Uncharted Territory

Wilber: That’s exactly right. There are, in a sense, two delicate steps toward a fully integral approach to realization and enlightenment and consciousness. One is getting unstuck from the pluralistic postmodern worldview, getting out of the worldview that denies all ranking systems, hierarchies, and value gradations. This is an enormously difficult thing for individuals at the postmodern stage to do because it seems that they are then judging people in a negative way. But the judging is simply in terms of depth, in terms of degrees of inclusiveness. The postmodernists have thrown out judgments based on exclusiveness, which is good, but they have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. They’ve thrown out the judgments of inclusiveness as well. And so they don’t have an understanding of how these stages of development are important—and also crucial to their own emergence. The pluralistic worldview itself emerged from five or six hierarchical stages, each of which transcended and included the previous ones.

The segment of the American population known as the cultural creatives—some twenty percent, or roughly fifty-five million Americans—has basically moved from modern rationalism and scientific materialism to the next stage of pluralism and postmodernism and multiculturalism. But that’s a very flatland stage; it’s a stage that doesn’t have an understanding of discriminating wisdom based on degrees of developmental depth. So the first delicate issue is helping to get people out of that automatic, knee-jerk, postmodern-jargon series of approaches, which is “anything that has any ranking is wrong.” They’re overlooking the fact that they have their own ranking; that itself is a very strong ranking. So we can’t avoid ranking. What we want are rankings that are fair and equitable and open to justice rather than rankings based on race, color, sex, or creed.

So getting caught in the postmodern cultural creative stage is the first delicate step that most people have to get over. The second delicate step is that once you understand the integral stage—once you understand theoretically that it includes all of the previous stages, and makes room for all of their values, realizing that human beings are born at square one and that everybody goes through all of these different stages of value growth—then there’s the thing you’re talking about. Once you understand the importance of both absolute and relative, and the importance of things we call quadrants and levels and lines and states and types, once you get all of that theoretically, then you have to embody it, you have to awaken to it, you have to make it a genuine realization in your own being. And that generally takes practice in a spiritual community.

This is one of the reasons we call these dialogues that you and I have been having over the years “The Guru and the Pandit.” I have represented the pandit position and raised the theoretical issues and many of the academic issues that need to be raised—hopefully not in a dry, dull sense but in a way that’s spiritually alive. I have never stepped into the public role of being a spiritual teacher or a guru. But it takes a guru, generally speaking. It takes a spiritual path and some sort of involvement with a spiritual community for people to convert this integral theoretical understanding to an integral, embodied, alive, realized understanding. And that’s one of the important things that you’re involved in.

Both of these delicate steps are necessary for culture at large to move away from its fragmented and divisive and quarrelsome state, away from the culture wars where we are at each other’s throats, with traditional values hating modern values, modern values hating postmodern values, and postmodern values hating all of them. It’s important to see that those are three necessary unfolding stages of development in every human being’s growth. And for us to be able to have that kind of harmonious culture, we need both of those steps. We need to move from a fragmented view to an integral view theoretically, and then we have to find ways to embody it, to practice it, and to put it into being.

Cohen: Indeed. And because we are at this very delicate point in our cultural evolution, it seems so urgent that more and more people take these steps more quickly. It’s unusual for an individual to realize that he or she is literally on the edge of unknown territory. Most human beings are born and die within a preexistent cultural context that they don’t necessarily feel is up to them to define. But at this particular time in history, for these new integral and evolutionary stages, structures, and potentials to emerge, it requires rare and heroic individuals who are willing to bear the emotional, psychological, philosophical, and spiritual overwhelm of realizing that they have to be real pioneers. Where we’re going now is uncharted territory. More and more people at this edge are working very hard to lay down these new structures, as you have often said, but the truth is that there’s no panel of experts or ascended masters who have already figured this out for us. This is something we’re all working through and need to work through together, with other individuals that have that same pioneering spirit and have awakened to the conviction that this needs to happen and we’re the ones who have to do it. This adds a certain kind of weight, gravitas, and, of course, excitement and thrill to the endeavor of spiritual transformation and evolution at this particular time.

Wilber: Absolutely! That’s one of the things that makes being on an evolutionary edge so “good news/bad news.” On the one hand, it’s a pioneering edge; it’s being at a place that has more perspectives than previous positions, that sees more and embraces more and understands more. But it’s also a situation where, as you say, these things haven’t been figured out; they are all being tested as we go along. People are still trying to work into what the exact meaning is of a truly evolutionary enlightenment, a truly integral enlightenment. And there’s no book that gives us the final answer. It’s all being done right now in the hearts and minds of those individuals who are treading the path. That’s where the book is being written. And that also means that it can be very, very hard on individuals who are moving along this new path.

I think a lot of people look at things like the great notion of evolutionary enlightenment or integral enlightenment and think, “Well, if I’m at an integral stage, everything must be wonderful, everything must be just super-keen.” But actually, things can be just horrible, because you’re being laid open in a very sensitive way. You are transcending all previous defenses. It can be a situation that’s very, very difficult. You are in a position where, as I say, it hurts more, but bothers you less. My favorite politically incorrect definition of a pioneer is the guy with all the arrows in his back. That’s what it can feel like when you’re pursuing this path. And, as you say, there is no final tribunal, no court of judges or enlightened masters that have gone down this path before. We’re all making it up as we go along, but we’re grounded in our understanding, in our growth, in our inner development and realization.

That’s what makes a careful consideration and discussion with others who are attempting this path so important. Sharing what we’ve learned and continuing to open up to each other’s insights is so very, very critical. Because, as obvious as it sounds to say that we need to include all of the developmental states and stages in a human being if they’re going to find their full potential, fewer than one percent of the spiritual teachers in this country are doing it.