But what these new modern and postmodern discoveries have found, for example, is that the stages of meditation themselves will actually be interpreted and experienced quite differently depending on the stage of development of the individual doing the meditating—and this has been happening all along; it’s just that none of the Great Traditions were aware of it.
Wilber, Ken. The Religion of Tomorrow (pp. 7-8). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
Ken Wilber makes the distinction between “waking up” and “growing up.” Waking up has to do with the levels of consciousness while growing up has to do with the level of worldview. The mystic elements of the world religions have been aware of the levels of consciousness, but the levels of worldview have only been described in the last 100 years as developmental psychology made the discoveries about the stages of cognitive, affective, social, and physical growth. Some theorists such as Charles M. Johnston adds cultural maturity as well.
It is unfortunate that most people are not aware of these levels of development and thus have no map to guide their growth and so they are adrift. These levels of development can be described in various ways. A simple model is egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric, integral, post integral. Egocentric is all about me. Ethnocentric is all about us. Worldcentric is all about everybody. Integral takes all these worldviews into account in an integrated way, and post integral moves on to a nondual appreciation of the interdependent web of all existence. People can oscillate somewhat between these levels of worldview but at any given time they have a center of gravity, a predominant stance, which governs their perceptions and interpretations of their experience.
The predominant stance of our society in the US currently is ethnocentric. Most people in our society are polarized by race, political indeology, religion, social class, sex, and age. The “us/them” dynamic motivates most of our relationships and interactions. This observation denotes a relatively low level of spiritual intelligence, SQ. This low level of SQ in the face of the most technological power humanity has ever had at its disposal creates huge conflict, distress, and harm.
The question before us is how can we facilitate the rise in the SQ of the populations of the world? It is the thing that will save us as a species and improve the quality of life for all things on our planet.