anti apocalypse

[daniel]

Someone mentioned Falwell's pamphlet, "Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Christ," and I went and read up on it a bit. However, doing this reminded me of one forceful insight I had while journeying at Burning Man.

This insight was that the 2012 post-history transition does not have to be cataclysmic or apocalyptic at all. It could be quite seamless and quick. The Apocalypse could be experienced as much more of a psychic or inner event than a material destruction through nuclear weapons. Much like the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 - nobody had predicted that the Soviet Empire could collapse peacably, in one instant, with no missiles fired. There is no reason that the global capitalist superstructure could not collapse with the same ease and suddenesss -- after all, the global economy is a "house of cards" built on unsustainable debt and robbery.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I suspect it will take place in this way - a sudden piffle, and a shocking surrender. Humanity is desperate to behave humanly again. This was clear after 9-11 and after the black out in NYC last summer.

It may seem that Bush, Cheney, etc., will never allow their clammy grasp to be pried from the controls of the nuclear weapons, but I do not see it this way. They are to a large extent, non-conscious agents,"machine men," and their destiny is determined by the workings of the collective intelligence. When we become fearless, we deprive them of their power.

Once again, I would say that the task is to assemble the new systems and institutions and conceptual basis for the new world to be implemented as this present system inevitably topples into the dust, since, as it says in The Tao, "Non-Tao is short-lived."

[Humming]

Excerpt from "La La La" by Saul Williams:

In a past life I was a woodcarver's knife,
the sharpened blade of a woodcutter.
The eldest son of the chief's brother: maker of drums.

We scraped the insides of goat hides to seek the hollows where sound resides,
offering the parts we did not use
to invoke the muse.

Music of the ghettos, the cosmos,
the negroes, the necros: overcomers
of death, disciples of breath!
Dissection of drumbeats like Osirus by Seth.

Break-beats into fourteen pieces.
Dissembled chaos, organized noise:
a patchwork of heartbeats to ressurect
true b-boys. Be men!

Let's mend the broken heart of Isis.
Age of Aquarius--mother nature is furious!
While you rhyme about being hardcore; be
heartcore. What is it that we do art for?

Metaphor. Metasin. It's an age of healing.
Why not rhyme about what you're feeling,
or not be felt...?
Deal with the cards you're dealt.

Calling all tarot readers and sparrow feeders,
to cancel the apocalypse!

Metaphorically speaking,
metaphorically speaking....

(Meta: Greek for beyond)

From http://www.saulwilliams.com/

[ September 11, 2004, 04:41 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[Lowlight]

Hey Daniel, I like the idea that all of this could come down without a shot fired, people just realising that a new way is needed. I like it but i think it may be just too hopeful. I guess im just too 'glass half empty' about the situation. The think is this, the vast majority of people i come into contact with through work etc seem oblivious to the need for change. Some see the need but have become utterly apathetic, and i mean utterly. Some even actually dont care at all. 'The poor and the exploited are just poor and exploited, thats their fucking problem, not mine', is the type of attitude i am on about here. Through work this last year i have met many people (we have a very high turn over of staff, most of which are late teens/early twenties) and of all of these i can honestly say that there have been about 3 that are genuinely mentally turned on to injustice, the need for change and increasing of consciousness. That depresses me. I can sit and look in someones eyes and explain why we need to become active and 99% of the time the eyes that stare back are empty and uncomprehending. Subsequently i am left looking like some kind of head case. Now, that may be true, and as the days pass i am growing to suspect this myself, but i dont feel that this growing 'lunacy' makes me wrong, though it may make me seem like the crazy guy who read too much. How can we change this situation of so much apathy? I dont know how apathetic the US is now as i live in the UK, but if its anything like here then maybe 'only the gods can save us'.

[ September 13, 2004, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: LowlightOracle ]

[daniel]

hi lowlight oracle,

yes it is easy to perceive the glass being quite empty on many levels. However...

if reality is a manifestation of the psyche, then our thoughts have the power to shift reality. Gurdjieff said 200 fully conscious people could change the nature of all life on Earth. Arguelles expands it to 144,000 "Galactic Wizards." Whatever the exact number, it seems that a comparatively small group, upon attaining a new level of consciousness, might be able to transmit it as a morphogenetic field effect (the "hundredth monkey" principle) to the entire human population on Earth.

Another way to think about this is to think about the possibility, brought up by quantum physics, of infinite parallel worlds all happening at the same time, all perhaps instituted by thought. Therefore, once again, by choosing to manifest the most positive possible thoughts and emotions, it may be that we help shift our current reality towards a development in which the best possibility takes place: The harmonic transformation of the Earth into a utopian planetary culture, the activation of the noosphere.

When I look back at my life, I see the incredible improbability of me having attained the state of being that I currently hold. I note that it is the willed transformation of my consciousness that has moved me into a different form of existence, with vastly different rules and possibilities, than what I imagined fifteen years ago. It is my openness to new thoughts and possibilities (including the possibilities of shamanism and sacred ritual) that have made this possible. I can only conclude, since there is nothing special about me, that if I could do this, anyone could do this.

Cynicism and negativity and self-created closings-off from possibility have their intended effect on the individual psyche. They make the world narrower and less joyful.

The phrase "Cultivate fearlessness in pursuit of joy" is what emerged from the end of my time at burning man.

The possibility of global transformation cannot be ruled out. Look at what happened with the Beats - in the mid-1950s they were a handful of ignored penniless bohemians, by 1965 they had spawned a new counterculture of millions that almost transformed global society and remain a major cultural influence worldwide until today. A small concentrated group that has attained a new perspective can have an incredible effect on the global consciousness -especially now, with the advances in global communications that mean new ideas can be transmitted instantly, anywhere.

When Arguelles told me about his calendar change, I asked him, "This is ridiculous - this will never happen. The world is a mess and headed for apocalypse. How can you think your idea will succeed?"

He replied, "I see my task as envisioning the best possible future. That is my job as a visionary."

That really stuck with me, and I have taken it to heart. My job as a visionary is to envision - and seek to enact -the best possible world I can imagine. I do not have to absorb the negative projections of a self-deluded culture. As I keep saying, The Apocalypse and the Kali Yuga are states of mind. The Golden Age, Utopia, is also a state of mind. I prefer to seek to institute the most positive vision in my own mind, through an act of psychic ecology. I seem to be finding this to be the best way to proceed. I do not ignore or supress the negative aspects of reality, but I do not let them dissuade me or influence me. This is actually work to do.

Saw "What the Bleep Do We know" which was disappointing, but this scientist Candace Pert showed how we create neurochemical addictions to negative patterns and dysfunctional addictions - these actually create repetitive pathways and neural networks in the brain. We can also deprogram ourselves from these negative patterns - anyone can do it, in fact.

I think the idea of a psychic ecology is a helpful one. What good does it do me to focus on the conspiracy doom apparatus of Bush and Co? Instead, I choose to see them as nonconscious aspects of a psychospiritual evolutionary process. They have their place in the equation, and it is nothing to get hung up about.

Arguelles also said, "Once a huge mindshift happens, everybody catches up."

[gone]

Daniel, what worries me is a trend which might be called Entrepreneurial Consciousness Positioning. I’m not necessarily putting you in this category; my intuition leaves me undecided as to where you are on this spectrum. You’ve said yourself (I think) that you have an emphatic style and I can’t accurately read the vibration of this through the written word.

So Entrepreneurial Consciousness Positioning is similar to the property game in which people who have scaled some steps on the ladder look upon those who have not as somehow lacking in the necessary go-getting characteristics required to progress. Your noting of the scientist Pert could be a capitalist justification for those who remain poor. As you say, “if I could do this, anyone could do this.” I’ve met a number of folk who have established this position with deeper consciousness, who have embraced the ideology, the aesthetic, maybe the financial separation from mainstream society, but I leave feeling as if I’ve been sold a line (the Amway line); it’s the clinical World of Wilber, where the vocabulary and analysis is impeccable, though nevertheless lacking.

The key, as you say, is to, “not ignore or suppress the negative aspects of reality, but… not let them dissuade me or influence me.” I guess I see too many people who *do* ignore and suppress the negative aspects of reality and when they do there is an acute absence of love, compassion and humility.

[Humming]

Is it possible to "cancel the apocalypse" by projecting the most transcendentally desirable future?

I spent a long time thinking about this today.

The 100th monkey scenario of collective consciousness feilds, wherein individual mental acuity is affected by the collective acuity and vice versa, certainly seems to be plausible and evidentally true.

Therefore, if there were an immediate intensification of individual consciousness, evolutionary thought momentum could slingshot all peusdo or low-level conscious entities into an intense main stream of heightened consciousness all at once: a global revelation. If the noosphere is indeed to crytsallize as a tangible function of our brains--enabling shared consciousness, a world wide telepathic mentation, then obviously, the least conscious would have marginal influence over anything.

Several questions are raised at this point. One that always haunts me, is this: would such an empowerment of consciousness necessarily mean an end to destructive behavior and predatory domination among human entities, or could it just as easily lead to a more intensely parasitic outcome, a corruption happening possibly some time after the initial breakthrough?

If we were to become telepathic through the activation of the noosphere, why would the least compassionate among us be any more inclined not to prey on other entities?

Is human nature essentially good, or essentially bad? Would a change in modality of consciousness necessarily illict an intensification of compassion as well?

The main flaw of naivety that I see running through these intensely optimistic philosophies surrounding a sudden global shift in consciousness is that most of the theories assume that the people in power now, the iron-fisted dominator culture of the corporate elite, are utterly oblivious to all of this: the inner workings of consciousness, the possibilites of manifesting reality through focused thought patterns, etc.

After reading Carlos Castaneda especially, I have come to see the modern volunteer slavery structure as a black magic creation, psychological voodoo specifically purposed to create a state of non-consciousness. When the international corporations have so much power, in virtual control of the world, it is ludicrous for me to think that they are not keyed-in to esoteric power dynamics, and the secret truths of reality.

You can be sure that this very website is monitored by those powers, regardless of whether or not they can legally act in any way.

To me, the future (and indeed, the present) looks like a metaphysical psychic battlefeild in which one man's will to compassion is tested against another's will to greed.

Angels vs. devils: place your bets....

I think we will have an immense struggle ensuing, regardless of the possibility of nuclear weapons, as those entities who have encouraged parasitic domination of others are confronted by a vastly burgeoning segment of society living free, fearless, and in control of their own power dynamics.

[Lowlight]

Hmmmmmm, there is a lot to think about there and i never seem to have enough time (roll on the calender change, then i will).

Daniel - i agree that it is only by working toward a better future that we will actually get there. This obviously includes work on the self as well as overt acts in the material world. The work must go on hand in hand in these different areas i guess. But...do you think we actually are indanger ecologically? I ask this odd question in response to the answers you gave in the New World Disorder interview. If all things have there place (Bush etc) and the currently looming ecological disaster is the way to push us up to a new level of being then is it just a harmless tool to bring about a utopia? Do we genuinely have a choice over all this? McKenna talked of the Logos calling us to this higher state. Are we then destined to get there anyway, or do we actually right here, right now face the real possibilty of ruining the global eco system and humanity? Could we change to a nightmare situation/reality in the infinite worlds sense that you mention above? I remember reading about a powerful Shaman from mexico who said that the earth will respond to the way we treat her. If we act wrongly we will suffer earthquakes etc. he seemed to view this as universally bad (other than i guess we could learn from it i guess), but that it could be averted if we changed our ways. This seems at odds with what you set out above. May be i am reading you wrong or it needs more discussion but you seem to be fatalistic as to the current situation, i.e. that really its all going to turn out fine soon anyway. Have i got you right on this, or dp you see it as more open ended, with the results depending on our actions? If the latter is the case then it seems that we are in the situation that Humming describes above. I think i follow the same vein in that i see the situation as dependent on us to some extent.

[daniel]

Lowlight Oracle,

As I keep saying, I think that the paradoxes that confound our current dualistic mindset have to be superseded to attain the "integral consciousness structure." In this particular case, for instance, I think that the 2012 transition is definitely going to happen properly, that it is fate and destiny, that "all time is present now," as the Hopis say, and in a very real sense it has already happened. At the same time, I believe it is incumbent upon us to make the change we want to see in the world, and that to perform this task, as Gurdjieff put it, no ordinary effort counts – only super effort. I think that the Maya understood this and it was symbolized by their ball game, in which the ball going through the ring symbolized the 2012 conjunction of earth, sun, and galactic center. However, the human players of the game had to work like hell to make this take place. I think when you can hold this paradox in mind, it makes functioning in the present situation much easier.

One way to look at it is that it is in the effort we make, and in the wisdom we gain from performing this sacred and almost hieratic function, that we crystallize the necessary elements that make the new consciousness an embodied reality. Resistance, negativity, are good things – the obstacles are the path. As an example, I have gained a huge satisfaction from working with some of my secular materialist friends over the course of years now, and step by step challenging them, pushing them to examine their preconceptions, bringing them through shamanic experiences, until they have actually changed their operative paradigm entirely. They then turn around and start taking their friends and loved ones through the same process. As another example, I take an equal pleasure in dropping articles about Santo Daime etc. in mainstream publications – it is like throwing a wrench in the system that is so foriegn to the system that it doesn’t even recognize it as a threat. The collective consciousness moves according to subliminal impulses, and most people are not ready to pull a new paradigm (like a new system software) up into their minds – but a moment may come when they are forced to do so.

Yes, I think we are in definite serious danger ecologically – read Ed Ayres’ book God’s Last Offer. The planet’s life support systems are on the point of buckling, and the destruction may reach the point where they can no longer regenerate themselves. At the same time, we are increasing the amount of chemical pollution we are pouring on the world, as well as adding new forms of pollution such as genetic lifeforms that change ecosystems and have unknown effects on health in the long term.

Humming,

You ask, "Is human nature essentially good, or essentially bad? Would a change in modality of consciousness necessarily illict an intensification of compassion as well?"

Human nature is not essentially good or bad. It is both. That is why the New Age has been a failure – they want to identify with the God of Light in bliss-bunny fashion, without acknowledging the Dark God that also lives within them. Therefore the New Age ends up institutionalizing kitsch, sentimental sops of transcendence, without doing anything really positive in the world like actually helping indigenous cultures. It is much easier to just put a Dreamcatcher on your wall, just as it is easier to tattoo the Buddha on your ass then actually pursue the eightfold path.

Carl Jung’s "Answer to Job" and Edward Eddinger’s book on that essay, "Transformation of the God Image," were key for me to understand our situation.

The work of integrating the shadow is the necessity of recognizing the Dark God within us that yearns for power, recognition, servitude, omnipotent mastery, etc., and neutralizing those desires through intensification of consciousness and will.

What seems clear to me is that control apparatus of modern civilization actually has the function of helping to ensure that the alchemical marriage now under way will be for good rather than ill. I will give you one example: A young man at Burning Man was telling me about visiting the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque while on mushrooms. He brought a crystal with him, felt compelled to place the crystal at a certain place, and began to do strange vocalizations that seemed called out of him – he felt the whole room was vibrating strangely and even the crystal seemed to be changing form. He realized he was accessing some high magical practice of the Maya, but before he could explore it any further, a security guard rushed in and banished him.

In his retelling, he was upset about the security guard. When I reminded him of the amoral practices of the Maya (human sacrifices etc.), he then started to defend them. I laughed in his face. From my perspective, that guard is there so that we can’t access these techniques until we have attained a different evolutionary condition, which includes the complete internalization of the "God is Love" ethos brought to Earth by the Christ consciousness. In a sense, that guard was materialized by my young friend in order to prevent an investigation he was not ethically prepared to make at this point in time.

Humming: "When the international corporations have so much power, in virtual control of the world, it is ludicrous for me to think that they are not keyed-in to esoteric power dynamics, and the secret truths of reality."

The fact is that it just doesn’t matter. I don’t actually think they are so keyed-in and brilliant. I think they have a very limited frame of reference and would find the arguments on this board to be baffling. I also won’t give them any of my psychic energy by getting paranoid about them. I have been down that road before and I know it leads nowhere. By getting stuck in that position, all you do is manufacture your own mind shadows.

What the powers-that-be are trying to control is ineluctably sinking away from them. In the direction they think they are going, there is no way to go. The idiots who think they are in control are actually the least in control of anyone. They are completely run by planetary forces and (probably) devious supersensible entities (the Greys or whatever). In any case, the obstacles are the path. Whatever seems to oppose you is actually your greatest assistance. The training of this time is a training in fearlessness.

gelfer: "what worries me is a trend which might be called Entrepreneurial Consciousness Positioning."

I am not trying to force my position onto anyone. I could insist with every sentence that it is all just a hypothesis or thought experiment – but that would be true for any statement anyone could make. I think I have a better sense of humor than Wilbur.

My position is that anyone can run my thought experiment or paradigm for themselves, and see if it works for them. If they think it is somehow better to remain cynical and nihilistic about the immediate future because this is more "realistic," that is better to remain paranoid and fearful about the control structure of modern civilization, that the kind of transformation I am hypothesizing cannot happen now because it has not happened before, that human consciousness does not really change, that the planets and stars do not have an effect on human consciousness, etc., then they are welcome to hold those opinions.

I feel that my paradigm is not only at least as accurate and arguable, but actually allows us to institute a new harmonic situation on the Earth in our lifetime. As reasoning consciousnesses, it seems we might choose to act according to the logic that is going to make life more beautiful and better, to increase compassion and freedom, rather than the logic that is going to lead to a continued curtailing of human possibilities and a technodystopic future that is certainly ready to drop on us if we cannot find another path.

[gone]

I think we all on this board have a better sense of humour than Wilber!

My spinning of Entrepreneurial Consciousness Positioning isn’t intended to encourage folk to qualify their positioning as hypothesis; nor is it comment on the end or net effect of any hypothesis or paradigm. It simply notes a certain frequency of process which can be cold and lacking in love.

[Lowlight]

daniel - yes i agree with you on one (not the only one obviously) of the vital things that you said in the above post. this idea that hope has to be kept alive, that we must see the future as possibly getting better rather than just seeing it as getting worse. It is easy to give in and surrender, this is a trait that makes me sick as i see it in so many i meet, 'what difference does it make...you cant change anything'...etc etc. I strongly agree that change requires superhuman effort also. This is what is worth living for, strenuous pursuit of a goal that is in itself something of beauty.
But...to go back a bit, i think i see the forces that are moving us to a higher state as being in themselves amoral. By this i mean they (planets, gods, higher realities etc) are taking us to the moment of change but that what the change actually is really depends on our actions. Yes everthing may have happened and already be complete, but this could itself be complete in all possible outcomes. Our actions now push us down one of these possible (already existent?) outcomes. So we could end up in a place that is beautiful in terms of compassion like you said, or a place beautiful in a different way...decay has its own beauty. Your spearing of the new age is crucial and effective. I have been saying for a long time now that 'man' must confront and accept the destruction within, the raw viceral power that overflows. a human cannot authentically exist as a half person.
Finally, i have been doing similar work to you with the people i know. A slow but steady approach to get them to see the flaws in materialism, contemporary morality, the limits of science etc. I was pleased to hear i am not alone. actually i find a really good way to start things is to recommend certain books, yours is obviously one of them along with Mckenna and Dr Stevenson's work on reincarnation. I think this approach is a powerful way forward to change.

[Ash Tree]

First post here. I want to say upfront that I do not have extensive experience with entheogens, but I am deeply spiritual. I find the ideas discussed in this forum and in the book to be fascinating and vital and perhaps the most important discussions happening today. I am certain that I have psychedelic exploration in my future. I just want to tread carefully, slowly, even soberly if you understand what I mean.

The issue of apocalypse has obsessed me far too much, probably for my own good. You’re right, Daniel, paranoia is endless and pointless. I do have a comment about something you said in the New World Disorder interview. You said that we would come to the brink of annihilation so that we will have no choice but to evolve. Taken very cynically, this could be used as justification for the backwards, machine-men policies of the current administration. Instead of trying to bring on a possible Christian apocalypse, the policies could be used to bring on a Mayan apocalypse. That being said, your optimism is heartening, and really the only choice.

Last night, I read this quote in the Rosicrucian manifesto "Confessio Fraternitatis":

"We declare that God, before the end of the world, shall create a great flood of spiritual light to alleviate the sufferings of humankind. Falsehood and darkness which have crept into the arts, sciences, religions, and governments of humanity--making it difficult for even the wise to discover the path of reality--shall be forever removed and a single standard established, so that all may enjoy the fruitage of truth."

I devoutly hope so.

[Rob P]

Love Masochism? Vote BushCo!
Could four more brutal years of the Dubya nightmare actually be *good* for America?

- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, September 15, 2004

I have a good friend who believes, gloomily, bitterly, resignedly, that not only are we in for four more years of painful and cheerless BushCo-branded tyranny and misprision and aww-shucks dumb-guy shtick, but also that we are actually at the beginning of a long, brutal, fear-based Republican juggernaut that will last a good 16 more years, at least.

Because this is how long it will take for the current horrific conservative cycle to play itself out, and this would resemble a more typical and historically proven 20-year pendulum swing, in this case one toward neoconservative right-wing hate and homophobia and warmongering that will careen us toward heretofore unprecedented extremes of sadness and isolationism and far too many overweight white people with guns.

But here's the catch. Here's the argument: This dark era, this wicked 20-year dystopia America could now be facing, it might be a very good and necessary thing indeed.

Not, as you might dream, because four more years of BushCo and a dozen more of sneering Republican domination means there will likely be good times ahead. Not because we will enjoy an unprecedented era of peace and stability and generosity and environmental sustenance, humanitarian progress and U.N. cooperation and fiscal responsibility and a generally relaxed and open-minded attitude toward religion and multiculturalism and sex. I mean, don't be ridiculous. Besides, the Clinton era already happened.

But, rather, it will be necessary because the moral and spiritual and physical hemispheres of our existence will quickly become so dire and toxic and the nation's socioeconomic situation will become so extreme and desperate that maybe, just maybe, we will finally learn something.

This is the argument. It is bitter and defeatist and, maybe, if you let your inner devil's advocate speak, a little bit true.

Look at it this way: If Kerry wins now, the nation won't have suffered enough, won't have traveled far enough down the road of right-wing egotism and misogyny and homophobia and religious self-righteousness and deficit mauling and sanctimonious ideology and mangled grammar to really learn anything indelible, nothing that will affect a permanent sea change in our worldview, and we will just continue to limp along, never really healing and never really refocusing our intention and never fully understanding the depths of our dark side.

And, furthermore, if Kerry wins, history might not be as fully and inevitably antagonistic toward BushCo as his short, dreadful despotism deserves. Our national memory is frightfully short. Everyone will think, oh well, it's all over now and the damage has been done and it wasn't all that bad, really, was it?

I mean (they will say), sure Bush is widely regarded as the most politically inept and ethically dangerous and environmentally hostile president in American history, and sure women's rights were hammered and civil rights were shriveled and every single major ally we have in the world now either disrespects us or mistrusts us or openly abhors us like an Olsen twin shuns direct sunlight.

And sure Dubya's sanctimonious and violent warmongering actions in the Middle East have done far, far more to inflame anti-U.S. hatred and have amplified the threat of terrorism against us a thousandfold, but hey, the Texas schlub only lasted four years and now we can move on, right?

Wrong. Call it the fatalist maxim: The only way the national soul can really change is through serious crisis, through near-death apocalypse, through things getting so dire and tormented and swollen that something finally has to give, the psycho-spiritual levee at last has to break. And it won't be the slightest bit pretty. But it will be mandatory. And in the long (long, long) run, ultimately healthy. Sort of like finally purging a massive cancerous lump from your colon. Only not as much fun.

History and the culture, it would seem, bear this view out: We don't shun pollutive monster SUVs until gas prices hit five bucks a gallon. We don't quit smoking until we have a lung removed after coughing up enough blood and phlegm to gag a horse. We don't take care of our bodies until after that second heart attack and we don't ease up on the toxic garbage foods until we get so fat they have to haul us to the lipo appointment with a forklift.

We don't lift a finger to protect the environment until the hurricanes slam down and the heat waves crack the streets and vaporize your precious swimming pool and ruin the ski resorts. And even then we just sort of shrug and move somewhere else.

We ignore the Social Security nightmare until 70 million boomers retire and the infrastructure collapses. We don't touch the truly dire water-supply issue until the reservoirs dry up and the pipelines crack and Earth recoils. We glut on the planet's natural resources until the land is choked and billions go hungry and even then we seem to think, well, why the hell don't they get themselves a nice Costco?

We are, ultimately, a species of stasis and lethargy. We are rarely sympathetically proactive, always violently reactive -- and only when the threat is immediate and overwhelming. We have a fetish for shortsightedness and instant gratification and damn the costs and the impending toll on our stunned mal-educated children. We move, in short, only when we have to.

So then. Maybe it has to happen. Maybe we need four more years of BushCo (though not, let us pray, 16 years of toxic Republicanism) just to see how bad it can get, to snap us out of this fearful lethargy, this ignorant numbness, this weird and tragic belief that it is only through sheer faux-macho posturing and pre-emptive bombings and through decimating foreign relationships and igniting holy wars and trying to prove that our angry acidic well-armed God is better than their angry acidic well-armed God, that we are actually safe and healthy and spiritually attuned.

If the past four years are any indication, four more years of BushCo would be just unimaginably dreadful for America, for the health of the planet, for human rights, for the poor and for women and minorities and gays and non-Christian religions. After all, no one could have predicted, four years ago, just how much damage this boot-lickin' puppet president could have wrought on the culture in such a short time. He seemed so harmless and bumbling and lost -- at first.

But, then again, no one anticipated that he would be handed the golden political grenade that was 9/11, and no one could have imagined the he and his snarling administration would so shamelessly, so heartlessly leverage our most horrific national tragedy for such brutal and oily gain, using it not only as a fear tactic and a justification for multiple wars and as a vicious excuse to quell dissenting voices, but also as an actual political slogan, a veritable trademarked brand for the Republican Party. BushCo '04: Vote for Us, or Die.

By the way, there is another option. The path of direness and cataclysm is certainly available and will almost definitely eventually result in significant change born of pain and war and dread.

But know this, too: The mystics and psychics and the energy workers, the healers and the deep astrologers and the ancient shamanistic texts, all tend to agree that a major shift is already under way on this planet, a massive spiritual/energetic transformation slowly sweeping all of humanity, right now and throughout the coming decade, affecting everyone and everything, ready or not, bringing the world's issues and conflicts and spiritual questions to a critical head.

Here's the bottom line: It is our choice. It is up to us whether this astounding and deeply profound change will be, as my friend's opinion suggests, bloody and violent and full of disease and death and flagrant corporate-sponsored abuse of the planet, or whether it will be, instead, full of light and generosity and awareness and a deep, abiding respect for those who share this pale blue dot with us. Both avenues, after all, will cure the cancer. The question then becomes, Do you want it sliced out with a hatchet, or with a feather?

One look at the cruel and arrogant BushCo agenda, and the answer seems evident: We are already making our choice.


Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2004/09/15/notes091504.DTL
©2004 SF Gate

[sire_012]

LowLightOracle:
i think i see the forces that are moving us to a higher state as being in themselves amoral. By this i mean they (planets, gods, higher realities etc) are taking us to the moment of change but that what the change actually is really depends on our actions.this is a really interesting point to bring up and perhaps spot on to a large lesson. most western occult traditions tend to stress the passage *through* emotion as the path of the enlightened or illumined practictioner. emotions always seem to be portrayed as a hindrance and little else, something to be discarded, something to be tossed away and ashamed of like a security blanket. but i wonder, after reading your remarks above, if in fact emotions are not our greatest function in this instant of awareness in which we believe we exist. sure emotions do tend to drag folks by their knuckles if they allow them to, emotive slavery is perhaps one of the greatest causes of human indecencey presently. but, imagine a fish that couldn't use its fins, improperly those fins could propel the fish to the ocean floor quicker than any other attribute on its body. also we hear these stories (daniel brought it up again on another thread in the past couple days) about greys and elementals studying human emotions and thirsting for emotion almost manically. perhaps they are trying to inform us about our own gift rather than send us into a fight or flight response to their investigations.

right now it seems very plausible that humans' function within the universe is to be a vital part of its' nervous system, its' nerve endings (humans and human activity) sending information back into the energy sources (planets, currents, etc), information sculpted by minds drenched in compassion.

of all the initiatic experiences open to humans is not the one that is most profound that of the sacred heart? the moment when your heart chakra opens for the first time and your subtle body responds to the infinitude of beauty in every being in action around you? perhaps it is so profound because it is your greatest talent and sacred gift - your function in this organism! - waking up again for the first time.

it seems almost palpable that we may be the emotive functioning of this incredible being we reside inside and with. intelligence, experience, dialectic and will applied to the pursuit of compassion in its most communicative and determined form all in service of the greater mechanics of this elegent organism which we are all most certainly a part of.

[daniel]

lowlight oracle: "... this idea that hope has to be kept alive, that we must see the future as possibly getting better rather than just seeing it as getting worse. It is easy to give in and surrender, this is a trait that makes me sick as i see it in so many i meet, 'what difference does it make...you cant change anything'...etc etc. I strongly agree that change requires superhuman effort also."

A few comments on this: I believe that empirically there is every reason not only to keep hope alive, but realize that hope is already totally alive and vibrant. Although some things have gotten worse in the world, when I look at the trajectory of my own life it is clearly towards the better on many levels. On the deepest level, I suspect this is because we are moving closer to a true relation to reality. The thought systems of the West, East, North, and South are melding together – this has been a century long process. Who in the 1900s would have imagined that there would be a Zen center, a Shambhala center, a Sufi center, 50 yoga studios, courses in shamanism and qabalah, etc., in every major Western city in the world? Who would have imagined the personal computer and information technology that knits the entire world together instantaneously?

The attitude of surrender is blatantly absurd and based on passive acceptance of admittedly brutal societal and media conditioning. Every aspect of our being is so extraordinary and improbable that we should remain continuously aware that anything is possible in this universe. Each of our bodies is made up of 100 million cells, each containing vast encyclopedias of DNA. The possible synaptic connections in our brain rival the number of molecules in the universe. Etc. Not one of us has the faintest idea how we ended up zippered into these three-dimensional space suits – certainly we are dreamers in a dream world where anything might happen. Quantum physics seems to be establishing this on a rational level, but it is also quite clear from psychedelic experiences.

I don’t think change requires superhuman effort – it requires super effort that is very human. It is not out of our reach at all. Anyone who thinks "you cant change anything" has not been paying attention to human history, where one or a few individuals have often been able to cause enormous changes and swings. In fact, all change begins with the individual.

Ash Tree,

Part of what seems to take place is that we have to grow sick of our own patterns of negative thought, and recognize them for what they are – means of avoidance, for the most part, based on fear and passivity. Ibogaine and ayahuasca have been very valuable tools for me to understand this and make the determined effort to reprogram my own thought habits. Psychedelics can definitely help you to see your own mental loops and find the will to correct them. Also Rudolf Steiner makes it very clear. He said that we can reach the point in our development where we have control over our thoughts, and no thought enters our mind unless we want it there.

There were also some comments on emotion - Gelfer worries about "a certain frequency of process which can be cold and lacking in love."

One idea I have been mulling lately is that I don’t think that emotion and rational cognition are as far apart as I used to imagine. Ouspensky analyzes this well in his last book, The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution. He tries to define different "centers" of the mind, categorizes physic processes, and notes that the faster ones function at speeds that are 30,000 times faster than the slower ones. I think that intuition is a cognitive process that happens so fast that we don’t recognize it for what it is. When people have feelings about something, it is often based on unanalyzed intuition. A series of judgments have been made that result in a feeling, and then a decision to act in a certain way. But if the basis of the intuition is not only unanalyzed, but wrong, then the resulting action will also be wrong.

Christ’s commandment to "Love one another as I have loved you" is as rational, to me, as a geometric proof. How else can a just society evolve except on the basis of that level of love? The Mayan greeting, In lakech, translates as: "I am another yourself."

[Lowlight]

Rob - i think you may be right, sometimes if not most times it may be right to destroy something totally before a rebuilding process begins.

Sire - thats really quite a coincidence. During a Salvia journey a few months ago a number of Goddesses explain to me that i am like a nerve in that i feel more of what is around me. It appeared that this was my role. If humanity is a hand i would be like a nerve cell in that hand. This seemed to be what she was saying. This 'revelation' did actually explain quite a lot of things to me in a personal sense. Its like each person has a role within the organism of humanity itself. i think we are all probably emotional receptors in some sense, but within this itself we all have different things to 'bring to the table', as it were.

Daniel - yes change can start on the individual level which should make people see that, like you said, there is hope. I never forget that revolution is only ever one day away, thats all it would take, one day for people to act as a collective in the purpose of change. This may be wishful thinking in realistic terms, as i know it is a process which requires enormous strength and will but the fact remains that theoretically we could as a people begin to instigate political, social, economic, environmental, religious, moral, spiritual, scientific and aesthetic change tomorrow. i guess sometimes we need to dream...

but that is why i like this idea of a kind of creeping revolution that begins in a few people and then spreads outwards to others. this is made so much easier by present technology as you pointed out. I should have news on such a project here where i live quite soon. The seed seems to be planted now we have to cultivate it.

Lowlight

[ September 16, 2004, 12:54 PM: Message edited by: LowlightOracle ]

[gone]

Originally posted by daniel:
The Mayan greeting, In lakech, translates as: "I am another yourself."More of this theme:

http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/nussbaum221.htm

IN AFRICAN CULTURE, ubuntu is the capacity to express compassion, justice, reciprocity, dignity, harmony and humanity in the interests of building, maintaining and strengthening community. An Nguni word from South Africa, ubuntu speaks to our interconnectedness and the responsibility to each other that flows from our connection. It's about mutual affirmation and communal responsiveness. It is about the self being so rooted in the community, that your personal identity is defined by what you give to the community.

'I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am' is a good example of the 'self-in-community' foundation that gives rise to sayings in Zulu, such as umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu - 'It is through others that one attains selfhood.'

Ubuntu is not a concept easily distilled into a methodological procedure. It is rather the bedrock of a specific lifestyle or culture that seeks to honour human relationships as primary in any social, communal or corporate activity. Ubuntu begins with simply knowing how to greet someone. Examples of Shona greetings (from Zimbabwe) in the morning and lunchtime would be:

"Mangwani. Marara sei?"
(Good morning. Did you sleep well?)
"Ndarara, kana mararawo."
(I slept well, if you slept well.)
"Maswera sei?"
(How has your day been?)
"Ndaswera, kana maswerawo."
(My day has been good if your day has been good.)

In other words, we are all so connected to each other, that if you did not sleep well, or if you were not having a good day, how could I sleep well or have a good day? This kind of greeting would apply equally well to a stranger one met on the road as to close family.

UBUNTU ALSO TRANSLATES into attitudes towards profit and wealth. In an ubuntu-based economy, the more communal person is prepared to give and share. The more that person does, the more she or he is respected. Africans believe that the only wealth is that which is shared and rendered visible to the community. The criterion for respect in a world that embodies ubuntu values would be how much wealth is shared with others and not how full one's personal bank balance is.

Work in the African sense is not just a simple contractual relationship. The Nguni word for work is umsebenzi, which literally means 'service'. Joining a company is seen as a commitment to a new community. Workplaces that embrace ubuntu ensure that every person is valued and included in decision making.

Compassion is a central part of ubuntu. Africans are known for ukwenana, an act of giving or sharing without expecting returns. Another practice called ukusisa is a 'yin', a form of investment that does not require collateral and also maintains the dignity of a poor person who has no assets.

According to the custom of ukusisa, those who have cattle or sheep give a cow or ewe to those who do not, to give the family an opportunity to acquire their own cattle and sheep over time. This is how newcomers in villages are helped. And this is how poorer communities and poorer countries could be helped.

African values have a great deal to contribute to world consciousness, but Africa is greatly misunderstood in the West. Our world must embrace a sense of interconnectedness as a global community if we are to survive. Perhaps ubuntu is a framework that could inform our thinking in the twenty-first century.

Barbara Nussbaum is co-author of Sawubona Africa, which looks at the management implications of African culture and values.

[daniel]

I think you would find some concept similar to this across the entire indigenous world.

The relationship of modern civilization to property and ownership is part of the same 5 or 6,000 year process that can be looked at in many ways - the development of agriculture, warfare, the modern Self, technology, materialism, desynchronization from natural cycles and the mechanization of time. In a sense, all "The Apocalypse" has to be is the conscious realization of the mistakes in this pattern, and the conscious, communal effort to restore those aspects of reality denied by the current paradigm.

[gone]

An interesting example of this is happening right now here in NZ with Maori wrangles over current policy on the crown vs private vs Maori ownership of the seabed and foreshore and also this week’s big settlement of Maori fishing stock/rights. I believe the main (though not exclusive) momentum behind the current Maori position on this issue has been political (perhaps even commercial) and this is understandable when one has to operate within a hostile system. The interesting thing, though, is that there may now be a renaissance of more authentic concepts of Maori ownership (custodianship) as a result, the like of which haven’t been seen for a long time; perhaps they never have been seen in any practical sense beyond the mythic narrative. This could be a good example of the evolution of an indigenous path offset against the romanticization of the Old Ways. What’s really interesting is how UPTIGHT so many (even tuned in) folk get when talking about this issue here; not sure what Jalien’s experiences are with this up in the City.

[michael heany]

I went out ot Burning Man this year and had the strangest experience of my life.

I had a trip a few months ago, a candy-flip, where reality changed; or rather the mask that reality usually wears was pulled off. I experienced something schizophrenics must experience.

I went to Burning Man. One night I did ecstasy and it happened again: reality shifted. The shift lasted 3-4 days and it's still going on, in a sense.

I went into the underworld. For a while there I thought I had died and gone to hell. Cold night. The moon directly overhead and it wouldn't move. The music turned into heavy metal and there was al ot of anger and drunkeness. Lots of Christian imagery. Hot women wearing crosses. Egyptian imagery too. And the American Indian aspect of the place. Was I being told that the devil WAS God, or God the devil? Was I being told there was some sacredness here even in this "evil"? I could not figure it out. I wasn't ready. Very Jungian.

I was informed I was an alien. Yes, Jesus was one too. See the Gnostic gospels. Thomas, Jesus' twin brother. "Whosoever shall interpret the meaning of these sayings correctly shall not taste death". In one of the gnositc gospels there is an image of Jesus laughing in heaven as they crucify his body. The idea that his (our) physical body was an illusion all along.

A lot of number symbolism. Couldn't grasp it.

But at some point I began to interact more, and the night passed.

I thought it as going to be ME that they were going to sacrifice. So I left. But an hour out I turned around. I knew I had to face what was coming. I had to get closer.

Had amazing conversations with "people", the most articulate and intelligent I ever met. And I realized on some deep level that their mega-intelligence was mine too, though I couldn't grasp alot of what they were saying. I wasn't ready.

Ran into some guy who taught we a knew way to raise the sun. An alien, I think. He even has a website. He also strongly implied I would have to sacrife in order to get to the spaceship. I sent him an email. He writes back, little detail. "We 3 met on Earth. Which 1 are U?"

What do you mean three, pal? There was you and me...

On Sunday I finally freaked out and left.

The weird paradox is this: I was told I would have to suffer, and yet also told to "have fun".

So a whole can of worms opens up. I'm beginning to think that the whole thing is about trust. Even when God or aliens or the world (whatever the manifestation) tells you that something terrible is going to happen, you still have to have absolute reverence and love for the world, God, the alien. (The story of Abraham and his son, the near-sacrifice).You go to the fire singing and dancing.

Anyways, it seems clear to me that 2012 is about finding peace within, and the outside follows. Get a spiritual practice and go into it deeply. Be in the present moment very deeply, and that way you'll be ready for anything, even the worst, because it doesn't last. Take it slow. Breathe deeply and don't try to understand mentally the higher orders. You're destined to get there. But you'll only delay it by running it through your mind. What did it mean? Just be. The true action comes out of that, and not desperate intellectual juggling. (This is not easy!)

And maybe when we are absolutely ready for the worst and actually are calm and, yes, even joyful, then the good/bad is gone. It's all just a game before our eyes.

It's like the Zen master Banzan who had been seeking enlightenment for years and one day overhead a butcher having a conversation:

"Give me your best piece of meat!"

"Every piece of meat I have is the best. There is no piece of meat here that is not the best."

On hearing this, Banzan became enlightened.

[Humming]

"From my perspective, that guard is there so that we can’t access these techniques until we have attained a different evolutionary condition, which includes the complete internalization of the "God is Love" ethos brought to Earth by the Christ consciousness. In a sense, that guard was materialized by my young friend in order to prevent an investigation he was not ethically prepared to make at this point in time."

I find that story to be poignant and extremely useful. I am much like that boy; I've even been told that same thing before by a number of people, that I should back off from intense exploration and learn how to protect myself before venturing into unknown realities, or I will be destroyed. Unfortunately, living trapped here in this cultural void of prevelant materialism, it has been nearly impossible for me to find many qualified teachers.

"The Mayan greeting, In lakech, translates as: 'I am another yourself.'"

That totally blows my mind.

Encapsulated in that one saying there is a clear vision of how simple and easy it will be to change absolutely everything about the world, simply by actualizing a different set of values....

[michael heany]

Basically consciousness is your consciousness and it's happening every moment. I've peaked at the cabalah and it seems to be saying this: YOU make it happen. It's taken alot of incarantions but now we're zooming down the runway, ready to lift off.

It became clear to me that my time at Burning Man was going to be a strange one when this happened: I got an idea to go up to people and say "Remember me!" And we'd have a conversation, the person would try to think back and eventually I would tell them, no, we'd never met. Then, on the third time, I went into a camp and did the same bit on this girl. At some point she says "Oh, I DO remember you. It was at this party in New York..." And I'm thinking "Well, I've been to two parties in NY in the last few years, but...". She goes on "I'm 100% certain!"

So it seems to me that I've created a memory for her.

Then shortly thereafter I realize: Oh yeah, I have met this girl. I have the visual image. The mentally generated movie. I'm 100% sure.

The idea is that everyone you meet you already know. It's just the Self meeting the Self. The discriminating mind creates all sorts of illusions of familiarity/unfamiliarity. This perpetuates the dream of seperation, of form.

[Rob P]

hi Michael!

i do the same thing with people-
remember me?!

the funny thing is, a lot of people
i encounter in my life DO look
like other people that i have been in contact with,
and i see the similarities all the time!

sometimes even the astrological signs will
line up as well...it's bizarre, but i'm so
used to it by now that i'm more surprised
when it doesn't happen!

i remember reading about an author,
i think it was jane austen, who said that she always
tried to figure out who a person reminded her of
before she could have a conversation with them,
because she was convinced that everyone she met
would remind her of someone else...

seeya
R O B

[Charlie]

Hi, Michael:

Thanks for the pithy Zen quote…that one had extra pith in it.

I enjoyed reading your Burning Man report...from this and a few other posts you've written, you seem to be kind of "splintered" at the moment, sifting through pieces of your own consciousness, trying to piece together a common dynamic or path that you can follow. There is an insistent truthfulness and humility to your writing that tells me you will be just fine, though. I am no shaman or expert on anything at all…just a wanderer like you…but if I can offer up one bit of advice…seek nature, climb some mountains, don’t think about anything at all while you’re there. There is no greater “source” to return to.

Just my impressions.

Charlie