Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening

This is the most comprehensive book on personal development I’ve read.It covers all aspects of growth. The charts are very helpful.

This book is my first exposure to Ken Wilbur's integral life teaching. The basic idea is one of integrating all areas of life into a comprehensive balanced whole, using the best of modern, Eastern, Western and scientific transformational wisdom and practices. Rather than just dealing with the inner life through meditation and silent practice, all parts of a person are open to the transformation process, both inner quadrants and outer quadrants, as described by the authors' 4 Quadrant approach. Especially appealing to me is the inclusion of dealing with shadow elements. I do find most of the suggestions to be practical and I am motivated to continue applying many of them in my daily life. I am glad to have found this resource and look forward to learning more from Ken Wilber.

Here is the condensed version of what was originally a very lengthy review.Pros:-Wonderful introduction to a wholly comprehensive personal and spiritual development framework (this fact alone makes it worth the purchase).-Most complete work I've seen regarding personal development. Definitely a "desert island" book. Read it and see what I mean.Cons:-The book tries to do too much. By "distilling" many practices, and I think they sometimes water them down and make them less effective. Also, complex spiritual ideas such as the dark night of the soul (p.372) are reduced to half a page.-Ok, so, here is my biggest difficulty, and one that I could elaborate on, so I'll be as brief as possible. My difficulty has less to do with ILP than with Wilber's AQAL framework, which is the foundation for this book. I think he fails in trying to be truly integral and unbiased. Granted, I do not think this is possible, and I applaud his efforts and think he comes pretty darn close. Still, I think he could be a little more honest regarding his perspective. The majority of the exercises in the book, and many of its underlying philosophies, are decidedly Eastern. Given Wilber's background in Mahayana Buddhism, this is understandable. But again, I wish he were more explicit about this. For instance, I have thoroughly studied Eastern spirituality, but have recently been more interested in Western forms of paganism, because they resonate with more on a more aesthetic, emotional, and even tribal level. My current interest is in integrating mythology in spiritual practice Jungian style, but according to Wilber this brings me down a notch to his "mythic" level of development. Also, the practices I have had the greatest success with, magick and NLP, were not mentioned because of this bias. I was strangely offended by this.Overall, though, I think this is a great book to establish a more comprehensive perspective. Just don't take it as gospel, and use your own intuition and emotions as guidance.

Not much a reviewer myself, but I'm dropping to give my five star support review for this excellent book.This book is the bluprint to my growth process. My progress since taking on this approach has been profound and managable.As many people I went through a lot of self-help until I derived into a more spiritual approach to growth, renouncing all my old library sensing I had found a higher and holier place. Gettin in touch with the integral theory has put my feet on the ground.Everyother path I followed before seemed fragmented... not anymore. Conscious evolution and awakeining are superb goals to have in life. Evolution as in stages, maturity, growth, ethics, compassion... and Awakening to the essence of who I am. Both make more sense together than what they ever made sense when they where apart.Get a hold of the Big Mind DVD's as well if you don't have them, excellent value, excellent cause, excellent results.ps. its a pitty that the integral inquiry in the book dosen't make reference to the Big Mind process as the ILP starer kit does, but basically the instructions are to talk to the non-seeking non-grapsing mind and sit as it during the period of meditation.

I haven't finished reading the book yet but feel comfortable rating it. The reason I bought this book is that I had recently read Ken Wilber's "No Boundaries" and "A Brief History of Everything" and they had a deep and profound impact. I felt like "No Boundaries" was the most important book I had ever read. Both books were rich in ideas and eloquently written. They changed my life. So, based on Wilber's writings, and the fact that this book was so favourably reviewed, I purchased it on Kindle. It hasn't moved me to any great extent. I find the writing simplistic and uninteresting. There are a million ways one can put integral theory into practice. So the practice aspect didn't do much for me. And the theory aspect went on and on, my eyes eager to skip over superfluous, new agey-type lines.However, I appreciate what the authors have tried to do, to communicate integral philosophy to the mainstream, and they do a respectable job of it. Their writing is perfectly fine, but they are attempting to interpret and explain someone else's complex ideas in a way that comes across to me as flat and banal. Maybe if I hadn't read Wilber's books, it wouldn't affect me this way. It's just that I'm hungry for something different and cutting-edge. His books are in spades, this book isn't. However, without his integral theory, this book would never be. And since it seems to be affecting other readers in a highly favourable way, I also commend and celebrate it.

Perhaps I feel now that I knew most of what was written here. But I didn’t know it in such clear language - only in intuitions and hunches. Therefore it was a relief and epifany to read it laid out so consistently and clear.I believe I will return to this book, almost as a book of reference, when the hunches get muddy or hazy again.

Vor allem die Schattenarbeit ist enorm hilfreich!

Para a vida! Um livro denso. Profundo. Para aqueles que estão abertos e na busca por serem humanos melhores.

Till date the best read of my life..

100% Satisfied

Ken Wilber et ses partenaires nous présentent dans ce livre une manière de vivre au quotidien avec une synthèse de nombreuses pratiques issues de divers horizons. Très intéressant car cela nous offre une ligne directrice pour un travail de développement personnel.