Time to Remember


The following was originally published on Kingsley Dennis’s website.

‘We are dreaming a symbolic world, only briefly waking to what is real’
Arthur Deikman, M.D.

‘He not busy being born, is busy dying’
Bob Dylan

Something is not quite right…you feel it…you may have experienced this feeling, this nagging, for a long time. So you most probably just try to ignore it and hope that it goes away; but sooner or later the persistent nagging finally brings an idea to your mind – there’s something very odd about the way the world is. Maybe you feel like you are at the cinema watching a film and yet you sense there must be something wrong about the film you are seeing. The images are all there, but there’s a feeling that something is out of sequence, or the frames are running out of ‘normal’ time. However, after a while you get used to the style of the film, and your senses adjust to its rhythm and you lose the sense of strangeness and you get pulled into the show and you go along with the ride…

…the film tells you that the world has no grand meaning, that human life is an accidental anomaly – but as you walk down the street, engage with friends, fall in love, follow your dreams, you experience meaning and significance…wait, there’s that glitch in the film again – something about its ‘randomness’ and ‘meaninglessness’ doesn’t make sense…your personal experience has shown you something different…and then there’s that nagging feeling again…somewhere – wasn’t there?

Life is life, and most people go through it with trial, joy, adventure, challenge, love, and all the rest. This is the same for all of us, yet it doesn’t always occur on the same playing field. There is a different perspective we can take – a different position vis-à-vis the world. We can see the world in which we live as solely an exterior phenomenon; or we can choose to view it as also an expression of our interior life.

I have come to regard the cosmos as not just the expression of mathematical equations, but as the play of lyrical forces that, like a living being, is intoxicated with love and wonder, and the joyful curiosity of adventure. And I often wonder what it would be like to live with the view that human life is the result of random, accidental forces; as a meaningless happening forced to live out its years on the back of a dead rock hurtling through a lifeless universe. I am reminded of the ‘Myth of Sisyphus,’ a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat for eternity the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again – and then to push it up again, ad infinitum. For me, this lifeless exterior view of life is truly absurd[i]. And yet the physical demands of a normal life compel us to focus our gaze continually on the external where our daily waking consciousness has to deal with all the impacts and noise coming from the outside – it is very physical work and can, and often does, occupy the whole consciousness and conscious awareness of a person. Yet for some people another gaze peers out onto the world – a gaze from within. I refer to this as the interior life, whereby a person deeply feels, intuitively knows, that there is another perspective upon life, one that is far richer, pervasive, subtle; and yet one that must be sought with effort.

There are many people – in fact, they may be the majority – who have never sought or felt an urge toward the interior life. They never stop to ask themselves not only ‘why am I here?’, but also ‘how did I get here?’ This is a fundamental question that appears to bother few people. It is not unfair to say that some people only know themselves by the name they wear through life. If pushed, they would find it difficult to truly distinguish themselves from others who bear similar conditioned attitudes and opinions. And yet this realization is often hidden from us. Perhaps the shock of such recognition would greatly disturb our mental and emotional balance. And so a majority of people continue to identify and individualize themselves through the given name they bear, or the job they have elected to perform. This is evident on the occasion when someone is asked who they are, they reply either with their name or their occupation. It’s a most unsettling question and for many people they can only answer this by their work function or their given name. It’s also true that most of the time this socially accepted question is only asked and directed to a person on the most superficial and banal level. And so who a person actually is remains a lifelong mystery. And this is a condition common to most of us.

…There’s that film again, and it’s telling you that your conscious experience is just a consequence of chemical brain functioning – I do this, I do that, I see this, I feel that, I think this – …but the ‘I’ is just a state of awareness that comes as a by-product from a complex of neurons…but wait a minute – haven’t I just been observing my own thoughts and feelings…standing back from the ‘I’? Is this then the real me? Or is this observer of my thoughts just another neuronal by-product observing the workings of another random by-product?…ah, here’s the film again, the glitch is gone…

It’s also the case that many people rebel against their essential nature, whether they know it or not. People may say a thousand things – or only one thing – and yet in each spoken moment they move away from the essential. Again, what is it to know oneself? To grow, to develop, to attain understanding and self-awareness – what do these things mean to the everyday person? At best, society has rendered them as abstract concepts, or as wishful thinking. Within our specific cultures we are so used to living at a primary, basic level – a survival level – that we spend very little time and attention upon the interior level. In fact, the notion of an interior world often remains a luxury for the few.  The rest of us have to get on with managing and coping with our normal lives.

And so we live with many unrecognized questions, failing to notice them or awake them from their slumber within us. Do we ever wonder why events have turned out this way? Or is it that the forces of division, polarity, and ignorance that drive our world are so convincing that we seek no other reason (or excuse?) for the oddities of our world and its incongruous reality? Perhaps we find no compelling need to want to see things in a different way. In fact, some people actively seek to forget.

The compulsion to forget is likely to be rationalized by calling it by another name. Through the seeking of pleasurable diversions and distractions through entertainment, challenges, or addictive pursuits, people are actually seeking to forget. Greek mythology tells of how before the human soul incarnates into this world it drinks from Lethe, the river of Forgetfulness – one of the five rivers of the underworld – so that it cannot remember its divine origins. Similarly, there is a Jewish legend that speaks of how we are struck on the mouth by an angel before birth so that we cannot speak of our pre-birth divine origins. We may come from inspired and sacred origins, yet when we arrive in this earthly reality we come dumbstruck and needy. Or rather, perhaps it is only that we lack the key, the crucial guide, to unlock our memories and unleash our interior gaze and soulful longing. The truth may be that rather than to forget we are in fact here to remember.

Sometimes it is a tragedy or catastrophe that triggers a person to remember and to seek answers. On a larger scale, perhaps it is necessary for humanity to reach a crisis point – in its materialism, commercialism, and social systems – for there to arise within people the need for something else. The interior life recognizes that it is the essential nature of being human to seek for something more, something beyond. This need for communion with something greater has largely been fed by the role of religious, and/or spiritual, traditions. However, the human being’s need for a meaningful, developmental life has still not been met by our societies, especially so among the highly industrialized cultures. We have developed our faith, our reason, our mental pursuits; we have established industry and created marvellous technologies – yet we have failed to work on ourselves. We have failed to grow our souls.

Soul-making as well as taking care of one’s soul are not specifically introverted or monastic pursuits – they do not require steadfast introspection or a dramatic withdrawal from the world. The Romantic Poet Keats said – “Call the world if you please, ‘the vale of Soul-making.’ Then you will find out the use of the world.” It is my opinion that ‘soul-making’ needs to be re-imagined and reintegrated into our societies. We need not go back to animism or alchemy to find soul-making. We can find it here, in the everyday Now. The genuine expression of a truth takes no fixed form. Self-development, or self-refinement if you prefer, is not an ideology or a fixed science. It is a basic human right. The interior life should be recognized as an inherent human need, and it should be socially acceptable and encouraged to direct part of our gaze in its direction. After all, if the outer sun rises but the inner sun does not, then nothing has been gained.

‘One is an architect of the interior – who works on interior architecture’
Anon

 

[i] No wonder then that the absurdist French philosopher Albert Camus wrote an essay titled ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ (1942) describing man’s useless search for meaning in an unintelligible world.

from:   http://realitysandwich.com/320902/the-interior-life/

Kingsley Dennis on the Akashic Age

The Akashic Age: Toward A New Era?


Humanity has been on a historically long journey to finally arrive at a world that is complex and interdependent. We are at a point in human history were we are leaving behind one age and entering the next. The epoch we are leaving behind is the modern age. The epoch we are about to shift into has been given many names – digital, post-modern, new age, etc – yet has so far suffered from lack of true and genuine foresight. These periods of transition are also moments of criticality and opportunity, when catalysts for change exert a greater than normal influence on the outcome of events. At such periods current ideas, institutions, and beliefs tend to outlive their usefulness.

 Yet there are guiding principles that can help us, if not to predict the future, then at least to foresee alternative models of the future. For example, we can see that many of our present systems seek growth through increasingly high complexity and numerous levels of organization, greater dynamism, and closer interaction and more delicate balance with the environment. Therefore, we can foresee a future that is highly connected and integrated; more decentralized; technologically advanced; more sustainably balanced; and non-locally interconnected. By ‘non-locally’ interconnected it is meant that physical objects/bodies – as well as human consciousness – maintain effective forms of relationships at a distance. The term ‘non-locality’ comes from the quantum sciences, which are central to offering the world a new paradigm of inclusive, intrinsic, and immediate oneness. It is a paradigm that helps to explain our inherent energetic connectivity, which forms a basis for the continued physical proximity and connectivity that develops in the world.  This emerging new paradigm is the key in understanding what is referred to as the Akashic Age[1].

The path to an Akashic Age is a time of transition where our crises become our catalysts; and our disruptions become our driving force. To a large degree, these opportunities/disruptors will be based on how we utilize our resources; communications in how we connect and collaborate; and consciousness in our patterns of thinking and inner coherence. In such times when there are major fluctuations in worldviews, values, and beliefs, we are compelled to re-organize how we think and do things. Such moments are ripe for new models to emerge. These new models are likely to first emerge on the periphery – as ‘anomalies’ – before creeping toward the centre to overwhelm and out-do the centralized and self-centered old systems. These new models also display a marked difference in that they operate through de-centralized and distributed channels, as horizontal networks of connection and collaboration; rather than as the vertical, top-down hierarchical systems of control in the old systems. Whereas previous models of civilization continued to grow through increasing centralization and hierarchy, they have now entered history with a death-cry and the onset of final collapse. The emerging new models all display a marked connectedness which, in the terminology of quantum science, can be referred to as ‘entanglement.’ So what are some of these new models?

New Akashic Models

i) Science

The challenge is to bring to the attention of people the view of the world emerging at science’s cutting edge. According to the latest findings in the quantum sciences the quantum state of particles, and even of whole atoms, can be instantly projected across any finite distance. This has come to be known as “teleportation.”  Also, instant quantum-resonance-based interactions have been discovered operating in living systems, and even in the universe at large. Such quantum-resonance-based interactions give rise to the phenomenon known as coherence.

The observed coherence suggests “nonlocal” interaction between the parts or elements of the systems: interaction that transcends the recognized bounds of space and time.  This kind of interaction surfaces not only in the quantum domain but, surprisingly, also at macroscopic dimensions. The Akashic Paradigm turns our current picture of the world on its head. In the everyday context we think that the things we see are real, and the space that embeds them is empty and passive. This concept is now being turned around. It is the space that embeds things that is real, and the things that move about in space that are secondary. This is the deep dimension of the world the ancient Indian rishis called Akasha. Their intuition is now confirmed at the cutting edge of the sciences.

The new Akashic paradigm is a holistic paradigm. All things interact with all other things, and all things are what they are through their interactions.  Wholeness is the essence of the new concept of reality.  The world is a coherent whole, made up of parts or elements coherently related each to the other. The holistic Akashic paradigm gives important guidance for us both individually and collectively. Recognizing the paramount importance of coherence is a key to our individual health and wellbeing. With the new vision that emerges at the cutting edge of the sciences, we can lend credence to our vital sense of oneness and inherent connectedness – and thus how we communicate as a species.

ii) Communication

A new form of participatory consciousness has been emerging through our increased interconnectivity and global intercommunication.  This is a distributed model that connects people horizontally in a more egalitarian way rather than through top-down structures. No longer do we have to remain the passive audience, as during the earlier communication revolutions of radio and television. The dialogue is now shifting into a more active domain where people are putting themselves onstage and orchestrating their own connections, presence, and self-expression. A more mature form of collective social intelligence is developing across the globe. It is likely that civil society, which is the largest movement in history, will grow to become more dominant and influential in transforming our societies. To belong to this diverse and yet unified family is not only a responsibility; it is also a blessing. The new contours of connection and communication are predisposed to a non-hierarchical bottom-up format: this is the essence of functional models for the Akashic Age.

Externally we may seem to be a vast, distant, and separated collection of people, yet the reality is just the opposite. The reality is that we form a dense, intimate, closely entwined species of various races, sharing a nonlocal sense of being. Younger generations of people worldwide are growing up with a new expression of consciousness. Recent explorations of the human psyche – psychological, psychoanalytical, transpersonal, etc – are mixing with communication technologies that inspire a more reflexive mode of thought. More and more daily interactions are empathic as people react and share news, stories and emotional impacts from sources around the world.

Empathy is becoming one of the core values by which we create and sustain social life. Exposure to impacts outside of our own narrow environment will help us to achieve tolerance. We are living with experiences that are richer and more complex, full of ambiguities, multiple realities and shared perceptions. This collaborative and participatory world of online content could become a ‘global commons’ that reinforces a sense of local identity whilst connecting people in all parts of the globe. This outreach of connectivity has the power and the potential to break down old perceptual paradigms of duality – the ‘us’ and ‘them’ – that have been exploited by governments and ruling authorities to serve their own goals of control and conquest.

The model that distributed communications represent is a bottom-up, horizontal medium for spreading awareness, information, and contact. It is horizontal in that it bypasses the old model of top-down, hierarchical control structures that have been so strongly in place throughout much of our history. If it is to truly become an effective new model for the Akashic Age, this horizontal model of distributed connectivity needs to grow and develop beyond the virtual world into the physical world. It must be able to transform how we do things daily in our communities and immediate environments. The applications of the model need to cross-fertilize, so that our technologies of global connectivity can enhance and enrich our lives, friendships, and consciousness.

iii) Consciousness

Our modern sense of self-awareness, and our physical/emotional/spiritual self have evolved to root us in a social world: a world of extended relations and social connectivity. We have been preparing ourselves for the coming of an Akashic Age. Humanity can be said to be ‘hard-wired’ to evolve into an extended self – unity within diversity. Our diversity is strengthened through our connections, collaborations, and shared consciousness. Our unity is enhanced through our empathy, compassion, and shared sense of responsibility and destiny. We are responding today to an unprecedented flow of information that is catalyzing a restructuring of our inner psychological states as well as our external social structures. A new awareness in human consciousness is being birthed: an Akashic consciousness.

This period of (r)evolutionary change requires a qualitative transformation in our consciousness. We do not need to wield physical or political power to be effective agents of this transformation. We each can learn to expand and refine our ways of perception, thinking, and action. Aspects of an evolving consciousness suggest an empathic mind that is aware of its connectivity both locally and globally, physically as well as non-physically. The new Akasha paradigm recognizes that the coherence of the whole is a precondition of the functioning of the parts. It is important then that coherence is not merely an individual attribute. The right way to be and to act is not just to enhance our own, individual coherence, but to contribute to the coherence of the systems that frame and sustain our life. This means achieving or safeguarding our coherence with our fellows in a community, in a state and nation, in a culture, and in the living world as a whole. This way of behaving supports the precepts of a quantum resonance-based nonlocal consciousness – an Akashic consciousness.

A state of consciousness that reflects unity within diversity develops through human activity that expresses both greater individuation and a greater sense of shared responsibility. It is time to view our situation through the wide-angle lens of wisdom: we need to begin to see, understand, and act upon the bigger picture. Recognizing the bigger picture, and the central importance of coherence, is a key to our individual health and wellbeing, as well as to the survival of our species.

As evolutionary biologists tell us, there comes a time in species development and growth when the necessity to collaborate rather than compete becomes not only an advantage, but an evolutionary imperative. The signs of this greater connectivity of sharing have been unfolding within our modern cultures over some years now. They will be instrumental in creating our humane and sustainable communities as the Akashic Age dawns.

iv) Community

To have a healthy and vibrant future means investing in people, in our communities, and in our sense of togetherness. As in the old gift economies, intrinsic value comes through giving rather than looking after only oneself; that is, value through service to others rather than only service-to-self. We can leave behind the emphasis on a ‘one size fits all’ prescriptive model and steer toward local variations – assets, resources, etc – that can stimulate the emergence of discoveries, activity, and creative solutions according to differing locations.

The local scale is the more robust, and as such the future needs to become inherently more local: an intentional movement toward local self-dependency. Such arrangements could include local forms of currency; locally managed community energy; local food production and distribution; and local social enterprises. The extensive technologies of communication and connectivity that we currently enjoy can, and need to be, maintained and sustained as a priority so that local regions and communities can not only stay connected but also collaborate and share skills and resources. In other words, the rise of localized hubs operating within global networks. These localized hubs involve communities that are self-defining, self-organizing collectives; dense localizations of resources and resource sharing. Localization is, after all, also the celebration of place. People can be proud of local development and dependency, regardless of their political ideologies.

As regions shift their focus onto what they are able to provide, such as local goods and food, this could stimulate a reinvigoration of distinct local cultures. A surge in local growth and resilience would be supported by our global networks. Such networks would also facilitate a move away from ‘heavier’ technologies based on centralization of control toward distributed networks that require less energy to sustain them. That is, heavily centralized utility infrastructures need to be replaced by horizontal, decentralized and distributed networks.

I am not talking about ‘going back’ to a more primitive state. Rather, I suggest we engage with people’s passion for change rather than with their fear. A globally aligned response, through utilizing local resources and assets, can be a way of fostering coherence throughout society. Although the road to increasing local self-dependency may not be as easy and cheerful a path we may like to believe, it will become our advantage. The hard work involved in ‘doing things differently’ can also offer to us a deeper appreciation of our human connections, our matrix of family, friends, and neighbors, as well as the satisfaction of learning new capacities and skills.

The Akasha paradigm gives us a coherent view of ourselves, of nature, and of the cosmos. Our capacity for making the needed changes at this critical moment equips our species with the potential to solve our current and future problems. We are about to see a profound change in the tenor of human life on this planet. Everything we do today is about this monumental change toward an Akashic Age.

Toward an Akashic Age

It often happens that an awakening in consciousness rouses the need to get involved in service for a common purpose; based on an awareness that each of us is ultimately entangled with all others within the web of life. What we choose to do today will be inherited by the world to come. We each thus have an obligation to foster a more integral, empathic, and sustainable world.

For our planet to have any future that is not only sustainable but also fosters human developmental growth and well-being, we need an Akashic Age that promotes the natural integrated flow of living systems. Such an era would encourage social as well as self-actualization, and plants the seeds of a new culture that respects and honors the Earth and her diverse peoples. The Akashic Age represents a new stage in human consciousness, a stage that allows humanity to rise and overcome all challenges it confronts. It is up to us to allow the possibility that such an Age may be more than just a possible future. It can be OUR future, if we truly want it to be

from:    http://realitysandwich.com/218575/the-akashic-age-toward-a-new-era/

Jim Self on Layers of Thought — Part 1

Seven Layers of Thought – Part 1

Jim Self
a message from Jim Self
Monday, 5 December, 2011  (posted 25 January, 2012)

Excerpts from a live webinar

As you know, our minds can be very noisy sometimes. As this Shift continues to unfold and trigger more of the who-we-are-not to surface and move out, understanding the steps or levels our thoughts move through may prove helpful in managing them. We are moving toward becoming more masterful of every thought, every emotion, and every action in every moment. Thoughts occur at many levels of loudness from the complete silence of knowingness to the screaming and arguing inner voice. Although there are many levels or layers of thought, let’s keep it simple and talk about the seven distinctive layers available to each of us. As we do this, please don’t get locked into these layers as rigid lines. There is actually a fluidity and flow between them.  The flow from one layer of thought to the next is similar to watching the dawning of the day. For instance you can’t easily identify 6:30am, or 6:32am by looking at the sky. The sun rises and the sky flows from darkness into light. A moment ago it was pre-dawn. Now the sun is up and shining.

First Layer of Thought

The first layer of thought is where we simply speak without thinking much about what we are saying. We see this occur every day. The man in the airport just blurts out meaningless comments. The woman chatters away as if she has no filter. Two minutes later, they don’t remember what they were talking about. Functioning in this layer of thought, a person is generally unconscious of being unconscious, and goes about their day in a default-mode vs being conscious and intentional. Those who have not awakened spiritually live here. And those who are more awake and self-aware may still find themselves in this layer of thought. You might make a project of becoming more aware when you are in this layer. Notice when you make unnecessary comments, gossip, or contribute to a conversation that is noisy. When you begin to become conscious of this layer of thought, you will quickly begin to not participate in the unconscious babble. You will make better choices about how to present yourself and in what layer of thought you want to live.

Second Layer of Thought

This is the layer where you have conversations or arguments with other people in your head. You go back and forth in your mind about the situation and how you were right/bad/wrong/hurt. You scold the other person about how they were wrong/bad/hurtful/stupid. Guilt and blame lives here. So do resentment and revenge. All these thoughts can be very, very loud and consuming sometimes. Although not spoken, this level of thought also has a relationship to telepathy and clairaudience, because that conversation you are having in your head is very real in the moment and it is happening. Whether the person is next to you or a thousand miles away, the conversation is happening.  On an energy level, that other person can feel the energy you are throwing at them. This is also the layer where you really want to curse at the person standing before you: “You stupid person/idiot/jerk,” but instead you smile pleasantly and continue to argue with them in your head. Like the first layer of thought, this one has a huge amount of internal motion to it. In both layers you are still “going-to,” or engaging with the situation versus being still.

Third Layer of Thought

This third layer is where you figure things out, strategize, and problem solve. There is still a bit of motion here, and an internal, back and forth type of conversation. There is still a degree of engagement and emotional attachment.

“I tried three different things and know this next way won’t work. How can I get this computer issue figured out before this deadline?”

“Okay, I said hello to her but she didn’t see me. What do I do now to get her attention?”

“What does that sign over there say? It looks so interesting.” Although not as screaming and intense as the first two layers of thought, there is still a little bit of undisciplined focus. Your mind is bouncing around trying to find an answer. There is a looking outward for the answer vs taking a breath, becoming quiet, and allowing the answer to make itself available to you.

Fourth Layer of Thought

This layer is a place that I will define as pondering. It is being curious and sitting back without being engaged in a situation. This is the first non-engaged, non-invested layer of thought. Curious: ”I wonder how that works?” Or “Where did that come from?” Or “What an interesting possibility.” There is no emotional attachment, judgment or pre-definition of answers or possibilities. Many times you get into this easy layer when you are not stressed or not being pushed on; when there are few external demands on you at that moment.  You might begin to think, ”Well, maybe it’s time to consider moving. I wonder where I would like to live?” This is a question without a defined answer to it. The question is open-ended. The answer appears where that non-charged question is asked. All you have to do is allow it and not “move” from your thought to search for the answer. The answer, and the wandering thoughts surrounding the answer, then come into your awareness from the broader field of possibilities: “Well if I go to Portland, Oregon I will have this experience, but if I go to Tokyo I will have that experience, and then I could always move down to Perth in Australia and have this.” The process unfolds by itself and you are simply watching the process from a place of neutral curiosity. In this layer of thought someone may say to you, “Have you considered Boulder Colorado?” and you are open enough to consider it without rejecting or judging the possibility. No opinion. Curious.

Try it. Feel the difference – and let us know what you discover.

Jim Self is an author, international speaker, and teacher of  the Tools for Mastering Alchemy. This work is in co-creation with Archangels, Ascended Masters and Teachers of Light. www.MasteringAlchemy.com or             775-851-8950       ~ Copyright: You may share this article with your friends as long it is kept whole and our website is included.