practices that might help you inhabit and engage your digital life with more skillful authenticity, resilience, and kindness. Watch as they speak to the challenges many people experience around both managing and participating in today’s online communities, and how to overcome the seductive pull toward unhealthy polarization and disembodied reactions.

Need help shifting gears from mental map-making to actually inhabiting the spiritual territory? Watch as Ryan Oelke and Corey deVos explore what it means to truly inhabit and integrate our contemplative practice and our moment-to-moment experience of life. Perhaps you’ve experienced this for yourself — you are sitting on a meditation cushion, eyes closed, and you ask yourself, “am I meditating right now? Or am I only thinking about meditation?” This conversation helps bring bit more discernment around questions like these, as Ryan leads us in a practice to help us to shift from a predominantly mental or imaginal enactment of spirituality to an authentically lived spirituality that can respond to the various pains and pressures of existence with greater presence, empathy, and skillful action. Corey also shares how his daughter’s medical journey helped to fundamentally transform his own spiritual life, stripping away so many of the ornaments and embellishments of the “spiritual mind” and leaving him with a deeper and more intimate sense of what really matters. If you are also struggling to bring more embodiment, more grace, and more discernment to your own spiritual life, you don’t want to miss this wonderful conversation between Ryan Oelke and Corey deVos.

From the foundation of the American union through the War of Independence, to its near dissolution during the Civil War, to the open frontiers of the Wild West and the digital frontiers of video games and first-person shooters — America has always had a deeply complicated relationship with the gun. Firearms are woven into the very fabric of American life, society, and history, enshrined in our founding documents. Which makes the question of how to reduce gun violence in America an exceptionally difficult one to answer. America’s pathological relationship with gun violence is what is often called a “wicked problem” — a deeply complex, multifaceted problem that cannot be fully seen or understood from any single point of view, and therefore requires an integral multidisciplinary approach in order to solve. Unfortunately, when it comes to gun violence, there are very few discussions out there that are even trying to put all the pieces together, choosing instead to politicize the brutal deaths of innocent children and families, and allowing the narrative to become dominated by these narrow biases, ideologies, and objectives. In the meantime, nearly 100 Americans die from gun violence every single day. Because few people can fully see all facets of this incredibly complicated problem, our relationship with the gun — as a deadly weapon, as a defensive tool, and as a deeply-embedded cultural archetype — has become shrouded by shadow. On the one hand it is the ultimate equalizer of power, allowing the most vulnerable among us to defend their lives and land from those who would take them away. On the other hand they are machines designed for only one purpose, to kill other living creatures — and we are seeing far too many senseless killings in America today. For some they are a symbol of independence, individual freedom, and personal sovereignty. For others they are objects of obsession and even fetishization, a substitute gratification for our felt lack of inner power and control over our lives. In this discussion Ken and Corey try to identify the root causes of gun violence in America, and suggest some innovative solutions that might help us turn the page on this terribly wicked problem.

INTEGRATING POLARITIES is Beena Sharma's revolutionary new training program, designed to teach you the higher-order thinking common to individuals at the integral stage of development. By learning and practicing the cognitive processes that come naturally to integral thinkers, this training can accelerate your own development toward integral stages of being and doing. In this premiere episode of our new monthly Polarity Wisdom show, Beena introduces the Integrating Polarities training.

Today’s guest, Sebastian Siegel, is the screenwriter and director of the upcoming movie, Grace and Grit. The film tells the true love story of iconic, Integral philosopher Ken Wilber and his wife Treya. Based on the acclaimed book that chronicles Treya’s journals, they fall madly in love in 1980’s California and are immediately faced with illness and challenges that tear them apart. They overcome by finding a connection beyond this world, and love beyond life. The film stars Mena Suvari and Stuart Townsend as Treya and Ken, and features supporting performances by Frances Fisher, Rebekah Graf, Nick Stahl, and Mariel Hemmingway. In our conversation, Sebastian, who is an integral practitioner, friend, and long-time fan of Ken’s work, talks in depth about many elements of making the film from writing, development, and casting, to directing, storytelling, and production, and his overriding mission to serve not just this epic love story, but also the emergence of Integral consciousness itself. Sebastian Siegel is author of the book, “The Consciousness Revolution”, and is the creator of two documentaries: “Awakening World” and “Spirit of Evolution.” You can find out more about Grace and Grit at the movie’s website, Sebastian’s instagram account. , and his website.

The universe — it’s big. No, that’s an understatement. It’s very big. It can be a bit much, really. There’s just a whole lot of it, and it’s got a whole lot of stuff in it. Way more nothing than stuff, truth be told, but still. It’s more stuff than you can shake a stick at. It’s a pretty weird place too. Like how we can only see 5% of it. What’s up with the other 95%? Nobody knows. That’s weird. And even the stuff we can see is weird. It grows, it shines, it twists and dances and undulates and sometimes makes other weird stuff like love and helicopters and neckties. And that’s just the stuff that we know about. Who knows how weird the other stuff is? Fortunately, not too long ago, a bunch of weird talking monkeys started poking around in an otherwise unremarkable corner of the universe, and over the years those monkeys have come up with all sorts of weird explanations in order to to make sense of the whole ordeal. We are here today with one of those talking monkeys, a particularly hairless hominid named Ken Wilber who has gathered all of those different explanations of the universe and combined them all into one really big explanation of the universe — something he calls “a theory of everything”. But if you remember from a few sentences back, the universe is a terribly big place. So let’s see just how much “everything” we can actually fit in there.

Welcome to INHABIT — a monthly practice-based series with Ryan Oelke and Corey deVos, designed to help you embody your own unique expression of integral being and more fully inhabit the territory of your life, your relationships, and your world. Integral itself can often feel like such a cognitive and intellectual pursuit. Although the map itself invites us to practice integral consciousness in our hearts and bodies as much as our minds, we often tend to lead with our heads, and it can take a great deal of practice and rewiring of our lifestyles before we really feel like we are beginning to embody our own fullest integral power. It’s not hard to find ourselves stuck in the endless abstractions of our own mental models, which can limit our fullest possible expression of integral consciousness. Adding to the challenge, Integral is coming of age during the era of social media, where the dominant mode of discourse is often so disembodied and sometimes even dehumanizing. This is why Ryan and Corey are doing this show — to help create more embodied practice, more embodied relating, and more embodied methods of showing up as fully as you can in order to make a positive dent in this world. Every month Ryan will lead us in guided practice to help strengthen the link between your mind and your body, between your knowledge and your wisdom, between your being and your doing. All so you can show up as the super-charged integral powerhouse you know you are.

David Sloan Wilson is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is widely known for his fundamental contributions to evolutionary science and for explaining evolution to the general public. Listen as David talks to Ken Wilber about his recent book, This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution, in this fascinating discussion of conscious, cultural, and biological evolution — and how we can use the fundamental patterns running through all three in order to create a more adaptable and sustainable future. It is often said that humanity represents the process of evolution becoming self-aware. We are a universe awakening to itself — and part of that awakening is a capacity to reflect upon the various core design principles and strategies that have been guiding our evolutionary emergence ever since the Big Bang, and to then consciously employ these same strategies in order to create a genuinely multi-cellular society for the human superorganism.

Ken Wilber and Corey deVos explore the path of Waking Up, taking a guided tour through the many temporary states of consciousness that include everything from emotional states to chemically-induced states to the direct, immediate experience of timeless reality. Watch as Ken and Corey explore these states of consciousness in detail, revealing an infinitely renewable source of energy, resilience, and creative inspiration that rests at the very center of you.

Today we are talking to Ryan Oelke, a gifted integral coach, co-founder of Buddhist Geeks, and the creator of our incredible new training program, Embodied Success. Listen as Ryan and Corey enjoy a far-ranging discussion about integral embodiment, self-actualization, and the call to make a meaningful impact in the world.

Ryan Oelke speaks with Judith Blackstone, a teacher in the contemporary fields of nondual realization and spiritual, relational, and somatic psychotherapy, about her new book, “Trauma and the Unbound Body: The Healing Power of Fundamental Consciousness”. They chat about the connection between embodiment, nondual realization, and healing, and how all three help deepen one other. Ryan & Judith also discuss what fundamental consciousness is, how to attune to it in, the difference between being aware of our bodies and living in and as our bodies, and what it’s like shift from a top-down experience of ourselves, to living directly within the space of our bodies. They also explore how to heal and release patterns of constriction held in the body, so that we can allow ourselves to more deeply inhabit our physical experience, release the grip on ourselves, so that we have a more fluid experience of life. Originally posted on the Buddhist Geeks podcast: https://buddhistgeeks.org

The Democratic field for US president is taking shape fast. Today I have a freewheeling conversation with Corey deVos of Integral Life about our impressions of the emerging landscape, with a special focus on Marianne Williamson, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.

Today’s guest, David Fuller, is at the center of the intellectual Dark Web (IDW) having founded Rebel Wisdom, a YouTube station that has attracted over 60,000 subscribers in less than two years. David Fuller is committed to the further evolution of the intellectual dark web and enthusiastic, as I am, about what integral theory can bring to that project. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

In this new monthly series with Mark Fischler, we take a look at some of the most pressing and most complex issues of our time through the lens of Integral Law. In this special premiere episode Mark describes his own background, how he arrived at this fascinating intersection between the integral world and the legal world, and what exactly he means by the phrase “integral law”. Mark and Corey then turn their attention to the big story of our day — the Mueller report — offering their own views about the investigation, Attorney General William Barr’s summary of Mueller Report, and how this story might play out in the weeks and months to come. Topics include: — What is “Integral Law”? — What were the origins of the Mueller investigation? — What were the main conclusions of the Mueller report, as summarized by William Barr? — What are the different kinds of “burden of proof”, and how do they apply to this investigation? — Does the Mueller report (or what we know about it) actually exonerate President Trump? — If Mueller’s investigation did not surface evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” of Trump conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election, does that mean the entire investigation by the FBI and the media was a sham? Or was the investigation justified, regardless of the evidence it reveals? — If the Mueller report does end up providing evidence of Trump’s complicity, should Democrats move to impeach him?

David Loye, author of Darwin in Love, talks to Ken Wilber about the life and often-distorted legacy of Charles Darwin, as well as Darwin’s belief in LOVE as a critical driver of the evolution of species. Survival of the fittest is taken by many as the end-all, be-all of Darwinian evolution — that all evolution comes down to the solitary drive to propagate one’s genes at any cost, giving rise to all sorts of “selfish gene” interpretations of life, evolution, and society. Which is kind of funny, considering that in The Descent of Man, where Darwin focused on human evolution in particular, he only used the phrase “survival of the fittest” twice — and one of those times was to suggest that the phrase not be used at all! Compare this to the 95 times Darwin used the word “love” and 92 mentions of “moral sensitivity” as important drivers of evolution, and it becomes clear that something important is missing from our current discussions of evolution, natural selection, and Darwin’s tremendous legacy. As Darwin himself explains, pure survival is but the lowest of evolutionary drivers, and are eclipsed by a number of other drivers as we move up the evolutionary chain. In Darwin’s mind, evolution was guided by an entire spectrum of critical drivers that ranged from sexual instincts on the lowest end to the Golden Rule on the highest, with parental instincts, social instincts, emotion and reason, cultural habits, etc. filling out the rest of the picture. From sex to the Golden Rule — just using this simple frame, we can see three critical dimensions of evolutionary unfolding that are almost always missed by contemporary readings of Darwin: - Darwin’s belief in higher-stage, non-physical drivers of evolution, which argue against reductionism. - Darwin’s attention to the interior dimensions of evolutionary selection, which argue against scientific materialism. - Darwin’s emphasis upon mutuality, reciprocity, and other intersubjective/interobjective factors, which argue against selfishness, opportunism, and narcissism Taken together, this leads to a much more comprehensive understanding of our own evolution, and helps cut through the distortion of books like The Selfish Gene or Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Join us as we take a closer look at the life and legacy of one of history’s greatest pioneers, and examine an evolutionary process that is anything but blind when it selects for beauty, is anything but dumb when it selects for truth, and is anything but amoral when it selects for goodness. Find the full 2-hour dialogue here: https://integrallife.com/for-the-love-of-darwin-beyond-the-selfish-gene/

Warren Farrell and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at the many social, cultural, and psychological challenges that young boys are facing today, while noting how many of these challenges are the products of well-intentioned — but often misguided — feminist praxis. Not that feminism is inherently hostile to men. Far from it. As Warren notes in his book, many prominent feminist leaders over the decades have understood the critical role that fathers play in their children’s development and psychological well-being. He quotes Gloria Steinem, who famously said, “what the world needs now is more women at work and more dads at home”. He also recalls Betty Friedan’s popular book, The Second Stage, which was a call for men to consciously begin the same process of self-liberation and redefinition of their identities and roles that women have struggled with over the last century — going so far to say that the major goals of feminism can never be fully attained if men are not also engaged in an equivalent praxis on their side. As the saying goes, if you only row the boat with one oar, you’re just going in circles. As the era of #MeToo continues to put a spotlight upon the many inertias, indignities, and injustices that women face in the public sphere, Farrell and Gray are bringing some much-needed attention to the inertias, indignities, and injustices that men are experiencing in the public and private spheres, and in their private lives. “We have seven federal offices of women’s health, and zero federal offices of men’s health. Can you imagine the sexism that we would accurately be accused of if women died five years earlier than men, and died earlier of 14 out of 15 of the leading causes of death, and we had seven offices of men’s health, and zero offices of women’s health? It’s not conceivable that that would be the case. Yet that is the case. And more potently, no one is protesting it, and very few people even know about it.” —Warren Farrell Find the full discussion here: https://integrallife.com/the-boy-crisis/

In this excerpt from the March episode of The Ken Show, titled Growing Up: A Guided Tour, we explore one of the most central elements of integral metatheory — growing up through multiple stages of developmental maturity. Watch as Ken and Corey offer a guided tour through each of the major stages on the Path of Growing Up — an exploration of your own greatest, deepest potentials — and offer some simple practices to help you actualize those potentials.

"The unique terrain of mothering is always, already shaping us into ripe and powerful writers: we are tired so we are funny and real; we are in love so we are tender; we are damn strong so we have conviction. I want to bring our ordinary, extraordinary realities out of hiding and into view, for ourselves, each other, and the greater public if we so choose. This is my activism. This can be your activism. This is a chance to know and be known by each other, amazing mamas.” —Brooke McNamara Jeff invited Brooke McNamara to the Daily Evolver to talk about a project she is launching that we think represents a new way of building creative we-spaces. It’s a 6-week virtual course that provides inspiration, community and an opportunity for creative self-expression to a select group of people who are living in a unique crucible: mothers. Brooke developed the course, Write to the Heart of Motherhood because, as a poet, she knows writing to be a flexible and potent way for mothers to “connect to our true voice in the middle of our messy lives.” She explains: “The practice of writing is not something I do, but somewhere I go. When I give myself fully to whole-bodied listening for poems, I am never disappointed. Even if nothing comes, the tuning itself creates a presence and vitality in my being that support me profoundly in living and mothering. Poetry, for me, is language that carries both meaning, imagery and story, AND, more importantly, life force itself.” —Brooke McNamara Brooke’s new course, Write to the Heart of Motherhood, begins on March 4th and will run for six weeks. It’s not too late to sign up! Click here to learn more and register: https://www.theheartofmotherhood.com/ref/integrallife/

Boldy go where no holon has gone before as Corey deVos shares his review of Star Trek: Discovery — the latest installment in this venerable franchise. Listen as Corey explores how Star Trek offers a way to see beyond our current social, cultural, and political challenges, while also unpacking some of the important integral themes contained within the show.

The Intellectual Dark Web — the term was coined by IDW member Eric Weinstein — refers to a loosely bound worldwide internet community of over a hundred major thinkers (and hundreds of millions of views) who do not find any present day intellectual trends to be that inviting. They don’t like the far Right, but they don’t like the far Left either — they’re looking for a much more unified and inclusive ways of thinking. In an article posted on the Rebel Wisdom website — a website that was created in part due to a very positive response to the work of Jordan Peterson — David Fuller makes the following observation: “It was while watching these two interviews in quick succession—Dave Rubin’s talk with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, and his discussion with Eric and Bret Weinstein—that I came to my conclusion of what the conversation actually represented! It mapped clearly onto a model I was familiar with—the philosopher Ken Wilber’s idea of ‘Integral’ consciousness as an essential evolutionary leap. I’m going to argue that the conversation is an early but spontaneous manifestation of a more advanced way of thinking that Wilber calls ‘Integral.’ I’m going to apply Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory to the Intellectual Dark Web….” Integral Theory — or technically, Integral Metatheory — seems to be applicable here because it is basically an attempt to draw together as many different approaches to truth as we possibly can and integrate them in a unified framework. Integral sometimes refers to all these different truths as ones that include Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Opening Up, and Showing Up.

The Intellectual Dark Web — the term was coined by IDW member Eric Weinstein — refers to a loosely bound worldwide internet community of over a hundred major thinkers (and hundreds of millions of views) who do not find any present day intellectual trends to be that inviting. They don’t like the far Right, but they don’t like the far Left either — they’re looking for a much more unified and inclusive ways of thinking. In an article posted on the Rebel Wisdom website — a website that was created in part due to a very positive response to the work of Jordan Peterson — David Fuller makes the following observation: “It was while watching these two interviews in quick succession—Dave Rubin’s talk with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, and his discussion with Eric and Bret Weinstein—that I came to my conclusion of what the conversation actually represented! It mapped clearly onto a model I was familiar with—the philosopher Ken Wilber’s idea of ‘Integral’ consciousness as an essential evolutionary leap. I’m going to argue that the conversation is an early but spontaneous manifestation of a more advanced way of thinking that Wilber calls ‘Integral.’ I’m going to apply Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory to the Intellectual Dark Web….” Integral Theory — or technically, Integral Metatheory — seems to be applicable here because it is basically an attempt to draw together as many different approaches to truth as we possibly can and integrate them in a unified framework. Integral sometimes refers to all these different truths as ones that include Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Opening Up, and Showing Up.

The Intellectual Dark Web — the term was coined by IDW member Eric Weinstein — refers to a loosely bound worldwide internet community of over a hundred major thinkers (and hundreds of millions of views) who do not find any present day intellectual trends to be that inviting. They don’t like the far Right, but they don’t like the far Left either — they’re looking for a much more unified and inclusive ways of thinking. In an article posted on the Rebel Wisdom website — a website that was created in part due to a very positive response to the work of Jordan Peterson — David Fuller makes the following observation: “It was while watching these two interviews in quick succession—Dave Rubin’s talk with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, and his discussion with Eric and Bret Weinstein—that I came to my conclusion of what the conversation actually represented! It mapped clearly onto a model I was familiar with—the philosopher Ken Wilber’s idea of ‘Integral’ consciousness as an essential evolutionary leap. I’m going to argue that the conversation is an early but spontaneous manifestation of a more advanced way of thinking that Wilber calls ‘Integral.’ I’m going to apply Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory to the Intellectual Dark Web….” Integral Theory — or technically, Integral Metatheory — seems to be applicable here because it is basically an attempt to draw together as many different approaches to truth as we possibly can and integrate them in a unified framework. Integral sometimes refers to all these different truths as ones that include Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Opening Up, and Showing Up.

The Intellectual Dark Web — the term was coined by IDW member Eric Weinstein — refers to a loosely bound worldwide internet community of over a hundred major thinkers (and hundreds of millions of views) who do not find any present day intellectual trends to be that inviting. They don’t like the far Right, but they don’t like the far Left either — they’re looking for a much more unified and inclusive ways of thinking. In an article posted on the Rebel Wisdom website — a website that was created in part due to a very positive response to the work of Jordan Peterson — David Fuller makes the following observation: “It was while watching these two interviews in quick succession—Dave Rubin’s talk with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, and his discussion with Eric and Bret Weinstein—that I came to my conclusion of what the conversation actually represented! It mapped clearly onto a model I was familiar with—the philosopher Ken Wilber’s idea of ‘Integral’ consciousness as an essential evolutionary leap. I’m going to argue that the conversation is an early but spontaneous manifestation of a more advanced way of thinking that Wilber calls ‘Integral.’ I’m going to apply Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory to the Intellectual Dark Web….” Integral Theory — or technically, Integral Metatheory — seems to be applicable here because it is basically an attempt to draw together as many different approaches to truth as we possibly can and integrate them in a unified framework. Integral sometimes refers to all these different truths as ones that include Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Opening Up, and Showing Up.

The Intellectual Dark Web — the term was coined by IDW member Eric Weinstein — refers to a loosely bound worldwide internet community of over a hundred major thinkers (and hundreds of millions of views) who do not find any present day intellectual trends to be that inviting. They don’t like the far Right, but they don’t like the far Left either — they’re looking for a much more unified and inclusive ways of thinking. In an article posted on the Rebel Wisdom website — a website that was created in part due to a very positive response to the work of Jordan Peterson — David Fuller makes the following observation: “It was while watching these two interviews in quick succession—Dave Rubin’s talk with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, and his discussion with Eric and Bret Weinstein—that I came to my conclusion of what the conversation actually represented! It mapped clearly onto a model I was familiar with—the philosopher Ken Wilber’s idea of ‘Integral’ consciousness as an essential evolutionary leap. I’m going to argue that the conversation is an early but spontaneous manifestation of a more advanced way of thinking that Wilber calls ‘Integral.’ I’m going to apply Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory to the Intellectual Dark Web….” Integral Theory — or technically, Integral Metatheory — seems to be applicable here because it is basically an attempt to draw together as many different approaches to truth as we possibly can and integrate them in a unified framework. Integral sometimes refers to all these different truths as ones that include Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Opening Up, and Showing Up.

The Intellectual Dark Web—the term was coined by IDW member Eric Weinstein—refers to a loosely bound worldwide internet community of over a hundred major thinkers (and hundreds of millions of views) who do not find any present day intellectual trends to be that inviting. They don’t like the far Right, but they don’t like the far Left either—they’re looking for a much more unified and inclusive ways of thinking. In an article posted on the Rebel Wisdom website — a website that was created in part due to a very positive response to the work of Jordan Peterson — David Fuller makes the following observation: “It was while watching these two interviews in quick succession—Dave Rubin’s talk with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, and his discussion with Eric and Bret Weinstein—that I came to my conclusion of what the conversation actually represented! It mapped clearly onto a model I was familiar with—the philosopher Ken Wilber’s idea of ‘Integral’ consciousness as an essential evolutionary leap. I’m going to argue that the conversation is an early but spontaneous manifestation of a more advanced way of thinking that Wilber calls ‘Integral.’ I’m going to apply Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory to the Intellectual Dark Web….” Integral Theory — or technically, Integral Metatheory — seems to be applicable here because it is basically an attempt to draw together as many different approaches to truth as we possibly can and integrate them in a unified framework. Integral sometimes refers to all these different truths as ones that include Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Opening Up, and Showing Up.

Is there intelligent life beyond Earth? Is it possible that alien beings have already contacted us? What do we make of the thousands of testimonials of human-alien contact, including from scientists, diplomats and astronauts? Yet… where’s the proof? And if there is proof, why is alien contact not the biggest story of the millennia?

Fr. Thomas Keating and Ken Wilber discuss the remarkable history and importance of Centering Prayer. Distilled from the profound teachings of the Christian contemplative heritage, Centering Prayer has aimed to bring a living spirituality into an age where God is typically reduced to the New-Age vicissitudes of emotionality, if not simply pronounced dead. Father Thomas Keating has been a key figure in the Centering Prayer movement since its early beginnings in the 1970s. Distilled from the profound teachings of the Christian contemplative heritage, reaching from the early Desert Fathers and Mothers to The Cloud of Unknowing, St John of the Cross, and St Teresa of Avila, Centering Prayer has aimed to bring a living spirituality into an age where God is either reduced to the New-Age vicissitudes of emotionality or simply pronounced dead. Although it would embarrass him to hear it, many people consider Father Thomas Keating to be a living Christian saint in the truest sense of the term. We at Integral Life certainly do so, and it is therefore with honor and humility that we present a conversation with this deeply realized human being. Father Thomas Keating has been a key figure in the Centering Prayer movement since its early beginnings in the 1970s. Distilled from the profound teachings of the Christian contemplative heritage—reaching from the early Desert Fathers and Mothers to The Cloud of Unknowing, St John of the Cross, and St Teresa of Avila—Centering Prayer has aimed to bring a living spirituality into an age where God is either reduced to the New-Age vicissitudes of emotionality or is simply pronounced dead. It was as a freshman in college that Father Thomas was forced to confront “the death of God” in the form of a modern philosophy course. Having been raised a Catholic, but “without a profound understanding of its historical or theological background,” the assaults on religion by the likes of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were quite unsettling. Having resolved to confront this dilemma through study, Father Thomas returned to the work of the early Church Fathers and their understanding of the Gospel. As a result of this research, It became clearer and clearer to me that the Christian religion was really about transformation…. I got thoroughly convinced that the contemplative dimension of the Gospel is what Christianity is really all about. It’s the heart of the Gospel. But when I started looking around for how I could get some help developing a contemplative life, there wasn’t anybody…. Thus, the seed that would eventually bloom into Centering Prayer was sown deep in Father Thomas’s heart. Even though he has spent the whole of his adult life in monasteries, Father Thomas’s gift to the world has been to help bring God back within reach of the average human soul. As he points out, the contemplative faculty is not a reward for austerity, but is fundamental to human nature. Father Thomas touches on many subjects in this dialogue, ranging from the effects of Vatican II, to the influence of Eastern traditions, to the need for an integration of the contemplative heart and the discursive head. His is a beautiful story, drawing on a lifetime’s worth of experience and yet always grounded in the timeless Mystery of God. As Father Thomas reminds us, “It can’t be expressed as it actually is, but you have to say something!” And may we respectfully suggest that you listen to the soul behind those words, to the depth and presence of one in whom God shines?

Jeff Salzman talks with Dr. Keith Witt about an evolutionary approach that liberates masculinity and femininity into a new integration that features the best of both and makes them available to all. The culture wars heated up last week with two new skirmishes. One was the release of the American Psychological Association’s new Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men. The other is a new ad released by the Gillette razor company: The Best a Man Can Get. Both explicitly criticize traditional views of masculinity; as the APA Guidelines states, “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.” And both encourage men to be more sensitive, cooperative and revealing. Predictably, the new ad and report created blowback from people who see them as part of a postmodern project to neuter men by damning masculinity itself as toxic. They maintain that traditional masculine qualities are innate to men and essential to a healthy culture. Could both sides have a point?

Ken and Corey explore how today’s transnational challenges and realities may be hastening humanity’s eventual growth toward increasingly inclusive and global forms of governance, what government might look like at the level of the global holon, and how we might actually be able to get there from here. Excerpted from the full dialogue here: https://integrallife.com/beyond-the-nation-state-globalism-plutocracy-and-the-integral-world-federation/

In this episode of The Ken Show we explore five themes near and dear to the liberal heart — tolerance, nonviolence, power, privilege, and gender — celebrating the healthy aspects of each that we want to include in a more integral embrace, while weeding out the unhealthy regressive narratives that most of these have devolved into. Excerpted from the full dialogue here: https://integrallife.com/the-baby-and-the-bathwater-saving-liberalism/

This conversation sheds clarity on a very confused notion in the area of spirituality today—namely, the “tao of physics” and all its variations, as exemplified by the recent film What the Bleep. So what relationship, if any, does God actually have with quantum physics? Does quantum physics prove God? This question has to do directly with the relation of modern quantum physics and spirituality. In effect, does modern physics prove God? Does the Tao find proof in quantum realities? Ken Wilber’s answer: “Categorically not. I don’t know more confusion in the last thirty years than has come from quantum physics….” Ken goes on to outline the three major confusions that have dominated the popular (mis)understanding of the relationship of physics and mysticism. #1: Your consciousness does not create electrons. Unlike Newtonian physics, which can predict the location of large objects moving at slow speeds, quantum physics only offers a probability wave in which a given particle, like an electron, should show up. But here’s the funny thing: it is only at the moment that one makes the measurement that the electron actually does “show up.” Certain writers and theorists have thus suggested that human intentionality actually creates reality on a quantum level. The most popular version of this idea can be found in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?!, in which we “qwaff” reality into existence. #2: Quantum vacuum potentials are not unmanifest Spirit. The immediate problem with the notion that certain “unmanifest” or “vacuum” quantum realities give rise to the manifest world, and that the quantum vacuum is Spirit, is that it immediately presupposes a radically divided Spirit or Ultimate. There is Spirit “over here,” manifestation “over there,” and it’s only through these quantum vacuum potentials that Spirit actualizes manifestation—with Spirit set apart from manifestation. “In terms of actual real physics or actual real mysticism, they were incorrect on both counts. And the marriage of bad physics and sloppy mysticism has been a nightmare….”As the great contemplative traditions agree, true nondual Spirit is the suchness, emptiness, or isness of all manifestation, and as such leaves everything exactly where it finds it. Nondual Spirit is no more set apart from manifestation than the wetness of the ocean is set apart from waves. Wetness is the suchness or isness of all waves. By identifying Spirit with quantum potential, you are actually qualifying the Unqualifiable, giving it characteristics—”and right there,” Ken says, “things start to go horribly wrong, and they never recover. These folks are trying to give characteristics to Emptiness. They therefore make it dualistic. And then things get worse from there….” #3: Just because you understand quantum mechanics doesn’t mean you’re enlightened. Physics is an explicitly 3rd-person approach to reality, whereas meditative, contemplative, or mystical disciplines are explicitly 1st-person approaches to reality. Neither perspective is more real than the other, but each perspective does disclose different truths, and you cannot use the truth disclosed in one domain to “colonize” another. The study of physics, as a 3rd-person discipline, will not get you enlightenment; and meditation, as a 1st-person discipline, will not disclose the location of an asteroid (or an electron). The “content” of enlightenment is the realization of that which is timeless, formless, and eternally unchanging. The content of physics is the understanding of the movement of form within time, i.e. that which is constantly changing. And if you hook Buddha’s enlightenment to a theory of physics that gets disproved tomorrow, does that mean Buddha loses his enlightenment?

Empty Spaces is an 80-minute musical meditation created by dj rekluse (Corey deVos), featuring Alex Grey, Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton, and Alan Watts. A soundtrack for Dark Nights. Liberation upon hearing.

Empty Spaces is an 80-minute musical meditation created by dj rekluse (Corey deVos), featuring Alex Grey, Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton, and Alan Watts. A soundtrack for Dark Nights. Liberation upon hearing.

Empty Spaces is an 80-minute musical meditation created by dj rekluse (Corey deVos), featuring Alex Grey, Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton, and Alan Watts. A soundtrack for Dark Nights. Liberation upon hearing.

Empty Spaces is an 80-minute musical meditation created by dj rekluse (Corey deVos), featuring Alex Grey, Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton, and Alan Watts. A soundtrack for Dark Nights. Liberation upon hearing.

Surya Das recounts his own personal story on the spiritual path, from seeking to realizing, with all the trials and tribulations inherent in a journey without a goal. In this wide-ranging discussion of the obstacles and opportunities of bringing a new religion into a culture — in this case, Buddhism into America — Surya Das covers a multitude of critical issues, issues that confront not merely Buddhism but spirituality in general as it encounters the modern and postmodern world. One of the major difficulties is the reluctance of the older culture (such as Tibetan and Japanese) to release their teachings to "barbarians" (that would be us). Yet once the leap is made, the religion lands in a new culture where the obstacles can be even greater. Foremost among these include the dilution of the dharma; popularizing it to the extent that it no longer possesses any depth or liberating power; and "boomeritis Buddhism," which Ken covers in galvanizing detail.

Surya Das recounts his own personal story on the spiritual path, from seeking to realizing, with all the trials and tribulations inherent in a journey without a goal. In this wide-ranging discussion of the obstacles and opportunities of bringing a new religion into a culture — in this case, Buddhism into America — Surya Das covers a multitude of critical issues, issues that confront not merely Buddhism but spirituality in general as it encounters the modern and postmodern world. One of the major difficulties is the reluctance of the older culture (such as Tibetan and Japanese) to release their teachings to "barbarians" (that would be us). Yet once the leap is made, the religion lands in a new culture where the obstacles can be even greater. Foremost among these include the dilution of the dharma; popularizing it to the extent that it no longer possesses any depth or liberating power; and "boomeritis Buddhism," which Ken covers in galvanizing detail.

Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand’s former lover and the inspiration for her famous John Galt character, was at ground zero during the rise of the Objectivist movement. In this exclusive six-hour dialogue, Atlas Evolved: The Life and Loves of Nathaniel Branden, Nathaniel offers an intimate insider’s view of the origins, major contributions, and inevitable limitations of Rand’s philosophy and the intellectual movement it sparked. Masterfully hosted by Ken Wilber, this talk offers invaluable insight into Ayn Rand’s legacy, the human potential movement, romantic love, self-esteem, self-transcendence, and the art of conscious living. Excerpted from the full 6-hour dialogue here: https://integrallife.com/atlas-evolved/

Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand’s former lover and the inspiration for her famous John Galt character, was at ground zero during the rise of the Objectivist movement. In this exclusive six-hour dialogue, Atlas Evolved: The Life and Loves of Nathaniel Branden, Nathaniel offers an intimate insider’s view of the origins, major contributions, and inevitable limitations of Rand’s philosophy and the intellectual movement it sparked. Masterfully hosted by Ken Wilber, this talk offers invaluable insight into Ayn Rand’s legacy, the human potential movement, romantic love, self-esteem, self-transcendence, and the art of conscious living. Excerpted from the full 6-hour dialogue here: https://integrallife.com/atlas-evolved/

Wired magazine’s own “Senior Maverick” talks with Ken Wilber about some of the ideas behind Kevin’s blog The Technium, which explores the various ways humanity defines and redefines itself through the interface of science, technology, culture, and consciousness. Kevin also shares some of his own thoughts about the role of spirituality in the 21st century, going into considerable depth around his own spiritual awakening several decades ago. The universe, we are told, is winding down. Nothing escapes the remorseless grasp of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics—and with each passing moment, our world, our solar system, indeed our entire galaxy slowly approaches its inevitable heat-death. But this is not the full story, for while the universe is winding down, it is also winding up, bringing forth new forms from old, adding new layers of complexity where there was once only an empty vacuum. It is what Alfred Whitehead called the “creative advance into novelty,” referring to a distinct “tilt” of the universe toward more complexity, more significance, and more wholeness. From atoms, to molecules, to single-cell and multi-cellular organisms, to the reptilian brain, mammalian brain, and the human neocortex—the universe is abound with inexhaustible creativity, pushing deeper and wider towards its own limitless potential. Entropy and evolution: these two “arrows of time” exert their pull upon everything that ever is, was, and will be—one pulling us up toward the eternal light, the other pulling us down toward the infinite black. But it is not just physical matter that is evolving! Alongside the increasing complexification of the material world, evolution brings forth novelty in at least three other dimensions, particularly evident within human evolution: - We see the evolution of systems, such as the movement from foraging to horticulture, to agriculture, to industrial, to informational modes of techno-economic production. - We see the evolution of cultural worldviews, such as the developmental model offered by Jean Gebser, in which cultures develop through archaic/instinctual, magic/animistic, mythic/traditional, rational/scientific, pluralistic/postmodern, and integral worldviews, each offering radically different ways of interpreting our world and our roles within it. - And, perhaps most profoundly, we see the evolution of consciousness, with cognitive faculties developing from Piaget’s pre-operational, to concrete operational, to formal-operational, to Wilber’s suggested “vision-logic” stage—and with values developing from pre-modern, to modern, to post-modern (or pre-rational, rational, and trans-rational) stages, and beyond. Taken together, we notice a rich mosaic of evolutionary emergence, in at least four important dimensions: subjective and objective development in both individuals and collectives. This gives rise to Wilber’s famous “Four Quadrant” map, one of a handful of basic components that comprise the Integral model. The Integral approach helps to reveal some of the deepest patterns that run through all human knowledge, showing the relationships that exist between physical evolution, systemic evolution, cultural evolution, and conscious evolution.

Wired magazine’s own “Senior Maverick” talks with Ken Wilber about some of the ideas behind Kevin’s blog The Technium, which explores the various ways humanity defines and redefines itself through the interface of science, technology, culture, and consciousness. Kevin also shares some of his own thoughts about the role of spirituality in the 21st century, going into considerable depth around his own spiritual awakening several decades ago. The universe, we are told, is winding down. Nothing escapes the remorseless grasp of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics—and with each passing moment, our world, our solar system, indeed our entire galaxy slowly approaches its inevitable heat-death. But this is not the full story, for while the universe is winding down, it is also winding up, bringing forth new forms from old, adding new layers of complexity where there was once only an empty vacuum. It is what Alfred Whitehead called the “creative advance into novelty,” referring to a distinct “tilt” of the universe toward more complexity, more significance, and more wholeness. From atoms, to molecules, to single-cell and multi-cellular organisms, to the reptilian brain, mammalian brain, and the human neocortex—the universe is abound with inexhaustible creativity, pushing deeper and wider towards its own limitless potential. Entropy and evolution: these two “arrows of time” exert their pull upon everything that ever is, was, and will be—one pulling us up toward the eternal light, the other pulling us down toward the infinite black. But it is not just physical matter that is evolving! Alongside the increasing complexification of the material world, evolution brings forth novelty in at least three other dimensions, particularly evident within human evolution: - We see the evolution of systems, such as the movement from foraging to horticulture, to agriculture, to industrial, to informational modes of techno-economic production. - We see the evolution of cultural worldviews, such as the developmental model offered by Jean Gebser, in which cultures develop through archaic/instinctual, magic/animistic, mythic/traditional, rational/scientific, pluralistic/postmodern, and integral worldviews, each offering radically different ways of interpreting our world and our roles within it. - And, perhaps most profoundly, we see the evolution of consciousness, with cognitive faculties developing from Piaget’s pre-operational, to concrete operational, to formal-operational, to Wilber’s suggested “vision-logic” stage—and with values developing from pre-modern, to modern, to post-modern (or pre-rational, rational, and trans-rational) stages, and beyond. Taken together, we notice a rich mosaic of evolutionary emergence, in at least four important dimensions: subjective and objective development in both individuals and collectives. This gives rise to Wilber’s famous “Four Quadrant” map, one of a handful of basic components that comprise the Integral model. The Integral approach helps to reveal some of the deepest patterns that run through all human knowledge, showing the relationships that exist between physical evolution, systemic evolution, cultural evolution, and conscious evolution.

Wired magazine’s own “Senior Maverick” talks with Ken Wilber about some of the ideas behind Kevin’s blog The Technium, which explores the various ways humanity defines and redefines itself through the interface of science, technology, culture, and consciousness. Kevin also shares some of his own thoughts about the role of spirituality in the 21st century, going into considerable depth around his own spiritual awakening several decades ago. The universe, we are told, is winding down. Nothing escapes the remorseless grasp of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics—and with each passing moment, our world, our solar system, indeed our entire galaxy slowly approaches its inevitable heat-death. But this is not the full story, for while the universe is winding down, it is also winding up, bringing forth new forms from old, adding new layers of complexity where there was once only an empty vacuum. It is what Alfred Whitehead called the “creative advance into novelty,” referring to a distinct “tilt” of the universe toward more complexity, more significance, and more wholeness. From atoms, to molecules, to single-cell and multi-cellular organisms, to the reptilian brain, mammalian brain, and the human neocortex—the universe is abound with inexhaustible creativity, pushing deeper and wider towards its own limitless potential. Entropy and evolution: these two “arrows of time” exert their pull upon everything that ever is, was, and will be—one pulling us up toward the eternal light, the other pulling us down toward the infinite black. But it is not just physical matter that is evolving! Alongside the increasing complexification of the material world, evolution brings forth novelty in at least three other dimensions, particularly evident within human evolution: - We see the evolution of systems, such as the movement from foraging to horticulture, to agriculture, to industrial, to informational modes of techno-economic production. - We see the evolution of cultural worldviews, such as the developmental model offered by Jean Gebser, in which cultures develop through archaic/instinctual, magic/animistic, mythic/traditional, rational/scientific, pluralistic/postmodern, and integral worldviews, each offering radically different ways of interpreting our world and our roles within it. - And, perhaps most profoundly, we see the evolution of consciousness, with cognitive faculties developing from Piaget’s pre-operational, to concrete operational, to formal-operational, to Wilber’s suggested “vision-logic” stage—and with values developing from pre-modern, to modern, to post-modern (or pre-rational, rational, and trans-rational) stages, and beyond. Taken together, we notice a rich mosaic of evolutionary emergence, in at least four important dimensions: subjective and objective development in both individuals and collectives. This gives rise to Wilber’s famous “Four Quadrant” map, one of a handful of basic components that comprise the Integral model. The Integral approach helps to reveal some of the deepest patterns that run through all human knowledge, showing the relationships that exist between physical evolution, systemic evolution, cultural evolution, and conscious evolution.

Wired magazine’s own “Senior Maverick” talks with Ken Wilber about some of the ideas behind Kevin’s blog The Technium, which explores the various ways humanity defines and redefines itself through the interface of science, technology, culture, and consciousness. Kevin also shares some of his own thoughts about the role of spirituality in the 21st century, going into considerable depth around his own spiritual awakening several decades ago. The universe, we are told, is winding down. Nothing escapes the remorseless grasp of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics—and with each passing moment, our world, our solar system, indeed our entire galaxy slowly approaches its inevitable heat-death. But this is not the full story, for while the universe is winding down, it is also winding up, bringing forth new forms from old, adding new layers of complexity where there was once only an empty vacuum. It is what Alfred Whitehead called the “creative advance into novelty,” referring to a distinct “tilt” of the universe toward more complexity, more significance, and more wholeness. From atoms, to molecules, to single-cell and multi-cellular organisms, to the reptilian brain, mammalian brain, and the human neocortex—the universe is abound with inexhaustible creativity, pushing deeper and wider towards its own limitless potential. Entropy and evolution: these two “arrows of time” exert their pull upon everything that ever is, was, and will be—one pulling us up toward the eternal light, the other pulling us down toward the infinite black. But it is not just physical matter that is evolving! Alongside the increasing complexification of the material world, evolution brings forth novelty in at least three other dimensions, particularly evident within human evolution: - We see the evolution of systems, such as the movement from foraging to horticulture, to agriculture, to industrial, to informational modes of techno-economic production. - We see the evolution of cultural worldviews, such as the developmental model offered by Jean Gebser, in which cultures develop through archaic/instinctual, magic/animistic, mythic/traditional, rational/scientific, pluralistic/postmodern, and integral worldviews, each offering radically different ways of interpreting our world and our roles within it. - And, perhaps most profoundly, we see the evolution of consciousness, with cognitive faculties developing from Piaget’s pre-operational, to concrete operational, to formal-operational, to Wilber’s suggested “vision-logic” stage—and with values developing from pre-modern, to modern, to post-modern (or pre-rational, rational, and trans-rational) stages, and beyond. Taken together, we notice a rich mosaic of evolutionary emergence, in at least four important dimensions: subjective and objective development in both individuals and collectives. This gives rise to Wilber’s famous “Four Quadrant” map, one of a handful of basic components that comprise the Integral model. The Integral approach helps to reveal some of the deepest patterns that run through all human knowledge, showing the relationships that exist between physical evolution, systemic evolution, cultural evolution, and conscious evolution.

Robert Kegan, the author of The Evolving Self and In Over Our Heads, explores the vital role of interior development in creating a more inclusive and integrated world, as well as the importance of the appropriate use of discriminating awareness. Robert Kegan is a founding member of Integral Institute and the author of the critically acclaimed books The Evolving Self, In Over Our Heads, and How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work. Bob is also the first-ever Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As the holder of this endowed chair, Bob has the official support of HGSE to pursue developmental studies for the rest of his career. This is significant. For the past several decades developmental studies have fallen upon some hard times in academia. For many, to have a developmental view is to be hierarchical—and to be hierarchical is to be oppressive, regressive, patriarchal, and a direct contributor to the suffering of untold millions. The fact the HGSE has decided to so clearly support Bob’s work is a welcome sign that the winds may be shifting. It’s important to note that there are (at least) two significantly different ways that “hierarchy” can be understood: as it exists in the exterior structure of a society and as it exists in the interior structure of an individual. Historically, enormous abuses of power have occurred by those at the top of a societal hierarchy—but those who would do so are by definition not at the higher stages of the interior, developmental hierarchy. Psychologically, people grow through stages of increasing competence, care, and concern. Each stage transcends and includes the function of what came before, but excludes an exclusive identity with that function. In Bob’s work he outlines Five Orders of Consciousness: First Order: Impulsive—Perceives and responds by emotion. Second Order: Imperial—Motivated solely by one’s desires. Third Order: Interpersonal—Defined by the group. Fourth Order: Institutional—Self directed, self authoring. Fifth Order: Interindividual—Interpenetration of self systems. Loosely, one can think of the first and second orders as egocentric (me), the third order as ethnocentric (us), and the fourth and fifth orders as worldcentric (all of us). If one grows from egocentric to ethnocentric, one doesn’t stop caring about oneself, but that care and concern is now extended to one’s family, community, nation, and so on. Likewise with the growth from ethnocentric to worldcentric, that care is now extended to all people regardless of race, class, creed, gender, etc. As Bob and Ken discuss, an important element of worldcentric consciousness is the contributions of postmodernism, including feminism, civil rights, and, among other things, the understanding that a substantial amount of human knowledge is context dependant and culturally bound. But postmodernism then stepped beyond what it had evidence for and claimed that all knowledge was relative, and therefore nothing could be said to be better than anything else. In fact, a fellow researcher, Clare Graves, called this level of development relativistic (Spiral Dynamics green), which research has shown accounts for about 20% of the American population. But as Ken points out, that means that about 20% of the population has gotten confused about how to make conscious, explicit judgments. Most of the people in this group would agree that a worldcentric embrace of all cultures is better than ethnocentric racism, but postmodern relativism won’t be able tell them why it’s okay to think this way. When all judgments have been outlawed, even sensible examples of discriminating awareness rightly applied have nothing to stand on. Originally published on 12/20/2004

Robert Kegan, the author of The Evolving Self and In Over Our Heads, explores the vital role of interior development in creating a more inclusive and integrated world, as well as the importance of the appropriate use of discriminating awareness. Robert Kegan is a founding member of Integral Institute and the author of the critically acclaimed books The Evolving Self, In Over Our Heads, and How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work. Bob is also the first-ever Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As the holder of this endowed chair, Bob has the official support of HGSE to pursue developmental studies for the rest of his career. This is significant. For the past several decades developmental studies have fallen upon some hard times in academia. For many, to have a developmental view is to be hierarchical—and to be hierarchical is to be oppressive, regressive, patriarchal, and a direct contributor to the suffering of untold millions. The fact the HGSE has decided to so clearly support Bob’s work is a welcome sign that the winds may be shifting. It’s important to note that there are (at least) two significantly different ways that “hierarchy” can be understood: as it exists in the exterior structure of a society and as it exists in the interior structure of an individual. Historically, enormous abuses of power have occurred by those at the top of a societal hierarchy—but those who would do so are by definition not at the higher stages of the interior, developmental hierarchy. Psychologically, people grow through stages of increasing competence, care, and concern. Each stage transcends and includes the function of what came before, but excludes an exclusive identity with that function. In Bob’s work he outlines Five Orders of Consciousness: First Order: Impulsive—Perceives and responds by emotion. Second Order: Imperial—Motivated solely by one’s desires. Third Order: Interpersonal—Defined by the group. Fourth Order: Institutional—Self directed, self authoring. Fifth Order: Interindividual—Interpenetration of self systems. Loosely, one can think of the first and second orders as egocentric (me), the third order as ethnocentric (us), and the fourth and fifth orders as worldcentric (all of us). If one grows from egocentric to ethnocentric, one doesn’t stop caring about oneself, but that care and concern is now extended to one’s family, community, nation, and so on. Likewise with the growth from ethnocentric to worldcentric, that care is now extended to all people regardless of race, class, creed, gender, etc. As Bob and Ken discuss, an important element of worldcentric consciousness is the contributions of postmodernism, including feminism, civil rights, and, among other things, the understanding that a substantial amount of human knowledge is context dependant and culturally bound. But postmodernism then stepped beyond what it had evidence for and claimed that all knowledge was relative, and therefore nothing could be said to be better than anything else. In fact, a fellow researcher, Clare Graves, called this level of development relativistic (Spiral Dynamics green), which research has shown accounts for about 20% of the American population. But as Ken points out, that means that about 20% of the population has gotten confused about how to make conscious, explicit judgments. Most of the people in this group would agree that a worldcentric embrace of all cultures is better than ethnocentric racism, but postmodern relativism won’t be able tell them why it’s okay to think this way. When all judgments have been outlawed, even sensible examples of discriminating awareness rightly applied have nothing to stand on. Originally published on 12/20/2004

Lana and Lilly Wachowski, the writers and directors of The Matrix trilogy, have been reluctant to share their interpretation of the films from day one, fearing that whatever they said would turn into dogma. However, this did present a problem for Warner Brothers when producing The Ultimate Matrix Collection DVD boxed set. How do you have a director’s commentary—a must for any boxed set—when the directors refuse to comment? What the Wachowskis did was to ask Ken Wilber and Cornel West to do the director’s commentary on all 3 films. The following dialogue was recorded right before Ken flew to LA to meet with Lana and Cornel and do the recorded commentary. Ken and Cornel recorded 15 hours of commentary, which has been edited down to 6 hours to fit the 3 films, and the boxed set with all 3 films—and 6 hours of Ken and Cornel’s commentary—will be released in October. In the following dialogue, for the first time ever, we are lucky enough to hear Lana publicly comment on this situation. As she explains, the movies were in many ways designed not to give answers, but to introduce questions. What does it mean to be human? What is reality? Who is in control? Does God exist? and so on. If she was to explain what he thought the movies meant, she would be providing people with another concept of reality to either accept or reject—either way, the open space created by the question would vanish. “The whole key to The Matrix trilogy is given in the last twenty minutes of the third film….”

Corey DeVos, editor-in-chief of Integral Life, joins Jeff Salzman to talk about recent goings-on at Integral Life. From Jeff: "I invited him on because my job is highlighting the emergence of integral consciousness, and I have been really impressed with the stuff Corey and company are putting out these days. (Plus they host my live show twice a week, and I want them to know I love them!)"

An integrally-inspired clinical psychologist specializing in couples therapy, Dr. Tom Habib has mapped what he calls the “couple’s line of development,” which describes the predictable stages a couple typically grows through — and where they may get stalled.

Ginny Whitelaw shares some of the central themes of her new astonishing new training program, Lead With Purpose. Learn more here: https://integrallife.com/lead-with-purpose-training/

Kent Bye, host of the Voices of VR podcast, talks to Ken Wilber about the many ways virtual reality can bring Ken’s integral map of consciousness to life, exploring how VR’s unique capacity to elicit feelings of awe, empathy, and flow can help it become a uniquely powerful platform of transformation.

Corey deVos talks to Lynn Fuentes about his daughter's Biliary Atresia diagnosis when she was just a few months old, her subsequent liver transplant a year later, and her ongoing recovery today. Corey also shares some of the little wisdoms that have ripened for him during his family's journey. It was a fantastic and very touching interview, and we invite you all to check it out.

Do You Want A More Fulfilling Marriage & Lifelong Love Affair? Wouldn’t you like to know — quickly, easily and succinctly — what the very best of science tells us about how to have amazing, life-changing relationships, intimacy and sex? Loving Completely is your guide. In Dr. Keith Witt’s new book, Loving Completely: A Five Star Practice for Creating Great Relationships, we explore the five most critical strategies to make your relationships as healthy and fulfilling as possible, and discover new depths of connection, intimacy, and attraction. https://www.lovingcompletely.com/special “Why is it that 40 percent of U.S. adults report chronic loneliness and over 60 percent of self-reported lonely people are married and live with a spouse? Why is it that 37 percent of U.S. adults answered, ‘Yes,’ to ‘Has marriage not worked out for most people you know?’ The answer is that satisfying modern relationships are complicated and demanding in ways that are regularly difficult to understand and deal with. That’s why this is a different kind of relationship book. Not only do I explain why we know so much about intimacy and still have to struggle so hard to be consistently fulfilled, but I’ll tell you what to do about it when the inevitable problems arise.” —Dr. Keith Witt https://www.lovingcompletely.com/special

Ken Wilber and Corey deVos explore some of the causal factors behind so many of the regressive tendencies in our culture and politics these days — particularly the new pressures coming from social media technologies like Facebook. This talk was excerpted from the full 2+ hour dialogue, From Polarization to Integration, available only on Integral Life. https://integrallife.com/from-polarization-to-integration/

Sutras is an hour-long musical meditation by Corey deVos that includes spoken word pieces by Alex Grey, Ken Wilber, Lama Surya Das, Sally Kempton, and Alan Watts. A synaesthetic journey through gross, subtle, causal, and nondual realms. Sonic tonic for your aching body, mind, and soul. Liberation upon hearing.

Sutras is an hour-long musical meditation that includes spoken word pieces by Alex Grey, Ken Wilber, Lama Surya Das, Sally Kempton, and Alan Watts. A synaesthetic journey through gross, subtle, causal, and nondual realms. Sonic tonic for your aching body, mind, and soul. Liberation upon hearing.

Should integral thinkers be paying at least as much attention to the excesses of the right as we do to those coming from the political left? Is it possible that some people’s “green allergy” are causing them to overlook or minimize the dangers coming from the political right?

The Integral stage of human development reveals a thrilling new view of reality. It starts at the Teal altitude, where we are able to see and map the movement of evolution in history and in our own lives. We develop the ability to hold paradox and appreciate the beauty of all previous stages who have been so long at war. It matures into the Turquoise altitude, where we experience a more unified kosmos, one that is animated with a loving intelligence which each of us, in our own way, is both expressing and creating. Our thanks to those of you who have written and sent voicemails to share your adventures in integral emergence. In today’s episode Jeff uses your reflections to chart out some of the landmarks of the new integral territory, as well as characteristics of the pioneers who seek to inhabit it.

Mark Forman and Robb Smith discuss the Intellectual Dark Web, the loose counter-cultural band of intellectuals recently profiled in the New York Times. Mark and Robb both agree that IDW is playing an important role in challenging prevailing culture to engage in necessary conversations and issues created at the leading-edge of a Green “operating system” that is increasingly straining under its philosophical and evolutionary contradictions, but with limitations that seem to arise from their failure to take a broader, more integral worldview. For Robb’s personal take on IDW, see his accompanying Integral Post here: https://integrallife.com/can-the-intellectual-dark-web-save-western-culture/

Integral philosopher Steve McIntosh takes us on a tour through his view of the origins of integral theory, starting with Georg Friedrich Hegel, who first explained the mechanisms of evolution in human history, and on through a stream of philosophers who unified the evolution of matter, consciousness and spirit. He also considers a line of developmental psychologists, such as Jean Piaget and Clare Graves, who defined the distinct stages of human growth including the emerging integral stage.

Terry Patten talks to Ken Wilber about his new book, A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries, inviting us to align our “inner work” with our “outer work” and establish sacred activism as both a fundamental component of our ongoing Integral Life Practice, as well as the ultimate expression of that practice.

Chris Grosso talks to Jeff and Corey about his latest book, Dead Set on Living: Making the Difficult but Beautiful Journey from F#@king Up to Waking Up, which features a number of deeply moving conversations between Chris and various spiritual and cultural luminaries, including Ken Wilber, Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Noah Levine, JP Sears, and many others.

Part 2 — Ken Wilber continues his talk with Steve Paulson, exploring the topics of enlightenment, artificial intelligence, and quantum physics in this exclusive NPR interview.

Part 1 — Ken Wilber talks to Steve Paulson about an integral approach to science and religion in this exclusive NPR interview.

Corey deVos and Jeff Salzman explore the exhilarating emergence of virtual reality technology and the far-reaching implications it has across the full spectrum of human experience, from entertainment to education, to medicine, art, journalism, spiritual practice, sexuality, communication, and any number of other exciting and potentially groundbreaking applications.

Part One — Jeff Salzman makes the case that Peterson is tantalizingly close to integral thinking, and making a great contribution to a large population of primarily (but by no means exclusively) young men who are inspired by his transmission of traditional values, starting with his exhortation to “stand up straight with your shoulders back.”

Part Two — Jeff Salzman points how Peterson misses the integral mark by seeing postmodernity as a poisonous political ideology rather than a fully fleshed out stage in human evolutionary development, which, like all stages has its gifts and baggage. This misreading kicks off a cascade of conflict and consternation that, while stoking the culture wars, does not provide an authentic evolutionary path forward.

Andrew Holecek talks to David Riordan about his new Dream Yoga teachings, presenting an opportunity to develop a liberating flexibility in your identity, transforming your very sense of Self, and exploring your mind in new and creative ways.

Dr Keith Witt talks with Jeff about how to better support children’s development. Dr. Keith argues that the healthy expression of a person’s type (their preferences, gifts and built-in challenges) is based largely on their early relationships.

Jeff talks with Scott Ford, author of Integral Consciousness in Sport: Unifying Body, Mind and Spirit Through Flow. Listen as Scott offers a specific practice for entering flow, which is applicable for “in the zone” performance in all aspects of life.

Real Yoga: Full Body Awakening is an exquisite new program by Indian Temple Arts Master Sofia Diaz that will help you unlock an unlimited source of wisdom waiting for you inside your own body.

Robb Smith talks with David Riordan about the many faces of power, and why it's so difficult for each of us to get a personal handle on it.

Ken Wilber chronicles the emergence of integral consciousness and culture in recent decades. Ken describes this emergence as the latest in a historic series of transformations stretching all the way back to the birth of humanity, bringing humanity through several distinct stages of consciousness—namely archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, and integral stages.

Jeff and Corey explore the exhilarating emergence of virtual reality technology and the far-reaching implications it has across the full spectrum of human experience, from entertainment to education, to medicine, art, journalism, spiritual practice, sexuality, communication, and any number of other exciting and potentially groundbreaking applications.

Jeff and Corey respond to listener feedback, focused on how we evolve (both as individuals and as cultures) by “transcending and including” our previous stages of development. But, practically speaking, how do we know what to include and what to transcend?

Robb Smith explains the new war for power that is currently underway: how power is being used and misused, how it is changing, and who will have it when the momentous leap into the transformation age is done.

Ken Wilber explores the idea of "Holons" — a word coined by Arthur Koestler to describe wholes that are simultaneously parts of other greater wholes (a whole atom is also part of a whole molecule, which is part of a whole cell, etc.)

Ken Wilber explains his famous “Four Quadrant” map, one of a handful of basic components that comprise the Integral model.

Ken Wilber offers an introduction to a spirituality that honors the truths of modernity and postmodernity — including the revolutions in science and culture — while incorporating the essential insights of the great religions.

Today Jeff is joined by Cindy Wigglesworth and Corey deVos, and together they dive deeply into the rich mythology and mysticism of the Star Wars universe — sharing their personal connection to Star Wars, their integral appreciation of its central themes and allegories, and their best guesses as to where the Force may be taking us next.

Open hailing frequencies, set phasers to "fun", and prepare to boldly go where no Star Trek review has gone before.

Ken Wilber weaves an elegant vision of a coming wave of cultural emergence; a wave of integral emergence that heralds an increase of consciousness and compassion, along with the developmentally-earned capacity to better address increasingly complex global challenges.

As the current environmental crisis is one of the pressing spiritual challenge of our times, what can be done to practically address this issue? A typical -- i.e., simplistic and non-integral -- answer goes something like this: “Get people to behave in an environmentally-friendly manner.” Ok, how? An Integral answer goes something like this: “Recognize the fact that people who are at an egocentric or ethnocentric level of development do not, and cannot, see or care about environmentalism. This is 70% of the world population. If you want to make a real difference in how the environment is treated, work to help people develop to worldcentric and integral levels of development, and equally important, elect and educate integral leaders who will implement policies everyone else will be obligated to follow.” Most pro-environment stances are crippled by the same flaw: they fail to recognize the absolutely crucial role interior development has in their cause. Will you let yourself be crippled by the same partial view, or will you embrace a truly Integral Approach? Listening to this dialogue is the perfect way to begin this contemplation.