Once the Kundalini has Awakened our subconscious

our shadow self breaks through into our Reality.

We are not only faced with our worst fears

but we are faced with the crumpling sense that

the truth of what we conceive of reality is shattered.

The worst thing that can happen to a person is the

realization that everything within our reality is an illusion,

it can even be so strong as to drive a person mad.

Clearly, the current paradigm of scientific materialism is not up to

the evolutionary task at hand. Nor can going back to religious monotheism,

the prior paradigm, take us forward, either. We seem to be at a lifethreatening

impasse in the face of ominous apocalyptic predictions. The

key to avoiding apocalyptic collapse, however, lies in appreciating the

meaning of the word apocalypse—before it became a code word for “the

end of the world.”

Originally, apocalypse meant a prophetic revelation, “a lifting of the

veils.” It represented the exposure of something hidden and has, since

the time of the Greeks, been associated with revelations that would occur

at the end of time. A new—or, actually, old—interpretation of the word

suggests that, by lifting the veil on our own invisible programming, we

might yet avoid the inevitable train wreck that awaits us if we stay on the

current track.

Scientific materialism has offered four tenets in the dominant basal

paradigm that, until recently, have been accepted and regarded as

indisputable scientific fact:

1. Only Matter Matters—the physical world we see is all there is.

2. Survival of the Fittest—Nature favors the strongest individuals,

and the Law of the Jungle is the only real natural law.

3. It’s in Your Genes—we are victims of our biological inheritance

and the best we can hope is that science finds ways to

compensate for our inherent flaws and frailties.

4. Evolution Is Random—life is basically random and purposeless,

and we got here pretty much the same way as an infinite

number of monkeys pecking on an infinite number of

typewriters over an infinite amount of time might produce

the works of Shakespeare.

In the next four chapters, we trace the development of each of these

tenets from their origins as myth-perceptions through the profound

revisions offered by current science.

This examination of current situations and future possibilities is necessary

because, if we look at the world with clarity, loving compassion,

and even humor, we stand a chance of breaking free from this trance and

achieving spontaneous evolution.

As we will see in our discussion of “weapons of mass-distraction,”

most people have chosen the blue pill and have signed off on reality in

favor of reality TV. However, every day, increasing numbers are opting

for the red pill and are awakening to a world of awesome wonder and

overwhelming confusion.

The confusion is clarified the moment we realize that much of what

we perceive as natural human behavior is actually the consequence of

developmental programming.

The real issue we must come to terms with is that, for millennia, we

have been programmed to be powerless and, consequently, dependent

upon others for our survival, especially in the areas of spirituality and

health. Of course, fees were involved, and this exchange has significantly

contributed to our current global crises. Yet there is an easy way out of our

self-imposed matrix: we can simply reprogram our lives. By acquiring and

acting upon new awareness, we afford ourselves an opportunity to rewrite

the programs of cultural limitations.

An important aspect to fully expressing our shared awareness is to

first become wholly aware of where humanity is now. After all, the first

step in any recovery program is to acknowledge reality as it is. That’s

why trail maps have a “You Are Here” indicator. And where civilization is

now—well, it ain’t a pretty place. This is in a large part due to the institutionalized

insanity that society created by supporting the obsolete and

dysfunctional beliefs we have defined as the Four Myth-Perceptions of the

Apocalypse:

Only Matter Matters

Survival of the Fittest

It’s in Your Genes

Evolution Is Random

Although each belief seemed logical at one time, new science reveals

that none is true. These failed paradigms unconsciously hold in place the

current dysfunctions that threaten our survival. Once we release ourselves

from these limiting misperceptions, we will be open to a whole new world

of possibilities and opportunities. Radical thinking will open doors to an

emergent future we cannot even fathom.

(blz. 87 e.v., Spontaneous Evolution, Bruce Lipton.)

When we individually and collectively divest ourselves from the

acquired belief that money rules and matter comes first, we empower our

selves to bring the curtain down on this tired old BS—er, Belief System, that is.

As a result, a new paradigm is emerging, and it’s a paradigm that

requires our full awareness, attention, and active participation—within our

selves, of each other, and of our impending collective enlightenment.

Through this chapter, we have become aware of where we are, where

we are going, and where we are likely to end up if we keep on treading the

same track. Hopefully, the new insights we offer in Spontaneous Evolution

will contribute to a cultural turning point because, in good conscience,

we can no longer feed the dysfunctional paradigm of dispirited matter.

Nor can we go back to the purely animistic paradigm of long-ago indigenous

peoples. Nor to the lives and times of the Founding Fathers and the

unadulterated Declaration and Constitution they created.

There is nowhere to go but forward. And going forward requires that

we are ready to go sane.

As with any recovery program, the road back to sanity begins with

acknowledging the problem. We have just taken a courageous journey

through the shadow land of denied dysfunctionality. We have tracked

false, obsolete, and unquestioned beliefs in the primacy of matter, survival

of the fittest, genetic control, and random evolution to their illogical

conclusions. We’ve seen what doesn’t work.

By stepping outside the matrix of invisible beliefs that have silently

governed and limited our lives, we recognize we have created a world in

the distorted image of our worst fears and unconscious habits. Now that

we have seen the awful truth, the rest of Spontaneous Evolution focuses on

the other truth, which is the awesome opportunity we have as co-creators

of our world.

Quantum physics reveals that despite our unconscious Newtonian

belief in separation, which would have us believe one particle is a separate

entity from another particle, everything in the Universe is actually connected

in ways we can hardly imagine. The things we think of as solid and

tangible, like matter and time, are nothing more than a set of relationships

that only seem to become reality when experienced through our perceptions.

As we encourage outbreaks of sanity everywhere, we add more power

to a coherent morphogenetic field that has already begun to change the

shape of the world. A new operating principle for a sane world might be

this: life is a cooperative journey among powerful individuals who can

program themselves to create joy-filled lives.

To take the connection theme a step further, sanity is about integrating

opposites rather than taking refuge in one polarity or the other. Imagine

living life with only half your wits about you! No wonder our institutions

seem so half-witted. Sanity means full-wittedness, and that means bringing

forth the holism hidden in the dueling dualities. For example, we

may need to return to real old-time religion, a path that only makes sense

when we evaluate the root meaning of the word religion.

As British political writer David Edwards points out in his book, Burning

All Illusions the word religion derives from the Latin religare, which means “to

bind together.” To him, religare means to rejoin the individual

with society, the world, and the cosmos. This fundamental meaning

of religion has nothing to do with a personal god, theology, or dogma. It

is, above all, a term that implies coherent connection, a connection that

doesn’t necessarily require a priestly intercessor.\"

In the linear worldview, Heaven is a destination, far removed from

life on this planet. In the quantum worldview, where time doesn’t really

exist and the only time we have is now, a heaven far removed in the

future makes no sense. Likewise, all we can do in the now is be, which, in

itself, is Heaven. In other words, Heaven is a practice, not a place. Perhaps

the new spiritual bumper sticker should read, “Not Perfect, Just Practicing Being.”

Therefore, in order to go sane, we must shift the focus of religion

away from pleasing a conditional cosmic overlord to practicing Heaven on Earth.

Now, as we take on the prospect of going sane, we must accept our

role as responsible co-creators of our world.Instead of using religious

teachings to disempower ourselves, we must stop playing powerless and

stupid. As philosopher and student of comparative religions Alan Watts

said, “The common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the

symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to

suck it for comfort rather than follow it.”

And that finger is pointing us toward the next level of human evolution.

Can we teach those old dogmas new tricks?

Here are four sane alternatives to consider:

Alternative 1. Move from Original Sin to Original Synergy:

Persistent in the mainstream Christian thought field is the notion of

original sin, which is the precept that all people are born sinners and that

sinning is bad. Interestingly, the word sin was originally an archery term that meant

missing the mark and later evolved to mean falling short, or failure to

live up to one’s potential. In this sense, we humans are, indeed, sinners

because we miss the mark and fall short of our potential much of the

time, particularly while we are learning the lessons of life.

Alternative 2. Move from a Punishment Model to a Learning Model:

If sin means missing the mark, this suggests that, with practice,

humans should be able to hit the mark more often. This concept calls into

question the sanity of our society’s focus on punishment.

Punishment is unnatural and is not found anywhere in Nature.

While punishment for mistakes doesn’t occur naturally, consequences

of mistakes do. For the 95 percent of us who aren’t incorrigible psychopaths,

it’s more practical to focus on learning than punishment. We need

to stop punishing ourselves or unconsciously asking for punishment.

The law of karma and the acceptance of consequences is an evolutionary

step beyond punishment and self-punishment. Reframing sin as learning

creates compassion for ourselves and for others. It allows us to focus on

the consequences of our lessons, take responsibility, and then take better aim.

We move from victims to conscious participants when we learn

from our errors and then apply our wisdom to act accordingly.

Alternative 3. Move from Victim to Free and Willing Participant:

Princeton physicist John Wheeler, a colleague of Albert Einstein, when

wrestling with the concept of humankind’s role in the world came to this

conclusion: “We had this old idea there was a universe out there, and here

is man the observer safely protected from the universe by a six-inch slab

of plate glass. Now we learn from the quantum world that even to observe

so miniscule an object as an electron we have to shatter that plate glass . . .

so the old word observer simply has to be crossed off the books, and we

must put in the new word participator.”

Through these words, Wheeler is telling us that the implications of

quantum physics emphasize that we create reality through our perceptions.

Extending Wheeler’s notion to its logical conclusion reveals that no

particular future is a certainty. There are some future scenarios that are

probabilities and many more that are mere possibilities. The entangled

field we all create with our collective thoughts influences all potential

outcomes. What theologians identified as free will really represents our

power as co-creating participants.

Ours is not a top-down Universe where reality is predetermined

and dictated from on high, but a bottom-up Universe where collective thoughts

assemble until they have the coherence to create one reality—or another.

The hellish manifestation of the Holocaust, as well as the countless

examples of collective compassion it inspired, are all expressions related to

human choices. What we call the Messiah—“the promised and expected

deliverer”—may be a do-it-yourself project, not a done deal from above.

It comes down to what we collectively choose.

Alternative 4. Move from Separation to Connection:

The Buddhists describe loving participation in the world as compassion,

a word that is often misunderstood by the Western mind. We tend to think of

compassion as a nice sentiment, like taking the time to feel bad about people

hwo are starving somewhere. But in the Buddhist tradition, compassion

is far more sophisticated in that it shows a deep understanding of both

quantum physics and cellular biology. In her book A Call to Compassion,

Aura Glaser refers to compassion as the “practice of enlightenment.”

In other words, enlightenment is something we cultivate in daily life based on

a sane understanding of the world and our relationship to it.

The Bodhisattva, one dedicated to awakening heart and mind, Glaser said,

cultivates the “two-pronged mind,” the understanding that love of self and love

of others are one and the same.

“Compassion,” she wrote, “is an expression of human freedom, flowing

from a sound intuition of the unity of life and all living things.”

As we will see, this understanding of the relatedness of all things, as

well as acting from that relatedness, offers the key to spontaneous evolution.

Writer and lecturer Gregg Braden, author of The Divine Matrix, traveled

to Tibet in search of a way to connect quantum physics and ancient

wisdom. Through a translator, he asked the head of a Buddhist monastery,

“What connects us with one another, our world, and our universe?

What is the ‘stuff’ that travels beyond our bodies and holds the world

together?” The geshe, or teacher, answered in only six words: “Compassion is

what connects all things.” The next day, another monk further clarified

this statement. “Compassion,” he said, “is both a force in the universe

as well as a human experience.”9 In other words, compassion is both the

field and the intention we put into that field.

Science has brought the world untold gifts. The fact that Gregg Braden

and other citizens of Western civilization have been able to board an airplane

and visit an ancient culture half a world away is only one example

of the benefits of technology. While many shun technology, we see it is

an inherent and fundamental element of evolution.

The true wisdom dawning today is the realization that science devoid

of spirit is limited. We must honor and acknowledge humanity’s technological

prowess. However, more importantly, we must also embrace our

individual and collective power of compassion in order to use technology

more wisely and with appropriate humility.

The key to maintaining sanity in an insane world is to understand

and maintain our relationship with reality. The reality we are talking

about is not the diversionary reality of reality TV but the real reality that

connects everyone with everything. As humans, we are not all-powerful,

but we are all powerful. Understanding both the vastness and the limitations

of that power and then acting accordingly, is the key to having our

individual sanity contribute to the manifestation of a saner world.

We are neither subjects of a vengeful God nor victims of a random

Universe. Just as every cell in our body holds all our genetic information,

each of us holds a key to collective humanity. The program for a loving

future is here; it only needs to be engaged through our awareness and our

conscious actions. Coherent and compassionate people have no need to

dominate others, rather, they seek to empower cooperation rather than

competition in everyone. Why? Because a coherent, harmonious world

would be in everyone’s best self-interest.

As ancient spiritual traditions, from the Vedas to the cabala, reveal,

the everyday world we think we see is an illusion. And as quantum physicists

are coming to realize, there is, indeed, a field that projects what we

call reality onto matter. The separation between us and them or between

us and Nature that we so vividly experience in our reality is an illusion

held in place by our beliefs.

Going sane means withdrawing our participation from this collectively

created illusion. Going sane means that we stop enabling insanity

with rationalizations, denials, wishful thinking, and misplaced hopes in

someone or something outside ourselves.

Going sane is a choice. The good news is: there is a way to get there.

All we need to provide is the will.

Based on the organization of a healthy, thriving human body, this

model offers us a way to change the guard and re-grow the Garden. That

is, we see that much of what we have been guarding ourselves from is

based on programmed misperceptions and ancient memories.

Hopefully, that sane world will become so vivid by the end of Spontaneous

Evolution that the bridge from here to there, or actually, from there

to here, will become plainly manifest.

P.A.D.