Integral Spirituality by Ken Wilber (E book Summary)

That is often a e e ebook abstract of Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Function for Faith contained in the Fashionable and Postmodern World by Ken Wilber (Amazon).

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Fast Housekeeping:

• All content material materials supplies in “citation marks” is from the creator (in one other case it’s paraphrased).
• All content material materials supplies is organized into my very private themes (not the creator’s chapters).
• Emphasis has been added in daring for readability/skimmability.

E e ebook Abstract Contents:

Ego to Enlightenment: Integral Spirituality by Ken Wilber (E e ebook Abstract)

Phases & States of Consciousness

“Consciousness shouldn’t be a component or a content material materials supplies or a phenomenon. It has no description. It is not worldviews, it’s not values, it’s not morals, not cognition, not value-MEMEs, mathematico-logico buildings, adaptive intelligences, or loads of intelligences. Notably, consciousness shouldn’t be itself a line amongst utterly completely different strains, nonetheless the house by means of which strains come up. Consciousness is the vacancy, the openness, the clearing by means of which phenomena come up, and if these phenomena develop in phases, they signify a developmental line (cognitive, ethical, self, values, wants, memes, and loads of others.). The extra phenomena in that line which is able to come up in consciousness, the upper the extent in that line. As quickly as additional, consciousness itself shouldn’t be a phenomenon, nonetheless the house by means of which phenomena come up.”

Phases of Consciousness:

“Phases (and stage fashions) are merely conceptual snapshots of the great and ever-flowing River of Life … This isn’t to say that phases are mere constructions or are socially constructed, which is the oppositely lopsided view. Phases are exact contained in the sense that there’s one factor truly present that happens throughout the true world and that we title growth or progress. It’s merely that ‘phases’ of that progress are literally merely snapshots that we take at specific deadlines and from a selected perspective (which itself grows and develops).”

• “Every of the developmental strains possesses ranges (that unfold in phases or waves) … A ‘stage of growth’ is all the time a ‘stage in a selected line.’”
• “Many researchers deal with with developmental strains as developmental streams (they usually additionally title ranges waves). Thus, ‘waves and streams’ as an alternative of ‘ranges and choices.’”
• “A extreme set off that the cognitive line is critical nonetheless not ample for the opposite strains is that you must focus to not less than one issue to have the flexibility to behave on it, truly actually really feel it, determine with it, or want it … Cognition delivers the phenomena with which the opposite strains carry out. That is the explanation it might presumably carry out an altitude marker of types … Analysis reveals that your emotions, your artwork work, your ethics, and your feelings, all will regulate to behind the cognitive line, on account of to have the flexibility to truly actually really feel one issue, you might have gotten to have the pliability to see it.”

Developmental Traces & Life’s Questions:

• What am I conscious of? (The cognitive line or cognitive intelligence is the response to that life query; e.g., Piaget.)
• Of the issues that I’m conscious of, what do I title my ‘self’ or ‘I/me’? (Ego or self growth line; e.g., Loevinger.)
• Of the issues that I’m conscious of, which do I worth most? (‘Values methods’; e.g., Graves.)
• Of the issues that I’m conscious of, what’s the appropriate situation to do? (Ethical intelligence; e.g., Kohlberg.)
• Of the issues that I’m conscious of, what ought to I do in relation to you? (Interpersonal growth; e.g., Selman.)
• Of the issues that I’m conscious of, what holds final concern? (Non secular intelligence; e.g., James Fowler.)
• Of the issues that I’m conscious of, what do I would like? (Maslow’s wants holarchy.)
• Of the issues that I’m conscious of, how do I truly actually really feel about them? (Emotional intelligence; e.g., Goleman.)
• Of the issues that I’m conscious of, that are mainly most likely probably the most participating or stunning? (Aesthetic line; e.g., Housen.)

States of Consciousness:

“What I expertise in an instantaneous, 1st-person sample accommodates, along with particular ‘contents’ or ‘quick experiences’ (a means, a thought, an impulse, a picture, and loads of others.), what are typically known as ‘phenomenal states’ … States are immediately in the marketplace to consciousness, beneath assorted circumstances.”

Vedanta’s 5 important pure states of consciousness:

• Waking, dreaming, deep sleep, Witnessing (turiya), and Nondual (turiyatita).

Along with pure or extraordinary states, there are altered or nonordinary states:

• Exogenous states (e.g., drug-induced) and endogenous states (which embrace professional states akin to meditative states). Heightened states, extraordinary or nonordinary, are typically known as peak experiences.

In accordance with the great data traditions, all women and men have in the marketplace to them not less than 5 good pure states of consciousness, all of which will be immediately professional:

• Gross-waking states, akin to what I might expertise driving a bike or studying this web net web page or doing bodywork.
• Delicate-dream states, akin to I might expertise in a vivid dream, or in a vivid daydream or visualization put together, together with in sure kinds of meditation with kind.
• Causal-formless states, akin to deep dreamless sleep and kinds of formless meditation and experiences of huge openness or vacancy.
• Witnessing states—or ‘the Witness’—which is a performance to witness all the utterly completely different states; for example, the aptitude for unbroken consideration contained in the waking state and the aptitude to lucid-dream.
• Ever-present Nondual consciousness, which isn’t a lot a state because of the ever-present flooring of all states (and may be ‘professional’ as such).

States interpreted by Phases:

“An individual at any stage can have a peak expertise of a gross, refined, causal, or nondual state. However an individual will interpret that state based totally on the stage they’re at … After I say that an individual will interpret a selected state or expertise ‘based totally on the stage they’re at,’ the extra fleshed-out model is ‘based totally on the complete AQAL matrix’ operative at the moment.”

• “You’ll interpret your meditative state experiences based totally on no matter stage you could possibly be at. Likewise, one of the simplest ways you protect a View will itself be largely decided by no matter stage you could possibly be at … The intention is that an individual can have a profound peak, non secular, non secular, or meditative expertise of, say, a refined mild or causal vacancy, nonetheless they may interpret which have with the one gear they’ve, significantly, the gadgets of the stage of growth they’re at.”
• “This notably accommodates ‘ranges and choices’ contained in the UL—an individual will interpret an expertise primarily based on their psychograph (which suggests a mess of intelligences all working immediately, clamoring for recognition by the self). All through the LL, cultural backgrounds and intersubjective contexts are decisive (and nearly absolutely preconscious). All through the UR, neurophysiological parameters set an infinite variety of interpretive frames. All through the LR, social methods have nearly as sturdy an affect as Marx claimed. None of those elements may be missed; all of them have a hand in how a person will interpret any second of his or her expertise. It’s the whole AQAL matrix, in each second, that speaks in and thru a person.”
• “I can come out of a nondual state of consciousness, and if I’m inexperienced, I’ll interpret nonduality in inexperienced phrases; if I’m ultraviolet, then in ultraviolet phrases. The equal actual state will likely be utilized to help any variety of phases. This translation-downward of excellent non secular treatises is a big drawback.”

Topic & Object

Pair with: 🔒Stream of Consciousness: What’s the Topic-Object Relationship?

Topic-Object Relationship:

“The topic of 1 stage turns into the issue of the topic of the following stage … In direct 1st-person phrases, it’s not merely that the topic of 1 stage turns into the issue of the topic of the following stage, nonetheless that the I of 1 stage turns into the me of the I of the following stage … Not merely ‘objects of a topic,’ nonetheless my objects of my topic (i.e., I remodel me or mine).”

• “Robert Kegan, echoing developmentalists often, has acknowledged that the elemental strategy of growth itself may be acknowledged as: the topic of 1 stage turns into the issue of the topic of the following stage … As Gebser areas it, the self of 1 stage turns into the software program program of the following.”
• “If I’m on the crimson stage of growth, that signifies that my I—that my topic—is totally acknowledged with crimson, a lot in order that I’m unable to see crimson as object, nonetheless as an alternative use it as topic with which and thru which I see the world. However after I swap to the following stage, the amber stage, then the red-self turns into an object in my consciousness, which itself is now acknowledged with amber—thus, my amber-subject now sees crimson objects, nonetheless can not itself be seen. If crimson ideas or crimson impulses come up in my I-space, I’ll see them because of the objects of my (now amber) self.”
• “If you meditate, you could possibly be in have an effect on witnessing the concepts, thus turning topic into object—which is strictly the core mechanism of growth (‘the topic of 1 stage turns into the issue of the topic of the following’) … The explanation that state-meditation may additionally help with vertical stage-development is that each time you expertise a nonordinary state of consciousness that you simply simply can not interpret inside your current constructing, it acts as a micro-disidentification—it helps ‘I’ remodel ‘me’ (or the topic of 1 state-stage turns into the issue of the topic of the following)—and subsequently helps with vertical growth contained in the self line.”

Healthful Enchancment/Transcendence:

Converts I into me (conversion of 1st-person subjective I into 1st-person objective/possessive me/mine); the definition of healthful ‘transcend and embrace’; healthful dis-identification, or healthful detachment, or healthful transcendence/transformation; dis-identifying with an owned self is transcendence.

• “An individual might say, ‘I’ve ideas, nonetheless I’m not my ideas, I’ve emotions, nonetheless I’m not my emotions’—the individual will not be acknowledged with them as a topic, nonetheless stills owns them as an object—which is definitely healthful, on account of they’re nonetheless owned as ‘my ideas.’ That possession is essential.”
• “Healthful growth and transcendence converts occasions in my subjective-I (which I’m completely ‘acknowledged with’ a lot in order that I’m unable to see them) into me or mine (which will be seen as an object of my subsequent bigger topic—I’ve transcended and included them: owned them AND transcended them).”
• “Healthful growth and healthful transcendence are the equal situation, since growth is ‘transcend and embrace.’ The topic of 1 stage turns into the issue of the topic of the following, thus proudly proudly proudly owning nonetheless transcending that topic, till—in an idealized sequence—all relative issues and selves have been transcended and there’s solely the Pure Witness or the Pure Self, the empty opening by means of which Spirit speaks. Extra considerably, we noticed that in every stage of self growth, the I of 1 stage turns into the me of the I of the following stage. As every I turns into me, a mannequin new and better I takes its place, till there’s solely I-I, or the pure Witness, pure Self, pure Spirit or Large Concepts. When all I’s have been reworked to me’s, experientially nothing nonetheless ‘I-I’ stays (as Ramana Maharshi known as it—the I that’s conscious of the I), the pure Witness that’s not in any respect a seen object nonetheless all the time the pure Seer, the pure Atman that’s no-atman, the pure Self that’s no-self. I turns into me till there’s solely I-I, and the complete manifest world is ‘mine’ in I-I.”

Unhealthy/Pathological Enchancment:

Converts I into it (conversion of 1st-person subjective I into 2nd- or Third-person yours/his/theirs/it); unhealthy dis-identification, or pathological dissociation, or pathological transcendence, or repression; dis-identifying with a disowned self is double dissociation.

• “At any diploma in growth, if elements of the I are denied possession, they seem as an it, and that’s not transcendence, that’s pathology. Denying possession shouldn’t be dis-identification nonetheless denial. It’s attempting to dis-identify with an impulse BEFORE possession is acknowledged and felt, and that dis-ownership produces indicators, not liberation.”
• “In the midst of growth and transcendence—whether or not or not or not horizontal or vertical—when the I of 1 stage turns into the me of the I of the following stage, if at any diploma in that ongoing sequence, elements of the I are dis-identified with prematurely—as a defensive denial and dis-ownership and dissociation (which occurs contained in the I earlier than they remodel me, or truly transcended)—then they’re break up off from the I and seem as a you and even an it in my consciousness (not as a me/mine in my consciousness), and thus my object world now accommodates two absolutely quite a few kinds of objects: these which have been as shortly as owned exactly, and individuals who weren’t. And folk two objects are phenomenologically indistinguishable. However a form of objects is actually a hidden topic, a hidden I, a sub-agency (or in progressed circumstances, a subpersonality) that was break up off from my I, and thus that hidden-I can by no means truly be transcended on account of it’s an unconscious identification or an unconscious attachment (it might presumably by no means be truly transcended on account of it might’t remodel a me of my I, on account of my I not owns it).”
• “All through the early phases of a psychological growth that ought to convert every I correct proper right into a me, only a few of these I’s get dis-owned as its—as shadow parts in my very private consciousness, shadow parts that seem as an ‘object’ (or an ‘utterly completely different’) nonetheless are literally hidden-subjects, hidden faces of my very private I. As shortly as dissociated, these hidden-subjects or shadow-its present up as an ‘utterly completely different’ in my consciousness (and as painful neurotic indicators and dyseases). In these circumstances, remedy is definitely: The place it was, there I shall remodel. The place id was, there ego shall be—after which, as shortly as that occurs, you would possibly transcend the ego. However strive transcending the ego earlier than appropriately proudly proudly proudly owning it, and watch the shadow develop. However if that identification has first occurred in a healthful sample, then dis-identification can happen; if not, then dis-identifying results in extra dissociation.”

Realization & Enlightenment

“By the use of the character of enlightenment or realization, resulting from this an entire, full, or nondual realization has two parts: absolute (vacancy) and relative (kind). The ‘nonconceptual concepts’ provides us the sooner, and the ‘conceptual concepts’ provides us the latter … There may be vacancy (and the formless concepts), after which there’s the manifest world (and the conceptual concepts), and so the query is: what kind contained in the concepts will assist each understand and specific vacancy? Some kind or view is there, need it or not, and so relevant view has all the time been maintained as absolutely needed for enlightenment.”

Nondual Realization:

“By definition, a nondual realization requires each ‘no views’ in vacancy and ‘views’ on the planet of kind.”

• “Vacancy itself shouldn’t be created or co-created, nonetheless Kind is, and Vacancy is coemergent with Kind, subsequently Nondual realization is partly interpretive.”
• “‘Cognition’ is actually derived from the premise gni (co-gni-tion), and this gni is comparable as gno, which is analogous root as gno-sis, or gnosis. Thus, cognition is totally co-gnosis, or that which is the co-element of gnosis and nondual consciousness … In Sanskrit, this gno seems as jna, which we uncover in each prajna and jnana. Prajna is supreme discriminating consciousness needed for full awakening of gnosis (pra-jna = pro-gnosis), and jnana is pure gnosis itself. As shortly as as quickly as additional, cognition as co-gnosis is the premise of the event that’s needed for the complete awakening of gnosis, of jnana, of nondual liberating consciousness. So the following time you hear the phrase ‘cognitive,’ it’s possible you’ll hesitate earlier than labeling it anti-spiritual.”
• “On account of vacancy and type are not-two, then not solely is needn’t an obstacle to realization, it’s a automobile of realization; not solely is psychological thought not an obstacle to realization, it’s a automobile of realization; not solely is motion not an obstacle to realization, it’s a automobile of realization. Elementary nondual consciousness subsequently consists of nothing lower than a joyous having enjoyable with with the union of vacancy and luminous kind, realizing the fairly a number of strategies whereby the world of kind, merely as a result of it is, is the Good Perfection in all its wonderment, and that the character of the extraordinary concepts, merely as a result of it is, is the utterly enlightened Buddha-mind. On account of this truth merely resting on this ever-present, pure, easy, easy, and spontaneously current conscious vacancy, which isn’t apart from the complete world of luminous kind, is the Buddha’s unsurpassed technique. On account of this nondual consciousness embraces the complete world of thought and need and type, this nondual consciousness results in appropriate compassion for all sentient beings. Right compassion results in skillful means in serving to all sentient beings. Skillful means, like all relative motion, is totally paradoxical: merely as I vow to understand realization, even when there is not a such issue as a realization (and although I’m already realized), skillful means acknowledges that there are no others to liberate, subsequently I vow to liberate all of them. Buddhist nondual realization accordingly results in a radiantly joyous embrace of the complete world of kind, a deep compassion for all sentient beings, and a skillful means for serving to all beings cross the ocean of struggling to the shore of ever-present and never-lost liberation.”

Enlightenment:

“Enlightenment is the conclusion of oneness with all states and all phases which have superior to this point and which are in existence at any given time.”

• “Enlightenment is popping into one with all states and all phases at any given time. Thus, shifting by way of the foremost states of consciousness (gross, refined, causal, nondual) is a crucial side of Enlightenment.”
• “To be utterly Enlightened means to be one with—to transcend and embrace—all states and phases, and which means: All states and phases have been made object of your topic, all I’s have been made me of the following I till there’s solely I-I, and the complete world is your object resting merely contained in the palm of your hand. You have received obtained dis-identified with all the points and remodel one with all the points, transcending and together with the complete Kosmos.”
• “In each circumstances, the topic of 1 (state or stage) turns into the issue of the topic of the following—the I of 1 state or stage turns into the me of the I of the following, till all states and phases are object of your topic, all I’s have remodel me and mine of the great I-I, the open Vacancy by means of which Spirit speaks, the nondual suchness of the Godhead of this and each second, the Supreme Self that owns the Kosmos arising as One Vogue.”

Horizontal Enlightenment (turning into one with all states: gross, refined, causal, nondual):

• “In case you’ll have realized a horizontal Enlightenment—when you’ll have made all gross, refined, and causal states the issue of your Witness—that’s, so to talk, half of Enlightenment.”

Vertical Enlightenment (turning into one with all phases at any given time in historic earlier):

• “In case your vertical growth is solely at, say, orange, then you definitely undoubtedly might be one with all the phases as quite a bit as orange (you might have gotten already transcended and included magenta, crimson, amber, and orange), nonetheless there lie forward of you, or above you, the buildings of inexperienced and teal and turquoise and indigo and violet. . . . These are precise buildings of the Kosmos that exist correct now in historic earlier nonetheless that you haven’t nevertheless traversed, that you haven’t nevertheless remodel one with (or not nevertheless transcended and included), and thus there are elements of the universe itself that you simply simply merely haven’t nevertheless remodel one with. These buildings (on this case, from inexperienced to violet) are comparatively actually ‘over my head,’ and if my growth wouldn’t nevertheless embrace these Kosmic buildings, these ranges of consciousness, these layers of Spirit’s personal emanation, then I’m not possible one with all of Spirit’s manifestations correct now in historic earlier—which are literally elements of my very private deepest Self—and thus I’m unable to declare to be utterly Self-Realized.”

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