The Paradox of Awakening

In his commentaries on the spiritual and esoteric teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, Maurice Nicoll describes what it is like to rise above "the waking sleep" of our ordinary egoic consciousness to the higher consciousness of our essence. "What you took as your self," he observes, "begins to look like a prison house far away in the valley beneath you."

"These flashes of greater consciousness," says polymath spiritual teacher, Theodore Nottingham, "are the unexpected result of strenuous efforts made in order not to lose ourselves in the rush of outer circumstances and to be cleansed of the poisons of negativity, as well as to maintain a heightened awareness grounded in the present moment. "

"The student is to reach a point," says Nottingham, "where he or she can make the choice not to react automatically to external stimuli. This requires going against the grain, against long established habits and self-indulgences."

"The question," he notes, "is as basic as: Can you choose not to be angry in the face of something that makes you angry? Rather than being wasted in such an outburst, the energy accumulated through this effort can be made available for a moment of intensified consciousness. Such a moment can flood you with peace or quiet joy, or a sense of profound liberation."

"Interestingly enough," Nottingham points out, "such moments often occur in very paradoxical events."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Another spiritual teacher, William Samuel, describes the paradox of how just such a moment of spiritual enlightenment - a profound sense of peace, unity and expansive being - occurred for him amidst a hellish defensive stand in the Korean War.

(Samuel was attached to, trained and fought with the Chinese army for several years in World War II. Through that period, and for several years thereafter, Samuel studied the Tao. Called back into service during the Korean War and leading a company of American troops, Samuel was destined to face his former comrades who were now fighting on the other side.)

"Let me write a Glimpse or two from those days," Samuel recalls in his memoir ("The Child Within Us Lives!"):

First, harking back to China, Mr. Shieh and I, with five American teammates, were being pursued by a Japanese combat patrol. We were "retrograding," bringing up the rear of our little patrol, trying to get back to the safety of friendly lines. We were close to being captured. In those days, neither the Japanese nor Chinese "gave quarter." That is we took no prisoners. I knew that if I were taken by the pursuing Japanese, it meant certain death. On the other hand, Mr. Shieh might successfully pass himself off as a Chinese peasant.

Oh, I cannot write this story! At this minute it is enough to remember Mr. Shieh seeing and pointing out the beauty of those purple blooms on the distant mountain we had yet to climb. I marveled at a man who could see beauty under such oppressive circumstances. I marvel more that he helped me learn to do it.

During the Korean War, an artillery round burst among my men on the left flank. Several bodies were hurled about and I ran to see the extent of the damage and whether the platoon leader was still effective. Sick to my stomach at the sight, I sat down among three of the bodies sprawled along the slope. I became aware of a visual "Presence" hovering beside them. A misty, blue-white light of sorts. A different kind of light, primal, persuasive and powerful. I could not explain what I saw then, nor can I now, but with the sight, and because of the sight, I was absolutely certain within myself I was being shown evidence of the deathlessness of Life--the survival of the Child, the Soul of men.

I felt a marvelous sense of relief, almost gratitude, concerning those men and everything happening that day. Within a few minutes of that incident, my regiment, and my part of the line in particular, was hit by an enormous wave of shell fire and oncoming Chinese troops. Hell erupted in a manner that no one can sufficiently describe or picture for another. One simply must experience something like that to fully understand.

But, to the ongoing Glimpse I'd like to write here if I can. In the early moments of that terrible onslaught wherein everything that moved was slaughtered ten times over--advancing troops, men, women, children, dogs and chickens, and every moving creature caught at that place at that time--I was suddenly unable to hear. My world went silent and I was enveloped in an immeasurable calm. In the midst of that horrendous din of exploding bodies and shells, I could hear nothing but my own voice.

In some marvelous way, I was caught up in a quiet, tranquil dimension, separate, but attached to the carnage at hand. I had not been wounded. I felt as well as one could be expected to feel under such circumstances. I could hear my own voice and even my breathing quite clearly. I went from gun position to gun position and heard myself giving calm encouragement to my troops. I could see their mouths move in reply and gratitude--and terror--but I couldn't hear them. I heard myself but couldn't hear the shells bursting in my face. I was beset with a wonderful enwrapping calm that let me move fearlessly to do whatever the moment asked me to do, as hideous as those moments were.

Perhaps a man can so detest a situation that his body produces the chemicals which, in turn, erect a barricade between himself and the galling situation. But as this was happening for me on the long day in Korea, there was a clear perception that a superlative Reality stood just behind the events; that there is another Scene just above this one, surrounding it; that Reality was bursting through that corridor of chaos into my own conscious recognition. I walked with a detached courage, as if the mortal body couldn't and wouldn't be hurt.

I ran from soldier to soldier, gun to gun. I was knocked down, spun around and stung with rocks and earth, feeling nothing but a calm, clear sense of Life's dominion over the sights and sounds of the world; as though, with the Presence I had sensed and seen moments earlier among the first bodies felled, I was SEEING and FEELING Life's eternal Nature, even in the face of death. Perhaps this was the beneficent calm Mr. Shieh had felt those years earlier when he saw the blossoms on the distant mountain.

That particular hellfire and damnation in Korea lasted four nights and three days, without sleep for my troops and me. I have never forgotten the different time frame and the enwrapping inner peace nor how I was held and supported during that time--or non-time.

More significant, that Peace has not forsaken me since those days, at least not when I was mindful of It nor when the chips were down and I called for It. . . . .

Now, with absolute assurance, I can tell people, old and young, their lessons can be learned under the most difficult and trying circumstances. Better that we leave our nets after we've learned their lessons. Better that we call on the Child because the Child knows what to do. The Child and the Presence are the same one Presence and It is right here where we are, transcending this world's time and space.

The final tone in this Overtone: The day I moved King Company onto line in Korea, I was given the Order of Battle of the "enemy" opposing me just across the valley on the next mountain. Facing my regiment, and me in particular, was the Chinese 60th Army, the same troops I had lived with and trained for two years in China. We met again, eight years later, in a terrible and senseless slaughter.

In the apparent world, our friends and enemies are the same--and, sometimes, needlessly, insanely, we try to destroy one another, thence to find that Life is eternal. Like Arjuna, in awful combat, I was instructed in certain of the Mysteries and learned the sense of senselessness.

Memorial Day 1985

On Karma: The Law of Cause and Effect

Karma, or the law of cause and effect, in common terms is what occurs (or will occur later) as the result of our actions now. We cut off a driver on the road, and our passenger may point out, "That's bad karma." Or, we ease up on the gas and let another driver struggling to make a lane change go in front of us. Our passenger may say, "That's good karma." On a more subtle level, however, karma has little or nothing to to do with our actions, and everything to do with the thoughts and emotional states that give rise to our actions.

In "As a Man Thinketh," a small but essential guide to spiritual awakening, James Allen writes:

"The soul attracts that which it harbours, that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires - and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own."

"Every thought seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit; bad thoughts bad fruit."

"The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss."

And at the most subtle level, that of our very essence, it is karma that obscures or reveals the nature of our divine being. Says Allen:

"The 'divinity that shapes our end' is in ourselves; it is our very self. Only himself manacles man: thought and action are the gaolers of Fate - they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom - they liberate, being noble. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions."

"In the light of this truth," Allen asks, "what then is the meaning of "fighting against circumstance?""

In the Tao Te Ching we read, in part:

"Understanding others is knowledge.
Understanding oneself is enlightenment:
Conquering others is power,
Conquering oneself is strength;
Contentment is wealth,
Forceful conduct is willfulness;
Not losing one's rightful place is to endure,
To die but not be forgotten is to endure."

Thus, at the most subtle level, we shape our own being, revealing or concealing what we are. The cloth that we either draw off or throw over our essence is the karma of our thoughts and actions, and it is this that the world sees and judges us by.

A Need for Spiritual Awakening

Rather than calling it the Self, the Atman, or any other descriptive noun, physicist-turned-philosopher Peter Russell talks of "the aware-ing" that allows one to observe the process of the ego from the perspective of an omnipresent higher state of consciousness and being that is always available, although it is most often obscured by the thoughts of the smaller self.

Steeped in Transcendental Meditation, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhist meditation and various other wisdom teachings (including "A Course in Miracles"), Russell is the author of a number of books that explore the interrelationship of science and spirituality, an interface he (like many others) sees as increasingly important given the collective crises humanity faces and the widespread spiritual awakening that seems to be arising in response to such crises.

"I see this as a huge, unprecedented moment in human history," Russell observes. "We have scientific developments like never before, but we also live in a state of real vulnerability on the planet. Environmentally, we could really screw things up. And, at the same time, there is this search for spirituality. "

"It is becoming widespread across the planet," he notes, "that the old way, the material way that is actually leading to so many problems, leading to environmental issues, isn't actually working. It doesn't work for the planet - we are destroying the planet - but it is (also) not working for us as individuals."

"We just keep on going on down the same road and never ever getting anywhere much," he points out. "So," he notes, "I see that there is a widespread search for spiritual awakening that is happening across society."

"This is the time in history where we need that spiritual awakening," Russell notes. "Because it is the fact that we haven't got it - that we are coming out of this materialist, self-centered consciousness - that is leading us to destruction."

Living Sustainably with the Earth, Compassionately with Each Other & Creatively with the Universe Itself

Social scientist and author, Duane Elgin, is an activist who advocates for our establishing a "more sustainable and spiritual culture." Winner of Japan's Goi International Peace Award for his global vision of sustainability, Elgin envisions a renewed culture in which humanity will build upon the fundamental unity that we have with the Earth, each other, and with the universe itself.

"As a species for the last 35,000 years we have been pulling back from nature," he observes, "we've been differentiating ourselves, we have been cultivating our ability to stand apart from nature (and) to know our own power and uniqueness. And we've been doing that as hunter-gatherers, as farmers and then as industrialists for 35,000 years. But now," he points out, "our power is so great that we are on the verge of undermining the ecological foundations (of civilization) for the foreseeable future. "

"So we have to turn then from separation to communion, to connection, to union, to Oneness with the Earth and with the universe. . . .There is," Elgin posits, "only one time in the life of a planet that a species comes to full wakefulness and dominates the life of the entire planet, and begins then to create climate change, species extinction and all the rest, that will forever change the evolutionary direction of the planet. And that," he points out, "is what is happening in our lifetimes, right now."

"We are beginning to see that the world is an integrated living system," says Elgin (in the video below), "not just the human system, but the Earth system of water, air, and earth. So we have to learn how to live sustainably within the Earth system, and we need to learn to live compassionately within the human system, and then . . . we have to learn to live at home within the cosmic system, the universal system - because that's where we come from, and when we die, that's where we go."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Elgin's viewpoint of seeing and developing our universal sustainability, while utterly necessary, is not in and of itself unique, either to this culture or to this time. The seeming separation from the beauty of all that is has been apparent to mystics and sages for thousands of years.

Says Jalalludin Rumi, the great 13th-century Sufi poet, jurist and teacher:

The universe is a form of divine law,
your reasonable father.

When you feel ungrateful to him,
the shapes of the world seem mean and ugly.

Make peace with that father, the elegant patterning,
and every experience will fill with immediacy.

Because I love this, I am never bored.
Beauty constantly wells up, a noise of springwater
in my ear and in my inner being.

Tree limbs rise and fall like the ecstatic arms
of those who have submitted to the mystical life.

Leaf sounds talk together
like poets making fresh metaphors.
The green felt cover slips,
and we get a flash of the mirror underneath.

Think how it will be when the whole thing
is pulled away! I tell only one one-thousandth
of what I see, because there is doubt everywhere.

The conventional opinion of this poetry is,
it shows great optimism for the future.

But Father Reason says,
No need to announce the future!
This now is it. This. Your deepest need and desire
is satisfied by this moment's energy
here in your hand.

"It may be," says Rumi's masterful translator, Coleman Barks, "that the clarity Rumi calls "reason" is a brilliant lawfulness that ecologists and astronomers examine as the coherence in any system, and that the mystic and the scientist both attend the same layered intelligence: the grand and precise artistry of existence."

[Coleman Barks, "The Essential Rumi," pp. 145-146.]

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

William Samuel: An Unheralded Voice of Enlightenment

For every enlightened teacher - for each Krishnamurti, Ram Dass or Eckhart Tolle, say - there seem to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of enlightened men and women who carry the exact same message of personal liberation and spiritual awakening, albeit using different terminologies and emerging from different backgrounds and traditions. Yet due, perhaps in no small measure, to the advent of the Internet and the Information Age, these voices of spiritual freedom are emerging at a time when they are most needed. The late William Samuels is one such voice.

"There are no words we can read that will convince us of the allness of this now-consciousness," Samuel writes, "there is no one to whom we may listen or talk who can do more than persuade us intellectually. We know - and we know, we know - only when we find it and feel it in our heart."

"Reader," he assures us, "this will happen for you much sooner than you expect. Your "awakening" is inevitable, irresistible and certain, because the fact is - as you shall see and have been told many times - you are not sleeping to be awakened now. Despite the appearances on the world's stage, you are already all you could ever hope to become."

"The nearly unanimous pronouncements of classical theology and education to the contrary," he points out, " you are not a prodigal acting the profligate and wandering in the pigsties of a far country. The Identity you are this instant is Hamony's Now-Awareness being aware. Our heritage, effortless and divine, is to acknowledge this fact."

"Right now," he urges, "bring yourself from an overconcern with things within Awareness to Awareness itself. Here you will find that all bodies, all images, and everything Awareness includes, are aspects of your own Identity! Here you will find that you are happiness, completeness and joy itself."

[Wm. Samuel, "A Guide to Awareness and Tranquility," pp. 21-22.]

In the attached videos (taken from a lecture delivered in White, Georgia in 1993), Samuels discusses this concept of Now-Awareness in terms of ancient masters - including Lao-Tze, Jesus and the Essenes - and the current blossoming of science, information and consciousness.

(The story of William Samuel's own enlightenment experience while under shell-fire in the Korean war, "A Soldier's Story" is also a profound, must-read for the spiritually minded.)

Ego: The Enemy Within

As ever, the bloggers on The Huffington Post - alongside their usual fare of political and social commentary - continue to bring the reader informed and varied insights into humanity's spiritual struggles. This week, featured blogger Bernard Starr (professor emeritus at the City University of New York) examines the path to self-realization and spiritual awakening, while examining the ego-traps that lie in wait along that path.

"While wisdom and realization may be fundamental to your being." Starr notes, "they are obfuscated by a lifelong process starting at birth that leads us away from the realized state and inner guru. From the outset, personal experiences and conditioning manifest a personal ego that we firmly believe is our sole identity. That conclusion commits us to a lifelong process of seeking self-realization by strengthening, expanding and defending the little me/self/ego in a desperate struggle for survival. And most of our psychological theories and traditional societal teachings keep us on that dead-end path, since they too cannot see any foundation for existence other than the ego level of consciousness."

And therein lies the first ego-trap. The man or woman who bucks the system and seeks enlightenment is going against the stream of the unawakened vast majority of the population that seeks merely to grab and hold the seeming security and luxuries that society holds out on offer. Doubts as to the validity of the spiritual path and the goal of enlightenment are bound to arise.

More subtle, and much more difficult, however, is the problem of an ego that grasps onto the individual's drive for enlightenment as a means to retain its dominance over the individual. "You are seeking enlightenment?," the ego seems to ask. "Well, just watch how spiritual I can be!"

Starr, identifying this process as the  "near enemy" (a term popularized by Buddhist teacher, Jack Kornfield), warns that "the ego will not willingly loosen its ferocious grip on existence."

"Since the ego has been your sole co-pilot in life for seeking a secure sense of self," he notes, "you will not abandon it for the smoke and mirrors of another foundation that you sense but are not sure is real."

"The ensuing internal struggle to free yourself from the grip of the ego will submerge you in many self-deceptions in which you will firmly believe you are progressing toward the spiritual mountain top," he cautions. "But many of your practices and behavior(s) on close examination will reveal the ego in disguise and control."

Utilizing the concept of 'love' as an example - a concept which along with 'compassion' is universal to the world's great wisdom traditions - Starr illustrates the process of how the "near enemy" of the ego subverts even these most lofty of emotions and ideals.

"While love is at the core of all religions and spiritual traditions," Starr notes, "its near enemy version abounds. "I love you" are three little words that are easy to say but much more difficult to genuinely mean or live. Hidden behind affirmations of love can be self-serving egoism, attachment and dependency."

"Love that is truly spiritual is unconditional and selfless," he observes. "But in practice, how often does it mean "I will love you only if you return love"? All too frequently we hear about "love" that quickly morphed into hate and even violence when it was not reciprocated."

Traditionally, the role of a spiritual teacher, formal mentor or guru was to help the spiritual aspirant to identify and avoid such ego-traps. Yet such roles may be inimical to the modern seeker, with modern sensibilities. Thus, it is not absolutely critical to find (if one can) and follow an enlightened guru or teacher, one can travel by one's self what is in any event a lonely inner road - for "the kingdom of God is within you" - but, nevertheless, it is helpful.

"(Y)ou can be your own guru," Starr notes, (b)ut beware of the near enemies. Few can avoid entrapment. If you think you can," he warns, "that may be another near enemy."

The Cosmos and Consciousness: A Spiritual Awakening

In discussing Emerson's views on 'religion' in his classic work, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," the great psychologist, William James observed: "The universe has a divine soul of order, which soul is moral, being also the soul within the soul of man. But whether this soul of the universe be a mere quality like the eye's brilliancy or the skin's softness, or whether it be a self-conscious life like the eye's seeing or the skin's feeling, is a decision that never unmistakably appears in Emerson's pages. It quivers on the boundary of these things, sometimes leaning one way, sometimes the other, to suit the literary rather than the philosophic need. Whatever it is, though, it is active. As much as if it were a God, we can trust it to protect all ideal interests and keep the world's balance straight."

[Wm. James, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 33.]

James' famous work can undoubtedly be traced to the influence which the American Transcendentalists had on his view of man, the world, the universe and God. Further on in his introduction into the subject, he observes: "At bottom, the whole concern of both morality and religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe. Do we accept it only in part and grudgingly, or heartily and altogether?"

"If we accept the whole," he asks, "shall we do so as if stunned into submission?"

James goes on to examine at great length the "religious experience" of a wide variety of individuals who had been "stunned into submission" by their realization of a greater spiritual reality than they had previously known to exist. For my part, however, I can find no such experience greater - although there are many others that vary solely in the details and circumstances - than that described by Edgar Mitchell, founder of The Institute of Noetic Sciences ("IONS"), and more famously, an astronaut on Apollo 14 who had the rarely privileged experience of walking on the moon.

In a recent article in the IONS newsletter, Mitchell describes the nature and import of the profound spiritual awakening he underwent on viewing the Earth as a distant orb in the vastness of space.

"The first thing that came to mind as I looked at Earth," Mitchell recalls, "was its incredible beauty. Even the spectacular photographs do not do it justice. It was a majestic sight, a splendid blue and white jewel suspended against a velvet black sky. How peacefully, how harmoniously, how marvelously it seemed to fit into the evolutionary pattern by which the universe is maintained. In a peak experience, the presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes. This knowledge came to me directly – noetically. It was not a matter of discursive reasoning or logical abstraction. It was an experiential cognition. It was knowledge gained through private subjective awareness, but it was – and still is – every bit as real as the objective data upon which, say, the navigational program or the communications system was based. Clearly, the universe had meaning and direction. It was not perceptible by the sensory organs, but it was there nevertheless – an unseen dimension behind the visible creation that gives it an intelligent design and that gives life purpose."

"Next," he recalls, "I thought of our planet’s life-supporting character. That little globe of water, clouds, and land no bigger than my thumb was home, the haven our spacecraft would seek at the end of our voyage. Buckminster Fuller’s description of the planet as “Spaceship Earth” seemed eminently fitting."

"Then my thoughts turned to daily life on the planet," he remembers. "With that, my sense of wonderment gradually turned into something close to anguish because I realized that at the very moment when I was so privileged to view the planet from 240,000 miles in space, people of Earth were fighting wars; committing murder and other crimes; lying, cheating, and struggling for power and status; abusing the environment by polluting the water and air; wasting natural resources and ravaging the land; acting out of lust and greed; and hurting others through intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, and all the things that add up to man’s inhumanity to man. It seemed as though man were totally unconscious of his individual role in – and individual responsibility for – the future of life on the planet."

"It was also painfully apparent," he recalls, "that the millions of people suffering in conditions of poverty, ill health, misery, fear, and near slavery were in that condition from economic exploitation, political domination, religious and ethnic persecution, and a hundred other demons that spring from the human ego. Science, for all its technological feats, had not – more likely could not – deal with these problems stemming from man’s self-centeredness."

"The magnitude of the overall problem seemed staggering," he recalls. "Our condition seemed to be one of deepening crises on an unprecedented scale, crises that were mounting faster than we could solve them. There appeared to be the immediate possibility that warfare might destroy vast segments of civilization with one searing burst of atomic fury. Only a little further off appeared the possibility of intolerable levels of polluted air and of undrinkable water. A more remote but no less real likelihood was the death of large portions of the population from starvation, abetted by improper resources management by an exploding population."

"How had the world," he wondered, "come to such a critical situation – and why? Even more important, what could be done to correct it? How could we restore the necessary harmonious relationship between the environment and ourselves? How could a nuclear Armageddon be avoided? How could life be made livable? How could our potential for a peaceful, creative, fulfilling society be realized? How could the highest development of our objective rationality, epitomized by science, be wedded to the highest development of our subjective intuition, epitomized by religion?"

"These thoughts and questions stayed with me through the mission, splashdown, and parades," he recounts. "They stayed long afterward to the point of haunting me with an overwhelming awareness of how limited a view man has of his own life and the planet’s. Sometimes at night I would lie awake for hours struggling with this enigma, trying to understand it and see it in a sensible perspective. How could human beings, the most intelligent creature on earth, be so utterly stupid and shortsighted as to put themselves in a position of possible global extinction? How had insight become divorced from instinct? Was it possible to find a workable solution?"

"Only when man sees his fundamental unity with the processes of nature and the functioning of the universe," Mitchell observes, "will the old ways of thinking and behaving disappear. Only when man moves from his ego-centered self-image to a new image of universal human will the perennial problems that plague us be susceptible of resolution."

"Humanity must rise from man to mankind," he notes,"from the personal to the transpersonal, from self-consciousness to cosmic consciousness."

"Humanity’s multiple problems," he concludes, "resolve themselves into one fundamental problem: how to change consciousness. How," he asks, "can we raise our awareness to a higher level – a level that will restore the unity of human, the planet, and the universe?"

This, to me, is the existential question of our time. Mitchell's experience, and the view of our place in the cosmos which it stamped upon him, suggests the answer.

"Now," he unequivocally notes, "is the time for us to begin building a single whole of humanity. Now is the time to develop our nonrational abilities into a “subjective technology,” which will begin the wedding of science and religion, reason and intuition, the physical and the spiritual. This union of head and heart, insight and instinct, will ensure that as science comes to comprehend the nonmaterial aspect of reality as well as it knows the material – that is, as science approaches omniscience – our knowledge will become wisdom, our love of power will become the power of love, and the universal human of cosmic consciousness can then emerge."

A Second 'Axial Age'

Are we entering a second "axial age" similar in breadth, yet different in content than the first "axial age" (a term coined by German philosopher, Karl Jaspers, to depict the fruition of Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, Zoroastrian, Judean and Greek religious and wisdom traditions between approximately 900 BCE and 200 B.C.E.)?

Certainly, with the existential problems we collectively face, and our technologically advanced potential for communicating ideas in a truly global culture, the ground is ripe for an emerging consensus of spiritual insight based upon the latent similarities in all the world's great wisdom traditions. And, perhaps, what we are seeing in the radicalization of fundamentalists across existing religious traditions is indicative of a reaction against a newly emerging "axial age" that embraces the core non-dual teachings of all the world's great wisdom traditions and the emerging consensus about global bio-genesis, global interdependency, and the key role that consciousness plays in shaping our world.

In an insightful Huffington Post article, author Duanne Elgin makes the case that we may, in fact, be on the cusp of just such a second axial age. Noting that the first axial age was very much a reaction to the emergence of city states and the use of new iron age weaponry in savage, widespread warfare, Elgin suggests that the time is now ripe (culturally and technologically) for a new spiritual paradigm to emerge.

"In a world of growing individualism and differentiation," Elgin notes, "the religious emphasis on compassion served as a vital bridge between people. Now, a second major axis with a very different orientation is opening in the world. Religions of separation are becoming religions of communion as we realize there is no place to go where we are separate from the ever-generative womb of the living universe. The second axial age begins with a recognition emerging from the combined wisdom of both science and spirituality; namely, that we are already home -- that the living universe already exists within us as much as we live within it."

"The universe is a communion and a community," says Elgin, quoting theologian Thomas Berry, and, "(w)e ourselves are that communion become conscious of itself."

"Compassion remains a vital element of spirituality," Elgin notes, "but it is now being held increasingly within a context of communion rather than separation."

"As people around the world move into spiritual communion and empathic connection with the living universe," Elgin suggests, "we see the role of religion differently: Less often do people look for a bridge to the divine. Increasingly, people seek guidance and community in the journey of awakening within the living universe. People want to know there are others on the journey of soul-making and seek guideposts along the way to support the awakening of their experience of unity and intimacy within the universe. Less and less are people seeking only religions of belief. Carried along in this great cultural project of awakening, we are increasingly seeking religions of direct experience -- religions of communion with a living universe."

"The 'Great Work" of our time," says Thomas Berry (in the attached video), "is
moving the human community from its present situation as a destructive presence on the planet, to a benign or mutually enhancing presence. It's that simple."

"When our aliveness consciously connects with the aliveness of the universe," Elgin observes, "a current of aliveness flows through us. At that moment -- when life meets life -- a direct connection between the living universe and ourselves is realized and we have an awakening experience. We no longer see ourselves in the universe, we experience that we are the universe."

"We do not need to manufacture or imagine awakening experiences," Elgin suggests. "Instead, we only need to experience directly what is already true about the fundamental nature of ourselves as beings who live within a living universe. When the conscious knowing of ourselves becomes transparent to the reality of our participation in an ever-emerging universe, we recognize there was no separation to begin with -- we all emerge in communion at every moment within the unity of a continuously regenerating universe."

That recognition is already becoming apparent - irrespective of the religious tradition from which it emerges - as a quick search of the Internet will reveal to those who make the inquiry.

A Spiritual Awakening to the Here-and-Now

Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher and author
of "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth:
Awakening to Your Life's Purpose"

Eckhart Tolle has influenced millions of individuals through his writings. His first book, The Power of Now, has sold tens of millions of copies, and his fourth book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, besides being the subject matter of a ten-part web seminar featuring Tolle and Oprah Winfrey, has sold many millions more.

In both books, Tolle writes about the core of what has been called the "perennial philosophy," that the individual has the opportunity to go beyond mere ego-consciousness and merge with a unitive Whole by being present in the here-and-now of the ever-passing present moment. In a popular YouTube video (embedded below), the comedic actor, Jim Carrey, shows his serious side in explaining the depth at which Eckhart Tolle's teachings have affected his life.

"I woke up and I suddenly got it,' Carrey recalls. "I understood suddenly how thought was just an illusory thing, and how thought is responsible for, if not all, most of the suffering we experience. And then, I suddenly felt like I was looking at these thoughts from another different perspective, and I wondered: 'Who is it that is aware that I am thinking?'"

"And suddenly," he says, "I was thrown into this expansive, amazing feeling of freedom - from myself, (and) from my problems. I saw that I was bigger than what I do; I was bigger than my body; I was everything and everyone. I was no longer a fragment of the universe, I was the universe."




The effect of Carrey's spiritual awakening, which he admits was ephemeral, has  nonetheless been long-lasting, helping him cope with periodic depression, as his interview with "60 Minutes" anchor, Steve Kroft shows.



"I'm a buddhist, I'm a Muslim, I'm a Christian. I'm whatever you want me to be," Carrey says. "It all comes down to the same thing: You're in a loving place, or you're in an unloving place."

A Spiritual Evolution Rap

The imperative for spiritual awakening may be more pressing in the young than in the middle-aged or elderly, despite the much-touted 'middle-age crisis' or the inevitable facing of one's ultimate humanity. For starters, it is the young who will face the brunt of the existential problems stemming from the lifestyles we have bequeathed them. Fortunately - for us as much as them - they have been raised with the power of technology and the Internet, and that may ultimately see them through.

As the attached video demonstrates, young artists are expressing their awareness of our common existential problems and are embracing and advocating an evolutionarily-fueled spiritual solution.



This rare combination of metaphysics, flamenco guitar riffs, the 'Finger of God' nebula and rap poetry shows that we have moved irrevocably past the failed revolution in consciousness that was the 60's, the "Me Generation" of the 70's, and even the 80's "Generation X" . . . Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll will no longer suffice.

Old Thinking and a 'Crisis in Consciousness'

In a fractured world that is divided and then divided again by ideologies, class culture, religions and race - rich vs. poor, capitalist vs. socialist, 'free world' vs. autocracy and theocracy, religion versus science, believer vs. non-believer etc. - do we have have the wherewithal to face the many existential crises we do?

If we do, will that spark the global cohesiveness necessary to face and overcome the global threats - from global warming to overpopulation, and from dire poverty and widespread hunger to massive species extinction - that we face?

If so, one can be certain that it will require a deeper understanding of our collective well-being and an awakening of our collective conscience and consciousness. Thankfully, there are signs that, at least for some small portion of humanity, such an awakening - an awakening of consciousness itself - is already underway.

"We as human beings are at a transitional stage," observes spiritual teacher and best-selling author, Eckhart Tolle, "where we are becoming strongly aware of the pull back to the source."

Yet while one part of humanity realizes that we face what another enlightened spiritual teacher identified as a "crisis in consciousness" - and that being (for the main part) restricted to a small portion of the most highly privileged, best educated and materially wealthy generations the world has ever produced - the large remainder of humanity, or at least its leadership, seems to remain committed to yet more of the thought structures, discussions, politicking and committee meetings that have marked our 'progress' towards the numerous conflicts and crises we now face.



For Tolle, and other progressive voices, it is clear that it is the fabric of our collective consciousness that must be challenged if we are to move forward and address the existential problems that are the results of our old thought structures and paradigmatic thinking.

Are they optimistic and realistic in predicting a widespread awakening of collective consciousness that will lead us back from the brink? Or, is this merely an updated brand of naive millenial faux spirituality? One hopes for the former and dares not look too hard at the latter.

As Einstein once famously remarked, "We can't solve problems by using the same level of thinking we used when we created them."

Andrew Cohen: On Spiritual Intoxication and Conscious Evolution

Spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen
Editor-in-chief, EnlightenNext magazine.

For the ‘spiritual but not religious’ man or woman who senses there is more to this world than we are taught, or that we necessarily ‘see’ in our wired-together, scientifically-centered, postmodern world, the “evolutionary enlightenment” teachings of Andrew Cohen build a coherent, intellectually and spiritually satisfying kosmo-centric worldview based on leading edge scientific findings and the deep wisdom of the world’s great religious traditions.

In his most recent posting on the Huffington Post, Cohen explores what the enlightenment experience is like, and how it reaches its highest potential (and effectiveness) when it is a shared experience, when personal liberation is shared in what Cohen has called “autonomy in communion."

“In the new enlightenment,” writes Cohen, “in what I call Evolutionary Enlightenment, the goal is individual and collective conscious evolution in real time. That specifically points to the co-creation of new structures in consciousness, psyche and culture.“

"EnlightenNext" magazine.

“It's about creating the future from the inside out,” he notes. “And this process always begins with transformation at the very deepest depths of our own selves -- a transformation that shines out and touches the world around us with the immediacy of its own radiance and potency.”

“In the early stages of our own spiritual development,” Cohen observes, “we are dependent upon the experience of euphoric states to be able to see, feel and know that these higher potentials really do exist. The bliss and ecstasy of those states temporarily breaks the deep and often unconscious shackles of postmodernity: nihilism, cynicism, narcissism and materialism. It frees our awareness to expand in all directions, to embrace not only the outer limits but also the innermost core of our larger body, the entire cosmos.”

Yet, there are, as Cohen notes, inherent limitations to the potential that such individual experiences of spiritual bliss have. While very good, in and of themselves, individually they lack the power to force the next stage in man’s evolutionary process, a noetic evolution of humanity’s individual and collective psyche.

“When many individuals simultaneously know and experience the perfection of the possible,” Cohen writes, “Spirit itself calls us all to its own next step. Indeed, we are compelled to be the future that we see. Under the intoxicating influence of spiritual bliss, all of the individual and collective ego's fears and attachments are rendered null and void."

“But until the individual or individuals have actually taken that next step, until those higher potentials have become a permanent attainment, our ability to see the future that we want to create will always depend upon the experience of spiritual intoxication,” Cohen notes. (See attached video on "Conscious Evolution," below.)

“However, when we do the unthinkable,” Cohen concludes, “when we actually and demonstrably evolve to a higher stage beyond the veiling influence of postmodern existential confusion, we will be able to see that future as easily as we see our own face when we look in the mirror. Seeing that glory will no longer be dependent upon the presence of a higher state because we will already be there. From that point on, we will always only be creating the world that we have already become.”

Eckhart Tolle Part III: The Present Moment, Spirituality and Religion

Spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle,
author of "The Power of Now" and
"The New Earth: Awakening to Your
Life's Purpose."

"(A) fundamental thing that first of all you need to realize," says enlightened spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, "is that life is 'now' and never not 'now.'" It's only this moment ever. Past and future only have a secondary reality. The past only exists if you remember it now. The future only exists if you mentally project yourself into some future moment; but, even that, you can only do 'now.'"

"Your entire life unfolds in this space of 'now,'" says the best-selling author, in the third of a three-part interview. "You cannot think, feel (or) experience anything that is not 'now.'"

However, "(p)eople don't live like that," he observes. "They live as if past and future - especially future for many people - were more important than the present moment. And they have a strange relationship with the present moment, which means with life. For many people," he notes, "the present moment is regarded unconsciously as an obstacle, because they are 'here' but they want to get 'there.'"

"That's a dysfunction," Tolle observes, "making the present moment into an 'obstacle.' Or, even worse, making the present moment into an 'enemy.'"




"It is the one basic spiritual truth," Tolle says. "That one basic spiritual truth expresses itself in different forms in the different religions. So, I'm going to the basic spiritual truth, instead of taking things from different religions and mixing them up."

"The different religions," he notes, "are just expressions of the one basic spiritual truth. So I'm going to the source of that, and express(ing) it in a way that people can understand and realize in their own lives without having to subscribe mentally to this or that religion."

"Whether they are Christians or Buddhists, or whether they subscribe to Islam, or any other belief, it doesn't matter," says Tolle, "the basic truth is there if you look deep enough in all the religions. So it is (a matter of) finding the core of spirituality that is there at the core of all religions."

"We go to the core of religion," he concludes, "rather than treating religion as an ideology, which it often becomes."

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

(See the first and second parts of Tolle's three-part interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company's Sandra Abrams, here and here, respectively.)

Adyashanti: "Time Is Running Out"

In researching the convergence of spirituality and science, I was struck, firstly, by the enormous amount of material available on a sense of "oneness" - what Vedantists and other Eastern wisdom traditions have long viewed as "non-duality" - and, secondly, I could not help but be impressed by the sense of urgency that both scientists and spiritual teachers have as to whether collectively we will wake-up to the nature of our interconnectedness, our "oneness," in time to avert the many life-threatening problems which we face on a global scale.

"Nobody can avoid the truth forever," says spiritual teacher, Adyashanti. "If the human species doesn't survive - (and) as far as I've seen in the history of the world there is almost no species that survives forever - if we don't do the job, if our consciousness doesn't evolve, 'Life' or 'Existence will just go, " Well, that didn't work out so well . . . phht! . . . You're out!" Not that he means this to be as casual as it might sound. He notes that "there will be a lot of blood, of suffering and difficulty in that process."

"It just seems that we keep getting to these crises," Adyanshanti observes." Not that this is necessarily bad, it just seems in his view, as in the view of so many others, that with mass extinctions, global warming, an energy crisis and ever advancing technology we are now facing our inevitable existential challenge.



"Crises are often the catalysts for change," he observes, "(and) I hope we are starting to agree that we are coming to a place of crisis; that we are coming into a contact, not with our own personal mortality, but with our mortality as a species."

"Just like individual mortality can lead to a change of consciousness because we realize time's run out that, there is no more time," he notes, "in that 'no-more-time' sometimes consciousness can shift. And, as humanity, I think we are rapidly approaching that same kind of imperative. Time is running out."

"So quite naturally," he concludes, " there is tremendous pressure on humanity, on humanity's consciousness. We all feel  it, right? This tremendous pressure to evolve, to awaken, because somehow intuitively everyone knows that if there is not some rather dramatic shift of consciousness then this tremendous opportunity will be missed."

Nature of the Ego: "Lions All Around Us"

In one of the best lectures I have had the pleasure of attending, Dr. Bruce Perry (a devlopmental neurobiologist) spoke of humankind's evolutionary context as hunter gatherers in an environment where stressor events were intense but far between. Someone would shout, "Lion!." and the 'wary' lived to pass their genes on to the next generation. The 'slow' were an evolutionary dead-end . . . i.e., lunch.

His point, however, was that our bodies and brains have not evolved significantly since then (except, perhaps, for the weeding out of the slow and tasty). As a result, we go through our modern life with a huge volume of stimuli that we "need" to pay attention to - co-workers, cell phones, traffic, bill statements etc., and our psyches are screaming, "Lion! . . , Lion! . . . Lion!," on a more or less continual basis. As it turns out, we are not really built for the way that we now live.

Modern humankind therefore tends to be in an almost continual "fight or flight" modality, with little time in the "rest and digest" mode where we formerly spent the vast majority of our time, evolutionally speaking. (Indeed, studies of modern hunter-gatherers show they spend very little time foraging and a great deal of time sleeping.) The result of all this? It appears to be a mind in a perpetual state of alert motion, ever searching for (or manufacturing) "something" that requires our further attention and further thought. This "mind" is, of course, the human "ego" (or small "self") that we mistake for our only identity, and an 'individuality' that is separate and apart from everything and everyone in the outer world.

And, of course, "the ego" is always restless, looking for lurking "dangers" and for opportunities to gratify its instincts. (As such, it is small wonder that virtually all the "news" we consume is bad news, and "sex" still "sells," no matter who is doing the peddling or what is being peddled.)

In a now classic translation and commentary of Patangali's 'Yoga Aphorisms,' Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda (of the Ramakrishna Order, now the Vedanta Society) discuss the operation of the unawakened mind of modern man, noting:

"The truth is that we are all inclined to flatter ourselves - despite our daily experience to the contrary - that we spend our time thinking logical, consecutive thoughts. In fact, if at any given moment, we could take twenty human minds and inspect their workings, we should probably find one, or at most two which were functioning rationally. Most of us do no such thing. Consecutive thought about any one problem occupies a small portion of our waking hours. More usually, we are in a state of reverie - a mental fog of disconnected sense impressions, irrelevant memories, nonsensical scraps of sentences from books and newspapers, little darting fears and resentments, physical sensations of discomfort or ease. The remaining eighteen or nineteen minds would look something like this: "Ink-bottle. That time I saw Roosevelt. In love with the night mysterious. Reds veto Pact. Jimmy's trying to get my job. Mary says I'm fat. Big toe hurts. Soup good. . . ." etc., etc. Because we do nothing to control this reverie, it is largely conditioned by external circumstances."

This was written in 1953, long before the true beginning of the Information Age, with its multiple demands - human and electronic - for our attention playing through our psyches, turning the gentler "reverie" that Isherwood and Prabhavananda describe into a mental landscape of, "Lions, lions . . . everywhere, and never a moment of peace."

There seem to be two conclusions, and one synthesis of conclusions, that one can draw from this. Either the human mindscape (and thus the "reality" we create for ourselves) is getting much worse; or, because of an increasing (and, not uncoincidentally, interconnected)  awareness of the inner mental disharmony our global culture creates, things are getting much better.

The synthesis, paradoxically, is that things appear to be getting both much better and much worse simultaneously. And, as Eckhart Tolle observes in an audio interview (below) which he gave on the afternoon of 9/11/2001, "Even the Sun Will Die," things have to get worse in order for them to get better.



Tolle and other spiritual teaches, both now and in ages past, all say that there is a tipping point, a 'critical mass' of consciousness, so to speak. Hopefully, as they predict, we are nearing a point where the collective consciousness of individuals who are "awake" and not in a state of "reverie" will trigger a global awakening. Certainly, with the interconnectedness that virtually all of humankind now has at least some access to, when (not if) this occurs, it will be very rapid and, one suspects, astonishing spiritual awakening.

Werner Heisenberg on "The Spirit of Modern Physics"

See also: "Einstein on Spirituality and Religion."

In his Introduction to Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Werner Heisenberg's "Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science, David Lindley observes that, "despite its thorough familiarity, most physicists, if pressed, will admit to finding something strange, something mysterious, something not quite graspable about quantum mechanics."

Just how an "observer" and an "observation" somehow trigger a quantum 'event' and so form the basic substrate of our physical 'reality' appears to be intrically connected with matters of consciousness and perception, making leading edge science not only stranger than we believe, but perhaps even stranger than we can believe - a point made by Richard Dawkins, one of today's leading voices of 'evangelical atheism.' As renowned physicist Richard Feynman wryly observed, "Anyone who thinks they understand quantum mechanics, does not understand quantum mechanics."

Werner Heisenberg was one of the 'fathers' of quantum theory. He first developed and postulated the "Uncertainty Principle" that often bears his name and that demonstrates one can only know either the position or the frequency of a particle at any one time with precision, but not both - a notion that is completely antithetical to classic Newtonian mechanics.

Heisenberg frames the fundamental 'strangeness' and 'unfathomability' of the most basic operations of physics and, thus, our 'reality' in 'spiritual,' almost 'mystical' terms. In 1958, writing in the dark shadow of the development of the hydrogen bomb, Heisenberg recounts how quantum theory was first developed and elaborated, observing that:

". . . (E)very tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created. Since every nation and every political group has to be interested in the new weapons, irrespective of the location and the cultural traditions of the group, the spirit of modern physics will penetrate into the minds of many people and will connect itself in different ways with the older traditions. What will be the outcome of this impact of a special branch of modern science on different powerful old traditions? In those parts of the world in which modern science has been developed the primary interest has been directed for a long time toward practical activity, industry and engineering combined with a rational analysis of the outer and inner conditions for such activity. Such people will find it rather easy to cope with the new ideas since they have had time for a slow and gradual adjustment to the modern scientific methods of thinking. In other parts of the world these ideas would be confronted with the religious and philosophic foundations of the native culture. Since it is true that the results of modern physics do touch such fundamental concepts as reality, space and time, the confrontation may lead to entirely new developments that cannot yet be foreseen. One characteristic feature of this meeting between modern science and the older methods of thinking will be its complete internationality. In this exchange of thoughts one side will be the same everywhere and therefore the results of this exchange will be spread over all areas in which the discussion takes place.

Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)

Of course, with the advent of the Information Age, and a potential for the sharing of information, ideas and insights which Heisenberg could only possibly dream of, this exchange of thoughts between West and East is the norm, rather than the rare exception to the old adage, "East is East, and West is West, but never the 'twains shall meet."

One cannot help but think that it is this "exchange" between a Western scientific vision that can be 'explained but not really known,' with a millenia-old tradition of Eastern wisdom teachings which can be 'known but not really explained,' that is driving a seemingly global thirst for spirituality insights and wisdom teachings both old and new, both Eastern and Western.

Spiritual Experience versus Religious Belief

"Spiritual . . . But Not Religious" on tumblr

When I say that I am "spiritual but not religious," it is not to say that I have conflict with any outwardly religious tradition or particular teachings, nor do I point (as many do) to the 'religious' wars that seem to be a sustained motif of violent conflict through out all ages - yet, I suspect, if peoples did not fight over religion, war would just be 'justified' in different terms. Rather, it is simply that I am intensely interested in the "inner" spiritual (or religious) "experience," but not in the "outer" content and forms of religions, except to the extent they are used to produce higher spiritual experiences and/or higher states of consciousness.

In a recent issue of Psychology Today, writer Massimo Pigliucci asks "what, exactly, does it mean to be "spiritual but not religious," or for that matter, just plain "spiritual?" Unfortunately, of the three possible alternatives Pigliucci examines, none of them differentiate between 'inner' religious or spiritual experience and 'outer' religious observance, ritual or identification.

Pigliucci postulates that the descriptor "spiritual but not religious'" popularly utilized in any number of research studies, opinion polls and social media sites could mean either: (a) that the person so described believes in "spirits' a rather pinched and narrow view, even Pigliucci suspects (b) one who devotes part of her time and energy to cultivate her "spirit," as opposed to just being concerned with "material" things, or, finally (c) someone who takes care of cultivating and reflecting on his ethics, of behaving justly and compassionately toward his fellow human beings, and of nurturing his aesthetic sense through arts and letters.

I feel that none of these give a whole picture or descriptios of what it means to be "spiritual but not religious." I flatter myself that I am a very 'spiritual', and rather narrowly limited 'religious person.' I seek an inner religious/spiritual experience that will improve my ability to realize higher states of consciousnsess and awareness. Pigliucci's first possibility, even he rejects; while his third category, cultivating ethics and acting compassionately - which may, perhaps, be a byproduct of spiritual or religious practice - can be equally descriptive of the true religionist, agnostic or atheist alike.

For more on 'Higher Consciousness'
check out: ". . . tran.ZEN.dance. . ."

I am "spiritual but not religious" because one's adherence to 'outer religions,' while they provide much good to virtually all of their adherents (saving, perhaps, those who become ravingly "fundamentalist" in their beliefs and actions), does not necessarily indicate one is seeking an 'inner' religious or spiritual experience. If I found that adherence to one particular faith, denomination or creed would provide me with a shortcut to the attainment of the highest 'inner religious' or 'spiritual experience' I would likely join it. Yet, I have seen no evidence that this is the case for anyone. Rather, all wisdom traditions and religions throughout the world and throughout all times seem to have triggered such inner awakenings in at least some of their adherents.

Not surprisingly, as on the big questions of consciousness the perspective of Psychology Today temds to fall into the paradgmatic materialist/empiricist camp, giving little credence to intuitive and subjective studies, a more balanced viewpoint may be found in a Beliefnet.com excerpt of Robert Fuller's new work, "Spiritual but Not Religious."

"The increasing prestige of the mind sciences, the insights of modern biblical scholarship, and greater awareness of cultural relativism," Fuller writes, have "all made it more difficult for educated Americans to sustain unqualified loyalty to religious institutions." Fuller's thesis is that many Americans (and by extension most Westerners), have begun "to associate genuine faith with the 'private' realm of personal experience rather than with the 'public' realm of institutions, creeds, and rituals." As this trend grew, he notes, even "(t)he word spiritual gradually came to be associated with a private realm of thought and experience while the word religious came to be connected with the public realm of membership in religious institutions, participation in formal rituals, and adherence to official denominational doctrines."

William James (1842-1910)

Sadly, 'outer' religious rituals and forms need not be antithetical to deep 'inner' religious or spiritual experience, a point made by William James in "The Varieties of Religious Experience." 'Inner' and 'outer' religious experience are not antithetical to one another, it is just that the latter is not prdictive other, and one suspects that the correlation is very, very low. at least in traditional Western religious movements. One suspects there may be a higher correlation in the Eastern wisdom traditions, which would partially explain their rising popularity amongst Westerners apt to describe themselves as "Spiritual but not religious."

Yet, as Fuller eloquently concludes in his excerpted article, 'inner' spiritual (and dare I say, 'inner religious') experience is a nearly universal, if almost wholly unrecognized, phenomena. He rightly observes that "(w)e encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world."

Fuller notes that "(a)n idea or practice is "spiritual" when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life." He or she who pursues that desire with single minded devotion and great effort is likely to experience that "felt-relationship,"which the religious and wisdom traditions of all ages and all countries identify with a higher consciousness which is the essential trait of higher religious or spiritual experience. And it really does not matter what you call it; the point is that you experience it.