Level 5—(Orange) Rational Modern

Okay, we were at the point where the amber mythic-conformist stage, level 4, had

emerged, and identity had switched from egocentric to ethnocentric. In other words, that

level—level 4—was marked by the emergence of a 2nd-person perspective (and thus the

beginning capacity to “take the role of other”)—and therefore identity could switch from

egocentric to ethnocentric. (“1st person,” to briefly repeat, means the person who is

speaking, or “I”; “2nd person” is the person being spoken to, or “you,” which combines

with an “I” to form a “we”; and “3rd person” means the person or thing being spoken

about objectively, a “he,” “she,” or simply “it.” We already saw 1st person emerge up to

red power; then 2nd person emerged with amber conformist.) And at the very next higher

level, orange level 5—the level we will be dealing with right now—there occurs the

emergence of the next higher perspective, a 3rd-person perspective, or the capacity to take
an objective, scientific, universal perspective—and thus the switch in identity from a

local ethnocentric identity to a universal or global worldcentric identity occurs—a switch

from “us” to “all of us.” This more universal, global, expansive awareness occurs

because consciousness moves from what is called a concrete operational mode to a

formal operational mode; and all that means is that thought can operate not just on the

concrete material world, but thought can now operate on thought itself. Thought can

actually be aware of itself, and thus an introspective, self-esteem-concerned,

conscientious, self-reflective, universal identity—a cosmopolitan identity—can become

possible. Immanuel Kant defined “cosmopolitan” awareness basically as one where if a

person anywhere suffers, I suffer. In other words, there is a deeply felt solidarity with all

of humanity, and the issue of the Universal Rights of Humans comes to the fore for the

first time in history (as it did with the Enlightenment). Not the rights of just a particular

clan, tribe, club, religion, nation, or group of individuals—but all groups, all humans, all

nations—none of them are alien to me as my consciousness expands once again,

continuing its evolutionary march to deeper and deeper and wider and wider and higher

and higher levels of being and wholeness and awareness and identity. As briefly noted,

this major leap to a new and higher level of consciousness and culture particularly

marked what we today call the Western Enlightenment, for example (which, of course,

like all stages, also had its downsides, as we’ll see).

Because this stage, level 5, is marked by a formal operational awareness—thought

operating on thought—it is often referred with names such as reason, rationality, formal

operational, conscientious, achievement, excellence, self-esteem (and is given the color

orange). Self-esteem needs emerge at this level because a 3rd-person perspective means
the individual can stand back from themselves, so to speak, and form an objective

opinion about themselves—and they naturally want it to be as positive an opinion as

possible, hence the self-esteem needs. Thus, Maslow’s needs hierarchy runs from

physiological needs (levels 1 and 2), to safety and self-protective and power needs (level

3), to belongingness and conformist needs (level 4), to self-esteem needs (this level, level

5; and then two higher levels, which we’ll come to shortly).

So although at this level one’s identity expands to a global or worldcentric

capacity, it also marks the emergence of a real individuality, since self-reflection emerges

out of the conformist role and herd-mentality of the previous stage. The worldcentric

individual emerges out of the ethnocentric conformist, and within the worldcentric

background, the self wants its own high self-recognition, self-identity, self-esteem, and

self-achievement. So this stage is also marked by the emergence of the drive toward

excellence, accomplishment, merit, achievement, progress.

A 3rd-person perspective allows individuals to stand outside of the present

moment and be aware of historical time, and hence compare the present with the past and

an imagined future—and thus wish to improve the present as much as possible in

comparison, hence the drive toward excellence, achievement, merit, and progress. This

unfolding of historical time (soon giving rise to an awareness of evolution itself) was

dramatically different from the previous mythic time, which, being concrete and tied to

nature, simply circled endlessly around and around and around—from spring to summer

to fall to winter and back to spring again, indefinitely repeating itself, getting absolutely

nowhere. But with the striking emergence of a 3rd-person perspective, historical time

itself emerged, and with it, the whole notion of being able to improve things, not simply
circle endlessly with the status quo, but instead dramatically work to improve them, with

the whole set of drives of merit, achievement, excellence, and progress. This is a very

noticeable drive in individuals (and cultures), and is easily spotted because it’s so

different from the food, sex, power, and love drives of the earlier four stages, all of which

simply circled, with nature, round and round and round again.

We just noted that this stage, this evolutionary leap to a higher level of

consciousness and culture, marked the Western Enlightenment, which the well-known

historians the Durants called “The Age of Reason and Revolution”—reason (which

allows “as if” and “what if” thinking) allowed alternative realities to be conceived—

alternatives to slavery (what if we abolished it?), to monarchy (what if we had

representative democracy?), to patriarchy (what if women had equality?), to

fundamentalist mythic religion (what if science offered more truth?)—and revolutions

brought them into existence, whether politically with the French and American

revolutions; or the revolutionary legal outlawing of slavery in every major

industrial-rational country the world over (this stage was the first time in all of human

history that slavery was outlawed!—every previous stage had some form of slavery); or

the truly revolutionary modern sciences from physics to chemistry to evolutionary

biology to sociology—all of these are the results of this important level of consciousness,

orange rational level 5. As we said, every vertical level of growth actually brings with it

a new and different world in many ways, and nowhere is this more obvious than the shift

from an amber traditional mythic world to an orange modern rational world.

The emergence of this orange level of development was indeed the age of Reason

and Revolution. And virtually every adolescent today goes through a similar internal
turmoil of “reason and revolution” as they hit the teen years and orange rationality and

self-esteem needs begin to emerge—and all of a sudden, instead of the previous

conformist stage and its strong desire to fit in, to be the same, there is now this radically

individualist stage and its strong desire to stand out, to be different. So between these

two levels, which are you mostly? You want to fit in, or you want to stand out?

Conform, or decide for yourself? Belong, or be an individual? Are you intensely

patriotic, or do you feel more a part of a global village? National, or cosmopolitan?

Myth, or reason?

More on that soon, but for now, let’s just note, as we learn about these hidden

maps that are driving so much of our behavior, that the world, right now, is in a serious

battle between these two particular stages—amber stage 4 (mythic fundamentalist and

conformist, often called “traditional values”) and orange stage 5 (rational achiever and

progress, often called “modern values”). Most of the great civilizations and Empires of

humanity’s past—from Mesopotamian to Greek and Roman to Ottoman to Indian and

Chinese—were driven by the mythic belongingness stage—it began, in its earliest forms,

around 6 or 7 thousand years ago, and dominated until the rise of modernity in the West,

a mere 400 years ago. Since then, these two major value systems—the traditional

religious-mythic and the modern-rational scientific (with corresponding governments of

top-down control and coercion—amber monarchy, fascism, communism—and bottom-up

orange democracy)—these two have been at each other’s throats almost incessantly.

So what might your approach to mindfulness meditation be like if you were

coming predominantly from a stage-5, modern, rational achiever mentality? In that case,

with high drives to achievement and excellence, you might take up mindfulness with an
intent to make great improvements in some areas very important for you, real

achievements in those areas, and noticeable progress in them; you might even become

slightly competitive with others who are following a similar practice, wanting to beat

them at being the best meditator in the class. Especially if you are doing this for business

reasons (and many business people do), you might imagine that you will gain many new

skills that will let you kill the competition in your business, blasting them out of the

water, and winning the market war of greater profits. Meditation will help make you that

superman you always wanted to be in your profession, and it becomes the ultimate skill

achievement creation, done like athletic training, pushing yourself to greater and greater

success and accomplishment, beating out any “competitors” who are also doing this.

Meditation might even slot into a whole list of other self-improvement techniques that

you are already undertaking to make yourself better, greater, more successful, more

accomplished. The world is divided into winners and losers, and you, for sure, are going

to be a winner, and meditation is here to help with just that. Of course, all of these are

put in their strong forms; you can have any of them in lesser degrees and still be coming

basically from this achiever stage.

And so what if you are? We’re starting to see the general pattern of how Integral

mindfulness is done. We start by resting in our ever-present Witnessing, our limitless,

boundless Awareness, and then we introduce the specific characteristics of the level of

Growing Up that we are focusing on in that session.

We unearth this hidden map, which previously we didn’t even realize we had, or

that it was controlling so much of our behavior and our lives. Using the overall

composite or Integral map, we “diagnose” our present psychological configuration—in

this case, we look for the main basic stage of development that we are at, we look for our

basic “altitude” in overall development—is it magenta, red, amber, orange (or perhaps

one of the higher 3 or 4 stages we will get to very soon)? And we do so by noting the

general characteristics of each stage, and then compare ourselves, our beliefs, and our

behaviors with those characteristics, deciding which stage or level most applies to us in

the major areas of our life. (And note: different areas of our life can elicit different

stages; we might be one level at work—say, stage-5 achievement—and a different level

with our family, where we might revert to a tighter belongingness stage-4 attitude,

identifying not globally but just with our family in these situations. And you’ll probably

notice, as we look at even higher levels, areas where you light up those as well. But just

notice your basic stage-responses at work, in relationships, in your religious beliefs if

any, and at play.)

Once you have identified your basic stage, your basic hidden map, then hold it

up—think it or feel it or see it—and apply mindfulness. That is, sit in a comfortable

position. Then focus on the particular map that you have hidden in your awareness, the

fundamental grammar rules that are governing much of your life. If orange achievement,

focus on what you do when you really want to achieve something, gain something, grasp

something. Feel this grasping directly, immediately, and carefully—videotape it. Shoot

it from all angles—What color is achievement? What size is it? Where is it located

(head, heart, gut, someplace else, some combination of places)? What does it look like,

feel like, smell like? What tends to trigger your grasping or desire-for-excellence? Focus

on that feeling of excellence, of actually getting it, being bathed in it, and look at it from

every angle. Now every stage will have some sort of grasping or desiring—in red, the
desire is for power; in amber, the desire is for God’s love or belonging to an absolute

community; and so on. But this stage, orange, the fundamental focus is on grasping for

excellence, for achievement itself, the very feeling of wanting something bigger and

better and greater and more admired. Focus on that desire, that achieving, that grasping

or reaching for something more and better—feel it as intensely as you can. See yourself

achieving one of your goals, and in a way wildly beyond your greatest expectations.

What does achieving that exultant status directly feel like? Let it drench your being and

let yourself float in it fully, all the while bringing awareness to it.

(And notice, as you are aware of any particular item or object, you don’t have to

do anything with it. You are not practicing awareness or mindfulness with the idea that

something else is about to happen; you are practicing awareness just for the awareness

itself. Simply be aware of the object; merely hold the object in feeling-awareness and

videotape it. That simple holding is the whole point; for that session itself, that is the

entire aim or goal—simple present awareness, nothing more, nothing less. Now the

effect of that practice, eventually, will be to loosen your identity with that hidden subject,

allow consciousness to dis-identify with it, and thus create an opening or clearing in

awareness for the next higher self and its maps to emerge. This will be a profound shift

in your identity, and in what you start to value and desire, in what motivates you, in what

drives you. You’ll start to notice this in all sorts of ways, particularly if you have

continued to review Integral/developmental maps outlining these stages. And at that

point, you can begin applying Integral mindfulness to that new self, that new subject,

helping make it object—and thus opening the door once again to a greater, wider, higher

growth. But none of these ideas need to be in your mind while you are practicing during
any given session of Integral mindfulness, where—at least for that session—all you want

to hold in mind is the object of your mindfulness—just that, nothing more. There’s a Zen

cartoon where the master, sitting on his meditation map, and in a huffy response to a

student sitting next to him on his mat, says, “Nothing happens next. This is it!” Well, in

any given session, this is it. Nothing is supposed to happen next. So just rest in that

present feeling-awareness. That itself is what is supposed to happen next—that

awareness is the action you are seeking here. By simply holding the hidden subject—its

characteristics, qualities, or traits—in awareness, that holding itself is making that subject

an object, and that is the total action that you are seeking with this particular part of the

practice. You need do absolutely nothing else at that point, so don’t overcomplicate the

practice here.)

In short, make that hidden subjective map a conscious object of awareness. See it

directly, instead of using it as something with which and through which to see your self,

your world, and your life. Look at it, instead of through it. Make that subject an object.

And as you do so, simply rest in the resulting awareness—an awareness that will be open,

clear, relaxed, often silent and largely free of thinking (your awareness will be aware of

thinking, and therefore itself free of thinking; but if thinking does arise, that’s fine;

simply let it go and bring your mind back to the object of mindfulness, and rest there).

Then alternate that focus on the limited finite characteristic of that level with a

resting in limitless, boundless Awareness, resting in your ever-present pure I AMness.

Notice the difference between this vast, open, empty, clear, spontaneous Spaciousness, in

which all things and events are effortlessly arising; versus the narrow, finite, contracted,

and limited characteristics of the particular level of Growing Up you are focusing on.
You will increasingly start to sense a vast ocean of Freedom and Release, because you

are becoming free of a limiting identity with this hidden map and its narrow limitations

and its self-contracted self. This vast sense of Openness, Spaciousness, and Freedom is

the dis-identifying and “transcending” and letting go portion of Integral mindfulness—

you are seeing this hidden subject, with which you were identified, as an object of your

unbounded Awareness (you are videotaping its every detail), and therefore it is no longer

either hidden or a subject—it is a conscious object. You have broken your identity with

it, and now simply hold it in awareness the way you would an image of a rock or a tree or

a house—something you see, not something you are. (And this letting-go creates an open

clear space in your Awareness, in which the next higher level of development can—and

will—spontaneously emerge.) This mindful Awareness is actually putting you in touch

with your Real Self, your True Self, the Observing Self, pure Witnessing Awareness,

timeless I AMness—and exactly what that means.

So historically we were at the point where orange stage-5, the modern rational

level, had just emerged, and where it emerges in individuals today as this stage of “reason

and revolution” begins to awaken in them—and where you might be if you still have a

fair amount of this achievement stage in you. And that’s one of the amazing things that

developmentalists have learned about these stages or levels of development—once one

emerges in human awareness, it remains in existence, ready to unfold in all subsequent

humans in the same sequence or order in which it originally emerged and was laid
down—a kind of archaeological sedimentation of layer after layer of evolutionarily

emergent material, fully present in your own being and ready to emerge. So your own

being right now fully contains every major developmental level that evolution has ever

produced, going back not only to the earliest human stages (you contain archaic, magic,

mythic, rational—and higher—layers), but at even archaic, the human organism itself

already fully contained the entire Tree of Life, going all the way back to the Big Bang—

as we earlier noted, the human organism fully contained (and still fully contains) quarks,

and subatomic particles, and atoms, and molecules, and cells, and elements of all

organisms—including the basic biochemistry of plants, the neural cord of fish and

amphibians, the reptilian brain stem of reptiles, the limbic system of early mammals, the

cortex of primates, and the neocortex of the capping human emergence. All of these are

right now fully and completely contained in you, literally embraced and included in your

very own being—you are not only the leading edge of evolution as it continues forward,

you are an exclamation mark to everything evolution has ever produced up to today. You

are the most significant holon in the entire Kosmos! The least fundamental, but the most

significant.

So today, this layered archaeology manifests itself in actual human development,

starting with the first specifically human stages (which already transcend and include all

the previous levels in the universe). Thus, where a good deal of the American population

has reached a capacity for stage-5 modern rationality, everybody is still born at stage 1, at

the archaic sensorimotor stage (where they stay for the first year or so). From there, they

move to the magenta, stage-2, magic-impulsive level, usually lasting from around year 1

to 3-4 years (and is the essence of the “terrible twos”). Then the next major stage, level
3, the red power-safety stage (PowerGods), begins to emerge, and that lasts until around

ages 6 or 7, where the amber mythic conformist stage, level 4, begins to emerge, and lasts

until adolescence (and drives the whole “peer pressure” phase, with its intense conformist

and belongingness needs). During adolescence, the orange stage-5 level can first emerge,

the age of “reason and revolution,” where all the adolescent rebellion and individualism

jumps out. And historically, we saw, humans on the whole didn’t hit that stage until

around 3 or 400 years ago, with the Western Enlightenment, which brought the end of

slavery, the replacement of monarchy with representative democracy, the beginning of

civil rights and feminism, the rise of the environmental movements (off-setting one of the

downsides of the Enlightenment, rampant industrial pollution). More on those in a

moment. For now, we simply note the emergence of the orange rational stage/level 5,

one of the most significant and important levels of consciousness to emerge in all of

humankind’s history, and in whose shadow the entire world today now lies—for better or

worse.

So let’s explore this level with Integral Mindfulness. This will be day-one of this

particular package session (which covers levels 5 and 6). So first, as usual, get in your

comfortable meditation posture. Then allow the self-contraction to relax. Uncoil into the

vast expanse of All Space. Rest in pure open empty clear limitless Awareness, your

ever-present I AMness. Rest there several minutes until you feel fairly centered in that

State. Then slowly introduce the first main characteristic of this level 5, which we will

take as that of excellence. Excellence seems a perfectly harmless quality; but, as we’ll

see, some later levels are uncomfortable with it, because it implies making a judgment

between those who achieve excellence and those who don’t, and these other levels are
uncomfortable with that. But in their own development, they themselves went through

this level and thoroughly embraced its values when they did, so don’t worry too much

about that now. But they are correct that the quality of excellence implies a judgment—

and that is exactly what you want to be aware of in this session. Think of something—a

person, an object, an event, an artwork—that you think has achieved excellence. What

distinguishes that object of excellence from those objects that lack it? What is this

excellence at its core? Simply bring it into awareness, and feel it deeply. Feel what it’s

like when you achieve something of true excellence—really focus on that feeling—you

have achieved real excellence—versus what it’s like to produce something rather

mediocre. Mediocre, excellent; mediocre, excellent; mediocre, excellent. What’s the

difference? Deeply, deeply feel into this issue, experiencing each of those states

(mediocre and excellent) as vividly and profoundly as you can. Now again, you might

like how one feels and dislike the other, but remember in mindfulness to try and be as

neutral as you can—just be aware, without judgment, condemnation, glorification, or

identification. Just neutral videotaping—neutral picture after neutral picture after neutral

picture. But hold that sense of excellence vividly in neutral Awareness.

Then alternate, as usual, with dropping that object and resting in limitless,

unbounded Awareness—in just Awareness, not any contents of Awareness. Awareness

is not an object, it’s an atmosphere, a Field—expand into that Field while identifying

with none of its contents—neti-, neti-. Just as this limitless Awareness is often referred

as boundless Love, it’s often known as infinite Excellence or the Great Perfection, which

means the entire universe is a manifestation of the Great Perfection, and not just my little
accomplishments of this small finite organism—but the production of the entire Kosmos

by my True Self and Real Suchness and Great Perfection.

As you take up the next characteristic of this stage—for which we will use

achievement—notice you have to let go of an excellence, a perfection, an achievement

that covers and embraces the entire Kosmos, and instead contracts into something the

small skin-encapsulated ego manages to create. But that’s fine, that’s what happens, so

simply notice it. Notice this drive to achievement that can still be extremely strong and

powerful in you, a drive that in fact might be the strongest drive you possess. You have

this enormous desire to achieve something great, something special, something amazing,

something that will make you a household word everywhere. Again, this isn’t bad—this

is simply the shape that consciousness takes as it continues to expand and expand and

expand. It’s already gone from egocentric drives of mere food and sex, to strong

narcissistic drives of power and control, to beginning capacities for group-dominated

love, and now to a breakout desire to accomplish something of worth, to create and

give-back to the universe, to achieve something of real excellence. This is a growth!, a

truly higher level in the Growing Up process. But there are higher levels still, and they

will be even more inclusive and more expansive and more conscious and more caring.

But for now—achievement and excellence it is!

So give this drive to achievement some real feling-Awareness. Notice how many

items in your life are driven by this desire to achieve; notice how much an “A” makes

you feel great and even a “B+” can ruin your day. What is it that makes this individual

organism want to stand out, above all others, and be recognized and cheered and adored

more than any others? Deeply feel into that desire; profoundly explore the contours of
both excellence and achievement. And then the alternation: slowly dissolve attention to

those finite qualities and rest in unlimited, unbounded Awareness, your own ever-present

and timeless I AMness—a radiantly Divine Supreme Identity, one with Spirit and one

with the All—an achievement that simply cannot be beaten.

Finally, bring up the quality of moral rightness—of doing the right thing. The

first item you learn about morality is that we humans tend to treat other humans morally

if we have some sort of identity with them. So at the egocentric stages, we only treat

ourselves morally—everybody else is other and thus not to be cared about. But as our

identity expands from egocentric to ethnocentric group-oriented, we tend to treat all those

in our chosen groups in a moral fashion—we extend love and care to them, we treat them

morally. And this is because our own self-identity is expanding to include them, and so

treating them well really is experienced as treating ourselves well. But at ethnocentric,

we are still only identified with a handful of groups; so we treat them morally while we

often despise or even hate outsiders, as we saw with fundamentalism. But as our identity

expands from ethnocentric to worldcentric—which it does, starting here at orange level

5—then we tend to want to treat all humans fairly, regardless of race, color, sex, or

creed—a truly universal moral impulse.

So bring up that universal moral impulse. Feel the love that you have for all

humanity. Recognize that you can have special individuals and special groups that you

especially love and especially treat morally; but you also have a growing awareness of a

genuine care and concern for all humans, in all places, in all circumstances. You feel, at

bottom, a solidarity with all human beings everywhere, and your heart expands to take in
a global humanity, as your own outflowing Heart expands to embrace an entire planet

and all its beings.

Notice that this is perhaps the first truly positive characteristic that we have

focused on in our awareness of the levels of Growing Up. And we’ve already seen the

reason for this: evolution itself is a continual process of transcend and include, of

expanding into higher and higher and wider and wider levels, each of which possesses

more wholeness and more care and love and more consciousness. We are just now

starting to break into levels of consciousness where many of these positives become more

and more and more obvious and apparent. Evolution itself drives toward the Good, the

True, and the Beautiful, with each major level having more and more of each. So as you

focus on this universal human moral care—and its correlative universal love—start to

realize that evolution is indeed beginning to really pay off—and in ways that will

continue to increase and increase and increase, as we’ll clearly see.

So as you alternative between this universal moral impulse, and resting in

limitless, unbounded Awareness, the difference between them will still be noticeable—

limitless Awareness has a moral love that embraces the entire Kosmos, not just a

particular planet—but you can start to see a closing of the gap—they are, in a certain

sense, getting closer and closer. This is good news indeed.