Integral Connectedness

 

One of the pitfalls that confounds many of us as we navigate the transition from a Sensitive-Pluralistic level of adult development (Green altitude) into Integral (Teal altitude) is an over-emphasis on differentiation. Growing out of Green, we transcend the often excessive postmodern relativism, where all perspectives are heaped together with equal value in a heart-felt, but naive embrace, and we find the developmental stages revealed at Integral refreshing and insightful.  In our enthusiasm for this newfound map, we can get swept into separating perspectives, dividing up views into developmental layers, categorizing, generalizing, and fragmenting human beingness. We can narrow our focus to only the differences between us and inadvertently lose that which unifies, that which connect us all.

 

This focus on differentiation almost always annoys and provokes Green. And perhaps rightfully so. The sensitivity for connection and unity-in-diversity that is learned at the Green stage of development is a profound capacity, and for some, fundamental in their self-identity. When someone at Integral-Teal begins talking about stages of development and stratifying people’s worldviews, this feels like hierarchical violence to sensitive, early-holistic Green. Furthermore, Integral-Teal can be quite zealous in its rebellion against Green, wielding the AQAL map sharply, cutting up that which was whole. Sensing this, Green backs away from Integral, like stumbling backward from a sword slashing demon.  Sure it’s projection on Green’s part,  but we can also be more skillful as we talk integral.

 

Furthermore, as we live at Teal and then Turquoise, we experience new depths of connection that are more profound and far more inclusive than what was known at Sensitive Green. In fact, the very scale that seems to fragment and divide, once digested, is a key that unlocks a more authentic connectedness. In Green, we are championing sensitive, pluralistic values, yet at the same time trying to change other culture’s not-so-sensitive ways. Wanting to give everyone a voice, yet wanting them to see and speak from an egalitarian, consensus building view. Green’s hubris (and all first 6 stages of development) is thinking they know better than all other perspectives: a uni-perspectival myopia. Green’s covert judgement about other’s inferior values fundamentally thwarts Green’s ability to connect to anyone other than Green. 

 

At Integral-Teal we become fully aperspectival. We no longer grip our perspective so tightly. We can meet others at whatever level of development they are expressing, be it ego-centric, ethnocentric, or worldcentric. We can listen for healthy expression at any level and authentically connect there. At Integral Teal our compassion reaches many more than at Green. We no longer have a pluralistic values filter governing what we are willing to approve of and connect with. In this way, embodying the AQAL map and its stage conception opens up deeper and wider connections.

 

The other distinctions of the Integral AQAL map (quadrants, lines, types, stages & states) radically enrich our view of human being-in-the-world. The more we understand, the more we can connect, once we have embodied the distinctions. Just knowing the Integral jargon, the map, the categories, is only a naive beginning. At this point the intellectual knowledge can isolate and separate, especially in Green’s view. The evolving adult student of Integral struggles with the transcend and include process and must engage their inner shadow, the damage their self-system took on during development, the maladaptive beliefs and unexamined attitudes they have accumulated. Untying these knots of human trauma, miss-learning and personal stupidity from an integral perspective opens a deep relaxation in the bodymind and a consequent loosening of the fundamental contraction into separation. With this transformative leap to Integral, we become aware of amazing new levels of connection with all sentient beings. 

 

This new level of openness and connection in Integral (and beyond) also opens us to Universal Mind even more, as we no longer grasp quite so tightly to our small ego’s perspective. One of the treasures of realized aperspectival development is the correlative acceleration of spiritual evolution. More and more of our sense of self is now centered in the transcendent, who we know ourselves to be is the absolutely clear and radiant connection fundamental in all beings. And as we practice resting in this state of awareness, the oneness of all that is becomes our experience, not a belief or a slogan, but a clear and stable perception. 

 

Connection simply is. It is not something we do or think about. It is the air we breath. Experiencing this state of awareness has been available to men and women at all levels of development throughout history. Sages and saints have written about it. Their experience, completely authentic; their description, stage specific. Any recounting of an experience is interpretation, and all interpretations are governed by our developmental and cultural perspective. The more sophisticated the perspective (higher stages of development), the more nuanced, accurate and powerful the transmission. 

 

But  in our day to day life, as we deepen our integral awareness, increasing compassion dictates our being mindful of our already-always connection. We see when we contract from  excessively pluralistic Green, and relax back into connection. And this is not some sappy, indulgent, boundry-less fantasy embrace.  We can remain open and connected, even while  moving with angry egocentric Red. Our awareness-in-connection, in fact, allows us to know and move and behave appropriate to the situation with much more skill and ease than any boundary we create while contracting and separating ourselves. Resting in the connection, with relaxed awareness, we can respond instantly and we do not add fuel to any conflict; we are, simply, a catalyst for harmony.

 

Steve Self

Durango, Co  12/2007

I have written about The Secret, as even-handedly as I could, in an article available here.

After you have perused the article, continue...

With all the hype and nonsense, even the Integral Institute indirectly supported this commercial con by listing a pro-secret web site in it's monthly Holons... They implied that The Secret was somehow 2nd tier... Well, if one is already coming from 2nd tier one might see value in some of the material in The Secret, but for the most part this is not happening. People in high Orange and Green are regressing to magical Magenta and indulging fairy tale wishcraft. Also, much of what is recounted as "proof" are simple random changes in the environment, benign coincidental developments and arbitrary serendipitous occurances.

The damage here is that modern people need to understand the nature of human subjectivity and how deeply it alters perception and interpretation, as well as, the nature of statistical randomness.

One place to begin to confront this is presented well in the TED video.

1)  In 1981 I took mushrooms for the first of few times, in Muir Woods park in Marin County. With a very light dose, we continued to hike up one of the trails into the hills. Much laughter and mirth ensued. After a spacious afternoon, we began hiking down the trail in the dusk, "trailing clouds of wonder." I was alone with a blanket over my shoulders, moving smoothly in the coming night, thru the almost audible forest, very open and very calm. One turn of the trail revealed the lights of a city in a valley off in the distance. I stopped and gazed into the vista, into the future, and was washed away by a somatic-emotional wave of very relaxed presence. In that moment, I knew that no matter what happened in the future, in life, I would be present through it and everything would be okay. This was a deep turning point, as before this I had been living within a constant doubt about myself. While this moment did not guarantee my easy survival or a lack of problems or crises, it  allowed me to relax into a vast all-rightness. I felt backed up by an emptiness, a content-less flow that I had never been aware of (yet as I see it now, had always been present) and that has always been available after that moment, evolving and deepening as I grew. This was my ground when I nearly died of a staph infection that crossed into my brain. Even in the pain and amidst the emergency room crew, I was calm. It was never easy, just not completely overwhelming.

2)  I was lucky the day I free-soloed a 5.9 slab climb in Yosemite, back in 1975, called Marginal... Very good flow in the warm late afternoon shadows, 4 pitches, never a break in the relaxed awareness, yet totally present for the climbing.  I was indulgent and stupid the day I was free-soloing on Swan Slab, fingers sliding in and out of worn pin scars, and I fell to the ground breaking my tib-fib such that my lower foot was 90 degrees bent where it was never meant to be. This was a strong lesson that I should never do anything that puts my life on the line in order to shift my awareness out of a funk. Idiot! Get out of the funk first before risking neck. I was lucky I was not dead.

3) The most interesting outdoors experience I've had was blindfolded, on a moonless night - pitch black - abandoned in a high alpine forest. My instructions were to listen for a drum in the distance and find my way to it without peeking, speaking or hurting myself. This was in 1997... There were small creeks, steep rocky slopes, dense forests and minor swamps to be carefully traversed. As I started feeling my way to the faint thumping, I began to sense shapes and subtle changes in the way the environment felt, all guiding my turns, slow steps and ducks under leaning trees. Awareness grew and grew in a very natural way. I turned away from creeks, walked around steep obstacles (as reported later) and never bumped my head into low branches. There were no dramatic changes, but when I finally made it to the guy drumming and removed my blindfold, I was shocked at how deeply calm and fully alive, ki amazingly exteded, I was. An awesome experience.

4) In the 1980s I worked directly with Werner Erhard as a personal aide for 3+ years. One of the dimensions of this job had to do with managing the existence of tasks, projects and commitments. He worked with us daily, and somewhat brutally, to instill in us a dedication to existence and completion. We learned never to trust our memory to store or accurately recall anything. All items must be written down (captured) and must be contained within a reliable system (an existence system).  Otherwise, no matter how sincere we might be, we had no integrity without attending to these issues in this way. Upon getting something done, we learned to look into what else needed to happen to fulfill the completion of the item: who needed to know, what needed to be documented, what other tasks were born of the completion, and was there anything else that needed a specific commitment... Eventually we were reliable for working in this manner.  All this training made my work much easier later in life. It is not that I constantly do all this today, but I have the perspective to use as needed. Like part of being a Free and Fully Functioning Integrated Human Being (ala Genpo Roshi's BigMind process). While I value the skill and perspective, the tuition we paid in pain and stress was incommensurate. Another lesson: respect your sense of things and people, and say no when needed.

5) In the early 70s I had a paper route and I would listen to a Bay Area radio station while I folded the papers, in the cold dark of pre-dawn. I didn't like having to get up so early, but there I was.  One morning the radio show was Alan Watts speaking or reading or being interviewed. I don't remember which. All I remember was one phrase that has stayed with me all these years, "...Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown..." I had a vivid image of a lone man, maybe robed, walking thru the mountains in the fog or low clouds, unhurried,  just being aware. So simple, so iconic. Many years later, I realized I've been that man... In those clouds... Walking simply... No particular agenda, destination or mental fixation. Simply "whereabouts unknown."  Being that man is both empty-simple and wondrous, as the fog wets my coat and the shale crunches under foot, and the universe turns.