An Integral trip to DENVER to meet KEN WILBER

An Integral trip to Denver KEN WILBER

At last the dream was going to come true. A schollarship from the Integral Institute (being the integral vision a way of viewing reality from all angles of existance, including the cultural, political and spiritual) was permitting me to fly to Denver, Colorado on the month of March 2005 to attend one of the courses that the Institute, created by Ken Wilber and his group was offering for Integral students.

The course, named “Integral Transformative Practice” (ITP) in that time, gathered 40 people from different countries, numerous professions and several spiritual approaches. We learnt and enjoyed about the integrality of the diverse knowledges and skills that we showed or add at all levels from body to mind and spirit. We practiced daily psycho-energetic physical work, including weight lifting, integral dance, tai-chi, yoga and some ShaoLin exercises. We also took care of the development of the intelect with couple and group discussions and dialogues, reflecting periods with time for personal presentations and quality exhibitions. Without a doubt the star exercise of the course was the“Big Mind”, created by Genpo Roshi, an american from Brooklyn, master and follower of the Buddhist Zen tradition during many years which guided us to reach a non-dual state in less than three hours. The depth and sacredness of the experience was so that surely there are no words to describe it.

The emotional union among the attendees, teachers and assistants was always a touchable reality, not only during the course sessions but at the relaxation breaks and meal times, while sun bathing facing the Denver Rockies or whatever. The high level of personal development plus the many years of meditative practice of mostly everyone made the week of the

course a very high maintained subtile energy experience, which some times even arose to non-ordinary states of conciousness. Among other reasons this was one of the things that empowered the general desire of belonging to the Integral community being co-participants of this wonderfull moment in time as well as a part of a new conciousness manifested at the Integral Institute.

The man Ken is a man as appealing as it seems to be, not only intelectually but also physically and spiritually. May be his emotional level is the one that “seems” less worked out, possibly by his auto-seclusion years dedicated to study, research and writing of his works, as well as for the long meditative retirements along his thirthy years of budhist practice. Nevertheless, his affectiveness offer a very ingenious and funny sense of humor, enriched by jokes and commentaries full of grace, as well as a bouquet of curious gestures that refresh and lighten the hyperintelectual contents of his prolific mind and talk full of depth and variety. At the same time, the naturalness and spontaneity of his treatment and expressions show a generous and compasive man that pretends not a personal exhibition of his superabundant qualities and capacities, but a transmission and development of his vision/mission for humanity. With his funny and joyful style one would think that he’s capable of doing it all, at the same time that he laughs about his own shadow.

He is the embodiment of the paradox. His body, sick with a grave selfinmune illness that he got at the Tahoe lake through some toxic residues, resist to die of weakness and in this course the repeated joke among the girls in all courses took place again “Ken, take off your shirt, please”. And Ken with his “bit of narcisism” gently laughs and either does so, showing his gorgeous chest and biceps, or puts his shirt at the stomach level to shows his perfect ABS features as a result of his daily intensive lift weighting practices among other exercises. His sculpted body permits him to fight against the loss of muscle that the bad functioning of his mythocondriae creates, not permitting the formation of proteins. This fact together with his nice face and 1,95 cms make Ken an attractive human being and a raw model of conciousness, overcoming and selfesteem.

His work Ken Wilber has been recognized as a genious of his time. He’s been considered as one of the most brilliant lights on the modern spiritual world, being even named by John White as “the Einstein of Consciousness”.

Claimed by the innovative and critic synthesis between East and West and among the different fields of knowledge, he’s also being put down by his naked expressions and sharp commentaries about diverse themes and theories of the establishment of the actual world.

Is precisely due to this passion for knowledge and wisdom, to his constant and genuine state of questioning, strong independence of all traditions, even though his daily practice of Buddhism and to his great capacity of integration of human knowledge that Wilber results a light at the end of the tunnel, a blow of fresh air in this rare atmosphere of today's world with obsolete traditions not in the depth but in the form.

With more than twenty two books already published, translated to many languages and distributed around the globe, Ken Wilber has become the central focus of various political, social, scientifical and spiritual visions toward an integral world and its integral future, what it takes us to a more complete development of the human kind in all quadrants of reality (AQAL) and in all levels, lines of development and states of existance; meaning all manifestations and interactions of human beings.

In Spain, the integral vision of Ken Wilber, is being followed and elicited by many people that have been reading his books during years in the solitude of their rooms. Also several others like me collaborate in the European vision for Integral and have committed to give a step further creating a bi-annual encounter of two days in Budapest to offer a live forum of discussion and learning of the Integral Theory and Practice. In 2003 I created the same for Spain and the Conference were celebrated during eleven years, 9 of them under the sponsorship of the Spanish Integral Association (AIE) that I founded with others in 2005 in order to legally represent and account the lower external quadrant of Reality.

During 10 years there existed the Ken Wilber’s study group in Madrid (which I created after coming back from Dinkelsherben- Germany to attend the Spiral Dynamic’s course with Don Beck and which met once a month).

Nowadays I’ve heard there are more study groups in other Spanish cities as well, being the most active the ones from Barcelona and Asturias.

Ken, in his prolific literary production -have not finished to read the last one, when he publishes a new one, many people complains , has a book which is of a necessary reading for our moment in time “The many faces of Terrorism” in which he makes a complete analysis (from all points of view, therefore from an integral angle) of the heaviest burdens of the world after hunger and lack of water. Very interesting to note too his “Trilogy of the Kosmos”. In late January he just finished an E-book about the North

American political situation with Trump's Presidency and what this means to the world and the human consciousness of our time. I have commit to translate it as soon as I can. Meanwhile we will reflect on the commentaries and proposals that he makes in his shared book: Integral Life Practice, and meditated with his The Fourth Turn and Integral Spirituality without forgetting his book Boomerities in which he alert us of the narcism of the boomer generation, the grave individualism of our modern society and the anti-spiritualism or cheap mysticism of our materialized lives. All these actual realities being a negative force which acts like a wall or a filter for any human or spiritual evolution.

Raquel Torrent

- Psychologist and Integral Therapist and Coach www.raqueltorrent.es raqueltorrent@raqueltorrent.es