Great changes are upon us
The very air we breathe now contains contaminants causing global warming, which in turn is melting ancient polar ice which is raising sea levels globally, which threatens to physically displace hundreds of millions of people, and cause extreme weather conditions. Also in just a few decades we have virtually depleted vast ancient underground ground water aquifers created ten thousand years ago by the great ice ages. And to make matters worse world economies are in trouble, and violence is proliferating as the greedy seek to take advantage of the desperate.
These are worrisome issues looming in the near future. But other problems have already reached crisis levels. One in two American men are now EXPECTED to get cancer, and one in three to have diabetes. And various other health problems are increasingly common, stemming from insufficient or tainted water and food. Underlying it all is increased stress levels that affect us all in ways we are only beginning to understand.
Curiously many if not most of us do not have even a strategy for coping, much less for solving these problems. There is generally a feeling of dread, and of being overwhelmed. There is the question of where to begin.
Well, there are two broad areas where by simply focusing our attention, we can begin to make improvements: stress management and food. Two central issues are "to what will I pay my attention, and what can I eat that is reasonably healthy?" Look for people and media that are enlightening and encouraging and avoid negativity.
The simplified answers are that we can also determine to become more aware generally, and to be more in the present moment. There are tried and true methods related to meditation techniques that reduce stress and promote health. And we can begin to learn the difference between factory food and real food, and explore ways to make the healthy choices.
Science and technology are relative newcomers but have brought about enormous innovations, which together with the population explosion bring issues of sustainability into sharp focus as perhaps a central issue of our lives. The potentials for positive growth as well as the dangers of imminent disasters are both at unprecedented levels. As these forces converge we find ourselves needing overview and balance, and a bold new synthesis and interpretation.
New mega-trends are changing things more rapidly than ever before. Besides the political crises we face, we have recently discovered looming questions about potential danger from overpopulation, global warming, biological pandemics and changes in the earth's ecosystems, its magnetic fields, possible super-volcanoes, nevermind roaming asteroids and black holes.
Other big questions we must face include the likelihood that digital intelligence will greatly surpass our own in the next few decades yielding machines with billions of times the sheer computational abilities of our own brains. Also, genetic manipulations may drastically change the essential nature of the basic life forms on the planet. Then there is the possibility of life forms on other worlds and even other dimensions than our familiar ones.
One the most rapidly evolving factor today is human consciousness. More than in any previous time in human history, millions of people are now asking fundamental questions about their societies and lives, and questioning many deeply established systems and beliefs.
This is certainly true of the understanding of our minds and bodies. In the past we often thought of the mind and body as being separate, but they are not just intimately interconnected, they are one.
In ancient Greece, speech-thought (the logos) was seen as a realm that was separate from the world of things. The logos was privileged, or idealized, since the idea of something outlasts the thing itself. The Law of Gravity supersedes and includes the material objects which are all subject to that law. So, this privileged realm of logos includes the laws of nature, civil law, and spiritual laws.
The power of abstraction is the essential quality that sets humans apart from the other animals. And success in life is proportionate to an overview of possibilities. But what is required is a balance between the physical and the abstract. The inevitable result of being out of balance is calamity. Too much logos is top-heavy and repressive, while too little logos leads to hedonism and anarchy. The limits of prohibition, imposed from the top, are determined by the willingness of the followers. If rules are not realistic, then the rules cannot stand.
Today, neuroscience and consciousness based activities such as visualization, biofeedback, meditation, acupuncture, and nutrition, have new and important places in this new understanding. Holism and holistic thinking is a start in the right direction, but seems inadequate to the task of making things right. We see the problem, but disagree on the solution. Many hearken back to the dark ages where might makes right (top-heavy logos and fascism). Others advocate freedom and democracy based on greedy colonialism or unlimited expansionism, or collectivism at the expense of individuation.
Another way of gaining overview is by looking at the prohibitions against science, from its inception, and by looking at the inevitable paradigm shift implied by the possibilities or probabilities of changes that are afoot.
Before iron weapons human aggression was, no doubt, akin to that of the other animals; noisy display, without being very lethal. But now the fact that we have in our hands the means to destroy virtually all life on the planet overshadows everything else. We don't seem to grasp these implications. In fact sociology has fallen so far behind technology that we could fall through the gap.
For thousand years, the central idea of western thought was the theme of the nobility of the struggle of mankind, under the aegis of the divine. After Darwin, things got confused and we are still experiencing a crisis of morality. We long for the transcendence, and the means for transmogrification may be within reach, but it seems apparent that the answers will have to come from within the hearts and minds of each of us as individuals.
Perhaps the most profound discovery of our times is that every cell in the body has a degree of consciousness. We also know that each cell can be in only one of two modes at any time: growth or protection. The only way to move from protection into growth is through the heart. Our purpose is to discover ways to bring this about. First, we need to come to an understanding of how mind and body are connected.
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