On the levels to reality.

Ken Wilbur talks about Levels of being in his books on Integral Theory. I want to take my time to reflect on them, and add my own touches, in the hopes it makes for a pleasant and insightful read.

We live ours lives spending different amounts of time at different ‘levels’ of being, which can be labeled in any number of ways, but Ken Wilbur labels them very helpfully as colours.

There are a few different versions, and you can learn all about them (and so many more interesting topics) here) but for this post I only want to focus on the following:

Stage 1

Red - Ego Strength (Impulsive)

Raw will to power, unsophisticated, impulsive

This is what gives us raw drive, the will to survive and move forward, the need to, well… not kill ourselves, not a rational one, but a deep, intuitive, impulsive one.

Orange - Modern / Achiever (Rational Ego)

Individualism, science, achievement, mastery, control

This is where I get my entrepreneurial drive from, my systems thinking end tech skills. This is where we get good at the physical world and achieving in it. This is where we start conquering maya (the ‘illusion’ material world essentially), while also letting it conquer us usually, if we’re not careful.

Green - Post modern / Pluralist

Empathy, community, post-modernism

This is where we slowly move past individualism and start understanding and appreciating pluralism, our empathy grows, and we strive to create a fairer world for all.

Stage 2

Teal - Integral

This is where we start to integral all of the previous levels without being trapped in any of them, we overcome their limitations by synchronising them with each other. This is where I spend most of my time, or at least I hope I am lmfao…

At this stage we build not just for power or comfort, but for consciousness and evolution itself.

Everything is a dynamic dance that we adapt to. We’re not tied to anything.

At this stage you are no longer addicted to being right. It’s almost all out of love, or duty to existence itself, but it’s not quite the whole picture. you’re still fighting, you’re still a person with their own perceptions.

Turquoise - Integral +

Basically what Krishna was preaching in the Bhagvad Gita I’m pretty sure (I really have to write more about that divine masterpiece).

This is basically the last step before complete quasi mythical Nirvana. At this point you are one with the universe, and you see that there is no war, internal or external, everything just is.

You see the universe for the canvas that it is. You understanding oneness. Ik Onkar.

Great. now that I’ve introduced them, let’s talk about them.

While talking to my trusty companion in philosophy, introspection, planning, coding, and so much more, the might GPT, I came to a realisation that Turquoise is actually an incredibly dangerous place to be.

A premature and incomplete realisation of the Turquoise gives an almost irrefutable excuse to avoid your duty, as you accept yourself as a mere observer of the universe, rather than a painter. You forget you still inhabit a human mind in a human body, which sooner or later (hopefully the former) will start demanding more of you than mere appreciation of the small things in life. Even if you don’t end up just washing away as a happy hippy with nothing to his name, and instead live a chilled out, but very normal life, eventually I think your human existence will start demanding more of you. It will demand purpose, it will demand true expression, and if you read any of Nietzsche’s work on the importance of the Will to Power, that might start playing a pretty important role in your mental dialogues.

You won’t want to waste too much time pretending to be enlightened and chilling out, when you could be building a foundation to power, one arising out of love for the universe, arising out of the slightly lower Teal perspective. Why?

Because I’m pretty sure true enlightenment isn’t just accepting everything as it is, and saying “Everything is already perfect, no need to build, hustle or resist”.

True enlightenment is witnessing the orchestra of the universe, and then joining in out of love.

I’m trying to get to a point here but I may be botching it, so let me skip ahead a bit and get to the point, oh and spoiler alert for the Gita (although tbf you’ve had plenty of time to catch up, it’s been out for millennia now).

Imagine if Arjun after hearing Krishna’s speech just pulled out some pop corn and his fizzy beverage of choice… Yeah, wouldn’t be as epic. It would be funny, sure, but it wouldn’t really mean anything. If you go beyond Nihilism, which is what the Gita does, it shows you an alternative. Instead of freezing, or running away from your Duty and the terror of the unfeeling world, hiding your cowardice behind irony and comedy, it explores the option of taking up arms and doing your Dharma (Duty)

This blog never really has much structure does it? One day I’ll think these out properly rather than writing them up late at night to help me sleep. In the meanwhile I’ll end this abruptly here, to be picked up later.