Craig Hamilton - Integral Enlightenment: Why Authentic Spirituality is Much More Than a Line of Development*

This is the text/transcript of Craig Hamilton's talk at last year's Integral Conference in the Bay area. Craig is a former student of Andrew Cohen (EnlightenNext).

Integral Enlightenment: Why Authentic Spirituality is Much More Than a Line of Development*

March 27th, 2009

*the below post is an edited transcript of a talk I gave at the 2008 Integral Theory in Action Conference

My thanks to the ITC team for giving me an opportunity to speak here at such short notice. I’ve been holed up in a cabin in the mountains working on a book, and only recently found out about this conference, so I was delighted and honored that they were willing to squeeze me into the lineup.

For those of you who don’t know me, my connection to the Integral world is that I was a student of Andrew Cohen’s for 13 years. I spent the last five of those years as part of a small leadership team helping to guide the individual and collective spiritual development of his international community of students. I also spent eight years as an editor and writer for What Is Enlightenment? magazine, and through that work, had the opportunity to develop a friendship with Ken Wilber and immerse myself in the work of the integral community at large.

I also need to confess that, although this is a scholarly gathering, I’m more of a mystic than a scholar, and as a result my interest is really in helping people transform at the deepest level of their being. So the thoughts I’ll be presenting here today are not based on a nuanced scholarly dissection of some aspect of Integral Theory, but on a mystic’s reading of the theory and my broad impressions of how certain elements of it are shaping the transformational culture of the integral community. So, if I get some nuances wrong, I’ll leave plenty of time at the end for the scholars among you to correct me.

To begin my reflection, I’d like to ask you to think about a spiritual figure whom you revere and look to for inspiration; perhaps a saint of the distant past, like Jesus or the Buddha or Saint Theresa or Rumi; perhaps a sage of recent history, like Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, Anandamayi Ma or Suzuki Roshi; or even a saint or sage of the present, like Amma or the Dalai Lama or Thomas Keating.

What is it about this figure that you most admire? What is it that causes you to look to them as a source of spiritual inspiration?

Is it how you imagine their interiors to be? In other words, do you imagine that they feel very spiritual and peaceful and blissful and expanded on the inside, and that’s what makes you look up to them? Is the source of your respect and admiration based on your belief that they have access to glorious inner states of consciousness?

Or is it something about who they are? About how they show up in the world? About the wisdom and generosity conveyed in their actions? About the strength and singularity of their character? Their unwavering stand for the holiness they’ve discovered. About the divinity that seems to infuse their personality and shine through in their every expression?

I’m guessing that unless you are even more of an altered state junkie than I used to be, your answer is somewhere in the domain of the latter. I think it’s safe to say that when we conclude that someone is a sage or saint or even a deeply spiritual person, what most of us mean by that is that their humanity has undergone a transformation, that on some fundamental level, their values have changed, their identity or sense of self has shifted in a way that deeply changes who they are and the way they behave.

I don’t think there is anything groundbreaking about the point I’m making here. I think this is what we might call spiritual common sense. It rings with our most basic spiritual intuitions and sensibilities.

But, in the contemporary spiritual marketplace—including the world of Integral Theory and Practice—there is actually a lot of confusion on this point. In the contemporary spiritual arena at large, we find prominent spiritual figures suggesting that enlightenment has nothing to do with behavior, that it is a purely inner realization that does not affect the personality at all. Or that if it does affect our behavior, it would simply make us a bit calmer and more equanimous (perhaps like a time-released lifelong dose of Prozac). But that it certainly has nothing to do with morality. And these are just a few examples of the many popular spiritual ideas that run counter to what I’m calling spiritual common sense.

For the purposes of my talk here, though, I’ll leave aside these broader currents of confusion, and focus on those that specifically arise from Integral Theory.

As I’m sure you all know well, one of the core tenets of Integral Theory is the notion of Lines of Development. The basic idea is that human evolution or development is not one thing. You can’t ask: what stage of development is Craig at and hope to get a general answer that means anything, because we are each more developed in some areas than others. I might be a great abstract thinker but have poorly developed social skills. Or I might be a world-class athlete who can’t even read or write.

Like most of the basic tenets of Integral Theory, this also has a ring of common sense to it. In fact, at first glance, it actually seems so obvious and undeniable that one might even wonder how it made it into one of the world’s leading-edge theoretical models at all. Is it really saying anything other than what our grandmothers all knew—that we all have different strengths and weaknesses, everyone has a pound of virtue, etc? It is even in synch with many of our basic cultural stereotypes—like the dumb jock, or the genius professor who can’t tie his tie, or the hyperintellectual male who is completely cut off from his feelings. We all take for granted skewed development, which is why, when we meet someone who seems to be good at everything, it’s always a bit awe-inspiring—or irritating.

Given that it is nothing new or particularly insightful, there must be something about this theory that has garnered it so much attention—even compelled integral theorists to catalogue several dozen distinct lines of development.

So, why is this seemingly obvious notion of Lines of Development such a compelling and integral part of Integral Theory?

I think what has given this theory so much traction is that it seems to make sense of one of the more troubling aspects of our experience in relation to the whole question of higher human development.

To illustrate, I want to take a poll: How many of us have felt the sting and confusion of learning that a great musician or artist whose music or art seems to convey something almost transcendent was abusive in their personal relationships or a desperate junkie?

And, more to the point of this talk, how many of us have been deeply confused, angry, or even disillusioned to discover that a great, seemingly enlightened spiritual Master we looked up to was either abusive, financially corrupt, or a sexual deviant who lied openly to cover up the fact that they were sleeping with a harem of attractive disciples behind their wife’s back (or while proclaiming to be celibate—take your pick)? (And by the way, that statement was not a dig at anybody specific—it’s a story that’s been told so many times, we could come up with dozens of examples).

You see, what I think has made the Lines of Development theory so compelling to us sophisticated spiritually seeking postmoderns is that it seems to answer a question that has plagued us at the core of our being, and threatened to undermine our faith in the possibility of genuine higher development. That question, as our beloved friend Ken Wilber likes to put it, is “why are spiritual teachers such assholes?”

Read the whole article.

I can see how that might be a crucial question for someone who has studied with Cohen for very long (his rep as the "rude boy of enlightenment" is an understatement). Many of us who have ever looked up to a teacher have likely asked this question at some point (many integral folks felt this way after Wilber's Wyatt Earpy episode).

Read the article to see where Hamilton goes with this topic in his presentation.

Tags: Craig Hamilton, Integral Enlightenment, Why Authentic Spirituality is Much More Than a Line of Development, Integral, Spirituality, gurus, Psychology, lines of development, spiritual teachers, Integral Theory in Action Conference, Andrew Cohen