great integral awakening

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[henry]

several us will be listening to the great integral awakening series and i thought we might have a thread to talk about it  . the miracle of heartmind is that we won't be having this discussion on the old IN forum ....Steven, i'm blocked from reading your reply today on gaia.....Anyway,maybe this won't be too painful ....pandora henry

[jimtzu]

at least they're starting of with M.Murphy..  he likes to meander and go off on tangents and doesn't sound like a commercial for the lastest "Integral-WOW" product 

[Nickeson]

My Report

On the Great Awakening

First Event

I kinda dozed off about 6 or 7 minutes into Murphy's pitch, but M took notes until she got up to watch the progress of a wind driven grass fire headed toward the house. That woke me and I went down to check on the neighbor's horses just as they were being led to safety a little ahead of the flames. Then I drug water hoses down to the exposed corner of the garden and watched as the fire burned itself out a few yards short of the fence. So I had a pretty good time, all in all, except for little smoke inhalation.

10-4
S

[henry]

pitch? puleeszz. we may hear some advertising in the next 13 weeks but not from mr. Murphy.... mr. Steven trying to rattle my chain with his birthday coming up. Glad you and M and the horses are OK.   ...henryananda

[jimtzu]

the hard part was getting TO M.Murphys talk.  i didn't hear too much that was new, but then i've been enlightened for lifetimes 

[Francis]

"A new kind of consciousness is available and it will change the world. Follow us, we know the way.."

What an utter load of twaddle. 

For those of us who have been on a spiritual path for a while, there often arises a strong desire to try to make a meaningful difference in the world around us. But this outwardly directed urge to service is often dampened when we remember Gandhi’s famous saying that “we must become the change we want to see in the world,” which inevitably leads back to the task of working on ourselves. Nevertheless, those who have managed to make a positive difference in the world (like Gandhi) have always intrigued me. I’ve always had a passionate interest in the times in history that were marked by dramatic advances. This led me to closely study these periods in which significant cultural evolution—improvement of the human condition—had occurred, searching for clues as to what had actually triggered and sustained this growth.
      As I look back on it now, I can see that this interest in cultural evolution has been a major theme in my life; it has determined most of my life choices from an early age. Through my study of history, I initially concluded that art was one of the primary levers of social progress. Art had marked the advances of the Renaissance, and in my own lifetime, music had played a significant role in producing cultural evolution. Thus for a long time I concentrated on studying art movements and their role in changing the way people felt and thought about the world. But not only did I study the art movements of the past, I also tried to anticipate the art movements of the future. I experimented with new forms of art, I tried to discern the tenets of an emerging new aesthetic—I even started a company with the intention of participating in what seemed at the time to be a significant new art movement. Although this anticipated art movement has yet to fully materialize, these efforts weren’t in vain. The company is going strong. But more importantly, this search for the causes of cultural evolution led me to the discovery of a new way of seeing things best described as integral philosophy.
      Integral philosophy is a new understanding of how the influences of evolution affect the development of consciousness and culture. Although aspects of it have been around for a long time, it’s only since the late 1990s that the essential elements of integral philosophy have been coming together into a coherent whole. The power of this new philosophy becomes self-evident to those who use it because it actually raises their consciousness. It’s a philosophy of evolution that literally causes evolution. This book, however, is not so much about a philosophy as it is about the results of this philosophy—the newly emerging worldview known as integral consciousness.
      In this book I argue that a new, historically significant “level” of consciousness and culture is emerging in our time, and that the emergence of this new integral worldview is in many ways the evolutionary equivalent of the emergence of the modernist worldview during the period known as the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. And just as the rise of modernism changed the world forever, we can expect similar (but more benign) progress from the rise of integralism. “Integral consciousness” is a new perspective on the world that expands our perception of reality and provides fresh motivation to make a positive difference. This new way of seeing and living arises from an enlarged set of values framed by an expanded understanding of cultural evolution.
      As we will come to see, when we participate in integral consciousness, when we make meaning from the perspective of the integral worldview and adopt its values, we become endowed with the power to make significant progress in the improvement of both our selves and conditions in our world. Integral consciousness thus promises to produce exactly the kind of evolution that the world needs most. As we consider what form a successful future might take, we begin to realize that without some kind of positive cultural evolution, the future of humanity looks pretty bleak. However, as I will argue in the pages ahead, history shows that cultural evolution has indeed occurred in the past, and the same forces that caused evolution then can thus be reasonably expected to continue into the future. And now with integral philosophy we are provided with a clearer view of how future cultural evolution is likely to unfold and how we can participate in it directly.

      Integral philosophy has emerged out of the various efforts of 20th century thinkers to fashion a new philosophy that comes to terms with the staggering facts of evolution itself. Among these philosophers of evolution, two of the most significant are Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) and Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). However, despite the enduring contributions of Teilhard and Whitehead, integral philosophy is much more than just a contemporary understanding of these great thinkers. Because these philosophers worked in the first half of the 20th century, they were not informed by the more recent insights of systems science and developmental psychology (nor were they informed by each other). Moreover, although the work of Teilhard and Whitehead was far ahead of its time, it came before the significant cultural evolution produced by the emergence of postmodernism. The word “postmodern,” of course, is a battleground of meaning. But I use this term to describe the overall stage of cultural evolution that has arisen in the last fifty years as an alternative to modernism (which I also define and describe in the pages ahead). As we will see, integral philosophy could not have appeared in its current form before now; its power rests on a host of important insights and developments that have only recently emerged. Today, the most significant proponent of integral philosophy is Ken Wilber, but important contributions are also being made by others, including Don Beck. A summary of the ideas of these writers, together with an overview of the broader lineage of integral philosophy, is found in chapter 7 entitled: The Founders of Integral Philosophy.

/snip/
Chapter Four
The Integral Stage of Consciousness
Within progressive culture as a whole there is a deep yearning for some kind of large-scale social awakening. Many are stirred by the poverty of values they see all around them and long for some kind of breakthrough that will pull us out of what often seems like a hopeless mess. Yet many of those who call for such a great awakening vaguely envision it as a kind of miraculous revolution, a crises-induced change of heart that will bring us all together through a new vision of our essential unity within the greater earth community. Such sentimental hopes for global transformation are indeed charming, but hardly realistic. While it is realistic to recognize that some kind of significant transcendence is now required, it is not realistic to assume that a revolutionary change would produce the kind of sustainable advance that our civilization requires. To be sustainable, the transformation we seek must come about as a result of evolution, not revolution. However, when we look closely and carefully at the historical phenomenon of cultural evolution through the lens of integral philosophy, we can begin to see what can be expected next. The cultural evolution that we need will come to us as it has always come before: in the form of a new values-based worldview forged through the interpenetration of increasing problems and newly perceived opportunities.
      Although postmodernism’s contribution to humanity’s evolution is not yet complete, there are many signs that it is reaching maturity as a level of culture. So as we look beyond postmodernism in anticipation of the bound-to-be-thrilling history of the 21st century, we can begin to see the contours of the next emerging wave of consciousness and culture. The integral worldview, which we now explore in detail, represents a transcendence of postmodernism because it does what postmodernism cannot: it fully recognizes the legitimacy and evolutionary necessity of all previous stages of development. Integral consciousness thus grows up by reaching down. It produces evolution more effectively because it understands evolution more thoroughly. And as we come to better appreciate the subtle habits and methods of evolution—its gentle persuasion, and the way that it grows from within itself, always building on what came before—we can begin to see how the degree of our transcendence is determined by the scope of our inclusion.
      Like each of the previously arising, historically significant worldviews, integral consciousness is emerging in response to what might be characterized as a “push” and a “pull.” As we’ve seen, the push toward a new stage of consciousness comes from the pressure of unsatisfactory life conditions and the accumulating pathologies of previously existing stages. The pull arises from the attraction power of a new stage’s fresh values—new truth, new beauty, and new ideals of morality that always accompany the birth of a new historical level. So first we’ll look at the push toward integral consciousness, and then we’ll examine the pull of the values of the integral worldview.

~ http://www.stevemcintosh.com/Excerpts_CH1_Introduction.php

There's no proof that any of this works. The people espousing it are more mixed up than the rest of us. At least that's my impression. Does anyone here vouch for any of these quacks? Let's get into the details. I live for this stuff...

[Jana]

I think it might be good for people who like to hold hands and listen to other people telling them what to do.

Still it beats fundamentalist Christianity etc...
But you know in 500 years there are going to have to be anti-integral activists to heal the bias and twistedness of integral thought...personally I find it a whitewashed version of the patriarchial religions bought into the scientific age...it is an interim step to the spirituality of sovereignty.

[Francis]

My  main objection is HOW they want to improve things. Who says they know best? Who decides what's best when other's disagree? No improvement is possible, in my view. There is no objective way to decide 'overall benefit'

Everything is perfect. Anyone who denies this fact is not enlightened. It's that simple.

[Lawrence]

“My  main objection is HOW they want to improve things.”

…If everything is perfect, what’s to object to?

“Who says they know best?”

…If everything is perfect, even their own insistence on knowing what is best, must be perfect.

“Who decides what's best when other's disagree?”

…If ‘Everything is perfect,’ what’s to disagree? If there is disagreement –it too must be perfect in its disagreement... If 'you' -personally- disagree -what happens to your 'perfect' philosophy?...

“No improvement is possible, in my view.”

…Because everything is perfect, there's nothing to improve on, right?

“There is no objective way to decide 'overall benefit.'”

…In a perfect world, objectivity -because it contrasts with 'subjectivity'- would only seem to fragment the perfection, no?

“Everything is perfect. Anyone who denies this fact is not enlightened. It's that simple.”

…Perfectly simple, Mr. Buddha.

…Can I call you Mr. Buddha? Or would Francis be more perfect?

… Sorry to introduce myself in such a manner, but this esoteric philosophy that suggests ‘it’s all good,’ gets my Jone's up probably almost as much as these Integral folks -and their philosophy- get at your's. BTW, I have truly enjoyed yours and Jana's exchanges, for the longest time though. Thank you for that much anyway…

[Nickeson]

Lawrence,

1. "Perfect" does not necessarily mean "good." Perfect can mean an instance that cannot in any way be bettered.

2. If one squints just right it can be revealed that the only extant instance is the universal pattern of energy that is in process...now!

3. Because there is no alternative to that (except in some dippy notion of alternate universes), it cannot be bettered. It is perfect.

4. If one's quaintly Modern imagination puts an overlay of structure on the current process of energy, one that imagines a future, then what you write is correct.

5. It gets my jones up every time I run across someone who isn't thinking beyond their politics.

[Francis]

Gee Larry, you’ve really put me on the spot.  Don’t be sorry, my post was deliberately provocative. I was half hoping to flush out a lurker. Oh, and you can call me ‘Bud’, for short.

You’re correct to point out that I’ve put myself in a logical bind. Let’s see if I can wiggle out.

Certainly, as Steve indicates, it is possible to be perfectly misguided. It’s also possible to be in the midst of perfection and not know it. Tolle talks about ‘sitting on a box of gold’ and Ganjali says we each have a ‘diamond’ in our pocket.

I’m saying it is ok to be unaware of this fabulous birthright, they’re saying that it’s not ok.  Macintosh: The degree of our transcendence is [indicated] by the scope of our inclusion. As Whitman says: There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now,Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

That’s my story. I intend to defend it. 

Papa said “Son you’ll never get far. I’ll tell you the reason if you want to know. 'Cause there isn’t really very far to go.”

[Francis]

Still it beats fundamentalist Christianity etc...
But you know in 500 years there are going to have to be anti-integral activists to heal the bias and twistedness of integral thought...personally I find it a whitewashed version of the patriarchial religions bought into the scientific age...it is an interim step to the spirituality of sovereignty

Yes, I get the sense that the integral movement is hostile with respect to complacency, not unlike other forms of fundamentalism. The hostility is veiled however. On the other hand, I'm failing to honor the hostility that I sense. I'm hostile with respect to the hostility, not so much because I cannot abide hostility, it's more the fact that it's hidden from view and denied. At the bottom of this thing, there's a big bucket of hate with the word 'love' written on it, that's what I'm sensing.

For example Macintosh says: "For those of us who have been on a spiritual path for a while, there often arises a strong desire to try to make a meaningful difference in the world around us."

This impulse arises from an aversion, disguised as a longing.  If we embrace it, we become haters.

[marianthi]

Happy solstice to you all!

I was taken by a particular angle in Michael Murphy´s  interview where he implied that development of Siddhis, para-normal powers, was to be part of our evolution. 

Most of us have had a touch of those like when uncanny synchronicities, precognitions, or true visions have come our way.  But I think Murphy implied that we could go the full monty with such possibilities including abilities such as: levitation, invisibility, bi-location, prophesy, flying (without any vehicle), telepathy, mind-reading, etc.  He also mentioned that Yoga (particularly Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras), gives dire warning against using these powers when developed,  whereas Tantra accepts their use when appropriate.  Something which he appears to like and recommend.
 
Personal experience tells me that ethical control of Siddhis - both in the teachings on how to develop them and their subsequent application - could be difficult and the whole input could turn our lives upside down like few things could.    Harry Potter and his friends on any sidewalk?

What´s your take on this, good people?

As Stonehenge glows packed with druid presence,  hugs,

M.

[henry]

maybe the answer is Moksha (liberation) before siddhis. gifts of the spirit are called charisms in the christian tradition,adornments sufi etc. Grace rocks. let me be ready pretty soon

[Nickeson]

Frances wrote: I’m saying it is ok to be unaware of this fabulous birthright, they’re saying that it’s not ok.

I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear that Andrew Cohen, in a lecture snippet that came as one of the freebies of a freebie for signing up for the Great Awakening,
declared that we have a moral obligation to evolve.

How about that, Pilgrims?