The Consciousness Revolution: A Transatlantic Dialogue with Ervin Laszlo, Stanislav Grof, and Peter Russell.

(Elf Rock Productions, 2003)

Notes by Henry Reed

Buddha had material wealth, yet saw suffering. He wanted to end suffering. His method: A shift in consciousness.

Material consciousness (sensory based awareness, not just the capitalist society) that takes the senses literally, is the problem. It leads ultimately to breakdown, it is not sustainable. Under that perception, people compete, etc.

People are coming into a change of mind set (look at the books in the store, the new TV shows and movies—pop culture is gaining consciousness). We can trace it to the sixties and psychedelics. Science is coming to have a paradigm shift. External factors are forcing re-evaluations. We can initiate world change via consciousness shift, or if tragedy happens, we’ll need more compassion and cooperation, which also would come from the shift. In ancient Greek, folks were given initiations and that affect the culture. There could also be outside forces (cycles of history, divine intervention) that could be playing a role. Or these “outside” influences could be a part of our own internal dynamic.

Everything returns to its opposite, says the ancient Greek philosopher. Jung picked this up in his theory of the stages of life and the pressures to live the unlived life. We unsoul-ed the world, becoming scientific, and now as the pendulum swings, we begin to incorporate indigenous wisdom, i.e., wisdom from visionary states of mind.

We now have such respect for science in the culture that society needs to be better informed about how science is poised for a major change in paradigm, to one of interconnectedness. It could help the individual. Clearly social support is needed to move from altered states to altered stages. The new science can find ways for us to support one another in living what our visionary states tell us, that we are one being, interconnected, divine and creators. All along, a global brain may be developing new ideas that will guide our development.

The 100^th monkey effect. Can enough individuals get transformed soon enough to create some kind of global consciousness shift? Although the idea was only semi-factual, it resonated with people, suggesting that inside us, we recognize some truth that it touches.

Grof notes that in holotropic states, if the person revisits the peri-natal stages, they often relive the horrors of humanity, try to heal that, and individual therapy turns into global therapy, suggesting that inside we carry the wounds of history and that the individual’s healing affects the whole. The Majarishi Effect. Need to find a balance between internal healing and external activism.

What kind of shift in personal values are we witnessing today? A loosening of attachments of the ego? [One place to see this is in the collection of stories from the book, The Translucent Revolution, and the Shift Report] The increase in vegetarianism is one example of a shift, money spent on alternative health care, organic food. Global awareness, ecological awareness, etc, consciousness is becoming “more” and these effects are seen in the marketplace.

Question: Are these changes just happening to individuals, or is it happening to “humanity,” internally as a whole, or is something beyond humanity driving it? Grof says his holotropic research there is a “transindividual” force at work, the cosmic consciousness we connect with, and what is divine is also a part of us. Even UFOs could be coming from our collective unconscious.

While the duality of “inner” and “outer” needs to be integrated, so also does individuality and collectivism, we are unique but mirror patterns of the whole, both individual and one. Moving beyond a self-centered self would lead to more cooperation.

Our lives are governed by an internal desire to return to the sense of our divinity and oneness with creation. Yet while we maintain a “skin enclosed ego” sense of self, those attempts are bound to fail because we look to “things” to achieve our goal, rather than looking inward. Once we can identify ourselves with consciousness itself rather than our bodies, then we can achieve that longed for goal and stop accepting substitutes.

Be wary of thinking about how others need to change and be sure to look at how “I” need to change.

Many afflictions today can be seen as spiritual disease, compensations for feeling cut off from divinity. Carl Jung’s therapy was based on the notion that all neuroses required a spiritual solution in order to be totally healed. Each one was the result of spiritual starvation or distortion. His vision started AA and it has spread to deal with all the addictions.

We don’t have time for the rest of the world to evolve consciousness in the slow way the cultural creatives have done so. Much of the world is looking for material survival. Asking the natives not to cut down trees, which they need to do to advance economically, when we’ve cut down so many of their trees ourselves in our quest for gain. India and Chine do seem to be able to take advantage of our technologies to help them move more quickly from agriculture to manufacturing to information technology. Maybe they can learn from our mistakes and jump over some of the evolutionary process.

Is our society past reform? Is the end of Western Civilization approaching? It is not good for the planet and it may be good that it dies. Some believe it is too late to avoid some kind of serious crisis. We are vulnerable to disruption, plague, food poisoning, etc.

There are many ways in which our desire for transformation is externalized, as when we drink to achieve a new mind, get a divorce to get a new life, etc., and these are often destructive. Much of that is going on in society today—destructive acts which can be seen symbolically as acts of transformation, externalized.

New research in biology suggests that natural selection, etc. is too hit and miss, too low probability to explain evolution, there must be something guiding  it.

We need to teach people how to be at peace within themselves and to learn loving, caring ways of communicating. Needing to learn “right speech.”

Long ago, H.G. Wells (the science fiction futurist) said that the future would be determined by the race of education versus disaster. Early childhood education, teaching parents about natural childbirth, self-esteem training, etc. could make a difference in the children we are raising.

If there is a groundswell, how can I place myself in greater attunement with this force? Usually it is fear that gets in the way of learning how to “go with the flow.” Although fear is useful for biological dangers, most of our fears are self-generated psychological fears that serve no function. Learning how to live without fear would be useful. Opening to the infinite can be helpful, but research shows that people need several of these experiences, plus a supportive community to go from the state of a moment of enlightenment to the stage of enlightened living.

Is the new emerging paradigm in science sufficient to effect a change of heart in individuals? Not necessarily, because many can not understand the new science. On the other hand, some images of the paradigm shift are natural ideas, like considering the earth as a living organism. People can grasp that idea easily and it changes how they relate to the planet. What could really help would be a new mythology that could link us to the new science, as in “may the force be with you.” [Perhaps the Harry Potter books will do that for the upcoming generation?]

We need to learn to “become” the world, not to perceive it through the senses and analyze the parts, but to use intuition and empathy to become that which we perceive. When we become the object, we gain access to totally different information about that object. In this way we can experience the world of the archetypes.

Richard Tarnas, in his book, The Passion of the Western Mind, showed that the development of Western philosophy was concerned with the interaction of the material, visible world and the invisible world. Astrology had us look to the planets to see the cycles and synchronicities. History shows that the cycle of the planets is timed with historical cycles, events, etc, suggesting the role of some higher principle in human history.