A History of Evolutionary Spirituality
“History as a whole is a progressive, gradually self-disclosing revelation of the Absolute,” wrote the German philosopher Friedrich Schelling. Indeed, evolution has always been a fundamentally spiritual concept. And over two centuries ago, he and others were beginning to intuit that the nature of reality itself was, in some essential way, going somewhere. Nature—and humanity—had a direction.
"Integral" means "inclusive, balanced, comprehensive." The Integral approach may be contrasted to other methods—mythic, rational-scientific, pluralistic—which, as they themselves announce, exclude other approaches as being inferior. They are thus, by definition, partial and incomplete. These latter methods, although widely accepted and dominant in the world's cultures, tend to generate partial analysis and incomplete solutions to problems. As such, they appear less efficient, less effective, and less balanced than the Integral approach.
Like any truly fundamental advance, the Integral approach initially seems complicated but eventually is understood to be quite simple and even straightforward. It's like using a word processor: at first it is hard to learn, but eventually it becomes incredibly simple to use.
The easiest way to understand the Integral approach is to remember that it was created by a cross-cultural comparison of most of the known forms of human inquiry. The result was a type of comprehensive map of human capacities. After this map was created (by looking at all the available research and evidence), it was discovered that this integral map had five major aspects to it. By learning to use these five major aspects, any thinker can fairly easily adopt a more comprehensive, effective, and integrally informed approach to specific problems and their solutions—from psychology to ecology, from business to politics, from medicine to education.
What are these five aspects? Technically they are referred to as "quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types." Of course, unless one has already learned the "word processing system," as it were, then these aspects won't make much sense. But they are indeed very simple and easy to use once one gets the hang of it.
There is an important point about these five aspects. Because the integral map that they were drawn from was created by an extensive cross-cultural comparison of human capacities, these five aspects appear to be potentials available to all human beings. (We will see examples of this in a moment). Thus, the integral approach does not ask a person to adopt anything that they do not already have available to them. This is not some "outside" philosophy that people are asked to believe, but a pointer to potentials that they already possess but perhaps are not fully utilizing or expressing.
For example, one of the five aspects—called quadrants —refers to the fact that all major human languages have first-, second-, and third-person pronouns (for example: I, you/we, and it). These three dimensions of reality (I, we, and it) often show up as art, morals, and science (or the aesthetic expression of "I," the morals of "we," and the objective "its" of science)—the Beautiful, the Good, and the True is another version of these dimensions.
If we realize that "it" can appear in plural, or "its," then we have the "four quadrants" or dimensions that are present in all major human languages: I, we, it, and its—or the intentional, cultural, behavioral, and social dimensions of all human beings.
Upper-Left Quadrant
"I"Interior-Individual
Intentional
Upper-Right Quadrant
"IT"Exterior-Individual
Behavioral
Lower-Left Quadrant
"WE"Interior-Collective
Cultural
Lower-Right Quadrant
"ITS"Exterior-Collective
Social (Systems)
Notice some of the major and extremely influential modes of inquiry that are based in each of the quadrants:
Upper Left: phenomenology, psychotherapy, meditation, emotional intelligence, personal transformation
Upper Right: empiricism, scientific analysis, quality control, behavioral modification
Lower Left: multiculturalism, postmodernism, worldviews, corporate culture, collective values
Lower Right: systems theory, social systems analysis, techno-economic modes, communication networks, systems analysis
Which of those approaches is right? All of them, according to Integral theory.
The Integral approach simply points out that these dimensions of reality are present in all cultures, and therefore any truly comprehensive or integral approach would want to touch bases with all of those important dimensions, because they are in fact operating in people in any event, and if we do not include them in our analysis, we will have a partial, fragmented, and broken approach to any proposed solution.
See more on the Integral Approach at the Integral Insitute.
Throughout history, the really fundamental changes in societies have come about not from dictates of governments and the results of battles but through vast numbers of people changing their minds -- sometimes only a little bit.
Some of the changes have amounted to profound transformations -- for instance the transition from the Roman Empire to Medieval Europe, or from the Middle Ages to modern times. Others have been more specific, such as the constitution of democratic governments in England and America, or the termination of slavery as an accepted institution. In the latter cases, it is largely a matter of people recalling that no matter how powerful the economic or political or even military institution, it persists because it has legitimacy, and that legitimacy comes from the perceptions of people. People give legitimacy and they can take it away. A challenge to legitimacy is probably the most powerful force for change to be found in history.
To the empowering principle that the people can withhold legitimacy, and thus change the world, we now add another: By deliberately changing the internal image of reality, people can change the world. Perhaps the only limits to the human mind are those we believe in.
Willis Harman -- Global Mind Change
Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century (BK Currents)
Global Mind Change: The New Age Revolution in the Way We Think
Highlights from Düsseldorf 2006 international scientists conference "Wisdom and Science in Dialogue: The new Planetary Consciousness."
Once again, many many thanks to Stream Source for this most valuable input toward integral consciousness and enlightenment!
I cannot but recommend visiting the blog which continuously provides most inspiring messages.
Visit Stream Source here.
Also visit ARIOnline (The Ashlag Reserach Institute), QuestionYourReality and The Kabbalah Education and Reserach Institute
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