He was world famous, considered by many a spiritual teacher. He certainly talked the talk that brought audiences to tears of recognition and, to an extent, walked the walk. His life partner considered herself to be living a spiritual life, which seemed to consist of projecting an aliveness of her own imagining onto things in the world and then “discovering” their magical angle. Good people, both. Some would say great. And yet, when offered to have a house built for them for free in the very place they needed to live, they demanded more room.
You’re never too woke to treat generosity as an afterthought
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They clicked with Ken Wilber’s integral spirituality philosophy so much that they formed a facebook group to discuss how they were living by it. These were learned people, serious people, people who got it. The collective did not tolerate stupidity, but that didn’t stop them from devolving into bickering warmongers who argued over which color they were. Colors, in the Wilberian scheme, represent stages on the scale of where you are in life in terms of your psycho-spiritual outlook. Everyone in the group wanted to be the brightest, shiniest, most enlightened color, of course, and to achieve that, they had to put each other down.
On paper, Ken Wilber’s integral philosophy makes perfect transrational sense. In practice… it’s practice. Rehearsal. Rehearsal for a show that never gets off the ground. And when that realization kicks in, the crowd pretending to be dealing with their issues holistically grows restless and angry.
You’re never too woke to let everyone know just how woke you really are.
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She turned a deaf ear to the religious, with their crusty beliefs in dead gods. She rolled her eyes at anyone who didn’t believe in her dream of enlightened aliens. She thumbed her nose at those who spoke of their mind-blowing experiences on DMT. She considered herself pure and natural. She considered herself to be following a native way. When life was going well for her, she bragged about creating her own reality. When it wasn’t, she grew horribly depressed at her fate.
You’re never too woke to ride solo on an emotional rollercoaster.
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All of these people. All of these people who are also you. Watch how they live in their heads and tell you how to live… in their heads. Or lament about how the world isn’t living rightly… according to what’s in their heads. If only what was living in their heads wasn’t living in everyone’s head already. Ours is a single, massive headspace squeezed into and playing out through billions of lives. The only vertical continuum worth noting is one of psychological health.
Spiritual hierarchy truly is monkey bars in disguise.