Opening to the Greater Reality

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee. ~ John Donne

Our Collective Body

The great sage, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (founder of the Hari Krishna movement), once said “there is no love but self-love.” He certainly doesn’t mean “self-love” as the popular, ego-centered existence, would have you create. It is an entirely different notion of the “self,” one that regards all sentient beings as part of one’s self-hood.

Like many of the great thinkers throughout history, Srila Prabhupada realized that we are all intimately joined with a great body of energy that forms the basis all beings in the myriad of dimensions that make up our existence.

Indeed the thoughts that comprise the very fiber of our being are made of energy, not atoms and molecules. Still today, however, the scientists are mystified by the psychic world, as they have not yet devised a method by which psychic forces can be measured and understood with material instruments.

We are all sensing the same, infinitely vast, barely comprehensible, field of energy; but our egos work tirelessly to protect themselves, tricking the mind into thinking that the boundaries are real and that the egos are the mind. Little do the ill-contrived egos realize, however, that they are not thinking with the mind, but instead they are thinking for the mind, meaning that they are not the mind itself, but instead a temporary force attached to the mind.

Living in a “one season” world

Carl Jung once said “People will do anything, no-matter how absurd, to stop from facing their souls”

Ever been outside recently? Ever turn on the T.V. recently? He [Jung] is exactly right. People will do anything, no matter how absurd. All that carnival that you see out there, all of the distraction and nonsense that this world is talking about; that’s what he’s talking about.

“I must live in the Bahamas, I must live in a one-season world, I don’t want to be looking at any of that stuff.”

Well then okay, but then you’ve just condemned the world to horrors, you’re just making a person in your life, your partner or your children, the slaves to your inability to face yourself. You’re now having a person fill your void and your emptiness because you are not a whole person.

And now you’ve enslaved that wife, husband, child, animal or workmate to your own form of tyranny.

~ Michael Tsarion (2012: The Future of Mankind)

When you start to clear the mind and become more aware of what is going on, it becomes quite apparent that there are many of us who seem to be lost in a false sense of self-importance; the ego-driven sort.

Quietly observing any number of inter-personal interactions, we may notice that ego-driven self-aggrandizement has become quite popular in most facets of today’s civilization. It has gotten so ridiculous that people tend to ridicule those of us who are being conscious and aware of what is going on.

It has become quite “uncool” to give a damn about anything EXCEPT the aggrandizement of the ego and all that goes along with such decadence. It is thought that we are supposed to live exclusively for our own personal enjoyment and convenience, with no regard whatsoever to the effects of such decisions.

Killing the past: Coming back to life

Consciousness, like nature, does not exist in a one-season world. There are periods of great growth and flourishing, followed by periods of steady-state, followed by periods of death and decay.

Like a phoenix, rising out of the death and decayed refuse, a potentially greater form of consciousness manifests with each consecutive cycle. Trying to force our consciousness to remain in a one season world, by failing to move naturally through the seasons of consciousness and face who we really are, stunts the growth that would have occurred with a consciousness that is allowed move freely through the cycles.

Genuine loving compassion coupled with a proper understanding have the potential to fully release the mind from the ego. The ego is the very entity which is trying to create the “one season world” in our mind.

This loving compassion and understanding allows one to become more aware of the energies around them, so they may become relieved of the stresses of dealing with the Qliphothic (tree of death) forces that promote stasis, death and decay; instead becoming energized and uplifted by the Sephirotic (tree of life) forces that promote novelty, life and growth.