I was thinking on a long drive today about the subject Jon raised of what our tradition has to offer the planet wide process of awakening. In particular I was thinking about this third phase work and the quote “simplicity opens the way to Shamballa”. One of the things that our tradition has is intricate maps of consciousness and cosmos – truly comprehensive, and yet the universal approach also needs to be simple and stripped of all esoteric language.
What came to me as unique is the grounding of this latest teaching directly in the cosmos itself. The very simple notion that the moon circles the planet, circles the sun, circles the galactic centre, which is part of a universal centre that is everywhere and nowhere. All these levels of form and consciousness that enfold each other. Atheists, materialistic scientists, people from all traditions and cultures can accept the form side of this as factual – it is a universal phenomena anchored in empirical sensory evidence. It is not like spiral dynamics or integral theory or jungian psychology or psychosynthesis – all wonderful systems but all grounded either on academic research or systems of thought. None of these is truly grounded in the physical world – their bodies are largely mental. The seven rays also have a physical correspondence in light. If we took as a discipline to only use symbols that were actually grounded in cosmos as we have also come to know it with our senses then the duality between soul and body resolves. The temple of power on the physical plane begins to take shape. This is simple, extraordinarily ordinary in fact.
As physical symbols for contemplation it is easy to find the correspondence in consciousness – lunar consciousness, solar consciousness, galactic consciousness, universal consciousness.
I have come to accept that these are the only set of symbols large enough to expand our awareness into infinity, grounded enough to fully link with modern science and the concrete mind, and inclusive enough for us to place our earthly existence and evolution in proper context. As Nancy and Linda Ann have both pointed out, if we start with the universal picture then everything else that is taught comes together with less friction and need for later transformation.
All that is needed is to make the simple step from the understanding of the way the cosmos works – something every child is taught in school now – to its equivalent in consciousness. This provides the evolutionary and developmental model that is so missing. It is easy for mature students who are at the level of solar consciousness, for example, to experience that they have within them as earlier self structures a personality ( planet self ) and an emotional physical ( lunar self ) – and that they have moments of awakening to their galactic and or universal self. Just because we are awakened to the non dual ( galactic level ) doesn’t mean we don’t have a lunar self calculating our next meal time and whether we are going to get to go for a walk before dusk, or a planetary self wondering if there is an interesting email arriving.
Once this simple concept is grasped then people can begin to see around them how people, groups and countries are at different stages of identification in their resting consciousness ( moons, planets, suns, comets ) and at different stages in the integration ( transcend and include ) of these different levels inside them.
So simple – stripped of esotericism, astrology, masters, rods of initiation, agnichaitans and so forth – of course these more complex concepts are all there prepared for those who want to deepen their understanding, but the core concepts are universal. In fact it strikes me that the symbols of our cosmos ( as indeed they always have been ) will be those that form the basis of any universal spiritual tradition.
It doesn’t need to be attached to anything either – no tradition – not even the belief that these symbols are actually conscious themselves. We just begin to give away the seed idea, simple and yet containing within it the esssence of a truly remarkable and comprehensive tradition. The simple idea that the structures and evolution of consciousness have as their outer symbols the different bodies and levels of the universe and that the new collective emergent structure is that of the galactic level which is the one that can integrate the sun, planet , and moon levels.
2012 is a wonderful opportunity to cut through all the hype and just talk about the emergence of a new energy, a newly emergent consciousness, a new symbol that transcends and includes the existing levels and therefore can resolve the confusions and conflicts between them.
That’s it – so simple that it almost seems like nothing and yet my experience is that little dark seed idea contains vast new worlds of awakening and understanding curled up inside it.
Here’s some quotes that illustrate the power of it:
The cosmology of a civilization both reflects and influences all human activity, motivation and self understanding that take place within its parameters. It is the container for everything else. Richard Tarnas …Cosmos and Psyche
“Our Psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche.”
C. G. Jung Memories, Dreams, Reflections
“The Copernicans experienced an inner conversion…an epiphany that became central to their lives and made of them a secret cabal. Not secret in an enforced sense but secret by the fact that the very nature of what they realized was hidden from the consciousness of most people and indeed the prevailing consciousness of the society in which they lived.
“The light which they held would gradually spread throughout the planet and the ‘solar’ centred worldview both in the physical and the metaphysical sense would eventually become the dominant consciousness on the planet.” The Universe
Bruce Lyon