The Unconscious Conspiracy
By George Poirier
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich, Bill Wilson, Farra Allan, Gregory Possman, Colin Tipping, Dennis McCauley, Jack Winner, Sam Cruces, Phil Hall, Michael Scimeca, Joe Teagarden, John Sewell, Joy Hecht, Patrice Dickey. My immediate family and all those whom I’ve met on the path.
SECTION ONE: THE NATURE OF REALITY
If 25 people sitting in a circle, all observed a set of keys in the middle of the circle, do they all observe a different set of keys or the same keys? Life can all boil down to people interpreting reality for themselves and then seeking others in life who will support their interpretation of what their reality is. As children most of our reality is based on what we are told reality is from our parents, caretakers, teachers, and others in our lives. These learned realities are greatly responsible for how we determine what we imagine are our own realities, which then produce a collective reality we call the collective conscious. This collective consciousness is an entity of its own which reinterprets reality and projects it on itself and has its own self organizing principle of evolving along a particular spectrum of consciousness.
What we call our own reality or our own interpretation of reality is really an illusion because the only place our egos have to draw from is our collective representations, which all come from this pool or reality we call the collective conscious, which is really the collective unconscious. What we call conscious is really unconscious and rarely do we awaken to how this really operates in our life.
We call ourselves independent and autonomous, but this again is an illusion because if truly we were autonomous in this causal world, we would have nothing to project our realities to and therefore would have no means to perceive ourselves through our ego. What happens as a consequence of living in this causal world is that all of our projections get reinterpreted by those around us and these realities feedback on themselves and then in this way evolve. Nothing really changes. It is like taking the same keys, mentioned earlier and throwing them into the circle over and over again.
HOW DO THESE REALITIES AFFECT OUR LIVES?
We are really slaves to these realities. The delusion is that we consciously create these beliefs and realities and have free will to act on them – the ideas that we really do chose our path in life. The fact is that very little of what we think, say, view, or imagine, is a result of conscious choice. Mostly all of it occurs below the level of consciousness and is a result of unconscious learned programs which we individually and collectively reacted to and not acted upon. Behaviorists and other observers of cybernetic process have observed these factors and to some degree can predict them, but cannot really control them because they can never detach enough away from what they are observing to not be part of the experiment themselves.
These realities affect our lives in every way imaginable. All of our values, our relationships, our perceptions of identity, including the roles which we adopt in our life. Our careers and our life paths are all determined by these realities. This all may seem very fatalistic and deterministic at first glance and if this were all there is, it would indeed seem quite a bore indeed. The reason it continues to fascinate is that this process of creating these realities occurs in the unconscious. The bottom line is that we live in a perpetual state of sleep. It is only in rare moments that we enjoy sparks of lucidity. Usually these occur during meditation or dream states, etc. These we will explore in a future chapter. The question becomes ‘why is it this way’? Is this some path of evolution that consciousness or awareness is on? Is this occurring by chance or design? Does it have any meaning? I imagine that the subject of meaning can unlock some of the unanswered questions as to why realities appear as the do and seem to have a life of their own. The ego is constantly searching for a reason for its existence. It is almost as if without meaning the ego would cease to exist.
We are always hearing about our destiny and life purpose. How many books have been written about finding you life’s purpose? How many training’s and workshops are designed to help one find or identify one’s “gift” or “passion” or “dreams”? Why are these books and training so popular these days? We live in a time when many are struggling from day to day, worrying about how we are going to survive through this day or week. For millions of years, simple survival was all the meaning anyone needed to be motivated to live on. A simple motivation strategy indeed. With the absence of this simple but powerful motivation the ego begins to ask the basic question, “why am I here?”, “what is my purpose?”, “where am I going?”.’
In absence to answers to these questions can lead to increasingly bizarre behavioral responses. We begin to associate survival to things like the quality of our relationships, jobs, how expensive our home or car is, how much money do we have. These all gain immensely in meaning because we on a subconscious level, equate them with literal survival. Remember the ego equates meaning with survival. Consequently it will create whatever reality or realities necessary to support its delusion of survival, even in the face of absurdity, which it does at the speed of light.
THE UNCONSCIOUS CONSPIRACY
As mentioned earlier, we constantly seek out others who support us in our attachments to our realities. I call this behavior the unconscious conspiracy – “I’ll support you in staying unconscious if you’ll support me in staying unconscious”. Why is this so? Carolyn Myss states that we live out of our woundedness, she calls this “woundology”, but the basic addiction is to the wound and we unconsciously search for others who share our wounds or enable our wound on some level.
Our basic fear is our fear of death, from which we form our sense of separateness and create our identity. The ego has a built in desire to be separate, which it projects in the form of fear. This manifests in the form of attachments to people, careers, food, drugs, etc. Many of the support groups and therapy groups in fact enable these addictions and the participants must hold on to the wound in order to maintain an identity. This unconscious agenda actually encourages us to live from the wound, distinct from our “being-ness”. There is a built in fear of our being-ness and our true source of power. The unconscious conspiracy is developed from our woundedness. How do we make the unconscious conspiracy conscious? I say embrace the wound, the wounded shadow fully. Make peace with the shadow. Move beyond the shadow to our being-ness and to our quantum self. Live fully from that quantum self and listen quietly to that voice, distinct from reacting to the shadow. This is when the unconscious becomes conscious. Easier said than done! The ego will use every strategy at its disposal to avoid this process. The last thing the ego wants is for the awareness of being-ness to upset its agenda of separateness. Anyone who has attempted through inner work of any kind to process through this resistance knows that it is a lifelong process. It requires a determination and willingness that doesn’t appear naturally or with ease. It must come from a deep commitment and intentionality, born from a spiritual desire or motivation to grow through our egocentric desires and attachments. Unfortunately, our society and social systems don’t support this type of growth. If anything, we live in a world that supports the unconscious conspiracy in every way. Our governments, educational systems, the very fabric of our society engenders this unconscious way of life and presents it as a goal to strive for. Anyone who doesn’t conform to this way of life is judged as being unstable and is ridiculed. There just isn’t a whole lot of support for anyone who wants to really break through this unconscious way of life without a great inner determination and perseverance. However, the benefits are truly spectacular for those who are willing to persevere.
We’ve all had those moments in life when we realize there was something more. Something bigger. Something that dwarfs this thing our egos call “life”. Standing on a mountain top, looking at a sunset, gazing in the eyes of a lover – that moment where euphoria and ecstasy just fills one’s whole being. What was that feeling? Where did it come from? Why did it happen? Can I make it happen again? I would say that this special moment in time was an experience of conscious awareness of our being-ness. It was the contact with our higher self, the event of being touched experientially by that divine spark which is in each of us. The experience that seems impossible, yet is undeniable when we experience it. It reveals a potentiality of who we really are and of all that we can be.
The ego reacts to this precious moment which we experience by trying to contain it and define it. The ego tries to package it and recreate it in some way. It tries to assimilate it to make it retrievable, all to its dismay. A friend told me once, “You can’t get there from here”. God knows, my ego has tried – tried and tried, but to no avail. This provides us with a starting point, a place to launch our understanding of how this mystery presents itself to us, a glimpse into the pure potential of life. A real reason for our existence. An existence which lies beyond the world of distinctions and assessments. Beyond those realities which drive us individually and collectively.
RELATIONSHIPS IN CONSPIRACY
How does this unconscious conspiracy manifest itself in relationships? This conspiracy in relationships characteristically is excessively needy and demands emotional salvation from one another. Energetically they are like closed systems. In these relationships, each person relies completely on the relationship to be the focus of their identity, their reason for living, and their meaning of life. Dependency equals stability for each person, yet they’re so-called “stability is not sustainable. Typically, as in other closed systems, no external energy is allowed in, since this is interpreted as a threat to the closed system itself.
Here is an example of a system between Jerry and Linda: Suppose Jerry decides to join a men’s group for psycho-spiritual support, or to explore any new project that will not include Linda. Linda, in the close system, would interpret this, as a threat to her own needs not met in the relationship. After all, if Jerry were spending all his time with his men’s group, or other activities, then Linda would no longer have unchallenged access to Jerry. Forced into a sharing situation, Linda, in the unconscious conspiracy, would sense that her needs might not be fulfilled if they had to fit in with Jerry’s availability. The fact that “new possibilities” could occur would be a constant source of anxiety for Linda. It would not matter whether those possibilities were for romance or personal growth, both would be seen as Jerry not “being there” for Linda. Since contact on demand is essential in a closed relationship, the potential for a painful separation would be seen as the bleakest of prospects. With the unconscious conspiracy threatened, Linda must act unconsciously to sabotage Jerry’s initiatives. So it is in a closed, energetic relationship. Each person spends more energy riding herd on the other, and as a result, less energy is absorbed from an expanded experiencing of life. To maintain the delusion of security, more effort is applied to make sure that neither will go astray so there will be no shortage of energy from each other.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that each partner in this conspiracy is going to deplete themselves of energy. Any threat to the relationship causes each of them to rely on their own resources which are quickly depleting. The “lover as savior” is also the lover who must be held hostage for the unconscious conspiracy to survive. Such a relationship consumes each of the participants from within. The self-hatred that is inevitably created and then projected in the form of passive aggressive behavior leads to the inevitable collapse of the system or relationship.
What is truly disheartening is that this dynamic is almost never seen or understood by the other party. Instead, Jerry makes Linda wrong, and Linda makes Jerry wrong. Each becomes convinced that the other is intent on trying to sabotage the relationship or trying to deliberately inflict pain on the other person. Above all, neither party is able to identify their individual role in the dynamic of the partnership. Hence, nothing is learned from the experience. Thus, each person will then go on to act out this same learned script with another partner in yet another relationship.
These programs and scripts obviously begin at an early age between child and parent, and as one moved into society these scripts got acted out in even more complex ways. We see this dynamic work at the level of a partnership of two, as well as in organizations of hundreds and even in entire cultures over the centuries. This dynamic is endemic to our society and therefore one cannot hope for much support in breaking through this unconscious cycle. When people, organizations, or cultures are threatened by having these fears and insecurities exposed, they revert to guerilla-type tactics to insure that the unconscious conspiracy continues.
The best hope is for one to develop the willingness and courage to focus on oneself and nobody else. The question is, where does the motivation to develop this courage and willingness come from? Can human egos really choose this path at all? Are human individuals really capable of choosing a path that threatens its sense of separateness and identity?
It seems that there are certain times in our human development where a deeper part of self seems to appear and to transcend the ego. A part of self that is determined to demonstrate that there is more. A larger reality and existence, distinct from this causal world of distinctions, assessments, and beliefs. Characteristically, a world that is visited by artists, poets, mystics, and madmen. A non-linear, irrational reality of creativity and magic. Clearly a world which is outside the “nine dots” so to speak. We will explore this more in a later chapter. The hope of this potentiality, and all its possibilities is the step beyond the unconscious conspiracy. This hope can be inspired by our woundedness. In this way our woundedness becomes a stepping stone and transition point which leaps us beyond duality, beyond distinction. A leap to the trans-personal. Yet it is exactly at this spot that most of us get stuck. A place where unconscious delusions become the most powerful and unfortunately where we get the most support from all those whose investment in staying deluded is at least as strong as ours and possibly even more powerful. Our entire society rallies around this place of unconsciousness.
It is from this shadow that our addictions and attachments get projected. One of the great criticisms of twelve step recovery groups is over-focusing on character defects and shortcomings. The question that arises is why would a group like AA, with such a track record in assisting alcoholics in recovering from such a deadly disease as alcoholism, receive such a criticism?
The fact is that anyone who has spent much time in these groups must honestly deduct a great deal of self loathing, self hatred, and self deprecation. In many cases this is true in those with the most sobriety! Why?
This is another example of the unconscious conspiracy raising its ugly head. While sobriety from such a devastating disease as drug or alcohol addiction is definitely a worthy ideal, there is another motivator more powerful than that. That is the unconscious desire to bond with a group that is addicted to binging on resentment and blaming everyone in the world for their problems but themselves. The irony of this is that the Twelve Step Program does not endorse or produce this behavior. It is the people in the twelve step programs who produce these people, not the program, when they seek to join with others who have an unconscious agenda to be victimized and remain victimized all in the name of recovery.
In my opinion, this is the single biggest obstacle to true recovery. It is the reason why most people in recovery today do not and will not really “work the program”, that is, completing all the step work and working all the tools of the program. Greater than the desire for peace and serenity, which is true recovery, there is the unconscious demand for holding on to the addiction to the wound. I believe that the basic wound is that of self-hatred, individually and collectively. It is a self-inflicted wound. The ego’s attempt to hold on to its sense of mortality, is that which is self perpetuating individually and inter personally.
There just isn’t a lot of support to grow through the wound. Resolution would occur from acceptance and forgiveness for one’s own defects and shortcomings. Hillman refers to this as “growing down”, or cultivating the entire Cabalistic tree as well as full acceptance of one’s own limitations, distinct from acting out from those limitations. Addicts love to binge on the projections from their defects and shortcomings. It just shows up as substance abuse or inappropriate behaviors, co-dependence, sex, or love addiction. These are all symptoms of the deeper addiction to the wound, to the self hatred. These are what the addict can’t get enough of. Even within the rooms of recovery, and sometimes in the name of recovery. The problem is that this is really no recovery at all. There are many in twelve step programs who do transcend this addiction to woundedness. They are the models of recovery who work all twelve steps and are living a life in service, experiencing the promises of peace and serenity and increasing their conscious contact with a higher power.
Recovery is by no means the only path to enlightenment but it is a solid program of living by spiritual principles that is badly understood by those who are misinformed or unconscious.
How do we choose not to go into the unconscious conspiracy? We all are constantly presented with opportunities to uncover more of who we really are in all our interactions with others yet we constantly avoid these opportunities at all costs. It is much easier to spot an unconscious dynamic in another person than it is in our selves. Many times we are aware of this and choose not to confront it in another person. We tell ourselves that this type of response would be cruel and unjustified, that it might hurt that other person. It all seems so compassionate and loving to not go there. The thing we really fear is ourselves, our own feelings, specifically our own vulnerability and fear. The very thing that would lead us to surrendering to the quantum self is the action which we resist the most. This is the point where we are the most dishonest in our relationships, where we are withholding the most, or where we act out our victimization most aggressively.
Jeff and Tim are father and son whom I worked with recently. Here is an example of a recent interaction which shows how two people support each other in staying asleep: Tim is a 23 year-old graduate student. Jeff has been supporting Tim since childhood. Jeff and Tim’s mother, Lucy, were divorced when Tim was a young child. Subsequently Tim was sexually abused as a young boy by one of his mother’s boyfriends. Tim has felt very abandoned by Jeff from childhood. In order for Tim to avoid being vulnerable he has adapted to behavior which swings from being violently angry to suicidally depressed. Jeff’s matching control drama is one which is very controlling in Tim’s life, with advice and financial support that also includes strong doses of judgment when Tim doesn’t conform to Jeff’s demands. Tim’s classic response is to go into a temper tantrum. If Jeff doesn’t respond to Tim’s liking, he then threatens suicide. At that point, Jeff becomes convinced that if he doesn’t rescue Tim, that his son will surely commit suicide. This usually results with Jeff offering Tim financial help to soothe Tim’s wounds. In reality, the wound that Jeff is trying to soothe is his own. Both Tim and Jeff are in unconscious agreement to support each other in not being vulnerable, which in turn would lead to their expressing more of who they really are. Instead, they unconsciously act out their control dramas, knowing that neither of them will be confronted in a way that would allow them to awaken to the insanity of their drama.
One day Jeff came to me overwhelmed in fear that Tim would commit suicide. It seems that, in the most recent drama, Tim had been fired from a summer job which Jeff had arranged for him with a friend. Tim had lied to Jeff about the details surrounding his dismissal. When the truth came out Jeff felt victimized by his son and became judgmental. This resulted in Tim feeling victimized and threatening suicide. Jeff came to me expecting that I would support him in his victimization. He was quite shocked to hear me tell him that it wasn’t Tim he was anxious about, it was himself, and that his reaction was planned to avoid feeling his terror. Once Jeff stopped projecting to Tim and began experiencing his own anxiety, anger, and terror fully, he was able to see his projections and surrender to his quantum self.
At that moment, Jeff was absolutely convinced that his feelings were about his fear for his son’s death. Only through deep body centered therapy was he able to experience his own fear of death being projected to his son. In the unconscious conspiracy Tim would unconsciously try to keep the dynamics of the drama real between himself and his dad so that he could project that onto his father. The result is that they both stay asleep while defending their unconscious projections with the absolute assurance that the other is attempting to do them in. The thing that complicates this scenario even more is that both Jeff and Tim have a circle of co-conspirators who are all too willing to support them in their victimization. Jeff’s co-conspirators are telling him that he certainly has an ungrateful son who should be ashamed of himself for not appreciating such a generous and caring father. Tim’s allies, conversely, align with the attitude that Jeff is a controlling, cruel bastard, who is only interested in making Tim wrong and attempting to manipulate and direct every facet of his life. Tim and Jeff return to favor by not confronting their co-conspirators and all their control dramas and subsequently, the whole unconscious world keeps perpetuating itself.
What is truly pathetic is that this dynamic is working in every aspect and on every level of complexity in our culture. Society as a whole doesn’t support breaking through this barrier. In fact, it is heavily invested in maintaining the status quo at all costs.
GLIMPSES BEYOND the CONSPIRACY
We all have moments when we suddenly drop all of our projections, when for some unknown reason, we suspend our beliefs, distinctions, and assessments. At that moment we experience our being-ness, our quantum self. This is the point at which we experience pure potentiality, all that we truly are. It is during these experiences that we seem to be able to transcend all of our obstacles and problems. Athletes call it “the zone”. For example, Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile. It is during these times that we seem to access another intelligence and resources which are beyond our normal ability. Anyone who has had these experiences is left with many questions and attempts to explain them or to hold on to them in some way. Especially, one seeks to recreate these experiences of pure potentiality. I say what the ego is really trying to do is limit and control these excursions into the quantum self. These experiences are a threat to the ego’s sense of separateness and its need for limitation and mortality. It is beyond the ego’s capacity to accept that it could co-exist with such a world of unlimited possibility. It is quite simply beyond belief. The ego immediately begins to rationalize these experiences as being only for those who are gifted in some way – athletes, artists, actors, geniuses. The ego fabricates that only the chosen are privy to such excursions into this realm. The truth is that we all have this potential within us, we all have this seed of potentiality that contains within it limitless possibilities. The question then becomes, how do we access this potentiality? Is it strictly a matter of chance of luck? Can we/I will these moments into existence? I say we surrender to these moments instead of “wishing” them from the ego. It begins with a willingness and intention to discover, rather than creating these experiences by an act of the will.
These are subtle distinctions which we will explore. It starts with an attitude of humility as well as coming from a place of not knowing. This is a rare attitude in our western culture, where having all the answers and knowledge seems to be the ego’s answer to everything. We equate our power with our ego’s ability to achieve, create and accomplish anything. Napoleon Hill said, “What the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve”. The idea is that the mind is limitless. The problem is that the so-called “limitless mind” is actually limited by what it perceives to be reality. True potentiality however, isn’t limited by beliefs or ideas. It actually begins with limitation – that place where all pre-conceived beliefs fail. It is my opinion however, that beliefs are inherently limited by their very nature. Conversely, it is potentiality which is limitless and continuous. Being awake is about living from this potentiality, being unconscious is conversely acting from our belief systems.
Fortunately, the unconsciousness doesn’t limit our being-ness. It shines through even when we are “asleep”. Never has this been demonstrated more dramatically than in the life of princess Diana. She burst on the scene as an extremely shy young woman whose destiny was cast in stone. Diana struggled with her lack of self-esteem and self-hatred all of her life. From her eating disorders and addictions, to her devastating relationship with Charles. Diana presented us a complex figure whose struggle was a paradox in every way. The beautiful princess of Wales, the most photographed woman in the world, seemed not to be able to manage her personal or inner life at all. However, though she struggled to manage the pain of her personal life, she seemed to possess compassion and empathy for those disenfranchised souls that were the most rejected in our society – poor, dying children and those suffering with AIDS. It was in her work with the former that she crossed paths with Mother Teresa whose very different lifestyle, yet similar love for the oppressed, drew this paradox in Diana to the forefront.
Diana’s life exemplified the metaphor of the wounded healer, for it was through embracing her own woundedness that she found her great gift of compassion that seemed to touch the heart of the world. Amazingly, she went to her death, in my opinion, not knowing on a conscious level, her true impact on the world, not to mention her true influence on us through her death. I say that what has touched this world so profoundly about Diana and her life is beyond our beliefs. Beyond anything we can think, say, do, or imagine. In some mysterious way, her being-ness has transcended her life, both her woundedness and her royalty has touched us all in our own being-ness. In so doing, we all have the gift of experiencing our own greatness in a way that is indescribable. This is the gift of Diana. A gift, I expect, Diana herself was unaware of.
It seems that certain souls who walk the path of humanity, are for some unknown reason, destined to touch the collective consciousness of mankind as well as touch the collective soul in a unique and wondrous way.
Another example of this is Elvis Presley. As the undisputed king of rock and roll, Elvis had a profound impact on the world of music and the culture of an entire generation. His life and music reached deep into the collective psyche and brought faith and deeply suppressed sexual energy that emerged as a sexual revolution. Yet it is in his suffering and death that he touched our hearts and connected the collective with its deeper sense of being-ness. Joe Esposity, one of his closest friends, was recently quoted as saying, “Elvis went to his death seeking the answer to the question, ‘why me’? Elvis seemed to have some glimpse of awareness that his life had a profound impact on the collective, distinct from his popularity as an entertainer. However, his ego and shadow could not integrate this. It seemed totally beyond his capacity to surrender to this greater, and indescribable aspect that he was accessing. This inability to fully integrate this aspect of self is what, in my opinion, ultimately killed him. Yet again, like Diana, his suffering and death allowed his being-ness to transcend his life and in death he continues to activate the collective being-ness of an entire culture in a profound way. This is demonstrated in its continuing popularity which seems to deify Elvis in the eyes of many. It is almost as if there is some sort of perpetual conflict that exists between the ego and our quantum self to fully emerge or express itself. As absurd as it seems, the ego actually believes it can somehow limit the quantum self. It sells itself on this lie by acting as if it were not aware of or not able to access the quantum self. It is the ego trying to convince itself and others that it can actually control or affect whether or not the quantum self is emanating through. It is not unusual for an individual ego to perceive the quantum self or another, while at the same time the other ego is totally in the dark, trying to convince itself or others that nothing is really happening other than what it is delusionally being perceived in the moment. I call this the land of the living dead. The blind leading the blind. Diana and Elvis are dramatic illustrations of this point. While steeped in their individual dramas, they each in their own unique way still had a profound impact on the collective without ever having a clear comprehension of their impact. Their true impact proceeded from the vulnerability they displayed. They created an opportunity for the collective to experience its vulnerability.
We collectively suppress our self-hatred, our unworthiness about being human, with self imposed limitations. There is a real attachment to our unworthiness. We tell ourselves that it is okay to be human, but subconsciously it is not okay and we try to convince ourselves otherwise. Our typical reaction is self pity, which we project in many ways, mostly from a place of fear. When we are in this state we aren’t fully aware of our being-ness, even though we accept it intellectually, but it is emanating all the time. Our egos are always trying to kill our awareness of being-ness, even though we accept it intellectually, but it is emanating all the time. Our egos are always trying to kill our awareness of being-ness which is the biggest lie of all.
SUSTAINABILITY
It is said, “substantiation is inversely proportional to ponder-ability”. We must continue to challenge and find ways to collapse our belief system. Our being-ness is beyond anything we say, do, think, or imagine. If this is so it seems to be quite a daunting task for us to sustain being awake, especially when we consider that most of what we think and do is occurring first in the subconscious. Unless one is to remain in a constant state of contemplation and reflection, a state of consciousness (which has historically been confined to reclusive ascetics, one must find alternative options with which to challenge and observe these beliefs. I believe that conscious community, united behind a collective intention to support one another on this path, is a viable option.
Those who join such a community must have a collective conscious intention to have these beliefs and projections confronted as well as be willing to have the courage to confront those beliefs and projections in others in the community. The typical reaction to such a way of life is “it’s too damn difficult”, or “who wants to live in a constant state of confrontation?”, or “who wants to live in a continuous state of chaos?”. My answer is, those who are sick of living in the land of the living dead, those individuals who realize that the cutting edge of the status quo, which is a life of conscious projection and unconscious living, is not really living at all, but a life of continuous sleep. A life of continuous sleep is typified by constant projection of the same old unconscious beliefs and acting out of old learned programs that perpetuate themselves from parents to children and from generation to generation and that never really moves us ahead consciously. Somehow along the way we must get out of the nine dots or out of the box, so to speak, and to collectively awaken to all which we truly are. This is what is meant by pure potentiality” – a state of being-ness in which we have the capacity as a culture to awaken to and to engender enough willingness and courage to go forward.
The question is how do we develop this willingness and courage to take the plunge? I say the ego will never develop this courage and that it is simply incapable of doing so. It is an oxymoron to expect it to. It would seem that this willingness evolves from our soul, our higher power, or being-ness. Nevertheless, somehow this process overtakes the ego like some kind of diving intervention. It is the bifurcation of chaos theory, or the self-organizing principle that seems to have moved from the first and second level of complexity and is poised to emerge at the third and fourth levels collectively.
This is certainly a turning point in the history of the evolution of our consciousness – truly an exciting time to be alive and awake on this planet! And the amazing thing is that we really don’t have to do anything other than having an attitude of intention and willingness which appears to be the catalyst which catapults this leap of consciousness into manifesting in one’s life. It is just at this magical point of synchronicity that events begin to appear, where people and opportunities begin to manifest in one’s life when suddenly we feel ourselves to be in the presence of a conscious community of others who are on a similar path of consciousness. Interestingly, this seems to be a self organizing process with a life and purpose of its own. Part of this community purpose would be to collectively look for and identify those synchronicity in the individual and collective lives of the group.
These synchronicities are all around us, constantly revealing to us what is “unfolding from the implicate order”, as Bohm would say. We can begin to understand the meaning of these synchronicities from open dialogue within a group of individuals whose intent is to discover what is beyond the egocentric and myopic belief systems. In this dialogue the group would continuously challenge all belief systems to discover those patterns of fractals which propel or bifurcate the group to a higher order of being-ness. As this process continues to unfold, the group discovers more courage to continue the process of dialogue, confrontation, and enfoldment. As stated, the process itself is self-organizing and being-ness as nonlinear intelligence reveals itself in perfect order.
This idea of collective synchronicity is not really new and different for indigenous cultures, but we in the technologically “civilized” world have long lost our collective connection to this realm. It seems that, as a culture, we are on a quest of re-discovery as to who we really are as a quantum whole and spiritually.
It is not necessary to actively seek such a community. In fact it is better to intentionally allow oneself to discover such a community without conscious egocentric action or control. These types of communities will begin to appear in many places, and in different levels of complexity – from groups of two or more larger groups, in living intentional communities, to larger organizations of every kind. The key to the success of this type of community is the ego’s willingness to surrender to a higher principle or power and courage of egocentric leaders to give up hierarchal control and agree to true consensus.
Many organizations in the last decade have attempted to implement the “new science” within their existing structure. There is a whole new army of business consultants whose job it is to implement these self organizing principles of chaos and complexity theory within existing businesses and other large and small organizations. Their success however, has been mostly rhetorical, because management hierarchy, through long-standing egocentric attitudes, still maintains itself long after these consultants have “completed the engagement”. It is my assumption that the attempt to live by the aforementioned principles of chaos and self organization is not accomplished through consulting projects and leadership forums at prestigious institutes, but rather by a day by day continuous process of confronting all the structures and beliefs that are deeply ingrained in the collective psyche of these organizations. Clearly a different approach is necessary if we as a culture as well as individuals are going to create a conscious community which is sustainable. An occasional epiphany is simply not enough.
Saint Paul’s work really began on the road to Damascus, it didn’t end there. It is what we choose after an initiation that determines our spiritual development, not a constant series of divine interventions. It is true that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. It is the way in which we approach our human experience that determines whether we can really awaken to our spiritual potential or stay deluded by our geography or our unconscious projection. In order to awaken we must first have fallen asleep. This is the essence of the human condition from the view of consciousness re-awakening. It is in this state of unconsciousness when we project our unconscious beliefs to others that enables them to mirror them back to us. At that moment we have an opportunity to awaken and experience more of who we really are, but only if those unconscious projections are challenged by someone, and this is precisely where community comes in. Those who partake in such a community must possess the courage to confront those projections whenever they identify them in the moment. Such a commitment to growth develops slowly and out of a conscious intention, so that one may re-awaken to discovery which is not motivated by the blindness of the ego. Compassion and rapport are important aspects of this work. To confront with anger and more projection serves neither party. Love and growth must be the over-riding objectives. On the other hand, to avoid confrontation based upon fear is pointless and ineffective as well.
Remember, it is always wise to ask he or she being confronted if they want feedback. At times, those being confronted may only desire to vent or express themselves. Confronting those who are unfamiliar with these concepts, can create massive separation, rather than growth. As the Buddha discovered, sometimes the middle path is the best!