by Volker Brendel
As we went through our usual roll call, the thought occurred to me that everyone is needed. Nobody is here to be entertained, nobody is here to be participating casually. There is something very specific to be done, and I suspect Life itself put the right team together. It is always with great thanks in my heart hearing you and seeing you and admiring the team that has been put together. I think we often acknowledge that there is an intelligence in the universe that is far larger than our minds, and this intelligence is weaving a tapestry of immense beauty and great functionality. It is our privilege to participate consciously in this and with great confidence contribute into this larger whole and its purposes. Acknowledging that everyone is needed and is here for a purpose, I also feel that there is a continuity of our meditations, which is incredibly valuable.
Many times, there are themes that are brought up by one or the other speaker that resonate with me for many weeks to come. I suspect this is because the final word has not been spoken on these topics. Although, you might say in some sense it has. There is very little new that needs to be articulated. But then, there is an ongoing process by which we refine our own understanding of Life and the current focus. Certain themes and vibrations need emphasis.
A topic of inquiry in my own mind over the last four weeks has been how to reconcile our statement that all is well, always, and that we know that all is well, with the acknowledgments that the world is in a predicament of unseen proportions. It was Larry Krantz who introduced this theme four weeks ago, and in terms of predicaments, Larry reviewed the biggest environmental challenges we are facing. Now, that was four weeks ago, and maybe it is time for a little accounting. What do you think? Has it gotten better or worse? Obviously, we don’t have all the data, and we don’t really need to speculate. But my own assessment is that four weeks later things have gotten worse. Overpopulation most certainly has increased. Many more babies were born than people exited. There are likely quite a few species that have become extinct, again within the last four weeks. Our local weather this year has been dominated by tornadoes, thunderstorms and rainfall of unknown proportions, putting farming in peril. And on the list goes.
It is not hard to see that human beings have quite a bit of responsibility in all this. Take for example overpopulation. We know of one presumed virgin birth and may have some thoughts about that, too! But I think the days when we thought that babies were somehow brought by big birds or miraculous forces at moonlight are long gone. We pretty much know how babies come! And who is responsible if not human beings? So, there is no escaping at least a collective responsibility on that score. It may get a little fuzzier with respect to our responsibility about species becoming extinct, but then again, the correlation between human overpopulation and the diminishing quality of habitat for other species is rather clear.
Here in Indiana, we are feeling the effects of the current political administration, which is going back on the Clean Air Act. If you look at a map of environmental health, Indiana is not doing so well. We have no emission standards for cars, and the coal industry is in full swing again, increasing the particulates load in our air. Now, it is well known that particulates in the air very much negatively affect your health. My wife Nikki and I can feel that in our own lungs as we bicycle commute. So, at a minimum we could say that not doing better in terms of those environmental concerns is very shortsighted. In fact, the costs of the collective health impacts of all this are likely to be significant and will need to be paid sooner or later. So, with these dire current and predicted scenarios, how can we say that all is well, and we know that?
To me, one of the most remarkable and distinguishing characteristics of human beings is that we can think. We have the ability to think. Now, maybe second on my list of remarkable characteristics and features of human beings is their apparent lack of using the ability to think! We have the ability, and we don’t use it, or we use it very poorly.
Maybe this requires a little bit of thinking about thinking. There is a lot of low-level thinking going on. Around our house, there are a lot of squirrels, and we really enjoy watching what the squirrels are doing. In fact, particularly in the winter, we use the squirrels as an indicator of how cold and unpleasant it is outside, when we haven’t yet gone out. We call it a zero-squirrel day if it is quiet, up to a three- or four-squirrel day when the squirrels are active. This measure is highly correlated with our own impression of how cold it is outside. So, these squirrels are certainly intelligent in their own realm, and you get the feeling that they do think about hopping from one tree to the next, questioning whether they should jump or not, climb up here or climb up there, bury a nut here or eat it, chase each other, and so forth. There is a lot of thinking going on!
Our thinking should be characterized by higher dimensions; foresight; creativity; depth; putting our experiences and actions into context. We are certainly capable of that; and— we do very little of it! As we know, we progress in our lives from the helpless state of a baby to adolescence, maturity, and old age as elders, and presumably there is reason for such progression. My sense is that the elder stage should be characterized by increased wisdom, a sense of the fitness of things. Our thinking ability should increase. With the experience of many years of living should come a sense of the fitness of things, a perspective view of what is important and how to steward our abilities and our earth.
Interestingly, a lot of earthly power is concentrated in males in the range of 50 to 80 years old (my demographic). This age group controls most of business and most of politics. One doesn’t have to look far to see that most of that power is used in a self-serving way.
Larry in his presentation indicated that the ills of the world are the ills of a phony state, of an ego world. As we look at the power structures in the world, those in power seek to retain it; those who have wealth seek to maintain or increase it; and it’s easy to correlate this with the ego fear of becoming obsolete. It is amazing that virtually everyone (with few exceptions) fails to recognize the futility of all this.
In the 50-80 year age group, to stay with this example, you are on average a lot closer to the exit of the ego; it will go, for good! So, why this desperate claim to power and wealth that ultimately will come to naught anyway? It is a very misguided approach. It is also a very costly approach, because rightly the accumulated substance of living and the wisdom should not be self-serving but should be assisting the larger whole, which includes a number of different generations. One implication is that our behavior should pave the road for the next generation.
In the ego-driven world, people recognize this and try to pass on their wealth to their own children, their own flesh and blood. Maybe a few tips on living here and there, and an inheritance, so that everything stays in a small circle. This is a very misguided and limited view of the actual process of life. Life is large. Rightly, our thinking should be large. We should span time and space, as does Life.
There is much to done. A first step, as was mentioned by Larry and subsequently considered by Bill and Kate Isaacs two weeks ago, is to step out of the phony state. Bill called it the mirage state. It is a dream state, and it is not a good dream, so we might call it a nightmare state as well.
Maybe we should think about how we wake up. It is curious that we have to sleep in the first place. To some extent, everybody has to. So, maybe the Good Lord gave us sleep as an analogy. How does waking up happen? Well, there are both external and internal factors. Externally there might be some noise, or sunlight. Internally, probably there are molecular processes that have run their course and it’s time to wake up. But sooner or later it happens, hopefully. And, of course, there can be this in-between state in which we are not quite awake yet, but some part of us recognizes that we are actually in a dream state. We could, almost deliberately, will ourselves in one direction or the other state (“Let’s stay with this dream a little bit longer. Or, time to get up!”) So, part of this process of waking up is taken care of externally and subconsciously, while another part of it is taken care of consciously, particularly in the final stages.
I thought Kate Isaacs’ example of using modified language to describe a creative process (she used the example of birthing) was tremendously valuable. As we question how we name what we are doing, we consciously engage with the process, and we open doors to do things differently. In many cases, we can have remarkable changes. Thus, a practical step of moving out of the phony mirage state into reality is to allow different voices to be heard. The ego state tries to suppress inner and outer voices. The ego draws a circle around what the ego thinks is good for it and for its own propagation. In this state, we draw boundaries around what we are willing to listen to. Everyone and everything else are pushed away and suppressed. Fortunately, conditions have become so dramatic (dramatically bad) that this approach will come to an end. We know that it comes to an end individually, but collectively it cannot continue either. But that is in the category of the ills of the world. The act of waking up, shredding old beliefs and limiting concepts, is what we mean by entering the “world of all is well.” So, we can reconcile both sentiments, depending on where we put our focus. There is the process of Life itself that is powerful, pervasive, and ongoing. There are consequences of very bad behavior by human beings that need to be endured as long as human beings (us included) engage in those behaviors. Our role is to move from that ill state into the stance of Life.
The analogy of dreaming and sleeping goes only so far because in our experience we sleep and wake up and sooner or later we go to sleep again. Here we are talking about a permanent change in consciousness. It is possible to revert, but that is not what we are interested in. We have had the privilege of tremendous spiritual insight, because we have been associating with those few people who put wisdom first and through their living exemplify the path. Once we catch it, we are drawn in, and it should be our concern to be drawn all the way.
I have been aware of the difference between knowledge and partial knowledge. I’ll tell you a couple of anecdotes to illustrate the point. These stories have impacted my thinking over a considerable period of time. The first story is not my own, but one recounted recently by our friend, Dr. Larry Krantz. Some time ago, Larry was in his gym exercising, and he saw somebody slowly drop from a stationary bike to the floor. It was a hot day. Others observed the event as well, and one person rushed over crying, “I am a nurse, I am a nurse,” and started to administer CPR. Larry then rushed over, pushed the nurse out of the way with the words, “I’m a doctor,” and felt the pulse of the person and confirmed that the fellow was breathing, and his heart was working. He said: “He fainted and will be all right soon.” And indeed, the person came to a little later. Now why is this a great story concerning the difference between knowledge and partial knowledge? Well, CPR is to be administered to somebody who has no heartbeat; it can reactivate oxygen flow to the brain and save a person’s life. A person who has fainted pumps oxygen quite well on their own, and typically after a little bit of time, they come to, and no harm is done; whereas administering CPR in such circumstances can accidentally harm the person. This is a beautiful story of partial knowledge not being sufficient.
My second story is quite different. Many years ago, when I lived in Palo Alto, California, a couple of friends were expecting twins, and the mother-to-be’s brother drove down from Seattle to Palo Alto (in the Bay Area) with a station wagon packed full of gifts. It’s a long drive, and he arrived in the Palo Alto neighborhood late at night. He came down Highway 101, saw the signs for Palo Alto and took the second exit to East Palo Alto. The highway divides East Palo Alto from Palo Alto, and at that time the difference between the two places was not just these four letters, “east,” but a dramatic difference in wealth and safety. Soon after our friend came off the highway, he knew that he was not in the right place, rolled down his window and asked for directions. The next thing he remembers is waking up in the hospital. His car was later found completely plundered and burned, and he was lucky to be alive because he was found within a short time, after having been beaten unconscious, and taken to the hospital immediately. A dramatic story: one wrong turn at the end of many hours of driving. Partial knowledge rather than knowledge put our friend in the wrong place.
Partial knowledge versus knowledge can be the difference between death and life. Mind you there are many situations where partial knowledge is perfectly all right. Think of learning a new language. It is much better to start speaking the language when you know little and learn as you go along. There are few things where knowledge is handed down without a learning process. But in a situation where knowledge is required, we have to know our limitations, and we have to see what the right course of action really is.
Now, humanity is in that state where partial knowledge is putting the life of the planet at risk. Our feeble attempts at patching up the environment here and there will be found to be insufficient; there is no doubt about that. So how then to know when our knowledge is complete? Can we ever know that? Obviously, this is a critical and very difficult question. But as I said at the outset, my sense is that everyone present is needed, and that every voice needs to be heard. I think as much as drawing boundaries is a characteristic of the ill-fated human ego, the stand of angelic divine identity is to be inclusive, to break down boundaries, to acknowledge the unity of all life. In practical terms for us this means developing the capacity for collective conversation and thinking as we include the many voices and diverse voices (the female voice, ethnically different voices, different ages, different backgrounds). All these voices need to be heard in one container that facilitates listening and draws on collective wisdom, to the divine, and to the right path of action. Note that this is not democracy. We are not involving all these different voices and then having a vote. This may be appropriate in some cases, but the process I am speaking about is concerned with hearing the voice of God, if you like, the voice of Life, the one creative process. What is the most creative and appropriate path in each given situation? This applies to what we’re doing in our daily lives. What else could we do? But it is also easily seen in the collective processes in which we may not be directly involved. What energy sources should we engage? What emission levels are appropriate in the whole? Transportation is important; transportation has an emission cost with current technologies. Thus, there is a cost/balance consideration. All these considerations need to be driven by concern for the whole, in time and space; not just for our little circle, our little country, our continent, our generation. This is a tremendously exciting process, and actually we have everything it takes to engage with this, to become better with it, and put it into action now.
I appreciate our meditations here, whether one person speaks or when we have our comment period afterwards as part of that process. There is diversity in our group; voices need to be heard. There are things to be done, there are insights to be gained, and there’s constantly a legitimate effort for a greater depth of understanding and refinement of our expression. With that, I encourage myself and you to continue this process in the pursuit of wisdom, particularly when your age is in the realm where we should exhibit wisdom, but certainly this is true for everyone. Let’s not wait for something else. We know how to express and serve Life. There is continuously something to be done, in both our individual activities that only we know about, and through our collective thinking and acting.