There are many ways of thinking about Integral Wisdom, and we’ll be exploring its meaning in our blogs and courses. On our website, it is described as “the ancient and universal wisdom. It is, in so far as it can be described in words, the Divine Wisdom, the literal manifestation of the Logos – the Divine Word."
This emphasises the Divine source and authority of Integral wisdom, beyond the human mind. As such it is the expression and application of eternal principles and ideals, cosmic law and order, sometimes known as the dharma. It goes on to say “It does not belong exclusively to any particular time in history, nor to any particular system of teaching; rather it is the totality of all wisdom of all time which has so far been expressed on the plane of human consciousness.”
Integral Wisdom thus belongs to the whole of humanity, in every era, and every place. It suggests an uncovering of a reality that is already there, to be discovered in the depths of every human soul, and expressed in the world.
Put another way, it is the wisdom of expanded states of human consciousness, that are in harmony with the Divine Truth, Goodness, Beauty and Unity. Integral signifies complete, whole, and comprehensive. It includes all the essential things that make it whole and perfect. Wisdom is sometimes described as the right application of knowledge. It’s the quality of good insight and discernment, experience, of understanding how to apply those eternal principles. Thus it brings together the ideas of God, Cosmos and Humanity; of Spirit, Soul and Body; of the heart, mind, and will; the ideals of Goodness, Truth, Beauty and Unity.
Contemporary philosophical descriptions of integral wisdom outline four perspectives, relating to the Individual and the Collective, Interior and Exterior, summed up as ‘I & It, We & Its’. An integral perspective thus holds the polarities and paradoxes of different standpoints – the Above & Below, Eternity & Time, Intangible and Tangible, Inner and Outer, Being and Doing.
The great teachers of the past and present always say: if you want to find wisdom you must look within. Pythagoras, in the 6th century BC, was the first to call himself a ‘philosopher’ – which literally means a lover of wisdom (philo in Greek = love; sophia = wisdom). He did not claim to be wise himself – since only the gods are truly wise.
