Roy Posner, president and founder of www.growthonline.org, a website devoted to the issue of development in its many varieties inspired by the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, sent me a paper called "Response to Ken Wilber's Integral Theory of Consciousness." Its author, Garry Jacobs, is a contributor to that website, and a long-time student of Aurobindo's philosophy of life. His essay attempts to cover the major theoretical differences between Wilber and Sri Aurobindo, and as such is a welcome contribution to a field of study still in its infancy: Wilberiana, or the comparative study of Wilber and the many sources he has used. Sri Aurobindo is indeed one of the major pillars of the edifice Wilber has built -- though there are many, many more -- and for that reason alone an essay written by someone apparently very well versed into the system Aurobindo is timely. Most critical essays written about Wilber suffer from the fact that its authors haven't taken the time to study Wilber's work in it's full scope. Let's see if Garry Jacobs manages to avoid that pitfall.

Jacobs's paper does not have one single reference to Wilber's works, nor even do we find literal quotes, which makes it difficult for the reader to see where the author is accurately conveying Wilber's points, and where he is giving his own summaries and interpretations. Aurobindo's words are not presented in the article either, so at least Jacobs gives both authors the same treatment. Since as author of Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion , I am fully at home in the Wilber universe, perhaps I am on equal footing with Jacobs too, both of us being the interpreter for an author we think has much to say to the world.

Sri Aurobindo wrote The Synthesis of Yoga , pioneering his integral approach to that field, and Haridas Chaudhuri, one of his students, wrote Integral Yoga ; he also founded the Californian Institute of Integral (formerly Eastern) Studies. For several years, Wilber has used the term "integral" for his approach too, as is evidenced by one of his most recent books, Integral Psychology (2000), and the Integral Institute he founded in the same year. The term "integral" is of course nobody's property, but when Jacobs states "Although he calls his approach an 'integral' theory, it appears more like a summation or at best a synthesis, rather than a unique integration", this looks much like a "more integral than thou" attitude. Moreover, Wilber has given, in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality , a powerfully original ontological and epistemological metasystem that, because of its completeness and coherency, is able to integrate many different systems, including Aurobindo's--Wilber's approach is thus a genuine and highly original integration, not a mere synthesis.

As have many critics of Wilber, Jacobs credits him for having created a magnificent unification of all human knowledge, in which both the scientific and the spiritual dimension are honored. However, at the end of his paper Jacobs gives air to his feeling of disappointment: "Although he incorporates higher spiritual planes in his model and seems to make Spirit the real basis, the model itself is strictly a mental formulation". Such a judgment makes one's mind go blank: how could a theoretical model of the human mind be other then a mental formulation? Wilber is not writing poetry, though he has his lyrical moments, but someone who tries to argue in an academic fashion for a spiritual worldview in a modern and postmodern cultural climate that is hostile or even indifferent to such matters. As he said in an interview with Yoga Journal in 1987: "The whole thrust of my work is to make spiritual practice legitimate, to give it an academic grounding so people will think twice before they dismiss meditation as some sort of narcissistic withdrawal or oceanic regression. That's all."

That is not the same as reducing spirituality to rationality, as Jacobs seems to suggest throughout his article, as if he is expecting Wilber to provide us with a spiritual philosophy of life that answers all of our problems. Valuable as that may be in itself, Wilber's business may be characterized as the next-best thing. He tries to give a scientifically sound understanding of spirituality, even if that involves changing our very view of science itself. As Wilber has stated on many occasions, he is "a pandit, not a guru", and this in a way says it all. Expecting more from Wilber's presentation will be a major obstacle to any "strictly mental" discussion. Wilber himself again outlines his position in his recent "On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality: Response to Habermas and Weis" [posted on this site].

Jacobs discusses the issues of consciousness, holons and hierarchy, quadrants, types of science, ego and evolution, the universality of life and mind, transcendence and transformation, social development and an overall assessment. We will take them one by one.

Consciousness
According to Jacobs -- and I must paraphrase the many statements he makes in this regard -- for Wilber consciousness is the summation of all developmental changes in all four quadrants and completely dependent on what goes on in these four quadrants. Wilber does not define what consciousness is in itself, nor does he reflect on the source of this consciousness, which is also the cause of all evolution. This cause is, according to Sri Aurobindo, the process of involution. Each necessary stage of our evolutionary progress, Jacobs writes, has been anticipated and provided for by the prior involution.

Apparently, Jacobs has not read The Atman Project , the final chapter of which is dedicated to the concept of involution. We read: "Involution, or the enfolding of the lower, is the pre-condition of evolution, or the unfolding of the higher states from the lower" (p. 160-161). While it is true Wilber has not written extensively on the subject of involution since then, it is still a cornerstone of his system. Without it, evolution would be a mere refinement of matter, without any real growth in subjectivity. Wilber again stresses the importance of involution in the Introduction to Volume 2 of his Collected Works , but he points out why a post-metaphysical, post-Aurobindoian approach is now demanded (as he fully explains in "On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality: Response to Habermas and Weis" [posted on this site]).

As to the definition of consciousness, here is one: "What most panpsychists mean by consciousness or mind is not what I mean by consciousness, which is depth. Because consciousness is depth, it is itself literally unqualifiable. It is depth, not any particular, qualifiable level of depth (such as sensation or impulse or perception or intention) -- those are all forms of consciousness, not consciousness as such" ( Sex, Ecology, Spirituality , p. 538).

[Frank is exactly right; I have also pointed out that, because consciousness is ultimately unqualifiable, it is synonymous with Emptiness (see several endnotes in SES on this theme). That also means that, in the conventional or manifest realm, consciousness appears as all four quadrants, but in the unmanifest realm, consciousness is pure formlessness--and ultimately Emptiness and Form are "not-two" or nondual. As such, ultimate or nondual consciousness is known, not conceptually or mentally, but only supramentally with satori or realization. This is why consciousness cannot ultimately be defined, only directly realized.--KW]

Which answers the first objection raised by Jacobs. In Wilber's view consciousness is not completely dependent on the four quadrants for its existence, but it uses them to express itself. This is exactly the view Jacobs champions: "the four quadrants are merely the fields created by consciousness for its self-expression." In an interview I had with Wilber in 1997 he told me: "What is am trying to do is get across the notion that Spirit is all-inclusive. And that we have to take all four quadrants into account, because all four are manifestations of Spirit.... The material dimension itself is a manifestation of Spirit."

For some reason unknown to me, many critics have taken this approach: first deny Wilber a certain point of view (which he in fact does embrace), criticize him for this omission, and then present the very same view as something original you have come up with, although Wilber would have agreed with that particular point from the start.

Holons and Hierarchy
Wilber's attempt to counter reductionism with his holonic philosophy gives Jacobs mixed feelings. While holarchy accurately describes the material world and the process of evolution, he feels it is less applicable to the inner world. Jacobs writes: "Is there any sense in which we can say that sensations are parts of thought or thoughts are larger wholes that include... sensations and impulses?"

[Actually, yes, which is where the important findings of modern developmental psychology come into play--findings unavailable to Aurobindo, a limitation that hobbles his and Jacobs' system. In cognitive development, for example, we have a developmental series that includes sensation, perception, images, symbols, concepts, rules (conop), and meta-rules (formop), among others. Each of those is a complex whole that includes as parts the previous wholes. Thus, an image is a pictorial representation of a perception--e.g., the mental image of my dog Fido looks more or less like the real Fido. As development continues, verbal symbols emerge, and symbols are images PLUS a nonpictorial capacity--e.g., the symbol or the verbal word "F-i-d-o" is an image that does not itself look like the real Fido--this symbol capacity is thus cognitively harder to accomplish than mere images, but it includes images in its higher makeup--that is, a symbol transcends and includes images. Going further, a concept is a symbol that can represent not just a single object (the symbol Fido represents a single object), but a class of objects--e.g., the word "dog" represents not just Fido but all dogs--a higher capacity yet. So a concept is a symbol PLUS the capacity to connote--it transcends and includes symbols. Further yet, a rule is a mental operation that can operate on concepts--it transcends and includes concepts. And formop operates on conop--it transcends and includes rules. Thus, in each case, the whole of one level becomes a part of the whole of the next. This is not obvious to mere phenomenology, which is why it is missed by so many systems. But it is a good example of how and why holons are the fundamental entities of the manifest realm, in all four quadrants.--KW]

Without giving quotes, Jacobs then describes to Wilber a view in which human consciousness is split into different levels, somehow suggesting that "the person who lives in the thought mind ceases to have sensations, impulses and feelings or that a brilliant thinker or even a realized sage cannot have uncontrollable vital urges." [This is absolutely incorrect, as the above example should make clear--to transcend and include means that all the previous holons are still available as subholons. What Jacobs describes is pathological development--KW. Frank gives another reason, that of levels and lines:]

Anyone even remotely familiar with Wilber's works would know that this is precisely the point he has tried to make since the early eighties, a period in his intellectual career he has described as Wilber-3. As only one example, a quote from The Eye of Spirit : "Wilber-3 explicitly distinguishes the different developmental lines that unfold through those seventeen levels. These different developmental lines include affective, cognitive, moral, interpersonal, object-relations, self-identity, and so on, each of which develops in a quasi-independent fashion through the general levels or basic structures of consciousness. There is no single, monolithic line that governs all of these developments" (p. 212-213). Levels and lines, or waves and streams, for the texture of psychological reality, and this leaves every room for individual differences in development.

Quadrants
Passing to the four-quadrant model, which is central to Wilber's thinking since he first wrote about it in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), Jacobs object to the fact that his mentor Sri Aurobindo is confined to the Upper-Left quadrant (for example, in A Brief History of Everything , p. 86), thus ignoring the role Aurobindo has played as a politically involved social theorist (or, one might add, as a philosopher speculating on the degree to which Spirit could influence bodily matter, cf. his ideas about physical immortality). Although assigning theorists to quadrants is obviously crude but acceptable for didactical purposes, Wilber sufficiently motivates his choice in his recent book Integral Psychology (2000): "Aurobindo was most concerned with the transformations of consciousness (Upper Left) and the correlative changes in the material body (Upper Right). Although he had many important insights on the social and political system, he did not seem to grasp the actual interrelations of cultural, social, intentional and behavioral, nor did his analysis at any point proceed on the level of intersubjectivity (Lower Left) and interobjectivity (Lower Right). He did not, that is, fully assimilate the differentiations of modernity. But the levels and modes that Aurobindo did cover make his formulations indispensable for any truly integral model" (p. 84).

[What I particularly meant when I said that Aurobindo did not fully assimilate the differentiations of moderntiy is that he wasn't aware of all of the research into the various quadrants that recent modern scientific advances have made, such as the role of neurotransmitters, the massive revolution in cognitive science, the far-reaching breakthroughs in brain chemistry, molecular biology, systems anthropology, and so on--as well as the breakthroughs in postmodern scholarship on the nature of cultural backgrounds and contexts--and the great need to move from metaphysics, as exemplefied by much of Aurobindo's work, to post-metaphysical research (see "On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality: Response to Habermas and Weis," posted on this site).  Of course Aurobindo was aware of the differentiations of modernity (the good, the true, and the beautiful)--even the Greeks were aware of them.  But he didn't have advantage of the research into them that modern science brought.  Therefore, as it is, his system is massively out of touch with modern cognitive science, among other things.  It would be wonderful were he alive to see what he would have done with modern brain research--almost certainly he would have adopted something like the quadrants which would allow him to correlate cognitive science (Upper Right) with his own system of consciousness development (Upper Left).  As it is, since his system does not do this, his system is no longer truly integral.

Not to mention the modern and postmodern research into the Lower Left and Lower Right, which his sytem also lacks.... My respect and deep admiration for Aurobindo is well known; he was a genius of the first magnitude and, along with Plotinus, Shankara, St. Augustine, Abinavagupta, Tsongkapa, and a few others, one of the greatest philosopher-sages of all time. But time moves on.... I don't mind playing Jacobs' game of "more integral than thou," because both of our systems--mine and Aurobindo's--will simply be small footnotes to the many integral systems of tomorrow.--KW]

Another feature of the four-quadrant model that worries Jacobs is the equal treatment Wilber seems to give all of the four quadrants, presumably under the pressure political correctness: "Wilber treats them all as equals. This may be an advance from most theoretical perspectives and it is fully in keeping with our postmodern romance with equality. Inequality, like hierarchy, has become a dirty word." Has Jacobs read anything from Wilber's recent works, one starts to wonder? The sole motive for going to the laborious process of writing Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in the early nineties was exactly that all of the core concepts of the perennial philosophy -- depth, hierarchy, stages, judgment -- had become taboo in the postmodern climate that wants to see everything as relative except itself, or that deems surfaces the only thing in the world worth studying. Jacobs is again stating Wilber's own conclusion as if it were his.

Jacobs then questions the degree in which Wilber's 4Q model really integrates objective and subjective, individual and collective perspectives on reality: "Wilber's approach appears more additive than integrative. He does not explain the precise relationship between the quadrants or the process by which they mutually interact and develop in parallel with one another. For example, in discussing the rise of modernity he does not specifically correlate it with an evolutionary stage in individual consciousness or biology. He indicates correlations at some points, but not causal relationships." However, already in Up from Eden (1981) we can read: "It's incredible when you start to think about it, but sometime during the second and first millennia B.C. the exclusively egoic structure of consciousness began to emerge from the ground unconscious (Ursprung) and crystallize out in awareness. And it is just this incredible crystallization that we must now examine, the last major stage -- to date -- in the collective historical evolution of the spectrum of consciousness (individuals can carry it further, in their own case, by meditation into superconsciousness). It was that transformation which set the modern world" (p. 179). Clearly, a causal relationship if ever there was one...

[Yes, here Jacobs appears not to have read my fairly extensive writings on the differentiations, dissociations, and integrations of modernity, and the specific relationship to the quadrants: modernity was a tetra-evolution of the orange meme, or egoic-rationality, with profound causal connections in all four quadrants, most especially the Lower Left of worldcentric intersubjectivity--a tremendous collective advance--and the Lower Right of industrialization, a complex I often call "industrial rationality," with all its promise and peril, or dignity and disaster.--KW]

However, Wilber resists the simple explanation of the objective by the subjective -- as Jacobs seems to prefer -- where instead he pleads for a multi-causal analysis (or "all-quadrant, all-level"). As we can read in The Eye of Spirit : "We can now, for example, correlate states of meditative awareness with types of brainwave patterns (without attempting to reduce one to the other). We can monitor psychological shifts that occur with spiritual experience. We can follow the levels of neurotransmitters during psychotherapeutic interventions. We can follow the effects of psychoactive drugs on blood distribution patters in the brain. We can trace the social modes of production and see the corresponding changes in cultural worldviews. We can follow the historical unfolding of cultural worldviews and plot the status of men and women in each period. We can trace the modes of self that correlate with different modes of techno-economic infrastructure. And so on around the quadrants: not simply 'all-level', but 'all-level, all-quadrant'. Thus, modern-day integral studies can do something about which the great traditions rather badly failed: they can trace the spectrum of consciousness not just in its intentional but also in its behavioral, social and cultural manifestations, thus highlighting the importance of a multidimensional approach for a truly comprehensive overview of human consciousness and behavior" (p. 34-35). [See the "simul-tracking" and "tetra-evolution" sections in, for example, "An Integral Theory of Consciousness," V7 of the CW.]

Jacobs saves his strongest objection to the 4Q model for the end of this paragraph: "But the greatest limitation of Wilber's four quadrants is the danger that we may mistake them for something real! The reality he is categorizing and pigeonholing into four quadrants is a single, indivisible whole. Mind's attempt to capture it in clear abstract terms gives us a sense of security and satisfaction, but not real knowledge. Thought and language require the use of concepts and opposites for their self-expression. But whereas Sri Aurobindo constantly reminds us that any such division of reality is only perceptual (being is indivisible), Wilber seems to really believe in the separate existence of these four." Listen to what Wilber writes in the preface of One Taste (1999), a volume that sings of the Oneness of existence from cover to cover: "If there is a theme to this journal it is that body, mind, and soul are not mutually exclusive. The desires of the flesh, the ideas of the mind, and the luminosities of the soul -- all are perfect expressions of the radiant Spirit that alone inhabits the universe, sublime gestures of that Great Perfection that alone outshines the world. There is only One Taste in the entire Kosmos, and that taste is Divine, whether it appears in the flesh, in the mind, in the soul" (p. viii). Pretty intellectual, huh?

Reality tests
Jacobs applauds Wilber's attempt to expand our notion of science, so that it includes also the field of spirituality and inner subjective experiences. "This is precisely Sri Aurobindo's view that spiritual experience can be systematically repeated and scientifically validated, but only by subjective rather than objective methods." What Jacobs does not mention or seem to notice, is that Wilber can argue for the validity of "spiritual science" by correlating the various types of science with the four quadrants AND the levels of science with the three main levels of human existence: body, mind and spirit, offering the first truly integral approach to science and spirituality. In that fashion, he argues for spiritual science after he has made the case for a typical mental science -- a beautiful tactical maneuver which goes to the heart of the postmodern infatuation with interpretation.

[That is, each quadrant has a different type of science--UR: behavioral sciences; LR: systems sciences; UL: phenomenological sciences; LL: cultural sciences. (I often simplify those four types into two major types: narrow sciences, which deal with the exteriors or the Right-Hand sciences; and broad or deep sciences, which deal with the interiors, or the Left-Hand sciences.) Each of those four types has at least three major levels: sensory, mental, spiritual.--KW]

Body-science, as we may call it for short, acknowledges only what the eye of the flesh can see (and the relationships the mind can find it what it has seen). This is of course the realm of physics, biology, chemistry. Mind-science acknowledges a different world: that of thoughts, ideas, meaning and interpretation. The "mental science" of hermeneutics -- so often ridiculed by the hard-nosed, flatland scientists for the fact that it does not deal with the relatively simple laws of gravity, but tries to fathom the laws of meaning -- deals with different objects, but it follows the same three general steps that all good science uses: (1) injunction, (2) observation and (3) confirmation/rejection. Its results may not be as unambiguous as the results of body-science, but then, thoughts are not rocks. This is a very original attempt to heal the split between the hard sciences of matter and life, and the human sciences of meaning. Only after establishing the ontological ground for a veritable mental science of hermeneutics, Wilber seductively argues for a third level of science: spiritual science -- again with its own domain, its own degree of certainty, but still following the same general steps the other two sciences use. For his own elaboration of both the types and the levels of science (as well as the levels of art and morals), see his recent "On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality: Response to Habermas and Weis" [posted on this site].

Ego and evolution
Wilber's description of human development as going through the general stages of physiocentric, biocentric, egocentric, ethnocentric and worldcentric, valid and useful as it may be in itself, Jacobs views as "naive and simplistic," for it equates consciousness with cognition, and "fails to perceive the depths and complexity of human personality." [The equation of cognition and consciousness is not my position at all; see Integral Psychology , where I explain at length why consciousness and cognition cannot be equated.--KW]

Jacobs assertion that "Wilber's view equates consciousness with cognition" is simply embarrassing, given the many paragraphs Wilber has devoted to precisely this confusion. To give a handful of examples: in Integral Psychology he notes under "Cognitive Development and the Great Nest of Being": "You can certainly think of the Great Nest as being, in part, a great spectrum of consciousness, which it is. One of the dictionary definitions of 'cognitive' is 'relating to consciousness'. Therefore, in dictionary terms anyway, you could think of the development of the Great Nest (which in individuals involves the unfolding of higher and more encompassing levels of consciousness) as being generally quite similar to cognitive development, as long as we understand that 'cognition' and 'consciousness' runs from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious, and that it includes interior modes of awareness just as much as exterior modes. The problem, as I was saying, is that 'cognition' in Western psychology came to have a very narrow meaning that excluded most of the above" (p. 19-20).

Jacobs then proceeds to sketch Sri Aurobindo's personality theory, almost identical to what Wilber explains throughout his works -- why do I get the feeling I have seen this movie before? Many passages from The Eye of Spirit go deeper into Sri Aurobindo's intricate view of human consciousness (p. 39, 140, 180, 206-7, 327-28n. 18 and 340n. 16). Interestingly, he identifies the Wilber-II phase of this work as the "Tibetan/Aurobindo/Wilber-II view" (p. 207) -- a perfect starting point for Jacobs for a true Wilber/Aurobindo comparison.

Universal Life and Mind
Moving towards more metaphysical subjects Jacobs complains that Wilber treats life (prana) and mind as individual entities, that cannot be separated from the body-mind, while acknowledging the universal nature of the transmental levels. Contrary to this, Sri Aurobindo did acknowledge the universal nature of the vital and mental worlds, which among other things enabled him to the phenomenon of "life response", according to Jacobs, "which all great literature and spirituality affirms, that our inner consciousness corresponds to and evokes responses from the wider life around us."

[In fact, my writing makes it clear that all of the basic levels of being and consciousness are universal--at least sixteen major levels, stretching from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit.--KW]

It is interesting to speculate about the value of the four-quadrant view, when we take the possibility of life after death on higher planes into account. Jacobs states that "consciousness is essentially independent of forms such as the brain in the upper-right quadrant of his model." While that may be true in the ultimate analysis, esoteric traditions don't hold that embodiment disappears on the higher planes. Consciousness might function in an astral body on the astral plane -- and four quadrant analysis would hold true even there! (So at least we CAN take something with us!)

[Yes, Frank is again correct. The standard 4Q diagram that I usually give is true for this gross manifest realm. But even in the dream realm, there are four quadrants. Moreover, the great traditions of Vedanta and Vajrayana maintain two important points: mind or consciousness is never independent of some sort of body or energy component, but there are the gross bodymind, the subtle bodymind, and the causal bodymind, and those can be indepedent of each other in certain circumstances, e.g., in the bardo realm. I acknowledge this view clearly in several places, including most recently in "A Summary of My Psychological Model" posted on this site. I will reprint the relevant sections from that essay here:

In many of the wisdom traditions, the three great normal states (of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep) are said to correspond to the three great bodies or realms of being (gross, subtle, and causal). In both Vedanta and Vajrayana, for example, the bodies are said to be the energy support of the corresponding mind or state of consciousness (i.e., every mental mode has a bodily mode, thus preserving a bodymind union at all levels). The gross body is the body in which we experience the waking state; the subtle body is the body in which we experience the dream state (and also certain meditative states, such as savikalpa samadhi, and the bardo state, or the dream-like state which is said to exist in between rebirths); and the causal body is the body in which we experience the deep dreamless state (and nirvikalpa samadhi and the formless state)( Deutsche, 1969; Gyatso, 1986). The point is that, according to these traditions, each state of consciousness has a corresponding body which is "made" of various types of gross, subtle, and very subtle energy (or "wind"), and these bodies or energies "support" the corresponding mind or consciousness states. In a sense, we can speak of the gross bodymind, the subtle bodymind, and the causal bodymind (using "mind" in the very broadest sense as "awareness" or "consciousness").

In my own system, the "body/energy" component is the Upper-Right quadrant, and the "mind/consciousness" component is the Upper-Left quadrant. The integral model I am suggesting therefore explicitly includes a corresponding subtle energy at every level of consciousness across the entire spectrum (gross to subtle to causal, or matter to body to mind to soul to spirit). Critics have often missed this aspect of my model because the typical four-quadrant diagram shows only the gross body in the Upper-Right quadrant, but that is only a simplified summary of the full model presented in my work.

In the traditions, it is often said that these subtle energy fields exist in concentric spheres of increasing embrace. For example, the etheric field is said to extend a few inches from the physical body, surrounding and enveloping it; the astral energy field surrounds and envelops the etheric field and extends a foot or so; the thought field (or subtle body energy field) surrounds and envelops the astral and extends even further; and the causal energy field extends to formless infinity. Thus, each of these subtle energy fields is a holon (a whole that is part of a larger whole), and the entire holonic energy spectrum can be easily represented in the Upper-Right quadrant as a standard series of increasingly finer and wider concentric spheres (with each subtler energy field transcending and including its junior fields). Each subtle energy holon is the exterior or the Right-Hand component of the corresponding interior or Left-Hand consciousness. In short, all holons have four quadrants across the entire spectrum, gross to subtle to causal, and this includes both a "mind/consciousness" and a "body/energy" component. For a discussion of body/realms--e.g., gross body (Nirmanakaya), subtle body (Sambhogakaya), causal body (Dharmakaya)--as the energetic support or "body" of each of the consciousness levels and states, see SES, note 1 for chap. 14. I often use the words "body," "realm," and "sphere" interchangeably; see Integral Psychology .

The important point is simply that each state of consciousness is supported by a corresponding body , so that consciousness is never merely disembodied. Even though it is said by, e.g., the Tibetan tradition, that subtle consciousness/energy or the subtle mind/body can detach from the gross mind/body, as in the chonyid bardo realm following death; and the causal mind/body can detach from both the subtle and gross mind/body, as in the chikhai bardo or the clear-light emptiness post-death experience (Deutsch, 1969; Gyatso, 1986). This conception allows consciousness to extend beyond the physical body (and survive physical death) but never to be merely disembodied (since there are subtle and causal bodies). In my opinion, this is a profound body/mind (or matter/consciousness) nonduality at every level, a conception I have incorporated into my own system.--KW]

Transcendence and Transformation
Under this heading Jacobs examines Wilber's view of transcendence as a gradual ascent of consciousness, transcending and including what went before. While he notices Wilber's concept of inclusion and Descent, he judges "descent for him is only to accept the world as a manifestation of Spirit in a spirit of Compassion, not to transform it. Wilber equates Descent with the materialist's affirmation of the physical world." [That is the opposite of my view. I said that the materialist accepts only those aspects of Spirit that are merely descended. The goal of the path of Descent is not matter, but Spirit reaching down and enlivening matter which is, after all, merely the outer garment of its own Being.--KW]

In a way, Wilber's Path of Descent is equally a Path of Ascent, the difference being that it does not focus on the Light beyond Form, but on every Form that is visible because of the very same Light. Growing along the Path of Descent means widening the circle of concern and compassion, from oneself to one's family, to humanity as a who, to all living beings... what else can this be than a gradual rising through the planes, so that the higher we rise, the more we can see, and the more we can embrace?

Social Development
Jacobs notes a close similarity between Wilber's and Aurobindo's ideas about social development, as it passes through the egocentric, etnocentric and worldcentric phases, so let's pass on to the next paragraph quickly. "The main difference is our emphasis on the vitally dynamic and expansive nature of society during the middle phase." Elsewhere in his paper, Jacobs ascribes to Aurobindo the view that "nations have souls just as individuals do."

[To equate collective holons and individual holons, as Jacobs does, can lead directly to fascism, as Fred Kofman points out in "Holons, Artifacts, and Heaps," posted on the website maintained by Frank Visser-- www.worldofkenwilber.com. This is one of the real dangers of such a philosophy. I have described the similarities--and the important differences--between individual and social holons in a 3-Part Interview posted on this site ("On Critics, Integral Institute, My Recent Writings, and Other Matters of Little Consequence").--KW]

Much lively debate about this aspect of the holon-theory can be found in the Reading Room of www.worldofkenwilber.com.

Overall Assessment
In the last paragraph of his paper, Jacobs tries to come to an overall assessment of the value of Wilber's work, in relation to the philosophy Sri Aurobindo has expounded: "Wilber has done an impressive job of mentally synthesizing many different strands of current thought within a coherent intellectual framework. He places different perspectives in a wider context in which each assumes its rightful place and significance as a valid perspective of a greater whole. His model is clear and logical. Where Wilber is particularly disappointing is in his efforts to apply the same mental formula to subjective life and spiritual phenomena that he applies to matter and social systems... What is lacking in Wilber's approach is not clarity or rationality. It is life, power and spirituality... Wilber's discussion of spirituality is pure mental abstraction -- colorless, odorless and lifeless -- as flat and hollow as the flatland he seeks to escape. It is conceptual, not spiritual." That Jacobs does not mention Wilber's key concept of vision-logic even once, is telling. He should also read One Taste , where Wilber describes his own spiritual experiences in powerful, compelling, and often beautiful terms.

[I personally appreciate very much the care and effort Jacobs has put into his study of Aurobindo, and his genuine concern to communicate the wonderful importance of Aurobindo for the modern and postmodern world--an importance I definitely and wholeheartedly share. I also appreciate Jacobs's attempt to compare and contrast Aurobindo's view and mine, although I feel that had Jacobs studied my work with the same diligence as Aurobindo's he would not have reached some of the conclusions expressed in his paper. Still, such dialogue can only help carry the cause of integral studies forward, and I am grateful for all of these ongoing contributions.--KW]

Had Jacobs taken the trouble to really study Wilber, he would have found that even for Wilber, spirituality is in the final analysis, more valuable then all his Collected Works taken together. In an autobiographical article in The Quest , published in 1995, Wilber explains: "The point of my books is not to get people involved in intellectual head trips. That is exactly what my books are attempting to stop, as those who have read them will readily acknowledge." "So I have attempted to engage these [academic] people in their own game, and to play it very fast and hard, simply to get to this conclusion: at some point, you and I must stop this intellectual head-tripping, and begin actual spiritual practice. We must begin contemplation, or yoga, or satsang, or zazen, or vision quest, or any number of other genuine contemplative practices (there are hundreds of practices, I am mentioning only a few). But we must actually do this as a practice -- not talking religion, not chit-chat, but engaged, concerned, passionate, intense practice.

"And in that practice, all your books, all your thoughts, and all your ideas will fail you miserably. You will burn in the fire of your own primordial awareness, and from the ashes of the smoking ruins of the shattered ego there will spontaneously arise a new destiny in the stream of consciousness itself, and you will be taken, transformed, ravished and transfigured in the glory of the Divine, and you will speak with the tongues of angels and see with the eyes of saints, and glories upon glories will enwrap and uplift your soul, and the lost and found Beloved will whisper in your ear, and the Divine will sparkle so intensely in every sight and sound, the wind will hum the hallowed names of the radiant Divine, while the clouds will crawl across the sky just to call your name, and your very Self will resurrect as the entire Kosmos itself, the haunting sound of one hand clapping in each and every direction, and it all will be undone in that extraordinary hymn -- the hymn of spiritual practice."

Now does that leave you breathless, or what?