## Highlights - One or the other, Waking Up or Growing Up—such has been humanity’s history. But with what’s called the “Integral approach”—that new leading-edge model just mentioned—both of these paths are combined for the first time, producing a method of growth and development that is truly profound and effective in virtually every conceivable way. ([Location 102](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=102)) - Mindfulness is a form of bodymind training that has been demonstrated to dramatically reduce stress; increase feelings of calm, relation, and harmony; decrease feelings of anxiety and depression; reduce the discomfort of pain; lower blood pressure; increase learning capacity, IQ, and creativity; and awaken higher states of consciousness, sometimes called “the farther reaches of human nature.”3 It’s like a steroid for human activities in general, from the ordinary mundane to the enlightened spiritual. This powerful practice goes back at least 2,500 years, and humanity has continued to use it that long simply it because it works (it is a major ingredient in many of the paths of Waking Up). ([Location 117](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=117)) - the simplest way to remember the difference between these structures of consciousness and these states of consciousness is that the structures—the hidden levels of grammar, or the hidden maps—are the basis of Growing Up; whereas the states of consciousness, leading to Awakening and Enlightenment, are the basis of Waking Up. In Growing Up, we move from less developed stages or maps of our world, to more adequate, more mature, more developed stages or maps, a true Growing Up. While with Waking Up, we move from less whole and less advanced states to the highest, most developed states imaginable, leading to a genuine transformative Awakening, Enlightenment, Great Liberation, Metamorphosis, Satori, or Supreme Identity, as it’s variously termed. ([Location 194](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=194)) - So literature is not merely imaginary; it’s “true but partial.” And so are virtually all of the other disciplines that humans engage in. So the question is no longer “Which of these approaches is true?” but rather, “How is our world organized such that all of these approaches possess some aspect of the truth?” In other words, “everybody is right”—to some degree. So, what interests Integral Theory is not “Which one is right?” but “How can we put them all together?” The word “integral” itself means comprehensive, inclusive, embracing, enfolding—putting things all together. ([Location 243](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=243)) - The other type of spirituality is not a belief system, but a psychotechnology of consciousness transformation. It’s interested in changing states of consciousness. That is, it uses various meditative and contemplative practices to fundamentally re-orient awareness to an opening of new and higher states of consciousness, including a direct sense of oneness with the entire universe (in other words, it aims for a pure Waking Up). ([Location 294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=294)) - Essentially, what one is awakening from is the ceaseless, chaotic, incoherent thoughts and ways of framing reality that govern most human activity, generating endless states of suffering; and what one is awakening to is a pure, transparent, open, empty, clear awareness, free of incoherent and broken thoughts and frameworks. ([Location 300](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=300)) - So particularly the next time hunger arises (whether you’re overweight or not), truly give it attention, give it mindfulness awareness. This is just like videotaping something: you’re a perfectly neutral camera, seeing everything just as it is without any judgment—you don’t want to criticize it, condemn it, or identify with it; simply be aware of it neutrally, and pervasively, from all angles. Where is this hunger desire located (head, mouth, heart, stomach, gut, hands, feet)? What color is it (just whatever comes to mind)? What shape is it (also, whatever comes to mind)? What does it smell like (whatever comes to mind)? Really feel the primitiveness and urgency, the driven-ness of this drive. Stay with that yearning urgency. Make that subjective drive an object of mindfulness, an object of awareness. Really look at it, long and steady. Feel it directly, with feeling-awareness, which can be seen as another term for “mindfulness.” ([Location 438](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=438)) - In mindfulness sessions, as we’ll continue to see, you’ll want to focus intently on the feeling of, in this case, being incredibly special. See yourself as world famous: walking the red carpet at the Cannes Festival, with numerous media photographing you, critics all praising you, fans screaming out for you. Hold that feeling of pure fame—just unflinchingly feel it, see it, look at it, just as if you were videotaping it—not judging it, condemning it, or identifying with it, just meeting it with pure awareness. Make it an object instead of a subject or a self, thus clearing the slate for a new and higher level of self and awareness to emerge. Seeing the hidden map means you have converted it into an object of awareness, you’ve made it “un-hidden,” and so it stops governing your behavior, making room for higher maps that are more accurate and more adequate. ([Location 550](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=550)) - So, hold any of these magical, superstitious beliefs directly in awareness; see them straightforwardly, neutrally, without criticizing, blaming, or identifying—pure videotaping. “Transcend and include” them: become aware of them, thus “transcending” them, making them an object instead of subject, forcing a dis-identification with them (i.e., seeing them as an object of awareness tears them away from being a subject of awareness, from being a self, from being an attachment, fixation, or addiction). ([Location 561](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=561)) - (And we note, of course, that absolutely every individual is genuinely special, is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, of the Great Perfection, exactly as they are. We are here talking about infantile forms of specialness, narcissistic and self-centric or egocentric forms, where one’s own specialness depends on seeing others as lacking in this specialness—which only I possess!—whereas a mature specialness sees all sentient beings as inherently possessing the Great Perfection, a Kosmocentric—not egocentric—specialness. But in order to make room for that Kosmocentric specialness, we have to uproot any hidden maps stuck on egocentric specialness—which is exactly what mindfulness will do, and what we are focusing on doing right now.) ([Location 566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=566)) - The unhealthy version of this red power-level is found in abundance in criminal institutions, mafia-type organizations, and corrupt governments. It sees the world in terms of survival of the fittest; the biggest and strongest win; do it to somebody else before they do it to you; it’s a law of the jungle, a dog-eat-dog world, red in tooth and claw. Individuals operating from this level are capable of some truly vicious acts. ([Location 601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=601)) - They are not choosing to be egocentric, they simply have no choice here at all. That capacity to take the role of other doesn’t emerge until the next stage, stage 4, ([Location 618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=618)) - There’s probably some area of life, however small, that reactivates this stage and leaves you in the grip of a self-centered drive for power and control. ([Location 630](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=630)) - A brief note on the name “Magic-Mythic.” In many ways, this is a transition stage between the pure Magic of the previous stage and the pure Mythic of the following stage. The difference between “magic” and “mythic” depends primarily on where “miracle” power is located. That is, in magic, the capacity to perform miracles resides (“magically”) in the self. I do a rain dance, and it forces nature to rain. Thoughts and images are poorly differentiated from real things, and thus, for example, if my father dies, and I just recently wished him dead, then I caused his death. Or we mentioned Voodoo, where if you stick a pin in an image of the real person, the real person is actually hurt. This is all pure, undiluted magic. Historically, by the time that Mythic began to emerge, humankind had begun to understand that it couldn’t really perform magic—but supernatural, transcendental, mythic Beings could: God, Goddess, Spirit. If only I could find the exact ritual or prayer or action that would please Spirit and cause it to intervene in history on my behalf, to make the crops grow, or make the rain fall, or ensure success for the day’s hunt. “Magic-Mythic” was—is—a transition between these two major stages. It usually locates “miracle power” in Gods or Spirit(s)—PowerGods—but certain powerful humans can be PowerGods. Mommy, for example, could turn the yucky spinach into candy if she wanted—she’s a PowerGod. And historically at this stage, as the first great military empires began to spread across the globe, the heads of these empires were almost universally seen as being literally Gods, and very powerful—they were PowerGods. ([Location 642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=642)) - Exaggerated power drives often show up in individuals as an “inner critic” or “inner controller,” which is always watching everything they do with a critical, negative, controlling drive—always making you feel inferior, lacking, a loser, a worthless good-for-nothing. ([Location 668](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=668)) - next major stage of development, level 4—called the “conformist,” “mythic-membership,” “diplomat,” or “belongingness” stage (given the color amber)—the self can indeed begin to take the role of other, and thus its identity can expand from its own self to belongingness in various groups: its family, its clan, its tribe, its nation, its religion, its political party, and so on. This is referred to as the switch from an egocentric to an ethnocentric identity—a switch from “me-focused” to “us-focused” or “group-focused.” This is a very important switch. As one of its names implies, this is initially a very conformist stage—the self can take the role of other, but it is caught in that role, a view often called “my country, right or wrong,” or “my religion, right or wrong,” or “law and order.” ([Location 695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=695)) - Notice that in each of those cases, the basic self-sense starts out identified with the particular stage. So at archaic stage 1, the self is identified with the simple sensorimotor or physiological dimension. That is its subject, its self. It can’t see this stage as an object; it sees the world through this stage as a subject. It can’t look at it, it’s looking through it. But as the next stage emerges, the magical-impulsive stage, the self lets go of its exclusive identity with the previous archaic stage, and switches its self, its subject, its identity, to this new stage, this magical-impulsive stage. So now the self can see its previous stage as an object—the new self or new subject can see the old subject (the archaic stage) as an object. So the subject of the previous stage has become the object of the new subject of this stage. ([Location 858](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=858)) - “the self of one stage becomes the tool of the next”—a subjective identity becomes an objective tool, something that can be seen and used in awareness. ([Location 870](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=870)) - this process is the actual way that each stage of evolution becomes more conscious, more open, more inclusive, freer and fuller, more embracing, more whole, more evolved. By dis-identifying with a lower, narrower, more restricted self, seeing it as an object, and simultaneously shifting identity to a new, higher, more inclusive, more conscious, more embracing self, then to just that degree we open ourselves to higher and higher, wider and wider, deeper and deeper stages of evolution, of consciousness development, of expanding identity. ([Location 872](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=872)) - And at the very next higher level, orange level 5, there occurs the emergence of the next higher perspective, a 3rd-person perspective, which is the capacity to take an objective, scientific, universal perspective; thus the switch in identity from a local ethnocentric identity to a universal or global worldcentric identity occurs—a switch from “us” to “all of us.” This more universal, global, expansive awareness occurs because consciousness moves from what is called a concrete operational mode to a formal operational mode. “Formal operations” means that thought can operate not just on the concrete material world, but thought can now operate on thought itself. Thought can actually be aware of itself, and thus an introspective, conscientious, self-reflective, universal identity—a cosmopolitan identity—can become possible. Kant suggested a definition of cosmopolitan awareness when he wrote in the essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” that “a violation of rights anywhere is felt everywhere.” In other words, there is a deeply felt solidarity with all of humanity, and the issue of the universal rights of humans comes to the fore for the first time at level 5 (as it first did in history with the Enlightenment). ([Location 913](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=913)) - Self-esteem needs emerge at this level because a 3rd-person perspective means the individual can stand back from themselves, so to speak, and form an objective opinion about themselves— ([Location 929](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=929)) - The worldcentric individual emerges out of the ethnocentric conformist, and within the worldcentric background, the self wants its own high self-recognition, self-identity, self-esteem, and self-achievement. So this stage is also marked by the emergence of the drive toward excellence, accomplishment, merit, achievement, and progress. ([Location 935](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=935)) - The “post” in “postmodernism” means that this next higher level, like all successively higher levels, brought a new and higher perspective into being: where orange rational modernity introduced a 3rd-person perspective, this new stage—known variously as pluralistic, postmodern, relativistic, sensitive, individualistic, multicultural (and given the color green)—came with the emergence of a 4th-person perspective: the capacity to reflect on, and criticize, 3rd-person perspectives, including science, leading to a multitude of different or pluralistic views. (And “pluralism”—the belief in many different but equally important approaches to reality—can be taken to its limit, where it becomes “relativism”: the belief that there are only multiple approaches, with absolutely no universal or globally unified approaches, no “Big Pictures” that are true for everybody, just local, culturally constructed beliefs. ([Location 1145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1145)) - postmodernism became especially identified with aggressive critiques of any “isms” or “Big Pictures” of any type—critiques of capitalism, of Marxism, of fundamentalism, racism, sexism, patriarchalism, ageism, speciesism, and so on—and this was the basis of everything from the civil rights movement to handicapped parking spaces to hate crime legislation.) ([Location 1160](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1160)) - The standard NGO, with its postmodern relativistic values, believes that no culture is superior or better than another; and yet it goes into countries where it is working, and assumes that its own values are in some ways better than or superior to those of the culture it is helping—otherwise, why would it consider what it is doing as being “help,” if it didn’t have something more valuable to offer than what those receiving the “help” presently have? Thus many NGOs (with their level-6 values) go to work in a developing country whose major values are still at tribal red power (level 3) or traditional mythic fundamentalism (level 4) and attempt to impose their level-6 pluralistic values on the culture and population, and the whole endeavor backfires badly. ([Location 1174](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1174)) - For the time being, let’s look at green pluralism or relativism (and start tracking these to see if any apply to you). First of all, it believes that there is nothing superior anywhere in the world; what’s true for a particular person is true for that person—you can’t go in and impose your beliefs on somebody, claiming that you are right and they are wrong. You have your truth, they have theirs, and that’s it. Likewise, all ranking, all hierarchies, are strictly taboo. What’s required are partnership societies, where all people—and especially all men and all women—are looked at equally. Even excellence and achievement—the hallmarks of the previous modern stage—are looked at suspiciously by green postmodernism, because that means you are making judgments about somebody being better or higher or more achieved than somebody else, and that is nothing but oppression. Meetings are considered a success, not if any conclusion is reached, but if everybody gets a chance to share their feelings; this tends to take forever, and few actual actions are taken. All previous approaches to a topic are considered essentially wrong, driven by oppression or patriarchy or sexism or racism or colonialism or imperialism, and green pluralism will redo all of this and do it right, based on pure equality, partnerships, and no ranking or hierarchical judging. ([Location 1199](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1199)) - And the new approach is not based on abstract rationality or logic, but is based on feelings and comes straight from the heart, not the head; thinking is out, feeling is in. The heart is the basis of all real truth, and it must be “embodied”—anchored in feelings, not thoughts. All the previous approaches are “old paradigm,” and this new approach is “new paradigm.” The old paradigm is rational, analytic, divisive, Newtonian-Cartesian, egocentric, Earth-hating and Earth-denying, sexist, racist, colonialist, built on rampant commercialism and profit/greed; whereas the new paradigm is congruent with the “new” physics (meaning quantum physics, which is actually a century old now), is eco-centric instead of egocentric; is built on partnership, caring, and loving-kindness, is holistic and organic (not fragmented and mechanistic), is congruent with systems theory; is feminist, Gaia-focused, Earth-centered, and glocal-oriented (meaning global and local). ([Location 1208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1208)) - Gilligan became famous for proposing, in her book In a Different Voice, that men and women reason differently—men with an emphasis on hierarchy and autonomy, and women with an emphasis on relationship and belonging. Feminists who believed that all hierarchies are bad jumped on Gilligan’s argument that men—not women—think hierarchically, and used it to blame men (and the patriarchy) for most of humanity’s ills. But these feminists, and postmodernists in general, studiously ignored a second point that Gilligan made in that book: namely, that both men and women develop through the same 4 basic hierarchical stages (her term). In women, Gilligan named these hierarchical levels as follows: stage 1, or selfish—the woman cares only for herself (this is our egocentric); stage 2, or care—the woman extends care from only herself to groups (our ethnocentric); stage 3, or universal care—the woman extends care to all humans, regardless of race, color, sex, or creed (our worldcentric); and stage 4, which she called integrated—where women and men integrate the other sex’s attitude (our integral). ([Location 1280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1280)) - Sri Aurobindo—who was trained in Western modes of evolutionary thinking and thus had at least some sense of structure-stages— ([Location 1468](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1468)) - For Alfred North Whitehead, for example, each moment comes to be as a “subject of experience” or a “drop of experience.” And as the new subject comes into being, it “prehends” (his term, which basically means “touches” or “feels”) the previous subject, thus making it object. The prehension, or “touching,” of the previous moment by this present moment constitutes the past’s influence on the present. Obviously, if you touch and embrace an object, that object will affect you—and that’s what happens as each moment touches and embraces (prehends) the previous moment (which itself had touched and embraced its previous moment, and so on indefinitely). This is the “causative” or “determining” moment of the past on the present. If this were all that there was, this would be a purely deterministic, mechanistic universe, with no creativity, novelty, or innovation possible (except for fluke “mutations” or aberrations). But, according to Whitehead (and I agree), each moment, in addition to prehending the previous moment, adds its own bit of novelty or newness or creativity. It not only includes the past, it transcends it. It not only prehends the previous subject (making it object of the new subject), it adds a bit of emergent novelty to the new subject, thus introducing a measure of freedom and newness into the sequence. Now, if the holons thus unfolding have very little depth (such as atoms), then the degree of novelty they can add is very small, and their temporal unfolding will appear very much deterministic, or ruled by strict cause-and-effect. But, Whitehead adds, “little novelty” is not the same as “no novelty.” After all, atoms managed to give rise, eventually, to molecules, a very creative advance indeed. And molecules managed an astonishing leap of creativity—at one point, dozens of very complex molecules managed to find themselves in the same vicinity; they joined together, a cell wall dropped around them, and out of their own inherent creative drive, life appeared! An actual living cell out of molecules! The point is that creative novelty is built into the very fabric of the universe—and that creative novelty is what ultimately drives evolution (this creative drive has been known as everything from “self-organization” to “Eros” to “Love” to “Spirit-in-action”). This is why evolution was already operating beginning with the Big Bang itself and moving forward—it did not have to wait for the emergence of life, sexuality, nucleic acids, random mutations, and natural selection in order to get started. Those were just some particular stages in this ongoing transcend-and-include, or “self-transcendence through self-organization,” which was at the heart of evolution itself all the way back to the very first moments of the Big Bang. (And that is why some people think of evolution as “Spirit-in-action,” which I happen to think is a fine idea. In any event, Eros or creativity or evolution was operating in the universe from the very beginning, or there never… ([Location 1485](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1485)) - But the stages of Waking Up—once you reach them—are utterly obvious. They’re less common, but only because the paths of reaching them are less common. And they’re less common because they’re fairly hard, they take work, they take dedication, they take effort and usually several years to achieve. ([Location 1619](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1619)) - 4 or 5 major stages of unfolding: usually following a preliminary awakening experience, they move through a gross purification, a subtle illumination, a dark night or infinite abyss, and a unity consciousness—or gross, subtle, causal, unity. ([Location 1645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1645)) - Part of the reason that there is such a similarity among these Paths of Waking Up might have to do with the fact that many of the natural states of consciousness that are entered with pure awareness have roots in direct biological brain-wave patterns, and those are similar wherever humans appear— ([Location 1664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1664)) - the 5 or so major states of awareness—gross/waking, subtle/dreaming, causal/deep sleep, empty witnessing, and pure nondual “unity”)— ([Location 1689](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1689)) - as you take up a mindfulness-type of meditation, and you are presently identified with, say, the waking state, is that you will start to slowly become aware during dreaming states as well. Your Wakefulness will shift from just the waking into the dream state also. You will start to become conscious and aware of the subtle realm and all its secrets. ([Location 1755](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1755)) - “eternal” or “timeless” does not mean everlasting time—it means a moment without time, a timeless Now or Present. ([Location 1782](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1782)) - But then there is the Self that is doing the seeing, the Self that is doing the describing, the actual Seer, the Observing Self, the Witness. This Self does the seeing, but cannot itself be seen—no more than an eye could see itself or a tongue could taste itself. ([Location 1824](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1824)) - And we saw that the real meaning of “eternity” is not everlasting time, but a moment free of time, the timeless Now-moment or pure Present. ([Location 1861](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1861)) - But what happens, at each stage of Growing Up, is that you will identify your small, conventional, finite, subjective self with the particular level or hidden map of that stage. And the Witness will then look through that small self and its map at the world, using that map to interpret what it sees. ([Location 1918](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1918)) - new and updated definition of Enlightenment that we have been using: being one with both the highest state and the highest structure that have evolved at that time in history. ([Location 2121](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2121)) - Thus, according to our second major point, with the institutionalization of a “conveyor belt,” the main tenets of any particular Tradition are set forth in the language and terms of each of the major structure-stages of spiritual Growing Up, so that somebody could start their young, childhood spiritual development with a magical presentation of their religion; then, during middle school, move to a mythic presentation; then in adolescence, a rational perspective; then—if they continue growing—in young adulthood, a pluralistic view; and finally, if growth fully matures, an integral version of their Tradition. Combined with that Tradition’s path of Waking Up, this would involve the most complete, the most inclusive, the most all-pervading spiritual involvement a human could possibly attain—the highest state and the highest structure made available to date by evolution, by Spirit-in-action—and mark the utter fulfillment of the very best and very brightest for which any sentient being might possibly hope. ([Location 2128](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2128)) - Whitehead used to speak of two fundamental aspects of Spirit: the Primordial Nature of Spirit (timeless and unchanging: our “Emptiness”) and the Consequent Nature of Spirit (the sum total of the results or products of Spirit-in-action or Eros or evolution, as they ceaselessly, with novelty and creativity, emerge in the ongoing stream of Becoming). ([Location 2160](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2160)) - The world that we are aware of—in either the pure Witness state or the ultimate nondual Unity state—is a world where every single thing and event that arises is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, of Spirit, of the Great Perfection. ([Location 2180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2180)) - Like any painting, there are light areas and dark areas, hills and valleys, highs and lows, brights and dulls, areas that are conventionally judged “good” and areas that appear “bad”—pleasure and pain, good and evil, better and worse, higher and lower—but the point is, all of them are necessary, are required, in order for the Total Painting to exist at all. If we got rid of all dark areas, shades, and shadows, the Painting would simply cease to exist—it would just be areas of pure white and all light, looking rather like a snowstorm in the Arctic, with no discernible features at all. Rather, every single thing and event that is arising is an intrinsic, necessary part of this great, vast, Total Painting of All That Is. ([Location 2183](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2183)) - “Awareness” is open, free, totally relaxed, inclusive of All that arises, and living in the timeless Now—Present to Present to Present. “Attention,” by contrast, is focused, contracted, never aware of the Total Painting but always narrowly directed to just a particular feature of it, living in the temporal present moving from the past to the future, unable to let go and fall into the ever-present Now, always constricting consciousness to the narrow-slit present existing in between the past and the future, focused on one item at a time by one item at a time by one item at a time. ([Location 2232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2232)) - Supermind = Big Mind + All Form that has evolved to date. ([Location 2317](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2317)) - Supermind, then—or, to repeat, at the least, 2nd-tier Integral for today’s actual evolution—is the holon with the most depth (and least span) in the entire Kosmos, the most significant (and least fundamental) holon in the whole wide world, containing more levels of being than any other existing object or phenomenon anywhere in the known universe. ([Location 2341](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2341)) - That is your own experience or reaction; you are not accusing the other person of judgmentalism as an absolute fact, or blaming them with an objective “it” statement; you are simply expressing your “I” experience, which you own as your feeling, and you communicate it to your partner instead of calling him or her names. Clearly, “I” is distinct from “it.” “In my experience you seem X” is entirely different from “You are X.” ([Location 2617](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2617)) - views. If one is right, the other is wrong—and they both think they’re right. They’ve confused their “I” and “it” perspectives (they’ve confused these two major quadrants). Whenever that happens, there is almost always a conflict in the “we” space as the two “I’s” clash over their versions of the truth, or each one’s “it,” both thinking they have the right version—the objectively correct “it” version. But actually, they are each just stating their own “I” preference, choice, or taste. ([Location 2624](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2624)) - So be mindful of this “we.” Start with your own “I,” and do several minutes of mindfulness on this “I” (this might flip you into your “I-I” or Witness, but that’s fine). Then shift into an awareness of this “we.” Notice that you don’t directly control it, not the way you control your own body. This “we,” indeed, has a life of its own. Every time the two of you come together, the thicker this “we” becomes, getting richer and richer with history, shared events, shared concerns, shared solutions—and several ongoing conflicts as you both try and get your “I” spaces aligned. ([Location 2803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2803)) - Cognitive intelligence. Correctly understood, cognitive intelligence is not a dry, abstract, analytic capacity; it is the conscious capacity to take perspectives—1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, 4th person, and so on—each is a more complex, more conscious, more whole, more unified level of awareness ([Location 3082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3082)) - “Morals” are different from “ethics.” Ethics involve the rules and regulations that any particular culture or group takes to be the way things should be done. It focuses on what is good according to that culture. Morals, on the other hand, focus not just on what is correct for a particular group, but what is correct according to universal principles—not what is good, but what is right. ([Location 3140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3140)) - “Ethics,” again, is confined to the Lower Left quadrant—it’s a reading of your culture’s contextual background (a validity claim of appropriateness). “Morals” is a judgment not of “appropriateness” or “goodness” but of “rightness,” which can be made in relation to phenomena found, not just in the Lower Left, but in any quadrant—including, for example, “What is the morally right thing to do in relation to the Lower Right ecological system we find ourselves in?” or “What is the morally right thing to do with this lost stash of money that I found [in the Upper Right]?” or “What is the right thing to do with this idea that I’m claiming as my own [in the Upper Left] but that was discovered by somebody else?” ([Location 3158](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3158)) - The Enneagram is a good example of the increased focus that a good typology can bring to the topic. According to that system, the human personality comes in 9 basic types. The names alone give an indication of how different these types are from each other: (1) perfectionist, (2) giver, (3) performer, (4) romantic, (5) observer, (6) questioner, (7) epicure, (8) protector, (9) mediator. And because those are types, then if a person is fundamentally, say, type 5, then they will be a type 5 at magenta, red, amber, orange, green, and so on. The different types are rarely as determining as, say, different levels or states, but they can have a profound influence; and especially if one is entering a particular area involving a great deal of detail, including a typology or two can definitely help. ([Location 3556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3556)) - One Taste ([Location 3651](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3651)) - the vast number of those who are at the Integral level do not know that they are at the Integral level—they haven’t yet self-identified, they don’t know that they are coming from a real level of human development, that the thoughts and ideas that they are having are not crazy or weird or sick (as people around them keep telling them they are). They usually went through a period of trying to convince their friends and associates of how important some of these ideas seemed, but after having not much luck with that, they tended to give up, and return to flying at the altitude that most of their associates are flying at (usually orange or green). “When in 1st-tier Rome, fly 1st tier. . . ([Location 3792](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3792)) - They are skillful, intelligently driven disciplines and qualities that are said to be either the means of attaining Enlightenment or the actual expressions of an always-already Enlightened mind. The 6 paramitas are (1) generosity, or caring giving; (2) moral discipline; (3) patience, or acceptance; (4) will, or joyful diligence; (5) meditative concentration; and (6) nondual awareness. To these 6 the Vajrayana adds (7) skillful means, (8) aspiration, (9) strength, and (10) primordial wisdom, or primordial awareness. ([Location 3890](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3890))  ## Highlights - One or the other, Waking Up or Growing Up—such has been humanity’s history. But with what’s called the “Integral approach”—that new leading-edge model just mentioned—both of these paths are combined for the first time, producing a method of growth and development that is truly profound and effective in virtually every conceivable way. ([Location 102](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=102)) - Mindfulness is a form of bodymind training that has been demonstrated to dramatically reduce stress; increase feelings of calm, relation, and harmony; decrease feelings of anxiety and depression; reduce the discomfort of pain; lower blood pressure; increase learning capacity, IQ, and creativity; and awaken higher states of consciousness, sometimes called “the farther reaches of human nature.”3 It’s like a steroid for human activities in general, from the ordinary mundane to the enlightened spiritual. This powerful practice goes back at least 2,500 years, and humanity has continued to use it that long simply it because it works (it is a major ingredient in many of the paths of Waking Up). ([Location 117](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=117)) - the simplest way to remember the difference between these structures of consciousness and these states of consciousness is that the structures—the hidden levels of grammar, or the hidden maps—are the basis of Growing Up; whereas the states of consciousness, leading to Awakening and Enlightenment, are the basis of Waking Up. In Growing Up, we move from less developed stages or maps of our world, to more adequate, more mature, more developed stages or maps, a true Growing Up. While with Waking Up, we move from less whole and less advanced states to the highest, most developed states imaginable, leading to a genuine transformative Awakening, Enlightenment, Great Liberation, Metamorphosis, Satori, or Supreme Identity, as it’s variously termed. ([Location 194](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=194)) - So literature is not merely imaginary; it’s “true but partial.” And so are virtually all of the other disciplines that humans engage in. So the question is no longer “Which of these approaches is true?” but rather, “How is our world organized such that all of these approaches possess some aspect of the truth?” In other words, “everybody is right”—to some degree. So, what interests Integral Theory is not “Which one is right?” but “How can we put them all together?” The word “integral” itself means comprehensive, inclusive, embracing, enfolding—putting things all together. ([Location 243](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=243)) - The other type of spirituality is not a belief system, but a psychotechnology of consciousness transformation. It’s interested in changing states of consciousness. That is, it uses various meditative and contemplative practices to fundamentally re-orient awareness to an opening of new and higher states of consciousness, including a direct sense of oneness with the entire universe (in other words, it aims for a pure Waking Up). ([Location 294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=294)) - Essentially, what one is awakening from is the ceaseless, chaotic, incoherent thoughts and ways of framing reality that govern most human activity, generating endless states of suffering; and what one is awakening to is a pure, transparent, open, empty, clear awareness, free of incoherent and broken thoughts and frameworks. ([Location 300](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=300)) - So particularly the next time hunger arises (whether you’re overweight or not), truly give it attention, give it mindfulness awareness. This is just like videotaping something: you’re a perfectly neutral camera, seeing everything just as it is without any judgment—you don’t want to criticize it, condemn it, or identify with it; simply be aware of it neutrally, and pervasively, from all angles. Where is this hunger desire located (head, mouth, heart, stomach, gut, hands, feet)? What color is it (just whatever comes to mind)? What shape is it (also, whatever comes to mind)? What does it smell like (whatever comes to mind)? Really feel the primitiveness and urgency, the driven-ness of this drive. Stay with that yearning urgency. Make that subjective drive an object of mindfulness, an object of awareness. Really look at it, long and steady. Feel it directly, with feeling-awareness, which can be seen as another term for “mindfulness.” ([Location 438](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=438)) - In mindfulness sessions, as we’ll continue to see, you’ll want to focus intently on the feeling of, in this case, being incredibly special. See yourself as world famous: walking the red carpet at the Cannes Festival, with numerous media photographing you, critics all praising you, fans screaming out for you. Hold that feeling of pure fame—just unflinchingly feel it, see it, look at it, just as if you were videotaping it—not judging it, condemning it, or identifying with it, just meeting it with pure awareness. Make it an object instead of a subject or a self, thus clearing the slate for a new and higher level of self and awareness to emerge. Seeing the hidden map means you have converted it into an object of awareness, you’ve made it “un-hidden,” and so it stops governing your behavior, making room for higher maps that are more accurate and more adequate. ([Location 550](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=550)) - So, hold any of these magical, superstitious beliefs directly in awareness; see them straightforwardly, neutrally, without criticizing, blaming, or identifying—pure videotaping. “Transcend and include” them: become aware of them, thus “transcending” them, making them an object instead of subject, forcing a dis-identification with them (i.e., seeing them as an object of awareness tears them away from being a subject of awareness, from being a self, from being an attachment, fixation, or addiction). ([Location 561](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=561)) - (And we note, of course, that absolutely every individual is genuinely special, is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, of the Great Perfection, exactly as they are. We are here talking about infantile forms of specialness, narcissistic and self-centric or egocentric forms, where one’s own specialness depends on seeing others as lacking in this specialness—which only I possess!—whereas a mature specialness sees all sentient beings as inherently possessing the Great Perfection, a Kosmocentric—not egocentric—specialness. But in order to make room for that Kosmocentric specialness, we have to uproot any hidden maps stuck on egocentric specialness—which is exactly what mindfulness will do, and what we are focusing on doing right now.) ([Location 566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=566)) - The unhealthy version of this red power-level is found in abundance in criminal institutions, mafia-type organizations, and corrupt governments. It sees the world in terms of survival of the fittest; the biggest and strongest win; do it to somebody else before they do it to you; it’s a law of the jungle, a dog-eat-dog world, red in tooth and claw. Individuals operating from this level are capable of some truly vicious acts. ([Location 601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=601)) - They are not choosing to be egocentric, they simply have no choice here at all. That capacity to take the role of other doesn’t emerge until the next stage, stage 4, ([Location 618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=618)) - There’s probably some area of life, however small, that reactivates this stage and leaves you in the grip of a self-centered drive for power and control. ([Location 630](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=630)) - A brief note on the name “Magic-Mythic.” In many ways, this is a transition stage between the pure Magic of the previous stage and the pure Mythic of the following stage. The difference between “magic” and “mythic” depends primarily on where “miracle” power is located. That is, in magic, the capacity to perform miracles resides (“magically”) in the self. I do a rain dance, and it forces nature to rain. Thoughts and images are poorly differentiated from real things, and thus, for example, if my father dies, and I just recently wished him dead, then I caused his death. Or we mentioned Voodoo, where if you stick a pin in an image of the real person, the real person is actually hurt. This is all pure, undiluted magic. Historically, by the time that Mythic began to emerge, humankind had begun to understand that it couldn’t really perform magic—but supernatural, transcendental, mythic Beings could: God, Goddess, Spirit. If only I could find the exact ritual or prayer or action that would please Spirit and cause it to intervene in history on my behalf, to make the crops grow, or make the rain fall, or ensure success for the day’s hunt. “Magic-Mythic” was—is—a transition between these two major stages. It usually locates “miracle power” in Gods or Spirit(s)—PowerGods—but certain powerful humans can be PowerGods. Mommy, for example, could turn the yucky spinach into candy if she wanted—she’s a PowerGod. And historically at this stage, as the first great military empires began to spread across the globe, the heads of these empires were almost universally seen as being literally Gods, and very powerful—they were PowerGods. ([Location 642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=642)) - Exaggerated power drives often show up in individuals as an “inner critic” or “inner controller,” which is always watching everything they do with a critical, negative, controlling drive—always making you feel inferior, lacking, a loser, a worthless good-for-nothing. ([Location 668](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=668)) - next major stage of development, level 4—called the “conformist,” “mythic-membership,” “diplomat,” or “belongingness” stage (given the color amber)—the self can indeed begin to take the role of other, and thus its identity can expand from its own self to belongingness in various groups: its family, its clan, its tribe, its nation, its religion, its political party, and so on. This is referred to as the switch from an egocentric to an ethnocentric identity—a switch from “me-focused” to “us-focused” or “group-focused.” This is a very important switch. As one of its names implies, this is initially a very conformist stage—the self can take the role of other, but it is caught in that role, a view often called “my country, right or wrong,” or “my religion, right or wrong,” or “law and order.” ([Location 695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=695)) - Notice that in each of those cases, the basic self-sense starts out identified with the particular stage. So at archaic stage 1, the self is identified with the simple sensorimotor or physiological dimension. That is its subject, its self. It can’t see this stage as an object; it sees the world through this stage as a subject. It can’t look at it, it’s looking through it. But as the next stage emerges, the magical-impulsive stage, the self lets go of its exclusive identity with the previous archaic stage, and switches its self, its subject, its identity, to this new stage, this magical-impulsive stage. So now the self can see its previous stage as an object—the new self or new subject can see the old subject (the archaic stage) as an object. So the subject of the previous stage has become the object of the new subject of this stage. ([Location 858](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=858)) - “the self of one stage becomes the tool of the next”—a subjective identity becomes an objective tool, something that can be seen and used in awareness. ([Location 870](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=870)) - this process is the actual way that each stage of evolution becomes more conscious, more open, more inclusive, freer and fuller, more embracing, more whole, more evolved. By dis-identifying with a lower, narrower, more restricted self, seeing it as an object, and simultaneously shifting identity to a new, higher, more inclusive, more conscious, more embracing self, then to just that degree we open ourselves to higher and higher, wider and wider, deeper and deeper stages of evolution, of consciousness development, of expanding identity. ([Location 872](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=872)) - And at the very next higher level, orange level 5, there occurs the emergence of the next higher perspective, a 3rd-person perspective, which is the capacity to take an objective, scientific, universal perspective; thus the switch in identity from a local ethnocentric identity to a universal or global worldcentric identity occurs—a switch from “us” to “all of us.” This more universal, global, expansive awareness occurs because consciousness moves from what is called a concrete operational mode to a formal operational mode. “Formal operations” means that thought can operate not just on the concrete material world, but thought can now operate on thought itself. Thought can actually be aware of itself, and thus an introspective, conscientious, self-reflective, universal identity—a cosmopolitan identity—can become possible. Kant suggested a definition of cosmopolitan awareness when he wrote in the essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” that “a violation of rights anywhere is felt everywhere.” In other words, there is a deeply felt solidarity with all of humanity, and the issue of the universal rights of humans comes to the fore for the first time at level 5 (as it first did in history with the Enlightenment). ([Location 913](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=913)) - Self-esteem needs emerge at this level because a 3rd-person perspective means the individual can stand back from themselves, so to speak, and form an objective opinion about themselves— ([Location 929](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=929)) - The worldcentric individual emerges out of the ethnocentric conformist, and within the worldcentric background, the self wants its own high self-recognition, self-identity, self-esteem, and self-achievement. So this stage is also marked by the emergence of the drive toward excellence, accomplishment, merit, achievement, and progress. ([Location 935](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=935)) - The “post” in “postmodernism” means that this next higher level, like all successively higher levels, brought a new and higher perspective into being: where orange rational modernity introduced a 3rd-person perspective, this new stage—known variously as pluralistic, postmodern, relativistic, sensitive, individualistic, multicultural (and given the color green)—came with the emergence of a 4th-person perspective: the capacity to reflect on, and criticize, 3rd-person perspectives, including science, leading to a multitude of different or pluralistic views. (And “pluralism”—the belief in many different but equally important approaches to reality—can be taken to its limit, where it becomes “relativism”: the belief that there are only multiple approaches, with absolutely no universal or globally unified approaches, no “Big Pictures” that are true for everybody, just local, culturally constructed beliefs. ([Location 1145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1145)) - postmodernism became especially identified with aggressive critiques of any “isms” or “Big Pictures” of any type—critiques of capitalism, of Marxism, of fundamentalism, racism, sexism, patriarchalism, ageism, speciesism, and so on—and this was the basis of everything from the civil rights movement to handicapped parking spaces to hate crime legislation.) ([Location 1160](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1160)) - The standard NGO, with its postmodern relativistic values, believes that no culture is superior or better than another; and yet it goes into countries where it is working, and assumes that its own values are in some ways better than or superior to those of the culture it is helping—otherwise, why would it consider what it is doing as being “help,” if it didn’t have something more valuable to offer than what those receiving the “help” presently have? Thus many NGOs (with their level-6 values) go to work in a developing country whose major values are still at tribal red power (level 3) or traditional mythic fundamentalism (level 4) and attempt to impose their level-6 pluralistic values on the culture and population, and the whole endeavor backfires badly. ([Location 1174](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1174)) - For the time being, let’s look at green pluralism or relativism (and start tracking these to see if any apply to you). First of all, it believes that there is nothing superior anywhere in the world; what’s true for a particular person is true for that person—you can’t go in and impose your beliefs on somebody, claiming that you are right and they are wrong. You have your truth, they have theirs, and that’s it. Likewise, all ranking, all hierarchies, are strictly taboo. What’s required are partnership societies, where all people—and especially all men and all women—are looked at equally. Even excellence and achievement—the hallmarks of the previous modern stage—are looked at suspiciously by green postmodernism, because that means you are making judgments about somebody being better or higher or more achieved than somebody else, and that is nothing but oppression. Meetings are considered a success, not if any conclusion is reached, but if everybody gets a chance to share their feelings; this tends to take forever, and few actual actions are taken. All previous approaches to a topic are considered essentially wrong, driven by oppression or patriarchy or sexism or racism or colonialism or imperialism, and green pluralism will redo all of this and do it right, based on pure equality, partnerships, and no ranking or hierarchical judging. ([Location 1199](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1199)) - And the new approach is not based on abstract rationality or logic, but is based on feelings and comes straight from the heart, not the head; thinking is out, feeling is in. The heart is the basis of all real truth, and it must be “embodied”—anchored in feelings, not thoughts. All the previous approaches are “old paradigm,” and this new approach is “new paradigm.” The old paradigm is rational, analytic, divisive, Newtonian-Cartesian, egocentric, Earth-hating and Earth-denying, sexist, racist, colonialist, built on rampant commercialism and profit/greed; whereas the new paradigm is congruent with the “new” physics (meaning quantum physics, which is actually a century old now), is eco-centric instead of egocentric; is built on partnership, caring, and loving-kindness, is holistic and organic (not fragmented and mechanistic), is congruent with systems theory; is feminist, Gaia-focused, Earth-centered, and glocal-oriented (meaning global and local). ([Location 1208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1208)) - Gilligan became famous for proposing, in her book In a Different Voice, that men and women reason differently—men with an emphasis on hierarchy and autonomy, and women with an emphasis on relationship and belonging. Feminists who believed that all hierarchies are bad jumped on Gilligan’s argument that men—not women—think hierarchically, and used it to blame men (and the patriarchy) for most of humanity’s ills. But these feminists, and postmodernists in general, studiously ignored a second point that Gilligan made in that book: namely, that both men and women develop through the same 4 basic hierarchical stages (her term). In women, Gilligan named these hierarchical levels as follows: stage 1, or selfish—the woman cares only for herself (this is our egocentric); stage 2, or care—the woman extends care from only herself to groups (our ethnocentric); stage 3, or universal care—the woman extends care to all humans, regardless of race, color, sex, or creed (our worldcentric); and stage 4, which she called integrated—where women and men integrate the other sex’s attitude (our integral). ([Location 1280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1280)) - Sri Aurobindo—who was trained in Western modes of evolutionary thinking and thus had at least some sense of structure-stages— ([Location 1468](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1468)) - For Alfred North Whitehead, for example, each moment comes to be as a “subject of experience” or a “drop of experience.” And as the new subject comes into being, it “prehends” (his term, which basically means “touches” or “feels”) the previous subject, thus making it object. The prehension, or “touching,” of the previous moment by this present moment constitutes the past’s influence on the present. Obviously, if you touch and embrace an object, that object will affect you—and that’s what happens as each moment touches and embraces (prehends) the previous moment (which itself had touched and embraced its previous moment, and so on indefinitely). This is the “causative” or “determining” moment of the past on the present. If this were all that there was, this would be a purely deterministic, mechanistic universe, with no creativity, novelty, or innovation possible (except for fluke “mutations” or aberrations). But, according to Whitehead (and I agree), each moment, in addition to prehending the previous moment, adds its own bit of novelty or newness or creativity. It not only includes the past, it transcends it. It not only prehends the previous subject (making it object of the new subject), it adds a bit of emergent novelty to the new subject, thus introducing a measure of freedom and newness into the sequence. Now, if the holons thus unfolding have very little depth (such as atoms), then the degree of novelty they can add is very small, and their temporal unfolding will appear very much deterministic, or ruled by strict cause-and-effect. But, Whitehead adds, “little novelty” is not the same as “no novelty.” After all, atoms managed to give rise, eventually, to molecules, a very creative advance indeed. And molecules managed an astonishing leap of creativity—at one point, dozens of very complex molecules managed to find themselves in the same vicinity; they joined together, a cell wall dropped around them, and out of their own inherent creative drive, life appeared! An actual living cell out of molecules! The point is that creative novelty is built into the very fabric of the universe—and that creative novelty is what ultimately drives evolution (this creative drive has been known as everything from “self-organization” to “Eros” to “Love” to “Spirit-in-action”). This is why evolution was already operating beginning with the Big Bang itself and moving forward—it did not have to wait for the emergence of life, sexuality, nucleic acids, random mutations, and natural selection in order to get started. Those were just some particular stages in this ongoing transcend-and-include, or “self-transcendence through self-organization,” which was at the heart of evolution itself all the way back to the very first moments of the Big Bang. (And that is why some people think of evolution as “Spirit-in-action,” which I happen to think is a fine idea. In any event, Eros or creativity or evolution was operating in the universe from the very beginning, or there never… ([Location 1485](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1485)) - But the stages of Waking Up—once you reach them—are utterly obvious. They’re less common, but only because the paths of reaching them are less common. And they’re less common because they’re fairly hard, they take work, they take dedication, they take effort and usually several years to achieve. ([Location 1619](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1619)) - 4 or 5 major stages of unfolding: usually following a preliminary awakening experience, they move through a gross purification, a subtle illumination, a dark night or infinite abyss, and a unity consciousness—or gross, subtle, causal, unity. ([Location 1645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1645)) - Part of the reason that there is such a similarity among these Paths of Waking Up might have to do with the fact that many of the natural states of consciousness that are entered with pure awareness have roots in direct biological brain-wave patterns, and those are similar wherever humans appear— ([Location 1664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1664)) - the 5 or so major states of awareness—gross/waking, subtle/dreaming, causal/deep sleep, empty witnessing, and pure nondual “unity”)— ([Location 1689](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1689)) - as you take up a mindfulness-type of meditation, and you are presently identified with, say, the waking state, is that you will start to slowly become aware during dreaming states as well. Your Wakefulness will shift from just the waking into the dream state also. You will start to become conscious and aware of the subtle realm and all its secrets. ([Location 1755](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1755)) - “eternal” or “timeless” does not mean everlasting time—it means a moment without time, a timeless Now or Present. ([Location 1782](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1782)) - But then there is the Self that is doing the seeing, the Self that is doing the describing, the actual Seer, the Observing Self, the Witness. This Self does the seeing, but cannot itself be seen—no more than an eye could see itself or a tongue could taste itself. ([Location 1824](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1824)) - And we saw that the real meaning of “eternity” is not everlasting time, but a moment free of time, the timeless Now-moment or pure Present. ([Location 1861](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1861)) - But what happens, at each stage of Growing Up, is that you will identify your small, conventional, finite, subjective self with the particular level or hidden map of that stage. And the Witness will then look through that small self and its map at the world, using that map to interpret what it sees. ([Location 1918](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1918)) - new and updated definition of Enlightenment that we have been using: being one with both the highest state and the highest structure that have evolved at that time in history. ([Location 2121](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2121)) - Thus, according to our second major point, with the institutionalization of a “conveyor belt,” the main tenets of any particular Tradition are set forth in the language and terms of each of the major structure-stages of spiritual Growing Up, so that somebody could start their young, childhood spiritual development with a magical presentation of their religion; then, during middle school, move to a mythic presentation; then in adolescence, a rational perspective; then—if they continue growing—in young adulthood, a pluralistic view; and finally, if growth fully matures, an integral version of their Tradition. Combined with that Tradition’s path of Waking Up, this would involve the most complete, the most inclusive, the most all-pervading spiritual involvement a human could possibly attain—the highest state and the highest structure made available to date by evolution, by Spirit-in-action—and mark the utter fulfillment of the very best and very brightest for which any sentient being might possibly hope. ([Location 2128](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2128)) - Whitehead used to speak of two fundamental aspects of Spirit: the Primordial Nature of Spirit (timeless and unchanging: our “Emptiness”) and the Consequent Nature of Spirit (the sum total of the results or products of Spirit-in-action or Eros or evolution, as they ceaselessly, with novelty and creativity, emerge in the ongoing stream of Becoming). ([Location 2160](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2160)) - The world that we are aware of—in either the pure Witness state or the ultimate nondual Unity state—is a world where every single thing and event that arises is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, of Spirit, of the Great Perfection. ([Location 2180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2180)) - Like any painting, there are light areas and dark areas, hills and valleys, highs and lows, brights and dulls, areas that are conventionally judged “good” and areas that appear “bad”—pleasure and pain, good and evil, better and worse, higher and lower—but the point is, all of them are necessary, are required, in order for the Total Painting to exist at all. If we got rid of all dark areas, shades, and shadows, the Painting would simply cease to exist—it would just be areas of pure white and all light, looking rather like a snowstorm in the Arctic, with no discernible features at all. Rather, every single thing and event that is arising is an intrinsic, necessary part of this great, vast, Total Painting of All That Is. ([Location 2183](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2183)) - “Awareness” is open, free, totally relaxed, inclusive of All that arises, and living in the timeless Now—Present to Present to Present. “Attention,” by contrast, is focused, contracted, never aware of the Total Painting but always narrowly directed to just a particular feature of it, living in the temporal present moving from the past to the future, unable to let go and fall into the ever-present Now, always constricting consciousness to the narrow-slit present existing in between the past and the future, focused on one item at a time by one item at a time by one item at a time. ([Location 2232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2232)) - Supermind = Big Mind + All Form that has evolved to date. ([Location 2317](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2317)) - Supermind, then—or, to repeat, at the least, 2nd-tier Integral for today’s actual evolution—is the holon with the most depth (and least span) in the entire Kosmos, the most significant (and least fundamental) holon in the whole wide world, containing more levels of being than any other existing object or phenomenon anywhere in the known universe. ([Location 2341](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2341)) - That is your own experience or reaction; you are not accusing the other person of judgmentalism as an absolute fact, or blaming them with an objective “it” statement; you are simply expressing your “I” experience, which you own as your feeling, and you communicate it to your partner instead of calling him or her names. Clearly, “I” is distinct from “it.” “In my experience you seem X” is entirely different from “You are X.” ([Location 2617](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2617)) - views. If one is right, the other is wrong—and they both think they’re right. They’ve confused their “I” and “it” perspectives (they’ve confused these two major quadrants). Whenever that happens, there is almost always a conflict in the “we” space as the two “I’s” clash over their versions of the truth, or each one’s “it,” both thinking they have the right version—the objectively correct “it” version. But actually, they are each just stating their own “I” preference, choice, or taste. ([Location 2624](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2624)) - So be mindful of this “we.” Start with your own “I,” and do several minutes of mindfulness on this “I” (this might flip you into your “I-I” or Witness, but that’s fine). Then shift into an awareness of this “we.” Notice that you don’t directly control it, not the way you control your own body. This “we,” indeed, has a life of its own. Every time the two of you come together, the thicker this “we” becomes, getting richer and richer with history, shared events, shared concerns, shared solutions—and several ongoing conflicts as you both try and get your “I” spaces aligned. ([Location 2803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2803)) - Cognitive intelligence. Correctly understood, cognitive intelligence is not a dry, abstract, analytic capacity; it is the conscious capacity to take perspectives—1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, 4th person, and so on—each is a more complex, more conscious, more whole, more unified level of awareness ([Location 3082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3082)) - “Morals” are different from “ethics.” Ethics involve the rules and regulations that any particular culture or group takes to be the way things should be done. It focuses on what is good according to that culture. Morals, on the other hand, focus not just on what is correct for a particular group, but what is correct according to universal principles—not what is good, but what is right. ([Location 3140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3140)) - “Ethics,” again, is confined to the Lower Left quadrant—it’s a reading of your culture’s contextual background (a validity claim of appropriateness). “Morals” is a judgment not of “appropriateness” or “goodness” but of “rightness,” which can be made in relation to phenomena found, not just in the Lower Left, but in any quadrant—including, for example, “What is the morally right thing to do in relation to the Lower Right ecological system we find ourselves in?” or “What is the morally right thing to do with this lost stash of money that I found [in the Upper Right]?” or “What is the right thing to do with this idea that I’m claiming as my own [in the Upper Left] but that was discovered by somebody else?” ([Location 3158](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3158)) - The Enneagram is a good example of the increased focus that a good typology can bring to the topic. According to that system, the human personality comes in 9 basic types. The names alone give an indication of how different these types are from each other: (1) perfectionist, (2) giver, (3) performer, (4) romantic, (5) observer, (6) questioner, (7) epicure, (8) protector, (9) mediator. And because those are types, then if a person is fundamentally, say, type 5, then they will be a type 5 at magenta, red, amber, orange, green, and so on. The different types are rarely as determining as, say, different levels or states, but they can have a profound influence; and especially if one is entering a particular area involving a great deal of detail, including a typology or two can definitely help. ([Location 3556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3556)) - One Taste ([Location 3651](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3651)) - the vast number of those who are at the Integral level do not know that they are at the Integral level—they haven’t yet self-identified, they don’t know that they are coming from a real level of human development, that the thoughts and ideas that they are having are not crazy or weird or sick (as people around them keep telling them they are). They usually went through a period of trying to convince their friends and associates of how important some of these ideas seemed, but after having not much luck with that, they tended to give up, and return to flying at the altitude that most of their associates are flying at (usually orange or green). “When in 1st-tier Rome, fly 1st tier. . . ([Location 3792](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3792)) - They are skillful, intelligently driven disciplines and qualities that are said to be either the means of attaining Enlightenment or the actual expressions of an always-already Enlightened mind. The 6 paramitas are (1) generosity, or caring giving; (2) moral discipline; (3) patience, or acceptance; (4) will, or joyful diligence; (5) meditative concentration; and (6) nondual awareness. To these 6 the Vajrayana adds (7) skillful means, (8) aspiration, (9) strength, and (10) primordial wisdom, or primordial awareness. ([Location 3890](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3890))  ## Highlights - One or the other, Waking Up or Growing Up—such has been humanity’s history. But with what’s called the “Integral approach”—that new leading-edge model just mentioned—both of these paths are combined for the first time, producing a method of growth and development that is truly profound and effective in virtually every conceivable way. ([Location 102](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=102)) - Mindfulness is a form of bodymind training that has been demonstrated to dramatically reduce stress; increase feelings of calm, relation, and harmony; decrease feelings of anxiety and depression; reduce the discomfort of pain; lower blood pressure; increase learning capacity, IQ, and creativity; and awaken higher states of consciousness, sometimes called “the farther reaches of human nature.”3 It’s like a steroid for human activities in general, from the ordinary mundane to the enlightened spiritual. This powerful practice goes back at least 2,500 years, and humanity has continued to use it that long simply it because it works (it is a major ingredient in many of the paths of Waking Up). ([Location 117](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=117)) - the simplest way to remember the difference between these structures of consciousness and these states of consciousness is that the structures—the hidden levels of grammar, or the hidden maps—are the basis of Growing Up; whereas the states of consciousness, leading to Awakening and Enlightenment, are the basis of Waking Up. In Growing Up, we move from less developed stages or maps of our world, to more adequate, more mature, more developed stages or maps, a true Growing Up. While with Waking Up, we move from less whole and less advanced states to the highest, most developed states imaginable, leading to a genuine transformative Awakening, Enlightenment, Great Liberation, Metamorphosis, Satori, or Supreme Identity, as it’s variously termed. ([Location 194](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=194)) - So literature is not merely imaginary; it’s “true but partial.” And so are virtually all of the other disciplines that humans engage in. So the question is no longer “Which of these approaches is true?” but rather, “How is our world organized such that all of these approaches possess some aspect of the truth?” In other words, “everybody is right”—to some degree. So, what interests Integral Theory is not “Which one is right?” but “How can we put them all together?” The word “integral” itself means comprehensive, inclusive, embracing, enfolding—putting things all together. ([Location 243](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=243)) - The other type of spirituality is not a belief system, but a psychotechnology of consciousness transformation. It’s interested in changing states of consciousness. That is, it uses various meditative and contemplative practices to fundamentally re-orient awareness to an opening of new and higher states of consciousness, including a direct sense of oneness with the entire universe (in other words, it aims for a pure Waking Up). ([Location 294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=294)) - Essentially, what one is awakening from is the ceaseless, chaotic, incoherent thoughts and ways of framing reality that govern most human activity, generating endless states of suffering; and what one is awakening to is a pure, transparent, open, empty, clear awareness, free of incoherent and broken thoughts and frameworks. ([Location 300](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=300)) - So particularly the next time hunger arises (whether you’re overweight or not), truly give it attention, give it mindfulness awareness. This is just like videotaping something: you’re a perfectly neutral camera, seeing everything just as it is without any judgment—you don’t want to criticize it, condemn it, or identify with it; simply be aware of it neutrally, and pervasively, from all angles. Where is this hunger desire located (head, mouth, heart, stomach, gut, hands, feet)? What color is it (just whatever comes to mind)? What shape is it (also, whatever comes to mind)? What does it smell like (whatever comes to mind)? Really feel the primitiveness and urgency, the driven-ness of this drive. Stay with that yearning urgency. Make that subjective drive an object of mindfulness, an object of awareness. Really look at it, long and steady. Feel it directly, with feeling-awareness, which can be seen as another term for “mindfulness.” ([Location 438](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=438)) - In mindfulness sessions, as we’ll continue to see, you’ll want to focus intently on the feeling of, in this case, being incredibly special. See yourself as world famous: walking the red carpet at the Cannes Festival, with numerous media photographing you, critics all praising you, fans screaming out for you. Hold that feeling of pure fame—just unflinchingly feel it, see it, look at it, just as if you were videotaping it—not judging it, condemning it, or identifying with it, just meeting it with pure awareness. Make it an object instead of a subject or a self, thus clearing the slate for a new and higher level of self and awareness to emerge. Seeing the hidden map means you have converted it into an object of awareness, you’ve made it “un-hidden,” and so it stops governing your behavior, making room for higher maps that are more accurate and more adequate. ([Location 550](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=550)) - So, hold any of these magical, superstitious beliefs directly in awareness; see them straightforwardly, neutrally, without criticizing, blaming, or identifying—pure videotaping. “Transcend and include” them: become aware of them, thus “transcending” them, making them an object instead of subject, forcing a dis-identification with them (i.e., seeing them as an object of awareness tears them away from being a subject of awareness, from being a self, from being an attachment, fixation, or addiction). ([Location 561](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=561)) - (And we note, of course, that absolutely every individual is genuinely special, is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, of the Great Perfection, exactly as they are. We are here talking about infantile forms of specialness, narcissistic and self-centric or egocentric forms, where one’s own specialness depends on seeing others as lacking in this specialness—which only I possess!—whereas a mature specialness sees all sentient beings as inherently possessing the Great Perfection, a Kosmocentric—not egocentric—specialness. But in order to make room for that Kosmocentric specialness, we have to uproot any hidden maps stuck on egocentric specialness—which is exactly what mindfulness will do, and what we are focusing on doing right now.) ([Location 566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=566)) - The unhealthy version of this red power-level is found in abundance in criminal institutions, mafia-type organizations, and corrupt governments. It sees the world in terms of survival of the fittest; the biggest and strongest win; do it to somebody else before they do it to you; it’s a law of the jungle, a dog-eat-dog world, red in tooth and claw. Individuals operating from this level are capable of some truly vicious acts. ([Location 601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=601)) - They are not choosing to be egocentric, they simply have no choice here at all. That capacity to take the role of other doesn’t emerge until the next stage, stage 4, ([Location 618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=618)) - There’s probably some area of life, however small, that reactivates this stage and leaves you in the grip of a self-centered drive for power and control. ([Location 630](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=630)) - A brief note on the name “Magic-Mythic.” In many ways, this is a transition stage between the pure Magic of the previous stage and the pure Mythic of the following stage. The difference between “magic” and “mythic” depends primarily on where “miracle” power is located. That is, in magic, the capacity to perform miracles resides (“magically”) in the self. I do a rain dance, and it forces nature to rain. Thoughts and images are poorly differentiated from real things, and thus, for example, if my father dies, and I just recently wished him dead, then I caused his death. Or we mentioned Voodoo, where if you stick a pin in an image of the real person, the real person is actually hurt. This is all pure, undiluted magic. Historically, by the time that Mythic began to emerge, humankind had begun to understand that it couldn’t really perform magic—but supernatural, transcendental, mythic Beings could: God, Goddess, Spirit. If only I could find the exact ritual or prayer or action that would please Spirit and cause it to intervene in history on my behalf, to make the crops grow, or make the rain fall, or ensure success for the day’s hunt. “Magic-Mythic” was—is—a transition between these two major stages. It usually locates “miracle power” in Gods or Spirit(s)—PowerGods—but certain powerful humans can be PowerGods. Mommy, for example, could turn the yucky spinach into candy if she wanted—she’s a PowerGod. And historically at this stage, as the first great military empires began to spread across the globe, the heads of these empires were almost universally seen as being literally Gods, and very powerful—they were PowerGods. ([Location 642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=642)) - Exaggerated power drives often show up in individuals as an “inner critic” or “inner controller,” which is always watching everything they do with a critical, negative, controlling drive—always making you feel inferior, lacking, a loser, a worthless good-for-nothing. ([Location 668](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=668)) - next major stage of development, level 4—called the “conformist,” “mythic-membership,” “diplomat,” or “belongingness” stage (given the color amber)—the self can indeed begin to take the role of other, and thus its identity can expand from its own self to belongingness in various groups: its family, its clan, its tribe, its nation, its religion, its political party, and so on. This is referred to as the switch from an egocentric to an ethnocentric identity—a switch from “me-focused” to “us-focused” or “group-focused.” This is a very important switch. As one of its names implies, this is initially a very conformist stage—the self can take the role of other, but it is caught in that role, a view often called “my country, right or wrong,” or “my religion, right or wrong,” or “law and order.” ([Location 695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=695)) - Notice that in each of those cases, the basic self-sense starts out identified with the particular stage. So at archaic stage 1, the self is identified with the simple sensorimotor or physiological dimension. That is its subject, its self. It can’t see this stage as an object; it sees the world through this stage as a subject. It can’t look at it, it’s looking through it. But as the next stage emerges, the magical-impulsive stage, the self lets go of its exclusive identity with the previous archaic stage, and switches its self, its subject, its identity, to this new stage, this magical-impulsive stage. So now the self can see its previous stage as an object—the new self or new subject can see the old subject (the archaic stage) as an object. So the subject of the previous stage has become the object of the new subject of this stage. ([Location 858](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=858)) - “the self of one stage becomes the tool of the next”—a subjective identity becomes an objective tool, something that can be seen and used in awareness. ([Location 870](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=870)) - this process is the actual way that each stage of evolution becomes more conscious, more open, more inclusive, freer and fuller, more embracing, more whole, more evolved. By dis-identifying with a lower, narrower, more restricted self, seeing it as an object, and simultaneously shifting identity to a new, higher, more inclusive, more conscious, more embracing self, then to just that degree we open ourselves to higher and higher, wider and wider, deeper and deeper stages of evolution, of consciousness development, of expanding identity. ([Location 872](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=872)) - And at the very next higher level, orange level 5, there occurs the emergence of the next higher perspective, a 3rd-person perspective, which is the capacity to take an objective, scientific, universal perspective; thus the switch in identity from a local ethnocentric identity to a universal or global worldcentric identity occurs—a switch from “us” to “all of us.” This more universal, global, expansive awareness occurs because consciousness moves from what is called a concrete operational mode to a formal operational mode. “Formal operations” means that thought can operate not just on the concrete material world, but thought can now operate on thought itself. Thought can actually be aware of itself, and thus an introspective, conscientious, self-reflective, universal identity—a cosmopolitan identity—can become possible. Kant suggested a definition of cosmopolitan awareness when he wrote in the essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” that “a violation of rights anywhere is felt everywhere.” In other words, there is a deeply felt solidarity with all of humanity, and the issue of the universal rights of humans comes to the fore for the first time at level 5 (as it first did in history with the Enlightenment). ([Location 913](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=913)) - Self-esteem needs emerge at this level because a 3rd-person perspective means the individual can stand back from themselves, so to speak, and form an objective opinion about themselves— ([Location 929](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=929)) - The worldcentric individual emerges out of the ethnocentric conformist, and within the worldcentric background, the self wants its own high self-recognition, self-identity, self-esteem, and self-achievement. So this stage is also marked by the emergence of the drive toward excellence, accomplishment, merit, achievement, and progress. ([Location 935](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=935)) - The “post” in “postmodernism” means that this next higher level, like all successively higher levels, brought a new and higher perspective into being: where orange rational modernity introduced a 3rd-person perspective, this new stage—known variously as pluralistic, postmodern, relativistic, sensitive, individualistic, multicultural (and given the color green)—came with the emergence of a 4th-person perspective: the capacity to reflect on, and criticize, 3rd-person perspectives, including science, leading to a multitude of different or pluralistic views. (And “pluralism”—the belief in many different but equally important approaches to reality—can be taken to its limit, where it becomes “relativism”: the belief that there are only multiple approaches, with absolutely no universal or globally unified approaches, no “Big Pictures” that are true for everybody, just local, culturally constructed beliefs. ([Location 1145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1145)) - postmodernism became especially identified with aggressive critiques of any “isms” or “Big Pictures” of any type—critiques of capitalism, of Marxism, of fundamentalism, racism, sexism, patriarchalism, ageism, speciesism, and so on—and this was the basis of everything from the civil rights movement to handicapped parking spaces to hate crime legislation.) ([Location 1160](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1160)) - The standard NGO, with its postmodern relativistic values, believes that no culture is superior or better than another; and yet it goes into countries where it is working, and assumes that its own values are in some ways better than or superior to those of the culture it is helping—otherwise, why would it consider what it is doing as being “help,” if it didn’t have something more valuable to offer than what those receiving the “help” presently have? Thus many NGOs (with their level-6 values) go to work in a developing country whose major values are still at tribal red power (level 3) or traditional mythic fundamentalism (level 4) and attempt to impose their level-6 pluralistic values on the culture and population, and the whole endeavor backfires badly. ([Location 1174](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1174)) - For the time being, let’s look at green pluralism or relativism (and start tracking these to see if any apply to you). First of all, it believes that there is nothing superior anywhere in the world; what’s true for a particular person is true for that person—you can’t go in and impose your beliefs on somebody, claiming that you are right and they are wrong. You have your truth, they have theirs, and that’s it. Likewise, all ranking, all hierarchies, are strictly taboo. What’s required are partnership societies, where all people—and especially all men and all women—are looked at equally. Even excellence and achievement—the hallmarks of the previous modern stage—are looked at suspiciously by green postmodernism, because that means you are making judgments about somebody being better or higher or more achieved than somebody else, and that is nothing but oppression. Meetings are considered a success, not if any conclusion is reached, but if everybody gets a chance to share their feelings; this tends to take forever, and few actual actions are taken. All previous approaches to a topic are considered essentially wrong, driven by oppression or patriarchy or sexism or racism or colonialism or imperialism, and green pluralism will redo all of this and do it right, based on pure equality, partnerships, and no ranking or hierarchical judging. ([Location 1199](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1199)) - And the new approach is not based on abstract rationality or logic, but is based on feelings and comes straight from the heart, not the head; thinking is out, feeling is in. The heart is the basis of all real truth, and it must be “embodied”—anchored in feelings, not thoughts. All the previous approaches are “old paradigm,” and this new approach is “new paradigm.” The old paradigm is rational, analytic, divisive, Newtonian-Cartesian, egocentric, Earth-hating and Earth-denying, sexist, racist, colonialist, built on rampant commercialism and profit/greed; whereas the new paradigm is congruent with the “new” physics (meaning quantum physics, which is actually a century old now), is eco-centric instead of egocentric; is built on partnership, caring, and loving-kindness, is holistic and organic (not fragmented and mechanistic), is congruent with systems theory; is feminist, Gaia-focused, Earth-centered, and glocal-oriented (meaning global and local). ([Location 1208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1208)) - Gilligan became famous for proposing, in her book In a Different Voice, that men and women reason differently—men with an emphasis on hierarchy and autonomy, and women with an emphasis on relationship and belonging. Feminists who believed that all hierarchies are bad jumped on Gilligan’s argument that men—not women—think hierarchically, and used it to blame men (and the patriarchy) for most of humanity’s ills. But these feminists, and postmodernists in general, studiously ignored a second point that Gilligan made in that book: namely, that both men and women develop through the same 4 basic hierarchical stages (her term). In women, Gilligan named these hierarchical levels as follows: stage 1, or selfish—the woman cares only for herself (this is our egocentric); stage 2, or care—the woman extends care from only herself to groups (our ethnocentric); stage 3, or universal care—the woman extends care to all humans, regardless of race, color, sex, or creed (our worldcentric); and stage 4, which she called integrated—where women and men integrate the other sex’s attitude (our integral). ([Location 1280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1280)) - Sri Aurobindo—who was trained in Western modes of evolutionary thinking and thus had at least some sense of structure-stages— ([Location 1468](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1468)) - For Alfred North Whitehead, for example, each moment comes to be as a “subject of experience” or a “drop of experience.” And as the new subject comes into being, it “prehends” (his term, which basically means “touches” or “feels”) the previous subject, thus making it object. The prehension, or “touching,” of the previous moment by this present moment constitutes the past’s influence on the present. Obviously, if you touch and embrace an object, that object will affect you—and that’s what happens as each moment touches and embraces (prehends) the previous moment (which itself had touched and embraced its previous moment, and so on indefinitely). This is the “causative” or “determining” moment of the past on the present. If this were all that there was, this would be a purely deterministic, mechanistic universe, with no creativity, novelty, or innovation possible (except for fluke “mutations” or aberrations). But, according to Whitehead (and I agree), each moment, in addition to prehending the previous moment, adds its own bit of novelty or newness or creativity. It not only includes the past, it transcends it. It not only prehends the previous subject (making it object of the new subject), it adds a bit of emergent novelty to the new subject, thus introducing a measure of freedom and newness into the sequence. Now, if the holons thus unfolding have very little depth (such as atoms), then the degree of novelty they can add is very small, and their temporal unfolding will appear very much deterministic, or ruled by strict cause-and-effect. But, Whitehead adds, “little novelty” is not the same as “no novelty.” After all, atoms managed to give rise, eventually, to molecules, a very creative advance indeed. And molecules managed an astonishing leap of creativity—at one point, dozens of very complex molecules managed to find themselves in the same vicinity; they joined together, a cell wall dropped around them, and out of their own inherent creative drive, life appeared! An actual living cell out of molecules! The point is that creative novelty is built into the very fabric of the universe—and that creative novelty is what ultimately drives evolution (this creative drive has been known as everything from “self-organization” to “Eros” to “Love” to “Spirit-in-action”). This is why evolution was already operating beginning with the Big Bang itself and moving forward—it did not have to wait for the emergence of life, sexuality, nucleic acids, random mutations, and natural selection in order to get started. Those were just some particular stages in this ongoing transcend-and-include, or “self-transcendence through self-organization,” which was at the heart of evolution itself all the way back to the very first moments of the Big Bang. (And that is why some people think of evolution as “Spirit-in-action,” which I happen to think is a fine idea. In any event, Eros or creativity or evolution was operating in the universe from the very beginning, or there never… ([Location 1485](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1485)) - But the stages of Waking Up—once you reach them—are utterly obvious. They’re less common, but only because the paths of reaching them are less common. And they’re less common because they’re fairly hard, they take work, they take dedication, they take effort and usually several years to achieve. ([Location 1619](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1619)) - 4 or 5 major stages of unfolding: usually following a preliminary awakening experience, they move through a gross purification, a subtle illumination, a dark night or infinite abyss, and a unity consciousness—or gross, subtle, causal, unity. ([Location 1645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1645)) - Part of the reason that there is such a similarity among these Paths of Waking Up might have to do with the fact that many of the natural states of consciousness that are entered with pure awareness have roots in direct biological brain-wave patterns, and those are similar wherever humans appear— ([Location 1664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1664)) - the 5 or so major states of awareness—gross/waking, subtle/dreaming, causal/deep sleep, empty witnessing, and pure nondual “unity”)— ([Location 1689](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1689)) - as you take up a mindfulness-type of meditation, and you are presently identified with, say, the waking state, is that you will start to slowly become aware during dreaming states as well. Your Wakefulness will shift from just the waking into the dream state also. You will start to become conscious and aware of the subtle realm and all its secrets. ([Location 1755](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1755)) - “eternal” or “timeless” does not mean everlasting time—it means a moment without time, a timeless Now or Present. ([Location 1782](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1782)) - But then there is the Self that is doing the seeing, the Self that is doing the describing, the actual Seer, the Observing Self, the Witness. This Self does the seeing, but cannot itself be seen—no more than an eye could see itself or a tongue could taste itself. ([Location 1824](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1824)) - And we saw that the real meaning of “eternity” is not everlasting time, but a moment free of time, the timeless Now-moment or pure Present. ([Location 1861](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1861)) - But what happens, at each stage of Growing Up, is that you will identify your small, conventional, finite, subjective self with the particular level or hidden map of that stage. And the Witness will then look through that small self and its map at the world, using that map to interpret what it sees. ([Location 1918](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=1918)) - new and updated definition of Enlightenment that we have been using: being one with both the highest state and the highest structure that have evolved at that time in history. ([Location 2121](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2121)) - Thus, according to our second major point, with the institutionalization of a “conveyor belt,” the main tenets of any particular Tradition are set forth in the language and terms of each of the major structure-stages of spiritual Growing Up, so that somebody could start their young, childhood spiritual development with a magical presentation of their religion; then, during middle school, move to a mythic presentation; then in adolescence, a rational perspective; then—if they continue growing—in young adulthood, a pluralistic view; and finally, if growth fully matures, an integral version of their Tradition. Combined with that Tradition’s path of Waking Up, this would involve the most complete, the most inclusive, the most all-pervading spiritual involvement a human could possibly attain—the highest state and the highest structure made available to date by evolution, by Spirit-in-action—and mark the utter fulfillment of the very best and very brightest for which any sentient being might possibly hope. ([Location 2128](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2128)) - Whitehead used to speak of two fundamental aspects of Spirit: the Primordial Nature of Spirit (timeless and unchanging: our “Emptiness”) and the Consequent Nature of Spirit (the sum total of the results or products of Spirit-in-action or Eros or evolution, as they ceaselessly, with novelty and creativity, emerge in the ongoing stream of Becoming). ([Location 2160](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2160)) - The world that we are aware of—in either the pure Witness state or the ultimate nondual Unity state—is a world where every single thing and event that arises is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, of Spirit, of the Great Perfection. ([Location 2180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2180)) - Like any painting, there are light areas and dark areas, hills and valleys, highs and lows, brights and dulls, areas that are conventionally judged “good” and areas that appear “bad”—pleasure and pain, good and evil, better and worse, higher and lower—but the point is, all of them are necessary, are required, in order for the Total Painting to exist at all. If we got rid of all dark areas, shades, and shadows, the Painting would simply cease to exist—it would just be areas of pure white and all light, looking rather like a snowstorm in the Arctic, with no discernible features at all. Rather, every single thing and event that is arising is an intrinsic, necessary part of this great, vast, Total Painting of All That Is. ([Location 2183](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2183)) - “Awareness” is open, free, totally relaxed, inclusive of All that arises, and living in the timeless Now—Present to Present to Present. “Attention,” by contrast, is focused, contracted, never aware of the Total Painting but always narrowly directed to just a particular feature of it, living in the temporal present moving from the past to the future, unable to let go and fall into the ever-present Now, always constricting consciousness to the narrow-slit present existing in between the past and the future, focused on one item at a time by one item at a time by one item at a time. ([Location 2232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2232)) - Supermind = Big Mind + All Form that has evolved to date. ([Location 2317](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2317)) - Supermind, then—or, to repeat, at the least, 2nd-tier Integral for today’s actual evolution—is the holon with the most depth (and least span) in the entire Kosmos, the most significant (and least fundamental) holon in the whole wide world, containing more levels of being than any other existing object or phenomenon anywhere in the known universe. ([Location 2341](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2341)) - That is your own experience or reaction; you are not accusing the other person of judgmentalism as an absolute fact, or blaming them with an objective “it” statement; you are simply expressing your “I” experience, which you own as your feeling, and you communicate it to your partner instead of calling him or her names. Clearly, “I” is distinct from “it.” “In my experience you seem X” is entirely different from “You are X.” ([Location 2617](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2617)) - views. If one is right, the other is wrong—and they both think they’re right. They’ve confused their “I” and “it” perspectives (they’ve confused these two major quadrants). Whenever that happens, there is almost always a conflict in the “we” space as the two “I’s” clash over their versions of the truth, or each one’s “it,” both thinking they have the right version—the objectively correct “it” version. But actually, they are each just stating their own “I” preference, choice, or taste. ([Location 2624](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2624)) - So be mindful of this “we.” Start with your own “I,” and do several minutes of mindfulness on this “I” (this might flip you into your “I-I” or Witness, but that’s fine). Then shift into an awareness of this “we.” Notice that you don’t directly control it, not the way you control your own body. This “we,” indeed, has a life of its own. Every time the two of you come together, the thicker this “we” becomes, getting richer and richer with history, shared events, shared concerns, shared solutions—and several ongoing conflicts as you both try and get your “I” spaces aligned. ([Location 2803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=2803)) - Cognitive intelligence. Correctly understood, cognitive intelligence is not a dry, abstract, analytic capacity; it is the conscious capacity to take perspectives—1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, 4th person, and so on—each is a more complex, more conscious, more whole, more unified level of awareness ([Location 3082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3082)) - “Morals” are different from “ethics.” Ethics involve the rules and regulations that any particular culture or group takes to be the way things should be done. It focuses on what is good according to that culture. Morals, on the other hand, focus not just on what is correct for a particular group, but what is correct according to universal principles—not what is good, but what is right. ([Location 3140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3140)) - “Ethics,” again, is confined to the Lower Left quadrant—it’s a reading of your culture’s contextual background (a validity claim of appropriateness). “Morals” is a judgment not of “appropriateness” or “goodness” but of “rightness,” which can be made in relation to phenomena found, not just in the Lower Left, but in any quadrant—including, for example, “What is the morally right thing to do in relation to the Lower Right ecological system we find ourselves in?” or “What is the morally right thing to do with this lost stash of money that I found [in the Upper Right]?” or “What is the right thing to do with this idea that I’m claiming as my own [in the Upper Left] but that was discovered by somebody else?” ([Location 3158](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3158)) - The Enneagram is a good example of the increased focus that a good typology can bring to the topic. According to that system, the human personality comes in 9 basic types. The names alone give an indication of how different these types are from each other: (1) perfectionist, (2) giver, (3) performer, (4) romantic, (5) observer, (6) questioner, (7) epicure, (8) protector, (9) mediator. And because those are types, then if a person is fundamentally, say, type 5, then they will be a type 5 at magenta, red, amber, orange, green, and so on. The different types are rarely as determining as, say, different levels or states, but they can have a profound influence; and especially if one is entering a particular area involving a great deal of detail, including a typology or two can definitely help. ([Location 3556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3556)) - One Taste ([Location 3651](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3651)) - the vast number of those who are at the Integral level do not know that they are at the Integral level—they haven’t yet self-identified, they don’t know that they are coming from a real level of human development, that the thoughts and ideas that they are having are not crazy or weird or sick (as people around them keep telling them they are). They usually went through a period of trying to convince their friends and associates of how important some of these ideas seemed, but after having not much luck with that, they tended to give up, and return to flying at the altitude that most of their associates are flying at (usually orange or green). “When in 1st-tier Rome, fly 1st tier. . . ([Location 3792](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3792)) - They are skillful, intelligently driven disciplines and qualities that are said to be either the means of attaining Enlightenment or the actual expressions of an always-already Enlightened mind. The 6 paramitas are (1) generosity, or caring giving; (2) moral discipline; (3) patience, or acceptance; (4) will, or joyful diligence; (5) meditative concentration; and (6) nondual awareness. To these 6 the Vajrayana adds (7) skillful means, (8) aspiration, (9) strength, and (10) primordial wisdom, or primordial awareness. ([Location 3890](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01BMYXTU0&location=3890))