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The Home of Evolutioneers

Integral Definition, Principles, Theory & Relationship to Evolution Spirituality at Universe Integral

Introduction: Integral is simply a specific way (or philosophy,) of how something is done. It is not the thing. Integral can be applied to almost any thing you want to do. There is integral philosophy, integral medicine integral economics etc. The best of the integral way of doing things is encompassed within Universe Integral and the Evolution Spirituality movement.

The integral way to do things movement and particularly the integral spirituality aspect of it are important and useful new "how to" ideological currents that are integrated into Universe Integral and the Evolution Spirituality movement. On this page you will find the definition of a spirituality that is integral, particularly its goals, history, principles, basic theory, relationship to the open source spirituality movement and to the evolutionary, evolution spirituality found within the core of our organization.

As we do with all forms of past and current spiritual and scientific knowledge, we include the best and leave the rest! Necessarily this page at the bottom also contains important disclaimers on some of the pitfalls of the integral movement, which is now starting to influence some of today's progressive spiritual denominations.

(If you are already a member of the integral community and movement, we also suggest that you also read our integral community member welcome page to learn more about our integral perspective after you have read this page. This integral community and movement welcome link is found at the very bottom of this page.)

What is an Integral Spirituality

A Quick Overview of the Characteristics of Integral Spirituality (aka in our version as Evolution Spirituality, in other versions as Evolutionary Spirituality)

Key Things to Know About our Version of Evolution Spirituality a new Universe-Framed Integral Spirituality:

  1. It is an integral and evolutionary new form of personal and personalized spirituality in which the individual integrates science and spirituality into a new balance.
  2. It provides a unified understanding of life, spirit and their apparent destinations congruent with physical universe reality and the Universe Evolutionary Worldview. It presents spirituality from a whole, universe-framed perspective and it seeks to teach the most universal and universe time tested (13.7 billion years,) life-affirming values and principles.
  3. It is focused upon helping you to discover and to draw out your own full potential, truth, and highest self-reflective awareness, consciousness and/or spirit to simultaneously serve your vital goals and needs, your community, the world and, ---Ultimate Reality (however you define Ultimate Reality.)
  4. Through its combined discovery and serving process, it also helps to actively co-create a science-rational, progressive and evolutionary local community and the new global culture and civilization. It builds community and culture where scientific probabilities are integrated with both your own personalized spirituality and the most life-affirming wisdom from all of humanity's vast spiritual heritage.
  5. It actively supports humanity's collective efforts to create a meaningful and sustainable prosperity for all.
  6. It is non-denominational and omni-denominational. (It is non-denominational in that any current denomination can also practice Evolution Spirituality without having to leave their current denomination. It is omni-denominational in that it both transcends and includes the most life-affirming aspects of eastern and western spiritualities as well as traditional, progressive and interfaith-based spiritualities.)
  7. It holds that even though the physical universe may not be the ultimate conceivable end of the spiritual discovery and exploration process, it is although the first, most direct and most common collective space wherein individuals explore and test their spirituality and agree upon what they discover of value and meaning. Observation of the physical universe has been the source of our very oldest spiritual wisdom and now it is also a new and common source for our very newest spiritual wisdom (as now found within the Universe Evolutionary Worldview.)
  8. It squarely addresses the pathologies, problems and power abuses of past religious and spiritual groups by offering innovative new solutions and safeguards for these areas as well.
  9. Our first version of it was brought into being by the non-profit spiritual organization Integrative Spirituality in 2004. There are several other versions created by other organizations and people as well.

How our New Universe and Evolutionary Framed Integral Spirituality is Enacted

Universe framed Integral Spirituality (Evolution Spirituality,) has some characteristics that other spiritual movements have, but it also has many unique characteristics not found in any other spiritual movement or organization. The characteristics and principles used for how a spiritual movement enacts their mission goals is just as important if not more so, than the mission goals themselves.

To really understand what is so unique, new and effective about this new spiritual movement we recommend that you take a little time to read each of the following key "how we do it" links below. The linked how to characteristics and "how to" principles below have carefully considered specific and nuanced meanings. Some links below have new meanings not ever seen or conceived of in any previous spiritual movement.

Universe and Evolutionary Framed Integral Spirituality enacts its spiritual mission and goals in a manner that is:

  1. personal and personalized,
  2. spiritual wisdom integrated and science probability balanced, (it seeks to also provide more reality-congruent and reality-grounded answers to life's most critical questions. In part,what is the ultimate origin, nature and destiny of the universe (and the individuals in it,) what is our ultimate meaning and purpose, what is Ultimate Reality and what is our ultimate identity in a progressively evolving universe.)
  3. practical, it provides practical and effective day-to-day practices and ethical principles to help empower you to better achieve your goals through better alignment and congruence with:
  4. an open and open source participatory process designed to continually evolve our principles, policies community and organization's evolvability in a collaborative process, (When you are done reading the overview of open source spirituality, click here for more detailed information about the key principles of the open source spirituality movement as practiced within this Universe Spirituality).
  5. of course, integral,
  6. based upon ongoing peer-to-peer (P2P,) personal support and a supportive community to enhance and habituate desired lifestyle improvements, (We strive to create a joyous, loving and supportive community where you can comfortably be who you are right now, while creating a more sustainable prosperity on all personal, social and spiritual life levels of life,)
  7. intentional and conscious in that it also promotes partnerships aligned with progressive evolution on personal, social, spiritual and physical planetary and even universe levels,
  8. inclusive of all of humanity's life-affirming spiritual wisdom and heritages while --- simultaneously transcending their least life-affirming, outdated or pathological perspectives,
  9. a safe and balanced exploration of humanity's science and spirituality knowledge bases achieved in enjoyable, often shared discovery experiences,
  10. educational, (to educate through new art, meanings, symbols, metaphors and science-grounded facts that successfully convey the Universe Evolutionary Worldview as well as the new spiritual wisdom being born within our unique and progressive organization though a new online and offline Universe College,)
  11. a meta-spirituality, and of course
  12. evolutionary, our new Universe Principles of Sustainability are practical, clear and mega-effective daily practices for the time-proven evolutionary principles and aspects of how we enact our mission and help to empower our member's lives. To learn about the other guiding principles of the Universe framed Integral Spirituality movement that we call Evolution Spirituality, click here.

The Universe and Evolutionary Framed Integral Spirituality at Universe Integral Takes you Into and Through The Three Great Adventures of Life

In it you can explore our Three Great Spiritual Adventures into and with Ultimate Reality shared in a living, evolving and learning universe! These Three Great Spiritual Adventures are the epic self-discovery and life-empowerment adventures of today’s new spiritual heroes and heroines. They are the life and spirit adventures, which will release your greatest potentials and consciousness to serve:

  1. your most worthwhile and life-affirming goals and aspirations,
  2. the Earth and all it's life,
  3. the amazing unstoppable power-flow of the progressive directionality of the universe's evolution and,
  4. the great mystery of the Ultimate Reality that interconnects all things.

These Three Great Spiritual Adventures help create the global Great Universe Alignment already going on within the rapidly emerging Unissance movement.

In this complex, fragmented and rapidly changing 21st century, it is our view that now --- more than at any other time in history, the world needs a balanced, uniting and science-grounded new form of personalized spirituality that is also aligned with progressive evolution in the universe like Evolution Spirituality.

This New Universe Worldview informed personalized spirituality can help each individual realistically reach their fullest potential, their most life-affirming goals and, support them in becoming a more empowered resource doing their 1/6,000,000,000 part in helping to resolve the current global challenges that we all face.

If you thought about our universe framed Integral Spirituality as a Universe Evolutionary Worldview aligned, science and spirituality integrated forerunner for what non-denominational progressive spiritual organizations will eventually evolve into in the future, you would have a good starting idea about what and who we are. Paradoxically, it was not really possible for this Evolution Spirituality to come into being before the most recent scientific discoveries in cosmology and progressive evolution had occurred as well as the vast cross-pollenization integration and unification of humanity's entire heritage of spiritual and scientific wisdom was occurring over the Internet.

In conclusion, the universe framed Integral Spirituality movement that we call Evolution Spirituality may be the first spiritual movement (but hopefully not the last spiritual movement,) with the capabilities of being the first true global spiritual movement. Unlike earlier spiritual movements based upon much more partial views of life and the universe, it has new ethics, values and a morality with the true capabilities of being global in effectiveness. These qualities (and its new trans-global perspective,) born from the transcending New Universe Evolutionary Worldview put it in a unique spiritual position to do much to help solve the global challenges that we all now currently face. No pre-twenty first century spiritual movement has ever before started out with such a large advantage in utilizing the current scope and depth of scientific and spiritual knowledge.

More Questions?

See our list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) by clicking here.

Our Integral form of Evolution Spirituality, Definition and Description (Longer version)

Our Integral form of Evolution Spirituality is an evolutionary panentheistic spirituality based upon the integrative method of "transcending yet including" the wisdom of all of the world’s religious traditions. It has neither sacred founders, popes, or personalities, nor sacred revelations that might separate you from your own spiritual discernment and path, the great adventure of discovering for yourself the Ultimate Reality/God essence of all authentic religion and spirituality, or your fellow spiritual journeyers.

For many of the estimated 30% of the population that calls itself spiritual, but not religious the very word religion creates an unpleasant and aversive reaction. One does not have to go far to see the excesses and abuses of religion today or remember the abuses of the past.

But, what if a group of spiritually mature individuals could in fact co-create a new form of an integral meta-spirituality that performed many of the vital social functions that healthy religions perform such as promoting service and unselfish fellowship; answering the ultimate questions of life; encouraging human friendship and all types of better relationships, conserving morality; promoting community welfare, promoting family life; providing wise counsel and spiritual guidance; encouraging group meditation and worship; socially demonstrating loyalty to the Divine; fostering attraction to the highest values; delivering tolerant religious education; magnifying the lures of truth, beauty, and goodness and facilitating the spread of the messages of spiritual hope, renewal and at-onement --- without devolving into the social pathologies of many past and current religions or spiritual practices?

In its most essential form, almost all current religion is the organizationally prescribed practice of a single particular path leading to Ultimate Reality/God. Integral spirituality religion is the integration of what is best from all religious paths (without their worst,) leading to Ultimate Reality/God. It even holds the potential to emerge, unveil or evolve completely new views of Ultimate Reality/God based upon the shared new empirical spiritual experiences of the members of all religions. It is a facilitating and integrative channel for all personal spiritual paths with its main purpose being to expand, accelerate and support each individual’s unique spiritual unfolding (personal path) toward Ultimate Reality/God.

If you believe that there are as many unique spiritual paths to Ultimate Reality/God as there are unique people, and, that every individual has the right to find and choose their own best path from the wisdom of all paths, then humankind's combined spiritual wisdom heritage held within a new form of open source integral and integrative religion and spirituality offers you unique advantages for enhancing your spiritual growth.

If the possibilities above intrigue you, continue reading more about the advantages to be gained as well as the religious pathologies to be avoided. At the bottom of the page you will find links to guide you to the next step that interests you most.

Our Integral form of Evolution Spirituality has been Drawn from the Spiritual or Philosophic ideas of Many Recognized Thinkers

Today’s emerging integral spirituality movement is the direct or indirect result of the brilliant work and legacies of many individuals and different organizations. It clearly stands on the shoulders of the past seminal integral ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Henri Louis Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jean Gebser, Sri, Aurobindo, James Mark Baldwin and Clare W Graves. Currently the integral perspectives of Jurgen Habermas, Ken Wilber, David Ray Griffin, Don Beck, Lawrence Wollersheim, Steve McIntosh, Frank Visser, Yasuhiko Kimura, Alan Kazlev, Fred Kofman and many others, etc. are now actively co-evolving and co-refining the integral and integral spirituality movement.

For more information on the postmodern, modern and pre-modern foundational thinkers and forerunning thinkers of the integral movement and integral spirituality, click the following page link Integral Philosophy Founders and Pioneers.

The Natural Goals of an Integral Evolution Spirituality

"To Enhance Your Personal Spirituality and the quality of all Life by:"

  1. Providing deeper, broader and more universal and inclusive answers to the ultimate spiritual questions of life, such as:
    • Who and what is Ultimate Reality and what are his/her/its purposes?
    • Who and what is the Ultimate Reality and what are his/her/its purposes?
    • What is the true origin and essence of the individual, humanity, the planet and the living and non living systems of life?
    • What is the highest purpose and destiny of the individual, humanity, the planet and the living and non living systems of life?
    • What is the purpose and meaning of the universe?
    • How do we best live our lives with nature and our fellow beings?
    • What is our spiritual responsibility in co-creating a better world in the here and now?
    • How do we understand our relationships in relation to the dualities of life that so often seem to cause relational conflict?
    • Is there an afterlife, and if so, how do we prepare for it?
  2. Collecting and providing all of the most universally applicable spiritual wisdom and processes from humankind’s vast spiritual heritage to help individuals achieve direct spiritual experience(s) of Ultimate Reality/God, successful lives and co-creation of a better world.
  3. Re-integrating and re-balancing feminine spirituality (the Divine Feminine) with masculine spirituality (the Divine Masculine) and then spiritually including, but transcending these qualities as well.
  4. Integrating art and beauty back into its vital role within spirituality and religion.
  5. Re-integrating the life-affirming values and wisdom of spirituality with the facts of science and the beauty of philosophical inquiry.
  6. Integrating the highest spiritual wisdom of the West and East with the facts of science to expand direct spiritual experience(s) with each and all of the paradoxical Ultimate Reality/God co-absolutes of the Oneness. The tripartite of Ultimate Reality/God co-absolutes within the Oneness are sometimes called the "I" co-absolute of God, the "We" co-absolute of God and the "It" co-absolute of God. They are also more commonly known as:
    • The Personal Absolute (the God/Goddess as offered by spirituality. This would also include our direct personal relation to this Personal Absolute),
    • The Evolutionary Absolute (God/Goddess evolving through and in the universe with us as partners. This form of Deity is both science-revealed and humanly co-evolved in time. This co-absolute form contains both personal and impersonal aspects) and,
    • The Impersonal Absolute (Concepts such as the non-personal Buddhist Emptiness, Brahman, the Tao or the “I am witness” as offered by many forms of eastern spirituality.)
      Many of our community members hold that for one's spiritual life to grow to its fullest heights and the world to flourish in the most life-affirming ways, one's spiritual path is most optimally served by regular and balanced direct spiritual experiences with each and all of the Personal, Impersonal and Evolutionary co-absolutes of Divine Oneness.
  7. Offering among other things new integrative and integrally-informed perspectives on spiritual ethics and morality.
  8. Presenting the collected spiritual wisdom of humankind in such a way that it is coherent and internally consistent.
  9. Creating new integral and integrative spiritual metaphors, rituals, ceremonies and sacraments, and a new story that embrace all humankind and life.
  10. Promoting the critical importance of spiritual work along with psychological shadow-work to facilitate the historic peer community proof of authentic spiritual growth and practice by the balanced living of the classical, postmodern and integral virtues.
  11. Seeking a greater understanding of all the spiritually classic, scientific and yet unknown aspects of the afterlife.
  12. Teaching that there is no wrong form of spirituality or religion because every human being must grow level by level from birth through many levels of maturity and perspective developmental levels of consciousness. Authentic Ultimate Reality and spiritual expression will always look significantly different from each human developmental level. Additionally, everyone has a right to be and remain at any developmental level for as long as they wish. No developmental level holds higher, intrinsic or natural authority or superiority over any other.
  13. Teaching and integrating the spiritual wisdom found within humankind’s developmental levels of consciousness (archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, integral, and beyond) and then being an effective platform for educational and experiential progression through those developmental levels.
  14. Assisting other religions in open sourcing their faiths, i.e., assisting in the evolution of open source Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., we can thus facilitate the growth of billions of individuals through the myriad of developmental levels of consciousness to create a more tolerant and life-affirming world for all.
  15. Presenting the collected spiritual wisdom of humankind in such a way that it can easily be assimilated at every level of consciousness and by any personality type, learning style, culture, race or ethnicity.
  16. Honoring relationship as an end in itself and growing spiritual communities globally that are aligned with our goals.
  17. Promoting service to community and society that is informed by the integral worldview.
  18. Expanding the open source global spiritual commons.
  19. Being a fertile spiritual incubator for the emergence of empowering new leaders who will inspire by example and lead the world toward more life-affirming evolution in all areas and walks of life.
  20. Helping our members and the world create a comprehensive sustainable and appropriate lifestyle and, holding an active stewardship for all of earth's eco systems! At the current time due to the growing environmental crisis and potential biocide that both we and all future generations will face, there is no greater more current, more relevant or embodied integral living goal, Great Spiritual Work and daily spiritual practice than that of learning and following the practical steps of living sustainably and actively stewarding the Earth's eco-systems for both ourselves and future generations. Due to this looming environmental crisis that can effect all of humanity, no religious or spiritual person who feels love or connection to the Ultimate Reality/God and others can any longer ignore their first and most immediate spiritual responsibility and spiritual practice --- to live in a practical sustainable harmony with the eco-systems of earth. Until we are collectively out of this growing environmental crisis, living sustainably and educating ourselves and others on how to live sustainably is absolutely Job One for every person, corporation, government, organization and religion on the planet. This is simply because if we do not do integral spiritual living Job One fast and well and protect the Earth systems that sustains all lives and activities, the lives and dreams every other person, organization and generation will be drastically effected in unthinkable negative ways up to and including de facto planetary wide biocide. If you would like to see an amazing short video on the logic of why this has to be Job One for all of humanity, click here. (On our evolutionary spirituality courses you can learn all about the this issue, what to do about it and much more.)
  21. And finally, asking for the co-creation help of our visitors and members. If you do not see any goal above that you think should be a part of the goals of an integrative and integral spirituality, we invite you to tell us about them.

How an Integral form of Evolution Spirituality would attempt to reach its goals:

  1. While many religious orthodoxies proclaim that they are the only way and complete truth, any authentic open source integral and integrative spirituality and religion would be a gracious organization. Its educational attitude would be, “Yes, you’re currently right and that is always true, but it is partial rightness in an evolving universe. And, there is more wisdom available to increase the current wisdom rightness level of your life.”
  2. Being a both unity and solution-creating organization versus an either/or duality creating organization.
  3. Staying humble by not forgetting that our perceptions of any given spiritual reality are also conceptions that are at least partially constructed and created by us. At a particular time they can be good and useful interpretations or metaphors, but as we evolve, and as deeper and broader structure is uncovered, those perceptions will evolve too.
  4. Having most of its spiritual education materials, organizational policy and operational direction be co-created by an open source, spiritually mature community of self-organizing individuals operating to the best of their ability.
  5. For a lot more of the details about the spiritual and administrative principles for reaching the goals above click here.

What Open Source means when applied to an Integral form of Evolution Spirituality and this Organization

Evolution Spirituality is an integral and evolutionary “open sourced” spiritual organization that is co-created from the prime and basic source code 1 wisdom from all written and oral spiritual traditions that is also congenial with current universe and general science, philosophy and art. It also naturally includes humanity's current database of all the destructive and no longer appropriate aspects of organized or personal spirituality and religion.

Nothing quite like it has ever existed before, nor was it even possible before the emergence of 21st century post post-modern consciousness and the Internet. Our blended flavor of open source integral spirituality is the best of integral spirituality informed by open source spirituality principles and the new universe science. For all the exciting details on open source spirituality, click here.)

An invitation to join the Integral Emerging Evolution Spirituality Adventure

We invite you of help us co-create a new form of evolution spirituality that is open source, evolutionary and integral as well as and join our growing open source spiritual community if you feel that:

  1. your current spiritual or religious practice could be deepened, broadened or revitalized by new spiritual wisdom and science informed processes, or,
  2. you have substantially outgrown your current spiritual or religious practice and feel that it no longer reflects enough of your present spiritual or intellectual development, or
  3. you might like to be a pioneer in an evolutionary spiritual organization and community that is dynamically co-creating “open source” integral evolution spirituality.

Our Integral form of Evolution Spirituality flavor is a vehicle where your evolving personal spirituality can potentially benefit every other member of the open source spiritual community. It is also a place to potentially learn from the personal spirituality of every other member of the community as well as from humankind’s vast heritage of spiritual and science wisdom. To learn more how to get started learning more about integral evolution spirituality on a free access online course called Spiritual, but Not Religious, A Rational Approach to Spirituality (Integral) for the 21st Century, click here.

To learn more about this organization and how to best begin exploring click the following What’s Next link.

Integral Evolution Spirituality and Integral Movement Special Disclaimers

Evolution Spirituality has integrated some elements of the emerging new Integral movement into its omni-denominational and open source spiritual principles and organizational design. We feel that the new integral movement appears to offer some significant advantages for the next evolutionary spiritual steps beyond the limitations of the post modern worldview and consciousness.

We also have integrated the best of the principles and processes of this movement (without its worst,) into this Evolution Spirituality because its omni-denominational, integral philosophy structures and principles can help deepen and broaden both the personal direct spiritual experiences of the Ultimate Reality and the social experiences of religion and spirituality. Its inherent multi-perspective processes that both include and transcend the best of all previous religious and secular wisdom in many areas of life is like not quite like anything else that has been previously seen in the evolution of human consciousness, spirituality and previous cultural worldviews (pre-modern, mythic, traditional, modern and postmodern.)

The Integral movement provides a new deeper and broader platform to help resolve the unnecessary conflicts and problems caused by religions of the past. It also provides the deeper, broader more inclusive and transcending platform to help resolve both the religious and secular conflicts and problems that the world faces today.

While Evolution Spirituality uses some of the principles of integral spirituality (as it uses principles from many other philosophic and spiritual areas,) its use of any integral spirituality or integral philosophy principles is not to be construed as an endorsement for any of the individuals or organizations currently promoting or providing integral movement spiritual or secular services. Integrative Spirituality is also not associated with any of the individuals or organizations currently promoting or providing any promoting or providing any integral movement spiritual or secular services.

On one hand, while we see that many integral movement principles offer needed and valuable additional new insights and solutions, we are also becoming concerned about some growing patterns of orthodoxical ideology, marketing hype and potentially destructive cultish and elitist behavior found within a few factions and organizations within the broader global integral movement. While we still do consider ourselves independent general members of the global integral community and integral commons, because of the problems and concerns contained in the previous sentence, our organization always keeps an appropriate legal and organizational identity association distance from other individuals, organizations and factions within the current integral movement.

We strongly advise anyone considering taking services from or joining any integral organization to carefully examine any claims being made and to review the spiritual safeguards section on our website and the warning signs of a destructive cult to be sure that they are not being deceived or going to be harmed by abuse or problems that to some degree effect all new ideological movements.

We also hold that the integral spirituality movement has a self-organizing life of its own with many individuals and organizations continually contributing to its growth. The naturally emerging ideas of the integral spirituality movement, which includes new ideas in integral philosophy and the other integral sciences and humanities is not the sole or trademarked proprietary intellectual property, brand name or private viral marketing plan of any person or organization. It comes from the common evolutionary ideas and vast spiritual heritage of all humanity and this common wealth belongs both to the future and all those who are capable of being its ongoing co-creators.

Your Unique Life Wisdom and Assistance is Requested to Forward the Movement...

The universe framed Integral Spirituality movement and what we call Evolution Spirituality is itself also a work-in-progress and a continually evolving process. After you have explored as much as you need to understand and feel the unique life and spirit enhancing vision of this new spirituality, we invite you to please join in and help us co-create this great adventure! To the worthy ends of the above your unique wisdom and assistance is respectfully requested.

Click here, for your next personalized best exploration step to find out...If you are already a member of the integral movement community, we also suggest that you also read our integral community member welcome page after you have read this page by clicking here.

For More on Integral Theory and the Integral Movement and World View for Online Students and the Curious, Also See

Integral Worldview

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