the term "integral"

written 8/1999

There is something that feels to me pretentious about using the term "integral". I don't try and live an integral life. I live and my integrality is a result of my integratedness and that is ever changing moment to moment, open to the silence and divine will in action in conjunction with the totality of all conditions.

I used to say marriage is not a goal; it is a result of the love and subsequent commitment two share. Integral is a result of the unity one feels with beingness as connected to the whole. I'm not knocking the maps for some but there is a point that the assumptions, preconceptions and fear of the unknown that fuel them can bar the recognition of a deeper truth and impetus.

Facing the Past with Present-Moment Awareness

Re: Repentance=Rebirth

Posted by Ellen on Jan-3-01 3:57pm
(In reply to: Repentance=Rebirth posted by Jana on Jan-3-01 11:31am)

"Repentence isn't sorrow for the past. The past is dead and isn't worth a moments grief. Repentance is a change of mind, a radically different vision of Reality." Anthony De Mello

Actions out of that change in awareness, may bring about a balance to and congruence with one's relationships. This may entail facing with others in a new light where the past is presently active as a divisive or distorting factor. I would agree not to waste energy on the past and to recreate now but feel a responsibilty towards the realities created from a presently active past. In that sense the past is not dead, until it is faced with the light of present moment awareness.

I say this (or am sensitive to this) because I have known people who have abused others in their relationships, have a shift in awareness and change their behaviour from now on, though totally divorced from and in denial of the past and the reverberations of their past behaviour (stemming from a conscious disconnect and sense of separation from the world around them - and at an even more essential and emotional level, with themselves). I would not invalidate their shift in awareness or their "radically different vision of reality" but say that it had not integrated to the level of the heart (as one heart)and their own self-forgiveness so as to be able to face the past with themselves and therefore others. This extends to being limited in their authenticity through relationship in the present moment too. In that sense, this new light may be overshadowed by a presently active past calling for the attention of love through its shadow reverberations.