Exploring the State of the Integral Enterprise

Part 1: Current Status  Right click to download  Duration: 48 minutes

Here Ken and Roger identify nearly a dozen pitfalls that we are likely to fall into at one point or another. By becoming more aware of these individual and collective dynamics, we can work together to address and minimize them.

Part 2: Potential Traps  Right click to download  Duration: 47 minutes

In this installation, Roger outlines some of the afflictions common to Integral living—including complacency and stagnation in our growth, shadow games and ego posturing, developmental allergies and aversions, and the dangers of when our knowledge and conceptual understanding begins to outpace our wisdom, experience, and insight.

Part 3: Key Ideas for a World at Risk  Right click to download  Duration: 28 minutes

We live in a time of unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Never before have we had the power to imperil our species and our planet. And never before have we had the power to heal our species, and to bring people to new levels of prosperity, well-being, health, and maturity. The choices our generation makes will determine whether we leave behind us an evolving civilization and a fertile earth, or a failed species and a plundered planet. We have the power to do both....

Part 4: Attachment, Wisdom, and Global Crises  Right click to download  Duration: 31 minutes

The longer we reflect on the question of how best to respond to contemporary crises, the more it dawns on us that the really crucial question is, “What can I do?” Yet there is a still deeper question below. That deeper question is, “What is the most strategic thing I can do?” In other words, given my unique talents and circumstances, what is the optimal contribution I can make? How can I most effectively leverage my knowledge, skills, and situation to be of most help? To answer this question effectively, we must first recognize that there are actually two very different kinds of questions. There are what we might call knowledge questions and wisdom questions....

This article and dialogue is the first in a series of offerings from the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, to be published every month for free here at Integral Life. Given Roger’s stature in the Integral community (one of our wise elders, we might say) we thought it would make sense to begin this feature with his work.

The State of the Integral Enterprise is the headline article in the latest edition of JITP, based on Roger Walsh’s keynote address at the 2008 Integral Theory Conference. At the conference, Roger was asked to provide some reflective comments that would help the field see itself, especially its blind spots and shadow. Roger delivered in spades! Not only were his points and illustrative stories poignant, but he also gave a dynamic and entertaining delivery. (It turns out he spent some time as a stand-up comic. Who would have guessed?). He covers topics that will interest the entire Integral Life community, including how we can optimize the impact of integral ideas, fighting developmental complacency, and the traps that await us at each stage.

Read the full articles here:
Part I: Current Status and Potential Traps / (download pdf)
Part II: Key Ideas for a World at Risk / (download pdf)


One of the extraordinary qualities of integral consciousness is the ability to simultaneously challenge yourself to be something greater than who you are, while loving yourself exactly as you are. If we can muster the strength and compassion to be both completely honest with ourselves and kind to ourselves, not only can we overcome the many obstacles that we inevitably face throughout our journey, but these obstacles can be seen for what they actually are: stepping stones that can take us from our potential to our purpose, from our brokenness to our wholeness, from our fragile humanity to our unbreakable divinity.

In this fascinating dialogue, Roger gives a realistic summary of the condition of the Integral movement today. In short, his observation is this: it is still coalescing, still trying to find enough traction to grow from a "cognitive minority" to a viable force in the academic and cultural mainstream. Though we can already see signs of this occurring around us, it is a slow and organic process and cannot be hurried by any artificial means.

That said, there are certainly things you can do to help: learn the integral tools—like Integral Life Practice—that can help you live an extraordinary and whole life, while helping you take broader and more encompassing perspectives in every domain you touch.

Obviously this can be a sometimes painful path, beset with its own breed of lions and tigers and bears (oh my!). In the second installation, titled Potential Traps, Roger outlines some of the afflictions common to Integral living—including complacency and stagnation in our growth, shadow games and ego posturing, developmental allergies and aversions, and the dangers of when our knowledge and conceptual understanding begins to outpace our wisdom, experience, and insight.

(On a personal note, I have been working with Ken Wilber, Integral Institute, and Integral Life for over six years, and have been a vigorous student of Integral theory and practice for more than twice as long. As I was editing this dialogue and listening to Roger's laundry list of possible pathologies, it didn't take long for me to realize that I had fallen into almost every single trap at one point or another—many of which I continue to fall into today. As such, Roger's presentation offered a much-needed shot across the bow for my own growth, practice, and personal embodiment of the Integral vision—awakening me to many of my own missteps and misgivings, while provoking me to deepen my own practice and recommit myself to my work, my relationships, and my art.)

Roger Walsh

Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., has spent nearly a quarter century researching and practicing in the world’s great spiritual traditions. His critically acclaimed book, Essential Spirituality, is a summary of that wisdom, outlining the seven spiritual practices common to the world's major religions.

Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, and is the first philosopher-psychologist to have his Collected Works published while still alive. Wilber is an internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, which continues to gather momentum around the world. His many books, all of which are still in print, can be found at Amazon.com. Some of his more popular books include Integral Spirituality; No Boundary; Grace and Grit; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; and the "everything" books: A Brief History of Everything (one of his largest selling books) and A Theory of Everything (probably the shortest introduction to his work).  Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute, Inc., the co-founder of Integral Life, Inc., and the Senior Fellow of Integral Life Spiritual Center.