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Living within a living, loving planet
Posts tagged one consciousness
Who we are
Feb 25th
“To be human is to unfold in time but remain discontinuous. We are living non sequiturs seeking artificial cohesion through the revisions our memory, that capricious seamstress, performs in threading the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. It is, after all, nothing but a supreme feat of storytelling to draw a continuous thread between one’s childhood self and one’s present-day self, since hardly anything makes these two entities “the same person” — not their height, not their social stature, not their beliefs, not their circle of friends, not even the very cells in their bodies. Somewhere in the lacuna between the experiencing self and the remembering self, we create ourselves in what is literally a matter of making sense — of craftsmanship — for, as Oliver Sacks so poignantly observed, it is narrative that holds our identity together.” Maria Popova
The Best and Beautiful of Nisargadata
May 12th
“Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not its cause.”
“Q: If I am free, why am I in a body?
M: You are not in the body, the body is in you! The mind is in you. They are there because you find them interesting. Your very nature has the infinite capacity to enjoy. It is full of zest and affection. It sheds its radiance on all that comes within its focus and awareness and nothing is excluded. It does not know evil or ugliness, it hopes, it trusts, it loves. You people do not know how much miss by not knowing your own true self. You are neither the body nor the mind, neither the fuel nor the fire. They appear and disappear according to their own laws.
That which you are, your true self, you love it and know it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic urge. Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but never wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the self, that is all. Be true to your own self, love yourself absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless you have realized them as one with yourself, you cannot love them. Don’t pretend to be what you are not. Don’t refuse to be what you are. Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not its cause. Without self-realization, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realize the depth and fullness of the love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self-realization can break it. Go for it resolutely.”
I Am That
Nisargadata Page 212
third edition revised and re-edited
There can be no peace nor cessation of planetary destruction until this is understood.
What is Planetary Psychology?
Feb 13th
A planetary psychologist is one who studies the psyche of our planet Earth. Understood is the necessity of investigating Earth’s psyche in a wholistic manner. Just as in humans, Earth’s psyche must not be separated in a dualistic manner. Wholistic study is only relevant from a “oneness” structure that sees the physical and the spiritual as two sides of the one coin. Planetary psychology must be closely knit with ecology, and the physics and chemistry of Earth.
An updated worldview is called for that places life as we know it as in, among and inseparable from Earth itself. Humans, for instance, do not live “on” the planet, they are the planet. The terms animate and inanimate no longer serve when we view earth as a living entity. Following on, planetary psychology accepts that earth as a living planet is conscious and accepts the responsibility to investigate just how human and other than human beings share in that one consciousness.
There is an ancient and on-going human tradition of non-duality. A form reminiscent of Advaita Vedanta teaches that to view ourselves as having a separate consciousness within that looks out on a world without is an illusion. There is only the looking and no looker. There is only one consciousness. This consciousness permeates the Universe. Planetary psychology limits itself to the study of how humans relate spiritually to universal consciousness as it has been expressed by the planet. All physicality expresses the one consciousness limited only by the number and variety of sensory apparatus that has evolved.
See Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism by David J. Chalmers
http://consc.net/papers/panpsychism.pdf
See Planet as Self by Sky McCain http://www.earthenspirituality.com