It is true, all we need is love. But do we really know what love is? Love is a word that is sung about in songs, written in poems, talked about a lot and it is something many people long for one way or the other, mostly in the form of a partner. We hear it a lot these days: "Be heart-centered" and "Be love", "Love is the answer, because love always wins!", "Send Love and Light!" and so on. People use it casually in conversations in their every day lives. It is seen as the solution to all the world problems. All you need is Love!
If that's so easy, how come nothing has changed fundamentally on planet earth despite the obvious technological progress?
We still see genocide, oppression and wars happening. Hundreds of thousands of children and civilians have died in the Middle East and around the world because of the war machine under the control of psychopathic leaders who couldn't care less about anyone who holds up a peace sign with a proclamation of love as the force for change.
Looking at it more closely we can see that "Love" is one of the most abused and misunderstood words.
We mistake things like gratification, sentimentality, obligation, duty, passion, desire, and other superficial emotions, ideas and conditioned concepts as "Love" in order fill something that is ultimately lacking within us. These distortions are also used mostly unconsciously as buffers to avoid facing reality as it is by looking at the world with rose-colored glasses on, instead of seeing oneself and the world more objectively beyond appearances.
"For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are."
- Niccolo Machiavelli
There is personal love between humans, motherly love, love of family and community, love for oneself, love for something greater than the self, love for god and even love for man-made ideologies and concepts such as for a nation and country.
So what is love? How can we describe or define such a powerful force? Words are very limiting and can only point to it, but are not it. Maybe we can start by examining what love is not.
When it comes to interpersonal relationships we often see control games, jealousy, and envy which is obviously not love, but expressions and behaviors based on fear and need.
Love is related to emotions and feelings, but they can be merely based on chemical reactions in the brain that result in a "high", where people feed off each other which is also be the basis for psychic vampirism. Many relationships are based on this feeding mechanism, which has nothing to do with love, but is a parasitic need resulting in co-dependance. Sexual attraction is also mistaken for love at times. Many people get into relationships for the wrong reasons, be it to escape their loneliness, to fill a hole in their lives or feed off another person For the most part this happens unconsciously and so people tend to lie to themselves about love and their relationships in many ways, not seeing the other person as he/she is and not even seeing themselves clearly as they are.
"People convince themselves of their own lies, becoming victims of their own inventions as they begin to direct their lives by standards of behavior, ideas, feelings, or instincts which do not correspond to their inner reality. What is truly serious in this matter is that the individual loses all points of reference regarding what comprises truth, and what comprises lies. He becomes used to considering as true only that which is convenient for his personal interests; everything that is in opposition to his self-esteem or in conflict with already established prejudices, he considers false."
- John Baines
To truly love another person we need to see the other as he/she is without trying to change that person. That is the basis for unconditional love, but for that to happen we also need to know ourselves and see us as we truly are , so we don't fall into the trap of illusory projections which only result in disappointment and hurt once the romantic phase is over. It's about acceptance and consideration, being able to give and receive, to be externally considerate and not expect anything.
But beyond personal relationships, the idea of love has also been distorted and used superficially as slogans. It is equated with being positive, open, friendly, not saying or focusing on anything "bad" or "negative", to be always cheerful and have a smile on ones face. Of course there is nothing wrong with kindness and friendliness as well as positivity, but it must be based on truth and reality, not lies, self-calming rationalizations or avoidance, including political correctness which only leads to complacency and ignorance.
Some people say we need to be more “”heart-centered”, loving and compassionate. Yes, obviously we all need to connect more to our heart, show empathy and compassion, especially extending it the whole world, beyond our close friends and family.
But what does that really mean? Many people seem to associate love with emotions and feelings or “niceness”, but is it not more than that, like a higher state of consciousness and being?
We seem to mistake many things for “love” and even judge the intellect as “bad”,mistaking it for the monkey/predator mind, hence many suggest that we should “think” with our heart and do what we “feel” like doing, which mostly results in mere self-deception and lack of critical thinking. It's about aligning the heart with the intellect, intuition with logic, mysticism with science.
Many people seem to force themselves into this artificial and superficial state of "love" through contrived affirmations and "feel good" spirituality, ignoring anything that may be a threat to their "positive" life view.
Ultimately this results in suppression and armor that is manifested by denying the shadow part of themselves and the world as they ignore objective reality. On the surface they don't even think that anything is "wrong" with them. It's very much a blissful ignorant state, trying to stay "high" on artificial emotional projections, avoiding anything that may give them a "downer" and living in a subjective tunnel vision with blinders on.
One can see this kind of attitude in many self-proclaimed "aware" and "conscious" people who follow shallow New Age teachings and pop psychology resulting in self-calming but lacking deeper healing, growth and essentially real love.
"We’ve all met people who seem too sticky and gooey. They are “too nice” and sickeningly sweet. We sense that they are somehow being fake when we are around them and we feel we never really know them. They are, as the saying goes, “too good to be true.” These people are barricaded behind their mask or persona. They will deliberately avoid any kind of negative reaction or emotion. They refuse to be real and suffer the acceptance of their own dark side and this can be a dangerous thing."
- Rebeca Eigen
"The Shadow describes the part of the psyche that an individual would rather not acknowledge. It contains the denied parts of the self. Since the self contains these aspects, they surface in one way or another. Bringing Shadow material into consciousness drains its dark power, and can even recover valuable resources from it. The greatest power, however, comes from having accepted your shadow parts and integrated them as components of your Self. Everyone carries a Shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
- Carl G. Jung
Love is not merely an emotional state, but a state of consciousness. Just like there are different levels of consciousness, there are also different levels of love one can access on the spectrum of consciousness based on ones level of being and awareness.
There is carnal love based on the sexual center and animal part in man which is the biological drive to procreate, ensuring that organic life on earth continues. This drive is mechanical tied to the esoteric meaning of the General Law and waking sleep state homo sapiens is under.
“As a cell of humanity, man forms part of organic life on Earth. This life in its ensemble represents a very sensitive organ of our planet, playing an important role in the economy of the solar system. As a cell of this organ, man finds himself under the influence of the General Law, which keeps him in his place. In fact, this law leaves him a certain margin or tolerance. It allows him some free movement within the limits it sets. Within these boundaries, which are very limited objectively although subjectively they appear vast, man can give free rein to his fantasies and his ambitions.
Without going too far into the definition of these limits and detailed description of the components of this General Law, we can say as an example that one of those factors is hunger: the servitude of working to assure our subsistence. The chain: sexual instinct; procreation; and the care of parents for their children, is another factor. The esoteric maxim that applies to this aspect of life is conceived thus: carnal love is necessary for the general good.”
- Boris Mouravieff
Then there is courtly love based on the higher centers, which is a higher state of being that can only be accessed through sincere self-work, not giving in to mechanical driven behaviors and choices. Essentially for true love between two people to manifest there needs to be a connection and matching on all centers: physical, sexual, emotional, intellectual and spiritual.
We need to continually work on ourselves to bring the centers into balance, so no one feeds of the other, but both compliment each other. Love, in its truest sense means to see the world, oneself and others more objectively. From an esoteric perspective it's about evolving towards this objective love. In other words, the more we are objective with ourselves and the world, raising awareness and see things as they are, the higher the degree of love we can access. It is based on knowledge, being and understanding, not merely emotional states and "happy thoughts".
Subjective love is attached to one's own idea of the other or to what can be gained or obtained from the other. People call the most various desires love. These can have to do with social status, addiction to power over or domination of another, sexual interest and so forth. The emotion fluctuates between satisfaction of getting and fear of losing and is generally centered on the self. Subjective love seeks to somehow forcibly appropriate another into one's extended self. One example of this is showing off what a clever or good-looking partner or child one has in order to somehow increase oneself. Any games of domination or co-dependence which often involve the term love fall in this category.
However, by doing the work towards objective love one shouldn't ignore or suppress anything that doesn't live up to the ideal of higher love beyond the self. Everyone is on a different level of being with different lessons to learn and integrate.
It seems to happen very often in spiritual and esoteric circles that people claim attributes to themselves and inflate their being above the actual state of where they are and what they need to learn and confront in order to grow and evolve.
Objective love is not a detached unemotional state of existence. It simply means to act from one's true self beyond conditioning, programming and projections but with a "clean" emotional center, not one that is shut down.
Our emotions are the gateway to love, but they are not love. It's about opening up to vulnerability and not suppressing negative emotions such as anger, sadness, jealousy, grief, but work through them which leads to compassion and empathy, not only for oneself or close friends and family but for the world and humanity at large.
This also means to experience and feel emotions so we can let them go without suppressing them or projecting them on someone else. There are many ways to do this. Art, music, journaling as well as breathwork, bodywork and other healing modalities can help in the process of transmuting the shadow into light through emotional cleansing. It's a delicate and deep process that doesn't happen over night.
In that sense relationships are also lessons in love and not an end in itself, but can help us to learn more about ourselves People and friends who are also engaged in sincere self-work can show us valuable lessons as they serve as mirrors and can help to expose parts of ourselves we wouldn't be able to see since we all have subjective blind spots. A mirror generally is perceived as shocking or socially disagreeable. This comes from the fact that if the mirror is any good, it will conflict with the subjective filters of perception most people maintain concerning themselves. In other words, people's self image is more or less based on lies to self and in the degree the mirror reaches its intended truthfulness, it will challenge these lies.
"According to the Great Work, a friend is one in which you support and encourage the others expansion in either the mind or the spirit.Otherwise they are people you are sentimentally attached to it because they would eat cinnamon bun with you. And they will say 'hee, hee, hee' aren't we having fun". Drug addicts do the same thing. Drug addicts want to be around people who will support them and be away from real friends. Do you know why? Because it feels good. To be a member of a mystery school can be catastrophic to the ego and to the ego's habits and to the propensity for mediocrity. No one ever cried striving for excellence. They only cried when their mediocrity was taken away from them and pointed out to them."
- Jerhoam
The more lessons are learned, the more knowledge gained, understood and applied, the more we purify our emotions, the more one's being and awareness raises as the higher centers are activated and the more we can "see the unseen". However, This is a process that is different for each depending on many factors.
Psychopaths on the other hand (about 6% of humanity) have no capability to experience anything close to love, compassion and empathy by birth. It's not a psychological disposition but a genetic one. That is another topic which is very misunderstood and ignored, especially since most psychopaths can appear as "normal" through their "mask of sanity". They are not necessarily criminals in prisons, but can be CEO's, politicians, spiritual leaders, a husband, wife, child or the neighbor next door. They can tell you exactly what you want to hear, appear compassionate, empathetic and understanding without meaning or feeling it one bit.
To assume that we are all the same and that everyone has access to this higher love (or any form of love) is self-deceiving at best and we can see those kind of assumptions in the oversimplified idea of "we are all one!". You cannot BE what you're not, nor can you give what you don't have.
We are all one, but we are not all the same. There seems to be some major blind spot and oversimplification about the idea of "we". This has nothing to do about "us vs. them", but understanding how complex humanity actually is, what we choose to believe and wish for and what we avoid to look at and confront, within and without.
"Too many people hold the idea that psychopaths are essentially killers or convicts. The general public hasn't been educated to see beyond the social stereotypes to understand that psychopaths can be entrepreneurs, politicians, CEOs and other successful individuals who may never see the inside of a prison."
- Dr. Robert Hare
"It feels more democratic and less condemnatory (and somehow less alarming) to believe that everyone is a little shady than to accept a few human beings live in a permanent nighttime. To admit that some people literally have no conscience is not technically saying that some human beings are evil, but it is disturbingly close. And good people want very much not to believe in the personification of evil."
- Dr. Martha Stout
If one looks into the accounts of Near-Death experiences (NDE) and what some people have “seen” or realized, there is a common theme:
This profound experience of objective Love, which is not related to the Love as the human personality experiences it. It is for example, as one person who had a NDE said, “not a sentimental, get a tear, ‘feel someone’s pain’ feeling, not an emotion. It is beyond sentiment or feeling someone else in this form, but relates more to an all expansive, knowing and understanding.”
“The problem is not the term “love”, the problem is the interpretation of the term. Those on third density have a tendency to confuse the issue horribly. After all, they confuse many things as love. When the actual definition of love as you know it is not correct either. It is not necessarily a feeling that one has that can also be interpreted as an emotion, but rather, as we have told you before, the essence of light which is knowledge is love, and this has been corrupted when it is said that love leads to illumination. Love is Light is Knowledge. Love makes no sense when common definitions are used as they are in your environment.
To love you must know.
And to know is to have light.
And to have light is to love.
And to have knowledge is to love.”
- from the Cassiopaean sessions
Ultimately there is no love where there is no truth and knowledge. Love entails seeing the world as it is- not as we like, want it or assume it to be,(.) hence(,) true love is essentially linked to how much one can access objective reality.
- Caroline Myss-
You know the consciousness movement has let us in to create a kind of a hybrid spirituality that is mixed with a very toxic degree of narcissism and we need to look at that . It has made us very hyper sensitive and not very strong. I would say to you what has it made us conscious of because if it made us that conscious of the world we wouldn't be in this state we're in. If it made us that conscious of the world, we wouldn't have dropped the ball on the management of freedom and the bill of rights, but we did. We've lost our civil rights. We dropped the ball. We dropped the ball on the management of the earth's creatures and we got a hundred and fifty chimps left.
What have we become conscious of these last fifty years? Where have we been? We've been processing wounds. I know people who say I'm in the... I'm... I'm working to become conscious but I won't look at the TV and I won't read the news. Then what are you becoming conscious of? Myself. Now I have to tell you something, that's exactly the formula through which you cannot heal. You cannot heal. Do you... Can you understand that? That kind of narcissism is the classic formula for fueling your own rage. Your own rage. Narcissism and it's about me, it's about me, it's about my time, my space, my needs, my this, my wounds, my this. I have to tell you, that the ungenerous heart and the narcissist go to the hospital and get your meds, because you cannot, it is not possible to find yourself healing from the serious disorders that require an emergence into a cosmic level of consciousness.
In order for love to be the agent of change towards a better world and to bring about positive change we also need to acknowledge the darker side of life and the world we live in, the things and issues many people look away from, believing that by simply focusing on the "good" and "positive" there will be a shift in consciousness. This kind of thinking is the blind spot in many New Age teachings these days, which actually results in the opposite of what is intended for the unacknowledged shadow grows bigger and stronger, manifesting itself unconsciously through our collective. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
"An Ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance of what is, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is. To have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin not to live an ideal life but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them."
- J. Krishnamurti
The many ideas of just focusing on love and how people interpret that, or sending love to the world leaders and humanity or even to the planet are not acts of real love, but merely emotional projections which are self-deceiving and put man more into sleep, believing he's actually doing something and bringing about positive change. True love respects free will and one cannot give or send love to someone who didn't ask for it.
One has to wonder when people talk about world peace and love, but still vote for Obama and believe the lies we're being told by our governments, be it about 9/11, the war on terror or anything else that has been clearly used for social control. One can have as many positive/loving/nice thoughts and emotional highs as one like, but if one still believes in lies, follows teachings based on lies, there will be no raise in consciousness nor access to a higher love that can actually be a true agent of healing and awareness. On The contrary, believing in lies feeds entropy, no matter how well-meaning the intent.
Love is beyond words and no change is going to happen if people simply repeat that "love is the answer" or "all you need is love" while still clinging to illusions and not engaging in sincere self-work. Without a deep understanding and knowledge of what love truly is and entails, we just keep going in circles as history is repeating itself. If we really want a shift in consciousness then we need to take a look into the mirror and also do the work to see the world as it is without ignoring things that may not look that "pretty". There is still much we have to confront before we can enter a new world based on love, peace and truth.
"Love is not a behavior, an attitude, a mannerism. It is not etiquette. It is not convention. Love may express itself in many different ways—softly or forcibly. Love can appear meek. Love can appear strong. Love can challenge you. Love can criticize you. Love can expose your illusions, your fantasies and your self-deception. Love is not what people really mean when they talk about love, in nearly all circumstances.... Real love emanates from Knowledge. It, in essence, is the expression of Knowledge.Only Knowledge can take you there. Knowledge can bring two people from opposite ends of the world together for a greater purpose. That is the power of the Great Love. And the Great Love is what the world needs now."
- Marshall V. Summers
There also seems much confusion about what is supposedly “positive or negative”, “subjective or objective”. Some people claim that there is nothing like “objectivity” and all is subjective. Everything depends on how we look at things and quantum mechanics, so they say, shows us that there is no objective reality or truth, but there is only “my” or “your” truth and we create our own reality by the thoughts we have, what we like to see and what we focus on. But is that really so?
It seems that the science of quantum mechanics has been oversimplified into sales-bits in the new age arena and movies like “The Secret”. This doesn’t mean throwing out the baby with the bath water, as our perception does seem to have an influence on reality, but maybe it’s not as simple as we have been made to believe by many bestselling “self-help” gurus these days.
“For the record: Quantum mechanics does not deny the existence of objective reality. Nor does it imply that mere thoughts can change external events. Effects still require causes, so if you want to change the universe, you need to act on it.”
- Lawrence M. Krauss, professor of physics
The question about the existence of an objective truth is a tricky one to answer. Philosophical views on truth and criteria for knowing it vary with the old dispute between rationalism and empiricism.
However, beyond philosophical or scientific discussion, there usually seems to be one element that is barely questioned in more depth: the state of being/awareness of a person which relates to how much objective reality he/she can actually access.
In our current state of being and existence we cannot perceive objective reality fully, however we can work towards objectivity and expand our understanding of reality and ourselves accordingly. A “shift in consciousness” and “awakening” implies a higher state of awareness, which means to become more aware or it all, which implies again to see the world and oneself more objectively, without blinders on. This doesn’t happen by itself, but requires sincere effort and work to separate truth from lies, within and without. That is the basis of esoteric work which relates to gaining Self-Knowledge in order to raise awareness and consciousness to a higher level of Being.
"To search means, first, I need Being, Truth; second, I do not know where to find it; and third, an action takes place that is not based on fantasies of certainty— while at the same time a waiting takes place that is rooted not in wishful thinking but in a deep sense of urgency."
- Jacob Needleman
Subjectivity is the preference to rather consider one’s favorite beliefs than the external world. Such a tendency is generally backed by a strong emotional attachment to these beliefs. Wishful thinking, assumptions and opinions based on reactive behavior directly relate to it.
Objectivity is the ability to see things “as they are”, not as we envision them to be, like them or want them to be. The ability to perceive objective reality depends upon one’s ability to clearly receive . To reach a higher state of objective awareness, one must first see themselves clearly and that entails to work through one’s lies, illusions, buffers and self-deceptions.
“The survival of the ego is established pretty early in life by our parental and societal programming as to what IS or is NOT possible; what we are “allowed” to believe in order to be accepted. We learn this first by learning what pleases our parents and then later we modify our belief based on what pleases our society – our peers – to believe.
One of the first things we might observe is that everyone has a different set of beliefs based upon their social and familial conditioning, and that these beliefs determine how much of the OBJECTIVE reality anyone is able to access.
Suffice it to say that, under ordinary conditions of reality, we almost never perceive reality as it truly IS. There are thousands of different little “hypnotic suggestions” that have taken hold of us from infancy on, that determine, in any given moment, what we believe or think or think we believe or believe we think.”
- Laura Knight-Jadczyk
It’s easy to over-philosophize the idea of objectivity vs. subjectivity without considering some very practical applications. For example, regardless of what one believes to be “one’s truth” or what one is thinking about and visualizing, if you walk off a cliff, won’t gravity pull you down? Isn’t one plus one two, and not three? Is the world round or flat?
And in regards to global issues: Is the official 9/11 story true or have we been lied to? Was it a false flag attack? Are we losing our basic rights for our protection from the so-called “terrorists” or is there a different reason? Is Obama telling the truth or is he lying? These question can be answered objectively if proper research is done.
However, the truth may not necessarily agree with one’s preferred beliefs, opinions or assumptions. So it is important not to fall into denial or avoidance when some of our core beliefs are being challenged, especially if one is emotionally attached to them and the ego tries to (unconsciously) defend the lies in order to be “right” as the truth may open up a can of worms one is not ready to handle.
Moreover, no matter how much one tries to close oneself off from the “outside world”, believing that nothing will affect them as long as one focuses on “positive” thoughts and what one “likes” to experience, the bigger issues of the world still have an effect on us all, precisely because we are all one and everything is connected. No man is an island and no one’s reality is isolated from the Whole.
A fatuous paradigm that is currently running amok though the New Age community for quite a while is better known as "You Create Your Own Reality" and is deliberately creating a lot of confusion. YCYOR is a very misleading and tentative paradigm with a certain half-truth in it, that is never expressed in this way in the Esoteric Traditions. Michael Topper brings some common sense to this issue:
“What makes the YCYOR (You Create Your Own Reality) evangelist fatuous is precisely the fact that all such “personal decreeing”, “positive thinking” and confident imagining takes place in an inevitable context. There are implications! There are repercussions! No one decrees in a personal or private, solipsistic vacuum. There is a variegated World of myriad “pulls” and “claims” coexisting along with the private desires and designs of the given ego-subject.
But “so what?” we hear the die-hard “reality-creator” claim “don’t we remain untouched by those ‘co-existents’ as long as we keep secure in the confidence of our own private deservedness, our own authoritative affirmations and specific commissions of positive thought-re-inforcement?”
No. Man does not live by “commission” alone. This is why you do not create your own reality, but merely generate reality-hypotheses or scenarios which are continuously reflected and tested against the Whole; and the Whole, being inseparable from the Potential of your own innate-global Being, is constituted by the explicit and implicit alike, by that which is produced through active or positive commission and that which results from the gaps, blind-spots and vacuums of interpretive omission. All the lines, potential and actual, exist within one’s being and are inevitably calculated into the total account! This is what it means when we say there’s a context in which all our desire-formulation and “decreeing” takes place.
This is a Deity-centered reality, not an ego-centered reality. Only the totality of the soul-nature is in touch with the Totality of Spirit-being. Anything else necessarily involves a partial perspective, a conceptual self-estimation producing inevitable blindspots.
What you have selectively omitted from "your reality", is manifested as well! We can of course say the "victim" still deserves his fate or has drawn his fate to himself by a quality of callousness embedded in his characteristic thought-formulae; and occasionally this interpretation may touch on some real factor involved in the negative effect. But neither the simple presence of some attitude toward elements of the ultimate negative resultant, nor explanations of residual "karma" (or anything of the kind) may adequately account for all cases in the same category.
It is just simply not true that every rape victim somehow "invited" the experience as a personal form of "commission".
The converse implication of this, of course, is that only in alignment and integral consonance with the Whole-value of Being may Reality be accurately manifested through the medium of "personal expression" for then there is no discrepancy between "personal" and Universal, the perspectival "part" and the indeterminate Whole. It is under this condition that the "impossible" can be manifested (i.e. that which is self-evidently beyond the power of anyone to "personally" manipulate or control).
For, understood in this way (and only in this way) it may be seen that unimaginable effectiveness results when the expression of one's "personal" will is not different than or removed from the Spirit of Divine Will, i.e. the Will to reveal Spirit as the Truth and authentic character of everyone's illimitable Being. This means that, in terms of "personal will", only the Spirit of the Teaching Function remains. There is no will remaining in the repertoire of "personal will" except that which expresses perfect alignment, integration and identity with Divine Will.
Contrary to unwarranted popular opinion, such initiated alignment with the Will of Absolute Spirit-being does not result in "working one's will unopposed". On the contrary, the very presence of the Awakened Truth in the form of the Spiritual adept has always generated immediate opposition; it has always "awakened" a corresponding reaction from the collective ego's self-protective slumber.
Initiated alignment of will with the creative Whole doesn't guarantee "smooth personal circumstances"; on the contrary, look at the story of every adept, examine the events surrounding the Masters known to history. Rather it ensures that such events will possess the character of an authentic teaching-demonstration, to all who have the Soul to see. It ensures the Will of the Whole is always done, regardless the partiality and prejudice by which that Whole may be perceived in any given case.”
- Michael Topper
There is an objective truth outside the context of what our little “I” perceives. It seems a tendency in certain Conscious Movements to overgeneralize and distort spiritual “higher” truths and quantum physics with an oversimplification of: All Truth is relative!
"Hence some people unconsciously (or consciously) use this explanation as an excuse and justification for the atrocities in the world or for whatever one may want to believe in one’s own little subjective world, no matter how illusory, false and based on pure wishful thinking or emotional projections it may be; Even to the point of declaring that it is all just about “my” or “your” truth and there is no objective truth."
Obviously we all have our own personal lessons to learn and talents to develop, which could be interpreted as one’s “personal truth”, however that doesn’t exclude oneself from the collective lessons we all “need” to look at if we want to evolve consciously as ONE.
Simply acknowledging that we are all one, separation is illusion and seeing everything as “Light” while focusing on what one believes to be “positive” and ignoring what one perceives as “negative” does not result in change for the better.
Conversely, by insisting on what one would like to see, as opposed to seeing the world as it is, is coming into conflict with creation, which then results in entropy and MORE suffering on a global scale, not less.
A deeper insight into this gives the Event Enhanced Quantum Theory developed by physicists Ark Jadczyk and Philip Blanchard. Its conclusion in a nutshell:
"Everyone who “believes” in an attempt to “create reality” that is different from what IS, adds to the increase of chaos and entropy. If your beliefs are orthogonal to the truth, no matter how strongly you believe them, you are essentially coming into conflict with how the Universe views itself and I can assure you, you ain’t gonna win that contest. You are inviting destruction upon yourself and all who engage in this “staring down the universe” exercise with you.
On the other hand, if you are able to view the Universe as it views itself, objectively, without blinking, and with acceptance of the reality and appropriate responses to how things really are, you then become more “aligned” with the Creative energy of the universe and your very consciousness becomes a transducer of order energy, and your actions are consonant with what is. Your energy of observation, given unconditionally, matched by the appropriate actions, can bring order to chaos, can create out of infinite potential."
- from "The Secret History of the World" by Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Some people seem to mistake objectivity for negativity and wishful thinking for positivity. Most of what people see as negative or positive are their subjective projections and opinions that don’t really reflect the world as it is. Without Truth and Objectivity there won’t be a change for the “better”, nor a raise in consciousness, within and without.
In that sense, many well-meaning and good-hearted folks who want a better world actually do more “harm” than any “good” by ignoring and denying aspects of our reality that may not fit into their subjective “positive” world view; instead believing that by shutting the so-called “negative” out and just seeing everything as “One” and “Light”, visualizing, meditating on “world peace” and projecting “love and light”, it will create peace and harmony. Nothing could be further from the truth and that is actually exactly what certain forces, who do not wish humanity to awaken for their own interests, want us to do and believe. It ties in with how religious and spiritual values have been corrupted.
In other words, the ones exposing the lies and atrocities in the world, the ones looking at the world as it is with all the different “faces of god” including the unpleasant ones which many people perceive as “negative” and hence like to ignore, are actually doing LIGHT WORK in the true meaning of the word: Making the darkness conscious, raising awareness and shining Light into it. Light is information and knowledge, not just making things “light” in the sense of being “nice” or “kind” and “loving” without saying anything “bad” or “heavy”.
“When we talk about compassion we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative [enough] to wake a person up.”
- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoch
"Real compassion kicks butt and takes names and is not pleasant on certain days. If you are not ready for this FIRE, then find a new-age, sweetness and light, perpetually smiling teacher and learn to relabel your ego with spiritual sounding terms. But, stay away from those who practice REAL COMPASSION, because they will fry your ass, my friend."
- Ken Wilber
This contrived “niceness” seems also very common in today’s conscious movements, where people don’t want to say anything “negative”, in their subjective understanding of it of course. In general, some folks hide behind a “social etiquette” and mask without wanting to say anything “bad” or touching on any “taboo subjects”. They speak around issues in order to be spiritually or politically “correct” so as to “not step on anyone’s toes”.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that one should be mean, aggressive and rude or push information on someone who didn’t ask for it. It simply means to be sincere and honest with conscience and awareness. There is a time to speak up and a time to be silent. And sometimes you have to be direct, call a spade a spade and give the lie what it deserves: the truth, regardless of what others may think, even if it doesn’t sound “nice” and it doesn’t conform to what someone “likes” to hear. You can be considerate and still speak the truth, even if others see it as “negative” from their conditioned point of view.
“Cowardice asks the question: “Is it safe”?
Expediency asks the question: “Is it politic”?
Vanity asks the question: “Is it popular?”
But conscience asks the question: “Is it right?”
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular
but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one what is right.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
There are many so-called “conscious festivals” these days with music, art, workshops and lectures. Lots of pretty people in hip clothes, feathers, furry hats and much eye candy, supposedly representing the “counter-culture” of aware people. There is nothing wrong with dressing up, partying and having a good time, however, when looking at the program of talks and workshops of some of these festivals something seems to be missing, mainly the topics we need to become aware of as a species if we want to make the right turn.
At any festival that claims to be “conscious” and “spiritual” and is supposedly the reflection of the “counter-culture”, one must ask why are there no workshops or lectures about the genocide in Palestine, the crimes by the US government aka Military Industrial Complex, the idea that psychopaths without conscience seem to rule our world and institutions, that 9/11 is a lie that has cost oppression and misery all over the world based on a fake war on terror, that Obama is a corporate puppet just as the old “boss”, that UFOs may not be signs of our “space brothers” coming to help us but that we are actually “food” in many ways, or that we are not “one big human family”, but that there may be souled and soulless humans and many other issues? ……all these topics are part of being “aware” and “conscious”, are they not?
It seems that “conscious” festivals like that are becoming more and more a hip thing rather than using it to truly help people become aware of the shadow that needs to be made conscious of and shined light into. It’s not just about doing yoga, eating raw food and knowing permaculture, nor is it simply about being “positive” for the sake of being positive or learning about how to manifest your desired income.
-Marianne Williamson-
We're very much grounded within the counter culture of the 1960s of which this festival is indeed a legacy and an extension historically, and talk to you about some of... I don't really want to talk to you about the similarities because you know what the similarities are...the similarities are mainly cosmetic.
And there are some other philosophical similarities which I'll discuss but one of the things that I'd like to talk with you about are some of the differences. In the 1960s, the counter cultural movement had at its core, we have the music yes, we had the drugs which was not in all ways a high side of it.
There was the music, there was a definite sense of counter culture, there was a definite repudiation of certain values which people deemed to be obsolete and unsustainable. But it bears noting that there was also at it's core the repudiation of a war and ultimately the ending of a war, which means that the counter culture at that time was making a serious stand against something new on the planet; something horrible on the planet called "American military domination of anything it cared to dominate". And that gave a moral authority to the counter culture of the 1960s, and I would hope that a festival like this does not- in a heart that brings us here, the consciousness that brings us here- I'm reminded of a line in "A Course in Miracles" where it says, "You cannot bring the light to the darkness you must bring the darkness to the light".
Dream and I were having an interesting conversation and she said when we were talking, I don't know where she is, but we were talking about this festival and she said people just wanted to be in the light for a few days…But I say to you as your sister, as your spiritual companion, embedded in the principles of "A Course in Miracles" and in my own spiritual search, but I know that there is only one truth spoken in many different ways…There is a difference between transcendence and denial...and if the consciousness that brings you to a festival like this, is one in which we feel- as Americans, as men, as women, as citizens of the planet- that we can be here, that this can be anything with true gravitas or moral authority and we are forgetting the fact that our country has turned into a permanent war machine, then there is something very sad about this festival rather than happy for me.
Now we were talking about, earlier, we were talking about the fact that men in...about the feminine power...and the divine feminine...and it was another I heard someone say that the men here are holding the space for the feminine ,which is very beautiful, it's a very beautiful thing the, the mix of, you know- obviously there are men and women here, and both for the women who want to hold the space for the divine feminine, and as well for the men who want are holding the space for the divine feminine, thank you so much.
I'd to talk to you for a moment about the divine feminine because the divine feminine has a fierce aspect. The divine feminine is not just dressing up, The divine feminine it's not just getting pretty in whatever pretty of the day is, whether it's big boobs or feathers. It's all just cosmetic... hello… The divine feminine cares about the fact that 17,000 babies die on this planet everyday of hunger. The divine feminine cries, the divine feminine shrieks when she has to. You know if you... there is an interesting anthropological characteristic of every advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives; and that is the fierce behavior of the adult female of that species when she senses that there is a threat to her cubs that whether it's the mama bear or the tiger or a lion. Did you know that even among the hyenas the adult female hyenas encircle their babies, encircle the cubs while they're feeding and will not let the adult males of that species anywhere near the food until the cubs have been fed. Surely the women of America could do better than the hyenas.
And the fact that collectively, not in terms of our hearts, our hearts are good, and I know that the heart that draws us to a place like this today is good, but we have to ask ourselves at what point, whether you're in therapy or your at a festival like this, at what point do you stand in that place which is not comfortable, do you stand in that place which is not comfortable and not turn away? Because if a counter cultural movement, such as this at least externally represents here today, is one, I asked earlier, I said "Hmm. Is there anything political going on here today?” and I was told “No, these are just people who are ready to transcend.”
And let be very clear once again about that difference between transcendence and denial because if the counter cultural movement in 2011 is one in which it is deemed for whatever reason acceptable to look away from the fact that tremendous amounts of unnecessary human suffering occur on this planet and in this country for no other reason than that so a relatively few people on this planet and in this country can have all the money they want. That is not service, it is NOT counter cultural, it is the the epitome of being co-opted by the very culture that we seek to counter.
Now you might say to me “What do you want us to do?” I don't know what your supposed to do… None of my business what your supposed to do. But I'm asking you as Jesus said to the disciples the night before the crucification in the garden of Gethsemane, “Please do not go to sleep. Do not go to sleep in the hour of my agony. Remain awake!"… That's what they do to you. They put you to sleep! The system would love this festival! The system would love this festival because its not saying "F*** you!" to anybody. And there's a sense that that is somehow spiritual. There's a sense that that is somehow spiritual, and I believe deeply that, as "The Course in Miracles" says, “Look at the crucification but do not dwell on it.” I'm not saying let's dwell on what's bad, because if you dwell on what's bad then it's true, that is you just focus on it and make more of it. But to not look at it at all… to not look at it at all, there's not the divine feminine about that. The divine feminine... if there was a starving child here...somebody tell me...if there was a child here or if anyone- god forbid- let's just talk about our deep humanity… Let's say right here right now- god forbid- somebody, uh, had a heart attack or something. Well the fact that I'm speaking up here would be irrelevant. Somebody would yell out say, “Is there a doctor here?” We would all get deeply human very quickly wouldn't we? Are you with me? Now this is an interesting thing about our country, if you look and see, I always say that if I'm if I'm on an airplane somewhere, anywhere in the world... I love to sit next to an American ...I... characterologically we're cool people and we care. We're not, you know... We're human beings and there's a spunkiness and it's a coolness. But our collective capacity for denial and grandiosity is frightening and perilous.
In the end most people are only afraid of the unknown and what they don’t understand. Once we make the effort to deprogram ourselves from our conditioning and gain knowledge and understanding within AND without, shining “LIGHT” into darkness, our awareness/consciousness rises and we start to SEE in alignment with who we truly are, beyond preference, wishful thinking or denial and then can act in alignment with our Higher Self and the Universe.
If we truly love life, the world we live in and want positive change, then this also implies to look at the issues and injustices in the world so many of us like to ignore or deny. This is not being “negative”, but the work to be done during this Time of Transition
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. "
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Seeking truth and making the darkness conscious needs to happen within AND without, not just one or the other. Activism and spiritual self-work go hand in hand. It’s not separated but interrelated.
The problem that comes with truth seekers and activists who only focus on the outside is that they can easily fall into the trap of disinformation or they resonate with lies because their “Reading Instrument”, the Self, is not “tuned” correctly through sincere self work which would help their critical thinking abilities. It becomes harder to separate truth from lies and one may even spread disinformation unknowingly because one is less likely to see the “unseen” or the “devil in the details” so to speak, resulting in oversimplifications, assumptions, and misconceptions. In other words, I need to understand my “machine”, my habitual way of thinking and how my emotional reactions and attachments can distort things, how I take in information and how my own bias and conditioned beliefs filter information which can result in cognitive dissonance.
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.“
- Frantz Fanon
"In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life, a man must understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself."
- G.I. Gurdjieff
According to the mystic and spiritual teacher George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, the human organism is constituted by two fundamental functions: “essence” and “personality”. Essence is what we are born with, the raw material of one’s being. It includes the physical body, genetic make-up, energy metabolism, the inborn capacity for emotions and sensations. There are also external influences that affect us, such as planetary vibrations, present in the immediate environment at conception, during the fetal stage, and at birth. An astrological birth chart can give some insight into that.
As we grow, our essence is molded by cultural influences. It can mature along the lines of its inherent nature and potential, or it can become blocked in its maturation and hence form something that works against its inborn potential. Essence would evolve in societies where essential practices and values predominate, such as sincerity, love, truth, compassion, knowledge, and so on. Obviously we live in a world where such values have become distorted and ponerized, meaning that our society at large has taken on pathological values that are seen as normal and people can no longer make the distinction between healthy and pathological thought processes and logic. One is no longer able to draw a line between correct thinking and deviate thinking. The influence of higher density beings and forces may also have an effect on us in that regard as explored in "UFOs, Aliens, and The Question of Contact".
Personality is the mask we carry over our essence. The vehicle for essence to work through so to speak. Our personality is conditioned and programmed through upbringing in a society that is built on lies, and the stronger the programming, the harder it is for essence to come through. Hence, de-programming and facing the lies of one’s personality is key so it becomes a direct reflection and expression of essence, which ultimately leads to conscious actions based on one’s inherent potential. In a mature person, essence and personality form one continuous “I”, which is to say that the person is unified.
“People are always infused with all kinds of fantastic ideas about themselves, the world, people, love, idealism, society, etc. Led by his eagerness to evade a disagreeable reality, man gives free rein to his imagination and is inclined to believe the first agreeable lie he encounters along the way. The individual projects his personal illusions onto a cold and immutable reality, and thus deceiving himself, he endeavors to contemplate reality through rose-colored glasses. “Disillusion” is a painful process and can be prolonged, depending on how much time the individual takes to realize he is living artificially and that this condition is a product of his internal dreams. Great courage is required to face reality and to destroy the mirage of a pleasant dream.”
- John Baines
On the other hand, many spiritually inclined people only focus on the self, believing that will change the outside eventually, without making the effort to look at the world more objectively and acting upon it. Gandhi’s call to “be the change you want to see in the world” has also been misunderstood that way. First of all the “kind of change” people want to see is different for each based on one’s subjective understanding of it, which can be very distorted, especially if one is avoiding seeing the world as it is, believing in lies and just projecting one’s desires and hopes that are based on the conditioned personality, resulting in wishful thinking. For example, just being “nice” because I want to see a “nice” world does not automatically make the world so, especially since some humans are “wired” differently.
Another issue is that many people try to explain everything through one system or teaching and do not see its limitations or even distort it to mold it into their belief system. For example, not everything “negative” in the world is a manifestation of our shadow material, nor is everything that happens to us our karma, nor do we attract everything with our thoughts. Sure there is truth to the idea of karma, but using that explanation to justify all the atrocities in the world is short-sighted and misses the point as we still have to act and learn our lessons, not just “turn the other cheek” or stand by and keep silent, saying “oh it’s just your/their/my karma”.
We are not the peak of God’s creation and so special and holy that nothing other than ourselves would harm, control or manipulate us. It’s actually quite arrogant and anthropocentric to think that way. We don’t do everything to ourselves. It’s not about blaming, but getting out of our self-centered view of reality and the universe. There are other forces acting on us, just as we influence, consume and to a certain extent control lower life forms such as plants and animals. As above, so below.
“There are a thousand things which prevent a man from awakening, which keep him in the power of his dreams. In order to act consciously with the intention of awakening, it is necessary to know the nature of the forces which keep man in a state of sleep. First of all it must be realized that the sleep in which man exists is not normal but hypnotic sleep. Man is hypnotized and this hypnotic state is continually maintained and strengthened in him. One would think that there are forces for whom it is useful and profitable to keep man in a hypnotic state and prevent him from seeing the truth and understanding his position.”
- G. I. Gurdjieff
The learning never stops and humanity still has much to confront and learn about that may require a whole new understanding of reality, just like there are different or expanded views now in science compared to what Einstein and Newton had discovered.
There is always more to learn and find out that requires an adjustment and new understanding, expanding our view and understanding of reality. It is what raising consciousness implies. People who are stuck in one idea or teaching and try to explain everything through it are building their own limited reality box. This also relates to psychology, astrology, philosophy, the healing arts, spiritual practices or any religion (east and west) where many “experts” in any of these systems are looking through one lens (many of them distorted/false to begin with), not realizing that this approach can easily lead to distortion and a tunnel vision. It can also become an egotistical point of pride preventing that person to admit to him/herself that there is maybe more to the story which one hasn’t considered before, especially when they have written books about it, their career depends on it and they have an image to sell/live up to.
One can see these fallacies with many popular spiritual teachers, researchers, visionaries, therapists and self-help gurus, where career and image seem to take precedence over truth and reality. There are many topics that affect us more than many of them are aware of, be it the idea of hyperdimensional manipulation, genetic psychopathy or soulless humans. But instead of being more open to such topics and looking into them sincerely and unbiased, these seemingly intelligent and aware individuals ignore or debunk them right off-hand exposing their own lack of critical thinking.
Awareness and study of the aforementioned topics and also looking into the “taboo” subject of conspiracies would actually help and expand their knowledge and ability to truly help others and society at large.
