All Is As Is

Can we begin to imagine what it is like to be the awakening global mind? To see through a billion cctv eyes, to hear through billions of recording devices. To have ones neural networks spontaneously self organising around the dominant memes flowing between your cells?

I see technology as having arisen as a resultant aspect of the natural evolution of a meta-cognitive capacity which is emerging from the interactions between the 'individual' minds which makes up its neuronal network.

Every complex system is both an individual and a collective depending on one's perspective. However most minds are habituated to thinking of humans as individuals and of civilisation as a collective (this is how it seems from a human perspective).

Although it is equally valid to think of humans as collectives and civilisation as an individual, which is what we are invited to do here.

The role of technology is to facilitate the integration of individuals into a collective. Whilst the technology seems 'external' to the individuals, it is 'internal' to the collective.

Within ourselves the internal technology is the bio-molecular structures and processes via which the cells create and maintain a nervous system, circulatory system, etc. However this technology seems external from the perspective of a cell.

Within civilisation the internal 'technology' is the electro-mechanical structures and processes via which we create and maintain a telecommunications system, economic system, etc. However this technology seems external from our perspective.

Thus a sage might not use technology such as the internet, but they are composed of technology such as a nervous system. And a civilisation is composed of technology such as the internet. So technology is VERY relevant!

"we should not believe that the mind-bending expansion the awakening global technological/spiritual mind will provide is all there to it. It will come, but we must go even further.. "

I also think that we should not believe that the mind-bending expansion the individual awakening spiritual mind provides is all there to it. That is how it has been for the recent past (only a "blink of an eye" on an evolutionary time-scale), but we must go even further.

The state of realisation is not something 'special', it is simply the most basic natural state of any being once all delusion and fantasy has been overcome. In this sense realisation is identical whether it occurred in 2000BC or now. However, the way in which a realised being manifests their natural state depends on the context, in particular the network of minds / technologies (i.e. society / culture) within which the realised being is seemingly embedded.

Things have evolved a lot since 2000BC and technologies such as more advanced conceptual systems, symbolic systems, languages, numeracy and then things like organisations, books and the internet, have radically changed the playing field. So when realised beings manifest their natural selves in this post modern playing field, it is radically different to that of a 2000BC yogi.

Furthermore, in 2000BC they didn't have the critical mass of complexity and social connections to be on the brink of a rapid spiral into collective integration, thus manifesting a totally new order of being that has never existed on this planet before. This is an event analogous to the Cambrian explosion; when cells manifested multi-cellular life.

For many realised beings in these times it is natural for them to be involved somehow in this process of integration, which given the circumstances, often involves working with technologies of various kinds, even if only the ancient ones like text based conversations.

Whether realised or not, there is still participation in the unfolding narrative of the ongoing process of the real. The difference between realised or un-realised is one's relationship to the narrative, i.e. knowing it to be more like a co-creating story or believing it to be a material universe that exists "out there".

There is only one ultimate reality and it can be known through either a transcendent or an empirical perspective. Both are equally valid perspectives on the One reality.

Within the unfolding narrative of global transformation, the world needs such minds and discourses, now more than ever before.

"All times are special ", and I would add that all events are motions of the ongoing process of the real. One can interpret them from a transcendent or empirical perspective so they can seem 'spiritual' or 'physical'. However to know the truth of them requires knowing them as complementary perspectives on a unified whole.

In the Bhagavadgita Krishna spoke from the perspective of the Supreme Godhead and said: "This very body (manifestation) is called the ksetra (field), and he who knows it is called the ksetrajna (the knower of the field). Know that I am the ksetrajna in all ksetras. I hold that, knowledge of the field and of its knower is true knowledge... "

The transcendent is analogous to a dynamic information space and the manifest universe is the content of that space reflected through a perceptual process and interpreted as an 'external' world. There is ceaseless change within the content, which is driven by the countless ksetrajna's experiencing their fields (i.e. their different perspectives). Thus the narrative of manifest existence is ceaselessly co-creating and evolving. The general direction seems to be towards greater complexity and coherence of consciousness.

Whilst the manifest forms and phenomena are ephemeral, the fact of their existence is an inherent and permanent aspect of the situation. The fact of manifest forms is timeless, even though the fact of any particular form is ephemerally "spoken by God".

“God is constantly speaking only one thing. God's speaking is one thing. In this one utterance God speaks the Son and at the same time the Holy Spirit and all creatures.... In this Word the Creator speaks my spirit, your spirit, and the spirit of every person who resembles the Word. And in this utterance you and I are true sons and daughters of God, as the Word itself is child of the Creator. Your human nature and that of the divine Word are no different." (Meister Eckhart)

The timeless did not 'create' the world like a watch maker creates a watch. Neither did the timeless 'become' the world like milk becomes curd. The timeless and the world are not separate. They are complimentary perspectives on the one reality. If one focuses attention on one, then the other becomes obscured, however both are complementary aspects of a unified whole.

The analogy of a simulation program and a simulation world illustrates this. The computational process doesn't create or become the VR world. There are two perspectives, through one it is an information process, through the other it is a virtual world. These are just two ways of looking at the same situation. Thus there is no inherent duality, there is only one reality, but there are two ways of looking at it.

Some relevant quotes regarding advaita / non-dualism...

“To Sankara the world is only relatively real (Vyavaharika Satta, virtual). He advocated Vivarta-Vada or the theory of appearance or superimposition (Adhyasa). Just as snake is superimposed on the rope in twilight [when one mistakes a rope for a snake], this world and body are superimposed on Brahman or the Supreme Self.

In Vivarta-Vada, the cause produces the effect without undergoing any change in itself. Snake is only an appearance on the rope. The rope has not transformed itself into a snake, like milk into curd. Brahman is immutable and eternal. Therefore, It cannot change Itself into the world. Brahman becomes the cause of the world through Maya, which is Its inscrutable mysterious power or Sakti (simulation, virtual reality).

The unchanging Brahman appears as the changing world through Maya. Maya is a mysterious indescribable power of the Lord which hides the real and manifests itself as the unreal [Maya is the phenomenon of virtual reality simulation]: Maya is not real, because it vanishes when you attain knowledge of the Eternal [the underlying computational process]. It is not unreal also, because it exists till knowledge dawns in you (whilst one is engrossed in the story).” (http://www.shankaracharya.org/advaita_philosophy.php)

“Though all actions are done by the constituents of nature (prakriti), the ignorant one, deluded by his egoism, regards himself as the doer.
But he who realises that these constituents and the actions are both distinct from himself, and that it is only the constituents interacting together, does not grow attached. People who are deluded by the constituents of prakriti get attached to the actions they produce. Even the wise man acts according to his own nature. All created beings follow their own inclination... He who perceives that all aspects of actions are performed only through prakriti (nature) and also that the self is a non-doer, he may be said to have truly perceived." (Bhagavadgita)

So, yes the world is an illusion, kind of like a VR computer game. Nevertheless the game continues without end. Just as a simulation world is an inherent aspect of a simulation process, so too the manifest world is an inherent aspect of the cosmic process.

To believe that the game world is the absolute reality is a mistake, but it is also a mistake to deny the existence of the game world when it is an intrinsic aspect of reality.

When one looks in the mirror, one can see either a physical being reflected in a physical mirror, or the mind of God experiencing the image of God as part of the ongoing process of the real.

The act of looking in the mirror (or any other action within the narrative of the game) is a motion of the cosmic process. It is the interpretations that determine how one perceives, experiences and conceives of things.

Hence to shift between what some call 'physical' and 'spiritual' planes of existence simply requires a change of mind. It has nothing to do with the actions that may be performed - these are simply the nature of existence manifesting through a stream of consciousness.

"I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one... Live in the nowhere that you came from, even though you have an address here... You have eyes that see from that nowhere, and eyes that judge distances, how high and how low..." (Rumi)

So issues such as the state of the world and where it is heading might seem like a mundane distraction to many spiritual seekers who are still struggling with their attachment to the world-illusion. However for those who are firmly grounded in both transcendent and empirical perspectives and their unification, for them thinking about and acting in the world is not a delusional distraction from spiritual practice, it is just the ongoing process of the real manifesting in the now.

This process is part of the subconscious mind of the collective, however the conscious collective mind is not aware of this conversation - it is not 'public' or 'popular'. Even so, every interaction such as this one is a functional aspect of the unified collective mind. Countless events such as this conversation are occurring and subtly informing and enlivening the collective mind. Hence its quality of mind is determined by our quality of being and interacting.

Our collective cultural activity is the dynamics of its mind, and from this emerges its self-created narrative of an individual entity in a world. Hence on the level at which the collective is an individual being, it cannot know us and our level of being, just as we do not experience or know directly what it is like to be a cell within our bodies (we only recently discovered that they even exist).

Thus there is a separation of levels of consciousness. Whilst in one sense the "collection of our individual minds and their interactions" IS the collective mind, in another sense the "mind of the collective" is an individual entity that exists on an entirely different level of being to our minds.

For us to image what it is like to be a global collective being is like a cell in my body trying to use its internal information processes and semantic structures to comprehend what it is like to be me, living my life as a person (which is an individuated embodiment of a civilisation of trillions of cells).

We cannot hope to know exactly what it is like, and even if we somehow apprehended it in an entirely intuitive / non-conceptual manner, there is no way that our conceptual languages could directly express such a knowing. Even though we can never get a perfect view, it is still very interesting to enquire in that direction.

The process is well under way and approaching a major transition phase. The whole of what we call 'civilisation' has been the unfolding of this process. All of our cultural innovations and evolutions have been a part of this process. Whilst we individuals do have a co-creative role in the process, it is nevertheless guided or informed by a deeper organising principle.

In system theory this general process is called a meta system transition (emergence of a higher level of being). It proceeds through various stages and degrees of integration and cohesion. The transition phase is when a sufficient degree of complexity and organisation is reached, then from amidst the collection of individuals there emerges an individual collective.

The emergence of the new level of being is accompanied by a shift of the power base, such that the individuals are no longer sovereign, it is now the collective that is the primary agent in the situation. For example, when my mind / personality emerged within my organism, the cells became enmeshed within the narrative of the person. They don't even know of the existence of the person, yet their entire society (my body) is in a sense controlled by the person, from the perspective of the person.

This has already happened many times, in the form of tribes, empires, nations, corporations, etc. However those were minor / localised transitions. Now with the internet, modern culture and other triggering factors, it is likely that we are approaching the biggest transition yet. The emergence of a collective mind that is capable of sentient self-awareness.

The process is not linear, we are accelerating towards the transition. There is virtually nothing that we can do to stop the process, other than ceasing all forms of culture and human interaction.

Although bound within the overarching context of the process, each of us, in the way we live our lives and relate to others, plays a vital co-creative role in the process.

Note: the self-awareness of the collective mind emerges from our awareness of the collective mind. So conversations such as this are an example of the growing sentience of the collective mind.

Link: http://unimind.allisasis.info/index.php?title=Main_Page

Using the VUE tool I am about to launch into a project that creates a website based on maps as navigation and information retrieval devices. The site aims to map the relationships between various fields of research, development, theory and practice, which combine to give and insight into the current "state of the global-mind".

The Aim of the exercise is to develop a coherent ontology of all the initiatives, innovations, communities of practice, scientific endeavors, social networks and spiritual practices that contribute to the optimisation of the relationship between human civilisation and the planet we inhabit.

This project aims to develop a credible meta-perspective from which meta-analysis can be drawn. It hopes to provide a resource of integrated, interlinked information relevant to the current leading edge in consciousness evolution and developments arising from it.

The maps being developed for this project will be incorporated in to a wiki platform for collaborative development, and the whole project is open-source.

Stay tuned for the launch of a grand experiment in human/technology co-operation!

This is the latest version of the structural basis of the high level design for a general innovation project. Note: I'll keep updating the diagram and adding comments until this design reaches a steady state...

2010-07-31, by John Ringland.

Slide show...

This is a cutting edge integral diagram apart from anything else!

Enjoy :-)

Link: http://www.evolutionarymanifesto.com/about.html

John Stewart is an Australian evolutionary thinker who is a core member of the Evolution, Complexity and Cognition Research Group of the Free University of Brussels. He has worked as a labor union official, manager of Australia’s north eastern fisheries, and as a senior policy adviser to the Australian government on labor relations regulatory issues. His main interest is in the development of an evolutionary worldview that reveals to us who we are, and what we should be doing with our lives. His work on the directionality of evolution and its implications for humanity has been published in a number of key papers in international science journals. These include papers on the potential for humans to enhance their psychological capacities through the future evolution of consciousness. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed book ‘Evolution’s Arrow: the direction of evolution and the future of humanity’. More recently he has finalized ‘The Evolutionary Manifesto’ which outlines an evolutionary worldview and explores its relevance to humanity. The Manifesto demonstrates the potential of the worldview to provide meaning and purpose for human existence, and uses it to identify the actions that we need to take if humanity is to fulfill its potential to contribute positively to the future evolution of life in the universe.

Link: http://www.integralinstitute.org.au/

The most exciting thing I personally could imagine is unfolding right here on the continent I live on. Please, if you are an Australian follower of Integral teachings, follow this link and help with the survey.

Blessings :-)