The Essential Ken WilberAn introduction to the work of an esteemed American philosopher, whose integral approach to human consciousness blends Western psychology with Eastern spirituality Ever since the publication of his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, written when he was twenty-three, Ken Wilber has been identified as the most comprehensive philosophical thinker of our times. This introductory sampler, designed to acquaint newcomers with his work, contains brief passages from his most popular books. Ranging over a variety of topics, concepts include levels of consciousness, mystical experience, meditation practice, death, the perennial philosophy, and Wilber’s integral approach to reality, integrating matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. Here is Wilber’s writing at its most reader-friendly, discussing essential ideas of the world’s great psychological, philosophical, and spiritual traditions in language that is lucid, engaging, and inspirational. |
Contents
Integral Practice | 105 |
Completing the Great Chain | 108 |
Waves and Streams in Development | 115 |
Buddhism and the Stages of Development | 123 |
One Hand Clapping | 128 |
You Are Already Aware | 131 |
One Taste | 135 |
Translation versus Transformation | 140 |
II | 27 |
Egolessness | 31 |
The Witness Exercise | 36 |
Levels of Consciousness | 41 |
Constant Consciousness | 44 |
The Great Chain of Being | 49 |
Holons and Hierarchy | 55 |
Reality Is Made of Holons | 61 |
The Spectrum of Consciousness | 65 |
The Centaur | 73 |
Healing the Bodymind Split | 75 |
Experiential Intellectual and Spiritual | 85 |
The PreTrans Fallacy | 88 |
Rationality Means Perspective | 92 |
The Romantic View | 95 |
I We and It | 101 |
The Integral Approach | 102 |
Contemplating Art | 144 |
Was Carl Jung a Mystic? | 147 |
The Real Archetypes | 150 |
Academic Religion | 152 |
The Value of Polemics | 153 |
Sleep Dreams and Dreamless Sleep | 156 |
The Meaning of Illness | 162 |
The Moment of Death | 170 |
The Ultimate Spiritual Test | 172 |
Spiritual Unfolding | 176 |
An Ounce of Laughter | 185 |
Just This | 186 |
An Annotated List | 187 |
| 193 | |
Back Cover | 200 |
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Common terms and phrases
actually archetypes arises Atman Atman Project awareness basic begin belief blocks body bodymind breath Buddhism called cancer capacity causal causal realm Chain consciousness culture deep dreamless sleep deeper psychic developmental dimensions Divine dream Dzogchen egoic emotions enlightenment entire eternal evolution Eye of Spirit feel formless forms frontal Garab Dorje GRACE AND GRIT gross gross realm hierarchy higher holarchy holons illness individual integral Jean Gebser Ken Wilber Kosmos looking magic manifest means meditation ment mental mind muscles mystical mythic ness Nest nondual object Original Face peak experiences perennial philosophy person physics plateau experiences Plotinus practice pre/trans fallacies prerational present primordial quadrants Ramana Ramana Maharshi rational reality realize realm religion sages Seer self-contraction sense Shambhala Publications sickness simply soul stage subtle subtle realm Taste tension thing thought timeless tion traditions transcend translation transpersonal ultimate unconscious Vajrayana vipassana vision-logic waves whole Witness words