I am interested in new, evolved approaches to todays wicked global problems. After all, I wrote a book about it, The Cosmic Lens. I believe we are on a precipice; there now is urgency as many of the world’s systems are about to reach tipping points. This means they will shift in unknown ways and likely in ways that will be very harmful for life, including human life.
While these problems manifest out there, like in ocean level rise and droughts, even wars and economic stress, these problems are just as much inside of us, as in our values, belief systems and inability to transform what ever the reason.
Therefore, the way forward, imo, based on much wisdom from Gandhi and others (“be the change you want to see in the world”) is through inner development in the direction of evolving consciousness and wisdom to understand what is going on, sense what is needed and get it done.
You may be familiar with Maslow’s pyramid of needs (see figure). Needs go from basic to advanced, from food, shelter, safety, belonging, relationships to a need for accomplishment to self-actualization. Did you know, in later life Maslow added a further “need” which he called self-transcendence; the need to have a sense of meaning or purpose.
There are some simplistic definitions of transcendence out there, but here is a good one:
“Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.”
However, this requirement for inner development, ie.evolving our consciousness, which is also Maslow’s need for self-transcendence camouflages a paradoxical trap.
People can become fixated on ever more intricate self development schemes. They go from workshop to workshop and from self-help book to the next. What better way to hide for the ego then inside a cloak of non-ego? My health, my pleasure, my self-actualization! My self-transcendence!
And then there are all those poor humans that have little choice but to focus on their own needs or those of their direct families.
So, here is the real paradox. While developing our Selfs is really important, at the same time, we are not important at all in a global, interconnected Whole. After all we are transcending our selves, beyond the individual! We must be moving into a sphere where the sense of meaning or purpose becomes that of supporting all of life. It is now about the Whole Earth system, beyond the individual. That is what is required of us now.
We are merely the instruments of change, the instructions for which come from the Field, the Whole. We need to learn how to discern what wants to emerge, instead of solutioneer or “fix” those big problems.
This sounds rather bleak and subservient, however, when we choose to be in the flow with the Whole, accept uncertainty, use our intuition AND plain old wisdom too, our lives actually become a lot easier and joyful.
Also, from this higher consciousness, we can ALWAYS choose to engage our identity and ego and appropriate values that help us get done what needs to get done here in our 3D material world. And often we should. For example, when we are dealing with all those souls that are merely surviving. We are all in this together.
