I don't have to agree with everything you say, but I should attempt at least to understand it, for the opposite of mutual understanding is, quite simply, war.

Start as a human being in this culture, toss in madness, toss in mystical states, toss in being gay, toss in being HIV-positive, toss in religion that assures you God hates you for all of that - and then look me in the eye and tell me you can feel ok about yourself. I dare you. I just dare you.

Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant manifestation of Spirit. All Forms are not other than Emptiness, including the form of the ego. It is not necessary to get rid of the ego, but simply to live with it a certain exuberance.

"Integrative" simply means that this approach attempts to include as many important truths from as many disciplines as possible-from East as well as the West, from premodern and modern and postmodern, from the hard sciences of physics to the tender sciences of spirituality.

But the real intent of my writing is not to say, you must think in this way. The real intent is to enrich: here are some of the many important facets of this extraordinary Kosmos; have you thought of including them in your worldview? My work is an attempt to make room in the Kosmos for all the dimensions, levels, domains, waves, memes, modes, individuals, cultures, and so on ad infinitum.

Unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life are not signs of mental illness, but of growing intelligence.

The basic idea of integral transformative practice (ITP) is simple: the more aspects of our being that we simultaneously exercise, the more likely that transformation will occur.