The difficulty we find ourselves in at the present time is that our global society is in the midst of a dramatic shift - as significant as was the Enlightenment shift from a heliocentric worldview to a humanistic one - from religion to science as the main body of knowledge. This mind-set of the separation between mind and body, the Cartesian view of a mechanistic, clock-work universe, governed by fundamental laws, is shifting.

We are moving towards an understanding that in order for our planet to cope with the changes on a global level, we need - as a species - to incorporate a way of thinking that sees global society as an interlinked web, where every action affects an outcome, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. Progress is not linear - nor constant or inevitable.

Information is the new energy that propels us forward - and this new lingua franca is becoming more widely dispersed and available, thus empowering people to see themselves as agents of change.

We need a change in our perception - new biology tells that in contrast to stories of evolution through competition and strength, evolution works on symbiotic relationships and co-operation. Inter-cellular communication and genes transfer is done through co-operation in information sharing. Shouldn't this be the metaphor for the new global society? Afterall: 'As Above, So Below'.

Evolution uses the same models in all spheres of development. Man's hubris has denied this up until now. If we wish to push further towards an enlightened evolution, we must embrace this model and feed ourselves through shared information.

Change begins with one's own mind-set and worldview. As the Delphic inscription read: 'Know Thyself'

This is a beginning.

Power is prevalent in society. It thrives upon the material energies produced. Yet there are degrees of power, and power is just as comfortable within a spiritual domain as is humility. For true power is the power to empower others.

It doesn't dominate - it lifts. It doesn't protect its greed: it patiently awaits until the receiver is able to share it.

The master becomes the servant as power empowers those beneath to raise themselves, and thus continue the Work.

One of the most difficult areas of our lives is in the need to find a connection, and belonging with one's sense of existence. It almost feels as if we are disparate parts, floating like loose corks upon a never-ending ocean. This is an existence without vision, without faith. The sense of belonging which exists as a fundamental aspect of each of our lives is inherent within. It is often the recognition that is lacking.

The lack often comes from a cruelty towards oneself. We are harsh towards ourselves, and too negative towards our weaknesses. We act like judge and jury upon our own faults: and we consider this a duty to reprimand ourselves. Not so. It is often an unconscious desire to cause some suffering towards ourselves that creates our inner tensions. If we do not suffer, we are not truly experiencing our faults and weaknesses. This needs to be overcome. We are a species undergoing a tremendous and now rapid evolution. We need to be mindful, aware, and observant. Yet as a self-guide, not as a jailer.

Our sense of connection comes from understanding our place within the grand web of all living systems. All parts of the physical world make a unified whole. A whole that is greater than its parts, yet incorporating all. Through feeling an inclusion in all natural processes, we can also feel an involvement.

There is no separateness. Every manifestation is in communion. Every affect has its myriad effects. Every thought and emotion its plethora of counterparts. Life is inclusion. And faith is courage in this.

LISTENING

Living to learn the expression
of us, of ourselves.
Much longing, unfulfilled, lingers
in the air, stilled, craving meaning.

We grow in order to understand
our own purposefulness,
asking questions relentlessly
as we tentatively step forwards.

Words mask our truer voices:
in learning, let not our greed
diminish our loving.

23.47
22.3.03

We are at a crucial stage in our development and the time for thinking about responsibilities, yet not acting upon them is past. As President Harry Truman once famously declared: ‘The buck stops here.’ Well, that buck was on the desk of one man – today’s buck reaches to every one of us, irrespective of country, race, gender, religion, or status. This new ‘buck’ is the collective choice we face concerning the future evolution not only of our species, but also of the Earth and all living forms included.

Every epoch has fashioned a corresponding mind-set, and frames of consciousness that have provided a functional use. The earlier mythic conceptions of a sacred world dominated by unseen forces and humankind’s integral relationship with powerful nature developed into a theistic consciousness. Here, divine authority on earth was conscripted into hierarchical dynastic rule as a governing device. This theistic mind-set became assimilated into the Logos concept of a divinely ordered cosmos with an ultimate prime-mover. This belief of an ordered cosmos soon evolved into the Enlightenment’s mechanistic ‘clockwork’ view of the universe where science sought to prove that natural laws held the world under linear domination. This materialistic mind-set has brought us up to the present moment. Now it is no longer of functional use. Rather, if it carries us any further, we are liable to become its victims.

An evolution of consciousness is required. I don’t mean this in any mystico-esoteric sense. I mean it in a very real and practical way. For the past 300 years society has provided us with a worldview and belief-system that sees the ideas of ‘survival of the fittest’, the sense of competition, and of conquest, colonisation, and consumption, as the main ideals. This materialistic conception has seen a rapid contamination of the world we share and has placed us on an evolutionary path to extinction. The next shift must involve a conscious decision to evolve our understanding, worldview, and wisdom, through intensive evolution rather than an extensive one. Intensive evolution replaces such obsolete material beliefs with ones concentrating on connection, communication, and consciousness. The energy inherent in inter-connectedness works on an exponential scale: that is, it develops at ever increasing rates. This is why in history most of our profound innovations have been the work of single, or minority, action. A conscious action produces an exponentially increased effect. Ghandi was right when he said: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ When you change yourself, you change the immediate world around you; those close to you, and the events you participate in.

An increased degree of communication through connection fosters an increased involvement of consciousness – and consciousness evolves through use, and latent properties are more likely to emerge when stimulated, just like a car operates better when warmed up. Again, this lies more in the realm of common sense than ‘strange goings-on’. Our era has shifted where we need to unburden ourselves of these obsolete and superstitious beliefs. True knowledge is sense that is not yet common, rather than esoteric or otherworldly. Science today, with its quantum theories of the ‘zero-point’ and ‘quantum vacuum’ provides greater understanding of our place in the present universe than at any time in our recorded history. Should we not be making use of this information? It is time to educate ourselves and to do our duty by changing ourselves first.

Thus, human contact and communication --> co-operation. Co-operation gives us Synergy. And synergy is the effect of combined action which is greater than the sum of its parts. As a whole, with unity, we can achieve things beyond that available to us as individuals. The next shift on our evolutionary path requires an evolution in consciousness, and we can all play our part. It requires inner-reflection, mindfulness, co-operation, and living in a harmonious and respectful way with others and with our environment. It doesn’t require any great sacrifices or burning of books: simply, it is living in accordance with our developmental needs rather than our wants. As one thinker has put it: ‘Live simply so that others may simply live.’ And living simply is evolving ourselves – our conscious awareness and understanding - to be in a harmonious relationship within a grander cosmic harmony. The ‘buck’ stops with us. Let’s do a good job of it.


For a more detailed discussion of these ideas, see: Ervin Laszlo, ‘Macroshift’ (2001)

An important factor in any development is humility. We, as people, as humans, are a product of many and varied forces. We are also under a great many more forces. We do not master events. Often we do not even master ourselves. And what we leave behind is often negligible. What we should aim to leave behind, and for others, is more than a few whispers or tales. More than some goods to be handed down as earthly souveniers. It is progress through action. Knowledge and understanding through action and intention.

Time is indeed short. The journey long. Everyone must play their part, and give what they can in this global effort for a global world. We can provide for oursleves and others. Yet we do very little if we only live to gain transitory pleasures. There is more important work to be done. Through collective purpose and will. It is no great conspiracy or fairytale. It is working towards our shared evolutionary future. With passion, dedication, honesty, and humility.

One of the newest concepts to have arisen lately is that of 'Emergence'. What this tells us is that the whole of something is greater than its parts, and that the emerging properties of the whole transcend the lesser properties inherent within its parts. An example often cited is that of the ant colony. A colony of tens of thousands of ants acts in unity, as a whole, despite the individual ants having no information concerning the function of the colony as a 'whole'. This model can, and has been, put forward onto human communities. The net outcome of individuals working as a community is greater than an unconnected similar grouping of individuals. Emerging properties greater than its parts depend upon contact and communication.

It is for this reason that study groups of a Teaching variety have held group contact and meetings as a priority. This has been known for millennia - although new for 'accepted' knowledge. A contact of like-minded consciousnesses can create fields or energies and subsequent emergent properties that far excell a non-harmonious collective of people. The functional quality is thus exponentially increased to a staggering non-causal degree. Since all energies within the universe are already in constant non-local contact within the quantum energy vacuum, it is the nature of 'mind' to be in contact and communication. To be conscious of this leads to evolutionary growth by supporting a developmental collective consciousness.

It takes a certain number of conscious people on the earth to enable the earth to progress to the next level of evolutionary growth. A hundred conscious people, let us say, who are in conscious contact and communication, can create an emergent exponentially increased degree of conscious force in order to influence remaining humanity and life processes. As said in an earlier post - consciousness begets consciousness.

It is spreading already and fast. Such influences, with us for epochs, are now shifting up a gear and raising levels of awareness on this earth at unparalled speed. The needed shift in collective and planetary consciousness is unfolding to its ordainded pattern.

To be mindful is a positive beginning.

WITHIN THE HEART


The truly man of calm is he
who has a silent turmoil within
his heart.




WORLD ASLEEP


The world is asleep
and often I am one with it

with each millions of eyes closed
and mine shut too :

It is a greater trial to awake
than to make love to your enemy

And evolution cannot touch that soul,
vain with its own busy life,

which does not stop to turn
its silent observation upon itself.




A STRANGER WITHIN


A man who lives on the outside of his skin
forever
is he who dies being a stranger within.

After all the talk, there is still frustration that the world 'out there' doesn't allow room for one to change. As a reply, it is necessary to work upon changing oneself before hoping that the world, or rather external events, will shift their focus in relation to you. Perception and cognition of external situations and structures is a product of internal cognitive interpretation and analysis. Therefore, it is a question of 'mind-set': if one's personal mind-set is fixed into earlier patterns of recognition, then future incoming signals will be analysed in terms of these set patterns. Thus, the world never seems to change. Yet have you allowed it to?

Change your own patterns of mind first. Think differently; behave differently; analyse differently. Bring new conceptions into being as thoughts; shift those old patterns of thinking and perceiving. The 21st Century cannot survive with a species thinking with an earlier model of consciousness. Shift the consciousness into new terrains; allow it to process thoughts beyond the Cartesian, mechanistic 2-dimensional model of linear processes.

Once a new pattern, a new mind-set, is gradually moved in to replace the older model, you will find surprising differences in how external events and situations are perceived. You might find a surprising increase in harmonisation.

Consciousness begets consciousness. Just as a fire causes the air molecules near to it to heat up, so does the energy of consciousness radiate out to affect the consciousness of others within a receiving range. This is why ancient spiritual traditions insisted on having the living presence of a guide; and for those who wished to learn it was required that they attend the presence of the guide. This was not merely for verbal and/or physical instruction but more so because the ensuing energies of consciousness could be intentionally directed to a receiving target, whether the target was conscious of it or not! Even today in all spheres of life, people are constantly 'picking' up each other's influence through an interaction of energies of consciousness, despite being unmindful of this process. The early guilds and apprenticeships worked upon the notion of learning the craft by observation, not fully knowing that this was exactly the path used for countless traditions of inner teachings, not solely because observation teaches (which it does) but also because more important transmissions of influence are operative under such conditions of close physical presence. Consciousness begets consciousness. When one enters a rose garden, should they sit next to a rose, or a thornbush? From where does the feeling of beauty come from? Choose one's seat with care.

The Universe is connected in an 'implicate order' - meaning that separateness is an illusion, and each atom resonates with the knowledge of the whole universe. Since the human body is itself composed of atoms generated within the initial Big Bang of the created Universe, then we ourselves resonate with a wholeness of knowledge. This 'information' can know itself - it is through self-reflexive consciousness. We are at the earlier stages of accessing this self-knowledge. The next step, since biological evolution of the species has been attained at a peak, is conscious evolution. This is the first time in earth evolutionary history that evolution can be directed consciously - in 'our hands' - rather than being a natural process beyond our involvement. Evolution of human consciousness is then a way of taking our species to the next level, towards a planetary consciousness, whereby the human race will be the nervous system on a higher level, as information is shared, passed around, and acted upon as is information within the neurones of our brain. By increasing brain activity, new capacities come into play as activity stimulates hitherto latent cranal areas. Empathy will increase, as will a sense of other people through non-verbal communication. Humans can begin to share their shared inheritance of Universe-knowledge as the atoms of the self resinate with more energy flowing through as human connectivity increases. Evolution is towards ever increasing complexity, and consciousness is itself a product of a particular peak of complexity. The next level of complexity is beyond the individual. The new complexity is global.

If we wish to have greater access to understanding, we need to develop our intuition. Intuition can be encouraged through contemplation, periods of silence, and above all a faith in one's self and feelings. It helps if events, situations, feelings, can be visualised. This forms a contact with the visualised object itself and so opens up a channel of relationship to it. Thus, one's intuition is in communication with the event and is able to benefit from a form of direct knowledge with it.

In short, understanding requires developed intuition, which can be encouraged through moments of contemplation and visualisation.

Information is destined to be shared. Greater understanding, once information has filtered into one's self, becomes an understanding towards a conscious yet shared future. Energy and connections between people foster a love beyond cliches of possession. This love is the compassion for a humankind sharing its evolutionary journey together; not as individuals squabbling for their private narrow ways. The future must embrace openness, and throw away obsessive possession.

Information is the key. Information is what emerges as the key to evolution. What is information? Is it knowing something about the dog races - which will win? Information is coded within each of us, yet its emergent capacities are only effective through connectivity. Just as the heart is essential to the overall fucntion of our body; take it out and both it, as a separate organ, and ourselves as a whole body, dies. It is this necessary interrelationship that allows information to be shared and conscious through its own connectivity. This is why we are all, each one of us, dependent upon connections that we are often not aware of. Thus, all matter is likewise connected. The property of self-consciousness emerges when the level of connectivity within any system is at a heightened peak of complexity. The human brain, with its hundreds of billions of firing neuronal connections is exactly this model of peak complexity. From this self-organised complexity comes our experience of adaptive cognition - self-consciouness. DNA has planned for this level of relational connectivity. As information in the world is likewise connected through greater networks of communication, eg. Internet, this will help to raise the information --> knowledge --> consciousness of society in general. This, it is hoped, will play a major role in guiding us towards our self-evolutionary future. This is the early stage of our expected transformation.

Some people ask how one can trust in faith, or know to how to move towards Truth, especially in today's climate. Perhaps the answer lies in priorities. If the material world is real for you, then Truth will be a part of this world, and so will all the suffering and pain of this world. Yet to ignore it is no answer either: that is escapsim, the realm of old religious stranglehold. The balance is dealing with each issue within its respective field. Truth needs to be sought within one's own inner spaces, through moments of contemplation and quiet questioning, in order to use this silence as a way of accessing latent qualities and capacities within oneself. The external world requires right action at right time, and right thought simultaneously. To confuse Truth with one's life obligations is jumping the gun until one has greater access to inner certitiude. For the initial part of the journey of self-understanding, place your life responsibilities in their rightful place and deal with them accordingly. To understand the subtler things, begin to listen to oneself within moments of quietness. Take it from there. When one begins to listen, the receiver begins to hear.

All is energy in dynamic relationships of attraction. How will you attract what you need?

Force of intention; inner concentration of will - these function as attractors. Since all matter is fundamentally organised relations of energy, thought itself is a force of energy that can interact with what is perceived to be solid matter.

PIERRE TEILHARD de CHARDIN wrote:


"The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those
who have managed to attain egotistically the extremity
of 'everyone for himself' is false and against nature...
The outcome of the world, the gates of the future,
the entry into the super-human --
these are not thrown open
to a few of the priveged or to one chosen people
to the exclusion of all others.
They will only open to an advance of all together,
in a direction in which all together can join and find completion
in a spiritual renovation of the earth...
No evolutionary future awaits man except in association with all other men"

Our evolutionary future awaits a consciously evolved being; in touch across spatial and temporal barriers in higher thought. To work towards a consciously evolved state requires an inner intention and discipline. It requires a conscious struggle to remove ourselves from an automated behavioural state, reacting in pure response to environmental cognition, to a state of perception and meaningful inter-relationship. Everything is connected, and yet most connections are fulfilled without conscious knowledge. A force of intention, of will, to allow a harmonious perception in the design of life is needed. To be of heightened intellect is not the same as being clever. It is not a dry intellect, a scholarly realm, but instead is the state whereby one knows what needs to be done, by understanding the quality and pattern of events, and responds to it appropriately, without distorted emotion or emphasis.

Such qualities can be worked upon through inner observation of oneself. To monitor one's own thoughts, actions, responses, physical and mental feedback. To be aware of one's state at all times fosters a greater mental functioning between both brain hemispheres, which fires up latent neurones, and thus increases brain activity which itself promotes heightened cognition - what one may call 'intuition'.

New capabilities and functions come into being according to one's need - therefore increase the need!

Will, intention, discipline. And then there's the synergy of love.

Life is an evolutionary journey. Humankind has continuously questioned the meaning of existence, yet it has done so often from thinking itself separate. This is a veil. Humankind is on an evolutionary path, as is all things within earthly existence, towards more evolved forms of intellect, understanding, and involvement. The capacities required for Humankind to achieve this development are located within the very cellular structure of human life already; its emergence, and the emerging capacities, have been the subject of countless religious, spiritual, mystical traditions through the ages. The modern emergence of such knowledge is now within contemporary systems of learning, making use of the new language of the sciences. The 21st century is one where the wisdom of the East shall find synthesis in the science of the West.

FAITH TAKES YOU TO MANY STRANGE PLACES



You asked me how I came to be here:
Well, my friend, Faith in something or one
Takes you to many strange places.


10.38pm
14.12.98










TRAVELLING



There are places to travel to
And other places to travel from;
Understand what must be left behind
Before you can find the One.


9.40pm
27.12.98


HOW TO CAPTURE BEAUTY



‘How can I capture beauty?’
you ask me.

‘Be an open-hearted hunter’
I say

‘Who upon snaring a bird
throws it back to the sky.’

‘But why?’

‘For beauty holds dear only
to a master who can share.’

20.40
7.12.99


ITS OTHER NAME


Faith is an instrument,

Sharp as a warrior’s sword
Shiny as a clean-cut diamond
Reflective as a repolished mirror.

Above all, it is yours,
Yet you must learn
How to work it

For it can be as dangerous
As all the above.

Its other name is Love.

21.35
17.7.00


THE REASONS WHY YOU CAME HERE


Spending so long planning
where you’re standing,

you forget the reasons why it
is you came here;

worse still, infection of the dreaded
earth-sickness

turns your thoughts to all the things
you cannot leave behind:

it’s the money, it’s the show, it’s all
the things you’ve collected

from the corners of your little world
and you can’t let them go.

Yet what is it that you came for?

That something special

you always had to believe in, that
reason it is you came here…

could you really be so ill you’ve forgotten
the touch of love?