The Inspiration Behind Integral
The cornerstone are the integral yoga teachings of Sri Aurobindo.
This philosopher-sage refers to the process of the union of all the parts of one's being with the Divine, and the transmutation of all of their jarring elements into a harmonious state of higher divine consciousness and existence.
Integral as explained by thinker Ken Wilber
"An integral approach is based on one basic idea: no human mind can be 100% wrong. Or, we might say, nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time. And that means, when it comes to deciding which approaches, methodologies, epistemologies, or ways or knowing are "correct," the answer can only be, "All of them."
That is, all of the numerous practices or paradigms of human inquiry — including physics, chemistry, hermeneutics, collaborative inquiry, meditation, neuroscience, vision quest, phenomenology, structuralism, subtle energy research, systems theory, shamanic voyaging, chaos theory, developmental psychology—all of those modes of inquiry have an important piece of the overall puzzle of a total existence that includes, among other many things, health and illness, doctors and patients, sickness and healing."
Forward to Integral Medicine: A Noetic Reader (2003) edited by Marilyn Schlitz & Tina Hyman
"I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace. To Freudians I say, Have you looked at Buddhism? To Buddhists I say, Have you studied Freud? Every approach, I honestly believe, is essentially true but partial."
Introduction, Collected Works of Ken Wilber, vol. VIII (2000)
What often happens if you study this integral map is that it begins to make room in your psyche, in your being, in your soul, for all the parts of you that were disowned, whether by society, your parents, your peers, whomever. An integral approach even makes room for those who did the disowning to you.
"Integral Spirituality in Real Life" (Beliefnet Essay 4)
Plato on Holistic Healing
"The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole. No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul.
Let no one persuade you to cure the head until he has first given you his soul to be cured, for this is the great error of our day, that physicians first separate the soul from the body."
