 (Painting by Emily Carr) Releasing the Habit of Virus-Consciousness Consciousness is everything and everything is consciousness. There is nothing “subjective” about consciousness. Nor is there anything “objective” about consciousness. This primary process is beyond dualism. Among the configurings of the fullness of consciousness are those configurings that we experience as helpful presences, like so-called angels, as well as unhelpful presences, like so-called demons (dark angels). Consciousness as Wholeness includes them both, and both are beyond our present habituation of consciousness as something that is interior to us as human individuals. Consciousness is not within us; we are within consciousness. Even so-called ‘unconsciousness’ is a mode of consciousness, that is, it has the ability to be outside of awareness, and in fact, ‘hides’ from awareness, requiring inner work on our part. Within habituated “thing-consciousness,” the coronavirus is a thing that brings harm to our habituated mode of awareness, physical body-awareness (as if body is only physical). We live as if “it” is out to “get us all” and live in constant fear. Fear, though, belongs to “thingified” consciousness. And thus, this formation of consciousness results in seeking some other “thing” to destroy this harmful thing – that other thing is ultimately imagined as a “vaccine” – which is actually trading one destructive “thing” for another – provided one looks deeply enough into the harmfulness of this other “thing”. This “Pan-demic”--- Pan, meaning “All”, and demic, meaning “dysfunctional, broken”, is the ending of habitual, that is, dysfunctional consciousness that is now all of consciousness. Of course, “thingified” consciousness will not automatically change overnight. But we have this amazingly beautiful opportunity to begin changing habitual consciousness; we are in a moment of a turning in the evolution of consciousness—when we are able to be conscious of consciousness. “Thinking-consciousness”, for example, cannot do this because the very movement of thinking makes us forgetful of what we just thought a milli-second before. Thinking cannot incorporate Stillness, while it is the main dimension of consciousness. There are harmful presences – like coronavirus consciousness. But, equally, there are helpful presences – like “angelconsciousness.” Both are here, not ‘out there’ somewhere else. Re-configuring consciousness does not occur automatically, it occurs by a heart decision to enter the all-pervasive Silence without leaving body or world. Silence is the primary attribute of consciousness. Silence does not go away; we go away from it. It is not a matter of “religiously” praying to the angels for help – the fact is, within the now universalized “thingified” consciousness, praying to the angels is within belief and this kind of consciousness cannot comprehend belief (instead, it is now called “your opinion”). Within this narrow mode of consciousness, prayer is superstition rather that attuning to Wholeness. Prayerfulness is a synonym for Wholeness and even for consciousness in the manner spoken of here. We do not, and actually can’t, “kill the virus”; we seek its balance within the Whole but, in this time, balance means a total reconfiguring of consciousness. Notice that I do not say “everything has consciousness.” The eternal and yet ever-present “hereness” of consciousness continually reconfigures itself into moments that the mind interprets as “things”, or “ideas”, or “sensations”, or “perceptions” or “emotions” or “feelings” or “desires”, or “urges” or……..The mental interpretations become habitual and the habituation of consciousness becomes our so-called subjective/objective ways of living. In this light, it is far more instructive and awakening to imagine/intuit "angelconsciousness", which is present, always. You don't have to oppose or stop "virus-consciousness" as angelconsciousness reconfigures consciousness.
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The Age that Seems Like Hell on Earth  It is awfully hard to tell or to put forward the view that this country (as well as the whole world) is going through a spiritual initiation. Since World War I, really. But, the bottom here fell out in 2001 with the fall of the World Trade Center. By 2004, the Iraq war was raging. In December, 2004, the greatest earthquake in over forty years struck near Sumatra, resulting in the tsunami that killed over 266,000 people. Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. The great financial crisis of 2007-2008 then hit. In January 2010, a massive earthquake devastated Haiti, and geologists said it was the worst seen in over 200 years. In April, 2010, The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, creating the greatest ecological disaster in human history. During this time, the European Union started collapsing. There have been massive floods and forest fires and the melting of the icebergs, possibly resulting in a tilting of the Earth’s axis. World temperatures continue to rise. We are now in the time of the corona virus, economic meltdown and social upheavals. Let’s relate all of this to the last post on consumerism.
The very recent events of massive demonstrations due to the brutal killing of George Floyd by police brutality resulted in the boarding up of Manhattan. Every luxury store as well as other stores are closed – Sax Fifth Avenue, Harry Winston Jewelry, AT&T, Armani, Dolce and Gabanna, St. Regis Hotel, Christian Dior, Tiffany & Co., Rolex – to name but a few – all of Manhattan is affected. Similar boarding up of stores has also occurred in Chicago, Beverly Hills, Philadelphia, Portland, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Bethesda, Las Vegas, and many other cities. In the absence of spiritual sensibility, all of this looks and feels like --- hard times, but it will end – sometime. Seen and felt with spiritual sensibility, we are in a time of deathing-rebirthing. The recent boarding up of luxury places of consumerism, are a visible expression of the necessary separation from living as if we are here for our own sake and desires. These images of the consumer world going ‘blank’ are the world equivalent of the needed process of developing a spiritual, inner life. In its individual form, spiritual awakening begins with removing what is familiar and all that we identify with by stopping thinking, by going blank, by “boarding up”. This is the very first step in spiritual awakening and spiritual initiation – of a certain type – the way of Surrender – not surrender as ‘giving up’, but by voluntarily giving self. Also, more, is going on than needed social change. These social changes, too, are aspects of the spiritual awakening of America. America’s spiritual destiny is trying to get back on its path – the place where “A New Heaven and a New Earth” can be visibly seen unfolding, a intense prototypal image of the world awakening to its spiritual destiny. Spiritual initiation, however, does not happen on its own. A decision is needed – and even then, spiritual awakening is not assured. What is the needed decision, based on noticing a persistent inner feeling? The decision to love being fully here, for “here” is already the fullness of Heaven and Earth. To experience the truth of reality, to feel it, and begin living into this way, requires awakening the humanness of being human as centered in the longing for the Divine for the sake of the Divine and not for anything else, and that this longing begins to awaken through the will of self-giving rather than self-defense. The removal of all we identify ourselves with is the invitation, to be responded to freely, not out of fear, not out of trying to get something out of longing for the Divine. “If we can remember the true essence of mind while in the midst of great conflict such as while we are running from a pack of vicious dogs, we will gain a much greater level of insight than in normal meditation practice." ---- "Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche THE CONSUMER VIRUS  The Consumer Virus
I did some research to find the function of viruses in the natural world. The number astounds: “An estimated 10 nonillion (10 to the 31st power) individual viruses exist on our planet—enough to assign one to every star in the universe 100 million times over.” (National Geographic Magazine) 380 trillion viruses live in the human body, along with 38 trillion bacteria. Viruses attack the harmful bacteria in the body. The healthy bacteria, not the ones responsible for illness, prevent the intrusion of diseases. An infinitesimal number of viruses are directly harmful to the human body, primarily those that mutate and those that cross the barrier from animals. The coronavirus seems to have crossed between animals and entered the human body, becoming virulent – an interesting word. If we allow ourselves to see with imagination, however, this crossing is more like an event of Nature caring for herself by lessening the harmful predators, us, who are attacking her. We don’t need nor want to ascribe anger or emotion to such an event – it is only Nature being Nature, and the law of balance. Viruses have to do with the constant and necessary dying away of the body, with decomposition, in their invisible bond with the coming-into-life, always happening. The dying-away of the body correlates with fear, while the coming-into-life of the body correlates with love. We are made of love and fear. When fear that is other than intrinsic fear begins to more and more invade the body, the law of balance begins to falter and fear overtakes us and becomes the attractor of further fear. The coronavirus is one such attracted fear. The difficulty lies in our taking in fear that does not look like fear at all – this taking in of death is called consumerism. We are being consumed by consuming. (An ultimate image of being consumed in this way is the “selfie” – where we are consumers of ourselves.) I remember when the word “consumer” first began to be applied to people and how offensive it was to hear humans being called “consumers”. Now, it is commonplace to be called a most ignoble name. The coronavirus can be characterized as the consumer virus. Since its appearance, a huge decrease in consumption and all the harm consuming does to Earth is being revealed. But, as the world begins to open up again, the death instinct of consumerism and the accompanying virus comes roaring back. Consuming and being a number in collective (un)consciousness go together. And in becoming statistics we lose connection with soul and spirit individuality, our access to soul and spirit presences. It takes inner work to become a human being (a Person); we are not automatically human by having this form. And we cannot be taught how to be human – it is a matter of the awakening of consciousness – that is, of being conscious of being consciousness -- developing connection with the inner life of soul and the urge and longing of soul for spirit. Further, the awakened soul and spirit must become ways of sensing, perceiving, and thinking. We are not separate from the Whole, though we are the only beings that can act as if we are. Everything is conscious, something that is immediately apparent when in soul-spirit-body connection with Earth. The great impending danger concerns the arrival of the new consumerism – techno-consumerism. It is well on its way, but it consists of way more than the digitalization of consciousness. It is technical food, made in the laboratory, it is tourist flights to the moon, it is consciousness-dulling vaccines for attacking increasing numbers of viruses as described above, it is “health-uncare” taking the place of oil as the primary commodity to be purchased, it is artificial intelligence and it is all those technological regressions (not advances) of consciousness. Technology is another word for ‘unconsciousness’. The only hopeful response consists the utterly necessary work of developing the inner life – without trying to ‘get something’ out of it, for the inner life constitutes the essence of being human, being free – not free from something or free to do what we want, but pure freedom, the capacity to do things out of pure spontaneous but fully conscious creativity – because these inspirations do not arise from us but are the presence of the spiritual beings who do care for us, and through them an integral soul-spirit-embodied-Earth becomes possible. DEVOURING THE GODS: CONSUMING THE INFINITE Devouring the gods: Consuming the Infinite
What would be most extraordinary is saying something, writing something, that no one could “get something out of it” for themselves, or want to get something out of it That would collapse the present world by “going down” into the actual world. One way of considering the last post on the SpaceX launch, concerns the length we humans will go, the things we will do and make in order to “get something out of it.” This monstrous desire now even attempts to consume the invisibility, the intangibility, the sacredness of space. These outermost extensions of human initiative, like space flight, intend to extend consumption itself. For what other reason are we going into space? Maybe the Moon will give us more water; maybe Mars is inhabitable, we need somewhere to go when this ‘place’ is used up. Earlier, space travel was still connected with the sacred as it was concerned with going deeper and deeper into space and finding more mysteries. Now, going “deeper and deeper” has become more and more shallow. We have, for example, used spiritual space reduced to the dimension of materialistic emptiness, to blanket the world with satellites beaming rays to earth. The FCC is now readying to give permission to SpaceX to launch 30,000 satellites for beaming the electronic rays of 5G (There are presently only 400 such satellites, the minimum number necessary to have a semblance of 5G.). Besides other deeply important health concerns of 5G, the decision to exponentially speed up connections between people actually intensifies separation while looking as if it intensifies relating, for electromagnetic meeting is a kind of double of being with someone. Sometimes that is necessary, but it is crucial that “relating” in this way is balanced with inner work in relation with others. No-one needs devices – phones, computers, or internet, to be in body/soul/spirit connection with anyone, together or in different places. That connection happens with a simple but deep act of heart intent. (Even if we do not know some of the people who comment on these posts, nor the poster, they can all come into real heart connection, balancing this Facebook disconnection.) The gods of consumption fool us into having belief, faith and hope that consumption is infinite, eroding connection with the Divine Infinite. Reducing spiritual/soul space to materialistic emptiness was a huge accomplishment, the culmination of destroying the givenness of natural Wholeness. It is not as if this should not have happened, for it also announces the body/soul/spirit work that must now evolve – individual human consciousness now has to develop the capacities of creating this Wholeness as it is no longer naturally given. That is, the new evolution of spirit has also silently announced itself. Spiritual evolution at a juncture where we now have the capability, one that has to be inwardly found, of relinquishing personal desires in order to create the Wholeness that was once natural. Only Wholeness will reveal the shallowness and addictiveness of one-dimensional consumer-consciousness. I cannot define Wholeness; however, an example is easy, though there is little time before the state of Wholeness within Nature will be completely gone. So, here is the “practice”, that is, the suggestion: First, it is necessary to find the inner place of complete peace like Nature used to live within. It is simple to do so. It is best to do this outside; relax, momentarily close your eyes, then place your attention at the very center of the brain. Don’t pay attention to the center of the brain as this is using attention to focus cognitive awareness. Placing attention is something like attention taking hold of itself and placing itself there at the center of the brain. At the very center of the brain there is a ‘hole’, that is a void, a place where there is cerebral-spinal fluid, but no brain matter. As you will discover, It is the place of complete peace. There will be an immediate inward opening of complete stillness, a darkening, but one that is not ‘flat’; it will clearly be infinite space, and feel like inwardly ‘looking’ upon infinite space. Once this happens, and it is awfully easy – it will be permanent. That is, when you open your eyes, there will still be a sense of being within infinite space. It won’t stay, but it is now always available to go to instantly. This practice is the beginning of a shift from cognitive mentality to awakening intuitive presence. It is a first task of the New World. Another word for “infinite space” is Wholeness. So, when we have been there, it also begins to be possible to sense and perceive Wholeness. For example, watch a bird fly from one place to another. Our mind interprets this as the bird instinctively wanted to go somewhere – probably to go get food, or for a mate, or to check something out -- in short, “to get something out of it.” What is actually happening is the participation of the bird within infinite Wholeness. The bird does not “go from here to there”; it is one of the movements of Wholeness. Its movement is a dimension of the simultaneous movement of the Whole of the Earth and the Cosmos! This is the same way butterflies cross the ocean. Neither bird nor butterfly “get anything out of it”. How can they – for they already belong with Everything. Among the thousands of things said by Rudolf Steiner that I’ve lived with for many years and did not understand is his saying that when someone throws a ball into the air, the Whole of the Universe has to adjust to that action. While the death throw of consumerism attempts to revive itself and continue with even more intensity, the new world of bodily felt, soul experienced, spirit guided life is awakening. The Death Threats to Depth |
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Robert Sardello
The School of Integral Psychology
417 W. Doyle
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spiritualheart@heartfulsoul.com