DOCSLIB.ORG

Toward-A-More-Loving-And-Caring

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Toward-A-More-Loving-And-Caring Copyright © 2014 by Don Ayre All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Printed and bound in Canada at McNally Robinson Booksellers 1120 Grant Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3M 2A6. Cover and Book design by McNally Robinson Booksellers. Cover Photo: Watercolour by Don Ayre www.mcnallyrobinson.com/selfpublishing ISBN: 978-1-9278169-33-8 First Edition October 2014 ◆ Toward a ◆ More Loving and Caring World don ayre mcnally robinson booksellers self-publishing and print-on-demand ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS n writing this book, I acknowledge the people who share in its vision. I Iam reminded of the very real contributions of my friends and associates. As a generation, we grew up together, worked together and did what we could to contribute to a better world. I am also reminded of the clients and colleagues who shared their thinking with me through the years when I was in private practice. From them, I learned that dialogue can make a difference. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Heather Emberley who edited my work several times. From Heather, I have learned that it is one thing to write about social concerns as criticism and yet quite another to communicate them positively in ways that they can be supportive of others. I also wish to acknowledge Sarah Wood for her unique contribution and creativity in formatting this book with its many diagrams and quotations. My heartfelt appreciation goes out to Jean Ayre, my partner. Her patience through the years as I struggled to balance my idealism with reality and to contribute to a better world has been huge. There were many hours of dialogue involved in writing and rewriting this book. Putting one’s idealism into words is a process that is never-ending, it seems. I especially want to thank those of you who have chosen to read this book. As long as we believe in and are willing to commit to the progress of a vision that contributes toward a more loving and caring world, it will happen. Love’s Imperatives Look for Beauty in all things, Expect Love at all times, Share from the Heart, Be Grateful for Life Itself, Smile… and Enjoy Each Day. CONTENTS 9 INTRODUCTION The Journey from Self-Awareness to Cosmic Consciousness 11 I. A Growing Need for New Insights 17 II. Method of Inquiry 26 III. Method of presentation 34 IV. Invitation to Readers 39 PART ONE Developing the SELF and Growing the SOUL 41 1. Exploring Life’s Four Most Basic Questions 61 2. Using Knowledge for Developing the SELF 75 3. Using Wisdom for Growing the SOUL 93 4. Exchanging Knowledge and Wisdom with Kindred Spirits 103 PART TWO The Process of Meditation 105 5. Meditation, prayer and the Power of Integrated Questioning 119 6. Meditation and Communion with the World of Nature 127 7. Meditation and the Personal/Social Development of Universal Love 139 8. Meditation and the Ongoing Evolution of Cosmic Consciousness 147 PART THREE The Four Dimensions of Meditation 149 9. Witness Meditation and the Process of Self-Awareness 157 10. Discursive Meditation as a Source of Individual Happiness 165 11. Transformative Meditation and the Politics of Change 177 12. Transcendental Meditation as a Means of Contributing to Civilization’s Slow Progress 191 PART FOUR Dealing with Life’s Transitions 193 13. Transition #1: From Family to Community 201 14. Transition #2: From Education to Employment 213 15. Transition #3: From Single to Partnership Living 221 16. Transition #4: From Independence to Interdependence 237 CONCLUSION Self, Soul and Technology 239 I. The Growing Need to Link Psychology With Theology 247 II. The Growing Need to Resolve Issues of Technology vs. Spirituality 255 III. Hope for Our Humanity 261 IV. Hope for Us as Individuals 265 BIBLIOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION The Journey From Self-Awareness To Cosmic Consciousness ife is a journey in self-awareness. Our awareness expands to include Lothers of our generation and of generations gone before us. Gradually, our journeying becomes more purposeful – directed from within towards a common human destiny. It is then that our limited awareness of ourselves expands as the world we find ourselves in challenges us and we begin to realize that we have an enormous potential for contributing to a more loving and caring world. It is for us to choose. 1 | A Need for New Insights 2 | Toward a More Subjective Method of Inquiry 3 | Toward a More Objective Method of Presentation 4 | Intended Readership 9 1 | A Need for New Insights A more loving and caring world… It would make our journeying through life so much easier and so much more rewarding. From the point of view of psychology, it’s a matter of our fulfilling the integrity of our growth and development both as individuals and as humanity. Psychologists call it “Actualizing our human potential”. From the point of view of theology, it’s a matter of our living up to the potential of our intended divinity and staying on the track with the destiny of our species. Theologians know it as “Discovering our divine calling”. Generation after generation, we have amassed a tremendous buildup of knowledge and wisdom about ourselves and the world we live in and about the ongoing progress of our civilization. Now that we have the means of communicating world-wide to create a global community and the technology to advance it, we need new insights into based on the knowledge and wisdom we have accumulated thus far. Instead, old solutions to old problems are being played out – wars, social injustices, and environmental issues. Why are we feeling the pressures to change – locally, globally? How do we respond – individually, collectively? Experience tells us that neither our psychological nor our spiritual realization is happening as it should. Why not? What can we do about it? On the one hand, psychologists and related professionals are telling us that we need to be more aware of ourselves and of others, more loving; that we need to be fulfilling our integrity as individuals. On the other hand, theologians and related spiritual advisors are telling us that we need to be more conscious of the global community and of our common humanity. Our politicians world-wide are saying everything in between. They are urging us to be more cooperative socioeconomically, community by community, country by country while at the same time they are advising us to be more sharing in our international use the world’s resources. Meanwhile, global inequities, uprisings and wars go on unabated. We need to be more loving toward one another and more caring towards our planet Earth. 11 12 toward a more loving and caring world The primary purpose of this book is to demonstrate that there is a common ground of awareness that is emerging between the extremes of psychology and theology that will help us develop our SELVES and grow our SOULS as one. I believe that the availability of knowledge from an interconnectivity of biology, psychology, sociology, theology, cosmology and related disciplines will help us deal more effectively with the stresses and strains of living in the emerging global community. Ultimately, this will lead to a stronger sense of Universal Love and to a more loving world. A secondary purpose of this book is to review the writings and conversations with people of like minds who are concerned about how the rapid development of our technology is affecting our society’s sense of spirituality. I believe that a more holistic platform is needed for the growth and development of ourselves as individuals and for our humanity as inhabitants of the planet Earth. Ultimately, this will lead to a stronger sense of Cosmic Consciousness and to a more caring world. In their recent book CLASH: Eight Cultural Conflicts That Make Us Who we Are, Stanford University professors – Hazel Role Marcus PhD. and Alana Connor PhD. – point out that “as our planet gets smaller, hotter and flatter cultural conflicts are becoming fiercer.” They suggest that a new group of professionals is forming on campuses as advisors and counsellors to our newly forming global community. They insist that these new professionals will be able “to show us how to navigate some of the deepest cultural divides that are just now forming”. This influx of new knowledge as it flows through our television and computers adding to and revising the old can be overwhelming. What can we do to update ourselves as individuals? What can we do to make our know-how for our children more relevant? What can we do to make the know-how for our children’s children more relevant? What can we do for our species as a whole? Politically, we are having difficulty cobbling together a new sense of global community. In trying to develop a new, more all-encompassing notion of SELF and WORLD, Marcus and Connor ask: What exactly is a person? What is a good person? And what is her or his relationship to other people, the past, and the environment? The cycles that feed and flow from the big idea that the SELF is independent are quite distinct from cycles the feed and flow from the idea that SELF is interdependent. Built around this big idea, the cultural WORLD don ayre 13 outside people's bodies have just as much structure, pattern, and order as do the genes, neurons, and grains regions within their bodies.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Non-Duality in Ken Wilber's Integral Philosophy
    NON-DUALITY IN KEN WILBER’S INTEGRAL PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL AND ALTERNATIVE PHYSICALIST PERSPECTIVE OF MYSTICAL CONSCIOUSNESS JEREMY JOHN JACOBS 2009 Ken Wilber Cover Photo: Denver Integral and Ken Wilber Meetup Group (http://www.meetup.com/denver- integral/photos/?photold=716584&photoAlbumld=102985. Accessed 20 February 2009). NON-DUALITY IN KEN WILBER’S INTEGRAL PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL AND ALTERNATIVE PHYSICALIST PERSPECTIVE OF MYSTICAL CONSCIOUSNESS by JEREMY JOHN JACOBS Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY in the subject CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA Promoter PROFESSOR C E T KOURIE February 2009 Kenneth Earl Wilber (1949 - ) (theosophist.wordpress.com) Student Number: 3279-583-1 I declare that NON-DUALITY IN KEN WILBER’S INTEGRAL PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL AND ALTERNATIVE PHYSICALIST PERSPECTIVE OF MYSTICAL CONSCIOUSNESS is my own work and that all sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. _________________________ ______________ Signature Date Jeremy John Jacobs i DEDICATION To Kim and St John ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest gratitude goes to my wife Kim for her endless patience, encouragement, and support. I gratefully acknowledge Professor Celia Kourie’s professionalism. Her courteous manner of guidance and correction, and also the hospitality she extended to my alternative perspectives are an indication of her academic integrity. Special thanks to my sister Tania Jacobs who typed up reams of notes that I had gathered over the years, and finally my friend Andre Croucamp whose brilliant mind inspired me to think beyond the strictures of my creeds.
    [Show full text]
  • Ken Wilber As a Spiritual Innovator. Studies in Integral Theory
    ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS TURKUENSIS UNIVERSITATIS ANNALES B 526 JP Jakonen KEN WILBER AS A SPIRITUAL INNOVATOR Studies in Integral Theory JP Jakonen Painosalama Oy, Turku, Finland 2020 Finland Turku, Oy, Painosalama ISBN 978-951-29-8251-6 (PRINT) – ISBN 978-951-29-8252-3 (PDF) TURUN YLIOPISTON JULKAISUJA ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS TURKUENSIS ISSN 0082-6987(Print) SARJA – SER. B OSA – TOM. 526 | HUMANIORA | TURKU 2020 ISSN 2343-3191 (Online) KEN WILBER AS A SPIRITUAL INNOVATOR Studies in Integral Theory JP Jakonen TURUN YLIOPISTON JULKAISUJA – ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS TURKUENSIS SARJA – SER. B OSA – TOM. 526 | HUMANIORA | TURKU 2020 University of Turku Faculty of Humanities School of History, Culture and Arts Studies Department of Study of Religion Doctoral Programme in History, Culture and Arts Studies (Juno) Supervised by Senior Lecturer Matti Kamppinen Adjunct Professor Ruth Illman University of Turku Åbo Akademi Reviewed by Professor Esa Saarinen University Lecturer Teuvo Laitila Aalto University University of Eastern Finland Opponent Professor Esa Saarinen Aalto University The originality of this publication has been checked in accordance with the University of Turku quality assurance system using the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service. Cover photo and carving © Corey deVos Copyright © JP Jakonen, University of Turku ISBN 978-951-29-8251-6 (PRINT) ISBN 978-951-29-8252-3 (PDF) ISSN 0082-6987(Print) ISSN 2343-3191 (Online) Painosalama Oy, Turku, Finland 2020 UNIVERSITY OF TURKU Faculty of Humanities School of History, Culture and Arts Studies Department of Study of Religion JP JAKONEN: Ken Wilber as a spiritual innovator. Studies in Integral Theory. Doctoral Dissertation, 173 pp. Doctoral Programme in History, Culture and Arts Studies (Juno) December 2020 ABSTRACT This dissertation studies the American philosopher Ken Wilber (1949–) through the lens of spiritual innovatorship.
    [Show full text]
  • A Guide to Ken Wilber and the Education Literature: Annotated Bibliography
    University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Werklund School of Education Werklund School of Education Research & Publications 2007 A Guide to Ken Wilber and the Education Literature: Annotated Bibliography Fisher, R. M. In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute Fisher, R. M. (2007). A Guide to Ken Wilber and the Education Literature: Annotated Bibliography (Technical Paper No.27). Vancouver, BC: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/109991 Report Unless otherwise indicated, this material is protected by copyright and has been made available with authorization from the copyright owner. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca 1 A Guide to Ken Wilber and the Education Literature: Annotated Bibliography Technical Paper No. 27 - R. Michael Fisher, Ph.D. ©2007 In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute 2 A Guide to Ken Wilber and the Education Literature: Annotated Bibliography R. Michael Fisher, Ph.D. Copyright 2007 All rights reserved . No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher/author. No permission is necessary in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews, or other educational or research purposes. For information and permission address correspondence to: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute #305, 1580 E. 3rd Ave., Vancouver, BC V5N 1G9 Contact author: [email protected] www.feareducation.com First Edition 2007 Cover and layout by R.
    [Show full text]
  • Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology
    Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision: A Review Of Applications In Education Toward A “Wisdom Culture” -R. Michael Fisher1 ©2003 ABSTRACT For over 30 years, contemporary American integral philosopher, Ken Wilber, has challenged all of us to critically examine how biased, if not distorted, our current forms of thinking and knowledge are, and what kind of education ought to be developed in order to build, what he refers to as, a future “Wisdom Culture.” To date, no critical synthesis of Wilber’s work and its relationship to the field of Education has been attempted. This paper offers three real classroom vignettes demonstrating the application of Wilber’s integral approach, set within an opening fictional narrative. The remainder of the paper synthesizes an extensive search of Educational documents, and provides a critical review of 16 professional educators, from both schooling and adult education, who have published writing on applications and potential of Wilber’s philosophy, toward laying the groundwork for future educational engagement with the integral approach.. INTRODUCTION: IF ONLY... I had a dream. Thousands of diverse adults from nations around the world were gathering for a common cause in Geneva. The loudspeakers were blaring throughout the lecture hall, where everyone sat politely and attentive. A small brown-skinned figure, a “Director-General,” someone said, stood at the podium speaking: As the world’s problems grow in complexity, from genocides to ecosides and growing world poverty, from the HIV/AIDS epidemic to a life polluted by fear in a post-9/11 “War on Terrorism,” our United Nations are facing a very challenging 21st century.
    [Show full text]
  • Review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber 2Nd Ed 851P(2001)
    Review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber 2nd ed 851p(2001) Michael Starks ABSTRACT It is both amazing and fitting that this huge, jargon-laden (this book really needs a glossary!), heavily academic work has become a best seller in the world of the educated. One has to be dedicated to learn the jargon and then plow through 551 pages of text and 238 pages of notes. Meanwhile, we are told time and again that this is just an outline of what is to come! Though he severely criticizes the excesses of the three movements, this is a deconstructive and New Age Mystical and postmodern interpretation of religion, philosophy and the behavioral sciences from a very liberal,spiritual point of view—i.e., without the worst of decon, pm and NAM jargon, rabid egalitarianism and anti-scientific anti-intellectualism. He analyzes in some detail the various world views of philosophy, psychology, sociology and religion, exposing their fatal reductionistic flaws with (mostly) care and brilliance, but most of the sources he analyzes are of almost no relevance today. They use terminology and concepts that were already outdated when he was researching and writing 20 years ago. One has to slog thru endless pages of jargon -laden discussion of Habermas, Kant, Emerson, Jung et.al. to get to the pearls. You get a terrific sampling of bad writing, confused and outdated ideas and obsolete jargon. If one has a good current education, it is doubly painful to read this book (and most writing on human behavior). Painful because it´s so tortured and confusing and then again when you realized how simple it is with modern psychology and philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (SES) Chris Desser
    This and several other reviews were contained in the celebrations of Ken's work that we recently posted to KenWilber.com. The editors of the site went through the archives and pulled out dozens of old reviews, containing mostly positive criticism, and put them together as a type of celebration of Ken's work over the past 25 years. For the full collections, please see: Meta-genius: A Celebration of Ken’s Writings—Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 * * * Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (SES) Chris Desser Ken Wilber’s Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (“SES”) is an important book arriving at a critical moment. More than a remarkable synthesis of the evolution of Indo European philosophical, psychological, sociological, and scientific ideas, SES cogently makes the case that the integration of various differentiated realms--science, art, and morality; male and female; ecology, technology and spirituality; I, we, and it--is the central task for this fractured, postmodern time, indeed that evolution and our survival depend on our success. Copyright © 2007 KenWilber.com. All Rights Reserved. My own endeavors and interests traverse similar territory (i.e., spirituality, psychology, philosophy, ecology) and encompass similar concerns (exploring and understanding the opportunities for, and conditions necessary to, evolving toward ever greater levels of consciousness). As an environmentalist I have encountered the “flatland” mentality of many environmental activists and thinkers. I also meditate (vipassana) and in the last couple of years have spent a lot of time on retreat. I find the exclusively “ascended” perspective of vipassana troubling, but the practice of great value. Recently I have been grappling with how to reconcile--or integrate--the “descended” nature of my work with the “ascended” nature of my practice.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Postmodern Spirituality
    JP JAKONEN Beyond Postmodern Spirituality Ken Wilber and the Integral approach Introduction We might say that we moved from living in a cosmos to being included in a universe (Charles Taylor 2007: 59). In his latest book, the British philosopher Charles Taylor asks ‘why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in say, 1500 in our Western soci- ety, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy but even inescapable?’ (Taylor 2007: 25). What are the contours of the modern world in which we live? Why the change from believing in God as a default to not-believing as the new mode for our being-in-the-world? The American philosopher Ken Wilber has taken on a sizeable challenge by trying to unsnarl the modern world-knot and its secular worldview. In the course of his almost forty years of predominantly solitary study (he has worked outside academia for the best part of his career) and writing, Wilber has produced a body of work that spans from consciousness studies to soci- ology and anthropology, to mysticism and to different fields of philosophy, psychology and comparative religion (Visser 2003: 1–15). The main theme running through his writings is the concept of Kosmos, the universe of mat- ter, life, mind and spirit, that he seeks to restore and bring back both to our vocabulary and to our everyday experience of reality (Wilber 1996: 16). The spectrum of consciousness A recurring theme in Wilber’s oeuvre is the idea of a spectrum of conscious- ness. Since the writing of his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness at the ripe age of 23, Wilber has maintained that the human psyche has a nat- ural cap ability to span a huge spectrum of available stages of consciousness (Wilber 1993: 3–6).
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to the Integral Approach (And the AQAL Map)
    Introduction to the Integral Approach (and the AQAL Map) During the last 30 years, we have witnessed a historical first: all of the world’s cultures are now available to us. In the past, if you were born, say, a Chinese, you likely spent your entire life in one culture, often in one province, sometimes in one house, living and loving and dying on one small plot of land. But today, not only are people geographically mobile, but we can study, and have studied, virtually every known culture on the planet. In the global village, all cultures are exposed to each other. Knowledge itself is now global. This means that, also for the first time, the sum total of human knowledge is available to us—the knowledge, experience, wisdom, and reflection of all major human civilizations—premodern, modern, and postmodern—are open to study by anyone. What if we took literally everything that all the various cultures have to tell us about human potential—about spiritual growth, psychological growth, social growth— and put it all on the table? What if we attempted to find the critically essential keys to human growth, based on the sum total of human knowledge now open to us? What if we attempted, based on extensive cross-cultural study, to use all of the world’s great traditions to create a composite map, a comprehensive map, an all-inclusive or integral map that included the best elements from all of them? Sound complicated, complex, daunting? In a sense, it is. But in another sense, the results turn out to be surprisingly simple and elegant.
    [Show full text]
  • Ken Wilber's Problematic Relationship to Science
    Ken Wilber’s Problematic Relationship to Science Frank Visser1 Abstract: Ken Wilber has argued for a spiritual view of evolution. To make his case he has defended three knowledge claims: (1) current science fails to explain major transformations in evolution, (2) some scientific views seem to support his view that the cosmos is inherently creative, and (3) his own theory of evolution is “the only theory that can actually explain the mysteries of evolution.” The validity of these three claims is questioned by the argument that a more believable integration of evolutionary theory within integral theory is called for. This requires both an openness to criticism and more solid expertise in this specific field of science. Thus far, both of these features have been lacking within both Wilber’s writings and the integral community. Keywords: Eros, evolution, evolutionary science, extended synthesis, integral theory, modern synthesis. Introduction Throughout his many works, Ken Wilber has shown an ambiguous attitude towards science, and especially evolutionary science. Even though the concept of evolution has been central to his entire work spanning four decades, his engagement with evolutionary theory has been minimal. He has often argued science can’t explain some forms of complexity. He has suggested his ideas are like those of some famous scientists, seeming to suggest they implicitly support his ideas. At the same time, he has explicitly denied that these scientists would accept his specific idea of evolution as Spirit-in-action, metaphorically pictured as Eros-in-the-Kosmos. And finally, he has claimed to have “the only theory that can actually explain the mysteries of evolution” (Wilber, 2017, p.
    [Show full text]
  • Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution: How the Integral Worldview Is Transforming Politics, Culture and Spirituality
    What They’re Reading Journal of College & Character VOLUME X, NO. 3, February 2009 Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution: How the Integral Worldview is Transforming Politics, Culture and Spirituality Reviewed by Peter Laurence, Education as Transformation 1 ______________________________________________________________________________ Steve McIntosh. Paragon House, St. Paul, MN. 2007. 310 pp. ______________________________________________________________________________ hy am I reviewing a book on integral consciousness for the Journal of College and WCharacter? Because character, in my opinion, is linked to values, and values are integrally associated with politics, culture, and spirituality, a concept that lies at the heart of this book. Where do our values come from? When we look back into our cultural history, what are the sources that inform our values? Have those values changed over time? If we base our values on a tradition, is there a difference in that tradition today from what it was when it originated? In other words, have values evolved? If your answer is “no,” then the premise of this book is probably not of interest to you. If, on the other hand, you see cultures and their values evolving, then the fascinating questions become, “What happens next?” “In what direction are values moving?” And, “What are the implications for education?” Integral Philosophy ccording to McIntosh, “Integral philosophy is a new understanding of how the influences of A evolution affect the development of consciousness and culture” (p. 2). Integral philosophy, however, is not a recent concept. In the second part of the book, McIntosh traces its development through the work of Georg Hegel, Henri Bergson, James Mark Baldwin, Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jean Gebser, Jurgen Habermas, and Ken Wilber.
    [Show full text]
  • July 2017 Special Issue Introduction
    July 2017 Special Issue Volume 13, No 1 Integral Education, Women’s Spirituality and Integral Feminist Pedagogies Table of Contents Special Issue Introduction ......................................................................... 1 Bahman Shirazi The Modern Knowledge Academy, Vedantic Education and Integral Education ................................................................................................... 5 Debashish Banerji A Complete Integral Education: Five Principal Aspects ........................ 20 Jeremie Zulaski The Value of an Integral Education: A Mixed-Method Study with Alumni of the East-West Psychology Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies ................................................................................... 30 Heidi Fraser Hageman Women’s Spirituality at CIIS: Uniting Integral and Feminist Pedagogies ................................................................................................................. 62 Alka Arora cont'd next page The Divine Feminist: A Diversity of Perspectives That Honor Our Mothers’ Gardens by Integrating Spirituality and Social Justice ........... 72 Arisika Razak The Borderlands Feminine: A Feminist, Decolonial Framework for Re- membering Motherlines in South Asia/Transnational Culture ............... 87 Monica Mody Chinmoyee and Mrinmoyee .................................................................... 99 Karabi Sen July 2017 Special Issue Introduction Issue Editor: Bahman A. K. Shirazi1 The focus of this special issue of Integral Review
    [Show full text]
  • Biography Born in 1949 in Oklahoma City, Ken Wilber Lived in Many
    Biography Born in 1949 in Oklahoma City, Ken Wilber lived in many places during his school years, due to his father being in the Air Force. He completed high school in Lincoln, Nebraska, and started medicine at Duke University. However, during his first year he lost all interest in pursuing a career in science, and started to read in psychology and philosophy, both West and East. He went back to Nebraska to study biochemistry, but after a few years dropped out of the academic world (with a major in biochemistry) to devote all his time to studying his own curriculum and writing books. With sixteen books on spirituality and science, and translations in twenty countries, Wilber is now the most translated academic author in the United States. He is seen as an important representative of transpersonal psychology, which emerged in the sixties from humanistic psychology, and which concerns itself explicitly with spirituality. For the fundamental and pioneering nature of his insights, he has been called "the Einstein of consciousness". His debut The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977) established his reputation as an original thinker, who seeks to integrate Western and Eastern psychology. No Boundary (1979), which summarizes this work, is one of his most popular books. His core works The Atman Project (1980) and Up from Eden (1981) cover the territories of developmental psychology and cultural history respectively. In his recent work, especially the voluminous Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), he has criticized not only Western culture, but also counter-cultural movements such as the New Age. In his opinion, none of these approach the depth and detailed nature of the "perennial philosophy", the conception of reality that lies at the heart of all major religions, and which forms the background of all his writings.
    [Show full text]