The Blue Pearl

Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is available . . . a new idea as powerful as any in history will let loose.

Sir Fred Hoyle, 1948

The Living Earth

The view of Earth from space brought with it yet another insight: the possibility that the planet as a whole could be a living being. We Earthlings might be likened to fleas who spend their whole lives on an elephant, unaware of what it really is. They chart its terrain-skin, hairs, and bumps- study its chemistry, plot its temperature changes, and classify the other animals that share its world, arriving at a reasonable perception of where they live. Then one day a few of the fleas take a huge leap and look at the elephant from a distance of a hundred feet. Suddenly it dawns: "The whole thing is alive!" This is the truly awesome realization brought about by the trip to the moon. The whole planet appears to be alive-not just teeming with life but an organism in its own right.

If the idea of the Earth as a living being is initially difficult to accept, it may be due partly to our assumptions about what sort of things can and cannot be organisms. We accept a vast range of systems as living organisms, from bacteria to blue whales, but when it comes to the whole planet we might find this concept a bit difficult to grasp. Yet until the development of the microscope less than four hundred years ago, few people realized that there are living organisms within us and around us, so smal1 that they cannot be seen with the naked eye. Today we are viewing fife from the other direction, through the "macroscope" of the Earth view, and we are beginning to surmise that something as vast as our planet could also be a living organism.

This hypothesis is all the more difficult to accept because the living Earth is not an organism we can observe ordinarily outside ourselves; it is an organism of which we are an intimate part. Only when we step into space can we begin to see it as a separate being. Stuck like fleas on an elephant, we have not, until recently, had the chance to see the planet as a whole. Would a cell in our own bodies, seeing only its neighboring cells for a short period, ever guess that the whole body is a living being in its own right?

To better understand the planet as a living system, we need to go beyond the time scaT;­c ol human life to the planet's own time scale, vastly greater than our own. Looked at in this way the rhythm of day and night might be the pulse of the planet one full cycle for every hundred thousand human heartbeats. Speeding up time appropriately, we would see the atmosphere and ocean currents swirling round the planet, circulating nutrients and carrying away waste products, much as the blood circulates nutrients and carries away waste in our own bodies.

Speeding it up a hundred million more times, we would see the vast continents sliding around, bumping into each other, pushing up great mountain chains where they collided. Fine, threadlike rivers would swing first one way then another, developing huge, meandering loops as they accommodated themselves to the changes in the land. Giant forests and grasslands would move across the continents, sometimes thrusting limbs into new fertile lands and at other times withdrawing as climate and soil changed.

If we could look inside, we would see an enormous churning current of liquid rock flowing back and forth between the center of the planet and the thin crust, sometimes oozing through volcanic pores to supply the minerals essential for life.

Had we senses able to detect charged particles, we would see the planet bathing not only in the light and heat of the sun but also in a solar wind of ions streaming from the sun. This wind, flowing round the Earth, would be shaped by her magnetic field into a huge, pulsating aura streaming off into space behind her for millions of miles. Changes in the Earth's fluctuating magnetic state would be visible as ripples and colors in this vast comet like aura, and the Earth herself would be but a small blue­green sphere at the head of this vast energy field.

Thus if we look at the planet in terms of its own time scales, we seem to see a level of complex activity similar to that found in a living system. Such similarities, however, do not constitute any form of proof. The question we have to ask is whether scientists could accept the planet as a single organism in the same way they accept bacteria and whales. Could the Earth actually "be" a living organism?

This no longer seems so farfetched. On the contrary, an increasingly popular scientific hypothesis suggests that the most satisfactory way of understanding the planets chemistry, ecology, and biology is to view the planet as a single living system.

The Gaia Hypothesis

One of the major proponents of the theory that the planet behaves like a living system is British chemist and inventor Dn [ames T ON l ~ck. His i;leas, which have fundamentally ah ~ered mar; pe~p(e!s p~reeption of the planet, were another fortui`~:s s~i o'! fr~ Jii~ rl'.e space race.

~~The entire range of living matter on Earth, from viruses to whales, from algae to oaks, plus the air, the oceans, and the land surface all aE,pear to be part of a giant system able to regulate the temperature and the composition of the air, sea, and soil so as to ensure the survival of life. This concept Lovelock termed the "Gala Hypothesis" in hon0~. of the ancient Gfeek "£arth Mother," Caia {or Ge). In this e<­>ntext Gaia signifies the entire biosphere-everything living os~ the planet-plus the atmosphere, the oceans, and the soil.

1.. maintaining the optimal conditions for life, Gaia manifer¢~s a characteristic that all living systems have in common: horneostasis. Derived from the Greek for "to keep the same," the term was coined by Claude Bernard, a nineteenth­centuiy French physiologist, who stated t.hat "all the viral mecha nisms, var ed as they are' have only one object: that of pre"

_ ser in~ co!.stant the conditions c,~ life."

¢,ai~ appears to maintain plarir~tarv homeostasis in a vaTIety of ~J.1vs, mc~nitoring and modify.ng many key components in the atrn'~sphere, oeeaJis, and soil. The data that Lovelock aiil~liSCd in support of this contention is fascinating, and the isnercsted reader should take a look at LovelockJs boolc Gaia: A New Look at I if e on £arth. In summary, some of the indications of Gaia's hom~ostatic mechanisms are:

~ The steadiness of the Earth's surface tempetatute

· The reg'~tion of the amount ot salt in the oceans

The st~ab,).iz,Ition of the oxygen concentration of the atmo~7

· sphe~ at 21 percent

:. _ . ~ , . . . . .

The presence of a sinall quant~`y of ammonia in the atmo.

sphere

The existence of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphete

~ On the basis of these and ocher "homeostatic" behaviors, Lovelock concludes that the climate and chemical propertIcs of the Earth seem always to have been optimal for life as we kno~v it.

Humanity in Gaia

1.

If we postulate that the entire biosphere has evolved as a sin" ale living system, in which all the numerous subsystems play diverse and mutually dependent roles, then humanity, a subsystem of this larger planetary system, cannot be separated from it or treated in isolation. What then might be our function in relationship to Gaia'

One possible response to this question suggests that humanity is like some ~!ast nervous system a g]obal brain in which each of us are the individual nerve cells. The second, more pessimistin response supposes that we could be like some kind of planetary cancer.

Considering the first possibility, human society, like our own brains, can be seen as one enormous data­collection data­communication, and data­memory system. We have grouped ourselves into clusters of cities and towns rather like nerve cells clustered into ganglia on a vast nervous system. Linking the "ganglia" and the individual "nerve cells" are vast information networks.

Modern civilization does indeed seem to be eating its way across the surface of the planet, consuming in decades resources that ~aia herself inherited billions of years ago, and threatening the biological fabric that took millennia to create. Large foresee essential to the ecosystem are looking moth eaten, animal species are being hunted out of existence, lakes and rivers are turning sour, and large areas of the planet are being laid barren by mining and the spread of concrete. Indced, an aerial photograph of almost any large metropolis with its sprawling suburbs is very reminiscent of the way some cancers grow in the human body. Technological civilization really does look like a rampant malignant growth blindly devouring its own ancestral host in a selfish act of consumption.

But perhaps these two views of humanity's role, in Gaia are not opposing. Perhaps we are part of some global nervous system, which at a very critical stage of rapid development seems to be going out of control, threatening to destroy the very body that supports its existence.

If we are to fulfill our role as a part of the planetary brain, our malignant behavior must be stopped. To bring this about, we will need to change, in the most radical way, our attitudes toward ourselves, others, and the planet as a whole.

,76

Tl~e Increasing

Tempo of Evolution

Matter has reached the point of beginning to know itself.... IMan is1 a starts way of know ing about stars.

. ~

Ceorge Wald

It is commonplace today to speak of the pace of life speeding up and to look back with nostalgia at the more leisurely existence of our grandparents' time. But this speeding up is not new, it has been going on for the last 15 billion years. In evolution each new development was able to draw upon what had already been accomplished. IThe evolution of complex macromolecules, for example, utilized the properties and characteristics of less complex molecules such as amino acids, aldehydes, and water.) Each new phenomenon became another platform that evolution could use in its movement toward yet greater complexity-the broader the platform, the greater the rate of development. This has produced accelerating patterns of growth.

As a result of this natural tendency to accelerate, the major developments in evolution have not occurred at regular intcrvals; rather, the intervals have been shortening. When we talk in terms of billions of years, however, it may sometimes be difficult to see this happening. To get a more tangible image, compress these 15 billion years into a film a year long-the ultimate epic.

The Big Bang, with which the film opens, is over in a hun tred millionth of a second. The universe cools rapidly and

tvitllit] ubout twenty­five minutes stable atoms have formed. No more significant changes happen during the rest of the first day, nor for the rest of January; the only thing there is to view ~s an expanding cloud of gas. Around February ant March the gas clouds begin slowly condensing into clusters of galaxies and stars. As the weeks and months pass by, stars occasionally explode in supernovae, new stars condensing from the debris. Our own sun and solar system are eventually formed in early September-after eight months of film.

1

Once the Earth has been formed, things move a little faster as complex molecules start to take shape. Within two weeks, by the beginning of October, simple algae and bacteria appear. Then comes a relative lull while bacteria slowly evolve, developing photosynthesis a week later, with the consequent buildup of an oxygen atmosphere after five more weeks, in early November. Within another week, complex cells with well­defined nuclei evolve, making sexual reproduction possible, and with this stage accomplished, evolution accelerates again. It is now late November, and the major part of the film has been seen. The evolution of life, however, has only just begun.

The first simple multicellular organisms appear around early December, and the first vertebrates crawl out of the sea onto the land a week or so later. Dinosaurs rule the land for most of the last week of the film, from Christmas to midday on December 30th-a long and noble reign!

Our early apelike ancestors make their debut around the middle of the last day, but not until eleven o'clock in the evening do they walk upright.

Now, after 365 days and nights of film, we come to some of the most fascinating developments. Human language begins to develop one and a half minutes before midnight. In the last half minute farming begins. Buddha achieves enlightenment under the bodhi tree five and a half seconds before the end, and Christ appears a second later. The Industrial Revolution occurs in the last half second, and World War II occurs less than a tenth of a second before midnight.

We arc down to the last frame now, the last inch of a hunt dred thousand miles of film. The rest of snodem history nap. pens in a flash, not much longer than the flash with which the film started. Moreover, evolution is continuing to accelerate, and this rapid acceleration shows no signs of abating.

Evolutionary Leaps

If we plot the evolutionary changes we have just reviewed, we would see that, within the acceleration, periods of rJpid growth follow periods of much slower development. Accelera. tion has not occurred smoothly; rather, it appears to have hap. pened in a series of sudden steps.

Let us consider, for instance, the process that occurrcd after the sudden formation of stable atoms of hydrogen, some 70,­. 000 years after the Big Bang. Over billions of years, these atoms slowly evolved into other simple elements. The greater the variety of atoms that were created, the greater the potent t:isil for more atoms to form. Thus, pver time, this platform. building process accelerated until a stage was reacheci where most of the heavier elements were formed quite suddenly, in a period of some fifteen minutes, in the hearc of exploding stars.

Another series of accelerations occurred in the transition from matter to life. Before the development of stars with planetary syseer.Ss' the only mechanisms available to evolution were at the atomic and subatomic levels. Once the cooler conditions necessary for the fo,mation of more complex moleeulcs existed, evolution had another foothold on which to build and could go that much faster. The more complex the molecules it produced, the greater scapSe there was for further evolution. So the process speeded up until simple bacteria emerged.

This occurred relatively early in the Earth's history, some 4 billion years ago. At this stage evolution stepped onto a new platform, the platform of life. But life at this time was still very simple and offered lietle variety, and the process slowed down again. It~took between ten and twenty times as long for cells with a simple nucleus to emerge from bacteria as it did for hacteria to emerge from the prebiotic chemical soup. But once nucleated cells appeared, they were capable of sexual reproduction, which led in turn to greater variation and adaptability. With the continued creation of more and more complex forms, the platform of life expanded and evolution moved on faster and faster.

WitLh .'ne appeaf.ance of humii~ity, ev``lutiors moved from the bio30gical level to a new le~rel consciousriess. We are it is almost certainly tnie, stir! evolving as a species, llUt this proeess, rapid as ie may be from an evolutionary perspr ctive, is occurring relatively slowly as far as hlarE~an time scales are eonc med. 4s far as we can te 1l, we are physiologically very similar to human beings of ten tnous:­1rnd year.s ago. What i' evolving, and evolving very rapidly, is the human mind and the ways in which we apply it.

~ Self­reflective consciousness brought with it the ability to direct our own rlestiny. Humanity is not bound to a long, slow adaptation process througll trial and error; rather, we can anticipate the results of our actions and consciously choose those that are most likely to take us where we want to go-as individuals and as a species. As a result, human evolution has taken a huge leap forward; so much so that we now appear to be in the midst of an unprecedented period of extremely rapid development.

The Evolution of a Global Brain

The embryonic human brain passes through two major phases of development. The first is a massive population explosion of the embryonic nerve cells, starting eight weeks after conception. During this phase, the number of cells increases by many millions each day. After five weeks, however, the process siows down, almost as rapidly as it started. The first stage ot brain dev=e~opment, the proliferation of cells, is now complete.

From there the brain proceeds to the second phase of its development, as billions of isolated nerve cells begin making connections with each other, sometimes with neighboring cells, sometimes growing out fibers to connect with cells on the other side of the brain. By the time of birth, a typical nerve cell may communicate directly with several thousand other cells, and some cells with as many as a quarter of a million. This proliferation of connections continues through the first years of life.

Similar trends can bc observed in human society today. We sccm to be moving out of the period of massive "cell" prolifcration and into a pl~asc of growing intcrconncctivity. As w`'rlctwi~lc comniunication capabilities become increasingly complcx, society is beginning to look more and more like a planetary nervous system. The global brain is being activated.

~­­ With near­instant linkage of humanity through this com mur~ications technology, and the rapid and wholesale dissemination of information, Marshall McLuhan's yision of the world as a "global village" is fast becoming a reality. From an isolated cottage in a forest in England I can dial a number in Fiji, and it takes the same amount of time for my voice to reach Fiji down the telephone line as it does for my brain to tell my finger to touch the dial. As far as time to communicate is concerned, the planet has shrunk so much that the oth: ­ "cells" of the global brain are no further away from our brains than are our own bodies.

At the same time as the speed of global interaction is increas~ing, so is the complexity. In 1980 the worldwide telecom. munications network consisted of 440 million telephones and nearly 1 million telex machines. Yet this network, intricate as it might seem, represents only a minute fraction of the communication terminals in the brain, the trillions of synapses through which nerve cells interact. According to John McNulty, a British computer consultant, the global telecommunications network of 1975 was no more complex than a region of the brain the size of a pea. But overall data~process

ing capacity is doubling every two and a half years, and if this rate of increase is sustained, the global telecommunications network could equal the brain in complexity by the year 2000. If this seems to bc an incredibly rapid development, it is probably because fcw of us can fully grasp just how fast things are changing.

The changes that this will bring will bc so great that their ful! impact may well be beyond our imagination. No longer will we perceive ourselves as isolated individuals; we will know ourselves to be part of a rapidly integrating global network, the nerve cells of an awakened global brain.

Our Evolving

Society

r ~

Remember

tl~at you are at an exceptional hour in a

unique epoch,

that you have this great happiness,

this invaluable privilege,

of being present at the birth of a new world.

The Mother, Srf Aurobindo Ashram

From the birth of the universe to the present time, evolution has inexorably pushed toward greater and greater levels of complexity: increasing diversity, organization, and connectivity. Out of this growing complexity, new orders of evolution have emerged. There is no logical reason to suppose that this trend should stop now. On the contrary, it shows every sign of continuing. The three principal aspects of complexity appear to be once again reaching the point where a new order of existence could emerge, and the arena for this next evolutionary breakthrough could very well be humanity itself.

For us to assess the level of complexity in society today, let us look first at~ diversity. in evolutionary terms, diversity has two major components. The first is variety, the development of a wide range ot types within the group.­ Clearly this has

happened within humanity. No matter how the human specics is subdivided-by nationality, race, body type, or belief system-there is no shortage of variety.

The second aspect of diversity is increasing numbers. The human population has been rapidly expanding, and many see this as a negative trend. But from an evolutionary perspective, increasing numbers are vital, as they contribute to the complexity upon which evolution builds.

Figure 6. Predictions of future growth of world population by: 131 Unitcd Natiol~s, lb) World ~ :', (c) ''. . ., of Chicago showing slowing down of growth rate and eventual stabilization bctwecn 8 and 12 billion.

The possibility that the population may stabilize around 10l° is of interest. As we have already seen, this figure appears to represent the approximate number of elements that need to be gathered together before a new level of evolution can emerge. (There are about this number of atoms in a simple living cell, and this number of cells in the cortex of the human brain.) If the same pattern occurs at higher levels of integration, then the human race may be fast ~pproaching the stage where there are sufficient nu.rnbcrs of self­reflective consciousnesses on the planet for the next Icvel to emerge.

However, we may not have to wait for the end of the twenty­first century to see this possibility. Aftcr all, the num. ber 10'° is not an exact requirement; rather, it refers to a whole range of numbers that are of the same order of magni" tude (i.e., which do not differ by more than a factor of ten1. Thus the current population of 4 billion j4 x lO'J) is already well within the necessary range. So whether the population grows to 8 or 11 billion may not be significant.

A New World View

For nearly every problem facing humanity, ~ve l.ave the knowledge necessary to change course and avoid catastrophe or, if we do not yet have it, we know how to proceed in order to gain it. We have, for example, the knowledge and most of the technology whereby we could, over a ten­year period, make the shift from fossil fuels to renewable resources such as hydroelectricity, tidal energy, wind power, geothermal energy, and solar energy, to satisfy the major part of the world's r!crg;y requircments. Yet the proportion of the dcvelopcd n..ti~ US' energy budget spent on research and development of renewa ble sources is less than 1 percent of that spent on furthering our dependence on the rapidly dwindling supplies of oil.

1ne real problem lies, not in the physical constraints imposed by the cxtcrnal world but in the constraints of our own minds. The currently predominant world view seems to be that of man, the dominator and manipulator of nature, inller entry aggressive and nationalistic, with the principal goals of productivity, material progress, economic efficiency, and growth. Science is viewed as the ultimate source of knowl" edge! and technology as the means to achieve everything.

If, by altering our world view, we are to avert a collective catastrophe, then some major and fundamental changes will be necessary: changes in the way we relate to ourselves, our bodies, and surroundings; chan~cs in our nccds; changes in the demands we make of others and of the planet; and changes in our awareness and appreciation of the world. As numerous people have pointed out, a new world view is needed, one that is holistic, nonexploitative, ecologically sound, long­term, glo. teal, peaceful, humane, and cooperative. This would mean a shift to a truly global perspective, one in which the individual, the society, and the planet are all given full recognition, in other words, a shift from a world view that is low in synergy to one that is high in synergy.

lt has been suggested here that the root cause of much of the low synergy in contemporary society is our use of the skinencapsulatcd model of the self for the mainstay of our idcntity. Until recently, there had been little reason tO question this dualist model; it seemed to work fairly satisfactorily, and most languages and cultural traditions strongly supported it. But the gravity of the rapidly approaching global crises are helping us to see that it contains some fundamental flaws.

This IS not to imply that we rriust~iia ourselves of the skin" encapsulated model. We are very much unique biological organisms, perceiving and acting upon the environment, witl strong motivations to protect and nourish this individuality

Yet this is only one side of the self. Spiritual teachers, mystics, and visionaries have repeatedly affirmed' whatever their culture or time, that we are more than just biological organisms bounded by skin. We are also unbounded, part of n greater wholeness, united with the rest of the universe. l his is the other side of our identity, th lt: aspect of the self that can balance out our sense of indiviclllalit~ and separatcr~css

TI~e

Sl~in­Encap~'i~f atec!

Ego

Two birds inseparable companions, perch on the same tree. One eats the fruit

thc other looks on.

The first bird is our individual self, fecciing on the plcasurcs and pains of this world.

Thc other is the universal Self, silently witnessing all.

Mundaka Upanishad, 6th Century e.c

The Development of Duality

ll~. newborn babN, is aware of the environment but does not a';',; aLr to differentiate himself from i.. He is not aware of hi~ns~if a j a St lp`iiate entity. As awarcncss of r~h~ sic ~1 separ;ltcn~ss i }1c i~l ,tt,~ i~ ~.i~- t~ ~ ~ ~;~ ! SC) df>~ s tlNe aw.3iciless of scp~ ~ ~I.t 1I'_S~ fl~ ,rll ilNc rest CN. th~ ~virc!rimcilt. Accorclir~g !~) i~lilSt p ­ >, iN.i.icjgi~ts, a tlUc. tjf ,7Ci ' !f ii7ciiN;idti;ility fTf7f s not co.`le

as jcan l'i.iget! Vioui] clain1 that full idcutity of the self is not a+­talf.cd uritil the a~gc vf scvcr1 or eiglit|. This feeling of inclividuality is rcir,Nfc!rced by nNost langua~cs: the subject~ob; ct r~ iat.'ons!N.ill inbcrerlt in their nf)lll7­~crb structure im,fNlies that the actor and t!.Nc action are c~uite scp.nrate and distinct. This becomes nNanifCst in the crowi~g ch.ild s suhtlc but itn;1ortant slNift frfNm "John wants t}le 6.311" tr~ "I want the ball." The cl!il 3 beOins to be conscious ~f an internal st lf.

In a~3`iiLi<1n to learnir:g a ilu.~listic language, chc growing chil;.3 I~;lrl s frcim 1~is 14.­lr~nts ilON'V to think anti behave. If tl~c ~l!Cnt­. I~ro;cCt ttlC as~tI'n^,tit;ll that "1" JII1 ',in hetc!~, cr~mpl,!.` ly s.}~lr.lce from tl­te Cn';in~li~nCllt "OtJ'. thcrc," shell tile

cilil;3 I r~tliS to atloNi~t t}h:' S.1111~' IN]r.!cIt'l dIltl bcOins to (1~\CIOI) l~is ON.;H tili!lklllg along tile San~C ii~cs. SO tllc skill~cJlcal sul:ltc~ti

ego rlc~­clol~s.

TINC scrN.se of discreteness anr3 inclividual uniqueness given hy this n~`J~1~1 cli;es have considerable value. Biologically slleaking, we are very Inuc!l self­maintaining, self­regul~ting, sclf­tlirecting organisms, and the notion of a separate individu~l s~lf is a symbol of el~is autonomy. the feeling of uni~luencss that comes with 3 seilse of a discrete self allows us to distinguisll our own selves from others. In a~3rlition, striving to

The Skin­Encapsulated Ego

; j.

maintain a unique, individual self ensures a much higher chance of survival for the physiological organism.

At the psychological level, this sense of individuality pro. vidcs an inner unity to all thought, feeling, perception, and action: it is "1" "in here" who is experiencing and doing. This gives us our sense of "I­ness."

When the skin­encapsulated self is taken as the only sense of self, however, we end up seeing the world solely in terms of "1" and "not 1." This leads us to fccl there is an absoluto~distinction between ourselves and others. We characterize our. selves througll the ways in which we appear to each other and draw our separate identities from those features-height, weight, age, sex, nationality, skin color, clothes, house, car, social status, job, friends, character, personality, thougllts, and ideologies-which distinguish us from others. Thus a scuse of who wc are appears to be derived from our perceptions, expert. ences, and interactions with the external world, from the ways in which we are different from others.

Yet the self is not really any of tllcsc things. A person can bc of a different height, weight, age, etc., but this does not make his sense of "I­ncss" different. It sccms that wc derive a sense of self from what wc arc not.

I:)criving our : ' ..:.:, in this way is, to borrnw an analogy from the Amcrican phil~,soi~hcr Danicl Cowan, like dL.'SCril~ing a h;)lc in a piccc of wood in terms of the color, sl~apc, ;;nd texture of the wood that surrounds the hole Ic.g., "it is a brown, rounLI, smooth hole"). Tllc holc's idcutity is, so to speak, dcrivcd from the wood around it. I`iost pcoplc dcsc~iLc a hole in this way bccausc the quJlitics of tllc IIUIC itself arc much more abstract; it is casicr to dcscril~c the clualitics uf tl~c wood than the transparent air that fills tllc hole. Silnilarly, our scnsc of personal idclltity is usually dcrivcLI from ~,hat surrounds the self li.c., from our cxpcricnce of the world). What lies within is much more difficult to dcscriDc.

When an externally derivLLI sense of identity is our only sense of identity, it becomes the most precious of possessions. Without it '`1" would, quite literally, ccasc to bc. (Tllis is a major reason why physical death is so greatly feared; it irn plies the separation from everything that one has depended upon for a sense of self.) Yet the derived self is as transitory and epPcmeral as the experiences from which it is derived. It needs continual maintenance, nurturing, and protection, and people will often go to great lengths to ensure it gets this sustenance. Much of human activity is geared to establishing and dcfcnding our identities, and much of the low synergy we observe in society can be traced back to thi,s need.

1

The Pure Self

We have seen that for the Sclf to experience the Sclf, the experiencer woul~l also have to hecomc the object of cxperiencc. In this situation, there would no longer be any distinction bet``ccn sul~ject and object ancl no room for any interaction betwcct~ thetll. Expcricncc, as we normally know it, would cease. This would bc a state of pure consciousness, devoid of all cotttcnt

How are we to understand a state in which there is nothing to he conscious of and yet consciousness itself remains? A goocl at~alogy migllt be the distinctic~n between hearing and list.ning. Whcrcver you are, if you listen you will usually hear various soLInds around you. But suppose you were in a complctely silcnt room. Yo~t could still listen, but there would he ninllins to bc heard. Likcwisc, in a state of complete mcotal silence, you, the cxpcricnccr, are conscious, but there is nothing to bc consciotts of. You are-but you are not any thing. This is known as a state of pure bcirlg.

Sincc there is no COlltCllt to this state of consciousness, thcrc is no means by which a pcrsotl might distinguish his or her o~`n most intimate appreciation of the self from anyotle else's. OnC is, in cffcct, in touch ~vitll a universal level of the self. If there is any i~tcntity at all in ehis state, it is of an at­one­rlcss with humanity and the whole of creation.

For most people such a statc uf consciousucss occurs rarely, if cvcr. Gencrally, our attention is clirccted outward, into the world of sensory expcricnce, away from the pure Sclf. Even when the attention is dircctc~l inward, it is usually still prcoccupied with thougllts of one kind or another. To not have a thotught in one's head, not even the idea "I do not have a thougilt in my hcad,t' is a very rare thing.

Although not part of most pcoplc's common experience, there is abundant testimony that this Sclf­awarcness is possible. Descriptiotls of such statcs crop up again and again in the writings of mystics ancl religious teachers around the world an~i from all periods of history. Yct because the pure Self has none of the usual properties attributable to an experience, it bcconlcs very difficult to describe in words. Indeed, the very act of describing it makes it an object rather than the subject of expcrietlce. This is why many mystics speak of it as the "incffablc," that of which one cannot speak. It lies beyond ~Icscriptiorls, bcyon~l any idea we might have, and attempts to descritc it inevitably make it an idea of some kind.

1

The M~'ndaka Upanishad, an ancient IncIlan spiritual text conccrncd with the nature of the pure Sel~, sums up this difficulty as follows:

It ~s not outer awareness,

It is not inner awarencs.s,

Nor is it suspension of awareness.

It is not knowing,

It is not unknowing,

Nor is it knowingness itself.

It can neither be seen nor understood,

It cannot be given boundaries.

It is ineffable and beyond thought.

It is indefinable.

It is known only through becoming it.

In a similar vein, the ancient Chinese text the Tao Te Ching, speaking of the absolute nature of all things [the Taol, opens with: "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."

Yet it will not be of much value to remain completely silent about the nature of this Self. So, bearing in mind these difficulties, let us look at how some of the mystics, those engaged in a personal quest for union with the divine or sacred, have referred to this state, and look in particular at the way in which it has lead them to an immediate awareness of their oneness with the whole of creation.

Chuang­Tzu, a Chinese mystic living in the fourth century B.C., wrote quite simply that in this state: "I and all things in the universe are one." ,

Plotinus, the third­century Egyptian philosopher, said: "Man as he now is has ceased to be the All. But when he ceases to be an individual, he raises himself again and penetrates the whole world."

Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth­century Christian mystic, noted his experience that: "All that man has here externally in multiplicity is intrinsically One. Here all blades of grass, wood and stone, all things are One. This is the deepest depth...."

And Henry Suso, a German Dominican, wrote: "All creaturcs .. . are the same life, the same essence, the same power, the same one and notlling lcss.''

What these mystics seem.to be saying is that "at the deepest level of my being I am of the same essence as you and the same as the rest of the universe. We are all of this same essence, and I experience my Sclf as such. This is what we are 'the same as,' this is our dee,nest level of identity."

For most of us, accustomed to thinking of ourselves as completely separate individuals, this may indeed bc a very difficult concept to grasp. An analogy used by several different spiritual teachers migllt help make the idea clearer. Our individual consciousnesses are like drops of water taken from an ocean: each drop is unique, with its own particular qualities and identity; yet each drop is also of the same essence as the ocean.

The Percnnial Pl~il`?sophy

This exE,erience of unity can he seen to form the core of all mystical and religious traditions. On the surface, the various religions might appear to of[er very different teachings about the nature of reality and the means toward achieving salvation or liberation. But once onc bc~ins to pare away cultural trappings and the additions and corrections imposed by later comn­,cntators and translators, a l asic tcaching begins to emerge which is common to them: we are, at our cores, united.

The writer and novelist Aldous Huxlcy, who studied the major religious and mystical t~aditions in considerable depth, called this basic teaching "the perennial philosophy." It is, in Huxlcy's words, that which "recogilizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final cr~d in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Groudd of all being."

The Upanish ads, for example, tell us that:

What is within us is also t~t]]out. What is wlthout us is also within.

Remarkably similar is this statement from the recently discovered Gospel according to Thomas: "The Kingdom is within you and it is without you." And The A;vakening of Faith, an early Buddhist treatise written by Ashvaghosha, expresses that: "All things from the beginning are in their nature Being itself."

An important point to note about the perennial philosoplly is that it is not a philosophy in the Westcrn sense, for it is not an ideology or belief system. Rather, it is based on tllc c xperiences of those of who have tasted such states. It is not so much a set of ideas to be thought about or debated as an invitation to turn within and discover these truths for oneself. The consequent changes in awareness, life­style, and morality may be profound, but they come as a result of knowing this state of pure being, rather than through the acceptance of any conceptual system or doctrine.

Moreover, the perennial philosophy repeatedly declares that the realization of our essential oneness is not reserved for a select few. Because the Self is common to everyone, we all have the potential to be aware of our real inner natures.

Edward Carpentier, the nineteenth­century social scientis and poet, wrote:

If you inhihit thought (and persevere) you come at length to a region of consciousness below or behind thought . . . and a realization of an altogether vaster self than that to which we are accustomed. And since the orclill;lly consciousncss, with which we are concerned in daily life, is bcforc all things founded on the little local self ... it follows that to pass out of that is to die to the ordinary self and the ordinary world.

It is to die in the ordinary sense, but in another, it is to wal;e up and find that the "1," one's real, most intimate self, pervades the Universe and all other beings-that the mountains and the sca and the stars are a part of one's body and that one's soul is in touch with the souls of all creatures.

To someone who has not experienced such states, this sense of interconncctedness might seem a bit farfetched. But the idea of a unifying element within all forms of manifestation is not just a philosophic construct. Within the last fifty years, this concept has been gaining increasing support from a seem ingly unrelated field-modern physics.

~ It may well be that human cancer and the planetary cancer ale even more closely related than this analogy suggests; they may be two different symptoms of the same problem. Human cancer has steadily become more prevalcot in the last few decades, particularly in the more developed Western nations, at the same time that those nations have become more malignant in their approach to tllc environment. Some of the increase may be due, paradoxically, to better health care; when tul~erculosis was a major killer, not so many people had the chance to go on to develop cancer.

Modern life­styles are also a major element. Contemporary diets have been implicat~l, as have general attitudes toward , life. We are also discovering that numerous products (e.g., hair dyes, suntan oils, asbestos fibers, photocopying fluids, and chlorinated drinking watcr), not to mention numerous airborne pollutants and radioactivity, may be cancer inducing. These are all examples that stem from the low­synergy approach of contemporary society, and which in turn seem to lead to low synergy and cancer within the individual.

In order to reverse this malignant trensl in society we need to be tied back once again to tile system as a whole througll an experience of our oneness within the world. lntcrcstingly, the Latin word for `'to tie again" is re­ligare, and the wor`1 religion originally meant just this: that which ties us again to our common source.

This does not mean to imply that we need to return to conventional religion, for, as the next chapter will show, conventional religion has generally lost the art of rcligare. What we do neeci is a spirieual renewal, a widespread shift in consciousness along the lines experienced by the great mystics and proponents of the perennial philosophy. '

Such a shift has now become supremely important, not only for the wcll­bcing of individuals and society as a whole, but ~Iso for Gaia herself; it is the path to a spontaneous global remission. In this respect the person whose goal is self­realization, whcdner he be a yogi in a Himalayan cave or an office ``orker in Los Angeles, is helping to change the world at the ';~ost fundamental level. Such people are perhaps the ultimate

Evolution from the Inside

t~c have seen that the shift from an ego­dominated model of the self to a more universal model seems to be a very ncccssary ingredient in the development of higher synergy and in the transformation of humanity into a healthy social superorganism. In this respect the development of self~realization is supporting the general thrust of evolution toward the progressivc integration of the human species.

\\e can, however, go further than this. We can see the develop~ncnt of higher states of consciousness to be an essential

rt of the evolutionary process itself.

1 1lc previous evolutionary Icap to self­reflective consciousncss not only allowed us to be aware of ourselves as co,nscious, thinking beings, but also gave us the capacity to be conscious of the essence of consciousness itself, the pu~c Scll. It thcreby bestowed upon us the possibility of becomiAlg Spifitually cnlightencd.

I`lolcoYcr, with the emergence of self reflecti.re conscious',ess ehc platform of evolution moved up fr,nn life to consciousucss. Consciousness became rhc spcarhi ad af evolu tion. For the first time on Earth ~voiutiori secame intetnalizcd. Thus the ur,,e that many people feel to grow and ·3c. vclop inwardly may well be the force of evolution marlifcstil­lg within our own consciousnesses. It is the universe evolving throulll us.

l l~is inner evolution is not an aside to the ovcrull process of evolution. Conscious inner evolution is the particular pliasc of

evolution that we, in our corner of the universe, are currcutly passing through.

From this pcrspectivc the movement toward a socia! superorganism and the mystical urge to know an inner unity are complcmcntary aspects of the same single process, the thrust of evolution toward higher dcgrecs of wholcncss. To flow with evolution is, therefore, to explore our own inner selves and find unity and wholeness within us.

Thc question now facing humanity is how can wc facilitate this inner evolution, and, even more important, can uc do it in time?

The Identity Shift

Like a scientific paradigm, the skin­encapsulated model of the self gains status through its ability to provide a coherent framework for experience. This status is reinforced by the fact that most of what happens to us can be understood through the model of "I am in here" and the world is "out there." Evcry perception of the outside world can be fitted into the egocentric model, precisely because it is an experience of the outside world. As far as normal experience is concerned, tl~erefore, there would seem to be no anomalous phenomena that might threaten the model.

Even the impending global catastrophe, which has its roots in the dualist self­model, is still perceived by the "I" who am "in here." Today's crises are crises only for the social, eco" nomic, technological, and political paradigms; they may make us intellectually aware that something is wrong with our world view, but they do not directly challenge our experience of a skin­cocapsulated self. Consequently we tend to ask what wc can do about the world rather than what we can do about ourselves, and the self­model remains unquestioned.

The one phenomenon that directly challenges the skin­encapsulated model is the personal experience of unboundedSICSS, of oneness with the rest of creation, the immediate nwarcness that "I" and everything else are, at their most fundamcutal levels, of one essence. This direct personal expericncc of unity is the anomalous observation that cannot be incorporated within the skin­encapsulated model. This is the crisis for the old identity, revealing the model's incomplctencss and starting the shift toward a new self­model.

In the case of a scientific paradigm, one single anomalous observation does not by itself produce a major shift; it is usunlly either ignored or explained away. The same is likely to occur with shifts in identity. There are many instances of people who have at times tasted such states of unity, when sudLlenly they p.rceive thcmselvcs and the world as a single wllolc. Thcsc statcs of consciousrlcss may be brought orl by a beautiful sunset, long­distance running, meditatiL,rl, drugs, in

tcusc cll,oti`,n, the view of planet Earth from space, or scemin'ly hy l~l~tl~i`lg in particular.

I;ut it is onc rl~ing to have had such cxpcricnces; it is quite a',otlicr rlling to have tl~is awareness of unity become the fun. dalnental basis of all perception, thinking, and action. Most pcoplc who experience sucll unitary statcs find that afterwards tllcy return to the dualist, skin­encapsulated model of the self. the memory of having cxpcrienced an intimate oneness with creation may well remain, but the oneness itself is no longer an inescapable reality. From the standpoint of the old scl£ such experiences may, like the anomalies in a scientific paradigm, be cast off as mental aberrations, hallucinations, or some strange quirk in brain function.

For a true shift in identity to begin, the anomalies must build up until a point is reached where the old, egocentric identity is no longer tenable and begins to lose its status. This implies that the experience of oneness usually needs to be repeated again and again before it can begin to be included as part of one's personal reality. The identity has to be reconditioned to unity. This, as we shall see in the next chapter, is the purpose of many spiritual disciplines and practices of meditation. They are processes through which one can come to know this other reality and partake of this awareness repeatedly.

Healing the Planetary Cancer

A worldwide shift toward a higher state of consciousness has important implications for the hypothesis that human society is like a planetary cancer. We saw in chapter 1 that there were a number of parallels between the way a malignant growth develops in the human being, eventually destroying the body on which it is ultimately dependent, and the way in which humanity appears to be eating its way indiscriminately across

the surface of the planet, disrupting and possibly destroying its planetary host. In malignant tissue the individual cells cease to function as part of a larger organism. They feed and reproduce themselves at the expense of the rest of the body. They are in a sense egocentric cells. Cancer is, in this respect, a low­synergy phenomenon.

1

It may

afe even more closely related than this analogy suggests; they may be two different symptoms of the same problem. Human cancer has steadily become more prevalent in the last few decades, particularly in the more developed Western nations, at the same time that those nations have become more malignant in their approach to the environment. Some of the increase may be due, paradoxically, to better health care; when tuberculosis was a major killer, not so many people had the chance to go on to develop cancer.

Modern life­styles are also a major element. Contemporary diets have been implicat~l, as have general attitudes toward life. We are also discovering that numerous produces (e.g., hair dyes, suntan oils, asbestos libcrs, photocopying fluids, and chlorinated drinking water), not to mention numerous airborne pollutants and radioactivity, may be cancer inducing. These are all examples that stem from the low­synergy approach of contemporary society, and which in turn seem to lead to low synergy and cancer within the individual.

In order to reverse this malignant trencl in society we need to be tied back once again to td~e system as a whole through an experience of our oneness witilin ti~e world. Intcrestingly, the Latin ..vord for iito tie again" is re­ligare, and the word religion originally meant just rllis: that which ties us again to our con,ltn~,ll source.

This does not mean to imply that we need to return to conventional religion, for, as the next chapter will show, conventional religion has generally lost the art of religare. What we do need is a spiritual renewal, a widespread shift in consciousness along the lines experienced by the great mystics and proponents of the perennial philosophy. '

Such a shift has now become supremely important, not only for the well­being of individuals and society as a whole, but also for Gaia herself; it is the path to a spontaneous global remission. In this respect the person whose goal is self­realizati`,n, whcHler he be a yogi in a Himalayan cave or an office worker in Los Angeles, is helping to change the world at the ibost fundamental level. Such people are perhaps the ultimate revolutionaries.

well be that human cancer and the planetary cancer

Evolution from the Inside

\~c have seen that the shift from an ego­dominated model of the self to a more universal model seems to be a very neces. sary ingredient in the development of higher synergy and in tlle transformation of humanity into a healthy social superor. ganistn. In this respect the development of self­realization is su1ll?orting the general thrust of evolution toward the progressi~c integration of the human species.

\Ve can, however, go further than this. We can see the develo~nlcot of higher states of consciousness to be an essential p;lrt of the evolutionary process itself.

1he previous evolutionary Icap to self­reflective consciousncss not only allowed us to be aware of ourselves as c`­,nscious, thinking beings, but also gave us the capacity to be COtlscious of the essence of consciousness itself, the pu c Sclf It thereby bestowed upon us the possibility of becoming spiri tu.llly cnlightcned.

l~loteovcr, with the emergence of self­rcflective consciousncss the platform of evolution moved up from life to consci~,usncss. Consciousness became the spearhead of evoluti`,n. For the first time on Earth evolution became intcrn.llized. Thus the urge that many people feel to grow and dcvclop inwardly may well be the force of evolution manifesting witllin our own consciousncsses. It is the universe evolving

tllrongll us.

T his inner evolution is not an aside to the overall process of

ol utioll. Conscious inner evolution is the particular phase of

evolution that we, in our corner of the universe, are currently passing through.

From this pcrspectivc the movement toward a social superorganism and the mystical urge to know an inucr unity are complcmcntary aspects of the same single process, the thrust of evolution toward higher degrccs of wholeness. To flow with evolution is, thercforc, to e.Y~lorc our own inucr sclvcs and find unity and wholcncss ~vitl~in US.

The question now facing humanity is how can wc facilitate this inner evolution, and, cvcn more important, can wc do it in time?

­ : ­ ~

The Spiritual Renaissance

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.

When goodness is lost, thcrc is kindness.

Whcn kindness is lost, there is justice.

Whcn justice is lost, thcrc is ritual.

Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty,

, and the beginning of confusion

Tao Te Ching, 6th Century s.c

The experience of unity with the whole of creation, in addi" tion to being closely connected with spiritual and religious traditions, is also an experience that has received considerable at~cution from a number of psychologists.

Some of the first pr,ychologists to Icok seriously at religious experience v~ere Willi am Tames and Clrl Jung, followed in the 1950s bY Abraham l`~aslow and Roberto Assagioli. Out of this work, a new school of psychology, transpersonal psychology, developed in the late 1960s; its main focus has been the study of religious and related experiences. Previously, psychotherapy had been preoccupied with treating people with mental or emotional problems. But some psychology professionals such as Maslow turned away from the study of the sick to look at

the mentally healthy, and at the exceptionally healthy in particular. Maslow found that such people had a high incidence of what he called "peak experiences," states in which they felt "at one with the world, really belonging to it, instead of being outside looking in ... the feeling that they had really seen the ultimate truth." They had a "sense of the unity of everything, and of the universe itself being alive." In this respect such experiences sound very much like glimpses of the unitive Self.

Maslow olservcd that thcsc people were composed, stable, and integrated members of society. They also displayed a characteristic hc termed "self­actualization," "the actualization of potential, capacities, and talents, as fulfillment of mission, as a fuller knowledge of and acceptance of the person's own intrinsic nature, as an unceasing trend toward unity, integration or synergy...." Most important, Maslow found that self­actualizers tended to be centered on problems external to them

,l

selves rather than on ego­maintenance. They had a strong sense of identity with humanity as a whole and a feeling of belonging to something bigger, even the whole of creation. From such descriptions it would seem that these people were probably moving along the path toward what we have called enlightenment. ...

_ . _ . . . .

Studics such as these go a long way toward supporting the pcremlial philosophy's claim that such states can tee known hy anyone, that they are not the prerogJ~ive of a select few. I lowcver, it is one thing to have tasted such experiences; it is .luitc another to have had them so frequently that they hccomc the dominant mode of consciousness. lllis brings us to ti~e question of what, if anything, we can do to facilitate tllcsc experiences and make them much more commonplace.

Pcrhaps our first thought would be to look to conventional rcligiotl. Jr: all, there are dozens of different religions in the worl~l an~l many times tlr~at nL~mber of sects jBuddhism alc~ne contains over six hundred different sectsI. Yet, separare and unique as each religion might appear to be, it is possible to see a cor­nmon theme underlying them all. Walter Stace, who was pm.cssor of philosophy at Princeton, studied at length the `~,ritings and teachings of the great religious teachers and calllc to the conclusion that the central core of all the major teligions was the experience of oneness with creation-what l Iuxlcy called the perennial philosophy.

Eacl1 particular tradition originally arose from the teachings t f individuals-Christ, Buddha, Moscs, Mohammed, Mani, Zoroaster, Guru Nanak, Shankara, Lao Tse-and a close exa~nination of what they said, or were reported to have said, sug~scsts that they were each in their own terms referring to tl~is l~asic unitary experience. Christ may have spoken of the [kingdom of Heaven, Buddha of Nirvana l"deliverance"l, and Slumkara of Moksha ["liberation"}, but in doing so they each alll~car to have been describing aspects of enlightenment. I&lorcovcr, if one looks at the practices they taught, such as p~aycr, meditation, devotion, abstention, dancing, or prostrari`Ul, they each appear to have been giving prescriptions ~llcrcby the ordinary person could come closer to that state.

Once the teacher had gone, however, his teachings began to bccolllc distorted. This is inevitable: it is the equivalent of entropy in the field of knowledge. Each time a message is E>asscd on from one person to another there is some slight change; something may bc omitted inadvertently or some little extra thing included. It is rather like taking a photocopy of

::~: ~ ~ ~:~ ~: ~

:~: :~::: :~ :~: ~ :~ ~ :~:~ ~= W:~ :~ :~ ~ ~::

~:: ~ ~ :~: :~:~ :~::~:~:~

a pllotocopy of ~a photocopy. With each copy the image bccomcs progressively more blurred. Similarly spiritual teachi~gs have inevitably become distorted as they were passed down. The medium dcstroycd the mcssagc.

As far as the tl~corctical aspects of a tcaching are concerncd, distortion can be minimized by writing down or memorizing the philosophy and doctrine. But the actual techniques and practiceS are much more delicate and often cannot be put neatly into words. Most spirieual practices require guidance from an experienced tcachcr, and only a slight distortion or misunderstanding can cause a technique to lose its effective. ncss. When this happcns adherents to a particular tradition become cut off from the goal of the practice-the state of unity consciousness. The net result is that the means to achieve the expcricncc of oneness are lost much more rapidly than are descriptions of the state.

Convcutional religion today reflects the tragedies of this continued differential distortion. Doctrines and dogmas abound, and their adherents argue endlessly over which ones are the best. Yet without the means to experience the states of consciousness being discussed, true enlightenment remains an unobtainable dream for all but a lucky few. The experience of unity with the whole of creation may have been their aim, but the major religions today do not facilitate this experience; they have become but the fossils of enlightenment.

What humanity urgently needs today are the means to bring about a widespread shift in consciousness. This will come about, not through a revival of any particular religion, but through a revival of the techniques and experiences that once gave these teachings life and effectiveness. We need to rediscover the practices that directly enable the experience of the pure Self and facilitate its permanent integration into our lives. .

Paths of Awakening

Such a revival is already underway. Throughout the Westem world there is a rapidly growing number of spiritual masters anti gurus tcaching different meditation techniques and paths to enlightenment. There are also a growing number of therapics and training programs, all aiMed ultiMately at bringing al~out an awarcncss of the inner Sclf. Whethcr or not they are all cffcctive in this respect is a question we shall consider shortly. They are, howcvcr, indicative of an increasing trend.

A lar~c number of these practices involve some form of meditation, though the tcrM is used to mean many different

i

tyr)cs of techniques. Underlying most meditation practices is the basic premise that to contact the underlying Self, the mind must be cleared of its normal clutter of sensory input and endless trains of thought.

Even when sitting quietly doing nothing in particular, most people find there is some internal dialogue occupying their attclltion to a greater or Icsser extent. As a result, they are not awvare of the "1" who thinks, only aware of what they are thinking about. Thus a common goal of most meditation tcchni~lucs is to come to a state of consciousness in which ehere is no thought: a state of complete mental silence. Since in this state all experience {in the normal sense of the word experience! has ceased, only the pure Self, the expcriencer, remains.

This is not a blanking out of the mind. It is a common mist conception to imagine that one can arrive at this state by de. liberately making the mind empty. This effort usually shifts the internal dialogue to the thought that "my mind is blank" -a deceptive and misleading tho~`ght. In true meditation one leaves verbal thought behind. The internal dialogue, which seems to occupy so much of our wakin~ consciousness, decreases and eventuallY disappears

The Marriage of East and West

In order for the shift to a higher state of consciousness to become widespread, society will need to develop techniques or processes that are simple to practice, can be incorporated into most people's day­to­day lives, are easily disseminated, and produce the required shifts in consciousness fairly rapidly. Although most of the techniques availahle today do not sufficiently fulfill these objectives, it is very likely that the contributions of science-psychology and physiology in particular -will ultimately help us to realize these goals.

As we begin to combine this growlng scientific understanding of the brain and consciousness with the knowledge and techniques of mystics and spiritual teachers, w,e will be better able to see how the techniques work, how they can be im. proved or developed, and how best to facilitate the transition

from "experimental stean1 engine" to "mass transportation." With this marriage of East and West will come the birth of a new discipline, a field aptly called psychotechnology. More than just the study of.the mind or psyche, it will be the application of techniques to improve the functioning of the mind and to increase the quality of experience and the level of consciousness.

I new spiritual atmospl~cre created by the idce of cvo ution, there float, in a state of cxtrcmc mutual sensitivity, love of God and faith in the world: the two essential componcnts of the Ultrahuman. Thcse two comvoncnts are evcrywhcrc `,in the air." ... Sooner or later there ~ be d chcin­re~aion.

Jc~lhard di Chardin

Another comment often made about the various self~developmcut programs is that they represent a very minor social pine. nomenon. Some people might argue that the number of individuals directly involved in inner growth is very small and, regardless of the effect of such efforts on the people themselves, they are unlikely to have any significant impact on humanity as a whole.

In some respects this criticism is valid; there is little question that at present the development of consciousness is not a widespread human interest. However, if we look at the rapid growth rates on this field, it seems possible that this area of activity could have an extremely significant effect on humanity in the near future.

_ _ . .. ... ~ .. . .... . .

~Rapid as the growth of the information industry is, it may not be the fastest growing area of human activity. There are indications that the movement toward the transformation of consciousness is growing even faster. The number of people involved in this area seems to be doubling as rapidly as every four years or so. In terms of sheer numbers the movement may not be very significant at present, but it looks as if it might well follow one of the steepest growth curves society has ever seen.

. ,

Corroborating data for such a growth rate comes from membership figures supplied by various organizations active in the field of inner transformation. These suggest that many of them are growing with a doubling time of between two and four years. Moreover, the number of such organizations is itself growing rapidly, with what looks like a similar doubling time. If both the number and the size of organizations are dou" bring at this rate, it would suggest the total number of people involved is doubling even faster, once every one or two years.

A proportion of those interested in raising consciousness are actually employed in the field las therapists, meditation guides, and so forth). If the growth of interest continues to swell, so will the number of people empi~oyed in this area, and we may eventually reach a point, possibly sometime early

next century, when the employment curve for "consciousocss processing" will overtake that of information processing. The evolution of human consciousness would then have become the dominant area of human activity, and we would have shifted from the Information Age into the Consciousness Age. ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­

_ , _ . . .

In act, the transition cou a nappen even more quickly than this. First, those who are at present working on inner develop. ment are doing so in the context of a predominantly material. istic, externally oriented culture. They are pushing against the inertia of the old consciousness. As the proportion of people reaching higher states of consciousness increases, this inertia will decrease, and at the same time a supportive momentum in the new direction will start building up. The net effect

~r

might be that people would begin to find it easier and easier to ~nake progress Oil the inner path.

The second reason why the transition could come much more rJpidJy is that we may not have to wait for the majority of a population to be pursuing the transformation of con. sciousness before we feel the effects. It could be that a small number of people in higher states of consciousness would have a disproportionately positive effect on the rest of society. Such effects could occur if one person's state of consciousness had, in some way, a direct effect on anotller's. Strange as this notion might scem, it is not totally implausible; indeed, there is growing evidence tha$ it is happening all the time.

Reaching Critical Mass

In his book Lifetide, British biologist Lyall Watson tells of a monkey tribe on an island near lapan which had been given supplies of sweet potatoes by researchers studying their feeding behavior. The freshly dug potatoes were covered with dirt and grit, and the monkeys were reluctant to eat them. Then one day. a Young monkey dipped her sweet potato in the sea before eating it. She found the cleaner potato much more palatable, and the next day shc again dipped her sweet potato in the sea and continued doing so over the following weeks. One by one, the other monkeys began to copy the behavior and started coming down to the sea to wash their dirty food. Gradually the habit spread from one morikey to another until, quite suddenly, it became universal. As Watson recounts:

Let us say, for argument's sake, that the number lof pota" to washers) was 99 and that at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday morning, one further convert was added to the fold in the usual way. But the addition of the hundredth monkey apparently carried the number across some sort of threshold, pushing it through a kind of critical mass, be. cause by that evening almost everyone in the colony was doing it. Not only that, but the habit seems to have jumped natural barriers and to have appeared spontane. ously ... in colonies on other islands and on the mainland in a troop at Takasakiyama.

What we are seeing here is an additional phenomenon; not only did the habit spread, it is also reached a threshold beyond which it spread as a chain reaction through the society. Could a similar process happen with the development of conscious. ness?

Such sudden transitions are not without evolutionary prece. dent. At the time of thle Big Bang, when the universe was still

bapernot, any matter that did form tvorlld have been annihilated instantly. The surrounding heat Idisordered energy| was simply too much for the newly created packet of highly or" dered energy. Matter only came into pennanent being once the temperature had dropped sufficiently (i.e., the general or. der had increased). Once the conditions were right, however, matter came into being very sudde~ly. Latcr, in the primordial soup, life was initially destroyed as fast as it was created. The level of disorder in the surroundings again swamped the highly organized molecular arrangcmcuts. Only when a sufficient mass of living systems had been crcatcd could life take a permanent hold.

This seems to be a general evolutionary trend, and we could expect that at this next step in evolution, the new phenomc non of enlightenment would initially appear and disappear many times, being at first swamped by the prevailing low level of consciousness. Only when the social "atmosphere" had reached a sufficient level of order and organization 1i.e. when higher states were sufficiently ~vidcsl read) could en" lightenment become permancntly established.

This is probably the main reason why enlig~htcnment has been such a rare thing in the past: society, as a whole, has simply not been ready for it. In this rcspcct Christ, Lluddha, Moses, Mohammed, and all the other gIrcat masters wcrc before their time . ~

The many spiritual teachers who have appeared over the last few thousand years could be compared `vith the first bub bles of steam that begin to appear in water as it nears its boil. ing point. At first, it is not hot enough for these early bubble. of steam to be sustained, and they are rapidly reabsorbed back into the water; they are but the heralds of steam. But when the boiling point is reached, there is sufficient energy for thern all to fly free and the water hurriedly turns to steam.

In a similar way, the insights and teachings of the great masters have been distorted and lost once the teachers them selves died; the wisdom was, so to speak, reabsorbed by the prevailing level of spiritual ignorance. Today, Howevcr, the simul~aneDus con~er~c~c.~ of a number of trcnds cou1dsbane: this. The potential marriage of science and mysticism, the growth of highly efficient methods for disseminating spiritual wisdom, the burgeoning interest in inner development, and the possibility of direct transference of higher states of con. sciousness, are all combining to make it possible, for the first time in human history, for the wisdom of the perennial philosophy to take a firm and lasting hold.

We could be rapidly approaching a time when the "bubbles" of enlightenment would no longer be reabsorbed but would fly free as the whole of humanity begins its great transition.