Writing Your Spiritual Biography
Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Showing Up
Introduction
There is much to be gained by reflecting upon your spiritual path in life so far. In our latest Telling Your Life Story class at we discussed this topic in detail. (class video)
Scientists tell us every cell in our body carries a unique DNA code: 1) to bring the cell to maturity and reproduction, and 2) to bring the cell into harmony and integration with the entire organism. It’s part of God’s design.
As in the physical realm, so in the spiritual realm. God has placed within every person an individual destiny of maturity and reproduction and a corporate destiny to integrate with the whole of mankind. Transformed people seek to find their place of service to help transform the world.
During this present season of spiritual awakening, it is helpful to have a framework that can orient our spiritual practice and our progress. Author, philosopher and futurist Ken Wilbur introduced a frame into the Integral lexicon called “wake up, grow up, clean up, show up”. This simple framework has gone viral and many have benefited from its use.
The Ego’s Cycle of Birth, Growth and Death
Before dissecting these four stages of spiritual development in more detail, it is helpful to look at the Big picture — the ark of consciousness development from birth to death.
Hospice nurse and author Kathleen Singh offers some excellent insights in her classic book THE GRACE IN DYING: A Message of Hope, Comfort and Spiritual Transformation.
At our birth we slowly begin to develop our ego or self-image and at our death (or as a result of spiritual practices) we finally must let go of our ego, according to Kathleen. A sort of “enlightenment at gunpoint.”
Our earliest experience as an infant is a magical time of connection, with both our mother/father as well as with our Creator. This is state of Divine union reflects our original goodness, purity and total surrender. It is this luminosity that is perceived and experienced in the presence of a new-born infant which parents witness at this earliest stage of self which evokes love.
As we grow, the ego-self moves toward increasing differentiation, a dawning sense of me. This developing consciousness of the child establishes the “First Dualism” between self and not-self — very relevant because it also represents the final letting go stage of the dying.
This First Dualism launches us into a lifetime journey into ego building and spawns our concept of space and time. We begin to make distinctions between past, present, and future, which births the “Second Dualism” — the distinction between life and death.
These first two dualisms, which develop in early childhood, seek to divide and separate everything, our thoughts from our feelings, thus removing us from experiencing wholeness and the unquestioning place of Love from which we came.
Next comes the “Third Dualism” — between mind and body which is usually developed in the early to middle childhood years. According to Singh, “The loss is immense. We lose our deep integrity, the unity of body and mind, which is the unity of feeling and attention — the ability to be present.”
The “Fourth Dualism” — our persona, is division between our acceptable self-image and the shadow self, which consists of all the parts of our self that we cannot see or that we disown.
“Our personal consciousness believes in its apparent independence and self-control.” In early adulthood years “we become lost in our own dramas; we forget our Original Nature and goodness,” writes Singh.
It is most interesting that the healthy ego-building of the first half of life is followed by a healthy ego-decline in the second half of life. Elders are able to see this full cycle of life from a much broader perspective and therefore have much to share with youngers that can help them become whole humans rather than dualistically fragmented, as so many are. (For more details on this cycle of life see Telling Your Life Story video class 10).
1) WAKING UP
According to Ken Wilbur, whether conscious of it or not, all members of humanity have the heart-desire to return Home; to return to the glorious abode of Ultimate Reality.
All human beings have an intrinsic desire to know the single, indivisible, Great Sphere of Love from which, into which, and as which all of existence shines forth. All human beings have the desire and opportunity to “wake up”.
Within the context of Integral Theory, “waking up” relates to various state-stages of consciousness. As one awakens, one’s exclusive identification with superficial layers of reality are dismantled. One moves beyond an exclusive identification with thought — to the non-dual base of awareness; a base that naturally and spontaneously manifests as all relative form.
Waking up to this base awareness is fundamental to the New Civilization now emerging on Earth. Waking up to this single sphere, always already perfect exactly as it is, must be our most prominent priority.
2) GROWING UP
Waking up to the true nature of Reality is only part of our duty. The single abode of Awakened Awareness, intrinsically good by its very nature, shines forth and refracts through manifold aspects of Itself. This refraction of perfect light forms seemingly individual constellations of consciousness.
We commonly call these relative vortices of consciousness “selves”. We give them names, social status, and roles. In Integral circles, we even say that each self has Four Quadrants, with various degrees of developmental capacity and a whole matrix of qualities.
Each unique expression deserves our recognition. Each unique expression deserves dignity and respect. Everything you are, and everything you do, either enhances or dampens the potential of Reality to express itself through you, as you, for the benefit of the whole.
The more we “grow up” through varying structures of consciousness the more perspectives we can take, the more complexity we can hold, and the more care we can release in the world. A commitment to “growing up”, in all dimensions of life, becomes a sacred vow one takes to allow Reality to incarnate through us to the fullest degree possible.
3) CLEANING UP
In a similar way, the more integrated each of us is, the more whole and psychologically healthy we are, the less dusty the glass is in our stained glass window of life. The less dusty our window, the more brightly the Light of Reality can shine. This means we all have a responsibility to “clean up” anything that might be clouding our transmission.
If the process of “growing up” helps to provide more tools in the toolkit of life, “cleaning up” gives us more refined skills and more potent energy for how we actually use those tools. At a certain point in practice, we no longer do psychological work for our own benefit. Rather, because we know that Reality can touch more people through us the cleaner we are, we clean up to be of deeper service.
Cleaning up shadows and integrating all relative dimensions of self allows us to purify the signal from Source as it broadcasts out into the world.
4) SHOWING UP
Finally, all of this, whether we speak of waking up, growing up, or cleaning up, is used in service of the whole. The entire frame is just a skillful way to catalyze your maximum potential to “show up” in all of your glory, as a true emanation of Source.
As we move beyond individual paradigms of isolation and separation, humanity will more fully discover the power and potential of shared unified intention. Then with this understanding at heart and with each of us exemplifying a unique expression of intrinsic unity, “We” can, together, rain-down the blessings on the Earth that we have come here to give.
May this be an invitation and activation of all that necessary for us to show up together as the single unified force of Reality that we truly are. Wake up. Grow up. Clean up. Show up. We explore each of these concepts in detail throughout the book The Coming Waves: Evolution, Transformation and Action in an Integral Age.
Free Resources
For additional help on writing your memoirs and autobiography here is a link to a free workbook, The Story of Your Life.
Kathleen also has a fantastic book in the series entitled The Grace in Aging which is highly recommend reading for everyone ages 50 and up.
May we all gain greater self understanding and spiritual growth as we write our story down, both for healing of self and for our posterity.
Here is a humble song Tell Me The Story of Your Life, I wrote on the subject.
