Thursday, February 5, 2009

Meet the First Integral President

When My Ego thinks of Barack Obama, My Ego does not think of the first black president.

Barack Obama is the first integral president in history. Integral, in short, is a model of living that seeks to integrate the positive (while facing the negative) elements of all stages and levels of consciousness, that unfold in all human beings, across all cultures and societies.

Less inclusive stages of consciousness are myopic in perspective, seeing all of reality as being of one, and only one "real" reality. For instance, from the traditional perspective (using the graph from the all stages and level link above), you either believe in the God I believe in, or you don't know the Truth. There is one and only one interpretation, either with it, or against it. From the modernist/rationalist perspective, if it can't be proven with logic, science, and math, then it certainly isn't real. From the post-modern consciousness, all is equal, nothing is better or higher than anything else, and believing otherwise is a mere illusion.

Surely My Ego is over-generalizing here, as if there were a choice in this limited, short-attension span format.

Now, the Integral consciousness differs from those stages that precede it specifically in that it's ever-present objective is to balance the simultaneous truths at all levels of the spiral of conscious development. Rather than requiring all humans to operate at this and only this level, the goal is now to foster the health and positive sides of each level, regardless of how limited in awareness.

Yesterday morning, February 5, 2009, President Obama gave what could be the most defining speech in history that was a thorough, awe-inspiring creed of the Integral perspective, given on the topic of faith--really, Integral spirituality and faith. My Ego's words pale in comparison, so without further ado, watch the entire speech to see what the Integral consciousness manifest sounds like. Enjoy... ~mIe