Document Type
Audio File
Publication Date
2013
Abstract
To be integrated and to be integral are both stages in parts of being. I say “stages” because I believe being is essentially “becoming”. Being never ceases to become as life never ceases to be but continues to express and develop itself further in other lives and thoughts. All our thoughts, feelings and acts, be they atrocious or be they benign, cause countless ripples in the minds of others, contemporary as well as future, due to the unstoppable process of biological-social evolution. Our ways of being unceasingly generate newer ways of being and thus never really die but forever “become”. For our being to be locked inside a shell is an aberration, a disability; such misfortunes can be sought to be remedied or otherwise contained by the more fortunate who manifest the gift of a free soul. The transformative process cannot come to an end upon attaining any particular stage labeled “integral”.
There is no final when it comes to consciousness. Even as the “sat” (being) attains “chit” (consciousness) and becomes “ananda” (joy), it still continues to “be”, and to be is to be manifest, to oneself and to others. To be is to give light, be it the subdued glow of trembling embers, or the flicker of a lamp or the radiance of the sun. As manifest, an integral being remains subject to exposure, in its own lifetime and into the indefinable future. Its exposure is a part of proving itself, through further integration of what comes to pass and may come to pass as time goes by. Time is the Queen and being and becoming are her ways to be.
Thus, the bliss of integral being may not be the unsullied joy and peace of an imperturbable whole absorbed in its all-inclusive state of rest. The bliss of an integral way of being is the joy of being available to become a part of other souls in various stages of their evolution and the ever-readiness to undergo further integration in the process.
Recommended Citation
Sen, Karabi, "To Be Integrated and to Be Integral" (2013). Founders Symposium. 33.
https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/founderssymposium/33
Comments
Karabi Sen, PhD, taught philosophy at BurdwanUniversity in India until she moved to America as an Adjunct Faculty at the CIIS. She currently works as a Reader for Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J. She is a retired Resource Specialist from Modesto City Schools, Modesto, California. She lives in California and India.