Ken Wilber is considered one of the greatest philosophers and innovators of the modern age. He is famous for his Integral Theory of Consciousness, a "theory of everything", sweeping up the way we see (or did not see) our existence and taking it to the next level. Wilber has attempted to utilize the insights from many aspects of our culture, much like COOL, to create some kind of coherent map, and note some of the underlying universal themes that extend beyond the boundaries of any one school of thought. His theory grasps everything, from psychological, to mysticism, to science. Reading his works can be very awe-inspiring, enlightening, and certainly helpful in understanding human development and potential. Quotations: "...The real world is not given to you twice – one out there, one in here. That "twiceness" is exactly the meaning of "duality." Rather, the real world is given to you once, immediately – it is one feeling, it has one taste, it is utterly full in that one taste, it is not severed into seer and seen, subject and object, fragment and fragment. It is a singular, of which the plural is unknown. You can taste the mountain; it is the same taste as your Self; it is not out there being reflected in here – that duality is not present in the immediateness of real experience. Real experience, before you slice it up, does not contain that duality – real experience, reality itself, is "non-dual." You are still you, and the mountain is still the mountain, but you and the mountain are two sides of one and the same experience, which is the one and only reality at that point. If you relax into present experience in that fashion, the separate self-sense will uncoil; you will stop standing back from life; you will not have experience, you will suddenly become all experience; you will not be "in here" looking "out there" – in here and out there are one, so you are no longer trapped "in here." And so suddenly, you are not in the bodymind. Suddenly, the bodymind has dropped. Suddenly, the wind doesn't blow on you, it blows through you, within you. You are not looking at the mountain, you are the mountain–the mountain is closer to you than your own skin. You are that, and there is no you – just this entire luminous display spontaneously arising moment to moment. The separate self is nowhere to be found. The entire sensation of "weight" drops altogether, because you are not in the Kosmos, the Kosmos is in you, and you are purest Emptiness. The entire universe is a transparent shimmering of the Divine, of Primordial Purity. But the Divine is not someplace else, it is all of this shimmering. It is self-seen. It has One Taste. It is nowhere else."
"Are the mystics and sages insane? Because they all tell variations on the same story, don't they? The story of awakening one morning and discovering you are one with the All, in a timeless and eternal and infinite fashion. Yes, maybe they are crazy, these divine fools. Maybe they are mumbling idiots in the face of the Abyss. Maybe they need a nice, understanding therapist. Yes, I'm sure that would help. But then, I wonder. Maybe the evolutionary sequence really is from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, each transcending and including, each with a greater depth and greater consciousness and wider embrace. And in the highest reaches of evolution, maybe, just maybe, an individual's consciousness does indeed touch infinity--a total embrace of the entire Kosmos--a Kosmic consciousness that is Spirit awakened to its own true nature." -A Brief History of Everything
"You simply are everything arising moment to moment. You do not see the sky, you are the sky. You do not touch the earth, you are the earth. You do not hear the rain, you are the rain. You and the universe are what the mystics call "One Taste." This is not poetry. This is a direct realization, as direct as a glass of cold water in the face."
Yeah yeah. Interesting. I tend to stick to more practical things that have the chance of being influential in what I experience....These things are wonderful pieces of thought, but what possible chance do we have to applying these things, whether true or not. Right...perception is everything and if you cannot mold perception through these thoughts they are though striking are useless. Its more than just our ability its also the evolution condition, we cannot take our reality in unison with these types of understandings, when almost all of the ones surrounding us have atleast some notion of it. Its like the mind can sense it and it fights to stay in line with the herd with that which it imagine keeps us alive, keeps us eating, sleeping peacefully and fucking so passionatly. However, evolution does partake in changes and the beliefs that border on the past ones and help undue some mental limitation works just fine for me. Like instead of thinking these things in response to an emotion such as fear, I stick to first what makes that uncomfortable feeling go away practically. One that really works is inevtiability and reminding yourself that you cannot do anything about things that usually worry us anyways.
