Why JIVANMUKTA?
…humanity is coming into a time of Great Awakening, a profound shift in the fundamental condition of the human psyche.
Christopher Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe
An Earth-scale consciousness and species-civilization are emerging. A new pathway for restoring the integrity of life on Earth beckons.
Duane Elgin, Choosing Earth
For many years my life was devoted to systems change. I poured energy into advancing public policy, market-based strategies, regulatory changes, op-eds, education, public speaking, and protests… all focussed on addressing the mounting poly-crisis in which we find ourselves embroiled.
Along the way, I slowly came to the realization that none of it was going to work… that the only path to truly addressing these issues was inward. For the world to change we have to evolve. We have to undergo a fundamental shift in consciousness.
I also had the privilege of holding front-row seats to large-scale movements where I observed that the motive force driving those movements was an inner transformation taking place in thousands of people. Like me, their participation often sparked a new sense of meaning, a deepening connection to each other and the rest of life, and launched them on an inward journey.
It is the inward journey that catalyzes outward change. It is the inward journey that is the answer to the poly-crisis. It turns out that the inward journey is also what existence is all about, what evolution is all about, what life is all about. Amid the mounting chaos and the unthinkable consequences of the many converging adversity trends we are living into today, the evolution of consciousness is the countervailing force. Call it Awakening.
Awakening is at the bottom of everything. Consciousness creating and becoming conscious of itself and its creations as it creates. With the advent of our large brains, opposable digits, and language, we humans have become the foam on that advancing wave in our little corner of this universe. Even as we are each an indivisible part of the unified whole, we have also become co-creators of that whole.
It’s common to call to mind meditating on a mountaintop or under the Bodhi tree when we think of Awakening. Such experiences are often important waypoints in our individual journeys. But, as awakened embodied beings, it is through our acts of creation, how we walk in the world, that we become the fullest expression of the upwelling of consciousness. And we just might secure humanity’s ongoing participation in the dance of creation in the process.
Jivanmuktas.