Evolutionary Enlightenment - Integral Theory

Integral Theory

Evolutionary Enlightenment shares important principles of, and is often associated with, Integral Theory, in that both combine spiritual and scientific insights to create a comprehensive understanding of humanity and the universe. These shared insights include a recognition that contemporary human beings are at the leading edge of a 13.8 billion year evolutionary process originating with the Big Bang, and that humanity's emerging awareness of this process has profound philosophical and spiritual implications.

Evolutionary Enlightenment and Integral Theory share an understanding that ultimate reality consists of a non-dual union of emptiness and form—with form being subject to development over time—and that the interior realm of consciousness and the exterior realm of matter evolve together. One outcome of this insight, which Integral thinkers have codified and mapped, is that there are hierarchical stages of development along a deep-time evolutionary continuum, and that the interdependence between interior and exterior development directly manifests itself in human consciousness and culture: from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric to kosmocentric. Furthermore, each successive stage of development transcends and includes its predecessors, and exhibits a greater awareness, sense of belonging, and capacity for consciousness, cognition, and care.

While Evolutionary Enlightenment and Integral Theory share important epistemological roots in Evolutionary Spirituality, the two emerged independent of one another. Cohen pioneered Evolutionary Enlightenment in the mid-1980s and encountered Integral Theory in roughly 2000. Since then, EnlightenNext magazine has become a leading forum for discourse and inquiry into Integral Theory, including a running dialogue between Cohen and Wilber entitled "The Guru and the Pandit" series.

Discussing the limitations of the contemporary post-modern stage of human development in this series, Wilber describes the relationship between Integral Theory and Evolutionary Enlightenment as follows:

″They (post-modern beliefs) inhibit an integral evolution. They did wonderfully up to their stage and they were very important in overcoming some of the problems with traditional values and scientific materialism. All of those were handled beautifully by the pluralistic post-modern stage. But now we're ready for the next stage, we're fighting for an integral awareness to blossom . . . and to blossom, of course, in the form of an evolutionary enlightenment.″

This description positions Integral Theory as an important philosophical framework (the map) for Evolutionary Enlightenment. It also suggests that contemporary culture cannot progress without evolving individual and collective consciousness (the terrain), which is the goal of Evolutionary Enlightenment.