My Role Model and My Becoming

A role model leads a life that others envision creating for themselves.  He or she has created a niche toward which we are drawn.  As I gravitate toward my role model, my goals solidify.  That which I admire in his life I am striding to create in my own.  Ken Wilber is an exemplar of balance.  His intellectual capacities are immense, yet they are paired with an equal propensity for embodying his ideas in daily life.  Wilber integrates body, mind, and spirit into his being.  In doing so, his writing and scholarship become part of a multidimensional reality.  From a foundation of self-awareness, Wilber exemplifies unconditional love and compassion.  My personal vision is modeled on these inspiring qualities.  Ken Wilber is my exemplar, and as I learn from him how to embrace balance, self-awareness, and compassion, I increasingly create the type of life I want to live.

My mother shared with me last fall a CD that would invigorate my life.  I had never heard of Ken Wilber, yet now I cannot imagine leading a life uninformed by his work.  After hearing that first recording, I devoured the rest of the ten CD set.  Each CD is an interview with Wilber in which he expounds his theory – called Integral – its practical applications, and his embrace of it in his own life.  I was immediately converted.  For weeks my three-disc changer rotated only Wilber’s recordings.  Over and over, through homework, cooking, and chores, Wilber’s wisdom ran through the air.  His ideas have expanded my perspective and altered the way I live.

Ken Wilber is widely known for his intellectual, academic work. He has published 23 books and is the most translated academic author in the United States.  (Over 350 foreign editions of his works have been published.)[i] He studied medicine at Duke University and attended medical school at Nebraska.  Reading philosophy and psychology, however, diverted his attention from medicine and he chose not to finish medical school.  Wilber recognized the importance of fulfilling his own unique, unscripted vision.  He sustained himself financially by working in a home-cookin’ country kitchen as a dishwasher.  But the substance of his vitality was intellectual and spiritual exploration. 

During his twenties, Wilber began writing extensively and published several books of scholarly acclaim.  He read everything from biochemistry and social theory, to Emerson and Lao Tzu, to enlightenment philosophy and Gestalt psychology, to mythology and medieval transcendental realizers.  When he is researching for a book he tries “to go through two to four books a day…. When I’m writing… I work at a very intense pace…. I’ll sometimes put in fifteen hour days.  I read hundreds of books during the year, and a book forms in my head – I write the book in my head.”[ii]

But the essence of his teachings lies in that he does more than just read all the way around the globe.  He has embodied many intellectual, psycho-theoretical, bodily, and spiritual modalities as well.  Yoga, weightlifting, Jungian psychology, Vedanta Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and contemplative Christianity (to name a few) have all cycled through his repertoire.  Some teachers discourage this impure form of practice; but for Wilber it has been a crucial process of defining himself.  “Cross training,” as he likes to call it, built the unique wisdom he has shared through his writing and his life practice programs.  For Wilber, successful living is founded on balance.  Balance fortifies all in its purview.  Balance “communicate[s] the image of the whole to every separate portion, till that whole becomes in imagination like a spirit, every where pervading and penetrating its component parts, and giving them one definite meaning.”[iii]  Each properly weighted element transcends its partialness by contributing to a greater whole.

I dream of meeting Ken Wilber one day.  All accounts of his character make me eager to do so.  He has an enviable balance of intellect and sociability.  Wilber’s reputation as a hermit is not a complete profile.  (While writing his magnum opus, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, “apart from grocery shopping and such, [he] saw exactly four people in three years.”)[iv]  Remaining up to speed on the latest fashions demonstrates his corky fascination with pop culture.  Wilber shies from no debate over Gucci’s latest runway prop or the latest promiscuous celebrity portrait.  But the perspective he takes on pop culture is hardly conventional.  He analyzes the fashion world by applying his Integral model to it.  That’s the beauty of his creation: it extends beyond the written page.  It incorporates every facet of life.  Gucci’s aesthetic sensibilities mean much more to him than sex appeal.  In them he discerns the evolution of human consciousness, Spirit’s various manifestations at the forefront of popular culture.

I admire Ken Wilber’s ability to love unconditionally.  His years of meditation have taught him to treat all things as himself but to not become overly tangled in any of these things.  The bodhisattva vow calls him to the aid of others while preserving a profound sense of equanimity.  This balance between active love and detachment is a struggle for me.  It is easy fall deeply into introspection, to neglect the world.  It is easy hide from yourself and attach to the lives of others.  Both are seemingly easy; both create problems.  Yet introspection and extroversion are really two poles of a spectrum.  Together, they drive a creative tension.  By acknowledging both opposites, we can strive to find the middle.  We can elect “the conscious generation of creativity by dwelling on the interdependence of apparently mutually exclusive opposites and the larger whole which contains them both.”[v]  Balance is a process of becoming.  “Personal vision is not static,” and this balance, as both a personal goal and a guiding characteristic of my leadership vision, “should continue to evolve.”[vi]

I see the processes Wilber has gone through and I see my baby steps in a similar direction.  The peace he has found I envision for myself.  As my vision manifests before me, as I actively create my world, I see myself becoming, in a way, my role model.  That is, my own becoming is the exemplar of my Wilber-inspired desires.  Increasingly I am “accepting responsibility for being the author of [my] own life.”[vii]  Creating this story is magical.  The magic grows with my courage to envision what I want.  I have only to know what that is and the future becomes my oyster.

Compassion and gratitude are building blocks of unconditional love, Wilber’s or otherwise.  I practice gratitude by breathing.  I look at all that I have, all that is good, the beauty of my circumstances and my own power to further create beauty.  Gratitude is a conversation with “The Mystery.”[viii]  I am.  I say, Thank you.  When I am grateful I feel the love Wilber writes of swelling within me.  Before each meal, I take a moment to come into my body, to feel my energetic state, and to bless life by thanking it for all it has brought before me.  Expressing gratitude brings me into the moment, and the moment in turn reminds me of how much there is to be grateful for.

When I am too wrapped up in myself I become cold.  I become unhappy though I be resistant to admit it.  Two exercises from Ken Wilber’s Integral Life Practice help me to cultivate compassion.  The first is a meditation¹ in which you actively transform others’ suffering into love.  Breathe in their pain and blow back to them waves of pure, unadulterated love.  This is compassionate exchange.  The second technique developed in Ken Wilber’s Integral training program is a writing exercise to sublimate negative unconscious drives.  By acknowledging character traits in others who irritate us, we can learn to see those qualities as aspects of ourselves.  Through this recognition we are able to inhabit and own the discordant characteristic.  We learn to love fellow human beings by recognizing them in us and by withdrawing our projections from them.  Compassion comes from inhabiting others’ perspectives.  When you stand in another’s shoes, not only can you see yourself, you can commiserate with another way of life.  Perceiving with other’s eyes provides understanding, the seat of compassion.  I am motivated toward unconditional love by following Wilber’s example, and his techniques are helping me create what I seek.

            Inspired by Wilber’s own spiritual practice, I began meditating in June.  After an evening concert in late May, I introduced myself to a short bald man clad in black.  He was the creator of the Buddhist string quartet that had just played.  His composition was entrancing, and I told him so.  I told him that I was very interested in Buddhism, in finding a meditation group that would welcome and teach me.  He informed me of the Houston Zen Center, (Zen just so happens to be the main modality upon which Wilber had settled) of which he had been a member for several years.  The following Wednesday there was to be an introductory sitting.  I went. 

Meditation is an integral aspect of the influence Ken Wilber has had on me.  An example of his contemplative virtuosity and the incredible transformative powers of meditation is demonstrated by his ability to halt all brain activity (see video).  Meditation has been important in both my parents’ lives for many years as well.  When I was young, I wasn’t sure what to make of my father’s silent early morning sittings.  Spirituality has colored my family life since I came into this world, but it is only recently that I have struck out on my own spiritual quest.  I felt empowered by the response I received from a man in black that summer evening.  I had envisioned my spiritual induction and here it was, manifesting before me, a new branch of an untold story.

Being a Plan II student means that I am uncertain about the course of my future.  So saying that I am laying the ground for a fulfilling life begs the question, “If [I] live [my] life to its fullest, what will [I] have accomplished?”[ix] By draining my brain I created quite a crop of vague and abstract answers to this question.  I could see that my goals all revolved around a core of qualities – beauty, love, understanding.  (Is it ironic that my list of qualities could be transposed onto a verbal portrait of God?)  After marinating, a couple of my ideas coagulated to a presentable consistency.  If my life is fulfilling, I have realized, then I am living consciously in the moment; I am preserving a sense of gratitude and awe; and I am embracing something in which I have true faith.  Unconditional love is reflected in each of these traits.  I want these qualities in my life.  They are tools with which to carve my existence.  As I acknowledge what I want, I have noticed that I am already better “able to deal with the trade-offs of [my] life because [I] have trust in the authenticity of [my] decision.”[x]  Increasing self-knowledge strengthens me.  Wilber’s utter faith in his journey (he dropped out of med school and washed dishes at a country-fried chicken joint in order to pursue his writing, philosophy, and spiritual practice) certifies my own vision. 

When I examine my role model, I am amazed by the life he leads.  I see all that he has accomplished and how brilliant he is.  I see the immense respect he has garnered and the doors he has opened for so many others like me.  But these achievements are only the residue of his true pursuit – “self-awareness… the foundation for the rest.”[xi] Through self-discovery, Wilber has made many other liberating finds.  He has taught me that leading a joyful, fulfilling life demands that you “know thyself,”[xii] for that is a profound “truth and the truth shall make you free.”[xiii] College is a wonderful opportunity to further unfold myself and to lay the ground for a fulfilling life.  Wilber has given me a method to do so. 

Through Ken Wilber’s example, I am becoming ever more the person I want to be.  Intellect, emotion, body, and spirit balance in Wilber’s world and in the world I strive to create for myself.  It’s refreshing to know that all my adoration of Wilber has not gone to his head.  As he claims, “I’m not nearly the saint some of my fans imagine and I’m nowhere near the devil my detractors wish, so you simply take both of those with a grain of salt.”[xiv]  Such a declaration only makes him saintlier in my mind.

Word count: 1887

[i] KENWILBER.COM, 2007, http://kenwilber.com/professional/books/foreign.html

[ii] Ken Wilber, One Taste (Boston: Shambala, 2000), 14.

[iii] John Henry Newman, “The Idea of a University,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 310.

[iv] Wilber, 115.

[v] Jerome Bump, “Dualism and Creativity,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 189.

[vi] Robert J. Lee, “Discovering the Leader in You,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 78.

[vii] Ibid., 81.

[viii] “The Mystery,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 167.

¹ Come to a quiet place, one in which you can feel your breath reaching down into the base of your belly.  Rest your eyes.  Now think of a person you love.  Recognize any suffering he or she experiences in life.  As you breathe in, imagine all that suffering being swept away from them and into your inhalation.  Take in your loved one’s suffering.  As you exhale, transform that suffering into joy, love, peace – whatever you choose, and breathe it back into the world, back into your loved one.  He or she is blissful.  Now picture several people who are close to you, maybe they are a family.  Take in their suffering and transform it into love in the same way.  Proceed with increasing numbers of people.  Maybe you go from neighborhood to city, to state, to nation, to foreign nations and then to the embrace of the entire world.  Finish the meditation by exchanging suffering for love with all sentient beings and the entire manifest cosmos.  You will feel pleasure in loving all of manifestation and a deep sense of compassion for all that is.

[ix] Lee, 78.

[x] Ibid., 79.

[xi] Daniel Goleman et al, “Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 64.

[xii] Temple at Delphi, in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 301.

[xiii] John 8:32 (King James Version).

[xiv] “Criticism quotes,” Woopidoo! Quotations, http://www.woopidoo.com/ business_quotes/criticism-quotes.htm