Humanity is Asleep

Humanity is asleep, concerned only with what is useless, living in a wrong world.

Sanai of Afghanistan, 1130 CE

The human species has entered a period of profound, fundamental, and unprecedented change. During this time of change many of us will be forced to adopt new modes of thinking, perceptions, and behaviour in order to be able to not only endure but, more importantly, to assist a world needing to undergo deep transformation. Our planet is experiencing a major transition stage and humanity, both individually and collectively, needs to understand that rapid change is both creative and destructive.

Change has always been a cyclic part of Nature; an inherent part of our cosmological story. Without change there can be no evolution, no momentum, no forward push or backward decline. As in our seasons, all processes are birthed, grow, peak, then enter renewal and regeneration. Our past great civilizations, such as the Roman and Persian Empires, have been a part of this grand story; their decline an eminent feature of today’s history books. Yet within the grander scheme of things, these cyclic renewals were of a smaller scale. They were regional, not global; they were aligned with terrestrial cycles, not cosmological ‘events’. This is why I contend that the changes confronting us in the upcoming years will be profound: our upcoming transition is a part of a grander evolutionary cycle, when terrestrial and cosmological cycles coincide. Not only is our global society approaching rapid and accelerating ‘tipping-points’ akin to the turning points of prior civilizations; but also that these events are aligned with larger solar and galactic cycles. Such times in evolutionary history are not only profound, but offer vastly increased creative energies for radical transformation.

However, periods of developmental change often require chaos and upheaval as ‘evolutionary agents’ to trigger rapid growth. In the context of what is occurring in the world today we are currently witnessing the convergence of catalytic events. Further, that this series of transformative pulses, including periods of chaos and collapse, will provide opportunities for renewal and regeneration. It is hoped that our social, cultural, and spiritual regeneration will foster a renewed ‘humanity’. It holds the promise for a new period of exterior and interior growth; a time to re-connect our species to a creative universe, and once again to our universal story. A mythological journey that requires our collective participation and continuation.

I am not alone in this assertion. For at least two decades now many of our leading thinkers, futurists, and visionaries have been warning us that the upcoming years will present an evolutionary crises to our global society. Further, that this ‘crisis period’ will involve great changes, potentially catastrophic, which will shake the foundations of our social systems and invoke great changes in people’s personal lives. I believe, as do many others, that this transformative period is a necessary requirement in our evolutionary journey. For most of our human recorded history we have no precedent for this; almost no records to help us understand the situation. We can say there exists no map nor guide to assist us at this crucial period. We are, to put it bluntly, asleep to the influences that direct our lives, and this makes us vulnerable to the situation. Quite literally we are in dire need of ‘waking up’.

Past Thinking, Future Thoughts

Recently, whilst trawling my blog, I came across this post from almost six years ago...I had forgotten I was writing such things then....so I re-post it now, considering it still relevant:

Friday, September 12, 2003

In the ensuing years there will be a rise in chaos and upheaval. These are largely the manifestations of cosmic influences and the results of a shifting planetary evolution in line with a developmental harmonic of our solar system. Although this will be largely misunderstood by our species, it will nevertheless be manifesting more openly in the next several years as planetary adjustments are made. More will be said on this later...Suffice to say that as strife increases on our planet it should be more imperative that we exercise our inner functions of balance, non-attachment to events and things, and stay away from rash judgments and decisions.

Posted at 12:12

Continuing from before: the access to greater information has consequences. One approach to this rise in conscious attunement is, in the words of Eric Chaisson, leading to the need for an ethical and global consciousness. Others have urged for process thinking rather than the Newtonian mechanical approach - synergism calls for the emergence of properties greater than the whole. This is achievable if we realise that the connectivity of people on a global scale can give rise to shared traits of altruism under reciprocally 'shared', or transferred, information.

We are all open systems that use information as energy - little do we realise that this energy can be used to fuel further much-needed self-development. Discipline is required so that this energy is not lost through wasted emotions or anger, fear, and other menial manifestations that get enlarged and exaggerated.

Remember: the negative also seeks to embolden itself - to present itself as being greater than it is. This is because there is always less negative inside us at all times in comparison to the positive - thus, it needs to pretend it's more negative than it actually is if it is to have any chance of influence over the person at all. Don't succumb to it.

With information-awareness comes responsibility. That responsibility is to oneself first, then to others, and to our earthly and cosmic environment. Don't build your house on sand, or too much information may blow one's fuse.

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A New Mind for a New World

It is necessary that we transform our own thinking in order to perceive the world differently, and to understand the nature of our integral connectedness as a global species.

The difficulty we find ourselves in at the present time is that parallel to the dramatic physical changes we are experiencing is also a mental shift underway. This is a shift in thinking as least as significant as was the Enlightenment shift from a heliocentric worldview to a humanistic one. The Cartesian view of a mechanistic universe is outdated and incompatible within an evolutionary paradigm. What is required is a total change in our human perception. For example, new findings in quantum biology inform us that in contrast to stories of evolution through competition and strength, evolution works by symbiotic relationships and co-operation. Inter-cellular communication and genes transfer is affected through co-operation in information sharing. It is necessary that the findings in the ‘new sciences’ help to push forward a thinking more in-line with natural, environmental, and universal principles. Ultimately, change begins with one's own mind-set and worldview: as the Delphic inscription instructs us to ‘Know Thyself’.

Schopenhauer famously said that ‘everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world’; if we can develop and expand the perception of our own limits we can go some way towards changing how we view the extraordinary capacity inherent in the world. There is an old Chinese proverb that warns us - ‘If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to wind up where we are headed’ - and where we are headed is as much as a collective situation as it is individual. Further, it is as much of an individual psyche responsibility as it is collective. What this suggests is that how we think globally reflects the reality of the world we inhabit. And as our once familiar world begins to readapt to a new phase so must our understanding; otherwise we may find life increasingly difficult, stressful, and not only incomprehensible but outright hostile. We have to accept that it is our responsibility – our imperative – to make ourselves adaptable to a constantly evolving natural and cosmic environment. Perhaps for the first time in history conscious evolution has ceased to be a choice open to man and has become a necessity on which our future depends.

Conscious evolution is about acquiring evolutionary consciousness - to think in terms of the macro, of the direction our species is taking. It is our evolutionary imperative to enagage actively in conscious and intentional evolutionary transformation if we are to remain as a viable living species upon Planet Earth. We need to bring forth a new mind in order to accept a new world.