Thom Hartmann summarizes the indigenous worldview as a succinct, simple solution to our world's problems: "Return to the ancient and honest ways in which humans participated in the web of life on the earth, seeing yourselves and all things as sacred and interpenetrated. Listen to the voice of all life, and feel the heartbeat of Mother Earth."

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"True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self-elements. There's no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that, you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity."

"Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice... No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out."

"We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet. We need to awaken ourselves. We need to practice mindfulness if we want to have a future, if we want to save ourselves and the planet."

Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master, Poet, Peace Activist

Introduction

The past 5 essays have dealt our potential for an expanded consciousness. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh shares the following analogy: as a unique individual we are like a wave; simultaneously, we are an expression of the ocean. We are the ocean. Imagine that the ocean is Divinity - universal consciousness.

We can notice that the wave was never separate from the ocean. Rather, it is a momentary form that the ocean has taken. A person who is "enlightened" has realized - in body, mind, emotions and spirit -that they are both wave and ocean. The liberated being, while living as an individual in our world, simultaneously experiences the Whole - or the infinite "Ground of Being."

What would it be like to realize a Self that transcended the birth and death of our limited empirical being (as a wave)?... to realize a Self that is actually the Great Ocean" or in another image, as "the Great Fertile Void" - out of which everything arose, and which has been called "your true face before your mother and father were born?"

What would it be like to perceive and welcome God or Ultimate Reality in every other being and ourselves? The great majority of us do not have this perception; the Hindu word to describe our usual condition is maya - illusion; the Buddhist word is avidya - ignore(ance). With some effort we can realize (make real) our birthright. This is called being "liberated." Liberated from what? From the egocentrism, sociocentrism, and ethnocentrism into which we've been conditioned. Attachment to our "wave-ness."

Humanity is now faced with a choice. A combination of compulsion and opportunity may contribute to growth in consciousness and push us to create a new world.

This will entail growing beyond (while including) the secular scientific materialist paradigm in which we've been embedded for the past 300 years.

While this paradigm increased our external power over the world, it is now producing more problems than it is solving. The balance we need now is what can be called internal or spiritual power.

Many of us do not know our spiritual identities: it may take a shock for us to wake up, or we may discover it gradually because of the example and love of others in our lives, or unusual things we experience - things we may not share with other people for fear of ridicule.

A "Whole Systems Crisis"

Today we are faced with the beginning of a planetary "whole systems crisis," including dwindling resources - including supplies of nonrenewable energy: fish stocks, topsoil and oil reserves. We are facing a dramatically destabilized global climate, mounting environmental pollution, expanding population growth, growing authoritarianism, and rampant corruption. Humanity appears to be divided against itself and pitted against nature. This is a formula for ecological collapse and social anarchy.

Meanwhile, reversals in the economy have left many feeling desperate about how they are going to manage, while trillions of dollars are spent on the making of war.

It is no surprise that so many of us are experiencing a profound loss of confidence in the future. A stunning reality appears to be likely in the foreseeable future: we may no longer be able to take for granted that the resources on which we depend - food, fuel, and drinkable water - will be readily available. Naturally, this is already affecting developing countries first.

Political work certainly has its place. However. by itself it is incomplete. I believe it is an error to focus obsessively on the present political circus (no matter how atrocious). Doing so, we can be mired in the same sort of separatist ("us/them") paradigm that is at the root of the problem. I believe it is equally an error to obsessively focus on expanding one's consciousness by moving into a spiritually-centered lifestyle that eschews political and social change. Either approach is partial and both can lack authentic compassion (the capacity to "suffer with").

Our work with external power dynamics needs to be complemented by an internal focus which involves the evolution of our consciousness. The truly enlightened person, Meister Eckhart argued, naturally lives an active life of neighborly love, not isolation - an important social dimension sometimes lost today.

How might this happen?

The reality is that a higher awareness often enters our personality through crisis. When the personality is not connected to soul (or "higher energy"), our necessary strength, judgment and guidance are cut off. The personality that is unaware of - or denies - higher sources of wisdom, while ignoring the need to touch one's spiritual energy, sooner or later evokes the experience of becoming physically, mentally or emotionally ineffective, even helpless.

The awakening of the personality to the potential of the soul has often come to require the loss of a mate, the death of a child, or the collapse of a business (or society itself). It has come to require the failure of external power. If we are fortunate, and these losses do not utterly crush us, we will be moved to turn within - toward authentic power - to seek vertical, rather than the merely horizontal power: power which entails true wisdom.

The travails of our world (which are predicted to intensify) are a natural and predictable result of our way of viewing the world. The primary problem is the stories we tell ourselves: our disconnection from the sense that the natural world is sacred, our absence of compassion, and our insistence on quick-fix/external solutions to crises we ourselves created.

The question that remains is how a greater level of awareness might impact our day-to-day lives and our culture. However, first it is useful to obtain an overview of our situation.

Our Species' Heroic Journey

Duane Elgin documents the maturation of our species - "homo sapiens sapiens." Our emergence from the animal kingdom lasted millions of years, as our ancestors struggled in a twilight of self-recognition and the very beginnings of a capacity for reflection.

Then, sometime during the rugged conditions of the last great ice age - some 35,000 thousand years ago - physically modern humans broke free of the limited consciousness of the animal kingdom with a decisive self-awareness (or "double wisdom") lasting 25,000 years.

With this initial awakening and a time of a nomadic life of hunting and gathering, we entered an era which witnessed the manifestation and growth of language, art, trading networks, musical instruments and new tools of stone, wood, and bone.

Then, roughly 10 thousand years ago we began to develop a settled life in small villages that relied on subsistence agriculture. Farming consciousness arose. Relatively peaceful and simple village life endured for thousands of years.

Out of this lifestyle emerged the world's largest cities, which appeared between five and six thousand years ago. Major civilizations emerged around the world, and here we saw the development of writing, division of labor, a priestly class, armies, slavery, religion, state governments and massive architecture.

By the 1700's Europe's magical and mythical worldview began giving way to an impersonal science and the analytic intellect. There emerged a progressing time sense coupled with a materialistic view of reality, which was focused on a new era of quantifiable progress. Technical innovations were accompanied by mass production, the development of massive urban centers, and the rise of strong nation states.

The power of the scientific-industrial era to create technological aids, luxuries, and conveniences was certainly seductive. Beyond this, people in industrialized societies are much more psychologically differentiated and intellectually sophisticated than our predecessors. However, there was a price to pay for "progress." We are also more isolated. The life and mystery of the cosmos has been bleached out by analytical science, leaving us adrift in a universe that seems indifferent to our struggles.

Particularly in the United States, where these trends have been taken to an extreme, feelings of companionship and community have been worn away, leaving many people feeling alone and alienated. In general, this era has had no sense of direction beyond sheer accumulation of wealth and power. It is a dynamic with no vision or moral direction as to where we are going.

Although it has brought many gifts, the industrialized paradigm has also generated nation-state arrogance, out-of-control technological growth, and profound moral confusion, with little guiding ethic other than endless consumption and power over others.

Cultural evolution has continued and we have moved forward. In our current phase of development, given the pervasiveness of computers, and satellite systems - people around the world are finding themselves joined via a "communications revolution." This also greatly enhances our capacity for self-awareness, reflection and the capacity for standing back and "witnessing" our mind.

This is occurring just in time to provide us with the possibility of entering into dialogue regarding how to cope with the intertwined system of problems that now threaten our future. Elgin believes that with communications so widespread it will be possible to discover a shared vision of a sustainable future. These communications systems are one factor contributing to an increasingly widespread awakening of consciousness across the planet.

Paradigms and Culture

A paradigm is a set of assumptions about reality, so pervasive that, generally, we don't recognize they are simply hypotheses. It is a web of beliefs about the world, which are essentially so invisible that we take them to be reality. To the degree that we are unaware of them, paradigms tend to guide our lives at an unconscious level.

Elgin suggests that each of the societal stages noted above emerged out of a "perceptual paradigm" in which we experience life to the limited degree that the given paradigm (or "world-view") allows. Each new dimension or context is designed to call forth new potentials from us. As we perceive the possibilities inherent in each new dimension, we begin to actualize them, so that each provides new opportunities or learning contexts for individuals and societies to fill with creative actions.

Each paradigm is an organizing framework, which in the beginning allows for increased novel action, and later, as it winds down, creates problems that cannot be solved within the limits of the paradigm.

It is only later, when a prevailing paradigm loses its power to shape a period's worldview, that we move on to develop a new one. Once every corner of a paradigm has been explored and new data accumulate that do not confirm the existing model, key questions are raised.Today, our "solutions" are creating new problems, in large part because they fail to take into account that problems are interconnected.

However, well-established paradigms tend to have enormous stability and inertia. A given cultural paradigm can last as a stable, self-reinforcing system for hundreds or thousands of years before its exhaustion creates conditions of untenable crisis that push both societies and individuals to move toward a more inclusive level of perception and action. An example is the "power-with" vs. "power-over" paradigms, explored below.

A paradigm shift occurs when the way we see reality stops aiding our lives to work smoothly, which we are seeing today. New views of the world begin to emerge. This turning-point is often a tumultuous process, which may take years or centuries.

Problems that arise at one cultural level can only be resolved at a more comprehensive level. So, over time, there is a strong push to shift into a more embracing paradigm.

It now appears that we are living at the edge of a new worldview. It falls to each of us do our part to forge a new era for humanity.

If we are fortunate, our next phase will involve comprehending the fragility of our planet's ecosystems, a necessary experience of grief and remorse, a commitment to repair the damage we have already done, and a re-connection (through both faith and direct experience) with the Divine Life-force. If we are to survive, we must turn our attention to discovering how the human family can live sustainably and cooperatively on Earth.

In truth we have been on an epic journey. To review: approximately 2.5 million years were needed for our earliest ancestors to move from the first glimmerings of self-recognition to the initial stage of reflective consciousness. Individuality was overshadowed by membership in the tribe.

It then took some thirty thousand years to move through the era of hunter-gatherers. It took five thousand years to move through the stage of agrarian-based civilizations. This was followed by three hundred years during which a number of nations to travel through the stage of industrial civilization.

Throughout this time, both the rational mind and the development of the sense of separate ego have been strengthened; yet, this development has now hit a wall. The rational mind and egoic sense are encountering their own limits. Philip Mumford states:

"With the invention of the scientific method and the depersonalized procedures of modern technics, cold intelligence, which has succeeded as never before in commanding the energies of nature, already largely dominates every human activity" [Currently] we find scientific ideation and technical skill at the mercy of an infantile scheme of life, seeking extravagant, super-mechanisms of escape from the problems that [individuals and any] mature society must face."

Mumford also archly observes that - although no practical means for the disposal of nuclear waste has yet been found - the nations of the world continue to explore the widest possible exploitation of nuclear energy for military and peacetime uses: "These compulsive acts resolutely ignore the fact that errors committed through miscalculation or ignorance cannot be corrected."

He goes on to equate post-historic man with Herman Melville's obsessive Captain Ahab, who in a sudden moment of lucidity proclaims: "All my means are sane: my motives and object mad."

Mumford continues:

"Never before was man so free from nature's restrictions, but never before was he more the victim of his own failure to develop in any fullness, his own specifically human traits. This extreme state of post-historic rationalism [may very likely] carry to a further degree the paradox already visible"

"The more rationalized become the means of living - the more irrational will finally become the end product, man himself. In short, power and order, pushed to their final limit, lead to their self-destructive inversion: disorganization, violence, mental aberration, subjective chaos.

"This tendency is already expressed in America through the motion picture [and] television screen. These forms of amusement are all increasingly committed to enactment of cold-blooded brutality and physical violence."

We now risk the destruction of our own species and large portions of the Biosphere. Eckhart Tolle puts it this way:

"Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness: identified with their mind. If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness.

Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off, you will go down with it. The collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity ever to inhabit this planet. What do you think will happen on this planet if human consciousness remains unchanged?"

Will we have to hit, as A.A. says, "rock bottom?"

An Outmoded Paradigm

Until recently religion had such a powerful hold on the human imagination that for whole cultures, the material world was much less real than the worlds of the Gods or God. Idealism, in turn, was superseded by a new worldview - an immersion in practical materialism.

Materialism brought technology, which in turn created many comforts, while simultaneously explaining phenomena that religion preferred to regard as a mystery, known only to God. Today, for countless people, the triumph of rationalism, materialism and technology is so complete that even showing why we should concern themselves with God (or similar designations) is a tough sell. For many, "God" is irrelevant.

Yet, the progress of science itself has led to baffling questions, implying the need for yet a fresh worldview. It appears that the paradigm by which we have been operating - the reductionistic, scientific materialist lens for viewing the world, has become outmoded.

Systems theorist and sociologist Edgar Morin suggests that our current mode of thinking is"

"simplistic in the extreme, which underlies so many dialogues, [leading] inevitably to dead-ends"[This occurs in part because it is] blind to inter-retro actions and circular causality."

Morin argues that, whether we realize it or not, problems are spatially and temporally interdependent; therefore, only a complex kind of thinking (which he also describes as "holographic," "recursive," and "dialogic") can "deal with the inseparability of problems in which each depends on the other." Such a reform in thinking, Morin concludes, implies a mental revolution "of considerably greater proportions than the Copernican revolution."

Much like Medieval doctors who, unaware of microbes, focused instead on demons as the cause of disease, we are victimized by our own explanations. Paradigms which we are ready to outgrow, solve less and less problems. At the same time, it commonplace for us to cling to the current paradigm more forcefully, insisting on its validity and refusing to question what we have come to embrace as fixed beliefs.

Regarding new ideas, it is said that at first, they are ridiculed, then vociferously attacked and finally - accepted, often with the statement, "I always knew it was that way!"

A Primary Obstacle to Our Maturation: The Dominator Worldview

We need to realize that the dominator way of organizing society has been in existence for 7,000 years and still holds sway. Let's be clear: authoritarianism is based on the ego illusion: "Do it my way or else; I win, you lose."

Referring to life in organizations Meg Wheatley has written that: "It is possible to look at the negative and troubling behaviors in organizations today as the clash between the forces of life and the forces of domination, between the new story and the old."

Eisler has offered a profound and beneficent distillation of some of our species' core issues in her revolutionary book, The Chalice and the Blade. In it Eisler argues that human society, throughout time, has been organized according to two basic, and divergent sets of assumptions:

"The first, which I call the dominator model, is what is popularly called patriarchy or matriarchy, - the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. The second, in which social relations are primarily based on the principle of linking rather than ranking, may best be described as the partnership model."

It is important to grasp that the premises underlying a "dominator-based society" extend to all levels of interrelationship - from those involving two individuals (such as marriage) to ever-larger groups: the nuclear family, schools, businesses, religions, governments, and nations. Similar ideas have been elaborated in the pioneering work being done at the Stone Center at Wellesley College. The writings of Judith Jordan, Jean Baker Miller and other feminist scholars clarify the salient differences between these two modes of being:

"In the 'power-over' or 'power-for-oneself only' model there is an assumption of an active agent exerting control that [arises from] an actual or threatened use of power, strengths or expertise.

"The alternative model of interaction that we are proposing might be termed 'power-with' or 'power-together'... It suggests that all participants in the relationship interact in ways that are based on connecting and enhancing everyone's personal power."

Redfield called dominator-types "intimidators." The irony is that dominators are themselves dominated by these deeply entrenched traits.

Adorno, Altemeyer, and Slater have conducted extensive studies of the mindsets such people, described a "authoritarians." Eisler has depicted their primary mode of relationship (and the societies that reflect this mindset) as "power over" vs. "power-with" others. She also offers a precise assessment of humanity's actual situation at this time: the reality, she convincingly asserts (and I am in wholehearted agreement), is that totalitarians and would-be totalitarians "still block our cultural evolution at every point today, aided by both old and new androcratic myths."

Ordinarily, authoritarians manifest the following traits:

INTOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY

DICHOTOMOUS THINKING

RIGIDITY OF THOUGHT:

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

ANTI-INTROSPECTION

PARANOIA

ANTI-WEAKNESS

POWER WORSHIP

ETHNOCENTRISM

CONFORMITY and SUBMISSIVENESS

(For more details on these traits see my article:

"The Authoritarian Personality,"

opednews.com/articles/The-Authoritarian-Personal-by-Blair-Gelbond-Anxiety_Authoritarian-Personality_Awareness_Change-180727-884.html)

This is a perversion of the drive for power. The reality is that many indigenous cultures have sustained human populations for hundreds of thousands of years by embracing a partnership way of organizing their world. In this regard, these indigenous societies are more advanced than our current civilizations.

We need to educate ourselves and each other regarding the dominator vs. partnership culture dilemma. This would apply to one-to-one relationships, groups, organizational and national dynamics.

Looking ahead, we must also educate ourselves and the public about authoritarianism and refuse to allow such people to assume positions of power, as well as creating mechanisms to remove them. (Of interest: the book - The No a**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn't).

A more mature society would recognize the danger these people pose, and simply not allow them to wield power and authority, especially in government. The alternative (or logical extension) - on a societal level - of authoritarianism is proto-fascism: power at the barrel of gun (or some other destructive force), as we witnessed with Donald Trump.

Authoritarianism is a rapidly growing trend on our planet. This is likely due to the fear evoked by the exponential rate of change, fear, greed, rage, and intuitive sense that societal collapse may be around the corner.

Eisler states:

"In the last few centuries, the partial shift from a dominator to a partnership society has partly freed humanity, allowing some movement toward a more just and equalitarian society.

"But at the same time there has been a strong countermovement both on the left and the right, to more deeply entrench the dominator society. Given the strong inertial pull of androcratic social and ideological organization, a totalitarian future is a real possibility."

Now is the time to join forces in order to make our planet workable - a place where external power is used equitably. This joining would bring together those who oppose authoritarian (external) use of power, and others who have focused their energies on intensifying their inner power (by harmonizing their individual power with that of the universe as a whole, i.e., "mystics" or "conscious beings."

Authentic Power

The old way of understanding power is the ability to manipulate and control our environment and those within it. "External power"- often based in fear. One person's gain is seen as another person's loss. All of our institutions - social, political, and economic reflect our understanding of power as external. Weapons, armor, police and the military, of course, are symbols for this kind of power. The millennia of brutality toward other humans and animals clearly show that our world cannot be healed by external power.

The new way of understanding power is the alignment of the personality with the energy of the soul (or "Higher Self"), leading to harmony, cooperation, sharing, and seeing ourselves as a part of a conscious Whole. This understanding can be called "authentic power," which has its roots in the deepest source of our being.

Authentic power is incapable of making anyone its victim. It can be described as "reverence for life." Such a person is so strong that, except for the most extreme circumstances, the idea of using force against another is not part of his or her consciousness. While not naive, authentic power can be called love in action.

The unfortunate reality today is that most of us are not utilizing the perspective and the power that comes from an expanded worldview and sense of ourselves, which can begin to solve Earth's problems.

We have mastered electricity and created nuclear power, but have paid a severe price for our materialistic obsession: ignoring and remaining na????ve regarding our internal capabilities for intuition, precognition, remote viewing, extrasensory perception - and the most potent energy of all - love.

It is possible to bring into our awareness levels of being far beyond (or more subtle than) the physical plane, which is our usual focus. Jose Arguelles compared our usual state of consciousness to creatures who live on the ocean floor, never imagining what watery realms exist above them, while the air above the ocean is completely beyond their ken.

As William James put it more than a century ago:

"Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.

"We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of --application and adaptation.

"No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality."

For those called, the direction is to aid ourselves and others to transform our ability to perceive reality and become aware of the stories about the world we have come to believe. This has to do experiencing a personal spirituality and re-owning our personal power. It also entails realizing that most of our religious, political and economic institutions are based on an immature, dominator view of the world, which must be transformed if we are to prevent it from destroying us.

The alternative ethic is simple (but not always easy): As Neem Karoli Baba (and Jesus said): "Love everyone, serve everyone, feed everyone, tell the truth, and remember God."

How might this happen?

A potent reality seems to be at the heart of the evolutionary process. We often seem to grow only through the push of dire necessity. This process can be termed "emergence through emergency;" it has a long and honored place in history and can be a potent stimulant, capable of inducing labor and a new birth.

If we are to save some part of this world for our children, grandchildren, and other life, the answers will not rest in the application of technology, economy, government, messianic figures and religions. True and lasting solutions will require that a critical mass of people be able to embrace a world-view embedded in what might be called a spiritually-focused "modern indigenous perspective" - right in the center of our technological world.

If the proportion of people reaching higher states of consciousness increases exponentially, our inertia will decrease, and at the same time a supportive momentum for the new direction will begin building up. As we intensify and deepen our awareness, we will have the potential be able to evolve skillful means for transmuting our own personal reality and that of society. Out of a new perspective we will find solutions that today we can barely imagine.

Possibilities for the Future

The bottom line involves human maturity:

With good fortune - and humanity's openness, yearning, perseverance, and endurance - the challenges ahead will act as a fierce catalyst, motivating our world to move into deeper and deeper forms of maturity. And into the "farther reaches of human nature."

The alternative is ongoing conflict - whether orchestrated or not. We will be faced with the choice to pull together (and thereby preserve our own and other species) or push apart, thereby creating conditions for the Earth to become a wasteland.

Again, looking toward the future, what might this level of maturity look like in everyday life?

1.Humanity will have learned that we must live in a sustainable fashion in balance and harmony with nature and our environment.

2. We will decide that we are no longer willing to live in a violent society, characterized by extremes of wealth and power.

3. We will have agreed that power must be locally held and locally exercised. Power is to be shared, and used to empower others, rather than used to dominate other beings.

4. Compassion and wisdom would become the norm.

Our focus on day-to-day living might take two practical forms:

Sustainable Living:

If we come to perceive that the Universe as alive - actually an external form of Divinity - we will naturally shift our priorities from an "ego economy" based upon consumption to a "living economy" based upon growing aliveness. An aliveness economy would seek to touch life more lightly while generating an abundance of meaning and satisfaction.

It will then be only natural for us to choose ways of living that afford greater time and opportunity to develop the areas of our lives where we feel most alive-investing our time in nature, nurturing relationships, caring communities, creative expressions, and service to others.

Eco-Villages and New Communities:

For many, home is a feeling of safety, acceptance just as we are, and a sense of belonging. We also have the feeling of being home when we are deeply relaxed within ourselves and making meaningful contributions to the well-being of those around us. With this as a guide, we can anticipate that, as the old world breaks down economically, socially, and environmentally, new searches for "home" will be underway. This is leading many people to search for new kinds of community.

As the world unravels, smaller communities can provide lifeboats of resilience and belonging to weather the storms of transition. Communities on the scale of a "village" - roughly one or two hundred people - are small enough to support a rich array of personal relationships and large enough to support a vibrant micro-economy and diverse social activities. Large-scale breakdowns can provide the opportunity to produce local breakthroughs in patterns of living.

Cities can be decentralized into thousands of relatively self-reliant and highly resilient "eco-villages," each with distinctive adaptations of architecture, culture, and expressions of sustainability. Common to most would be a child-care facility and play area, a common house of some kind (for community meetings, celebrations, and regular meals together), a community garden, a recycling and composting area, solar energy systems, a bit of open space, and a workshop.

Each could offer a variety of services to the surrounding eco-villages as well-for example, organic gardening, green building, conflict resolution, health care, home schooling, elder care, healing, and so on. Ecovillages could replace the present alienating and insecure landscape of massive urban regions with countless, small islands of sanity, security, and resilient community. The culture and consciousness of each village could be unique while the orienting context of living lightly in a living universe could be shared by a majority.

Conclusion

The coming years represent an unprecedented break in the human journey. We are between stories - the guiding narratives that serve as beacons for our collective future. For example, the "American Dream" that pulled the U.S. forward for at least three generations is fast becoming the world's nightmare. The sad fact is that major catastrophe and personal tragedy may be required to stop us in our tracks and provide time to re-think our assumptions.

Meanwhile, we will need to be alert to the fact that dominators in positions of power - particularly those who are financially and government based - will likely attempt to manipulate interpretations and events (such as false-flag operations) to maintain their power in the face of collapse.

The reality is that, instead of a different "dream," people need wide-awake visions of real possibilities told in ways that are believable and compelling. Pain may well be the necessary catalyst that wakes us up and helps us let go of the old.

We face enormous challenges; and it will take an equally elevated and majestic vision to transform conflict into cooperation and draw us into a promising future. This will take time, sweat, and likely, tears and years.

(Article changed on Mar 26, 2021 at 1:36 PM EDT)

Authors Bio:

I work as a psychotherapist with an emphasis on transformational learning - a blend of psychoanalytic and transpersonal approaches, and am the author of Self Actualization and Unselfish Love and co-author of Families Helping Families: Living with Schizophrenia, as well as Mental Illness as an Opportunity for Transformation. My interests and life have taken parallel courses, which together have woven a complex tapestry: spirituality and meditation on the one hand, and political psychology on the other. I have studied and practiced with Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Mata Amritanandamayi and Gurumayi Chidvilasanda, and continue a daily practice of meditation. My early political education began with the writings of the founding fathers. Over time this led to involvement in the anti-Vietnam war and anti-nuclear movements. I was interested in the powerful molding of prevailing political and economic dynamics by what C. Wright Mills called the military-industrial complex. In time I have come to the conclusion that, despite various interest groups' attempts to minimize or trivialize the concept, the deep state is a reality - decisively and covertly shaping events on both the domestic and international fronts. I am interested in an exceptionally promising alternative source of energy that has yet to see the light of day. I see the current period as a precarious form of initiation rite into the beginning of adulthood for our species, and hope to do whatever I can to help us reach this goal. Meanwhile, I seek daily to recall the reality that the same awareness (the Ever-Present-Origin) looks out through all of our eyes, and actualize this in my relationship with other beings.