To Seek Beyond the Bubble Wall

With both music and writing, I suffer from an overload of ideas which come all at once, often before the glue (to hold them together) arrives. There is a slippery and chaotic nature to it. It makes sense, somewhere behind the emerging patterns, but it is sort of intangible. 

This is a bit like having a light switch with options for on or off. It's easy to either let the latticework slide into the ocean (without ever making it self standing) or to immerse myself in it--to the point of getting lost. 

I like the imagery of having a boat to jump in and out of the sea from (to gradually feel the main idea out.) There's a hope of chiseling it all to a point, but the quest for perfection creates too much tension and ruins it, so it is what it is. 

I can stick my foot into the water, but eventually I have to take it out and be a human being. That said, the body is made of water--and is likewise pulled by the same forces. We're immersed all the time. Anyhow, speaking of being human...

There's a book by Daniel Quinn called The Story of B. It's been awhile since I've read it, but he drew up an interesting time-line, one that marks a point in civilization, where people, bearing the brunt of disease and poverty, found appeal in the idea of being saved.

They were offered reassurance by something outside of their situation--and outside of themselves.

It's interesting that history books identify history & then, as an afterthought, pre-history.... in other worlds, the chapters, that we truly lend our focus to, include only the history of our own civilization, with a tendency toward a certain brand of agriculture, a growing population, and a conquering of one people by another.

Our culture's departure from tribal living became the starting point of a new story of our culture, and, as Quinn pointed out, there seemed to be a certain forgetting of everything past that point... as though the way of being human suddenly began. 

Our culture has identified with a story that, in part, sprang, not only from our quick turn to an agricultural (and later industrial) society, but also from a desire to be saved... perhaps to be saved by something higher up... yet within our limited, learned framework... a king perhaps... and, most notably, something outside of ourselves.

What did we need saving from but the symptoms of our own adjustment to a radically new way of life? Meanwhile, in the margins, other ways of being human (and of perceiving the world) continued and continue throughout numerous remaining indigenous cultures. 

“The religious man of a hunting culture is known as a Shaman... A shaman is a person, of a peculiar type of sensitivity, who finds initiation into the shaman role by going off by himself, for a long time, into the depths of the forest, or the heights of the mountains. And in that isolation, he comes in touch with a domain of consciousness (which is known by all sorts of names... spirit world, ancestors, gods, whatever), and his knowledge of that world is supposed to give him peculiar powers of healing or prophecy (or magic in general). The thing that you must note is that his initiation is found by himself.  He does not receive initiation from an order or a guru”. (Alan Watts)

In other words, the individual does not simply draw inspiration from (or dwell in the tales of someone) who has done out-of-ordinary things, but rather, connects with and makes these things ordinary to him/herself and further ensures the survival of the tribe by doing so. 

Within the longer story of being human, it is also interesting to note that the particular teachers and gurus we think of as ancient and fundamental, are relatively recent arrivals along a truer time-line of human beings, one where pre-history is history. 

These teachers likely knew that they, as individuals, were not the end-all-be-all, but rather that they, like the shaman, were tapping into something that others could likewise tap into... some aspect, some relationship with life/existence/God/what-have-you--though that essential piece or ordinariness often gets lost. 

While it is hard to say, at the level of personality, to what degree, each thrived in the focal role of teacher, it is hard to picture them wanting to be worshiped and adulated to extremes. They might then become the distraction, the very obstruction they are trying to clear.

It would seem, to the shaman, that one need not go through a particular teacher, so much as one may benefit by the right conditions of environment (and self) to get in touch with reality.

The question is.... does our culture highlight the tools and conditions we have for getting in touch with reality? Or does it, consciously and unconsciously, obscure them some way... even to encourage an imagined dependency on that which is far outside of self... to somehow dedicate us to our role in a hierarchy... even if hidden under the comfort of what we are used to.

Like the shaman, our belief systems are a reflection of our culture and vice-versa. What role does society's imaginary isolation from both nature and spirit, play? What secrets fade into the background? 

If we have forgotten our actual real world power, how can we see the powers of the shaman as anything but myth? In a similar vein, the medicine of indigenous people (while it gradually is working it's way back into modern culture) is sometimes used in isolation and in watered down dosages (either to meet FDA requirements, prevent liability, or to protect the unfamiliar user). 

This may encourage a watered down perception of what was once a powerful part of who we were. There is a potential loss of ground here, and we become more wind than roots, at least from a certain point of view. 

Religion can provide a framework on top of modern chaos, but, if you think about it, religion may exist in the same way as modern medicine. It is a treatment, within the story, that can be of use, but it can also do harm. 

What lies outside the story, outside the shortened timeline? What can dissolve the frosting, and get us down deeper into substance? In the case of medicine, deeper to the imbalance that manifests the symptoms and, in the case of spirituality, deeper to the connecting point--to the self or to the connected whole--rather than to a figure on a cloud, a figure which is really, like the big bang... still a character within a mystery.

This is not to say that a person can't, through religion, reach that connecting point, because maybe s/he will, and this is not to devalue humbleness... 

Maybe on a certain level it doesn't matter, as in both cases, on both paths, there is a yielding of the individual, which may allow a flooding of insight, but humbleness to the broader self/unity may be a bit different than humbleness to the authority figure... which, perhaps, may be like more of the same game... a game of chasing our own shadow.

Do we wish to dive past kingdoms, past reflections and agendas of the times, into a greater mystery that is, on some level, the self?

Speaking of kingdoms, according to Alan Watts (and Jared Diamond), civilization can break people into more definitive castes. 

It also can separate physical world experience from connection to the unseen... intuition, dreams, a sense of spirit. 

Fragmentation? And then the scientific community, through holes in the fabric, comes to discover different laws on different levels of being. It finds one set of laws governing the bulkier material world & another for, the less tangible, quantum world. 

It searches for a bridge... and that seeking of a bridge can plunge a person into mystery (and the ungraspable aspects of life which make it mystical & ethereal.) It also has to cope with it's own interference with the very system it is observing, as well as its own limits of perception.

Still, science can still fold back in on religion and illustrate some of the trappings of it, but it grasps a bit for straws when it comes to solidity... 

As the Robert Sheldrake quote goes: “Give science one free miracle--and it can explain the rest... and that one miracle is the big bang and manifestation off all matter in the universe.”  It's foot is forever deep in mystery. 

And as Sheldrake points out, the firmness, even of universal constants, appears at closer examination to be fluctuation... averages of a very un-static system, born out of a, yet understood, reality... like the pulsing breath of a mystery.

Random number generator experiments (see P.E.A.R. and the global consciousness project) show strong coherence--non-randomness--within what appears, on the surface, to be random. 

Random number generators, running all around the world, seem to jump out of randomness, all at the same time, especially when a large scale event (with world-wide interest,) is afoot.

I like this analogy... the world breathes, yet that breath can be interfered with, influenced by consciousness... We are interwoven, a part of.

Interesting that religion can separate earth from spirit and, science, in it's own way, can separate spirit from earth. 

According to Dean Radin, it's taboo in the scientific community to integrate information that pertains to the esoteric or paranormal. “Don't assume the scientific community is scientific” as someone once said (actually, I think it was Dean Radin.) 

Plenty of data exists to indicate relationships between mind & matter, and the power of unseen forces. Energy-work is just one example, as validated by studies out of NIH, and out of the University of Arizona (see Gary Schwartz, director of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health.)

Also thousands of number generator experiments and other trials (measuring influence of thought on physical outcomes) have yielded results that appear to be millions of times greater than chance. Author Lynne McTaggart's books are chock full of tangible examples.

So there are blockages to both our indigenous past and our potentially scientifically-progressed future, and we are, in a sense, inside of this bubble... enclosing our limited timeline.

How does one break out of a bubble? Sarah Lewis describes an experiment with groups of four year old's who were given a new toy to play with. Both groups were shown something about the toy... part of the toy was pulled which created a squeak. 

One group was given the toy, and the experimenter created the squeak (and simply looked surprised) before handing the toy off. With the other group, there was direction... “I am going to show you how this works."

The first group went on to discover more secrets about the toy and many hidden features. The other did not.

“The group taught about the toy never discovered all it could do. Their curiosity was dampened. The research is becoming more and more clear about this counterintuitive fact: directed teaching is important, but learning that comes from play and spontaneous discovery is critical. Endurance is best sustained through periodic play” --Sara Lewis

This seems to relate to the curiosity of a child, before and after being given the name of something, which is interesting, because religion can provide a name for spirit, and science can provide a name for matter.

Someone, I don't remember who, mentioned that once a child knows the name of a bird, the child moves on to the next thing... as though that thing now has a file name (to be tucked away under.) Has language driven us into complexity or taken us from it? Perhaps both.

It's easy to think of Einstein and other scientists who made discoveries through daydreaming, dreams and intuitive impulses.... Their minds were in the framework of relationship--but colored outside of the lines. This is very similar to the shaman who journeys into the woods.

“ "Kids are born scientists. They're born probing the natural world that surrounds them'” (Neil DeGrasse Tyson)

What happens when they are born into a synthetic, disconnected framework? Will they learn the tools of true deep survival... or simply synthetic rules that are useless out of context?

Much like a foot that is put in a shoe too early, only to throw off natural body mechanics (and range of motion) later, the impulse to discover can be cut short by too much direction.

That direction may be laced with assumptions based on past discoveries, which were truths in context, viewed from narrow windows. Then, one day, the earth is finally round. Then, one day, it is finally something else.

Religions (involving an authority figure) also have the potential to dampen curiosity. If we are shown the way, perhaps we do not find the way. 

Artfulness and mindfulness may awaken the human spirit--and invite glimpses outside of the bubble. Even without validation of pre-history, simply by observing other creatures in the wild, we can witness a lot of what works. 

If we do not condescend, we have a chance to solidify the fog around our seemingly solid world--and make our reality so much broader than what it is. 

Perhaps, with playfulness and a sense of wonder, science and spirituality can go deeper to the same fundamental place.... a place of interconnection and possibilities--but also a place that reveals tendencies (which are best heeded if one wants to succeed in current form.)

“The universe has tendencies, not laws” (Amit Goswami) After all these years, we could still be the shaman walking into the woods.

Prayer (or intent) seems to be a bridge, common between modern and indigenous belief systems. And when intent can be scientifically verified, it is a bridge between spirit and science (see the book You Are the Placebo by Joe Dispenza.) 

There is that meeting point. Specifics of particular belief systems can be distracting, however, and reality, as the ultimate teacher, can fill endless names and forms. Sometimes the names and forms become so loaded that there is a desire for a new name.

The word God can be freedom for some and yet uncomfortable or disjointing for others, because it conjures up images of a male figure on a cloud. 

Certainly, very connected peoples survived fine without this particular word. They also survived fine without the name of every body part and every element on the periodic table.

Not that a word can't collect power and collective meaning... not that a word can't be cleansed and reclaimed... but there is the expression "kill the Buddha" or the idea of not mistaking the finger pointing at the moon as the moon itself. 

To lose one great artist is not to lose art entirely. Come to think of it, Buddhism is an interesting bridge, though post tribal-society.

Although, on a side note, this is not to say that the individual doesn't exist on a variety of levels (energetic, beyond earthly form or otherwise,) but simply to say that, at a finer texture of reality, for lack of better words, the real thing can be tapped into or connected with. 

We are interwoven with it. To our culture, the power to tap in, through our own minds, is often regarded as a weak force. We believe it, but we don't really believe it. We are more likely to seek externally. Our, relatively, new culture (the culture of agriculture and industrialization) is largely externally based. It is also a written culture.

By this, we consider ourselves educated. This is further reinforced by our observation of those who do not read & write. They are judged as less successful--and may lack the fundamental tools the culture survives by--or competes with.

Indigenous people, successful in their own cultures, with their own tools of survival, no doubt, can be lumped in with that image.... a picture of what a person, who doesn't read or write, within our culture, may be like.

I'm thinking of religious missions where people (from civilization) seek to educate--and to impart their beliefs, and the promise of being saved. Some tribal people, no doubt, must have found this insane.

Civilization forgets its past (and its parallel relatives) and then returns to homogenize them (as though they are lesser than or developmentally behind.)

For those that have adopted our culture's ways... one has to ask... were these indigenous populations in balance... or were they disenfranchised, pushed to brink by colonialism--pushed to the point of begging the same question that many modern people asked... what will save me? 

And what comes to save them is the very cause of that need to be saved. To be fair, perhaps curiosity and playfulness played a role. And, furthermore, the addictive draw, the concentrates of civilization, no doubt, played and continue to play a role.

Furthermore, we are a portion of the "them" who took to this new way--or, more specifically, we are born into the arms of this extension, this side trail, this alternate timeline of human living. Separation is futile.

Also, to be fair, there is Jared Diamond's observation that tribe to tribe tensions and violence between (specific) native peoples was apparently relieved by the structures of civilization (see the book The World Before Yesterday.)

With that said, ancient cultures tend to survive by more esoteric means than modern ones--by means of connection... connecting to the earth and to dreams and intuition... as well as to passed down knowledge (on a number of levels.)

Our culture is passing down information too, but that information is, very often, based on the short-term time-line, the wild springboard jump into civilization, with it's particular brand of agriculture (what Daniel Quinn calls "totalitarian agriculture") and industry.

We build a progressive latticework, as information builds and builds--yet our latticework is externalized and often unstable. I mean this not only in the way that it is material (with synthetic elements, foreign to the environment and one's person) but also in the way that popular religion offers the promise of being saved from something outside the self. 

In a moment of feeling let down by the non-self, how stable will a person actually be--in both behavior and mindset? If you don't work for me, I can leave you, but one can never leave the self.

Both of these systems are potential forces for belonging, but, in many ways, can offer disconnection, a severing of the connection the shaman finds on his/her journey.

A Shaman was once asked how his people knew that a particular plant could heal a condition, and his response was that the plant told them. How did indigenous people in Arizona come to the conclusion that Larrea Tridentata was the oldest plant present, as later validated by university studies?

Some tribes/bands share their dreams and consider these important for navigating & for hunting and gathering pursuits the next day. 

There is a sense of being interwoven that makes it difficult to neglect the ecosystem--and equally difficult to neglect one's connection to the ethereal... and to the information that can be derived from it. Life is broader, and so is definition of self.

As civilization moves forward, it is hard to see it being successful without a sense of being interwoven on all levels of being. 

Recognition that we are in a bubble may lead to efforts to see outside of it, and looking back, forward and sideways, we may be reminded of who we were & better set sight on who we want to be.

We live in a world of work and play, of functionality and art, of physical form and imagination, of human and of nature. When these fuse together, and the imaginary lines between them fade, we step towards a holistic approach to life. It is inclusive & boundless--yet mindful, with steps taken wisely, and, perhaps, with a certain fearlessness... as, on some level, we step into the broader self. What do we have to lose?

Still, the shaman walking through the woods has something we often do not... the benefit of a direct experience. 

In a heavily populated world, full of indirectness, the strings tied to the choices we make are often hidden in the distance. We lack the direct experience of where something comes from--and where it is going. 

We may lack a sense of our own impact, and our guidance system is often based on photocopies of the real thing. Our roots don't reach the ground. On a physical level, mindful consumerism and sustainable practices come to mind. On a mental level, we can practice meditation. Both of these involve awareness.

Considering the indirectness of our own impact on society, consider an experiment done where groups of people were presented with a puzzle. Each group scored progressively better on the puzzle, though none had seen it before. 

The speculation was that the puzzle had been solved more effectively simply because it had been done before, and its solutions were now in the collective consciousness and therefore, on some level, now accessible to the next group. [I don't recall the details at present, but I believe the studies can be found in one of Lynne McTaggart's books (The Field, The Intention Experiment.) 

This also reminds me of music... how a song by one artist breaks into, relates to the whole field of music which may have an influence, detectable or not.

There is the phenomenon of ideas and inventions popping up in different parts of the world at the same time (Hundred Monkey Theory?) 

There is the saying "nothing can stop an idea whose time has come."

Our impact may not always be immediately visible, but we are part of that idea & assuming there is a collective consciousness, we are a vote in it, and may help bring it to the threshold and reach critical mass. 

This means that, even in relative isolation, we can have real world impact. We are entangled nonetheless.

Consider Lynne McTaggart's ongoing Intention Experiment where groups of people set an intention to reduce casualties of war during a conflict. 

There is an ongoing measure of statistics before, after, and during this meditation period. Though these studies are not yet concluded and published, they hint at the power of intent. [Also, check out Lynne McTaggart's leaf experiments.]

Until these results are made public (by way of scientific journal) one may reference experiments, which John Hagelin was involved with, where meditators set intent to reduce crime statistics in Washington D.C.

These results were positive, though worth replicating, of course, due to the difficulty of isolating such experiments (from other world factors.) 

In this vein, our impacts are, perhaps, not lost to the void, and we are part of the bubbling up of an idea-- and of a potential pathway out of a short story and into a broader one... even when we don't understand the exact physical means by which to approach a problem. 

Imagine, for example, how focus of intent could be used, physically and metaphysically, as part of an approach to help negate the impact of human global climate impacts.)

Obviously, things may not always come together as our individual personality would like it, and storms may come... however, even then, what remains after a storm may nonetheless benefit by these principles. They hardly stand to go out of style.

Everything we see around us will change in time; that's life... but stepping outside of modern culture's time-line to take a broader of view... has the potential, not only to bring us closer to holism... but to return us, re-turn us toward the mystery and back into our child-like fascination.,.. all the while easing suffering along the way. 

We may partner up with wonder and navigate our lives from there.