The Ultimate Nature of Reality

Observation:

X is always prior to the things you are aware of. Everywhere you look, no matter what you observe, X is always there. Before labels and categories, before likes and dislikes, before sight and sound, there is X. X underlies all that you are aware of.

Logic:

If something is everywhere I look, then it must be IN everything. And if X is in everything, included by everything, then it must be the most fundamental thing there is.

Assertion:

X must therefore be the ultimate nature of reality.

Substitute "Spirit" or "pure awareness" for "X" in the above, and you have a pretty good approximation of reality as explained by the contemplative traditions. Following this train of logic leads one to posit an underlying substance of the universe, which we come in contact with or remember that we are during meditation. (Every tradition has its own particular spin on this, but they are, as Wilber points out, broadly similar.)

Sounds reasonable, right?

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The problem with this train of logic is this: if you see something everywhere you look, it may be due to some property of the process of looking instead of the properties of what you're looking at.

The Wizard of Oz provides the perfect metaphor: if you look at everything through emerald glasses, you're bound to think that everything is green. It would seem logical, then, to assume that green is the actual, fundamental nature of everything. To do so, however, is to fail to realize that the apparent green-ness is due to the color of your glasses! If we consider the logic discussed above with this analogy in mind, it becomes clear that seeing X everywhere may be due, not to the ultimate and fundamental nature of the universe, but instead to the fundamental nature of being aware.

This provides a very different view of Wilber's metaphysics. If we decouple meditative states from the "the ultimate nature of the Kosmos," we no longer have a reason to say that awareness/consciousness is the interior dimension of the universe (and everything in it.) This single shift allows us to resolve the individual/social holon conundrum, fix the four quadrants by putting limits on their applicability, and re-conceptualize consciousness and meditation in a fashion compatible with science, contextualism, and systems/network thinking.