COHEN: But what's so extraordinary about the authentic self in relationship to evolution and enlightenment is that the authentic self is egoless, and its relationship to life is always an unconditional, absolute, passionate positivity.

WILBER: I think that's in the self line. In other words, there are many lines of development, and the center of gravity, of course, is the self line. And so in what you're describing, the authentic self would not be in the cognitive line or the musical line but in the self line—if it really happens. And frankly, you know how rare it is.

COHEN: Yes, I certainly do.

WILBER: It's so hard for it to stick, for just the reasons we've been discussing. There are x-factors that I don't understand and you don't understand, and that perhaps nobody's ever going to understand, but the fact of the matter is, whatever those x-factors are, they're winning. But we're also making headway.

The self line is the actual source of I, the proximate I, the sense of I-ness, and at the very peak of that is I-I, the self beyond the self, the selfless ground. And that's available as a state of turiya [pure consciousness], but also as this stage that's somewhere in indigo or violet or someplace way up the scale like that. And what happens with a person who has it in the cognitive line or the kinesthetic line—like when Tiger Woods is really connecting with the golf swing and he knows it—he'll tell you that's where his authentic self is, and it is, temporarily. But that doesn't mean his center of gravity resides there.

COHEN: I agree with you. When I explain this to people, I always say that the creative impulse, no matter how it expresses itself, is the authentic self, but the highest level of its expression is the evolutionary impulse at the level of consciousness, the spiritual impulse, the urge that comes from consciousness itself to evolve or transcend itself.

WILBER: Yes.

COHEN: But in your model, you don't have what we're calling the authentic self—or at least not that I've seen.

WILBER: No. But what I've said, though, is that in the way you're describing it, it's a state and a stage, but it's a stage in the self line, in other words it's the indigo stage, the leading-edge stage, in the self line. It's a state experience because you can experience it at several different stages, so as you say, you can have people at amber or orange or green or teal or turquoise start speaking from the authentic self.

COHEN: Absolutely.

WILBER: But for the people who really click, their center of gravity is not orange, it's not green, it's not teal, it's not turquoise; it's someplace in that turquoise to indigo to violet zone—in other words, their self sense is actually at that level, and that's where the authentic self can stick.

COHEN: It makes a lot of sense.

WILBER: It does, doesn't it? When someone at that level has a state experience, it will stick longer and longer and longer. Whereas if they're at orange, for example, they'll have a state experience of the authentic self and they'll walk out a couple of weeks or months later, and they'll remember it. Something will have changed because it will help nudge them up toward green, but they won't be at indigo. Does that make sense?

COHEN: Very much. This is what I'm desperately working on. Because I'm convinced that when I get a stable minority of people who can hold the authentic self as a stage through all changing states and through the challenges of life, then something is going to happen that's going to make it much easier for other people to take that same leap.

WILBER: Well, yes—it's got to happen in all four quadrants, that means you have to have a we, you have to have a fellowship of the ring, a partnership of intersubjectivity at indigo. If you don't have that, it's just not going to stick.

You know, we're all still just infants in figuring this out, and my job as a pandit is to try to bring clarity to this in theoretical terms. And I think if you can see the authentic self as an indigo stage in that self line, but also a state, it can help you explain why “Goddamn it, I worked my ass off for that orange person and nothing really changed . . .”

COHEN: That's right.

WILBER: It gives a clarity, and it helps to see what is going on.

COHEN: Yes. In my work, when I'm challenged most by life and by the difficulties of what I'm trying to do, it often helps enormously to be able to see how certain things happen and understand what the causes are. It helps with the emotional challenge. The truth really does set you free.

WILBER: I think so, and I think it's part of a larger aspect of View. There's a whole series of frameworks and views, right up to View with a capital V, in the absolute sense you've been talking about. And all of those frameworks are really about getting straight, in a very positive sense, being able to hold this and manifest it while we really are still pioneers and always will be—half blind, just stumbling along, and God knows what is really going on out
there . . .

COHEN: That's exactly how I feel most of the time. If I'm in a teaching position, suddenly I seem to know everything, but actually my everyday experience is that I have no idea what is going on.

WILBER: That's why I think even that discussion on the authentic self is very helpful. And also because I know it's something that in your own particular practice you strive to embody. I mean, you talk about it with such passion, and it's obviously, like you said, your central teaching in many ways.

COHEN: Absolutely. The authentic self is our stepping stone to the future.

WILBER: And I think that seeing it in that sense really clarifies the message of the evolutionary impulse today, which is “Get indigo, people!” You know what I mean?