Human life upon this planet, it seems, is about to undergo a period of transition that will test our capacity to re-adapt and re-emerge on an unprecedented scale. Perhaps it is time to ask ourselves -- what type of "revolutions" are we set to face on this "small planet" of ours in the days and years to come? Is humanity collectively heading toward a "near-death experience" as part of the process of transformation and renewal?
Western civilization has created a mindset that, although termed "modern," is one that is overly rational and logical, and which seeks to regulate and control. It has also, unfortunately, succeeded in taking the enchantment away from a mystifying universe. What is clear is that humanity is in the midst of great revolution. Ecological, biological, social and technological systems are now being reorganized because of new developments in energy, communications, and consciousness. Life on planet Earth is entering a phase shift of almost ground-breaking dimensions.
The 21st century has been reached through a growing series of critical thresholds, moving toward current global, social and environmental limits. However, at such thresholds new arrangements are forced into being. Such emergent new arrangements generally occur within the context of interrelated systems, where change in one system/structure has potential to affect many other structures both directly and indirectly. We can say that the revolutions set to occur on this planet will have profound physical -- structural, environmental, sociocultural -- as well as deep psychological effects.
The media report dramatic changes due to climatic disruption: earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions. We are also witnessing a surge in popular protest, as decades of corrupt or inefficient social systems face their nemesis. Yet within this outward turmoil, more subtle shifts are occurring, such as the transition of the "modern" mind from the industrial-globalisation model toward a life-sustaining, ecological-integral world-view. Western thinking, with its linear notion of history and progress, has robbed us of much enchantment and promise. Many ancient teachings (both spiritual and secular) and many indigenous cultures speak to us of cyclic processes over long periods of historical time, such as the Yuga cycles. These cycles also coincide, or are coexistent with, changes in perception and worldviews. In other words, major social revolutions are accompanied by great shifts in human consciousness. Such shifts also correspond to changes in how the human species understands, and subsequently harnesses, varying forms of energy, upon a progression of discovering ever-finer and less dense/corrosive forms of energy. It is my view that in the years to come, humanity will find itself part of a world "in revolution" in adapting to utilize and make good on new developments in energy, communications, and consciousness.
With the understanding of how finer, more subtle energies work, we may develop a relationship with technology that catalyzes a "re-wiring" of the human psyche. We are already seeing this emerge with the rise of a globally connected empathic mind. This empathic mind, which is born out of increased physical and emotional connectivity, may then be the forerunner to new generations being born with heightened intuitive minds. We might refer to them as "supramental" minds, where intuitive rationality, or heightened common sense, becomes the predominant state of mind. In other words, it is recognizing mindfulness beyond our physical mind, and which encapsulates our growing awareness of our place within a grand, creatively dynamic cosmological order. We can say that it is a mindfulness that is simultaneously vertical (transpersonal) as well as horizontal (integral). Within this transpersonal-integral mindfulness, we can tell ourselves a new story -- a story of a living cosmos that is dynamic, creative and which is a continuous flow-through of energy. Within a living universe the whole underlying energetic order is recreated and sustained at each moment, rather than being a lifeless, random mass. Such a shift in perception of the meaning of our cosmos holds profound implications for our understanding and significance of human life. In the coming years, humanity may advance not only in its scientific discoveries of "finer energies," but also in the species development of innate capacities and organs of intuition, empathy and new patterns of thinking. In stepping further along its evolutionary journey, humanity will see that the cosmos not only continuously sustains us but that we are all intimately related to everything that exists. After nearly 14 billion years of evolution upon Earth, humans may finally regard themselves as agents of participation within an active, creative cosmos.
In the years to come, humanity will find itself needing to adapt to a world in revolution -- in energy, communications, and mind -- as our lives are catalyzed into new arrangements and possibilities. We need to be prepared to adapt to new worlds and new world-views, and to perceive our opportunities for a creative future.
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