CURRENT STATUS AND POTENTIAL TRAPS

THE STATE OF THE INTEGRAL ENTERPRISE: PART I

Roger Walsh
October 7th, 2009
(https://integrallife.com/integral-post/state-integral-enterprise-part-i)
ABSTRACT Although integral ideas are spreading rapidly, the integral vision remains the province of what
sociologists deem a cognitive minority. Extending and optimizing Integral Theorys impact will require many
things from practitioners, especially high-quality work and becoming gnostic intermediaries. Ways in which
integral ideas can enhance practitioners own lives are surveyed, and the article then turns to potential traps that
await both individuals and integral groups (e.g., egocentric misuse of integral ideas, developmental complacency,
spiritual materialism, metapathologies and metadefenses, and failure to engage the mainstream). Antidotes to
these traps are suggested so they may be transformed from stopping points into stepping stones.
KEYWORDS: AQAL model; gnostic intermediary; human development; Integral Theory; shadow
These issues include the state of the movement, the challenges to making inroads in the mainstream, and the
contributions integral practitioners might make. To do this I will explore the following ideas:
The current status of the integral enterprise
How we can optimize the impact of integral ideas
Applying integral ideas to ones own life
Traps that await us: potential shadows and shortcoming
In part two of this article I will focus on:
Crucial ideas to communicate to the culture
Integral contributions to help our troubled world

CURRENT STATUS
The integral vision was rst described in Ken Wilbers Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (2000). The vision and ideas have
now spread worldwide, and are being applied in an ever-growing range of elds (e.g., ecology, coaching,
sociology, philosophy, psychology, and many more). However, integral still remains very much a minority
perspective. At the present time, an integral vision is the province of what sociologist Peter Berger called a
cognitive minority (1963, p. 18). He dened a cognitive minority as a group of people whose view of the world
differs signicantly from the one generally taken for granted in their society a group formed around a body of
deviant knowledge.
This raises an important question: Is integral destined to remain the province of a cognitive minority? Possibly,
because deep appreciation of its more mature forms requires several unusual understandings and capacities.
These include, for example:
Recognizing adult development stages
Developing to postconventional, second-tier stages oneself
Using integral, especially integral-aperspectival, cognition
Openness to big pictures and complexity
Fortunately, a cognitive minority can constitute a leading edge that attracts larger segments of society.

OPTIMIZING INTEGRAL IDEAS
Optimizing integral contributions will require that we cultivate our individual and collective learning, maturation,
mastery, and effectiveness. Obviously this is a large topic and a lifelong challenge/opportunity that has at least
two key requirements: careful work and becoming a gnostic intermediary.
Careful Work. Ensuring the positive reception of integral ideasand to facilitate entry into the mainstream
worldrequires high-quality work. Rigorous thinking, precise analysis, careful experiments, and successful
applications of Integral Theory will be crucial.
Gnostic Intermediaries. The term gnostic intermediaries was used by Carl Jung (1966) to refer to Richard Wilhelm,
the translator of the I Ching. Jung suggested that Wilhelm embodied the wisdom of the I Ching so deeply that he
was able to transmit not only its ideas, but also the deeper underlying spirit of Chinese culture. Jung does not
seem to have developed the concept further. However, I dene a gnostic intermediary as a person who is able to
effectively translate and transmit wisdom from one culture or community to another. This
translation/transmission can be cross-cultural (e.g., Taoist wisdom to Western culture) or intra-cultural (e.g.,
Christian contemplative wisdommuch of which is couched in archaic language and conceptsto contemporary
Christian communities). What does this require? Well, it seems to require three tasks and three corresponding
capacities.
First, one must imbibe and become the wisdom oneself, because while one can have knowledge, one
must be wise. This, of course, is no small task. In fact, when one talks about profound spiritual wisdom, it can
easily take a lifetime.

The second requirement of gnostic intermediaries is linguistic and conceptual competence. They must understand
the language and conceptual system of the people and culture to whom they wish to communicate.

The third requirement is translational. They must be able to translate the wisdom from the wisdom-bearing
culture into the language and conceptual system of the recipient culture, in such as way as to create an Aha!
experience of understanding. Of course, this requires recognizing and speaking to the developmental level of the
recipients, and better still, speaking in ways that can be appreciated at multiple levels.
The higher reaches of the integral vision draw on the accumulated wisdom of the worlds spiritual traditions.
Appreciating and communicating this postconventional (or better, transconventional) spiritual wisdom requires
that integral practitioners be adequate to it (Schumacher, 1977). I will discuss the concept of adequacy further
below.

APPLYING INTEGRAL IDEAS
It is one thing to apply integral ideas to the world; it is another to apply them to ourselves. How can this be
done?
1: Study. Becoming familiar with integral ideas is essential for effective application of the integral vision to both
life and work. Study allows one to see and think more integrally, and to use and apply integral frameworks more
effectively. Of course, mastery is a lifelong process.
2: Inspiration. Studying integral ideas can inspire us. This inspiration will take multiple forms, and nd its unique
expression in each of us. However, one kind may be crucial for all of us. This is the inspiration rst to work to
mature towards the higher states and stages that the integral vision describes, and second to serve this same
maturation in others.
3: Growth disciplines . Another general kind of inspiration is to adopt growth disciplines. We can usefully draw
from an array of practices, including psychotherapy, relationship and group work, somatic practices, service, and
of course spiritual/contemplative disciplines. Possible practices include the full array of traditional disciplines,
contemporary therapies, and Integral Life Practice (Wilber et al., 2008).
4: Self-assessment. We can also use Integral Theory to foster self-assessment. For example, we can use integral
ideas as an Integral Operating System (IOS) to recognize the quadrant and perspective we are looking from, and to
help recognize perspectives and possibilities we have been overlooking.
5: Developmental assessment. Another possibility, at least theoretically, is to use the integral map to assess our
own level of development. For example, it is sometimes suggested that we can use the integral psychograph to
map our own developmental levels on various developmental lines. However, this is a slippery claim because self-
assessment is difcult, the shadow subtle, and self-deception impressive. We all have erroneous self-images,
potent defenses, and numerous blind spots, and these make self-assessment challenging.
6: Growth-oriented relationships. We need honest feedback from other people (second-person perspectives) to
compensate for our own blind spots. After all, it is far easier to see other peoples limitations than our own, and
2000 years ago Jesus famously asked, Why do you see the speck in your neighbors eye, but do not notice the log
in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3). Therefore, relationships aimed at recognizing and releasing psychological,
spiritual, and developmental limitations are invaluable. There is no substitute for dialogue and feedback.
Of course, there are many ways to obtain feedback. These include authentic relationships, as well as formal
disciplines such as psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching. However, perhaps the supreme methods for
obtaining second-person feedback and coaching are intimate relationships and marriage. At their best, intimate
relationships can be superb antidotes to self-deception and self-importance. Intimate partners see and suffer
from our foibles more than anyone else, which is why one of the best tests of enlightenment may be that of the
psychiatrist Arthur Deikman who suggests, Ask the spouse.
Romantic relationships are not alone in offering feedback and learning opportunities. In fact, any relationship
between people committed to honest dialogue and mutual learning can be psychologically and spiritually
enhancing. One of the most effective ways to transform a relationship into a powerful facilitator of growth is to
make an explicit agreement to use the relationship for mutual learning and awakening. Once the agreement is
made, you have given each other permission to tell the truth, give feedback, and do whatever best serves mutual
learning, healing, growth, and awakening. At their best, spiritual communities are based on such agreements.
Usually, these agreements are implicit, but can become more powerful if made explicit. The spiritual discipline
that focuses most centrally and elegantly on peer relationships as the key to healing and liberation is the curiously
titled but spiritually profound, A Course in Miracles (Anonymous, 2007).
Growth-oriented relationships and commitments can also be extended beyond explicitly spiritual communities.
William Torbert (2004), for example, has done this in creating communities of inquiry in schools, business, and
friendship circles. I suspect that if integrally informed people come together to form couples, groups, and
communities based on explicitly growth-oriented relationships, then the benets to everyone will be enormous.

POTENTIAL SHADOWS AND SHORTCOMINGS
The integral model contains both horizontal and vertical dimensions. Horizontal dimensions include personality
types and the four quadrants. Vertical dimensions include developmental lines and their levels (enduring stage
structures) and state-stages (the developmental sequence of transitory altered states). These vertical dimensions
hold crucial implications both for understanding integral ideas and for the potential traps that may await us.
One of my concerns is that as integral ideas become popular, the integral model may be collapsed into a kind of
theoretical atland. Why? Because the horizontal dimensions of quadrants and types can be apprehended by
people who do not mature to postconventional cognition and experience. Therefore, these horizontal dimensions
may become the focal point of popular thinking and applications. This can be done while largely ignoring or
misunderstanding the higher reaches of vertical dimensions such as spiritual experiences and stages. I therefore
suspect that most of the major traps that await us will be developmental.
There are two kinds of developmental traps: general and stage-specic. By general traps, I mean those that are
common across multiple stages. By stage-specic traps, I mean those that are largely specic to one or a few
developmental stages. Each perspective and developmental stage probably has its own specic pitfalls, and a
major task in coming years will be to map these and create a cartography of specic traps. Each of us could
probably create our own list of traps, but the following may be especially important:
General Traps of Multiple Stages
Devaluing Ones Previous Stage. There seems to be an automatic developmental tendency to devalue ones
previous perspective and stage, as well as those people and institutions still centered in it. This is probably most
obvious in adolescents. However, integral practitioners are not immune. For integral practitioners, a common trap
is devaluing the previous stages of individualistic ego development and the green meme of value development, as
well as those people and institutions that espouse them. This raises an intriguing question: What are the optimal
attitudes to cultivate and hold towards people at different developmental stages? Perhaps they are the
following:
Care and compassion for those at earlier stages, because these are the people we may be privileged to help and
serve.
Love for those at the same stage, because these are our peers, our community, and our sangha.
Gratitude to those at later stages, because these are our teachers, role models, and way nders.
Egocentric Misuse of Ones New Stage or Perspective. This is the tendency to misuse a new stage or perspective in
order to bolster ones ego and esteem. At the least this produces a sense of specialness. At worst, it spawns
ination and grandiosity centered on ideas such as, I am an integralist (i.e., using integral ideas to strengthen
ones ego rather than to transcend ones ego). At spiritual levels, this becomes spiritual materialismthe
tendency to use spiritual insights and experiences for egocentric purposes (Trungpa, 1975). In my experience, this
trap is very hard to avoid. Many a time I have had valuable insights or experiences, and in the next moment found
myself fantasizing about how I could use them for fame and recognition. Condemnation of the process and ones
self is no help. Rather, compassion for ones own humanness, and the necessary limitations that go with it, are
useful healing responses.
Overestimating Ones New Stage or Perspective. Whereas the myth of the given assumes that there is a world
simply awaiting our discovery, more sophisticated philosophies recognize that perception is a creation. What is
crucial to recognize is that all perceptions reect perspectives, and all perspectives are partial and selective. Each
perspective both reveals and conceals, claries and distorts. However, perspectives and perceptions do not clearly
reveal their own limitations. Therefore, it is easy to fall into the trap of overestimating ones new perspectives and
developmental stages. In general, this takes the form of what might be called perspectival overreach or
perspectival reductionism. Here we seek to over-apply the novel perspective or idea, over-interpret phenomena
with it, and reduce all phenomena to its purview. At its worst, this becomes the assumption that one has found
The Truth, instead of a truth. The story of Isaac Newton provides a useful antidote:
Newton is widely regarded as the greatest scientist who ever lived. In 1665, at the age of 23, he was a student at
Cambridge University when an epidemic of plague closed the campus. Newton ed to his familys farm. Working
alone, in a mere 18 months, he revolutionized four distinct elds of science. He revolutionized mathematics with
his discovery of calculus, overturned optics by discovering the spectrum of light, transformed physics with initial
insights into gravity, and rebirthed astronomy with his initial understanding of planetary motion.
On returning to Cambridge, Newton showed his newfound handiwork to his professor, Isaac Barrow. Barrow
thereafter did something that has likely never happened before in the entire history of academia, and likely will
never happen again. He resigned his chair in favor of Newton. Of course, Newton was urged to publish his
ndings, and did in fact write a paper on optics. To his dismay, this resulted in 12 letters of response.
Consequently, he vowed never to publish again, saying he had sacriced my peace, a matter of real substance
(Ferris, 1988, p. 18). Despite his resistance, he was urged to publish his further work. At age 45 he produced the
extraordinary Principia Mathematica, of which it is said by common consent, the Principiais the greatest
scientic book ever written (Hacker, 1991, p. 319). Yet at the end of his life Newton concluded:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the
seashore, and diverting myself in now and then nding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst
the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. (Brewster, 2001, p. 412).
Likewise, the biographer of the remarkable 20th century Indian philosopher-sage, Sri Aurobindo, explained the
difculty of communicating Aurobindos path and perspective as follows:
This is why it is so dificult to explain the path to one who has not tried; he will see only his point of view of today
or rather the loss of his point of view. And yet, if we only knew how each loss of ones viewpoint is a progress and
how life changes when one passes from the stage of the closed truth to the stage of the open trutha truth like
life itself, too great to be trapped by points of view, because it embraces every point of view and sees the utility of
each thing at every stage of an innite development; a truth great enough to deny itself and pass endlessly into a
higher truth. (Satprem, 1968, p. 122)
In short, all perspectives and perceptions are partial, and all the insights and understandings they offer are
provisional.
Elective Segregation: Failure to Engage the Mainstream. One of the gifts of our mobile technological culture is the
ability to be and communicate with like-minded people. It is also one of the contemporary cultural traps. The
danger is that in being able to nd like-minded people, we can fall into a kind of elective segregation, in which we
communicate almost exclusively with those who share our views. What sociologists nd is that this selective
communication tends to reinforce peoples more extreme viewpoints, whereas mixing and communicating with
more diverse populations tends to moderate extreme views.
Talking with fellow believers is fun, stimulating, and easy. And, of course, it can be valuable. But to the extent
we only talk with fellow believersin this case, with fellow integral practitionersthen we are at risk. We are less
likely to connect with divergent viewpoints and mainstream disciplines. Without extensive communication with
the mainstream, integral ideas will not be challenged and honed by criticism (and neither will we) and will not
permeate the mainstream culture nor produce the changes that are so desperately needed.
Transpersonal Traps: Elevationism and Spiritual Bypass. Elevationism refers to the inappropriate interpreting or
categorizing of a phenomenon in terms of a level or stage higher than the one to which it belongs. When this
occurs with clinical difculties, then problems and pathologies are interpreted (or rationalized) as higher level
(often spiritual) processes. For example, depression may be interpreted as the recognition of existential
dissatisfaction or Buddhist dukkha, while anxiety may be viewed as existential angst or yogic kundalini. While it
may be appealing to fancy one is suffering from raried spiritual issues, this can get in the way of seeking and
accepting appropriate help (including medication, where appropriate). And to complicate matters, basic
pathology and spiritual issues can coexist. In such cases, spiritually, transpersonally, and integrally informed
counselors who are well grounded in conventional skillscan be invaluable. Spiritual bypass is the use of
spirituality to deny or avoid psychological issues. For example, a person who is uncomfortable with intimacy may
avoid relationships while rationalizing this as seeking solitude in order to live a more spiritual life.
Settling for Merely Intellectual Understanding. Spiritual traditions emphasize that their most important goals are
to help people experience and stabilize higher states and stages. Unfortunately, it is much easier to read and talk
about transpersonal states and stages than it is to directly experience them. However, without direct experience,
transpersonal insights and ideas remain what Immanuel Kant called empty concepts. The extent to which we
can truly understand and appreciate transpersonal concepts depends on the extent we have had the experiences
to which the concepts refer.
These limitations on understanding transpersonal experiences, especially advanced ones, without direct personal
experience can be conceived of in several ways. They can be considered in terms of state-specicknowledge
and cross-state transfer (Tart, 2001): developmentally, as stage-specic understanding; epistemologically, as the
necessity of opening the eye of contemplation (Wilber, 1996); and linguistically, as the difculty of
understanding the signier (word or term) without having experienced the relevant signied experience (Wilber,
2001). Without such direct experience, the deeper meaning of these conceptsor what philosophers call higher
grades of signicancewill escape us. But what is most problematic is this: We will not recognize that their real
meaning and signicance are escaping us. Perhaps the best way of illustrating this is with a story:
Imagine an animal nding a novel object. This object is dark and light, has an unfamiliar smell, and tastes terrible.
Needless to say, the animal spits it out in disgust. Now imagine that a woman from an illiterate tribe discovers the
object. It is very curious indeedit opens and closes, is soft and exible, and has squiggly marks on it. Being a
smart woman, she soon makes a wonderful discovery: the object is superb for starting res. Now imagine that a
Western child nds the object. He immediately recognizes it as a book. However, because he cannot read, he has
no clue what it says. Then the same object is picked up by a contemporary adult. She begins reading it, but quickly
throws it away because she cannot understand it, and it makes bizarre claims about nature of reality. Then the
book is picked up by a physicist. He opens it and is awed when he recognizes that it describes a profound new
understanding of quantum physics. Finally, the book is found by a woman who is both a physicist and
contemplative. She also appreciates the brilliant quantum physics and delights in the new understandings it
offers, while simultaneously recognizing the limited ability of all words and concepts to grasp the fundamental
nature of reality.
This simple story offers several crucial insights. First, each animal, child and person was correct in their
perception. It was non-nutritious, it was useful for starting res, it was a bookeveryones perception and
understanding were correct. However, their perception and understanding were also partial, and contained no
information that the object held deeper meanings (higher grades of signicance) waiting to be understood. The
crucial point is that we can completely overlook higher grades of signicance, yet be completely unaware that we
are missing them. In his widely inuential critique of scientic materialism, A Guide for the Perplexed, the British
economist E. F. Schumacher (1977) described this dilemma:
When the level of the knower is not adequate to the level [or grade of signicance+ of the object of knowledge,
the result is not factual error but something much more serious; an inadequate and impoverished view of reality.
(p. 42).
The challenging implication is this: without direct spiritual, transpersonal experience, we may be like the child or
ordinary adult looking at the book. We may read about spiritual concepts, we may hear of trans-personal ideas,
and we may even appreciate some of the beauty of the higher reaches of the integral model. However, without
direct experience of the requisite higher states and stages, their full signicance escapes us. And trickiest of all, we
will not realize that they are escaping us. Intellectual apprehension alone is not enough in the transpersonal and
spiritual domains. Intellectual understanding is important, but is also insufcient.
Just how important this issue is can be judged from the warnings of both Muhammad and the Buddha. Both of
them used animal metaphors to describe religious scholars who do not engage in spiritual disciplines. The Buddha
described such people as herders of another persons cattle, while Muhammad likened a mere scholar to an ass
carrying a load of books. So how do we foster direct transpersonal experiences and spiritual insights, and thereby
make ourselves better able to appreciate the spiritual heights of Integral Theory? Answer: by engaging in spiritual
practices and related practices as fully as we can. This is a key requirement for anyone who aspires to truly
understand and communicate the integral vision.
Complacency and Stagnation: The Failure to Keep Growing. Developmental complacency is settling for the
comforts of ones current stage of development rather than continuing to develop. The cost is stagnation. In
general, at each higher state and stage, pains tend to decrease, pleasures to increase, powers become more
potent, and seductions become sweeter. Needless to say, the temptations of complacency can increase with
development. At any stage we can cash in our winnings and use our new-found abilities and gifts for personal
and material gains. Problems arise, however, when one uses abilities primarily for ego gratication, rather than
for further ego transcendence and for service to others. This is an ancient trap which is vividly portrayed in
Buddhism as the god realm. Here the gods luxuriate in sensory pleasures that come from their previous good
deeds, but forget all sense of higher purpose. We can see contemporary examples of this ancient myth among
people who acquire wealth, luxuriate in it, and fall into an existential and spiritual stupor.
Yoga describes these traps as the seduction of the siddhis. Siddhis are the extraordinary powers that can result
from spiritual disciplines, and while they can be very benecial, they can also be very seductive. The guiding
principle of yoga is moksha before siddhi, where moksha means enlightenment or liberation. The principle is
that one should seek liberation before seeking siddhis. Why? First, because liberation is far more important.
Second, because spiritual maturity provides a partial safeguard against the seductions and misuse of the siddhis,
and hopefully guarantees that, if siddhis are acquired, they will be used wisely and well.
THE DRIVE TO DEVELOPMENT
One of the most profound, important, and recurrent ndings of spiritual disciplines, contemporary
psychotherapy, and psychedelic research is that the mind contains an inherent developmental drive towards
growth. Given appropriate conditions and practices, the mind tends to be self-healing, self-actualizing, self-
transcending, and self-liberating (Maslow, 1971; Walsh & Grob, 2005). This drive has been given many names.
Abraham Maslow described it as self-actualization; Carl Jung as the individuation urge. Stanislav Grof
describes holotropism, which is the growth orientation towards wholeness. Ken Wilber uses the term Eros, while
the Dzogchen tradition has long spoken of self-liberation. These concepts are not identical, but they do overlap.
Together they point to a crucial capacity and dynamic of mind: a developmental drive towards nding and
fullling the minds potentials.
Metapathologies. Maslow made the key point that the failure to fulll an innate drive of any kind can result in
pathology, and that the failure to fulll the drive to grow is no exception. He went further to describe an array of
metapathologiessubtle forms of suffering that come at higher developmental levels such as alienation,
anomie, and existential malaise (the loss of meaning and purpose). Maslow suggested that the best place to begin
mapping metapathologies would be through a survey of spiritual disciplines, and Wilber continued this mapping
in Transformations of Consciousness (Wilber et al., 1986). The tricky thing about metapathologies that result from
failures of growth is that they usually go unrecognized since our culture has no understanding of them. Moreover,
psychologists are only just beginning to plumb the higher reaches of maturity, and sophisticated spiritual ideas are
little known.
As a result, metapathologies may well run rampant in contemporary afuent cultures. However, they are
probably usually misunderstood and misdiagnosed. Therefore, they are likely to be mistreated by distraction,
sedation, or yet another plunge into lower order gratications in the never-ending hope that this time, nally,
these substitute gratications will provide full and permanent satisfaction. One of the most important and painful
questions of our time is, How much of the psychological and spiritual suffering in contemporary afuent cultures
is due to unrecognized failures of growth?
Metadefenses. Although the mind has an innate Eros, or drive towards growth and wholeness, it also has active
defenses against it. Moreover, these defenses extend into transpersonal and spiritual states and stages. I learned
this from my own experience years ago while listening to a talk by Ram Dass, one of the earliest pioneers to
investigate Eastern spiritual disciplines and to introduce them to the West. I went to hear him give a talk on the
yogic chakra system, which at that time was almost completely new to me. As he described the fourth chakra, I
thought, Hmm, thats interesting! As he described the fth, I thought, Oh, wow! And yet when he nished, I
could not remember what he had just said. Then he began to describe the sixth chakra. The next thing I remember
was being woken up by the snores of the person next to me. Looking around at the audience of several hundred
people I discovered that a signicant number of them, like me, had fallen asleep. This was surely not because Ram
Dass was dull; he was a superb speaker.
It took me several days to understand the signicance of that experience. Until then I had assumed growth to
higher states simply involved making novel, previously unknown discoveries. But my falling asleep suggested that
it meant overcoming defenses. To defend against something, however, you must at least partly recognize and
understand it. So at some level, I recognized aspects of the higher states Ram Dass described, and also recognized
that they represented a threat to my current identify and belief system. This implies that perhaps we actively
defend against knowing and growing to higher states and stages. We suffer, it seems, from what might be called a
terror of transcendence. Of course, I was not the rst person to come to this kind of conclusion. Later, I would
learn that Robert Desoille described what he called the repression of the sublime, while Andreas Angyal
described the evasion of growth. Maslow went as far as to coin a new term, the Jonah complexthe fear of
ones own greatness. He pointed out that we fear our best as well as our worst even though in different
ways. (1971, p. 35). Maslow also warned that if you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being,
then I warn you that you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life (1971, p. 36).
So overcoming complacency and avoiding stagnation require two things: the rst requirement is that we not
settle for the seductions that come with growth, and the second is that we recognize and overcome active
metadefenses against growth. Complacency can be a doubly seductive trap with nondual teachings. These
traditions emphasize, for example, the nonduality of samsara and nirvana and also always already: the
realization that we always already are that which we seek. These teachings can be interpreted as implying that no
spiritual practice or work is necessary. This is a tricky trap that results in movements such as beat Zen or talking
Advaita, both of which use nondual arguments to justify not practicing traditional spiritual disciplines (Samraj,
2006). However, traditional spiritual disciplines regard listening to talks as only a preliminary step. For example, in
Vedanta, sravana (listening to spiritual ideas) is traditionally followed bymanana (reection on the ideas) and
then nididhyasana (meditation on the ideas) (Samraj, 2006). This is similar to the sequence in Christian
contemplation of lectio (reading), meditatio (re ection), andcontemplatio (direct intuitive apprehension).
Moreover, a close look at the texts of both Zen and Advaita Vedanta makes clear that they both assume the need
for rigorous, multidimensional disciplines.
If you have fully realized that samsara and nirvana are one, and you continually rest in ever-present awareness
throughout day and night, then by all means continue to rest in that awareness. However, if, like me, these
nondual perspectives are only occasional recognitions, then there is a need for practice. Of course, that practice
can be infused by an appreciation of nonduality. The Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism summarizes this
well with its recommendation to climb up from below while swooping down from above.
Of course, complacency and stagnation are not problems for individuals alone. They can be potential traps for
whole communities. Spiritual communities at their best can be catalysts of mutual growth. However, as too many
blaring headlines point out, they can also be seedbeds of destructive tendencies, and can encourage mutual self-
congratulation and resulting complacency.
Possible Antidotes to Stagnation
Awareness , specically awareness of the recurrent seduction of complacency. Awareness is healing, and the
awareness that complacency will likely remain a recurrent seduction throughout (spiritual) life may provide a
partial safeguard.
Growth-oriented relationships. Relationships dedicated to growth can constitute one of the best bulwarks against
stagnation. Such relationships can consist of couples, groups, or communities.
Teachers. Teachers offer a further antidote. Those who have progressed further on the path, and are available to
share their discoveries and warn against pitfalls, can be invaluable. Of course, this is not to say that relationships
with teachers, as with relationships of any kind, are immune to traps. However, it is to say that, at their best,
relationships with teachers can be wonderfully benecial. Let your house be a meeting place for the wise,
advises Jewish wisdom. In the words of the Buddha, The wise man tells you/ Where you have fallen/ And where
you yet may fall Find friends who love the truth (Byrom, 1993, p. 31).
Regular, sustained practice. This may be one of the most important of all antidotes. I have seen some very
impressive friends and colleagues fall into traps of stagnation, depression, and addiction. One of the common
factors seemed to be that they had given up their daily spiritual practice. Yet continuity of practice is one of the
most recurrent refrains across spiritual traditions, as for example, in the advice of the Koran, Be constant in
prayer (Cleary, 1993, p. 9).

CONCLUSION
I have emphasized the dangers or traps on the integral path. However, traps can also have their benets. Traps
can be stopping points or stepping stones, depending on whether they remain unrecognized and denied, or are
recognized and faced. If unrecognized, these traps may constitute aspects of our individual and collective integral
shadows. Then they will exact their toll, and result in pathology, stagnation, and ineffectiveness. If recognized,
however, these same traps become opportunities for learning, healing, and growth. As the Kulrnava tantra
states, By what *people+ fall by that they rise (Satprem, 1968, p.78). Recognizing these traps, and making sure
we use them to rise, will be a recurring challenge personally and for the integral movement as a whole.

NOTES
I have tried to preserve the conversational nature of my keynote presentation at the Integral Theory Conference
(August 7-10, 2008, Pleasant Hill, CA), upon which this article is based. Details and citations have been added
where appropriate.

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Milky Way. New York, NY: Anchor/Doubleday.
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CT: Grolier.
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reality teachings. Middletown, CA: The Dawn Horse Press.
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Schumacher, E. (1977). A guide for the perplexed. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
Tart, C. (2001). States of consciousness (2nd ed.). New York, NY: iUniverse.
Torbert, W., Cook-Greuter, S., Foldy, E., & Gauthier, A. (2004). Action inquiry: The secret of timely and
transforming leadership. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
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Walsh, R., & Grob, C. (Eds.). (2005). Higher wisdom: Eminent elders explore the continuing impact of psychedelics.
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Wilber, K., Engler, J., & Brown, D. (Eds.). (1986). Transformations of consciousness: Conventional and
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ROGER WALSH, M.D., Ph.D., is professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology, and adjunct professor of
religious studies at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include integral studies,
contemplative disciplines, psychologies and philosophies, religion and spirituality, the nature of psychological
health and well-being, and the psychological roots of contemporary global crises. He has edited the books Paths
Beyond Ego (1993, Tarcher) and Higher Wisdom (2005, State University of New York Press) and has authored
several books, including The World of Shamanism (2007, Llewellyn Publications) and Essential Spirituality: The
Seven Central Practices (2000, Wiley).

KEY IDEAS FOR A WORLD AT RISK
THE STATE OF THE INTEGRAL ENTERPRISE: PART II
Roger Walsh
October 22nd, 2009
5


ABSTRACT Given the extraordinary threats facing the world, this article explores the question, How can
integral studies and integral practitioners contribute most effectively to help resolve the great challenges of our
time? This article first explores integral ideas that might be particularly helpful, and then investigates ways in
which individual integral practitioners can identify and optimize their own contributions.
KEYWORDS: awakening service; Integral Theory; global threats; karma yoga; perspectives
Correspondence: Roger Walsh, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California Medical
School
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. General Omar Bradley
Those of us in the integral movement assume that integral ideas can make significant contributions to the culture,
and that part of our work is to implement these ideas and to make them better known.
1
Of course, each of us
prioritizes these ideas differently. Let me encourage you to stop for a moment to do an experiential exercise. Take
a moment to relax, breathe, or meditate. Then ask yourself, What integral ideas would most benefit our culture
and our world? Allow your mind to bring to awareness those ideas that you feel are most important to
communicate to the larger culture. What follows are seven ideas, actually hypotheses, that seem especially
important:
An integral vision is possible, applicable, and valuable. Much could be said about this idea. However, since
everyone actively involved in the integral movement bases a significant part of their life on this assumption, we
can probably take it as a common tenet of the community.
All perceptions reflect perspectives, and all perspectives are partial and selective. Perception both reveals
and conceals, clarifies and obscures. What is crucial to recognize is that all perceptions reflect perspectives, and all
perspectives are selective. When this goes unrecognized, problems ensue. For example, to the extent that any
perception is not recognized as perspectivaland therefore as partial, selective, and relativeit produces a
corresponding experience, worldview, and self-sense that will be assumed to be accurate and correct, and
therefore will likely:
Go unquestioned
Result in self-deception and delusion
Create suffering
Reinforce ones current belief system and worldview
Serve a defensive legitimizing function (Wilber, 2005) (i.e., it will serve to defend and preserve the current self-
sense and developmental level rather than foster further development)
Integral practitioners therefore seek to:
Recognize unhelpful, partial perspectives, in both themselves and others
Release and integrate these limited, harmful perspectives into more encompassing (contextually wider and
developmentally deeper) metaperspectives and integral-aperspectivalism
Beyond this, integral practitioners will eventually aim to dissolve all perspectives into pure awareness. From this
pure awareness, perspectives can then reemerge. As they reemerge, helpful metaperspectives can be intuitively
selected, with their partial perspectival nature recognized, their integral-aperspectival potentials realized, and
their spiritual ground remembered (Walsh, 2006)
Integral disciplines therefore can be seen as perspectival therapies and integral practitioners as perspectival
therapists. Since understanding and working with perspectives are so central to integral practices (Walsh, 2006;
Wilber, 2006a), some key concepts are listed below:
Perspectival fixation is the inability to disidentify from a specific perspective and to assume other perspectives
Reframing is the conscious choice of alternate perspectives. This is a technique used in psychotherapy, and the
release from the straightjacket of a fixed, pathogenic perspective by movement to a healthier perspective can be
extremely therapeutic (Katz, 2005)
Metareframing is the conscious choice of a metaperspective
Metaperspectivea higher order perspective
Perspectival range is an index of the number of perspectives available
Perspectival fluidity is an index of the capacity to move between perspectives
Perspectival skillfulness is an index of the capacity to recognize and select beneficial perspectives
Adult development is possible. This, too, is an axiom of the integral community. However, it is far from
axiomatic in the larger culture. In fact, it is rarely recognized, and the costs are enormous. If the possibility of adult
development becomes widely appreciated, it could transform the culture. Its implications are remarkable, and
three in particular stand out.
Normality is not the ceiling of human possibilities. What we have taken to be normality is looking more and
more like an unnecessary form of collective developmental arrest. Almost half a century ago, Abraham Maslow
wrote, What we call normal in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so
widely spread that we dont even recognize it ordinarily (1968, p. 16). Our psychological maturation has been
stunted, yet we do not recognize this stunting. Worse, our psychological maturation has been stunted in
part because we do not recognize this stunting.

Further levels of development are possible. In our culture, higher reaches of mental maturation remain almost
entirely unrecognized. This means that our highest possibilities, our greatest potentials, our possible powers, go
unrecognized and unrealized. This has always been a tragedy for individuals. However, at the present time it is
also a social and global tragedy. Obviously we need all the maturity we can muster to deal with our contemporary
social and global crises. In addition, it is painfully clear that the mental demands of modern life are increasing, and
that consequently we often find ourselves in over our own heads, as the developmental psychologist Robert
Kegan (1994) titled one of his books. Clearly, we need all our inner resources if we are to ensure the preservation
of our species and our planet. The fact that we do not recognize some of the most valuable of these resources
puts us all at risk.

Many contemporary cultural conflicts appear to reflect clashes between different developmental
levels.Examples are painfully easy to find. We need only think of the clashes between, for example, red and blue
states in the United States, and between fundamentalism and contemporary Western culture in the world at
large. In part, these appear to represent clashes between conventional and postconventional communities and
their premodern, modern, and postmodern worldviews. However, the double tragedy is that these cross-level
clashes are not recognized for what they are. Yet when the differing developmental levels underlying culture
clashes go unrecognized, then effective communication, reconciliation, and healing are extremely difficult (Wilber,
2001).
Spiritual disciplines can catalyze development. A fourth key idea to communicate to the wider culturethat
spiritual disciplines can catalyze developmentis one of the central claims and aims of contemplative disciplines.
Authentic disciplines aim to cultivate those qualities of heart and mind that are most valued by spiritual
communities in particular, and by people of good will in general. Traditionally, these were known, of course, as
the virtues. Preliminary research on meditation supports the idea that it can foster certain kinds of
development (Walsh & Shapiro, 2006). However, two great research projects await us:
The first project is to identify precisely which qualities of heart and mindor more technically, which specific
capacities, states, and developmental lines are enhanced by contemplative practices? Of course, this project
will eventually turn out to be far more complex. Eventually the question will become: Which specific capacities
and developmental lines are enhanced by which practices in which people under what conditions?

A second crucial research project will be to discern how to optimize healing and development. In other words,
what combination of contemplative, therapeutic, lifestyle, pharmacological, and other interventions will optimize
healing, development, and well-being (Walsh et al., 2009)?
There are two very different kinds of religion. It is rarely recognized that there are two crucially different kinds
of religion: conventional narrative religion and transconventional psychotechnologies. Of course, precise
developmental analysis suggests that there are multiple stage-specific varieties of religion (Wilber, 2006b).
However, these two kinds are particularly important for us to recognize:
Conventional narrative religion centers on a story, technically a narrative, that is to be believed. The primary
means of salvation is thought to be through belief in this story. Those who believe are saved, and are our brothers
and sisters. Those who dont believe are damned, and are heathens to be converted. Salvation comes from faith
is a central theme of this kind of religion. Integral practitioners recognize this conventional narrative religion as an
expression of James Fowlers (1981) stages of mythic-literal and synthetic-conventional faith. Tragically, this is
the only kind of religion that mainstream culture and media usually recognize. Consequently, the second kind of
religion is therefore either overlooked, or confused with conventional narrative religion.

Transconventional psychotechnologies. This second kind of religion focuses on psychotechnologies (i.e., ways
of training the mind). The central theme of this kind of religion is that it is possible and necessary to train the mind
(and metaphorically the heart) in order to foster mental and spiritual maturation and well-being.
Spiritual disciplines are psychotechnologies. Authentic spiritual disciplines are psychotechnologies (practices)
designed to train, tame, transform, and eventually transcend the mind. Their goals are to generate the higher
states and stages discovered by the religious founders and exemplars. These higher states and stages are the
portals by which we can access higher (or more profound, depending on ones metaphor) qualities of heart and
mind. These qualities include unconditional love, transcendental wisdom, and purity of heartqualities that are
among the most valued expressions of human maturity. These qualities of heart and mind are the wellsprings
from which flow care and concern for others, and compassionate action in the world.
Notice that these spiritual disciplines or psychotechnologies do not center on belief. When you take up these
practices there is no need for blind belief because it is now possible to test spiritual claims for yourself. The
laboratory for doing so is the mind: To see if this be true, look within your own mind. In other words, look to
your own experience rather than someone elses dogma.
Authentic spiritual disciplines share common goals and practices. Ours is a new era in many ways. One such
way is that for the first time in history, all the worlds religious and spiritual traditions are available to us. This
means that we can begin to compare and contrast them, and to perform common factors analyses.
Common factors analyses allow us to distill from diverse traditions the common factors that are central to them
all. For example, if we examine the spiritual practices of the so-called great religionsthe Western
monotheisms, Chinese Taoism and neo-Confucianism, and Buddhism and Hinduismwe can identify common
mental qualities and capacities that they aim to foster, as well as common practices that they use to do so. And
what we find is that there seem to be seven qualities or capacities of heart and mind that are valued across
traditions. Around the world, authentic spiritual traditions regard these seven qualities as central and essential for
a life well-lived, for growth to the fullness of human potentials, and for awakening to our true nature (Walsh,
1999).
Moreover, each of the worlds great spiritual traditions not only values these seven qualities of heart and mind. It
also offers seven families of practices to cultivate them:
Transforming motivation
Living ethically
Strengthening concentration
Fostering emotional maturity
Refining awareness
Cultivating wisdom
Offering service
A detailed discussion of these qualities and practices, as well as exercises by which they can be cultivated in daily
life, is available in my book, Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices (2000). Therefore, here I
simply offer brief summaries of two practices, transforming motivation and cultivating wisdom, to give a taste of
the possibilities.

TRANSFORMING MOTIVATION
This practice involves two key components: reducing craving (addiction) and redirecting desires.
Reducing Craving
Each of the worlds great religious traditions and their correlative spiritual traditions emphasizes the importance
of reducing craving. This is probably best summarized in the Buddhas Four Noble Truths, so I will focus on this
tradition here. These truths, which constitute the foundation of Buddhism, argue that:
Suffering or dissatisfaction is an inevitable aspect of unenlightened living
The cause of this suffering is craving
Suffering ends with the end of craving
The way to end craving, and therefore suffering, is to follow the Buddhist path of spiritual discipline
Other examples could be given from each of the great religions. However, given space limitations, the following
quotation from the great neo-Confucian sage Wang Yang-ming (1969) will have to suffice:
Thus the learning of the great [person] consists entirely of getting rid of the obscuration of selfish desiresso as to
restore the condition of forming one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things, a condition that is originally
so, that is all. (p. 660)
Of course, the central presupposition here runs exactly counter to one of our cultures prime beliefs. This is the
belief that more things produce more happiness, a belief carefully nurtured by diverse economic and advertising
agencies. Actually, one of the great secrets of life is that no thing will ever make you fully and permanently happy.
It is the nature of all things that they are transitory, and incapable of offering the deep, enduring sense of
satisfaction, that only an experience of our true identity can provide.
Redirecting Desire
The second aspect of transforming motivation is redirecting desire. This redirection is analogous to moving up the
yogic chakras or Maslows hierarchy of needs. The goal is twofold. First, to reduce focus and fixation on lower-
order goals (e.g., the physical five of money, sex, sensuality, power, and prestige). Second, to replace these with
higher-order goals, eventually culminating in desires for self-actualization, self-transcendence, and selfless-
service. In Ken Wilbers (1999) terms, all stage-specific goals are actually only substitute gratifications that fuel
the Atman project (i.e., the hopeless attempt to find fulfillment) by seeking stage-specific pleasures. Yet such
pleasures never fully satisfy, and are merely stage-specific substitutes for that which alone will fully and
enduringly satisfy: our true nature. Spiritual traditions aim to redirect our motivation towards this true nature,
which Alan Watts has called our supreme identity.
It is vital to recognize that this transformation of motivation is not a sacrifice. In fact, the recurrent recognition
that the demands of spiritual practices are not, as they first seem, sacrifices, is crucial for spiritual progress. The
further one progresses, the further one realizes that spiritual practices such as transforming motivation, living
ethically, serving others, and other spiritual practices are not, as we first feared, self-sacrifice. Rather, they are
expressions of enlightened self-interest. In the West, the best known expression of this recognition is that of
Jesus, Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well
(Matthew, 6:33).

CULTIVATING WISDOM
Happy are those who find wisdom She is more previous than jewels, And nothing you desire can compare with
her Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace Get wisdom, get insight: do not
forget. Jewish Torah (Proverbs 3:13, 17, 4:5)
What is wisdom? This is an ancient and much-debated question, but my personal definition is this: Wisdom is
deep understanding of, and practical skill in responding to, the central, especially existential, issues of life.
Whereas knowledge is something you have, wisdom is something you must become. Whereas knowledge comes
from acquiring facts, wisdom comes from reflecting on experience, and different kinds of reflection yield different
kinds and levels of wisdom. Life wisdom comes from reflecting on life experience. Existential wisdom comes from
reflecting on the great challenges and mysteries of existence. Theses include the challenges of sickness, suffering
and death; the mysteries of the mind, lifes meaning and purpose; and questions such as, What is a good life?
and How can I live without regrets? Transcendental wisdom comes not primarily from rational reflection, but
rather from direct transrational intuition of the Great Mysterythe transcendental Source. This is
Judaisms hokmah, Buddhisms prajna, yogas jnana, Islams marifah, and Christianitys gnosis.
One of the most effective methods for cultivating all seven central qualities was, for me, one of the most
surprising. I spent three years researching the worlds spiritual disciplines and writing Essential Spirituality: The
Seven Central Practices (2000). During those three years the biggest surprise of all was finding that every tradition
agreed that every one of these seven essential qualities could be cultivated by relationships with people who had
these qualities. In other words, if you want to develop these qualities, then seek out people who already have
them. This is the power of relationships, sangha, and community.

RESPONDING TO GLOBAL CRISES
Our global problems are well known: ecological disruption, population explosion, poverty, weapons, wars, and
more. What is crucial to recognize about these contemporary problems is that, for the first time in history, most
of them are human causedthey stem in large part from our individual and collective behavior. This means that
in significant ways they therefore reflect psychological forces and factors within us and between us (i.e., the
disturbed state of the world reflects a disturbed state of mind). What this means is that our global problems are
actually global symptoms. That is, they are symptoms of our individual and collective immaturities and
pathologies, putting us in a race between consciousness and catastrophe.
Clearly, we need to feed the hungry, care for the environment, and reduce nuclear stockpiles. Yet at the same
time we need to address the underlying factors that created these problems in the first place. To date, however,
most large-scale responses have been political, economic, or military. These are often essential, but by
themselves, likely to be insufficient. We obviously need to address multiple causative factors. That means we
need to address both internal and external, individual and collective factors. In short, we need an integral
approach. How can we do this?
The Crucial Question
The longer we reflect on the question of how best to respond to contemporary crises, the more it dawns on us
that the really crucial question is, What can I do? Yet there is a still deeper question below. That deeper
question is, What is the most strategic thing I can do? In other words, given my unique talents and
circumstances, what is the optimal contribution I can make? How can I most effectively leverage my knowledge,
skills, and situation to be of most help? To answer this question effectively, we must first recognize that there are
actually two very different kinds of questions. There are what we might callknowledge questions and wisdom
questions. Knowledge questions have a one-time answer. For example, What is the temperature today? As soon
as you have the answer, that is the end of the question. Wisdom questions are potentially bottomless, and
function more like koans. Each time a wisdom question is asked, it can potentially lead deeper into the self and
into reality, and can unveil new levels of understanding, no one of which is final. The question, What is the most
strategic contribution I can make? is a wisdom question. Each time we ask it, further kinds of understanding and
guidance can be revealed. As such it will be with us for a long time, perhaps for a lifetime.
Ideally, service will feel rewarding, and there are certain general principles that make any kind of service more
rewarding. First, it should draw and attract us; second, it makes use of our unique talents and capacities; and
third, it brings satisfaction. As integral practitioners, our challenge is to recognize and heal partial perspectives in
both ourselves and others by bringing more encompassing, developmentally deeper, and ever more integral
perspectives to bear on the issues of our time. However, ones capacity to apply more integral perspectives
depends on ones developmental maturity. Therefore, a crucial requirement for integral practitioners isand this
is clearly a central and recurrent themeto foster our own psychological and spiritual maturation. Our goal is to
optimize health, as best we can, at our current level (healthy translation), while fostering development to higher
levels (healthy transformation). This means, once again, that we need to engage in effective transformative
disciplines as fully as we can. But how do we do this while working and contributing?

KARMA YOGA AND AWAKENING SERVICE
Fortunately, there is a millennia old discipline designed to do just this, and it is the discipline of karma yoga. This is
the yoga of transforming ones work in the world into spiritual practice. When this work is service oriented, we
might call this the practice of awakening service. According to Sri Aurobindo (1922), karma yoga is the art of
transforming the whole act of living into an uninterrupted Yoga... (p. 283). How is this done? There are three
key elements:
Before beginning any action, the activity is offered with the understanding that it will be done in the service of a
higher goal. Traditionally, the activity was offered to God. However, it can also be done for other higher-order
goals and goods such as the welfare and awakening of all. The key to this first step is aspiring or praying that the
activity be done for a transegoic purpose that transcends the gratification and reinforcement of ones own ego.
One then attempts to do the activity as impeccably as possible, while adhering to the transcendental goal.
The third element adds a paradoxical twist, and makes karma yoga or awakening service such a powerful practice.
In this third step, while working as fully and wholeheartedly as possible for the goal, one simultaneously attempts
to release attachment to the outcome. That is, one attempts to release any egocentric craving that the outcome
should match ones personal goals. (Walsh, 1999)
Karma yoga or awakening service is a powerful way of transforming ones work and contributions in the world
into deep spiritual practice. In doing karma yoga, we go into ourselves to go more effectively out into the world,
and we go out into the world in order to go deeper into ourselves, until inner exploration and outer service
become one.

CONCLUSION
We live in a time of unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Never before have we had the power to imperil
our species and our planet. And never before have we had the power to heal our species, and to bring people to
new levels of prosperity, well-being, health, and maturity. The choices our generation makes will determine
whether we leave behind us an evolving civilization and a fertile earth, or a failed species and a plundered planet.
We have the power to do both. Part of the power available to us is the integral vision. It is our remarkable
privilege to be able to realize this vision ourselves, to embody and express it in our lives, to use it to better
understand the world, and to let it use us as willing instruments to help heal our world. What greater privilege
could there be than to use this profound vision to play our role to serve, help, heal, and awaken all beings?

Acknowledgements
My deep thanks to the many people who organized the 2008 Integral Theory Conference, and therefore made my
presentation and this article possible. These include the conference conveners, Sean Esbjrn-Hargens and Mark
Forman, as well as the many organizers, volunteers, and contributors who made it such a successful event. My
thanks also to William Torbert and Susanne Cook-Greuter, who provided very generous and helpful editorial
suggestions for this article.

NOTES
1
I have tried to preserve the conversational nature of my keynote presentation at the Integral Theory Conference
(August 7-10, 2008, Pleasant Hill, CA), upon which this article is based. Details and citations have been added
where appropriate.

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