Tag: Ken Wilber

Quote of the Day – January 17 2013

“Nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time.”
— Ken Wilber

 

What glorious mistakes we make. Each one contributes to who we are and who we will become. At the time anyone of them may seem like the end of the world. Still we get past it and if we’re smart or lucky we learn and go on to make even more glorious mistakes. Each time we become just a little more than we were before. The Fool inside of us, the man (or woman) behind the curtain watches it all in joy. Why not? Behind the curtain in front of which all our actions take place, we watch it all and contain it all. It is all a dance. Come and enjoy this dance with me, this ongoing folly of our lives. Just remember we’re on stage and eventually all the props and costumes as well as our roles and scripts go back in the box leaving only the experience of being, mistakes and all.
Blessings, G

 

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MysteryMystery by G A Rosenberg

 

fiire and water
Energy Patterns – Fire and Water by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – April 15 2012

“If Spirit has any meaning at all, then it must be eternal, or without beginning or end. If Spirit had a beginning in time, then it would be strictly temporal, it would not be timeless and eternal. And this means, as regards your own awareness, that you cannot become enlightened. You cannot attain enlightenment. If you could attain enlightenment, then that state would have a beginning in time, and so it would not be true enlightenment.
Rather, Spirit, and enlightement, has to be something that you are fully aware of right now. Something you are already looking at right now… We are all already looking directly at Spirit, we just don’t recognize it. We have all the necessary cognition, but not the recognition. ”
— Ken Wilber

What is the recognition that Dr. WIlber is talking about? It doesn’t seem to me that it can be reached through cognition or any form of conscious endeavour but rather by letting go of consciousness altogether :

“It was a marvelous morning and you could have walked on endlessly, never feeling the steep hills. There was a perfume in the air, clear and strong. There was no one on that path, coming down or going up. You were alone with those dark pines and the rushing waters. The sky was that astonishing blue that only the mountains have. You looked at it through leaves and the straight pines. There was no one to talk to and there was no chattering of the mind. A magpie, white and black, flew by, disappearing into the woods. The path led away from the noisy stream and the silence was absolute. It wasn’t the silence after the noise; it wasn’t the silence that comes with the setting of the sun, nor that silence when the mind dies down. It wasn’t the silence of museums and churches but something totally unrelated to time and space. It wasn’t the silence that mind makes for itself. The sun was hot and the shadows were pleasant.

He only discovered recently that there was not a single thought during these long walks, in the crowded streets or on the solitary paths. Ever since he was a boy it had been like that, no thought entered his mind. He was watching and listening and nothing else. Thought with its associations never arose. There was no image-making. One day he was suddenly aware how extraordinary it was; he attempted often to think but no thought would come. On these walks, with people or without them, any movement of thought was absent. This is to be alone.”
– J Krishnamurthi.

In that silence, lies that recognition that Ken Wilber talks about. The awareness that lies beyond cognition.
Blessings, G

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Thoughts in Motion by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 26 2012

“And so, please practice! Please let that be your guide. And I believe that you will find, if your practice matures, that Spirit will reach down and bless your every word and deed, and you will be taken quite beyond yourself, and the Divine will blaze with the light of a thousand suns, and glories upon glories will be given unto you, and you will in every way be home. And then, despite all your excuses and all your objections, you will find the obligation to communicate your vision. And precisely because of that, you and I will find each other. And that will be the real return of Spirit to itself.”
— Ken Wilber

Of Elephants and New Age Folly

Five Blind Men and the Elephant

Once upon a time, five blind men came upon an elephant.

“What is this?!” asked the first one, who had run headlong into its side.

“It’s an Elephant.” said the elephant’s keeper, who was sitting on a stool, cleaning the elephant’s harness.

“Wow! So this is an Elephant! I’ve always wondered what Elephants are like!” said the man, running his hands as far as he could reach up and down the elephant’s side. “Why, it’s just like a wall! A large, warm wall!”

“What do you mean, a wall?” said the second man, wrapping his arms around the elephant’s leg. “This is nothing like a wall. You can’t reach around a wall! This is more like a pillar. Yeah, that’s it! An Elephant is exactly like a pillar!”

“A pillar? Strange kind of pillar!” said the third man, stroking the elephant’s trunk. “It’s too thin, for one thing, and it’s too flexible for another. If you think this is a pillar, I don’t want to go to your house! This is more like a snake. See, it’s wrapping around my arm! An Elephant is just like a snake!”

“Snakes don’t have hair!” said the fourth man in disgust, pulling the elephant’s tail. “You are closer than the others, but I’m surprised that you missed the hair. This isn’t a snake, it’s a rope. Elephants are exactly like ropes.”

“I don’t know what you guys are on!” the fifth man cried, waving the elephant’s ear back and forth. “It’s as large as a wall, all right, but thin as a leaf, and no more flexible than any piece of cloth this size should be. I don’t know what’s wrong with all of you, but no one except a complete idiot could mistake an Elephant for anything except a sail!!!”

And as the elephant stepped aside, they tramped off down the road, arguing more loudly and violently as they went, each sure that he, and he alone, was right; and all the others were wrong.

Whereas the truth is that the elephant is… the elephant.

from http://revolutionmagik.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/the-five-blind-men-the-elephant-the-integral-vision/

Whenever I hear someone say that ‘everyone has their reality’, I am reminded of this story.
Rather than trying to perceive the elephant or acknowledge it
it is saying, “yes your’s is like a tree stump, mine is like a rope’ we all have our own way of seeing an elephant
without acknowledging that there is some way the elephant all fits together, in other words , to integrate the views
it feels sloppy because after all the talk about tree stump and rope… there is STILL an elephant standing in front of them

Literally the ‘elephant in the room’ in much of New Age talk
To be honest, I find this attitude somewhat fear based. This could be because many of the people who I’ve spoken to who have it seem to have an issue with people disagreeing with them, very often confusing disagreement with disrespect
It feels as if they have a fear of being seen wrong about something in public
Which leads to why they insist on relative truth, and how truth is different for everyone, and let’s agree to disagree… because in a sense it is a way of avoiding responsibility that their truth may somehow be intimately connected to the very soul of the Universe, and that it is more than about if they see a rope or a tree stump

I tend to take for granted that if the universe is as R Buckminster Fuller said it to be an Asynchronomously apprehended phenomenon (that is too vast to be understood completely all at once) then we are ALL incorrect in some things
working together, combining our views of the universe, testing which of each view is more accurate (and yes disagreeing in order to come to a greater understanding ) we can come to a greater knowing and understanding of ourselves and the greater universe we are but parts of

“The thirst to be boundless is not created by you. It is just life wishing to know itself.”
– Sadhguru.

How can all our realities be different when the desire we all hold originated from the very same soul?
Even our differences are illusions… and that’s what takes courage to see…
Fear keeps us seeing differences… courage helps us see similarities… courage helps us connect… unify.

Blessings, G

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Meditation at the Centre by G A Rosenberg

Memories of Atlantis by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 15 2012

“On my tombstone, I really hope that someday they will write: He was true but partial…”
–Ken Wilber

I love the integral approach of Ken Wilber that “everybody is right” in their beliefs yet doesn’t fall into the post-modern trap that says all beliefs are relative therefore each person can have their own truth. It’s not that this is false just that they miss that most important part, that it is just one take on a much larger whole that integrates the truths. When we take an integral approach, we look at each person’s truth and the greater truth of which it is a part.
Far too often it seems, people “pretend” to accept that “everybody’s entitled to their truth “and its as good as everybody else’s so i don’t have to listen to others”. The reason i say pretend is that if they really felt that way they wouldn’t be sharing their beliefs with so many they would cling to it…we only share what we wish to have out in the open and test what we are willing to give up. When a child shares candy, he is not looking to keep it.
So yes I have faith (another theme of the evening and day) that my explorations bring me into more and more a fuller awareness of a greater truth. But as Ken Wilber says above, I hope I never believe that I have more than a part.
Blessings, G

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Eagle’s Flight by G A Rosenberg

Poulnabron Dohlman

Quote of the Day – March 9 2012

“Real compassion kicks butt and takes names. If you are not ready for this fire, then find a New Age, sweetness- and-light, perpetually smiling teacher. . . . But stay away from those who practice real compassion because they will fry your ass, my friend.”
– Ken Wilber

I get amazed how often people mistake sympathy for compassion. Oh we say we want compassion especially during those times when the world hasn’t been going our way and perhaps a bit of self-pity has crept in. Many of us seem to equate this with people helping us because they feel sorry for us. The most compassionate people whom I have met don’t act like that. They tend to have little sympathy and can be very direct with their observations. They may yell, they may scream, they may say things that pull us up so short that we, with a mirror placed in front of our souls may start to feel even worse. When we look in the eyes of these people we see the love and often the mirror they show us are themselves.
In our most compassionate moments we not only see our brother’s pain but experience it ourselves. We can often see how someone has ended up in the mess they are in or even in no mess at all as much as experiencing what they need to in furtherance of their own growth. We also know that part of it sometimes is that they have to experience the feelings that they are feeing in order to grow without the solace band aid of our sympathy.
I have been on both ends. I have felt true compassion from a few very special people who have pointed the way for me. I have also striven to become more compassionate myself.How successful have i been? I’ll let you know when I feel i hit a stoping point in my growth. Blessings, G

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The first image tonight is indeed the inverse of last nights. I rather like it this way

Drawing In-Radiating Out 2 by G A Rosenberg

Emerging Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 7 2012

“The truth will not necessarily set you free, but truthfulness will.”
— Ken Wilber

Authenticity. What does it mean to be your authentic self. Can you be authentic without revealing a lot of yourself? How much trust does it take to be authentic?
Not only of other people but to be able to be open takes a lot of trust in oneself. If I open myself up and reveal my honest self then I have to believe that what I have to show is worth seeing. Also to accept that people will see the me who i am today as a snapshot not as the movie. I have not yet shown the fullness of who I may become even to myself. Namaste, G

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Four of Swords by G A Rosenberg

Tantric Gateway by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 11 2011

The only 11-11-11 there has been– but then isn’t each moment unique. This moment is the only one we’ll ever have. To paraphrase Stephen Gaskin “We are this moment’s children”

“I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody — including me — has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace”
–Ken Wilber

We have this moment in which to awaken
this moment in which to dream
this moment in which to love
to feel joy and sorrow
to transcend..
not yesterday
not tomorrow
this moment
but then I belabour the obvious 🙂

And besides I wanted to talk about Dr. Wilber’s quote a bit. How can EVERYONE be right. More to the point how can anyone not be? Do you KNOW they’re not? So many people claim to know. The more of existence I experience, the less I know and I kind of prefer it that way. It seems more and more that the more a person knows, the more certainty they have, the more experiences they close themselves off to. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, the more types of experience they close themselves off to. If reality really is too big to understand all at once by someone in physical incarnation as R Buckminster Fuller and many others have suggested, then we cannot know it fully, we can only understand it in parts. Or so it seems to me. Namaste
–G A R

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Transcending by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – October 30 2010

“I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody — including me — has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace.”

— Ken Wilber

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Two Moon Manifestation by G A Rosenberg