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Life is like a…?

April 2, 2011 //
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Like what?  Bowl of cherries… the optimistic refrain from an early 20th-century song?  A box of chocolates… as Forrest Gump proclaimed?  What is life like to you?

Recently, we offered that many people currently believe that life is like a school – where you learn the lessons exactly like you’re supposed to and get judged at the end to see how well you did – or that life is like a game – we’re competing against one another to see who can get the most power and material wealth.  These worldviews drive these peoples life choices.  Both viewpoints contain the commonality that every person is separate and apart from every other person and that that belief drives many of the problems of the modern world.

If we saw everything as interconnected and interdependent – everything that appears to be separate is known to be part of a whole – and we truly lived our lives from that viewpoint, then there would be little place in this world for war, poverty and suffering.  There is no “other” – there is only this one of which I have my experience of uniqueness and individuality.

So what we need is a new metaphor – a new shortcut for looking at life that supports a worldview of oneness and interconnectedness.  We need to replace the bowl of cherries, the box of chocolate, the school and the game with a new catchphrase.

What’s it going to be for you?  One common metaphor for our “multiplicity within the unity” – that is, our uniqueness within the oneness – is of the ocean.  We often hear the description that we are like drops of water or waves within the ocean.  The essence that is the ocean is embedded in us but we are not the entire ocean.  As that drop of water or that wave, we express ourselves in our own unique way while still remaining connected to the whole.  I’ve always liked this metaphor.

Here’s a strange one that came to me recently – consciousness, spirit, mind, the one – whatever name you wish to give to that underlying essence – is like a stretchy rubber blanket of which we are all a part.  (Yes, I know, there’s a joke somewhere here about bedwetting or insane asylums.  You can play with that analogy if you want.)  The point is – we are connected to everything as a part of that stretchy fabric but that at certain points we all push up through it and take on a form that appears different from it.  We look out and see others who have pushed up and out and taken on their own shape and appear to be separate from us.  We are all part of the rubber blanket, but all we see and experience are the shapes that each of us have taken on in our unique expression of that underlying oneness.  We’ve become so wrapped up in the fabric of the experience of life, that we have forgotten the fabric that binds us.

Play with that visual for a few minutes – imagine every person and object as poking up through a rubber blanket so far that there are all these shapes and forms moving about with a sense of being separate.  When we transition from this life, we released our shape and return back level with the blanket.  Can you picture it?  This visual helps me grasp the concept that “consciousness is the ground of all being” a point frequently made by quantum physicist Amit Goswami and others.  That is, consciousness is embedded in everything.

How does this metaphor works for you?  Do you have one you use not mentioned here that you have found useful for reminding yourself of our underlying unity?  If so, post a comment or send me an e-mail – I would love to hear what you use to remember our oneness.

Peace and blessings.

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Conscious Bridge Website, Featured Article, Spirituality

The World As Your Valentine!

February 12, 2011 //
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Today, the topic is love.  Given our title, you probably know where I’m going – all we need is love, what the world needs now is love sweet love, can’t we all just love one another – that kind of thing – and ultimately you’re right but I would, uh, “love it” if you would play along!

Valentine’s Day Is Here!

But do you ever stop to wonder where it came from?  Here are some basic facts from Wikipedia – the day was created and named after an early Christian martyr named Saint Valentine around 500 CE.  There are questions as to whether this name represents one person or many martyrs.  One of these martyrs named Valentine died on February 14, hence our celebration on this date. 

Ironically, the early honoring of Valentine had nothing to do with romantic love – the earliest records of linking love to Valentine’s Day is found in the writings Chaucer in the late 1300s.  Some historians believe the link derived from ancient Roman fertility celebrations that went on around the same time.  Over the centuries, many people were called to strengthen this connection between love and holiday – and in the 19th century, the tradition of writing notes to one another grew into the 20th and 21st century big business of the greeting card companies!

What were your earliest memories of Valentine’s Day?  For me, I can still see my elementary school room where we had taped up decorated bags with our names on them to the chalk trays under the room’s blackboards.  The night before at home I had prepared all my Valentine cards to be delivered to my classmates.  This was a big deal to me.  At my mother’s urging, I prepared a card for everyone in my class.  The choicest cards from the box my mother had bought me were selected for the prettiest girls.  The absolute best card generally went to the girl that I had a secret crush on!  This was my one time of the year that I could safely profess my love, even if in a very subtle way.

At the chosen moment, our teacher would have us go around and deliver our Valentines into the other kid’s bags.  Later we retrieved our little mailboxes, retreated to our desk and opened our love notes.  I carefully read the cards from the pretty girls, especially “that one girl”, to decipher any clues that my affection was returned.  I carefully noted who in the class had not given me a card.  My worth, my lovable-ness, all being determined by the count cards and the subtle messages they contained.  Oh how these early messages became ingrained in us and gave us fodder for healing later!

As I grew up, Valentine’s Day got locked into a day to get gifts for my one girlfriend and eventually my wife.  Cards, flowers, candy and meals out were all purchased with the intention to say “I love you”.  At least, we hope that that intention is there!  I’ve talked to a lot of men where it sounded that their actions were more out of obligation than an intention of expressing love.  I have no doubt I probably slipped into this trap somewhere earlier in life, too.

What Is Love?

What exactly is this thing love which we claim to be professing?  So much has been said, written and sung about this topic – it has captivated us as long as there has been an “us”.  But I’m going to keep it simple here.

Most of us equate love with a human emotion somehow linked to desire for some person, thing or experience.  Most of us recognize there are different “levels” to our love.  I may love hot Apple pie, walking around Paris or a good movie.  Yet somehow that love is different than the love I feel for my dog, Harmony; my wife, Mary; my grown children – Melanie, Julie, Matthew, Glen, and Christian; or my grandchildren – Amelie, Cayla and Zoe.

I thought at the time that I loved that pretty little girl in my elementary school class.  I remember my first serious girlfriend and that intense out of control sense of love.  Along the path of life, I have felt “love” for many people.  That feeling has tended to mature a bit along the way.  The “life or death” intensity of “I love you, please love me or I am heartbroken” has shifted into a deeper care and concern over your happiness and the quality of your life.  I may still “want you to love” me, but I’m not going to die if you don’t and I can still care about you.  Bottom line is our sense of the experience of love shifts for most of us as we walk life’s path—it “evolves”.

Every once in a while, I bump into these people who exude a warmth and love that seems to extend from them out to everyone.  When I encounter these people, I want to be around them!  In fact, something in me wants to feel and exude the love that they do.  Something calls me to expand my feeling of love to more and more people.  Their experience of love seems to be the next step in how the maturing of my experience of it is moving.  Somehow love itself is calling me to love everyone.

Expanding Our Circle

I’ve written about this before – the natural progression of expanding our circle of care and concern to a broader number of people – moving from being egocentric (caring only about myself) to ethnocentric (caring about a widening circle of people who are like me – family, friends, share the same religion, share the same ethnicity, share the same country) to world centric (caring about everyone everywhere).  This is our evolutionary path ultimately.  We can deny it.  We can fight it.  We can avoid claiming it in this lifetime.  Yet I’m convinced this is where humanity is ultimately headed.

I’m not alone in that belief.  Many mystics and individuals who have combined spirituality and evolution have seen that truth including Ernest Holmes, Sri Aurobindo and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.  This path is also frequently referenced by philosopher Ken Wilber and integral theory.

One of my favorite quotes by de Chardin is “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”  If you’ve read Conscious Bridge for very long, you have probably heard me reference this quote before.

Upon first reading it, we may think that he is saying that if we could somehow hook electrodes up to humans and capture this power source called love, then we could somehow break our dependence on foreign oil and bring down our CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.  But that’s not exactly what he means.

In my opinion, de Chardin is reaching back into our past when humanity crossed a critical threshold in its evolution.  When we discovered fire is also when we discovered our ability to think and reason – we recognized that we were thinking – and with that ability came the power to manipulate the physical world.  We’ve been getting better at that ever sense as we “master the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity”.  Now we’re ready to kick it up a notch.

By turning inward, and harnessing this emotion that we call love, de Chardin is pointing us towards our next great leap in our collective evolution.  If somehow we can consciously direct our love rather than see it as an emotion which controls us, then we are “harnessing it”.  And, de Chardin reminds us we are harnessing this power “for God”– but please keep in mind that the God he describes is not the old myth of a bearded man sitting on a throne in the sky which is still fairly prevalent in our consciousness, but rather a God that is an energy, a power, a vast intelligence –”God” is in everything and everything is a part of “God”.

As we consciously choose to direct our love more and more, we let go of our sense of separation from one another and begin experiencing our unity, our oneness – in other words by our “harnessing our love” we expand our awareness of the fact that we are all part of “God”.  The more we can grow in that consciousness, the more we will be like those loving people I keep bumping into – if I can see beyond the veil of your story of your humanness from your time here on planet Earth and into your truth that you are this spiritual consciousness evolving in the same flowing ocean that I am, then how can I not love you!  In spite of outward appearances and our different earthly stories, we are the same!

Harnessing the Evolutionary Force of Love

Ultimately love at its highest level is not this emotion we feel, but an evolutionary force driving us to our highest potential.  De Chardin said, “Love alone can unite living beings so as to complete and fulfill them… for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.”

Ernest Holmes said that love “is the great transforming Power, which brings everything into harmony.  It is the unifying Principle, the creative element, the motivating Power of all that is fine and noble in life.”  Aurobindo wrote, ” Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment.  It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.”  In were we not taught as kids that “God is love”?

So somehow each of us is called to journey in our awareness from an early learned sense of love being an emotion that simply arises inside us that is outside our personal control – to a new sense of love being a power that we can harness as we evolve, a power returns us into unity with spirit or God.  So how do we make that shift?  Here are some simple, but not necessarily easy steps:

  • Recognize that giving love is not dependent on receiving love.  I can still choose to love the little girl in my elementary class whether she gives me a card or not.  I can choose to love you no matter who you are and what you believe.  I don’t have to condone your behavior nor allow you to walk all over me, I can have healthy boundaries and disagree with your actions but still love you.
  • Recognize that I can always create an intention to love, it’s within my conscious choice.  Why are you and I giving those Valentine’s Day gifts?  The energy behind an intention of obligation tends to foster separation, an intention to express love moves us into unity.
  • Recognize that not only can I expand my circle of love to include more and more people – something inside me pushes me in that direction.  Most people regardless of their political or religious beliefs feel something in their hearts open towards people much different from themselves at certain moments.  Consider the Indian Ocean tsunami of a few years ago, the Haitian earthquake last year or the shooting in Arizona last month.  Much of the world’s attention has been focused on the events in Egypt these past couple of weeks.  Something inside of us connected the passion and excitement of Egyptians as they took steps to create a government that is responsive to their needs.  Our hearts opened as we watched their happiness unfold and celebrations erupt on the streets.  Forget politics for a moment – focus on that feeling within you that connected you with the Egyptians excitement.  That feeling can be controlled and expanded.  It is an evolutionary force connecting you with others!

So on this Valentine’s Day, make each of us be reminded to shift a little bit in our perception of love.  May we see the gift that this emotion has given us throughout our lives, how we may gain conscious control of this emotion and harness it for our personal growth, and how we may expand our love to encompass all – may we see the world as our Valentine.

Happy Valentine’s Day!  Be Love!

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Conscious Bridge Website, Consciousness, Featured Article

Consciousness vs Awareness?

December 12, 2010 //
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Someone posed a question the other day on a “list serve” I subscribe to which caused me to do some reflection….The question:  What is the difference between consciousness and awareness?  Although I posted my comments there, I thought I would bring it over here to the Bridge readers as well. I would love to hear your answer to the question as well.   Here’s my take…

Here’s the short answer:  Consciousness is the ground of all being, an essence, power and divine intelligence that is embedded in everything.  Awareness is both our personal perception of the level of consciousness within us and our use of it.

Here’s the commentary on the short answer:

The creator, creative force, God or whatever name you wish to give that which created All embedded Its essence in all of its creation.  That essence includes the power and intelligence of consciousness.  Everything contains consciousness, from the smallest particle on up to those entities with the most complexity such as humans.  Our evolutionary path has been driven by forces (among them love, allurement, and the synergy of being in relationship) that have brought about higher levels complexity.  As more complex entities emerged, they transcended but included the lower levels from which they came, and in that process embedded within themselves higher levels of consciousness.  In integral theory, each level is called a holon.

At each level of the evolutionary process, each entity had an “awareness” appropriate to its level of consciousness.  It may be hard for us to imagine what a rock’s or a plant’s or another animal’s “awareness” is like, but they each have their own personal perception and use of their consciousness appropriate for their level of development.  Humanity crossed an important threshold in its complexity such that its awareness moved into a level of “self-awareness” not available to lower levels.  In other words, we know and know that we know. 

Here’s how Science of Mind creator Ernest Holmes put it so many years ago:   ”Through eons of time life has been slowly climbing up the ladder of unfoldment to the present self-conscious state achieved in man.   Some degree of consciousness exists in everything because everything is some form of Spirit, and Spirit is Intelligence.  However, there are degrees of intelligence, or consciousness.  We often hear the expression, “Consciousness sleeps in mineral life, dreams in plant life, awakens in animal life, and comes to self-consciousness in man.”  Man, then, stands at the very peak of the evolutionary climb.  He is now a self-conscious individual which means that he not only knows, but knows that he knows.  He can think about his own consciousness, and he now has the power of choice – the very summit of life’s upward striving.  Evolution, through infinite ages, has done much for him.”

So here we are at the summit and are becoming aware of the power of our thoughts.  And, the more and more we become aware of this power, we realize that we are a co-creator in the divine evolutionary process.  We can now look forward and upward to the even greater levels of complexity and higher levels of awareness that exist beyond us as individual humans.  With our understanding of the evolutionary process, we can now consciously move humanity towards these higher levels.

These higher levels call to us to release our sense of separation and to embody our sense of unity.  We include our uniqueness and our personalness and carry it with us as we transcend our current level of awareness and move into an awareness of oneness.

Here’s how Rumi put it, ““Originally you were clay.  From being mineral, you became vegetable.  From vegetable, you became animal and from animal, man.  During these periods man did not know where he was going, but he was being taken on a long journey nonetheless.  And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet.  There are a thousand forms of mind.”

And it gives meaning to these quotes from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: ” Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being. Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.” and ” Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Blessings,

Rev Mark Gilbert

www.consciousbridge.com

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Positive Evolution

For Our Children’s Children

August 16, 2010 //
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Cayla and AmelieWhy is it important to me to continue to talk about how we can move to our highest future?   There are certainly a lot of other things I could be doing with my time.  And, what exactly do I mean by our “highest future” anyway?

Recently I was interviewed on a public radio station about this web site and the talks and classes I conduct around “positive evolution” and our “highest future” (a listing of my upcoming talks can be found on the “bridge” web site by clicking on “event schedule” on the top of any page).  In preparation for the interview, I stopped and reflected upon “just why exactly am I doing this, again?”.  What came out of that reflection was the following “manifesto”.  I share it with you so that you can reflect upon what you want for our future.

Conscious Bridge Manifesto

The purpose of the Conscious Bridge website as well as its related teachings (talks, classes, etc.) are to foster an awareness of the following:

  • Humanity is at a critical point in its history
  • There is a possibility for either a bleak or wonderful future.
  • Each person plays a role in the future we choose.
  • Where we focus our energy, our attention, our thoughts, our actions is how we choose.
  • Humanity’s challenges allow us to learn what we do not want as well as what we do want for our future–we can reframe the events towards the positive and where we want to go.
  • These lessons allow us to create a vision for humanity’s highest future.
  • Although there is no consensus on this highest future, there are useful first steps that can guide us.
  • Each of us must hold a vision for our highest future.
  • Each of us must keep our thoughts and actions focused on the highest future.
  • Each of us must treat others with dignity and respect, focusing on our similarities more than our differences.
  • Each of us must follow a plan for our personal development and evolution that develops our body, mind and spirit; works to heal our shadow; strengthens our relationships; and, develops our service to the world.
  • Each of us must become familiar with the issues facing the planet, pick one that calls to us, and move into action on it.
  • Each of us must work to develop partnerships and coalitions that move us in the direction of our highest future.

 

The term “Conscious Bridge” relates to the necessity of our becoming “conscious” of our role in guiding humanity to its highest future.  The word “Bridge” relates to moving us from the world we currently experience to the one of our dreams.  “Bridge” also references the importance of breaking down our sense of separation and division from one another, bridging our differences, and moving into a greater experience of unity.

Some current visions for our highest future that offer guidance:

  • United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • United Nations Millennium Goals
  • Centers for Spiritual Living Global Heart Vision

 

Aspects of a vision for our highest future or “a world that works for everyone”:

  • We all have access to clean water, adequate food, and education.
  • We all have the right to life, liberty and security.
  • We live in peace.
  • We all have access to economic and social advancement.
  • We experience a melding of science and spirituality.
  • We have the freedom to individually express our unique creative abilities.
  • We live recognizing the interconnectedness of everything.
  • We act as good stewards of the Earth and its resources.
  • We purposefully use the power of our consciousness.
  • We meet our individual needs while meeting the needs of the greater whole.
  • We recognize we are evolving and consciously cooperate with the process.
  • We recognize we are on a spiritual path to be reunited with our source.

 

Bottom line

There are certainly some challenges we face based upon the direction that humanity is headed.  We can continue down this path of negativity where humanity harms itself with war, violence, unfair distribution of resources, one “winning” at the expense of others, and the general treatment of one another as if we are all not related somehow.  And, we can also continue down this path of destruction of the planet such that as it “rights itself” with mechanisms such as global warming, humanity ultimately suffers.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.  We can change our direction.

I guess the bottom line for me is that I am ultimately optimistic about where humanity will eventually end up.  I am certain that our ultimate goal in our evolution in consciousness will be complete awareness of the unity and oneness of all life.  The question really is—we will wake up and take a more direct path in that evolutionary process or will we continue down the path of hardship before events get so harsh that we have no other course?

As a father and grandfather (my granddaughters Cayla and Amelie are pictured above), I care about the world my children and grandchildren are inheriting.  I truly want them to live in a world where everyone is treated with dignity and respect and peace is the norm.  I want them to live in a world where we care about the Earth and are good caretakers of our home.  I do not want them to come to me and ask “why didn’t you do something when you knew where we were headed?”  How can we “know” but not “act”?

Each of us knows the world that we want to pass along to our children’s children.  Each of us must step up and act on that knowledge now.

Mark Gilbert

NOTE–please redistribute this article to your friends and family.  Please encourage them to sign up for updates on the Conscious Bridge website by clicking on any of the orange “subscribe” buttons or to “follow” us on Facebook by clicking on the “follow this blog” button on the right side of any page.  Also, encourage them to pick an issue on which they are passionate about and take action!

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Categories Change Agent, Culture, Featured Article, Politics

Transcending the Third Dimension — Part Three

August 7, 2010 //
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transcending the third dimension-loveToday, we conclude our self dialogue in exploring our evolution through the third dimension and our opportunity to transcend it….. Click here to read part one in which we explored what we mean by the third dimension, how we came to be in and our evolution through it. Click here to read part two in which we discussed why it is imperative for each of us to consciously take control of our personal evolution and what that means. Today, we finish our discussion considering our collective evolution and transcendence.

So, as our personal evolution unfolds and we become more aware of our interrelationship to everyone, how does that relate to the collective evolution of humanity?

As mentioned previously, as we as individuals evolve or grow in consciousness or become enlightened… however you wish to describe it… we become more aware and truly embody the reality that we are all interconnected — that we are all part of some grand “oneness”. As that occurs, it is inevitable that we will grow in our sense of love and concern for all our fellow beings. This is one area where religions have served us. There is a common thread in all faiths that teach the Golden Rule — do unto others as you would have them do onto you. This call to ethical behavior served us early in our evolutionary process as we banded together in tribes and cities and countries. The more we all cooperated within “our group”, the more our group flourished. Yet the Golden Rule’ s guidance was never limited to any one group. As we expand our sense of the “other” to greater and greater degrees, soon it envelops all humanity, all life, the planet, and ultimately the universe in total. What would it mean to treat every person on the planet as we would wish to be treated? What would it mean if we treated the planet and the universe as we would wish to be treated?

There is certainly plenty of evidence that we do not treat one another nor the planet as we would like to be treated. What do you think it would be like if we did?

I suspect most of us could agree on many of the characteristics of such a world, but there is obviously no consensus. I have my vision of what such a world might look like. First, each person would have access to the basic rights as outlined by the United Nations–for adequate water, food, education, to be treated with dignity and respect, to be able to live with certain freedoms. Yet beyond that, each person would have a reverence for all life — as we look outward, we would see ourselves in other people, in animals, in plants — we would sense our connectedness. Yes, we would continue to seek to meet our basic needs for our own lives. Yet, there would be greater awareness where our continued efforts to meet our needs crossed over into the territory of meeting “wants and desires” (stuff we exert effort towards attaining that in the big picture we don’t really “need”). There is nothing wrong with meeting wants and desires, experiencing the fullness of life in the third dimension as previously mentioned is one of the gifts of being here. Our full experience of the infinite variety of life here is one of the main purposes that we were placed here — through us spirit or infinite consciousness experiences the richness of this physical domain. However, our expanded awareness of meeting wants and desires would bring knowledge of when our efforts crossed into harming others. There is goodness in our meeting our needs, wants and desires so long as they express life. When our efforts cause harm, they no longer express life.

Could you give some specific examples of when our meeting wants and desires cause harm and no longer express life?

Sure. First, here are some larger global examples. Consider Wall Street where their desire for greater profits for their company caused harm to individual homeowners as well as our collective economy. Consider the Gulf oil spill where the combination of our government’s desire to increase domestic oil production as well as the oil company’s desire to maximize profits led to cutting corners and our ultimate ecological disaster. Consider the ongoing violence in the Middle East tied to the self-interest of particular countries or religions. In each of these cases, some group is attempting to meet its wants and desires that are beyond the level of basic needs. And, in each case such effort crossed over into harming other people or the environment — at this point they are no longer “expressing life” in its greatest expression. If the individual decision-makers in each of these cases stopped to ask themselves something like “what action can we take here that will serve the greatest number?” or “what can we do here to meet our needs that will cause no harm?”, then would they have made the choices they did? If they were truly treating others as they wish to be treated, I believe different choices would have been made. To be clear, my point here with these examples is not to debate any specific government or corporation political decision. Rather I am simply suggesting that in a possible world where all humanity lives by the Golden Rule, where the “other” they are “doing onto” is everyone and everything, there would have been other decisions, actions and outcomes.

Yet to get to that world, doesn’t it start with each one of us?

Absolutely. Each of us can examine our own lives to find examples where we are not living the Golden Rule. Do you ever cut someone off on the highway because you’re in a hurry to get where you want to go? Do you ever gossip or bad mouth someone because they don’t think or act like you want them to? Do you ever ignore someone’s request for help because for some reason you’re mad at them? Do you ever forward on some viral but untruthful e-mail because it makes a political statement you happen to favor? Do you ever judge others negatively because they’re different from you — different race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.? The point is, every day we are at choice. Are our choices in alignment with doing onto others as we would wish to be treated? As each of us grow in our personal awareness, we will sense and know how we are each stewards of this planet in the third dimension as well as caretakers and teachers for those continuing to struggle. It does not serve the collective good for us to stay mired in the third dimension, but rather it serves the greater good for us to grow and become enlightened. The more of us who move into that place in our consciousness, the greater the collective evolution of humanity.

In what ways are we “collectively evolving”?

We are growing collectively inwardly and outwardly. Inwardly, we are evolving at both a cultural level as well as in our collective consciousness. Outwardly, we might consider that our global systems — the outward expression of society such as our technology and ability to tap the collective “global brain” is also evolving.

How are we evolving culturally?

This is where I find a model of Spiral Dynamics so helpful. The data that supports this theory shows that humanity is evolving through a series of worldviews. As we make a level of needed one worldview, we evolve into a higher view of looking at life and the planet. Humanity’s earliest worldviews were centered around meeting base needs similar to Maslow’s theory we looked at previously — safety and survival, banding together in tribes, etc. Current predominate worldviews on the planet include a traditional view superseded by a modern view followed by a postmodern viewpoint. Descriptions of these levels can be found with a little research or by reading some of my other articles on the subject. Ultimately, Spiral Dynamics as well as other similar models point to our evolving to even higher levels of individual and group awareness where we are able to recognize and value the interplay of all the other levels. Interestingly, some of the characteristics at these higher levels of awareness include such factors as the melding of science and spirituality, recognizing the interconnectedness and systems interplay of everything on the planet, of an awareness of a greater unity of all. Characteristics that mystics often sy come at higher levels of awareness. Although Spiral Dynamics data shows that much of humanity are at earlier worldviews, the theory points the way towards our evolutionary future and shows that growing numbers of people are headed towards these higher worldviews.

So what do you mean by “collective consciousness” and how is it evolving?

Just as we have an individual consciousness, all of our individual consciousnesses feed one group consciousness for all of humanity. Carl Jung wrote extensively about this. What many have realized is that not only does our individual consciousness provide input into humanity’s collective consciousness but that this greater consciousness is tapped into by each of our subconscious providing silent input into our thoughts and choices. The group mind, in a sense, serves to limit us and what we see as possible. As each of us grow individually, we feed a greater level of potential for all humanity into this group consciousness raising the bar on what is considered possible for all of us.

And what about outward evidence of our evolution?

In spite of all the challenges our planet currently faces, there is plenty of evidence that we are moving into a world where humanity senses at a greater level our interconnectedness and our related expanded sense of care and concern for each other. The Internet and related phenomenon such as the rise of social media sites connects us with each other globally and immediately. There is a rising trend in corporations to be considered successful by the combination of profits and social responsibility. There is an increased tendency by individuals later in life to release careers that brought material success and move into “work” that feeds their soul. There is a rise in the number of nonprofit groups whose mission is to enhance life conditions for everyone around the planet. The United Nations continues to promote the meeting of certain basic human needs as a “right” through such efforts as their Millennium Development Goals designed to end poverty and hunger around the planet. These and similar examples point to a trend in our evolution.

So what is our role in contributing to such evolution?

Hopefully by now it’s clear. The collective consciousness of humanity evolves by our personal evolution. Humanity’s cultural and societal evolution moves forward by our personal growth. Each of us has a responsibility to answer that inner call that asks us to transcend our limits and grow to the greatest levels of possibility for our lives. Our growth occurs in our consciousness inwardly and in our actions outwardly. We previously mentioned that each of us should set our intention towards our highest possibility for our lives, to create a vision of what that looks like and then to act in alignment with that vision. We also mentioned using logic and intuition to create our individual plan as well as some components the plan should contain. Considering our collective evolution, we must add one additional aspect to our plan — service to others. There are so many issues facing our planet at this time that it’s easy to get overwhelmed and do nothing. Let go of that feeling. Pick one issue that you are passionate about and then act to do something to address it no matter how small. Add this service action to all your other personal aspects to your plan for growth. The combination of our individual actions coupled with their igniting cascading change through the “butterfly effect” will truly make a difference. Hold firm in the knowledge that to the degree that we all grow individually to transcend the third dimension, that growth supports the collective growth of all.

We sort of assume here that we wish to transcend the third dimension. Is this true?

That’s an individual decision for each of us to make based on experience and our own free will choice. I believe that ultimately more and more of us will become enlightened and realize the importance of transcending this school and playground of space and time. There may always be some who will choose to move through the third dimension, but in the vast expanse of time as experienced in the third dimension, I believe those numbers will diminish.

Any final thoughts?

Yes. One aspect of being human is that we learn and grow by the dual gifts of our intellect and our intuition. We listen to our heads and to our hearts. On the one hand, the thoughts expressed here were hopefully presented in a logical and easy to understand manner that fed your intellect. But beyond that, I hope that as your intellect resonated with the ideas presented here, it also opened your heart. French philosopher, paleontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote about the evolution of humanity and our path as we move upward in consciousness. He described the melding of individual human minds into one global mind called the noosphere. As our consciousness grew beyond that, he pointed to what he called the “Omega point” — some point in the future that is pulling all creation towards it. So let us consider this: Spirit or Ultimate Consciousness divided itself up in awareness and embedded itself in all of life so that we could experience individuality and free will choice as we simultaneously moved upward followed the laws of evolution. This evolutionary track involved smaller pockets of consciousness coming together in greater pockets of consciousness until in humanity here on earth (and perhaps elsewhere) such consciousness crossed a threshold into self-awareness. Our personal individual pocket of consciousness is now being pulled by the process of evolution to combine with others at an even higher level of awareness that we can only imagine. What is this Omega point that is pulling us upward and onward so that we might ultimately transcend the third dimension? What force can we imagine that seeks to pull us out from our sense of separation from one another and desires to connect us in our awareness with others? What force could that be? Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” That force is love. Spirit embedded in us consciousness and love. It was love that placed us here in the third dimension. It is love that is calling us home.
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So let’s turn the question around — what you think? What is your experience of the third dimension and our evolution? Do you believe we are called to transcend it or not… and why? I would love to hear your thoughts and your beliefs.  Thank you for reading mine.

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Spirituality, Uniting Nations

Transcending the Third Dimension — Part Two

August 4, 2010 //
2

transcending the 3rd dimensionToday, we continue our self dialogue in exploring our evolution through the third dimension and our opportunity to transcend it…..  (Click here to read part one)

So picking up where we left off–regarding our evolution — you say that ultimately humanity will transcend the third dimension.  What exactly does that mean?

Well, in my thinking, it means that some aspect of us will move beyond the limitations created by living in a world of time and space where things appear to be separate from one another.  Although I certainly have no insider knowledge about the characteristics of life beyond the third dimension, I have to imagine that it entails leaving behind the need for a physical body as we know it, as well as the experience of linear time.  My belief is that the aspect of our being that we carry with us from the third dimension relates to our consciousness.

So is this transcendence done by each of us individually?

Good question.  On a certain level, I believe that it is.  I believe that each of us grow and evolve at an individual level that leads to our personal transcendence beyond the third dimension.  This personal evolution is in consciousness.  However, I also believe that as an individual evolves to higher levels of consciousness, such levels bring awareness of the interconnectedness of all life and an expanded circle of care and concern for others.  This awareness brings a desire to serve others, a desire that seems natural from the viewpoint that we are all one.  This intent to serve others frequently includes a desire to assist others in the expansion of their consciousness.  Therefore, in this light, one person’s evolution assists the group’ s consciousness.  Also, we might consider that an individual’ s consciousness is part of the collective consciousness of all humanity, so that one’s growth also contributes to everyone’s growth in that regard.

Must we really take an active role in our personal evolution?  Won’t we just naturally “transcend the third dimension” when our bodies experience the process of death?

There are some spiritual teachers who say that — that the transition from this life to our next experience allows us to automatically release the limitations imposed upon us by our identification with our bodies and our sense of separation from one another.  Yet these same teachers usually share that some type of sense of personal identity is carried with us into our next level of expression.  Although the release of the body may bring an expansion of our awareness, such expansion doesn’t eliminate the necessity for our growth during our time in the third dimension.  The higher our growth while here now would seem in my way of thinking to be beneficial.  On the one hand, the greater our wisdom at the point of transition, there might be the opportunity for enhanced assimilation of our new expanded awareness.  On the other hand, if as some spiritual teachers and traditions suggest — that reincarnation back into the third dimension reoccurs until we learn our lessons here, then the greater our wisdom at the point of transition brings with it increased likelihood that we have “completed” our experience here.

Okay, then what must each of us do to transcend the third dimension and evolve personally? 

Well, the simple answer is be aware of this process, set an intention to further your evolution, create a vision of what your personal evolution looks like and then act in a manner that is in alignment with that vision.  Your vision and your related actions must incorporate all aspects of your life — your inner work and your outer work, your work on yourself and your work in relation to others.  I find philosopher Ken Wilber’s integral practice is helpful here in understanding the various parts of your life in which you need to consider your plan for growth.  Working on your shadow self is essential.  Some type of spiritual practice that builds within you an awareness of the oneness of life is key.  Other spiritual teachers frequently offer other specific guidance.  My suggestion is that we use logic to build our plan, but that we also use the vast power of our intuition to choose the path that is best for us individually.

That’s the simple answer?

Yes.  Obviously it sounds simple but that doesn’t make it easy.  Yet there is a more complex piece to our evolution that we need to consider, in my opinion.  Our physical nature has evolved through the third dimension for thousands of years.  That process has hardwired within us certain factors that have served us along our evolutionary path but now create barriers as we seek to evolve further.  Some consider these factors to be coded into our DNA, others say it’s part of our collective consciousness.  Either way, these structures keep us with one foot firmly planted in the third dimension even as some aspect of us calls us to higher levels of awareness.

What are some of these structures that have served us but now limit us?

There are parts of humanity that may be considered animalistic.  Consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and their lower levels.  We have base needs where we seek to meet basic physiological needs such as air, water, etc. Beyond those needs we seek basic safety and security for ourselves — shelter, procreation to continue the species and so. Next Maslow says we seek to create a sense of belonging with others and a desire to experience love.  We must consider that for thousands of years, meeting each of these needs served an evolutionary purpose — we continued to live and thrive and reproduce.  Yet our hardwiring to meet these needs keeps us stuck in sensing the need to compete against others for what appear to be limited resources — food, water, land, money, sexual partners, power, possessions that make life easier, etc. Although at some level we may be called to transcend these desires, our third dimensional hardwiring keeps bringing us back to them.

So how do we overcome this hardwiring?

Well it comes back to the simple answer — awareness, intention, vision and action.  If we’re not aware of how our third dimensional evolutionary process has created both these gifts and challenges, then in our ignorance we will continue to ignore them and never overcome them.  We will continue to live our lives in competition and struggle, seeking to fill the bottomless pit of needs that can never be satiated, keeping our attention and focus on the lack and limitation and growing more of the same.

Is there anything else we need to understand in moving beyond the third dimension?

Yes.  We need to understand what many mystics and philosophers have pointed out to us — the creative power of our thoughts–thoughts are things.  Evolution has allowed consciousness to make a critical leap within humanity, we have become aware of the fact that we are aware.  With that, we have also moved into the awareness that the consciousness embedded within us is actually the creative power of the divine — and that through our free will choice we can use that power for destructive purposes or creative purposes.  We need to learn to harness that vast power within us for good, for ourselves and for others.  We need to remember the truth that we are interrelated to everyone else.  We need to grasp that on an intellectual level and then embody it into our emotions and choices.  Next we need to release our attachment to all the trappings of the third dimension.  To be clear, yes, let’s enjoy the vast array of beauty and bounty of life here on planet Earth.  It truly is a gift.  But attachments to all that is here will keep us stuck here.  Finally, we need to be aware of the evolutionary process and our role in it.  We need to recognize that we are conscious co-creators in the process.  As we grow and evolve personally, we need to consider how we might use the power of our thoughts and intentions for the greater good of all so that we not only complete our individual third dimensional experience but assist others on their path as well.

So are we really continuing to evolve?

Yes, I believe so.  As mentioned previously, this evolution is more in our consciousness.  We become more aware.  Another word for this is to say we become enlightened.  Evolution’s next step for us is in consciousness, awareness, enlightenment.

So where does religion or spirituality fit into this?

In my opinion, religion represents the formalized rules, dogma and organizations that have evolved to point humanity back towards this divine unity.  To that degree that have served a useful purpose.  Yet they are tainted by humanity’s animalistic base needs and thus have limited us simultaneously by dividing us and keeping us separate from one another.  One must consider this — does a religions’ stressing of their rules, their sacred texts, the specialness of their group, their discouragement of marriage outside their group, and their way being “the only way to God” serve to unite us as a people or divide us?  More often than not such thinking brings more divisiveness and less love.  Such characteristics of religion have even encouraged violence and war. Is this the next logical step for humanity?  Is this our highest possibility as a people? Spirituality, on the other hand, implies a direct experience of unity.  Spirituality seeks us to have a direct link to the divine without any intermediary such as religion.  Religion may have served our evolution but it is spirituality will take us to the next level.  Spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation seek to create within us our own personal experience of God.  Such experience moves us into higher levels of care and concern for our fellow mankind as well as assisting us in releasing attachments to third dimensional desires.  Hence, as mentioned, a routine spiritual practice of communing with a sense greater than our smallness is essential to transcending the third dimension.

Next time we conclude this discussion as we consider humanity’s collective evolution and its shared transcendence of the third dimension…

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Science and Spirit, Spirituality

Transcending The Third Dimension — Part One

July 31, 2010 //
0

Today, we use the time tested method of the self dialogue to explore very quickly humanity’s evolution through the third dimension and our opportunity to transcend it.

First off, what you mean by the “third dimension”?

The third dimension is this physical reality in which we find ourselves living. The sense that I am right here and you are over there, that I am separate and apart from everything else, and that I am moving through all of this other stuff in a linear experience of time are all aspects of the third dimension. All of the physical matter and energy that we experience in a world of space and time where everything has its distinct location in a distinct moment is all an aspect of the third dimension.

Why does the third dimension exist?

To me, it exists as a sort of school or playground where growth and experiences can occur. It’s a place where Spirit or ultimate oneness can allow aspects of itself to divide up and sense themselves as being separate and have experiences of such separation. It’s a place that we move through on our way back to oneness and unity.

How did we get here?

That question can be answered a couple of ways. As many mystics and sages have pointed out, if God or Spirit or oneness or infinite intelligence (or whatever name you wish to give ultimate reality) knows and senses everything that ever is or ever was or ever will be all in the one instant of the holy moment, then what experience remains that is unknown? Their answer was that infinite intelligence was called to divide itself up, not in reality but only in awareness, placing aspects of itself in compartmentalized pockets that considered themselves separate from the other compartmentalized pockets that considered themselves separate. The end result was something called “multiplicity within the unity”, the sense of multiple things that are ultimately united in one. These compartmentalized pieces of Spirit were thrown into the third dimension so that spirit could have the experience of separation and all that comes with that — relationships with other separate things and free will to make choices of one thing over another. Traditional religion often refers to this process as “the fall” — we lived in perfection in oneness but fell into the world of duality, the world of good and bad, right and wrong.

Then what is the other way in which you can describe we came to be here?

This is where science comes in. It describes our third dimensional origin as coming from “the Big Bang”. Although science is silent for the most part on what preceded this beginning moment, current scientific thinking says that all physical matter was contained in a very hot, very dense area which exploded outward very quickly. At the moment of this expansion, all of the physical laws that we have since “discovered” already existed. One such law was gravity which acted upon the unevenness in this soupy plasma to begin bringing matter together into very hot and dense stars containing hydrogen and helium. Through a process of collapse and expansion caused by gravity, stars went through a lifecycle that ultimately created the other elements and cast them out into space. Through time, gravity brought together dense pockets of matter such as planets who moved into gravitational orbits around other stars. Certain planets developed conditions favorable for third dimensional life to evolve. The process of evolution was also embedded in everything from the moment of the Big Bang. This process favored life to build up in greater and greater degrees of complexity, from single cell organisms to more complex organisms and on up the chain to humanity.

How did life come from inert matter?

That’s a magical question that science really doesn’t answer. The common description is that physical conditions simply arose that were conducive for “life to emerge”. One has to consider that the potential for this emergence always existed. One has to wonder, how and why did that potential get embedded into this dimension?

So how do these two stories, the fall from unity into multiplicity and our physical evolutionary path from the Big Bang, interrelate?

Well, as I see it, Spirit’s creation of the multiplicity for the experience it offered began with the creation of the third dimension via the Big Bang. Infinite intelligence created all matter and all laws (including gravity and evolution) in that first moment, embedding itself into everything. It has allowed these aspects of Itself to evolve and to experience all that that evolutionary process entails. This evolutionary aspect of the third dimension not only allowed planets to form, but life to emerge on the planets and from life, consciousness to emerge.

What is consciousness and how did it emerge?

Another one of those magical questions. What consciousness is has been the subject of philosophers and scientists for a long time. Some even question its existence as real. The great irony, of course, is that such questioning is created within that person’s consciousness. We humans experience consciousness as our self-awareness — that part of us that assimilates the combination of our sensory input, our thoughts and our memories to create this persona or ego that we sense as ourselves. Stop for a moment and ask yourself “who am I?” Most likely the picture you come up with is this bundle that includes a physical body and a sense of its awareness of itself. That awareness is your experience of consciousness. You can only know your experience of it. You can’t know mine although you imagine that my experience is similar to yours. Yet we can also imagine that some aspect of this consciousness is also experienced by other animals. I know my dog has consciousness of some type. So science tells us (when it chooses to discuss the subject at all) that consciousness “emerged” at some point in the evolutionary process. Where that might be is subject to debate. But again, one has to consider and wonder about the fact that the potential existed from the Big Bang onward for the emergence of consciousness.

Where do you think consciousness emerged?

I happen to believe what some philosophers, mystics and a few scientists have been saying — consciousness was there all along. It is only our experience of it that has emerged. Consciousness is embedded in everything. It is in the smallest bits of matter and is in all energy. There is nothing that does not contain “consciousness”. Even subatomic particles and single cell organisms have a degree of consciousness. What is it within them that gives them “agency”, the ability to hold themselves as distinct and interact appropriately with the rest of the world? That “something” is the consciousness or intelligence embedded within them.

But wait, you’re making consciousness sound like Spirit?

That’s right. Spirit is consciousness. The One Consciousness imbedded that consciousness in everything. Consciousness is, as they say, “the ground of all Being”. It is the connecting aspect of the universe that allows everything to be created and experienced. Consciousness is not a by-product of our brains as many scientist seem to believe. Consciousness is the underlying field that gives rise to all matter including our brains. That piece of us that experiences consciousness is our tasting the oneness from which we sprang. The evolutionary process by which matter built up higher degrees of consciousness leading to humanity crossing a threshold into self-awareness is part of our return to oneness. If we can imagine all of our little individual pockets of consciousness being reunited into a single awareness (a stretch for our little minds, I agree), then we can get a sense of consciousness at the level of Spirit.

So then what’s next for humanity in this process? How do we continue our evolution and return back into unity from which we came? How do we transcend the third dimension?

There are several layers to the answers to these questions. First, there is the role that each of us play in our own personal evolution which must be considered. Hence, each of us must ask ourselves — what must I do to transcend the third dimension and evolve personally? Second, there is the process whereby humanity is evolving from individuals on their own path to a collective humanity evolving at a societal worldwide level as well as in our collective consciousness. How is this process playing out and what is our role in contributing to it? Furthermore, behind all of this is a basic assumption that we wish to transcend the third dimension. Is this true? Humanity is certainly at an interesting point in its evolution.

We will look at these layers in part two next time.

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Science and Spirit, Spirituality

Walking the Material Path, Walking the Spiritual Path

June 18, 2010 //
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Why are we here?  What is the meaning of life?  What is consciousness? 

These are the questions that have been behind so much of my spiritual seeking for all of my life. I remember as a child, laying out in the grass behind my house and looking up at the sky and wondering about life. I would look at the sun and clouds and wonder where they came from? Who made the air who made the grass and clover in which I’m laying? Who is this God guy people keep talking about? Is there really some old man up in the sky who made all of this? And why is life like it is with my house and my parents and school and all the things that surround me? All of these questions would finally lead me to the big question…why is it that I have this internal awareness that even allows me to wonder about these things? Who am I really? 

As I grew up and explored various churches… such as the one my parents went to and the ones of the various faiths of the girls I dated… I discovered that none of these religions truly resonated with me. Yet, I continued to wonder about the meaning of life. I finally decided that I would have to learn about the meaning on my own. That’s not to say that there wasn’t truth and wisdom out there for the discovery, I just knew that I wasn’t going to find all of my answers in organized religion. 

When I went to college, I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I found the subjects that I studied interesting but not always fulfilling. Eventually I was asked to declare a major and I decided that psychology was the only subject that came close to questions I was asking. Although I dipped my toe into philosophy, I found that much of what I read was over my head. Perhaps it might answer the big questions, but I certainly wasn’t ready for how it approached them. Besides, there was a unspoken pressure to declare a major that had some degree of practicality. It was already a bit of a stretch to declare psychology is a major in that regards…..no way I was going to say “philosophy”. 

I found that as I studied psychology, there were areas where I really found answers. For example, the work of Abraham Maslow, and specifically his “Hierarchy of Needs” gave me some answers as to be reasons for my motivations. And, although the university I attended was steeped in behavioralism at that time… I even worked for a professor running rats in experiments… they did offer in my senior year at class which delved into the subject of consciousness. We reviewed a book by Robert Ornstein called “The Psychology of Consciousness” which intermingled the results of brain studies and Sufi stories to offer answers regarding this consciousness that I have long wondered about. 

After I graduated with my bachelors degree, I thought about going on into graduate school in psychology. However the blessing of marriage and children turned my focus and attention into the outward world. Much of my life could easily be tracked in Maslow’s hierarchy. I worked long hours and moved up the organizational ladder in order to meet the safety and security needs of my family, my own relationship and self-esteem needs, and occasionally (on my own) would see glimpses towards self-actualization. 

In the outer world, life served me greatly. One thing that was silently instilled in me as a youth was the need to provide for my family. Therefore, when I married early and had five children, by the time I was 25. This instilled drive to be a provider drove me to succeed in the business world. I worked long and hard and learned. I moved up the ladder within the federal government. I learned how to get work done, and how to work with people. For much of my career I worked in management and leadership positions. The success that I received in my long career with the government also served to feed many of my internal needs. Another belief that had been instilled in me was that outward material success validated my existence and success as a human. I didn’t understand this for many years and only came to understand that I held this belief later in life. 

Outwardly, I was also concerned with my children having the best possible life they could have as they grew up. I’m talking not only about material success and having “things”, but also about having the right experiences that instilled in them the right morals, and the right worldview. I have been very pleased to see the adults that these children have grown into.

 My point in mentioning all of this is to acknowledge that I had this outer life that was very important to me and grew me while I meanwhile continued to ask those inner questions about life and consciousness. That external life has served me to be the person I am today. But along the way, small things continued to crop up that drove me to look at the big questions. Sometimes they were obvious and consciously intentional, other times more hidden from my awareness but real none the less. 

One of those factors was to uproot my family while the children were still a very young age and move them across the country. My wife and I gave logical stories about the move… such as wanting to raise the children in a more enlightened area or the greater chance of career success in the new town… but also underneath all of this was our own internal desire to live somewhere else, where we might grow deeper in our own truth and wisdom. 

Throughout my life, I continued to explore religion, science, philosophy, and other paths, but I discovered looking for the answers to life. Along the way, coincidences continued to put me in the position to have experiences that ensured I pursued these bigger questions. Answers would be put before me, coming like clues in a Dan Brown novel. Now I can look back and see that something inside me was conspiring to bring these experiences into my awareness. 

Eventually I discovered a philosophy called the science of mind and spirit created by Ernest Holmes. I found it answered more questions for me than anything I discovered up to that point. I delved into the teachings, eventually became a spiritual counselor, and later took their masters program that led me into becoming a Science of Mind minister. Some days I look at this path with great irony that the child who ran from religion became a minister in later life. 

Along the way my life certainly changed… the end of my first marriage … my children growing into happy and successful adults with grandchildren arriving… a wonderful new marital relationship……a retirement from the government and moving more deeply onto my path of being a spiritual teacher…

Do why do I mention all of this?  Some days I grapple with the issue of how can I truly be a spiritual teacher, when I’ve walked this other more material life for so many years? I wasn’t some long time spiritual teacher with tons of experience teaching “spiritual classes”.  But as I’ve come to discover my path was perfect. It gave me the experiences to teach from an awareness that will resonate with others who walked a similar path. And, I have discovered that many people are now coming into the spiritual path having walked a very similar material life. 

I have discovered that there are many paths and many teachers who have been pointing in the same direction from different vantage points as Ernest Holmes and the Science of Mind. Although this should not be a surprise, as Holmes created this philosophy by drawing on the great truths from all the other paths, it’s one thing to know that intellectually, and another to feel it through the experience of learning. 

So coming full circle now… why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What is consciousness?  These are some of the questions that drive our spiritual evolution.  The motivation to understand is the push that forces us to grow….we may walk the material path, but at some point something ensures we stay on the spiritual path.

Mark

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Positive Evolution, Spirituality

How to Multiply Your Consciousness

March 2, 2010 //
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We are all change agents!

Most people want to make the world a better place. I suspect that you do. Would it not be wonderful to live in a world where there is peace and prosperity for all… everyone has the opportunity to succeed… where everyone honors everyone else and their beliefs… a world that works for everyone?

So how do we get that world? As I know, you know, it begins with each and everyone of us. It begins with our own thoughts, our words, our deeds. It begins in our own consciousness as we shift how we look at the world. We let go of focusing our awareness on where the world is less than what we want turning from those conditions, and focusing on the positive. We give our mental energy to that which we desire to expand. As each and every one of us shifts our consciousness to the highest possibilities of what our lives, our country, and our planet can be, we grow the world in that direction.

So how do we get more people to shift their consciousness in that direction? So how do you multiply your consciousness? I recognize that question can be taken a couple ways.

Expand your Consciousness

On the one hand, you might see multiplying your consciousness as meaning expanding your consciousness to higher levels of awareness. How do you expand your consciousness? Of course, it begins with the intent to do so. But beyond that, it involves a regular spiritual practice being woven into your life. It means spending time each day, communing with the Divine, with God. It means expanding your awareness through this process of recognizing and sensing at the deepest level of your being that you are one with everyone and everything. As that awareness expands, your love expands outward from you in all directions encompassing all that is. With this love comes compassion and a desire to serve.

Expand your Service

It is in this concept of service that we see a path to the second way of multiplying your consciousness. We look out on life and recognize that the consciousness that is within us is also in every other person. We carry our sense of uniqueness and individuality that senses that the consciousness within us is “ours”. This same sense points at other people and sees their internal awareness as “theirs”. As we grow in our awareness of Oneness, we begin to hold an interesting dichotomy. We continue to recognize our individuality, yet also become aware that each and every personal consciousness is part of one Mind. Our personal consciousness was already “multiplied” all the time, we just didn’t know it.

This awareness coupled with a desire to serve frequently opens us to the questions of “how can I make a difference?” and “how can I grow the consciousness of the planet in a positive direction?” In other words, how can I from the level of my new awareness assist others in releasing thoughts and beliefs that no longer serve them or the world, to recognize our interconnectedness and to turn their focus to our highest possibilities?

Be the Change

We must always remember that we cannot “control” or “change” other people. The only person we have control over is ourselves. So in our call to service, we begin with ourselves and our own thinking and our own actions. We begin in our own “sphere of influence.” As we change ourselves we serve as a model for others. Our actions open others to creating their own change. In this way, we actually do in a certain sense “multiply consciousness”.

What I invite you to see is that how you show up in life creates this ripple effect in others. You actually do have the ability to multiply consciousness. You do it all the time, often without your awareness. The question now becomes “in what direction do you want it to grow?”

We are all change agents, whether we like it or not. We all have a responsibility for our collective growth, whether we consciously accept it or not. It’s time for all of us to become conscious change agents for a world that works for everyone.

Mark

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