Many people, myself included, believe there is a movement afoot toward a revolution in consciousness - one that will result in a kinder, gentler world - a world based in cooperation vs. competition. Clearly, there are many appearances to the contrary, around every corner in fact. Unimaginable cruelty abounds, and inequality remains the order of the day. However, alongside, underneath, next door and on the other side of the world, amazing things are happening. Change is happening. Shifts are happening. Love is peeking through in unexpected places.
Deepak Chopra explains a wonderful metaphor for his view of the coming revolution in consciousness in his description of "imaginal cells" which cause a caterpillar to become a butterfly. When the caterpillar is ready to transform into a butterfly, it begins to eat voraciously, creating a soup inside its bloated body which becomes nutrition for the imaginal cells which begin to cluster together, feeding off the surrounding soup. When enough imaginal cells are clustered, suddenly, the transformation to a butterfly takes place. This is such a hopeful and optimistic view of the challenging times we find ourselves in, yet to those of us who are actively taking part in what we believe to be a renewal of the earth, it seems very plausible.
You can hear Deepak talk about imaginal cells at the end of first link below, and the beginning of the second link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aweL5Z-IPU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNTvVS4hzbY&feature=related
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The Bigger Picture
After my last blog post, someone suggested that being a member of an exclusive club of some sort would adequately meet the need to feel connected. However, I don't think that is true. I believe that the deeper human need is to feel part of the whole, not part of a part of the whole! I believe there is a human longing to experience a connection to humanity.
Feeling part of an exclusive club of some sort gives us a pseudo feeling of connection, which is much better than feeling isolated, but it does not meet the deeper need of feeling part of a meaningful whole. Feeling that humanity functions in some mysterious way as a unit, gives us a deep sense of meaning and safety in life.
For this reason, it is most helpful for each person to figure out what the "bigger picture" is for their life, and how that fits into humanity's bigger picture. What are you here to do? What is in you to do? When you figure that out, you will be significantly closer to understanding what life is all about, and what your part in it is.
Feeling part of an exclusive club of some sort gives us a pseudo feeling of connection, which is much better than feeling isolated, but it does not meet the deeper need of feeling part of a meaningful whole. Feeling that humanity functions in some mysterious way as a unit, gives us a deep sense of meaning and safety in life.
For this reason, it is most helpful for each person to figure out what the "bigger picture" is for their life, and how that fits into humanity's bigger picture. What are you here to do? What is in you to do? When you figure that out, you will be significantly closer to understanding what life is all about, and what your part in it is.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
The Importance of Community and Connection
Marketing experts tell us that the deepest need of every human is to find their "tribe": a group of people with whom they feel an affinity, by whom they feel validated, and of which they feel a part. The fundamental concept is that we need inclusion and pointing the way to that feeling is a very powerful marketing tool.
We are encouraged to join the group that drinks Coke, uses an IPhone or drives a Toyota which, the ads subtly promise, will make us happy. Interestingly though, in our culture, it is "exclusivity" which is the hallmark of success. The more exclusive the club, vehicle or neighborhood with which we are associated, the more successful we are considered to be. The biggest house with the fewest people living in it is a powerful hallmark of success. So we have a problem, in that we have a deep psychological need for community and inclusion, but our success markers encourage isolation.
Mother Teresa is quoted as saying that, in India, people may be starving, but they are not lonely. Of the two conditions, she believed loneliness was the more painful, and one that is rampant in N. America. I think that is true.
I believe part of the reason we are lonely is because we have put so much emphasis on the left brain, or linear, view of things. The linear approach to life takes things apart, separates and isolates in order to gain understanding. We learned to do this early in school laboratories, and later in debate clubs, and always in competitive sports. We are always looking for who and what is better, and comparing ourselves to some standard to see whether we measure up. In many ways, Western culture has emphasized individuality and minimized the importance of community. This, combined with exclusivity as an indicator of success, has caused us deep psychological distress.
In the book "Touching", anthropologist Ashley Montagu describes the healthiest cultures as being those which are community oriented, with a great deal of physical contact - even to the point of sleeping in "puppy piles". In some cultures, babies are swaddled in constant contact with the mother from birth until they are able to walk. There is an often quoted African proverb which says, "It takes a village to raise a child." In many African traditions, the whole village was indeed involved in raising each child. Very different than in N. America.
Recently, science has begun to support anthropological research regarding the importance of community in the lives of individuals. In a rather remarkable video, the importance of community was clearly illustrated by a leading edge group of scientists. And emphasis was not just placed on the importance of community, but rather the actual understanding that we are all connected at an unconscious level, and need to make that connection conscious and to act on it if we hope to achieve mental health, and, beyond that, if we hope to have a healthy planet. You can hear what they have to say on this link
http://www.oneuniversalmind.com/blog/interconnected-consciousness?ref=nf
We are encouraged to join the group that drinks Coke, uses an IPhone or drives a Toyota which, the ads subtly promise, will make us happy. Interestingly though, in our culture, it is "exclusivity" which is the hallmark of success. The more exclusive the club, vehicle or neighborhood with which we are associated, the more successful we are considered to be. The biggest house with the fewest people living in it is a powerful hallmark of success. So we have a problem, in that we have a deep psychological need for community and inclusion, but our success markers encourage isolation.
Mother Teresa is quoted as saying that, in India, people may be starving, but they are not lonely. Of the two conditions, she believed loneliness was the more painful, and one that is rampant in N. America. I think that is true.
I believe part of the reason we are lonely is because we have put so much emphasis on the left brain, or linear, view of things. The linear approach to life takes things apart, separates and isolates in order to gain understanding. We learned to do this early in school laboratories, and later in debate clubs, and always in competitive sports. We are always looking for who and what is better, and comparing ourselves to some standard to see whether we measure up. In many ways, Western culture has emphasized individuality and minimized the importance of community. This, combined with exclusivity as an indicator of success, has caused us deep psychological distress.
In the book "Touching", anthropologist Ashley Montagu describes the healthiest cultures as being those which are community oriented, with a great deal of physical contact - even to the point of sleeping in "puppy piles". In some cultures, babies are swaddled in constant contact with the mother from birth until they are able to walk. There is an often quoted African proverb which says, "It takes a village to raise a child." In many African traditions, the whole village was indeed involved in raising each child. Very different than in N. America.
Recently, science has begun to support anthropological research regarding the importance of community in the lives of individuals. In a rather remarkable video, the importance of community was clearly illustrated by a leading edge group of scientists. And emphasis was not just placed on the importance of community, but rather the actual understanding that we are all connected at an unconscious level, and need to make that connection conscious and to act on it if we hope to achieve mental health, and, beyond that, if we hope to have a healthy planet. You can hear what they have to say on this link
http://www.oneuniversalmind.com/blog/interconnected-consciousness?ref=nf
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