EVOLVING WORLDVIEWS, EXPANDING SELF

Tracing the most general contours of psycological growth, this scheme highlights the fact that increasing consciuosness corresponds to a broadening of worldviews and an expansion of one's sense of self:

Egocentric ("me"): A stage characterized by narcissistic self-absorption, bodily needs and desires, emotional outbursts, unsocialized impulses and an incapacity to take the role of the "other'; seen todat predominantly in infants and young children, rebellious teens, wild rock stars and criminals (infrared to red).

Ethnocentric ("us"): An expansion of self identity to include one's family, peers, tribe, race, faith group or nation; the adoption of socially conformist rules and roles; commonly seen in children aged seven to adolescence, traditional religious myths and fundamentalism, the "moral majority," Nazis, the KKK, right-wing politics, patriotrism, sports teams, school rivalries (amber).

Worldcentric ("all of us"): An even greater expansion of self to embrace all people, regardless of race, gender, class or creed; a stage of rationality that questions rigid belief systems and transcends conventional rules and roles; commonly seen in late adolescence, social activism, multiculturalism, science, moral relativism, liberal politics, the "global vallage', interfaith spirituality; the emergence of integral cognition (orange to teal).

Kosmocentric ("all that is"): An identificaction with all life and consciousness, human or otherwise, and a deeply felt responsability for the evolutionary process as a whole; "super-integral" cognition and values; innate universal morality; nondual spirituality fusing being and becoming; an emergent capacity, rarely seen anywhere (turquoise to clear light).

(Excerpt taken from "The leading Edge of the Leading Edge" a discussion with Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber. "What is Enlightment?" Magazine. Oct-Dec issue.)