Time and the Transformation of Consciousness

Some people believe time is speeding up. For instance, time seems to be flying by faster than ever, or what used to take several years to accomplish now seems to be taking place in just a couple. You may have changed more in the past two years than you did in the five years before that. When more personal growth is crammed into a shorter amount of time, it appears that things have picked up pace and more ground is being covered more quickly.

In the 2012 paradigm, this idea serves to correlate the prophesied dissolution of time, or a change in our perception of time. Yes, there's more to it and the bottom line is the Mayan calendar is tracking the evolution of consciousness through nine sequentially ordered cycles of creation. The nine steps aren't linear which means you wouldn't lay them out end-to-end in a linear fashion. They are instead holographic in nature. All nine levels are nested into each other like a set of mixing bowls. That's how this calendar actually works. Each step up the nine leveled pyramid expands and develops the previous level with a 20 times faster frequency that continually drives evolution forward.

In his book The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness, Carl Johan Calleman offers this idea: "The liberation of human beings from the negative effects of the frequency increase, such as stress, is a matter of entering the natural, nonphysical, divine flow of creation leading toward enlightenment. Today more than ever before, people are becoming aware of the stressful effects of subordinating their lives to physical time." What do YOU think?

Loving Our Pets and Other Creatures

Knowing who we are and our place in the world can involve more than understanding our relationships with other people. Animals, birds, fish and other creatures have always been known to bring peace and love into our lives. How do pets and other creatures give us an insight into our spiritual dynamic as we develop our relationships with them? What value do they bring into our lives?

According to Linda Kohanov, author of the Tao of Equus, and founder of Epona Equestrian Services, where people explore the potential of horse/human relationships: "Through a holistic approach to the equestrian arts, people explore assertiveness, stress reduction and emotional fitness skills, strengthening self-esteem and personal empowerment in the process. Consensus-building relationship models teach people how to take the reins of any situation without lapsing into the pitfalls of dominance, alienation, intimidation or victimization."

Anne Rudloe, Ph.D. is the Managing Director of Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory where she has led its transformation into an award winning non-profit environmental center and public aquarium. Rudloe has made a career of exploring the sacred nature of the relationships between people and the creatures of the sea. According to Rudloe, in her book Butterflies and Sea Wind: "Our place in this life, our only place, is wherever we find ourselves in each instant. An effort is made and results arise. The energy will go where the energy needs to go. The only thing to do is live life without any resentment toward life and to pay attention to whatever teachers arise."

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Shirley Rappaport Many thanks.

Service to Your Race

Race is one of the inescapable aspects of who we are. We are born into a race and it influences who we are always. Even if we manage to mature beyond an ethnocentric world view, we will eventually see it in our societal relationships. There are those who believe that some races are superior to others. Can we live without "racism" in our lives? Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

According to the philosophy of Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology, Worldcentric is better than ethnocentric which is better than egocentric. Each may be appropriate in certain circumstances, but there is no question as to the hierarchical ranking of increasing capacity for consciousness, care, and compassion. The author Nikos Kazantzakis suggests the following spiritual exercise: Your first duty, in completing your service to your race, is to feel within you all our ancestors. Your second duty is to throw light on their onrush and to continue their work. Your third duty is to pass on to your son the great mandate to surpass you." What do YOU think?

A Time for Soul Searching

What, exactly, is our soul? What does it do, and how does it effect our daily lives? Christians think of the soul as that eternal part of ourselves that exists before we are born and lives on after we die. Eastern traditions see the soul as a vessel for karma, our identity, which forms each lifetime as we reincarnate. The Hermetic teachings maintain that through forgiveness, our karmic debt (formed by error and transgression) is released. Through forgiveness, the soul transcends the level of cause and effect and allows the soul to be directed by spirit. This is often achieved after a dark night of the soul, where soul and spirit are purified by facing, embracing and releasing all the good and evil within. What do YOU think?

Awaken to Multidimensionality

There is much discussion about the notion of human multidimensionality. What, exactly, does it mean? We know that physically, our world consists of three dimensions. The first dimension begins with a point in space, the second, a line between this and another point, the third, allowing depth - length, height, depth. The fourth dimension is said to be time, and if we add time to the first three dimensions we can measure a three dimensional object as it changes over time. Time is the dimension of changeability. Scientists tell us that there are an infinite number of dimensions and each dimension is infinite. There are those who believe that the fifth dimension is compassion and that bringing the highest form of feeling into our dimensionality allows us to embrace all dimensions, infinitely. What do YOU think?

The Relationship Between Judgment and Conflict

Judge not, lest ye be judged, as has been taught so many times. Just what is the relationship between judgment and conflict? Do we bring conflict into our lives when we judge others and our experience?

When you judge another you are drawn into the vibration of conflict. If you judge someone, they will see you, they will judge you because you bring yourself into the vibration of that which you are judging. If you let go of all judgment all together and simply be, then you will not be in conflict. How does this occur?

Gregg Braden suggests: "Through the connection that joins all things, scientists have shown that the "stuff" that the universe is made of, "waves and particles of energy," responds and conforms to the expectations, judgments and beliefs that we create about our world. In a world where an intelligent field of energy connects everything from global peace to personal healing, what may have sounded like fantasy and miracles in the past suddenly becomes possible in our lives. There is one small catch, however. Our power to change our bodies and our world is dormant until we awaken it. The key to awakening such an awesome power is that have to make a small shift in the way we see ourselves in the universe. We must see ourselves as a part of everything, rather than separate from everything. Beyond merely thinking of ourselves from this unified view, we must feel ourselves as part of all that we experience. With this one little shift in perception we are given access to the most powerful force in the universe, and the key to address even the seemingly impossible situations in our lives."

What do YOU think?