Postcards from the Frontiers of an Emerging Paradigm

For those of you who don’t know me and what I’m up to, my focus is on the articulation of a 21st century mysticism which leaves behind the dogmas of our mythic past but remains true to the mystical core of all traditions, which is about the transcendence of our separate sense of self and the awakening to our essential unity with all that is. In my speaking and writing, my focus is on how we can wake up out of the trance of separation and individuality into an embodied awareness of and care for the evolution of the larger whole we are a part of. Now, from an authentic mystical perspective, it’s hard to get much traction with the notion of gratitude because it tends to bring our attention onto ourselves—what we’ve received, how fortunate we are; and on the separate others who have given to us—and in that, it can serve as an impediment to this larger mystical realization of unity.

But, in contemporary spiritual circles, gratitude gets a lot of play these days, so I’ve been reflecting on how we might look at gratitude in a large enough context that it could empower our embrace of wholeness and our letting go of our focus on individuality. And it occurred to me that if we blow this whole notion of gratitude up in a big enough way, it soon leads us to a place where our petty concerns, desires, and fears are almost completely insignificant, leaving us available to participate in the evolution of the whole in a way we never could have imagined. So, this expansion of gratitude is what I’m going to talk about tonight.

For the first step in this expansion, I’d like to invite us all to forget about ourselves personally for the moment. Forget about our personal good fortune or our personal misfortune, about the ups and downs we’ve seen in our own individual lives, and instead bring our attention to the collective we are a part of—and specifically the collective known as 21st century middle-to-upper class Americans (and I would include the rest of the First World nations in that category as well).

Now, despite whatever ills still exist in our world (and there are many), I think it is undeniable that we are the most fortunate people to have ever lived. On a material level, we enjoy a level of luxury that surpasses that of most royalty throughout history. We have gadgets, goods and services to meet our every need and even needs we didn’t know we had. Medical advances now make it possible for most of us to live to be 80 in relatively good health. And with the information revolution, we now have all the knowledge of the world at our fingertips—including all the spiritual wisdom of the great traditions. But more than that, we are the first generation in the history of the universe to have the luxury of substantial free time. We have the free time to enrich our lives, to heal our childhood wounds in therapy, to cultivate our health and fitness, to express our creativity, and even to grow spiritually.

Now, think about where we’ve come from. Look back across the eons of “deep time.” The grand sweep of evolution has been this immense journey from that moment before the big bang, when some kind of infinite intelligence crammed into an infinitesimally small point decided to become everything, exploding into a chaotic firestorm that lasted for a million years. Then it starts to coalesce into primordial stars which go through their own big bangs each giving birth to the higher elements, including carbon and oxygen, which then become the building blocks of planets like ours capable of giving birth to life. Reflect on the fact that our universe appears to be not just capable of sustaining life, but in fact finely tuned for the appearance of life. That if any of the six basic mathematical constants that make up the universe were different by a fraction of a degree, life would not have been possible.

Now, look back on the 6 billion years of biological evolution. From the first self-replicating molecular processes who joined together to form the first simple cells who then joined forces to create the first complex cells, who then joined forces to create multicelled organisms which then struggled against all odds to adapt to their environments and in that gradually grew more and more complex until one day, about fifty thousand years ago, humans emerged. And now think about those 50,000 years of human evolution—about 2500 generations of us so far. Each individual basically just getting on with the business of survival, of improving their lot so that their children could have a better life. Think about the gradual development of culture and society, from hunter-gatherer to agrarian to industrial to the information age. Each person plugging away at the process, gradually rising up out of the animals we came from creating a richer world. And now think about the billions of people still alive who are basically still just concerned with survival, who don’t have the luxury we have. And without whose ongoing cheap labor we would not be able to sustain the lifestyles we live today.

What would it mean to have gratitude for this entire process? What would happen to us if we honestly stepped into a sense of gratitude for all that has gone into creating the abundant, luxurious lives we now live? Who would we be if we no longer felt entitled to the good fortune we have but were on our knees in gratitude for everything we’ve been given by everyone and everything that led up to this moment? How would we spend our precious free time?

Would we accumulate more stuff? Would we accumulate more experiences? Would we try to find a way to give back?

The Earth is at a precarious moment in its evolution. It has given birth to a species that has attained the powers of Gods. The power to create and the power to destroy. This brand new species (realize we’ve only been around 50,000 years after 6 billion years of life evolution leading up to us) has discovered remarkable capacities, including the capacity for spiritual enlightenment and moral upliftment. But we are still largely running on animal programming, biological drives. And unless those of us with the luxury to reflect on this whole situation take it in our hands to evolve ourselves to a place where we are no longer driven by our ancient animal programs, but by our higher, newly emerging moral and spiritual capacities, it is very likely that the animal that discovered fire will unconsciously use its power to burn the whole thing down.

If, however, enough of us have the heart, the courage, the gratitude to see the situation clearly and take it upon ourselves to transform our own consciousness and the culture around us, we can be the bridge into a new order of human relationship and creative flourishing that will make our ancestors (from the primordial stars to the 2500 generations of humans) rest easy in the knowledge that we have done well with what we’ve been given.

So, as we come together on this day of giving thanks, it is my hope that we can all take a moment to reflect on our good fortune, and to renew or deepen our commitment to our own transformation and the transformation of our world. Realizing that the best way we can give thanks for the bounty we’ve received is to give back to the life process by giving everything to raising ourselves and humanity up to the next level.