"This was not a failure to collect intelligence.
It was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had."

What do you think of this statement made by President Obama as quoted in the New York Times on line?  Who would have suspected that his comments about the failed terror plot on Christmas Day would provide us with the opportunity to reflect on how we might integrate knowledge into our everyday lives.

I will break down the President’s profound observation into two parts. First, collecting knowledge and intelligence alone does not suffice.  Second, failure results from a lack of integration and understanding of the collected intelligence, or turned around positively, success arises out of integration and understanding of the intelligence we have.
 
Let’s begin with the collection of intelligence, the accumulation of facts and data.  I invite you to take a minute and transport yourself back to your school days–high school in particular, but perhaps also college or university.  Now ask yourself this.  Apart from socializing, what took up most of the time, especially within the structured classroom time and homework assignments?  Reading, memorizing, regurgitating, reflecting, pondering, musing, integrating the varied bodies of materials with which you were confronted?

I wonder what takes the top spot?  Acquiring factual knowledge?  Am I close?  Now stay with your schooling and see what jumps out at you most vividly?  The science project you created in grade 5?  Or perhaps your debut with the Junior Band?  Your first volleyball game?  How would you characterize those activities?  As an acquisition of knowledge or could they perhaps be seen more as integrative experiences?

How about your personal and professional life now?  What occupies most of your time and energy?  What percentage do you spend on the so-called daily chores?  Where are you intentionally choosing to invest yourself?  Furthermore, in which state of mind do you carry those out?  Are you caught in the busy frenzy of multitasking just to get things off your checklist?

Due to the marvels of technology, we apparently excel in gathering information and making it readily and widely available.  How fortunate!  Or are we?  Does it suffice to collect this intelligence?  President Obama suggests otherwise in the second part of his statement.  

What condition would Haiti have been in before the recent earthquake if we, society at large, would have succeeded at the second task with which we are charged, namely the integration and understanding of such intelligence?  Many countries managed to gather information and intelligence for many years in Haiti, gave advice, offered a helping hand, or exploited the country.  What would have happened if we had integrated our collective intelligence into the fabric of the Haitian people, the Haitian culture and history?

Where would we be at a personal and collective level if we truly understood what integration meant and how to turn such a process into a conscious act of engagement that directs each one of us from the insight–inside out?  Would you consider that success?  Does the very process of integration equal success?

Perhaps the etymology of the word integration intrigues you as much as it does me.  So here it is.  The word integration is derived from the Latin adjective ‘integer,’ meaning whole, intact, untouched, which leads to the verb ‘integrare,’ to make whole. This conjures up the idea for me that the whole is larger than the sum of its parts.  Is that what President Obama was alluding to?

How do you render ‘whole’ the wealth of information you receive so you can gain meaningful understanding from it?  What does that integration look or feel like for you?  What form might ‘understanding’ take on for you?

I contend that by its very nature, integration can only occur when we involve ourselves at all levels of our being.  That means our body, mind, our heart and soul are involved in the process of absorbing, digesting, discerning, filtering and transforming the information into an understanding that speaks from the soul, from where we connect with Spirit.  What else could create the wholeness?

I would like to take this thought one step further.  Do you have a sense of awareness how this process works for you, especially when it comes to the deceptively ordinary tasks of daily living?  What responses do you receive from you body, for instance?  What sounds and symbols might speak to your soul?  How do you discern the various voices with which your mind and your emotions attempt to catch or direct your attention?

What does integration look or feel, sense or smell to you?  How meaningful are those moments of your life where you succeed in integrating your knowledge into the essence of your being?  How do you become conscious of having attained such a state of integration?  

For me, such integration leads to and simultaneously arises out of a deep sense of knowing.  This sense of knowing translates into a state of beingness from where life’s seemingly oppositional forces gradually transform into paradoxical forces that invite us to surrender.

How about for you?  Would you be willing to share what integration means to you?