RE: RITES OF PASSAGE, THE CHANGING SELF AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
Thanks @rycharde for your great comment. Although I do agree with you completely when we look at the situation from a certain level and angle, we can see it in another way if we adopt a higher perspective of reality. This means that yes, there is still a lot of unconsciousness, resistance to change and myopic views of reality wherever you look around and so it seems that there isn't a lot of change coming about. At the same time I feel that this shouldn't be where we need to focus. We shouldn't expect people to 'see it' or change. We need to focus on what we can do for ourselves first. Irrespective of how hopelessly ego-centric the world seems to be, we just need to focus on changing our perspective inwards. If we live life from our own truth, our perspective and perception of reality changes and is reflected/projected externally. In turn others will see this reality reflected back on them whenever they come in touch with us.
I also agree with you that a good start would be more open discussions of people's esoteric experiences.
Thanks. When orgs like Pew Forum publish their research, they find a significant number of people who admit to having some kind of esoteric experience; this is not reflected in our media culture - instead of mysticism we get horror movies :-/ or sentimentality. (very few exceptions)
Yes so true...it is not reflected in our media culture. There is definitely a significant number of people having some kind of mystic and/or transcendental experience but there is no space where such experiences can be openly received. I would say that some of the biggest problems is denial, cynicism and indifference. Some people have genuine mystical experiences but the matrix reality around them is so strong that they quickly discard the idea as just an odd event that can be explained away by some materialist or skeptical argument. They go into denial mode. The materialist and cynical view of the world has disenchanted us from the world. The same has to be said about entheogens, psychedelics or sacred medicines such as Ayahuasca or Iboga among others. More people are being open to these life-changing mystical and spiritual experiences but we need more public spaces where these experiences can be shared and discussed.
I have been thinking for a few weeks that I wish to change the focus of my minnows project (see @accelerator) - perhaps the new strapline should be: The MAP Room, Navigating Consciousness.
What is really lacking is a map of consciousness. For example, Tibetan Buddhism has such a map so that any experience can be placed in a context and investigated further. In our current culture, such things are obfuscated by psychology on one side and neuroscience on the other - one limited, the other too technical - although both could be helpful.
I love the idea. We need more and more interdisciplinary spaces and platforms in which people from different areas of research and experience can come together to openly discuss matters such as consciousness. People who have directly experienced altered states of consciousness together with scientists, consciousness researchers and philosophers. Now we all know that Science has hit a brick wall when it comes to explaining consciousness because of its very limited paradigm of looking at it as something 'outside' of us or an emergent property of matter when in fact it is one of the most fundamental properties of the Multiverse; more fundamental that space-time. Everything is consciousness. So an evolving map of consciousness is much neeed I suppose .