Every morning when we wake, we enter into a familiar round of activities, perhaps a bit drowsy until we throw it off with coffee and a shower. At the same time we’re shuffling into our slippers and firing up the coffee kettle, another routine is also kicking in - our thought patterns are rousing themselves from slumber. And like our physical habits, our thoughts follow pretty predictable tracks. Each morning we pick up with our thoughts where we left off the night before. And unless something momentous interrupts the cycle, we can carry on in this way for a whole lifetime.
The ancient spiritual teachers all pointed towards this characteristic of sleepiness in the human condition. Some described human consciousness as a waking dream. Others saw it as a veil of pervasive forgetfulness, in which we go about our lives unaware of the deeper reality around us. The human condition, they tell us, draws our perception into a fascination with physical, emotional and mental stimulation, which in the process, lulls our consciousness into a kind of waking torpor. As a result, humans have remained largely ignorant of any state outside of immediate day-to-day reality.
As the centuries roll by, we see the legacy of that persistent forgetfulness in the collective consciousness of humanity. Despite various religious teachings, and all the advances in knowledge, science, technology and engineering, we have remained largely human-centric. As a corollary, knowledge of our origin and purpose have remained almost completely hidden. We might wonder why we don’t seem to be advancing in our humanity. Indeed, that metric is missing altogether from our assessment of our progress.
In addition to describing the grouping of humankind, the word humanity means to be humane, kind and benevolent. It suggests an ability to develop qualities that transcend selfish or petty concerns; to access and express a nobler, more magnanimous nature. To measure human progress, we have focussed almost exclusively on our external deeds and accomplishments, individually and as nations - not realising that our external outputs are the expression of our inner nature. If we don’t like what we see on the outside, we need to look at what is happening on the inside.
Are we becoming kinder, more compassionate, tolerant and respectful? Are we able to live peacefully with one another? Do we share resources and opportunities equally? How do we treat the planet which we all call our (temporary) home? And most of all, are we drawing on and demonstrating wisdom in the way we conduct our lives?
As we look around our world in late 2024, one could be forgiven for concluding that we are not an advanced species, by any metric. Humanity seems asleep at the wheel; failing to recognise our own limitations whilst simultaneously declaring ourselves to be superior. That our inner life is not consciously connected to a greater-than-human source has not caused us to pause in our pursuit of external progress.
One example is the ‘advances’ in technology. They have exposed the gulf between our inner life and our outer capabilities. Instead of being used to end poverty or foster equality, technology has enabled us to unleash new levels of destruction. Physical wars use weapons deadly enough to wipe out whole regions. Cyber wars have created widespread personal, social and even State-level intolerance and insecurity. We see these outcomes as an inevitable part of Earthly life. Rarely do we look behind the technology, to ask who is developing it, and to what end.
Surely if we’re allowing the fate of humanity to be influenced by political and business leaders, technology developers and scientists, we need to know the following:
How is their humanity?
What is their state of consciousness?
And crucially, where is it taking us?
The present state of our world tells us the answer to those questions.
If we were to shift our focus from the external mechanisms that construct our material reality, to the inner life of each and every one of us, we would arrive at a very different scale by which to measure progress. Our inner life has its own mechanism, one that operates by very different criteria. Our lack of knowledge around this mechanism, and how to interact with it, has allowed the gulf between wisdom and action to widen.
What would it look like if we based our assessment of humanity’s progress on the evolution of our consciousness?
Any progress index would have to be based on wisdom, not purely academic knowledge or technical prowess. Wisdom is the only aspect of human attainment that cannot be falsely manipulated. We develop it by balancing mental discernment with the heart qualities of care, kindness and benevolence (the very definition of the word humanity). It arises slowly and surely through conscious experience - the kind of conscious experience that opens our perception to include a greater-than-human reality. And most telling of all, wisdom is gained by aligning to, and learning from, that reality - and then using our human life to express it.
First and foremost, it would mean we all have a stake in how things turn out. Indeed, the evolution of humanity is all our responsibility. It would also mean that we’re not at the mercy of the dominant forces driving us in a certain direction. How we relate to our beingness (and therefore our humanness) is by far the most powerful influence on our individual and collective experience. At the present time, this influence is not well understood, and certainly not utilised for good. Instead, it is being co-opted to produce a vicious cycle of discord and disconnection.
Conversely, alignment with our being of origin produces a ‘virtuous’ cycle of wellbeing and connection. States of consideration, cooperation and co-creation arise naturally and almost effortlessly from that foundation. In fact, all the qualities which support harmonious experience and interaction stem from the same place - the source of our being. The energy which gives rise to all life, including human beings, is already patterned this way. Our role is to allow it to be expressed through our individual human being, which is how it finds its way into the world.
History has shown that being the arbiter of human behaviour is a perilous business. Organised religion has attempted to do that over the centuries, with questionable results. Our national and international laws don’t seem to curb egregious behaviours between individuals or nation-states. Human beings are a fiercely independent bunch at the best of times. We don’t particularly like being told how to be, and what to do. We’d rather pursue our particular ambitions than yield to compromise and cooperation - even if they might serve us better.
When we are cut off from our being of origin, and the universal guiding principles it provides us with, we rely instead on the perceptions and tactics of the individuated ego-identity. The ego-identity operates on the premise that the individual is supreme. Our preferences, needs and wants seem more urgent than collective well-being. Under that influence we become essentially self-ish.
The current phase that humanity is passing through is the culmination of a centuries-long exploration into individuation. It is characterised by self-ish thoughts, desires and behaviours, and a corresponding loss of collective values, shared interests and commonality of purpose. Right now, we are at the zenith of this phase. Like all previous phases, it will tip over into a new state. But not before we’ve fully learned our lessons and acquired the wisdom that this exploration can offer us.
We’ve wrung just about as much as we can out of our individuated state. We’ve seen firsthand the kind of world it produces. Each phase of conscious evolution has a purpose. The present one has taught us to be more conscious of our own being, which was a necessary step in our development. But the downside, individually and collectively, is that we have become so distanced from our source, and our true nature, that we no longer believe that is the truth of our being (or anyone else’s for that matter). Now is the beginning of the Great Returning, which many tribes and prophecies have spoken of. A return, not to a simpler, more agrarian lifestyle, although that has its appeal and benefits, but to a new conscious collectivity. A return to the knowledge of our full being, and through it, life itself.
To transition from this phase to the next we need to recognise what is not serving, and more importantly, why. If we don’t understand why something didn’t work, we are in danger of chasing the same illusions, driving the same agendas, repeating the same mistakes. We also need to distil that understanding into the kind of thinking that will take us where we do want to go, and give us the knowledge of how to get there.
The intelligence of life carries the plan for that journey, and the coordinates for the destination. It contains the code for our being, the properties for our behaviour, and the delivery mechanism for our learning and experience. It operates our conscious functioning. It holds our potential open for us, until we find it ourselves. It provides the magnetic draw so we don’t get lost along the way. And perhaps most comforting of all, it keeps us in its abiding safety, unassailable truth and enfolding love.
So where is humanity heading? The answer is Home.
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