This is a tough blog and very much embedded in our time and the very things that are happening around us. Across the world there is a political lurch to the right that, in many cases, is becoming fascistic. The last world war happened because, at that time, the fascist, totalitarian, dictators in Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and eventually Russia all came out to play. The war lasted six years and encompassed the world. The estimates vary between a death toll of 60 to 80 million people during the war, including the 6 million in the holocaust.
Are we about to do it again? And, if we are why?
We did have a fascist who was coming to talk on the podcast and defend right wing xenophobic philosophy but he became scared that he could be identified and decided to withdraw.
We have a very human problem and it is the lack of awareness or lack of awareness in the vast majority of people. This allows for headless chicken syndrome where short-term objectives override the long-term effects of our decisions.
I have worked for many years with thousands of people and my work would suggest that what I was taught in my Ayurvedic training about human awareness, when I was novice, is true. This understanding was as follows. In my awareness pyramid the percentages are arbitrary but I think you will get the point.
Deep asleep – about 50% of the population
In the darkest state, the human consciousness is only aware of its limited self, only aware of the importance of the individual ego. Here it is too dark to see anything or anyone else, this is isolated aloneness. Therefore the deep asleep person treats everyone and everything around them with total insensitivity, oblivious to the damage that they are causing, they simply cannot see it or feel it and do not understand. It is only when things become lighter and brighter that we begin to see what is around us. In the darkness, we are all blind and alone.
If as I suggest that half of all humanity are deep asleep then levels of social and political awareness will be low and the decisions made only have a small chance of serving us well.
Dream sleep – about 20% of the population
In this stage the level of awareness is the realisation that there is strength in numbers, the individual realises the benefits of co-operation with other individuals. This may be the simple realisation that sleeping with another person is warmer than sleeping alone. Or there may be a benefit from mutual security and support or help with hunting bigger animals and so on. The problem is that once we have a group based on common interest we have those inside the group and those outside the group. We have ‘us’ and ‘them’ and all the prejudice and bigotry that comes with not, not understanding or being fearful of ‘them’. This is what is currently playing out with the migrant issues across Europe and the USA and the fears of other religions.
The Waking State – about 12% of the population
In this state people want to be different, they no longer want to comply with the norms of the group they have new ways of looking at things that threaten the group rules. When we close down and confine our support to only those of our group, say on the immigration issue, it is these people in the waking state that question and fight for the rights of those not in ‘our’ group. But these people are not yet truly awake and their demands may be made in ignorance and be unrealistic. It is only when human consciousness awakes that we see the ability to make things different, because the currency of awareness is power.
Awake-ness – about 8% of the population
Power is often seen as a dirty word. In reality those that are awake exercise power over those that remain asleep. The asleep people are referred to in politics as ‘the silent majority’. The sleeping people hold the ability to dictate the outcomes in human evolution but they do not realise it so those that have the power manipulate them to achieve desired outcomes.
Power is like a knife, it is neutral. A knife can be used to create a work of art, a wonderful meal or death and destruction. The knife is neutral. It is the holder of the knife who dictates what it will do. It is exactly the same with power. Often, money or influence and power go together. In the case of politics it is power, influence and money that get people elected.
It is easier for a rich person to wreck the world
than it is…
For a poor person to become president
People that use power negatively use those that are asleep as the cannon fodder in the market place and in wars.
Objective Consciousness – about 5% of the population
Those that can see the effects of the power brokers can see things objectively and will work to control a restrain the unfettered use of power. These may be parents attempting to moderate the behaviours of their adolescent children or it may be the judiciary attempting to hold back the power of the despot or dictator as we now see in the battles between the president and the courts in the USA. Objectivity is often the only control that can have an effect on the excesses of power, However, sometimes objectivity can easily become a set of rules and dogma that become fixed and immutable laws that do not bend, this is when “the law is an ass’.
Intuitive Consciousness – about 3% of the population
This level of awareness is above thought and above word. The currency of intuition is meaning. This is direct knowledge without knowing. Those that have a deep intuitive function have long sight that realises outcomes that those who are less awake fail to see. Those that are in deep sleep see everything in terms of the immediate effect. Those in intuitive consciousness do not focus the effect of things today, next month or next year, they are seeing ten, twenty and a hundred years ahead.
Creative Consciousness – about 2% of the population
The currency of creativity is in images. Advertisers spend their lives attempting to manipulate those in asleep-ness to buy into ever changing images of what they now definitely need. But this is at a low level of awareness the truly creative image makers give humanity inspirational images that last for decades or entire eras. The images shared but Moses, Jesus and Mohamed have inspired millions of people and many hundred of years after the events are still active and alive.
There is also a negative side of imaginative inspiration. Hitler’s managed to persuade hundreds of thousands of people to go around the world, to kill and to die, all for this cause that he managed to inspire other people to enact. At all levels of consciousness we have a choice to act positively or negatively.
Current Social Cycle
The goodwill and drive for co-operation that developed after the Second World War is now coming to a close. Right wing xenophobia is in the ascendant. It is happening at all levels in all countries and in most cases it is being driven by fear. The fear that is felt by the majority who are, in my estimation, are asleep. I suspect that we are collectively blundering into future crisis that is not yet in focus. The effects of Brexit will not become truly apparent for five to ten years and if other countries in the EU follow suit the effects will be greater. We do not know what will happen in the USA and whether or not President Trump will survive without impeachment. If he is impeached then the lurch to the right might be held back. If not, and more so if he were to get a second term, the closing down of co-operation and the breakdown of the existing world order is probably assured.
I say these things from my position…
If we all look after each other we will all be ok
My concern is that we blunder into another global war and turn the cycle again before we return to a more caring and sharing world order.
If you are voting for social, economic and political change please take some time and consider the long-term consequences of what ever you decide.
Take care
Sean x