The Spiritual Path of The Construct Aware

The Spiritual Path of the "Strategist moving into Construct Aware" (Susanne Cook Greuter's 9 Stages of Ego Development Theory) 

What is The Evolutionary Bridge (Podcast)?

Welcome to The Evolutionary Bridge (Podcast), a space mapping the complex territory of spiritual awakening and human consciousness by weaving together advanced developmental models with the lived experience of Non-Duality. Each episode offers a grounded, jargon-free guide to navigating modern life and inner expansion, honoring your ultimate autonomy to lead your own journey with discernment.

Caleb: 00:00

Hi. Welcome to the Evolutionary Bridge audio podcast. I have a YouTube channel, but I'm deciding to try audio only because I get the feeling that a lot of people will wanna listen to deep things while they're doing their everyday stuff. And it also puts less workload on me, so it could be a win win. Nonetheless, today, I'm just talking about, you know, some things I've been going through, some challenges I've been facing.

Caleb: 00:47

And it's probably not a common experience, but there's people out there that are struggling in the same ways. And for other people, it just may seem crazy what I'm gonna talk about in this episode. But nonetheless, we're conditioned in society, especially in America, to believe that there's a world external from our internal world. What I've experienced in my life is that that's not the case. That it's more connected, the internal world and the external world, than I was conditioned to believe.

Caleb: 01:49

And to go even deeper, it's like the limit to language. You know, I I think of it as if you have an apple and, like, you really want an apple and, know, you write apple down on a piece of paper, that it's not the actual apple that will give you nutrition. It's just words on a piece of paper. And one of the things that I'm struggling with in this transition from, if you look at integral theory, from I guess yellow to turquoise or the stages model of Terry O'Fallon from 5.5 to six point from 4.5 to five point zero, from Suzanne Cooke Reuter's model, from the strategist to the construct aware. These are some of the paradoxes that I'm struggling with.

Caleb: 02:55

Because how do I navigate the world when I realize that the map is not the territory. I mean, language is so embedded in the human experience. To start to see the limits of language makes that feeling and that sensation and that experience of life ungrounded and kind of feels like a free fall. Because language goes all the way deeper to, you know, if someone says, how do you feel? And then you say, oh, I feel anxious.

Caleb: 03:43

Well, how do you know you feel anxious? Well, that word anxious is just like right in the word apple. But the territory is the sensation in the body. And in comparison, it's like eating that apple as a territory. But many people are lost in the map, the linguistic filter.

Caleb: 04:22

It's kind of like putting on a pair of glasses, sunglasses, regular glasses, doesn't matter. And the language, the limits of language, the linguistic filter that society in the world is built upon is like a smudge in the glasses, and it's obstructing my view of the direct experience. And then how do you get help? How do you get support when you have this realization? Because a lot of science and a lot of conventional and even post conventional modalities of things to do with language have not reached this point.

Caleb: 05:21

So a lot of people will think that what I'm saying is crazy. They might think it's a psychotic episode. They may think it's too woo woo or out there or ultimately just impractical. And the paradoxical thing is when I was in their shoes, the people that have those strong opinions and strong viewpoints, I would have looked at what I say and struggle with now through the same lens. I would have looked at it the same way or very similar And I would have had many people around me to confirm my belief that it does sound illogical.

Caleb: 06:13

But now that I've experienced it and I'm going through it, I realize that you can have millions of people, billions of people believe in the same thing, but doesn't mean it's true. And that's a scary and reassuring thing. And even the paradox that hold in two seemingly contradictory emotions or sensations at once. You know, it's We hear a lot about spiritual journeys and, you know, get rid of the ego and love and light and it's all positivity and But what's really being said is don't look at the bad, don't look at the dark, don't look at the challenges, don't look at the struggles. Just stay in the light.

Caleb: 07:27

But that's a sense of duality in itself. And I'm more interested in integrating the two. But this time it feels different. It feels like a little bit of a play, like a detached light touch. Because on one hand, I see that it's all a game.

Caleb: 07:53

It's the play of forms. On the other hand, it's necessary and vital to play the forms. So in a sense, I'm a character on a stage and the stage is life. And I am required to play my part very well. But even playing my part very well can be challenging if I'm aware that I'm playing my part while I'm playing it.

Caleb: 08:30

It's like self awareness on self awareness. And even more paradoxical that I find in my direct experience is that I'm more efficient and I'm more in flow on the outside. While on the inside I feel like I jumped out of a plane and there's no ground. They don't talk about that too much in spiritual communities. And then it makes me think about the ego.

Caleb: 09:09

Why do we need to get rid of the ego? To me, it feels and I sense the ego as being like a small child. And this small child wants the world to be okay, wants to feel safe, wants to feel protected, wants to feel grounded before it even thinks about exploring complexity and advanced perspectives of reality and ultimate reality and wants to feel grounded and rooted and safe and protected. And what if that's the ego on an energetic wave that we all have? And when we go to spiritual communities and hear spiritual talks that a lot of these spiritual teachers are saying, Don't listen to that child.

Caleb: 10:16

That child is an illusion. That child is not important. That child is getting in the way of enlightenment. But that there's something within me that doesn't feel like that's authentic. It feels like a sense of trying to get rid of the really thing that's causing it.

Caleb: 10:43

It's like trying to get rid of the ego with the ego. Enlightenment, I would imagine, would be not only supporting and protecting and grounding that child within us, or you can also call it the ego, but also letting it explore. Letting it bump into things, letting it get hurt, and still letting it know that you're there. And maybe that's the centaur approach of half man, half God. Head in the clouds, feet firmly planted in the ground.

Caleb: 11:27

But even all these things that I'm saying, these different analogies and possibilities, there's still a language. I'm trying to describe the apple. But maybe this is a little bit different. Maybe I need to try to describe the apple so well to the point where I can actually start to taste it. From the research I've done, it sounds like this challenge and struggle gives a really alone feeling, like a sense of aloneness, a sense of being one with everything and alone at the same time.

Caleb: 12:29

And it's not like I can use words or analogies to give this subjective experience to someone else. As nice as that would be, It's impossible through language. So there has to be something deeper. There has to be something more nuanced because there is this energetic field that I sense. And I've said, you know, if I could give this awareness back, I would.

Caleb: 13:15

But recently, I'm not so sure. Because what I'm wanting to give back has always been there. It was just outside of my awareness. So I can't give back what I already have. And on one hand this can sound like me just saying all these different things like chasing my own tail.

Caleb: 13:54

But it doesn't feel that way to me. And it's kinda like one of those things where it's so funny until it happens to you. And it feels very serious. But what else am I gonna do? Yeah.

Caleb: 14:33

I mean, you and even if you think like, oh, what if you just end it? You can't end something that's always been there. Yeah. The body might go, but the deeper energetic sensed and direct experience doesn't go. And it's not like I just read this in the book, all this stuff in a book one weekend, and I was just regurgitating it and having these mental gymnastics or this armchair philosophy.

Caleb: 15:25

I've struggled with these different things since I was a child. When I was five years old, six years old, in kindergarten. I had this non dual experience and I didn't know why I had it or what it was. I didn't even know it was a non dual experience. I just felt one with everything and I was aware of it.

Caleb: 15:52

And then when I came out of it, felt like a grieving process because I realized that everything is not as absolutely real as many people or most people believe it to be. That it's relatively real, but it's not absolutely real. And that I'll have to keep it to myself in terms of not speaking it. And it's kinda funny because that realization you can't I can't keep to myself because everybody has it. They haven't discovered it.

Caleb: 16:49

Well, that's it for this episode. I guess you could say this episode is on language and the limits of it. Thank you for listening if you made it this far, and you might be interested in my YouTube channel.