This week on Integral Spiritual Center....
Three Truths - Ken Wilber
Perspectives and the Shadow - Diane Hamilton
Three Truths
That Spirit—and our understanding of it—evolves is one of the most important insights of Integral theory. Spiritual traditions long ago recognized two important truths: the relative reality that we conventionally experience, and the absolute
reality that spiritual practice points out to us. A third truth was
subsequently realized: the relative and the absolute are—as Ken Wilber
entitled his famous 1997 journal—of One Taste.
As Ken points out in this week’s featured audio, the
old analogy of the rope and the snake is instructive here. A rope is
coiled in the corner of a dark room; to all who behold it, it appears a
snake, constantly haunting their experience. But for some, a light
goes on (literally, enlightenment) and they see that what appeared as a
snake is in truth, a rope, subsequently freeing them from the fear that
had gripped them. And at some point another light goes on, a deeper
enlightenment: both the rope and the snake are Brahman, Ground,
unqualifiable Spirit, arising in the space that I AM. And with that
arising, and from that realization, comes the recognition of a solemn,
awesome responsibility: to come back, with boundless compassion, for all beings.
Why, as a Bodhisattva, would you want to embrace the world of form? For two reasons, suggests Ken. First, because you promised to!
This coming back is precisely the essence of the Bodhisattva vow,
coming back endlessly from the freedom you have realized until all
beings are free.
Second, in awakening beyond what Tibetans call Turiya, “the fourth state,” the texture of Turiyatita
overflows, and compassion naturally arises, like waves coming from a
fountain flowing over. That compassion compels you—and in some sense,
gives you no choice other than—to come back. In the words of the great
Sufi Master Hafiz,
Only that Illumined One who keeps seducing the formless into form had the charm to win my heart.
What does integral add to the Three Truths?
First, it helps us to see that the Upper-Left quadrant can actually be
seen from the inside (zone-#1) and from the outside (zone-#2). The
great traditions mapped zone-#1 with extraordinary precision. The
modern West, taking a zone-#2 approach unknown to antiquity, helps us
to understand that the world of form is much more correctly understood
as a world of perspectives—a kaleidoscope of perspectives.
The perspective of every sentient being is unique—exquisitely
so—informed by different worldviews, different self-senses, different
values, different needs. Simply put, in integral terms, as one gains
altitude, one expands the ability to take perspectives. With red and
lower altitudes comes the capacity to take a 1st-person perspective;
from amber, a 2nd-person perspective; and so on, until the emergence of
a 6th-person perspective at turquoise, and a 7th-person perspective
from the higher altitudes.
Philosophically, says Ken, Spirit is waking up and
looking at itself, on the way to its own Supermind—and higher. And
Spirit perceives itself through none other than form. The only pure
perception is that of Emptiness itself; once the manifest realm arises,
every subsequent perception happens through a sentient being—and
therefore, through a perspective.
The Integral injunction is to wake up. Wake
up to your own Divinity, in the footsteps of the Masters of old. And
wake up to perspectives that infinitely deepen, until, in some sense,
every subject has become object, and you are Absolute Subjectivity, and
as you look out, you do so through God’s eyes. Wake up to the infinite
freedom of the deepest state, and to the infinite fullness of the
highest stage. And then, come back for all beings, keeping your promise, and honoring the compassion that arises in your overflowing.
Perspectives and the Shadow (video)