Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
The 1-2-3 of God
To relate to Spirit through all three perspectives — as a 3rd-person It (the great Web/Ground in awe), a 2nd-person Thou (devotion, dialogue, surrender), and a 1st-person I AM (identity, the Witness) — so the whole of the sacred is engaged, not just one face.
1-2-3 of God in 4 lines: Relate to Spirit three ways in one sitting. 3 — It: contemplate the cosmos/Ground in awe and wonder. 2 — Thou: love, address, and surrender to Spirit as a living Other (the great ego-humbler). 1 — I AM: rest as the Witness, your own awareness, not-other than the Absolute. The same Spirit, met as the It around you, the Thou before you, the I AM within you.
What it is
The 1-2-3 of God is Ken Wilber’s integral devotional practice and the relational heart of the ILP Spirit module.
Its insight: traditions have related to Spirit/the Absolute in three grammatical persons, and each captures something real that the others miss — so a complete spiritual life engages all three, the “three faces of God”: - 3rd person — “It” (Spirit as the great Web / Ground): the Absolute as a vast impersonal It or Thus — the great perfection of the manifest world, contemplated with awe and wonder (nature mysticism, the cosmos, the Web of Life).
- 2nd person — “Thou” (Spirit as Other): the Absolute as a living Thou to be loved, addressed, and surrendered to (Buber’s I-Thou; the devotional theism of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, bhakti). Wilber: “Spirit in 2nd-person is the great devotional leveler, the great ego killer, that before which the ego is humbled into emptiness.”
- 1st person — “I AM” (Spirit as Self): the Absolute as your own deepest awareness — the Witness / I AM-ness of Advaita and Zen, “the Self of the self.” The practice is to deliberately move through all three in one sitting. Wilber’s claim — pure “as above, so below” (The Inner Creates the Outer) — is that the same Spirit is met as the It around you, the Thou before you, and the I AM within you. It engages awe (3rd), devotion/surrender (2nd), and witnessing identity (1st), resting on Consciousness Is Fundamental (consciousness fundamental) and All Is One (the deeper Self).
Distinct from the siblings in this lineage & library. Pure devotional practices here are single-face: and live wholly in 2nd-person love; nondual practices like and live wholly in 1st-person identity; nature-awe sits in 3rd. Wilber’s 1-2-3 is the only practice that deliberately cycles all three faces in one regimen, and it is the explicit complement to his own 1st-person Witness practice — together they make the ILP Spirit module cover the whole of Spirit rather than one preferred face. (Note the numbering runs 3→2→1, the same perspective-walk-home as his 3-2-1 shadow process, but here applied upward to the sacred rather than inward to the disowned.)
The Method
A faithful rendering (Integral Spirituality; ILP Spirit module; The 1-2-3 of God):
- 3 — Spirit in 3rd person (awe / the great It). Contemplate the Absolute as the vast manifest whole — the cosmos, the Web of Life, the sheer suchness of existence. Rouse genuine awe and wonder at the great perfection of what is. Rest in reverence before Spirit-as-Ground/Thus.
- 2 — Spirit in 2nd person (devotion / the great Thou). Now relate to Spirit as a living Other — a Thou you can address, love, and surrender to. Speak to it; open the heart; let the ego be humbled before that which is infinitely greater. Use whatever name fits your tradition (God, the Beloved, the Divine, the Mystery) — the move is I-Thou devotion and surrender, the great “ego killer.”
- 1 — Spirit in 1st person (identity / the great I AM). Finally, turn to Spirit as your own innermost awareness — the Witness, the I AM that is not other to the Absolute. Rest as the formless seeing in which all this appears (the practice of ). Here the worshipper and the worshipped are discovered as not-two.
- Hold all three as one Spirit. Recognise that the It contemplated in awe, the Thou loved in devotion, and the I AM rested in as your own awareness are three faces of a single Spirit — “as above, so below.” Let the three perspectives inform and complete each other.
- Adapt the language. Wilber stresses you can run this whether or not you use the word “God” — atheist-leaning practitioners can take 3rd-person as the cosmos/Ground, 2nd as the living face of the universe/life itself, 1st as awareness. (Sourcing note: “the 1-2-3 of God,” “three faces of Spirit,” the 3rd/2nd/1st-person framing, and “the great devotional leveler… ego killer” are Wilber’s own terms/phrasings, attributed; the steps are faithfully summarised, not reproduced.)
Source & Lineage
Ken Wilber articulated the 1-2-3 of God in Integral Spirituality (2006), released it as a Sounds True audio (The 1-2-3 of God), and built it into the Spirit module of Integral Life Practice (2008).
It synthesises three traditional approaches to the Absolute: nature mysticism / cosmic awe (3rd), the devotional theism of bhakti, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Martin Buber’s I-Thou (2nd), and the nondual self-realisation of Advaita Vedanta and Zen (1st).
The “three persons” structure mirrors his Big Three (I/We/It → art/morals/science → Beauty/Goodness/Truth) turned toward the sacred.; cf. Buber, bhakti, Advaita.
Common refinements
Defaulting to your one comfortable face. Devotional people skip the 1st-person Witness; nondual people skip 2nd-person surrender (“I’m beyond devotion”). The practice exists precisely to stretch you into the uncomfortable face — Wilber notes nondual practitioners often most need the humbling 2nd-person.
- Getting stuck on the word “God.” If theistic language blocks you, translate the three persons into Cosmos / Living-Mystery / Awareness; don’t abandon the structure.
- Skipping surrender. The 2nd-person face is the “ego killer” — letting it be perfunctory drops the practice’s most transformative move.
- Refinement: spend real time in each face (a few minutes minimum) rather than rushing the cycle; let each shift the heart before moving on.