Part. 12.
The respective worldviews of those nine general structures of consciousness
can be described as: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, aperspectival, psychic
(yogic), subtle (saintly), causal (sagely), and nondual (siddha) (Adi Da,
1977; Gebser, 1985; Wilber 1996a, 1996b, 1997a, 2000b).
Those are levels of consciousness or structures (stages), during whose
permanent unfolding, no stages can be readily skipped; but at virtually any
of those stages, a person can have a peak experience of psychic, subtle,
casual, or nondual states. Overall or integral development is thus a
continuous process of converting temporary states into permanent traits or
structures, and in that integral development, no structures or levels can be
bypassed, or the development is not, by definition, integral.
Uneven Development
This does not prevent all sorts of spirals, regressions, temporary leaps
forward via peak experiences, and so on. Notice, for example, that somebody
at the psychic level can peak experience the causal state, but cannot stably
access that realm because their permanent development has not yet reached the
causal as a stage (or a permanent acquisition or structure). In order for
that to happen, they must traverse the subtle realm (converting it into an
objective stage) before they can stably maintain the witnessing position of
the causal (turiya), because the permanent witness is, by definition,
continuously aware of all that arises, and that means that if the subtle
arises, it is witnessed--which means the subtle has become a permanently
available pattern or structure in consciousness. Thus, stages in integral
development, as elsewhere, cannot be skipped (they do not have to be
perfected or mastered to the nth degree, but they do have to be established
as a general competence. Somebody who cannot witness the subtle state cannot,
by definition, be the causal witness--hence, the stage-like nature of these
higher structures as they become permanent acquisitions.) See Appendix A.
Still, what usually happens is that because these three great realms and
states (waking/gross, dream/subtle, and formless/causal) are constantly
available to human beings, and because as states they can be practiced to
some degree independently of each other (and might even develop independently
to some degree [Wilber, 2000b]), many individuals can and do evidence a great
deal of competence in some of these states/realms (such as meditative
formlessness in the causal realm), yet are poorly or even pathologically
developed in others (such as the frontal or gross personality, interpersonal
development, psychosexual development, moral development, and so on).
See Part. 13. follows.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:25 BST