"Criticism has spiritual value"
- a visit with Ken Wilber, January 1997 (part 2)
by Frank Visser

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Brain Waves

Text-only version of this article

The next morning he shows me -- not without some pride -- a video which has been made of him while meditating attached to EEG equipment. This machine registers beta waves (ordinary waking), alpha waves (relaxed waking), theta waves (dreaming) and delta waves (deep sleep). He is able to enter a state in four seconds in which all activity drops to zero, except a slight delta activity. "This is nirvana," Wilber says casually, "nirvikalpa samadhi." I hold my breath. Is it that easy? Or not so easy, for Wilber has practised zen for twenty years.

This brings him to one of his favorite topics: right up to the highest state of consciousness it is possible to measure physiological processes in the brain, although this measurement says nothing about the subjective side of this experience. Exact scientific research forms an integral part of his approach.

We take the jeep and drive up the mountains, to enjoy the wonderful sights on the Denver plains. A deer crosses the road. Although he would very much like to live in San Francisco -- he is a city man, he confides -- the quiet atmosphere in Boulder is ideal for him to write. We descend towards Boulder, a university town which harbours not only the University of Colorado, but also the Naropa Institute, founded by Chogyam Trungpa.

When we sit down at a coffee shop -- we have only half an hour before the shuttle takes me back to Denver Airport -- there is not much left to talk about for the moment, and I let a resident of Boulder take a picture of the two of us. This trophy I want to take home!

A funny dialogue starts between Ken and the coffee shop owner, who apparently cannot figure us out:

"How do you know each other?"
"He is translator of my books in Holland."
"So what do you write about then?"
"About East-West things, psychology, philosophy, that kind of stuff."
"O great."
"One of my last books is called A Brief History of Everything. Its in the book shops. You can recognize it easily, for it has my ugly face on the cover."
"Well, I have to read it then, for I have to know what my customers are doing."

Even in his hometown a world-famous author can be unknown! For the present generation of students he does not speak to their imagionation as much as for the older students, he explains. He can go to a cafe or a movie without being instantly recognized. In Boulder too, the times they are a-changing.

When the moment has come to say goodbye Wilber says half jokingly: "I am an American, so we have to hug." Now, I am a Dutchman, but here we are of like minds: two men, both possessed by the project to explain spirituality scientifically, slightly uneasy in physical contact, but with deep sympathy for each other.

With one big gesture he embraces me and presses me against his chest. And then he is gone, with his jeep into the mountains.

Thick Fog
When I arrive in Denver, the airport is surrounded by a thick layer of fog. The next four hours the airport is shut down for all flights. Wilber had written in one of the ReVision issues which were devoted to his work: "Many see all too clearly the sad shape our field is in. They are truly alarmed by the reactionary, antiprogressive and regressive fog thickly creeping over the entire field." (vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 30-31)

It is as if nature wants to underline this once more.





Frank Visser (38) has translated The Atman Project and A Brief History of Everything into Dutch, and is working on an introductory book on Wilber at the moment. His main interest is in competing paradigms within transpersonal psychology, and the interface of transpersonal psychology with esoteric thought. About this last subject he has written a book called Seven Spheres (1995). This article has appeared in the Dutch New Age Journal Koorddanser (Rope-walker) in April 1997. Posted with the author's permission. Frank Visser: servire@pi.net

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