A eulogy for Ken Wilber

    I was at the Integral Theory Conference last weekend, and noticable in his absence was Ken Wilber.  I have a few words for him... I don't personally know him, but I know a lot of people with a Ken Wilber Number of 1 (mine's 2, I'm afraid), so maybe one of them could pass this on to cheer him up.

    Ken, I understand why you would have chosen not to come... your presence would have changed the focus of every room you were in.  Certainly, if I had been presenting, I would have found it difficult to do so with you sitting there.  Kind of like trying to teach something about physics with Stephen Hawking sitting in on the lecture.

    But many people I spoke to didn't give that for the reason you didn't attend.  They suggested that your health was failing.  The crucial sentence usually looked something like this:

    She had been laughing just a moment ago, but suddenly her eyes changed mood, her mouth pursed, and as she looked at the floor she said, "You know, Ken's health is declining."

    Or something like that... I saw a few variants, but they were all around the same thing.  The thing is, we all know that you had grand mal seizures last year, and there was that overblown scare over the Internet a few months ago where we all thought you were going to die soon but it turned out that you just weren't feeling well at the time.  And we've heard for years now that you were really sick and were about to depart this world at various times.  It's getting to be like the boy who cried wolf, wrapped up in a strange game of Telephone where someone repeats something that someone else said, and who knows what's even true anymore?

    It seems like your health is a fairly large issue in terms of people believing that the Integral world is moving forward.  It's as if things seem stalled while we're all waiting for you to get well, or, well, transcend and include this lifetime.  Given that, I'd like to propose the "Ken Wilber Health Status" graphic on the front page of IntegralLife.com.  It could be something simple, maybe like the Smokey the Bear signs outside of parks that tell you whether the fire danger is low (green), medium (yellow), or high (red).  Perhaps we could do it like the United States five-color warning system... you know, green, blue, yellow, orange, red.

    Ken Wilber Health Advisory: Yellow -- Elevated threat of Ken kicking the bucket.

    I guess we could do the Red, Amber, Orange, Green, Teal, Turquoise thing.  Clear Light would be, you know, clear light.

    Oh, wait, I was going to do a eulogy.

    So, in the middle of all of this, I remembered your heartbreakingly beautiful Letter to Huston Smith and I, too, have lost those I loved suddenly, so if you're going, before you go, I just wanted to say a few things to you.

    Ken, I love you.  As James Taylor sometimes says when someone in the audience shouts that, "Good.  I think it helps us not to know each other."

    But it's true.  You have been the inspiration that has moved my life from the gray wanderings of post-Existential confusion into the full acceptance, faith in, and finally direct knowledge of the mystic truth that lies at the heart of all spiritual traditions, and along the way I've learned an enormous amount about so  many topics like philosophy, psychology, spiritual knowledge beyond my own culture, systems theory, post-modernism, and how often 20-somethings have their thought-streams interrupted by thinking about sex.

    I've read every word you've ever released to the public.  Because of you, I've taken much deeper dives into many of the writers, thinkers, and areas that you highlight in your brilliant syntheses.  My life is enriched by their work.

    I have also taken up a meditation practice, rendered so much more important by the week I spent in retreat with Dan Brown, with whom you co-wrote Transformations of Consciousness.  He is a powerful teacher transmitting only the clearest of awareness, and my life would not have been blessed with his wisdom were it not for you.

    As I spend more and more of my time relaxed from my defense mechanisms, able to be simply and to see everything around me as Emptiness (although not all of the time, yet), I see directly that which you have pointed all of us to for decades; not as mental constructs of what I think you mean, but as direct perception which allows me to share in the One Consciousness that underlies all of our experiences.

    I lead with the cognitive, and without the bridge you provide, I don't know how I could have made it to this other shore which is not-other at all.  No one has explained the spiritual and mystic in such logical terms before.  No one has made it this obvious to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that East and West, Being and Thought, Meditation and Action all stand not in opposition to each other, but simply as different areas and perceptions of the same map.  For this incredible act of both creativity and genius, I bow deeply, in awe of that which you have created, in awe of the unfathomable blessings it will bestow on humanity for generations to come, as far into the future as we can imagine.

    Even with everything you've done, one thing stands out to me as the most amazing example of your Boddisatva vow: your decision to throw yourself into the public sphere and be at the center of Integral Institute to get it running.  As an introvert, I know what an unbelievable burden it must be to have to act like an extrovert for so many hours every day, day in and day out, for years.  The energy it takes to do that, the stamina, the mental strength and stability... they're too great to comprehend.  So many forget that you were the one who more or less locked himself alone in his house for three years writing a book... for someone who is capable of that kind of lifestyle to suddenly become the center of a swirling mass of people and attention is a sacrifice I will never forget that I witnessed.

    And for doing it all while not taking yourself too seriously, and for doing it with a sense of humor and deep love, I thank you for modeling the behavior that I aspire to and that I expect all those who follow in your footsteps will want to model as well.

    For all of this and so much more, I offer my deepest gratitude and love.

    And I wasn't kidding about the Ken Wilber Health Status graphic... c'mon, help us out a little.

Yours always,
Scott

    P.S. Have you gotten the healing energy I've been sending?  I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, but I'm trying, anyway.  If your dog seems to be acting funny... maybe that's me.