The Final Framework: A New Shape for Spiral Dynamics
Western psychology builds the self. Eastern practice dissolves it. The diamond shape reveals they're two halves of one complete journey - with stage yellow as the turning point.
Traditional Spiral Dynamics shows endless expansion above stage Yellow, leaving sophisticated thinkers trapped in mental complexity with no way forward. This framework reveals the reversal: development doesn’t expand infinitely - it contracts inward at Yellow.
Western psychology’s construction phase and Eastern dharma’s deconstruction phase are revealed as two halves of one complete journey.
The diamond shape completes the spiral, making the path from Yellow through Turquoise, Coral, and Teal to actual liberation walkable.
Spiral Dynamics is a developmental framework that maps how human consciousness evolves - from basic survival stages through increasingly complex ways of seeing the world. Each stage integrates what came before: power, then order, then achievement, then empathy and ethics, then systems thinking and the ability to hold paradox. In simple terms, researchers mostly got this first part of the Spiral right.
The final stage before direction and applicability was lost is stage Yellow - also known as tier 2.
After Yellow, there have been speculations about higher stages such as Turquoise and Coral. The problem is that researchers have been attempting to map these from intellectual experience rather than from lived experience and therefore missed how expansion beyond Yellow works in practice:
Development doesn’t expand infinitely - instead it reverses at Yellow.
The journey out becomes the journey in.
The builder must now become the unbuilder.
Envelopment leads to development-
The traditional spiral doesn’t show this crucial reversal, making people miss it entirely. It lies, suggesting instead infinite expansion outward into mental mind games and delusional thinking.
Are you affected by this mapping error? Here are some symptoms of being stuck at stage yellow, expanding outwards instead of inwards:
Some core patterns to look out for:
Stuck building and seeking increasingly complex maps of reality
Falling in love with models and thus confusing the map for the territory - whenever something doesn’t fit, Yellow patches it obsessively with even more additions to already complex mental models. This creates mind tangles that can only be untangled with direct experience and not more of what created the knots to begin with.
Truth around the corner trap - thinking one more mental model will be the permanent fix
The behaviors this creates:
Obsessively consuming information as some lower stages like Orange consume items and experiences
Obsessively describing phenomena that don’t matter to one’s development because it’s interesting
Playing mental games with other people and with oneself
Using hyper-rational and scientific language to prove intelligence and create in-groups
Teaching others what doesn’t make one happy to feel right
The epistemological blindness:
Cannot distinguish between irrational and post-rational thinking
Demands third-person proof for first-person phenomena and dismisses what can only be experienced directly
Dismissal of softer sciences that might contain other types of wisdom such as astrology, religion and somatic practice
Worship of information
The disconnection:
Completely disconnected from body, no somatic awareness
Understanding the mind from a scientific standpoint in detail but without experience that leads to mastery of the mind
Low energy levels due to tangled situation of the mind
Continuing - this post I will explain that this reversal at yellow bridges two traditions that have been talking past each other for centuries. Western psychology maps how to build the self (First part of the Spiral). Eastern dharma maps how to dissolve it (Second part of the Spiral).
We understand then - that these are not two separate paths. They’re the first and second half of one complete journey.
The content I provide contains several additions to the traditional Spiral Dynamics model:
White (below Beige): A collective regression stage observed in extreme survival conditions where individuality dissolves under severe distress - concentration camp prisoners, severe trauma victims, states of total hopelessness. This is the basement below survival mode, where even the instinct to survive as an individual breaks down.
Yellow (updated): Not intellectual superiority but discriminating capacity - the ability to build complex systems AND dismantle them, hold paradoxes without needing resolution, ability to grasp “the middle way” - see patterns clearly enough to untangle them. Yellow’s gift isn’t being smart, it’s having the systematic precision needed to eventually debug themseleves.
Turquoise: The information consumption and worship stops. Information-gathering reverses into direct investigation of immediate experience. The journey that was expanding outward finally turns inward. Post-rational thinking emerges and what seemed mystical reveals itself as natural. (Unintegrated Turquoise starts building mystical frameworks instead of rational frameworks which lead to other traps that we won’t speak on here)
Coral: Radical authenticity meeting somatic awareness. No more spiritual performance or suppressing “unenlightened” emotions - feeling jealousy, anger, desire fully while understanding them through the body. Honesty about what’s actually present rather than what should be present, with the soma finally integrated into the work. Unintegrated Coral lacks body connection and therefore mistakes reactivity for authenticity - “this is just who I am” - without seeing these patterns as conditioned responses that can be purified at the root.
Teal: A systematic way of life dedicated to purification at the root level. Clear discrimination between what creates suffering and what liberates. Daily practice with thousands of hours building experiential understanding of natural law. Sustained Teal integration completes the journey - full liberation, the spiral’s developmental work finished.
This makes the Spiral actually walkable. Instead of another mental model, it points beyond itself into a complete, experiential path that anyone willing to do the work can walk.
Bonus: How stages communicate:
Green: Thinks everyone who doesn’t share their values is a bigot, which ironically makes them exclusionary - speaking mainly to other Green while alienating everyone else
Yellow: Speaks Orange’s language naturally (achievement, optimization, systems) but can speak any earlier tier’s language when needed to achieve something - the chameleon stage
Turquoise: Speaks Green’s language - connection, authenticity, meaning
Coral: Speaks to raw humanity regardless of stage, which is why it paradoxically connects with everyone and no one at the same time
Teal: Doesn’t speak to stages anymore - speaks to the human condition underneath all stages, which is why anyone can hear it but few listen
The Diamond: A New Shape for Development
The traditional spiral expands infinitely as it rises, suggesting development means endless addition - more complexity, wider perspectives, bigger frameworks.
This expansion works perfectly all the way to Yellow- but this is where the spiral gets wrong: after Yellow, development reverses direction. Instead of expanding further outward, the path turns inward. People at higher stages become simultaneously more and less.
At Yellow, we’ve built scaffolding sturdy enough to dismantle itself. The tools we’ve gathered - systems thinking, perspective-taking, complexity navigation, paradox resolution - aren’t for fixing the world or reprogramming others. They’re for turning inward to find the delusion in ourselves.
This bridges two traditions that have been talking past each other:
Western psychology maps construction but stops at Yellow, declaring victory at peak ego-sophistication
Eastern dharma maps deconstruction but assumes you’ve already built something stable to deconstruct
The diamond reveals they’re consecutive phases of one complete journey.
Western developmental psychology and Buddhist enlightenment factors aren’t parallel tracks - they’re the same track, with Yellow as the turning point. The entire spiral up to Yellow trains you in the mechanics of construction so thoroughly that you can finally reverse-engineer consciousness itself.
This explains two common failures:
1) Meditation practitioners plateau as they’re trying to take apart what they never learned to build.
2) Yellow thinkers stay trapped because they don’t realize their building expertise IS their liberation tool - they just need to reverse its direction. Same capacity, opposite vector. The power to construct becomes the power to deconstruct.
Dhamma Vicaya
The Buddha identified dhamma vicaya - investigation of phenomena - as one of the seven factors of enlightenment. Vicaya means discrimination, the ability to take apart (vi-), untangle what appears solid and see its components clearly.
But here’s what traditional teachings don’t explain: before you can practice vicaya, you must master its opposite - saṃcaya, the gathering together.
Saṃcaya: The Ascending Diamond (Beige → Yellow)
Every developmental stage teaches you to gather and integrate. Red: power, Blue :order, Orange: achievement, Green: connection. By Yellow, you’ve achieved peak saṃcaya - maximum accumulation of perspectives, complete integration of all previous stages. Ability to build and understand.
This isn’t separate from enlightenment work - it’s the first half of dhamma vicaya we explained earlier as being one of the 7 crucial enlightenment factors, just running in reverse. You’re learning discrimination by practicing integration. Untangling by tangling - Every synthesis teaches you where the joints are. Every connection shows you what can be separated. You become a master builder who knows exactly how consciousness assembles itself.
Vicaya: The Descending Diamond (Yellow → Liberation)
At Yellow, we must pivot from Saṃcaya to vicaya - gathering to discriminating. From learning to unlearning. From being smart to becoming wise. This capacity reverses direction. You apply the discrimination you learned through building to systematically unbuild. This isn’t a new skill - it’s the same skill finally pointed in its proper direction.
The Buddha taught vicaya as an enlightenment factor, but the diamond reveals its hidden prerequisite: you can’t skillfully take apart what you never learned to put together. Western psychology has been teaching saṃcaya. Eastern dharma teaches vicaya. The diamond shows they’re two halves of one complete movement.
Saṃcaya: gathering, heaping together, integration, synthesis
Vicaya: discriminating, taking apart, investigation, analysis
The scaffolding must be strong enough to support its own dismantling.
Every stage that appears to strengthen identity - Red’s power-ego, Blue’s order-ego, Orange’s achievement-ego, Green’s absolutist caring-ego - is actually developing capacity.
This is the diamond’s brilliant economy: what looks like ego-development is pre-wisdom-development. The scaffolding must be strong enough to support its own dismantling.
At Yellow, this trade-off peaks. The ego becomes maximally consolidated, comprehensive, seemingly unshakeable. This isn’t a mistake - it’s the necessary cost. Maximum ego creates the conditions for maximum vicaya. The most built-up self enables the deepest seeing-through.
This explains why liberation requires full psychological development first. We’re not building the ego to have it, but to develop the tools that can eventually see through it. The very process of constructing identity teaches us how identity is constructed. Every stage of saṃcaya secretly develops our capacity for vicaya.
The ego was never the point. It was always the training ground for the wisdom that transcends it.
How to be smart AND happy
This is not meant to be a full guide - I will likely release a short guide for this later
Phase 1: Building (… → Yellow):
If you’re reading this, you’re probably at or approaching Yellow. These earlier stages build necessary architecture. At Yellow, you integrate everything into a comprehensive systems view - holding “all” perspectives, seeing “all” patterns. This is peak complexity, maximum width on the diamond.
Careful: many “insights” here are purely intellectual categorization. They’re not insights but their opposite: outblind - these insights feel real but they are made in your mind. You are creating maps of reality, not observing reality. You can map someone’s entire psychological structure while being blind to how you’re using that mapping to avoid your own direct experience.
At Yellow, development stops being purely cognitive. From here you cannot proceed with mind alone - if you try, you’ll get stuck in loops of meta-analysis. Buddha called purely speculative philosophy “a thicket of views” - not because thinking is wrong, but because some territories can only be navigated through direct experience.
The mind that got you to Yellow cannot get you beyond it. The builder or maps must put the map down and experience the territory.
Phase 2: The Pivot (Yellow → Turquoise):
Stop trying to figure it “out”. We are looking for “in”-sight.
Look at the diagram - we’re not venturing further outward but instead turning inward. The tools you’ve gathered - systems thinking, perspective-taking, complexity navigation, paradox resolution - aren’t for fixing the world or reprogramming others. They’re for investigating yourself. That’s where the gold mine is.
Yellow’s trap is subtle: you may consider yourself among the smartest people of society because you see nothing above you. You are so attached to rationality so that can’t distinguish between post rational in irrationality. Too intelligent for meditation, can’t tell if someone is genuinely wise or just scitzophenic.
What you can’t see is that those whol moved beyond yellow didn’t get smarter to your standards - they got wiser and less unhappy and unlearned some of the tendencies that are common in yellow in groups. They stopped needing to change others to feel like they are right.
The shift from OUT-blind to IN-sight begins here. Turqouoise retain Yellow’s intelligence but direct it toward immediate experience which turns somatic material into wisdom.
“Stop grasping for more frameworks. Start investigating why you grasp.”
“If you are so smart then why are you not happy?”
Phase 3: Deepening (Turquoise → Coral):
You can’t think your way through these stages. The body holds patterns that the mind alone cannot release.
At Turquoise, you may encounter the spiritual ego - the identity of “having no ego.” This is Yellow’s whiplash of maximum ego. Looking at the diamond diagram, you can see the ego becoming less prominent, so the ego of having no ego is actually a sign you’re headed in the right direction. But it’s still a performance. Turquoise performs wisdom rather than embodying it, curating enlightened aesthetics while suppressing raw humanity.
To reach Coral, Turquoise needs to drop the performance entirely. Letting anger be anger, passion be passion, jealousy be jealousy - even if it’s not “spiritual.” We can’t work with what we’ve suppressed. No guru masks, no preaching to Green masses who can’t tell the difference between integrated wisdom and guru masks - no citing wisdom we haven’t lived. Just raw, unfiltered human experience. This isn’t regression; it’s honesty - finally, with somatic awareness we can see what’s at the depth of the mind (and body) instead of what should be here. (in the mind) This is coral.
Crucial recognition: being real about jealousy doesn’t liberate you from jealousy. Expressing rage honestly doesn’t dissolve rage. Coral teaches that authenticity alone isn’t liberation.
This is where somatic work becomes essential. The patterns you’re now honestly expressing are held in the body. Mental recognition isn’t enough. The body needs to release what the mind has finally seen. The sophisticated mind you’ve built must now integrate with the whole system - body included. Without feeling into your body, your journey ends at unintegrated Turquoise, performing wisdom you can’t embody.
Do you see it….. Embody?
Phase 4: The Method (Coral → Teal):
The work is not hard, but it’s hard work.
Let’s not reinvent the wheel. The Buddha gave precise instructions for this transition through Vipassana - “to see clearly.” This technique works with both body and mind simultaneously, which is why it succeeds where purely mental approaches fail.
Make releasing systematic. Daily dissolution of identification. But more importantly - because you’re now in touch with your body - you start noticing what creates new impurities and tangles. Even while expressing Coral’s raw authenticity, you feel the deeper patterns that must be released to progress.
You understand how these patterns were placed there, which habits feed them, which starve them. If liberation is your highest priority, you restructure your life to stop creating new knots while untying old ones. (Sīla)
Every day, every hour, every minute, down the every present moment - ensure presence and equanimity, understanding of impermanence in body and mind (+ sampajañña) If we do the work correctly, luck is removed from the equation and we can let natural law (Dharma) handle the rest. When you understand how body-mind actually functions, you just need to... do the thing that untangles it. Consistently. Until there are no more tangles.
This isn’t random spiritual work but methodical investigation - applying systematization to the liberation process itself.
The work is not hard, but it’s hard work.
Phase 5: Completion (Teal → Full Liberation):
Through sustained practice - you arrive at experiential understanding of what actually works. Now you just keep it up. Natural law handles the rest.
Like filling a balloon with helium, it must rise. You keep filling, knowing it’s bound to ascend. You receive profound benefits along the way, not just at the end destination.
When Teal’s systematic releasing is fully integrated - both mentally and somatically - liberation becomes inevitable. Arhantship isn’t another stage but the natural result of sustained Teal practice and integration. This is actual enlightenment, completing the developmental journey by uniting Western construction with Eastern deconstruction.
The diamond completes itself. The white that was always at center becomes fully realized.
Conclusion: The Map That Changes Direction
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably feeling relief that your Yellow exhaustion isn’t failure but readiness. Maybe recognition that your sophisticated understanding was always preparation for something else entirely.
I spent years in Yellow’s labyrinth, the way out wasn’t through better maps - it was through ten days of silent Vipassana that showed me what no framework could.
Your Yellow capacities - systems-thinking, pattern-recognition, paradox resolution - these aren’t burdens or tools for being a chameleon that no one understands. They’re precisely the tools needed for liberation, once you point them in the right direction.
The Western path of building (saṃcaya) and the Eastern path of unbuilding (vicaya) aren’t separate journeys. You’ve been developing enlightenment factors all along, just backwards, in preparation for the reversal.
Here’s what changes when you see the diamond: You stop trying to expand beyond Yellow. You stop seeking more complex frameworks. You recognize that maximum complexity is the pivot point, not the destination. The journey inward begins exactly where the journey outward completes.
Shunryu Suzuki said it perfectly:
“Each of you is perfect the way you are... and can use a little improvement.”
Such paradox can only be grasped by someone ready for real work.
Let’s get at it.
P.S.
All this understanding about the stages, the diamond, about saṃcaya and vicaya, about the pivot at Yellow - it means nothing without practice. Wisdom doesn’t come from reading about frameworks. It comes from doing the work. It’s not hard, but it’s hard work.
Sign up for your first Vipassana retreat here: It’s free, always has been, available in nearly 300 locations worldwide. Ten days of actual practice will teach you more about the reversal than this framework ever could.
All the best, friend