Tag Archives: Rumi

WE ARE ALL BEING COOKED IN THE SOUP TOGETHER

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By Paul Levy

Source: Waking Times

One of the recurring thought-forms that I hear repeated everywhere during these apocalyptic times is, “We are all in this together.” It is ironic that “we are all in this together,” and yet, our world feels anything but together, as it is in an incredibly polarized and dissociated state. Our species is suffering from what Jung calls a “sickness of dissociation,” which is a state of fragmentation deep within the unconscious itself that has seemingly spilled outside of our skulls and, through psychic forces beyond our conscious awareness, has taken the form of polarizing collective events playing themselves out en masse on the world stage. Our dissociation is not solely pathological, however, but is an expression of a deeper holistic process that is in the act of revealing itself. To quote Jung, “the sickness of dissociation in our world is at the same time a process of recovery, or rather, the climax of a period of pregnancy which heralds the throes of birth. A time of dissociation … is simultaneously an age of rebirth.”[1]

Whenever I hear “We are all in this together,” it reminds me of an amazing paragraph that Jung wrote in the late 1950’s that is as relevant today as it was then. Here is an excerpt: “We are in the soup that is going to be cooked for us, whether we claim to have invented it or not…. We are threatened with universal genocide if we cannot work out the way of salvation by a symbolic death.”[2] In other words, we are fated to suffer an unconscious “literal” death if we don’t consciously go through a “symbolic” death. What does Jung mean by this?

We are all in the soup together, yet we are suffering from a sickness of dissociation, and we are needing to go through a symbolic death experience, while another part of us is being reborn! What is going on here? Is what’s happening in our world meaningless chaos, or is there “something deeper” going on? The short answer: Our species has gotten drafted into an archetypal death/rebirth experience – in symbolically dying to a part of ourselves that is no longer serving us, another part of us is being reborn. As Jung points out, “there are times [and ours seems to be one of them] when the spirit is completely darkened because it needs to be reborn.”[3]

We can deepen our understanding of the archetypal process of death and rebirth that we are living out by shedding light on a prototypical example of death and rebirth – i.e., The Incarnation. Contemplating the West’s prevailing myth of the birth of God as a human being—the Christ event—psychologically, which is to say symbolically (i.e., as if it is a dream of our species) can help us gain some crucial insights into the deeper archetypal process that we are collectively enacting unconsciously on the world stage during these truly apocalyptic times.

The word “apocalypse,” etymologically speaking, refers to something previously hidden being unveiled and brought to light – in other words, something is being revealed to us during these apocalyptic times. Whereas in religious language, the apocalypse has to do with the Incarnation of God and the coming of the Messiah, psychologically speaking, the “apocalypse” means the momentous, world-shattering event of the coming of what Jung calls “the Self” (the wholeness of our personality, i.e., the God within) into conscious realization. Instead of incarnating through one man, however, like God did over two thousand years ago through the individual person of Jesus, the divine is now incarnating through the unconscious psyche of all of humanity. “God,” Jung writes, “wants to become man,” and instead of choosing a pure, guiltless vessel, God has chosen, in Jung’s words, “the creaturely man filled with darkness—the natural man who is tainted with original sin.”[4]

In that same amazing paragraph Jung writes, “Through his further incarnation God becomes a fearful task for man, who must now find ways and means to unite the divine opposites in himself. He is summoned…. Christ has shown how everybody will be crucified upon his destiny, i.e., upon his self, as he was. He did not carry his cross and suffer crucifixion so that we could escape.”[5] In other words, regardless of our outer religious orientation, everyone of us is fated (whether we like it or not) to carry our cross—to consciously bear our shadow and suffer the tension of the opposites within us—just as Christ did. And yet, something that we could not have created via the efforts of our own ego can potentially emerge as a result of consciously bearing this creative tension.

In being “summoned,” like a healer, shaman or artist who is being called by their inner voice and sacred vocation, we are being subpoenaed by a higher power. Whenever the archetype of the Self is constellated, due to the opposites intrinsic to the nature of this experience, we invariably feel a state of extreme conflict within us that is epitomized by the Christian symbol of the cross. Viewed symbolically, Christ on the cross reveals to us that the development and differentiation of consciousness leads to an ever-increasing awareness of a primordial conflict within our soul which necessarily involves a crucifixion of the ego. To understand this conflict psychologically, we could say that the unconscious longs to reach the light of consciousness, while at the same time continually recoils against it, because it would rather remain unconscious. In theological terms, to quote Jung, “God wants to become man, but not quite.”[6]

The Self is made manifest—i.e., real in space and time—through consciously suffering the conflict between the opposites to the point where we begin to experience their synthesis and complementarity. Jung comments, “This condition of the crucifixion, then, is a symbolic expression for the state of extreme conflict, where one simply has to give up, where one no longer knows, where one almost loses one’s mind. Out of that condition grows the thing which is really fought for … the birth of the self.”[7] It is by going through an internal experience of what the historical crucifixion symbolizes that the divine holy and whole-making spirit gets born through us.

Jung comments, “One shouldn’t evade this conflict by escaping into a premature and anticipated state of redemption, otherwise one provokes it in the outside world. And that is of the devil.”[8] If we don’t deal with the source of the divine conflict within us, it will get projected outside of ourselves and dreamed up in the external world. In other words, in our avoidance of dealing with the conflict within us, we are unwittingly colluding with the darker forces of death and destruction that are playing out in the outer world.

Nature herself does not come to a permanent standstill when confronted with opposites – rather, she uses them to create, out of their very opposition, a synthesis, a new birth. When Christ is nailed to the cross during the crucifixion, it symbolically represents that it is through the experience of being bound and severely limited in the space/time continuum that itself becomes the doorway through which we become introduced to the transcendent part of us that is beyond the physical, i.e., our spiritual nature. In other words, it is in experiencing our finite limitations to the max that becomes a doorway to the infinite part of ourselves.

Nothing so promotes the growth of consciousness as confronting the opposites within ourselves. Holding the tension of the opposites that is inherent in the crucifixion experience invariably liberates us from holding and identifying with our fixed and cherished perspectives. Helping us transcend the notion of a privileged and correct point of view, we become aperspectival in our viewpoint, as we see the relativity of all viewpoints – a way of seeing which coincides with the meta-perspective of the Self.

The essence of the Christian gnosis—the Incarnation of God through humanity—can be best understood as humanity’s creative confrontation with the opposites and their synthesis in the Self. The Self—which Jung equates with Christ—is present in everyone, but typically in an unconscious and unrealized condition. Once we withdraw our projections and fixations upon an external historical or metaphysical figure, however, we can realize that the Self/Christ (or whatever name we call it) lives within us – in Jung’s words, we then “wake up the Christ within.”[9]

Nature herself does not come to a permanent standstill when confronted with opposites – rather, she uses them to create, out of their very opposition, a synthesis, a new birth. When Christ is nailed to the cross during the crucifixion, it symbolically represents that it is through the experience of being bound and severely limited in the space/time continuum that itself becomes the doorway through which we become introduced to the transcendent part of us that is beyond the physical, i.e., our spiritual nature. In other words, it is in experiencing our finite limitations to the max that becomes a doorway to the infinite part of ourselves.

Nothing so promotes the growth of consciousness as confronting the opposites within ourselves. Holding the tension of the opposites that is inherent in the crucifixion experience invariably liberates us from holding and identifying with our fixed and cherished perspectives. Helping us transcend the notion of a privileged and correct point of view, we become aperspectival in our viewpoint, as we see the relativity of all viewpoints – a way of seeing which coincides with the meta-perspective of the Self.

The essence of the Christian gnosis—the Incarnation of God through humanity—can be best understood as humanity’s creative confrontation with the opposites and their synthesis in the Self. The Self—which Jung equates with Christ—is present in everyone, but typically in an unconscious and unrealized condition. Once we withdraw our projections and fixations upon an external historical or metaphysical figure, however, we can realize that the Self/Christ (or whatever name we call it) lives within us – in Jung’s words, we then “wake up the Christ within.”[9]

The cross is the symbol of the suffering Godhead that redeems humanity. This suffering would not have occurred without darker forces seemingly opposed to God. This is to say that the powers of evil play a crucial, mysterious and essential role in the redemption of humanity. Jung continues, “Christ is the model for the human answers and his symbol is the cross, the union of the opposites. This will be the fate of man, and this he must understand if he is to survive at all.”[11]

To quote Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton, “every man is Christ on the Cross, whether he realizes it or not. But we, if we are Christians [and in the deeper symbolic sense we are all “Christians”], must learn to realize it.”[12] Realizing we are Christ on the Cross re-contextualizes our suffering, transforming it from a deeply problematic personal situation to a more universal process in which we have all gotten enlisted. It is important to distinguish our neurotic suffering—which is a result of our unconscious clinging and is totally unproductive—from the suffering which is “sent by God” (as Christian mystics would say) in order to purify us of our obscurations. Our neurotic suffering blocks us from experiencing the divine, while the suffering that is a result of our participation in the archetypal process of crucifixion, through connecting us to the deeper passion that Christ went through, is the doorway introducing us to something beyond ourselves.

Russian philosopher Nicolas Berdyaev writes, “But there was a tendency to forget that the cross had a universal significance and application. The Crucifixion awaits not only the individual man but also society as a whole, a State or a civilization.”[13] In other words, it is not just individuals who are symbolically going through a crucifixion experience, but our global civilization as a whole. The microcosm (the individual) and the macrocosm (the collective), like iterations of the same fractal, are mirrored reflections of each other. The Self (or whatever name we call it) is incarnating through us—both individually and as a species—and it makes all the difference in the world whether we consciously realize this or not.[14]

If we remain unconscious when a living archetypal process is activated within us, this inner process will physically manifest itself externally in the outside world, where, as if by fate, it will get unconsciously dreamed up and acted out in a “literal,” concrete and oftentimes destructive way. Instead of going through an inner symbolic death, for example, we then literally kill each other, as well as, ultimately, ourselves. If we recognize, however, that we are being cast to play a role in a deeper cosmic process, instead of being destined to enact it unconsciously, and hence, destructively, we are able to consciously and creatively “incarnate” this archetypal process as individuation.

We, as a species, to quote Jung, have been “drawn into the cycle of the death and rebirth of the gods.”[15] In other words, having become part of a deeper mythic, archetypal and alchemical process of transformation, we are going through a cosmic death-rebirth experience of a higher order. Jung describes “how the divine process of change manifests itself to our human understanding and how man experiences it – as punishment, torment, death, and transfiguration.”[16] This divinely-sponsored process is subjectively experienced by the human ego as torture.[17] However, if we don’t personalize the experience, identify with it or get stuck in its nightmarish aspect—a great danger—but allow this deeper process to refine us as it needs to, it can lead to a transfiguration of our very being.

Whether consciously or not, we are all in a state of grieving – the world we have known is dying. In addition, our sense of who we think we are—imagining we exist as a separate self, alien to and apart from other separate selves as well as the rest of the universe—is an illusion whose expiration date has now been reached. This illusion is like a non-existent mirage that, if not recognized as illusory, can become reified and thereby become a lethal mirage. Either our illusion expires, or we do. As the poet Rumi would say, we need to “die before we die.”

To step out of the illusion of thinking we exist as a separate self is to recognize—and be born into—our greater identity (whether we call it the Self, Christ, Buddha, etc.), that includes and embraces everything under the sun. The Self—who we actually are—is simultaneously the source and fruit of life itself, enhancing life beyond measure. Connecting with the Self is not only our only hope in these dark times, it’s what everything that is happening in our world is potentially helping us to realize. And yet, the way to ascend to the light of the Higher Self (in Christian terminology, to attain The Resurrected Body)—as Christ himself indicates via his descent to the underworld after his death on the cross—is by journeying through the darkness.

To quote Jung, “God really wants to become man, even if he rends him asunder[18] … because he wants to become man, the uniting of his antinomy must take place in man.”[19] Where else, after all, could the opposites intrinsic to God’s nature (e.g., light and dark, good and evil) attain unity except in the very vessel—humanity—that God has prepared just for this very purpose? Being cooked in the soup together, we are being immersed and baptized into a deeper cosmic process. We are playing a crucial role in the divine drama of incarnation, an insight that renders meaning to our suffering and assists us in discovering our place in the world as well as helping us to find our very selves.

Embodied Spirituality: The Truth Shall Set You Free

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By Jack Adam Weber

Source: Collective Evolution

For myself, spirituality means aligning with what is true, or most likely true. This means looking at what is true through the lens of my unique experience and self-reflection (subjectively) and what is true in the world (objectively).

Living in accord with what’s true means I have to confront lots of things that are tough to stomach and that I’d prefer weren’t true. I practice resiliency by enduring this discovery process. It takes courage, humility, sensitivity, insight, intellectual rigor, emotional intelligence, and flexibility—in essence, all of me.

Why does it require all of me to be honest?

Because we humans have evolved to stick to our beliefs, even though many of them are false. We, in fact, experience a dopamine rush (a feel-good neurotransmitter in our brains) when we affirm our beliefs, even if they are wrong. So, confronting false beliefs about myself and the world means I have to endure some degree of feeling badly, some emotional turmoil, cognitive dissonance, and reorientation of my world. When I challenge many of my false beliefs, I encounter nothing short of transformation on all levels. Sounds like a bona fide spiritual path to me.

The Power of (False) Belief

This being human is a guesthouse,
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

—Rumi

When we don’t align with what’s true about ourselves, interpersonally, and in the world, we develop false beliefs. And we like to assert these false beliefs. Using evidence and acknowledging reality can help us let go of our false beliefs. We receive this information subjectively through self-reflection and what others share with us (which we also need to sort through for false projections). We receive true information about objective reality by direct observation and through evidence.

Ascertaining inconvenient truths means we have to let go of our self-administered dopamine addiction (by lying to ourselves and others when wrong) and experience feeling badly temporarily. We have to accept new visitors to the guesthouse of our psyche if we want to be more honest. If we can’t do this, we cut ourselves short of our potential.

We can’t be as loving and kind when we’re deluded about what’s true, subjectively and objectively. If I can’t accept that I am more self-serving than I think I am, I will continue to unconsciously put myself first at the expense of others. If I can’t acknowledge that smoking cigarettes, synthetic chemicals in perfumes, or spraying RoundUp is harmful, I am more likely to condone their use, which causes harm.

To change belief structures includes a collapse of our sense of self, trust, safety, belonging, and our perceived survival. This is also why many cling so dearly to their beliefs; even war can seem like a better option than to adjust ourselves to reality. Reality seems pretty powerful this way! If we adopt reality as our guru, we have a powerful teacher on our side to wake us up. So, a willingness to embody our humanness can be a path to greater compassion and peace. Embodied spirituality means being fully human—accepting and working skillfully with all our thoughts, emotions, physical issues, and relationships.

When we don’t embody our spirituality, we don’t take as good care of the Earth, which is the extension of our own bodies. In the age of environmental collapse, an earthy and embodied relationship to life that apprehends what is true helps us heal what’s ill. Like missing a medical diagnosis, how can we treat what what we can’t bear to admit and accurately diagnose? Honesty is therefore the first step to healing and embodying our lives.

Being Human is Very Spiritual

We, in fact, need nothing more than everyday honest living for spirituality to put us on a path of massive transformation.The more we can let go of spiritual loftiness and encounter our ordinary humanness, the more resilient and honest we become. Ironically, it is precisely this difficult growth that has given rise to many spiritual and religious paths that abandon the ordinary, grounded world of embodied living, as complex as it is. These spiritual paths thrive on what is highly likely untrue. They try to escape the pain of everyday living by denying what’s painful, which is called spiritual bypassing. With skillfulness, wisdom, and support we can navigate what’s honestly human while not bypassing.

Learning to welcome and tolerate all manner of emotions and inconvenient truths to our guesthouse allows us to align with reality, especially welcoming what makes us feel badly. It’s important to align both with the good and the ugly because when we ignore the ugly and painful, it goes unhealed and untended. Our precious biosphere suffering under the weight of our pollution is a prime example. What we don’t want to look at, we can’t address. Turning our heads and hearts away from it creates more pain and ugliness.

The New Age dictum, “What you put your attention on grows,” fails to acknowledge the importance of embracing what’s ugly and painful. A wiser, more embodied version might go: “The negative things you put your attention on allow you to see reality and address it before it takes over beyond the point of repair.” Look at the plastic pollution issue or climate change as examples. Acknowledging both sides of the coin is more important than choosing only the bright side of life in order to remain happy, which is short-lived when we’re in denial of the dark side. Wanting to remain happy at the expense of not seeing reality (except when we need a recharge break from honestly facing it) is fear in disguise that ultimately comes back to bite us. It also bites us in the moment because this denial cuts us off from our deeper hearts—our compassion and empathy—which are stirred by painful realities.

We can’t know everything, of course. Nor can we be right all the time. But we can be aligned enough with everyday reality (what matters at the end of the day) to make a difference and eliminate unnecessary suffering. We just have to be willing to be selfless enough to stop avoiding necessary pain to the degree we do.

Science & Critical Thinking

Scientific consensus is the primary arbiter of what’s objectively true in the world; what we subjectively experience is not as good a measure of what’s objectively true. “I like apples” is a subjective truth. No one can disprove this; it’s a personal truth. It is not the purview of science to disprove a subjective experience. Yet, if I claim that everyone likes apples just because I experience their yumminess, this is imposing a personal truth onto external reality. And, it’s not true—we know not everyone likes apples, and nothing is wrong with them for not liking them. It is the purview of science to demonstrate that not everyone likes apples, and simple common sense will do in a pinch.

Of course, there is bad science, like the junk (dishonest) science produced by many corporations such as Big Pharma and Bayer-Monsanto with regard to GMOs. So, when I say science, I mean good, peer-reviewed (and not conflict-of-interest and corporate-funded), consensus science. And yes, many scientific truths are always in flux, but many scientific discoveries do not change because they have stood the test of many challenges. Think about the law of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics. Many who want to protect their sense of self and ego deem all science to be manipulative, dishonest, and just another belief system. This is just not true. If it were, the device on which you are reading this article would not function because it’s constructed as a result of the collaboration of many scientific laws that have not been debunked and instead stood the test of time.

Consider another example: If I experience a vision during a medicine journey or receive a message in a dream one night that has personal meaning to me, I might conclude it’s true for everyone, or true in the world. Let’s say a blue dragon with white polka-dots tells me that aliens are communicating to humanity by way of trees. Well, before I know if this is true or not, I’d have to investigate its veracity. I don’t deem it true simply because I had a subjective experience that conveyed it was. This way, I can tentatively receive this bit of intuitive knowledge and seek to determine if it’s true. Intuition tips me off to what is possible, not necessarily what is true.

Confounding subjective and objective truth is one of the biggest faux pas we make, especially in spiritual circles.

Science shows us what’s most likely true beyond our own intuition, beliefs, and biases. Even with science’s errors and its dishonest publishing politics, good scientific consensus is still the best tool we have for determining what’s true about the natural world, not our subjective experiences. We have to be skillful and aware not to automatically deem our subjective experiences as objective truths. This helps us align with reality, keep an appropriately open mind, and helps everyone get along better because we’re not feuding over what’s objectively true.

“What’s True for Me”

When everyone feels entitled to their opinion—”what’s true for me”—we end up with lots of personal beliefs and memes that aren’t true. “Personal truth” or “what’s true for me” is a subjective truth. Your like of apples doesn’t mean anything about the external world, such as my opinion of apples. If I don’t trust politicians or my landlord, this doesn’t mean they are untrustworthy. I need objective evidence to prove or verify my distrust. Or I can just own this hunch and honestly call it so, while knowing it might not be true. This discernment between subjective and objective truth helps prevent assumptions and dogmas. This also sounds pretty spiritual to me.

If someone sheds distressing light on a politician I like or my best friend, I’m likely to become defensive because my sense of self and orientation in the world, as well as my emotional security, are invested in these beliefs. If my belief structures are challenged, all of what that belief system keeps in place becomes shaky. And this is just too scary for most of us, so much so that we defend against it or attack and assault others because of it. We often make the mistake of imposing “what’s true for me” onto what’s true for everyone or what’s true in the world.

“What’s true for me”  beliefs can’t automatically be extended to external reality unless we have evidence beyond our own subjective perception to deem them so. If I believe the world is flat and this is “what’s true for me,” that doesn’t fly. This is to make a subjective truth objectively factual. This is what leads to conflict and living in fantasy. Just look at religious and many New Age beliefs as examples. They are not different from our personal beliefs about the nature of reality that are also false and cause us to act in egoic, violent ways.

What’s True “Out There”

Good science to determine the mostly likely and factual objective knowledge offers us the opportunity to dismantle our egos and illusions. Science and critical thinking show us that many of our “what’s true for me” opinions about the world are wrong. Notice I am not talking about personal feelings and preferences, but rather our statements of fact about the world.

Objective truths implicitly challenge us to change, to transform ourselves. It takes spiritual-emotional courage to accept these facts, which builds resiliency the more we practice aligning with what is both subjectively and objectively true. The sun appears to go down over the horizon; the Earth appears flat. Via science, we know these subjective observations are not true. Using my intuition to make such conclusions is a wrong use of this faculty. If my intuition tells me there is more to the story, then I can investigate it for other evidence. This, in fact, is how many scientific discoveries occur. Intuition and science are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are allies as long as we don’t assume what’s subjectively true to be objectively true, and vice versa.

Many people dismiss science precisely because its conclusions fly in the face of what they’d prefer to believe. This results in intellectual dishonesty and spiritual delusion. Our emotional bents and grudges—especially those resulting from our hurt and wounds that have generated anger, fear, pain and thus, bias—prevent us from being intellectually honest, unless we recognize the dynamic by which we deceive ourselves and we set about to be more honest. This requires enduring the discomfort of being humbled and sacrificing a temporary dopamine rush for the truth.

To be able to accept truth therefore requires that we deal with our emotional baggage and triggers, because this is the primary driver for our intellectual dishonesty and spiritual laziness. Many of us would fall apart if we discovered that parts of our worldview are untrue. That could result in a spiritual emergency, akin to a healing crisis, which ultimately improves us and makes us more effective in the world.

Warriorship

This is why spiritual warriorship—aligning myself with what is most likely objectively and subjectively true—requires I be emotionally and intellectually rigorous and courageous. It means that I listen to scientific consensus and not discard it because I’d like to believe something else. It means that I listen to the opinions of others and gain perspective on myself (while also honestly and humbly sorting out projections and displacements of other people’s biases). It means that I genuinely and honestly consider interpersonal facts about which I might have an incorrect opinion. And it means that I notice the whispers inside me that tell me when I am being dishonest or hiding from the truth, with white lies tolerated now and again.

Many spiritual paths involve giving over one’s will and beliefs to a guru. Yet, that guru can be corrupt and deluded and conflate subjective and objective truths. For example, feeling “one with all” in meditation doesn’t mean that we are all one in a black or white way—without appropriate boundaries, individual needs, and different tolerances and sensibilities. In this sense, aligning ourselves with what is most likely true, subjectively and objectively, is a robust spiritual path—because, much like a guru, it forces us to align with truth and withstand the breakdown of some part of our existing paradigm. This is death and rebirth work, for sure. Again, this sounds pretty spiritual to me.

Detachment from reality by remaining stuck in one’s self-centered and deluded beliefs doesn’t help the planet or help us show up for one another. Consider our government’s failure to acknowledge the widespread harm of key pesticides, or the neurotoxic chemicals in perfumes and scented products, despite the scientific evidence and the fact that many of these products are banned in the EU and other, more sensible places than America. This creates crimes of global proportion because of the actions (and inactions) and resulting injury that a denial of the facts causes. Or consider a smaller-scale example. If someone doesn’t appreciate you, despite evidence to the contrary they choose not to see, they will treat you poorly and create unnecessary suffering for you and themselves.

Embodied Spirituality

To live an embodied spirituality—where we are in alignment with reality and what’s as true as we can glean— means we have to give up many of our fantasies and wishful thinking. It means we have to tend intimately to our emotional lives and the hidden aches and wounds that hide us from the truth. We find these hidden places when we descend into and become more conscious of our bodies (this is a key aspect of the “body” part of “embodied spirituality”). We have to practice critical thinking to align with external reality, what’s known as “intellectual honesty.” Emotional and intellectual honesty are the pillars that produce spiritual honesty.

When we practice emotional healing, good thinking, and care for the greater good, we inhabit our bodies more fully. Belonging to ourselves this way connects us to the body of the Earth, so we can treat it with the same integrity with which we treat ourselves . This way, spirituality begins with our (extra)ordinary humanness and self-healing and extends to the ordinary, extraordinary world around us in the same vein of integrity.

It’s easy to live in a fantasy world, believing what’s convenient, what feeds our biases, puffs up our superiority, denies what makes us uncomfortable, and propels our hate. These convenient, false beliefs also protect our core wounds and our need to belong in the world at any cost. The problem is that believing in what’s untrue damages the world because it guides our actions and inaction.

Science and everyday evidence are beautiful because they bypass our bias and opinion; they don’t care what we believe or what injures our ego. They’re impartial. Sounds like the work of a good guru to me. When we get humility, courage, honesty, good thinking, and passion all working in harmony and assuming their appropriate roles for truth-discerning, we get integration, which begets integrity. These psycho-spiritual capacities are the cornerstone of an embodied spirituality, which is simply to be an exquisitely integrated and aware human being who genuinely cares about oneself and the world . . . enough to be willing to suffer disillusionment to align with and serve it.

When we align our subjective and objective truths, we live in more harmony, not only with ourselves but with every other precious, living thing. What better path could we take than to strive for an embodied, earthy life in the age of environmental collapse? For, the collapse of the natural world may indeed be due to our collective, personal collapse of integrity—the abandonment of our own embodiment.

IS REALITY A HOLOGRAM?

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By Jonathan Davis

Source: Waking Times

You may be aware of the fact that tech billionaire Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX is now publicly stating his belief that it is mathematically impossible in a practical sense, that we are not living in a computer simulation. His logic is surprisingly sensible.  In 1972 we had Pong, a rudimentary simulation of table tennis. Now we have games that are near photorealistic.  If we keep to this course, we will create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality, even if it takes us a few more thousands of years, it will happen. So if it will happen… how do we know it hasn’t already happened? How do we know we’re living in the base reality and are not already in a simulation?

There’s a one in billions chance we’re in base reality. – Elon Musk

Recently, a team of Japanese scientists also announced they have found ‘clearest evidence yet’ that the universe is a hologram. While this may be the most recent effort to prove the holographic universe theory among numerous others, science has been perplexed by the insubstantial nature of reality since well before holographic theory existed – not to mention the mystics and philosophers who have been suggesting the same thing (in less reductionist terms) for thousands of years.

From The Ancient East To Modern West

Eastern mysticism has long held the perspective that our physical reality is really the maya of illusion. First century buddhist philospoher-poet Aśvaghoṣa put it that ‘all phenomena in the world are nothing but the illusory manifestation of the mind and have no reality of their own, while 13th century sufi mystic Rumi suggested that ‘this place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real.’ Jump all the way forward to the 1960s, and a wave of eastern mysticism crashed on the shore of western culture thanks to public figures like Alan Watts. Perhaps out of everyone, his is the most captivatingly poetic rendering of the subject.  For the full experience, take a look at this beautiful new short film from Aaron Paradox.

Kensho from Aaron Paradox

Quantum Conundrum

Since the emergence of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, science has struggled to reconcile the conundrum of reality no longer being able to be identified as something in any way permanent or fixed, and it was with impermanence that the first echoes of eastern philosophy began ringing uncomfortably within the walls of science. Neils Bohr, one of the fathers of quantum theory is famously quoted as saying:

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.  If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it. – Neils Bhor

This sentiment was clearly understood by physicist Henry Stapp who said ‘There is no substantive physical world in the usual sense of this term. The conclusion here is not the weak conclusion that there may not be a substantive physical world, but rather that there definitely is not a substantive physical world.’  Einstein even described reality and an ‘optical delusion of consciousness’ and stated that ‘reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one’.

As eastern philosophy spread into the western world with the influence of figures like Alan Watts and Frijof Capra, author of  The Tao Of Physics (1975), the question began to spread as to whether quantum physicists were in fact observing phenomena with electron microscopes that had already been observed thousands of years before via mediation.  What has been even less known is that the founders of quantum physics were in fact students of the vedic texts, and were not just accidentally observing similarity.  They were looking for it, and found it. Neils Bhor stated that he would ‘go into the Upanishads to ask questions’. Werner Heisenberg shared that ‘quantum theory will not look ridiculous to people who have read Vedanta; and Irwin Schrödinger thought that ‘the unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics.  This is entirely consistent with the Vedanta concept of All in One.’

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. – Rumi

From Recent History To The Not-Too-Distant Future

In the 90s, ‘dark poet’ comedian Bill Hicks helped awaken a generation with statements like his positive news story: ‘Today a young man on acid realised that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing ourselves subjectively. There’s no such thing as a death, life is only a dream and we’re the imagination of ourselves… here’s Tom with the weather’, as well as his beautifully inspiring Just A Ride riff. Then, by the end of the 90s we had The Matrix.  Like no piece of media before it, The Matrix was a pop culture breakthrough causing the very question of whether reality is actually real to be considered at least once by the tens of millions of people who have now seen it.

In the years since the turn of the new century, science has gained the courage to openly explore topics like the holographic universe theory, the relationship between consciousness and matter and even the once banned subject of psychedelics as medicines. We may well be witnessing a generational change on the kind of scale that Thomas S Kuhn was referring to when he coined the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ in his seminal 1972 book The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions.

A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. – Max Planck, one of the other fathers of quantum physics

Will this paradigm shift bring a full re-unification of science and spirit? Speaking on behalf of those who seek truth as much from outside the boundaries of rational reductionism as within it, I really hope so.  I know if I was a scientist, I’d have my mind on catching up with the the ideas of Nicola Tesla, (well known to have studied the Vedic texts); a man who like Copernicus, was born at least a hundred years before his time.

 

Life in VALIS

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216377

By Kingsley L. Dennis

Source: Reality Sandwich

VALIS is a 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The title stands for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, which in some respects is very close to the living intelligence I discuss in this series of essays.[i] A living intelligence also suggests a non-local field view of reality. The latest findings in the quantum sciences (notably quantum mechanics and biophysics) posit a field-view understanding that is said to underpin the construction of our universe, and hence the nature of our reality.

In the past, various people — mystics, psychologists, and consciousness researchers — have alluded to this intelligence field by a variety of names: cosmic consciousness, superconsciousness, transpersonal consciousness, integral consciousness, etc. All these descriptions share common themes; namely, a heightened sense of intuition and empathy, a feeling of greater connectivity to the world and to people, a sense of ‘inner knowing’ (gnosis), and the realization that humanity exists and evolves within a universe of intelligence and meaning. Forms and intimations of these new consciousness patterns are already emerging in the world, but as yet they have not become a part of our accepted paradigm.

As Dr. Richard Bucke stated in his work Cosmic Consciousness, the early signs of this new evolutionary development have been appearing within humankind for some time:

The simple truth is, that there has lived on the earth, ‘appearing at intervals’, for thousands of years among ordinary men, the first faint beginnings of another race … This new race is in the act of being born from us, and in the near future it will occupy and possess the earth.1

Such signs — or evolutionary mutations — have included, for example, visionaries, mystics, artists, psychics, and a smattering of young gifted children. I would posit that social and cultural events have occurred throughout world history that have served to seed higher functioning into human consciousness. Such events would have taken the form of artistic movements; scientific innovations; faith movements; cultural/social revolutions; architecture; fraternities; myths and legends; sporting fixtures, and more. All such socio-cultural impacts affect human consciousness in a way that prepares the human mind for periods of development and change. Within these seemingly random occurrences lie the components that act as the ‘technologies’ for developing human consciousness. In recent years we have seen the rapid expansion of our informational flows, and thus human awareness in general.

The increasing manifestation of a collective human consciousness — or rather a collective of minds accessing the living intelligence — is most likely to be in line with certain evolutionary necessities. Preparation has been necessary through a succession of events that form an overall pattern of mutually reinforcing stimuli aimed at raising humanity’s psychic awareness. This includes the expansion of intellect, psychological awareness, social development, humanitarianism, empathy, and creativity. These developments have also served to stimulate human intuition. In other words, there have been moments throughout recent human history that helped prepare the ‘mental soil’ for new patterns of consciousness to slowly seed and grow. According to one well-placed commentator on this subject:

The human being’s organism is producing a new complex of organs in response to such a need. In this age of the transcending of time and space, the complex of organs is concerned with the transcending of time and space. What ordinary people regard as sporadic and occasional bursts of telepathic or prophetic power are…nothing less than the first stirrings of these same organs.2

Similarly, the revered Persian poet Jalalludin Rumi stated,

New organs of perception come into being as a result of necessity/Therefore, O man, increase your necessity, so that you may increase your perception.[ii]

On the whole, socio-cultural and material forces are slow to react to changes in expressions of human consciousness. Yet this is nothing new, as throughout history there have been individuals who, feeling the need for transformational change, have been caught up in social-cultural upheavals. These events and human efforts, according to Gopi Krishna, indicate a stirring of the human evolutionary impulse:

I can safely assert that the progress made by mankind in any direction, from the subhuman level to the present, has been far less due to man’s own efforts than to the activity of the evolutionary forces at work within him. Every incentive to invention, discovery, aesthetics, and the development of improved social and political organizations invariably comes from within, from the depths of his consciousness by the grace of … the superintelligent Evolutionary Force in human beings.3

I would further add that in order for continued human development to occur there are particular periods of human history wherein humanity becomes ready, or in need of, the activation of particular faculties — our evolutionary potentials. During such transitional periods humanity will acquire — or be coerced into developing — new capacities for accessing consciousness (a.k.a. the living intelligence).  As in all paradigm shifts, old energies must inevitably give way to the new.

In the years ahead a new wave of young people will be manifesting a consciousness that is simultaneously open to spiritual impulses as well as to the latest in scientific research. A new generation will be growing up with the desire to develop a collective sense of wellbeing, connectedness, empathy and creative vision. What we refer to as the ‘nonlocal’ will to them be the same as integral interconnectedness, and will feel natural and normal. New patterns of thinking and a stronger sense of intuition will also be a sign that greater access to the field of living intelligence is occurring. This access is the same as, in our older language, direct interaction with nonlocal and non-ordinary states of consciousness.

The experience of direct nonlocal consciousness used to be the domain of experienced practitioners (shamans, mystics, psychics) who would have undergone rigorous and lengthy training. Our ‘everyday consciousness’ of the local view of the universe has been until now largely unprepared for the realms of non-ordinary reality. In Western civilization especially, the nonlocal mode of perception (subjective experience) has not been encouraged, or even recognized. As such it has lain dormant, atrophied, and largely left to the province of the esoteric sciences. The myopic, linear, and rational view of reality has resulted in the dominating values of competition, power, ego, and greed. A nonlocal, intuitive sense of reality, however, will be one that embraces the values of Connection ~ Communication ~ Collaboration ~ Consciousness ~ Compassion. It is my view that the new generation(s) of young people in the world will be the first to embody these values in a widespread manner — thus ushering in a new epoch for the development of human consciousness.

Connected to Living Information

It appears that the Earth is now receiving different forms of energetic impacts — especially electromagnetically — which will alter the Earth’s resonant energy signature. As the Earth’s magnetic field is not a static shield, but rather like an oscillating wave, fluctuations in the field are known to affect living systems upon the Earth. Biological bodies, being electrical energy units, are sensitive to external energetic and atmospheric variations, though usually these reactions operate at a subconscious level. Likewise, magnetic variations can have unusual effects on human consciousness. Our sciences are now understanding more and more how human life – our thoughts, emotions, and behavior — are affected directly by fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field.[iii] As the energetic resonance of the Earth alters over time, this will undoubtedly affect how human DNA calibrates itself as a newborn child enters into the world.

The knowledge that human DNA can be influenced and modulated by frequencies (sound, light, language, and thought) has been utilized by various spiritual traditions over the ages. This can be seen in the variety of exercises that utilize thought focus (prayer), sounds (music, chanting, singing), light (both natural light and produced light, such as in stained glass), and language (specific recitations such as a mantra and zikr). Similarly, various shamanic practices have alluded to the notion that DNA can be accessed through deliberate, conscious intention.4 DNA appears to function, therefore, not only as a protein builder (the minority function) but also as a medium for the storage, receiving, and communication of information.

If we understand that information is processed by us on a neurobiological level, then we can accept that our nervous systems are channels for information. Since we know that DNA is present throughout our cellular structure, we can be sure that our complete physiology is involved in and related to external energy fields — electromagnetism, gamma bursts, solar rays, as well as consciousness fields.

It appears that part of our human DNA ‘energetic signature’ can be re-calibrated in our lifetime through exercising various techniques, as in a range of meditative practices and associated stimuli (as described above). For many people, these are the exact practices that have guided them through their lives. It may be that in past epochs direct intervention — such as wisdom teachings, mystery schools, and the like — were required in preparing individuals to access the living intelligence as the current environment alone was not sufficient to provide the catalytic trigger.

This situation, I speculate, may now be changing. The young children being born today appear to be already more connected with a form of intuitive intelligence. Contact with one’s own intuitive intelligence is another way of saying a person manifests a degree of gnosis. And true gnosis is a form of transceiving of information; that is, the receiving as well as transmitting of nonlocal information. Such gnosis is likely to be in the form of informational exchange between the human nervous system and living intelligence, which together in-form the body consciousness field. A more coherent connection between a person and the living intelligence field suggests greater potential/capacity for a self-initiated awakening, without the need for external teaching environments. It may be the case that humanity has just been waiting for the establishment of an energetically conducive environment. And that time may now be at hand.

Fields of Resonance

In preceding years the human socio-cultural environment was not conducive to individual development on a large scale. For this reason many wisdom teachings or streams of perennial wisdom had to operate quietly, or as clandestine operations. And yet the human capacity to access consciously the living intelligence field is without doubt an in-born natural ability. Only that for most people this capacity has lain dormant as, like an under-exercised muscle, it was never properly used. As one source recently pointed out — ‘The information you need is encoded in the structural makeup of every single cell in your body. Contact is there.’5 The same source also noted that:

When you are aware of your totality, the Life-impulse will transmit to you everything that you need to know in any given situation. Its message will always come as your first spontaneous impulse. Be attentive.6

We now know that the entire genetic information for a human body is contained in each of the body’s many trillion cells. It may be the case — only speculative at this stage — that accessing the living intelligence also operates through connection/communication with the information that is en-folded in these communicating fields of energy. That is, our human physiology — DNA, cellular structure, nervous system, etc. — acts as a whole, coherent, transceiving apparatus that filters our consciousness from the nonlocal intelligence field. The bodily ‘transceiving apparatus’ resonates with the various energy fields that originate literally under our feet as well as above our heads.

Geologists are developing their understanding of how Earth energies are transmitted both along the surface of the crust as well as within the core of the Earth. Latest research indicates that the Earth’s core behaves more along the lines of a crystalline structure, rather than as the molten mass that many of us imagine. In 1936 it was discovered (by the seismologist Inge Lehmann) that the Earth has a solid inner core distinct from its liquid outer core. This solid inner core was deduced by observing how earthquake-generated seismic waves were being reflected off the boundary of the inner core. Likewise, the outer core was found to be liquid, as earlier suspected. However, more recent observations have shown that the inner core is not completely uniform. Rather, it contains large-scale structures indicated by seismic waves that pass more rapidly through some parts of the inner core than through others. It has even been suggested that the inner solid core is formed from iron crystals. What is known by science is that the inner core, through its dynamo action, plays a significant role in the generation of Earth’s magnetic field. Similarly, the crust of the Earth is known to support a network of energized, or ‘magnetized’ paths — variously called ley lines, Earth grid, pilgrimage routes, etc. It appears that the Earth manifests particular tracks, or routes, of increased energy upon which it is said many ancient temples, ceremonial sites, gatherings, and the like have been based. Indeed, many gatherings and buildings today continue to be based upon certain accepted energized ‘hot spots.’ Quite literally, the energy fields of the Earth pulsate under our very feet. In addition to this, above our heads the Earth’s magnetic field, interacting with solar and cosmic rays, envelopes humanity in a bubble of fluctuating energy.

The latest findings in science tell us that the Earth’s electromagnetic field is a sensitive membrane that responds to solar activity such as sun spot cycles, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and solar winds. We also know from neuroscience that human brain activity creates small electrical charges. Further, the human heart is now understood to act as a vibrant generator of electromagnetic energy. Collate this with a human nervous system and cellular structure that communicates as a coherent quantum field, then we have intrinsic resonance between human biology and our terrestrial, solar, and cosmic environments. We are literally living amidst a VALIS – Vast Active Living Intelligence System.

This understanding connects us with notions of a nonlocal field of consciousness that has been referred to over the years as the noosphere (Teilhard de Chardin; Vladimir Vernadsky); Overmind (Sri Aurobindo); and the world sensorium (Oliver Reiser). We can also consider this ‘noosphere/overmind’ — a.k.a. living intelligence field — as emerging as a form of planetary consciousness. If this is the case, then humanity may be instrumental in facilitating the emergence of a single planetary organism with a shared living intelligence (i.e., consciousness). A collectively aligned conscious and aware human civilization could become a physical channel for this living intelligence. This suggests that, as a species, we would have arrived at the point where we now needed to interiorize the evolutionary process for further development to occur.

The manifestation of consciousness through humanity appears to be undergoing an increased psychic compression that may serve to synchronize life on this planet. This process, in fact, is nothing ‘esoteric’ as it has been part of human civilization from the first day our ancestors began to worship an external presence. The convergence of human consciousness/thought patterns takes place in ceremonial worship, and is central to human prayer. If we look at the salah practice of formal worship in Islam (it constituting one of the Five Pillars of Sunni Islam), we see that this ritual prayer obliges the worshipper to pray five times a day facing Mecca. These specifically designated times of concentrated states of consciousness create an intense convergence and focused stream of energy across the globe directed toward the geographical location of Mecca. We have many other forms of consciousness convergence (or mental synchronization) upon this planet, throughout a myriad of socio-cultural-religious-spiritual ceremonies, events, gatherings, etc. For example, the ‘Global Consciousness Project’[iv], established by Roger Nelson at Princeton University, has demonstrated how human consciousness becomes collectively coherent and synchronized at moments of global emotional release. In the past, however, heightened synchronization in the human collective consciousness field was induced by external triggers[v]. It is to be speculated whether a change is underway upon this planet that will result in supporting greater coherence in the human consciousness field. If this is the case, we may suspect that this will facilitate a clearer contact between the human transceiving apparatus (the human body) and the nonlocal living intelligence field.

It is my own sense that the coming generation(s) will be among the first to awaken en masse to an era of instinctual gnosis. That is, a generation of instinctively aware young children who inherently feel an intentional connection and communion between their ‘self’ and the living intelligence. This contact will be a young person’s primary contact in their life, providing trustful feelings and instinctual guidance. This, we can hope, will assist in making our epochal and monumental planetary transition less turbulent and more coherent. The 13th century Persian poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī – known in the West simply as Rumi – suggested this intentional coherence when he accurately wrote about the distinction between acquired and instinctual intelligence:

Two Kinds of Intelligence

There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead

from within you, moving out. 7

This ‘second knowing’ which is the ‘fountainhead’ within us corresponds to the source of living intelligence – present within our very cells. Through accessing this contact/communication we are likely to find ourselves actively engaging with a developmental impulse unfolding upon this planet.

Notes 

1 Bucke, R. (1972/1901) Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind. London:  The Olympia Press.

2 Shah, I. (1982) The Sufis. London:  Octagon, p.54

 3 Krishna, G. (1993) Higher Consciousness and Kundalini. Ontario, CA:  F.I.N.D. Research Trust, p.166

 4 Narby, J. (1999) Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. London:  Phoenix.

 5Carey, K. (1995/1982) The Starseed Transmissions. New York:  HarperCollins, p.47

 6Carey, K. (1995/1982) The Starseed Transmissions. New York:  HarperCollins, p.41

7 Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, ‘Two Kinds of Intelligence’, Mathnawi IV:1960-1968 (Trans. Coleman Barks) 

[i] See the first part –  The Rise of an Intuitive Humanity

[ii] Taken from Rumi’s Masnavi

[iii] See research material at HeartMath Institute – https://www.heartmath.org/research/research-library/

[iv] See http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

[v] Examples include the death of Princess Diana in the UK, and the World Trade Center collapse in the US.

 

Freedom – A Condition of the Human Heart

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Freedom

By Kingsley L. Dennis

Source: Waking Times

“Loving freedom, to me, means having the freedom to love yourself deeply, others deeply, and accepting the never-ending truth of change. It means having the freedom to be happy on your own and happy with others as they come in and out of our lives. It means having the freedom to connect wonderfully with those you meet and deal successfully with those who are difficult to relate to well.” – Owen Fitzpatrick

In my previous ‘Reflections’ article (Toward Synthesis), I noted how the humanistic philosopher Erich Fromm viewed the modern world as suffering from the  contradictory struggle between having and being. The human need to find meaning, well-being, and personal growth was in conflict with a different type of world external to us. For Fromm, the resolution of this conflict was to be found in ‘a radical change of the human heart.’ For me, the issue of personal well-being revolves around the perception and experience of freedom. The ability to recognize, and internalize, well-being is fundamentally linked to how a person experiences their freedom.

Freedom is not simply a condition linked to battlefields, nations, and human rights. On an essential level it concerns the freedom within the self, and our battle to maintain this personal freedom within our everyday life. Erich Fromm himself wrote much on our human fear of freedom[i]. Fromm concluded that our in-born fear of pursuing freedom against social conditioning originates in our human birth process. The helplessness of the newly born child and the need for extra long dependency upon protection continues into adulthood in our need for human security. Fromm views our susceptibility to social conditioning as thus based upon a biological predisposition. This can perhaps explain why we often reach out to an outside authority (parent, teacher, partner/lover) as a power or force to recompense us for a sense of personal isolation. Modern society has exploited this tendency by approving and supporting our dependency upon external social systems. In the same way, our cultures often disapprove of those individuals that show high levels of self-reliance and independence. In a world moving toward greater connectedness, collaboration, and shared compassion, the presence of personal freedom is critical. For too long we have been focused upon the play of freedom as it is exhibited outside of us – by external powers – whilst blinded to the inner restraints of personal freedom. For me, freedom is nothing if it is not a freedom of the heart.

We often talk about freedom, or hear other people talk about it, in terms of having. In this way it becomes a value of possession. We either have it or we don’t; other people have it, or manipulate it, or control it, etc. In our modern understanding of freedom we have turned it into a commodity – a material object that we bargain with. In many situations and for many people this has been true. Also, if a person has been kidnapped, or held in prison/confinement, then freedom becomes a very real physical reality. Yet this is just one manifestation of the essence of human freedom. For my purposes I wish to discuss freedom as a state of being.

On an interior level freedom is not about what we have; it is more about where we are and what we do. It is about having the right attitude and perspective. In this context freedom is a process: we need freedom from something or freedom to something. We don’t have or possess freedom – we do freedom. It is important we create a freedom to move into, otherwise where are we going? We can create our freedom from the past – and even the present – if we wish to move toward a different place or state of being. For example, our past should not define how we wish our present to be. We can learn from it, and develop from its experience; yet if it is no longer useful, or even detrimental, then we need to learn how to leave it behind. We all have this choice of where we want To Be.

If we are unable to create this freedom within ourselves then we become, in the words of Doris Lessing, the ‘prisons we choose to live inside.’[ii] Let us not forget also that our interior freedom goes with us wherever we go. If we feel a lack of true freedom within then this will still travel with us whether we are in a meditation retreat in India, or in the Andes of South America. After all, we cannot escape from our very self. It is thus essential that we have the freedom to deal with the events that affect us on a daily basis. We cannot control what events happen to us, yet we do have the freedom of choice to choose how we respond to them. By progressing through our experiences, and by choosing connections and situations that are aligned with our heart, we can become an intentional traveler rather than a random one. The fundamental question to ask ourselves is: how do we want to live?

For me, how we answer this question is part of what I call the ‘living work’ – the work we do inside ourselves to prepare us and make us better for living in the outer world. This is where both aspects of freedom converge – at the intersection where interior and exterior worlds meet. This is where our image of the world and the physical reality of the world also merge. If we can realize that we only experience the world as ‘we are’, then the freedom we find in the world is but a reflection of the freedom we consciously – or unconsciously – perceive within us. In other words, our sense of freedom is as near or as far away as we make it. It may sound contradictory, yet what we need to achieve is the liberation of our own perceptions of freedom. The reason why many of us do not stop to consider this, or perhaps we don’t see it as necessary, is because we do not yet have the freedom to assess the state of our own freedom! As I stated earlier, freedom is not a possession, it is a process – an action – and therefore something to be worked for, to be involved with. Our own freedom is a participatory process.

Perhaps this process involves the freedom to do the small things that are important for our lives; not necessarily the freedom to ‘save the world’ or make a grand gesture. What we need within ourselves is the freedom to make a choice; to act as we feel best; to create moments of joy that can be shared. Or it could be the freedom to begin making a change by changing one thing at a time. Our lives are part of a grand human, living tapestry. By making one small change we can influence change in many other ways through countless visible and invisible connections. Freedom is about having the choice to make these changes, and to take responsibility for our participation in the living tapestry that is life.

Personal freedom is also an expression of intelligence: not intellectual learning but rather social intelligence, spiritual intelligence, emotional intelligence, and instinctive intelligence. All this is the intelligence of personal freedom. I am reminded of Rumi who wrote of the difference between instinctive and acquired intelligence: ‘There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired/as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts/from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences/……There is another kind/…one already completed and preserved inside you./A spring overflowing its spring box. A freshness/in the center of the chest…/This second knowing is a fountainhead/from within you, moving out.’ This second knowing – our instinctual intelligence – is already within each one of us. As a human being we inherently have this knowing. For me, freedom is being able to connect with this internal knowing – and to act from it. In the end, true freedom is a condition of the human heart.

[i] See his book ‘Fear of Freedom’

[ii] See Doris Lessing, Prisons We Choose To Live Inside (1987)

About the Author

Kingsley L. Dennis, author of The Phoenix Generation: A New Era of Connection, Compassion, and Consciousness. Visit him on the web at http://www.kingsleydennis.com/.