Ken Wilber – Integral meditation summary by Felix

Ken Wilber, what an inspiring thinker pushing my mind to the edge and expanding it once again with his marvellous book Integral meditations.

In this work Ken Wilber shares his researched view of what 4-5 states and 6-8 structures of consciousness occur in all major spiritual and development practices. He claims to be the forerunner of sharing a comprehensive view of the spiritual – waking up practices paired with the western science developed growing up stages. He concludes with a journey into what he calls showing up using his own AQAL integral framework, exploring several streams of intelligences going through all stages and a proposal for how to use it in you.

The process of waking up is the traditional domain of religion but actually the spiritual development of the states of consciousness. In all traditions and schools no matter if it is Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Sufism, etc., he found 4-5 stages of waking up. Gross, subtle, causal, witness, non-dual. Easiest way to understand them would be to compare them to the waking state, dream state, dreamless state, while witness is pure awareness and non-dual the realisation that the mountain arises in you and you are the mountain.

The stages of growing up are much newer findings of our western world. In all kind of development of mind do we humans to transcend 6-8 stages of development, where we experience the world in an entirely different view. Each stage we hold different values, have different drives and needs. The stages are evolving with us as human species and we all have to do the work of growing up. The stages are the hidden maps, the grammar we see our life’s through and for growing up we have to turn these subjective views into an object of our awareness.

When we reaching the highest state and the highest current structural map, we can call this human and enlightened Buddha, Christ etc. and this means also the enlightened being requirement is evolving with time. Hence Buddha reached high likely the non dual state but was probably seeing the world mostly through a magic and mythic map of the world.

Key for waking up is taking up a mindfulness practice of any tradition to slowly become aware of the objects of sensation, emotion, thought, the observer and the non-dual arising of no-head. It is important to notice that practicing waking up is not a guarantee for growing up. You can reach a non-dual state but still see the world from a magic point of view and being an excluding sexist e.g..

Key for growing up is to use the maps, the knowledge of the stages to become aware of your own hidden maps and bring them into awareness, e.g. if you are hold an absolut belief of any sort, it is high likely you have an amber view on this particular question. For working with it, simply hold the belief in your mind, bring it to awareness and videotape it to death.

The following picture describes characteristics of the different stages of consciousness.

Integral meditation is the idea of practicing mindfulness on the hidden maps inspired by the models to practice waking up and growing up at the same time.

Use the different phenomena, needs, drives, values, types of identity, morality, the truths and the belief of ultimate reality of the different stages to help you spot where you are at for the most part and in the moment. Bring that level into focus, to become fully aware of it, to see it as an object and stop looking through it. (following psycho graphics for phenomena connected to stage)

Simply hold it in mind from every possible view point: What does it look like? What size it is? What color is it? Where in the body is it located? What does it feel like? What does it look like from the side, back, from the front, from the top, form the bottom? What thing can you find that particular trigger it? How long can you remember being at this stage? How many different things in your life have been built by this particular stage?

As example the need, wish to be incredible special. See yourself as world famous, walking into an arena, media is photographing you, opponent are applauding you, the crowd is cheering. Hold that picture of pure fame, just unflinchingly feel it, see it, look at it, just as you were videotaping it – not judging, not condemning or identifying with it, just meeting it with pure awareness. Making it an object, see the hidden map, means you have converted the hidden map into an un-hidden object.

Try to catch all of those moments of e.g. being incredible special beyond genuinely being special, how addicted are you? What are your beliefs on a daily base and in all relationships? Simply become aware, differentiate, hence transcend them by making them an object and include them in a more hole balanced view.

Allergy is equally off balance as addiction/fixation. I am this thought is addiction. I have this though, but I am not this thought, is healthy dis-identification. This thought isn’t mind is dis-owning, denying, dissociating resulting into an allergy and you will start projecting and seeing many people “out there” which are full with this silly notions of e.g. specialness. These people will start to annoy and irritate you.

Showing up

All of those shows up in the different quadrants of the good, the true and the beautiful. Me the Buddha in us the Sangha on the earth, the temple, the dharma. All human activities and disciplines should be seen through all 4 quadrants, perspectives for an holistic view incorporating the full reality. Merely a short glimpse of the dimension Wilber pioneered to inspire the perspectives

For applying integral mindfulness into our lives, we can use waking up, growing up, showing up and also the lines of development which is the last thing Wilbers covers in his book. The lines refer to the different streams of intelligences which are found. A short list of the ones he sees as the most important once to focus on:

• Cognitive intelligence – being aware of awareness
• Emotional intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Somatic bodily intelligence
• Spiritual intelligence
• Willpower
• Self line

He suggests to while reading, focus on whatever thoughts or feelings come up when you do and use the process:

1. Recognize 
2. How much of my life is governed by these superstitious beliefs 
3. Hold that in awareness, make them object
4. See these beliefs as object in your mindfulness field instead of using them as subjects, as hidden maps with which you see the world. Look at them, not through them. Look directly and intensely at them – stop looking through them. Videotape them to death

This was merely a short summary of my understanding of his core ideas and practices and falls short of the epic book itself. This is one of the few books where I enjoyed all 200+ pages. I would be happy to dialogue with you on Integral meditations to become aware of my hidden maps. Until then, enjoy your growth and waking up journey, aloha!