Heaven on Earth

I find the negative aspects of human nature difficult to accept. I don’t know if I fit in with the other people who exist on this planet and a large part of me hopes that I don’t. What I have in common with other humans is that many of us feel the same; many other humans don’t like human behaviour. Almost all people will think they are not like other humans at some point in their lifetime. Humans deny the shadow side of human nature, and create an idea of ‘us and other’.  I questioned what it is to be human. I believe that a human has two sides. One side could be described as the shadow self or the ego, but in fact many of its actions is that of a human parasite, one that consumes and is totally self serving and selfish. This parasite doesn’t see the greater picture of life; it sees only what it can gain. It craves position, power, wealth and its craving is never fulfilled. I know there are many people in the spiritual movement that would say these three things are not what they crave. These people are more likely to resonate with the other side of what it is to be human, compassion, love, forgiveness and creations of great beauty. However I believe this craving of position, power and wealth is in all people, it is part of the ego. However if I use spiritual buzz words: appreciation, empowerment, abundance. It amounts to the same thing in softer tones, and perhaps less likely to inspire corruption. What’s interesting about the human parasite is it knows and has awareness of its nature, but it is able to justify its own actions, with its intelligence. One of the ways the parasite works out a form of justification is capitalism.

Capitalism works like an ant’s nest. The queen ant sends out the worker ants to go and find everything the ant’s nest needs to become bigger. In the time of imperialism this could even mean taking over other ant’s nests. What makes democracy different to how business works is that democracy means the ants vote in who is their queen ant.

The parasitic human nature, especially when coupled with capitalism or desperation leads to corruption. We need to shift our thinking from ‘me to we’ and we need to do it fast. Thinking from a perspective of ‘me’ leads to corruption as this ego gratification ‘self’ will never feel like it has enough. Capitalism has used the ego’s ‘need for more’ as a tool to propitiate business. This is done by using advertising. In fact advertising has also been used as a way to feed on the very idea of ‘them and other’ by creating the idea that those who ‘have’ are superior to those who ‘have not’. Advertising and media marketing plays its role in the capitalism model. As we are told we will be better people by owning products that indicate a successful life.

Although advertising isn’t corruption as such as we all have free will to buy the products we wish to buy, and think what we wish to think, it is in itself a form of corruption of the mind. It does affect how children see the world. Children are a sponge for information. What they see in advertisements is how they believe the world to be. Advertising pulls us more strongly into our ego self and therefore more likely to want to overwork or become corrupt, to gain what we see that others have. This is especially true of countries that have western TV show and films. They must see the image of western wealth and therefore feel the lack of their own. This is likely to build uncomfortable feelings towards the nations of wealth.

Corruption it seems is everywhere. When we watch the news or read a paper there is always a story of a person ripping-off another person. In big business this is almost expected behaviour. You can see this especially when it comes to buying property. Owning property is one of the larger elements of the America dream. Yet the America dream is a nightmare for many people right now, who are having their homes repossessed. The people buying these homes now are doing so at rock bottom prices. In the ‘Capitalism, A love storey Michael Moore's new documentary, Michael Moore interviews one such company that has called itself Vulture properties who specialise in repossessed properties. Vultures picking on the bones of the American dream.

What are the circumstances that make corruption possible? And what are the circumstances that make corruption necessary? Is corruption simply part of human nature, or is a person driven to become corrupt and if so, what is that driving force, greed or necessity? Were Americans sold the idea of the American dream in the same way that advertising sells a Coke? We are reputedly told in the media what our life is meant to look like. When life doesn’t fit this profile the ego grasps at the idea that this is the only thing that will make us truly happy. We see the smile in the sun as they drink from the red can. When it doesn’t make us happy, there is always a pharmaceutical company to sort out any issue with drugs and happy pills.

Is the need for corruption part of their human nature just waiting for a moment of justification? Does advertising give us a justification ‘others have this, why can’t I’. The driving force might look like greed, but under the circumstance of the living conditions in below ‘average’ being bombarded by pictures of wealth  you can empathize. Is to live a life where the need for corruption never knocks on your door a life of privilege? Or is corruption only fuelled by greed?

In ‘No future without forgiveness’ Desmond Tutu talks about the top dog and underdog that was part of what caused the Rwandan genocide. “I said the history of Rwanda way a typical history of ‘Top Dog’ and ‘Underdog’. The top dog wanted to cling to its privileged position and the underdog strove to topple the top dog.” (p391) Capitalism works on top dog and underdog. Although the underdog wouldn’t think that climbing the ladder of success would topple the top dog, there isn’t enough room at the top of the ladder for all. If there were no top of the ladder, would we seek to climb? Therefore would there be a need for corruption?

So when am I going to answer these posturing questions? I’m not; the truth is they are unanswerable unless we change the nature of what it is to be human. As humans we have a dualistic self. We have free will, which can decide which part of ourselves we wish to be the spokesperson and our decision maker. We can choose to let the ego speak for us, which is steeped in the need for our human survival which generates our fear, or we can communicate from our loving nature. Our loving side knows that we can’t exist without each other. It believes in ‘we’ rather than ‘I’.

The great problem with shifting from ‘we’ to ‘I’ is that it can’t just be ‘I’ who wants to make the shift; it has to be ‘we’. ‘I’ won’t shift if ‘we’ doesn’t start it first. So as we are all ‘I’, it is up to us as individuals to change from ego consciousness into a more loving consciousness. The ego voice says that if we do that, lots of other ‘I’s will take advantage. The truth is that we need to keep coming back to the same place of openness. The openness to be able to forgive, love, change and reinvent what it is to be human. In one sense it’s not so difficult, because behind all of the corruption is fear of not getting what we want or losing what we have. If the whole of humanity could let go of the need to be top dog, life would feel easier, both for the top dog and the underdog. In ‘Twelve theses on changing the world without taking power’ John Holloway talks about the difference between power over and power to “Power to is social. It is the construction of the ‘we’, the practice of the mutual recognition of dignity”. There is no dignity in being the underdog, and if the top dog allows an underdog to exist without power, then there also isn’t any dignity in being a top dog.

There is a long road ahead before humans can break free of the confines of the ego mind that keeps us bound by fear. Fear can’t hurt humanity, but it can keep humanity prisoner from the change of consciousness we need and it can justify one human to hurt another.

Part of the human transformation is the act of forgiveness. It isn’t so much about the top dog saying sorry, after all it’s unlikely that the crime is anything the underdog wouldn’t also have done with the power. The act of seeking forgiveness can often feel too painful for a person to attempt. This can be, as the act of fully taking responsibility for our actions can be so hard we need to be forgiven before we can see who we have been. If a shift in consciousness is to come from a place of love in all communication over fear, then forgiveness is the only form of communication possible when we believe we have been wronged.

As Desmond Tutu said ‘No future without forgiveness’, Desmond Tutu believes that God as a plan to move humanity towards harmony, goodness, peace, and justice. He says: “None is an outsider – all are insiders, all belong. There are no aliens – all belong in one family, God’s family, the human family” (p395).

If the human family were sitting around God’s dining table now they would likely be blaming God for all the things they didn’t have in their lifetime and throwing food at each other.

Humans seem to be a long way from a loving conscious. However after this semester instead of feeling bleaker about the future of the human race, I feel more positive about the shift of consciousness. I believe that there is a tipping point when things get so bad that we have no other choice but to choice to love and work together as one whole human race.

I believe we are on the way to that shift in consciousness, but we must see it and choose it for ourselves. The only thing that will make us choose the move towards a profound unconditional love is having no other option. The fear of environmental breakdown or nuclear war, no-one knows what the tipping point will be. But one thing is for sure, mankind cannot go on acting like this.

In Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth he describes awakening from the ego. “Once you awaken, you still use the word ‘I’ but it will come from a much deeper place within yourself”

Humans think they are the voice in their heads. However everything that exists is different forms of vibrating energy and humans are energy beings connected to one another as one human family. Humans are part of the same law of resonance that everything that exists is connected to. Due to this law of resonance, the dominate frequency will tune every other frequency around it and make it vibrate to its own resonance. Love and fear has a resonance, you can imagine it to be a sound. We can feel it and we describe it to be a person’s ‘vibe’. A happy vibe feels light and high in pitch; a fearful vibe feels heavy and has a deeper sound quality. When I look at a person, I can hum their theme tune. Every human has a sound and a song that comes from them. We can be in a really good mood and be brought down just by sharing a room with someone in an unhappy mood and vice-versa. This is because we tune into the strongest rhythm, and it becomes our own. So if we are all linked by an energy connection, we share a collective energetic consciousness. As an intuitive, when I link into the collective consciousness, I can see and understand other people’s deep reasoning for their actions as individuals. If I expand this awareness I can feel the mixed vibration of all the people in a room, in a building, or a town or even a country. Every nationality has its own unique signature tune.  You vibe with a country and its people or you don’t. You vibe with an individual, or you don’t. However there is a difference between tuning into the ego’s vibration and the vibration of the persons love, higher self or spirit. All ‘spirit’ sounds the same to me. In every country I have travelled in, every spirit sings the same song. It just depend on how deeply a person lets their ego corrupt the pure sound which is the song of the true human, the sound of loving creation. The change of perception starts with each individual person I meet. Although I don’t know all the details I can feel a sense of the route of the fear the person is playing out. I can judge this information with my ego, or I can feel it with my heart. This makes the difference in how I react to it. I am likely to come from a better part of myself if I feel it in a heart centred intuition rather than an ego based head intuition.

Many people believe that mediation is the key to an enlightened loving heart, for me it is intuition. Meditation is a safe, closed off, individual experience. If a person wants to break through their ego the best way is to see it in all its ugliness played back to you though other people. You soon see that what they are playing to you, is yourself. From this accurate view point, it is possible to accept the shadow side of being human. If a person is strong enough to hold on to it and not justify who they believe they are with excuses. Once we look the shadow in the eye reflected to us clearly in other people, and own who they are inside of ourselves, then we truly learn to love and forgive who they are and in turn who we are. Then the spiritual self doesn’t become a diet that we keep relapsing out of when someone triggers us. It becomes an aware choice, we keep checking and tuning in to ourselves as the world reflects back out human behaviour and we can own it. As a result we would find it incredibly hard to have a dog-eat-dog business mentality based in egoic greed. This mentality has resulted in many of us becoming separated from each other and the Earth that we must all co-exist in. Intuition is the way back to get ‘in tune’ with our spirit self and the spirit of others. The more people who have their own way to do this the closer we come to the tipping point of the law of resonance, when we all tune into the vibration of love and let go of the ego self. Idealistic? Maybe, but it is a better thought than the extinction of the human race. This is the transformation we have all been waiting for. Some call it, heaven on earth.

References:

No future without forgiveness By Desmond Tutu

Twelve theses on changing the world without taking power By John Holloway

A New Earth By Eckhart Tolle