Second Tier? Zaadz and Changing the World...

Hi Everybody!

I love zaadz.

I love Integral Theory.

I love Spiral Dynamics.

I think that all three represent an incredible interface of ideas, communities, practices - all that have the potential to be genuinely transformational and shift another .0001% of the populace toward second tier. :O)

Now I know this is a new thing and all, and I really do have compassion and patience for the process - but i wonder if zaadz has fallen prey to a kind of green/blue politeness combined with an orange/green enterprising positive thinking and is calling that “second tier”.

What I mean is that i see a real absence of messy, authentic, honest debate about what the transition  to second tier might  actually entail.

I love the guidelines that (i think) ken wrote up for integral forums - but one glance at the wyatt earpy chronicles makes that seem like a bit of a double standard, yeah? Don't get me wrong though, I am not suggesting chaos, merely a little more substance.

Frankly i see a lot of waaay regressive green/purple new age stuff, a lot of green relativism and a general assumption that spirituality and critical thinking are mutually exclusive and that changing the world means buying into some cutesy positive belief system.

Now of course no-one on zaadz gets to define the dialog or the philosophy. So this is not an integral site per se, a spiral dynamics site, (a julian site lol), or a network explicitly devoted to making the leap to second tier - the center of gravity will define itself, and so it should be. But one of the things that troubles me with integral in general, as well as SD, as well as what I see happening at zaadz, is a kind of reliance on cool jargon to create shared identifications with little discussion of the hard fucking work it takes to actually create real stagewise growth.

At times it seems like it all becomes a hip identification - a new-new age for really smart people, and then a additional crop who know the language by imitation, but don't really get the implications of what it is saying.

So i want to instigate a little more debate, serious discourse, brainstorming about real ways to effect change, honesty about how fucked up the world really is right now.

I am kinda tired of meeting new integral folks who proudly proclaim they are second tier - it's like the wave of papaji devotees who came back from Lucknow in the 90's claiming non-dual enlightenment and offering satsang. Integral and SD sometimes sound like they are just more  accessories for the spiritual hipster - like that deep knowing vacant look that I remember from my satsang days….do you know? do you know, that i know, that you know, that i know, that i am that?

So, in closing, I am all for inclusiveness, but let's bust out and actually say something. Let's express opinions and share theories and ways to apply them and get our hands dirty, and take action together - this network has amazing potential - let's not allow it to become the New Age my space for people who read.

Who wants to play?

Yours

~Julian

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Hi Julian,

great little slideshow of viewpoints there. Very enjoyable. But what to debate when there’s total agreement? I recognize every one of your POVs as valid and smart, observant, and in its own way - right. And so? Are you going to make others post the way you want them to? (big smiley grin) Hm, wanting anybody to be different… uh… that’s a lot like trying to herd a gaggle of cats. I’ve tried it again just recently, despite so many spectacular previous failures, to get some pesky netizens that I adore, to do something and NOT something else. Did they listen to me? Yes. Did I have even the slightest bit of power over them? Ha ha ha! But good luck to you and your quest to find people who disagree and put up some feisty, flamboyant repartee. I’ll be happy to throw an occasional left-fielder in there, probably.

Later,

M

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Hi Julian

Thank you for your post; like Mascha, I find myself in substantial agreement - so I guess you'll have to work a little harder to stir debate, lol.  I think you'll find people willing to engage in lively debate if you approach it in a respectful, authentic way as you are doing here (as opposed, say, to just stirring up shit for it's own sake, which is not very desirable).

I'll ponder this - and I invite you to bring up more concrete examples or suggestions - but what's coming up off the top of my head is that, for me, doing the nitty-gritty work required to go to second tier means - for one thing - making sure you do some actual shadow work and avoid doing a spiritual bypass or resting self-satisfied in a primarily intellectual understanding of these concepts.  In my own case I've been doing shadow work by going to sessions (individual and group) with integral therapist Robert Augustus Masters, and also (although not very recently) doing Ayahuasca ceremonies.  I also try to surround myself with people with well-functioning bullshit detectors who know they have my permission (even encouragement) to use them on me.  :)

Another aspect which seems key to me is staying engaged in debate and speaking uncomfortable truths when it seems important and appropriate to do so.  I don't feel like going into the details, but there was a huge, long-term debate in the Integral Naked forum over the interpretation of the Road Rules, and how to approach trolling/spamming on the forum.  IMO, there was way too much of a pathologically inclusive, green-meme vibe in how that situation was (not) handled, and ultimately I moved on as a result. 

Briefly, engaging in f2f relationships (especially with people who are “second tier” or trying to be) based on healthy openness and integrity is another way to move things along.  Finally, for now, there's the question of taking tangible action in the world - I think your post is pointing in that direction, and if you have ideas on tangible actions to take in the world I'd love to hear more about that.

Again, thanks for asking some interesting questions, and I'd love to hear what others have to say about this.

spiral out,
arthur

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arthur right on! yea shadow work is an invaluable and oft overlooked component of serious stage wise growth…i would hazard a gues that you are amongst the 10 or 15% on zaadz who not only get that, but are doing something to that end!

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This really resonates with me:

“let's not allow it to become the New Age my space for people who read.”

I was talking about this exact thing with my ex-husband/best friend last night. I've been really delving into personal issues around this, so excuse the slight tangent. But I've noticed that so many of the profiles and photos are exactly like a “second-tier” MySpace, which is what my ex suggested it was.

I see what appears to me to be a lot of first-tier, preconventional behavior masquerading as post-conventional second-tier stuff. It seems like the men are touting their spiritual accomplishments (puffing out their chests) and the women are trying their damnedest to post the sexiest pictures of themselves they can find. Hell, when that fails, they just post pictures of other naked women!

Is this really all there is? I read the comments under the pictures and they are just like what you'd read on MySpace, only dressed up in fancier words. Instead of “You're Hot!” it's “You're a radiant beauty!” Some of it's not even as dressed up as that.

I'm sure the guys could find similar stuff that they find less-than-inspiring, but I'm not as attuned to that.

Some guy has been asking me to be his “friend” and I went to look at his profile. Virtually all of his friends are attractive women, and he only joined a few days ago. He's obviously on a very focused mission. So while I will acknowledge that it feels good to be asked, it also creeps me out that there are men on here who simply want to put together a harem of attractive women's pictures. I'd really like to bring a discussion of this out into the open.

Is there any way around the ego-reinforcing aspect of this interface? Do we have to remove all the pictures in order to level the playing field (ugh, boring) or can we transcend and include this?

Liz

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liz, i loved your response. right on!

let's talk more about this stuff. start a thread with these points and i will definitely respond…

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OK, I'll pick up the stick.  I'll start by saying I probably disagree with much of  what integralists are calling Integral.  Maybe it's because I don't know integral.  Maybe it's because I do.  Frankly, I don't know which is the case.  Anyway, to get into it in depth is seeming to require much more effort than I am able to manage these days.  I'll try with a pithy comment that might get it started.

Second Tier, Third Tier, Fourth?…..none of them are enlightenment (assuming that a goal of integral practice is to move people closer to the realization of enlightenment). 

Those are identifications that might actually be harder to drop than a simple First Tier identity.   So much of integral, SD, etc. is just higher order egoity.  Being higher order to me implies a greater level of empowerment, but the dark side of that is the inflation that can accompany that empowerment.  I think there is more than enough ego-inflation to go around the Second Tier.  Second Tier is not liberation from the ego.  At that level, in my view, the ego is even more powerful than at lower levels.  It is more clever.  The depressed person doesn't need very complex structures of consciousness to maintain their depression.  “Woe is me!” is good enough, and also pretty simple (though not easy..ego seems to be just as tenacious at all levels) to disassemble.  At higher levels, the egoic structures are much more complex,  and way harder to take apart.  (begin edit) They need to be, or else a higher order conciousness would be able to accelerate along the path infinitely and there would be no problem at all.  If someone with really high order conciousness was faced with the simple limitations that depressed people struggle with (I'll admit this is not an AQAL argument…to keep it simple, or to be lazy, you make the call), then the higher order being would see through it in a second.  But they have a whole new set of issues to work with, and the ego is still there, and maybe it knows it has it's work cut our for it at higher levels, so the problems  of consciousness, aka the ego, get more and more complex as we move up the ladder.   (end edit) Not only that, but these higher order structures are relatively new, so we look at them with amazement and think that they are so much more special than the old structures we are familiar with.  But they are structures, and in my view, structure implies limitation, and limitation is incompatible with enlightenment.  So, if you want to realize your enlightened nature, drop not only your First Tier structures, but do so without picking up any Second Tier ones to just replace them.  The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

OK, that's pretty anti-integral from somebody who really does love integral theory.

Keith

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Wicked, Keith!

I've been having my doubts lately about this whole integral nonsense anyway, lol!

Seriously, I have been feeling more, like you said, that it's been getting in the way of progress rather than helping it along, in both my personal path and in the world at large.

I wish I had the words to describe it. But I think you're getting at it for a start. Perhaps it's just the actual taking seriously of it that is the problem. I know Ken has said over and over, “It's the map, not the territory” but perhaps we need to take that deadly seriously and take the map as lightly as possible.

You're right that it's harder and harder to shed this stuff the more “advanced” we become. You a fan of Stuart Davis? “The higher that we climb, the more the ladder sways.”

So that implies, does it not, that we have to be ever more vigilant, ever more questioning about our own motives and shadows, right? Yet what I see is still lots of facades and posturing, made worse by the veneer of a second-tier stamp of approval.

The phrase “Integral Naked” just came to my mind, and what it's supposed to be about, that phrase. It's an ideal. Try and integrate all of ourselves with the utmost clarity and honesty and openness. It's a tall order.

That said, I'm not despairing of “integral” and what it means. Surely, it's a moving target and we're all on a path that, no matter its appearance, is heading in the right direction.

Liz

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Hi Keith

First I'd like to point out there is nothing intrinsically “wrong” with ego, and if by “liberation from the ego” you mean something like ”elimination of the ego,” then I think this has nothing to do with integral living or spirituality.  Transcending exclusive identification with the ego would be part of what this is all about - according to my current understanding - but the other part would involve refining the ego, transforming the ego into more functional forms that better serve Spirit in-and-as the world.  The ego, in itself, is nothing more (or less) than the aspect of your bodymind that interfaces with the rest of the kosmos - it's the boundary where “Spirit manifesting as you” interfaces with “Spirit manifesting as everything else” here in Samsaraland - while bearing in mind that all that is “merely” temporary manifestations of the Ground of Being.  As long as your bodymind exists, the ego as I'm defining it will exist in some form.  And when I say “merely” I would also note that this means that everything is also always already a perfect manifestation of the Ground of Being; thus, as Robert Augustus Masters points out, “there is no such thing as an insignificant act” (I like that interpretation a lot better than an alternative interpretation I've heard from people to the effect that “everything in the manifest world is utterly insignificant”).

I agree that we can get too obsessed with the map and make an idol of it, but it seems to me that the underlying motivation in the integral enterprise is to attempt to touch base with all of reality as you live your life, to leave nothing out.  It may well be the case that focusing too much on the map can actually interfere with that; this may be a sign that it's better for one to throw the map away - having already largely internalized it - and get on with the matter of integral living.  Later the map may once again become explicitly useful and/or interesting to you, or maybe not.  It doesn't mean that the map is necessarily wrong or misleading or counter to one's growth or being in the world (although any of those could be true) - it could just be that at a particular stage or point in time, it's not useful to you.

Perhaps it's like learning the rules of language and grammar and then getting on with the matter of communication itself.  You don't need to keep focusing on the rules of how all that fits together in order to communicate effectively - but you need to have learned them in the first place, right?   Trans-AQAL/integral-map would be a lot different than pre-AQAL/integral-map, yes?

spiral out,

arthur

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loved this response arthur!

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Me too, Julian.

Arthur, that post is a thing of beauty, I just read it again for the third time. You continue to spiraliciously rock, young man.

A secret admirer

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“A secret admirer”

Mascha - not so secret anymore, lol.  :p  Glad you and Julian liked my scribbles.

arthur

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“First I'd like to point out there is nothing intrinsically “wrong” with ego”

Oh yeah, Arthur?  Well, I think you're wrong:-p

Actually, I don't know whether there is or isn't  something wrong with ego, and I don't think it can be “eliminated.”  I believe an integrated ego is “better” than a disintegrated one, but I think that's not the same as transcending the inherent limitation of the ego.  If one transcends ”exclusive identification with the ego,”  does that mean one identifies with something beyond ego?  What is that?  I would argue that if it is anyway a limited identification, it is still ego.  It might be “higher ego,” but all limited, or separated sense of self is not Self.

Anyway, I think what we are talking about are complementary aspects of the same path.  In the context of this thread, I might say:

If you want to be and effective agent of change in the world, purify (aka integrate) your ego.  If you want to really change the world, be the world (aka no longer identify with any limited causes, higher or not, altruistic or selfish, that are the nature of the ego).   You can only change yourself.  If you identify yourself as an ego, you can change your ego (for better or worse).  If you identify with all Being, you can change that.  Both happen incrementally.  There is also this unshakable sense that to be the “best” agent of change in the context of the current zeitgeist, than integrating the ego might habituate (create a Kosmic groove?) certain beneficial structures of consciousness, so that when the ego-disidentified being emerges, it will naturally be an agent of change.   (probably didn't describe that very well)

Julian, what makes you think enlightenment is a red herring?  I might agree, if what you mean is the popular notion of enlightenment is what you describe.  In my view, most contemporary explanations of what enlightenment is are really just higher egoity.  That would indeed be a red herring.

Anyway, this shit just unfolds itself anyway (as we appear to be witnessing with the developments at I-I).  No worries.

Keith

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love the inquiry keith. i plan to start a new thread on “enlightenment vs. the ego.” let's chat there….

have a great weekend!
~julian

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well i just started reading this discussion, and Arthur's words eloquently express what i feel and think about the subject of ego's.
Sometimes the constant obsession about relinquishing one's ego seems to also breed a fair amount of very subtely big ego's - the shadow being quashed and repressed and popping out unseen as it only can.
What is enlightenment? Good question, but im knowhere near it yet, but i still feel a massive amount of (well on a good day) growth and progress - it almost sounds like dismissing the second tier as not enlightened enough is just another form of dismissing a part of the spiral.
I think its down to the person who themselves decide that integral thought makes sense, but to then make sure they in fact walk the territory, explore it, and yes the map looks very very different to the territory.

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hey keith!

thanks for going there. i appreciate the chutzpa to be anti integral on the integral pod!

let me say right off that i think the concept of enlightenment is a big ass RED HERRING.

i will go into this in a more detailed post when i get a second.

suffice it to say for the moment that i think the concept gets literalized into creating a  false duality between the ego and some imagined “enlightened state.”

more later…

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“thanks for going there. i appreciate the chutzpa to be anti integral on the integral pod!

let me say right off that i think the concept of enlightenment is a big ass RED HERRING.

i will go into this in a more detailed post when i get a second.”

Yeah, kudos to Keith for that also.  Reasoned dissent and constructive criticism are good.

Julian, I was wondering if you were going to return to that idea, “enlightenment is a big ass red herring” (a great thread title, if you ask me).  I partially agree with you.  It's a big ass red herring if people mean you arrive at a state of enlightenment, full stop, and no further movement is possible - especially odious is the idea that once you've “arrived” then every word and deed of yours is perfectly in alignment with the Ground of Being, and therefore beyond reproach or argument.  One of the great things about integral is the idea that you can be God manifesting as a complete asshole - something to be avoided for sure - or just as someone who still needs a lot of work in various areas.  I also love the emphasis on incarnating as the spirit of evolution unfolding, which Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen in particular keep emphasizing.

I don't think that “enlightenment” is a meaningless or false concept, just that it is usually interpreted in a limited or distorted way.  For example, I think it makes sense to talk about oneness with all phenomena on various levels, or with the ground of being, or of nondual enlightenment.  Perhaps you meant “red herring” in the sense that it is a mistake to chase after it, rather than that it is meaningless?

Anyway, feel free to start another thread on this if you like and perhaps I'd have more to say about it.  Hmm, this could be a great topic for the sadly neglected “Chapel Perspicacious” board.

spiral out,
arthur

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Peeps – I remember joining Zaadz about a year ago, before the rapid growth it's undergone, and there were relatively few folks in the z-space (as far as I could tell). At first, it seemed people started connecting together through their interests – spiritual/philosophical leanings, political bent, artistic tastes, etc. For example, people invited me (and likewise I invited others) to be a z-friend because of shared interests in mysticism, interfaith dialogue, certain writers, mutually-appreciated postings on blogs, etc.

Then this kind of shift occurred. And it's not all bad – but it did have me mostly avoiding this place until the II-Zaadz pod blossomed. Here's what it was: I started getting “friends invites” from people whose main goal seemed to be to sell something. I'd receive this invitation in my mailbox, which would sometimes include a very flattering compliment. I'd click on the inviter's avatar and discover that they already had something like 2355 “friends,” and that – beyond an interest in integral itself – we had few or no common interests. Initially, I felt bad not accepting invitations – it seemed mean to click “decline”, to say something akin to “No, I don't want to be your friend.” So at first I accepted all invitations. Then I started getting e-mails from some of these new “friends,” wanting to sell some kind of service – coaching, crystal workshops, energy realignments, etc. Or invitations to read and comment on their brilliant blog or e-book or something. So I began to feel suspicious, like this was just a new way to get spammed, only this was integral/zaadz spam – higher-tier spam, I suppose, lol! Of course, all I needed to do to prevent this was to not accept invitations from everyone, and to withdraw from friendships that amounted to advertising …

Again – I don't think it's necesarily wrong for people to do some kind of individual self-promotion or advertising at Zaadz. There are actually some people whose stuff I want to buy, like Todd's / paleblueiris's T-shirts! But having strangers use the friends function to sell stuff turned me off, and kept me from engaging here all that much. Until now.

Genuinely sharing opinions and ideas and stories and experiences is really what I'd been hoping to do here – no matter the tier. Thank you Julian, and all.

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mary start a thread on this if youu like - its a good point…

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Yeah – sorry Julian. I actually wrote that post in response / agreement to Liz's point about the ego-reinforcing New Agey-ness of much of Zaadz … and didn't click the right button.

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Well….

Like Julian, I find Zaadz interesting.

I am into integral theory, spiral dynamics much the same.

However, I do not revolve around those things, and rarely discuss them. Why? I always assumed I was talking to people (esp. at I-I) that got it. They understood. I never saw the need to keep rehashing the obvious.

Any eye opener for me, was months ago…..I was arguing against global warming (While I believe mankind has damaged the planet, and should reduce emissions, I believe it to be a naturally occuring phenomena, and there is evidence that this could very well be the case) and was TOLD that I could not argue against it, until I admited that the theory was valid. Amazing.

People like to claim they are second tier, but are they? It is as much like claiming you are a Buddha. I don’t think it can be declared, as much as it is observed. Sure, you can claim it. If I don’t see it in you, I certainly won’t declare it for you. Others, they won’t either. It’s something that is seen or sensed and no matter how much someone may want it to be so…..actions, writings, etc. speak much louder than words.

Me? Definately NOT second tier, not in my mind anyway. I tend to think of myself as someone who is moving up the spiral. Since I occupy different levels, at different times and circumstances, it’s hard to place myself on any one level. I can see the level I operated at, but I cannot always see that level when I am operating FROM it. (If this makes any sense).

Anyone that knows me from I-I could probaby testify that I tend to post at levels that are all over the map (or spiral, if you will). I think others do this as well. I know they do, in fact, simply because I can see that they do. I can see that I do.

-Greg

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Hi MaryW,

Excellent post!  I, too, have felt this way, and I'm sure we're not alone in it.  Our policy, at Zaadz, has been to encourage well-intentioned solicitors to post on our zLounge (specifically the bulletin board), which we created to diffuse this sort of behavior, AND give people a place to go to both offer their services to the Zaadz community, and find services others might be offering. And the zPages, of course, is our on-line conscious yellow pages.

Next, we have the “report as spam” and flagging features coming out that will allow you to have better control over what lands in your inbox.  When a message receives enough points, it will be automagically taken out of everyone else's inbox who also received it.  My colleagues and I are working on adding these features, as I type.  It won't be long before we have them, and once they're out, we'd love to get your feedback on the Thinktank.  They'll start out as general features, and we'll be fine-tuning them with your help and the collective genius of this community.

We respect everyone's right to receive the kinds of messages they wish to receive, AND we encourage conscious capitalism.  These two aspects needn't be mutually exclusive.  Again, thanks for coming back to Zaadz, and please let me know if there's ever anything I or we on the zTeam can do for you!

Blessings,
~M

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Thank you for all of this information, Matthew – much appreciated!

Salud,
Mary

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Hi Everyone,
Interesting thread, and a lot of juicy undercurrents…

Proclaiming one's own second tier-dom is a suspect act. At least if it is asserted frequently.

And yet, we are all We's as well as I's and It(s), and as we's, regardless of where one's center of gravity is on the developmental spiral (and degree of stability at that center), we have a need to belong, to feel belonging, and to be reflected and engaged in our wholeness by the groups with which we identify. I think that people who tend to have achieved a certain center of gravity approaching and/or occupying second tier are often lonely. We suffer from isolation, at least in our moments of aspiration and hunger to grow, when we need support and reflection and mentoring and community – examples and models to learn from. To discover a name for people like yourself, a fairly accurate reflection of your values and ways of thinking, is pure exhilaration. Especially after the drought.

But any identity will become a suit of armor, if it's not worn loosely, if we forget to disrobe and do the laundry and walk about town with another outfit on.
I appreciate Greg's honesty and insight when he says:
“I tend to think of myself as someone who is moving up the spiral. Since I occupy different levels, at different times and circumstances, it’s hard to place myself on any one level.”

I think the problem might be not so much what is your real center of gravity (are you REALLY integral?) but how sticky are your self-assessments, the identities you assign yourself? It seems a fairly common occurence that someone thinks integrally but is not a very integrated person. I think one key is to train yourself to raise a red flag in your awareness every time you feel the need to assert who you are, feel smug and disdainful of anyone, are acting defensively, and lack fluidity with regard to your positions; and as you become aware of it, turning your attention back towards yourself and explore a little. I like how Diane H. once explained the 3-2-1 process and shadow work in general, and I'm paraphrasing and hope not misrepresenting her… she said something like it's not that the behavior you are observing is all your own (inaccurate) projection, and that there's no legitimate complaint to be had. You may be observing with great discernment and insight. But if your response is emotionally charged, if they've gotten under your own skin, then there's also something for you to look at in yourself. And your ability to positively influence the interaction, the other person (or culture), will be enhanced and perhaps even transformed by your ability to come into true presence with that person, which requires dropping your identities and positions and taking responsibility for your own shadow.
Wyatt Earpy and all that, it needs to really be practiced for it to work.
Humility is a beautiful quality.

I think we also need to understand and honor our own needs for belongingness. To not underestimate its power and scope.



Matthew: “automagically”! Was that intentional? I kind of like it.

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hey lauren

i feel what you are saying about beloningness needs. beautifully said.

at the same time i want to disagree a little.

the thrust of my post was this - let's not have zaadz become a new age myspace.

perhaps more to the point: i am interested in discussing how integral differentiates itself clearly from the mess of the new age, and makes a strong call for genuine stagewise growth.

along with your compassion i hear a little overly-nice and perhaps potentially pious attitude. while  i agree about the necessity of shadow work. i think healthy frustration with and disdain for certain beliefs and ideas is part of how the center of gravity shifts.

in fact, i think that the ability to call nonsense by it's true name is part of what distinguishes integral from the new age.

i have posted another entry called The Spiritual Psyche's Shadow, with video links and written info on some of the guru, cult and alien new age phenomena of the last 30 years.

My premise is that the need to believe has  a massive existential shadow that can and often does have disastrous consequences.

What do you or others think about the implications of this for Integral and for zaadz?

Does anyone else see the new age as problematic?

Let me say at the outset - the things I am referring to can't be transcended and included - they are pathologies.

just a few light throw away questions……:O)

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“Does anyone else see the new age as problematic?”

Yes and no.  The New Age “paradigm,” infused with narcissism, is most definitely problematic.  However, its pluralistic roots can, I believe, be expressed in healthy ways.  But as you allude, this would require some major shadow work, as this country's ties to narcissism seem to be ingrained in our LL culture. 

But even an integral, post-new age, post-post-modern worldview does not inherintly solve this problem.  It may make it easier to see and more fun to diagnose in others, but it also makes the shadow more sophisticated.  With a more transclusive internal structure, a vaster array of possibilities presents itself.  So, anyone claiming to be “2nd-tier” or higher owes it to the rest of society to be exponentially more vigilent in shining light on his/her shadow.  For, without doing so, the narcissistic tendencies will, IMO, be exponentially more harmful, as well as difficult to diagnose since the resultant hiding strategies will become increasingly more sophisticated.

Just a thought…
~M

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I was pulled in by the heading of the thread, so I apologize if I take this off course.

Honestly, I find a significant portion of “integral” folk to be some of the most excluding and closed minded people on zaadz.

I would suspect second tiers to be some of the most mutable people around, thus allowing them the ability to use their heightened awareness to influence the consciousness of others without the others even being aware of it.  Just through plain old interaction, no manipulation required.

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Re: Second Tier? Zaadz and Changing the World...

yes, yes, and yes…

and no.
me overly nice…. ha! oh i'm a grumpy and frustrated tendency a great deal of the time. hallelujiah for calling nonsense by its true name. i feel disappointment too frequently that the communities I'm involved with become (or actually, always were) narcissistic havens for the conflict-allergic. i have little patience with communities that self-consciously identify themselves as “spiritual” (i'm spur-chul, are you spur-chul?), not because i think the core aspirations of the participants are insincere, but because the mean-green value systems which tend to dominate in such cultures sabotage possibility for true, supportive, courageous, and often confrontational interaction. yeah, yeah, what matthew said: “So, anyone claiming to be '2nd-tier' or higher owes it to the rest of society to be exponentially more vigilent in shining light on his/her shadow.  For, without doing so, the narcissistic tendencies will, IMO, be exponentially more harmful, as well as difficult to diagnose since the resultant hiding strategies will become increasingly more sophisticated.” i agree that the more developed we are, the more sophisticated our capacities for evasion. oh we are soo slippery. and we need community that shares our general developmental level in order to be given real opportunities to confront our resistances, self-fictions, arrogance, ignorance, laziness, hypocrisy, blind-spots, evasions, and false identifications. i don't think i've ever yet met a person who would willingly move waay beyond their comfort zone regularly, daily, as a matter of sincere practice, and i think moving beyond our comfort zone is what's often required, to make developmental leaps. and even with the willingness, who's capable of REALLY doing it without being challenged by circumstance or true friends/spouse/child/ or sacred opponents?

on the other hand, i'm suspicious of self-conscious attempts to make developmental leaps. i think there's far too much mystery and grace in the process and when our genuine aspirations become (self)conscious goals, pretention and preciousness usually insinuate themselves and your once-sincere longing for Truth, Beauty, Goodness becomes corrupted. just another hip identification, as you say, Julian. i might say an intention is subtly different from a goal in that it acknowledges mystery and is more likely to be born of humility and identification with the Undefinable. of course, that's just semantics, and i can easily appropriate the word “intention” so that i can now be spur-chully correct and continue to pledge alliegance to my own comfortable, “known”, solidified self and its habits of self-perpetuation and self-aggrandizement. also, i love when Ken said our primary work ought to be to harmonize and integrate at the level of awareness which we currently occupy (there's almost always, uh, plenty of work to be done there) and yet practice with utter commitment and let transformation come as it will (or won't.) so, maybe we don't need to TRY so much, and just trust and accept, yourself and others, and call bullshit where you see it, but dammit, do it with love, not scorn.

what i want to say here is… listen…
do you hear the disdain subtly mixed in with my observations and opinions? the opinions may be lucid and coherent or they may be muddled and lacking in insight. but either way, disdain weakens the power of my observations and influence. i agree with you, frustration and disdain are useful; but i feel they are so because they alert us to the places in our psyche still corrupted by non-acceptance. i feel disdain is a very different animal than “the ability to call nonsense by it's true name”. perhaps disdain might be a helpful, even possibly necessary tool in developing deep discernment – the ability to see and call a spade a spade. but i wonder if it is necessary, and even if it is i suspect its usefulness is limited. the energy of disdain is alienation, not embrace. it is also almost exclusively employed in situations when one's self-identifications are being desperately defended or asserted vehemently. so as a tool for self-awareness it is a magnificent tool, but as a social tool, as an evolutionary tool, it's doomed, or obsolete at least. or not. argue with me. i like this! this here actually feels like wonderfully engaged debate, and despite your comments about disdain, Julian, i felt no disdain in your challenge of disagreement to me. perhaps you disdain some of the views i hold, but i don't feel you disdain me, and maybe that makes all the difference in the world. maybe that is skillful employment of disdain.

i fall prey to the temptations of disdain and scorn… far too much. it's a comfortable place to be. it brings some relief! but i have not found it serves the awakening of the best in me, nor the expression of my true being, and i wish to grow more skillful.

i think just before disdain there is hot outrage or deep vibrant sadness, some lucid and sensitive response to an untruth or misalignment, and after this initial thrust of recognition, in our lack of mastery and skillfulness, disdain or its cousins take up residence, and our fluidity gets impeded. our energy gets a little crooked, and grace can't flow as freely, and we begin to express not so much from true Presence as from our habituated selves, and the habits get reinforced quickly. and we continue to not realize the true potency of a we-space that fully engages confrontational honesty and true compassion. i think disdain might point to Big Mind not balanced by Big Heart.


i don't think we can keep zaadz from becoming a new age myspace, sadly. but conversations like this might help to mitigate the tendency some. that's my hope. so i hope we keep this conversation going.

oh, i'm very tired. too tired to edit this. i hope it makes some sense. i think i may be presenting about six different, sometimes contradictory, theories here. thanks for bearing with…
and i apologize for the lack of proper capitalization. bad habit, and too tired to fix it now.



p.s. Julian, this idea of yours is compelling:
“The need to believe has a massive existential shadow that can and often does have disastrous consequences.” I'm looking forward to reading your post on the spiritual psyche's shadow. also, i enjoyed your comments on “what the bleep”.

Blessings, everyone! Gratitude for this opportunity to hear your ideas, tease out some of my own, express them, and see what unfolds.

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new age, integral, there are issues -let's get our hands dirty...

i am enjoying your reflections a great deal lauren. you too matthew, thanks!

this is a response to both of you.

i am trying to come up with what the specific focus of my question is……maybe i'll find my way into it.

i see (after being around it for 15 years or so) the new age as predominantly pathological. predominantly regressive. predominantly a delusional, regressive, magical, fantasy based, anti-intellectual, unintegrated mess.

i don't see the new age as being emblematic of a stage of development, so much as being emblematic of what has gone horribly wrong with spirituality, mostly in america. isee it less as an alternative to conventional religion and more as  hipper, more ecelectic version of that same unconscious existential need to believe.

i think the MGM analysis and the boomeritis analysis are useful here too.

so given that premise:

i observe that what most people in the wolrd mean when they say the word “spiritual” is new age synchronicity meets reincarnation as we all teleport through the matrix creating our own reality based on junk interpretations of “quantum physics.”

it's like how what most people in l.a. meann when they say ” i am a buddhist” is that nichiren daishoshu chant om nyo renge kyo for abundance and happiness  thing…what happened to the four noble truths and vipassana?

i observe too that a lot of what people on zaadz mean when they add their voice to the “let's change the world” chorus is - let's just see the angel in everyone and by sheer force of positive thinking and paying attention to the signs  and prophecies know deeply in our being that 2012 is coming soon… :O)

(hear the disdain? good. )

so my question is: how do we diffferentiate healthy adult integral spirituality from this nonsense in a world that automatically has those associations? how do we kindly put firmly start to carve out a set of distinctions that offer a real next level alternative to the new age?

i am trying to do this on my blog with varying degrees of success and a lot of too be expected flack.

i have always thought that it was by emphasizing that psychological work was deeply spiritual and that there was a way that people could and did avoid doing their deep psychological work by buying into consoling regressive belief systems. part of my concern with the new wave of KW 4/5 integral folks  (i have been reading and applying ken's work to my own since 95) is that there is often a lack of psychological work - it seems like a batch of particularly smart young people who get the framework and the lingo, but havent necessarily done a lot of work viz deep process or meditation…..just an observation, i am open to comments.

i see also this unconscious overlap with either the new age stuff, as well as contoroversial ( and i find quite immature) gurus like andrew cohen, and other more pretentious satsangish folks like adyashanti that i find troubling. sorry if i just offended anyone deeply.

i guess i am saying the proposed inclusivity of yellow is great, but i feel a responsibiity to make some distinctions and i shudder to think of integral and SD becoming just another faddish identification on the new age smorgasbord, without folks realizing the profound implications of the work. inclusivity does not include pathology. i think the biggest nightmare has happened with the transpersonal and otherwise spiritually oriented therapists who should be midwiving this transition getting all naively invested in new age stuff and going along for the ride on their clients delusional fantasies without their own inner knowing that clearly this kind of defense was obscuring a deeper trauma and fragmentation…

the other big nightmare is the jz knight meets michael beckwith find abundance and mental freedom by realizing that a) quantum physics proves new age nonsense and b) the secret that all great and powerful people throughout the ages have known is that you can have anything you want if you just believe…..

i saw the relegating of the work happening when people learned a little about say wilber 3/4 and then assumed in forum conversation that of course all of us are at the centaur level, right? usually not. i see stabilization at the centaur as requiring a lot of shadow work, psychological integration, existential breakthrough beyond superstitious narcissistic beliefs etc….

or now with SDi around people assume, once they read a little, that we are all green into yellow, or all second tier, rather than getting fired up about the work - the bittersweet gruelling and fascinating process that this entails. either that or they react to the hierarchy and go deeper into relativism.

i also hear a kinda smug priviledged faux-witnessing of the fucked up world and it's red/blue/orange samsaric inevitability that we smart enlightened folks understand as we watch from above, y'know?

given this i find the “well, as we get more evolved the ego traps are more subtle and complex” analysis a little self serving - y'know? like oh yeah up here at second tier we have to be vigilant, cause that goshdarn ego still has it's tricks…we're not quite perfectly enlightened beings yet, almost, but not quite…… :O) people lower down on the spiral will catch up eventually if they're lucky, if not there's always resting the great perfection.

lastly i think ken's embrace of folks like adi da over years (though i know he has since somewhat recanted, then not, then recanted more fully) reveals a really big blind spot in integral, one that is somewhat generational as ken got his start in a time where the idealizing of so called enlightened gurus was quite commmon. the archetype of the awakened master from afar was very compelling in the 70s and 80s. hopefully time and the ubiquitous disasters that resulted from that  fantasy will allow us to see it for what it mostly is.

phew, ok. thanks for the chance to vent!

i guess iam aching for dialog in which we really addres some of these central puzzles and how intgeral can orient itslef in relationship to them.

i was very excited when the ILP kit came out, and really liked much of it, but was quite disappointed with a lot of it and wrote a proposal about how to deepen and improve it if any here are interested in checking that out.

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