Ken Wilber Quotes
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
(Introduction, Collected Works of Ken
Wilber, vol. 8, 2000, p.
48).
Some critics are just worthless (Ken Wilber: What We Are,
That We See.
Part I: Response to Some Recent Criticism in a Wild West
Fashion,
June 8, 2006:
www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/46).
“What's my philosophy? In a
word, integral. And what on earth — or in heaven — do I mean
by "integral"? The dictionary meaning is fairly simple:
"comprehensive, balanced, inclusive, essential for
completeness." Short definition, tall order (Ken Wilber:
"An Integral
Spirituality." Beliefnet Essay).
an
integral approach acknowledges that all views have a degree
of truth, but some views are more true than others, more
evolved, more developed, more adequate (Ken Wilber:
"Integral Spirituality in Real
Life." Beliefnet Essay).
In Integral Life Practice, we use the AQAL View or Framework,
simply because it is the only genuinely integral view that we
are aware of at this time (Ken Wilber:The Integral
Vision, 2007, p.179).
The Integral [AQAL] Map is just a map, but it is the most
complete and accurate map we have at this time
Ken Wilber: The Integral
Vision, 2007, p. 18).
A
truly Integral or AQAL Framework is not an inert map, it’s a
psychoactive map. It is a psychoactive system that goes
through your entire bodymind and begins to activate any
potentials that are not presently being used (Ken
Wilber:
Integral Spirituality,
2006, p.299).
AQAL is a map of samsara, a map of the prison...(Ken Wilber:
The Integral Operating System, Version 1.0, Sounds True,
2005, "Going Further" with Ken Wilber. Disc 2).
In
other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps
of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging
their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of
muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing.
And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that
needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but
breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a
life
(“Foreword" to
Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion
(2000) by Frank Visser).
Reality
is composed neither of things nor processes, neither wholes
nor parts, but whole/parts, or holons ( Ken Wilber:
A Brief History of Everything,
2000).
[E]ach thing
is
a perspective before it is anything else. And this means that
in the manifest world, there are no perceptions, only
perspectives…As far as we know or can know, the manifest
world is made of sentient beings with perspectives, not
things with properties, nor subjects with perceptions, nor
vacuum potentials, nor
dharmas,
nor strings, nor holograms, nor biofields, etc. Those are all
perspectives relative to some sentient being” (Ken
Wilber:
Integral Spirituality,
2006, 255).
But with the nondual state, suddenly,...there is nothing
outside of you to smash into you, bruise you, torment you.
Suddenly, you do not
have
an experience, you
are
every experience that arises, and so you are instantly
released into all space: you and the entire Kosmos are one
hand, one experience, one display, one gesture of great
perfection. There is nothing outside of you that you can
want, or desire, or seek, or grasp – your soul expands to the
corners of the universe and embraces all with infinite
delight. You are utterly Full, utterly Saturated, so full and
saturated that the boundaries to the Kosmos completely
explode and leave you without date or duration, time or
location, awash in an ocean of infinite care. You are
released into the All, as the All – you are the self-seen
radiant Kosmos, you are the universe of One Taste, and the
taste is utterly infinite....
...See the sunlight on the mountains? Feel the cool breeze?
What is not utterly obvious? Who is not already enlightened?
As a Zen Master put it, "When I heard the sound of the bell
ringing, there was no I, and no bell, just the ringing."
There is no twiceness, no twoness, in immediate experience!
No inside and no outside, no subject and no object–just
immediate awareness itself, the sound of one hand
clapping....
…This state is not something you can
bring about.
This nondual state, this state of One Taste, is the very
nature of every experience
before
you slice it up. This One Taste is not some experience you
bring about through effort; rather it is the actual condition
of all experience
before
you do anything to it. This uncontrived state is prior to
effort, prior to grasping,
prior
to avoiding. It is the real world before you do anything to
it, including the effort to 'see it nondually’ (Ken
Wilber:
A Brief History of Everything,2007,
pp. 345-347).
So the call of all Nondual traditions is: Abide as Emptiness,
embrace all Form. The liberation is in the Emptiness, never
in the Form, but Emptiness embraces all forms as a mirror all
its objects...You and the universe are One Taste (Ken
Wilber:
A Brief History of Everything,
2007, p. 361).
In fact, all things, we might surmise, intuit to one degree
or another that their very Ground is Spirit itself. All
things are driven, urged, pushed and pulled to manifest this
realization. And yet, prior to that divine awakening, all
things seek Spirit in a way that actually prevents the
realization: or else we would be realized right now! We seek
Spirit in ways that prevent it (Ken
Wilber:The
Eye of Spirit,
2001).
For more quotes see my book
Wilber's AQAL Map and Beyond