Everyone Is Right

The sexual evolution continues! This week I look at the controversy raging over the dramatic emergence of transsexual identity and gender fluidity, particularly among young people. I place it in the context of the stage transformations of sex and gender through history, and even get a little personal. I hope you enjoy the episode! –Jeff Salzman

John Vervaeke joins Bruce Alderman and Layman Pascal to explore possible points of contact and confluence between their respective approaches to religion and spirituality. For this inaugural episode, we feel into some of the commonalities and differences between Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality and Integral Life Practice, and John's "religion that is not a religion" and his work around developing an ecology of practices suitable for addressing the meaning crisis. We touch on a number of related themes: - the creative deployment of mythic or literary figures, from Cthulhu and zombies, to the Centaur, the Minotaur, and the khora - the importance of wrestling with existential and epistemological limit conditions - the role of ambiguity in higher forms of rationality - the relation of non-theism to classical theism and atheism - the history of integrative practices - the 'traps' in conventional practice that can thwart balanced development ...and much more. John Vervaeke is a professor of psychology at Toronto University and creator of the popular YouTube series "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis."

As Albert Einstein famously said, “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”. The same can be said for the imbalance we sometimes see between the Integral Mind and and the Integral Heart. The Integral mind differentiates, carefully separating reality into its most fundamental structures, factors, and patterns that help us better understand the staggering complexity we are surrounded by. But without the Integral Heart, this understanding can easily become cold, distant, and brittle — and if we allow ourselves to identify with the products of mind, it more often than not ends up creating more division between us, because no two people will ever enact this complexity in the exact same way. The Integral Heart integrates, bridging the gaps between perspectives by pulling all of the differentiated pieces back together into a coherent whole, while also preventing us from succumbing to the grasping tendencies of mind that often cause us to maybe take ourselves just a little too seriously and dismiss each other’s points of view. Without an equally Integral Mind, this heartfelt wholeness we feel can easily become directionless and undiscerning, resulting in unwise displays of sentimentality, inaction, and idiot compassion. And of course, while we want to consciously work to keep our heart and mind integrated, they are also are in many ways inseparable. The Integral Heart is the natural emanation of an awakened mind, and is given its shape by the many natural intelligences we possess — our cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, our interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence, our moral and ethical intelligence, etc. All these multiple intelligences intersect in the innermost core of the Integral Heart, and each offers a unique vehicle that allows us to express our heart in the world, and expand that heart to include the vast multitudes of the Kosmos, however we conceive of it. The Integral space is inherently a multi-perspectival space — meaning a place where we can exchange perspectives freely, and then do our best to fold these perspectives together so that we can walk away with a deeper and hopefully more comprehensive understanding of a given topic. When our minds and hearts are integrated together, we naturally try not to be hostile to each other’s views or insulting to each other personally, as we can recognize that there is a very good change that each of these perspectives has something valuable to be included, something that the rest of us are missing — and also some parts that may need rethinking. Which is why we try to engage with each other in good faith, with both open minds and open hearts. The goal of an integralist is not to “be right”, but rather to “get it right” through an ongoing process of examination in all four quadrants, constantly pulling in new data and new perspectives as they presents themselves. This requires both a rigorous Integral Mind that very much wants to get it right, as well as a brave and curious Integral Heart that isn’t afraid to admit when we might be getting it wrong. So this discussion is an invitation to continue opening your own most Integral heart, and allow it to infuse and inform all of our actions and interactions together — to lead our lives with both wisdom and compassion, with both discernment and tenderness, with both insight and humility — so that we may use our integral minds and hearts to recognize, appreciate, and incorporate the partial truths that each of us are trying to bring to each other.

In this series of discussions, Daily Evolver host Jeff Salzman talks to Corey deVos and Nomali Perera about some crucial perspectives and practices to help us bring more clarity to our thinking, and more depth to our hearts, as we witness the brutal realities of war in Ukraine.

In this series of discussions, Daily Evolver host Jeff Salzman talks to Corey deVos and Nomali Perera about some crucial perspectives and practices to help us bring more clarity to our thinking, and more depth to our hearts, as we witness the brutal realities of war in Ukraine.

In this series of discussions, Daily Evolver host Jeff Salzman talks to Corey deVos and Nomali Perera about some crucial perspectives and practices to help us bring more clarity to our thinking, and more depth to our hearts, as we witness the brutal realities of war in Ukraine.

In this series of discussions, Daily Evolver host Jeff Salzman talks to Corey deVos and Nomali Perera about some crucial perspectives and practices to help us bring more clarity to our thinking, and more depth to our hearts, as we witness the brutal realities of war in Ukraine.

Learn more about the Flourishing LIVE training here: https://integrallife.com/flourishing-live/ Lee Mason talks to Corey deVos about Lee's new Flourishing LIVE training — an online group coaching program to help you develop a personalized strategy to thrive optimally across all areas of your life. If you’re interested in living a life that is as healthy, happy and meaningful as possible, then join Lee Mason for this dynamic online live experience. Over the course of 12 sessions (2 hours each), you’ll connect with people from all across the world and engage in inspiring dialogues and exercises together. You’ll also benefit from the wisdom and life-experience of your fellow participants, while you explore what Integral Flourishing means to you personally. Learn more about the training here: https://integrallife.com/flourishing-live/

"The long-awaited emergence of 'Teal' as a shape of consciousness, set of life conditions, and accompanying techno-economic structure is upon us, and will increasingly emerge with the rise of The Transformation Age. The Integral Philosophy movement inhabits just one small niche of this broader phenomena that inside Integral Life we simply call 'Emergent Teal'. Populated by a diverse set of people and organizations, starting this year Integral Life has begun opening its platform to a broader set of voices, hosts and activities—look out for many exciting announcements coming your way soon—and also begun to engage with some of these talented people, like the one here, an “open class” format which arose from an interaction among Perspectiva’s Jonathan Rowson, The PopUp School’s Bonnitta Roy, GameB’s Jordan Greenhall and myself on Twitter. I was excited to join this conversation because our host, the brilliant Bonnitta Roy, intentionally focused on the personal and concrete among the three guests—all of us fathers—on what it means to be a father, raise children, and take on the responsibility of intergenerational transmission in this time between eras, and whether it holds lessons for being a leader today." —Robb Smith

Wang Huning is arguably the world’s most influential and powerful intellectual. And you’ve probably never heard of him, as he has sat quietly at the top of China’s power structure, advising three presidents over 30 years. The architect of many of China’s most significant contemporary ideological and strategic efforts, he’s deeply studied in the philosophy and ways of the west. Long before Robb’s own analysis that the west is amidst a monumental breakdown he called a “Great Release”, Huning came to the conclusion that the decadence of the United States, its culture and capitalism will lead it to ruin, and China must be steered in a different, and in some ways more integral, direction. The stakes couldn’t be higher: to understand this century, we have to understand the geopolitical and philosophical power struggle between China and the United States and the differing global “Operating Systems” they’re fighting for. And to better understand that struggle, we have to better understand whether the cognition of China’s leaders are integral or not: are they capable of bringing the Teal “Power to Integrate” to bear on the world system? For that answer, we must look to Wang Huning. Join Robb as he holds an impromptu commentary-monologue on a recent profile of Wang Huning published in Palladium Magazine: https://palladiummag.com/2021/10/11/the-triumph-and-terror-of-wang-huning/