“Shadow” refers to any of the hidden allergies, addictions, biases, or blind spots that may be kicking around in our consciousness, distorting our perceptions and limiting our capacity to find genuine happiness, fulfillment, and self-transcending wisdom. Often our shadows are the result of some hidden, unintegrated piece of ourselves that we are projecting outward onto the world around us, and sometimes they are the result of internalizing shadows that are not our own, but infect our self-concep...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 34 min
Ed Kowalczyk is the lead singer/songwriter of the rock group Live, who at the time of this recording had just released their sixth studio album, Birds of Pray, and whose first single “Heaven” had already topped the Liquid Audio Download charts for digital singles. Live has had a phenomenal success, selling over 20 million albums worldwide, including two #1 albums on the Billboard charts (Throwing Copper, Secret Samadhi) and five #1 singles. Ed Kowalczyk is a pioneer in integral art, attempting t...
Jul 30, 2020•27 min
How do we stay centered and grounded, when the ground is constantly being moved from under our feet? With so much bias, polarization, and radicalization taking place all around us, how can we prevent our own views and values from being hijacked and pushed to their extremes? When we are drowning in so much information, misinformation, conflicting narratives, and conspiracy theories, how can we prevent our own informational terrain from becoming distorted by propaganda, partial thinking, and malev...
Jul 23, 2020•1 hr 49 min
“‘Paranormal’ is a term that came up in the history of these things to mark off phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis. But what I’m proposing is that those sorts of capacities are within the normal range of human functioning, and I do believe they’re operative in animals before humans. Now I’m absolutely convinced of the evidence on that.” —Michael Murphy Mike Murphy is the leading integral theorist of his generation; Ken Wilber is the leading integral theorist of his. The...
Jul 23, 2020•45 min
In this lively conversation, Surya Das recounts his own personal story on the spiritual path, from seeking to realizing, with all the trials and tribulations inherent in a journey without a goal. In this wide-ranging discussion of the obstacles and opportunities of bringing a new religion into a culture — in this case, Buddhism into America — Surya Das covers a multitude of critical issues, issues that confront not merely Buddhism but spirituality in general as it encounters the modern and postm...
Jul 16, 2020•1 hr 11 min
Serj Tankian, lead singer of System of a Down, voted the #1 band of 2002 by leading critics, is one of the most original and passionate of today’s artists, and one of Integral Institute’s favorite contributors to our ongoing conversation on the avant garde. With a surging and cacophonic presentation, System of a Down simply can’t be pigeonholed—a type of genre-busting transcendental howl. Rolling Stone magazine called System’s sophomore effort, Toxicity, “a bouquet of smart rock and ardent socia...
Jul 09, 2020•28 min
Diane and Corey are joined by guests Greg Thomas and Mark Palmer in this groundbreaking discussion about racism, anti-racism, and racial integration, highlighting a number of critical views that have been largely missing from the larger conversation that’s been taking place culturally in recent months and years. Watch as we bring some integral understanding to ideas central to anti-racism and the pluralistic discourse itself — ideas like critical race theory, dismantling white supremacy, eradica...
Jul 02, 2020•2 hr 40 min
Brother David Steindl-Rast, the author of Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer and a practicing Benedictine monk for over half a century, discusses why a new understanding of God is needed to carry spirituality into the future. “There are at least three ways of talking about Spirit: You can say what Spirit is like, you can say what Spirit is not, or you can have a direct experience of Spirit. And the best way to say what Spirit is like in today’s world, is evolutionary panentheism….” Brother David ...
Jul 02, 2020•21 min
As many people know, Billy Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins burst on the scene with their first album, Gish, in 1991, which shot to the top of the charts, which is where the Pumpkins remained for a decade, all the harder in that critics considered them “sophisticated,” “complex,” “with great depth,” words usually reserved for artistic success and commercial failure. Billy and the Pumpkins achieved both, as did his next group, Zwan…. In this inside look at this own artistic unfolding, Billy discusses...
Jun 25, 2020•33 min
Spiritual conversations often emphasize the importance of overcoming our resistance and accepting the world for what it is, exactly as it is. However, there are times when we don’t need to overcome our resistance, we need to fully inhabit our resistance. We can’t simply accept what is, we need to put ourselves on the line for what can and should be. How can we bring more mindfulness, skillfulness, and embodiment to our resistance, even while seeing everything as always-already perfect? And what ...
Jun 19, 2020•1 hr 27 min
Although there are many facets to this wonderful discussion, the central idea is that there are masculine and feminine expressions of Spirit, whose respective qualities are often referred to as consciousness and light, agency and communion, solar and lunar, Emptiness and Manifestation, Freedom and Fullness. Both the masculine and feminine types develop through three basic stages or levels. David refers to these three basic stages by many different names, including gross, subtle, and causal; prec...
Jun 18, 2020•1 hr 39 min
The creator of some of the most transcendent art of our time explores why it is necessary to go beyond the faded postmodern milieu of today’s art world, how psychedelics can play a role in discovering and manifesting one’s deeper realms of being, and how the “two kinds of higher” can impact artists and their work. In the foreword to Alex’s book The Mission of Art, Ken stated: “Alex Grey might be the most significant artist alive.” At first glance, this can appear to be pure hyperbole, expressing...
Jun 11, 2020•2 hr 37 min
Caroline Myss, one of the best known (and highly researched) medical intuitives, presents a fast, wild, rich, and rollicking narrative of her personal struggles with spiritual intuition and the dramatic growth and unfolding that often resulted. Caroline begins with a compelling account of how she came to a fundamental change in her own spiritual understanding and teaching: not that people need to learn how to be more intuitive, but that people are already abundantly intuitive but spend their tim...
Jun 04, 2020•1 hr 7 min
Rick Rubin has produced some of the most influential and creative albums of the past two decades, from artists such as The Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slayer, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Nine Inch Nails, Audio Slave, Jay-Z, Saul Williams—and the list just keeps on going. But what kind of producer works as easily with Johnny Cash as with Nine Inch Nails? And what kind of producer has Johnny covering a NIN song? Quite simply, a produc...
May 28, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Distilled from the profound teachings of the Christian contemplative heritage, Centering Prayer has aimed to bring a living spirituality into an age where God is typically reduced to the New-Age vicissitudes of emotionality, if not simply pronounced dead. Listen as Fr. Thomas Keating and Ken Wilber discuss the remarkable history and importance of Centering Prayer. Father Thomas Keating has been a key figure in the Centering Prayer movement since its early beginnings in the 1970s. Distilled from ...
May 21, 2020•40 min
“Integral doesn’t tell us what to believe, it tells us how to believe.” —Corey deVos It’s harder than ever these days to tell fact from fiction. Our lives have become so inundated with information — some good, some bad, most biased, all partial — at the end of the day it can be hard for some people to tell up from down. And as we spend more and more of our time on the deconstructive postmodern platforms of social media, truth becomes increasingly fragmented and balkanized and reduced to all sort...
May 19, 2020•1 hr 36 min
The Integral European Conference is quickly approaching! And what’s more, you can attend from the comfort of your own home. Integral Europe has gone global, as COVID-19 has forced the IEC event planners to shift gears and move to a 100% streaming conference. While it is unfortunate that the conference will not feature the face-to-face community experiences that integral events are so well known for, it is also exciting to think of all the people who may not have been able to attend a live event ...
May 19, 2020•45 min
Here we feature a selection of performances by Saul Williams, including live recitals of several of his most well-loved pieces — Black Stacey, Sha-Clack-Clack, Twice the First Time, and Telegram — as well as a collaboration between Saul and Stuart Davis on a track titled “Easter”.
May 14, 2020•24 min
Art as contemplation. Poetry as incantation. Relationship as enlightenment. Such are the words and experiences of Saul Williams. Though digitized, synthesized, and edited into bit-sized segments, the man and the trans-man-transmission are as clear as ever. Here you will find a stream of consciousness shared between two conscious brothers exchanging soul-symbols over copper wires, molding verbal form to the demands of that which cannot be expressed, and yet must be. As Saul says in “Untimely Medi...
May 14, 2020•28 min
Robert Kegan, the author of The Evolving Self and In Over Our Heads, explores the vital role of interior development in creating a more inclusive and integrated world, as well as the importance of the appropriate use of discriminating awareness. Robert Kegan is a founding member of Integral Institute and the author of the critically acclaimed books The Evolving Self, In Over Our Heads, and How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work. Bob is also the first-ever Meehan Professor of Adult Learni...
May 07, 2020•52 min
In this classic dialogue — so classic, in fact, it was the very first dialogue we ever published! — Stuart Davis discusses his music and creative process in intimate detail and offers an intimate performance of 8 of his songs, including a incredibly touching version of “Swim”, based on the death of Treya Killam Wilber.
Apr 30, 2020•1 hr 10 min
We live in an infinitely creative universe — and with every passing moment we have the option to actively and consciously participate with that creativity. We can either follow the familiar rhythms of our own habituations and comforts, or we can make a different choice altogether — we can do something new, something unpredictable, something that allows this creative novelty to work through our own nervous system and spill new forms of beauty into the rest of the world. Because we are all artists...
Apr 20, 2020•1 hr 23 min
Habituation is the enemy of growth. It is rare for any circumstance to force us completely out of our accumulated habits, patterns, and comfort zones — which is exactly what is happening right now, as people all over the globe are having to drastically alter their lifestyles and livelihood in response to the corona pandemic. The good news is, when this happens and our normal day-to-day inertias are interrupted, it’s also an opportunity to make new choices: to recognize the patterns that haven’t ...
Apr 06, 2020•1 hr 46 min
Robb Smith and Corey deVos discuss what's really going on deep in the heart of the world system as we get ready for The Transformation Age.
Apr 02, 2020•2 hr
Jeff Salzman takes a look at the Coronavirus pandemic, humanity’s response to it, and how the integral lens helps us see more clearly the myriad forces and opportunities rising out of this crisis — which increases our wisdom, compassion, and resilience while dealing with it.
Mar 27, 2020•28 min
“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.” —Richard P. Feyman “Let go of certainty. Th...
Mar 16, 2020•1 hr 25 min
All politics are personal. But does that mean we need to take it so personally? In this episode of Inhabit, Ryan and I explore ways to bring more embodied awareness and skillful discernment to our political lives, overcoming the corrosive and often paralyzing effects that both our cynicism and our idealism can have upon our political decisions and our willingness to engage our most fundamental civic responsibilities. Watch as Ryan and I discuss: - How to remain an idealist when the world constan...
Feb 24, 2020•1 hr 10 min
Jeff Salzman talks to Bence Ganti, the driving force behind the upcoming Integral European Conference, a major six-day event for the Integral community which will commence on May 26th at the Azur Resort at Lake Balaton in Hungary. This fourth biennial conference will be the biggest and most comprehensive yet, with over 700 participants from 50 countries. Titled Global Integral Awakens, the conference will offer 250 programs on a wide range of integral issues, from contemporary politics to organi...
Feb 16, 2020•34 min
Without wisdom, knowledge becomes dangerous. This is as true for integral knowledge as it is any other. When our knowledge so far outpaces our wisdom, we can fall in all sorts of traps — including know-it-all arrogance, spiritual bypassing, self-aggrandizing mysticism, bad interpersonal hygiene, and possibly even diabetes and tooth decay. This can be a challenge for all communities, including the integral community. Especially when we are living at a time when information is so overabundant. We ...
Feb 10, 2020•1 hr 6 min
In this free discussion, Ryan and Corey offer some simple practices and perspectives to help keep us grounded and engaged during this transition not only into a new year, but into a whole new decade, with a whole new set of possibilities, challenges, and life conditions emerging all around us. Whenever our environment changes around us, even something as simple as the calendar moving into a new year, it’s an opportunity to also do some work to change our interiors. We tend to move naturally into...
Dec 20, 2019•1 hr 2 min
