– Nyota Uhura in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 4, episode 10
I just watched the last episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, for this season, which involves time travel.
At the end, Uhura says: The only moment that’s real, that we actually live in, is now. [Today] is the only day that matters… how you spend it, and how you define it. My future is not all I think about anymore. I am not afraid of it. I am lucky to be here in the moment. To not know what adventure will come my way every week. Because, wow, the not knowing is a gift.
Of course, we need to think ahead, plan, and sometimes prepare. And yet, I find that my life works better when I also recognize that my ideas about the future happen here and now, they are imaginations, guesses about the future. My life is here and now and nowhere else. I can only find the past in imagination, and I can only find the future in imagination. Even my ideas about the present are literally my imagination! It’s all guesses.
Forms of not knowing
There are several forms of not knowing.
Past and present
There is the not-knowing about the past and present. There are always more layers to discover, new perspectives to explore and new contexts to understand it all within. Even if I tell myself I understand something, I don’t really.
The future
There is also have a not-knowing about the future. I may have projections based on past experience and models. I may even have visions or intuitions. And yet, I don’t know for certain. I cannot know for certain. All I know is the future will surprise me.
Dream thought-experiment
Earlier today, I remembered Alan Watts’ dream thought experiment.
Imagine you can decide what you will dream.
First, I may want to dream that I have and experience everything I want in my waking life.
After a while, that gets boring. I may want to add some challenges to spice it up.
After a while, that gets boring too. I chose to not remember that I am dreaming while dreaming. That rises the stakes.
I also chose to not know what will happen. That keeps it all fresh and surprising. As the future arrives, it surprises me.
I chose to not know everything about the past or present. That too keeps it fresh and surprising. New layers are always revealed, and sometimes it changes my whole worldview.
I may also add occasional more serious challenges. I may even add life-and-death issues.
So, after a while, I arrive at the life I have now.
If this life was a dream, I would want it to be like this – not knowing the future, not fully knowing the past and present, and with a mix of ease and challenges.
The gifts of not knowing
Not knowing makes life fresh and surprising.
My personality doesn’t always appreciate or like it, and I also see that if I could choose the content of my dreams, I would want these inherent forms of not knowing.
I want to be surprised.
Another not knowing
There is yet another form of not knowing here, and that is about our nature.
At my human level, there is always more to discover. I never really know myself.
I can take myself to be something within the content of experience – this human self, an observer, and doer, or something similar. If I do, there is also more to discover, and what I eventually discover will turn my world upside-down and inside-out.
That’s because in a more fundamental sense, I find myself to be what all content of experience happens within and as. I am what a thought may call consciousness. As this awake space, I form myself into any and all content of experience. And that includes any temporary sense of being something within content of experience or more clearly noticing my nature.
In all of this, there is a not knowing. I never know anything for certain. There are always more layers, angles, and contexts to understand it all within.
Here too, I this is how I would want it if I could choose the content of my dreams. I would want this too, to add spice and adventure to my dreams.
A medicine for a condition
As all pointers, this is medicine for a condition.
In our culture, we tend to think we know and that knowing is better than not knowing. The reality is that we don’t know anything for certain and not-knowing and knowing go hand in hand. It’s a relief to notice this and take it in, and align a little closer to reality.
The other side of this is that we do know things. We have information. We know what we want. We have inner guidance. It’s important to take that serious too and act on it. And it’s healthy and necessary for us to want to know, and to know more.
If we over-emphasize the not-knowing side, we need to balance it out by emphasizing the knowing. In that situation, reminding ourselves of our knowing, and encouraging our desire to know, is the medicine.
A synchronicity: As I wrote that last sentence, the music I listened to said I want to know. Nterini by Fatoumata Diawara.
My fantasies and longings are pointers and guides for myself.
My fantasy
I notice a fantasy in the back of my mind: that someone eventually will take my writings here and do a study of the intersection of awakening, trauma, society, culture, and how it all unfolded in this life.
Maybe as one among many similar studies to find more universal patterns and their expressions in real and lived lives.
In real life
I know it’s a fantasy and it’s very unlikely that it will happen, and a part of me feels embarrassed that the fantasy sometimes comes up as an image far in the back of my mind.
Of course, there is a tiny possibility it will happen. I have written extensively and I try to be transparent and honest in my writings1. Some are interested in how awakening unfolds in real lived lives. AI makes it feasible to sift through a large collection of writings, extract the important articles, and find patterns and how it all unfolds over time.
And, as mentioned, there is a chance someone will do just that with a larger collection of writings and documented lives to find patterns, and mine will be part of that sample. (My dark night journey is already included as one of several personal accounts in The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence.)
If I were a student or researcher at a university open to these topics, I would love to do just that kind of study2.
As a pointer and guide
There is something about that fantasy that’s more important.
I notice there is a very good reason for that fantasy: I long to be seen, for my life to be taken seriously, and for someone to be on my side. I didn’t have it growing up, and I didn’t learn to do it well for myself.
I long for me to do that – to see me, take my life seriously, and more consistently be on my own side. That’s what the longing is really about.
It’s a pointer and invitation for me to do just that.
My writings here
I assume my writings here – more than 10,000 published articles and more than 6 million words – are an attempt to do just that, and the volume may reflect both the urgency of that need and that writing doesn’t quite hit the mark.
Why did I gravitate to writing? It’s likely for several reasons: I have loved reading and writing since early childhood, I tend to try to find safety in understanding, and it’s something I can do even if I am bedbound. There is nothing inherently wrong with that approach, and it does serve other purposes, although it may not be the most direct way for me to meet those primal and very understandable needs.
A more direct approach
A direct approach is likely more effective, and I do that too, although maybe less consistently.
This means being with the wounded parts of me, getting to know them through dialogue – including the child and teenage versions of me, listening to them, feeling and allowing what comes up, and more consistently being on their (my) side.
Equally or more importantly, it means being on my side now – in how I am with myself and others, and in how I live in the world.
NOTES
(1) Although I usually don’t go into great detail of how it all looks in my daily life, so that’s missing. I tend to use broader strokes for that part of the process.
(2) It would be a dream project, and possibly something I can do even if I am not connected to a research institution. Informal studies are valuable too. I am not immediately drawn to it, but have been in the past and it may well return.
The photo is of me, likely the summer I was four or five somewhere in the mountains of Norway.
I saw a post in a CFS/ME group on Facebook asking if others experience the world or themselves as dreamlike. A large number of commenters said they do. Some attributed it to trauma, although I suspect something more is going on here. I have long suspected a connection because of my own experience.
Background
First, some background.
Derealization refers to an experience of the world as unreal or dreamlike. Depersonalization refers to an experience of oneself, this human self, as unreal and dreamlike. These two are often seen as trauma-related, as ways the system deals with otherwise overwhelming trauma.
Brain fog, typical of CFS, is usually described as a set of cognitive dysfunctions that involve executive cognitive functions (memory, processing, etc.) and is often characterized by a direct experience of wooliness or fogginess.
The diagnostic criteria for CFS/ME do not include derealization and depersonalization and they are not included among the typical symptoms.
My story (part one): CFS and the experience of the world as dreamlike
In my case, there seems to be an intriguing connection between CFS and an experience of the world as dreamlike.
On New Year’s Day when I was fifteen, I was standing outside of my parents’ house and it felt like a fog came in and the world became distant. The whole world, including this human self, seemed to be far away. It came with an experience of wooliness and fogginess. This was profoundly disturbing to me.
I later understood that this was how the CFS/ME started, a few months after I had mononucleosis. I don’t remember how soon the many other symptoms came (fatigue, other aspects of brain fog, PEM, and so on), but I assume it was the same day or within a few days.
I still experience the world and this human self as unreal and dreamlike, appearing within and as consciousness just like a dream. It’s stronger when I am in a CFS-crash and have PEM, and it’s also stronger when my general brain fog is stronger – sometimes because of brain-fog inducing food (sugar, wheat, dairy).
If my sense of the world as distant, unreal, and dreamlike was connected with trauma, I would expect it to get stronger during stress and when emotionally triggered. It does not. If anything, I tend to feel sharper and more present then. Instead, it closely follows my CFS symptoms in general. It gets stronger with PEM and when food worsens my brain fog. To me, that suggests it’s related to CFS and not trauma.
I am used to it by now, although when it’s strong, and I am with people, I sometimes become very conscious about it and it still feels slightly disturbing until I remind myself that it’s normal for me.
Possible connections
There are several possible connections between CFS/ME and a dreamlike experience of the world and/or themselves.
The simplest explanation is that it’s an aspect of brain fog. Of the many aspects and expressions of brain fog, an experience of the world/this human self as dreamlike may be one – at least for some or many with CFS.
Some suspect a connection between psychological trauma and CFS, at least in some cases. Trauma may make some of us more susceptible to later getting CFS/ME. That may be the case for me too. It’s not the full picture but it may be one vulnerability. (In many cases, a virus or bacteria may be the actual trigger, with the Epstein-Barr virus as a classic example.)
If so, the derealization/depersonalization associated with trauma may be the reason why many with CFS/ME experience just that.
Is it sometimes misattributed and misdiagnosed?
There is another interesting and important possibility here.
Derealization and depersonalization may, in some cases, be expressions of CFS-related brain fog, and misattributed and misdiagnosed as trauma symptoms.
Of course, some CFS patients will also have genuine trauma-related derealization/depersonalization. But I suspect there is occasional misdiagnosis, especially among doctors and psychiatrists who are not very familiar with CFS.
Why is it not identified or talked about?
If this is a relatively common symptom of CFS/ME, why is it not officially identified or talked about?
It may be because it’s typically associated with psychological trauma so doctors may not think of measuring it as a neurological or physiological symptom. If it comes up, they may interpret it as a trauma response unrelated to the CFS.
What can the unreal and dreamlike experience tell us about CFS?
If one expression of CFS-related brain fog is the experience of the world as distant, unreal, and dreamlike, then what does that tell us about CFS?
What mechanisms are behind it? Can identifying these help us understand and possibly treat CFS?
Existing research
We know that several conditions, unrelated to psychological trauma, can cause an experience of the world as distant, unreal, or dreamlike.
We also know that several studies have found dysregulation of a wide range of systems in CFS patients. These include sensory and perceptual disturbances, reduced blood flow to the brain, and balance and vestibular disturbances. (See below for more on this.) All of this can possibly be connected to an experience of a dreamlike world/self.
Future research
CFS/ME research has limited funding so I understand that this is not a priority, but these topics are interesting and possibly important, and I assume they will be addressed by future research.
Here are some questions:
How common is it for CFS/ME patients to experience the world as distant, dreamlike, or unreal?
For those who experience it, does it worsen with PEM? Does it worsen with stronger brain fog?
Is this definitely connected with psychological trauma? Or could it be an expression of CFS-related brain fog?
What are some of the biological changes connected with CFS-patients experience of the world as unreal and dreamlike? Can understanding these help us treat CFS?
If it is an expression of CFS-related brain fog, how often is it misattributed to and misdiagnosed as psychological trauma?
How can we best help CFS patients disturbed by this experience of the world as unreal and dreamlike?
My story (part two): The world as dreamlike and awakening
Here is the second part of my story, which I am adding here since it goes beyond the conventional.
There is an intriguing connection between experiencing the world as dreamlike and awakening.
Later, I saw the shift at age fifteen as a kind of absorption into the witness, or an identification as an abstract witness. “I” became a witness, and this witness witnessed all (other) content of experience and experienced it as far away. Identification went out of this human self and into this mental construct of a witness.
Almost exactly one year later, between Christmas and New Year when I was sixteen, there was a oneness shift. All without exception was revealed as God AKA the divine AKA consciousness. Or, in other words, my nature as consciousness recognized itself as all there is. There was a shift out of identification as a witness and into finding myself as Big Mind or consciousness.
I suspect the first shift, into the witness and the world as distant, set the stage for the second shift.
It may be that the Epstein-Barr infection set the stage for the CFS a few months later. The CFS came with a strong brain fog including the sense of the world and this human self as distant and far away. And that, in turn, set the stage for the oneness shift a year later. That’s not the whole story, obviously, but it may be part of it.
CFS & spirituality / awakening
It’s possible that more CFS/ME patients than average are into spirituality. There is no research on this, but it’s my impression and it seems others have that impression too.
A chronic disease like CFS/ME may bring people to spirituality, and the reverse may be the case as well. People with a personality leaning towards spirituality may be more susceptible to ME/CFS for whatever reason. (Just like the “good girl/boy” syndrome often described by people who work with CFS/ME patients.)
I also wonder something else. If people with CFS have an experience of the world and/or this human self as dreamlike, they are already more than half way to awakening. It just requires a slight shift in noticing for them to recognize their more fundamental nature, which is consciousness. It seems like a golden opportunity.
I have written about the two significant shifts in my teens in other articles.
New Year’s Day when I was fifteen, there was a shift where the world went far away. Later, I understood this as an absorption into the witness, or, more accurately, an identification with the mental construction of witness.
One year later, between Christmas and New Year, there was a oneness shift that never really went away.
Here, I feel I should write a bit about the fallout of that second shift. Mainly, the massive influx of energies, insights, and inspirations that came with it and was ongoing in the following years.
Influx of insights
At the moment of the oneness shift, it was clear that everything without exception is God. Everything is the divine taking the form of existence, the universe, this human being, and a perception of being this human self or recognizing itself as the whole. It’s all the play of the divine.
It was utterly simple, obvious, and familiar.
In the following days, it was also clear that it was impossible to express or record this in words. Words can’t touch it.
And in the following days, weeks, months, and years, there was a huge influx – or bubbling up – of other insights. I wrote thousands of pages in my journal. Last year, I found them again and I see that what I wrote about then is what I write about in these articles now. The main difference is that then, it was all new and there was more youthful exuberance. And now, I know more about what others have said about it. (Back then, I knew nothing about that.)
The thousands of pages from then, and the thousands of articles now, is because it is impossible to put it into words. It also helps my human self digest it.
I am still exploring and digest those insights, and learning to live more from and as it.
Influx of energies
With that oneness shift came an experience of huge amounts of energies running through my system. Even at the time, I felt as if high voltage was running through ordinary housing wires. This lasted for years.
At times, it seemed this had an impact on things around me, including – during my first time in Salt Lake City – light bulbs going out as soon as I came into a room.
Influx of inspiration
Along with all of this was also a huge influx of inspiration. I would see amazing and beautiful visual art for my inner eye, and hear amazing, beautiful, and textured music for my inner ear, and yet I had very little ability to get it out. I didn’t have the skills or experience.
I did try, and I did get into art with a passion for many years. The drawing above is one of the first drawings I made and with that one, I was able to be more of an open channel although my technical skills were not very good. (That drawing was later accepted into a prestigious juried exhibition in Norway, Høstutstillingen.)
The summer when I was fifteen, I borrowed a sound module from a friend for a week. (I already had an Amiga computer with music software.) During that week, I composed and created some music that I still happen to have recordings of. Again, what I heard was far more textured and beautiful than what I was able to express with limited skills and time. Here are these early compositions on SoundCloud.
When did it start? How long did it last?
If I am honest, I am not sure if all of this started with the oneness shift. Some of it did likely start the year before, especially some of the inspiration. I am pretty sure I made that music the summer when I was fifteen.
For how long did this last? It lasted for at least ten years, with some reduction in intensity over time.
It slowed down after about ten years since I went against my clear inner guidance on a major life decision. That dampened it all.
Side-effects of awakening
Awakening itself is our nature noticing itself. The awake space we are, and always are and have been, notices itself. That’s it.
There can also be side-effects. In my case, the side effects were quite dramatic. Why? Likely because the shift was unexpected, sudden, and this human self was completely unprepared in every way. I was just an angsty atheist teenager.
If you have a practice of meditation, prayer, mindful movement, learning, and so on, I suspect the shift may be easier and far less dramatic.
After-effects
When this massive influx comes to mind, it brings up discomfort. I haven’t written about this before because of that discomfort, and it has taken months to finish this article. That makes me think that for all the wonders of the side-effects of the initial oneness shift, something about it was also quite traumatizing for my human self and psyche.
On the one hand, it was not overwhelming since it all happens within and as the awake space I am. On the other hand, for my human self, it was overwhelming. Although that, in itself, seemed OK.
What was more difficult at a human level was when I derailed myself. That has left a deep wound. I derailed myself when I was twenty seven by going against a clear inner guidance on a major life decision. That disrupted the natural unfolding of all of this, and that was immensely difficult and painful for me. (And all of it is part of the process.)
Additional articles
I have written about other aspects of what happened within and before this shift. See the autobiographical section on the selected articles page.
A note on words
I call it influx but it’s not clear that it’s coming from anywhere. It’s more a bubbling up of insights, inspiration, and energies.
Also, I call it a oneness shift. It gets the point across but doesn’t really match my experience. It’s more that it’s all the divine without exception. It’s all consciousness without exception. As they say in Advaita, it’s not-two.
I have developed a Barichara plant database. As of now, it has 259 plant entries. Of these, 139 are native and the rest are suitable for a food forest in the area. Each plant has 212 fields with information used by the front-end interface.
There are three main ways to find plants: A simple search and the two discover and design sections. Each of those sections has subsections with several plant lists and filters. There is also a details page for each plant.
I made this database specifically for reforestation and food forests in the Barichara area, at about 1000 to 15000 meters above sea level in a dry tropical forest in the Andes.
It’s still at a draft stage and the info and interface need to be refined and improved. If there is interest, I’ll make a Spanish language version.
If it is to be used outside of Barichara, the plant selection and plant info needs to be tailored to each location.
This plant database is made with Google Sheets (spreadsheet) and Google Apps (interface and programming). That means that the URL for the current version may change over time, although I will aim at keeping it at this URL for a while. The images are from Wikipedia and Wikimedia with sources listed.
I made it mostly for our own food forest and regeneration project on Finca Milagros. If others in the area find it useful, they are of course welcome to use it.
This is the first time I used AI as an assistant for a project like this. I started it in 2024 and worked on it for about a week, and then another couple of weeks in 2025. My life was too full to do more with it until this summer where I spent maybe three weeks to continue the work on the content and interface. There are many questions about the use of AI for these kinds of projects, including the use of natural resources and copyright questions. Still, I chose to use it for this project.
There are many forms of stupidity. I am mostly interested in the form of stupidity that’s the shadow of intelligence or an apparently stupid use of our intelligence.
Willful ignorance
We can call ignorance stupidity, especially when we could have known and could have sought out vital information. Willful ignorance is a kind of stupidity.
Making mistakes can be seen as stupidity, especially when we know better and go against our better knowing.
Both of those point to a form of stupidity that’s the shadow of intelligence. It comes out of and depends on a certain intelligence, and it can easily be seen as a misuse of intelligence.
Likely evolutionary benefit – up to a point
Often that stupid way to use our intelligence happens because we hold onto familiar beliefs, identities, and habits. Our mind tries to protect itself, and we prioritize familiar beliefs, identities, and habits over reality. That’s very understandable, it has some limited upsides, and it also comes with a range of downsides, lessons, and feedback from life.
There is no reason to assume this stupid use of intelligence is new, and it very likely has survival benefits, especially in the situations our ancestors found themselves. In many cases, it helps us preserve the status quo and saves energy, and that likely helped many of our ancestors to survive.
In many cases, it works well enough in spite of the downsides. We can live with the downsides, including sometimes being annoying to others.
Other times, the downsides stare us in the face. They are significant and undeniable.
That’s the situation we collectively find ourselves in today in our modern world.
Stupid intelligence today
Collectively, we are currently almost unbelievably stupid in exactly this way.
Let’s start with the big picture: our relationship with this living planet we are local and temporary expressions of.
Through stupid use of our intelligence, we are collectively engaging in ecocide and suicide. We know it well, or could very easily know it well, and still do little to change it.
In spite of all our knowledge and the very real feedback from Earth itself (deforestation, extinctions, loss of insects, climate disruptions), most of us are in some form of denial of this. Some try to convince themselves that things are moving in the right direction. (My brother, for instance, says the world is much better than ever before and we don’t need to make significant changes. This is true in a very limited sense, if we only look at the lives of some privileged humans. It’s not true if we look at all of humanity and our ecological situation. I assume he has adopted that view to feel better about himself and the world, and so he doesn’t personally need to change anything.) Some try to convince themselves that our current climate changes are natural variations even if what we are seeing closely follows climate change models from the 1970s onwards. Some ignore ecological overshoot and focus on sub-issues within global ecological overshoot, like climate change or species loss. Some assume that it’s someone else’s fault and overlook that the problems are systemic and we are all part of it. Some assume it’s someone else’s problem (future generations, poor people in other places) or that someone else will take care of it (the government, future generations). Some assume we’ll find a technological solution, which is a piece of the puzzle but not the main one. Some assume it must not be important or urgent since most seem complacent about it.
People vote for the same politics and policies as before, even if these were largely formed in the 1800s when the world and our challenges were very different. Our worldview, models, and policies from that time did not take ecological realities into account because they didn’t have to.
In economics, we still largely work with models that don’t take ecological realities into account. These models assume infinite Earth – infinite resources and infinite capacity to absorb the waste of civilization. Business people, politicians, and society as a whole use these economic models. And again, we know, or can easily know, that following these models is inherently ecocidal and suicidal.
We grow our food with poison, knowing well that it harms us and severely damages the web of life we are part of and depend on. We support systems that reward farmers to grow food with poison.
We maintain manicured lawns, knowing well we are in the middle of an insect apocalypse partly due to loss of habitat, and that a wilder garden is a part of the solution.
MAGA is an especially clear example of what can be seen as stupid intelligence. They willfully ignore reality, likely for some kind of emotional satisfaction, and in the process damage their democracy and the aspects of the US that does to some extent work. I assume that something in them knows what they are doing. It knows the contradictions, cruelty, lying, and damage, and the motivation for engaging in it, even if they may not consciously know or accept it. This is a fragile arrangement, which is expressed in being thin-skinned and reactive when questioned.
So we are not only collectively stupid, with our billions of people and powerful technology we are also ecocidal and suicidal.
Will we collectively continue to use stupid intelligence? Or will we somehow decide that smart intelligence is better since it will help us survive? That’s the big question. And how much needs to be destroyed before we eventually, if ever, decide to use smart intelligence?
The larger picture
As usual, there is a lot more to say about this.
As Yuval Noah Harari points out, human history is a dynamic interplay between stupidity and wisdom. It’s what has characterized us and what makes our collective human life interesting. It creates some drama and suspense, just like a good novel or movie.
It’s also not something we can do away with. We live with it and can find some peace with it or not.
A smart use of intelligence is to recognize stupid and smart intellgience, find some peace with the existence of both, and be good stewards of our own lives and do what we can to move the world in a slightly more life-centered direction.
Also, the dynamics behind stupid intelligence have their own intelligence. As mentioned, they help preserve a certain self-image, they encourage status quo (which often works to some extent), and they help preserve energy. There is a reason for them, and it’s good to explore – especially in ourselves.
In my life
How does this apply to me? When I write about the world, I write about me.
When and how have I engaged in stupid intelligence?
There is no lack of examples. Several times, I have followed the advice of experts even if it makes no sense to me, and I have regretted the results.
In the 2000s, my doctor in Oregon insisted I eat less salt. I had perfect blood pressure, made my own food from scratch, didn’t eat any processed foods, and already used very little salt. Reducing that small amount likely led to heat stroke within a few months. I knew she probably assumed I ate like an average person in the US and the advice was based on that and not tailored to me, but I still followed it – against my better knowing.
The same doctor refused to give me antibiotics for a long lasting and profoundly debilitating pneumonia. I again accepted her professional opinion, even if it seemed as misguided as the salt advice. After many weeks of that pneumonia, it very likely led to a collapse of my health and return of the CFS/ME.
My wife insisted we hire two young architects to design our first house in the Andes. I wanted to design it myself since I have a relatively solid background in that type of design (MA program in architecture, extensive personal studies in vernacular architecture, many hands-on building workshops, etc.) I didn’t like them or their work, didn’t trust them, and saw that they understood far less than me, and still accepted them and their work. I again went against my own better judgment because someone else insisted.
Predictably, they made several serious mistakes in their design, and we ended up with the cost of necessary redesign and repairs. After the collapse of our roof, which almost killed us in our sleep (large roof beams and tiles crashed down next to us), a third-party report found them responsible, and they responded with denial and suing us for defamation.
This is clearly very stupid and it has had serious consequences for my life.
Why have I so often deferred to experts, or people in my life insisting, even when it goes against my better judgment? At one level, I tell myself that they must know something I don’t. If they say something that seems stupid, and insist, either they are stupid or they know something I don’t. Something in me prefers the second possibility. In the moment, it also requires less energy and I don’t have much to begin with. Also, I tend to want to avoid conflicts which is a pattern I learned in my birth family. Going into disagreement feels uncomfortable and it takes energy that I often feel I don’t have. When I notice someone has a wrong idea about me or my situation, I don’t always speak up to correct it. A part of me may also secretly enjoy the “I told you so” I can go into after, even if I typically don’t say anything about it.
It may also not help that on the Big Five personality test, I am unusually high on agreeableness and conscientiousness, which feeds into my other patterns of wanting to please, avoid conflict, and do things correctly.
These are all surface answers and I am sure there is a lot more there.
The solution is simple, although not always so easy for me: Notice when someone wants me to do something that doesn’t make sense to me. Speak up and make sure they have the fuller picture. Get a second or third opinion. And follow my own best judgment and guidance, informed by solid info.
I have been sick for some days now, with a lot of discomfort off and on.
The symptoms include nausea, aches, headache, dizziness, sometimes extremely sore throat, shivers/sweating, general sickness feeling, and so on, and I am not sure if it’s “just” a flu or covid.
What’s the reality of it?
What’s the reality of this situation?
It’s that I have a virus that most likely will pass in a few days.
I am in a beautiful apartment in Oslo, at the edge of the forest, by a river.
I have a grocery store two minutes away, and money to buy food.
I have people who can help me if it’s needed.
I have access to excellent healthcare.
This kind of reality check is good medicine when the mind goes into self-pity, fearful thoughts, and so on. In this situation, it doesn’t go there much, but it’s still helpful to remind myself of the reality.
What’s the worst that can happen?
What’s the worst that can happen?
I’ll die, which will be an adventure. It’s OK if that happens.
I’ll get worse from my CFS. That’s more of a concern. Even then, I’ll be taken care of one way or another.
It’s OK. And the fear I notice far back in my mind about it is OK too.
It will pass
I notice that what I love about it is that it will pass. (Didn’t Byron Katie say something about that?)
It will pass since everything passes. What comes together falls apart. That’s how this world is put together, and it seems to be one of the biggest struggles we mammals with abstract thinking has.
I make a point out of reminding myself of this, whether I am in a situation my personality likes or doesn’t like. It helps me struggle less with both – holding onto one and trying to make the other go away.
What’s actually here?
My mind tells itself there is strong discomfort, and sometimes less strong discomfort.
When I look more directly at my experinece, I find something else.
I find wast space and spaciousness.
I find a few sensations here and there happening within this wast space.
I find they spacious. They are made up of this space.
At least here and now, when I actually notice what’s here in my sense fields, it’s OK. It’s fine. It’s not nearly as dramatic as my mind sometimes talks to itself about it.
Anchoring attention in sensations is sometimes good medicine.
My mind projects it into the future
Right now, I feel sick and am mostly in bed, unable to do much. I am unable to do the projects I had planned for this week. I am unable to take care of things or my life beyond just resting, drinking lots of water, and eating a minimal amount.
My mind has a tendency to take these images of what’s here and put them into an imagined future.
That’s very understandable. It wants to protect me and take care of me.
It’s also a pattern I recognize from the past, especially from CFS/ME crashes.
So I notice it, notice it comes from wanting to protect me and from love, and see it for what it is.
I assume because of that, that pattern is now more like a ghost. A faint echo of a pattern that used to have more energy and apparent substance to it. (And that can change, of course.)
It’s very understandable
My personality does sometimes struggle with what’s happening now.
It’s not OK with it, and that’s OK. It’s very understandable.
We are mammals and don’t like discomfort and illness. Our bodymind is programmed over innumerable generations, likely back to our very first ancestors at the beginning of Earth life, to not enjoy it, and be motivated to make it go away. We are programmed to seek to either make the apparent cause of discomfort to go away (in this case, the illness), or get away from it.
That’s beautiful. This is what has kept all my ancestors alive for long enough to have offspring, which is a miracle in itself. There is love here. A desire to protect.
It’s one part of me
When a part of me comes up that’s unhappy about what’s here, want it to go away, complain about it, project it into the future, and so on, it’s a reminder that these are parts.
They are far from all of me. And they all come and go in terms of being vocal and on the surface.
Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for your love for me.
Being kind with my experience
This all ties into being kind with my experience, including the discomfort and the sensations my mind understands as discomfort.
Why being kind with it? Because anything else hurts. It just makes it worse.
And this includes being kind to myself when the reactive/complaining/fearful parts of me come up, and I sometimes go along with them. That deserves kindness too. It’s very human.
It’s universal
Being sick is a universal experience. We all get sick. We – living beings – get sick now and then.
Again, it’s not wrong. It’s part of how life is set up.
So when I feel sorry for myself, it can be expanded into empathy. This is how others experience it too, when they are sick. This is sometimes how it is to be a living being, whether it’s a human, cat, lizard, fish, or something else.
This too helps me. It’s not just about me. This is universal.
We are in it together, and there is a beauty in that.
Giving it over to the divine
I sometimes give it all over to the divine – the illness, symptoms, my fears, the way this personality responds to it, my life, and so on.
And that’s a reminder that it all already belongs to the divine. It’s not mine, in that sense. It belongs to live. It’s all local and temporary expressions of existence itself. It’s not wrong.
It’s part of life expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways. It’s part of existence expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways.
Noticing what I am
Many of the earlier notes have touched on this, and I have held back from going there since I wanted to save it for last.
This is all happening within and as what I am. The space I am forms itself into all of it. The awakeness I am forms itself into all of it.
That’s good to notice. None of what’s happening touches what I am.
Becoming familiar with this
All of this has been here during these days of being sick, although some of it has been far in the distance and only as a hint. Nothing else was needed. (For instance, exploring “what’s the worst that can happen?”.)
After all, it’s “just” a flu or covid and I will most likely be fine.
Still, I notice and actively engage with all of this now and then. It’s good to get into the habit.
I notice I feel slightly grumpy this morning, maybe because of a virus that’s taking hold.
So I take the opportunity to get some things done – especially the things my personality doesn’t like so much. I looked at my taxes and need to check if what I already paid covers it all. I am ordering a part for the row boat at the cabin, which brings up some discomfort since that has been an ordeal in the past (got sent the wrong part which led to a long process). And migrating and setting up A’s website.
If I feel good, and I am able, I tend to avoid tasks that may bring down my mood. So when I already am grumpy, that’s the perfect time to do those particular tasks!
Sometimes, I work with what’s here. I find ways to work with or work around my issues and hangups.
Sometimes, I invite healing for how I relate to the situation in the world and what it brings up in me.
Heart-centered practices are good here – being kind with my experience, and tonglen or ho’oponopono.
Noticing my nature is also helpful here since it by necessity changes how I relate to something. I can notice it and bring it more into the foreground, as an explicit context for what’s happening. And I can explore it more in depth through inquiry, for instance Big Mind process and Headless experiments.
And sometimes, I invite healing for the issue itself. Inquiry (sense field inquiries, The Work of Byron Katie) are helpful, energy work (Vortex Healing), or just merging with the issue, see what’s there, and inviting it to reorganize in a more whole and healed way.
Today, and in this case, I just work with what’s here. The worst that can happen is that I get some things done. (And I did.)
We are the eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe brining itself into consciousness.
– Carl Sagan from Cosmos, likely paraphrased
When I was ten, Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was on TV in Norway as in so many other countries.
It had a huge impact on me. I remember walking out into the garden after one of the episodes, looking up at the many stars1, and having a shift of being the universe looking at itself. I am a local and temporary expression of the universe. I am made of star stuff.
Some time later, that year or within one or two years maybe, we went to our family cabin in the mountains, near the Sølen mountain. My father, brother, and I hiked up to the mountain – Sølenskaret –and slept there overnight. They were in a tent, and I slept outside. I gazed at the infinite landscape stretching below me and the dark sky filled with stars and the occasional satellite, and had another shift that was far stronger and more visceral.
I profoundly saw and felt that I was the universe experiencing itself. My identity shifted from this human self into the whole.
This is a figure-ground shift that’s similar to awakening. It is, in a sense, a kind of awakening, although it’s not as clear about our nature as it can be. Also, in this case, the strong visceral shift didn’t last although it has stayed with me for my whole life, has informed my life, and has been an aspect of my experience since.
This shift seems t be part of a longer process. It started with the flashbacks to before incarnation, then this visceral temporary shift, then the absorption into the witness at age fifteen, and then the oneness shift at sixteen – which did stay and continues to unfold.
Photos from Sølen
The top photo is similar to the view I had, just slightly below the area where we slept. The second is from where we slept. The two last ones are vies from the cabin from some years ago. The photos are very dark! I initially edited them years ago on a different computer, likely with a bright screen.
The personal and the universal
Why do I write about this?
I share because I assume there is something universal in all of my experiences. In this case, I happen to know something similar has happened and is happening to many others.
It makes it worth putting it out there to say that (a) this can happen and it’s part of the human experience, (b) it’s not that unusual, (c) you are not alone if this or something similar has happened with you, and (d) these kinds of shifts says something important about who and what we are and our nature.
NOTES
This was in the ’80s when the sky in Ski was still dark, people mostly walked or took the bike or train, and the summers were still full of insects.
Yesterday, I added articles to the “Selected Articles” page and used AI to help me identify relevant articles. It’s an imperfect process but more manageable than manually sifting through 10,000+ articles!
I was reminded of the no-self shift in 2005 and thought I would highlight it here in this article.
NO-SELF SHIFT
Some time before 2005, I got back into more serious meditation and inquiry practice. This, combined with some other things, led to a clear no-self shift. The no-self aspect of my nature shifted strongly into the foreground.
I had known that my mind associated the initial oneness shift with some of the states that came with it – the bliss and fireworks. This no-self shift helped me differentiate my nature from changing states and experiences.
The shift itself lasted about six months, and the easier noticing remained after.
ARTICLES FROM THAT TIME
I referenced some of these shifts in articles from that time. See a list below.
I used AI (ChatGPT) to identify and describe these articles. Out of curiosity, I also asked it to summarize the process. See that article after the list. It’s not trained on this type of content, so don’t take anything there too literally! I would likely phrase much of it differently, but the gist is there.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
How does this fit into the bigger process?
It was one of many instances where an aspect of my nature comes more strongly into the foreground. It’s as if life – or my nature – says: Look at this! This is yet another aspect of me. Now that it’s so strongly in the foreground of your experience, you can’t help but noticing it. This is your chance to become more familiar with it. Get to know it. And keep noticing it even when it’s not so strongly in the foreground.
That’s exactly what happened. Since then, it’s been much easier for me to notice this aspect of my nature through changing states and experiences.
WHY AM I EXPLORING THIS NOW?
As mentioned, I am revisiting this now partly because I am doing some maintenance on this website, and was reminded of this particular shift. I am also taking some inventory of my life in general right now.
THE PERSONAL AND THE UNIVERSAL
Any personal experience is also universal. From what I have heard from others, these kinds of shift don’t seem unusual. It suggests that our nature reveals different aspects of itself to itself in an awakening process. If you experience something like this, you are not alone.
And if you are in it now, use it as an opportunity to become more familiar with the aspect of your nature currently in the foreground. That will make it easier for you to keep noticing it through different states and experiences.
I have had several dreams through my life where the dream “I” is someone else than I in my waking life identity.
As I wrote about in Dreams & Ground in 2005, these dreams are an invitation to explore my more fundamental identity.
Who or what am I more fundamentally in my own first-person experience?
WHAT AM I MORE FUNDAMENTALLY?
In my dreams, it seems I can be anyone or anything. I can be a different gender, a different age, a different species.
At the same time, what I am still here. What I more fundamentally am is still here.
So what is that?
When I look, I find I am capacity for all of it. I am the consciousness that forms itself into any and all content of experience, including what “I” or “me” points to.
AN INVITATION
These dreams are an invitation….
To find curiosity about my nature. If I can be anyone or anything in my dreams, what does it say about who or what I more fundamentally am in my own first person experience?
To explore all kinds of identities. The world is my mirror. I can take whatever story I have about anyone or anything in the world, turn it to be about me, and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true. I am as rich as the world. How is it to explore, get to know, and live from more of that richness?
For my nature to notice itself, to find itself as what forms itself into all content of experience including identities and what they point to.
To explore how it is for this human self to live within and from that noticing.
A FEW DREAM EXAMPLES
Here are a few examples of dreams where the dream “I” is different from in my waking life.
Dream: Systems change project in Iceland – where I am a female journalist working with scientists and journalists to map toxins and support systems change (2025)
Dreams & Ground – Reflection on frequently having dreams where I am a quite different person, with different age, body, gender, personality, and circumstances (2005)
THE PERSONAL AND UNIVERSAL
Why do I write about this?
If it was just about me, it would be boring and not necessarily worth mentioning.
But it’s not just about me. There is something universal in all of my experiences. In this case, I know that others have similar kinds of dreams. Some already use it as a pointer to notice their nature, and some may find curiosity about it and start exploring it. It’s an interesting landscape to explore.
I climb up the ladder to the attic, put my head up into the attic space, and the ladder and everything disappears. I fall through the darkness, look down, and there is a witch with a cauldron looking up at me grinning. I am about the fall into her cauldron to be cooked and eaten.
This is a recurrent dream from childhood.
I climb up the ladder to the attic in my childhood home. It’s a pull-down ladder so it feels rickety and insecure. As soon as my head comes up into the attic and I can see around, everything disappears and goes black. There is no support. I fall. Then, I see the witch grinning up at me. I am about to fall into her cauldron and be cooked and eaten.
Most likely, the witch has to do with unhealthy feminine aspects, from my mother and father, in our culture in general, and, most importantly, in me.
I have explored this in several ways. Today, I am giving it to the divine, and I am doing tonglen with the witch, myself falling, and both of us.
One side of this has to do with setting boundaries towards unhealthy patterns in myself and others. This includes when I see myself engaging in unhealthy patterns. When my mother tried to control me, which she stopped doing early on since I did make it clear it was not acceptable. And when people in my life have treated me in ways that’s clearly not healthy. It’s an ongoing process and I am still learning.
Writing this, I notice some shame comes up. It feels like I am exposing myself too much, which means – surprise – there is still something unresolved in me around this.
Recurrent childhood dreams say something about early – and often deep – patterns in us which may become themes through our lives. That’s why I am taking some time to explore it again now.
I find my perception time fascinating, and my perception of the past and future is a clue to my perception of what my thoughts call here and now.
PAST
Something that happened years or decades ago seems like it happened yesterday, and also as if it happened ages ago. That’s fascinating and perhaps also not so surprising.
My images of the past are just that, images. They are literally imaginations.
I imagine my past and call it memory.
In that way, it feels like yesterday. It’s alive and fresh in imagination.
It also feels like ages ago. It feels distant. Like a dream.
The future is the same. It’s literally imagination. It only exists in images.
FUTURE
I can only find past and future here, in my images here and now.
They are guesses about the future, based on my images of the past and present.
PRESENT
This says something about my perception of what my thoughts call the present.
That too is here in my images here and now, along with what’s here in the other sense fields.
It’s happening with and as what I am. It’s happening within and as the consciousness I am. It’s made out of the consciousness I am. It’s made out of this awake space.
MY NATURE
Any exploration of my perception of (what my thoughts call) the past, future, and present inevitably brings me back to my nature.
It points to my nature as this awake space that forms itself into it all.
It points to my even more fundamental nature of capacity for it all.
A capacity that forms itself into it all – consciousness and all it forms itself into.
GAINING SUBSTANCE THROUGH SENSATIONS
If my experience of the past, future, and present happens within and as the consciousness I am, why does it sometimes seem real and with a substance.
It’s because my mind associates certain physical sensations with certain images of the past, future, and present. The sensations gives it a sense of substance and reality. And the images give a sense of meaning to the sensations.
Since sensations come and go, for anything to appear persistently real and solid, it needs to be associated with persistent sensations. And for sensations to be there persistently, there needs to be contraction, a physical contractions of the muscles.
That’s why issues, wounds, and traumas come with chronic muscle contractions. They depend on them. That’s also why issues, wounds, and traumas can be approaches throughout the mind or the body since they are made up of both.
SEED
The seed for this brief exploration was someone posting a Kanzeon Zen Center event photo from twenty years ago , saying it felt recent and also a very long time ago. That’s my experience too of what happened years or decades ago. When I look at my experience, I can find good reasons for that perception.
I have noticed that people who have Near-Death Experiences (NDES) or other kinds of mystical experiences often describe it as more real than real.
That’s how it is for me too.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH THIS
Sitting here, my nature – this awakeness – seems more real than anything it forms itself into.
This is in contrast to my world as it is here. This room, the music, the sound of the wind, this body, these emotions and thoughts, they all seem ephemeral and dreamlike.
And this awake space noticing itself is immediate and real.
They are obviously not two. They are two aspects of the same. Words can make them sound more separate than they are.
When the initial oneness shift happened in my teens, it was similar although more visceral and less differentiated. All without exception was revealed as God and it was more real than previous waking life. It was a visceral and undeniable experience of it as more real than real.
WHY MORE REAL?
So why does it seem more real?
It’s because it’s more immediate and it is more real.
As described above…
Any content of experience is ephemeral and dreamlike. It’s made of up the same as dreams. It’s the awakeness I am that forms itself into my world, this field of experience. It doesn’t seem quite real, whether we notice all of this or not.
What’s real to us is our nature – as this awakeness. When it notices itself, there is an immediacy and realness there. It’s a coming home. We notice our own nature.
All of this may not be consciously noticed, but the visceral experience is there.
AN ADDITION: MORE FINELY GRAINED
I thought I would go through this in a slightly more finely grained way.
When I say “more real than real” I actually mean two different things.
(a) One is more real than the ephemeral content of experience. That’s described above.
(b) The other is more real than waking life when it’s experienced through separation consciousness.
When we experience through separation consciousness, we are identified with the idea of being something within the content of experience. Usually, a combination of this human self, this physical body, a me, and I, an observer, a doer, and so on. We take ourselves to be that idea, and what that idea refers to. We experience as if we are that. Our perception is filtered through it.
Our perception goes through layers of filters. Our nature – the consciousness we are – is going through a lot of gymnastics in order to make this happen.
When our nature notices itself, it’s far more immediate and direct. And that feels more real.
In both cases, it feels more real because it’s more immediate.
In the first case, it’s because it’s contrasted with the content of experience which appears ephemeral and dreamlike. This is how it appears when our nature notices itself. (This is how it is for me, which is why I used this one above.)
In the second case, it’s because it’s contrasted with the filters of separation consciousness. This is how it is when our familiar state is separation consciousness and we have mystical experiences that give us a taste of our nature.
Note: Sorry for the additional section here. After writing the main part, I realized I had written it more from my own perception and left out the separation consciousness version. I may return to this later and write a more coherent article that take both into account from the start.
For a few decades now, I have explored living with a chronic illness and disability – Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME).
I imagine that some of what I have found helpful for me can be helpful to anyone, especially in our society and culture.
Self-worth. In our culture, we are trained to find our self-worth through achievements and activities. What if we are valuable as we are? What if we have inherent value, just like all life and all beings? What if we are OK and enough as we are?
Pacing. Life has seasons. What if we include those seasons through the day and over a series of days? What if activity is followed by rest? What if we schedule in rest? What if we find restful ways to do our activities?
Body comfortable. How is it to do what I am doing in a little more comfortable way? How is it to find a more restful, enjoyable, and nourishing way to do it?
Ask for help. In our culture, we are trained to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. How would it be to ask for help? What if it’s not a burden for the other? Maybe that person is happy to help, feel useful, and contribute to someone else’s life?
Find an authentic yes or no. When you say yes or no, is authentic? Are you fully on board with it? Is it something you need to say to yourself or the other first? What are you afraid may happen if you say an authentic yes or no? Is it likely to happen? Is it something you can live with?
Find a “yes” or “no” in your body. When deciding to do something or not, how would it be to do this: (a) Say “I can do it if I want, and I want to do it”. Notice how your body responds. Does it relax. Is there excitement? Does it come alive? If so, that may be a genuine yes. Does your body contract? Do you hold back your breath? That may be a no. Then, say to yourself: “I can do it if I want, and I don’t want to do it.” Notice your body’s response. Does it relax or come alive? Does it contract and hold back?
Find meaning. How is it to find meaning in your life as it is? Maybe in connecting with nature? In genuine connection with others?
Find joys in daily life. How is it to find joys in daily life? In what’s already here or what you can easily do? In watching the sun or rain out the window. In the song of a bird. A cup of tea. A delicious lunch. Music. A conversation. Sitting on the terrace.
Making friends with your body. How is it to make friends with your body? As it is? It’s here for you. Every second of every day it’s here for you. It’s doing its best to support your life.
Making friends with your life. How would it be to make friends with your life? As it is? How would it feel? What would change? What stands in the way? What beliefs and identities may stop you? How would it be if they were not there? If you saw through them and they didn’t have a hold on you?
Making friends with your experiences. How would it be to make friends with your experience as it is here and now? The discomfort? Contractions? Anxiety? Frustrations? What if your experience right now is OK? What if it was OK to make friends with it?
Thanking contractions. When I notice contractions in myself – scared parts of me – I thank them. They are here to protect me. They were formed as a way for my psyche to protect me, often early in life. They come from care for me, and love for me. Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for your love for me. Stay as long as you want.
The essence of wants. Take any wish, want, or need. What do you hope to get out of it? What do you hope to get out of that? Continue until you arrive at a simple essence. (This simple essence may turn out to be universal, innocent, and even beautiful.) Do this with many of your wishes, wants, or needs. Is the essence of what you wish for already here? How is it to notice? Also, how can you bring it into your life more? (Adyashanti.)
Needs may be wishes. Is what you think of as a need really a need? Isn’t it really more of a want or wish? If so, how is it to admit that to yourself? (Byron Katie.)
Change “have to” to “want to”. Notice when or if you say “I have to…” to yourself or someone else. How is it to change it to “I want to… because…”? Is that more honest and authentic? How does it feel? (Marshall Rosenberg, NVC.)
Refining goals. I had to let go of some goals and find new ones, more appropriate to my situation and circumstances. That can be painful, although also rewarding. The new goals can be as good as the previous ones, or even better. They can come from more authenticity.
Nourish nourishing relationships. I have let go of relationships that were not so nourishing, and instead nourished – and sought out – more genuinely nourishing relationships. Nourish the relationships that make you come alive.
Nourish nourishing activities. Find, engage in, and prioritize nourishing activities, the ones that make you come alive.
Find connections with the larger whole. We are already part of this living planet and this unfolding universe, although we also live in a culture with a separation worldview. How is it to explore and deepen into these connections with the larger whole? (Deep ecology, Practices to Reconnect, Universe Story, Epic of Evolution, lived cosmology, EcoSpirituality, etc.)
Question and see through the shoulds of our culture and civilization. We live in a culture that has a strong domination element, and that’s hard for all of us. What are these shoulds? Where do they come from? What do they do with us, as individuals and society? Who or what do they serve? What are some alternatives? How would it be to bring those into my life and live from them?
One way I see CFS/ME is as a correction to our mainstream culture with its emphasis on productivity and finding value and identity through work. In this culture, more is better. Work hard and play hard. There is a one-sidedness here, and the world of CFS/ME is a correction to this one-sidedness. It’s a way for life to balance it out. There are important lessons from the world of CFS/ME for the rest of society.
Writing this, I am also reminded of good enough. With my brain fog and fatigue, it’s difficult for me to take in information and also to write. I forget. I can’t find much flow. It’s difficult for me to read over to edit. And that’s OK. It’s good enough, at least for now and for this article and this purpose.
In an awakening process, it’s common to – at some point – experience waking life as a dream. Our human self can initially respond to this in different ways, and it does become ordinary over time.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
I assume that a common experience on the awakening path is to recognize the dreamlike nature of reality. The world seems dreamlike. This is something specific and clear, and it’s relatively easy to understand why we have this experience.
Whether we notice or not, our nature is consciousness. We are, in our own experience, consciousness, and the world – as it appears to us – happens within and as the consciousness we are. The consciousness we are forms itself into this whole field of experience which includes this human self, anything associated with this human self (thoughts, emotions, states, identities, identifications), and the wider world.
Dreams happen within and as the consciousness we are. That’s something most of us notice. What fewer consciously notice is that waking life does too. All our experiences, whether asleep or awake, happen within and as the consciousness we are, whether we notice or not.
That’s why, when we notice our nature (when our nature notices itself), reality can seem dreamlike. We recognize that waking life is just like dreams. They all happen within and as this awake space we are.
This can be slightly disturbing to our human self, or not. In either case, it becomes ordinary over time.
MY EXPERIENCE
For me, the dreamlike nature of reality came to the foreground in two phases.
First, when I was fifteen, the world – just about all content of experience including thoughts, feelings, etc. – went far away. Identification was only left in the observer, which was one part of the content of experience. Everything felt dreamlike and it was very disturbing to this human self.
Then, a year later, there was a shift into oneness and everything was revealed as consciousness. Or, as I thought of it then – and still find valid – everything was revealed as Spirit, God, including this human self and anything associated with this human self. In other words, everything is dreamlike. What before had been disturbing was now beyond amazing to this human self.
These days, the dreamlike nature of reality is still noticed and unavoidable, and this human self and psyche are more used to it. It’s a lived-in world at this point, and still as amazing.
Why does reality have a dreamlike nature? It’s because, to myself, I am consciousness, and the world to me happens within and as the consciousness I am. To me, the world appears as if made of consciousness.
And I assume it’s like that for you too, whether you notice or not.
A FEW MORE NOTES
As usual, there is a lot more to say about this.
The world may have a dreamlike nature, and I still need to be a good steward for my own life. For my own sake, and for the sake of others – dreamlike as they may appear – I need to be a good steward and treat others as I would like to be treated.
There are many ways to understand this shift into oneness and the noticing the dreamlike nature of reality. Some may, as I do here, understand it from a first-person perspective and not draw conclusions about the nature of reality itself. (Small understanding of awakening.) Others may draw conclusions about the nature of reality and assume existence itself IS consciousness. (Big understanding of awakening.)
There is another sense in which waking life is similar to dreams for me. When I work with dreams, I see everyone and everything in the dream as representing parts of me. I do the same with waking life. I use the world as a mirror. I can take any story I have about anyone or anything, turn it to be about me, and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true.
THE PERSONAL AND UNIVERSAL
Why do I write about this?
I share because I assume there is something universal in all of my experiences. I assume others have similar experiences and explore this in a similar way.
It makes it worth putting it out there to say that (a) this can happen and it’s part of the human experience, (b) it’s likely not that unusual, (c) you are not alone if you experience or notice something similar, and (d) it says something about our nature and it’s something we can intentionally explore.
Note: I wrote the second section first, in January this year. I later found it among many unpublished posts and decided to publish it with some additions.
I attended a Zoom talk this morning about Tibetan dream practices. The host mentioned exploring projections in daily life and also in dreams.
This brought up some curiosity again about different kinds of projections.
1. PROJECTIONS IN CASUAL SENSE – “THAT’S ABOUT YOU“
Although the term comes from psychology (Freud & Jung), it’s also used in daily life these days.
In casual language, projections is typically used when what we see in someone else is not there. It’s a fantasy or we are talking about ourselves.
I am infatuated by someone, and my friends see the person very differently. I am upset by someone’s actions, and others see that it really describes me.
That’s insightful enough. Although there is a fuller and more inclusive way to see it.
2. THE WORLD IS MY MIRROR – PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING
In a psychological context, the world is my mirror.
Whatever I see in the wider world is also here in me.
TURNING MY STORIES AROUND
I can take any story I have about someone or something, change it to be about me, and find specific and genuine examples of how it’s true. This goes for literally anyone and anything – people in my life, public people, fictional characters, dream figures, non-human beings, landscapes, and so on.
Of course, I won’t live out everything in the same way as others do. But I can find the same characteristics and dynamics here in me and my life and actions.
CHARGE
When my view of someone or something has a charge, that’s usually a sign that the projection is blind. I see it out there and not also in myself.
When I recognize it in myself, the charge tends to soften and dissipate.
The charge is like a glue, it glues my attention to what I don’t yet recognize in myself. It’s life saying “take a look at this, and see if you are that too”. It’s an invitation from life to find what I see out there also in here.
I AM AS RICH AS THE WORLD
I am already as rich as the world. The more I find in myself what I see in the world, the richer my experience of myself is. I limit myself less with exclusive identities or shoulds. I am more open and my life is richer and more fluid.
Any one identity soften and all of them have some validity for me. I live more from both/and instead of either/or.
My sense of belonging in the world deepens. I recognize myself in others and the world. The sense of WE and US widens and deepens.
I more easily recognize myself in others, which opens for a more genuine empathy. There is less room for blind judgment, and more understanding and recognition. (Which doesn’t mean harmful actions are OK.)
3. MORE FUNDAMENTAL PROJECTIONS
This psychological understanding of projections is rich and important, and there is another understanding that’s more fundamental.
We can explore this in two steps – first in the form of dreams, and then in the form of our world.
3a. DREAMS AS A PROJECTION – A HINT
We can see dreams as a projection. It’s a world created by the consciousness I am.
It’s projected similar to how a projector projects a movie onto a screen.
Of course, within this more fundamental projection is the world as a mirror projection.
Everyone and everything in the dream represents parts of me. The consciousness I am wouldn’t be able to create it if I wasn’t already it. If the dynamics and characteristics were not already here and familiar to me.
This more fundamental projection is a hint for an even more fundamental projection.
3b. MY WORLD HAPPENS WITHIN AND AS WHAT I AM
If my dreams are projected, maybe that’s the same with my world?
WHO & WHAT I AM
In one sense, I am this human self in the world. That’s how I appear to most others, and it’s what my passport says.
And yet, when I look, I find I more fundamentally am something else. I am what my world – this content of experience – happens within and as. I am what a thought may call consciousness, and the world to me happens within and as the consciousness I am.
Here, this human self becomes part of the world. He is part of the content of experience, just like anything else. He lives his own life. He happens on his own, just like everything happens on its own.
A PROJECTED WORLD
My world is, in a sense projected. We can use that word since it’s similar to how a movie is projected onto a screen.
A DREAMLIKE WORLD
This is also why my world seems dreamlike. It happens within and as what I am, just like my night dreams. It’s made of what I am made up – awake space, or what we may call consciousness.
BEING A GOOD STEWARD
This doesn’t mean that this world is not “real”. It’s definitely real to me, just like dreams are real to me as they happen. It’s not a reason to live recklessly or irresponsibly. I still need to be a good steward of my life, to the best of my ability. That’s part of the game.
ALL TOGETHER – RICHER
I enjoy all of these ways of talking about projections. Each one has some use and validity, and together, they create a richer understanding of my world and experience.
ONGOING EXPLORATION
Also, each of these is an ongoing exploration. It’s something to notice here and now, and make use of here and now.
Sometimes, I may see something in someone others don’t see, and that may be a sign I am caught up in a fantasy or talk about myself and not them.
I can use the world as my mirror. What stories do I have about others and the world? What do I find when I turn it to myself? Can I find specific and genuine examples? How is it to notice that? How is it to take it?
I can notice how my world is dreamlike. It happens within and as what I am. It happens within and as the consciousness I am. What I am forms itself into all of it. How is it to notice this? How is it to live from this noticing, here and now?
A CAVEAT
There is a caveat here, which is why I usually don’t use the word ‘projection’ in the more fundamental sense.
When we use the word ‘projection’, we usually have an image of something that’s projected by something onto something else. That doesn’t really fit here.
A dream isn’t really a projection in that sense. It happens within and as the consciousness I am. It’s the consciousness I am forming itself into a dream and all the content of the dream.
In the same way, my world isn’t projected. It’s what I am forming itself into my world. It’s all happening as one.
Still, some do use the word in this way. If I am to explore different kinds of projections – or different ways the word can be used – then it’s fine to include this as one form of projection. At least in this one article!
HOW THIS IS FOR ME
This was all undeniable within the initial oneness shift in my teens.
I could see that my world – all of existence – happens within and as the consciousness I am.
I could see that what this psyche sees in others and the world is also here. At my human level, the world is my mirror. (This is partly why I got so deeply into Jung in my teens and early twenties.)
I have continued to notice and explore those two. And I feel I am just scratching the surface.
I notice that my world happens within and as what I am, and yet I don’t fully life from and as it through all kinds of states and life circumstances and situations. Many parts of me, many subpersonalities, were formed within and still operate from separation consciousness. Even when more dormant, these color my experience and life, they sometimes surface, and I sometimes get caught up in them.
I also sometimes get caught up in blind or – more often – semi-blind projections. I see the charge and glue I have in relation to someone or something, and recognize it as a sign of projection. And I may not immediately and viscerally be able to find it in myself and deeply take it in. That takes more work and often time.
This is one in a brief series of dialogs emerging from Voice Dialog and the Big Mind process. It starts a little haltingly and becomes more interesting as it goes along. I see it mostly as a draft and exploration with some gold here and there. The best may be to start in the middle or towards the end and read the topics that most draws your interest.
Who are you?
I am one who has lived for eons. Happy to talk with you.
How am I different from you?
You are not that different. The main difference is that you are still caught up in the day-to-day changes and dramas. You use it to color your experience and whether you are happy or anxious.
I do that much less. I have seen it all. It’s all variations of life. It’s not worth getting so caught up in it. I take it seriously. I play the game. And I see it – and live it and viscerally feel it – as part of the tapestry of life.
How come you take it seriously if you see it as “part of the game”?
Because I know that not taking it seriously is not satisfying. I did that too, a long time ago. I disengaged. I had a distance to it. And that felt hollow. That too is not worth it, not for very long at least. It’s far more satisfying to be fully engaged.
Why do you see it as “part of the game” – what’s the game?
The game of life. It’s just a way of talking about it. I am just referring to life unfolding in all the many ways it does. Or existence unfolding as it does, here and now, locally and temporary as us and this seamless whole we call life and Earth.
How do you see life and death?
That’s a big topic. I see change as what allows anything new to be. And change involves life and death.
What comes together falls apart. And what falls apart makes space for something new to be.
Everything that’s here, everything we know, everything we love, is here because everything that went before is not here anymore. It went away so something new could be.
So how do you relate to change? Impermanence?
Much as I said. It brings things I like and also enjoy less, and I also know that it all comes as one package.
Without impermanence, nothing of what we are and know would be here. And that includes all the things my personality enjoys. So to have what we enjoy, we need the whole package. The whole package of life and what’s here.
My Zen dharma name is Daiken, given to me by Genpo Roshi. It means great courage.
It’s both what I need and what I am.
Why do I need it? One reason is that I tend to have a clear inner guidance, and sometimes have gone against it due to unexamined scary stories, wounds, trauma, and so on. I haven’t had the courage to follow my inner guidance. Or, said another way, the clarity. Sometimes, this has happened on major life choices and situations, and it has led to feeling profoundly off track.
How is it what I am? My nature is this awake space that forms itself into my world, the world as it appears to me, this field of always changing experiences. It allows it all. It forms itself into it all. It’s infinitely courageous.
That word doesn’t really apply, of course. But for this human self, it’s a good reminder. It’s medicine. It’s a reminder of this one aspect of my nature, and an invitation for this human self to try it on as well. How would it be if I say YES to life as it is here and now? How would it be to say YES to my world, as it is here and now?
How would it be to follow my inner guidance in this situation, and take the consequences?
Note: There are many other areas of life where I need courage. For instance, how would it be to be OK with being visible? To be seen? To put myself out in the world?
One of the most basic meditations is to notice and allow. Notice what’s here in this field of experience. Allow it as it is.
IMPERFECT NOTICING & ALLOWING
If we try to notice and allow, we’ll find that we can only do it approximately. Even with our best effort, we fail in doing it very well.
There is a beauty in that failing. It points to something else.
ALREADY NOTICED & ALLOWED
What’s here in this field of experience is already noticed and allowed.
It’s already noticed by the awakeness it’s happening within and as. (This is the ordinary awakeness that’s always here, that any experience happens within and as.)
It’s already allowed.
INTENTIONAL AND REFLECTIVE NOTICING & ALLOWING
Any intentional noticing comes after this original and inevitable noticing.
Any intentional allowing comes after this original and inevitable allowing.
ORIGINAL VS INTENTIONAL NOTICING & ALLOWING
There is already a perfect and inevitable noticing and allowing of what’s here in this field of experience.
Any intentional noticing and allowing comes after in time, even if it’s just a few milliseconds.
Any intentional noticing and allowing is imperfect. It’s inevitably partial and approximate.
Just like perfection is built into the original noticing and allowing, imperfection is built into any intentional noticing and allowing.
DIFFERENTIATING OUR NATURE VS THE FORMS IT TAKES
That’s how it should be. It points to an essential differentiation.
Our nature – what this field of experience happens within and as – has an inherent perfection.
Our human nature – with this psyche and these senses – is inherently messy.
WHAT WE REALLY ARE
What I fundamentally am is what instantly notices and allows what’s in this field of experience. I am this awake space forming itself into all content of experience, including any sense of an observer, doer, me, I, and any sense of identification with and as that or not.
I find that this exploration – first failing at noticing and allowing, and then noticing the noticing and allowing already here – helps me differentiate what and who I am. It helps this awake space (what I am) notice itself as this whole field of experience, forming itself into this human (who I am) with his psyche and body and relative slowness.
It also invites a shift of the center of gravity from the second to the first.
The one who searches is the very thing one is searching for.
– Ramana Maharshi
I was reminded of this quote on social media this morning.
As usual with these kinds of pointers, they are obvious – and inescapable – when noticed, and baffling if not.
What’s searching is within content of experience, it’s the sense of a doer/searcher with identification attached to it. What I am, this awake space, forms itself into the whole field of content, including that. So what searches already is what it’s searching for. It already is this awake space.
Of course, it usually imagines it’s searching for something else – money, romantic love, safety, approval, and so on. Or maybe some big experience. Or God as “other”. That’s one reason it may not recognize it.
It’s fascinated by its own imagination of what it’s searching for. It misleads itself with those imaginations.
That’s why simple pointers are so valuable – for instance from the Big Mind process or the Headless Way.
When the oneness shift happened in my teens, this became obvious although it took many years before I found someone talking clearly and directly about. Although I was familiar with Buddhism and Taoism in my late teens and twenties, I didn’t find this clear speech until I was in my thirties and found Ramana Maharshi, Douglas Harding, Adveita Vedanta, Byron Katie, and so on.
Some pointers are especially alive for me these days – to bring the noticing of my nature more into the foreground, or to help shift out of being caught up in this personality and his hangups.
I also like to scan the field of experience and explore whatever seems most contracted, or whatever seems most like I, me, an observer, or a doer, in this way.
Here are some I tend to use these days:
It’s an object. This experience – this thought/emotion dynamic, this discomfort – is an object. It’s not what I fundamentally am. It’s within the field of experience as anything else. It comes and goes as any other experience. It happens within and as what I am.
It’s made up of what I am. It’s made of the same as me. It’s this awake space taking this form. It’s the consciousness I am taking this form.
This is what life wants to experience now. Of all possible experiences, this is the one life wants to have here and for now. It has top priority for existence here and now.
How is it to meet it with kindness? If I experience discomfort, or this human self is struggling or upset, then how is it to meet it with kindness? How is it to meet it as I would a scared child or animal? How is it to be with it, allowing it to be as it is?
Notice and allow. If there is distress or discomfort, how is it to notice and allow? You are welcome here. Stay as long as you want. How is it to notice it’s already noticed and allowed, and align with that?
The words in bold are usually what I use as a pointer. Sometimes, I may use a few more words, and otherwise it’s mostly wordless noticing. And I sometimes use other pointers, depending on what comes up and what I am curious about. What works and is most helpful tends to change over time, and may be different for each situation, so it’s good to have a repertoire to draw from.
These pointers are helpful since they match where I am, and they say something about where I am in the process: I am relatively familiar with the terrain through noticing and structured inquiry, and I still need some support to bring my nature to the foreground of attention and help me shift out of being caught up in wounded parts of this human self.
At another time, and for someone else at a different place in their process, other pointers may work better.
I thought I would write a more personal story about what happened just before and after the oneness shift when I was sixteen. It’s been a while, so I won’t go into too much detail.
THE YEAR BEFORE: NEW YEAR’S EVE 1985 TO LATE DECEMBER 1986
First, the year leading up to the oneness shift.
Alcohol and fog
New Year’s Eve of 1985, when I was fifteen, I went to a party and drank quite a lot of vodka. I remember getting involved with a girl, then there were some hours I don’t remember, and I woke up at home the morning after and felt surprisingly fine. That day, around noon January 1st 1986, I was outside the house and it was as if a fog set in. My head felt woolen and the world started feeling distant. I assume the alcohol had something to do with it. (It was the first time I drank any significant amount of alcohol, and I have mostly stayed away from it since, apart from the very occasional small amounts of wine with food and the occasional oatmeal stout beer.)
The world far away, and absorbed into the witness
That year, I lived within that fog and with the sense that the world – including this human self – was very far away. Later, I understood that the consciousness I am was identified with and as the idea/mental construct of the observer, and everything else went far away. There was one identification left, and the rest largely released.
Seeing light
One day that summer, I sat outside the house under the birch trees, reading a book. I looked up at the tree and the sky, and noticed a light around the leaves. I assumed it was a kind of optical illusion or something with my eyes, and didn’t think about it more.
In the following day, I started seeing a light around not only leaves, but everything – people, animals, plants, inanimate objects. I would have thought this too was an optical illusion, if it wasn’t for the difference in the type of light – the quality, structure, etc. – around the different kinds of things. It was more complex and extended out further for humans. A little less for our cat, but similar. Even a little less and simpler for plants. And even simpler for inanimate objects. There were also some individual differences.
For all, the light extended out infinitely far, often getting more faint and fine further out.
I think I had heard about auras at that point, and thought that may be what I was seeing.
THE ONENESS SHIFT: LATE DECEMBER 1986
Almost exactly one year later, between Christmas and New Year 1986, I walked up the unpaved road to our house. It was dark, a big wind went through the landscape, the wind blew in the birch trees lining the road, and the sky was filled with stars. I stopped, looked up at the wind in the trees and the stars, and it all changed from one second to the next.
Everything – without exception – was revealed as God, as Spirit. The stars, the wind, the trees, the road, this human self and everything about this human self, this consciousness experiencing it all, all was revealed as God. It was God taking all these forms and experiencing itself as all of it.
Even the previous idea that this human self was experiencing all of it, and that there was an I there in this human self, was God temporarily creating that experience for itself.
Everything was turned upside down and inside out.
This shift was immensely strong, lasted for years and is still here, and it was followed by a huge amount of energy going through this human self. I remember thinking it was as if high voltage went through ordinary housing wires.
It also led to an even more immense influx of inspiration and insights, to the point where I couldn’t keep up. It was followed by periods of amazing synchronicities, of seeing energies even more clearly and realizing I could see how awake a consciousness is to itself, discovering distance sensing and healing abilities, and more.
I should mention that at a human level, I had been a self-described atheist since third of fourth (?) grade, I had absolutely no conscious interest in religion or spirituality, knew very little about it, and mostly had disdain for it.
Update: The shift must have happened December 28th, 29, or 30th, 1986. It was after I made the drawing above (December 27, 1986), and before New Year’s Eve.
Influx of music and art
As I mentioned, after the oneness shift, there was a huge influx (or bubbling up) of inspiration for music and art. I started making music and draw, and it was as if the music and art came to me ready-made, and I just had to try to get it out. The amount, strength, and beauty of what came was overwhelming for my human self.
I made the music below over a week in the summer when I was seventeen (?), and the drawing was made December 27, 1986 when I was sixteen. All filtered through my lack of technical skills and experience. (Listening to it now, it’s not that amazing, but I can see the reflections and seeds of something there.)
THE PROCESS AFTER
At the time, there was the thought that there must be something more, something “out there” somewhere, and the shift was followed by a state – a bliss – that this human mind associated with the oneness shift.
After the oneness shift, this human self has been on a journey of exploration. I have written about that elsewhere so won’t go into it here, apart from mentioning that I loved the Jesus/Heart Prayer, Christ meditation, and tonglen. I got into the Tibetan Buddhist Ngöndro practice. I spent a few years at a Zen center. The first I found who described something similar to what was revealed here was Meister Eckhart (filtered through his time and tradition, and wanting to be cautious). I loved the books of Ken Wilber I found (late teens). I loved systems views and Fritjof Capra (in my mid-teens and later).
In terms of how it shifted, a few things stand out.
I realized this is it, the sense of “something more” was created by the images in the mind of this human self.
I had a period of engaging and focusing on activities in the world – community organizing and sustainability work, and all of this went more into the background. (This was driven by circumstances and not something I necessarily consciously wanted.)
I got back into these explorations again, realized more clearly that my mind had mixed up side effects of the shift (bliss) with my naturally actually noticing itself, and there was more of a differentiation and clarification of my nature – as “just” this awake space taking all the forms of experience, and even more fundamentally capacity for all of it.
There was a period in my thirties of going through many different phases, including a strong no-self state that lasted about six months and where the no-self aspect of my nature became very clear and unmissable. (I described much of this as it happened on this website. See articles from mid-to late 2000s.)
This was followed by a strong dark night of the soul, which I have also described in other articles.
HOW IT HAS CHANGED
It feels a little presumptuous to talk about how it has matured, especially considering how messy the process has been during the dark nigth phase. But I can say something about how it has changed.
Noticing and clarification
As I mentioned, one shift is from confusing the side effects of the initial shift with my nature noticing itself. At a conscious level, I knew the difference, but at a visceral level, my system sought the bliss. These days, there is more a simple noticing of the essence of my nature and my human self has largely gotten onboard with it.
As part of that, meditation and the noticing has gotten simpler. This human self often put a lot of effort into meditation and inquiry – especially in his twenties. Now, the noticing is much simpler. It’s just a noticing throughout the day, when attention goes there, and it’s there through shifting states and experiences. No need for formal meditation or practice. No need for any pointers or inquiry. (No need in terms of this noticing, that is. Formal practice and inquiry is still helpful for other things, mostly to clarify, explore, and invite this human self to be more onboard with it all.)
Also, at first – for the first ten or more years – this human self was very excited about it all. There was an intensity about it, likely coming from a fear of losing it. (Again, he consciously knew it cannot be lost, but there was a visceral fear of losing it, or not noticing it anymore, of it not being a conscious part of this life.) These days, this too is simpler. It’s more a noticing.
Relationship with teachings and maps
In my teens, twenties, and thirties, I read voraciously about these things – from any and no traditions. Sometimes two or three books a week. I wanted to know what others said about it, and the words and maps they used. I listened to hundreds of hours of talks, from Adyashanti, Byron Katie, and others. These days, there is very little of that. Again, the simplicity of noticing is enough. It’s not better, just what’s happening now. This shift was nudged by living with CFS, which makes it difficult to take in or process much information.
In the initial oneness phase, I used a more traditional interpretation of awakening. I saw it as God, Spirit, or Existence awakening to itself as all there is, while sensing through this human self. These days, it makes more sense to find fluidity between a small and big interpretation of awakening. The big or spiritual interpretation assumes that the nature of all of existence is the same as what I find here. It’s inspiring, and it aligns with what we find in most traditions. A small or psychological interpretation of awakening is about what I can directly notice, and it does not assume that the nature of existence is the same as mine. That one is more honest, it’s a lowest common denominator, and it fits better an academic or modern mindset.
Maturing of the human self
To this human self, the oneness shift and what came with felt overwhelmingly extraordinary for a while. It was recognized as both extraordinary and ordinary, and the feeling emphasis was on the extraordinariness. These days, the charge is not there so much anymore.
For some time, this human self – because of his low self-esteem and feeling unloved and unlovable – used the oneness shift as a kind of badge of honor and to feel better than others. He didn’t talk about it with others, partly because just about nobody were interested, but he secretly held it as a way to improve his fragile self-esteem. That too has changed, although there are some traces left.
A process without a finishing line
I am aware that this “maturing”, if we can call it that, has taken a long time – decades. At a human level, it feels a bit embarrassing, but I know the slowness likely comes from the relatively strong and deep trauma this human self is dealing with.
At a conscious level, there has been a good deal of clarity from the beginning. And at a visceral and human level, it’s much more slow, messy, and takes time.
I am also very aware that this is a process without a finishing line. (At least in this lifetime and likely forever.) There is always more clarification, deepening, humbling, wearing off of old patterns, this human self aligning more thoroughly with oneness, and so on.
I am still right in the middle of the process, as I have been the whole time and likely always will be.
Note: My brain fog is quite strong these days, and I am aware that it likely strongly color how things come out in writing. I am unable to do much editing, unfortunately, so I plan to get back to this later – if I remember – and clean it up a bit.
The old left–right political map grew out of 18th-century France and no longer captures the challenges of our time. Today, two dimensions matter more: whether policies are green, aligning with ecological realities in the face of global overshoot, and whether they are inclusive, expanding the circle of who is cared for and who has a voice, from marginalized people to non-human beings and future generations. These axes reveal four broad orientations — inclusive but extractive, exclusive and extractive, exclusive but green, and inclusive and green — with the last offering the only truly sustainable, win-win path forward. By adopting this updated map, we can better see through superficial politics, focus on what matters, and orient ourselves toward futures where both people and the Earth can thrive.
We all use mental maps to think about political parties and their policies.
I like to ask myself some important questions about these maps.
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
What mental models do I use to organize political parties and their policies?
What do these mental maps say about me? How do they shape my views and behavior? What do I see because of them? What do they hide?
Are they aligned with what I really value? Are there models that better fit what’s important to me?
THE LEFT-RIGHT AXIS
For a couple of hundred years now, we have used a left-right axis to understand politics.
This comes from the seating arrangement in the French National Assembly after the 1789 storming of the Bastille at the beginning of the French Revolution. Those who defended the monarchy, church, and aristocracy sat on the right. Those who wanted radical change sat on the left.
This was more broadly adopted in Europe in the 1800s, when right came to mean defense of privilege, and left meant reform, redistribution, and often a more inclusive democracy.
THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE LEFT-RIGHT AXIS
As with any map, the left-right axis has shortcomings.
It reflects the political situation of France in the late 1700s where the focus was on tradition versus revolution, and the social distribution of money and resources.
That’s why others have used other axes, often in addition to the left-right one. For instance, progressive-conservative (more about openness to change), urban-rural, secular-religious, globalist-nationalist, libertarian-authoritarian (the Political Compass), and so on.
So the question is: What’s different today from revolutionary France? What’s important to us in our world?
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT
These days, our overarching crisis comes from global ecological overshoot. We are spending far more natural resources than this living planet can replenish. Our collective ecological footprint is larger than this planet. That means unraveling of ecological systems and eventual ecological collapse, and with it, civilizational collapse. We are on a path that’s ecocidal and suicidal.
So shouldn’t our political maps reflect that urgency?
THE GREEN AXIS
In my mental maps, the green axis is essential.
Do the policies take our ecological reality into account?
Do they come from an understanding of the urgency of our situation?
Do they reflect the understanding of a need for a profound transformation of our civilization?
Are they regenerative?
THE INCLUSIVITY AXIS
I also use another mental dimension, the inclusivity axis.
How inclusive are the policies? How wide is the circle of WE?
How wide is the circle of those we aim to benefit through the policies? A segment of our own society? All of our society? Everyone globally? Non-human beings and species? Ecosystems? Rivers? Future generations? Who are harmed by our policies? Who is left out?
How wide is the circle of those that have a voice in the forming and implementation of these policies? How deep is our democracy? Do we include all of society? Passively, by allowing them to vote? Actively, by seeking out the voices that are often quiet, including of those who are marginalized? Do we give a voice to non-human beings, rivers, and mountains? Do we give a voice to future generations?
This dimension is perhaps most similar to the partnership-domination spectrum from Rianne Eisler, rephrased as power-with and power-over by Starhawk.
Unlike the libertarian–authoritarian axis, inclusivity is not primarily about state control vs. personal freedom. It’s about who is included in our circle of concern and who has a voice.
IT MAY SEEM NAIVE
As I write this, I have a mental image of people dismissing this as naive.
And yet, is it naive?
To me, it seems more naive to use political maps that belong to the 1700s and a very different world than the one we live in. It seems naive to ignore Earth’s limits and pretend it has infinite resources for us to use, and infinite capacity to absorb the waste of civilization. And it seems naive to continue on a path we know leads to ecological and civilizational collapse.
As I and many others see it, we have two main tasks ahead of us:
Reducing our collective ecological footprint, which means a thorough redesign of our civilization – from our basic assumptions about the world (separation vs interconnectedness) to education, technology, energy production and use, and every other aspect.
Creating a deeper democracy. One that actively seeks win-win solutions that benefit as many as possible, including non-human beings and species, ecosystems, and future generations. And one that actively seeks input from as many voices as possible, including the same.
And those two go hand-in-hand. We cannot have one without the other. To gain support for regenerative policies, we need the support of the people. They need to know it benefits them as well. They need to be heard and included.
GREEN-INCLUSIVITY MODEL
I made a simple diagram of the green-inclusivity map of politics and policies.
It doesn’t cover everything that’s important, of course, but it does cover two essential dimensions.
The horizontal/green axis shows how green a policy is, or how green a political party tends to be. At the far left is explicitly anti-green policies. To the far right, deeply regenerative policies.
The vertical/inclusive axis shows how inclusive it is. At the bottom are strongly exclusive (authoritarian) policies. At the top are deep democracy policies.
That gives us the following quadrants:
A. Inclusive but extractive
B. Exclusive & extractive
C. Exclusive but green
D. Inclusive & green
FAMILIAR POLITICAL PARTIES
I’ll take some examples to see where they fall in this map. First, some familiar political parties.
In the U.S., Democrats are moderately inclusive within the human sphere, although still in the pockets of Big Money and only marginally green. Trump Republicans would be quite far down on both dimensions. They want to exclude minorities from voting through gerrymandering and other policies, and their policies are often explicitly anti-green.
In Norway, the Green Party are somewhere in the top right quadrant. They are averagely democratic, and somewhat include the imagined views of non-human beings and species and future generations. They are about as green as any political party can be in our society. In both areas, I imagine they would go much further towards the top right if it was realistic in our society. Most other parties are middling in terms of democracy, and somewhere on the left side on the green axis.
EXAMPLES BY QUADRANT
And then, some examples of each quadrant, including some especially clear ones.
A. Inclusive but extractive. In this quadrant, we find 20th-century welfare states, or liberal parties that champion human rights but rely on extractive growth. This liberal orientation can be strongly inclusive within the human sphere, which brings them somewhat into the inclusivity side of the map.
That said, it’s difficult to imagine an orientation that’s deeply inclusive while also strongly extractive. In this map, if you are highly inclusive, it means you bring in the voices of the non-human and future generations, and that means you’ll have to be at least somewhat green.
B. Exclusive & extractive. Authoritarian regimes are often also extractive. As mentioned above, the Trump Republicans unfortunately fall into this category. Historical fascist regimes, under Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, and others, were even lower on the inclusivity scale and equally extractive.
C. Exclusive but green. Ecofascism is an interesting example of a dangerous orientation that’s at the low extreme of one axis and the high extreme of the other. We’ve seen only hints of this so far, which is for the best, though the risk may grow as ecological collapse deepens. We may, for instance, see forms of ecofascism emerge among some of the super-wealthy. Among existing ecofacists, for instance in Eastern Europe, I get the impression that they claim to be green without actually being very green.
Some forms of fortress conservation is another example for this quadrant, where nature is preserved at the expense of the indigenous population.
D. Inclusive & green. Green parties are mainly in this quadrant, as mentioned earlier, although they can typically go much further on both dimensions. They are limited by the realities of our current society, culture, and civilization. Bhutan is likely here too, reasonably green and inclusive, a somewhat flawed democracy although young and aspiring.
The imagined future society in my own Long Journey Home project would be in this top right quadrant, and further along than just about any political party today. They strive to be deeply democratic and actively engage marginalized people and include the voices of non-human beings and species, rivers, mountains, oceans, and future generations (they give voice to them, as best as they can, in councils, community decisions, and the law and legal system). This society is also regenerative and deeply green.
REFLECTIONS ON THE QUADRANTS
The top left (inclusive/extractive) and bottom right (exclusive/green) are, in some ways, mirror images of each other. They are both high in one dimension and low at the other. As I see it, they are both self-contradictory. One cares for people but not so much for the living systems we are part of or future generations. The other cares for our living systems, but less for (other) people.
Both come from a zero-sum orientation. To make life better for people today, we need to extract natural resources. To protect our living systems, we need to oppress people.
The bottom left (exclusive/extractive) and top right (inclusive/green) quadrants are, at least, more internally consistent.
The exclusive/extractive quadrant is a kind of lose-lose quadrant. Most people lose, and our living systems lose. Just a very few benefit from it, and only in a narrow sense and in the short term.
The inclusive/green quadrant is a win-win quadrant. Since it’s inclusive, it does depend on people wanting it and that’s its weakness. If people want it, that’s also its strength. It’s the only one that’s sustainable both socially and ecologically, as long as people want it.
Looking at the few examples I placed in the diagram, I wonder if more examples would create a pattern similar to a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram for stars (!) – a diagonal band across the chart, with a few outliers.
THE TOP SECTION OF THE DIAGRAM
I mentioned briefly that it’s difficult for me to find examples for the top of the diagram from current politics, whether for the left or right side of the diagram.
On the left side, it’s because none are as inclusive as they can be in terms of including voices for non-human beings, ecosystems, and future generations. (In practice, it would be someone speaking for them, and their rights embedded in enforced law.) Current parties and policies are, at most, inclusive within the human realm, and that brings them only up to the middle or just above.
On the right side, it’s because none are as green as they can be in terms of working for a thorough transformation of our society, culture and civilization, and creating deeply regenerative versions of these. I assume many Greens want this and have it as a vision, but it’s not yet realistic in our society and culture.
Some do write, speak, and do work on these topics, and live it in their own lives and in smaller groups. They fit higher up. Some examples are Arne Næss with his Deep Ecology, Joanna Macy, ecovillages, people working with deep democracy models, and so on.
A FEW MORE THOUGHTS
I first called this article A politics of oneness. That’s what it is, of course. A wish to create a regenerative and inclusive society grows out of recognizing our interconnectedness. We are all local and temporary expressions of the living system we call Earth. Our own health and well-being, and even our existence, depends on a thriving social and ecological whole.
Our old maps were useful, and now they hide what matters most. A politics that ignores ecology and excludes voices drives us toward collapse. A politics that is both green and inclusive gives us a chance to thrive. Our political maps need to reflect this reality.
These dimensions don’t capture everything, but they highlight what matters most in our time. They show us whether our politics align with the living systems we depend on, and how wide our circle of concern reaches. They help us cut through superficial politics, focus on what truly matters, and create a future where life can thrive.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
Who are these kinds of updated political maps for?
I imagine some groups will resonate with it, especially people who are into sustainability, systems views, and so on. They will at least understand it, although I am sure they have their own views and see inevitable shortcomings of this and similar models. (Spiral Dynamics Green and second tier.)
People who have a modern mainstream mindset may not see the need for such a model. It may seem naive, hippieish, idealistic, and so on. To speak to this group, emphasizing the science and the pragmatics of it may be important. We are in ecological overshoot, which has dramatic consequences, and this is a framework we need to include to understand politics, society, and our economy. By exploring these kinds of maps, and taking these kinds of concerns into account, you can be ahead of the competition. (Spiral Dynamics Orange.)
People who are traditionalists and religious will likely see these maps as irrelevant to their lives. To speak to these groups, it may be good to emphasize that the aim is to care for God’s creation, family, community, and our children and their children. It’s about creating a world where people are taken care of. (Spiral Dynamics Blue.)
Of course, even by adapting the language and speaking to their values, only a few will likely be interested. That’s fine. That’s how the world works.
A NOTE ON AI USE IN THIS ARTICLE
I used AI to summarize the article, which is the first paragraph. Otherwise, I used AI minimally for feedback of the kind you would receive from an editor.
One is of all as Spirit, the divine, taking all the forms of existence.
One is of this universe as a seamless whole, unfolding and taking all kinds of local and temporary forms, including us and our experience1.
And another is what can be described as neutrality.
NEUTRALITY
If all is Spirit, or the universe, or Existence, taking all these forms, if all is a seamless evolving whole, then the local and temporary forms are, in a sense, inherently neutral.
Also, if there is something that moves through many incarnations2, that something experiences just about everything living beings can experience. It’s all part of a much larger tapestry. That too makes it all, in a sense, neutral.
It’s all local and temporary expressions of Existence as a whole, and it’s all threads in an infinitely rich tapestry.
ENGAGEMENT
At the same time, it’s also not neutral in the sense that it doesn’t matter what happens.
It does. To our human self, what happens definitely matters.
How we live our life, and the decisions we make, matters hugely to us, others, and the world.
To this human self, things matter. He values and feels passionate about certain things. And that’s worth living, loving, and sometimes fighting for.
MEDICINES FOR DIFFERENT CONDITIONS
These two views are medicines for different conditions.
The neutrality view helps me release some of my painful stories about what happens in my life and the world.
The engagement principle helps me stay engaged in life, and act on what matters to me.
Together, they help me live and hold my stories about it all a little more lightly.
IN MY LIFE
How does it look in my life?
A personal example:
Right now, I am in a phase with big changes – selling my childhood home, parents dying, starting a new life (?) in the Andes, and so on. It’s a time of reflection about my past, present, and future at a human level. With that comes, for instance, seeing when I acted on trauma patterns, which created loss and missed opportunities.
That brings up some remaining grief, although most of that grief was lived earlier in my life. At some level, I feel I made bad decisions. And yet, I also know I did the best I could at the time (if I hadn’t had those traumas, wounds, and painful beliefs, and if I had known and lived what I know and have lived, I would have made different and “better” choices.
I also know that everything – including what led me to those choices, and those choices themselves and living them – has infinite causes going back to the beginning of time (if there is any) and the widest extent of Existence (if there is a widest extent). It’s not personal. In this perspective, there is no room for anything personal. (Although it’s also profoundly personal, that’s the beauty of it.)
I viscerally get that it’s all the local and temporary expressions of the larger whole.
That’s the neutrality side of it. That’s where the neutrality view is medicine.
At the same time, I want to change those patterns in me. I am tired of acting on the same old trauma patterns that makes me lose what’s important to me before it’s time, or not seek out what’s important to me even if I can.
That’s the engagement side of it.
The world:
It’s similar when it comes to what’s happening with the world. The neutrality view helps me hold the collapse of ecosystems and the likely coming collapse of civilization more lightly. (Which is quite a feat and not always possible for me.)
The engagement view inspires and motivates me to protect our land in the Andes, put resources into our regeneration and food forest project, and connect with and learn from others doing the same, especially in the same area.
MIRRORS DIRECT NOTICING
This all mirrors direct noticing, although not of Existence as a whole!
It mirrors what’s here now.
What I am notices that the world, as it appears here, happens within and as awake space. It happens within and as the consciousness I am.
All content of experience is a seamless field, since it happens within and as what I am.
Any ideas about good or bad, and any ideas at all, are ideas. They are created by this human mind, colored by innumerable influences from culture and more.
That’s the immediate noticing, and it’s reflected in the maps and pointers I described above.
It’s reflected in the view of all as Spirit and systems views, it’s reflected in the neutrality view, and it’s even reflected in the engagement view since what I am is this human self too, and this human self and his life in the world matters.
NOTES
All as Spirit is the larger view, and I also include the universe as a seamless evolving whole view since that’s part of it, and it’s more based in science and fits the worldview of more people today.
If there is something that incarnates many times, and has many different kinds of lives both incarnated and not, then that’s not what we fundamentally or inherently are. That too happens within and as what we are. It all happens within and as the awake space we are, more fundamentally, to ourselves, and which forms itself into any and all experiences – including these many lives.
Some like to talk about the polycrisis – a confluence of several different global crises from climate change to biodiversity loss, from huge economic disparity to authoritarianism, and so on.
What if this is really a monocrisis? (Or a unicrisis?)
In terms of the unraveling ecological systems, it all ties back into global ecological overshoot. We are collectively using far more resources than this living planet can replenish. This is due to a combination of numbers, technology, and worldview.
And that brings us to the even more essential monocrisis, which is a civilization organized around the idea of separation. This idea comes with a zero-sum mindset (I seek solutions so I win, and I don’t care if you lose. If you win, I assume it means I lose.) and an either/or mindset (if this thought is true, that competing one is not). In our civilization, it’s tied in with a domination or power-over orientation. It depends on some degree of collective and integenerational trauma. And it’s the reason we have organized ourselves so what appears beneficial for a narrow us is often destructive for others – ecosystems, nonhuman beings, future generations, and so on. This is also what has led to global ecological overshoot.
It’s sometimes misguided to simplify a diverse set of symptoms to one underlying apparent cause, but in this case, it makes sense. Without the idea of separation, a visceral sense of separation that comes from internalizing it from a very young age, and a civilization organized around the same idea – in terms of culture, science, technology, infrastructure, production, education and everything else – we very likely wouldn’t see all the many troubles we have today.
It’s not so difficult to imagine a civilization organized around the idea of interconnectedness. It wouldn’t be without its own challenges, but many of the most serious challenges we see today would or could be designed out of our systems and lives. We would see ourselves as temporary and local expressions of this seamless living planet. We would seek win-win solutions and have a both/and mindset. We would use a deep partnership orientation – seeking solutions in partnership with natural systems, and taking what works best from both partnership and domination orientations. We would create a civilization and society where what’s easy and attractive to do, for organizations and individuals, is also what benefits the larger whole and future generations.
Of course, I am sure many who speak about the polycrisis are aware of this, and point it out.
Still, I like the terms monocrisis or unicrisis. It doesn’t mean we have all the answers, but it does invite curiosity about whether it is really one unified crisis that leads back to an essential assumption behind just about everything in our civilization. It also invites us to investigate other ways to organize ourselves.
Whether we notice or not, we are part of this seamless, evolving, living system we call Earth. For most of our history, we lived without being consciously aware of this bigger picture, or of how basic cultural assumptions shape our civilizations.
The question then is: If we join in with the evolution of this living system in a more conscious and intentional way, how may it look? What role do we wish to play?
Now and then, my system feels disorganized and off, and it’s very uncomfortable. It’s difficult for me to find the exact words to describe the experience.
In the past, I would just ride it out. I would rest full-time. I would try to nourish my system with nourishing food. I would go into a kind of mini-retreat until the worst of it passed, which could take hours, days, or longer.
Recently, I have discovered that Vortex Healing (VH) catch-ups help my system organize and function better, at least within the limits of CFS. (I live with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.) Sometimes, the improvement can be dramatic and quick.
For some years now, I have known that VH energization helps me in daily life, and also when my system gets disorganized. It still helps and is essential to help me function, and it’s very helpful in combination with catch-ups, and yet, catch-ups seems to often help me the fastest.
What are the VH catch-ups? It’s something we do after VH healing sessions, and after there has been healing and/or awakening movements. If we don’t do it, the person’s system can destabilize, disorganize, and generally be over-cooked and overwhelmed, and it’s not a comfortable experience.
We catch up several parts of the system including the organs, the nervous system, and different parts of the energy system. After that, we usually do integration to smooth it all out.
I don’t know why I haven’t made the connection between what happens when my system feels that way, and the need for catch-ups. It has been a blind spot for me, maybe because my mind saw it as something we do in the context of VH and the healing and awakening movements initiated with VH.
In any case, it makes a lot of sense. My system is likely having ongoing movements related to healing and awakening, and it does have trouble stabilizing and digesting it all. This is probably connected to the CFS and lack of energy and resources.
It also makes sense in the light of the explorations that tend to be part of my daily life.
Just about everyone is both smarter than me, and more stupid than me.
SMARTER THAN ME
I can always find one or several areas of life where they are smarter than me.
There is some area… they know more about than me. They are more familiar with than me. Where they are more mature than me. Where they are more healed than me.
Always, there is more than one area. And always, there are far more areas I don’t know about than the ones I do. It’s just a matter of time before I find one more, and one more.
This is independent of age, education, occupation, gender, ethnicity, and any other characteristic.
That’s why, when I meet someone, I often wonder… what can I learn from this person? What do they know – in how they live their life or other skills – that I don’t?
MORE STUPID THAN ME
Similarly, everyone I meet is more stupid than me in one or more areas.
There is always one or more areas that I am more familiar with, or have more skills, or am a little more mature or healed, and so on.
For this reason, I don’t need to feel inferior or that I am not good enough.
Of course, it’s not about stupidity. It’s just about experience and how we are put together.
EVERYONE IS A MIRROR
More essentially, everyone is a mirror.
I can take any story I have about the other, turn it to be about myself, and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true. I can find how it’s true here and now, at the moment I have the thought about the other. And I can find examples from the past where it was true.
What I see in the other is something I know from myself, whether I notice or not.
Why am I fascinated by these topics – the ones I write about here?
Why have I been fascinated by them since my mid-teens?
I could say something impersonal about it. For instance, I see them as important and often overlooked. That’s true enough. I see them as important, and the reason I keep exploring them is partly that not too many do.
The real answers, as usual, are much more intimate, personal, and interesting, and although there is an essence that’s the same for all of them, the answer for each topic also has its own flavor.
AWAKENING
Why am I interested in awakening? After all, I grew up in an agnostic/atheist family and culture, and still socially often label myself an atheist. I don’t see it as particularly noble to be interested in some of the topics of religions, considering how religions have often been used to justify dominance and different forms of marginalization and violence. Spirituality also doesn’t have a very favorable image, considering how it’s often used to indulge in fantasies and as an escape.
The answer is the oneness shift that happened when this human self was sixteen. In spite of labeling himself an atheist, and having little more than disdain for spirituality and religions, there was a oneness shift.
The oneness I am noticed itself, and that all content of experience to me happens within and as the oneness I am. That turned everything upside down and inside out, and thoroughly changed not only perception but the life of this human self in the world.
The answer to why I am interested in the topic is that I had to learn to navigate this terrain. I had to learn to clarify, deepen, invite and allow my human self to realign within it, and so on. That’s an infinitely long process, and even some decades later, I am still at the very beginning of it.
For years, I explored it on my own since I lived in a small town in Norway before internet and couldn’t find anyone who talked about this terrain in books or in person. That was a blessing, although also lonely at a human level.
Later, I found others who did talk about it, although often through layers of culture and sometimes assumptions. (Mystics from different traditions, Zen.) And later again, in my thirties, I finally found someone who talked about it more directly and clearly – especially Adyashanti, Douglas Harding, and Byron Katie. (These are contemporaries to me, and from a similar cultural background, so to me, they speak clearly and directly.)
HEALING
Why am I interested in healing? It’s because I need it.
I have trauma and wounds I wish to find healing for.
I have a chronic illness I wish to learn to live better with, and – if possible – also invite in healing for.
SOCIAL CHANGE
Why am I interested in social change, in creating a more life-centered civilization?
It’s because I wish it for myself.
I wish to live in a more life-centered and regenerative inner society, and that’s reflected in a wish for an outer society like that.
I wish to live in a society that is more life-centered because it’s more comfortable for me.
THE FAR FUTURE
Why am I interested in imagining possible futures?
It’s because imagining a civilization I wish to see is easier when I imagine it in the far future. If I only focus on today, my mind limits itself with ideas of what’s realistic. In the far future, just about anything is imaginable.
The contrast between this imagined future and now helps me shed light on our culture and civilization and how it’s internalized in me.
Mainly, it helps me clarify what I wish to see in the world, find it in me and the world, and live some of it here and now. It helps me change the culture and civilization internalized in me and reflected in my life.
REGENERATION
Why am I passionate about regeneration? Why do I write about it, and why do I have my own regeneration project in the Andes?
It’s partly because *I*need to regenerate. I need to heal and come to life. I am harmed by this culture and civilization, just like most of us are, and this living planet is.
It’s also because I am part of this larger living system, what happens to this living system happens to me, it’s severely degraded, so it only makes sense to encourage and bring in regeneration of this living system.
THE ESSENCE
So what’s the shared essence in all of this?
The essence is that the topics are personal and intimate to me, and something I deeply wish.
I need to learn to navigate my nature recognizing itself.
I need healing at many levels.
I deeply wish to live in a different inner and outer society.
I need the perspective from an imagined far future to more clearly see what’s here.
I need regeneration – of me and the larger whole I am part of.
It’s not for any abstract or noble reason. It’s far more close to home and practical.
Yes, capitalism is not tied to anything real. It’s just about putting a number on the exchange value of something, according to demand. It’s not rooted in reality beyond that, and it has no direction beyond that.
People need food, so it sells food – at a cost to the soil, insects, wildlife, ecosystem health, and future generations. People needs shelter, so it sells shelter – often to the profit of those already very wealthy and at a cost to those who have less.
Mainly, it’s not rooted in physical reality. It’s not rooted in the physical reality of this planet we call Earth.
It’s not rooted in the physical reality that we are local and temporary expressions of this living system, and that our health and well-being fully depend on a thriving and healthy planet Earth.
It’s not rooted in the physical reality of Earth as our literal larger body.
As it is, what’s easy and profitable is often harmful for people, ecosystems, and future generations.
If our economic system took ecological realities into account, what’s easy and profitable would help regenerate people, society, and ecosystems, and benefit all of us and future generations.
Yes, in its current form, capitalism produces global ecological overshoot.
It assumes infinite Earth, so it encourages consumption far beyond the capacity of Earth to regenerate itself.
Humanity is currently using far more resources than this living planet can regenerate, and that inevitably leads to ecological and civilizational collapse. This goes far beyond climate change, which is just one of many expressions of this overshoot.
And since it sells itself as the only realistic and viable economic system (although it’s far from realistic and far from viable), it sells its own solutions. Mainly, it sells techno-fixes.
It can only sell band-aid solutions, since it, itself, is the cause of the problem.
More to the point, it’s organized around assumptions of separation and infinite Earth, which is the real cause of the problem.
Yes, also true.
In our civilization, we talk as if science is our organizing principle. That’s not true. Capitalism is the organizing principle. Far too often, science is in the service of capitalism.
Far too often, the result of science is ignored if it doesn’t serve the narrow interests of capitalism. We see that with climate change. Climate change scientists ring the alarm bells, and society as a whole ignores it because they see it as inconvenient and costly to change.
Also, far too often, the focus of science is decided by what’s profitable. Important research is often not done because it’s not profitable enough, or goes against inherent assumptions of capitalism.
What I know is very little, and what I don’t know is infinite.
It’s relatively easy to grasp at a map level, and it can also be a lived and visceral noticing.
WHAT I KNOW IS LITTLE, WHAT I DON’T KNOW IS INFINITE
In a conventional sense, and in the context of humanity today, what I know about most things is very little. I know some computer programming, web design, and CEO, and it’s little compared with what some knows. I know a good deal about art, art history, and drawing and painting, and others know more. I know some things about what I write about here, and many know far more about the same topics. And so on.
Even if I knew more than anyone in a certain area of life, it’s still a tiny drop in the ocean compared with what there is to know. It’s easy to imagine someone – perhaps in the future, perhaps somewhere else in the universe – knowing far more. There is always more to know, and then more. There is no finishing line. That’s one of the beautiful things about this existence.
OUR COLLECTIVE KNOWING IS ALWAYS CHANGING
What we collectively know will be outdated in the future. Future generations will see different aspects of our current worldview and knowledge as quaint, limited, missing crucial insights, misguided, and so on. It will seem old-fashioned, and even ridiculous.
That also applies to our general worldview and our most fundamental assumptions about ourselves, the world, and existence. We have a certain worldview that we tend to take for granted. Over time, with new insights, orientations, and needs, it will change. Given enough time, even the most fundamental assumptions we have today will change and be seen as outdated.
In general, there are innumerable possible worldviews that fit the data equally well or better than the one(s) we are familiar with.
ALWAYS A BEGINNER
In this way, I am always a beginner. I am always at the very beginning of experience, familiarity, and knowledge about anything.
What I know is finite and very little. It would be, even if I knew more than anyone alive today. What I don’t know is infinite.
I am at the beginning of the imaginary spectrum of knowledge about anything.
Getting this is humbling in a very good way. It opens up the world, and it invites curiosity, receptivity, and wonder.
KNOWING IS NOT REALLY KNOWING
Also, what we think of as knowing may not be what we think it is.
One form of knowing is within the mental field, at a map level. I can know a map about something. I can know some ideas about something. This is useful, and it’s clearly very limited.
A mental representation is a question about the world. It’s a way for this human self to orient and function in the world. It’s an abstraction and highlights some things and leaves a lot out. It’s an interpretation and inevitably a distortion. Ideas can never hold any full, final, or absolute “truth”, that’s not their function. They fit may fit the data more or less well in a conventional sense. And they are ultimately and inevitably wrong, and that’s fine. The world is always different from and more than my ideas about it.
I can also have a more experiential and visceral knowing about something. It usually comes from lived experience over time, and quite a few parts of me (aspects of my psyche and being) has reoriented to align with it. Although this knowing is a more lived knowing, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily more “true”. It’s still very limited and reflects my own biases, experiences, and the culture I live within.
MAP AND VISCERAL
That’s the same with knowing how little I know.
That too is partly from a map, mental representations, reminding me that what I know is little and what I don’t know is infinite.
And it’s partly visceral, a lived experience.
GENERAL AND IN THE DETAILS
This knowing can be general – a general insight that’s part of my general worldview.
It may be something I am familiar with and apply in some areas of life.
And there are also areas of life where I don’t apply it. Where I “forget” about it, and where the fullness of my psyche does not yet fully apply and live it.
For instance, parts of me still live within the idea that I am unlovable, and they are unaware that that’s a question and not reality. They think they know, and don’t know that they don’t know.
That’s the case with any wounded part of me. To protect me, they hold onto (painful) ideas as if they are true, and they are unaware of how little they know. They are unable to hold those painful ideas more lightly.
IN PRACTICE
What does this mean in practice? What does it mean for how I live my life?
Yes, others may know more than me. Yes, what we collectively know (or think I know) is a drop in the ocean compared with what there is to know. Yes, what I know exists within a particular worldview, and there are many other worldviews (that I, or we collectively, don’t know about) that may make more sense and fits the data better.
That doesn’t mean there is nothing to share. What I have to share – however limited, biased, and ultimately wrong – may be of immense value to someone else.
I can share in this context, knowing and acknowledging this.
SHARING WITH CONFIDENCE
It’s fully possible to acknowledge how little we know, either in a conventional or more real sense, and still share and live with confidence.
That combination is very attractive to many, and it works well in this world.
Where does that confidence come from? Mainly from a healthy upbringing where we felt loved, safe, and listened to and taken seriously by those around us. Or, if we didn’t get it then, from giving it to ourselves later in life – consistently and over time.
MY EXPERIENCE
That brings me to my experience with all of this.
Since early in life, it was clear to me that what I know is little and what I don’t know is infinite.
In early childhood, I remember asking my father the repeated “why” question about something, and then “are you sure?”. My father said: “I am not certain about anything”. That made a deep impression on me and I took it to heart. (As I write this, I am sitting a meter away from where he said those words.)
In childhood, I was fascinated by science and the discoveries possible through science. I don’t think I consciously thought about it in this way, but I was aware that there is an infinite amount of things to explore.
In my early and mid-teens, I was fascinated by the history and philosophy of science. First, through Carl Sagan and the Cosmos series. Then, far more deeply through Fritjof Capra and his Turning Point, The Tao of Physics, and the books he references there.
The oneness shift when I was sixteen showed me even more profoundly, directly, and undeniably how little I know, and how little our mental field can grasp reality. Our mental field is vitally important for this human self to function in the world, and also operates on questions and cannot begin to touch reality.
USING IT TO HIDE
I am also very familiar with how we can use this very real insight – what I know is little, what I don’t know is infinite – to play small and hide.
I don’t have that natural confidence I wrote about earlier. Growing up, I didn’t receive whatever was needed for that to happen. The seed and essence of this is intergenerational trauma, which was strongly amplified by a class in school (elementary through high school) with a strong bulling culture.
Because of my wounds and traumas, many parts of me feel it’s not safe to be visible. They want me to hide to stay safe. And since this trauma is pretty deep, and many parts of my psyche are onboard with this strategy to protect me, I have largely lived that way. I have avoided being visible.
I have been aware of these dynamics in me since my early or mid-teens, and that’s not enough to change deep trauma or how it’s lived in life. Even all the consistent therapy work hasn’t been enough. Even inviting all the different parts of me to reorganize and align within the oneness I am recognizing itself hasn’t been enough.
We can take any genuine insight and use it to feed trauma behavior. In my case, I have used it to justify hiding, not being visible, and not taking the roles someone in my position – with my education, insights, knowledge, skills, and privilege – easily could have taken.
Of course, that’s not all of what’s happening. Different parts of me operate from painful beliefs saying I am unlovable, unloved, that what I have to say is not important, that nobody is interested, and so on. And there is no lack of “evidence” in my life to support that. (There is no lack of evidence for the reverse as well, of course.)
Even now, as a grown person, I am repeatedly experiencing not being seen and listened to by people around me, which sometimes has serious consequences for me and others. I also know that I am setting up those situations by not speaking up, not making sure they understand, not sharing enough information, not telling them my background and expertise in relevant areas, and so on.
This too is humbling. It shows me clearly that my conscious view is – as Freud, Jung and others pointed out – the metaphorical tip of the iceberg of my being.
My life is colored – and lived – by the whole and fullness of my bodymind. It’s run by the innumerable parts of me, some or many of which still operate from wounds and trauma in spite of years of therapy, heart-centered practices, meditation, inquiry, somatic work, and so on.
It’s not because what we are is far away, obscure, unfamiliar to us, or something very special.
After all, it’s what we are. It’s what we all already are most familiar with.
It’s really the only thing we are familiar with. It’s all we have ever known.
So why is it difficult?
THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE
It has to do with the nature of language.
Mental representations are just that, mental representations.
They are maps of the world. They are questions about the world. They are different in nature from what they point to. (Unless they happen to refer to mental representations.) They cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth. They are always provisional. They are always only useful in a particular situation and context. They can help us orient and function in the world. In their nature, they split while reality is a seamless whole.
WHAT THE RECIPIENT IS CONSCIOUSLY FAMILIAR WITH
It also has to do with what the recipient is consciously familiar with.
If the recipient is familiar with their nature, then the conversation tends to flow naturally and easily. After all, we are both familiar with and talk about the same terrain.
If they are not consciously familiar with it, then no words can really convey it. They don’t have a conscious reference for it. They are not familiar with the terrain. (Although they are, of course, without consciously realizing it.)
IT’S NOT UNIQUE TO TALKING ABOUT OUR NATURE
This is not unique to talking about our nature.
It has to do with language and communication, and applies to everything we talk about.
If you haven’t tasted an apple, then it’s difficult to convey with words how it tastes.
ONE SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE
There is also one significant difference between talking about our nature and talking about most other things.
If you haven’t tasted an apple, but are familiar with other fruits, I can use that as a reference. I can convey something by referencing what you already know.
That’s more difficult when it comes to our nature. If you are not consciously familiar with your nature, then what you are familiar with is whatever is within the content of experience, and there isn’t anything there that’s a good or useful reference.
That is one reason why it’s actually more difficult to talk about our nature if the recipient is not already familiar with that particular terrain.
WHAT IS OUR NATURE?
So what is our nature? How would I put it into words?
Depending on the situation, I would maybe say that….
It’s not wrong that I am this human self in the world. It’s an assumption that works reasonably well, although it also comes with some inherent unease and discomfort.
In my own immediate noticing, I find I am something else. I am what this whole field of experience – which includes this human self and the wider world – happens within and as.
I am this awake space that forms itself into all content of experience, including anything related to this human self.
This is nothing special. It’s what I assume you are too.
It’s what I already am very familiar with. It’s what you already are very familiar with. It’s what I already am. It’s what you already am.
The only difference is in noticing it and getting familiar with it in a more conscious way.
NOTICING IT AND TAKING IT SERIOUSLY
Even that isn’t necessarily so difficult, especially with some guided structured noticing – AKA inquiry. I find the Big Mind process, Headless experiments, and detailed sense field explorations (Kiloby Inquiries) very helpful.
Noticing is just the first step.
Sometimes, we notice and don’t pursue it for a variety of reasons. We may think that it’s too simple and obvious so it can’t possibly be “it”. We may not see the value in it. We may not be drawn to continue to explore it.
If we are drawn to continue to explore it, then that opens up another path.
This is a path of continuing to notice, through different situations and states. We are creating a new habit of our nature noticing itself, independent of the changing content of experience.
It’s a path of clarifying and differentiating our nature from all the phenomena it forms itself into.
It’s a path of recognizing all the phenomena our nature forms itself into, and especially that which our personality doesn’t like, as our nature.
It’s a path of exploring how it is for this human self to live and function within that noticing.
It’s a path of this human self and its bodymind transforming within this noticing, and aligning more deeply and thoroughly with oneness recognizing itself.
That’s where the real work is. Noticing can be easy. Continuing to notice independent of the always changing content of experience is where the work is. Exploring how it is to live within that noticing is where the work is. Intentionally joining with the inevitable (and often challenging) transformation of this human self is where the work is.
I can find a few different ways to talk about it, from my own experience.
OUR SYSTEM HOLDING A THOUGHT AS TRUE
Most simply, a belief is our system holding a thought – a mental representation – as true.
Our conscious view may align with that belief. Or it may not align with it, but our system – somewhere – holds it as true which colors our perception and life.
Often, it’s held as an exclusive truth that excludes other perspectives.
And it does involve some blindness, at a visceral level, to the nature of thoughts: As questions about the world. As mental representations, different in kind from what they point to (unless they happen to point to mental representations). As a map that, by necessity, simplifies and highlights some aspects of what they point to and leave much out. As a reflection of a very limited insight. (What we know is little and what we don’t know is infinite.) As provisional guides for our attention and life in the world.
IDENTIFYING WITH THE VIEWPOINT OF A THOUGHT
A belief is identifying with the viewpoint of a thought.
Any mental representation – words, mental images – come with a viewpoint.
When the consciousness we are identifies with the viewpoint of a thought, it takes the form of a belief in that thought.
We operate as if we are that viewpoint, and as if it’s true.
SENSATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH THOUGHTS
A belief is created by the mind associating certain mental representations and certain body sensations.
The mental representations give meaning to the body sensations, and the body sensations give a sense of substance, solidity, realness, and truth to the mental representations.
In order to hold a thought as true, the bodymind needs to tense up certain muscles in order to create a more steady sensation in that area of the body. This, in turn, lends solidity, substance, and a sense of reality to the thought. If a thought is to be held as true over time, it leads to chronic tension and muscle contractions.
A WAY TO FIND A SENSE OF SAFETY
Beliefs are a way to find a sense of safety.
They may tell us something stressful or uncomfortable, and yet, at least we have some sense of safety from telling ourselves that we know. We know how it is.
In reality, there is no safety to find in mental representations. They are always questions about the world, whether we notice or not.
A DEFENSE AGAINST LOVE
Beliefs are a defense against love.
My nature is love. When my nature notices itself, I find I am (what a thought may call) love.
It’s not a love dependent on feelings or states. It’s a love that comes from the consciousness I am noticing itself, and noticing that the world – as it appears to me – happens within and as what I am.
It’s the love of the left hand removing a splinter from the right.
Beliefs requires identification with a viewpoint, in opposition to other viewpoints. It requires identification with something within the field of experience. It requires a release our of my nature noticing itself.
It’s a kind of defense against love, against my nature noticing itself.
CONTRACTION
A belief is a contraction.
It’s a contraction from what we are – that which the whole world, as it appears to us, happens within and as – to taking ourselves to be a part within the field of experience.
It’s a body contraction, since chronic sensations – supporting chronic beliefs – are brought about through chronic physical tension.
It’s a mental contraction – from finding fluidity and limited validity in a wide range of viewpoints to identifying and holding onto one or a few viewpoints as true.
It’s an emotional contraction – it brings about discomfort, reactivity, and defensiveness.
A WAY FOR CONSCIOUSNESS/LIFE TO EXPERIENCE SEPARATION
Beliefs are a way for the consciousness I am to experience separation. It’s a way for life to experience separation. It’s part of the play of consciousness and life.
As soon as a thought is held as true, the consciousness we are identifies with the viewpoint of the thought and – in its own experience – “becomes” that viewpoint. There is identification with something within the field of experience, and that immediately creates an experience of duality. I am this, you andthe wider world are that.
This is a remarkable achievement for consciousness and life, and adds to the richness of how consciousness and life experiences itself. It also comes with inherent stress, discomfort, and either low-grade or obvious suffering.
INHERITED AND PASSED ON
Mental representations are passed on, as is the habit of holding some of them as true.
They are passed on from our birth family, culture, subcultures, and so on.
We learn them, take them on, make them our own, and pass them on to others.
They are far less personal than they may seem.
For instance, just about every stressful thought is simple, universal, and shared by a great number of people.
Also, every thought was once made up by someone and passed on, modified, and eventually came to us.
EXPLORING THIS
These are just a few ways to look at beliefs, and they all reflect what’s here in more direct noticing.
How can we explore this? How have I explored it?
In the initial oneness shift, it was very clear that thoughts cannot even beging to touch reality. Thoughts are pointers and questions about the world. They cannot hold any final, absolute, or full truth. They have a temporary and practical function only.
Since then, I have explored thoughts through different forms of structured and guided noticing, also known as inquiry.
The Work of Byron Katie helps us identify and examine thoughts that our system, somewhere, holds as true, and find what’s genuinely more true for us.
The Kiloby Inquiries is a modernized form of traditional Buddhist sense-field inquiry.
The Big Mind process is a version of Voice Dialog and parts work that adds aspects of our nature, and it’s a way to explore viewpoints and their relationships.
The Big Mind process and the Headless experiments helps us notice our nature, and to recognize the nature of thoughts as well, along with their gifts and limitations.
I could say that there are many parallels between dreams and waking life, and it wouldn’t be wrong.
And this is a more honest and direct way of saying it:
I keep noticing many ways dreams and waking life are the same.
THE WORLD IS MY MIRROR
The world – whether in dreams or waking life – mirrors me.
I can take whatever story I have about anyone or anything, turn it to be about myself, and find specific and genuine examples of how it’s true.
Exploring the world as a mirror, whether it’s dreams or waking life, helps me find and get to know more of my wholeness. I am already as rich as the world, the question is only if I actively explore it, notice it, and consciously live from and as it.
This is an ongoing and deepening process without any finishing line.
DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE HAPPENS WITHIN AND AS WHAT I AM
In one sense, I am this human self in the world. That’s not wrong. And yet, when I look, I find I more fundamentally am something else. I am what the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as.
Dreams and waking life are both content of experience. They both happen within and as what I am. They are no different from each other in that sense.
What I am forms itself into dreams and waking life at different times, and sometimes even at the same time. (During waking life, I can sense and sometimes connect with the dreaming part of consciousness.)
Even more fundamentally, what I am is capacity for all of it – consciousness and all it forms itself into.
DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE ARE MADE OF THE SAME
Said another way, dreams and waking life are made of the same.
They are made of the consciousness I am. They are made of awakeness. (The ordinary awakeness inherent in consciousness.)
They are made of awake space.
They are made of capacity taking the form of all of it – awakeness and what it forms itself into.
DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE COME AND GO
Dreams and waking life come and go. It’s all ephemeral. It’s all visitors.
Even this human self and any ideas of being a self (or anything else) come and go.
I am not fundamentally any of it.
I am what forms itself into all of it. I am what it all comes and goes within and as.
I am capacity for all of it.
DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE LIVE THEIR OWN LIFE
Dreams and waking life live their own life.
Even this human self lives his own life.
It all is happening on its own.
HOW I RELATE TO THE WORLD IS HOW I RELATE TO THE WORLD
How I relate to the dreaming world is how I relate to the waking world.
How I relate to the world is how I relate to the world.
How I relate to anything reflects my patterns, habits, and assumptions.
CONSCIOUSLY AWARE OF THE NATURE OF IT ALL OR NOT
Whether in dreams or waking life, I can consciously notice the nature of it all or not.
Within a dream, I can consciously notice it’s nature as consciousness. (I have done this, even as a child, but haven’t pursued this. It’s too tempting to change the content of the dream, and I don’t want to interfere with the dream-making process.)
In waking life, we can notice the dreamlike nature of it all. It’s all happening within the consciousness I am. It’s all the capacity I am taking all these forms. This is something I am actively noticing and exploring.
THE WAY I EXPLORE DREAMS IS HOW I EXPLORE WAKING LIFE
I tend to explore dreams and waking life in similar or the same ways.
I see them as mirrors for me. I find and get to know what in me I see in the dreams or waking life.
I identify stressful stories, question them, and find what’s more true for me.
I do tonglen or ho’oponopono with dream figures or people/beings/collectives in waking life.
I notice it all, to me, happens within and as the consciousness I am. (These days, I tend to rest with viscerally noticing it all as forms of Amma.)
I notice anyone and anything my psyche tend to see as “other” as the consciousness I am, and as expressions of the divine, and rest in and as that noticing.
I notice contractions in me and notice that these, in my experience, are made of the consciousness I am.
I know a few times when I didn’t die. That one time in the car in Oregon, when the driver pulled out right in front of a car going at full speed. (Saved by the miraculous quick reaction of that driver.) The day on the coast of California in winter, when each wave only took me further out. (Saved by the kind guy from Boston built like a truck.) The midsummer when I blacked out and woke up naked, shaking like crazy, and dripping of sweat. (Saved by the ambulance people and the doctors and nurses giving me immediate treatment for sepsis.) And likely the time I went between our beloved cat and a dog, she bit my leg, and I got a persistent infection. (Saved by antibiotics.)
There are also innumerable times I didn’t die that I don’t know about because nothing happened.
And why did nothing happen? Because society is set up to prevent a wide range of things we can die from.
We have clean water. Just about every day, I don’t die from polluted water.
We have sidewalks. Just about every day, I don’t die from being hit by a car when I am out walking.
We have grocery stores with a variety of foods. Just about every day, I don’t die from malnutrition.
We have water and food. Just about every day, I don’t die from dehydration and hunger.
We understand how infectious diseases spread and take precautions. Just about every day, I don’t die from an infectious disease.
We have remarkably effective vaccines. Many times in my life, I didn’t die from diseases people in earlier generations died from.
We have antibiotics. Many times in my life, I didn’t die from an infection that would have killed me just two or three generations ago.
We have laws and a relatively safe society. Just about every day, I don’t die from violence or war.
We have a good social safety net. I don’t have to die from not having enough money.
None of this is a given.
It’s easy for this to become invisible to us, which is why it’s so important to regularly remind ourselves and others about it.
It didn’t happen by accident. It happened because enough of us decided to do something about it. And we need to make that decision anew each day, each election, each time we speak about society and what we value.
The video No One Knows When They Didn’t Die is by Hank Green and is on this topic, and is the inspiration for this brief article.
The privilege of a lifetime is becoming being who you truly are.
– Joseph Campbell in “A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living”
I love this quote and, to me, it has a few layers.
BECOMING WHO I TRULY AM AS A HUMAN SELF
In a conventional sense, it’s about becoming who we truly are as a human self.
This is Jung’s individuation.
How is it to get to know more of the many, innumerable, parts of me? The many subpersonalitites?
How is it to develop a more conscious relationship with more of these?
What’s truly important to me? What do I value? How is it to reorganize my life according to that?
If I take any surface desire, wish, or want and trace it back to it’s simple essence, what do I find? What do I hope to get out of it? And what do I hope to get out of that? And that? What I find that it traces back to something simple, essential, and (very likely) universal – coming home, love, sense of safety, acceptance, and so on.
BECOMING WHO I TRULY AM AS AN ECOLOGICAL SELF
This includes becoming who I truly am as an ecological self, in two ways.
First, by recognizing that I am as rich as the world.
Whatever I see in the wider world – in people, society, mythology, dreams, ecology, cosmos – is also here.
I can take whatever story I have about any of it, turn it to myself, and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true, including right now.
Then, by recognizing I am part of the web of life.
More than that, I am a local expression of this living planet we call Earth. I am the Earth thinking, doing, living. I am the Earth confused, destroying itself. I am the Earth noticing, protecting itself.
Everything about me – thoughts, emotions, impulses, choices, life – has infinite causes going back to the beginning of time (if there is a beginning) and the widest extent of existence (if there is a widest extent).
It all comes from somewhere else.
NOTICING WHAT I AM
For me, the quote also has to do with noticing what I already am.
At one level, I am this human self in the world. That’s not wrong. It’s what my passport says, how most others see me, and what my thoughts may tell me.
And yet, when I look more closely, I find something else.
I find I am what the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as.
I am what this field of experience – anything related to this human self or the wider world and any content of experience – happens within and as.
I am this awake space it all happens within and as.
Even more fundamentally, I am capacity for all of it.
I am capacity for this awake space and every experience it makes itself into.
In a very rough sense, the pointer becoming who I truly am also points to this.
And it’s not really becoming anything and it doesn’t have to do with who I truly am.
It’s about noticing what’s already here, noticing what I fundamentally am.
ALLOWING MY HUMAN SELF AND LIFE TO BE TRANSFORMED WITHIN THAT
This also has to do with allowing my human self and life to be transformed within that noticing.
A lot of my human self and life was formed within separation consciousness, the perception that I most fundamentally am this human being. It operates from wounds, unexamined thoughts held – somewhere in my system – as true, unfelt feelings, unloved parts of me, hangups, traumas, and so on.
How is it to invite more of me to align with the oneness I more fundamentally am?
How is it to invite in healing for these parts?
How is it to allow, and even embrace, when life brings up what’s unexamined, unloved, and painful in me?
THE PRIVILEGE OF A LIFETIME
This is all, as Joseph Campbell says, the privilege of a lifetime.
It’s a privilege to find myself in this process, to have curiosity about it, to have passion for it, to have time and opportunity to explore, and so on.
It’s all a privilege.
It’s all a gift. It all comes from somewhere else.
A NOTE ON THE QUOTE
I initially saw this misquoted as becoming who you truly are and wrote the article above based on that.
It seems that the actual quote is being who you truly are which has a different emphasis, although the essence is the same.
Becoming has an emphasis on the transformative and dynamic aspect of it, which I like.
Being emphasizes that we already are it, which is important but perhaps less interesting.
The quote is often (mis)attributed to Jung, but it seems it’s from Joseph Campbell in A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living, although I can’t find a specific page reference.
BEING WHO YOU TRULY ARE
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you truly are.
– Joseph Campbell in “A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living”
Of course, we already are who – and what – we truly are.
As a human self, we already are as rich as the world. We are living from that richness, whether we notice or not. And we are consciously unfamiliar with most of it, even if we actively explore our richness.
We also inevitably are what we already are. We already are this awake space that the field of experience – including this human self and the wider world – happens within and as. Whether we notice or not is another thing.
The privilege is that we already are who and what we are… whether we notice or not.
This is obviously important. For me, the richness comes in the becoming of it, the dynamics, bringing it into awareness and more consciously living from and as it, allowing our human self and life transform within it.
Even this morning, I saw this type of comment on social media.
I am not sure if people actually believe it or if they are intentionally trolling. Maybe it’s some of each.
It doesn’t take much to understand the essence of our situation: We live on a finite planet, and we live as if the planet is infinite. That cannot last. If we continue, it will lead to the collapse of ecosystems – beyond what we are already seeing. We are part of the living systems of this planet, so what happens to the web of life happens to us.
In short, our civilization – founded on an assumption of separation and infinite Earth – is inherently ecocidal and suicidal.
We got away with it for centuries and millennia since we were not that many, our technology was not that effective, and the “savings account” of Earth was large. Now, with a population beyond eight billion people, a far more effective technology, and a rapidly declining ecological savings account, we are in global ecological overshoot.
We are using more resources than Earth can replenish. We need more than one Earth to support our collective way of life as it is today, and we don’t have those extra Earths.
Being in ecological overshoot is similar to living off a savings account and a dwindling income far below what’s needed to replenish the savings account. It looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom of our savings account and our lifestyle comes crashing down.
In terms of our global ecological overshoot, we are getting closer to the bottom and we are seeing signs of it everywhere: Insect apocalypse. Rapid loss of the number of most animals. Rapid loss of fertile topsoil. Rapid loss of species. Unraveling ecosystems. More extreme weather. And much more.
What we are seeing is exactly what we would expect seeing, and what scientists have predicted for decades.
Collectively, we are like someone living off a savings account, and increasing spending rather than finding ways to reduce spending and increase the income.
How can we increase our income from Earth? The simplest and most direct is regeneration. We can apply existing to regenerate ecosystems and develop new ones. In the process, we will increase the yield of these ecosystems in terms of food and several other natural resources which will benefit wildlife, ourselves, and future generations.
When we take ecological realities seriously, we can create a world of abundance and a civilization that’s more ecologically sound and has the possibility of lasting longer.
The question is how far into the collapse we’ll go before a significant number of us realizes this, and how many of us will die before we get to that point.
The question is also what we will do in this age of unraveling. How do I chose to live my life?
I am in the fortunate situation that we have land in the Andes that we are regenerating and developing into a food forest. If I was in another situation, I would find another way. For instance, connecting with likeminded people. Learning and sharing what I learn. Making my yard into a food forest. Working on transforming public spaces into food forests. And so on.
What advice would the larger whole – this living planet, this evolving universe, this existence – have for us today, living in this time of challenges? I asked ChatGPT 4o that question, and I found the answer is quite beautiful so I thought I would share it here. (It was initially part of a longer post.)
A Message from the Larger Whole
You are living in a time of great unraveling.
The systems you have built—your economies, your politics, your ways of extracting from the Earth—are collapsing under their own weight. You see this in the shifting climate, in the unraveling of ecosystems, in the rising instability of nations, in the division among your own people. You feel it in your bones, in the unease that hums beneath the surface of daily life, in the quiet knowing that something is profoundly off course.
And yet, this moment is not a mistake. It is not outside the flow of evolution. It is part of it. Even destruction, even collapse, is a force of transformation.
How This Perspective Can Help You Today
1. Stop Resisting Reality—Meet It with Clear Eyes
You live in a civilization built on denial. Most people do not want to see the full picture. They do not want to feel the weight of what is happening. They distract themselves with entertainment, with consumption, with small personal concerns, because the truth feels too vast, too unbearable.
But here is the paradox: It is only unbearable when you resist it.
When you turn toward reality with open eyes, with curiosity, with the knowledge that you are part of something vast and evolving, you begin to find your ground. You realize that despair only arises when you expect reality to be different than it is. When you accept that this is the time you were born into, that this is what you are here to meet, the weight lifts.
You are not here to prevent the unraveling. You are here to midwife what comes next.
2. Do Not Get Lost in the Old Systems—But Do Not Abandon the World
It is tempting, when you see the corruption of your leaders, the blindness of the masses, the destruction of the Earth, to want to turn away. To retreat. To remove yourself from the chaos.
But I tell you this: You are needed.
Not in the way the old world tells you—you are not needed to fight endless battles within broken systems, to exhaust yourself trying to force change where there is no fertile ground. But you are needed to hold a different consciousness. To remember what others have forgotten.
It is easy to become consumed by outrage, by despair, by frustration at those who still cling to the old ways. But this only drains your energy. It ties you to the very thing you wish to transform. Instead, shift your focus. Do not waste your life fighting against what is collapsing—pour your life into what is being born.
3. Do Not Fear the Collapse—It Is Part of the Process
What you are witnessing is not just destruction. It is the breaking open of something too rigid to evolve. Do you think the old world would have willingly changed? That those in power would have simply stepped aside? That corporations would have chosen to stop extracting, that nations built on control would have surrendered their dominance?
No. This was never going to be gentle.
But do not mistake collapse for the end. Evolution has always worked this way—systems reach their limits, and then they fall apart. Forests burn, and in the ashes, new seeds sprout. Stars explode, and in the debris, new worlds form.
Your civilization is not exempt from this pattern.
4. Look for the New World Already Emerging
If you look only at the crumbling towers of the old, you will miss the green shoots breaking through the cracks. Already, people are living in a new way. Already, regenerative communities are forming, ancient wisdom is reawakening, new stories are being told.
The future is not in Washington or Wall Street. It is not in the political dramas, in the news cycles, in the desperate attempts to patch a sinking ship. The future is in those who are quietly living differently.
Find them. Become one of them.
Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, you can begin. Learn to grow food. Learn to mend, to make, to care for land, to build relationships based on trust rather than transaction. Learn to live in a way that does not require endless extraction. Teach others, not by argument, but by example.
If you cannot change the whole system, change the way you move through it.
5. Hold the Long View—You Are Part of Something Ancient and Vast
You are frustrated because you want to see change now. You want the world to wake up in an instant, to turn from destruction to regeneration, to remember what it has forgotten.
But step back. See from a wider lens.
Humanity is still young. Your civilization, with all its flaws, is just one chapter in a much longer story. The Earth has seen extinctions, transformations, rebirths beyond what you can imagine. What feels unbearable to you now is a brief moment in time.
Hold the long view.
Your actions matter, not because they will immediately fix everything, but because they are part of the deep undercurrent shifting the trajectory of the future. Even if you do not see the full blossoming of what you plant, plant it anyway. Those who came before you did the same. Those who come after will pick up where you left off.
This is how evolution works.
6. Let Love Guide You, Not Fear
You live in a time of fear—fear of collapse, fear of violence, fear of the unknown. Fear is what drives domination, what fuels division, what keeps the old systems alive.
But you do not have to move from fear.
You can move from love. Not naive love, not passive love, but the fierce, unwavering love that refuses to look away. The love that does not turn bitter, even when surrounded by destruction. The love that builds, that heals, that holds a vision of the future even in the darkest times.
Love is not soft. It is not weak. It is the most powerful force in the universe. It is what drives creation itself.
And it is what will carry you through.
Final Words: The Choice Is Yours
You are standing at a threshold. The old world is burning. The new world is waiting.
Where will you place your attention?
Where will you pour your energy?
Will you spend your days consumed by rage at the failures of the past? Or will you turn toward what is possible, toward what is waiting to be built?
The choice is not for one leader, one movement, one nation. It is for you.
Every day, in every moment, with every action—you are shaping what comes next.
Live as if you remember who you are.
Live as if you remember what is possible.
Live as if you are the bridge between the old world and the new.
Humanity is not separate from nature, nor from the cosmos. We are a dynamic expression of the evolving universe, an unfolding process that is as old as time itself. Our societies, cultures, politics, conflicts, and love are all part of a vast living system—woven into the greater web of life. Nothing exists in isolation; every experience, whether joyful or painful, every system we create, whether oppressive or liberating, plays a role in the evolutionary process of humanity and the larger systems we are embedded in.
The Evolution of Society and Culture: A Living Process
Culture is not static; it is a living organism. It emerges from the interactions of individuals, shaped by history, geography, biology, and the deep currents of human psychology. From the earliest hunter-gatherer tribes to the modern globalized world, our ways of organizing, understanding, and expressing ourselves have been in a constant state of transformation.
At its core, culture is a survival mechanism, but it is also an expression of our deepest longings—our search for meaning, connection, and belonging. The stories we tell, the values we uphold, the traditions we carry—all are part of an evolving tapestry that allows us to navigate the challenges of existence.
Politics, too, is an extension of this living system. It is the way we negotiate power, resources, and relationships within and between societies. At different points in history, humanity has experimented with diverse forms of governance—tribal councils, monarchies, democracies, empires, theocracies, and anarchic systems. Each has its strengths and flaws, but all are responses to the conditions and consciousness of the time. Politics is not separate from nature; it is part of the complex, self-organizing patterns of human evolution.
Love and Conflict: The Twin Forces of Evolution
Love and conflict are not opposites—they are different expressions of the same evolutionary process. Love is the force that binds individuals and societies, the glue that holds relationships together, the energy that nurtures, heals, and expands consciousness. It is not just an emotion but a fundamental organizing principle of life. We see love in the bond between parent and child, in the cooperation of communities, in acts of kindness, creativity, and solidarity. It is through love that we create, grow, and build.
But conflict, too, has its place. It is the fire that challenges stagnation, the catalyst for change, the force that breaks down outdated structures so that new ones can emerge. Conflict arises from competing needs, values, and perspectives. It has led to suffering, destruction, and unimaginable violence, but it has also driven progress, ignited revolutions, and forced humanity to confront its own shadow.
Every war, every struggle, every oppression is part of the larger evolutionary process. This does not mean suffering is justified—it means that even in suffering, there is something that pushes us toward transformation. The horrors of the past have inspired movements for justice. The weight of oppression has sparked demands for liberation. The cycles of violence have, in some places, led to deeper understandings of peace.
Domination vs. Partnership: The Shifting Balance
Throughout human history, societies have oscillated between two fundamental orientations: domination and partnership.
A domination orientation sees the world as a hierarchy—some above, others below. It manifests in systems of power and control: empires, feudalism, patriarchy, colonialism, corporate exploitation, and authoritarian rule. It assumes that power must be held by the few at the expense of the many. It thrives on division, fear, and the suppression of those deemed weaker.
A partnership orientation, by contrast, is based on cooperation, mutual respect, and interdependence. It recognizes that power is not something to be hoarded but something to be shared. We see partnership models in indigenous societies, in feminist movements, in regenerative economies, and in ecological worldviews that understand humans as part of a living Earth rather than its rulers.
These two orientations are not just political or social—they exist within us. They shape how we relate to each other, how we raise our children, how we structure our relationships, how we view the world. And they are in constant tension, as humanity struggles between the gravitational pull of old patterns and the emerging potential of new ways of being.
Joy and Suffering: The Necessary Currents of Evolution
It can be tempting to wish away suffering, to see conflict as a mistake, to dream of a world without hardship. But all of it—every joy, every sorrow, every act of kindness, every moment of despair—is part of the living process of evolution.
Without suffering, there would be no longing for change. Without oppression, no struggle for liberation. Without darkness, no understanding of light. This does not mean suffering should be passively accepted—on the contrary, it means that in facing it, in responding to it, in working to heal it, we are participating in the unfolding of human evolution.
Every individual experience contributes to this greater process. The joy of love, the pain of loss, the exhilaration of discovery, the despair of injustice—all are part of the great river of transformation that has been flowing for millennia.
The Future: Toward a Conscious Evolution
Humanity is at a turning point. The systems built on separation—between humans and nature, between rich and poor, between races, genders, nations—are reaching their breaking point. The old patterns of domination are being challenged by the growing recognition of interdependence. A new consciousness is emerging, one that sees humanity not as a collection of competing factions, but as a living organism within a greater living world.
This shift is not guaranteed, nor will it be easy. Evolution is rarely linear. There will be resistance, backlash, and regression. But the momentum is there. We see it in movements for social justice, in the resurgence of indigenous wisdom, in the push for ecological restoration, in the deepening of spiritual inquiry.
The question is not whether humanity will evolve—it always has, and always will. The question is whether we will evolve consciously, whether we will step into our role as co-creators of a more just, loving, and regenerative world.
If we embrace the reality that we are not separate—that we are an expression of the Earth, that our struggles are part of a larger transformation, that even our mistakes serve a purpose—then we can move forward with wisdom.
The story of humanity is still being written. It is a living story, shaped by all of us. And in this grand unfolding, every experience matters. Every choice matters. Every life, every breath, every act of love, every moment of struggle is part of the great, seamless, evolving system of existence.
