As I inquired into what capacities would make up an embodied and impactful 2nd Tier leader thru the research of developmental psychologists that have explored this tier of development, I came across nine markers¹ that would signify this particular typology² of leadership I am looking to support manifesting in the world-
Nonduality
Love
Commitment: Self-Actualization
Advanced Emotional Intelligence
Ego Coherence
Vision-logic
Worldview: Integral
Grand Purpose
Spiral Wizard
note: this list and the measurements below are a work in progress. Further research and sound boarding with people might change the markers and measurements. Some markers are difficult to find an operational measurement for (ie ego coherence). So, please take lightly - I leave this imperfection as a finger pointing in a certain broad direction. Like a finger pointing to the moon. No words can adequately represent reality. So these measurements are like a finger pointing in a certain direction of experience. To give us a general map and direction of where to head in training and embody individually.
Each of these 9 Markers have sub-markers or measurements that operationally define them and the criteria that would be necessary to embody this capacity.
1- NONDUALITY
2- LOVE
They experience unconditional love⁶:
3- COMMITMENT: SELF-ACTUALIZATION
A desire and commitment to embody the best version of yourself based on the standards of a number of models such as the great wisdom traditions (ie yoga, tantra, buddhism, christianity, etc) and developmental psychology.⁹ The standards are decided by the individual in sound boarding with peers.
4- ADVANCED EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Staying at the level of sensation and skill in body presencing.¹⁰
Can identify their feelings and needs and communicate them with another.
Emotional Range: they can experience a wide spectrum of emotions
Emotional Discernment around similar feelings.
Can live with uncertainty and ambiguity.
Because of access to nonduality, their identity is a transcend and include when experiencing emotions.¹¹
Light-heartedness
Higher-order Fear: can experience fear but not be lost in it; doesn't identify with it. Uses fear for discriminating wisdom.
Higher-order Anger: same as fear above. Is aware of the unmet need and unblends the object of anger from the unmet need, has fully owned this need. Once the need is owned and they are unblended, they can use the energy of anger for catalyzing and motivation.
5- EGO COHERENCE
Identity: their sense of ego and identity includes the nondual field. They experience the expansive impersonal self and personal self at the same time. Their center of identity lies 50% in the human and 50% in the 360 awareness center of experience.¹²
Capable of owning parts and integrating them into essence. ¹²
Can experience range of emotions and be centered in nondual ego¹³ at same time.
Ego Awakening:¹³ the human is integrated somewhat with nondual field (at least 1st level), especially while triggered or a possible blind spot being revealed by other.
Center of gravity: most of the time (80%) they are centered in nonduality with triggers (at least 1st level nonduality). Ok if they fall out 20% of time. Measurement: they are triggered and know they are triggered and in the background they know it is not about the other person, but about a need being unmet. They are not identifying with it completely. There is this awareness and some space even if they vent the trigger and act it out.
Humility is present.¹⁴
6- VISION-LOGIC
7- WORLDVIEW: INTEGRAL
Sees the value and positive purpose of all memes and its expressions. Sees the value of these stages of development.¹⁶
8- GRAND PURPOSE
Essence level of vision (later sub-levels, tapped into purpose). Something bigger than them, wanting to work towards solving the world’s problems in collaboration with others.¹⁷
Feels the emotional aliveness of their purpose in their heart 80% of time.
All areas of your life and activity is 80% of the time moving towards manifesting this vision.
You are achieving from fullness vs lack (ie results/progress/validation → self-worth) 80% of time.
9- SPIRAL WIZARD
There are 10 sub-markers:¹⁸
All the above markers, especially love, nonduality, vision-logic.
AQAL: Understands the basics of integral theory - 4 Quadrants, Lines of Development, Levels of Development, States, and Typologies & how to weave all this in the spiral.¹⁹
Sees the value and positive purpose of all memes and its expressions. Sees the value of these stages of development.²⁰
Truth: Take – Weigh – Synthesize – Bias: Seeing the possible truth in all perspectives and weighing them 1) if they are true; 2) in a hierarchy; Being able to weave multiple perspectives from people. Able to own bias and stay curious in certainty.
Weaving perspectives and people into an eco-system that may or may not be connected to one another in this system, but are connected to the spiral.
Able to create shared visions uniting people across various memes and expressions.
Has proficiency in Relational Epistemology.²¹
Can be in dynamic presence by enacting any of the memes’ expressions for a win-win intention and outcome.²²
Dynamic Power Relating²³
Coaching Capacities²⁴
NOTES -
¹ I am in the process of writing a white paper to document where I found these markers and the direct evidence for them in each of the lines of development I researched. Susanne Cook-Greuter's Ego Development, Clare Graves' Levels of Existence, Michael Common's Cognitive Intelligence, Don Beck/Chris Cowan's Spiral Dynamics, Robert Kegan's Order of Consciousness, and William Torbert's Leadership Development exemplify some of the research of developmental psychologists that I studied in determining the markers for 2nd Tier leadership.
² I chose leadership and in particular embodied leadership as the typology when determining which markers would apply and the corresponding sub-markers/measurements. An explanation on typologies in stage theory will put my proposed typology of an embodied 2nd Tier leader and the corresponding nine markers into more context.
Typologies can be defined by the following aspects:
Attribute Type
Trajectory: follows a common path thru all stages
Vertical: between stages
Horizontal: within stages
Integral Psychograph: combining lines of development
Later the Stage: More Numerous and Complex
ATTRIBUTE TYPE
Male or female is an example. Introvert and Extrovert is another. An attribute type might experience similar patterns within their own attribute (ie male), but experiences different patterns compared to another attribute type (ie female). These typologies are based on a range of defined attributes. Embodiment would be another example in contrast to a disembodied leader at 2nd Tier. Attribute types are included in all the following aspects of typologies below:
TRAJECTORY: follows a common path thru all stages
Cook-Greuter's ego development theory illustrates a journey of a normative typology and how it traverse the stages of development and will exhibit a similar range of attributes at each level. Normative meaning the substantial amount of people or normal distribution along a bell curve. So her ego development theory represents a particular typology of people who lie in the normal distribution of a statistical curve. Other typologies will have other pathways. (Cook-Greuter, Personal Communication, 2/21/20). So her theory can predict what attributes and capacities a typical person will have at each stage of development
She (2013) adds: "EDT provides us with one possible account of how individuals navigate the straits of human existence by using navigational lore, common sense, increasingly complex maps, algorithms, and intuition." (pg 13, italics and bold mine)
Even in a normative typology, not everyone will have all the markers of that stage.
"Let me make it clear at this point: ego stages are idealizations. They describe the ideal outcome of healthy development for each increase in perspective and integration at a new level. No individual fits all aspects of these descriptions." (pg 4, italics and bold mine)
VERTICAL: between stages
As discussed in what is 2nd Tier, every stage from a particular line of development has common attributes or markers that signify that stage. Perspective-taking exemplifies such a marker as someone traverses stage 1 and onward. They develop increasing capacities around taking views. At the preconventional level (stage 1-3), an individual exhibits mostly 1st person perspective taking. And then at stage 4, they are able to take on a 2nd person perspective, and so on. So each individual will embody a range of attributes (in this example, a level of perspective taking) from one level to the next, delineating their own typology. This gives an example of how typologies differ from one stage to the next.
HORIZONTAL: within stages
Another example of what defines a typology can be seen when we look at how different groups of people can exist at the same level. Using the cognitive and ego line of development, at stage 5 (orange), everyone embodies rationality as a cognitive intelligence marker. That would be a normative typology. But there are other typologies within this stage that encompass deeper levels of rationality such as an academic scholar who has been trained in rationality in deeper ways (ie critical thinking). So these two groups of individuals exemplify how different typologies can exist at the same level.
INTEGRAL PSYCHOGRAPH: combining lines of development
In integral stage theory, typologies can take a wider meaning when we include the integral psychograph, which illustrates where an individual is on various lines of development, not just one. Someone could be at stage 7 of cognitive intelligence but be at stage 4 on the values lines, and stage 3 on emotional intelligence. When we take all the lines of development together and assess where someone is at overall, then we begin to see more groups of individuals with similar psychographs, and thus represent new typologies.
LATER THE STAGE: more numerous and complex
In addition, typologies grow in complexity and numbers at each higher stage. More variable expressions exist. Cook-Greuter (2013) expounds on this point: "the later the stage, the more variability for unique self-expression exists..." (pg 3); and "as a rule we find that the later the stage, the more varied ways there are to embody that frame of mind as more and more capacities and resources come on board..." (pg 4)
So considering the above differing aspects and complexity of typologies as context, my proposed leadership typology is just one of many possible variants that can exist. Even in the leadership typology, every theorist could find their own criteria of what designates a leader at a particular stage of development and match it to the existing evidence of the research. So, many leadership typologies could theoretically exist. My criteria and the pattern of markers I found across multiple lines of research illustrates such a proposed theoretical line of development. I make no claims that my proposed typology is the best. I only suggest that it offers possible utility and impact value for the world.
How did I come to this proposed theoretical 2nd Tier leadership and the nine markers?
In my work and collaboration with peers over the years, I would meet people that had capacities (ie such as 5th person perspective-taking and some others) that really seemed to be remarkedly different from the norm and seem to be on the cutting edge. I got curious about what these specific capacities were and how it related to stage theory. As I looked at the research of various developmental psychologists (ie Cook-Greuter's ego development; Commons' cognitive intelligence, Graves' values and behavior development, Spiral Dynamics, and amongst many more), I started to recognize the capacities I was seeing in my peers in these models. These individuals didn't have all the markers of my theoretical leadership typology I explained above, but they had either one main one such as vision-logic or others such as ego coherence and grand purpose.
So I got curious and started asking what would a leader look at 2nd Tier if he had more than just the emerging capacity of vision-logic? And what would an embodied 2nd Tier leader look like based on my own experience of these capacities at this level. I began to make a list of capacities I have seen in my community of peers that I perceived to be at 2nd Tier. I then looked at all the available lines of development that have researched into 2nd Tier stages, stage 7 and 8 such as ego development, cognitive intelligence, and values/associated behaviors; and then I would find evidence of each of these capacities I listed.
I created a typology that I believe would be not only a 2nd Tier leader, but an embodied 2nd Tier leader that would make considerable impact in the world with collaboration with each other.
Bibliography:
Cook-Greuter, Susanne. Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making. MA: Prepublication, 2013.
http://onesystemonevoice.com/resources/Cook-Greuter+9+levels+paper+new+1.1$2714+97p$5B1$5D.pdf.
Wilber, Ken. Integral Spirituality. Boston: Integral Books, 2006.
³ There are 4 levels of nonduality:
360 AWARENESS -LOCALITY: practitioner still feels a reference point in time and space.
NON-LOCALITY: 360 awareness and no reference point.
JOY: when a practitioner stabilizes level 2 long enough, unconditional love and joy begin to permeate the space within regardless of feeling happiness or emotional pain.
DEITY SELF: when joy and the bliss body matures and stabilizes, the highest version of the individual emerges. Also called Nirmanakaya in Tibetan Buddhism.
⁴ Since these markers and measurements are based on subjective experience and also difficult to find an operational definition for, it helps to have a teacher, mentor, coach, and/or peer who already has embodied this marker, who you trust in this capacity, and can assess your experience and determine where you are at. Traditionally, nondual experiences are verified in this way.
⁵ Using 3 Steps to Connection.
⁶ Same as nonduality: A teacher, mentor, coach, or peer who has embodied unconditional love has verified they have experienced this as well.
⁷ Some might think that experiencing love and being in judgment is either contradictory or impossible. Since unconditional love comes from something bigger than yourself, a larger identity, then it is possible to experience unconditional love in the background while another part, a reactive and fragmented one is in the opposite. Unconditional love is always present in our field. It is just our obscurations and habitual patterns that prevent us from this moment to moment recognition, and being stabilized in this larger identity. The whole spiritual path is about accessing and growing this recognition and then integrating our personality parts to this essence of love. The path of nonduality helps be in this paradox and recognition. This phenomenon is also possible when you are triggered with someone and are experiencing anger and separation.
⁸ I am using the word, meme from the Spiral Dynamics model. A meme is a group of individuals or a culture that share common values, motivations, goals, and behaviors. See The Origin of the Term - 2nd Tier and the book, Spiral Dynamics and for more info.
⁹ A contrast can help articulate the demarcation more. The interest in self-actualization can exist at any stage, but if we are considering a normative western culture typology, the interest usually starts in stage 6 (green) if we are considering the ego development line with a real desire and commitment happening in stage 7 (teal). In late stage 5 (orange), I see individuals taking an interest in personal development and with the aim of "reaching their highest potential." But it is still cognitive at this stage, not so embodied. It comes across as an attitude or belief that they want to reach their highest version of self, but their actions and efforts usually don't measure up to what it would actually take to reach this aim if you are comparing them to the efforts of more traditional attempts of a yogi, monk, and mystic. In stage 6 (green), the cognitive attitude starts to transition into more effortfulness and embodiment. They are more realistic of what it means to reach your highest potential. So at stage 6, individuals are going into more of a exploratory understanding of what self-actualization is. "Reaching your highest potential" aim doesn't usually include "enlightenment" for these individuals. The concept of self-actualization does and these individuals being to explore what that means from a traditional sense from the plurality of the great wisdom traditions such as hinduism and buddhism.
So at stage 6, it is still an idea worth exploring by reading various books and texts on the matter and trying some of the practices or joining such and such spiritual group/lineage.
But at stage 7, people are feeling a real desire and commitment to self-actualize based on these traditional definitions and standards or from their own intuitive measures of what it would mean.
I left this marker and its measurement open based on the person's own sound boarding with mentors and peers, so they can determine what self-actualization would mean. I also left it open because everyone has their own definitions and standards of what enlightenment means. For the purposes of bringing 2nd Tier embodied capacities into the world, I find just the desire and commitment to enlightenment based on their own definition and standards suffice.
I would like to offer my own suggestion and brief statement on it since I have trained in various spiritual lineages from Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Taoism, and others; and have come to a more comprehensive appreciation of the complexity of what enlightenment means. For the sake of brevity, I believe Ken Wilber's definition of enlightenment is probably the best and most comprehensive I have seen. He has taken the standards of the great wisdom traditions and combined it with the highest standards we have found in developmental psychology. I highly recommend reading his Integral Spirituality book. He elaborates his definition on enlightenment in Appendix 2: Integral Post-Metaphysics.
Here are some excerpts that I believe can offer a beginning understanding of his idea:
"In chapter 4, we introduced the idea of “the sliding scale of Enlightenment”—namely, if evolution occurs in the world of form, and if Enlightenment involves a sense of being one with the world of evolving form, then how can you define Enlightenment in a way that fully acknowledges the evolving world, yet doesn’t rob Enlightenment of its timeless nature? This is an unbelievably challenging issue. . . The problem can be stated in several different ways. If evolution occurs, how can Enlightenment have any meaning? Enlightenment is supposed to mean something like being one with everything, but if everything is evolving, and I get enlightened today, then won’t my Enlightenment be partial when tomorrow arrives? Do I become unenlightened with the sun’s dawn? A typical response is to say that Enlightenment is being one with that which is Timeless and Eternal and Unborn, so I can be one with the Timeless and that shouldn’t be affected by the world of time (and evolving form), and so that takes care of the problem. But all that does is create a massive duality in Spirit—the timeless and eternal versus the temporal and evolving—and so what I am really saying is that Enlightenment is being one with half of Spirit. We saw that a 'nondual mysticism' was a 'union with everything in the gross, subtle, and causal realms.' But you can have a nondual state experience at virtually any stage, including magic [stage 2] and mythic [stage 3], and, e.g., the mythic world does NOT contain phenomena from the higher stages. So you can have a realization of nondual ever-present awareness that is a pure UNITY experience right now, but that experience leaves out a great deal of the universe. Thus satori can actually be unity with a fragmented world. Generally speaking, this is not good." (pg 235)
"Recall that the generic definition of Enlightenment is the full realization of, or being one with, Emptiness and all Form. Many lesser spiritual experiences and realizations are possible, but we are taking “Enlightenment”—with a capital “E”—as a type of end limit of the fullest and highest spiritual realization possible (which is why I have almost always capitalized it throughout this book). So how can we define Enlightenment with this in mind? The answer we have suggested throughout this book is: Enlightenment is the realization of oneness with all states and all structures that are in existence at any given time." (pg 241)
From: Wilber, Ken. Integral Spirituality. Boston: Integral Books, 2006.
So when he is referring to "structures," he is referring to stages for each line of development explained in what is 2nd Tier. It means that an individual has attained the capacities and metrics for the highest stages in each in addition to attaining the highest states that are designated in the great wisdom traditions. In Integral Spirituality, Wilber proposes the Wilber-Combs Lattice to explain the states and structures phenomenon and how they are connected with one another. As I said above, structures represent the vertical axis - the stages along the lines of development of developmental psychology; and states represents the horizontal axis - the meditative states that the great wisdom traditions have mapped out. Now any of the meditative states can be attained and stabilized at any stage of development. So an individual that attained enlightenment 2000 years ago probably attained it around the area of stage 3 and 4 along the ego development line (because that was probably the highest stage at that time). So would that enlightenment be the same as someone attaining it currently at say stage 6? That is what Wilber is pointing to. So he proposes that enlightenment is the realization of the highest states and structures of the current evolutionary time. I encourage readers to read his book mentioned about for further understanding.
Also another important point I would like to add - enlightenment is not a final destination. It is a journey and process where some lineages and traditions have offered some goal posts that help practitioners and communities ascertain where they are at in their spiritual development. But because we live in an evolutionary world, the goal posts are ever-changing and evolving. And every tradition and group has their own understanding that more times than not differ from each other. So please keep this in mind. There is no black and white understanding. I encourage people to keep the topic as an inquiry even in our certainties.
¹⁰ Body presencing is the capacity to become aware, experience, and label your body sensations on three different levels:
Physical sensations (ie "warm", "tingling", "tension", etc)
Emotions
Energetics (ie "expansive")
¹¹ As explained in note 7 above, if an individual is stabilized in nonduality, their center of consciousness is coming from something larger than their ego and personality that also includes them. So when someone is experiencing a strong emotion while in the nondual state, they will recognize that is not who they truly are, that it is an aspect of them that has discriminating wisdom only if it is connected to this nondual love. So they are in this larger identity while they are experiencing this strong emotion. A transcend and include.
¹² Essence is the ego plus limitless 360 awareness. Or said in another way, the sense of self and universal spirit combined.
¹³ See note 7 and 11 above. I will need to explain this in a separate article. My idea of a nondual ego or ego awakening has brought up strong emotions for people when I suggest and even propose this phenomenon. Has been quite controversial. It goes against thousands of years on teachings that the ego is bad or it is needs to be repressed. As a student and practitioner of western psychology and a big proponent of ego development, I have found that what traditional spirituality calls "ego", is really an earlier stage on the ego development line, probably stage 1-3 they are referring to - self-centered, not able to take others' perspectives, lost in the likes and dislikes mind, in judgment or aversion of others, self-importance, wanting to gratify their desires and needs using others as a means, etc. All those phenomenon would be at earlier stages of development.
But ego is more than these earlier stages. We have seen thru research that there are numerous stages after this. So I am suggesting in spiritual training, to include and develop the ego versus repressing it. When spiritual practitioners and teachers do the latter, they usually fall into stage 4 or the conformist level of ego development and they have lost themselves to this larger nondual field or "God" or whatever they label it. When this happens and they take on the traditional notions of what ego is at this level (ie follow your guru and lineage, don't seek power, etc), all sorts of shadows and unhealthy patterns appear. For one, these individuals do not seek power anymore and what happens as a consequence, is that other individuals at earlier stages of ego development seek power and cause alot of havoc in the world or political spheres (ie cultivating polarization). One of the pathways to a 2nd Tier world is spiritual practitioners and teachers seeking positions of power from this nonattachment and unconditional love aspect of nonduality. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we had these kind of leaders in power vs the ones at earlier stages of ego development?
In brief, ego awakening or nondual ego is the capacity where someone experiences their sense of self in the nondual field, but the two are not separate. The sense of self and 360 infinite awareness become one without either one losing itself to the other. It is true intimacy of self with the universe in the full spectrum that life can offer - hell thru heaven experiences.
There are alot of nuances here and distinctions from what all the historical spiritual traditions teach. I have seen a spectrum of negating the self to including the self in these traditions. But even with the latter teachings, they are still different from ego awakening. I believe this has emerged because of the wisdom of western psychology coming into contact with eastern spirituality.
¹⁴ Humility may not be present always such as when triggered, but after returning to the nondual state and feeling safe with the person, it does.
¹⁵ The spiral meaning all the stages of development. Borrowing the term from the model of Spiral Dynamics.
In general, vision-logic is a capacity to take on multiple perspectives from multiple intelligences with weighted discernment and weaving them into a complex intricate nuanced understanding. There are various expressions of vision-logic such as 1) Understanding the parts of a system and the entire workings of the system in a non-linear way; 2) Perspective-taking; and 3) Learning process. These three expressions are intertwined with each other.
Understanding
Whatever you are trying to understand, you are understanding by taking in the whole and its parts at the same time via intuition and other intelligences such as rationality and systematic thinking.
Includes more of the subtle realm of vision-logic. Vision-logic includers both gross and subtle realm and can be used for just gross realm (objects we can see, taste, touch, smell, feel in a waking state) only, subtle realm only (subtle meaning beyond regular sense-perception such energy fields and auras and other beings, or both.
In addition, the understanding process is more curious oriented and inquisitive (inquiry) even if you come to some certainty. You are able to hold uncertainty in the certainty or conclusions.
Example 1: being able to see multiple parts of an individual all at once and predict possibilities of expression of this individual or a sense of the evolutionary direction of this individual and what will the permutations of expression be if you insert an influence (ie suggestion, reflection)
Example 2: being able to understand an individual from multiple perspectives (ie psychodynamic, environmental, cbt, genetic, biological, diet, family systems, culture, ancestral, spiritual, etc) in a non-linear way with the capacities of perspective-taking outlined below.
Perspective-taking
Has 4 aspects: TAKE – WEIGH – SYNTHESIZE – OWN BIAS (T-W-S-OB)
Vision-logic is the natural extension of systemic thinking or pluralistic mind (stage 6) where you are able to TAKE all perspectives in a system; WEIGH them in a hierarchy based on some metric; SYNTHESIZE them into a coherent whole so that it brings a win-win and solves a problem (the metric), and simultaneously be able to see your OWN BIAS for this hierarchy and certainty. This all happens both thru linear and nonlinear processes.
Example 1: synthesizing democrats and republicans political ideas. Individually democrats and republicans are their own system and have many viewpoints within their own respective system. Ex – democrats: social-democrats, progressive, moderates
Example 2: working in a start-up organization and things are really hot and emotional with multiple and different perspectives. A consultant would come in and take on each of the perspectives, weigh them out in some metric (ie effectiveness, profit, loving culture), weave them together (which includes minus-ing and adding to the perspectives, including your own) creating an integral whole and offering the solution while owning your own bias in regards to the weighing and weaving.
Learning process
You learn non-linearly. Learning the individual puzzle pieces and seeing how they fit into the whole. You may even do linear learning during this non-linear. Nonduality is important here.
¹⁶ see note 8.
¹⁷ Grand Purpose happens at later sub-levels of essence level of vision or at the embodied level. There are seven levels of vision:
Latent
Exploratory
Mental
Mental-Essence
Essence
Embodied
Sacred Outlook
Latent stage: you don’t know what your vision is, but it lies hidden in your essence waiting to be revealed. Usually age 0-16 (can also be in any stage of life).
Exploratory stage: glimpses, trial and error, ideas. Usually age 16 - 23 (can also be in any stage of life).
Mental: Dominant Sub-personality: part of person has strong idea of what vision is but it is not connected to other parts; vision can be from family or social conditioning. For example - I want to be a sales leader; wanting to get married. Age 22 - life.
Mental – Essence: Tapping into essence from mental understanding of what vision is. People will not feel your transmission yet. Vision is not stable. Example - You get a mental idea that you want to be a sales leader AND you are excited to make alot of money from reaching your quotas. The idea of making alot of money and having freedom and pleasures from this lights you up. You might also be interested in personal development and having a vision for your life. This inner work gives you some emotional aliveness which is a key feature of living from essence. But it is not actual essence yet, it is still coming from a mental idea that activates an aliveness in your heart which is different than the next level. Around the age of 22 - 28 (can also be in any stage of life).
Essence: This is the first time you have activated essence in a pure way without mental ideas. You are connected with your soul and what wants to emerge to serve humanity. Because of this activation, an emotional aliveness overcomes you when you live your vision and purpose here. You feel joy and excitement living your dreams and offering service to the world. There are many sublevels of this level. I see when people first begin to experience this connection with their soul and purpose, it is transient and not stable yet. Or their vision is like the tip of the iceberg; they are just beginning to tap into their deeper purpose and how they want to serve humanity. And as they live this transient experience of vision, over time, with the ups and downs of this journey, they start to experience deeper layers of the iceberg and their vision. In the early sub-levels, people are beginning to feel the transmission of your vision.
Their essence-level vision is not embodied yet; it is not connected to all the parts of them including the depths and many layers of the soul. But as they traverse thru the ever deepening soul layers and integrating with their inner parts, they begin to emerge into the next level of embodiment. Around the age of 28
Embodied: when individuals land at this level, there is a deep integration of their vision and purpose with their identity and inner parts. There are also sub-levels to this level as individuals reach ever deepening integration and coherence with themselves within the limits of stage of development they are at. If they are at an earlier stage of development (ie stage 3 and Alexander the Great), they will integrate with their parts, identity, and the world as far as the psychological parameters of this stage allow. Someone at stage 5 (ie Bill Gates) will have a deeper level and quality of integration and embodiment. And this is true for all the other stages. The later the stages, the more the depth of ego coherence and integration with their vision and the world. A great measurement for this level and the later sub-levels of essence-level vision is the degree they are empowered. Most individuals at this level are strongly empowered. Around the age of 45.
Because of the deeper connection and integration with their inner parts, they are able to receive the wisdom from all of them and this phenomenon catapults their vision to include something way bigger than themselves. A typical typology at this level taps into a grand purpose where they want to work towards solving the world's problems.
Sacred Outlook: this is a very rare embodiment. I have only seen some exceptional Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist yogis attain this. They are considered "living buddhas" or saints. And I only have seen this from stage 4 (amber) level of ego development and not 2nd Tier leadership.
It is where there is a coherent whole to your embodiment and you are always in vision, connected to both the upper dimensions of spirit with the lower dimensions of earthly life. There is an omniscience and wisdom about how to share and connect people with the vision thru skillful means. A lot of emotional aliveness permeates this level. Some might be considered to expressors of crazy wisdom.
There is a flow of love with all aspects with life without attachment of outcomes. They are truly in a dynamic presence with all things.
But like I have said about the other levels of vision, individuals who attain this rare place will exhibit vision from the parameters of their stage of development (see note 9 and the Wilber-Combs Lattice). Earlier levels will look like saints, but the later ones will look like enigmas. I hypothesize that Mahavatar Babaji exemplifies that latter and there have been stories of him being able to be in any form he wishes for the sole purpose of helping that individual. Mahavatar Babaji supposedly lives in the hidden recesses of the Himalayan Mountains and was born 2000 years ago and appears to people at very certain times for the betterment of humanity. He lives in all the dimensions that life beholds, the earthly and formless, spirit realms.
If it were to happen, it would be around the age of 65 since alot of life experiences and maturity are needed.
Mahavatar Babaji, Neem Karoli Baba, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, HH the 33rd Menri Trizin would be some examples. The latter two are highly attained Tibetan Buddhists.
Because the levels of vision can happen at any stage of development, grand purpose can look differently in 1st Tier vs 2nd Tier. I am speaking of a particular type of grand purpose here. Someone at stage 3 (red, egocentric level) of ego development will perceive his grand purpose in much different light than someone at 2nd Tier development markers. The former will see people as a means to deliver his grand purpose to conquer the world (ie Alexander the Great).
But someone will 2nd Tier markers, their grand purpose will be an invitation and collaboration with others. They will see the value of each stage of development for individuals and how it is connected to the spiral (see The Origin of the Term - 2nd Tier and the book: Spiral Dynamics).
So all the other 8 markers are in the Grand Purpose marker.
¹⁸ A Spiral Wizard is a leader who has the capacity to love and experience the positive purpose in each of an individual’s parts; lovingly discern their center of gravity; and how they fit in and can contribute to the spiral. Going into this inquiry and finding ways to create the culture and system that will enable this person to plug in to the overall spiral of that system; and weaving this with other individuals, creating systems within systems within systems and so on….thus building a 2nd Tier eco-system.
¹⁹ See the Introductory chapter of Integral Spirituality for more info.
²⁰ I am using the word, meme from the Spiral Dynamics model. A meme is a group of individuals or a culture that share common values, motivations, goals, and behaviors. See The Origin of the Term - 2nd Tier and the book, Spiral Dynamics and for more info.
²¹ This will require a more in depth conversation and its own separate article. Relational Epistemology is where you have embodied the various levels of relational presencing of Dynamic Presence and can navigate the we-space when exploring and discovering truth together. The biggest obstacles of getting to a shared truth and reality is triggers and blind spots. Relational presencing and epistemology via dynamic presence allows for a group individuals to navigate this terrain so the highest probability towards a shared truth and reality is ensured.
²² See note above regarding the language and concept of memes. With this capacity, a spiral wizard will use any behavioral expression of any of the stages of development to ensure the overall integrity of the spiral. So, a leader could use mafia-like behaviors (ie yelling, overpowering, being aggressive) with someone who is enacting this same pattern who is actually at this center of gravity. I had to use this approach several times in the business world with CEOs types at this egocentric level of development. I would use it as long as it took to tire them out of these patterns, and once this occurred and there was a natural surrender to themselves (bc I would hold them in unconditional love and with the nondual view as I was yelling at them and pushing back), I would invite them into an empowered version of themselves. A spiral wizard could enact similar skillful means at any of the other stages of development. This skillful means approach is only possible if they are centered in unconditional love and nonduality. And more importantly, wisdom.
²³ Being able to enact any power structure and leadership from top-down to bottom-up to egalitarian and to all in-between on this spectrum. Being able to discern how individual x is more developed than you along metric x, and you are more developed than them along another metric. And depending on the context and conditions, there will be a power hierarchy. Allowing the dynamic power hierarchy happen across the spectrum of duration, from momentary to years.
²⁴ Here are the fifteen coaching capacities I am proposing for a Spiral Wizard and their training:
1. Embodies the 5 Qualities of a Secure Attachment Figure
Felt Safety: a sense of felt safety, promoted by the leader's consistent and reliable support and availability.
Felt Attuned: a sense of being seen and known, promoted by the leader's consistent, reliable, and accurate attunement to the person.
Consistent Reassurance: the experience of felt comfort, promoted by consistent, reliable, and timely soothing and reassurance;
Being Valued: a sense of being valued, promoted by the leader's consistent, reliable, and clear expressed delight in the person; and
Unconditional Support – Best Self: a sense of support for being and becoming one’s unique, best self, promoted by the leader's consistent, reliable, unconditional support and encouragement for exploration.
Adapted from: Daniel P. Brown & David S. Elliot. Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair (New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition. 2016), p. 288.
2. Four Attunements
Soul and why it is here
The relationship between the soul and human
Developmental level: accessing where they are at on various lines of development.
Comfort zone: are you feeling where the client is at and what their comfort zone is and what would be too much or too little regarding their comfort zone. Using Flow research around the balance between challenge and skill. Too much stress and no flow. Too little stress and no flow. Finding the sweet spot.
3. Empathy: understanding their world and understanding your world and how they interface.
4. Empowering: getting clients to feel their big-ness and ok-ness.
5. Vision: getting clients tapped into their inspiration and their purpose.
6. Bridging different viewpoints and perspectives between coach and client.
7. Staying curious while in certainty
8. Empathizing – Challenging Spectrum. When to do either; this includes catalyzing
9. Navigating Difficult Conversations
10. Navigating reactivity in other.
11. Navigating reactivity in self.
12. Navigating Projections and Bias: navigating your vs others blinds pots/projections in a conversation when receiving or giving feedback. Staying in the unknown about who is in a blind spot, you or the other person. Or maybe both. Connection before truth. Aka You and Other Projection vs Blind spot Spectrum
13. Navigating power dynamics: 1st Tier, 2nd Tier
14. Non-attachment to outcomes: outcomes associated with financial needs, with self-worth need, with progress or momentum need → success/testimonials
15. Conscious Transitioning of Relationship