One of the most nuanced, courageous pioneers of Integral forms of spirituality shares her own story of leaving her place among the liberal feminist elite, spending three decades plumbing the depths of Siddha Yoga, and "coming back to the marketplace" with a more comprehensive, integral vision for the meaning of living a spiritual life….

Who:  Sally Kempton, also known as Swami Durgananda, is among the most dynamic, insightful, and sought-after teachers of Siddha Yoga, and is author of the celebrated guide to spiritual practice, The Heart of Meditation: Pathways to a Deeper Experience.

Summary:  Sally Kempton is one of the most extraordinary pioneers in more integral, comprehensive forms of spiritual teaching, and the remarkable story of her life shows us why. 

What Sally and Ken discuss in this dialogue is nothing less than the very future of spirituality, what it might look like, and who is going to lead the way.  Sally’s perspective on this topic is incredibly nuanced, based on a lifetime spent delving into the depths of what is problematic about religion and spirituality, what the fundamental core of Liberation is in each tradition, and what isn’t even addressed by most forms of spirituality—like psychological shadow work, which Enlightenment per se literally doesn’t touch.           

Born to socially-conscious parents, Sally describes herself when she was a young woman as an "ultra-leftist bohemian rebel" with a powerful feminist bite—who then abandoned the progressive cultural elite of New York City to go to India and become a devotee of Swami Muktananda.  This, shall we say, was a radical change.  Not only was she embracing spirituality and religion (a Leftist no-no, being seen as "the opiate of the masses"), but she was also submitting herself to a male guru in a distinctly hierarchical society (unthinkably anti-feminist, certainly for her peers). 

But this was not giving up, and this was not regression.  This was an incredibly important step in Sally’s life, and a bold move towards integrating truths about human existence—not deconstructing and dividing them, as was (and is) so popular.  Sally spent nearly three decades in the Siddha Yoga community as a highly-regarded senior teacher, under the traditional name bestowed on her by Swami Muktananda: Swami Durgananda.  Then, in 2002, Sally saw clearly that she could no longer continue to deepen and evolve her teaching methods while remaining in an ashram setting.  So, with the community’s blessing, she laid aside her monastic robes, and started teaching independently.  She is currently working with a small community of students on developing a four-year curriculum based on the best of what Siddha Yoga has to offer, and informed and fleshed out by the Integral Model.  Sally is a founding teacher at Integral Spiritual Center, and a true gift to anyone lucky enough to cross paths with this astonishingly wise, humble, and courageous spiritual pioneer.  We invite you to listen in and enjoy….

An Integral Approach to spirituality introduces and applies the revolutionary synthesis of both structures of consciousness (archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, integral, super-integral) and states of consciousness (gross-waking, subtle-dreaming, causal-deep-sleep, witnessing-turiya, nondual-turiyatita).  Nearly any state of consciousness can be experienced at any stage or structure of consciousness, which is why, for example, one can have a genuine mystical experience of nondual unity consciousness, and then interpret that to mean that Jesus Christ is the one true savior, and only those who believe in him will be saved.  To find out more about this unprecedented synthesis and exploration of the good, the bad, and the ugly in religion and spirituality, check out Ken’s essay "What Is Integral Spirituality," and Ken’s book Integral Spirituality.     

(For Part 1 of this dialogue, "Why Liberals Can’t See Beyond the Mythic God," click here.)