BEING: Beyond the Soul

It is now accepted that every body and brain on Earth was once matter from exploding stars somewhere in the universe. Everything is connected. And all historical states-of-mind, perspectives and attitudes are represented or present simultaneously somewhere on Earth at all times. The intense stimulation of this rampant diversity creates ever-increasing complexity in what author Alice A. Bailey defines as ‘strictly human consciousness’. 

Human consciousness or awareness, strictly speaking, is exclusive intelligence unmodified by the inclusive intelligence of the interfacing conscience of heart/soul. The polar opposite of the abstract oneness of synthetic monadic intelligence, exclusive intelligence is both entree and anchor in human experience on this planet.

Human life is supposed to be tough—painful and difficult enough to motivate us through an inexorably difficult transition. Tired or hungry, much of mankind remains ambivalent about life and death, and about each other. Poverty and ignorance will always exist but the percentage of those still suffering at any given time can change. The insecure loneliness inherent in exclusivity—even among the relatively well-educated—stimulates ‘tribalism’, a regressive form of human good engendering an exclusive sense of group that perceives others as a threat, and accepts revenge as a form of justice. 

The desire for survival of one's perceived family even at the expense of others distorts the judgment of people with only marginal access to their own inclusive awareness so periodic aggression, while distressing, is not surprising. Tribalism (which is entirely human) may mean expressing a rich sense of traditional cultural affiliation or it can demonstrate as the showing of colors of neighborhood gangs, loyalty to crime syndicates, partisan politics or even the ferocity of civil war. 

Tribal thinking leads as it has always led to murder, war and genocide whether in Africa, Europe or small-town America. The power of intelligence in narrow minds plays havoc with ethnic fears, resulting in hatred of neighbors who, ironically, are usually much like themselves.  But as President Dwight D. Eisenhower pointed out,  “There is no way in which a country can satisfy the craving for absolute security—but it easily can bankrupt itself, morally and economically, in attempting to reach that illusory goal through arms alone”.

Fortunately, today, ancient fears no longer reflect the true condition of mankind as a whole because the inclusivity of global thinking is creating rapid change in public opinion. Human intelligence contains the full promise of shamballic Being, the only hindrance to full expression being limited or fragmented perception. Every person who by his own hand successfully imposes inclusive thinking (energy) upon his own normal economic or racial insecurities, separative impulses or desire for stimulation (force) helps shift the balance of power. 

The playing field for this meeting of minds, the mass consciousness, exists within the context of a single intelligence, the One Mind. Mass awareness can be seen as the diversified counterpart of unified group consciousness. Like personality and soul, any separation is illusory. The stimulating search for diversity is an intelligent response to the creative form nature of our minds. 

The abstract pursuit of unity is a more subtle response to the middle principle of mind. Human logic and spiritual reason co-exist, not always comfortably, within the divine abstract intelligence that we call the monadic or shamballic will, the One. It is useful to recall that individuals are to monadic abstraction what humanity is to shamballic synthesis so that whatever any individual achieves with abstraction is available to all.

Abstraction both results from and produces simplicity in our lives; stimulation results from and produces endless complications. We readily identify the distinctions between the abstractive tendencies of inclusivity and the stimulative nature of exclusivity. 

Activities that are abstractive in nature include certain instrumental music, contemplation, mathematics, swimming laps, science, long walks, and the conscious process of dying. 

By contrast, most people are quite good at finding stimulation. A rush of adrenaline is associated with fast cars, gambling, hunting, high finance and sex. Excitement for some means shopping, acquiring things, action films or rich foods. Some find exotic adventure sky diving, wind-surfing or bungee-jumping, while still others seek stimulation in alcohol, drugs and illicit activities. 

Earth is a veritable theme park of stimulating experience: sights, sounds, tastes, smells, feelings, images and thoughts, any of which please or displease us. The natural exclusivity of Humanity—a planetary kingdom of separate sexes and diverse personalities—represents in mind-numbing detail the pain and sorrows of force, restriction, rejection, injustice, opposition, segregation, exclusion, exile and all the inhibitions, taboos and divisions that our collective conscious is capable of articulating.

When we identify with the isolated integrity of the strictly personal mind, only growing sensitive inclusivity allows us to enjoy life and each other. 

"As long as a person makes a conscious effort to be group-conscious and has to train and discipline himself to work in group formation and as part of a group, he is still centred in the personality. This personality expression may be of an exceedingly high order and the aspirant or disciple may be the highest kind of selfless person but true group living is as yet not present. The transition stage is most difficult and oft bewildering; it presents its own problems, based upon a newly presented phase of dualistic consciousness. The disciple reacts to group conditions and group problems; he tunes in with facility on the consciousness of those in the group; he is aware of group reactions and aspirations, but he is still himself; he is still passing through a stage of inner adjustment to a state of being and of awareness for which all past relationships have provided no guiding precedent. The group and the group personnel which are capable of adjustment (and which can carry out and conform to Rule XIII for disciples and initiates) have become so merged with the soul (within themselves and within all other selves) that the situation is reversed. It would now be an effort for such people to think and react as personalities. I word the problem thus, so as to clarify it for you, if possible".47

Humanity as a whole believes in the limitations of time and space but individuals may or may not. We say some people are ‘quality conscious’. ‘Mass conscious’ might be that part of us that still accepts as undeniable the temptations and limitations of perceived dense/etheric physical mass.

Sentimentality creates as many spiritual detours in our progress as fear or jealousy or greed.  Literal and symbolic interpretations from the past linger to confuse us, delaying significant experience of the abstract mind. As an image articulated by a handful of men in an early effort to clarify the distinctions between the human personality and its interfacing soul, many of us know that both heaven and hell simultaneously characterize nothing more mystical than ordinary daily life on Earth. 

In temporal terms, hell and heaven were intended to depict the artificial, temporary separation between humanity and the spiritual hierarchy on our planet or in our universe. To escape the ravages of hell we have only to give up the notion of a separate heaven. We can't promote angels (symbols of our separation from mental wholeness) without mirror image devils enticing us deeper into the sensationalism of our dualistic world.

Perhaps what many literalists in the Middle Ages experienced as painful, sometimes sexual, nocturnal poking and prodding by devils or demons with sharp pitchforks is now perceived as a similar poking and prodding by space aliens. These nocturnal experiences feel sufficiently real that, like stigmata, both physical and psychological effects may result. Visitors from either the future or other solar systems are possible, of course, but the lack of alien hardware as viable evidence to the contrary suggests these 'experiences' are the likely result of a common, natural phenomenon of the human brain, a condition called sleep-paralysis, an early stage of lucid dreaming gone awry. 

A reliable sense of oneness (as opposed to universality) is crucial to distinguish truth from fiction. As we relinquish another layer of isolated self-centeredness about our 'place' in the wider scheme of things we can be about the planetary business of becoming sacred or whole.

“Humanity is in a unique situation. Humanity has never been so large, so interactive, and for this reason, the old clichés on economy, on social theories are passé. What we need to do is develop new concepts and new ideas about what constitutes fruitful coexistence among the various civilizations of the next century. For example, the economy was supposed to be inspired by the laws of classical dynamics. We see now that this is not true. In economy, there are always instabilities, fluctuations, evolutionary processes, therefore, the end of classical certainties. Classical rationality assumed that science is certitude, and that probability comes from ignorance. Now we see that science cannot be identified with certitude, and that probability may come not from ignorance but from the complexity of physical systems. Probability is no more a state of mind; it is a property of nature. For thousands of years it was believed that rationality is achieving certainty. But if certainty existed, the world would be an automaton. You could predict today what will happen in the year 2500. You could have predicted at the Big Bang our discussion of today. That's very unlikely! And I think it will probably be rejected as a kind of schizophrenia in the next generation." ("Sipping Tea with Ilya Progogine", from an interview with Avrel Seale, Texas Alcade, May/June 1997).

Abstracting our sense of here and now removes the illusion of time, revealing life eternal.  Simultaneously enjoying both a timely and a timeless perspective is the great delight of paradox, a pleasure of the eternal perspective which shrugs off the importance of form. It's all relative. Time (past, present, future) seen by us as stop-action photography because of the limitations of the filter we call the physical brain.  Seen from the abstract mind, however, we recognize not time, or timelessness, but eternity.  Those achieving spiritual maturity see the end from the beginning.

A FRESHER APPROACH

Oneness, already rapidly permeating human awareness as abstract thought, gradually is altering humanity's perception of itself. For much of our past, he who controlled information controlled history. Like a good play, however, history is not written but rewritten. Unlike political revision, the constant updating of planetary understanding results from growing clarification of our past. Serious demystification began as photography, recordings and film reinforced human memory. Reinterpretation of the significance of past events gains added impetus through intensified computer research. We can now bring unlimited information into focus. 

We once believed that what we saw and heard on the news (aside from obvious propaganda) was true. No more. Seeing is no longer believing. Sophisticated technologies and computer enhancement put all reporting in question as convincing proof of fabricated events. Clever public relations now demand higher criteria for truth. We need better trained minds, clearer thinking, and new mental powers.

"Expansion and growth is the law of life and while the mass of men must be lifted by a system of education fitted to bring the greatest good to the greatest number, the individual must be given his full heritage, and special culture provided which will foster and strengthen the finest and the best amongst us, for in their achievement lies the promise of the New Age." 49

To produce the extraordinary scientists, statesmen, artists, historians, humanitarians and philosophers of the next century requires that 'special culture' which includes some version of internet where only the curiosity of a trained imagination limits personal online research and exploration. In many homes, digital news and research tailored to personal interests is broadcast, like television, ready and waiting when we wake up. 

Communication possibilities we can barely envision are producing (and resulting from) a practical sense of omnipresence and omniscience capable of altering human assumptions. Even phone calls, electronic mail and faxes following wherever we go help transform our sense of time and space into a perspective that sees life whole. Humanity never sleeps, never wakes up, never stops talking, listening, eating, thinking, watching television or making love for it is--we are--a global entity perennially doing business. Our awareness (whether waking or dreaming) of this fascinating process of globalization has barely begun. 

There are as many co-existing ‘worlds’ on Earth as are there are people. That may change. We anticipating further clarification In the next few decades about wholeness. The strictly human consciousness will experience a momentary sense of oneness—based not on unity but synthesis. According to Alice Bailey this clarifying contact is to occur without the cushioning effect of the mediating consciousness, the middle/soul/heart principle of mind. 

"Mankind has had much difficulty in comprehending the significance of Love. If that is so, their problem in relation to the Will will naturally be still more difficult...You might ask, why, if this is so, do you emphasize this highest divine aspect? Why not wait until we know more about love and how to manifest it in our environment? Because, in its true expression, the Will today is needed as a propelling, expulsive force, and also as a clarifying, purifying agent".50

We may anticipate a more realistically tolerant, if still exclusive, human nature. Further long-term cultural isolation has become virtually impossible and our multicultural languages and traditions are in jeopardy and need consciously preserving. As impinging oneness modifies the unbridled diversity of the volatile form-building nature of the human mind, diversity will tend to assume more unified forms (uniformity). None of us is unaware of the outpouring inclusivity of this Information Age culture. Every creative moment counts. In a manner esoterically analogous to our annual cooperation with the three Spiritual Festivals of Aries, Taurus, and Gemini, our focus of cooperation will continue not for three but for four years following the year of the shamballic ‘touch’. As we become abstractly comfortable, we will all think easily, naturally, of the well-being of our planet and of each other:

"There will be a pouring in of light upon mankind which will alter his conditions of living, change his outlook upon world affairs, and inaugurate a New Age which will be distinguished by an aptitude for group synthesis and cooperation, and by new mental powers, leading to a re-orientation of the mind so that it can function with equal facility in two directions…outward into the world of manifested forms, and inward into the world of synthesis".51

Increasing information about our origins stimulates a general liberation from merely planetary notions as our solar system slowly becomes ‘home’. From this budding culture more than twenty centuries of human civilization will unfold, and the more who think and act in awareness of eternity, the broader will be the foundation for a transforming human future in which, undoubtedly, we will participate. Personal experience of oneness (not just an overview of the planet) is at issue.

Every effort to see as the planetary Logos sees has a clarifying effect, lending intensity and power to our work with these complex and far-reaching concepts. 

"Being, per se, can only be grasped by those who have ‘come alive’ monadically, who function in the three world of the Spiritual Triad with even greater positivity than the highly advanced personality functions in the three worlds of human evolution; and who have grasped somewhat the purpose for which Sanat Kumara has come into being and through directed livingness is working out His intention".52 

To accept that matter is spirit at its lowest point and spirit is matter at its highest means seeing spirit and matter as a true duality, polar opposites that occultly include each other, as One. 

Consider the abstract will as a single focused point of synthesis smaller than an atom, manifesting Itself as Light radiating in every conceivable direction creating space and, therefore, time, in a perfect sphere. Imagine this happening a million million times to billions of atoms. And imagine the glory of the inevitable eternal return to wholeness. This is our universe. This is the eternal relationship between Shamballa and Humanity. Human intelligence runs the full gamut from fragmentation to synthesis as time and again we remember ourselves Whole.

"I…indicated that mankind had evolved so well that today the goals and theories, the aims and determinations now expressed in human thinking and writing showed that the will aspect of divinity, in its first embryonic manifestation, was beginning to make its presence felt. Have you followed this hint? Have you realized that the uprisings of the masses and their determination to overcome handicaps and all hindrances to a better world state are indicative of this? Do you grasp the fact that the revolutions of the past two hundred years are signs of the striving of the spirit aspect? That spirit is life and will; the world today is showing signs of new life. Think this out in its modern and immediate implications and see the way the world is going under the inspiration of the spiritual Will".53

Like the individual, in some distant Age humanity too will express oneness as it supersedes (transcends) mass awareness and relationship consciousness to function abstractly as One. As Jesus (the Christ) and Gautama (the Buddha) at some point must have realized, only when we see reality for ourselves can we convey any real truth about our environment. It’s one thing to read and study the words of various masters and quite another to experience the synthetic Being of which they speak. 

We know that stimulating, personal exclusivity fused with inclusive group intelligence creates love. We know that inclusive love synthesized by abstract intelligence creates wisdom. And as the synthetic intelligence of the divine Will vivifies the love-wisdom in each of us, one by one, humanity becomes—we become—a context for planetary, solar and someday, universal beneficence.