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In This issue:
· Integral Religion & Spirituality Heaps and Holons
· Upcoming Events What is the nature and purpose of God?
Volunteers Invited
Help Co-create Integrative Spirituality Your spiritual and worldly wisdom and experience is needed to help forward the emergence of the new Integral Worldview. Additional volunteers are needed to help serve in the great adventure of co-creating a new integral religion and the global Integral Commons. ...to read more (come on you know you want to) Upcoming Events
July 2006 26 - ‘Integral Life Practice’ Open House - San Francisco – contact Jonathan Gustin at 415-460-9292 for location and to RSVP. 27-28 - Toronto World Future Society Annual conference, www.wfs.org August 2006 5 - Integral Decision Making – San Francisco, CA - www.global-arina.org 6 - Cultural integration Fellowship - East-West Perspectives on the Idea of the Absolute with Karabi Sen, Ph.D. - San Francisco,CA - www.culturalintegration.org 13-18 - Integral Transformative Practice (ITP) - Realizing Your True Potential - www.itp-life.com, Esalen Institute Big Sur, CA, www.esalen.org 17 – 20 - Creating a Conscious Life - A Three Day Workshop Intensive, IONS, Petaluma, CA, www.ions.org 18-20 - Introduction to Spiral Dynamics, Austin, TX, The Crossings 30 - ‘Integral Life Practice’ Open House – San Francisco, contact Jonathan Gustin at 415-460-9292 for location and to RSVP. September 2006 10 - Cultural integration Fellowship - East-West Perspectives on the Idea of the Absolute with Karabi Sen, Ph.D., San Francisco,CA – www.culturalintegration.org 11-15 - Integral Sustainability - Denver, CO, Integral Institute October 2006 7-8 - Awakening the Genius Within, 2-Day Workshop with Yasuhiko Genku Kimura, Toronto, Canada, Vision in Action 14,15 – Weekend Introduction to Integral Life Practice Miami Beach, FL, Integral Institute 15-20 - Women’s Integral Life Practice - Omega, Rhinebeck, NY - Integral Institute 20-22 - Everlasting Love:The Rhythms of Relationship www.itp-life.com, Esalen Institute Big Sur, CA 26-30 - Integral Life Practice Weeklong – Denver, CO - Integral Institute Dates to be Announced From Insight to Action - with Pat Kramer - combines strategic planning with ITP principles and practices. Contact Pam at 415-927-4913 or email at pam_kramer22@yahoo.com. INTEGRATIVE SPIRITUALITY EVENTS Introduction to Integrative Spirituality, Tuesday's 7-9pm - July 18, August 15, Sept 19 Celebration of Life Services - potluck and celebration, Saturdays 4pm – 8pm - July 22, August 26, Sept. 23 Weekend Workshop – Direct Spiritual Experience, a workshop - August 26, 10-5pm Your Action Plan
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The Integral Commons
Summer 2006
Issue #2
Publisher: Integrative Spirituality FROM THE EDITOR
It seems long ago now, but I was an inaugural member of Ken Wilber's Integral Institute. In this connection, I launched in 2001 the website ikosmos.com, which for a period of a few years covered the key ideas and books of the integral movement. That project is now dormant, but I feel once again its very spirit coming through me in this new engagement with my good friend Lawrence Wollersheim, right here at Integrative Spirituality. Warm regards, PS. By the way, more about my bio is posted here. INTEGRAL RELIGION & SPIRITUALITY
 "Functional Spiritual Eccentricity"
A brief meditation on “second-tier” spirituality by Byron Belitsos Beck & Cowan’s book Spiral Dynamics is a fixture in the integral canon, and most of our readers know that Don Beck’s encounter with Ken Wilber led to the later evolution of what Beck calls Spiral Dynamics Integral (or SDi). For those of you who have assimilated the basics of Beck’s model For the moment, let us extrapolate from the classic text itself. Let’s start by noting that the “momentous leap” (as Clare Graves called it) to the so-called second-tier of the spiral of cultural evolution brings an end to a fear-based existence. The jumping-off point to integral consciousness is at “the culmination of our primate nature,” write Beck & Cowan. Second-tier individuals, they go on, have achieved a detached, compassionate, world-centric stance characterized by self-mastery in relation to mankind’s evolutionary animal heritage. As the pressure of the survival imperative fades, the true needs of the whole—i.e., the health of the spiral—now emerge into view for such an individual. To put it another way, serving the true needs of the spiral are the central requirements of global evolution; and this overarching need has now become a new personal imperative. In line with Beck’s SDi vision, we can say that these higher-level needs animate the spiritual path of the second-tier individual. What other hints can we take from the general theory of Spiral Dynamics? In their 1996 text, Beck & Cowan tell us that a person at “yellow” meme (the first meme or level of second tier consciousness) “thinks and acts from an inner-directed core…[as a] principled, knowledgeable self…with strong ethical anchors, derived from many sources.” At the entrance to second tier, we will observe “a dropping away of compulsions and anxieties…As fear recedes, the quantity and quality of good ideas and solutions to problems increases dramatically.” Further defining yellow’s contribution: Further following Beck and Cowan, we might now say that yellow spirituality is self-transcending in its no-nonsense awareness of the primal needs and life conditions at all levels of the spiral. It is devoted to conceptually flexible and practical action toward enabling effective responses at each level. This work is its prime directive. Yellow or integral consciousness involves complex, egoless, and flexible service-to-the-whole; spiritually speaking, a yellow practitioner’s meditation, worship, and prayer practices will overflow into worldcentric service. Further, yellow meme’s spirituality confers on its practitioners the ability to efficiently tinker with and effectively adjust life and organizational conditions “on the fly” (or, “as they pass by”) for the sake of the good of all (the health of the entire spiral)—and to do this without recognition or status. But this capacious integral embrace is individualistic, according to the classic formulation of spiral dynamics—and I submit that is a kind of healthy and highly functional spiritual eccentricity. What about the Tourquoise meme contribution to spirituality? The mind at yellow meme is truly open, information-saturated, and dynamic; the next turn in the spiral, if we follow Beck, brings into being an equally open and capacious heart and soul—God-centered, transpersonal, and love-saturated. The so-called tourquoise meme also adds a revival of communal cooperation with others, now operating at an unprecedented level of functionality in the face of utter complexity. This turn toward the collective, however, is operating in a purpose-driven, global or cosmic context; a tourquoise meme project will contrast sharply with the harmony-driven, self-congratulatory, cultural insularity of a green-meme project. What can be said about tourquoise in relation to integral spirituality? Very little, other than the likelihood that we will see, as Michael Murphy observes in The Future of the Body, the emergence of “metanormal” capacities of the body/mind that are devoted to great and transformative causes. The narcisstic self is left far behind in a self-forgetfulness paradoxically informed with superb self-respect; a mind that transcends all cognition as it ascends toward awe and wonder before cosmic realities; and a heart that is saturated with delight, love, mercy, and forgiveness translated into compassionate, self-sacrificing service on behalf of the entire spiral. THE INTEGRAL EDGE
- News of the Integral Movement Worldwide Help us Expand the Coverage of the Integral Commons! The Bay Area Is Becoming an Integral Epicenter For the evening event, the folks at IS (Integral Spirituality) hosted a community-wide party aboard the Creative Spirit (a.k.a. the I-boat)—our floating event center docked in Sausalito—as our way of supporting the rapidly expanding Bay Area Integral Commons. The party was graced with attendees streaming in from all three of these integral communities as well as by many other friends from around the region. “If you have not yet experienced an I-boat event,” said IS executive director Lawrence Wollersheim, “please plan to join us for new events coming up in the fall. Many of our events are designed to enhance your social awareness of the integral movement, but our ultimate aim is to build the Commons throughout the region and the world through a cooperative approach to developing and disseminating the integral vision—especially integral spirituality.” In this same spirit, Integrative Spirituality recently hosted three successful and inspiring cruises on the I-boat. On May 28 and June 4, we ferried festive groups out on sunset cruises around the outer ring of the bay that extends from Sausalito to Fisherman’s Wharf to the Golden Gate Bridge, in each case with views that turn out to be nearly postcard-perfect (see links to photos below). Integral opinion leaders, integral practitioners and artists, students and teachers of integral theory, volunteers, activists, and friends attended. This diverse mix allowed a wide sharing of unique expressions of the integral worldview. Among the cruisers in the first two events were representatives from Bay Area-Integral, The Cultural Integration Fellowship (CIF), California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), John F. Kennedy University, ITP, Integral Life Practice (ILP) and the Integral Institute (II). Please click on links below to see pictures from these cruises and other integral events. June 24, 2006 Bay Area Integral Daylong After Event BOOK REVIEW
Where’s Wilber At? Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision in the New Millennium (Paragon House: May 2006) by Brad Reynolds, 448 pages  By the very nature of the enterprise, great thinkers will inevitably generate their own gaggle of critics and detractors—even while they attract a flock of scholarly exponents, biographers, and even hagiographers. Perhaps chief among those leading the flock of Wilber’s sympathetic exponents is Brad Reynold’s, author of the new book Where’s Wilber’s At? Despite its slightly odd and seemingly casual title—this indispensable guide for Wilber students is not likely to be surpassed anytime soon. Reynolds’ second masterful book on Wilber positions him as today’s primary exponent of Wilber’s vision, offering readers a useful blend of intellectual biography, lucid textbook summary, an artistic dash of hagiography—and delivers a palpable sense of excitement and passion that draws the reader forward into the integral adventure. It might also be claimed that Reynolds makes an original contribution to the Wilber lineage of thought, by “integrating the integrator”—that is, by providing in this book a unified scheme for presenting the arc of his thought as it has evolved over time. Not unlike Frank Visser (author of Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion), Reynolds is a long-time intellectual disciple of Ken Wilber. But Reynold’s intellectual and spiritual resonance with the pandit-master is somewhat closer than that of Visser. Reynolds and Wilber share personal enthusiasms for Nondual Vedanta, Zen, and Vajrayana Buddhism—and both derive their primary spiritual practices from that great stream of wisdom. Each is even inspired by the contemporary American teacher Adi Da (though far less so for Wilber). The upshot is that for all the superb scholarship and useful expounding of the Wilber corpus provided in Reynold’s account, one must accept the many inflections of Eastern esotericism throughout. Those whose spiritual commitments or cultural sympathies lie elsewhere may need to filter out the almost clubby comradery of intellectual-spiritual influences shared by the two, lest they feel like outsiders looking in. And while some have remarked about the sometimes fawning praise Reynold’s accords for Wilber’s achievements, others will find it on target as Reynolds brings home a realization of the unprecedented intellectual mastery of sources and perspectives that Wilber’s works represent. Yet this is not the book one would turn to for an account that involves a critical distance from its subject, as this book is almost as much of a celebration of Wilber’s hard-to-dispute intellectual triumph as it is a highly adept exposition. That said, Reynolds leads us with an almost electric clarity through the thicket of Wilber's thought about post-modernity, post-metaphysical theory, integral methodological pluralism, plus Wilber’s other multi-syllabic achievements—as we discover with Reynolds "where Wilber's at” (Part I of his book), “where he’s going” (Part II), and “where he is coming from” (Part III). This book earns our highest recommended for those who want to keep up with one of the great intellectual path-finders of our generation, including the recent departures represented by Wilber’s most recent "Phase-5." Where Wilber’s At? not only allows readers to follow Wilber's continual theoretical expansion (including his forthcoming books) but it also reviews his current public outreach that includes Integral Institute, Integral University, and IntegralNaked.com. Most important for our readers, Reynolds points towards the pragmatic application of the “apps” of the Integral Operating System, as Wilber now calls it—the imperative o NEWS AND UPDATES FROM IS.ORG IS.org Building Ties to Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute (I-I) By the way, other “friends” sites listed by I-I include Zaadz.com, the popular social networking site; the Integral Salons Network (iSalons.net), which facilitates collaboration among integral salons worldwide; and Zoosphere.net, a site for creative expression by integral writers and artists. A Big Thank You to our Volunteers
The Integral Commons has been graced with the wise and selfless service of many volunteers who joyfully give of their time. First we acknowledge the tireless contribution of our volunteer web master, Allan Hardy. Allan, a student of the integral movement for years, astounds us with his enthusiasm, expertise, speed and humbleness with which he performs his magical web skills. And then there is Alex Rollin, of www.Isalon.net, with whom we have recently had the honor of collaborating on the expansion of the integral commons. As you read this, Allan and Alex are most likely conjuring up the next iteration of the digital commons. Stay tuned!
We also say thank you to our local San Francisco volunteers who have contributed so much of their talents in other ways. We especially thank Bay Area Integral’s Camille Nowell, Bruce Kunkel, Lev Woolf, Steve Purple, David Serotkin and Rebecca Balin, for coming into the life of IS.org and co-creating on a grander scale with intent, delight, fun and music!! IS.org Website Errata Now Corrected OTHER NEWS FROM AROUND THE COMMONS Major Relaunch of ITP Website New ‘Church of Soul’ Launched in Oakland Integral Salons Get Networked at iSalons.net Help us expand the coverage of the integral commons! INTEGRAL KOSMONAUTS
"A Practice That’s Integral to Your Life" Rung like a bell struck by the hammer of Ken’s clarity, I never turned back. Under the guidance of a reclusive alchemical and “magickal” master, I began the long (and still ongoing) process of reading, digesting, and then integrating into my life—actually applying and experiencing the results of – many of Ken’s ideas. The high point of my relationship with Ken occurred in 2001 when he granted me the Speaking of Everything audio interview, the first-ever recording of Ken’s voice to be made publicly available. A 2-CD set with Alex Grey illustrations and design by Brooks Cole of Holocosmos, it’s still Enlightenment.Com’s best-selling product. (Ken had invited me to tea in Boulder two years earlier, and then asked me to join Integral Institute as an inaugural member of its business division.) ITP’s First Formulations Roger Walsh then pitched in. He penned the marvelous Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind (1999), and later collaborated with Ken on the essential modules of an ITP. You can see Dan Noble’s brief comparative outline of basic ITP guidelines as put forth by (a) Wilber and Walsh (“Essential Modules of an ITP”), (b) Leonard and Murphy (“ITP Elements”), and (c) Walsh (“Essential Spiritual Practices”) by clicking here. Following the rising integral tide, in 2002 I hosted Enlightenment.Com’s own online ITP self-help group. Modeling ourselves on Murphy and Leonard, we called it “ITOPIA,” or Integral Transformational Online Practice Intention Agreement (my original ITOPIA proposal is still available online). Although we didn’t then have (and probably today still don’t have) the online tools necessary to effectively support each other’s practices, ITOPIA was a big hit. Friendships were formed, practices were strengthened, and value was created, transmitted, and received. (At this point my hope for a decent transformationally-oriented community website is Zaadz.com, but we’ll have to see.) Some Serious Concerns Indeed, my daily experience over the past four years—since I came upon what I now call ChiBouncing (the gravitationally challenging practice of bouncing up and down on a mini-rebounder, a kind of specialized mini-trampoline, while placing attention on breath, posture, and awareness)—has caused me to take conventional integral wisdom to task. In theory, an integral transformative practice: · holistically calls upon body, mind, emotions, and spirit (plus shadow) Well, this is all well and good, and I actually agree with a good deal of it and use it to inform my own practice whenever I can. Nevertheless, what I’ve discovered through ChiBouncing is that a practice is integral only if it is integral to your life. What do I mean? Dictionary.Com first defines “integral” as “essential or necessary for completeness.” For me, if I don’t practice ChiBouncing on any given day, I feel that I’ve left out something essential. I feel incomplete. The Praxis of Practice But if this isn’t what happens to be readily and obviously available to you, and if it doesn’t completely turn you on for whatever reason—if a programmatic multi-component practices is not something you can willingly or easily fully embrace—then you might want to look for something else. Something that already stirs your heart, or that you’ve already tried or want to try. Something that you can dedicate yourself to, and that you know is what you really want to be doing. Something that’s easy, natural, and, well, your practice. Something that’s integral to your life. Remember: you can really only do one thing at a time anyway. Conversely, any practice can become integral to you if you are truly—and regularly—present for it. What’s integral about a practice, then, isn’t its external form or trappings, but rather, the consciousness that you bring to it, and give through it. Mine’s ChiBouncing, What’s Your’s? Underta The Best of Practice to You – "Affirming Integral Transformation" "The winds of grace are always blowing, but we have to raise our sails." —Ramakrishna Most of us would acknowledge that one of the greatest gifts to integral practitioners everywhere came about a decade ago from the much-beloved human potential pioneers George Leonard and Michael Murphy—that inimitable pair of life-long friends and intrepid pioneers who formulated Integral Transformative Practice (ITP). First presented to the world in their classic 1995 book The Life We Are Given, ITP represents the essence of the lessons the pair learned after decades of passionate inquiry into the most effective path to human transformation—especially in the crucible of Esalen Institute, which Murphy cofounded. To honor our esteemed colleagues practicing ITP, we caught up with Pamela Kramer, now the lead coordinator for Community ITP in Mill Valley, California—the very first and original ITP group. Pamela has practiced for six years as a member of Community ITP and also serves on the board of ITP International, which is now the online heart of the larger community of ITP practice groups that now numbers as many as 100 groups worldwide. What would you say, Pam, is the core practice in ITP—if any? Near the very heart of ITP—at the culmination of the powerful core of practices known as the kata—is the practice of affirmation. Affirmations are for me, in the first place, an opportunity to identify where I want to go next to support healthy change in my life. Once you have identified where new personal growth is needed, how do affirmations actually work in your practice?, In a real sense, affirmations—especially if they are performed in the ways clearly explained in The Life We Are Given—create a parallel reality to existing reality. In a true affirmation, you intend and wholeheartedly affirm a desired outcome, stating it as if it is now being achieved by using the present tense, for example: “I operate at work in the ‘flow’ all day, working in a state of harmony with my employees and customers.” Then you use all the resources of who and what you are to strategically support this outcome—that is, you take all possible steps to implement the hoped-for change in your life. Can you say more about the “parallel reality” that is created by an affirmation? Yes indeed. There is no doubt in my mind that there a mystery involved the process of doing daily affirmations. Somehow, spirit itself gets engaged, and almost seems to secretly activate unseen forces on one’s behalf. Many people report this phenomenon. Michael and George like to quote the Indian mystic Ramakrishna to illustrate what is probably behind it: "The winds of grace are always blowing, but we have to raise our sails." With an affirmation, we raise our sails to receive the power of spirit to effect changes. We do this through our intention to change along with our willingness to take the needed concrete steps. Affirmations are a partnership with the divine! You said that affirmations are the culmination of the larger practice called the kata. How does the whole process work? The cornerstone of ITP is indeed the kata, which is a rich, multi-dimensional practice designed by George Leonard that includes a diverse series of exercises for the body and mind. It is a true “form,” with specific movements that George borrowed from Yoga, Aikido, and Qi Gong. The kata involves stretches, rhythmic breathing, and exercises for each muscle group and all the joints that alternate with deep relaxation. But it is much more than that—it’s truly a process of active meditation. The many movements in the form lead to a still period, which begins when you make that day’s affirmations. The physical movements ground you and prepare you for the stillness, in other words, by unifying and strengthening all the systems of the body. The stage is now set for a far deeper engagement with mind and spirit. After the affirmations are brought forth, we then complete the practice with what we call “transformational imaging.” Then the kata is completed with a period of about ten minutes of meditation. What then is the upshot of the whole practice, would you say? The daily practice, as Mike Murphy has said, is like a “base camp” for expanded capacities to emerge, the kinds of capacities that Mike described for example in his book The Future of the Body. It only works, however, if it is a long-term program. Of course, there are many other features of ITP outside of the kata, and these cover all aspects of daily life over time. For example, we also have what we call the eight commitments: These range from the commitment to practice the kata at least five times a week, to joining fully in community with other practitioners, to eating well, developing intellectually, and accomplishing at least two hours a week of aerobic exercise. What would you say is the relationship between ITP and the new form of integral practice, ILP, now coming out of the Integral Institute? Of course, we at ITP have a great deal of respect and mutual admiration for the Integral Institute and its innovation known as Integal Life Practice. There are many core principles and practices shared by ITP and ILP; the main difference, perhaps, is that with ILP there is a opportunity for changing out and incorporating different practice elements at different times—there’s somewhat more room for individual adaptation. ITP’s singular focus on the kata is probably unique. Finally, what’s the real meaning and significance of ITP for you, Pam? When I came into the practice six years ago, my life was too much skewed toward work. I was living an imbalanced life. What I love most about ITP is that it puts all the pieces together for me in a way that leads to balanced living and healthy priorities. ITP provides an organized, focused approach that allows me to return to myself daily, and then expand from that base. In essence, my life is my practice, and my practice is my life. I don’t differentiate between the kata and anything else I do in a give day—it is all seamless. ITP brings my best and highest self forward; this is its greatest gift I think. In the end, it sets the stage for blossoming my life into new levels of love, compassion, and balanced growth. COGNITIVE LINES
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The prophets of the integral worldview have included the likes of Hegel, Aurobindo, Gebser, and Teilhard de Chardin—and in our time Claire Graves and Ken Wilber, the grand systematizer of the integral approach. Through their scholarship and vision, these pioneers have demonstrated that integral consciousness is far more than a mere intellectual fashion or publishing trend. The coming integral age is, obviously, not something that any given author or institution can own or control. Rather, integral consciousness is more properly understood as an innate structure of consciousness itself—an emergent feature of human evolution that solves seemingly insoluble problems. We at Integrative Spirituality (IS) believe that an integrally informed leadership will arise that will provide the royal road to a planet-wide reign of cultural peace, just economic progress, and untold vistas of spiritual living and being—that is, if we and our colleagues in the integral movement do our jobs and disseminate our vision. (In this connection, please see my own effort to disseminate the integral vision in a very succinct way, especially for beginners, 
integral politics, plus demonstrations of integral practices, held at the One Taste urban retreat center in San Francisco. Bert Parlee, the vice president and chief of staff at Integral Institute, gave a talk about “Integral Intelligence” and Byron Belitsos, coauthor of One WorldDemocracy, spoke about the integral approach to global governance. Practice sessions included Qigong (Mark Johnson), Tonglen (Sue Stephenson), the use of sound for healing and altered states (Estara), and Open Space group-process work. The day-long was produced by Camille Nowell, Lev Woolf, and Bruce Kunkel and others at Bay Area Integral, and cosponsored by Integrative Spirituality. But there was more: Also on June 24, the Integral Transformative Practice (ITP) community held a large summer gathering drawing from their five local practice groups; and a major educational event was also held by the What is Enlightenment (WIE) community that includes students of Andrew Cohen. 
The third cruise was a special in another way. As a way of marking the forthcoming publication of a new book from University of Chicago Press(Esalen; America and The Religion of No Religion), that provides a definitive and scholarly history of Esalen Institute, and to honor Michael Murphy and George Leonard for founding Integral Transformative Practice (ITP), we hosted a gathering on the I-boat of Esalen founder Michael Murphy, the new book’s author, Jeff Kripal, and many luminaries from the human potential movement who have taught at Esalen. Among those who made the cruise where Mike Murphy; transpersonal psychology pioneer Stan Grof, Richard Tarnas (author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Psyche and Cosmos); former CIIS president Robert McDermott; emeritus consciousness researcher Charles Tart; ITP pioneers Annie Leonard and Barry Robbins; and the research director of the Institute for Noetic Sciences, Marilyn Schlitz, among many others. 
Integrally inclined musician, therapist, and minister Taber Shadburne has recently opened the Church of Soul
Based in is own building in downtown Oakland, this inspired effort to build a new kind of community plans to hold a great diversity of events and classes, and eventually offer alternative spiritual services—what Shadburne calls “One World Worship.” The goal, he says, is to “not only expand, quiet and transcend the mind, but also to open the heart.” Contact: 
Thanks to Alex Rollin of 
I have enthusiastically undertaken one sort of psycho-spiritual practice or another since I entered college in 1977. At the tender age of 22, I then encountered my first Ken Wilber book, the just-released The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes (1982).
king an integral practice—a practice that is truly integral to who you are and who you want to be—has never been more important or achievable than it is today. Just remember this: many psycho-spiritual practices actually do “work” (i.e., they are effective), we’re still in a desperate (human) race to actualize our own highest potential before we fully destabilize the planet, and as an aside, Gaia is absolutely alive and the Force is unmistakably real. Then ponder: what practice is integral to your life? 
Pam Kramer