The Spiritual Meaning of World Wide Environmental, Economic and Political Crisis

An introduction to the Revolution of Consciousness
(this is my introductory piece to www.revolutionofconsciousness.com)

It is no great mystery that there are a lot of problems in the world today. We have serious environmental issues like global warming, resource depletion, ecosystem destruction and species extinction. On top of that, we have the ongoing social problems of economic and social inequitably, population growth, poverty, wars and weapons proliferation. While things are getting worse, our political institutions seem dysfunctional in their inability to deal with the world’s problems. The tremendous damage we are inflicting on the Earth and on each other threatens our future on this planet. We are creating an unprecedented global crisis that is cause for great alarm.

It is like the Earth has a fever, and it is not just from global warming. The many problems of the crisis are like symptoms of some terrible disease. Some people think that the disease is pollution or over-population, human greed or maliciousness but these too are symptoms of a deeper, underlying condition. There is one root cause of the global crisis and it is our belief in separation.

To greater or lesser degrees, almost all of us experience ourselves as separate beings. We experience ourselves as separate from the natural world and separate from each other. This experience arises from our beliefs, all the beliefs that we have about ourselves and the world. But these beliefs aren’t true. The truth is that we are interconnected beings.

We are all interconnected, inseparably part of one, living ecosystem that is the Earth. Affect any part of it, any living thing, river or mountain, and there is an affect on every other part. Each is a strand in a web of life, every strand connected to every other, and none of the strands exist in isolation. They are each dependent on the whole web. We are completely dependent on the Earth’s ecosystem for the air, food, water and warmth it provides. Imagine what it would be like to step into outer space without a spacesuit and it becomes pretty clear just how dependent we are on the Earth.

We are also interconnected and dependent on each other. We each share 99.95% of the same genes and it is believed that we all descend from the same mother, a woman who lived 200,000 years ago in East Africa. We are social creatures who depend on each other to survive and prosper. While we are each unique and different in so many ways, we all so alike in our hopes and fears, needs and wishes. We are more connected to each other and to all the other living things on the Earth than we can even imagine.

It is from our beliefs that we come to experience ourselves as separate. Separation arises from the many beliefs we have about ourselves and the world. Like the thoughts that create them, our beliefs are fluid, coming and going, often changing over time. But many are deeply rooted, inherited from our families and society, and formed when we are very young. A great many of our beliefs are also unconscious. They lie below the surface of awareness, secretly shaping our perception of the world and influencing the decisions we make.

From our beliefs we create the world of separate things. A tree becomes a tree when we believe the thought “tree” to be what it really is. But is a “tree” a tree before the thought “tree”? Try looking at one without a thought about it and what is it? It is a mysterious thing to the Earth and the sky and everything around it. Everything in the world is like this. Before we believe our thoughts about everything, nothing is separate from anything else but all part of one, interconnected whole. Only by believing our thoughts to be the truth does separation arise.

Like the tree, we are not the thoughts and beliefs we have about ourselves. We are something much more, something deeper and mysterious and interconnected with everything else around us. We are something prior to all our thoughts and beliefs. Who are we then? We can’t really say because any answer comes from a thought. We can call it many things. We can call it consciousness.

Consciousness is the alive awareness that we are. It is that which is prior to all our thoughts and beliefs, the witness that watches them come and go. It is ever present whether we are awake or asleep, thinking or not thinking. It is only part of us that doesn’t change. It is the presence that we have always been, even before our earliest memories. It is the ocean upon which all our thoughts and beliefs rise and fall. It is always here, right now.

Consciousness connects us all. When we experience the mystery of who we are and the mystery of all things, we directly experience our connection to all things. In that place before we believe any of our thoughts to be the truth we are not separate from anything. We are part of an interconnected whole that includes, the tree, the Earth, the sky, you and me and everything else. From that place we experience our union with all things and the magical mystery that is our existence.

All the problems of the global crisis have arisen because, as a species, we have forgotten this connection. We don’t consciously know who we are and because of it we feel a great pain. There is a pain of separation, an existential fear and angst that arises when we believe ourselves to be separate. There is a pain and longing to return to the truth of who we are. This longing is the desire we all have to feel whole, happy and connected.

All people feel it, but rather than recognize it for what it is, most of us, for most of human history, have misunderstood it. We have not recognized the pain for what it is but rather have tried to relieve it by fulfilling external desires. We have thought that we can relieve the pain of separation by controlling and possessing the things of the Earth and by controlling and dominating each other.

We have tried to alleviate the pain of separation, to distract ourselves from it or make ourselves feel better, by possessing and controlling the things of the Earth. Over the course of human history, we have increasingly broken apart the web of life into resources to be owned and consumed. With an insatiable desire we have created an ever-expanding consumer culture that is now gobbling up the Earth.

We have also tried to alleviate the pain of separation by aggrandizing ourselves over others. We have sought to control, dominate and suppress others to make ourselves feel better, to alleviate the feeling of insufficiency that also arises from believing ourselves to be separate. This is the fuel that has driven our blind ambition for power, the force behind our long history of repression, violence and war. It is also responsible for the erection our social, political and economic hierarchies.

Consuming the Earth and dominating each other has worked to give us relief from the pain of separation, but it only gives temporary relief. In that brief moment when we possess something new or aggrandize ourselves there is relief from the pain and longing, so we feel good, but it doesn’t last because it doesn’t go to the source of the pain. It doesn’t examine the thoughts and beliefs that create separation.

After the relief wears off we actually end up feeling more separate and disconnected because by consuming and controlling things and people we separate ourselves more from the interconnected whole, and we fall deeper into the sleep of separation. We then need ever-larger doses of control and possessiveness to mask the increased pain of separation.

We have become like addicts and have had to use our brilliant minds to create ever more powerful technologies to feed our addiction. We don’t need our power and technology and most of the things we consume to survive, be happy and fulfilled. Yet we think so. We have become acculturated to believe that power and possessions will bring us happiness and we are constantly bombarded with advertising messages that reinforce it. We haven’t resolved the pain of separation, but made it worse, passing it on from generation to generation.

The global crisis has developed because we can’t continue down this path any longer. After centuries of escalating abuse, the Earth can no longer handle our addictive, destructive behavior. The web of life has patiently held us while we fell under the delusion of separation, and abused her, but no longer. We are so numerous and powerful that the web of Life threatens to break with the strain of our dysfunctional behavior. The mass die-offs of species around the world, the crumbling of entire ecosystems and the warming of the planet are all voices from the Earth crying for us to stop and wake up.

We have become more powerful and intelligent than any other species on the planet. Now it is time for us to become wise. It is time for us to wake up, take responsibility for our behavior and become conscious of who we truly are. It is time to wake up from the drunken stupor of avoidance. It may not be easy but there is no other choice. The global crisis is leaving us no alternative.

And this is great news. Because the global crisis is forcing us to question our old behaviors and long held beliefs, something new is being born. The global crisis if forcing us to rediscover that we are interconnected beings, inseparably connected to the Earth and to each other. It is waking us up to the truth that we are spiritual beings. It acting as a catalyst to the birth of a new level of human consciousness.

It has already begun. We can see signs of it all around the world. Today, millions of people are waking up to the understanding of interconnectedness and interdependence. We can see it reflected in the environmental and social justice movements spreading around the world. At their heart is the understanding that we are all part of an interconnected whole, that we are all equal while at the same time that different, united in our diversity.

We can see this shift in the hope and passion that elected Barack Obama president and in the anger of many who now wish to reclaim their personal power from seemingly dysfunctional government institutions. We can see it on the streets of Cairo and Tunisia.

We can also see it in science and technology. The field of Quantum physics, which recognizes that nothing exists in isolation, but that everything is connected, is steadily spreading to every field of science. It is replacing the old Newtonian science, founded on the principle that the universe is made up of separate pieces.

Quantum physics already created the technology for computers, mobile phones and the Internet. These technologies are helping to birth the revolution of consciousness. They are a physical manifestation of interconnectedness and decentralized power. Future technologies based on Quantum physics may one day lead to even greater technologies that will help us get through the global crisis.

This evolution of consciousness is also reflected in the growing number spiritual movements around the world which, all in unique ways, point us back to the mystery of our interconnectedness and oneness. Never before in human history have the teachings of all the world’s mystical and spiritual traditions been available everywhere.

We are literally creating a new Earth. As we come to know who we truly are, our actions increasingly come from a place of wisdom and compassion. It becomes clear what to do, how to help and how to ask for help. As we open our minds beyond our beliefs we also open our minds to ideas and solutions to the world’s problems that we couldn’t have even dreamed of before. All our current issues, created from our beliefs of separation, will be solved from when we become free of these beliefs. Albert Einstein said “no problem can be solved by the same level of consciousness that created it.” From the belief of separation we only create more separation, but from the knowledge and experience of oneness we can transform ourselves and the Earth into place beyond our imagination.

For more about this article please visit www.revolutionofconsciousness.com