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Okay, so, all I am going to do for now is simply gush over this chapter . . .

It's not often . . . in fact, I think it's just about never that I can imagine . . . that what is essentially a theoretical book gives you goosebumps. Less often, does it bring you in the end to tears. (Well, good ones . . .)

I don't know when I am going to stop finding the next thing I read by this man as the best thing I have ever read in my life! Or "okay, now this one is my favorite!"

But he just keeps delivering the goods. And then some.

This chapter is nothing short of a Holy and inspired sermon! This is Wilber on the pulpit in the most positive sense of the term! Ever. It should be read, by every minister and every pulpit dweller on the planet . . . this sunday and the next and the next . . .every spiritual teacher of every religion . . .every culture, every land . . . I am indeed in Church; Kosmocentric Church -again, in the best sense of the term- while reading this chapter.

I told ya this was going to be all gushing. But seriously. I mean it.

It's just so clear . . . . this man is truly saving the world.

And that is a big accomplishment.

I loved it. (Could you tell?)

Blessings to Ken . . .

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"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

I agree.  I loved this chapter.  The story of Modernity's repression of spiritual intelligence, and the subsequent complications, is written with great clarity, and I think Wilber's explanation of why things went down the way they did is right on the money.

The notion of the "conveyor belt" is quite compelling.  I do wonder, though, how such an idea could be implemented.  It would require, just to get started, strong 2nd-tier leadership.  The relative scarcity of 2nd-tier individuals makes this problematic.  Plus there is the conservative nature of institutional authority: there may be 2nd-tier individuals in the Catholic clergy (for example), but they aren't the ones who get promoted.  And how many 2nd-tier individuals are there in the Southern Baptist Convention?  Probably none -- why would they stay?

I think a more realistic application for this idea is in religious education.  For example, I teach religion in a Catholic school.  I know my students are going to graduate and, especially if they go to university, will likely experience the "brutal choice" between amber faith and orange non-faith Wilber talks about.  So I try to impress on them the fact that the amber-level faith they've been taught is not the whole story, so when it's trashed by their professors they don't retreat into an amber fortress, or abandon religion entirely.  They know there is something more sophisticated available.  But there's only so much you can explain to seventeen year-olds...

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Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Hi PP,

Gosh, even just from what you wrote I feel a thousand things to say.

First, you teach religion in Catholic School? I am assuming High school?

One of the reasons this chapter meant so much to me was that it really pretty much defined and definitively answered questions, concerns, worries, sorrows and so forth that go back very far in my life -like one long, well, I guess it's the history of my own spiritual line (among other things).

This particularly prompted me to remember that . . .I can remember my first (serious) questionings of the amber myths as far back as fourth grade (in my own Catholic religion class)-so, ten years old. "Serious" in that, it is a fundamental question that transcends an amber view but amber still provides no answer for. Re-inspired by this, I am going to be presenting one of my own hypothesis for a possible answer on the forums soon ("Is Integral Christianity still Christian II). But this made me remember . . . I asked this question (in my mind) for the first time, in fourth grade. And intuitively knew I was not going to be getting an amber answer.

The whole point being, in this world that we now live in, amber, potentially, starts losing it's power that early?! This is . . . yes, ludicrous! The influence of the layer cake is there from the beginning. And powerfully.

That said, I appreciate with such great esteem that he, in the end, did, though with great skill and gentleness, lay this responsibility at the feet of the religions. Because, make no mistake about it, again, say, using Catholicism, there is a "crisis of faith." And no one can conclusively solve it but the religions who already have this power but aren't using it. Millions and millions and millions of people want, search for and need the orange, green, yellow, etc.spiriual guidance . . . . but it is nowhere to be found. And the church will not provide it -or at least not officially and nowhere near enough. If it is your stated mission to bring the Gospel to mankind . . . amber is just no longer sufficient. Nor can we expect everyone to find or even feel comfortable enough at ISC or reading Ken and so forth. We as a culture (and not just here but in many other ways and places) can have greate effect, do a lot of good, perhaps even spur these transitions. But it is the religions themselves, that have to, in the end, do it.

As just an example, only about a year ago (and only after I had just began reading Ken) my brother had, basically, a dramatic spiritual conversion experience that prompted him to want to change his entire life.

Here was kind of the surrounding story. My parents, adherers to amber 'til death, obviously invited him to "come back" to amber or at least go back to some form of amber. Aside from that, no one else really took him seriously.

Me, I just simply knew that somehow I had to get through to him that there were broader ways to interpret this or . . . it would only last so long. He would find himself back at amber, find he just simply couldn't stand it and drop the whole thing. We spent three to four months talking over email intensely. And one of the main and most important things I tried to point out was that . . . he had been a "born again" Christian 20 years ago.(i.e. he had some seriously developed spiritual intelligence) But the day came when he grew past it. That is, grew past the amber level. And like so many millions and millions of people, no religion, no serious seach for spirituality, since.

I sent him books (including one of Ken's) talked his ear off, guided him past all kinds of obstacles -including a very unpleasant visit with some seriously amber Pentecostals, pointing out to him, using his own words how he was more advanced than that already (i.e. pointing out where he clearly already showed more love and more compassion and a more world-encompassing embrace, was actually even more intellectually advanced -a self esteem problem for him, and even way more spiritually intelligent than these people who basically made him feel like shit . . . and that he was going to go to hell and so forth.) But eventually the day came when he ventured back to an ultra-amber church, found he couldn't stand it . . . .knew he was in for this everywhere . . . and I lost him. He dropped it. Meaning, spiritual re-awakening over. Immediate regress back to the way things were before, which was not all that good, an in many ways becasue of this utterly repressed spiritual line.

I tried sending him just this chapter in it's first draft . . . and it failed. People need higher level guidance from the religions themselves. Oh, and incidentally, one of the main reasons I sent him this chapter (first draft) was not only that it explained everything so perfectly (i.e. 20 years ago he hit the "steel ceiling"), but this ideas of the "brutal choice" and the "steel ceiling" exactly matched what I was both writing about on my own and attempting to explain to him. But I was calling it "The (Christian) Psycho-Spiritual Bottleneck." That place where you reach and get squeezed, intensely. And either you return backwards, or move on with the spirituality-or at least love for Christianity-squeezed out of you. And you have to really work hard on your own to get it back. If ever. Praying in the closet. Etc.

I utterly understand you position with those 17 year olds. Both as a teacher and as a student myself . . .

And lastly, that's the other thing I loved about this chapter. He appropriately used Christianity as the example. Appropriately because orange flowered in the west and the Church and Christianity are the religion of the west. So the problem is here most pronounced and has been for a good 400 years!

But I have also always loved his appreciation of Christianity in general, going all the way back to even the Spectrum of Consciousness, but particularly Up from Eden. In my mind, no other spiritual writers coming from an eastern realization have done such a good and necessary job.

Christianity has a lot to teach us! I truly believe there are teachings and elements within it that, no, are not part of the spiritual realization of the other religions of the world. So, meaning, it has a great deal of it's own very special and unique things to offer humanity. And I mean that from any stage or station and, perhaps even especially the higher! Christianity is not a more convoluted version of Buddhism where something somewhere went wrong. It is its own precious flower of Spirit and an utter gift to mankind.

But we need those higher level interpretations.

Modernity was not the devil. Modernity, was and is God.

okay, enough of my sermon for now.

Tim

 

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"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Tim,

Yes, I'm a high school teacher.  I've taught elementary as well, also in a Catholic school.  That was far more difficult, the kids were so literal-minded.  Obviously this is appropriate for that age, but it's not an easy thing to deal with.  I felt uncomfortable reinforcing mythic beliefs in them, and yet it was difficult to avoid.  If I had read Wilber before that, I would have had an easier time of it, I think, as I would have appreciated more the fact that mythic belief is not in itself a bad thing at that age.  I have no intention of teaching elementary again, so it doesn't matter now.

Your story about questioning things as a gr. 4 student made me laugh, because I had a similar experience.  I remember one day when I was in gr. 4, when I tried explaining to my classmates why it didn't make sense to say that Jesus was fully God and fully human.  My teacher was horrified.  I also remember one time when I was in gr. 6, not sleeping at night because all I could think about was dying, and ceasing to exist.  This suggests to me that I hadn't bought in to the idea of an afterlife.  It was only after I started Zen meditation as an undergraduate that my mind was changed about this, which was quite unexpected.

The story about your brother is unfortunate.  A lack of self-esteem makes it difficult to trust your own judgment, which is necessary at the higher-than-amber altitudes.  The problem with the way a lot of Christians are brought up is that they identify the myths with the religion, as if they were coextensive.  I read a review (I think on Amazon) for Uta Ranke-Heinemann's Putting Away Childish Things (a great book), and someone complained that after the myths were dispensed with, there was nothing left to the Christian faith.  It's sad that people think that.

PP

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Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

someone complained that after the myths were dispensed with, there was nothing left to the Christian faith.  It's sad that people think that.

Even more sad that this is what is taught by both layers of the "ludicrous layer cake."

To someone who really has some degree of their spiritual intelligence activated (or anyone for that matter) , it truly is a "brutal choice" to think, to be told, that you are basically giving up Ultimate Concern if you question these myths. Or simply bring them to formal operational reasoning.

I was very lucky in that my growth into mature formop was accompanied by a profound and sustained Subtle Intuition. It lasted at least a year and a half and so I felt extremely confident -even beyond the word confident-to bring some of the more pressing questions to reason and make my own interpretations. Even shared some of these things with people who would say "Wow! You're right! You just may be right!"

However, the day came when the interior intuition went away, or at least lost its intensity and now came the realization that none of my friends believed "didly sqwat" about any of it. Being a teenager, your friends (and in my case girlfriends) pretty much are your religion of Ultimate Concern. And this caused a lot of pain on the interior. But what really started to sink me was the brutal rational arguments raised by my more sophisticated friends -basically leveling the myths to truly childish and/or absurd. And I couldn’t argue back because I knew they were right. Meanwhile, no help from the Christian Faith . . . and the Bible even worse. "Brutal" s indeed, I think, the correct word.

Finally, now in retrospect with the advent of green (or early vision-logic, pluralism, etc.) and the deconstructive aspect (which just seemed to happen spontaneously) I remember the moment of accepting the reality that - the only reason I believed any of this was because I had been taught it since birth and told if I didn't believe it I was a bad person and/or going to Hell. I believed this because this is what I was taught.

And so I figured I owed it to myself to see what it was like not to believe at all. (Which, now, after this chapter is explained as a legitimate manifest arising of spirituality-and I knew that too!-just very deep down and amidst a great amount of confusion and, yes, feeling of the brutality of the choice).

It was a return of the intense Intuition followed by a number of profound peak experiences about two-three years later that finally really made me say "Okay, what is going on here!?" "Why is this all so screwed up?"

This chapter explains it so perfectly, so dead on the money and so simply.

But I still feel very "lucky" and blessed. I know I had a strong will and intention to "know" but I still feel lucky that I found and or "got" answers. Going back to my family, there are six of us altogether. Every single one, its the same story. A pretty high degree of spiritual intelligence, then snuffed away at the same point -or at least sent into confusion.

My sister told me only a few months ago how she used to love going to church. even experienced visions and things of that nature. She had the young spiritual intelligence of something akin to a St. Teresa!

But still fell prey to the "ludicrous layer cake."

And what just breaks my heart is that this is just not necessary . . .

Let us help do all we can to change it.

Peace, Tim

 

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"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

I agree, a brilliant climax to the book.

I'd like to comment on the role of the religions too. You see, this is a great example of my pet theory that the development of consciousness is better expressed in terms of growth, not of evolution. Yes, I know that I've rambled on about this before, but bear with me. Its not just pedantry. I think that the particular metaphor used is important.

Here's why:

'Evolution' can be used in different ways, but its mainly associated with biology since Darwin, right? Mention 'evolution' to a passerby and there's likely to be a pretty quick association with the development of species through survival of the fittest. Adaptation occurs, change happens, leaving behind - at best - the bones and fossils of countless extinct varieties of being.

That's not how consciousness changes. If it did, the churches would be as irrelevant as millions across the globe believe they are. Religion would be a dodo.

Whereas, as Ken shows so clearly, religions are as precious to us now and in the future as the roots are to a tree. If the roots die, the soaring trunk, the arching branches, the beautiful canopy of leaves, they all die too.

The image of biological growth, not biological evolution, is a perfect expression of the development of consciousness. Nothing is left behind as a tree grows: everything is included - transcended and included.

Spirit is the seed, Spirit is the sapling, Spirit is the tree.

What Ken does here is show both how precious the roots are, and how, in the case of religions, they are in dire need of care and attention. We can't leave religion behind any more than we can leave our younger bodies behind - and why would we want to? We could only want to if we weren't thinking clearly, and imagined that we are separate from what was and what will be, instead of transcending yet including time in the eternal Now.

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'This is all the time you'll ever have'.
~ Dr Hannibal Lecter

I haven't finished the chapter yet, but read a good portion of it before I had to leave for work this morning.  I agree with PP and TM: It's an excellent chapter.  By this point, I feel I know pretty much where Wilber is going to go with any particular chapter, and that has been the case here too, but it still held my interest simply because he weaves his arguments together well (and because I'm very interested in the problem of memetic clashes in and with religions).

Because I haven't finished the chapter yet, I'm not sure if he brings this up later, but I wanted to make the rather obvious point that traditional religion doesn't stop at amber (or Blue).  Just using Christianity as an example, you can certainly find Orange and Green churches out there.  And you can often find Orange or Green professors in religious schools or universities who embrace and teach post-conventional versions of their religion.  If I hadn't found such teachers in the Church of Christ college I attended, I wouldn't have been able to continue there.  But I did find such professors, and even found an ORANGE/Green Church of Christ (on Fifth and Grape, in Abilene, Texas) where I could feel more at home during my couple-year Christian college career.

As has been discussed on other threads here, there are certainly post-conventional strains running through the American Catholic Church, and perhaps even more prominently in the Episcopal Church.  I have a friend from the college I attended who was, and has long been, an Orange Christian; but recently, he has moved more into Green (maybe even leaning into Yellow), and is now experimenting with attending Episcopal services or organizing "home church" sessions among like-minded individuals (though his parents are still staunch Church of Christers and he is even a junior deacon in the church).  He ran up against the "pressure cooker lid" in his church, but has been able to find room to move to keep being nourished and supported in his spiritual growth.  On the old IN forum, I posted some links to a relatively new movement in Christian circles called "the Postmodern Church," which is something this friend also let me know about.

I mention all this just to say that I think there is a "conveyor belt" already in operation in Christianity, though it is rather haphazard, not clearly laid out as a path.  I also wanted to say that the situation isn't as extreme as the chapter appears to make out (at least, up to the point that I've read).

In my case, I definitely experienced running into a memetic ceiling in the church.  I did not find a Christian church that was able to keep nourishing me and helping me to grow, however, so I looked outside of my tradition and hopped onto different belts over the years.  It has been sort of a trans-traditional, multi-religious conveyor-belt-ride.  I expect a lot of people attracted to Integral have been on such a ride.

In the case of Buddhism, at least as it is fluorishing and growing in the West, I would also argue that it is not really centered primarily in amber.  It is kind of a refuge, in my opinion, for post-amber individuals who have been looking for a spiritual home in the materialist, anti-religious climate of the postmodern West.  Some teachers insist on a Blue (amber), traditionalist, patriarchal version of Buddhism, but in my experience, many modern teachers are sensitive and responsive to Western cultural and developmental needs.   However, Buddhist traditions in Asia seem to have a stronger Blue streak.  I found that in both Theravadin and Vajrayana monasteries...

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Beautifully said David. And I now understand your "case" . . . (nice work detective DD)

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"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Bruce, yes, check back when you finish the chapter.

As I said above I find it not only most appropriate but, almost like rain in a desert, that he uses the west here for the example, because it was indeed here that modernity flowered and as he, again, most appropriately says, "both the church and science dug in their heels." Both creating the LLF and the ludicrous layer cake.

I too, and as I'm sure many, had I not found Buddhism, which allowed a formal operational "check the evidence/perform the injunction yourself"-well, I don't know where I'd be.

I will tell you what I did find though, a pretty much blanket throwing out of the entire baby with the bathwater towards Christianity from modern American Buddhist circles. The stories I could tell . . .

But one of the main points with regard to a flowering of formal operational spirituality and beyond, is not that it's not there (which he points out at length) but that it is 1.) not being stresses and not easily available and b.) still very much not sanctioned and deemed "kosher" by the church. Check out some of the latest I have posted on the
 Mother Mary thread -you would not believe the reactions out there to a worldcentric (or higher) message coming out of a Christian context in a place like Medjugorje. Literally, millions of people see this as the devil. And to those who know it's true . . . they would just like the official sanction of the Church.

Anyway, kind of rambling here.

More later.

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"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Tim, Bruce and all

Tim - yes, I'm nothing if not persistent - I've been pursuing that growth/evolution argument across three incarnations of this forum now.... this mountie will get his man...

Bruce, as you'll soon see, Wilber specifically states that the 'jump from ethnocentric amber to worldcentric orange is the great leap that religions alone can help humanity make'.   And this is because religion owns 'the pre-rational heritage of humanity' - in other words (and this is one of his most brilliant insights imo) it is the very 'primitivism' guarded by the religions which is their great virtue for the world today.   I've never heard anyone else make that point, don't know about you.  The very thing for which religions are derided by the 'intelligentsia' turns out to be their special strength.  So the fact that there are post-conventional developments in religion would be less important, on this view, than that they guarded the pre-rational treasure.

Just to add that, as you'll have noted, Bruce, Wilber is critical in the book of western Buddhism, which is infected by Boomeritis as a computer is by a virus... 

Final point for now:  Wilber is of course emphasising religion in general, not just Christianity or Buddhism.  Which means he also has Islam in mind, and also Judaism, Hinduism etc.  I'm kind of worrying about the extent to which such disparate traditions can be generalised about...  I'll mull that over.

~ David

 

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'This is all the time you'll ever have'.
~ Dr Hannibal Lecter

Hi, David,

Writing that post this morning, I thought I'd probably have to make some adjustments after finishing the chapter.  I haven't had time to do that yet, but I'm looking forward to it this afternoon.

I have not heard that argument made about the value of religions before; it's an interesting idea.  I think there may be more "to" religions than simply preserving that primitive treasure, but I would agree that that is an important aspect.  I just don't think the post-conventional developments in religion should be given short shrift.

Concerning Boomeritis infecting Western Buddhism, this new book helped make Wilber's argument clearer to me.  I have certainly seen it in some Buddhist circles.  But I disagree that all Buddhist movements in the West have been infected by it, if that's what he's arguing.  Perhaps most sanghas have red/green Boomer members, but not all are affected equally by the presence of that pathology.  Not from what I've seen, at least.

Best wishes,

Balder

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Davidd:

 

Final point for now:  Wilber is of course emphasising religion in general, not just Christianity or Buddhism.  Which means he also has Islam in mind, and also Judaism, Hinduism etc.  I'm kind of worrying about the extent to which such disparate traditions can be generalised about...  I'll mull that over.

~ David

 

 

Well, there are two things to "come to terms" with for all. Modernity, and then Postmodernity.

But then, now that I think of it, those are only the beginning. Post-postmodernity - I think that is the Conveyor Belt, Integral, nurturing all of those seeds of growth -the entire Tree and all of its branches.

In fact, the real Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, is the world's religions and cultures. They are all the same Tree, branches in the same Tree. Yes, we do need to come to terms wiht that.

I mean, there are 2, 500 official denominations of Christianity worldwide, in addition to the thousands (if not more) of nondenminational Christian churches . . . Buddhism, Islam, all the rest . . . there is simply no "one thing" call Islam, or Buddhism, or Hindu . . . but they are all branches of the same Tree of Humanity and emerging and unfolding self consciousness and Self consciousness.

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"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

David,

I too am not surprised to see you surface this topic again.  I danced with you on it the last time you brought it up on the last incarnation of the forum.  I'm inclined to pull a Wilber and call your contribution 'true but partial.'  I believe, and I'm not taking the time to go back and look, that this was part of the prior discussion. 

I agree that an individual grows through a series of pre-existing stages; this growth is not an evolution of consciousness.  However, I think that evolution is occuring at the leading edge.  Growth implies a pre-existing path - your seed-sapling-tree metaphor.  Evolution implies chaotic trial and error, and that is what I believe and think is happening at the leading ege.  Perhaps a piece of ground we can both share?

Chris

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One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. --Andre Gide

Hope is as hollow as fear. --Lao-tzu

You ask the question, PrickliestPear, how to implement the conveyor belt?  By speaking to the leadership's concern with skillful means.  Are you talking to a bishop or cardinal who is concerned about declining church membership in North America?  Show him the evidence for how adding certain approaches will increase the patronage of people (even hint that the Church will then perhaps be able to "correct" these people's views).  Are you talking to a priest or pastor or shiek or imam or rabbi or guru who is concerned with people who have strayed from the teachings?  Begin to explain how the world occurs for these people and how to speak to them such that they can be "evangelized" by the religious leader.  In both cases, the integral meeting of minds provides both the opportunity for acknowledgement of the contribution of the level of the religious leader as well as an opportunit to take another perspective that will make it possible for the leader to move up a notch.  Not to mention that once a critical mass of people who are orange, or green, or turquoise return to the Church, mosque, temple, etc., there will be a demand for and a subsequent supply of activities and trainings and outlets for level-appropriate desires.  More than likely it will be ham-handed and ackward initially, but if you also introduce AQAL then perhaps the framework can help smooth some of that stuff out.  Anyone care to comment or, hell, give it a go?

Chris

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One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. --Andre Gide

Hope is as hollow as fear. --Lao-tzu