It seems as I learn the nomenclature for integral, I may be somewhere between orange and green? I discerned that because as I continue to move through the introduction, the section I am on now viewing, Wilber basically says that a third person perspective, for example, would be someone who believes in human rights which is orange. I do have to say when he gets to green definitions become fuzzier. I know he has taken a lot of heat for maintaining a great chain of being but what I get is that a fourth person perspective can analyze the orange level and find destructive parts that need addressing. A constructive green example would be if a strong belief in equality has been on the books for over three hundred years, why are there still groups that are not close to being equal viz a vie education, health care, economic prosperity, etc? This is both within nations and globally. Wilber claims that it canât be a leading edge because green has gotten to the point where truth is a contextual narrative of a person or groupâs experience which is equally valid for different people and groups. There are no absolute values. Without norms and values any thought or material system will fall apart and leads to the paradox that while there are no norms âif you disagree with my principles, you are wrong.â This is contradictory. Am I clear so far?
What I am having trouble with is that someone can think using AQALâs eight possible viewpoints as a second tier thinker but not be able to have the skill to implement their thoughts into the world. It may be that a person is not a persuasive speaker or does not have organizational abilities to establish a service to implement second tier thinking. To sum it up, I see a disconnect between being a second tier thinking and being generative in the world. Does this make sense?
Why I am asking is because I have been in two professional careers that were orange, but over the past eight/nine years I have been working with underserved populations that have forced me to adjust my expectations and whole value system to serve well. So I know it is in the doing, not in the thinking which proceeds the doing, that values and perspectives are refined. Does anyone see that doing is where the rubber hits the road, not simply a movement upward in perspective?
Well, you can take this test and it might tell you what your worldview is, which is similar to the SD levels and value memes in integral theory: https://wvtest.com/responses/5b9vx2/intro
The possible outcomes are traditional, modern, postmodern, and integrative which correspond to amber, orange, green, and teal/turquoise.
Thanks for engaging in a dialogue. I look forward to taking the test. I think my need for action versus thought is based on the fact that I have experienced the Dunning-Kruger effect when I thought my competencies far outstripped my ability to perform those competencies. I thought this platform could be a good place to gather different insights to continue to grow but obviously I am not generating any dialogue. Thatâs OK because there is plenty of other material on this site that is of interest.
Again I appreciate your willingness to engage. I asked two softball questions and when I got no responses I knew that at this time, I need to focus on other parts of the site and other people who are of great support. Peace
My employment has tended to be Orange the past 15 years also. As the world moves into Green and unhealthy green people tend to get overwhelmed by Orange and pay good money to avoid it.
So i place strict boundaries around my Orange employment. I dont allow Orange to create boundaries around my life.
Its a daily practice to just move in and out if a profession and not be it.
I also socialize a lot with Green. Again its a daily practice to be amongst Green but not become stuck in Green. Its also challenging to take a stance that is not officially Green sanctioned. But this is a necessary daily practice as well.
Just living life gives an infinite worshop of integral peactice. As you practice, the world around you will change in small ways, then larger ways. As long az you are driving the Integral motorcycle rather than riding the Orange or Green bus
Agreed Ray. My whole thing with the last two comments I entered had the background of âhow do you know you are integral if you donât find yourself or put yourself where you run up against value systems you are not familiar withâ? I think it is really easy to be in a bubble with like minded people who share your values and say âI am integral, yeah!â Having been brought up and lived in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and Baltimore, there were no Red or Amber groups that I came into contact with. Now I am living in a region where the majority of people are in Red and Amber groups. I have been here about eight years and I am still saying from time to time âthis is wrong, what the hell is going on here.â To me, that shows I am not integral but I have a great place to practice becoming the same person I really am and was brought up to be here as well as when I am in the bubble of people who I have found here who are at the Orange, Green, and Turquoise levels. âJust living life gives an infinite worship of integral practice.â I couldnât of said it better. Be well and I appreciate your thoughts.
Whoops I made a mistake. I have been down here for over four years and I have been working with the underserved populations for about the same about of time I have been down here. I guess it feels like eight years
Believe it or not, I wrote down my dreams for a year. I then categorized both sequentially and by archetype. Of course one of the archetypes was my shadow. There was one character that appeared over and over in different ages and sizes but he had the same color hair and eyes. I went to a Jungian counselor and discussed my archetypes with her but didnât find it was useful. I then tracked down a Jungian counselor who was trained at the Jungian Institute at Basil. I only met him once because I told him about a dream that I had befriended my shadow and he got very angry as if I done something wrong. I had studied enough Jung to know that is what he recommended. Anyway when I told him I wasnât coming back he sent me a long letter telling about his financial and other problems and I had to ask myself who was the counselor, me or him. I like the idea of Jung bringing the Platonic forms to the subconscious rather than being real, separate spiritual entities. If I remember right, the basic sequence is to recognize your persona, then anima (for a man), then your shadow, and then the wise old man, and finally The One. I had them all in my year long odyssey. I also like the way Joseph Campbell used Jungâs archetypes to come up with his monomyth theory.
Well put Sidra! I find Krishnamurtiâs style fascinating. Iâm glad he was captured on audio recordings. It seemed he held a belief of a correlation between formulating how the one and many or becoming and being could be verbally articulated. Everything always seemed fresh with him. He would not except secondhand comments or personal subjective thoughts, claiming he had been through everything and his mind was 8 million years old . He was always looking for the perfect premise from which pure being gives birth to life. Anyway, I would say with that dream analysis I did years ago, my archetypes in what they attempt to communicate have matured. It is very interesting.
Look at Lines, Quadrants and State orientation as well. Teasing apart personal, interpersonal and impersonal structures, I did not mention types, as those are the utilities, artifacts, archetypal methods or means of correlating or symbolically representing the exterior and interior construct of identity of which The integral model is one, which is anchored in the lower Right ITS domain of the 8 - 10th stage (3rd tier). spiral dynamics being 7 - 8 (2nd tier), as utilities and systemic constructs of reality. When you are using these utilities, you are participating on that line innately of the utility itself, it can inform other lines tangentially, it rarely will transform them. I am speaking arbitrarily but do not confuse your own integral progression and specificity with the utility itself. I guarantee you have a line or two that has fully matured through the 12 stage, even if it is the tactic you use to blow your nose.
Thanks John, I canât say I understood all you wrote but in my own words you are saying go lower than the main structures. This would include Lines (intelligences such as cognitive, kinesthetic, artistic, moral, emotional, etc), quadrants (I, we/all of us, it, and its) and states (gross, subtle,causual, slightly dual, and non-dualistic), Could types also be Myers-Briggs, etc. for UL? If Jung know what they did with his qualitative descriptions I donât think he would go for it because he had too much depth to standardize his thinking. I see the use of these kinds of identifiers though as a starting point to for intra and inter reflection.
Anyway I was confused about my white kundalini energy and how it is embedded in the model. I heard someone, probably Ken, talk about stable states so I guess it could go there. What I am trying to see intuitively or as second nature is hole-ons. I think once I âseeâ the gravity and integration of hole-ons, it is like cosmic consciousness. I appreciate your help and know there is so much on this site that will widen my cosmic view. Be well, Scott
Yes. Myers-Briggs, is best applied for personal UR differentiation of modal identity. Which has yet to be integrated into the full integral model. (it is an exterior type utility of analysis for personality) They way this would work if it were interior to the model, or where I find it fits, is that in the way lines run through stages. Streams run through States. These streams are the frequencies of the brain, and the modal mentalities that carry through them as adapted to the individual, and can be understood through engram models, astrology for that matter. Not likely in the way they are currently used, but I think it is very powerful to identify a spectrum of consciousness that presents though states, forming moods, modes and mentalities, solid state homeostatic conditions of self. White Kundalini energy sounds like a peak resonance with the 12 stage awakening on that particular line of practice that is anchored in the UL quadrant expressing causal and non-dual apertures of identity though the waking state model of your own modal identity, this informs your other lines, and developmental altitude. You can look at Kens introduction to integral psychology, in the back of the book he has many different models for consciousness and how they line up, Kundalini chakra systems are in that correlated collection. It is useful to look over if you are familiar with a particular system to see how it lines up with the general synthesis of the overall integral theory itself, as Ken used more than 100 different models to exact a way for them to all co-exist in a over arching modality. (a theory of everything)
John, I like your answer but it is packed with information. I am going to have to look it over several times and probably will have some questions if that is OK with you.
Would you mind unpacking this for me? A little less technical and more common language. I donât think Iâll ever be an adept in the lexicography of ILP because I keep being pulled over to history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc. and I want to keep working on that so I am being lazy.
These streams are the frequencies of the brain, and the modal mentalities that carry through them as adapted to the individual, and can be understood through engram models, astrology for that matter. Not likely in the way they are currently used, but I think it is very powerful to identify a spectrum of consciousness that presents though states, forming moods, modes and mentalities, solid state homeostatic conditions of self.
Yes. Integral is occurring innately and naturally within you. History, sociology, psychology⌠as any competent exercise in any type leads to greater scope and depth of acclamation. The integral model is a proposed container for this emergence, that is happening within you, with or without integral lexicography. Once integral has become activated an individual will build their own models, if they do not find one that will fit this sense. They will circle back 1000âs of times through various modalities exhausting every possible avenue of differentiation, attempting to find the most accurate fit, until eventually they too arrive to the core generalities which form a representation of perceptions. You are already on this path of discovery. You are not being lazy.
Streams as variations presenting a spectrum of identity that shine through states, are only further distinction in the area of states that I find helpful to my own interior understanding. It is not âcanonâ to Integral Theory. I call this tactic inverso evolutionary. Specifically the teasing apart of streams (carrier wave frequency settings and variations that run contiguously through states (phases of body consciousness) forming a dynamic of identity. This basically places identity type utilities that are currently exterior to the Kenâs model as objective tools, interior to an integral model as subjective references. Which in my mind releases streams from any conflation to stages and or states, which I find throughout the current model disagrees with my own preference.
As is often the case, it would not surprise me to read kenâs work again, only to realize he already addressed this, that I am only catching up, in my ability to identify and articulate it.
I love this Insight â They will circle back 1000âs of times through various modalities exhausting every possible avenue of differentiation, attempting to find the most accurate fit, until eventually they too arrive to the core generalities which form a representation of perceptions. â
I canât say that I understood the streaming very well, but I did get that streams inform all levels and lines of different kinds of intelligences. I didnât understand about the frequencies, but thatâs OK no worries. I really appreciate the time and energy you put into helping me along. As you so aptly observed and I really hadnât thought of it this way before, we have an inbuilt tendency to be integral and we will work on having meta first principles and premises at different levels and lines that will be refined, developed, redefined, etc. over the years as we gain more and more crystallized knowledge.
I just learned that I was looking at the psychological structures too much like spiral dynamics, that is as a value system, rather than a person can be at different levels of psychological structures with different lines of intelligences relative to the kind of intelligence that is measured.
Note the following is not the Integral Communityâs âconventional wisdomâ. Itâs just my own.
Two points:
First, I think we have to figure out what we mean when we say âwrongâ.
To say something is âwrongâ is a judgement. I think the key is to understand which point of view we are saying this is wrong from. If I am in a group where the N-word is being tossed around left and right, I can judge this to be âwrongâ from Orange (logical / rational), and of course obviously from Green. I can also judge various âbird whistlesâ to be wrong. The key imho is to understand within myself where that judgement is coming from. Then, choosing an effective action while understanding where I am taking action from.
Yesterday while walking out of Wall Mart a man said something to me that I judged as a power play. I told him to F-off, which caused him to be irate. There were several minutes of facing each other down and yelling insults at each other at the entrance to Wall Mart and then we parted ways.
Quite a display of Red, and I donât regret it. When confronted with what I feel is bully behavior, I have no problem facing it down and standing up to it. I also understand there are Orange and Green ways to deal with it, but honestly Iâve found these to be completely ineffective and now we are where we are in the USA in 2024 where Green methods have been completely ineffective in addressing the growing Red in our country. This past few months, the country and especially the political Left has finally figured out that they only way to deal with Red Trumpism is to face it down directly and even dip into Red itself.
So bruh - donât judge yourself so harshly but instead try to understand yourself. Just understand when you judge something âwrongâ and if you consciously choose to take action against it - look at yourself and understand what tier you are operating from. Then have as much compassion for yourself as you do others. Accept the legitimacy of yourself operating from various tiers while understanding which tier you are operating from and why that one is best - or why it is flawed and another one would serve better.
Of course, if you always only operate from one Level, then yes you might say you are 1st Tier. For example, if you can only operate exclusively from Green and judge everything not Green as âwrongâ, then you are âat Greenâ and you have lots of company. My point of view is that people who are constantly morally judging against using certain tools in the Red and Orange toolbox are not Teal, but trapped in Green and are therefore 1st Tier.
Green is only one category of Tools. An Integral person imho also uses tools from Orange and Red, when appropriate.
Second: More importantly, itâs important to be self aware of how much and what kind of an emotional âchargeâ you get when using a category of tools. Do you experience anger that does not go away quickly? Do you have a viceral reaction such as an unpleasant physical feeling in any of your Chakras (forehead, throat, chest, solar plexus, loins or bowels). An unpleasant feeling that is either intense or lingers for hours or days when confronted with Red, Orange or Green is a symptom that something needs âcleaning upâ. Integral theory and practice has extremely weak âCleaning Upâ modalities, which is why it is frankly stuck and going nowhere. The exceptions are those individuals who have aquired Cleaning Up Modalities outside the works of Ken Wilbur. These are often Spiritual or Psychological modalities or a combination that they learn elsewhere. Most people in here want to fix everyone and everything else first exept themselves. They want to understand everyone elseâs point of view and have compassion for everyone else - except themselves.
Now - do not go to your local Wal Mart and do what I did unless you are confident of your physicality and do not see any bulges from concealed weapons, lol. (we were both in shorts and t-shirts) There is also the safety aspect to consider. Your Red, Orange and Green toolboxes will have different tools in them than mine. But do give yourself permission to use all the tools you have available to you.
I like this answer. The problem I had was being a substitute teacher and having the kids using green words being backed up by administrators who believed they were green but were simply pushing problems aside. I subbed at 36 secondary and primary schools, all grades, which of course means the kids havenât found a stable identity yet. They was a lot of talk about hurting peopleâs feelings.
I never knew I could get as angry as I did. Their were times I yelled so loud that you can hear me down the hallways. I learned how to get other teachers, security guards, vice-principals, even janitors involed because they knew who the trouble makers were and I could tell the overseers you need to talk to x, y, or z. They will tell you what happened.
Fortunately for me it didnât last because of kundalini energy. No question that the power came from the lower three chakras. Your right, I was surprised at how much shadow energy I had. I am going back as an algebra aid/teacher in January. This time I will be working with teachers so it might be different (or it could be more of a challenge depending on the teacher). Regardless it has been a blessing in disguise because of how much unexpressed body anger I was carrying that needed to be tweaked to come out. If I hadnât been put into the positions I was put in, I wouldnât have discovered this uncharted territory.
That is why I am saying if you donât expose yourself to all different structures, lines, levels, and god knows what else, you canât really gauge how resilient you are and how much shadow material you may not know about. Green and orange or relatively easy for me because I been in that rodeo more times than I can remember. I like amber because most are genuinely friendly but their magical thinking, patriarchy, and exclusivity is kind of creepy
Indeed. I remember a psychiatric inpatient who was tired of the course his life had taken and decided from that point on that he was Jesus Christ. He had been involuntarily admitted for an alleged crime and I suppose his reasoning was that if he was Jesus Christ then the criminal justice system would be morally obligated to let him free sooner or later. Either that or God himself would intervene and save His Son. The Judge came to a different conclusion. JC did pretty well under psichiatric lock up for a few days, reading the Bible and blessing everyone - patients and staff alike. Then he started being a bit schitzophrenic with peace and love one minute then getting upset over really minor things the next. I think it was somewhere about day 5 he went too far, became a risk to the safety of others and had to be strapped down to the restraint bed and injected with some kind of low budget government grade sedative cocktail.
No one ever pointed out to him the biggest flaw in his plan was that the actual JC was given much harsher punishment.
