Evolving Consciousness and Civil Rights

As American society moves inexorably toward the full inclusion of all of its members in the rights that have been denied to some, there has been a backlash that many find disturbing and even frightening.

Keep in mind that we are witnessing the process of the evolution of social consciousness, which is a facet of general evolution, whose time frame is billions of years. 

No structure or species or philosophy ever arrived fully-formed. Progression of an evolutionary sort is always forward and backward, forward and backward. This is how consciousness does its “test runs,” a vital part of any development program from rockets to artificial limbs to make sure that what is finally introduced has staying power. 

Everything in the universe is balanced by everything else. It is no coincidence, therefore, that in political and social movements we see conservative and liberal positions. The conservative function in nature is to hold onto what currently exists while the liberal side of things experiments with change. If one dominated completely we would either see no progress at all or no stability. The status quo is needed to provide a steady platform for the launch of real change.

What this nation has been witnessing with a black president and the emergence of gay rights is nothing short of astounding to someone who was born 70  years ago. 

Remember, right after the Civil War, freed slaves enjoyed the rights of other Americans, including participation in the political process as representatives, only to lose all of their gains to a social backlash, particularly in the southern states. It took many years, World War II, Black Americans slowly entering professional sports, and the Civil Rights Movement, among other things, to make the headway that has led to the social disturbance that we currently observe.

Full civil rights is the logical outcome of the unique program this democracy represents. As we experience the natural push-pull of the process let us remain mindful that in evolutionary terms things are just as they are supposed to be. 

  

Interview with Krystalya

http://podroom.a2zen.fm/media/live-like-a-window-work-like-a-mirror-with-dr-mark

Eternity Consciousness

Eternity consciousness is a perspective that promotes serenity in everyday living. It involves simply being mindful of where we and all of the rest of creation came from, which is the formless, limitless, unchanging, perfectly serene condition that was all there was prior to the Big Bang, and allowing that serenity to filter into the here and now.

One of the easiest ways of doing this is in quiet meditation. So, get comfortable, close your eyes, and breathe diaphragmatically so that your abdomen expands each time you inhale. When you exhale, let your whole body relax like a rag doll.

Do this for a few minutes, and when well-settled, mentally collapse time all the way back to the moment before the first bloom of creation. Imagine the complete and utter darkness and soundlessness and stillness of that place. Stay in that vast emptiness for as long as you like and when you open your eyes, keep the serenity you experienced there with you as you slowly look around and re-connect with the world.

The idea with this exercise is to learn to apply the largest perspective imaginable to any circumstance that confronts you in your daily life. It is the difference between dropping a pebble into a small child’s wading pool and noting the disturbance in the water, and then dropping that same pebble into the middle of the ocean, where the resulting disturbance would be nearly an abstraction. Eternity is unimaginably larger than that. 

What allows us to accomplish this in the here and now is that the essential human mind and eternity are identical. Evolving consciousness brought the eternal realm through time and space the way a glacier carries material with it and deposits it at the farthest end of its progression. For human beings, this end is the highly evolved brain with its ability to think abstractly and to imagine, and to be aware in a way nothing else in creation can.

Eternity consciousness, that is, our awareness of our connection with the eternal realm, will absorb even the greatest concerns. Its practice is the heart of living in an enlightened way. 

Abundance Consciousness

Abundance consciousness involves the sense that we will be provided with what we need to sustain a path of healing and growth. For persons on spiritual journeys this concept envelops every aspect of life, and is a centering thought against frustration and fear when we do not get what we think we should have or when we are afraid that what we have will not last.

The opposite of abundance consciousness is scarcity consciousness, which is the fear that what we need is in limited supply. A belief in scarcity is the foundation of our feelings of insecurity, the root of competition and aggression, and a source of great personal unhappiness. It is also the predominant consciousness on earth.

Because life can be hard, achieving abundance consciousness can be a challenge. We have all witnessed suffering and death, and without it being specifically discussed, we have been encouraged to consider faith in abundance naive and dangerous. The problem with this reaction is that true security is a state that emanates from within. This means that to be at peace we have to go to our inner world and transform fear into trust that our paths will provide us with what we need and not over-invest in trying to control the outer world to insure a constant supply of what we want.

To accomplish this we have to do two basic things. One is to accept suffering and death as facts that cannot be overcome. We may endeavor to reduce suffering and premature death, of course, but all hope of substantial change in this regard starts with personal change, including the faith that by altering our personal perspective, the world might eventually change, too. If we refuse to accept our personal destiny, or we wait for the world to change before we do, we will never feel secure. 

The second is to learn that there is a difference between what we actually need and what we think we need. This is not easy to do. Habit, desire, dependency and willfulness can make us think that what we crave, grasp at, or are attempting to hold onto is correct for us when it may in fact be the opposite.

By simply looking back, most of us can see that we have received what we have needed to get where we are; that what we thought was best and what life offered were not always the same; that much of our suffering resulted from our insisting on having our way when our paths insisted that we go in another direction; and that In the end, when we compare what we wanted with what we have, we find reason to be humble.  

Victim Consciousness

Anytime we believe that we have been put upon, inconvenienced or are pessimistic we may be under the influence of victim consciousness. It is a way of looking at life negatively if it does not work obviously or immediately to our advantage according to our expectations. It is a predisposition to look first to what is wrong and to continue to feel that way even if things later turn out to be beneficial. The most prominent emotions associated with it are self-righteousness, self-pity and depression.

Victim consciousness is an outgrowth both of the survival instinct and social conditioning. It is more than a habit; it is a perceptual filter that reviews information about the world in terms of scarcity, threat, competitiveness and potential loss, and sharpens the bad and dulls the good before letting it through to our conscious minds. It subtly influences us to look for peril at the gate, the wolf at the door, and danger around the corner. It involves feeling trapped and alienated by our experiences; it says that life is not to be completely trusted; it hints that we do not really belong here; and it warns that we will be exploited if we are not careful.

It is important to realize that victim consciousness is more prevalent than we know: it pervades what we read, see, hear, talk and think about. It is in a child’s claim that his sibling’s cookie is bigger than his own, a neighbor’s accusation that the government does not give a damn about the common citizen, and in many other charges we make of advantage-taking, betrayal, or abandonment.

Most of our expressions of victim consciousness, such as complaints about the weather or a long line at the checkout, are relatively innocuous. The problem is that because they habitually make up part of our everyday thought and conversation, without our knowing it they help maintain a negative frame of reference toward life. In this way a victim-perspective can become a self-fulfilling, self-reinforcing cycle, making real peace hard to find. 

Every time we complain or make a negative comment or support this in someone else, we might want to look closely to see what our expressions represent. We may be innocently and unwittingly supporting the view of victim consciousness.

Taking Responsibility

Personal growth requires that we take responsibility for our feelings

and actions. 

This is not simply a matter of being conventionally moral or virtuous, 

and it has nothing to do with the concepts of taking blame, being 

honest with others about what we have done, or being willing to 

accept our punishment. It is a high level learning that liberates us 

from much of the limitation of unconscious living by recognizing a 

fundamental truth, which is that our feelings and actions are 

centered within, and that we are the only ones who really have

control over them.

What is so important about this is that it is only when we locate

the center of our reactions within us that we have any hope of healing

them and moving beyond them. Once we realize that no one else can 

really make us do or feel anything, we can begin to take charge

of ourselves in a new way, and to manage our energy consciously

rather than have it at the mercy of untold influences. 

This takes commitment and mindfulness, because our inclination is 

to place the responsibility for what we do not like in ourselves outside 

of us. But this is our energy and we want to have as much of that 

available to us as possible. Therefore, we need to transform it, not 

dismiss it.

Looking inside as the source of our feelings and actions is also a

path to peace and happiness. This is for two reasons. One is that we

have such little practical control over what goes on around us. It is

hard to predict what others might do, or what the environmental

conditions are going to be, so by not relying on them for our 

happiness, we are less likely to be disappointed and frustrated when 

they prove naturally changeable.

Even good people will do things that we do not like, and they

can thereby easily let us down if they do not meet our 

expectations. The economy and the weather are essentially 

unpredictable, so that if our happiness depends on how our 

investments are doing, or if the ball game gets played, we have 

a problem. The fact is that most of the universe functions 

outside of our awareness, direction and control, which is reason 

enough to go inside rather than outside for satisfaction.

The other reason is that peace and happiness have to do more

with how we personally interpret and regard what happens than

with what actually happens. This is why two people can ostensibly

experience the same event and have such different reactions. For

example, one of us might feel liberated by winning a fortune

because we believe it will simplify life, while another may see it as

complicating rather than simplifying life, and therefore never even

play a lottery game.

Peace and happiness are lived from the inside out, which means

that if they do not begin within, they do not occur at all. The occasional

sense of them that happens when interpersonal and environmental

conditions meet our desires is not the real thing, regardless of what we 

have been led to believe. 

Once we have gone within and found them, we forever know the difference, 

and we add to them by no longer hoping people or conditions will meet our 

needs, or trying to manipulate them to do so. We prefer inner control to that 

of controlling others or the conditions around us. It is the only way to feel 

that we are free of external forces.

A New Look at Anniversaries

    Buddha did not want his followers to celebrate his birthday after he was gone. This was ostensibly because he was not going to be reborn again, and because finishing life for good was more valued than any birth. He wanted people to think in terms of ending the serial birth and death cycle altogether. So, the admonition not to celebrate his birth makes sense.

   But, there is another way to think about Buddha’s admonition. With attachment, and restricted movement in mind, we might generalize from birthdays to all cyclical celebrations if they harbor static thoughts and images and re-kindle old emotional reactions.

   It may seem excessive to examine annual celebrations as potential targets of change. We are quite fond of them, after all, and they provide both structure to the year and a format of sorts for interacting with loved ones, friends and others. The major ones give us a sense of connectedness with people worldwide. And, they have been part of our cultural experience forever, which gives them a sacred or hallowed aura.

   However, in the spirit of releasing the flow of consciousness at every opportunity, which means identifying all instances where there are strictures in it, we will want to assess how much emotional energy is invested in religious and national holidays, Mother’s and Father’s days, Valentine’s Day, and all similar anniversaries.

   Each one of these celebrations has the potential of focusing consciousness inefficiently, sometimes well in advance of the actual day. Many people prepare for Christmas for months, puzzle over just the right card or gift for Valentine’s and Mother’s Day, and feel a sense of dread if they have no one to celebrate these annual days with and imagine themselves being alone on them. Each of the celebrations tends to carry a pool of images and emotions with them. Sometimes these are manifest in clear memories. Sometimes they are represented by un-identifiable emotions. Regardless, their content is static rather than flowing, and that is the only point.

     Even though we realize that the evolution of consciousness is not entirely linear, we want it to be as uninhibited in its progression as possible. Becoming as aware as we are able to be of our attachments is our way of contributing to the smooth flow of the process. Being true to the process of always moving forward requires that we not encourage the continuation of any forms of behavior that might get in the way.

    Keep in mind that, although we may yearn for the good old days, there really was no such thing as a golden age. That yearning and all nostalgia is our conservative nature at work maintaining the sense of an existing self. Everything Ego hints that we will find there we soon can recognize for its illusory quality once we observe it without reacting in the old ways and decide to bid all of it easy passage.

    Because allowing all energy to flow is in concert with our highest development, no longer being captivated by an anniversary or holiday is more rewarding than any feeling that full engagement in those celebrations can provide. We have been in the practice of looking forward to going backward, after all, which cannot be in the interest of real progress. The feeling of liberation that follows consciously reducing involvement in or exiting old cycles is better than what any celebration can offer.

    Satisfaction in re-cycling through old places is always temporary: the cycle always has to be repeated to keep the feeling of satisfaction fresh. Investing, or more accurately, re-investing energy in these “boosters” or “fixes” that keep that feeling of fulfillment current is inefficient and ultimately a drag on progress. Temporary satisfactions need temporal-based, static consciousness. They are part of what maintains the status quo.

    In the end it is not that we have to obsessively ignore or avoid such things as birth dates and solstice celebrations. Aversion, after all, can be just as energy-wasting as any other form of attachment. We can join in the fun if we do it with the same aim as we have for everything else in our conscious lives, which is to quietly pay attention to any emotional reactions we might have and to gently let them pass.

    If the idea of letting holidays and other anniversary-oriented activities pass without involvement makes you queasy, you may not be ready for that particular piece of work. People do wonder about how they will fill that time if not in celebration. They also feel odd at not joining in with others in what everyone has become used to thinking of as natural and necessary if we are to feel like we belong and to be happy.


    All temporal things pass, and if they are attachments in your consciousness, even though they may provide some feeling of well-being for a while, that will change. It has to, as time is going to pass and they will end. Taking a gently proactive, conscious approach to de-investing emotionally in them will, in the long run, be more likely to provide what you hope to find in the celebratory activities themselves.