In this episode 32 chapters
- Brain Machines and Higher States
On the first listener question about technology, Chris praises how the internet makes the world's wisdom traditions available to anyone.
- Music Up the Chakras
Ken links each developmental stage to its own kind of music, from tribal rhythm and rebellious rock and punk to classical, jazz, world fusion and integral art, and explains how any loved music can…
- Life Without Life Energy
Asked whether anyone can grow in consciousness in front of a screen eight hours a day, Ken argues that online media carry information but not subtle energy or prana, so screen life is cut off from…
- Drugs on the Path
Chris tells how a mushroom trip he took hoping to see God became his one bad experience, and weighs how psychedelics opened his curiosity against the addiction and numbing that nearly destroyed him.
- The Sixties and Two Camps
Ken recalls the idealism of the psychedelic 1960s and how the drugs, their setting and their reputation went sour.
- Judgment and Balanced Drug Education
Answering a substance-abuse prevention worker, Ken criticizes the postmodern taboo on making judgments and the one-sided anti-drug messaging, and warns against projecting one's own shadow.
- Ecstasy Opens the Heart
Ken describes how therapeutic doses of ecstasy dropped people's defenses and resolved relationship problems that had resisted years of therapy.
- Loving-Kindness for Self-Loathing
Answering a question about trauma and overwhelming emotions, Chris describes his own deep self-loathing and walks through the stages of loving-kindness meditation as a base for working with big…
- Resting as the Witness
Ken teaches how to move identity from the small, seen self to the witness, the pure awareness that does the seeing.
- The 3-2-1 Shadow Process
Chris describes using spiritual practice to avoid his pain.
- No Extra Time Required
On busy lives, Chris recommends one-minute practice modules and walking meditation.
- Coming Back from the Peak
On returning to ordinary life after deep experiences, Chris draws on the Heart Sutra teaching that form is emptiness, and on a fierce kind of compassion, to meet both the highs and the rock bottoms.
- Turiya and Turiyatita
Ken guides listeners through the two ever-present states: the timeless witness (I-am-ness) and the non-dual union of emptiness and form.
- What Isn't in Deep Sleep
Chris describes a moment of unity with a tree on a run, followed by a jolt of ego fear.
- Judged by Tattoos
On following your own truth, Chris encourages approaching spirituality like a scientist and describes being judged for his appearance.
- The Voice of the Highest Self
Ken notes that there are always two inner voices, the higher self and the contracted self, and that following your own path still requires telling them apart.
- Three Minutes of Consistency
Both argue that consistency comes from a small daily practice: cut back to as little as three minutes rather than skip.
- Four Meanings of Spirituality
Ken lays out four ways people use the word spiritual: the highest levels of any developmental line, a line of its own, a state of consciousness, and an attitude such as love.
- One Path or Many
Ken explains that becoming a transmitted teacher takes about ten years in a single tradition, but that today every tradition is available.
- Wetness on Every Wave
Asked whether some people can't be spiritual, Ken says anyone who is conscious can be.
- Mystics Who Stay Ethnocentric
Chris reflects on how our perceptions act as lenses.
- Spiritually Sexy
Chris describes using practice to push away pain in his early years, and criticizes shallow, commodified teachings that won't help when hard times hit.
- Hurts More, Bothers Less
Ken traces the idea of the untouchable spiritual superhero to the early Buddhist goal of a formless nirvana state.
- Service in the Rehabs
Chris describes how facing his own darkness turned his practice toward serving others, and shares his work speaking at youth rehabs and detox centers.
- Can It Be Taught?
Chris stresses testing teachings against direct experience, citing Trungpa's "burn it, hammer it, beat it."
- A Universe Winding Up
Ken argues against the second law's picture of a universe running down: evolution keeps transcending and including what came before, from quarks to the neocortex, and human identity widens the same…
- Pre and Trans
Discussing Sam Harris and the new atheists, Ken says they are right to attack mythic religion but confuse pre-rational myth with trans-rational awakening, and so throw out humanity's greatest…
- The Fire Next Door
Chris says worrying about other people's judgments of tattoos and swearing is a waste of time.
- Purity, Infidels and Entitlement
Ken explains that ethnocentric identity needs differences and purity rules to feel special.
- Money as Ornament of Spirit
Ken argues that money, sex and food are expressions of spirit, not obstacles, even though they can inflame grasping.
- Replacing Om with Glam
Chris reads from a New York Times piece on fashionable meditation and lists absurdly priced yoga clothes.
- Relative Truth Still Matters
Ken explains that absolute truth (everything is spirit) does not erase relative truth: in the relative world some actions really are better than others, compassion is how to act in the dream, and…
Pay what you want for this series.
You can pay what you want for the full 6-hour discussion. Available to all Integral Life members for free.
PAY WHAT YOU WANTChris Grosso and Ken Wilber explore a radical new evolution of the spiritual life that is much better adapted to the needs and pressures of the 21st century world. It is a spirituality that is so all-inclusive, nothing gets left out. So all-embracing, it literally has no opposite. So all-pervading, even sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll can find their rightful place on the altar of transformation. This is not your grandma’s spirituality. These aren’t the crusty moralizations of traditional religion, or the saccharine pablum of New Age narcissism. This is Hardcore Spirit.
Chris, the celebrated author of Indie Spiritualist and Everything Mind, is doing a masterful job of delivering the tremendous wisdom and insight of the world’s spiritual traditions to a whole new generation of seekers, finders, and consciousness hackers, while offering the rest of us a long overdue punch in the Original Face. His “no bullshit” approach to spirituality has inspired young people all around the world to begin carving out their own contemplative practices, and giving them permission to talk honestly about the spiritual life without angst or irony.
Chris was asked by Ken Wilber to compile a list of questions from his friends and peers about their most pressing spiritual questions, concerns, and challenges, resulting in this stunning 6-hour Q&A series. The conversation ranges from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from the unique to the universal, from the practical to the Ultimate, helping you pave a new path to your deepest and most timeless heart.
Includes nearly 6 hours of discussion on the following important topics:
- What is the intersection between spirituality and technology?
- How can music be used for spiritual awakening?
- How can I cultivate higher states of consciousness while staring at a screen all day?
- Can drugs be useful on the spiritual path?
- How can we help people make healthy and informed decisions around drug use?
- How can I use my spiritual practice to better manage trauma, PTSD, and overwhelming emotions?
- What is the best way to face and integrate my shadow?
- What are the best forms of spiritual practice for a busy life?
- How do I re-engage the world after having a peak spiritual experience?
- How do I honor my own deeper truth and wisdom?
- Is it possible to consistently live a spiritual life, regardless of the challenges that I encounter on the path?
- Why does spirituality come more naturally to some people than to others?
- Does spiritual practice make you immune to fear, anxiety, pain, and other “dark” emotions?
- Is it possible to actually teach an authentic way of spiritual living?
- Is spirituality the gateway to the further evolution of the collective human consciousness?
- How important is it for our spiritual practice to conform to the norms of a particular tradition?
- What is the appropriate relationship between spirituality and money, and how do we find the right balance?
Pay what you want for this series.
You can pay what you want for the full 6-hour discussion. Available to all Integral Life members for free.
PAY WHAT YOU WANTAbout Hardcore Spirit
The world is changing, and so is our spirituality.
After centuries of cultural isolation, all the world’s greatest spiritual traditions are now being exposed to one another, and have begun cross-pollinating in very interesting and even surprising ways. And all of them are struggling to adapt and survive the pressures of life in the 21st century.
A new spotlight is being shone upon our most venerable religious traditions, and almost across the board they are found lacking. Yesterday’s moral platitudes are trivialized by the fast-moving complexity of today’s world, and in many cases are actually contributing to suffering by dampening our social progress. And the wishful thinking of new age spirituality offers little comfort when the real world crashes down around us and shatters our spiritually-inflated egos into smithereens.
But evolution is not done with us yet. On the contrary, it is still very much alive in humanity’s tireless quest for greater meaning, greater purpose, and greater sophistication. It is this evolutionary impulse that keeps us moving forward, allowing modern science to emerge from magic and superstition, modern medicine from leeching and bloodletting, chemistry from alchemy, psychology from phrenology, astronomy from astrology, democracy from theocracy, and the list goes on. Every field of human inquiry continues to move through wave upon wave of increasing accuracy, fidelity, and applicability. “Integral” is the next wave, and is already dramatically enhancing each of these fields — art, medicine, psychology, spirituality, sustainability, leadership, and many more — while also showing how they all fit together in a seamless totality of knowledge and understanding.
We have allowed almost every other field of human inquiry to mature out of the magic and mythic backwaters. But why not spirituality? To this day, spirituality seems to belong mostly to the zealots, the fanatics, and the charlatans, and is largely dismissed by the modern rational world (to the detriment of us all). But spirituality is not the product of superstition, magic, and mythology — it just simply has not been allowed to evolve beyond superstitious, magical, and mythological interpretations. And it is these interpretations — not spirituality itself — that make easy targets for writers like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris.
Because spirituality has not been given an opportunity to shift from belief to direct experience and truly thrive in the rational and postmodern world, we have been a bit too eager to eliminate the dogma, the myths, the “us vs. them” xenophobia and ethnocentricity — and as a result have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
Fortunately, Integral spirituality can help save the baby.
Not only does an integral approach to spirituality offer a way to evolve each of the major spiritual traditions (e.g. Integral Christianity, Integral Buddhism, Integral Judaism, Integral Sufism, etc.), but it also allows for the most inspiring and fruitful interfaith dialogues we have ever seen as we continue to explore how the experiences of awakening, enlightenment, and atonement have been interpreted from person to person, culture to culture, all across the ages — and then reinterpreting these experiences to not just survive today’s 21st-century world, but to deeply enrich it as well. These are without a doubt the most intelligent and insightful discussions of spirituality you will find anywhere on the planet.
Most importantly, Integral spirituality helps to distill the wisdom, transmission, and transformative potential contained within these ancient traditions, bringing more freedom, consciousness, and compassion to your life than you ever thought possible.
It is truly an extraordinary time to be alive. We are witnessing the emergence of something historic: the rise of integral consciousness. This is our very best shot to create a more peaceful and sustainable world, to awaken from the violent slumber of humanity’s adolescence, and to align ourselves with the future of evolution in this backward corner of the Milky Way.
Written by Corey deVos
About Chris Grosso
Chris Grosso is an independent culturist, spiritual aspirant, recovering addict, professor with en*theos Academy and author of Indie Spiritualist: A No Bullshit Exploration of Spirituality. He writes for Huffington Post, Rebelle Society, Origin Magazine and Mantra Yoga + Health Magazine. A self-taught musician, Chris has been writing, recording, and touring since the mid 90s.
About Ken Wilber
Ken Wilber is a preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development. He is an internationally acknowledged leader, founder of Integral Institute, and co-founder of Integral Life. Ken is the originator of arguably the first truly comprehensive or integrative world philosophy, aptly named “Integral Theory”.
