For most of us, we cannot return to a traditional or fundamentalist religion as it were. We probably also cannot feel quite at home in a modernist, hyper-materialist, dry, post-religious space. Nor can we fully entertain a highly relativistic, postmodern world of “spiritual but not religious” where its own dynamics can often seem both fundamentalist and flat. So what could transcend and include the dignities and disasters of all that?

However you want to call it–God, Divinity, the Sacred, Spirit, the transpersonal or anything else–how do you experience it? How is your life impacted by it? What does that lead you to enact within and around you? What different versions of it have shown up during your developmental journey? What does self-transcendence mean for you? Do you have an I-Thou relationship with God or Spirit? Does it matter if you do or don’t? What are the different meanings of spirituality? What would it mean to shift from the Having-mode to Being-mode–moving from consuming more experiences to transforming our relationship with them?For those of us who are students and practitioners of Ken Wilber’s Integral Metatheory, in what aspect/s of the AQAL map does Spirit most come alive for you? What are the contrasts between “early-Integral” and “later-Integral, or “entry-Integral” and “mellowing-Integral?”

For those of us who are familiar with John Vervaeke’s teachings, creator of the impressive and popular 50-pt free YouTube series “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis,” how does the Sacred show up as propositional, procedural, perspectival, and participatory ways of knowing (4P’s), and as embodied, embedded, enacted, enmeshed, emotional, and exapted aspects of your life (“6E’s” of cognitive science)? How does your upbringing in a particular culture play a role in what your spirituality is today? What is “God-beyond-God” or a “religion that is beyond religion?” Could an Integral approach to spirituality help us awaken from the meaning crisis (1st-person I), culture wars (2nd-person We), and meta-crises (3rd-person It)? How can Integral itself Open Up and Love more?

Clearly, there are a limitless number of inquiries we can explore in this juicy discussion. Come, join us!

Meet the Panel Members

Lama Pema Dragpa has been a resident Dharma teacher at Padma Samye Ling since 2004. PSL is the main monastery & retreat center of the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center founded by the Nyingma Dzogchen masters Ven. Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche & Ven. Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche. Ordained as a lama by Rinpoches, Dragpa graduated with honors in philosophy & religious studies from NYU in 2002, and is a senior editor of over 25 books on Buddhist philosophy & meditation.

Nomali Perera has been in the field of leadership development coaching, facilitation and teaching since 2007. Nomali is a certified facilitator of Polarity Management, the Immunity to Change™ process, a Master Coach at Life XT and an Integral Master Coach through Integral Coaching Canada. Nomali has also been a professional consultant in people development and training in Brazil and Mexico. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Jeff Salzman has worked in adult education and transformation for thirty years. He is co-founder of CareerTrack Training, professional development company he and his partner built into an international organization producing over 3000 seminars annually and employing over 300 people. For three years Jeff worked side by side with Ken Wilber developing the Integral Institute, an international center for integral theory and application. A long time spiritual practitioner in many traditions, he has a Masters Degree in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism from Naropa University. Jeff spent the last few years as co-founder and teacher at Boulder Integral, now The Integral Center. These days he travels, teaches and comments about current events on Integral Life and on his blog The Daily Evolver.

Rollie Stanich worked closely with Ken Wilber in the formative years of Integral Institute, in the roles of Managing Editor of Integral Naked and inaugural Chief Facilitator of Integral Spiritual Center, and is considered to be among his senior students. He is presently Chief Intelligence Officer of a non-thermal plasma energy company, and is developing an Integral Internet platform called Metamind. Stanich has just had his first book published—Integral Christianity: The Way of Embodied Love, with Foreword by Ken Wilber.