Wilber - No boundary: Eastern and Western approaches to personal growth

Ken Wilber is one of the most important pioneers in the field of consciousness in this century.

Deepak Chopra

The most sensible, comprehensive book on consciousness since William James.

Dr. James Fadiman, President, Association for Transpersonal Psychology

No Boundary does for this generation what Alan Watts writings did for an earlier one. It brings the most difficult subject of allnature of consciousnessinto an easily grasped presentation that is both elegant and simple.

John White, editor of Kundalini, Evolution, and Enlightenment

ABOUT THE BOOK

A simple yet comprehensive guide to the types of psychologies and therapies available from Eastern and Western sources. Each chapter includes a specific exercise designed to help the reader understand the nature and practice of the specific therapies. Wilber presents an easy-to-use map of human consciousness against which the various therapies are introduced and explained. This edition includes a new preface.

KEN WILBER is the author of over twenty books. He is the founder of Integral Institute, a think-tank for studying integral theory and practice, with outreach through local and online communities such as Integral Education Network, Integral Training, and Integral Spiritual Center.

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NO BOUNDARY

Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth

Ken Wilber

SHAMBHALA

Boston

2011

To Jack Crittenden

Best student, best teacher, best friend

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

1979, 2001 by Ken Wilber

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilber, Ken.

No boundary.

Reprint. Originally published: Los Angeles: Center Publications, 1979. (Whole mind series) Includes bibliographies and index.

1. Consciousness. 2. Self-perception. 3. PsychologyPhilosophy. 4. East and West. I. Title. II. Series: Whole mind series.

[BF311.W577 1981] 158.1 81-40489

eISBN 978-0-8348-2268-9

ISBN 978-0-394-74881-8 (pbk.) AACR2

ISBN 978-1-57062-743-9

A lthough No Boundary is the second book I wrote, almost thirty years ago, it is still one of the most popular of my books. I believe the reason is simple: No Boundary was one of the first books to present a full-spectrum view of human potentials, potentials that reach from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, and in so doing, it integrated the very best of psychology with the best of spirituality. In drawing on the finest of both Eastern and Western approaches to human growth and development, it charted a complete spectrum of consciousness that moved from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious, from pre-personal to personal to transpersonal, from instinct to ego to God. And it offered an entire smorgasbord of actual practices and exercises that showed the reader how to reach each of these higher states of consciousness. The completeness of this approach made it rather unique, and I believe that is why readers have continued to respond enthusiastically.

The years since I wrote No Boundary have convinced me even more that its basic message is still sound and true. Human beings do indeed possess a remarkable spectrum of consciousness, a vast rainbow of extraordinary potentials and possibilities, and those potentials do indeed run from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit. Individuals can grow and develop through that entire spectrum, directly experiencing each of those levels or colors in the rainbow, resulting in a direct experience of spirit itself. Various psychological and spiritual practicesmany of which you will be offered in the following pageshelp us directly experience these various levels or waves in our own being. Thus, using a combination of these practices can help us fully awaken to every color in the rainbow of our own being, to every level of consciousness in the entire spectrum, and thus awaken to our real nature and true conditionan awakening known as enlightenment, release, or the great liberation.

No Boundary was a popular version of the first book I had written, a large, somewhat academic book called The Spectrum of Consciousness. Those books would form the foundation of the almost twenty books that would follow. I would of course refine and polish the various points, but the essentialssuch as the spectrum of consciousness itselfare still much as presented here, which is probably another reason this book has remained so popular. If you enjoy No Boundary and would like to see some of these further refinements, you might start with an overview of my current work, called A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality.

In the meantime, the basic message of No Boundary is just what the title says: your own basic awarenessand your very identity itselfis without boundaries. Your basic identity spans the entire spectrum of consciousness, from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, and thus in the deepest or highest part of you, you embrace the All. What follows is a simple guidebook to this extraordinary territory of your own true selfless Self.

K.W.

Summer 2000

Boulder, Colorado

S uddenly, without any warning, at any time or place, with no apparent cause, it can happen.

All at once I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, and immense conflagration somewhere close by in that great city; the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then; I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love, and the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain. (R. M. Bucke)

What a magnificent awareness! We would surely be making a grave error if we hastily concluded such experiences to be hallucinations or products of a mental aberration, for, in their final disclosure, they share none of the tortured anguish of psychotic visions.

The dust and the stones of the street were as precious as gold, the gates were at first the ends of the world. The green trees when I saw them first, through one of the gates, transported and ravished me.... Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die. But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the light of day.... (Traherne)