Soul Blind?

There is not a single problem on this earth that does not have a spiritual solution. Not one. Not global climate change, terrorism, war, hunger, greed, economic collapse, healthcare (or health-lack), environmental degradation, crime, politics, etc. I can't cover every problem in the world in this blog post. But I can say with every confidence and with a knowledge -a knowingness, that comes from beyond the mundane, that it is true. There is a spiritual solution to every single problem you can name!

What is a spiritual solution? It is easy really. A spiritual solution is found by seeking from our soul or spirit the solution to anything and then following that advice. Now you might say, "That would never work because no two souls or spirits will have the same answer for any given problem." This is simply not true. There is universal, archetypal information beyond reach of the physical or mundane thinking that happens in consensual reality. In other words, it is beyond the mind. The mind has a part to play because once spiritual knowledge is accessed, it takes the mind to interpret the information. But in this case, the mind is not the tool for solving a problem. You can't think your way through a problem as complex as say for example, climate change. We can observe climate change as it happens and scientists and others can determine what the likely causes are for it be they man made or natural phenomena. We have this thinking already but it is not solving the problem, it is only identifying the problem and describing it. To solve it, we have to move beyond mind and access spirit.

I want you to try right now to connect with your spirit (I use the words soul and spirit interchangeably) and ask, "How can we solve global climate change?"

I did this. Here is the answer that comes from spirit back to my mind:

Stop burning fossil fuels and begin to curb human population.

That's it! Simple and straight forward. Now you may be thinking that my soul had nothing to do with this answer--that science has already told us this. But here is the difference. Our scientists have told us that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere has a warming effect and that we should curb carbon emissions in order to slow global climate change. But are we doing it? No we are not. The solution offered up to us by the global mind is not universally accepted. And the politicians and others that run our countries do not have the will to do it. There are other interests opposed to eliminating carbon emissions  Powerful human institutions and interests stand in the way of implementing change.

So I go back to consult with spirit and I tell spirit all of these things, "Look, the oil industry is powerful and they won't let us stop burning fossil fuels and look, people get irate when it is suggested we must curb human population."

Soul's answer, "None of this matters. You asked, What is the solution? And I answered: Stop burning fossil fuels and curb human population. It doesn't matter about anyone's interests or whether it sounds offensive to say to reduce human population. I simply tell what is true. Spiritually there is nothing wrong reducing carbon emissions and reducing population. It is what is necessary to solve the problem. And every human being can access this information and they will be told the same thing."

You see, the soul and together the collective soul, knows the solution and doesn't dwell on or even acknowledge any problem to solving climate change. Only when we either don't access this information to begin with or when we bring it back into the mind, does it become controversial. And this is just a reaction of the reptilian brain, a reaction of fear that what you know, lifestyle, material things, etc., must change. This is why the problem is not getting solved at the level of physical, mundane thinking. Of course we are smart enough to come up with the same answer here in the world, but we are incapable of acting on it because of the illusion of fear.

What difference would it make if you no longer drove a car or burned natural gas for heat? Would your experience of life as a human being be less fulfilling? What difference would it make if we began implementing population consciousness (I call it population consciousness because consciousness is what is lacking that is causing human beings to over populate to begin with)?

I have consulted my soul and I can tell you with the greatest confidence that we would be no worse off if we solved these problems. In fact, I know that just the opposite will happen: our collective experience of physical life will improve when we implement the changes necessary to solve climate change. I learn this from my soul, though, not from science or politicians, or preachers.

If every human being would only stop and connect with the still small voice that is their own soul or spirit, this collective archetypal soul knowledge can be brought forth and we can solve anything. But we all have to do this together--the CEOs, Presidents, Senators, Chairmen, Premiers, Prime Ministers, all. You see, human beings possess the intelligence to solve any problem that human beings create. It is the will that is lacking. And it is because we have become soul blind that we can't muster the will to do what is so obviously right(eous). Greed, fear, ignorance, politics--we have all these impairments standing in the way, none of which are inspired by the collective soul consciousness that is available to us if we just ask/access.

I have used one big problem, global climate change, to illustrate my assertion that there is a spiritual solution for every problem facing mankind. I could take any problem and seek the spiritually informed solution, and fix it. So can you. So can we all.

Let's try another. Economics.

My soul's answer, "Share everything as equally as possible."

I can hear the screams of protest to this one! "How dare you! I worked for what I have! You are talking about socialism or worse, communism!"

Soul truth: The is no reason for any among us to have considerably more than anyone else. Greed and hording will not add value to the human experience of life. Hunger and lack will not add value to the human experience of life. Labels have no meaning. Get over it and freely share what is available for all.

This one is so easy. Maybe easier than global climate change. Why? The world's great religions, the combined thinking of Man, has already recognized this as right(eous). So why aren't we doing it? Why do fewer and fewer human beings concentrate and possess the wealth and resources of this world? Soul blindness. And this soul blindness leads to greed and sickness that is most profane.

I don't need to go on about this and preach what we collectively know but will not abide by. But I will say this to you, Dear Reader, consult your soul about how you are living and how you are sharing, and see what you find. If every person had the humility and humane-ness to ask their soul to guide them, there would be no poor, no lack, no economic bubbles, and so on. We are capable of so much better.

Using these two examples of spiritual solutions to solve problems, one might conclude that it is overly idealistic and even impossible to apply the solutions offered by spirit. You might be thinking that to stop burning fossil fuels, curb population and share resources is equivalent to undoing moderns society and culture as we know it. Yes. This is what spirit is advocating. Not because spirit has any bias against or judgment about how we are living our lives, but because these are the solutions to the problems presented. The collective mind of soul offers the simple, sometimes obvious choices that must be made without prejudice. It is the individual and collective human mind that rejects such solutions for various reasons, but mostly from fear. The primitive human mind is still stuck in a survival, fight or flight, state of mind. Radical change equals the unknown and the human mind rejects the unknown and clings to what it knows and feels is safe.

There is irony here. The planet can't sustain current human behavior forever. The problems cited, and many, many more are the result of human activities that are leading toward catastrophe. We can either change willingly and consciously as our collective souls would have us do, or we can continue down this path of suffering until we are no more, or at least until catastrophic events cause a reset in human civilization. Either way it is going to happen just it has happened countless times before, mostly forgotten.

Spiritual evolution, if it were happening, would inform us to make better choices. Earlier I mentioned soul blindness. There is something, some fundamental disconnect from our own spirits that is thwarting spiritual evolution. Otherwise we would not live as we do and we would not be spiraling headlong into another catastrophic reset. I say headlong because it is the mind of Man that rejects spiritual insight and spiritual solutions.

42 Years ago, John Lennon released his song, "Imagine." The lyrics of the song are soul inspired and provide a road map to living spiritually. When I say spiritually I don't mean religiously, nor was this song religious in any way. It was a simple, straight forward appeal from soul on how we can live together in peace. Here are the lyrics to the song "Imagine":

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

Although John's song was and is still immensely popular, we have collectively rejected its message and we remain soul blind. I think the resonance of this song taps our collective resonance with our spiritual nature, the nature that we reject. The thing is, John was telling us what his soul told him we could do. He was conveying the simple message of soul and it was offered as a literal map forward.

Maybe to make this real, each of us must connect with our own spirit and hear the music of our soul. "I wonder if you can?"

Movies and Native People

I recently came across some bloggers discussing the Academy Award Best Picture category. The premise was that if history is any judge, Lincoln would win Best Picture because America loves a 'great white savior' movie. As I understand this movie theme, it takes a white man to save people of color from their plight; a plight of course caused by white men in the first place. The piece I read compared similarly themed movies like: Avatar, Dances With Wolves, Glory, Mississippi Burning, and others. The other theatrical theme mentioned in the blog was the 'noble savage.' As I understand the noble savage theme, it is that white movie makers portray the Indian as primitive and yet also revered at the same time. In some of the movies cited, these two themes co-mingle.

The vibe I got from the piece I read was resentment for these movie themes. This resentment or objection is that the people of color don't need a white person to save them from conditions that were caused by white people, and that the noble savage theme is disingenuous to indigenous people and culture as it does not accurately portray native life while, at the same time it provides for a fantasy for white entertainment and consumption. Both movie themes then being further exploitation of native people by Eurocentric culture.

If my understandings described above are wrong or otherwise in error, I welcome correction. I admit my understanding may be surface level and not particularly nuanced as to the complicated history we all share. Which brings me to my point. I wonder if we all can see this from a different perspective other than the one I describe above?

 
I will focus on just two movies here, Dances With Wolves and Avatar. Notwithstanding whatever accolades these films received form the Academy of Motion Pictures and film critics, they were wildly successful financially which is a measure of their overall popularity and public appeal. In other words, people went to see these films and there was a strong resonance with the movie viewing public. I don't think the resonance for these films is the great white healer or noble savage themes. Here's why.

Movies are a form of storytelling and storytelling is an ancient human way of sharing not only cultural identity, but also the mythology that informs us of who we are as human beings and how we fit into the world. I believe movies like Dances With Wolves and Avatar tap into a very deep, perhaps primal, memory of a time when human beings lived as part of the natural world instead of outside it. In the western mythology, humans were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and told they could not return. This is metaphor for the separation of man and nature. Over the last two thousand years or so, western culture has dominated to the extent that the entire planet is under its influence. As such, the separation of man and nature is a fundamental mythology informing our culture. We truly do live outside of the Garden, or outside of nature, and we are experiencing an ever growing spiritual crisis as a result. Mankind is literally cut off from nature and thus cut off form his own spiritual nature.

The great appeal of the Na'vi in Avatar or the Sioux in Dances With Wolves is that these people have not been ousted from the Garden. The Na'vi are depicted as being connected with nature and this connection facilitates them connecting to their own spirits or souls. In Dances With Wolves, the Native Americans are portrayed in a similar manner. You can sense their deep spiritual connection and the resulting harmony. In both cases, the people have a spiritual life through their connection to nature, a connection that is utterly lacking for modern people everywhere.

The Na'vi are fictional aliens whereas the Sioux are not. I readily concede that no one has any right to project a story onto the Sioux as is done in Dances With Wolves. If the criticism is this, then, I must agree for this is merely an extension of the Euro-anthropological superiority complex. Let the Native Americans tell their stories and define their culture both past and present.

But I do not agree with those who say that the great appeal of these and similar movies are the great white savior theme. I believe the massive appeal of these themes is to the spiritual connection with the natural world and the connection to mankind's soul that arises from it. The myth of being kicked out of the Garden is a powerful cultural program that has informed the west, and now the entire world, for over two thousand years. We have been separated from nature and from our own spiritual nature. I believe this is why we love movies that depict people and cultures communing with nature and living an authentic spiritual life. For we were all 'indigenous' at one time or another and we carry these ancestral memories consciously or unconsciously. Probably mostly unconsciously now. Movies being a powerful storytelling medium simply remind us of who we really are and for a brief moment we live vicariously through the native people and we feel our own spirit. Is this a bad thing?

I welcome comments.

RAPE

Although the news cycle is deafening, particularly when you include social media, there are some stories that grab my attention, deeply.

Two such recent stories are the gang rape of an Indian woman on a train in New Delhi, India (who later sadly died), and the gang rape of a 16 year old girl at a party in Steubenville, Ohio.

Now, there is no shortage of outrageous violence occurring and reported each and every day--to the extent that it is overwhelming, at least for me. As a matter of fact, a person could simply live in a constant state of outrage at the behavior of human beings, although this doesn't sound very fun. So why am I suddenly drawn to these stories of rape?

I think the answer is because these rapes are representative of a deep and profound mythic crisis of the masculine actually attempting to destroy the feminine. This is how far out of balance our civilization has become. Interesting use of the word,'civilization.' Here is the definition of 'civilization' according to thefreedictionary.com:

An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.

But the root word in 'civilization' is 'civil.' Civil (again according to thefreedictionary.com):

4. polite or courteous

Using this version of the meaning of 'civil' as the root in 'civilization,' taken as a whole, I hardly think the state of human affairs qualifies as a civil-ization. And the reason for this is that the masculine has gone completely and utterly mad. 

Presently on this planet, man is raping everything, literally and figuratively. Natural resources are being extracted and stripped from the planet at an alarming rate. Rape. Women are suffering physical abuse and assault on every corner of the globe. Rape. Women's sexuality is under attack from genital mutilation to forced burkas to reproductive rights inside the halls of congress and the courts. Rape. Women suffer discrimination in every imaginable way all over the world by the deeds of men. Rape. Rape. And more rape. 

This onslaught of the masculine against the feminine is not new. For at least the last 2000 years, the masculine has subdued the feminine, controlled it, suppressed it, even killed it, to such an extent that today we are experiencing an enormous schism in our psyche and more subtly our mythology. You see, the stories we  create today inform future generations, just as we have inherited the stories of our ancestors and drawn upon these stories to understand our place in this world as human beings. This is the purpose and power of mythology. 

Every human being, regardless of gender, is one half masculine and one half feminine. Lacking sophistication and nuance and sourcing primarily from the reptilian brain (cerebellum and brain stem), human beings confuse masculine and feminine with gender. From this lack of intellectual reasoning develops a psyche that only consciously identifies with their own gender and relegates the opposite to shadow. An utter and complete disconnect ensues where the human is left literally psychically divided. The 'other half' lies in unconsciousness, unseen and unincorporated into the whole self.

Attributes of the masculine are outer, active, seeking, doing, and willfulness. Attributes of the feminine are inner, passive, patience, understanding, and intuition. Our civilization values the attributes of the masculine over the feminine to such a degree that there is little civility left. Here is what the feminine knows that the masculine is ignorant of: what we do to one, we also do to ourself. This extends as well to what we do to the earth, the trees, the plants, the animals, the rivers, the oceans, etc., we also do to ourself. Look at the state of the world right now. Look at the lack of civility in our civilization. Look at the men and boys laughing because they raped a woman. Look at the men in the boardrooms laughing as they rape the earth. 

Jesus said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

The mythology of the crucifiction of Jesus (regardless of your belief that it is real or just a story) is that Jesus died for our sins. Sin is ignorance stemming from unconsciousness. Jesus died so that we may become enlightened. When Jesus said, "Forgive them for they know not what they do," he was not talking about his crucifiers. He was talking directly to the masculine unconsciousness that informs human behavior--in his time and in this time. Enlightenment is bringing into consciousness that which we have dispossessed, the shadow. In this case, the feminine. 

I am writing this because I want to help the human race achieve the promise of enlightenment and the corresponding integration of masculine and feminine consciousness. Actually our future depends on this fundamental evolution. Otherwise we may rape ourselves into oblivion. 

From the Gospel of Thomas, The Nag Hammadi Library:

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

Please share this with every human being you know in hopes that it might help our world.