Reestablishing a Balance Between “Ascending” and “Descending” Spirituality
“… we are offered a way out of many of our human and global problems by reestablishing a balance between “Ascending” and “Descending” spirituality.
Ascending spirituality is defined as movement from the Many to the One, otherworldly, transcendental—the Path of Wisdom. “Wisdom sees that behind all the multifarious forms and phenomena there lies the One, the Good, the unqualifiable Emptiness, against which all forms are seen to be illusory, fleeting, impermanent. Wisdom, the pursuit of the Good, penetrates beneath the surfaces to find the eternal One, radiant, empty, shining.”
Descending spirituality is defined as movement from the One to the Many, “whereby the One empties itself into all creation, gives itself to all forms, so that all of creation itself is a perfect manifestation of Spirit.” This is the Path of Compassion, so “all forms are to be treated equally with kindness, compassion, mercy. Compassion is the very mechanism of manifestation itself.”
—Jan Thatcher Adams, from Sex, Ecology, Spirituality-Predicted to be Classic in Consciousness Literature on integralworld.net
May 2, 2010 | Filed Under Waking Down in Mutuality, integral | Comments Off
Integral Critique of Waking Down in Mutuality
I think that the Waking Down container holds the aspirant and “greenlights” all of the person, including broken parts, and this catalyzes a shift from self-distrusting outer-directed focus to contact with one’s own “Divine humanity.” Then there’s much deeper consequent self-trust and self-allowing, and a relaxation of many seeking motivations.
But people can undergo sequences like this at various levels of structure-stage and state-stage development. So some folks are having a radical nondual embodied awakening (which is how Saniel characterizes it.) Others are just dropping out of the periphery of their outer-directed focus into a more inner-directed self-trust (which might be fairly egocentric and maybe even lacking in lots of kinds of self-awareness.) Red, and/or Blue, and/or Orange, and/or Green, in other words.
And there’s no critical quality control in the WD community — they offer the Waking Down process to all comers. (This is where I’m a bit critical — I think some folks would be well-served to take up an ILP first.) So you’ve got profound realizations co-arising with more ordinary psychological transitions. Establishing a vantage point on experience as free consciousness is part of the formal criteria for a 2nd Birth, but I think it’s been applied permissively. And the interpersonal cultural norms are hugely biased towards the extremes of the “sensitive self” of Green. (For some good reasons, I should add.)
So you’ve got a pretty widely mixed group of folks claiming “the second birth” and I think this has been confusing. It sometimes makes the Waking Down work look good, sometimes bad, but it certainly hasn’t helped people see clearly and accurately what’s most beautiful and compelling and unique about that work, or helped them understand it in a larger context.
That said, I have a hunch that you might have a really positive and powerful experience of a deeper investigation of the Waking Down work. I get a sense that you might get profound value from doing the WD work. For one, you’ll find a way more profound and embracing home for your broken and exiled parts than you’ll find in the “Integral” community, and additionally, you’ll encounter some very ordinary human people with profound awakenings in consciousness who will take you in and be with you in the process of following and unfolding your own idiosyncratic, sometimes fussy and crabby humanity without judging or suppressing or rushing past any of it, in fact paying attention precisely because they see and trust the divinely human nature of all your parts.
On the other hand, it’s good for you to be forewarned that you probably will not find a community that will share all your integral awarenesses and distinctions, and this might sometimes feel limiting and frustrating. But if you can forgive this in advance (since as a broken soul pressing into the leading edge of emerging culture, you’re not fully met and tracked on all levels by anyone ever) you might find a kind of holding that allows you to drop down and relax into a dimension of your being that has long been needing to let go, and something new might bloom.
— Terry Patten, Integral practitioner, teacher, and author (with Ken Wilber of the book Integral Life Practice), www.integralheart.com.
April 29, 2010 | Filed Under Waking Down in Mutuality, integral | Comments Off
An Integral Model
November 7, 2009 | Filed Under integral | Comments Off
Video Introduction to Spiral Dynamics
October 1, 2009 | Filed Under integral, spiral dynamics | Comments Off
Integral Consciousness vs. Integral Philosophy
This is a great essay by Steve McIntosh that explains the difference between Integral Philosophy and Integral Consciousness.
Integral Visioning – Steve Mcintosh: What Is Integral Consciousness?
Integral consciousness is a way of seeing things — a perspective that arises from a new understanding of how evolution really works. Not just biological evolution, but the evolution of human awareness and human history. Integral consciousness comes about as people use the insights of integral philosophy to recognize how values and worldviews have arisen in sequential stages throughout history, and how these stages of development are alive today within the mind of each person.
Integral philosophy brings together systems science, developmental psychology, academic philosophy, and spirituality to provide a new understanding of human culture and the consciousness of individuals. Integral philosophy emerged throughout the course of the 20th century. Read more
December 7, 2008 | Filed Under integral | Comments Off
WHAT IS INTEGRAL?
What is Integral?
by Kelley Sosan Bearer
The Integral map is a comprehensive approach to human growth and development, developed by philosopher Ken Wilber (Greg’s note: Ken had help from many others – some of these folks don’t completely agree with all of Wilber’s assertions and interpretations), that lays out all that the various world cultures have to tell us about human potential- spiritual growth, psychological growth, social and cultural growth. The Integral map uses all the known systems and models of human growth and distills their major components into five simple factors that are essential elements or keys to unlocking and facilitating human evolution.
So, why learn this map? By learning the Integral map, we are not merely learning a set of theoretical concepts, but rather aspects available in our very own awareness right now. And by exercising these elements, we can accelerate our growth and development to higher, wider, and deeper ways of being and serving in the world. Read more
December 7, 2008 | Filed Under integral | Comments Off
Why the WDM community needs to give a damn about INTEGRAL
• Some of what’s being referred to as “mutuality” is really “unhealthy GREEN” behavior
• Some teachers have trouble greenlighting us when we’re not acting GREEN
• Good people are leaving the work because they’re being talked down to, when they’re just operating at a different stage of development (which isn’t necessarily lower)
• There’s a whole bunch of Integrally informed folks aching for a practice like WDM, if you could only speak their language
• There’s a rift in the WDM community – which is a classic Post-Modern / Integral split – and integral philosophy offers some answers
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November 29, 2008 | Filed Under Waking Down in Mutuality, integral | Comments Off