I've been thinking quite a lot of the technological world and emerging interrelated networks, and how this applies in a power and political sense to spiritual communities, and more importantly to integral communities. 

The last ten years, with the rise of Linux, the term "open source" has become known.  This is the idea that written software that is open and viewable by all, is able to be easily fixed and improved upon by any person who has the requisite desire, skill, and persistence.  In this case, all knowledge is in a sense, "shallow" - open to all who invest the time and energy.

I've alway thought that the term "open source" is (or should be) a beautiful term for spiritual knowledge.  For example, the bookstore in Marin is called "Open Secret" - alluding to the fact that the supposed "secret" of enlightenment is open to all.  There are many other examples of this, of course...

The other trend in technology (well, at least it used to be a trend - this is in debate now, given the tech crash of 2000, and the resulting consolidation) is that in modern work is that there is a lot of "flattening" in the decision making process - i.e. that there is less and less of a hierarchical overlay, top down structure, but more and more, functionally independent and overlapping ciricles of execution that get things done without a large "guiding  hand", so to speak.  You can see this in the statistics of more and more independent contractors, people working from their homes, etc. 

What does this have to do with spirituality, politics, etc?

Well, spiritual knowledge is, in some sense, considered "secret" - an a priori knowing kept by the teacher, guru, etc, that the seeker completely submits himself to the guru to "gain". 

Politically, this is a very profound "backward step", in a lot of ways, from what we would normally consider an "evolution". 

I view spiritual enlightenment as one of the higher human evolutionary steps. Given this, I wonder why, what I consider to be a higher evolutionary step, seems, from a sociological study of progress in other quadrants, to be a BACKWARD sociological evolution, in terms of community structure.

(I'm sure there must be some thoughts on this elsewhere.  Please feel free to comment or email me with well-considered thoughts, analysis, meditations in this vein.)

I have, as I've mentioned before, some experience with the advaita and Big Mind communities - more specifically, advaita.  This particular understanding matches superficially the SEEMING evolutionary structure that looks to be higher on the "sociological" quadrant.  Meaning, like open source, the knowledge is open to anyone with the requisite desire, persistence, and (face it) luck.

I can only mention my own experience with this.  The experience described by the two links here and here, I have had MANY similar experiences, and continue to do so on an ongoing basis.

The following five themes form my experiences and thoughts around this.

1.  As described above, the authoritarian structures of spiritual community, in most cases, seem to go against what seems to be advances in sociological structures of higher quandrants.  (Lower Right, ITS)
2.  One of the few sociological structures that seem an advanced Lower Right, is that formed by the advaita view.
3.  So many times the "good news" advaita people are, from other developmental perspectives, immature, idiots, narcissistic, etc.
4.  The advaita view that I understand, is pretty easy to get extended glimpses of.  Myself, I "shift" back and forth between an individual and identified bodymind, and what I'll call for short, "identification with all" - the screen that the objects, including the "me", are part of.  It's a beautiful, wondrous, awesome space to be in.
5.  Like the people I speak of in 3 above, I'm still an idiot and immature, in a variety of ways.  At least for myself, the understanding only softens fixed personality patterns, and doens't "fix" anything.  So I'm not sure how "deep" the well goes in this.

This particular stream of thought has been all over the map, and I apologize for that.

For a final summary: 

 - If spiritual advancement is transformational, why is the ITS portion of spiritual communities stuck in the social world of the 1600's and previous?  (Hierarchies, hidden knowledge, submission, etc)
 - The one spiritual understanding that I know of that avoids this social backwardness, advaita, (and is actually the same understanding in Zen, Tibetan Buddism, etc), seems, by itself, to not necessarily be that transforming in other ways.  

What do others think?