Expanding and Evolving

I believe that that core concern of our time is not political or religious at its root. I believe we are in the midst of a worldwide crisis of consciousness. If we look back over the relatively short history of humans on Earth, our recorded history is particularly minute. We've only been able to keep track of things for about 5000 years, but paleontologists are finding indications of the presence of humans that spans back into the hundreds of thousands of years, possibly even longer. Every generation learns more about our existence than the one that preceded it. Where 5000 years ago, myths and stories were used to relate histories and worldviews, now we have a much more complex understanding of where we've come from, where we've been, and where we're going. Even so, there are a large number of humans who are clinging to a worldview that doesn't take into account much that we've learned over the past 2000 years.

In the course of my own lifetime I've experienced dramatic shifts in my own understanding of life and how it works. From the young years when I thought that I had to appease more powerful beings in order to get what I needed, to the years when I became an arrogant know it all, to a long period of deep crisis where I realized I was essentially clueless, to a time when I surrendered to a Truth that I couldn't explain or comprehend, but I knew was real. And now, I find another shift even deeper. My experience here isn't being generated by my circumstances. It's being created by the interplay of my own thought and consciousness in the presence of formless being.

There is no one to blame for any of my experiences. Not even me. Thought arises, consciousness illuminates it, and the mind makes it appear real. I'm not threatened by anything except that which I fear will threaten me. If I look behind the fear, there is nothing of substance. There is a war going on that is not a battle of weapons. It's a war of understanding. The old understanding is that our circumstances determine our experience. The new understanding is that we are each responsible for our own experience. We are making it us as we go.

There is no longer anything real to be fighting for or about. There is no argument that is worth winning. That is all transient. Your individual consciousness is infinite. It can expand to spaces that have no limit, and no constraint. And this can be done at will. All that it requires is the allowing of awareness to become more than it is in this moment. Our minds are formless. They are before and beyond infinite. Our consciousness can never be finished expanding into this formlessness. There is no problem that we face here in this life that can't be seen from a wider and more generous view.

We're not fighting each other, we're witnessing the death of a smaller view and the ushering in of a wider view. May it happen ultimately in a more peaceful way.