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Beyond States and Stages

Posted August 27th, 2009 by Brenden

This post is about Craig Hamilton's talk given at the Integral Theory In Action Conference called "Integral Enlightenment: Why Authentic Spirituality Is Much More Than A Line Of Development"  You can find it here: http://craighamilton.us/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,77/

Craig begins by asking what makes someone spiritual (in the highest and best sense of the word) in your eyes.  Is it merely their attainment of inner states, no matter how sublime or peaceful?  Or does it include certain qualities of character as well, like wisdom, kindness, generosity of spirit, depth, and compassion?  He goes on to question whether the theory of states and stages, which seems to divorce these different aspects of spirituality into relatively independent "lines of development," actually minimizes and restrains the real domain of spirituality in the fullness of what we mean by that word, and limits it to simply the ability to access higher states (or what he calls "an ongoing yogic access to expanded states of consciousness").  The whole talk is worth a look, and I don't pretend to do it justice.  However, I'd love to hear what others think.  Some of the points he makes I think are spot-on, others I'm not so sure about.

The whole thing reminds me of Ken's talk with Father Keating (http://in.integralinstitute.org/talk.aspx?id=696) where F.K. talks about the underlying Unity of the four quadrants.  I love Ken's reaction to this, and I love the dance of transcendence between them.  Maybe it's just time for another hermeneutic circle where we pull back to unity now that we've successfully sliced and diced.  One of my favourite parts of Craig's talk is his assertion that "spiritual attainment is integral at the deepest level of the psyche". 

I think he's pushing the envelope.  Hats off to him.

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Posted August 28th, 2009 by admin
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Good challenges

Posted August 27th, 2009 by Ambo Suno

I like this presentation and the challenge to us as we lose ourselves in pursuit of various achievements that isn't grounded in a place of greatest value. He places spirituality in the foreground and as you sum up he makes a good plea for spirituality expressed in action and interaction in a whole and integral human way throughout life.

I think that you are right also that there are criticisms, clarifications, enlargements that "integral" could certainly make. It could be said that several definitions of spirituality as put forth by Ken would need to be included to give integral it's due, not just spirituality as a line of development. And since integral theory is so comprehensive much could be said in response to his characterizations.

But I mostly feel affinity for his emphasis on losing important everyday human-scale proportion, which common sense can help. Of course where common sense is enough in many situations of development, sometimes there may be uncommon sense that evolutionarily/developmentally can't be held back or that is even a better test than common sense. It's such a big topic and I think he does a service in bringing it up again. Thanks for raising it.

ambo