Integral Transformational Practice

alan kazlev Says: July 27th, 2006 at 5:57 pm hi Marko The list of spiritual traditions and lines of development is fascinating; I hadn’t thought of it in such terms before. I’d previously followed Huston Smnith’s perennialist approach (see his small but worthy book Forgotten Truth) although obviously in more detail, drawing from the Theosophical, Kabbalistic, etc traditions. But that what still theory, and what you say really gives the practical key. A few more lines of development to add

o Interaction with Nature Kingdoms: Neopaganism, Shamanism, New Age

o Interaction with Subtle Realms: Tantra, Hermetic occultism, Shamanism, etc

o Pleasure / Ananda: Tantra, Taoist sexual yoga

o Transformation of Matter: Lurianic Kabbalah, Aurobindo and the Mother

o etc. but you seem to have covered the main ones.

I totally agree that a simple eclecticism would be pointless and limited to the mental plane (which is where Wilber goes wrong) Ultimately one gravitates to a spiritual tradition that one feels resonance with, uses that as one’s focus or central axis of spiritual development, and then supplement that with practices and techiques from other traditions.

Yes you are absolutely right, this is what is almost always lacking in the Integral movement, not just the Wilberian movement but the wider integral movement. This is due to KW’s being limited to the “middle mental” as i say, and hence attracting people who are likewise strongly mental centered. An important exception here is Michael Murphy, who has developed his own approach inspired by Aurobindo and others, and the Integral Transformational Practice which he co-founded and seems to be highly regarded.

re Wilber’s transition from pandit to guru, well he’s only human (and from the evidence of his blogs a very emotionally immature level of human at that, despite his middle mental level of brilliance) and the poor guy has all these people worshipping him and calling him a bodhisattva; although quite likely he is manipulating the whole situtaion anyway. Regardless, it is little wonder it has gone to his head and he now fully believes his delusions of enlightenment. Open Integral