States vs Stages: Ken Wilber

“You cannot, however, be introduced to all the qualities of higher stages of consciousness without actual growth and practice. You can have a peak experience of higher states (like seeing an interior subtle light or having a feeling of oneness with all of nature), because many states are ever-present, and so they can be “peek”-experienced right now. But you cannot have a peak experience of higher stage (like being a concert-level pianist), because stages unfold sequentially and take considerable time to develop. Stages build upon their predecessors in very concrete ways, so they cannot be skipped: like atoms to molecules to cells to organisms, you cannot go from atoms to cells and skip molecules. This is one of the many important differences between states and stages.

However, with repeated practice of contacting higher states, your own stages of development will tend to unfold in a much faster and easier way. There is, in fact, considerable experimental evidence demonstrating exactly that. The more you are plunged into authentic higher states of consciousness-such as meditative states-the faster you will grow and develop through any of the stages on consciousness. It is as if higher-states training acts as a lubricant on the spiral development, helping you disidentify with lower stage so that the next higher stage can emerge, until you can stably remain at higher levels of awareness on an ongoing basis, whereupon a passing state has become a permanent trait. These types of higher-states training, such as meditation, are part of any integral approach to transformation.

In short, you cannot skip stages, but you can accelerate your growth through them by using various types of state-practices, such as meditation, and these transformative practices are an important part of the Integral Approach.”

--Ken Wilber