casey
December 2008 
Ken Wilber and the wisdom of our generation
Posted on Jan 31st, 2006
by 
Brian
Brian
I almost cried laughing when I read this.
Ken is a funny guy.
He's also reee-dic-ulously brilliant. OMG you have to read his stuff. May I suggest you start with "The Essential Ken Wilber" to read and "Kosmic Consciousness" to listen to.
Quick background: I went to an iWET a few months ago. (HIGHLY recommend it.) Being the bashful type, I wound up with a microphone in my hand talking about Zaadz at the end cuz everyone wanted to see an online community to spread the love that was created that weekend.
Afterwards, Huy, the COO/CFO of II, comes up to me and says, "You just described everything Ken's been talking about for the last 3 months" and something about how Ken just won't stop talking about the importance of community.
Anyhoo, Huy goes back to Boulder, talks to Ken and calls me the next morning and tells me Ken wants me to come out there and say, "Hi."
So, I fly out there with my new friends Dave and Christiana (who I just met at the seminar) to meet Aaron and attend a week long Intregral Life Training. (OMG. Genius.)
We spent some quality time with the cool peeps manning the show at the Institute (go Casey, Duff, Meagen, Katie!) during the week and then spent a couple of hours with the man himself chatting about what we're up to and how we want to do everything we can to help spread the fluffy love.
Quite fun.
Ken's kinda smart.
Gzus. I'm rambling. So, long preamble to this email I just got from Huy:
Ken is a funny guy.
He's also reee-dic-ulously brilliant. OMG you have to read his stuff. May I suggest you start with "The Essential Ken Wilber" to read and "Kosmic Consciousness" to listen to.
Quick background: I went to an iWET a few months ago. (HIGHLY recommend it.) Being the bashful type, I wound up with a microphone in my hand talking about Zaadz at the end cuz everyone wanted to see an online community to spread the love that was created that weekend.
Afterwards, Huy, the COO/CFO of II, comes up to me and says, "You just described everything Ken's been talking about for the last 3 months" and something about how Ken just won't stop talking about the importance of community.
Anyhoo, Huy goes back to Boulder, talks to Ken and calls me the next morning and tells me Ken wants me to come out there and say, "Hi."
So, I fly out there with my new friends Dave and Christiana (who I just met at the seminar) to meet Aaron and attend a week long Intregral Life Training. (OMG. Genius.)
We spent some quality time with the cool peeps manning the show at the Institute (go Casey, Duff, Meagen, Katie!) during the week and then spent a couple of hours with the man himself chatting about what we're up to and how we want to do everything we can to help spread the fluffy love.
Quite fun.
Ken's kinda smart.
Gzus. I'm rambling. So, long preamble to this email I just got from Huy:
From: Huy Lam
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 1:40 PM
To: Brian Johnson
Subject: FW: "most loved teachers...."check it out - ken just promoted your site.... well, sorta...
so how's everything going? let's chat soon.
From: Ken Wilber
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2006 8:18 PM
To: ...
Subject: "most loved teachers...."Hi Folks,
I thought you might get a kick out of this. It’s the zaadz site, the “hot new young community site.” What I admire most about the younger generation is their fantastic taste, as evidenced in the section on the site called “most loved teachers.” The more people click a name, the bigger it gets…
[then his email had a screen grab of this]
[Too funny. :) ]
Access: PublicTagged with: zaadz, ken wilber, integral institute, casey, fluffy, iwet, huy, Kosmic Consciousness, Meagan, Katie
HAHAHA!! That is great! He does have an incredible sense of humor! “their fantastic taste”…. how can you not Love him??? Thanks for sharing that!! Adds a nice smile to the day!!!
yeah, lots of weird people here at Zaadz. heaven help us all.
How ‘bout another ‘mazing experience? There’s an I-wet scheduled for Chicago late March. Take a break to plug back into the infrastructure, freshen up, make new contacts, spread the love, see Korenna?
Think about it.
Pretty please?
Yah, ‘kinda’ smart as in:’ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! WHO IS THIS GUY?!?’ kinda smart. :)
And he has fantastic taste as evidenced by the sites he likes to tell his friends about, eh? ;)
Impressive Bri. Congrats. :)
Congrat’s ya’ll…Terrific work you are all doing…kep it up…you make me look so goood!
Cheers to living large and in charge and full of the fluffy love…
Heather
That is so awesome B. So the zaadz spread and grow:)
Congratulations. What with Clinton endorsing Wilber, you’re now only two degrees away from the immediate past president of the United States of America. Not a bad effort!
Thanks, guys.
This is only the beginning..
My plan: to work with THE most influential people who are changing the world–which means everyone at the grassroots level to the Wilbers and Clintons of the world.
My ideal advisory board consists of people like Clinton, Wilber, Robbins, Bono, Oprah, the Dalai Lama, Jobs, Gates, Tiger, Lance and cool people like that.
Soon…very soon…
For now, let’s rock.
what?! no Dubya? or maybe check out this list of most influential people and see if you’ve missed anyone.
my vote: Kanye West (may be he could name-drop zaadz in one of his rants, like GEICO for yo’ money.) and Ray Kurzweil. diggit!
Kanye! Nice. Obi, Our resident classy thug philosopher is actually on that one. :)
Idea: Let’s create our own list
- Clinton
- Wilber
- Bono
- Oprah
- Jobs
- Gates
- Tony Robbins
- John Mackey
…
Brian,
This is an exciting time– thank you for sharing. I’ll have to check your blog more often! Also– cool tattoo!
Hey Bri, I just read this one. That’s totally awesome!! And dude, we’ve gotta put Fred Kofman on that list.
- Clinton
- Wilber
- Bono
- Oprah
- Jobs
- Gates
- Tony Robbins
- John Mackey
- Kanye West
- Fred Kofman
Who else?
I think it’s funny that on Zaadz, Ken Wilber is bigger than Buddha. :)
I’ve read some of his stuff, found it to be a bit cold, but I do like his writings.
yep, most of Wilber’s stuff are as cold as turkey. if you want someting warm and fluffy, check out One Taste, or Grace and Grit.
as additions to the list, here’s some of mine:
- Ray Kurzweil
- Sir Tim Berners Lee
- Malcolm Gladwell
- The Google Guys
- Pierre Omidyar
- Scott Adams (heh, i just like reading his blog)
shoot, i need to add one more to my list.
- Lawrence Lessig
there. me shut up now.
might we even up the gender balance on that list a little?shall we add Hilary Clinton for a start?
ouch. gender balance. good point. thanks for pointing that out.
but come to think of it, when it comes to popculture influence, all the men on the list are nothing compared to Oprah :)
On gender balance: I say throw in Sally Kempton, Judge Hatchett, Diane Hamilton, and Ayako (my bias on this last one).
Love it. How did we miss Oprah? She *totally* gets it.
We didn’t miss her. You put her on the first list!!
Great list CoolMel! Kurzweil is one of the smartest folks I’ve met, along with Cory Onedrjka (programmer @ Linden Labs), Jamais Cascio & Alex Steffen (WorldChanging), Saul Williams, Deena Metzger, and definitely Pierre Omidyar (although his wife Pam is a bigger hero to me; we’re developing Camp Darfur now as an awareness project for the displaced in the Sudan).
Another philosopher whose work is very….controversial….is Chris Korda. He was the only person I could find in Boston who had read Wilber in any depth.
Diane Hamilton is extraordinary as well….it was a pleasure meeting her in LA this fall.
guys
if you want to talk about people who are changing the world, time to start speaking with people who have gone beyond individual mind, and straight on back to god/source/universal consciousness etc
it’s one thing to speak about it, it’s another thing altogether to be it
you really need to speak with gangaji and isaac shapiro and also eckhart tolle
there is an awesome list of such people on my website
all love