Goethe once wrote, “Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.” We live with a clear paradox . . . compelling evidence of human evolution and equally compelling and often horrific evidence of what appears to be our lack thereof. In order to defend what Ken Wilber calls the “secret drive of the universe,” both our advances and regressions must be addressed. For many of us, the... Read more

  “Evolution is best thought of as Spirit-in-action, God-in-the making, where Spirit unfolds itself at every stage of development, thus manifesting more of itself, and realizing more of itself, at every unfolding. Spirit is not some particular stage, or some favorite ideology, or some specific god or goddess, but rather the entire process of unfolding itself, an infinite process that is completely present at every finite stage, but becomes more available to itself with every evolutionary opening.”   A Brief... Read more

One of the useful bits about levels of development, which I’ve been talking about in the last few posts, is that spiritual traditions are very different at each level. In my practice many people have rejected the tradition in which they were raised because they cannot agree with the theology. My first question is always, tell me about the God/tradition you don’t believe in? Because I live in the States, it is generally the Christian tradition that’s been left behind... Read more

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa One of the best ways to describe the movement of through levels of development is to see the progression as widening circles of compassion. Merriam-Webster defines compassion as a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. Compassionate acts are those that take into account the suffering of others and attempt to alleviate that suffering as if... Read more

Why is it that religion is such a complex, confusing and polarizing force in the world? How could something that, on the one hand, teaches so much love and life be, on the other hand, the cause of so much destruction? Integral Vision pp.. 105-108 This quote begins the Spiritual but Not Religious section of the first book to buy if you are interested in exploring Integral Theory. I use the quote to introduce the next aspect of the Integral... Read more

This week I want to share a poem written by my friend, Vanessa Fisher. Vanessa is an artist, activist and global nomad who shares my love of Integral Theory and expresses her hope for its impact this way  . . . The Art of Theory Let this theory be living imagination an artist’s communication an infinitely varied color palette in the mind of God So together we might paint worlds once deemed impossible and hurtle towards a future with trust... Read more

In my past post I introduced an interesting way to understand yourself, which may explain the particular way you are most comfortable experiencing Ultimate Reality. I thought it would be fun to talk generally about these four orienting quadrants so you can do you own anecdotal exploration of their correlation to the way you prefer connecting with the Ultimate. Knowing how you orient is useful in many other areas of life as well. As you know from earlier posts, the... Read more

In previous posts I’ve explored how Wilber’s quadrants help us look at the three ways we humans experience the Ultimate. In this post, we’ll look at the practices that deepen the experience of each face. In my third post on this site I introduced the quadrants, the first of five main aspects that comprise the scaffolding of the Integral Framework. I also mentioned the insights that Laura Divine and Joanne Hunt of Integral Coaching Canada added to the framework. Basically... Read more

Now that we’ve investigated the three perspectives, or faces, that we humans naturally use to experience the Ultimate, I want to talk about why it matters. I’ve already mentioned that both individuals and spiritual traditions seem to lean strongly toward one perspective at the expense of the others. It is true though that at least two, and usually all three can be found within the theology of most traditions. Several of the writings I used in the three previous posts... Read more

This post continues the exploration of the three faces of the Ultimate, which is called by many and varied names in the spiritual traditions of the world. In my fourth post I introduced the three perspectives (represented in four quadrants) and said that individuals seem to lean toward one perspective, as do the spiritual paths ancient and modern. One of the cornerstones of Integral Theory is that each perspective represents a partial view of what’s true. Experiencing the Ultimate from... Read more