IEC Vienna Conference
April 18-19, 2017
www.integraleuropeanconference.com

Title: Unlocking Integral Spirituality: Exploring 1st Tier Oppressive Limitations, Experiencing 3rd Tier Support
by Isaac Portilla

EXPLORING… Value systems, psycho-social frameworks, and the belief systems that go with them, affect and limit our spiritual progress much more of what we would be ready to admit at a first glance.  Oppressive limitations are much more plausible in 1st Tier-dominated contexts.  Here are some examples:

(BLUE contexts) Within authoritarian or traditional environments, dogmas and extreme positions (yes or no, right or wrong) may question the validity of your experiences, progress, inclinations and discoveries (i.e., “if you fit, fair enough; if not, you are wrong”).  Also, non-mystical and non-experiential approaches to spirituality (quite more common in these contexts) tend to create ideas of the Divine far away from the definitions of the mystics and sages, not favoring the contemplative approach to spirituality.

(ORANGE contexts) If accustomed to competitive environments, it is likely your approach to spiritually will be effort-based, attainment-based, control-based, proof-based, and short-term oriented; these patterns put too much pressure for a balanced spiritual progress, may deny important spiritual principles and practices (e.g., faith, prayer, etc.), and could make you feel disoriented when starting to feel the need of trust, letting-go and surrender that spiritual awareness will surely demand.

(GREEN contexts) When used to relativistic, scientifically-suspicious and enquiry-evasive environments (i.e., “live and let live”), you may take very permissive, “politically correct,” or reductionist attitudes about spiritual topics (i.e., “all paths lead to the same goal,” “spirituality is just about living in the present moment,” or “just about realizing that we are all One”), a tendency which slowly but consistently obliterates all depth, beauty and evolutionary possibilities of spiritual experience.

In sum, if spirituality is a path of Truth, 1st Tier contexts are too often quite unwelcoming for it.
In this session we will explore how our exposition to these value systems is affecting our spiritual path and how these environments may condition our growth, helping each other to overcome these limitations and to move forward.

EXPERIENCING… The session will begin and end with a simple contemplative meditation, energetically heart-centered at the Overmind level (i.e., the third level of 3rd Tier in the current Integral AQUAL model and the beginning of the Supra-mental stage of Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga).  It is this level the one in which the descending Spirit affects directly the mental and vital-emotional aspects of our being, thus supporting the enquiry process and the liberation from oppressive limitations that we will explore.
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The process goes as follows: from down the “spiral” or “double-helix” we are Exploring and Releasing through a bottom-up enquiry the Oppressive Limitations, and from up the “spiral” or “double-helix” we are Supporting top-down the process, thus Unlocking the Integral Core, so that we can have a context which facilitates an open enquiry into spiritual subjects and spirituality can develop as a liberated science.
© 2017 Isaac Portilla