Our Individual Quest To Be Integral

Human beings are born and begin their evolution through the great spiral of consciousness, moving from archaic to magic, to mythic to rational to perhaps integral, and from there perhaps into genuinely transpersonal domains. But for every person that moves into integral or higher, dozens are born into the archaic. The spiral of existence is a great unending flow, stretching from body to mind to soul to spirit, with millions upon millions constantly flowing through that great river from source to ocean.

No society will ever simply be at an integral level, because the flow is unceasing, although the center of gravity of a culture can indeed drift upward, as it has over history. But the major problem remains not, how can we get everybody to the integral wave or higher, but how can we arrange the health of the overall spiral as billions of humans continue to pass through it, from one end to the other, year in and year out.

Ken Wilbur, in his book The Theory Of Everything, does an excellent job describing the contrast that exists within human consciousness. We are all born into the archaic state of consciousness, and then move through different stages as our awareness expands. We all want and do experience the magical stage and then progress to the mythical and so on, but some of us get stuck in a certain stage. If that stage fits our innate plan of subconscious expansion, we make that stage our conscious home .

There are several reason why we decide to remain in a particular stage. Our perceptions and beliefs as well as associations and influences contribute to that subconscious decision. We make that subconscious decision long before we become conscious of that decision. Our view of our environment, our religion and our politics as well as our view of our individual reality create walls of fear. Those walls can be unsurmountable, so we accept our chosen stage as the only stage that is true for us. All other stages seem foreign and make little sense.

Consciousness is fueled by the desire to expand in the action of awareness. All stages in the spiral of consciousness don’t have to be experienced in one reality. Most of us don’t go from the archaic to the integral stage in one lifetime, but we are aware that all stages exist. So in a sense, we know what we don’t think we know about our consciousness. We just choose to experience stages in time sequences that fit into our individual quest to be integral.