Originally published April 9, 2007.

From Psalm 118:19-24 (Revised Common Lectionary for Easter Monday)

Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter them; I will offer thanks to the LORD. “This is the gate of the LORD; he who is righteous may enter.” I will give thanks to you, for you answered me and have become my salvation. The same stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the LORD’S doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. On this day the LORD has acted; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

If you are alive as you are reading this TODAY, it is a good day to be alive. Let us rejoice and be glad in our lives. Gratitude as a fundamental attitude toward life is a huge part of the entire practice Abrahamic religions. Notice that the injunction is to practice gratitude (to rejoice! to be glad!) NOT to cultivate equanimity toward rejoicing and dejection, or sadness and happiness.

As I understand it, the Abrahamic religions are mostly distinct from the Eastern (especially Buddhist) religions by virtue of the centrality they place on the power of the body, mind, and soul to ascend to a spiritual purview. Lift your head up high! Let not thoughts of despair overwhelm your worship! Do not be weary or sad… rejoice! Dare to dream, to hope, to love life and want the best for others!

(I’m not saying that all of Christianity is incompatible with all of Buddhism. I understand that there is an esoteric strand of Buddhism that is congruous with the core Abrahamic injunction of gratitude for existence. It’s the tradition that holds that every individual is right now, everywhere, fully enlightened. The problem is that people have forgotten that which is accessible immediately in the Now–a pure and joyous connection of union with Christ and all that exists. This is perfectly congruous with the mystical Christian belief that God’s presence is fully present and alive in each and every moment, and that we need only knock on the door to God’s presence and receive it into our lives.)

Gratitude, hope, love … these are all acceptable because they are expressions of the Bliss at the cornerstone of much authentic spiritual experience. In other words, the Abrahamic faiths have the injunction to be more perfect, more divine, more god-like, while staying grounded in our fundamental imperfection and ultimate imperfectability. Today’s psalm tells us to be righteous–i.e., to do the right thing.

I like the way they sometimes express this in 12-step fellowships. When an addict phones a sponsor and asks what to do, the addict may be given this advice: “Just do the next right thing. And keep doing the next right thing.” In the moment, we know what the next right this happens to be. It’s when we try to know more or do more than we are able or are ready for that we land in trouble.

The same stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
There are many ways of reading the psalmist’s passage, but many people believe it to be the essential dynamic of Christian thought. Of course, it’s applied to Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

The cornerstone is also a symbol of Christianity’s affinity with the powerless, the poor, and the oppressed. As a gay man, I find that it’s a message that speaks to a people rejected or marginalized by mainstream Christianity itself–the LGBT community–and tells us that our gifts are a cornerstone from which the future waves of development in Christianity’s future will be built.

Personally, I like to read this phrase as testimony to the centrality of the integration of the psyche and whole person. What stones in my body, mind, and soul have I rejected? What parts of my body do I not respect and honor fully? What thoughts do I find revolting and unacceptable? What sub-personalities of my psyche or characteristics do I disown and risk projecting upon others?

I read the psalmist as inviting us to take the dishonored and disenfranchised parts of ourselves and find a new logic that accepts more, integrates more, and includes everything. The chief cornerstone is nothing less than the foundation of a more comprehensive and integral reality. Intellectually speaking, the cornerstone is the expansion of consciousness to a more holistic apprehension.

The temple is built greatest and most strong which finds a way to own or include the disowned parts of our body, soul, and mind in self, culture, and world.

Technorati Tags: Christianity, shadow, spirituality

Originally posted April 18, 2007.

Update on the topic of my previous post “How to Talk about Altitude…”: In “Holons Comes Through Big,” Julian expresses his agreement with the comment by Colin. After a brief exchange, Julian comes to this point regarding Pavlina’s blog:

by definition, someone actually authentically at turquoise (in terms of the cognitive, psychological, or spiritual lines) would never endorse the [S]ecret, sell it on their site or make the kinds of bad arguments in defense of it that pavlina made

I think Julian and I may be talking right past each other, so let me take another shot at making myself clear. Let’s say that you have Person X writing at Blog Y about Issue Z. Then Person X takes a stand that is (beyond dispute) consistent with the magical or purple (say, by endorsing the Secret) altitude along the spiritual line. How do you judge Person X? How do you judge Blog Y?

Julian says, if I’m reading him correctly, that you conclude that no Person X at turquoise would ever take an unquestionably purple stand; therefore, we may conclude that judging Blog Y should avoid turquoise labels and instead endorse a lower altitude marker (say, magenta). Read the entire comment by Julian here.

My point is in disagreement with Julian’s. Actually, two points.

First, I take it for granted that the vast majority of persons have subpersonalities (in the psychoanalytic shadow work sense) within each line; such subpersonalities actually represent arrested parts of our development at various stages. There are actually subpersonalities in shadow (our internal self-contradictions that we are totally unaware of and cannot see on our own) plus subpersonalities that are conscious (hence, our internal self-contradictions that we are able to consciously express).

Therefore Person X may be at turquoise at the spiritual line, but also may have arrested subpersonalities at magenta, amber, orange, or green. Therefore Person X may make a clearly magenta-altitude statement and yet not be speaking from the whole person or the overall level of consciousness. A turquoise person can do magenta things. A turquoise person may do such things out of a magenta subpersonality in shadow. In my view, that’s why it’s so difficult to pronounce judgments on Person X. We ALL have subpersonalities at various arrested levels of development. Therefore I express DOUBT about my ability to make a judgment as to whether Person X is or is not turquoise because I do not know if the person is speaking from the fullest capacities and embodying the fullest, most comprehensive range of subpersonalities and speaking out of a place of integrity with all that they truly are.

What’s the alternative to judgment? Doubt. Mere DOUBT? Well, that would be fine at the blue-green station of life (blue-green is a color, I will note, encompasses both teal and turquoise in the spectrum of visible light) No. Instead, how about holistic inquiry? Rather than judge, I would take the stance of a person seeking more information. I would ask Person X, “What’s your self-image? Is it orange, green, teal, turquoise, or what? … Isn’t your endorsement of The Secret consistnt with a magenta altitude expression? … If you disagree with that, on what grounds do you do so?” Only through a process of dialogue with the individual in question could I make a judgment as to whether the person is speaking through his average level of consciousness, highest capacity, or a regressed subpersonality. Personally, I would find it quite useful to ask those persons who dismiss The Secret, what’s true about The Secret? How does mind impact matter? How does setting a conscious intention have an impact on reality? In what reasonable, transrational way is it possible to say that “we create our own reality”? Or is it always unreasonable to say “we create our own reality” even when speaking in shorthand with lots of disclaimers to a popular audience?

But let’s not digress. I hope I have explained my reasonable, rational grounds for DOUBT that I can make a solid judgment call to say that a person who endorses The Secret is necessarily, “by definition” prerational. Do you agree or disagree? Or have I not made myself clear?

There is a second point which is very relevant in this context. In the presence of DOUBT, and in a given context such as the Holons newsletter, I propose that a Blog Y should be judged as if the blogger were a communal entity, not an individual. Even if the blog is by an individual and not a group blog. Therefore, I would express the blog’s attitude not by picking one altitude marker, but by specifying a range of values, and then I would take an average over that range and specify the current upper boundary, plus attach additional labels to the subpersonalities of the blog. In my opinion, and I’m open to being wrong about this, Pavlina’s upper boundary is turquoise and therefore the blog should be categorized accordingly in some contexts. However, Pavlina’s average can dip to orange easily, and the concerns of the blog resonate with many people at that level. Also, if it is true that Pavlina has endorsed and sold The Secret on his blog, this could be taken as the expression of a magenta (for endorsing) and/or orange (for selling) subpersonality. (I haven’t read the posts in question, so I can’t say.)

That is REALLY a mouthful. And the best, most honest way to judge a blog’s altitude, in my opinion. However, speaking as a writer with some familiarity at writing op-ed and blog commentary pieces of 800 words or less, it is simply too complex and unwieldy to gain traction or the reader’s mindset. If we held writers to the standard that they must always use the “true” altitude of their object, there would be lots of ink split on jargon and terminology and theoretical disputes and very little ink spilt talking about … everything else. And then who would read such commentary, anyways?

To conclude, let’s return to the main question as I see it: should Holons categorize blogs according to some limited portion of the fullest answer? In other words, instead of specifying an average, plus a high/low range of values over which Blog Y trends, should writers simply pick a reasonable color scheme and go with it? I think the answer is yes.

And therefore when I read the Holons newsletter the blog’s judgment calls on Pavlina and Schwyzer resonated with me. Not merely because I translated turquoise into my own preferred color scheme (where turquoise shifts higher towards blue). But because I feel the color labels were express the greatest potential and upper boundary for that blog in a way that is useful, appropriate, and correct for a given context. But in a different context, OR with more information about the authors, I would be comfortable with a narrower band of acceptable color labels.

Update: Steve Pavlina responds:

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Subpersonalities, shadow, and The Secret
Update on the topic of my previous post “How to Talk about Altitude…”: In “Holons Comes Through Big,” Julian expresses his agreement with the comment by Colin. After a brief exchange, Julian comes to this point regarding Pavlina’s blog:
by definition, someone actually authentically at turquoise (in terms of the cognitive, psychological, or spiritual lines) would never endorse the [S]ecret, sell it on their site or make the kinds of bad arguments in defense of it that pavlina madeI think Julian and I may be talking right past each other, so let me take another shot at making myself clear. Let’s say that you have Person X writing at Blog Y about Issue Z. Then Person X takes a stand that is (beyond dispute) consistent with the magical or purple (say, by endorsing the Secret) altitude along the spiritual line. How do you judge Person X? How do you judge Blog Y?Julian says, if I’m reading him correctly, that you conclude that no Person X at turquoise would ever take an unquestionably purple stand; therefore, we may conclude that judging Blog Y should avoid turquoise labels and instead endorse a lower altitude marker (say, magenta). Read the entire comment by Julian here.My point is in disagreement with Julian’s. Actually, two points.First, I take it for granted that the vast majority of persons have subpersonalities (in the psychoanalytic shadow work sense) within each line; such subpersonalities actually represent arrested parts of our development at various stages. There are actually subpersonalities in shadow (our internal self-contradictions that we are totally unaware of and cannot see on our own) plus subpersonalities that are conscious (hence, our internal self-contradictions that we are able to consciously express).Therefore Person X may be at turquoise at the spiritual line, but also may have arrested subpersonalities at magenta, amber, orange, or green. Therefore Person X may make a clearly magenta-altitude statement and yet not be speaking from the whole person or the overall level of consciousness. A turquoise person can do magenta things. A turquoise person may do such things out of a magenta subpersonality in shadow. In my view, that’s why it’s so difficult to pronounce judgments on Person X. We ALL have subpersonalities at various arrested levels of development. Therefore I express DOUBT about my ability to make a judgment as to whether Person X is or is not turquoise because I do not know if the person is speaking from the fullest capacities and embodying the fullest, most comprehensive range of subpersonalities and speaking out of a place of integrity with all that they truly are.What’s the alternative to judgment? Doubt. Mere DOUBT? Well, that would be fine at the blue-green station of life (blue-green is a color, I will note, encompasses both teal and turquoise in the spectrum of visible light) No. Instead, how about holistic inquiry? Rather than judge, I would take the stance of a person seeking more information. I would ask Person X, “What’s your self-image? Is it orange, green, teal, turquoise, or what? … Isn’t your endorsement of The Secret consistnt with a magenta altitude expression? … If you disagree with that, on what grounds do you do so?” Only through a process of dialogue with the individual in question could I make a judgment as to whether the person is speaking through his average level of consciousness, highest capacity, or a regressed subpersonality. Personally, I would find it quite useful to ask those persons who dismiss The Secret, what’s true about The Secret? How does mind impact matter? How does setting a conscious intention have an impact on reality? In what reasonable, transrational way is it possible to say that “we create our own reality”? Or is it always unreasonable to say “we create our own reality” even when speaking in shorthand with lots of disclaimers to a popular audience?But let’s not digress. I hope I have explained my reasonable, rational grounds for DOUBT that I can make a solid judgment call to say that a person who endorses The Secret is necessarily, “by definition” prerational. Do you agree or disagree? Or have I not made myself clear?There is a second point which is very relevant in this context. In the presence of DOUBT, and in a given context such as the Holons newsletter, I propose that a Blog Y should be judged as if the blogger were a communal entity, not an individual. Even if the blog is by an individual and not a group blog. Therefore, I would express the blog’s attitude not by picking one altitude marker, but by specifying a range of values, and then I would take an average over that range and specify the current upper boundary, plus attach additional labels to the subpersonalities of the blog. In my opinion, and I’m open to being wrong about this, Pavlina’s upper boundary is turquoise and therefore the blog should be categorized accordingly in some contexts. However, Pavlina’s average can dip to orange easily, and the concerns of the blog resonate with many people at that level. Also, if it is true that Pavlina has endorsed and sold The Secret on his blog, this could be taken as the expression of a magenta (for endorsing) and/or orange (for selling) subpersonality. (I haven’t read the posts in question, so I can’t say.)That is REALLY a mouthful. And the best, most honest way to judge a blog’s altitude, in my opinion. However, speaking as a writer with some familiarity at writing op-ed and blog commentary pieces of 800 words or less, it is simply too complex and unwieldy to gain traction or the reader’s mindset. If we held writers to the standard that they must always use the “true” altitude of their object, there would be lots of ink split on jargon and terminology and theoretical disputes and very little ink spilt talking about … everything else. And then who would read such commentary, anyways?To conclude, let’s return to the main question as I see it: should Holons categorize blogs according to some limited portion of the fullest answer? In other words, instead of specifying an average, plus a high/low range of values over which Blog Y trends, should writers simply pick a reasonable color scheme and go with it? I think the answer is yes.And therefore when I read the Holons newsletter the blog’s judgment calls on Pavlina and Schwyzer resonated with me. Not merely because I translated turquoise into my own preferred color scheme (where turquoise shifts higher towards blue). But because I feel the color labels were express the greatest potential and upper boundary for that blog in a way that is useful, appropriate, and correct for a given context. But in a different context, OR with more information about the authors, I would be comfortable with a narrower band of acceptable color labels.

Update: Pavlina responds.

This is Steve Pavlina. Boo!You seem to be overanalyzing.Why hasn’t anyone involved in this debate simply dropped me an email to ask my motivations for actions that appear confusing? People in the integral community are taking a valiant third-person stab at it, but wouldn’t be more intelligent to simply ask me? Direct communication would give you a lot more insight than distanced speculating. Last time I checked, I was still breathing. :)Understand that my website gets about 2 million visitors a month — with people at all different stages of development. That’s very different than talking to a room of 50 integrally minded people.If I write only for the highest stages, which I could do, I’ll help only a small fraction of my audience. I believe that would be an enormously suboptimal strategy if the conscious development and expansion of all is our goal. For most people it will be way over their heads — no impact whatsoever.

At best it will only make them aware that there is something out there they aren’t ready for yet. But why not assist people where they are?Consequently, I do not hold to the perspective of a fixed stage when I write articles or recommend products. I intentionally shift between different frequencies of the integral spectrum when I write. Sometimes I’ll even blend the viewpoints of different stages into the same article, which is probably why people have such trouble classifying me from my articles. A 5-minute face-to-face conversation would be much more enlightening. The reason I write from different stages is because it’s far more effective than writing from a single stage. I can assist a lot more people this way, not just those who are very close to me in their path of development.When I’m one-on-one with someone, I adapt to their level of awareness. A blog, however, is a one-to-many communication medium and doesn’t give me that option. The size and diversity of my audience is a mixed blessing. Some of my readers are incredibly aware, while others are on the verge of suicide. Do you think a depressed person is helped by telling them about concepts like states, lines, and stages? Not remotely. But an article about how to get out of bed in the morning can do wonders for them, and it will get them started on a path of conscious growth. I cast a wide net with a variety of different articles to bring more people into the fold. I see it as being a “fisher of men.”My audience is also very young. 60% of my readers are in their 20s or younger. Very few people are ready for integrally-minded thinking when they’re fresh out of college.What do you expect would happen if you started speaking about the most evolved integral philosophy to an audience of a couple million 20-somethings? I can tell you that most will zone out, some will complain vehemently, but a small percentage will be ready for it and will be helped.

When I return to writing about business or entrepreneurship or self-discipline, I capture more new readers, and again there’s the chance to help some of them grow in awareness.Now why would I recommend a product like The Secret? Obviously it’s not the most brilliant and aware creation out there. However, for many of my readers, learning about the LoA is the next step they need to take. Those for whom it’s a step backwards will simply disregard/dismiss it as fluffy nonsense, as many people in the integral community have already done.There are very few integrally-minded products of sufficient quality for me to recommend.

I’ve evaluated much integral material, including ILP in a box, but I don’t think it will be effective for my audience. Too much of the material is overintellectualized, especially when I consider my readership and their concerns.Show me an integrally-minded product of decent quality and appeal for a global audience of 20-somethings, and I’ll be happy to check it out. In the meantime, I’ll continue recommending products and creating content across the whole spectrum of integral development. I do that very intentionally and deliberately. I believe this is an optimal strategy if we are to have the greatest positive impact in the evolution of human consciousness. We have to meet people where they are, not merely where we are. Becoming overly attached to your particular stage is just another form of navel-staring.So as far as classifying the precise color of my blog is concerned, it wouldn’t make sense to assign it a single color. You’d have to assign it a much broader spectral range. A single color is boring anyway when you have access the entire spectrum. It’s not that hard to write for a variety of stages with a little practice. I often visualize in my mind a person who’s at a particular stage and write an article for him/her. At my highest level of content creation, I write for God.FYI my contact info can be found here:http://www.stevepavlina.com/contact-info.htm. I don’t usually bite.

Technorati Tags: consciousness, shadow, The Secret

Originally posted May 3, 2007.

I’ve been attempting to discern in very concrete terms how shadow retrieval functions at post-conventional levels of consciousness. A common impression of some folks is that the green altitude, aperspectival awareness, is where shadow work is focused. However, I have seen people at all levels of consciousness benefit from shadow work. Rather than associating shadow work with any particular level, I see it as a function of self-immanence operating in each of the levels of consciousness. Let me unpack that a bit. Jesus’ teaching to love your enemy is, in essence, prescribing a radical form of shadow work: embrace the “enemy within” with Love and thereby heal your relationships with the “enemy without.” Nietzsche never understood shadow, and didn’t understand Jesus on the value of loving your enemy. Yes, it’s an impossible commandment. And yet it is, paradoxically, the heart of Christian spirituality.

As we embrace our shadow within, our growth through the stages is accelerated (at least this is true in my own experience). As we ascend through the stages of development, our shadow gets progressively lighter. Robert Bly speaks of “eating” the shadow. The shadow lightens, but remains ever present. A person at a red altitude of emotional development may repress anger, forcing it into shadow. Once that shadow work is healed, at that level, the load is lightened. However, if that same person is now at turquoise in emotional development, then that which is repressed is now transpersonal shadow. (The person still gets angry, jealous, or passes through states of fear. Those are emotions, not shadows. The integrally developed person gets angry at every level of awareness. Only if anger is disassociated does the shadow come into play).

The nature of shadow is quite different at transpersonal levels. The person at, say, indigo, may be unconscious of suffering (or Bliss) on the level of the World Soul/Kosmic Soul. The Universe bleeds, but the person happily bobbing along at indigo is in denial of the pain or joy in her or his own soul, which in truth is not separate from all beings.

Therefore, shadow work at transpersonal levels means you’re not so much reliving family traumas (that’s only necessary if your shadow is split off at lower levels within your psyche) but living (or reliving) transpersonal wounds and delights–the Christ crucifixion and the resurrection, karmic law, the Buddha returning to the realm of samsara in a quest to help all beings realize their own already awakened state.

I think there is still a 3-2-1 process of shadow work accessible at transpersonal levels of development. There is still an “I” (World Soul), a “We” (the World Soul and the self), and an “It/Its” (the World Soul’s shadow reincorporated into the self). Now that I put that in writing, I’m still not sure that I’ve got it down correctly. I need to keep working to wrap my mind around this issue.

If something like the 3-2-1 shadow work process can be done from the voice of the World Soul (and I believe it can), then that’s the path of moving from self to Self, moving from a narrow identification with the ego towards worldcentric and kosmocentric perspectives. However, I don’t have much practice in using 3-2-1 in this way. My own preference being for more psychodramatic performance as a way of walking through the transpersonal shadow, and opportunities for doing that sort of work are few. I’ll need to do more practice work before coming to more solid ground.

Technorati Tags: consciousness, integral, shadow, stages