I am basking in full-on workshop afterglow. I heard Ken Wilber speak twice this weekend in New York to 300 people for two hours last Friday and two-and-a-half more on Sunday.

Wilber currently serves as head of the Integral Institute, a spiritual think-tank that aims to elevate people to higher levels of awareness and compassion through meditation, conversation, and thoughtful study.

For more than 30 years, KW has written books that present a new, East-West take on arenas like psychotherapy, medicine, law, politics, business, parenting, and spirituality.

People of all ages attended this weekend. Seeing Wilber answer questions about integral philosophy (which he called “a powerful path to liberation”) while also telegraphing a sweet humility (very different from the impression one might get by only reading his most dense works) was intensely thrilling. The fact that Wilber is traveling (despite an ongoing illness and recent fall), and launching websites for his numerous projects, makes this depressing moment in world history feel like a great time to be alive.

Oh, and what did he say, exactly? I can give you a framework.

First and most simply: Meditation is important. A steady daily practice can increase awareness and compassion. He sited a study that shows college students especially can progress quickly to more enlightened states.

Second: Accepting your “shadow” is key to your development. You must claim and welcome the parts of yourself you judge as so icky, unacceptable, or terrifying that you must disown them. You are many people. Instead of shunting your unwanted aspects, you can integrate and invite them all to your life’s table.

Third: If you meditate and become more real, you may go through an awkward phase when you either feel superior to everyone else or feel totally out of place (even to yourself). Wilber says this is normal.

KW unabashedly believes that people who meditate and start seeing the divine in everything are functioning at a higher level than those who interpret the Bible literally and believe that God can give somebody AIDS or destroy New Orleans. Those folks faithful to a “mythic” vision of a punishing God aren’t going to groove to our higher frequencies or relate to the small percentage of us who grow to understand this integral stuff. “Some people say to me, ‘Oh well, you’re just trying to one-up everybody,” he said. “And I reply, ‘You’re saying that as if there’s something bad about it!’”

I fear I’m over simplifying. If you are a longtime Wilber reader, please chime in. Oh, and if you were there this weekend, please share your observations with us because I missed his presentations all day Saturday!

In 1983, my friend Christopher Stahnke lent me a Ken Wilber book, saying, “You really ought to read this guy…” and I couldn’t penetrate it. Perhaps I wasn’t ready. Today, there are more books, and easier ways to become more integrally aware. The Intergral Institute sells a very useful, clear Integral Life Practice kit for $150, and with it you get DVDs that explain what has in the past been difficult to read. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, Beliefnet.com has published some of Wilber’s work and hopes to continue to do so.

If you’ve always been searching for ways to conceive God and your role on this planet, if you are seeking a contemplative style that is accessible and doesn’t contradict your faith traditon (this is designed to fortify faith, not diminish it), then I advise you to check out the new edition of “Integral Spirituality,” as well as his website about integral spirituality, and his flagship website IntegralNaked.org.