This essay (originally published in 2006) examines the unprecedented Kosmic evolutionary situation that we find ourselves in today—a time when three powerful levels of consciousness are dominating separate groups of billions of human beings across the globe. While this “trimemetic” clash is creating a maelstrom of confusion and fear unlike any in our species’ experience, it is also giving rise to the opening to the Second Tier, where transpersonal identity changes our relationship to everything and makes possible a new Kosmic evolutionary experience that embraces the world that arises from moment to moment.
We are republishing this now at a time when the glue that held the world together through the end of the Cold War seems to be dissolving. The financial crisis besetting the globe is but an exterior reflection of an interior condition of transformational dynamics. Given the trajectory of history, it is entirely likely that the mess created in the "First Tier food fight" will get worse before it gets better as the way of Spirit works Itself out.
What follows is the last of a four-part essay.
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The Integral Embrace
Facing the Shadow
So if my hypothesis about our trimemetic world has any validity, what—if anything—can (or should) we do about it? After all, the titanic tidal forces of Kosmic history, now arising among us in three distinct structures, appear to be overwhelming even to the citizens of a nation as powerful and blessed as the United States. How much more formidable must they appear to us as individuals—and therefore how much less susceptible of individual influence?
Amber, Orange, Green: each is a legitimate and authentic structure of consciousness coming into existence as elements of Kosmic evolution. And yet to each of these structures as they look out from their own interiors, the others appear as strangers and threats. This is evidence of the challenge that “transcending, including, and integrating” poses in this evolutionary process. As Ken Wilber has demonstrated, each new level both transcends and includes each of the earlier levels. Properly understanding this dynamic requires us to also remember that each line of development is subject to this process. And, at the same time, we must also bear in mind that each line unfolds relatively independently of one another.
This combined and uneven development has led Wilber to caution us to appreciate that, when one or more of the earlier levels have not come into a mature expression, or have possibly even developed in a dysfunctional or pathological way, there will be discernible effects on the later memes. The underdeveloped waves will impact the later ones by appearing as drags on or blockages to the evolutionary momentum. And whether these snags show up in one or more lines of development, they will impact the momentum of a person’s overall evolution.
Thus we can appreciate that transcendence and inclusion require a third action before development can proceed with relative ease.
That is why to Wilber’s formulation I have added “integrate”: transcend, include, and integrate. Failure to integrate earlier levels is what we discern as the drags and blockages in the later levels. At the same time, the later levels, because they do access greater depth, can bring healing to the unintegrated parts and permit the integration that liberates acceleration.
