By C.J. Smith


LAST WEEK I MADE A PERSONAL PILGRIMAGE of sorts to the so-called Epicenter of the Integral Revolution, Boulder CO. It was, as the Grateful Dead used to say, a long strange trip that brought me to this point.

It began about a year and a half ago when I came across a website discussing the work of a certain Ken Wilber. I saw a diagram of his work. It made me turn on the insides. I would later learn that (according to the insider lingo) I was stuck in a very subjectivist pluralistic frame of mind known as the green meme. It had some definite up-sides: concern with those oppressed…women, nature, so-called 3rd and 4th Worlds, etc. This framework however had some equally profound drawbacks—e.g. flattening of all distinctions, claiming everybody’s opinions were equal and valid but not being able to handle the fact that hardly anyone else seemed to think that way, and so on. This Ken Wilber claimed his work could help one keep the positives of this framework while jettisoning the negativity. Reading the introductory passages was like being self-convicted. I knew from my previous experience in life that whatever struck me as most revolting was usually something I should investigate.

I went to the library the next day and took out three books: A Brief History of Everything, A Theory of Everything, and The Eye of Spirit. I meant to prove this Ken Wilber wrong. He was patriarchal, oppressive, an Idealist throwback. In three days I had read all three books. My head was spinning. I found no way to disagree with this man, page after page I found myself simply nodding interiorly. I had no comebacks.

The following day I went to the bookstore and purchased Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality. After a day and a half of reading, punctuated only by trips to the bathroom, meals, and sleep my soul felt illuminated from within. I put the book down. I knew my life would never, could never be the same.

But it did stay the same for quite sometime. I proceeded to read every other major work by Ken in a span of like 3 or 4 months. When I finally get the motivation to do something, very few things stand in my way. But I was unable to meet anyone else who had ever heard of this man, no one else with whom I could converse about these extraordinary insights and feelings. Everything was so fresh and new. Clearly I was a little inebriated by the whole thing.

And then reality set back in. Integral or whatever was just this thing lingering in the back of my mind. It had obviously become the most important thing in my life. By his constant and nearly mind-numbing reiteration that his works in no way substitute for practice, I finally took the first faltering steps towards an authentic, adult spiritual existence.

Still I had no outlet for these things. I began to become very sad and upset. I felt like my life was splitting into two. This trend preceded my introduction to Wilber. I call the “In My Room” phenomenon (a great song by the Beach Boys covering this very issue). I spent most of my childhood alone in my room, praying, thinking, wondering about the future—Master Yoda would not have been very pleased with me. This Wilber stuff seemed like just another version of the same story.

Then one day I came across a website called The Manifest. I wrote this (seemingly) crazy guy Paul, telling him how much I enjoyed the e-zine and told him a wacky story about how I was studying to be a priest, really felt isolated but so wanted to somehow just be a part of this whole Integral Movement. Paul asked if I would write for The Manifest.

He forwarded my message to a guy named Marco. Marco was coming back East within a week to visit his folks. I had a few days before I went to see my family for Christmas. My last night here in New York he and I met at a coffee shop in Midtown, on the west side of Central Park. We talked for hours. It was a real meeting of minds. When we finally departed I wandered the wrong way initially to the subway. I ended up walking through Central Park for a couple of hours in a bit of a daze.

So I began to write for The Manifest. Eventually, I wrote an article about Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion using the Spiral Dynamics framework. A friend of mine forwarded the article to Don Beck, who then wrote me saying how much he enjoyed the thing. He also mentioned that he had forwarded the message to one Ken Wilber with high praise.

Very soon after that Marco told me that Ken wanted me to visit Boulder. The ostensible reason for my trip was to sit in on a taped conversation between Ken and Br. Wayne Teasdale, an amazing Christian mystic. I flew out on Wednesday and hung out at the Boulder house with the fellas for a few days, went to a few of the meetings about the Naked Site, the University, and what not. Friday night Paul and I had Sabbath meal with a wonderful Jewish friend of ours. Saturday was the filming. After the filming a bunch of us went to Ken’s loft. I had a little but very good 7 or 8 minute chat with the White Morpheus himself. After that we all made our way over to a local watering-hole to see Stuart Davis perform. So I had a decent enough exposure, as best as possible given the short time frame I guess, but by no means do my reflections capture the whole of the scene.





That being said…a few thoughts. I’m mainly sticking to the “young” crowd since those are the ones with whom I spent the most time. First, I’ve never seen such a super-talented group of my peers. Never. And I know some pretty talented folk. These guys and gals take the prize though.

Not to say that there aren’t shadow elements—as there are bound to be in anything in this world. I thought I’d give a few constructive criticisms for them more than for anybody else really. Keep in mind the great Jungian insight—anything you see critically in others is really something broken with yourself. These thoughts I’m sure apply as equally if not more to me than anyone else.

It’s well documented that the scene needs a stronger touch of the feminine. One of the days I was there I went over to the new offices. I sat at a roundtable, absentmindedly thumbing through Boomeritis, while all the dudes in the room (4 or 5 if I remember right) were all on their own individual laptops. They didn’t speak for an hour. The two ladies among the group huddled together and quietly whispered away at the same time. Talk about agency vs. communion—good f’in grief. So a little less 3rd person distanced stance fellas, a’ight?

That point just leads to the more important lack underlying the scene currently (and it’s young so these growing pains are normal)—a lack of “WE”, I-THOU relationships. Every once in awhile someone would light up, usually when I would ask them when they came to Boulder, why, and the rest. I got the sense, however, that they never (or very rarely) discussed these things amongst each other: what makes them tick, what are their expectations, why are they are doing what they are doing? Obviously as a so-called Second Tier Culture, there is a healthy distance from the narcissism of the preceding wave. I think, however, the general trend has gone a bit overboard, meaning very little to no discussion (in a healthy way) of feelings and drives. I’m not suggesting of course that everyone hold hands and look deeply into each others eyes and tell each other how wonderful they are because “We are going to change the world, one integral person at a time.”

I think there is a need to find a way for all those really wonderful people to connect other than at work or sitting at a Stuart Davis show. No offense Stuart, the show was amazing, but everybody was just sitting passively in their seats [well except for Katie: note the feminine, related to point #1…she was dancing gracefully in the back]. I mention this only because I haven’t lived in a predominantly white neighborhood for quite awhile now—loosen up a bit homeys. A little too many white-boys—that’s coming from one down white boy to the others.

One of the tenets of an Integral Transformative Practice is community service. This would be a good outlet for what I’m pointing towards. Visiting shut-ins, a children’s hospital (especially the long term illness ward), ladling soup at the local shelter, something. Couple times a month, no biggie, but done as a group. It would give everyone I think a healthy sense of why the formation of the University and the spread of the Integral Ideals are so important; it would also reveal the fact that most people aren’t there, they just aren’t. They’re still wonderful people, deserving of love. The work everyone is doing is so so so important. But all of us can’t afford to lose touch to move to far ahead of the curve.

Even at the workplace. If an outsider went in during business hours, as I did, s/he would never guess that this group is predicated on a strong belief in the importance of spiritual practice. Now saying that is not to deny that everyone isn’t practicing in their homes, in their communities, just that I never saw it happen with each other. Even taking five minutes out at the beginning of meeting to sit in silence together. That’s all. [Um, actually, we do. –ed.]

Ken said a really amazing thing when we were talking at the loft. He said that there was a difference between compassion and love. Compassion wants to relieve the suffering of another; love wants the best for another. Buddhism, he said, was a totally love-less religion. I thought that was quite an admission, considering his personal commitment to it for so long. Ken said that love was Christianity’s great gift to the world. I would add Judaism as well, since Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian, but close enough. As most of the people, from what I gathered, in the scene though not culturally Eastern, practice various types of practices generically labeled Eastern, this self-criticism should be kept in mind. The danger of quietism lies in all mystical traditions, particularly the wonderful Eastern ones.

Again not cheesy love, which is really nothing but commiserating (lit. “being miserable together), but deep caritas. It’s so sad the caritas has become demeaned into charity. The original meaning has such rich nuances. If my friends in Boulder have ears to hear, caritas is what is needed. Not because it will make people more efficient at work (although it actually will do that) or even because it will make everyone feel better (although it’ll probably do that as well), but just because. Because it is right.

There are two great Christian sayings that come to my mind (as the newly minted co-host of the Integral Christianity domain on IU, I think I’m within my rights to speak on this topic now): “By their fruits, you will know them” and “It is by your love for one another that everyone will recognize you.” Ultimately the ideas behind the integral movement stand on their own. They are for me guiding lights in the darkness. Still, there is a sense in which, whether rightly or wrongly, people are not primarily rational. Outsiders will look to the spirit of the group when they make judgments. What comes across, even if it is primarily and seemingly apersonal via the web, will in subtle and not-so-subtle ways bear the marks of its creators.

That being said, it was great. I really admire what is happening; to my mind it really has the potential to be earth-shattering. It is also very consoling for me to meet people my own age interested in the same things, fired by the same longings, searching for the same goal.

With love for all of them.

CJ