Wilber - One taste: daily reflections on integral spirituality

Wilber offers his readers a deeper look into his life, and an invitation to wake up from the busy dream that substitutes for Being and choose instead the One Taste: pure Freedom and radiant Release.

The Bloomsbury Review

Wilber has established himself as one of the most astute and comprehensive theorists of human consciousness, a penetrating thinker with a rare gift for absorbing, synthesizing, and categorizing ideas.

Parabola

One Taste offers easy access to the rich cornucopia of Ken Wilbers transpersonal thought and extraordinary vision of How Things Are.

Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

When a great mind like Ken Wilbers starts freely commenting, you want to be there! Wilbers brilliance pours out on every pageso its both fun and profound. His work models what spiritual and intellectual life ought to be about.

Michael Lerner, author of The Politics of Meaning

One Taste is a delectable expression of Ken Wilbers unitary vision, filtered through intimate spiritual-life experience. The entire book goes down easy and is one of the most interesting autobiographical writings among Western spiritual teachers and pundits today. A must see, must taste!

Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening to the Sacred

Ken Wilber is a source of inspiration and insight to all of us. Read everything he writes. It will change your life.

Deepak Chopra

ABOUT THE BOOK

As one who has written extensively about the interior life, meditation, and psychotherapy, Ken Wilberthe leading theorist in the field of integral psychologynaturally arouses the curiosity of his numerous readers. In response to this curiosity, this one-year diary not only offers an unprecedented entre into his private world, but offers an introduction to his essential thought. If there is a theme to this journal, Wilber writes, it is that body, mind, and the luminosities of the soulall are perfect expressions of the Radiant Spirit that alone inhabits the universe, sublime gestures of that Great Perfection that alone outshines the world.

Wilbers personal writings include:

• Details of his own spiritual practice
• Advice to spiritual seekers
• Reflections on his work and that of other prominent theorists in the field of integral psychology
• His day-to-day personal experiences
• Dozens of his short theoretical essays on topics from art to feminism to spirituality to psychotherapy

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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ONE TASTE

Daily Reflections on Integral Spirituality

Ken Wilber

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2011

S HAMBHALA P UBLICATIONS , I NC .

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2000 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.

One taste: daily reflections on integral spirituality/Ken Wilber.[Rev. ed.].

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2270-2

ISBN 978-1-57062-547-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Wilber, KenDiaries. 2. Spiritual biographyUnited States. 3. Spiritual life. I. Title.

BL73.W55 A3 2000

191dc21

[B]

00021871

Contents

I N THE PAST I have strenuously resisted going public. I am not a private person, in the sense of secretive; Im just not a public person, in the sense of seeking the limelight. Nonetheless, as one who has written extensively about the interior life, it seemed appropriate, at some point, to share mine. The following pages therefore contain a fair amount of what would ordinarily be considered private material. Still, in the last analysis, this is a philosophical more than personal journal: it deals primarily with ideas, and especially those ideas that orbit the sun of the perennial philosophy (or the common core of the worlds great wisdom traditions). In one area, however, this is a very personal journal: extensive descriptions of meditation practice and various mystical states, based on my own experience. (Those who wish a more personal account in other areas might consult Grace and Grit.)

Because this book is idea-focused, I have taken a few liberties with the order of the entries. Some theoretical pieces were moved up, because other entries dont make sense without them. Dates are generally accurate, but in a few cases they might be off because I sometimes made notes without dating them, so I entered these wherever it seemed appropriate. Some Naropa seminars originally occurred within a few days of each other; I have spread these out (otherwise, too much academic talk in one place); the dates are therefore not always accurate, but the excerpts themselves are. In any event, it should be remembered that these journals were not primarily meant to be a record of the details of my personal life, but rather a record of further attempts to convey the perennial philosophy.

Because the theoretical entries are fairly brief and self-containeda page or two, usually, a dozen pages at mostthe ideas themselves come in bite-size chunks. If you hit an entry that doesnt interest youone on politics, perhaps, or business, or artyou can easily skip to the next entry. If, however, you are reading these pages for the theoretical information, you should know that each entry builds on its predecessors, so skipping around is not the best idea.

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 soulall 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. Resting in that One Taste, transported beyond the mundane, the world arises in the purest Freedom and radiant Release, happy to infinity, lost in all eternity, and hopeless in the original face of the unrelenting mystery. From One Taste all things issue, to One Taste all things returnand in between, which is the story of this moment, there is only the dream, and sometimes the nightmare, from which we would do well to awaken.

K.W.

Boulder, Colorado

Spring 1998

Y ou could not discover the limits of the soul, even if you traveled by every path in order to do so; such is the depth of its meaning.

H ERACLITUS

Thursday, January 2 7

Worked all morning, research and reading, while watching the sunlight play through the falling snow. The sun is not yellow today, it is white, like the snow, so I am surrounded by white on white, alone on alone. Sheer Emptiness, soft clear light, is what it all looks like, shimmering to itself in melancholy murmurs. I am released into that Emptiness, and all is radiant on this clear light day.