“Integral Spirituality” is Ken Wilber’s novel, published in 2006. It presents “a startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world.” It contains many pictures and diagrams to reinforce the given information, along with highlighting in bold an italicizing certain passages.
In the book, Wilber discusses the different stages of awareness (egocentric, ethnocentric, world-centric), and the problem with thinking that all non-rational states are spiritual and all rational states are non-spiritual. He also discusses how spirituality is often associated with “high lines,” intelligence, religious or peak experiences, and types of attitudes (emphasizing how, in conversation, we often confuse what ‘type’ of spirituality we are talking about). One’s egocentric views often disguise themselves as world-centric, producing a type of spirituality masked with narcissism.
Wilber also discusses concepts like horizontal and vertical enlightenment, the individual in relation to the group, the shadow psyche, and the ‘dark night’ of the soul and self.
In essence, through this book Wilber managed to combine both Eastern and Western principles of spirituality and science.
Quotes:
“The greater the consciousness, the more complex the system housing it.”
There are all sorts of different states of consciousness, including meditative states (induced by yoga, contemplative prayer, meditation and so on), altered states (such as drug-induced), and a variety of peak experiences, many of which can be triggered by intense experiences like making love, walking in nature, or listening to exquisite music.”
“The problem with the Great Wisdom Traditions is that, heavy with metaphysics, their incredibly important truths could not easily withstand the critiques of either modernity or postmodernity.”
“To experience a oneness with all phenomena in the gross-waking state is a typical nature mysticism. To experience a oneness with all phenomena in the subtle-dream state is a typical deity mysticism. To experience a oneness with all phenomena (or lack thereof) in the causal-unmanifest state is a typical formless mysticism. To experience a oneness with all phenomena arising in gross, subtle and causal states is a typical non-duel mysticism.”
“Enlightenment is being one with half of spirit.”
A ‘dark night’ in general represents a passing through, or letting go, of attachment or addiction to a particular realm (gross, subtle, causal), and/or sometimes the pain that comes from peak-experiencing a higher state that is already free of the particular addiction, and then being plunged back into the lower state, generating a profound sense of loss and suffering.
“Any aspect of the psyche- or of reality, for that matter- can become dysfunctional.”
“Hindus and Buddhists and Christians follow the same general stages (gross to subtle to causal), but one of them experiences these stages as ‘absolute self,’ one as ‘no-self,’ and one as ‘Godhead,’ depending on the different texts, culture and interpretations given the experiences.”
“Cognitive development is defined as an increase in the number of others with whom you can identify and an increase in the number of perspectives you can take.
“…Those things in the world that most disturb and upset me about others are actually my own shadow qualities…”
Wilber also quotes Tibetan masters like Traleg Rinpoche:
If we are going to practice Buddhist meditation, we need to have a comprehensive view of our human nature, our place in the scheme of things, and our relationship to the world in which we live and to our fellow sentient beings.
