49. This Revolution Will Not Be Televised
50. 3 Coming False Flags
51. Top 5 Places NOT To Be In A Dollar Collapse
52. 5 Reasons Why American Riots Will Be The Worst In The World
Category: CHANGE
At this Boulder Integral sponsored event called “Engaging the Future,” Terry Patten addresses what happens at the feeling level when we face our fears about the current environmental crises. He draws from his experience in writing the upcoming book, “The Terrible Truth & The Wonderful Secret: Finding Your Radical Yes to Life in a Time of Extraordinary Change.“
Terry Patten is a leading voice in the emerging fields of integral evolutionary leadership and spirituality. In his cutting-edge writings, talks, and teachings, he not only inspires transcendental awakening, love, and freedom, but also calls us to accept and incarnate our full humanity. This expresses itself in a profound sense of purpose, spiritual inspiration, and evolutionary activism.
Terry is a faculty member in the Integral Executive Leadership programs at Notre Dame University, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, and serves on the board of the Wellsprings Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan and John F. Kennedy University.
He worked with Ken Wilber a core team at Integral Institute to develop Integral Life Practice, which distills ancient and modern practices into an intelligent contemporary transformational lifestyle. Earlier, for 15 years, he undertook a life of intensive spiritual discipline in the monastic setting of Vision Mound Seminary. Upon leaving he founded the catalog company Tools For Exploration, which defined the field of consciousness technologies. Terry is also a social entrepreneur involved in supporting restorative redwood forestry. As an entrepreneur and consultant he has worked for twenty years to help leaders bring higher consciousness into practical actions that transform complex human systems. He is also a teacher, coach and consultant who travels widely, challenging and connecting leading-edge individuals and organizations worldwide.
Integral Spiritual Practice integrates the insights earned during Terry’s decades of intensive spiritual practice with those from his years as an entrepreneur and grassroots activist. In his current work, he is helping to articulate an authentic spirituality that illuminates the vital relationship between sincere care, discriminative intelligence, personal responsibility, and spiritual awakening.
A coach, consultant, teacher, and author of four books, Terry lives in Marin County near San Francisco, CA. He is the author, with Ken Wilber, of Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening.
Vandana Shiva is one of the world’s most powerful voices for global environmental justice and cultural and ecological diversity. She is the founding director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi. Vandana Shiva is also the author of numerous books including Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. Series: “Walter H. Capps Center Series”
The year 2012 is no longer something in the distant future – it is here. And the changes we are experiencing – globally and individually – started even before the year 2012 arrived.
Elevated Existence recently heard best-selling author Gregg Braden speak during a teleseminar series called “Healing With the Masters,” where he discussed the changes occurring in our world today, the concepts in his newest book “Deep Truth: Igniting the Memory of Our Origin, History, Destiny and Fate,” and what we as individuals can do to navigate this new world emerging before our eyes.
“The best minds of our time are telling us in no uncertain terms that we are experiencing very unique times,” he said, explaining we see the changes in the economy, climate, jobs and more. “Experts are telling us we are facing the greatest number of crises in the past 5,000 years.”
However, Braden questions whether these changes are truly “crisis” or are actually transformation? It all comes down to perception and the way we think about the world, ourselves and our connection to one another.
“When we begin looking at why so many systems are collapsing and breaking, we realize the ones that are breaking are the ones no longer sustainable in the presence of the changing world,” he said in the teleseminar. More importantly, it is the way we have chosen to live our lives that has led to the collapsing of these systems, and much of it is based on beliefs and teachings we have been told – many of which science is now proving to be false, he explained.
“There are many false assumptions science has made about our relationship to the world that are deeply engrained into the way we live our lives,” he noted, explaining the basis for his book “Deep Truth” is to unearth these new scientific discoveries not yet making it into the mainstream. “When we embrace these new discoveries, it changes the way we view the world and how we relate to it.”
We need to understand that we are all deeply connected and enmeshed with the natural world – not separate from it – and we need to look to cooperation and natural aid, rather than war to solve our problems, said Braden.
“The best science of our time is telling us there is a field of energy that connects all living things on earth,” he said. “We are linked via this magnetic field.”
New Discoveries
One of the biggest new discoveries is Charles Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest was wrong. Darwin based his observations on what he saw in only some parts of the world, and made the assumption that it was true everywhere, Braden explained.
“This one idea is so deeply rooted into the civilization and economic cycle and the way we do business today,” he said. “This thinking led to some of the greatest genocides of the 20th century. Hitler paraphrased Darwin’s work and justified eliminating what he believed to be inferior members.”
This view of life breeds completion. More than 400 peer-reviewed studies in the 20th century reviewed Darwin’s idea to discover what the optimum amount of competition was for any environment – whether a classroom, playing field of family – and the conclusion was zero.
“They discovered competition always hurts the individual and the community, and that nature is based on mutual aid and not competition. When we say competition, we are talking about violent competition, where one person, group or community benefits at the expense of another by exploiting the weaknesses of the other,” Braden explained.
He used the human body as an example, saying it is made up of 50 trillion communities of cells that work in cooperation. If they don’t work together, the body breaks down and becomes disease. “We don’t see every cell fighting for themselves,” he said.
Other false assumptions include:
- Civilization is only about 5,000 years old. Peer-reviewed scientific data shows civilization is actually twice as old in places like Peru, Turkey and Egypt. In Turkey, science discovered modern advanced civilization dates back 11,500 years. “The 5,000 years that we are taught is the history of the world forever is actually only the history of the last cycle,” Braden said.
- Consciousness is something separate from our physical world. Some of the best minds in science are telling us “nothing can be farther from the truth,” said Braden.
- The space between things is empty. “There is a lot of energy in the universe that doesn’t conform to what our equipment is looking for, and just because our machines and devices can’t detect it, doesn’t mean its not there,” he said.
Dealing With “Now”
After discovering life did exist beyond the 5,000 years we were taught in history books, these ancient civilizations have been studied. One of the main truths found in all of them was that there was no evidence of weapons or large-scale war. There was not even a need to protect cities with homes or walls, said Braden.
“Archeologist and anthropologists are suspecting now that what we were taught – that war is a natural part of human nature – is not who we are,” he noted. “War is not nature. The first examples of war begin when we believe civilization began – 5000 years ago.”
Before our time, it was known as “The Golden Age” and a time of peace, he said. Archeological evidence is now discovering that civilizations before us knew we would enter “a dark cycle and a cycle of war.” The question now is – do we perpetuate the 5,000-year cycle of war or do we “recognize the deep truths” and make changes?
“Those who are clinging to the ways of life in the past, and clinging to the systems, hoping the changes we see in the world today are just a speed bump in the way of life – those are the people having the most difficult time right now,” he said. “The world changed while we were looking, and nobody told us. The reality of the world we knew in the past no longer exists.”
However, the good news is there is a way of thinking that we can adapt to help us navigate and adapt to the new world. We can make a subtle shift that changes everything, said Braden.
“We have all been led to believe – through false assumptions – that life is a struggle, we live in a dog eat dog world, and we need to struggle for our piece of the pie. The question we always ask ourselves – consciously or unconsciously is ‘what can I get from the world that exists?’ But if we can make the subtle shift from asking ‘what can I get?’ to ‘what can I offer to this new world that is being birthed?’ – that can open the door to new answers, new jobs and new possibilities of abundance.”
What if as individuals, we began to look within to our inborn talents, and begin using them to give back and make a difference in some way rather than expecting the world to give back to us? ”It’s a subtle and very powerful shift,” said Braden.
This is a free complimentary audio E-Book worth listening.
Enjoy…
Overview
When Nicolaus Copernicus discovered the Earth wasn’t the center of the Universe, everything changed. When Frederick Miescher discovered DNA, everything changed again. When quantum physicists discovered our physical universe isn’t real, that it’s a hologram – everything … wait! Nothing changed – yet. Now “Butterflies Are Free To Fly” offers a new and radical approach to spiritual evolution.
Author Information
Stephen Davis
Stephen Davis’s many acclaimed books include the Rolling Stones history Old Gods Almost Dead as well as the New York Times bestsellers Walk This Way (with Aerosmith), Fleetwood (with Mick Fleetwood), and the Led Zeppelin history Hammer of the Gods.
More videos and interviews on 2012, love, angels, abundance, inspiration, intuition on http://www.lilouMace.com
A part of “2012 Time for Change” series
Stan Grof, M.D., Ph.D. is a psychiatrist with more than fifty years experience researching the healing and transformative potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness. His groundbreaking theories influenced the integration of Western science with his brilliant mapping of the transpersonal dimension.
The full-length film “2012 Time for Change”, premiered last month in San Francisco at the Lumiere-Landmark. It projects a radical alternative to apocalyptic doom and gloom. Directed by Emmy Award nominee Joao Amorim, the film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest for a new paradigm that integrates the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures with the scientific method.
Peter Russell speaks at the FeelGood Speakers Series, a free offering to the public that provides an opportunity to converse with some of the world’s leading thinkers, writers and activists who are working to create a positive tipping point in humanity’s future: One that is just, thriving and sustainable. Recorded April 20, 2011.
FeelGood is a national youth movement of changemakers working to end global hunger and poverty.
Overview
The first part of the book, “The Quickening,” sets the scene. It opens with the increasing pace of life we are all experiencing today. I show how this trend is not limited to modern times, but can be traced back through history all the way to the beginning of creation. What we are experiencing today is the culmination of billions of years of ever-accelerating development.
Why does evolution accelerate? The answer lies in the fact that new evolutionary breakthroughs often facilitate future advances. Multicellular organisms, sexual reproduction, and the emergence of nervous systems have each done their part to hasten the pace of evolutionary change. Now, with the emergence of human beings, two new features are speeding development yet further. Speech allows us to share our experiences and understandings with each other, giving us the ability to accumulate a collective body of knowledge. While our hands, one the most versatile organs Nature has evolved, have given us the ability to take the clay of Mother Earth and reshape it to our own ends. Combining these two evolutionary breakthroughs has made us the most creative species this planet has ever known. And the more we apply that creativity, the faster things change.
The second part, “The Crisis” focuses on the less welcome consequences of humanity’s rapid development, and the devastation we are bringing to the rest of the planet. How is it, we ask, that a species that is in some ways so intelligent can in other ways be so short-sighted? Where have we gone wrong?
These questions lead on to an exploration of our inner needs and the way our societies have seduced us – in effect hypnotized us – into a set of false assumptions about what it is we really want, and how to go about achieving it. Amplified by the might of our technologies, these errors of thinking are now having global ramifications. We see that the global crisis is, at its root, a crisis of consciousness.
If we are to navigate ourselves safely through this critical moment of history we must make a break with the past, and look at ourselves and our world with fresh eyes. This will entail a fundamental shift in thinking and perception – a shift in consciousness more profound and far-reaching than any in our history. It will mean awakening to the wisdom that lies within us all, of which the great sages have always spoken. This is our next step in evolution, not an outer step, but an inner step.
The third part, “The Awakening” is more spiritual in tone. It asks: How can we wake up? How can we liberate our minds from outdated habits of thinking and make the inner changes that are being demanded of us? The answer involves learning to be more in the present moment, less caught up in our judgments of the past and our attachments to future outcomes. One of the most important areas of practice is our personal relationships. It is here that we frequently meet the various patterns that we need to let go of, and here that we have the most opportunity to learn new ways of thinking and perceiving. As we do, we rediscover the true meaning of love.
The final part, “The Future ,” looks at where we may be headed. It considers some of the many prophecies that seem to foretell these turbulent times. And it looks behind their literal interpretations to deeper meanings, suggesting that they are metaphors for inner transformation and awakening.
Will we wake up in time, and avoid catastrophe? That is still an open question. If we do not, evolution on this planet could be set back to a new Dark Age perhaps; or worse, back to the primeval soup. On the other hand, if we do come to our senses, then it seems very likely that our rate of development – particularly our rate of inner development – will continue to grow faster and faster. What will happen if change is compressed from decades to years to months . . . ? We could be approaching a time of unimaginably rapid personal and social transformation – an evolutionary climax more profound than most of us have ever dared imagine?
Finally, we ask whether there could, after all, be a purpose to evolution? Recent work in cosmology suggests the answer may be “Yes.” The Universe seems to be set up so that conscious creatures like us can evolve, capable of knowing Creation in all its dimensions. Could we be on the brink of completing this process of cosmic self-discovery here on planet Earth? The answer to that is up to us.
WAKING UP IN TIME
Contents
PREFACE
THE QUICKENING
Acceleration - The Quickening Pace
Feedback - The Evolutionary Accelerator
Language - The Dawn of Thought
Hands - Levers for the Mind
Information - The Currency of Culture
Creativity - From Genes to Ideas
Today - Foundation for Tomorrow
THE CRISIS
Crisis - Sounding the Alarm
Crossroads - Choosing our Way
Malady - A Planetary Cancer
Self-Interest - Misdirected Needs
Happiness - The Mind’s Bottom Line
Materialism - An Addictive Meme
Fear - The Voice in Our Heads
Stress - The Wages of Fear
THE AWAKENING
Dehypnosis - Breaking the Trance
Presence - The Timeless Moment
Enlightenment - A New Way of Seeing
Relationships - The Yoga of the West
Love - The Gift of Peace
Meditation - The Art of Letting Go
Maturity - Coming of Age
Freedom - The Emancipation from Matter
THE FUTURE
Challenge - Crises as Opportunity
Apocalypse - Premonitions of Transformation
Setbacks - Constructive Extinctions
Compression - The Collapse of Time
Singularities - The Shape of the Future
Omega - A White Hole in Time
Purpose - A Design to Creation?
Knowing - A Conscious Universe
The End - Or the Beginning?
Peter Russell ‘The Great Awakening’ Interview by Iain McNay
Peter Russell ‘The Great Awakening’ Interview by Iain McNay
Would a caterpillar be happy to die if it knew that in this way it would become a beautiful butterfly? Would we be prepared to venture past our everyday consciousness if we knew of the wondrous worlds beyond? Let us imagine a caterpillar, its vision confined to the surface of a leaf, its world encompassed by the nearby foliage. The caterpillar knows nothing of the wider universe of the tree and its network of roots and branches, much less the seasons that control its growth. They exist in a dimension the caterpillar cannot imagine.
The same applies to us. Our physical body lives in three-dimensional space but our spiritual body extends far from its material manifestation, experiencing the far reaches of space — to its parent star and beyond to the Absolute. As an inseparable part of the Absolute, our higher spiritual aspects are multidimensional. But we earthbound human beings, limited as we are by three-dimensional consciousness, cannot see with the clear eye of the spiritual self. Focusing on our physical body, we cannot understand the effect of our spiritual selves upon our health, relationships, and destiny.
We may try in vain to find explanations limited to the tangible material world with which we are familiar. We cannot penetrate to the real roots of the effects we experience in the outer world because they lie in the dimensions of our spiritual self. We often seem so attached to our familiar material world that we act as though unaware of other dimensions. When we purify our mind from the welter of routine thoughts and opinions, we become capable of expanding and multiplying the coordinates of our professional and personal lives, and thus expanding our personal universe and its possibilities.
In its wildest dreams a caterpillar is not aware of its potential to fly. By shedding its skin, it can grow wings, become a butterfly, and partake of a whole new dimension of life. Our caterpillar may be apprehensive about the necessity to change. It seems like death, but dying as a caterpillar it resurrects as a butterfly! We cannot realize or imagine the consciousness and might of the Absolute — whether we call it God or another name — the real reason and creative force acting in all dimensions, although mankind has received descriptions of divine cosmic laws from enlightened teachers throughout the ages.
The science of the new millennium could derive its premises from these universal multidimensional laws, changing our point of view, observing things from the all-dimensional spiritual level of the Absolute rather than from the limited three-dimensional level of a terrestrial being. Having crossed the threshold of the new millennium, each of us has a choice: whether to remain secure and fixed in our limited notions or to start the process of forming a multidimensional view grounded in spirit. So, do we want to remain caterpillars or fly free as butterflies?
(From Sunrise magazine, August/September 2006; copyright © 2006 Theosophical University Press)
