Einstein famously said that we cannot solve problems with the same level of perception that created them. We have to step up to a higher and more inclusive level of seeing what is going on in order to understand and solve great challenges. Certainly climate disruption represents one of the greatest tests humanity has ever faced because it is a much higher level problem than the actions which have created it: countless local actions (driving cars, running factories, etc.) have produced global consequences that respect no national boundaries and that imperil our collective future.
Here is how James Speth, former head of the Council on Environmental Quality and a top Washington policy maker, describes the up-leveling of perception required: "I used to think the top environmental problems facing the world were global warming, environmental degradation, and eco-system collapse.. but I was wrong. The real problem is not those three items, but greed, selfishness and apathy. And for that we need a spiritual and cultural transformation." The transformation that Speth speaks about is a shift to a higher level of attention and seeing the world from a more objective vantage point with a witnessing or reflective consciousness.
Simply stated, what is required is a shift from an "embedded consciousness" that is locked inside the habits of our thinking mind to a more spacious "reflective consciousness" that enables us to become a fair witness or objective observer of our lives. This does not mean we stop thinking; instead, we stand back and, without judgment, simply watch what we are thinking and how we are relating to both the world and ourselves.
An up-leveling of our attention to a more reflective or witnessing consciousness makes an important difference in the flow of our lives. We are less bound by habitual and pre-programmed ways of perceiving and responding when we are consciously watchful of ourselves in the process of living. As we witness ourselves moving through daily life, we begin to cut through confining self-images, social pretenses and psychological barriers and begin to live more voluntarily and choicefully. The ability to witness the unfolding of our lives is so ordinary that it is easy to overlook. An old adage states, "It's a rare fish that knows it swims in water." In a similar way, we humans seldom recognize the power and importance of a witnessing or reflective consciousness. To clarify, let me to ask: Have you been conscious of sitting here reading this blog? Did you unintentionally allow your thoughts to wander to other concerns? Did you just experience a slight shock of self-recognized when I inquired? What does it feel like to notice yourself reading while you read? To observe yourself eating while you eat? To notice yourself talking while you talk?
As our familiarity with this mode of attention increases, we get lost in thought and worldly activities less frequently. This is not a mechanical watchfulness; rather it involves making friends with ourselves and accepting the totality of who we are with all of our faults, foibles, and unique gifts. In living more consciously, we are able to notice our habitual patterns of thought and behavior, both personally and socially. We are more able to penetrate through the political posturing, glib advertisements, and cultural myths that sustain the status quo. We are also able to respond more quickly to subtle feedback that something is amiss. We do not have to be shocked or bludgeoned into remedial action by, for example, massive famines or catastrophic climate disruption; instead, more subtle signals suffice to indicate that corrective actions are warranted.
A reflective or witnessing or consciousness also promotes a feeling of connection with the rest of life. We begin to see and sense our intimate relationship with all of life and this, in turn, naturally fosters feelings of compassion and caring. As we expand our interior learning to match our technological advances, we develop an inner maturation that is more equal to the enormous technological development that has occurred over the last several centuries.
Returning to Einstein's insight, climate disruption and other crises are moving the capacity for a reflective or witnessing consciousness from the status of a spiritual luxury for the few to a social necessity for the many. This simple though profound transformation in consciousness is not confined to our personal lives. The human family is acquiring a witnessing or reflective consciousness at lightning speed as the growth of television and the Internet enable us to become a collective witness to our own journey. By joining the deep but fragmented communication of the Internet with the broad but shallow communication of television, we are transforming our global capacity to witness our collective behavior and future. Working together, these tools are creating a broad and deep capacity for attention and collective conversation as a species. With the combined power of our communications technologies, we are fostering a new level of collective consciousness that can overcome our apathy, selfishness, and greed and enable us to discover a common future of sustainable prosperity. We are a witnessing species. Assisted by the communications revolution, we are becoming more fully awake and able to respond with to the supreme test of climate change from a higher level of perception and understanding.
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David Kroodsma: Track the Nation's Rivers: Missouri River Floods and Southern Drought
Climate of Denial: Can science and truth withstand the merchants of poison?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-of-denial-20110622?print=true
For me personally, one way I've found to shift into this witnessing consciousness is to visualize taking a "backward step" in my mind's eye. This works to take me out of my dream of constant mind-activity and into the present moment.
To be sure, it is very humbling how easily and seamlessly my thoughts creep back in! So, this is my constant practice, but the rewards are tremendous, as you describe.
Thank you for this article, and keep up the Great Work!
Denial: http://bit.ly/m6xySt
Oceans: http://oi53.tinypic.com/2i6os4y.jpg
Thermometers: http://oi52.tinypic.com/2agnous.jpg
Earth: http://oi56.tinypic.com/2reh021.jpg
Ice: http://oi56.tinypic.com/30a99tx.jpg
Authority: http://oi52.tinypic.com/wlt4i8.jpg
Prophecy: http://oi52.tinypic.com/30bfktk.jpg
Psychopathy: http://oi52.tinypic.com/1zqu71i.jpg
Icon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmPzLzj-3XY
Thinker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92YenWfz0Y
-=NikFromNYC=- Ph.D. in Carbon Chemistry (Columbia/Harvard)
(1) Thermometer records, the oldest ones, show no trend change.
(2) Tide gauge records, the oldest ones, show no trend change.
(3) Global sea ice extent, shows no trend change.
(4) Hansen's (and the IPCC's) most favorable predictions of temperature if CO2 output was drastically cut are coming to pass despite CO2 emissions rising worse than their worst case scenario.
If these simple facts that directly refute AGW claims of surging seas, Ts and melting do not persuade you, then pray tell what on Earth would? Given that you have a non-graduate degree in economic history, merely, I'm sincerely not sure you understand the nature of hard science very well.
Cold fusion featured in the LA Times in '89 before it was debunked. Environmentalists were aghast at the possibility of cheap clean energy:
“It’s like giving a machine gun to an idiot child.” – Paul Ehrlich (mentor of John Cook of the SkepticalScience blog, author of "Climate Change Denial")
“Clean-burning, non-polluting, hydrogen-using bulldozers still could knock down trees or build housing developments on farmland.” – Paul Ciotti (LA Times)
“It gives some people the false hope that there are no limits to growth and no environmental price to be paid by having unlimited sources of energy.” – Jeremy Rifkin (NY Times)
“Many people assume that cheaper, more abundant energy will mean that mankind is better off, but there is no evidence for that.” – Laura Nader (sister of Ralph)
CLIMATEGATE 101: "For your eyes only: Don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone....Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that." - Phil "Hide The Decline" Jones to Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann
Pure Consciousness during TM is characterized by an alert brain with no mental/sensorial/emotional/imaginary content, correlated with higher levels of frontal alpha EEG coherence, accompanied by periods of marked reduction or even apparent suspension of breathing for up to one minute.
Pure Consciousness outside of TM is characterized by a sense of a quiet mental state, correlated by higher levels of frontal alpha EEG coherence as well as behaving differently than normal during reaction tests. People who report this state for a year or more, 24 hours a day, even during sleeping and dreaming, respond in a different way to the instruction "Describe your self," than people who do no show these physiological signs and don't report this 24/7 pure consciousness state.
Coincidentally, people who are highly successful in certain careers are also more likely to report similar mental states than people who are not as successful in the same activity.
Studies have been published comparing high-functioning managers vs lower-functinoing managers, world champion athletes vs non-champion athletes who practice roughly the same number of hours per year, and professional classical musicians vs amateur classical musicians.
The results are basically, the higher-functioning athletes, musicians and managers tend to show the same general physiological/psychological profiles as people who have regularly practiced TM 7 years or more,
The state is spontaneous, not contrived.
research citations follow
Higher psycho-physiological refinement in world-class Norwegian athletes: brain measures of performance capacity
http://www.tm.org/american-psychological-association
Abstract for the 2007 Conference of the American Psychological Association
Brain Integration Scale: Corroborating Language-based Instruments of Post-conventional Development
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12406612
Patterns of EEG coherence, power, and contingent negative variation characterize the integration of transcendental and waking states.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19862565
A self-referential default brain state: patterns of coherence, power, and eLORETA sources during eyes-closed rest and Transcendental Meditation practice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10512549
Pure consciousness: distinct phenomenological and physiological correlates of "consciousness itself".
http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/46/3/267.long
Electrophysiologic Characteristics of Respiratory Suspension Periods Occurring During the Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7045911
Breath suspension during the transcendental meditation technique.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9009807
Autonomic patterns during respiratory suspensions: possible markers of Transcendental Consciousness.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10487785
Autonomic and EEG patterns during eyes-closed rest and transcendental meditation (TM) practice: the basis for a neural model of TM practice.
E.G., the city of Rio de Janeiro has apparently asked that the entire 1 million students in the city be put on the waiting list to learn TM. THAT is consciousness change on a large scale, but still only the tip of the iceberg for what is required:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abiOrpuHQ5s
I just returned from an NVC (non-violent communication www.cnvc.org) intensive, and your analysis deepens and is deepened by the NVC model. As we are able to watch ourselves, we are able to make new choices about where to direct our attention, about how to get our needs met as humans in a way that considers other people's needs as well. This interconnectedness is fostered by the self-recognition you mention - and we are capable of this level of awareness NOW, in each moment.
I'm inspired by your work, your writing, and how you so eloquently synthesize the connection between key issues and core belief systems of our day. Thank you!!
My wife and I concluded that a key reason is emotional trauma, both experienced in this lifetime and inherited through culture and epigenetics from earlier generations. When we looked at the incidence of trauma we concluded that few if any of us are unaffected. Many suffer physical and mental ill-health as a result. Many more consciously or unconsciously find their potential limited by fears, discontents, lack of confidence and self-esteem, and other factors. As a result we indulge in 'retail therapy', consumerism, material status, food and drug addictions, etc as distractions from our underlying emotional pain - pain that none of us likes to face.
If this analysis is correct, we will not make rapid progress on climate change and other major issues until our society takes effective action to reduce the creation of new trauma and to heal existing trauma. For deeper discussion of this issue, see the book "Hope for Humanity: How understanding and healing trauma could solve the planetary crisis" by Malcolm Hollick and Christine Connelly, and our website http://www.humansolutionsnow.com/
It kind of reminds me of the evolution of the color TV, the technology for which was in existence before WW2, but was sat upon until everybody had bought Black and White and was forced to change.
Obsolescence. Too much of the technology out there is being held on to because a few more bucks can be wrung out of it. Patents are sat upon and ignored, despite them being better than current widespread technology, and I'm sure you don't need me to tell you about the fate of the electric car...