color confusion....

[andrew]

hey folks, i'm in need of your help, so i come to the pub offering a virtual beer to anyone who can clarify my integral confusions:) i know i'm in the right place....

first off, i hope your all doing well since the move from gaialand.........

so here goes: page 106 in i.s., kenny is saying that there has been a downward transition from indigo to green when it comes to the sutras and such. this confuses me to no end. now i know that he's saying that the 2500 year old sage was at the indigo stage in the cognitive line, but something still doesn't sit right with me here and i'm just not getting it. first off, i thought sdi was zone 2 stages and i just can't see a couple of sages 2500 years ago buzzing around in beamers and writing quantum equations on chalkboards, while discussing the complexities of all the world cultures and the effect their having on the global eco systems,etc....

okay, so say the amber sage (has to be,right?), has had an amazing non-dual realization, well, he's still an amber sage with a non dual realization, no? or can one color code the non-dual? or was the amber sage not an amber sage at all but a being from a planetary loka who would giggle at our most complex quantum equations and one who had immense precog skills that he could see prior all the sdi stages to come................

okay, i guess i'm just really hung up on this color coding when it crosses from zone 2 to zone 1....am i alone in this confusion? help!lol

[andrew]

thx. for waxing poetic dave:) but i'm afraid i do suffer also from various types of amnesia which is why i like this pub.......

um,so back to my query. is it a legitimate question? or is it something that can be dismissed by the all too ubiquitous meme tactic within the integral community? look, i get and agree with the zone 2 color coding and i get that different stages will interpret states differently. but what i'm not getting is how a recent emergent stage like indigo could have been experienced during the axial age. is it possible ken is referencing i.q. here? but even if that's the case and there were some extraordinarily bright sages back then-say aristotle- as an example of someone who intuited orange years before it emerged, don't we now know that most of his ideas were erroneous, or down right incorrect?
moreover, exactly which texts are ken referring to that have been dumbed down by green? the laws of manu? the bhagavad-gita? the book of leveticus? the diamond sutra? ok., it's been a long time since i read the diamond sutra, but surely that ones been deconstructed for inconsistencies by modernity's brightest scholars?

[rltruthseeker]

I'm going to take a stab at this andrew. I wouldn't say that when you reach torquoise you have to know about "quantum mechanics" or equations. I think there is something else there that Wilber is not sure of...but indigo represents a new emergent layer...in previous examples of spiral dynamics it was translated as "holistic" and it was the level right before the full integration of the Witnessing awareness.

Think of it as branches of a growing tree. Some leaves of the branch are at the top layer and represent some of the furthest boundaries of what the human being is capable of. So there are individuals who can reach these hights individually, while the rest of the world has to "catch up" in a sense or collectively grow into them. It doesn't mean that they are "better" (just as an adult is not better than a child), but merely represents more integration of these potentials.

The collective consciousness during the axial age was probably pretty low such as red and amber, (such as the warlike clans before Confucious), and certain individuals were able to have high peak conscious experiences individually, and they left their legacy. As far as the Greek states were concerned, Democritus is seen by some as the father of modern science, and Greek thinkers are mainly known for their orange emphasis on reason...even though they lacked the capabilities with modern technology and didn't focus on empiricism. I don't think they intuited orange. I think some of them were orange. And you can see that the founding fathers of America were "orange" or placed their faith in the reason of the Enlightenment and are also inspired by a lot of classical greek thinkers, which is even why a lot of art is inspired by that era.

Thus I think you can have individuals who were at a "higher color" but the others haven't caught up yet. I don't think modernity has deconstructed all spiritual texts, but that spiritual texts can be interpreted according to one's level of development. Thus, you can have people who take every single thing in the mythologies seriously...or you can have a more advanced understanding that interprets the symbolic nature of the text.

[Christophe]

Hello Andrew, RL,

my guess is that some individuals in the past (and future) were able to digg into the deeper (or higher) stages and states of consciousness. For example the old greeks like Aristotle et al. were laying down the foundations for Orange, without haveing the technology and production mechanisms to fully tap into its potential.
Concerning the Axial Age, I think it was a constellation of different events that worked together to create a Golden Age of Wisdom and High Culture - but still only very few people had access to ALL the wisdom and the knowledge. BTW it is my persuasion that the coming singularity has the potential to lead us to another Axial Age. If we survive the Armageddon, that is.
Another point which I learned from the study of the stage of exception is that probably the third tier stages are somewhat outside of linear time. That is to say it does not matter when an individual made the leap to 3rd tier, all aspirants reach the top simultaneously - this idea fits well with the skepticism in a gradual approach of progress, as it is expressed by Hegel, Nietzsche, Adorno and all these other motherf#ckers.
Finally, in my view, 3rd tier often looks like an Amber, Perennial perspective on things. But then it might also appear very close to green - without losing touch of orange. okay enough wild guessing and color confusion for now. ^_^

cheers

[andrew]

i appreciate the feed back christophe, rl, and dave, thx.! a few things i should probably clarify first: i'm not looking to bash wilber; it's a complex meta-map and if something in it is causing me cognitive dissonance, then i speak-up. at this point i havn't come come across a better map (not withstanding if it falls a part at the general orientations level), and the aqal's 8 zones ring true to me at this point. sdi rings true although i'd have to point out that it still ring true in a 6000 year old universe (not that i've ever believed that for one second), but you may get the point!
yeah, i like the analogy rl! would it be possible to link a detailed description of what the indigo stage is? at least then i could compare notes to the amber stage of jesus and buddha's time. i still think those 2 dudes lived in the amber age although they may (if they existed historically) have been on the top branches of the human tree.....if they were laying out the grooves for deeper structures and stages then i'd like to be able to see it a little clearer. under this map and at this point though, they still look like amber sages with non-dual realizations to me ...
yup, there's a lot of folks around here that think that kenny's views look a little amber with lot's of orange and red thrown into the mix! integral's all mine! it's all mine i tell ya!!!!!lol....

[rltruthseeker]

Thanks andrew. I think it's easy to get confused with the color scheme. I personally myself don't like the Spiral dynamics model as it currently is stated in Integral Spirituality. Here is a link that shows the spiral dyamics model as it currently stands. And here is another link that I like better. It's also important to note that Spiral dynamics is different from Spiral dynamics Integral. And Clare Graves never even used colors! to refer human development but it was taken up by Beck and Cowan in their book Spiral dynamics. That's also in the wikipedia article. I don't think anybody's really expounded turqouise in depth...but I think that the colors are only meant to serve as a "general" orientation towards others and to get a feel for our own level of development.

I agree that kenny's views have a very red tint to them, and don't agree with some of his views. Especially his arrogant attitude. I have a slightly modified version of the color scheme that I'm not prepared to show at this time. Hope these links help...and don't add to the color confusion.

[rltruthseeker]

"Lord, give us Integral but without the hype." lol

[andrew]

i think that last link has some pretty valid criticism's of i.s., thx. for linking it although it's not the first time i've read that one......
i should probably clarify that it's not the conflicting color schemes between the different s.d. models that i'm confused about! i think all those guys have done a disservice to s.d. by coming up with different color schemes; it's confusing to those who are initially inquiring into s.d., and imo., it was a dumb move probably brought about by ego clashes......imo., the s.d. folks should all agree on one color coding scheme but that's probably too much to ask from warring parties.......
one more time from this angle now: where is evidence of advanced turquoise/indigo culture 2/3/4 thousand years ago; what books did they write and how have they been dumbed down by green?

[Balder]

One example that I believe Wilber has mentioned is the Avatamsaka Sutra.

[andrew]

Thx. bruce! so far it's reading very similar to the urantia book and such...this is what I'm getting from it so far: reality and the universe consists of elemental spirits, fairies, pixies, asuras, devas, lokas,and a whole host of unseen supernatural beings with immense supernatural powers. now personally, i'm ok with this description of the nature of reality; but i do wonder why kenny would write a book which teaches that all this metaphysics is hokum? or i'm i misreading i.s. and the post-metaphysical idea, or am i misreading this sutra so far?
like i said in the beginning:help!lol

[andrew]

i'm wondering how this sutra compares with stephen hawkings, 'a brief history of time'.

[Balder]

I am pretty sure he doesn't hold the Avatamsaka Sutra in high regard on the basis of its literal scientific accuracy! It's clearly a very imaginative metaphysical flight of fancy, at least in terms of its imagery -- and deliberately so. The elaborate images are used deliberately, in my understanding, as a means of evoking the Hua Yen philosophical vision of interpenetration. It's a subtle, sophisticated spiritual vision of holographic, subjective-objective interpenetration and complementarity -- and is the source of the famous images of Indra's net and Maitreya's tower. You can read a little more about it here.

[rltruthseeker]

Andrew, you made me break out my copy of Integral Spirituality. :(
But I want to try and help answer your question. :)

Here is the quote I think you are referring to.
Ken Wilber says this, pg 105-106

“—All of these state realizations can be fully recognized at any number of states, including green. The same is true of Tozan’s “5 ranks” in Zen, and so on. Thus everything from Dzogchen and Mahamudra to Zen was, and is, being used to support and encourage green, which is to say, ever-Present Spirit is being used to reinforce and cement the green level. )

This is bad enough—in fact, something of a catastrophe—but there are two further, potential problems. The first is that many of the great contemplative texts, sutras, and tantras were written from at least the turquoise and often indigo or violet texts.”

So there you have it. Wilber doesn’t mention any of the names of the “great contemplative texts, sutras, and tantras” but from his previous sentence, you can tell that he is referring to Tozan’s 5 ranks, Dzogchen, Mahamudra and Zen texts. These are what he considers turquoise or higher…

Further on down the page he also mentions Hua Yen’s 4 principles. I would say, if you are looking for what turquoise or higher looks like, then check these out…because according to Wilber, they are turquoise. Wilber also throws out his previous levels in Sex, God, Ecology, and replaces it with a different scheme. Look at figure 2.4 in the book at third tier. Notice the words he uses; Illuminated Mind, Intuitive Mind, Overmind, Supermind. These are all Sri Aurobindo’s terms. So Wilber considers Sri Aurobindo third tier. You might also want to check out his book, The Life Divine. I still need to read that.

However, Wilber contradicts his own claim! You want to see an Achilles hill. On Integral Spirituality pg’s 249 Wilber says “So if we are looking for the “location” of something like global ecosystems, the first rule is simple: ecosystems exist only in a worldspace of turquoise or higher.”

And also on page 256 that
“The realities depicted in figure II.1 [the four quadrants] can only be found in a turquoise (or higher) worldspace. Ecosystems do not ex-ist in the red world or the amber world or the orange world. Vision-logic does not ex-ist in the red world or the blue world or the orange world or the green world

…Systems holarchies do not ex-ist for, and cannot be seen by, red subjects or amber subjects or orange subjects or green subjects. They can be enacted only by turquoise (or higher) subjects.”

So therefore, according to Wilber’s own logic and words, if any of the wisdom traditions did not know about ecosystems, they weren’t turquoise. [According to Wilber’s faulty logic.] Wilber can’t have it both ways though. Either he gets rid of turquoise having to know “Gaian collective,strings, differential calculus, nth dimentional hyperspace” (pg 259) or he can say that everybody in the wisdom traditions were amber…and thus his higher stages of development and his whole philosophy falls apart!

Wilber’s bashing of Green is his bashing of not really postmodernism, but the New Age crowd and hippies. What he calls “Boomeritis” He says that Green encourages a “narcissism of feelings” instead of “really intellectually understanding” the higher stages of development…which he thinks turquoise or higher does. He thinks the New Age crowd is only concerned with “feeling good” and ideas of “oneness”, without the meditative injuctions which he loves so much, and thus he calls them “dharma bums.” This is what he means by the “dumbing down” of scriptures with their green language.

And here is the main problem I have with Integral Spirituality. If you say that Buddha and Jesus were just Amber, then everyone at orange or higher today is higher than Buddha and Jesus! Anybody who knows what an ecosystem is, is “higher than Jesus and Buddha.” So an orange kid with an ipod who knows how to work a computer is “higher than Jesus.” You might say, “oh, well, intellectually their higher than Buddha and Jesus”…but that really doesn’t cut it with me. I believe Jesus and Buddha were third tier at least. Secretly I think he places Jesus lower on the scale of consciousness because the fallen mystic, Adi Da, whom Wilber is influenced by, ranks Jesus lower than Buddha….but then again, Adi Da believed he was God incarnate and higher than both Jesus and Buddha! (no joke). He believed his worshipers shouldn’t worship Spirit (whom he called Ati) but should only worship him.

…So there you have it. Wilber thinks he is higher than Jesus.

P.S. Thanks for the links Balder