The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.

A natural hierarchy is simply an order of increasing wholeness, such as: particles to atoms to cells to organisms, or letters to words to sentences to paragraphs. The whole of one level becomes part of the whole of the next. In other words, natural hierarchies are composed of holons.

Truth, in the broadest sense, means being attuned with the real. To be authentically in touch with the true, and the good and the beautiful. Yes?

All sentient beings - all holons in fact - contain Buddha-nature - contain depth, consciousness, intrinsic value, Spirit - and thus we are all members of the council of all beings… And the ultimate objective truth is that all beings are perfect manifestations of Spirit or Emptiness

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.

I'll tell you what I think. I think sages are the growing tip of the secret impulse of evolution. I think they are the leading edge of the self-transcending drive that always goes beyond what went before. I think they embody the very drive of the Kosmos toward greater depth and expanding consciousness. I think they are riding the edge of a light beam toward a rendezvous with God.

"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.