The seer

I'll give it a go ! (answering directly) :xD

(don't hesitate to slap me if I'm way of course) :)

1. Reality

Your question is, are we modifying our perceptions of reality through self and collaborative brain washing so that we may view it in a "nicer" way that is less disturbing. (it's my interpretation of what you wrote)

My answer is :

a) does it really matter, as long as whatever changes you do to your mind have a beneficial effect in reality without having any negative ones.

b) since I realise a) was a trick reply, what I really believe is that the first tier you speak of is (according to the integral principles amongst others) not reality, but a way of functioning within this reality. I was just pointing out that you compared a reality to a perspective of that reality (kind of what I wrote in a) but in different words and this leads me to

c) As far as I have experienced, read, seen, heard, and felt, a lot of these ideas stem from experiences that "happen" in "the reality you speak of". In fact, I do trust and believe, at least in this respect, that the integral theories focus very hard on things that were experienced. For instance, you can not deny that you have different states of consciousness ; obvious ones are sleeping, and awake, more subtle ones can be spontaneous, such as when you are focusing on writing an essay, driving a car, playing some game, or just bored in the train.... during these different states of consciousness, your perceptions of reality change (for example, time can fly, or slow). 

Not only that, but it is more than common for most people to be able to purposefully change state, for example by focusing before a race, or simply going to a peacefull place to work in silence so you can focus, or just meditating...

Some people have spent a lot of their lives exploring these, developing techniques and guidelines, through time.

Others have spent a lot of time (psycholigist particularly) studying stages of development and personal growth.

So far, all of this isn't really spiritual at all. But to stay with these two examples, simply understanding and studying the work that has been done as you would study and understand mathematical equations will change the way you see reality with respect to states of consciousness and personal growth, just like any new understanding changes your view on things (for example, understanding that the planet is going round the sun and is relatively tiny in comparison to the rest of the universe puts things into perspective so to speak, it alters the way you saw the world if you thought the earth was the center of the universe).

Right, well that's relatively straight forward. Where I think I understand your question though, is that when explorers or scientists discover new fields, new realms and/or new concepts, they are the only ones who can interpret their discovery, unless it's something objective such as a mathematical equation which can be proved easily to all other mathematicians.

Basically what this means is that Christopher Colombus really thought he had discovered India. Seriously, it's not that big a deal, since it's just a name, but it illustrates the principle that I mean; the first guy to have meditated for 24 hours and reached a particular state of awareness in which he experienced "certain new things" might have called this "India" so to speak ( ;) )

With regards to Ken Wilber's work (which I am not really completely familliar with but am basing this from what I can tell), not only has he, and the people working with him, researched different complementary fields such as psychology or biology, but also history and religion, faith --> spirituality. His idea you might be familliar with as well, the all quadrants thingy, to approach this from an objective point of view (as would any researcher), but also from a subjective point of view and to structure it all in some reasonable way that makes sense, can be double checked (kind of like a mathematical equation, although you need to either experience or interpret the subjective side) by others, and confirmed empirically.

Apparently, it's working out. But now for the conclusion, my answer to your question (and it's a personal one), when dealing with spirituality, you're dealing with things that are outside this reality (before and after, for example, God created the world) but also potentially within this reality. The trick is in interpreting the experiences and "discoveries". I never really understood for instance, how the Budhists "proved" the concept of re incarnation, or things like kharma. In my mind they didn't, this is all interpretation, or even extrapolation of ideas, feelings, experiences which may or may not even all be real....

Another way of looking at it is if in the middle of the night, you woke up to see a blinding light and then a winged white naked figure floating above your bed. You'd think "ohhhh it's an angel". Well most people I know would, because of our culture' beliefs. You'd have to make your own interpretation, but not only that, you'd have to choose how to react. For example, within the christian framework, even if I literarly did see an angel hovering above me shining in light, I might say to myself "it could be the devil pretending to be an angel!!!!" Or simply fall on my knees or something... who knows.

At the end of the day, what I wanted to say is ya, maybe, there is no divine, no this that or the other, maybe all of these experiences actually have biological explanations that have nothing to do with spirituality at all. But at one point, sooner or later, it is for you to interpret whatever you hear, read, experience or feel, I don't think anyone on this planet is capable of doing that for you.

2. I don't undestand your second question :/

3. How do we know what is truly bad and truly good?

Well, the obvious answer is "what is bad is what harms people/(things?)" "what is good is what benefits them". Problem is, there are all kinds of factors, for instance, harsh training can hurt, can make me feel bad, but I may benefit from it after a while ... Also, as you say, sometimes destruction is necessary to clean things up (even God flooded the earth right? heheh ). Also, it can be good for some, bad for others, good for a group, good for you.... Also actually feeling bad, sad, melancolic, can lead people to be exceptionally artistic. (so many beautyfull songs were created from melancoly). Also someone who's never suffered maybe in some cases a lot weaker and generally superficial compared to someone who felt a lot of pain. There's tons of problems with this concept with the most important one probably being you don't even know what's good for yourself...

Ultimately, my personal opinion / belief is that we can't. However, we can try the best we can. The problem is, some people do a lot of "bad" things while truly believing they are doing something "good".... So ya, it can get confusing, but at the end of the day, the more experience you have, the more thought you put into it, the more you listen to your feelings, the more knowledge you have, and things you see, the more you "grow", change your perspective on life (without it being spiritual, an old man won't see life in the same way as a teenager) the better chance you have of making the right choice when you have to make one.

I honestly think it's really a matter of attitude, which reflects what you wish for, what you want. Something that I've been told a lot, and that I've applied, and seems to more or less have worked for me, is to "listen to your heart" (I know it sounds cliché lol)

4. The bully;

I think I caught your drift and I guess my answer is in 3 above :p

5. Who is actually asleep? The people inhabiting society (of course)?  But is society with its ideals of equality, higher values and political corectness etc, not also asleep?

I'm not sure what you mean, but to answer your first question, I have no idea who is asleep and who is truly awake :xD I know I could be wrong with this, but I get this from personal (atypical) experience; to me, there really is no way of knowing for sure.

6. Would we not be happier accepting the world as it is, rather than trying to get the world to change to suit our needs?

Well, I guess the people that are happier accepting the world as it is, accept it as it is :D I for one was not satisfied the way it was hehe.

7. Im "Divinely" lazy and I don't really fancy trailing through all of Kens books to find out why Integral thinks this is so.  Maybe someone wiser has the answer for me?

All the answers I gave you have almost nothing to do with Ken Wilber since, as I mentioned previously, I have not much knowledge of his work. I just read a few books and a few articles. So the answers I provided were not why Integral thinks this is so, but why I think it is so. It just so happens that I kind of agree with what I've read so far.

Neither do I believe myself to be wise, we just have different experiences that are valuable to each other since, at the end of the day (I like that expression) we're all in the same boat!

Hope that this kind of helped in a way :)

Mark.

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One day, you going to need someone  to stand by you

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