Making the Unconscious Conscious

Seeing and Discerning Our Myths

Don't believe everything you see.
Don't believe everything you hear.
Don't believe everything you say.
Don't believe everything you think.

"The unexamined life is not worth living" (Socrates)

Rejecting All Authority: Outer and Inner

"Having realized that we can depend on no outside authority in bringing about a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals." (Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known)

As I have deepened and intensified my journey toward what is real, daily letting go of comfort, security, and certainty, I have felt a need to discern that which I have downloaded from society (cultural conditioning) from that which is sort of an ancient knowing, that is innate... profound truth.

Am I a second hand person that lives my life based on what I have been told, based on a truth that comes from the experiences and certainties of others?

Or do I embrace the need to do the innerwork to discern truth from within; original and authentic?

But this inner authority is a tricky bedfellow. “Thought creates the world and then says ‘I didn’t do it.’” (David Bohm). What is the source of my truth. Is it the conditioned thinking that Bohm, Jung, and Krishnamurti are referring to? Or can I discern inner truth beyond this duality and see reality, not based on thought, but based on nondual awareness and on a deep resonance; an ancient knowing that comes alive as we awaken?

"If we indulge the human propensity to understate, exaggerate, and alter facts for whatever comfort or false security a lie might accord us, we forfeit our capacity to see reality clearly, and see only a world of our own invention."
—Lin Jensen, "Right Lying"

What is Belief?

"We create the world that we perceive, not because there is no reality outside our heads, but because we select and edit the reality we see to conform to our beliefs about what sort of world we live in. The man who believes that the resources of the world are infinite, for example, or that if something is good for you then the more of it the better, will not be able to see his errors, because he will not look for evidence of them. For a man to change the basic beliefs that determine his perception - his epistemological premises - he must first become aware that reality is not necessarily as he believes it to be. Sometimes the dissonance between reality and false beliefs reaches a point when it becomes impossible to avoid the awareness that the world no longer makes sense. Only then is it possible for the mind to consider radically different ideas and perceptions."

(Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology)

The following is from an online conversation on social media with Rajiv, a friend from India that sees things very similarly as I do even though he grew up in such a different culture and religious context.

Rajiv Pande Our beliefs precede the evidence for them.
Belief is what happens to you when you are not looking. An imperceptible and yet powerful current that carries you away, and sometimes so far off track that you wonder how and why you ended up being where you are.

2

• 

  Ron Irvine Rajiv Pande I've spent my first 50 years being carried away by beliefs, both imperceptible and powerful and the last 10 years making the imperceptible perceptible so I can sort through the trash and the treasures that are left still powerfully trying to define my life.

  1
• Active Now

  Rajiv Pande I think what was once instinct in the animal world transformed to belief at the human level of evolution. Belief is a kind of substitute for the real or natural thing - a rationalized, narrated thing that envelopes and encloses one almost as completely as animals are immersed in instinct. We think we have an opinion or that we've made a choice but actually we have been drowned, our individuality and freedom dissolved in something seemingly greater than us. Belief systems can be so powerful that they are almost as effective as the formation of species in the animal world. Tribes, communities, nations, religions are the end result of this emotional intensity carried over from what was once animal instinct. Our task as humans is to be rational, to not be swayed by the seething and bubbling hot lava of emotion just below the outer layer of civilization and to keep it contained at all times.

My response was, "Wow!" He really nailed it for me.

Our similarities in perspective have been remarkable as we have grown to know each other over the past 10 years, often reflecting on each other's social media posts and blog posts. How does a person see through, see past, and grow beyond our conditioned upbringing; our cultural instincts that we so automatically believe.

What is Myth?

In this context, I use myth in the same way that Joseph Campbell developed myth in his book, The Power of Myth, as foundational to culture and individuals . Myths are the stories in our heads that we use to create meaning in our lives. Whether a myth is a true story or not is not at all the point. Myths shape our thinking, values, beliefs, and actions in both positive and negative ways. For instance, myths are created and broadcast in the news everyday; sometimes to tell the truth and sometimes to spin political beliefs. Myths also create assumptions, preconceived ideas, judgmental stances, and unfounded fears upon which we are building our democracy. The point is not if myths are true. The point is the impact they have on us; individually or collectively. How do they shape us? But an even bigger question is this, are we aware of our own myths that we have adopted, or that we have been told? Cultural conditioning is a powerful thing. It happens to all of us but not all of us are aware of this. We simply download ideas, mostly unaware, and go on living our lives with very little consciousness about how we became the person that we are; why we think what we think, why we feel what we feel, why we say what we say, and why we do what we do. Why DO we react, act, and interact in the ways that we do?

“Until you make the unconscious conscious,
it will direct your life,
and you will call it fate.”
(Carl Jung)

"It’s hard being a human being. Not only is our external world often demanding, but inside we’re a confusing mix of conflicting emotions and competing desires.

"Complicated creatures, we are each a mix of light and dark. For those of us on a spiritual path, it is essential that we explore this inner territory, for what lies outside our awareness exerts a powerful control over it." (Leia Marie Faith.   https://www.chieftain.com/26bc3b8c-c393-11e8-a446-a7dc25b427f9.html)

Why do we sometimes surprise ourselves by saying or doing something that seems very out of character and then regret it? What is going on under the surface of our lives? What myths are swimming about in those murky waters beneath the surface of my consciousness; preconscious or subconscious surges hacking and hijacking my life.

DO I know? Of course not, because subconscious means that we are not conscious of those subtle influences, drives, and forces; sometimes not so subtle.

CAN I know? Of course I can, but it takes the hard work of doing the innerwork necessary to bring to consciousness that which is currently subconscious. It is both exhausting and exhilarating.

Do I WANT to know? Do I want to go through life as an automaton, following the herd, believing and doing what I’ve been told? Or will I do the innerwork of becoming conscious of the myths within and the power and influence they have? We cannot be free until we do the work of seeing our myths, understanding their power over us (their impact on us), and then carefully choosing the myths that we live by while letting go of those that are no longer helpful or inspiring; that no longer show me the truth within.

“All religions have been true for their time. If you can recognize the enduring aspect of their truth and separate it from the temporal applications, you’ve got it… Myths grab you somewhere down inside. As a boy, you go at it one way, as I did reading my Indian stories. Later on, myths tell you more, and more, and still more. I think that anyone who has ever dealt seriously with religious or mythic ideas will tell you that we learn them as a child on one level, but then many different levels are revealed. Myths are infinite in their revelation.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

I think what Campbell means by this is that:

First, we must do the inner work necessary to first SEE the myths that we have adopted whether consciously or subconsciously.

Second, we must learn to DISCERN the veracity and impact of those myths that have gripped us over the years.

Third, we must revive or recreate a new world of myths, a mythology of meaning, that we can live by; with others and with integrity… a sustainable world and life view. We do this by sorting through the trash and treasures and reweaving the fabric of our underlying personal and collective plane of existence from which all of life unfolds; individual and collective. At the same time, aligning this with the universal plane of existence from which the whole universe unfolds.

What is the source of our values and beliefs; of our myths? Love or Fear? 

Why do I follow the politics that I follow? 

Why do I follow the religion that I follow?
What defines my love and hate?
What defines my hopes and fears?

Do I do these things automatically, 

Because of my family?

Because of my zip code?

Because of my peer group?

Because it is easier to follow the herd???

Am I a second hand person
or am I an original individual
... the real deal?

A New Organizing Myth

But what happens when our organizing, sustaining myth, or story, or drama is no longer meaningful. We have grown beyond the stories of 2000 or 4000 years ago.

We need to create a new myth
about a people that are envisioning and creating
a world that works for ALL,
where ALL means ALL,
that includes each and every person,
that believes in each and every person,
that believes that each person comes here as a gift and full of gifts,
and that for every gift there is a place that needs that gift;
an organizing myth that teaches that
when each person uses the simplest of gifts
in a context that accepts and appreciates those gifts,
then THAT is a meaningful life.
A myth that knows we are all
 connected, nurtured, and sustained
by that which is greater than me.
But knows that this sustaining reality
is beyond understanding; full of mystery,
boundless and limitless, immanent and transcendent.
A myth that acknowledges that
being right and making others wrong
is not what life is about.
It is not a matter of being right
but rather living right
so that the life we lead
makes an impact and
leaves this world better.

Underlying all of perceived, material reality is a deeper reality that supports what we see and experience. This deeper level is what David Bohm (Physicist) refers to as the implicate order of the universe, enfolded reality that then unfolds into the explicate order that which we perceive and then enfolds back into itself, containing like a hologram the whole universe.  In this sense, the enfolded universe contains all of 'what is' while unfolding as needed into a physical reality. In this way, everything has its place in its time and then enfolds back into the underlying implicate order. This is similar to what quantum physics is telling us about the universe.

Did you know?
4% of the universe is physical matter.
23% is dark matter.
73% is empty space that is not empty but is teeming with creative energy and apparent intelligence. Possibly that "stuff" that holds the universe together, keeping it from flying apart or collapsing on itself. Is this emptiness the implicate order?

Scientists are struggling to name this "emptiness" but have theories that describe it as a matrix, web, ether, and even the "'strong force' that literally holds existence together."

"Here's what makes the 'strong force' so fascinating: unlike an electromagnetic force, which decreases as you pull the two charged particles apart, the strong force actually gets stronger the further apart the particles go. It gets so strong that it limits how far two quarks can separate. Once they hit that limit, that's when the magic happens: the huge amount of energy it took for them to separate is converted to mass, following   Einstein's famous equation E = mc2. That's right—the strongest force in the universe is strong enough to turn energy into matter, the thing that makes up existence as you know it."
https://curiosity.com/topics/the-strong-force-is-whats-holding-the-entire-universe-together-curiosity/

What resonates with me about this way of seeing the universe, this possible new organizing myth, is that it shows that:
There is a unified source from which we all spring.
There is a unifying force by which we (and all of existence) are all connected.
There is a sustaining force that nurtures all of existence.
There is a creative force, the source that brings matter into existence from energy.
There is an intentional force that keeps us growing and evolving forward.

And I see this power of intention being individual and collective and universal.
I also see this as parallel to consciousness; individual, collective, and universal.
All connected, all the same essence, all the same source.

David Bohm's Implicate and Explicate Order

"Implicate order and explicate order are ontological concepts for quantum theory coined by theoretical physicist David Bohm during the early 1980s. They are used to describe two different frameworks for understanding the same phenomenon or aspect of reality. In particular, the concepts were developed in order to explain the bizarre behavior of subatomic particles which quantum physics struggles to explain.

"The implicate (also referred to as the "enfolded") order is seen as a deeper and more fundamental order of reality. In contrast, the explicate or "unfolded" order include the abstractions that humans normally perceive. As he wrote,

In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order.

"The notion of implicate and explicate orders emphasizes the primacy of structure and process over individual objects. The latter are seen as mere approximations of an underlying process. In this approach, quantum particles and other objects are understood to have only a limited degree of stability and autonomy.[2]

"Bohm believes that the weirdness of the behavior of quantum particles is caused by unobserved forces, maintaining that space and time might actually be derived from an even deeper level of objective reality. In the words of F. David Peat, Bohm considers that what we take for reality are "surface phenomena, explicate forms that have temporarily unfolded out of an underlying implicate order". That is, the implicate order is the ground from which reality emerges.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_explicate_order 

In other words, the implicate order is the source or ground of being.

Joseph Campbell's Underlying Plane of Existence 

Invisible versus Visible, Nondual versus Dual

All peoples, all tribes, all civilizations throughout history have developed mythologies to describe their understanding of their own existence. Similar themes run throughout history going back to drawings on cave walls.

"All of mythology is summed up with this: There is a plane of existence where we live. It is tangible, visible, temporal. But behind it is a plane of existence that is invisible, eternal, intangible. This plane supports the temporal plane.

"A shaman crosses between the two planes. But the myths, stories, and religion is created from the invisible plane. This plane is nondual. This is from where the religions of the First Peoples were created; from this eternal plane of existence. Or from where both planes are touching; the “thin” places.

"Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are created out of the plane of duality through books, words of the prophets. The male warrior gods (Yahweh and Allah) are jealous, angry, vengeful, full of hate, say one thing and do another, but say they are gods of love and peace.

"The holy grail is brought down by the neutral angels. All of our actions cause both good and bad results. We must balance between dualities. And yet lean toward the light. The grail represents the purest human motivation and consciousness; that which is not influenced by duality but only by our own inner intentions; not what we are told but what we determine.

"Jesus’ teachings and parables are a combination of stories based in the eternal and stories based in the temporal. There are many parallels between the Jesus and the Buddha.

“Every god, every mythology, every religion is true in this sense: it is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery. He who thinks he knows doesn’t know. He who knows that he doesn’t know knows.”

“In the East, the gods are much more elemental. Less human and more like the power of nature.”

“In oriental thinking, the god is the vehicle of the energy, not its source.”

"The gospel of Thomas: “The kingdom of the father will not come by expectation. The kingdom of the father is spread upon the face of the earth and you do not see it.”

"What is religion? Religion comes from 'religio' which means 'linking back.' From the phenomenal person, we link back to the source.

"That’s the essence of burial. You put back into the earth for rebirth.

"Creating a Mandala for oneself is a matter of graphically illustrating all of the energies of your life and then finding the source, the center of all of the aspects of oneself. So you are trying to coordinate your circle with the universal circle.

"Jung’s archetypes refer to the similar ideas that arise in different cultures without any connection between them. There are certain motifs that appear among different people in different places in different times."
(The Power of Myth)

Only Love
When Gregg Braden studied under some Tibetan Monks, he described that essence of the ether that
permeates the universe, that which he calls the Divine Matrix, he asked the master what is it that fills, sustains, and nurtures the universe. The monk looked at the interpreter and interacted trying to boil it down to the essence. Then he looked at Gregg and said, "Love."

“Love is the whole thing.We are only pieces.” (Rumi)

"Oh Love that fires the sun, keep me burning." (Bruce Cockburn, song lyrics)

The Task of Tasks

"I asked myself, 'What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know. So... I took it upon myself to get to know my myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks... I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me." (Carl Jung)

More about the Space Between
https://curiosity.com/topics/empty-space-isnt-empty-and-quantum-researchers-now-have-direct-evidence-curiosity/

Universal Consciousness

From which we emerge...

Developing a Unified Theory of Everything