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And therefore, all of those for whom authentic transformation has deeply unseated their souls must, I believe, wrestle with the profound moral obliga… - Ken Wilber
" "And therefore, all of those for whom authentic transformation has deeply unseated their souls must, I believe, wrestle with the profound moral obligation to shout form the heart — perhaps quietly and gently, with tears of reluctance; perhaps with fierce fire and angry wisdom; perhaps with slow and careful analysis; perhaps by unshakable public example — but authentically always and absolutely carries a a demand and duty: you must speak out, to the best of your ability, and shake the spiritual tree, and shine your headlights into the eyes of the complacent. You must let that radical realization rumble through your veins and rattle those around you.
Alas, if you fail to do so, you are betraying your own authenticity. You are hiding your true estate. You don’t want to upset others because you don’t want to upset your self. You are acting in bad faith, the taste of a bad infinity.
Because, you see, the alarming fact is that any realization of depth carries a terrible burden: those who are allowed to see are simultaneously saddled with the obligation to communicate that vision in no uncertain terms: that is the bargain. You were allowed to see the truth under the agreement that you would communicate it to others (that is the ultimate meaning of the bodhisattva vow). And therefore, if you have seen, you simply must speak out. Speak out with compassion, or speak out with angry wisdom, or speak out with skillful means, but speak out you must.
And this is truly a terrible burden, a horrible burden, because in any case there is no room for timidity. The fact that you might be wrong is simply no excuse: You might be right in your communication, and you might be wrong, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter, as Kierkegaard so rudely reminded us, is that only by investing and speaking your vision with passion, can the truth, one way or another, finally penetrate the reluctance of the world. If you are right, or if you are wrong, it is only your passion that will force either
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About Ken Wilber
Kenneth Earl Wilber Jr. (born 31 January 1949) is an American author who writes on psychology, philosophy, mysticism, ecology, and spiritual evolution. His work formulates what he calls an "integral theory of consciousness". He is a leading proponent of the integral movement and founded the Integral Institute in 1998.
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Alternative Names:
Kenneth Earl Wilber II
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Kenneth Earl "Ken" Wilber Junior
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Additional quotes by Ken Wilber
As Harvard developmental psychologist Howard Gardner reminds us, The young child is totally egocentric — meaning not that he thinks selfishly only about himself, but to the contrary, that he is incapable of thinking about himself. The egocentric child is unable to differentiate himself from the rest of the world; he has not separated himself out from others or from objects. Thus he feels that others share his pain or his pleasure, that his mumblings will inevitably be understood, that his perspective is shared by all persons, that even animals and plants partake of his consciousness. In playing hide-and-seek he will “hide” in broad view of other persons, because his egocentrism prevents him from recognizing that others are aware of his location. The whole course of human development can be viewed as a continuing decline in egocentrism.2
The postmodern poststructuralists go from saying “there is no final perspective” (or “perspectives are boundless”) to saying “therefore there is no advantage in any perspective over another.” This leveling of perspectives is not an interrelation of all perspectives but is itself merely one particular and covertly privileged perspective (and thus ends up, as we have seen, being perfectly self-contradictory: there is no advantaged perspective except mine, which maintains that all other perspectives are not so privileged).
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