So we want our environmental ethics to honor all holons without exception as manifestations of Spirit, and also, at the same time, be able to make pragmatic distinctions in intrinsic worth, and realize that it is much better to kick a rock then an ape, much better to eat a carrot than a cow, much better to subsist on grains than on mammals.

"Integrative" simply means that this approach attempts to include as many important truths from as many disciplines as possible--from East as well as the West, from premodern and modern and postmodern, from the hard sciences of physics to the tender sciences of spirituality.

This map is simply an invitation to explore the vast terrain of your own consciousness, the almost unlimited potentials of your own being and becoming, the nearly infinite expanse of  your own primordial awareness, and thus arrive at that place which you have never left: your own deepest nature and your own original face.

So spirit is both the highest "level" in the holarchy, but it's also the paper on which the entire holarchy is written. It's the highest rung in the ladder, but it's also the wood out of which the entire ladder is made.

Evolution goes beyond what went before, but because it must embrace what went before, then its very nature is to transcend and include, and thus it has an inherent directionality, a secret impuls, toward increasing depth, increasing intrinsic value, increasing consciousness.

The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. Columbus did not set out to seek a new route to China in response to a majority directive of a parliament, though he was partly financed by an absolute monarch. Newton and Liebnitz; Einstein and Bohr; Shakespeare, Milton, and Pasternak; Whitney, McCormick, Edison, and Ford; Jane Addams, Florence Nightingale, and Albert Scweitzer; no one of these opened new frontiers in human knowledge and understanding, in literature, in technical possibilities, or in the relief of human misery in response to governmental directives. Their achievements were the product of individual genius, of strongly held minority views, of a social climate permitting variety and diversity.        

The more clear and definite you make your picture then,and the more you dwell upon it, bringing out all its delightful details, the stronger your desire will be, and the stronger your desire, the easier it will be to hold your mind fixed upon the picture of what you want.

It is necessary, then, to cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.

And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude. 

...you can render to God and humanity no greater service than to make the most of yourself.

It is the natural and inherent impulse of life to seek to live more, it is the nature of intelligence to enlarge itself, and of consciousness to seek to extend its boundaries and find fuller expression.