Ideas about Stage Coral from Recent Personal Experience

[bmcnicho]

I know many people on this forum don’t think Stage Coral is worth talking about, and that’s a reasonable perspective.  However, my recent experiences are similar to things I’ve heard from others over the past few years, and I don’t think it’s necessary to assume that Turquoise needs to be the highest level.

I’ll be speaking from the perspective that spiral stage and spiritual attainment are separate metrics, despite the ways in which they’re related.  So I define Stage Turquoise as being people in which Holism (as described in Leo’s 3 part series) comprises a significant component of their worldview, regardless of their level of spiritual experience.

It’s my view at this time that Holism approaches the limits of what can be expressed in language, but it points to mystical experience, which is the way to progress further.  Since these mystical experiences are both transpersonal and beyond models and frameworks, it makes sense that a model of ego development would naturally break down here.

However, my ideas about Stage Coral are based instead on the continuing development of psychology independent of any mystical experience.  The basic idea is that once one realizes they’re approaching the limits of conceptual understanding of the world at Turquoise, they begin to place less emphasis on this pursuit.  Also, to the extent Turquoise has a “tribal” component, this form of connection with others can become less fulfilling over time, and one instead can tend towards solitude.  These two factors cause a shift inward, continuing the alternating pattern of individual and collective stages.

What I’ve sensed in myself over the past few months, is a gradual shift in focus from the desire for understanding and connection characteristic of Turquoise to a new desire for a kind of self-mastery.  One might object that self-mastery is also present at previous stages, but I conceptualize each of the individualist stages as viewing self mastery in different ways:

Beige: mastery of survival 

Red: mastery of strength and power

Orange: mastery of success and achievement

Yellow: mastery of knowledge and understanding

In contrast, I view Coral as a sort of “pure” self-mastery, or mastery for the sake of mastery, something previewed by previous stages but not fully actualized.  How it’s manifested for me so far is a desire for psychological purification, not for the purposes of understanding or achieving something, but simply to become a better being.  I’ve found myself wondering what I would be motivated towards independent of outside influences or obligations.  I’m beginning to view personality as a series of psychological fragments unconsciously accumulated from various external sources.  I think it’s desirable to sort these out such that they form a coherent structure or inner ecology such that it can acquire a degree of partial independence.

A component of this is that aspects of the “material” world are becoming less interesting, and I’m viewing relationships with others as being worth less of my focus.  I’m at the beginning of this process, so I don’t know how it will progress in the future, but I imagine that the initial feeling of apathy and emptiness I feel now could be recontextualized as a positive development in the future.  This inward focus might make Coral a Tier 2 Red, following the pattern of Yellow and Turquoise having similarities to Beige and Purple.  (Although paradoxically, a Stage Coral person might not wish to describe their own inner state in terms of someone else’s conceptual model.)

I noticed a shift in Leo’s content around early 2019 that may have represented this Turquoise to Coral transition.  I say this not to speculate, but because I view it as a good illustration of what I’m describing.  I noticed his tone became more serious (which I view as a good thing) and his teachings deepened, becoming less similar to traditional non-dualism and being even more so based in his own contemplation and direct experience.

Though I’m not the first to speculate on this, it’s important to acknowledge that Leo never said anything about Coral in relationship to himself.  If such a shift did occur, it could have of course happened far earlier before being reflected in public videos.  Or he could very well view this characterization as inaccurate, unhelpful, or not worth potentially confusing people over.

I’m curious to hear what others think of this.

[puporing]

What you describe is mostly Yellow into Turquoise to me, though we may well have different ideas of what those entail.

Edited May 13 by puporing

[Buck Edwards]

I'd ditch the spiral dynamics model altogether in favor of the quest for enlightenment. 

[tuku747]

3 hours ago, Buck Edwards said:

I'd ditch the spiral dynamics model altogether in favor of the quest for enlightenment.