What Is Nonduality?

by Remez Sasson -

Nonduality a philosophy, which says that there is just One Eternal Spirit in existence, and that everything in the Universe was created by it and is an inseparable part of it. 

At the same time, nonduality also says that the world is not real, but is an illusion perceived by the mind.

The mind finds it hard to accept the concept of nonduality, because it does not accept that the world is a creation of the senses and is not real.

In order to understand what is nonduality, you have to be in a state beyond words and thinking, and be able to silence the mind. In this silence, you realize the real meaning of non duality.

When you meditate and focus your full attention on your consciousness, rejecting all thoughts, good and bad, you ultimately arrive to the experience of non duality. 

In this state, of being without thoughts, you realize your Oneness with the One Spirit.

The mind, with its thoughts, ideas, beliefs and habits, prevents you from seeing what is beyond it. It is as though it envelops your consciousness and obscures your vision. 

It lets you see the world only through the eyes of the mind, which means that you see the world and everything in it, including yourself, as being separate from the world and from other people. 

Only after removing the veil that the mind creates, you will be able to realize the Oneness of everything, and thereby, realize what nonduality is.

Understanding Nonduality

Imagine that the sky is hidden by clouds of different shapes and sizes. These clouds, constantly move around and change their shapes, and it is only when they disperse and disappear that you can see the blue sky. 

The sky never moves or changes. It is here all the time, but is sometimes, hidden by clouds. The sky is permanent and always here, only the clouds are transitory, coming and going.

Thoughts, people and events constantly come and go, just like the clouds, while the background is the One Eternal and Formless Spirit, which is always here and never changes. 

It is the only reality. 

To be aware of the One Spirit, and understand that everything else is transitory and dependent on it, is to understand what nonduality is.

While dreaming during sleep, you go through all sorts of pleasant and unpleasant experiences. 

In the dream, everything seems so real, but when you wake up you realize that these experiences were just a dream. They were not real, and lasted only while you were dreaming.

Before, during, and after the dream, you are the same person, living in the same conditions and circumstances but in your dreams you go through all kinds of experiences, situations and circumstances, which don’t really exist. 

In this case, there is one constant factor, which is, you, and all else i.e., the activities in the dream, are only illusions.

It is like watching a movie and identifying with the heroes, and then, when it is over, you forget about it. 

It seemed real for a while, but when you stopped watching the illusion disappeared. In all these situations, you – your consciousness – spirit, is the stable factor, and all else just come and go.

You are one with the One Real Spirit, which is Omnipresent, while everything else is transitory, like moving pictures projected on a screen.

What prevents you from realizing and understanding what is nonduality? 

The restless, thinking mind, and the belief in the reality of the ego, of separate individual existence, prevent you from seeing what is beyond them and understanding nonduality. 

What can help you to realize and understand nonduality? 

Looking within you, and searching for the source of your mind and thoughts, where they come from, and discovering who you really are, bring the knowledge and understanding of what nonduality is. 

How is this done? 

Through concentration and meditation, and by learning to silence the mind, a “new” consciousness emerges. 

In this “state”, you know what nonduality means. 

You understand and realize it, not just through the mind, but by raising your consciousness above the mind. 

When the mind is silent, there is Oneness, not “me and the Spirit”, “me and the body”, “me and they”, but just Oneness.

successconsciousness.com

From Duality to Oneness

by Phillip Elton Collins -

With a world filled with separation, duality and often confrontation, perhaps it is time to revisit the reality of Oneness within your existence in order to create a new reality of equality, harmony and balance. How does that feel?

Prior to understanding Oneness, it is essential to understand what creates the opposite of Oneness. 

It is your life experiences and emotions which create “wounds” that then create “ego defenses” around the wounds to defend the wounds. 

Most of your lives are currently spent defending which prevents Oneness. (A deeper study of ego defenses can be gained through many higher realm teachings; one of which is ACTIVATE YOUR SOUL PLAN: ANGEL ANSWERS and ACTIONS).  Understanding and mastering your defenses is a teaching unto itself and one of the most self-empowering tools available to you.

Through your freedom of choice and will you have chosen to learn through your wounds and defenses, thus duality and separation. In spite of how things appear in your world at present, it is your destiny to learn another way through Oneness. 

How and when you achieve this is up to you. When you get sick and tired enough of what you are experiencing, perhaps you will make another choice.

Let us further discuss and ‘prove’ to your mental body the reality and benefit of Oneness with the intent to assist you in moving from your old way of learning to a new, easier paradigm of learning through Oneness. Humanity appears to be addicted to learning the hard way! 

Why not choose a new way?

One of the most empowering truths within the universe is that of Oneness and how this ancient concept can shift how humanity perceives and experiences the world. 

Through the ascension process (evolving to a higher consciousness of existence) that the planet and humanity is experiencing at present, it is time to accept with compassion and know that the application of Oneness can and will change humanity, thus the world for the better and insure its survival.

The idea of Oneness is not foreign to humanity. 

Your religions have moved from duality (many gods) to Oneness reflecting the evolution of humanity. Many religions teach the Oneness of their God and the existence of one all powerful force in the universe. 

Metaphysics teaches the Oneness of good and evil, light and dark, right and wrong and male and female (all being aspects of the same Oneness). 

Universal Law teaches/ reveals that Oneness also means that everything, ALL THERE IS, and all that ever will be is One; One reality. In effect there is nothing in reality that is not Oneness. 

Through ascension of the planet and humanity, you are in the personal and collective process of remembering and applying this truth of Oneness. Oneness is your eternal, divine life insurance policy and pathway to the world you say you want: one of equality harmony and balance.

Everything in existence is created of the same oneness ‘cosmic stuff,’ atoms, electrons, molecules. 

These are common qualities that you are exchanging, sharing and replacing all the time. This is the foundation of the Oneness of humanity, as well. 

Your scientists have proven that all life on the planet is engaged in a great Oneness energetic exchange constantly. 

Your senses are programmed to see boundaries that often prevent seeing the Oneness.

You are in effect an individuated aspect of the whole, the Oneness whether you see it or are conscious of it or not. You are in the process of waking up and being able to see the truth of your existence.

One of the most hidden aspects of Oneness is the fact that your emotions and thoughts are creating your reality all the time. Emotions and thoughts are components of Oneness whether they are negative or positive influencing the Oneness becoming conscious or not. 

Once your Oneness becomes conscious you create a unified field of consciousness which is Oneness.

Unified Field

Once you fully embrace this unified field of consciousness which is Oneness, evolving/ascending further spiritually, you come to know your emotions and thoughts are creating everything even your weather stormed in the atmosphere as well as assisting the clearing and cleansing of the planet herself. 

As you become more and more aware of this “unified Oneness” in action you can begin to take more responsibility for your emotions and thoughts mastering the cosmic equation responsibility= consequence. 

When you become responsible you can create consequences more to your liking than the ones you are currently creating (separation from self, others and your world). 

Becoming more constructive rather than destructive to the experiences/events in your lives allows the creation of an “Oneness environment” which shifts everything into a We Consciousness rather than separation.

Dear ones can you begin to see that the concept/reality of Oneness allows you to become multidimensional (which you are) and has the ability to recreate an unified new world paradigm, to reshape your lives by seeing the interconnectivity of you all and your need to address some new responses (rather than reactions) in your lives and world? 

You are not just these three dimensional emotions, thoughts and physicality but are also connected to the unseen world of Oneness which actually maintains and sustains everything through the Oneness of the eternal spirit.

Let us look at it this way: 

Oneness is all life; your emotions and thoughts the creator, and your physical actions the manifested result.

You are all individuated expressions of Oneness employing the Laws of Cause and Effect and karma which is the way you have chosen to learn what you need to learn (to learn to love). It is your destiny not to have to learn this way in the future (which is actually now).

Every one of the experiences you create is a personal mirror that invites you to learn more about Oneness, your relationships with self, others, ALL THERE IS or reality . Ultimately Oneness demands and commands that Oneness is all there is. 

You may choose to call Oneness God, Source, ALL THERE IS if any of that resonates for you. Your life experiences are expressions of your divine soul plans (reason to be here) reflecting what you need to learn from life time to life time. Although you are at present individual you are One with ALL THERE IS; you are One with Oneness.

Let’s create an exercise that further allows you to connect with your Oneness:

For the next week embrace the concept of seeing the Oneness in everyone you come into contact.

Look at each person directly (they do not have to know you are doing this) and feel and think, “I acknowledge the Oneness within each of us.” 

After several days into this exercise you will notice a shift within yourself as you continue the exercise. Through the integration of the Oneness feelings and thoughts you will sense a divine connection to everyone! 

You will begin to know that everyone is an aspect/part of you and know you are a part of them. You will realize this is how Oneness (Creation) sees and feels about everything. You will then know you have individually experienced Oneness.

Achieving the above shift in consciousness, you become aware that there is more involved in reality than just your mental body or perception. 

You will begin to ‘think’ with your heart and know the purpose of your heart awareness is to allow you to conceive yourself and directly experience yourself to be individuated and yet one with Oneness. 

In effect the believing mind is moving back into service to the knowing heart (this is an essential aspect of your evolutionary process).

Through this mind/heart shift the illusion of separation between the observer and the physical world is dissolving: the observer becomes and affects the observed. Quantum physics has proven that observance/energy is a building block of creation. 

This energy spreads out infinitely without boundary or set destination. 

As you move deeper within your knowing heart you see the untruth of two realities: one aspect of perception sees the world of separation while a higher self-perception sees reality as integrated cosmic choreograph of loving energy. 

As you continue to ‘think’ with your heart you come to know what you perceive with your five senses is not the only reality. You come to know what affects one affects the other not matter the time or distance.

Through the concept of Oneness you are also connecting with the moment of now where there is no time or distance since there is not past or future. 

Where there is no time or distance there can be no separation, only Oneness. 

Time and distance have been and continue to be the illusions that allow you to experience your three dimensional reality of emotions, thoughts, and the physical. Time and distance have been your teaching tools of cause and effect and duality which are your destiny to end. 

When and how is up to you in your freedom of choice and will.

Dear ones your illusions in consciousness and separation were created to provide a laboratory of learning to evolve from the perception of separation to the consciousness of Oneness.

You have been learning 'what is' through 'what is not'. A tough way to learn but a necessary and effective one based upon your past and present history. 

All of this is allowing you to know who you are and why you are here and the true meaning, value and purpose of life (to learn to love and serve through that love).

The illusionary outside world that you daily experience and the inner/higher self-world that you identify as being your eternal self are actually one and the same. 

The outer world is your mirror. 

The purpose of the reflection in the mirror is to awaken you to your Oneness with ALL THERE IS. You are moving from me consciousness to we consciousness, Oneness.

IN CONCLUSION

Once you accept with compassion and forgive how you have chosen to learn, you can begin to build communities of equality, harmony and balance in the world: to know that everything is Oneness and everything exists to wake up to this Oneness. All that ever was and is One. We are all One.

Only your Oneness omits your isolation, separation and duality from self, others and your world. 

When you are ready to embrace the truth of your reality, your Oneness, you will fully reunite with your divinity and your service to ALL THERE IS will be in full force.

Accessed from The Cosmic Keepers of Creation

by Phillip Elton Collins, The Angel News Network

theangelnewsnetwork.com

Operating as Change Agents

by Justine Huxley -

It seems that many of the serious global challenges we face are worsening. Religious extremism, growing economic disparity and irreversible climate change will undoubtedly have a real impact on conflicts around the world. 

Resource-based conflict is likely to increase, food security and water may become significant issues, and wealth inequality may be a ticking time bomb generating dangerous levels of discontent and division, as well as the potential for further financial crashes. 

Our ever increasing focus on economic growth has brought us to a place where we are consuming the resources of 1.5 planets, whilst having only one planet available to us. It would seem that materialism has supplanted all other values to the extent that it now jeopardises our long term survival.

“We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.” --Martin Luther King

Tacking root causes instead of symptoms

It has become not unusual to all the challenges we face as fundamentally interrelated and requiring interconnected solutions. It understands the underlying cause to be related to the values by which we live. 

In recent years, science, technology and ecology have radically changed our ability to perceive this interconnectedness. 

This requires us to re-engineer the way we function globally around a new set of values and principles. 

It is “change that pervades all parts of a system, taking into account the interrelationships and interdependencies among those parts.” It constitutes the emergence of a radically different worldview, a transformation in the way humanity thinks and the collective narrative upon which we base our sense of meaning, which has the potential to change the way we act in all walks of life.

Conflict and deeper change

In the past, conflict and peace were conceived in dualistic terms. Conflict was a battle between opposing forces and peace the cessation of violence or the resolution of disagreement. 

Conflict was seen as a problem to be solved in order to restore a state of harmony. Before multi-culturalism became seen as a positive ideology, right and wrong were also viewed as fixed and intrinsic and for every ‘self’ there was an ‘other’. 

The emerging understanding of interdependence that has begun to take root in human consciousness calls into question that dualistic framework. 

Advocates of conflict transformation (as opposed to 'resolution'), such as Jean-Paul Lederach, regard conflict as embedded in a complex and interrelated field. They also stress the opportunity it presents for deeper individual, community and societal change.

Johan Galtung’s redefinition of ‘active peace’ similarly integrates peace into a triad which includes justice and wholeness or well-being.

Peace-building which encourages active cooperation between people may be more effective in the long run than seeking to apply a dualistic toolkit to ‘resolve’ existing conflicts. 

In the words of Albert Einstein, the latter might be akin to “trying to solve a problem with the same thinking that created it”. 

Peacemakers like Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Ghandi all based their game-changing activism on an awareness of ‘interbeing’ which takes us beyond that thinking into new ways of relating and acting in harmony with the whole. 

Many issues that create conflict at this time reflect much bigger stories of collective paradigm shift. With this new perspective, conflict can be seen not as a problem to be solved but rather a collective doorway offering the potential to create a new, more harmonious social order.

New definitions of peace and reconciliation

Rather than the old definition of peace as the absence of conflict, and reconciliation as the restoration of harmony, we can consider peace to be an active, dynamic way of life. 

Diversity can be seen as a source of collective intelligence, where every individual, culture and belief is recognised as an essential part of an interrelated whole, where we understand our communities as interdependent eco-systems and most importantly, where people come together in new ways, cooperating and collaborating across differences of all kinds for the benefit of all. 

Reconciliation becomes not just reconciliation with the ‘Other’ but reconciliation with ourselves, our deepest values, with the Divine and with the whole web of life and the Earth itself.

This is a reconciliation when we come to recognise that, at a deep level, there is no ‘Other’.

A cross-disciplinary grassroots global network of change agents?

In asking how we operate from that deeper level, we need to recognise what peacemaking is and can be.

A small local charity that engages the community with litter picking building pride in the local environment and inspiring a willingness to be socially active - this can accurately be described as peace-making.

A consultancy that encourages the finance industry to operate according to the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit, is also building the conditions for peace.

A social enterprise that supports young leaders to act from shared values, a school that teaches children to understand ecologically sustainable food production, a local initiative sharing resources operating a mini gift economy - all of these are building future peace.

We are all involved!

As the year unfolds before us, we will no doubt be confronted daily with news of social disintegration. But in every direction there is also new life springing up between the rubble.

We are all needed to nurture those new shoots - to share our hope with each other, to be in community and to support each other in growing courage and inner resilience.

Everyone must make a contribution if we are to co-create a future that is actively peaceful, sustainable and spiritually meaningful. It is my belief that in these times of transition, every single one of us is called to step up to a new level of responsibility and engagement.

We are all called to see each other and our Earth through the eyes of interbeing and to live from that new place.

stethelburgas.org

The Source of Oneness

by Anakha Coman and James Twyman - 

We are each connected to the inexhaustible source, the overflowing fountain of Oneness, the fiery love of God. We have many names for it and we each have our own way of connecting and relating to it. 

Connecting to the Source of Oneness unleashes the stream of love and life so that it flows continuously through us.

“To discover joy is to return to a state of oneness with the Universe.”  

—Peggy Jenkins 

“Even Kings and emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare with an ant filled with the love of God.”  

—Guru Nanak

“I, the fiery life of Divine Wisdom — I ignite the beauty of the plains, I sparkle the waters, I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars.”  

—Hildegard of Bingen

ONENESS EXERCISE

Today’s practice is a treasure hunt, an excursion into the source of Oneness. 

Allow  yourself to uncover your unique relationship to it.  

Listen inwardly, for you know the truth: the universe is one living organism, with a single substance, a single heart and a single Soul.  

Feel it, see it and be moved by this dynamic and unified impulse. Let it take shape and form, color and image. How does it taste, what does it sound like, and how does it move?  

Watch. Allow the Source of Oneness to come to life. Watch the theater of life as it unfolds before you and let it be a dynamic and ever-changing dance of Oneness. 

Notice as you move through your day what catches your attention, what attracts and allures you. Let the source of Oneness draw you to it.  

It could be a color, sound, movement, person, place, or an object—trust your impulses and intuition as you engage in this quest for your unique connection to Oneness. Be seduced, allured and transformed by it. 

Connect each night before going to bed with the source of Oneness that lives within your heart. Find the Divine spark, which silently and continually beckons you. 

It’s the flame that illuminates the darkness and connects your Soul to all things. Remember that the source of Oneness is within you and within all things, interwoven in a sacred bond that unites us.

A F F I R M A T I O N

I AM a dynamic expression of the living Oneness, constantly changing, growing and expanding.

awakenedleadershipinstitute.com

Where’s the Evolution of Consciousness Taking Us?

by Nikki Sapp -

Duality Consciousness VS. Unity Consciousness:  

The evolution of consciousness is being felt all over the planet. As it does, the third dimensional belief systems or “truths” are dropping away to make room for a whole new crop of “truths” that resonate with the fifth dimension consciousness. 

In third dimension we experience what is known as “duality consciousness.” The mind, which is what we are identified with in third dimension, is divisive in nature.

It is in this realm of consciousness that we find “me vs. them” scenarios, “right vs. wrong”, “good vs. bad”, etc… The mind lives in judgments and comparisons, therefore it must label each thing, person, situation as one or the other. 

“Realize that everything connects to everything else.” 

--Leonardo Da Vinci 

As we evolve into fifth dimension or unity consciousness, we find that the “me vs. them” scenarios drop away to make way for a realm of consciousness that sees all as one.

Unity consciousness is more inclusive in nature. No longer are we seeing ourselves as separate from the whole, but rather we realize that we are part of the whole and it is a part of us. 

Below is a list of third dimensional belief systems that are fading away and the fifth dimensional “truth” that is taking its place: 

• 1) “My race, religion, nationality makes me different than others.” VS. “The whole world is family. We are more alike than we are different.”   

In third dimension we have seen entire wars being fought based on things like religious preference, the country you were born in or the color of your skin.

People have been severely abused, enslaved and been stereotyped by things that they either have no control over such as their nationality or race or things that were most likely chosen because of a cultural“norm”, such as religious preference. 

“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. 

When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.” --Jiddu Krishnamurti 

In fifth dimension we see that things like nationality and race are nothing more than a word. When we drop the “labels” we have for ourselves, we see that at our core we are more alike than we are different. Each human being is born into this world experiencing fear, love and the whole range of emotions. 

Yes, the details are different but as we rise above the details and focus on the overall picture, we see that things like the color of our skin, or the name we affix to our “God” don’t really make us that different from the rest of the human race.

• 2) “The way I treat others has little to no effect on me.” VS. “What I do to others, I also do to myself. People who love themselves, don’t hurt other people." 

Because in third dimension we had become so accustomed to “me vs. them” attitudes, we find that the natural state of mind for man was one where we felt we needed to defend ourselves against others. 

Since we viewed ourselves as separate from the rest of the world, we failed to realize that the things that we did to others was also having repercussions on us.

"The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.” 

--Dan Pearce 

In fifth dimension we see that the energy we put out into the world attracts back like energy. We are never free from the consequences of our choices, and all causes have an effect.

• 3. “Life is happening TO me.” VS. “Life is happening THROUGH me.”

In third dimension we were victims of our circumstances. We were either dealt a great hand or a bad hand in life and whatever the case was, we were stuck dealing with life as it happened to us. 

As our consciousness rises, we find that life does not happen to us but rather through us. We are made of the same consciousness that makes everything in the entire world and as we form our perspective of the world we also shape our experiences. 

The world we see is reflecting back to us what we believe about the world. We don’t see things how they are, we see them how WE are.

• 4. “My relationship with myself makes no difference in the world.” VS. “As I heal myself I heal the world.” 

As we heal unresolved emotions, and make our shadow “conscious”, we quite literally change the world we see. Instead of being victims of other people’s behavior, which is what we believed in third dimension, we become the change we wish to see in the world and as a consequence the world we see changes. 

“Each time you raise the vibration of one of your emotions, you will no longer unconsciously take on the lower vibration of that emotion from another person. There will be no place in you that will attract that emotion from another. For instance, as you master your fear, you may recognize fear in others but you won’t feel their fear as it it were your own.” --Sanaya Roman 

As our own consciousness level rises and we rise to higher states of love and maturity, we find that the relationships we have with others begin to heal themselves and ones that no longer resonate with our new state of being are dropped from our lives, naturally. 

All relationships are attracted by us to further our evolution in consciousness. In fifth dimension we find that we learn more about ourselves than we do from others – tumultuous friendships and relationships – which allows us to learn and grow into higher states of awareness. 

• 5. “The Earth and I are separate entities. The Earth’s resources are for my use and consumption.” VS. “The Earth and I are one. By taking care of the earth I also take care of myself.” 

The belief of the past was that we were just on earth. As we evolve, the new belief becomes that not only are we on earth, but we are from the earth. The food that we eat becomes the cells of our body. 

“When the blood in your veins returns to the sea, and the earth in your bones returns to the ground, perhaps then you will remember that this land does not belong to you, it is you who belongs to the land.” --Native American quote 

Before we believed that we were the greatest species and the earth and it’s other inhabitants were here for us to use and consume.

Unity consciousness shows us that all species have their place in the grand scheme of things.

We all need each other. The love that we show towards our land makes for a better place for us and our future generations to live.

fractalenlightenment.com

The Abundance of Oneness

by Carolyn Field -

Everybody knows that lots of little things can make a big thing. One tree can become part of forest; one pebble, a beach; one blade of grass, a park land; one voice, a chorus.

“All differences in this world are of degree and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.” ―Swami Vivekananda

Everything gravitates towards each other. 

We are coming together if not in physical proximity then in virtual proximity and in growing awareness of each other and of our connection. 

Just noticing that we are linked will create the wave of awareness that will blazon the Earth.

There is something strangely vulnerable about one small tree standing alone or one pebble laying on a path or one blade of grass growing in a crack on the ground or one human creature sleeping in a doorway. 

Something strangely vulnerable, yet also hopeful because there is always hope.

We are not meant to be alone. 

So if one tree can make a forest, what can one forest make? If one pebble can make a beach, what can one beach make? 

A forest, a beach, a park land, a chorus, all of these and many more collectives create awareness of the abundance that surrounds us. 

Where there is abundance, there is positive energy sparking and fizzing and where there is an abundance of sparking, fizzing positive energy there is the probability of divine transformation. 

Like an interaction between chemicals that creates something staggering.

So too, our awareness of Oneness. 

Just as we notice that we are linked to one another, we will come to realize that we are linked to everything and that everything is linked to us. What a breathtaking awareness that is. 

You and I are One with each other, with the Universe and with Divinity. 

The awareness of our Oneness shall bring opportunities for a new higher nature to be possible which will in turn activate a powerful metamorphosis bringing peace, joy, satisfaction and all encompassing love.

YOU ARE LOVE

Each moment is the breeze

on a rippling green sea.

Absent are expectations,

I have no illusion of need.

When you see, without you,

nothing can be perceived,

your true abundance is clear.

You are love. You are loved.

--Michele Harvey

Poetry For Living An Inspired Life: Poems as Spiritual Meditation

micheleharveyauthor.com

Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential

by Barbara Marx Hubbard -

The New Social Body:

Conscious evolution is a “mother” meme, calling together individual memes that hold information for creating new communications, arts, sciences, education, business, environmental organizations and health systems—the new social body.

Conscious evolution encourages all groups to come together and compose a great and magnificent matrix in which to flourish—a new memetic code for the emerging social body. Our mother meme provides a magnetic field for this momentous gathering. We might call our new memetic code the chrysalis in which the butterfly self-assembles.

The fulfillment of human endeavour

Conscious evolution calls upon scientists and technologists to help us understand the laws and recurring patterns in the evolutionary process.

This understanding will guide us in designing and using new technologies for our evolutionary agenda, the ethical evolution of ourselves towards universal life—the next turn in the Evolutionary Spiral.

Conscious evolution calls upon political leaders to move us towards a synergistic democracy that considers each of us as creative members of the whole community and ecology. We need to be guided towards the next stage of individualism.

The success of modern society has led to new problems: the separation of individuals from one another, from their families, from their communities and now from their jobs, as corporations downsize and all allegiances dissolve in the quest for survival and concern for the bottom line.

Conscious evolution sets the stage for the next phase of individualism wherein we seek our uniqueness not through separation but through deeper participation in the whole.

Except for great individuals like Lincoln, Gandhi, Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, most so-called political leaders find it almost impossible to guide genuine change. The higher they get towards the top of pyramidal systems, the less power they appear to have to change anything.

That’s in part because real power to change lies with those in every field joining to cocreate a better design of social systems.

CoCreating

Real power to change happens when we connect what is working and empower one another to be the change we all want to see in the world.

Current governmental leaders will become most effective when they become facilitators of these new initiatives for people everywhere, rather than leaders in the old way.

Evolutionary Artists

Conscious evolution needs evolutionary artists to tell the new stories of our collective potential in a variety of ways.

Without vision, the people perish. With vision, we flourish. 

Currently we are in the catacombs, like early Christians, scratching pictures on the walls of caves as we communicate through journals, conferences, lectures, seminars, books, blogs, and emails.

We encourage new forms of theatre, music, dance, novels, poetry and films—participatory art forms that can inspire and lift our vision to help us see ourselves as participants in the great human drama of creation.

Evolutionary artists are needed to bring our new story of creation to life, much like the great Greek playwrights, sculptors and architects did for the Homeric stories; the geniuses of the Middle Ages did to illuminate the Gospels; and those of the Renaissance did to bring the individual human alive and visible upon the stage of history.

Personal Growth and Self Empowerment

Conscious evolution is now calling forth humanistic, transpersonal, spiritual and evolutionary psychologies to move us from the early phase of personal growth and self-empowerment to the later stages of self-realization and self-actualization through chosen work that is intrinsically self-rewarding.

Maslow first outlined these ideas when he described the self-actualizing person.

Self actualization is a process of deep engagement through expressing life’s purpose. Now there’s much more emphasis on positive psychology and self-actualization in psychology than when Maslow first started his work.

For example, in his seminal book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi outlines his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow. In an interview with Wired, Csikszentmihalyi described flow as..

“being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

Reading this description of flow reminds me of what happens when people get turned on by conscious evolution and allow themselves to fully engage their unique passion and creative potential in the world.

Psychology is studying such states and helping us understand how to access them.

Evolutionary Education

Conscious evolution also calls for educators to take the overview perspective on evolutionary history as a whole process of creation, called Big History and place ourselves in that history as participants in it.

This perspective offers the whole view of evolutionary history from deep time past into deep time present towards deep time future.

It also encourages participants to find their natural creative callings within the various functions of the evolving world, including health, environment, education, governance and other sectors of society.

In this new design for evolutionary education, a metadiscipline is beginning to arise in which teachers and students join together and create a new holistic intellectual basis for transformative education. Such a basis leads us from the confusion of the modern world to the fulfillment of the evolutionary agenda—freeing ourselves from hunger, disease, ignorance, and war—and activating human creativity and the universal future awaiting us.

We need educators to help our children understand that they are a treasure and that education is a treasure hunt to help them find their unique genius, which can then be used where it’s most needed in the emerging world.

Political and Military

As we begin consciously evolving, the political system will have to respond.

As a new, more responsive political system emerges, we will demand that our politicians call upon the military genius to help us learn how to shift from weaponry to “livingry” as Buckminster Fuller poetically declared.

We need to reorient our extraordinary organizational and technical capacities to restore our environment, protect us from natural disasters and terrorists and develop peace-building and conflict-resolution skills while we explore and develop our extended environment in outer space.

Higher Potentials

From the evolutionary perspective, we don’t reject military or industrial genius but rather call forth that genius for its new functions—genuine security and greater freedom to express our higher potentials.

In so doing, we honour that our military includes genuine heroes with extraordinary capabilities.

My son Lloyd graduated from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel. He said to me, “Mom, if we could combine your ideas with our excellence, we could get anything done!” Lloyd was right about military excellence.

It’s up to society as a whole to take charge and call our own military technological genius to its true heroic purposes of excellence and sacrifice for the future of humanity.

Social Responsibility

Conscious evolution calls on businesses and entrepreneurs to apply their genius to the development of socially responsible business and investment.

The goal is a sustainable, regenerative economy that supports restoration of the environment, preservation of species and the enhancement of human creativity and community, including expanded ownership, network marketing, community-based currencies, microcredit loans and other such innovations.

Evolutionary Spirituality

Conscious evolution is the context for a “meta-religio,” a new ground of the whole, calling upon spiritual leaders and practitioners of all faiths to create what Bishop William Swing, retired Episcopal bishop of California, calls a “United Religions” to end the conflict among religions and to bring together the unique gifts of the faiths for the future of humanity.

We need to move beyond ecumenical understanding to evolutionary fulfillment through the embodiment of the principles and practices of the great faiths.

Many of us long not for a new religion, but for the evolution of religion, such that we embody the qualities of our master teachers and become conscious cocreators with the divine universal intelligence ourselves.

There is now arising a new synthesis called “evolutionary spirituality,” pioneered by such leaders as Ken Wilber, Ilia Delio, Beatrice Bruteau, Michael Dowd, John Haught, Craig Hamilton, Andrew Cohen and Jean Houston. It’s science based, often inspired by Teilhard de Chardin and the new story of cosmogenesis.

In evolutionary spirituality, we consciously embody within us the Impulse of Creation as our own motivation to evolve. We realize that we’re incarnating the ever-unfolding universe story itself. We’re the universe in person, becoming more fully who we can be.

This yearning for more is the essence of the impulse of evolution within us.

Evolutionary Consciousness 

Evolutionary spirituality springs from “evolutionary consciousness.” 

This can be defined by the “Three Es.”

• The first E is the Eternal—the One, the Source of all being, consciousness. 

• The second E is Embodiment. We each embody the whole story of creation in every atom, molecule and cell. 

• The third E is Emergence. It describes the fact that each of us is evolution embodying the mysterious process of creation continuing to emerge through us, felt as our own motivation to grow and express new potentials.

My friend Sidney Lanier has written stirring words in The Sovereign Person:

"Conscious evolution is a meta-religio for the 21st century. As yet it is undefined and casts an evocative shadow over the mental inscape of all of us in these days. We know something is over: an era or simply the nightmare that has terrified many of us into awareness, simple human maturity. 

This meta-religio is the headlong convergence of science with the core realizations of the major world religions. Its constituency is the universal sovereign persons—awakened ones—all those who stand free of the old divisive social forms, however noble their past history. 

We’re called to come together in an open and level place with no boundaries, a space in consciousness where we’re enfolded within the transcendent community of the universal person, the sacred precincts of the cosmos itself, our temple and home."

Innovators and Creators

Innovators and creators in these and many more fields of human endeavour and thought are already creating vital new memes and are taking action based on these new ideas.

When we piece together the picture of what is already happening, we will see the design emerge—the awakening of the social potential movement.

Barbara Marx Hubbard is a noted futurist, evolutionary thought leader, social innovator and public speaker. Her books include Emergence and Birth 2012 and Beyond. She lives in Santa Barbara, California. This article excerpted from her book Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of our Social Potential, published by New World Library.

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