Somewhere the underlying curiosity and the investigative spirit -- shared by the journalist, the scientist and the seeker -- meet.
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious," Albert Einstein wrote to a friend, I learned from Arnold Mindell, Ph.D., a Jungian analyst. As a journalist, I can say exactly the same thing. So in this contribution to the Ervin Laszlo Forum on Science & Spirituality, I'll share the questions I am curious about, and invite your answers -- and your questions.
The reason I do this is because I've noticed an irony, which is that when the scientist or the journalist finds answers, the answers must remain open, serving as doorways to further questions that naturally arise in their wake. Without this openness to further questions, these answers, whether scientific findings, reports on slices of reality, or certitudes about how things work, may over time crystallize, become opaque, and begin to function as obstacles, blocking further inquiry into the essence of ever-evolving change in the now.
And what about the curiosity of the seeker? Can long-sought wisdom, once found, also limit? Do our questions about ultimate realities lead us into mystery only to colonize it with our names or our beliefs? Perhaps religion has inspired so much distrust, conflict and war because ultimately, every coat covering infinitude must be shed.
Somehow the hope was that an inward-turning spirituality was innately incapable of hardening into the iron-clad, established belief system of a religion. After 30 years or more of the current Western "spiritual" movement, we can now take a look and see if that is so. Many spiritual/scientific core beliefs are now well articulated and recognized -- if not by a majority, at the very least by a very sizable number of people. Even as we seek to extend that wisdom to others, let's open ourselves to ask whether some of our firmly held tenets, called forth in a past moment, without our noticing, may have grown opaque. Are our favorite tenets of inner spirituality still transparent, or might they have developed into barriers to the changes called forth by this current of time?
For example, does the core of spirituality reside within us in our own inner state? It may be all that most of us can know or experience, but is it all that is?
Is the outer world a mere projection of the sum total of all our states? Or is it a reflection, a barometer, or a feedback loop, in which we can see the world we are manifesting, and make adjustments in attitude and action? I sometimes sense that the unexplored underbelly of inward-turning spirituality is a hidden belief that the world is on its own trajectory from which we must retreat in order to maintain a joyful state. Are we using spiritual understanding as a coping mechanism, as an indispensable safe harbor for remaining sane in a challenging world in disarray?
Even as we take comfort in spiritual understanding, could that very comfort, that very certitude, so shelter us that we evade acting in the moment for its present need, be it restoring the environment, assuring democratic institutions, or safeguarding food, health, and water?
Similar to the instructions given by flight personnel, perhaps it's essential to first don our own "spiritual air mask" before we take action to help others. But at what point does that self-care rigidify into something akin to narcissism with a spiritual cast? Is the calling to hear and respond to the cry of the world urgent and reflective of a compassion with or without a perfected inner state? Or is it fruitless, ineffective, and driven by the negative emotions of anger and fear until and unless we address those inner tendencies first?
These questions call us to consider: Where is the nexus of transformation? For some it seems obvious that the focus is on changing outer reality, other people, or social forces that are having a negative effect on people or on the earth. Whether the focus is on bombing the hell out of a perceived enemy in a distant country or on preserving food, water, and the environment from certain policies or companies, the focus is the same -- on an outer world that's a fixer-upper.
Yet many regard these outer concerns as buying into illusion. The outer world is less real than we perceive it to be. As such, the nexus of change resides within. All we can perceive is filtered through our inner state, anyway, so it's pointless to seek to act elsewhere.
Within this wide cosmos, it sometimes seems that people are disposed to seek in different dimensions of this manifestation, inner and outer. Everyone is fascinated by the territory they've mapped out to explore -- or been confined to explore.
My question is, where do the inner and outer meet and co-create in true integrity and balance? Can we safely omit either inner intention or outer action? And my next question is: Can one genuinely evolve, and is it truly spiritual, to take refuge in the inner domain of the transpersonal, without first doing all that is possible to resolve pressing concerns in the outer domain of the personal, the interpersonal, and the collective?
An invited contribution to the Ervin Laszlo Forum on Science and Spirituality.
Follow Alison Rose Levy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlisonRoseLevy
There are a few thousand sidhas meditating in the domes in fairfield Iowa. They are engaging in an activity that is much more coherant, powerful and all encompasing than .... possibly any other activity going on today. The results are all encompasing in helping every aspect of this world. However; the current world view is not yet capable of understanding the significance.
There is surface activity, and there is activity at finner levels. We see in nature that as we go further into the finner levels, such as dna, or the atom, we see that these areas are in fact very powerfull. Split the atom or change some dna and the affect it has at the surface level is note worthy.
Therefore when we say we do nothing ( meditate ) and accomplish everything, this is what we mean.
Jai Guru Dev
Our choices have boundaries; one of those boundaries is our ignorance or better stated our unawareness. Find the origin and necessity for that unawareness and a whole new world will appear in your own awareness.
Second guilt and culpability: humans take to guilt and culpability like a duck takes to water. Guilt and culpability are self-confirmatory to our misguided desire to be a separate individual (i.e. individualism), which is a natural but low level of the evolution of consciousness process.
Third personal responsibility: the origin of the word responsibility was the “ability to respond” which is a good definition of responsibility. But it has been taught as personal culpability and this brings about a whole host of problems such as blaming and judging by appearances (phenomena).
Judge not by appearances was profound teachings. One must begin to see the underlying reality of phenomena to advance their consciousness to a higher dimension. Vibration thing.
I suspect what I have just stated will go over like a lead balloon. :-)
To my knowledge after a lifetime of research into these mysteries no one has the complete answer to those two questions. Every path is unique as every soul is unique as every drop of water is unique.
Why not take both paths then cross validate both paths; then confirm the inner path with the knowledge of others more evolved on their path. By taking both paths my discoveries have challenged most of what we have been taught by the world as truths.
First this world is not an illusion as many eastern religions teach. This world and its phenomena are temporal and transient but not an illusion. Sri Aurobindo says it best: ‘The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is itself real.”
One of my discoveries has been that once we are a confirmed materialist or follow the system of beliefs of any religion that person is no longer a sincere seeker. They will violently oppose this statement and often offer up personal attacks on anyone making such a statement.
The key to integrating personal and collective transformation, whether spiritual or material, is culture. It is culture which gives to us the sufficient tool for understanding ourselves and our environment. What you are questioning, I think, is how to mend Western culture so that it is not at odds with itself. To me, the way to answer that question is to examine what "Western culture" really is? Where does it come from? What purpose does it serve? How does it shape thinking and behavior? What is its epistemic foundation? To me, those are the questions to start with, first at the individual level, and then collectively.
Please write more.
Kind regards,
Alison
It seems to me the hope lies in awakened individuals, healthy and courageous enough, with a funding source or consolidating them as a group through barter, etc., to cover at least bare necessities to allow spare time to work for the Common Good, no matter what name one assigns it. The next step is to help organize these, preferably, global individuals/groups into a collective, collaboration to educate the masses and change our broken political system.
Sadly, corporations own the media, so the change agents create the media, deliver it as Alison is doing through whatever channel possible...and dedicate action to ever farther reaching networks whom each spread their wings and multi-level energies in all directions until we have the hundredth monkey, critical mass, a revolution of consciousness and the courage to act on it. No thought, no wakening, no action: a cultural fall to oblivion and the end to human civilization and mass extinction of all species. We are on the precipice, do we work for change or jump?
Mediate, medicate or meditate as Mother Earth's inhabitants die from a slow death from cultural sicknesses of ignorance, greed and apathy? Only individuals can answer this and heed the call by first breaking out of the fog. Good luck to us all.
If we are going to see and acknowledge global suffering, environmental decline and ignore it or work collectively for change... or call suffering merely an illusion of the mind depends on our individual psyche's ability to see, process and act. When enough of the population is in poverty, has disease and physical/emotional/spiritual damage brought on by this very so called" Western Culture" controlled by Greed, our chances for effective activism and manifestations for change by the masses, We the People, is greatly diminished (as if constructed by evil masterminds to control the globe...hmm) Whether by plan or karma, that is our current predicament.
While we make use of science, science learn from us. Sprituallity is the last frontier science will conquer.
When we do then we will know the source of life.
So the SUC observed man in Its own image, in the image of SUC It observed him; male and female It observed them because It was lonely.
The SUC said It was Really Good.
Quantum™ unto the Supra Universal Consciousness.
Alison
Chapter 47
Without opening your door,
you can open your heart to the world.
Without looking out your window,
you can see the ways of heaven.
The more you know
the less you understand.
The Master arrives without leaving,
sees the light without looking,
achieves without doing a thing.
I would not want to detract from its power in any way, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the sages of that epoch had the level of attainment that could manifest precisely as described. Perhaps there are some few here today who still can. And I am deeply grateful to have met a few.
But when most of us during this time read that quote, do we need to ask how close we are to manifesting that attainment? Is the world mirroring back to us a reality that reflects our mastery? Don't we need to assure that we are not using this exquisite reminder of the deeper level of reality as an excuse to avoid facing up to the challenges of this time?
Is a democracy hanging in the balance, the pollution of earth's natural resources, the illness of children, and the die off of many species a wonderful sign of our mastery?
Shouldn't the above caption be the other way 'round? What can scientists learn from spiritual seekers. First, let us separate the ideas of religious and spiritual. They are not synonymous with one another. One represents a clubhouse of sorts, the other an inward journey toward its origin, God.
Having said as much we get to the question. Scientists and spiritual seekers are members of the same quest: To Know! However, scientists tend to rely on methods for exfoliating truths by way of material investigation; whereas spiritual seekers rely on other senses that surpasses logic and reasoning --two wonderful faculties in a pool of senses, by the way. One relies soley on the powers of the brain --the miraculous computer governing the physicality of its world; while the other relies on the power of the mind in crossing thresholds. The mind is a spiritual aspect of the soul, the door between two worlds, the known and the unknown.
I can remember the Ancient Hindus who in their proclaimation once stated the sun receives its energies from a higher dimension. And thousands of years later, right up to ten years ago, the scientific community echoed these very same words in their discovery.
Can spiritual seekers learn from scientist? I think the possibility is there for both communities to learn from each other. However, I believe it'll take time for both parties to embrace a truth of some sort.
What do we have to learn from Spiritual leaders? Maybe kindness and humanity but hardly the realities of our existence and that of the universe.