Quotes about Stages

Cultures, as well as countries, are formed by the emergence of value systems (social stages) in the response to life conditions. Such complex adaptive intelligences form the glue that bonds a group together, defines who they are as a people, and reflects the place on the planet they inhabit. These cultural waves, much like the Russian dolls (a doll embedded within a doll embedded within a doll) have formed, over time, into unique mixtures and blends of instructional and survival codes, myths of origin, artistic forms, life styles, and senses of community. While they are all legitimate expressions of the human experience, they are not "equal" in their capacities to deal with complex problems in society.

It is the experience of higher states that can convince even the most hardened cynic that in fact they have seen God. But in order for that glory that has been glimpsed in higher states to become the foundation for an actual level or permanent stage of individual and collective development, an enormous price has to be paid. More often than not, the mistake is made where simply because an individual has experienced a higher state they conclude that they have actually made that leap or transition to a higher stage. And that is rarely the case. Only with dedicated and consistent practice and committed engagement with the enormity of the task at hand can any individual or group actually make this momentous transition.

Evolution is a process of creating patterns of increasing order....I believe that it's the evolution of patterns that constitutes the ultimate story of our world. Evolution works through indirection: each stage or epoch uses the information-processing methods of the previous epoch to create the next.