A Radical Notion

I want to share with you one of my favorite Eckhart Tolle quotes:

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”

In other words, life knows what it is doing, not only with individuals but also with the entirety of life. From that foundation, I am going to say something very radical – all the divisiveness, abuse of power and chaos we are experiencing all over the world is a part of the evolution of human consciousness, a part of the healing that is coming out of this difficult time.

How can I possibly say that? “This doesn’t look how I would imagine healing to be,” you may be saying. “Isn’t everything getting worse – the climate, the political fighting, and the threat of nuclear war?” But maybe, just maybe, this is a birthing time and just like with all births there are contractions and pain.

There is a part of the caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly that can help us access the vision that this is a healing time. When the caterpillar has woven itself into a cocoon, it turns to goo. And out of that goo comes, what biologists call, imaginal cells, which are the first expression of the butterfly. But the goo always kills the first wave of imaginal cells. The old kills the new! The wonderful thing is that this attack causes these cells to come together and out of that togetherness arises the butterfly.

This kind of transformation is true for the totality of life too. In every major shift in the unfolding of life on this planet, as an old way’s time comes to an end and a new one begins to show up, the old way fights for its survival, getting stronger right before the new takes its rightful place.

When we view the current chaos though this understanding, it makes sense that the old way is the kind of mind that has dominated how people have governed for eons – the kind of mind that uses fear to gain power, that sees some people as better than others, that thinks power and privilege are for the few, that makes fun and ridicules people that are different, that finds it easy to exaggerate and lie in order to support its agenda, that sees women as ‘less than’ and oftentimes just objects for gratification, that looks through the lens of ‘them and us‘ and believes force is the way to solve our problems.

If you want to see the old kind of mind clearly, look at the hidden Facebook posts of some of the southern border guards and police officers in Philadelphia, along with the ex-governor of Puerto Rico and his cronies.  Or read about the continuing abuse of power that enabled Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and R. Kelly to continue their molestations of girls and women over the years with little or no consequences. Or just watch political news.

Every day in the news, the old kind of mind is there for all of us to see clearly and this seeing is waking up a new way in the minds and hearts of many. Also, if you look closely, you will see this new kind of mind too – people helping people in natural disasters and automobile accidents; doctors working on gun violence without a polarizing stance; individuals and organizations stepping up to the plate to help the Earth, immigrants and homeless people. As the Dalai Lama once said, “The natural state of human beings is basic goodness.”

More of us are beginning to recognize that in the end, our basic goodness is much stronger than the divisive, judgmental mind. We are also truly getting the preciousness of democracy, that every human being matters, and that our voices can make a difference. In other words, we are the imaginal cells coming together for a new vision of life on this planet, claiming our own kind of butterflyness!

In my world, I see this new kind of mind showing up everywhere. It is the kind of mind that is connected to the wisdom of heart. People would say to me, “Of course Mary, you are surrounded by people whose minds and hearts are connected but that’s not how most people live.” But I saw a news article about the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which helped me to see that this new kind of mind is showing up in some of the most unexpected places.

The Quincy Institute was created by George Soros, a liberal billionaire and Charles Koch a conservative billionaire. They are teaming up on a new foreign policy think tank. They want to promote an approach to the world that is based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions and bombings. To begin, they are suggesting a return to the nuclear deal with Iran, withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan, a sharp reduction of the defense budget and an end to regime change campaigns.

My heart soared when I heard this. Two very political and powerful men from opposite sides of the spectrum are coming together to help move us out of this old way of being with each other and into one that isn’t against but is for, and one that understands that we are all in this together on this tiny jewel of a planet. They understand that we can no longer afford to live in the old ideology of them and us. In other words, we need to talk to one another rather than use threats, sanctions and bombings. Of course, this shift won’t happen overnight but the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

If two men who hold such opposite political beliefs about so many things can come together for the good of the world, we can too. What can you do?  First, know that the old kind of mind lives inside of you too. You can become aware of your own reactions to different opinions and views. You can catch yourself as you judge other people for their looks, their religion, their sexual preferences and their political beliefs. You can become aware when you are crossing someone’s boundaries and respect them instead. You can also learn how to unhook from the idea that there is ‘us’ and ‘them’ and that ‘them’ (the people who act and think differently than you) are wrong.

Be willing, more and more, to listen to your fellow human beings whether they are your mate, your coworker, a teenager, the family member whose political beliefs you believe are ‘wrong’ or the stranger on the subway. Our planet is becoming too interconnected and interdependent to have most of us live from the old kind of mind.

And most importantly, rather than resisting the flow of your life, you can tuck Eckart’s quote into your heart and meet your day through the lens that life is smarter than you and is giving you the exact set of experiences you need in order to become a conscious human being. As you do this for yourself, you will see that life, rather than being a set of random experiences, is a highly intelligent flow that is trustable. It’s not always likable but it is trustable. Then it will become easier to have confidence in the chaos of our time and see it’s just the contractions of our birth into a new way of being with each other on this beautiful planet that is our home.

I leave you with what astronaut Christina Koch said about seeing the earth from the space station:

“The perspective of looking down on the Earth from here is a big reminder that as humans, we share the most fundamental aspects of who we are, and that we’re way more alike than we are different,” she said. “Those differences are just as exciting, and they often arise from just the amazing geographical differences of where we’re from on this wonderful planet.”

“We are on one planet, and that planet is what sustains us all,” she added. “I think if everyone had the opportunity to see that, we would certainly know that deep down we are all the same, and that we can accomplish the best things and the greatest things when we work together as humans.”