Can one person change the world

"An integral life is whole and balanced. Imagine a double helix - one strand linked to another - moving upward. This is the image of an integral life. Each part of the self grows and enhances the development of self and other. It is not a life of singular purpose. An integral life is REAL.

Just as the healthy athlete must train not just the body, but mind and soul too, the integral life leaves no part of the self underdeveloped. What are these parts? Simply put they are mind, body, community and soul."

Integral Life __________________________________

The path through life is not always smooth or easy. There are challenges, from within and without, that affect our ability to lead whole, complete, and balanced lives.

My integral life began with pain, which then led to healing, finally, to development. Part of the healing processes took place in therapy. But healing and moving towards an integral life involves more than psychotherapy, just as an integral life includes more than the mind. Group psychotherapy is another way to heal. The focus is on community, which means relationship skills.

Understanding the relationship between the body and the mind can help each heal. Meditation, bodywork, paying attention to one's diet, and intention, added to therapy and a focus on community, are just some of the ways someone can enter the integral path. The experience of a yoga class can be brought to therapy and integrated into the other aspects of the self.

Some areas may be less developed than others. An integral life focuses on all areas, seeking balance.

My path to an integral life began with one of the most amazing books I've ever read: "The Radiance of Being: Understanding the Grand Integral Vision; Living the Integral Life" by Allan Combs, foreword by Ken Wilber.

"In The Radiance of Being, psychologist Allan Combs explains the insights of the world’s spiritual traditions in terms of the latest developments in evolutionary theory, systems theory, and chaos theory. The result is a cutting-edge reconceptualization of consciousness as a complex dynamic system capable of widely different states and higher structural reorganizations.... The Radiance of Being is an important book which advances our understanding of consciousness and spirituality."
—Michael Washburn, Professor of Philosophy; author of The Ego and the Dynamic Ground

In the last chapter, "Living the Integral Life," Combs talks about how Wilber urges us to live our lives in such a fashion as to honor all four quadrants and all levels of each...not to overlook any of its major regions. Is there balance in our lives, or are we perhaps ignoring two or three of them?

My own path led me to Michael Murphy and George Leonard's Integral Transformative Practice. When I discovered this integral practice and read about it, I was amazed to find that I was already practicing a self-directed version of it: I was reading things I never imagined being interested in and meditating, of all things (consciousness, subjective, mind, upper left quadrant), helping develop a vibrant learning community (Social systems, culture, values, intersubjectivity of the lower left and right quadrants), and lifting weights and swimming (behavioral of the upper right quadrant).

Murphy and Leonard

Murphy and Leonard's book, "The Life We Are Given," was the only explicitly integral development program available, and defines integral in terms of body, mind, heart and soul. What they offer is an entire program that addresses each of these. The body is maintained in good health by a regimen of both aerobic and limbering exercises. The mind is stimulated by reading and discussions. Group activities and involvement nourish the heart, and the soul (equivalent to what Huston Smith called spirit) through meditation and imagery. These are supplemented by the use of affirmations, the cultivation of awareness, and a sense of deep appreciation for life itself.

Perhaps Leonard and Murphy's most important insight is the idea that transformation is best approached as an integral project. It seems we learn again and again, in little ways as well as big ones, that our body, mind, heart, and soul are, in reality, but integral facets of the multi- dimensional being that is each of us.

What is so incredibly amazing is, that perhaps for the first time in the history of mankind, we can take responsibility for the evolution of our own consciousness!

The combination of the Pacific Integral Program and an active ITP practice, has now allowed me to move to what feels like the constant and permanent integral practice of life. Every aspect of my life - work, relationship, community, and even the agentic - seems informed and guided by what started as a practice and has wound up as a life, or what Wilber talks about as visiting "states of consciousness" (temporary) until they become "stages of consciousness" (permanent).

"temporary states become permanent traits by developing through the stages of consciousness"......"You can have an altered state or temporary peak experience of any of the three great realms of being--gross, subtle, and causal--and you can do so at virtually any stage or level of development."" Ken Wilber Online Pragmatic history of consciousness

In other words, practice something long enough, and it becomes a habit. I feel like I'm in a constant state of meditation....most of the time...Oh, sure, I am tested all the time, and I see when I lose it: A frustrating moment at work, a relational problem, stuff like that. The difference is that I recognize it when it's happening. Before, I would look back and think I acted badly. Now I can stop and say to myself, "I'm acting badly,"....and stop it.

Have you ever been to an event where you experienced something that you thought would forever change your life for the better, only to go back to the same old habits and patterns?

We all have.

Those are peak states, usually occurring from a ritual practice, or meditation, and they are to be valued, as the more of them we have, the more we are able to integrate them into our lives, so they become permanent traits. But it is important not to confuse a peak experience with a stage, no matter how beautiful. Our states give us insight into what can be, our stage informs our responses and how we live in the world.

By adopting these practices, you can, quite simply, transform your life, and you can start where you are. There's no need to wait for a quieter time or a more settled mind. You can, through practice, quite literally, help create your own reality. No matter where you are, there are higher stages of consciousness to be experienced, to be lived, and they are available to almost everyone. How do you get there? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall.... practice, practice, practice.

And when you change yourself, you model that change for others. And by the simple act of changing ourselves, we change the world.

"Better to light one candle at a time than to curse the darkness." - Ken Wilber

Gary Stamper Seattle, January 3, 2006