From Race to Culture to Kosmos

Using the Dance of Differences to Wise Up, Harmonize, and Actualize

“Out of the many… one. This is the challenge, the spiritual challenge, for Americans and for humanity.”Greg Thomas

Greg Thomas, brilliant cultural analyst, educator, musician, speaker, and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project, is passionate about the power of culture to transform us as individuals and collectively. Where race is concerned, Greg presents an illuminating, multiperspectival view of the many layered issues around racism in this country. Early on, Greg developed a systemic perspective on how everything fits together, and realized that the issues that plague us are not just about race or racism, but the overarching systemic racial worldview. Greg offers that the way out of this morass lies in adopting a cultural lens to replace the racial lens. And Greg points out that when we further embrace a cultural worldview in a participatory way, it opens up all the doors and windows: creating room for individuals to shine, for groups to experience group flow, for all of us to enjoy beauty and appreciation—the way soloist, band, and audience come together in a shared musical experience.

When Greg talks about the power of culture, sharing illustrative anecdotes about blues masters, blues philosophy, and great moments in jazz history, it becomes clear just how effective culture is at dissolving boundaries and heightening connection, and how music (in this case) allows us to transcend our differences, our daily burdens, and experience unbounded joy. This is a lively, impactful, and poignant dialogue, with wisdom ranging from the deeply spiritual, the psychological/developmental, to the political and universal.

Recorded January 25, 2023.

Topics & Timestamps: Part 1

Introducing Greg Thomas, jazz & blues scholar, musician, educator, and cultural sage (01:02)
The blues speaks to everyone: as the Buddha said, life is suffering (03:04)
The experience of Black Americans and their relationship with absurdity (05:07)
Cultural appropriation is a misunderstanding of the way culture works: the difference between plagiarism and cultural appropriation (06:42)
Flourishing happens when different ideas and cultures come together (09:05)
Recognizing the fundamental tributary that the Black American experience and culture is to American history and American culture: using a cultural lens instead of a racial one (13:46)
Greg Thomas’ spiritual journey: integrating traditionalism, modernism, postmodernism, Integral Theory, a pre-traditional experience, and studying African syncretism, Taoism, Kabbalah, and more (17:38)
How Greg developed a systemic perspective on how everything fits together, the blues wisdom tradition, and the 4th zone of the Integral Map (22:21)
Dealing with the range and depth of the wicked problems we have today is ultimately going to take wisdom (25:37)
How indigenous wisdom was lost during the Age of Enlightenment and the challenge of the Integral movement to provide a framework for integration (26:08)
One of our fundamental problems stems from the notion that we are separate from nature, separate from the divine (29:24)
Out of the many…one: this is the challenge, the spiritual challenge, for Americans and for humanity (32:22)
Is ethnocentricity (and therefore racism) a natural part of the evolutionary ladder? (35:54)
The concept of rooted cosmopolitanism (40:15)
Ken Wilber’s “dignities and disasters” of modernity (45:20)
Beyond ethnocentrism and how each stage has its traps: one trap is the denial of any differences between races, which isn’t right either (47:21)
Deracialization and the fundamental concept of our identity: making sense of the complex terms race and identity (50:06)
It’s not just about race or racism, but the overarching systemic racial worldview (53:57)
Perspectival and participatory knowing are crucial, so we can engage with one another and develop skills of interaction (56:09)
The swing era of the 1930s, stomping the blues, and group flow (58:29)

Topics & Timestamps: Part 2

Antagonistic cooperation: competition is part of the American, democratic experience, but there are ways it can be a cooperative competition, e.g. cutting contests in jazz, cypher in hip hop (01:30)
Where individuality and the group flow dynamic come together: jazz and the ring shout tradition (04:34)
Entropy, consciousness, and culture: the tragic dimension and the comic perspective (05:33)
The power of culture: pushing people towards excellence, orienting towards self-actualization, and the Greek notion of arete (06:57)
How do we get to arete? The importance of striving for and developing both mastery and wisdom (11:11)
The tension between virtues like liberty and equality (15:27)
The healing power of music: Art Pepper & Sonny Stitt’s cutting contest (18:00)
Stomping the blues and how music merges secular & sacred, reminds us of our range of human feelings, gives resonance to memory, and brings healing and transcendence (21:11)
Music affirms the gift of life: moments of utopia allow us to transcend our everyday cares (25:00)
The role of creativity, the arts & humanities, is crucial in getting through the meaning crisis and the metacrisis (28:53)
Cultural forms and ideas can be picked up at any time and reinvigorated: bringing back the wisdom (29:52)
If there are enough of us who can model what it takes to be in flow together, despite our differences, we could tap into higher dimensions of human possibility (32:52)
The blues idiom wisdom tradition, great orators Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & Frederick Douglass, and the embodiment of American democratic ideals (33:36)
Striving to achieve the realization of democratic ideals in a multiracial democracy—it’s never been done before (38:34)
The fundamental contradiction of being a slave owner in a country based on the principle of liberty (41:30)
Ultimately neither slave owner or slave is psychologically and spiritually free in a slave society (42:20)

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos
Image created via MidJourney

Presented by iAwake Technologies’ innovative, sound-tech infused NeuroFlow.

NeuroFlow features expansive 3D holophonic nature soundtracks infused with advanced brainwave entrainment technology for quickly accessing profound states of focus, relaxation, and creative energy.

NeuroFlow is for:

Balanced, relaxed focus when you need it for work, for study, for play
Deeply relaxing, intense focus or to de-stress or just chill
Energizing, feeling good, getting “high”
Generating creative flow for work, writing, art, expression
Flowing with your life and your world in all its richness and possibility and aliveness

Check out the free sample:

Click here to hear more!

About the Deep Transformation series

We are clearly in a new era, facing world-threatening challenges and graced with barely conceivable opportunities. In this mind-boggling new world, we all face two crucial questions:

First, the ever-present conundrum of how to best live fully, deeply, wisely, and well.
Second, the new question unique to our times, how to best understand and heal our endangered world.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear responses to these questions from some of the great consciousness pioneers—the outstanding thinkers, sages, scientists, and activists—of our time? These are the people and conversations that Deep Transformation offers.

Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit draws on diverse ideas from around the world. It goes beyond traditional positions and polarities—beyond left and right, material and spiritual—to seek syntheses of deep wisdom and practical know-how that integrate the best of all positions.

Click here to learn more about Deep Transformation!

Previous Episodes of Deep Transformation

Ken Wilber’s Map of Everything

Brad Reynolds

Brad Reynolds gives us a beautiful distillation of Ken Wilber’s work, starting from the beginning and spanning decades. Not only does Brad elegantly relate the major themes of Ken’s work, he also makes clear the value of Ken’s contributions—the way this knowledge can be understood and applied to literally expand our notion of reality and evolve our consciousness

The Psychology of Climate Change

Gail Hochachka

Climate change researcher, sustainable development expert, and activist Gail Hochachka works on the front lines of climate change research, asking—and answering—questions like: How does the way we make meaning, at all our different stages of development, relate to the ways we act on climate change? How can we foster more engagement with climate change? Is climate action scalable? And how are we going to show up for the people who are facing the greatest impacts?

Bringing Soul and Integrity to American Politics

Marianne Williamson

More than a political talk, Marianne reveals a psychological and spiritual portrait of the United States, referencing the brilliant vision of our founding fathers, Martin Luther King’s goal of Beloved Community, and telling a stirring story of the way Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration reflects the high morality of the populace at that time.

Deepening Our Explorations of Reality

Bruce Alderman

Bruce Alderman, poet, mystic, and spiritual explorer, is also an integral scholar and pioneer of the emerging field of metatheory, looking at how to put our disparate fields of information—spiritual, psychological, philosophical, environmental, scientific—together and integrate them into a useful whole.

Buddhas in Blue: Enlightened Ways to Make Policing Work For Everyone

Ryan Johansen

In this moving, illuminating, and impassioned discussion, retired Police Lt. Chris Orrey and San Bruno Police Chief Ryan Johansen open our eyes as to the realities of policing in today’s world and offer solutions as to how the entire institution of police work could be transformed to become more effective and sustainable, both for police officers and for the communities they serve.

The Essence of Awakening: Who Are We Really?

Lama Surya Das

Lama Surya Das, beloved meditation teacher, scholar, pioneer of bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, and author of the bestseller Awakening the Buddha Within among many more, shares bright gems of wisdom from his extensive experience practicing Dzogchen, his long immersion in meditation retreats, and studying in person with the great spiritual teachers of Asia.

Building a Just World: How Our Laws Express Our Collective Values

Mark Fischler

Constitutional law expert and criminal justice professor Mark Fischler has a thirst for justice and a gift for teaching. With cogency and passion, Mark explains that law is not the absolute that we perhaps thought, but an ever changing reflection of the values we hold as a society. Law is a developmental process, and will benefit from our own dedication to inner moral development.

The Enneagram as a Spiritual Tool

Leslie Hershberger

Enneagram expert, teacher, master facilitator, and transformational coach Leslie Hershberger leads us into the world of the Enneagram, painting a broader, deeper picture of the Enneagram and its uses as a psycho-spiritual tool than is commonly understood.

Grappling with the Metacrisis

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens

In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time.

Illuminating the Integral Vision: A Metatheory for Understanding Self, Life, and the World

Corey deVos

Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history — the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us, and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.

The Edge of the Future: Education, Civilization, and the Metacrisis

Zach Stein

Educator, author, philosopher, and futurist Zachary Stein gives a startling account of the effects the digital age already has on education and where this is headed. Zak sees education in a deeply philosophical sense as fundamental to the sustainability of our civilization, with implications for each component of the metacrisis. Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable civilization? Can we maintain our psychological sovereignty in a sea of digital propaganda and know the truth?

The Human Potential Movement: Then and Now

Mike Murphy

Michael Murphy, author, co-founder of the world-famous Esalen Institute, and pioneer of the Human Potential Movement starting in the 60s, relates a wealth of intimate experience, knowledge, and wisdom covering his decades of living at the leading edge of transformative practice and the realization of human potential.

Nature as Teacher: Finding Beauty, Wisdom, and Self in Everything

Susanne Cook-Greuter

Adult psychology pioneer and ego development expert Susanne Cook-Greuter introduces us to her favorite wisdom teacher: Nature. Susanne explains how Integral Theory’s 3-2-1 Process can be practiced with elements in nature to gain greater insight into the teachings of nature—evolution, cycles of life and death, the transience of life, the beauty that is everywhere—and to experience oneness with all.

Awakening Joy: Life Skills for Living, Loving, and Serving Life to the Full

James Baraz

James’ teachings take us deeply into states like gratitude and compassionate presence, to where we can focus our attention on how it feels to feel good somatically, thereby creating new neural pathways that strengthen awareness and aliveness. James has witnessed a lot of people learn to love themselves and turn their lives around as a result of this teaching.

Nonduality (And Beyond)

A. H. Almaas

A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), renowned author and co-creator of the Diamond Approach, describes his own process of inquiry and some of what he has come to discover in his lifelong pursuit to understand the nature of reality and know the truth.

The Source and Heart of Judaism and the Great Religions

Zvi Ish-Shalom

In this remarkable conversation, Zvi describes how he found ways to map and interpret his own profound mystical experiences, how the teachings arise from the ground of being, about how they might become accessible to us all, regardless of religion or spiritual tradition, and how they are especially relevant for young people today, seeking to find a structure for their spiritual journey.

Vertical Development’s Many Gifts

Beena Sharma

Beena Sharma, president of the Vertical Development Academy (VeDA), gives a beautifully cogent explanation of the 8-stage, full spectrum model of adult psychological development, Vertical Development — illuminating us not only to the characteristics of each stage of development, but the implications and ramifications of each stage, the process of human development as a whole, and how this model can help us face our current metacrisis.

The Remarkable Practice of Dream Yoga

Andrew Holecek

Lucid dreaming expert, author, “curiouist,” and integralist Andrew Holecek explains how lucid dreaming opens the door to a greatly expanded understanding of our minds, our perception of reality, and human potential altogether.

How to Heal a Culture That Has Lost Its Soul

Alexander Beiner

Rebel Wisdom co-founder Alexander Beiner has his finger on the cultural pulse of our times. Here he explores key challenges we face as a global community: sensemaking and truth finding in an culture that has lost its coherence as well as its sense of the divine, and what role psychedelics might play both therapeutically and spiritually in healing our culture. He discusses the need to go beyond the intellectual to find clarity and coherence, using embodied practices like meditation and inquiry, and explains how modalities such as these are an essential container for therapeutic psychedelic experiences.

From Bodhisattva to Ecosattva: Integrating Personal Practice and Global Activism

David Loy

David Loy, Zen teacher, scholar, and prolific author, reveals his acute understanding of the crises we face today, the psychology at the root of the problems, and how we can make our way forward in this in-depth discussion. He has adopted the term ecodharma to focus attention on the challenge Buddhism faces now: integrating personal transformation with global activism and social transformation. As David points out, the focus needs to be on this world, with transcendence being a metaphorical understanding but not an excuse to abandon the problems we and our planet face today.

Healing Collective Trauma: We Are All Shareholders in a Traumatized World

Thomas Hübl

Thomas Hübl, renowned spiritual teacher, author, expert on collective trauma, and creator and facilitator of The Collective Trauma Integration Process, shares fascinating, life changing information about the dynamics of collective trauma — how it is embodied and perpetuated in the language we use, and how we are bound together in a sort of “mutual collusion” that predisposes us to repeat our past, and to repeat over and over the things we would much rather leave behind.

Become a member today to watch this video presentation and support the global emergence of Integral consciousness

About Greg Thomas

Greg Thomas has over 25 years of experience as a writer, producer, broadcaster and educator, and has been featured in publications as various as The Root, All About Jazz, Salon, London's Guardian Observer, the Village Voice, Africana, American Legacy, Savoy, New York's Daily News as well as the scholarly journal Callaloo. He was the Editor-in-Chief of Harlem World magazine from 2003-2006.

About John Dupuy

John Dupuy is co-founder and CEO of iAwake Technologies, a company that creates cutting-edge, high-tech brainwave entrainment soundtracks that support the healing of emotional/shadow issues, deepen meditation, mental focus, creativity, and flow states, and enhance a daily integral transformative practice. John has been working personally and professionally with brainwave entrainment technology since 2004, and travels internationally to teach and inspire on the subjects of Integral Transformative Practice and Integral Recovery®. John is also the author of Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction (SUNY Press, 2013), winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Award, and co-host of the popular Journey of Integral Recovery podcast. John also hosts the online series Spiritual Tech Talks 2.0, in which he converses with leaders, pioneers, and inventors on the current wave of emerging spiritual technologies.

About 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.