Integral Life Spiritual Center

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Overview

Integral Life Spiritual Center is a collaboration between some of the most respected spiritual teachers in the world today who, in addition to fully embracing their own particular spiritual traditions, have come together to actively evolve the forefront of spirituality and religion in the 21st century. ILSC aims to become a proactive, socially-engaged organization of leading edge spiritually-motivated thought and action. Seeking to combine the best functions of a think tank with the dynamism of a social activist movement, ILSC seeks to engage in three areas:

Redefine the emerging edge of spiritual culture in the west beyond the "religion of one," born out of a culture of narcissism that has been promoted largely in reaction to the seeming rigidity of the traditional monotheistic systems.
Actively battle horrific human rights abuses of our day, focusing on three major areas: human trafficking, genocide and global climate change.
Engage in the great conversations and practices necessary to suggest a peaceful and deep path for the future of spirituality and religion. We seek to shape the future in the divine image of compassion, love and integrity and to understand more fully the relationship between spirituality and religion as we move into the next stage of human evolution.

Please join us in this grand adventure of spiritual evolution!

Integral Life Spiritual Center is a partnership between Integral Life and iEvolve: Global Practice Community.

What We Do

1) We speak out and partner to take effective action against human rights abuses.

2) We host, facilitate, create occasions for, and contribute to the vital conversations about the future of spirituality and religion in the next millennium. This dimension of the vision is expressed in several ways:

• Host our annual flagship event Integral Spiritual Experience.

• Guest edit one issue annually of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice to share the leading edge evolutionary insights which emerge out of the Integral Spiritual Experience and in related events and writings.

• Host great dialogues between the Fellows, which will deepen, clarify and evolve our understanding of Spirit’s depth, invitation and trajectory.

• Share a vision of integral spirituality with leading edge religious, cultural, political and academic communities around the globe.

Who We Are

Integral Life Spiritual Center is comprised of two groups of people: Fellows and Members.

Together we are gathering, organizing and galvanizing the explosive power inherent in the international spiritual community. It is our goal to be able to directly galvanize several million people of care and concern who can effectively lobby for specific public policy proposals that put human rights first in the world’s agenda.

Please see the People tab above for bios and a full list of our Fellows and Members.

Integral Life Spiritual Center is led by a group of Directors who guide the activities of the center, which include Dr. Marc Gafni, Diane Musho Hamilton and Sally Kempton.

Our Understanding of Spirit

1) The last hundred years has seen the explosion of a new spirituality, both Western and Eastern. This new spirituality has emerged from and is nourished and inspired by the classical religious systems of the great faiths. At the same time, for most practitioners in the “global spirituality movement,” there is a strong desire to seek the underlying shared truths of Spirit. There is a strong intuitive understanding that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.

2) Every great system of Spirit holds a powerful yet partial truth. No one system holds the entire truth by itself. Yet, paradoxically, authentic spiritual practice requires a commitment to a particular path of spirit. Dilettantism will not bring spiritual growth.

3) The great systems of spirit which come to us from the pre-modern world remain central and important. Any world or integral spirituality must reverentially recognize and include much that exists in mankind's evolutionary past.

4) The insights of of modernity and post-modernity are valid and must be honored and woven into the spiritual matrix. Truths of science, psychology, sociology, politics, history and many other fields are all expressions of the unfolding of the universe in higher orders of complexity and understanding, which in turn have given birth to democracy, human rights movements, the emergence of the feminine, global interconnectedness etc.

5) The image of a symphony is one that resonates with many of the Fellows and Members of Integral Life Spiritual Center. Each instrument is honored and must be mastered through intense commitment and practice. At the same time each instrument must listen with care and love to all the other instruments. It is from this very diversity, held in harmony and integrity, that the sound of music emerges.