We Are Already There
Whether you perceive the present state of the world as the “tipping point” or as some scientists surmise, we have another 10 years before we humans annihilate ourselves and everything around us; one thing we can certainly acknowledge is that we are on the edge. On the edge of what you might ask: total disaster or incredibly creative solutions.
Some of us have been hearing the warnings for almost 50 years: cut back on water usage, cultivate your own garden, minimize the use of plastics, be more self-sufficient, build community, etc. And as time is demonstrating, life is passing and being awake is essential. We also recognize that fear is the ultimate deterrent pulverizing any vision of a different future.
For centuries we have had our avatars: Buddha, Jesus, Sri Aurobindo, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and so many others. We’ve heard about collective consciousness and act as if that concept is meaningless or doesn’t apply to us. But our interconnectivity is so apparent especially when we observe the latest tragedy as presented by the media. We witness suffering and experience it in the depths of our being and our hearts are cracked open with compassion. Often we are caught between a web of unreality and a system that distorts truth as we do our best to abate our feelings of helplessness. Like Paul:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate (Romans 7:15).
Even as we are temporarily stupefied by our lack of ability to sift fact from fiction, with discernment we see that sometimes we are complicit in the very acts we are trying to avoid.
In the wise but sometimes overly used words of Albert Einstein:
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
The truth that emerges is that we are capable, but are we willing to dig into the deep questions of racism, equanimity, economics, climate, and poverty for this century? And yet all around the world there are signs of people rising up, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined” ( Isaiah 9:2). We are in a time of transformation where old ideas and systems are dying and new ones are coming to fruition. We are in the midst of an organic, unpredictable process. And the mind’s creative element is critical to that evolution.
Max Planck the originator of quantum physics says:
. . . the mind is the matrix of all matter.
“Quantum physics is the most valid and truthful of all sciences” according to Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief. His metaphor for our times is the process of metamorphosis. For centuries we’ve been like caterpillars eating and voraciously consuming everything in sight— land, natural resources, and people—a madness of accumulation under the auspices of growth. Currently, we are residing in a cocoon the soup of chaos and upheaval. Within that soup something wonderful is happening. It is the space of the imaginal cells from which the butterfly emerges. Staying attuned and attentive to our inner resources we can move the world toward healing. It’s in our imagination where we assume the desire for resurrection and rebirth.
We are living into a paradigm shift that will lead to the flourishing of harmony and peace. The injustices, suffering, brokenness, trauma, and separation we are witnessing on a global level will melt into wholeness. According to Paul Levy
Our spirit, the sentient presence that animates us, is by its very nature creative. The very center of our being is an unknown creative energy that forges us in its likeness, one way or another (with our cooperation or not). As human beings we are a creative force thirsting for conscious realization. Our creativity isn’t as a mere hobby, a side-line, something that we should just indulge in on our days off. The creative spirit is an essential part of our being, the life-giving oxygen for our soul.
Another way of looking at current events is through this lens—
In the galaxy of thoughts that makes our mind you have the imagination of the seeing eye, the eye that perceives the invisible; keep a childlike hopeful knowledge of the unseen goodness and a surety that the divine principle can be reached; remember that though you may be very small outwardly you can be as the universe, your mind is limitless. Realize your cosmic powers and take time to be a channel for the infinite Spirit to pour through in the great war against darkness, inertia and savagery. As you walk your way and go about your little daily lives, be measureless, be timeless, be eternal. Excerpt from Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood.
We are not separate from all that is happening around us. We are active participants in an evolving world and serve as conduits of the Beauty, Freedom, and Grace that saturates the universe. We are in process, metamorphosing and have access to the intuitive wisdom of creating a whole new world from the treasures that are hidden within each of us. Like artists we have the capability of culling creative forces and making an offering to each other or in the words of Martin Heidegger:
A work of art is something new to the world that changes the world to allow itself to exist.
We are at the end and the beginning at the same time. What would it mean to act from the consciousness of our deepest and purest convictions? Those carrying the light have a responsibility to persevere and share their wisdom. Dipping into the ancient experience of growth that empowers us to keep striving filling us with the durability and consensus to affect transformation, anything is possible. Like modern day shamans we become masters of our fate and Truthspeakers for something greater than ourselves. This creative impulse cultivates something in us and as Carl Jung writes:
evokes in us all those beneficent forces that ever and anon have enabled humanity to find a refuge from every peril and to outlive the longest night.
In summary it might be worth embracing these words of Paul Levy:
Once we’ve attained the privileged status of becoming a human being, instead of demonizing each other, we can then make our highest priority what it should have been all along: helping each other to awaken and step into our immense untapped creative potential and brilliance.