# 🌈 · Full Spectrum Mindfulness Notes `Feb 9 2024` Written while watching the videos for the [Full Spectrum Mindfulness Course](https://integrallife.com/product/full-spectrum-mindfulness-enroll/) on Integral Life --- # Level 4 : Amber (Love) / Conformist ## (Ancestor Level 3.0) * called conventional, conformist, mythic membership, diplomat, or belongingness * self can take the role of other, can now expand beyond its own self to belongingness in various groups * switch from egocentric to ethnocentric * switch from me focus, to us focus, group focus * initially very conformist stage, can take the role of other but is caught in that role * my religion right or wrong * strict adherence to rules, codes * barbarically enforced due to their absolute holding * can be the operating system of criminal networks, mafia this thing of ours * emphasis on special belongingness, breaking this code of ours leads to swift retribution, often death, and in signature ways that lets everyone know it was specifically done in retaliation * thinking is very concrete, mythic-literal view * myths like in the Bible are held to be absolutely true, concretely, literally true * absolutistic thinking * unquestionable beliefs * all fundamentalist religion comes from this level * can apply to any fervently held belief, even scientistm, wokism, feminism, etc * in unhealthy forms it is often behind: * criminal power networks * oligarchic corruption * criminal families * whole branches of croup governments * street gangs * imperialistic and colonialist leaders, claim its for the people * deeply imperialistic and colonialist, especially with lingering power drives, always looking to expand the empire * truth as embodied in a single book or code, absolutely true * similarly governments with this structure often place power in an omnipotent dictator or small group who have all power, totalitarian authority, Nazis, communist countries, USSR, Iran and China, among others today * we know people like this today * believe in strict law and order, what are called family values, gods values * nationalistic, extremely patriotic * worried about immigration and the dilution of family values * in favor or no gun control, need guns to protect them against people who dont share their beliefs * sexist and homophobic to a great degree, both the men and the women, women too believe that they owe strict obedience to their husbands, like the Bible commands * this nation was created by god as an exceptionalist nation here to lead the world according to gods plan * others are quieter, being good members of the silent majority, belong in god country and family, attempting to lead a sober diligent life in the worlds greatest country * all are believed to be asboutlisticly true, not open to questioning at all * may even be willing to lay down your life for them * if you have some of this conforming stage in you — * a desire to fit in * not stand out of be different in any noticeable way * to be liked and thought well of * you likely will not see it as a stage, but simply as the way things are, likely not to want to change it — especially if these are religious beliefs, you will not want to change these either, as you are afraid of eternal damnation * If you are at this level and take up a meditation practice: * appreciate structure, pattern * steady constant fixed practice, unchanging in its nature and rules * meticulous about not missing a session, following the rules exactly * not interested in individual discretion * follow what you are supposed to do, not thinking about why or how it works * if it starts to work, you think it is the one true and only way, judging others * even people who are at a higher level initially can drop down to this level when they experience something profound, and become fundamentalists about it * mindfulness is not immune to this, same thing happens to scientists * scientism, they believe things that aren’t actually true but sound consistent with science * “the universe is without creativity or consciousness” * ”life is strictly random process with no goal or direction” * ”all of reality is nothing but the arrangement of material atoms or subatomic particles” * they forget there is no scientific proof for science itself, it is only one true but partial approach to reality * started to come into prominence 4000 BC, reach peak of power 1000 BC * dominated civilization until the enlightenment, the rational stage * today typical in a 7-12 year old is at this stage, but absolutistic one-true-way beliefs are a way this stage hides out very common in adults today * ”the last time I was wrong, was when I thought I made a mistake” * **RIGHT VS WRONG** - this is the polarity here * turn the lens into an object, mindfulness and make it something you look AT not THROUGH * when you become aware of something, you notice you have already been witnessing it * you cant start witnessing, you can only notice you have been witnessing * you are trying to evolve these from hidden subjects or selves into objects of awareness * the WE feeling * first person means person who is speaking, I or me * second person means person who is being spoken to, you or thou * third person means the person or thing being spoken about, her or him or it or its * when you combine first and second, I and you, we get WE, technically first person plural, but wilber calls it second person cause both are involved * AMBER is where the 2nd person perspective is just starting to emerge * all groups share a sense of we, that is what holds them together from within (Lower Left) just as their “system or network structure” holds them together from without (Lower Right) * if you cant feel the WE-ness, you ar probably too closely identified to it subjectively * if you go into work, there is a we feeling there too. * if you have different opinions about the employees you will have separate we feelings, one for the positive employees and one for the negative employees * when you are feel the we feeling of the positive group you will feel comfortable, the we feeling with the negative group will be uncomfortable * made me think of black people in a very white space * there is an outside, what they look like from the outside, and an inside, an intersubjective we of what it feels like to be a member * we is a mutual awareness and understanding * love changes with levels * egocentric love: loves themselves and no one else * ethnocentric love: loves their group, the family clan nation etc * world centric love: loves all humans * Level 4 Amber just moved from egocentric to ethnocentric, so belongingness becomes a strong motivation * strong US versus THEM distinction, loves only theirs and not others * if you think you are with the chosen people, there I a strong feeling of hate on the other side of that towards the others * with the people outside your group: convince them, coerce them, or kill them * the Bible is the story of God growing up, warmongering and vengeful, to love thy neighbor and enemy * the switch from ethnocentric love to world centric love * because the people writing it grew up in the interim period between old and new testament * Robert Kegan: **“I know of no better way to describe development than that the subject of one stage becomes the object of the subject of the next stage.”** * stages so far * archaic - physiological * magic - impulsive * powergods - opportunistic * mythic - conformist * as each stage emerges, it lets go of the previous identification and moves up to the next one, looking at the previous through this new lens * the self then cant see this new stage, it looks through it at the world * but then at the next stage, the self will again disidentify and be able to see the old one as an object of awareness, instead of as the subject * Jean Gebser: “the self of one stage, becomes the tool of the next” * this is the process of evolution itself occurring * the next one is not just my group, but all groups, all humans * this is why each level gets more and more whole, inclusive, embracing * the very drive of evolution is ever greater wholes, the universe is not winding down, it is winding UP - dirt to Shakespeare! * this of course means we gotta team up with the aliens and shit * but first we gotta be ONE on the planet * Plotinus: development is envelopment * that drive towards greater wholeness is called Eros, or Self-Organization, or Spirit-in-Action * human identity is infinitely plastic - this is the 7th chakra I think ## SUMMARY **Amber (ethnocentric, mythic):** The Amber altitude began about 5,000 years ago, and indicates a worldview that is traditionalist and mythic in nature—and mythic worldviews are almost always held as absolute (this stage of development is often called absolutistic). Instead of “might makes right,” amber ethics are more oriented to the group, but one that extends only to “my” group. Grade school and high school kids usually exhibit amber motivations to “fit in.” Amber ethics help to control the impulsiveness and narcissism of red. Culturally, amber worldviews can be seen in fundamentalism (my God is right no matter what); extreme patriotism (my country is right no matter what); and ethnocentrism (my people are right no matter what). ---- # Level 5 : Orange (Achievement) ## (Ancestor Level 3.5) * first emergence of the third person perspective, objective, scientific perspective * local **ethnocentric** identity to **worldcentric** identity * occurs because consciousness moves from only being able to think about the concrete material world, to be able to think about thought itself * called concrete operational to formal operational * thought can be aware of itself * and thus, introspective, self-esteem cornered, self-reflective, introspective, cosmopolitan identity * Immanuel kant defined cosmopolitan awareness as if someone anywhere suffers, I suffer * felt solidarity with all of humanity * issue of the universal rights of humans comes to the fore * not just the rights of a particular clan, club, tribe, nation, race, religion, but all groups, all human beings regardless of class, color, or creed - none of them are alien to me * you can instantly see that we have already surpassed communism which is very amber conformist, us and them, proletariat vs bougsuisue * this was marked by the western enlightenment in the culture * given its thought on thought nature, it is often referred to as reason, rationality, self-esteem, achiever, excellence - ORANGE * self-esteem needs emerge at this level because a third person perspective means a person can stand back from themselves and form an objective opinion of themselves, and naturally they want it to be as positive as possible * maslow & integral * physiological needs - 1&2 * safety, self-protective, power needs - 3 : Red Power * belongingness & conformist needs - 4 : Amber Conformist * self-esteem needs - 5 : Orange Achiever * although at this level ones identidy expands to a global or world centric capacity, it also marks the emergence of a real individuality * because self-reflection emerges out of the conformist role and herd mentality of the previous stage * **the world-centric individual emerges out of the ethnocentric conformist** * and in the worldcentric background, the self wants its own high recondition, self esteem, and self achievement * marked by the emergence of the drive towards excellence, merit, achievement, progress * a third person perspective allows individuals to stand outside the present moment and be aware of historical time, compare the present with the past and the imagined future, and thus wish to improve to improve the present as much as possible in comparison * this unfolding of historical time, soon giving rise to an awareness of evolution itself, is dramatically different than the previous mythic time, which being concrete and tied to nature, circled endlessly around and around and around, cyclically, indefinitely repeating itself * with the emergence of a third person perspective, historical time itself emerged * the ability to improve things became possible - merit achievement and progress * very noticeable drive in individuals and cultures * so different than food sex love drives, which circle around with nature, around and around and around again * apes totally have this * this marked the western elighqment, the age of reason and revolution * reason which allows as if and what if thinking, allows alternative realities to be conceived, to slavery, to monarchy, to patriarchy, to fundamentalist mythic religion (what about science) * revolutions brought them into existence, French and American, legal outlawing of slaves in every industrial rational country in the world, every previous stage had some form of slavery * or the revolutionary modern sciences, which are the results of this important level of consciousness * each new vertical level brings with it a new and different world in many ways, and nowhere is this more obvious than the shift from an amber mythic world to an orange rational world * every adolescent goes through this age of reason and rationality internally, as they hit the teen years and self esteem starts to emerge, and so now instead of the conformist urge, the desire to fit in to be the same, there is a radically individualistic stage, with its strong desire to stand out and be different — belong, or be an individual? Patriotic, or part of a global village? National, or Cosmopolitan? Myth, or Reason? * the world is now currently in a battle between these two stages, amber fundamentalist mythic conformists, often called traditional values, and orange stage 5, achiever and progress, modern values * most powerful empires in history were driven by the mythic belongingness stage * it arose about 6-7k years ago, and dominated until the rise of modernity in the west, only about 400 years ago * since then, these two levels, 4vs5, these two have been at each others throats incessantly * if you are approaching mindfulness form this level * it may be for the purpose of making gains in some important area of your life * you might feel competitive with others, wanting to achieve more than them * meditation will make you that superman you’ve always wanted to be in your field * meditation might slot into some larger plan you may have for greater success, better, more successful, more accomplished * the world is divided into winners and losers, and you are going to be a winner, and mediation is gonna help you do just that * **different areas of life we can have different levels** * at work we could be at level 5, and then shift down to level 4 when we are with our family back at home, not identifying with the whole world but just that group * once you have identified your basic stage, hold it up, and subject it to awareness * (all of these are hidden maps, fundamental grammar rules that govern most of your life) * this is the drive for EXCELLENCE to the be the best, to achieve! * stanford for me * the very feeling of wanting something bigger and better * you don’t practice mindfulness with the idea that something else is gonna happen * you just practice it for awareness itself * this is a great thing to take into trips too * whatever is happening IS THE THING * ”nothing happens next, this is it!” * you contain right now all the major levels of evolution that have ever emerged (he means vertically) * I think he has some morphic field vibes in here, like once a level emerges once, all humans can access it * even at archaic the human has the whole tree of life back to the big bang * sounding like ancestor shit! * **basic biochemistry of plants, the neural cord of fish and amphibians, the reptilian brainstem, limbic system of early mammals, cortex of primates, neocortex of humans** * we are the leading edge of evolution, and the exclamation point at the end * the most significant holon in the whole cosmos, the least fundamental, but the most significant * level 1: mouth, year 1-2 * level 2: wizard, year 2-4 * level 3: dominator, until 6-7 * level 4: conformist, until puberty * level 5: achiever, from puberty + * the world lies in this shadow today * excellence implies judgement * Mediocre vs excellent * we tend to treat things morally if we have identity with it ## SUMMARY **Orange (worldcentric, rational):** The Orange altitude began about 500 years ago, during the period known as the European Enlightenment. In an orange worldview, the individual begins to move away from the amber conformity that reifies the views of one’s religion, nation, or tribe. The orange worldview often begins to emerge in late high school, college, or adulthood. Culturally, the orange worldview realizes that “truth is not delivered; it is discovered,” spurring the great advances of science and formal rationality. Orange ethics begin to embrace all people, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….” Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, the US Bill of Rights, and many of the laws written to protect individual freedom all flow from an orange worldview. --- # LEVEL 6 : GREEN (HARMONY) ## (Ancestor Level 4.0) `929` * @ 52m - green loathes: * orange profit and capitalism and business in general * amber fundamentalism, and one true way * and the levels higher than itself ## SUMMARY **Green (worldcentric, pluralistic)**: The Green altitude began roughly 150 years ago, though it came into its fullest expression during the 1960’s. Green worldviews are marked by pluralism, or the ability to see that there are multiple ways of seeing reality. If orange sees universal truths (“All men are created equal”), green sees multiple universal truths—different universals for different cultures. Green ethics continue, and radically broaden, the movement to embrace all people. A green statement might read, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, regardless of race, gender, class….” Green ethics have given birth to the civil rights, feminist, and gay rights movements, as well as environmentalism --- # Level 7: Turquoise ## (Ancestor Levels 5 & 6) ## SUMMARY **Turquoise (worldcentric to “kosmocentric,” integral):** The Turquoise Altitude marks the beginning of an integral worldview, where pluralism and relativism are transcended and included into a more systematic whole. The transition from Green to Turquoise is also known as the transition from “1st-tier” values to “2nd-tier” values, the most immediate difference being the fact that each “1st-tier” value thinks it is the only truly correct value, while “2nd-tier” values recognize the importance of all preceding stages of development. Thus, the Turquoise worldview honors the insights of the green worldview, but places it into a larger context that allows for healthy hierarchies, and healthy value distinctions. Perhaps most important, a Turquoise worldview begins to see the process of development itself, acknowledging that each one of the previous stages (magenta through green) has an important role to play in the human experience. Turquoise consciousness sees that each of the previous stages reveals an important truth, and pulls them all together and integrates them without trying to change them to “be more like me,” and without resorting to extreme cultural relativism (“all are equal”). Turquoise worldviews do more than just see all points of view (that’s a green worldview)—it can see and honor them, but also critically evaluate them. Turquoise is a mature integral view, one that sees not only healthy hierarchy but also the various quadrants of human knowledge, expression, and inquiry (at the minimum: I, we, and it). While Turquoise worldviews tend to be secular, turquoise is the first to begin to integrate Spirit as a living force in the world (manifested through any or all of the 3 Faces of God: “I”—e.g. the “No self” or “witness” of Buddhism; “we/thou”—e.g. the “great other” of Christianity, Judaism, Hindusm, Islam, etc.; or “it”—e.g. the “Web of Life” seen in Taoism, Pantheism, etc.). `start at 937pm` * the 7th dimension is like what Ken calls Turiya (the 4th state), Emptiness * and the 5th state, or Turiya-Tita (“beyond the fourth”), is the non dual unity of everything, my hidden 8th, the non dual one, the ONE INFINITE CREATOR * his names for the first 6 levels * infrared archaic * magenta impulsive * red power * amber conformist * orange rational * green pluralist * distinction here between first tier and second tier * apparently Maslow called these the difference between deficiency needs and being needs * let me look into this quickly (947) `-` Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation," published in "Psychological Review," and further elaborated in his book "Motivation and Personality" in 1954. His theory is often visualized as a pyramid, with the most fundamental needs at the bottom and the higher-level needs at the top. The hierarchy is divided into two main types of needs: deficiency needs and being needs. **Deficiency Needs (D-needs):** These are the needs that arise due to deprivation and are said to motivate people when they are unmet. The more these needs are unfulfilled, the stronger the desire to satisfy them becomes. They include: * Physiological Needs: Basic life needs such as air, water, food, shelter, and sleep. * Safety Needs: Security, stability, freedom from fear. * Love and Belongingness Needs: Friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance. * Esteem Needs: Esteem from others, self-esteem, respect, and achievement. When these deficiency needs are satisfied, according to Maslow, they stop being motivators of behavior. They are considered essential for overcoming feelings of deficiency and achieving a basic sense of well-being. **Being Needs (B-needs):** Unlike deficiency needs, being needs (or growth needs) are not about filling a lack or overcoming deficits. Instead, they're about developing and realizing personal potential and self-actualization. These needs are unique because they are endless; fulfilling them does not reduce the motivation. Instead, it increases the desire for further growth. They include: * Cognitive Needs: Knowledge, understanding, curiosity, exploration. * Aesthetic Needs: Appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form. * Self-Actualization: Realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. * Transcendence Needs: Helping others to achieve self-actualization, connecting to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realization. `- 954` * He says 5% of the world is at Integral level * first level that believes all other levels have some importance * while all other levels believe only they are important * if you have a fair amount of this level in you, you will first and foremost be driven by wholeness, seeking out big pictures * how things fit together, how they are all connected, all have a place in this wondrous cosmos * in an argument, you will see neither side as being absolutely true, and both having some partial truth that can be integrated into a larger view that embraces them both * you will seek connections everything, seeing that everything is related to, and interwoven with everything else * knowledge is not divided into divided and siloed disciplines, but integrated into a dynamic tapestry * relationships will tend to replace isolated things, networks start to jump out everywhere * you will see the world not populated by ethnic races, but by one humanity with their own unique differences * unity in diversity, that speaks directly to you * integral has the 5th person perspective, which can see the patterns that connect through all things, big pictures emerge again, but at a higher level, that sees and awknowledges differences, as well as the major patterns that unifies them still * a whole cosmos re-emegeres, the re-enchantment of the world * here, self esteem needs give way to self actualization needs * you will understand growth hierarchies intuitively and file them away…hm * you will get bored with the 2 party system, thinking its too partial of a view * instead looking for approaches that include the best and brightest approaches from both parties * both thinking and feeling will be important * for the first time integrated into the mind * mind and body are both experiences of an integrated self (the centaur) * **this level values wholeness and completeness over all other qualities** * this is the leading edge, but there will of course be things possible to access later, but this is the limit humans today are reasonably expected to reach * interesting because I call it level 5, whereas he calls it level 7, it works better * I am going to have to adjust agh * this is the deepest or highest holon in the entire cosmos * it is the crowning achievement of evolution itself * it has the most conditions of anything, and is thus the most rare * the greater the depth, the less the span * one of those fundamental principles of evolution * this is also the theory that **PROVES THE ONE**, since the thing at deepest depth has to have the least span, there can **only be ONE** deepest holon in the Kosmos * oh shit…..Ive never thought about it that way * it is the final holon, oh my lord ```1020pm And thus, by the time we get to a human holon at the turquoise Integral level, we have a holon with the most depth (and the less span) of any other holon anywhere in the Kosmos. Remember, as we earlier noted, by the time a human being appears in evolution (and with evolution measured as a one-year length, humans appear in the last minute of the last day), but precisely because of that, because they are an exclamation mark to evolution thus far, a human being actually and literally contains in itself holons from every major level of evolution to date—we saw that a human being literally contains or enfolds quarks, subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, prokaryotic cells, eukaryotic cells, organ systems that include the fundamentals of photosynthetic biochemistry, the neural nets of early animals, the spinal cord of fish and amphibians, the brainstem of reptiles, the limbic system of paleomammals (e.g., horses), the cortex of primates, and capped by its own neocortex—the human being “transcends and includes” every major holon ever produced by evolution in its 14 billion-year history. And then humans themselves begin evolving—and their stages of evolution or development are likewise holons, with each stage transcending and including its predecessor, so that these stages inherently become even more and more whole, more and more inclusive, more and more conscious, more and more loving, more and more moral. And by the time we reach turquoise Integral, we have a stage that has transcended and included every single level produced by evolution in the entire history of the total Kosmos. Humans at this turquoise Integral stage are, in other words, holons with the greatest depth that has ever appeared in the course of the entire manifest world in its entire 14 billion-year history. ``` --- # LEVEL 8 : WHITE --- # OVERALL `310am` * [Spiral Dynamics Simplified ─ What is Spiral Dynamics?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRB6Ym8wQeM&ab_channel=MaxSaris) * He does a great job of explaining how each level solves the issues of the previous, his transitions are great * based on this video * Beige / Infrared - Level 1.0 - Individual * Purple / Magenta - Level 2.0 - Collective * Red - Level 2.5 - Individual * Blue / Amber - Level 3.0 - Collective * Orange - Level 3.5 - Individual * Green - Level 4.0 - Collective * Yellow / Teal - Level 5.0 (or 4.5?) - Individual * Turquoise - Level 6.0 (or 5.0 or 5.5?) - Collective