Fragmentation or Wholeness

A Dearth of Authenticity

“If spirituality is to be authentic, it is not going to be disconnected from the realities of all of our lives—from your day-to-day life and from our collective life. Even our realization, our awakening experiences, our revelatory moments—they all, in their own way, seek to be grounded in the embodied soil of our own humanity.” ~ Adyashanti

 

“I’m discovering that the reasons I tell myself that I do things are not the real reasons.” (Charles Eisenstein)

 

Each of us have an inner life and an outer life. Visible and invisible. To what extent do they match? To what extent are they both seen in me? Seen by others… and by myself???

“When we reconnect who we are with what we do, we approach our lives and our work with renewed passion, commitment, and integrity.” (Center for Courage and Renewal)

Being me is a blessing and a curse. 

I am so introspective that it is exhausting.

But if I am not questioning myself like this,

Then who am I???

If I don’t do the right thing.

Then I am no one.

 

“As above, so below, 

as within, so without, 

as the universe, so the soul…”

― Hermes Trismegistus

"An unexamined life is not worth living."

(Socrates)

”Appear As You Are,

Be As You Appear”

-JaLaL-UD-Din Rumi-

 

Why are we so polarized collectively?

It begins with us being so fragmented individually.

Does our spirituality define our political decisions?

How do we treat people that think differently?

What is our response to racial upheaval?

What is our response to the pandemic?

 

Why do we do what we do?

Why do we follow the politics we follow? Because my friends or neighbors do? Because my church does? Because that’s what I feel I must do? Because I’m told to?

 

Why do we follow at all? What is our source of authority? Is it our culture? Our teachers? The televangelist or preacher?

Why do we not follow our heart? Our inner teacher. Our inner Light. Our inner Spirit?

Why do we not follow that which we know down deep is the right thing to do?

Are our political choices a reflection of our character and integrity? or a reflection of something life-giving, open, fearless, and compassionate? or mean, dark, cruel, and driven by fear? How can we be so fragmented? Isn't there a screeching tinnitus of cognitive dissonance that is emanating directly at our lack of authenticity? If not, why not?

 

I'm not suggesting anyone believe in any particular way. That is not up to anyone but you. That is your right. That is your responsibility. But we must make our choices based on our character, integrity, spirituality, and humanity. What kind of person am I? are you? 

Are all of my choices a reflection of me and what I know, down deep, is the right thing to do?

 

Fragmentation = fear, hate, intolerance, anger (violence)

Wholeness = patience, acceptance, kindness, understanding (love)

Fragmentation: the disintegration, collapse, or breakdown of norms of thought, behavior, or social relationship.

Wholeness: an undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting. 2. n. a state of robust good health. 

“Man has always been seeking wholeness – mental, physical, social, individual. It is instructive to consider that the word ‘health’ in English is based on an Anglo-Saxon word ‘hale’ meaning ‘whole’: that is, to be healthy is to be whole, which is, I think, roughly the equivalent of the Hebrew ‘shalem’. Likewise, the English ‘holy’ is based on the same root as ‘whole’. All of this indicates that man has sensed always that wholeness or integrity is an absolute necessity to make life worth living.” (David Bohm, Physicist, Wholeness and the Implicate Order)

Wikipedia definition of “Integrity”

Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy,[1] in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.

The word “integrity” stems from the Latin adjective integer (whole, complete).[2] In this context, integrity is the inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.

And yet, people seem so dis-integrated. So many have always lived an honorable and respectable life, and yet due to some single issue, they feel compelled to vote or act in a way that completely contradicts their own integrity, their own internal values and beliefs.

Incoherence of mind is when our thoughts do not produce the results that we are seeking. Coherence, integrity and wholeness are not ever achieved or static but rather dynamic, we must learn to keep moving toward a less fragmented, incoherent, and dis-integrated life, thereby gradually decreasing the cognitive dissonance in my mind. Much of this blog for me is doing the inner work of being more mindful, thoughtful, and learning "proprioception of thought"* so that I can see when what I do is not aligned with what I want to see and be in life based on my beliefs and values.

Wholeness & Fragmentation

“I think the difficulty is this fragmentation.. All thought is broken up into bits. Like this nation, this country, this industry, this profession and so on… And they can’t meet. That comes about because thought has developed traditionally in a way such that it claims not to be effecting anything but just telling you the way things are. Therefore, people cannot see that they are creating a problem and then apparently trying to solve it… Wholeness is a kind of attitude or approach to the whole of life. If we can have a coherent approach to reality then reality will respond coherently to us.”

 

"[If we have coherence] we will produce the results we intend rather than the results we don’t intend. That’s the first big change. Then we will be more orderly, harmonious, we will be happier. I think we can put all that in there. But the major source of unhappiness [on our planet] is that we are incoherent and therefore are producing results that we don’t really want, and then trying to overcome them while we keep on producing them.”

 

In Quantum Physics and Cosmology, Physicist David Bohm says that the whole of the universe from the greatest and furthest to the smallest and closest (within) is all made up of a hidden wholeness from which we all emerge as a basic whole.

There is in all things A Hidden Wholeness

“There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.”

Proprioception of Thought

*"Proprioception of thought" is concept coined by David Bohm in his research on "thought as a system." Proprioception is the ability to sense you place and movement in the space you are in and includes balance and coordination. But mostly it is awareness of what the body is doing and its impact on the world around it. In the same way, thought tends to run rampant and often we don't even know the damage it is doing within and to others. Thought is responsible for being a self-fulfilling prophecy to fruition. It is responsible for all of our biases, prejudices, discrimination, preconceptions, and assumptions. Thought is always trying to fix problems and often ends up creating more problems instead.

“We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive…. You don’t decide what to do with the info. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one who controls each one of us.” (David Bohm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddngc3nhs_I)