Author Archives: Josh Simon

It is interesting how religion is discussed in Integral terms as a conveyor belt to accommodate and broaden the practitioners’ understandings at each and every Stage from Magenta on up through even third tier. In my opinion that is a key feature of religion’s purpose as we go forward into the future. Why else would you have it? Contemplating this further and applying it to another area, why couldn’t the Martial Arts be a conveyor belt as well? Granted, most arts focus on certain martial Lines of development, like sparring, kata, breaking, chi, etc. whereas religion expressly focuses on the Spiritual Line of development.… Read more...

Last night in my class, we spent time playing with the State I referred to as “Mind of Moon” in my last blog post. What was interesting was that we discovered more about the various Stages through which Mind of Moon progresses and how it is experienced differently by different students. Earlier I offered the possibility that Mind of Moon was a gross State, like waking, because it involves interacting with the waking world, and well, because you do it while you are awake! It is not something that is done necessarily during meditation, and certainly not during sleep. Nevertheless, this State has a progression.… Read more...

General Integral Theory acknowledges any number of States, but particularly focuses on the ones that everyone has access to when it gives examples: waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep, witnessing, and non-dual consciousness. Being able to put yourself into these States is not so much a matter of what Stage you are at, but more a matter of how practiced you are at getting into these (and other) States. On the other hand, the way you perceive each of these States and which State your central identity clings to changes very much depending on your Stage. How does this work in Martial Arts?… Read more...

Vacation is a wonderful time to kick back and contemplate. I just returned from a rather enjoyable session this past week. Activities included hanging out in Miami enjoying the sun and sand, trying to clarify my thoughts of what I’m trying to convey about “Integralizing” Martial Arts, and how those thoughts could be made more useful to those involved with teaching and studying their respective “Ways”. The focus of these meditations was a simple question: What evidence is there that people have used (or are using) Martial Arts for spiritual development, and how far back does it go?

History was never my best subject, but I did find some pretty definitive evidence going back centuries.… Read more...

In the course of my career, I have been a researcher trying to publish new ideas to the scientific community. At this point I probably have a little over 30 publications in various scientific journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, and non-peer reviewed articles in trade magazines, and that does not count thoughts I have blogged or white papers I have written. Through all of this writing I have learned that new ideas are difficult to come by. Even if you apply a seemingly new idea to your area of research, you often find that the idea is not new. Whether you figured it out or not on your own, someone probably did it already!… Read more...