How Does Consciousness Evolve?

Integral Consciousness – Part 4

How does consciousness evolve? First, let me say that we really don’t know for sure. The realities of consciousness are among the greatest inquiries we still face. So we tread forward with utmost humility into the mystery and those who have dared to seek answers.

We dare to do so ourselves, perhaps, because we are more and more recognizing a compelling longing to escape the confines of a limited and incomplete flatland that has the world stuck, anxious, and on a path toward self-destruction, both in the short term and long term, individually and collectively.

And because we’ve had glimpses of something more. Peeks into another dimension. Intimations that seem to reveal a more complete reality possible.

How do we get there? Or perhaps more precisely, how do we live from this consciousness?

This series is about “Integral Consciousness,” which would be a consciousness that is not just a passing state, glimpsing something beyond our current predicament, but a way of being and living that becomes a constant, embedded reality. A whole new way of being.

How Do We “Get There”?

The majority of folks have discovered Integral theory and philosophy by way of Ken Wilber, whose maxim “transcend and include” offered for so many a way out, beyond the muck and mire. Don’t just react, attack, and deconstruct. Rise above it, find something new and better. And also include where you’ve come from.

One metaphor he often used is that of climbing a ladder. As you ascend, you now have a higher viewpoint. The rungs on the ladder below you still hold up the totality of the ladder and are therefore necessary. You can always go back down to those rungs if you like—but really just to help you understand how others see things from that level—the explicit goal is to climb higher.

Before Wilber, there was Jean Gebser, one of the primary pioneers of Integral. He saw this process of coming to a new consciousness very differently. Rather than a transcending, developmental evolution, he saw it coming about through an unfolding, integrating intensification.

Integral consciousness comes about through what he called a “mutation,” which can only happen through the integration of all of the structures of consciousness that have unfolded already and are still latent within us. Not just as that which we’ve stepped over, but as vital components to the emergence of a more complete and holistic human consciousness.

This can come about, he said, “Only if we are willing to assimilate the entirety of our human existence into our awareness. This means that all of our structures of awareness that form and support our present consciousness structure will have to be integrated into a new and more intensive form, which would in fact unlock a new reality.”

So for Gebser, we do not climb our way out of this predicament, as if simply seeing more will transform us. But rather, we must deeply own and recover all that constitutes us—all the structures of awareness and the ways of knowing and being that we contain. Only then will we be even potentially able to bear a new consciousness. A new consciousness not of a higher place, but of a fuller quality and a vibrant, holistic intensity.

Now all of this is to a degree an oversimplification of two pioneers and visionaries who have written thousands of pages between them. However, the crux of the distinction will inform not only how integral consciousness might emerge, but also how we go about seeking to inhabit it.

The Role of the Spiritual

“The new mutation of consciousness . . . receives its decisive stamp from the manifest perceptual emergence of the spiritual. . . . the coalescence of the spiritual with our consciousness.” – Jean Gebser

Both Wilber and Gebser agree that the process into a new consciousness will be deeply spiritual, rather than simply the natural process of biological or historical evolution.

Wilber was much more informed by his nondual Buddhist tradition, while Gebser drew primarily from the Western Christian tradition.

We can appreciate the many gifts and contributions from each spiritual tradition while also recognizing and maintaining some of the key distinctions that inform our process and practices, indeed, even our different goals.

For the Christian mystic, the spiritual path is the movement into the realization of the immediacy of the divine, without barriers and separation. At ICN, we primarily seek to express this union with God particularly in the incarnational, the intimate, and the immanent (while also not excluding other paths and forms) through a Christian mysticism that touches each and all of the Three Faces of God.

The incarnational brings the reality of the divine immediately present in all of material reality: the earth, animals, and our very own bodies. Spirit is not separate, but intertwined with all things.

Spiritually, we move into greater union with the divine as we discover our own embodied, awakened consciousness, knowing from our own inner divinity through God-Being-Us.

The intimate brings us face-to-face with the divine. Seen, felt, heard, and touched with the immediately present forms of God-Beside-Us, such as Jesus, Mary, and other spiritual guides. This personal communion brings us vital support, transcendent wisdom, and guiding love. It is the relational heart of God with us, primarily experienced in nonphysical, but also in human form with God Being All of Us in the sacred WE.

The immanency of the Christian path is the kenotic movement of God-Beyond-Us always entering into the present reality of the world in this time, in this place, in the here and now. Somewhat paradoxically, our movement of transcendence into the divine all will always bring us back to the shimmering, immediate stark life before us. Into the love and suffering of our neighbors. Into our own creative participation in our lives, offering our own gifts and contributions in service to bringing about a more loving and just world.

All of these elements of Christian mysticism offer us pathways of integration into owning and realizing the structures of consciousness in our own being and becoming. It’s not an exclusionary path or the only way of seeing this come forth—a diversity of expression and devotion in evolutionary spirituality will be necessary.

The role of the spiritual will be vital in the unfolding of the integral consciousness in us and the world. To the degree that our religious traditions and spiritual practices foster this integration will we see the potential for the emergence of this new way of being that is so crucial for our survival and the future of humanity.

Inhabiting Integration through Spiritual Practice

 “Consciousness mutations are completions of integration.” – Jean Gebser 

We can’t just learn about these structures, but have to inhabit them in some way once again. This is how we integrate. One primary way we can foster this integration is through spiritual practice. This does not mean only a time of set aside meditative practice—though that is very important as well—but also includes a much broader range of forms and approaches to integrating into holistic presence. It must happen in the midst of life as much if not more than set aside “practice” times.

We engage in spiritual practices for a variety of reasons, including growing closer to God, becoming more loving people, fostering personal health and wellbeing, developing as human beings, and more. If one of our primary reasons for spiritual practice is evolving our consciousness, we will want a practice that touches into each of the structures of consciousness and creates further integration between and among them.

Moving into these structures will first take an opening beyond the predominance of the mind, mental structure, and welcoming forth the knowing/being from the embodied structures within us. We do this through the four centers of spiritual knowing, which connect directly with the primary embodied space of each of the structures (archaic—feet/body, magic—spiritual womb, mythic—heart, mental—head).

Though Gebser is careful to note that this integration process is not an effort to “go back” to previous ways of knowing and being. They must be incorporated into what is present now and brought forth again with the knowing and being from the “later” structures. We cannot know magic again apart from our mental knowing if we want to be integrated. We do not seek an irrational way of being, but rather one that is a-rational. Free to be rational and also not—in its deficient limitations (similar to transrational, as Wilber calls it, but that language perhaps too easily dismisses what has come before). 

This means that a fully integrated practice would not just recover but also intensify through the experiences of these structures.

At first, it might feel like recovering something that was lost. But then more. Like a great luminescence. A knowing beyond what we’ve previously learned. A presence greater than our usual felt sense of self. And beyond what we can put into words.

Perhaps we might even call it “mystical.”

Fundamentally, mysticism is the direct experience of and connection with the divine, without barriers. When we recognize that our understanding of God is not a distant figure in the sky, but an incarnated, intimate, and infinite reality, our practice of mysticism becomes less about seeking to remove the distance/barriers (that aren’t really there anyway) and more about integrating into our own direct consciousness of the divine in everything, including ourselves.

An Integral Consciousness

“To live these structures together, commensurate with their respective degrees of conscious awareness, is to approach an integrated, integral life.”  – Jean Gebser

To really engage deeply in this process of integration, we need to recognize that it is not simply something that is done only within our own individual interior space. To truly integrate, we must not only awaken to our individual embodied consciousness, but also our collective, relational consciousness.

We are not silos in our own personal universe. Any spiritual work that would genuinely reflect a full integral consciousness will not come about on our own. It will need to be shared. It will need to be transmitted. It will need to be unbounded from our illusion of separation.

The “We” is an absolutely vital component of our integration process as well, as well as the “I” and the “All.”

It is not just personal and universal, but also necessarily relational.

Spiritual community of depth and interconnection will be essential. Not just of shared forms or ideas, of shared actions or beliefs, of shared tribes or rituals. But the shared interiors of the collective consciousness among each of the structures. A collective mind, collective heart, collective womb, and collective body. Or we might say, the mystical Body of Christ.

This movement is not a resubmerging into the collective, losing our sense of individuality. We must be highly personalized and individuated, while also open, permeable, and interflowing between and among.

And so our integration is also among the I, the We, and the All.

Those will be the explorations of our next three writings.