Spiritual Awakening In A Collapsing Civilization

Have we already hit the iceberg? Are we drowning in icy waters? Do we have hypothermia of the heart? Is this the end of civilization? Of humankind? Of a big chunk of the ecosystem?

Has an economy driven by greed and requiring infinite growth in a finite world reached the terminal stage of addiction? Has relentless spewing of pollution finally boomeranged to stew us in our own juices? Have humans metastasized to the point of killing off their host, Mother Earth?

Has the worldwide plague of stress, anxiety, addiction, loneliness, and despair choked off our capacity for love and compassion? Has a hidden sack of rage, hate, fear, and irrationality burst like a giant swollen appendix, spreading deadly toxins throughout the body politic? Are the machines of war revving up for global annihilation?

Could there be a silver lining in the dark cloud engulfing humanity? Could collectively hitting a painful bottom trigger radical change? Could the veil of illusion be ripped away, revealing the spiritual bankruptcy of modern life? Could this ignite a worldwide quest to experience the inner source of love, peace, and Divine Presence described by mystics throughout the ages? Could spiritual practices — like meditation and the responsible use of psychedelics — facilitate worldwide spiritual awakening?

The outlook is grim. Fear rules the world. Militant stupidity is on the march against empirical reality. Hate is kicking love’s ass. Words from the 1919 poem, The Second Coming, by William Butler Yates, are truer now than ever:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

What to do? We can wring our hands and do nothing. Or sit leisurely on the deck of the Titanic eating bonbons, pretending nothing is wrong. Or join the dark side, getting high on hate and violence.

Or we can become traitors against conventional reality. We can join the spiritual revolution, which consists of people seeking liberation from the tyranny of their own minds and from the insanity of the dominant culture. The revolution, largely invisible, has been gaining momentum for a hundred years. Joining the revolution involves letting go of ingrained patterns of thinking, feeling, and living. In fact, it requires the death of who we think we are. Consequently, we both embrace and resist our own liberation.

The first battle in the spiritual revolution is internal. We purge our demons by acknowledging ‘evil’ within ourselves. We do so by cultivating alert, non-judgmental attention to inner experience. As we gently observe the flow of our thoughts, feelings, and sense perceptions, destructive traits and painful memories slowly enter awareness. When experienced with calm acceptance, the demons of hate, hostility, greed, self-centered willfulness, egomania, and unprocessed trauma, lose their power to secretly run our lives. Eventually, by denying nothing, and embracing authentic honesty and self-awareness of even uncomfortable aspects of ourselves, we achieve wholeness, an empowering state of consciousness.

At some point in the process of psychological death and rebirth, we begin to feel the magnetic pull of a guiding spiritual force known by many names, including God, Spirit, Soul, Anima, Divine Presence, Christ-Consciousness, Atman, Buddha-Nature, and Unconscious Archetype. Although we cannot understand this force intellectually, we must learn to trust its guidance.

With continued attention to the flow of inner experience, we strike gold. We discover an inner source of joy, serenity, and undefinable Spiritual Presence that can be felt whenever our thoughts slow down. This spiritual goldmine provides a profound sense of wellbeing and becomes the primary source of satisfaction in our life. As a result, we no longer try to manipulate the external world, including other people, to feel good — which never worked very well anyway! Cravings for more stuff, success, status, and money slowly subside.

We gradually realize that we are not our thoughts, not the constant mental chatter in our heads. We are instead the formless experiencer of our thoughts. We are the open sky, not the clouds in that sky. We are an empty mirror, prior to images. We are the eye that sees but cannot see itself. At the deepest level, we are pure consciousness, a formless awareness that pervades the universe, radiating love and bliss. Ancient Indian sages called this Satchitananda.

With spiritual progress comes an urge for simplicity, for slowing down, for living more lightly on the planet. Reduction of spending and consumption sometimes translates into working fewer hours at soul-killing jobs or finding more fulfilling modes of livelihood at less pay. A major priority becomes cultivating joy in daily life through loving relationships, meaningful work, and creative endeavors. By living more fully in the present moment, basic pleasures like eating food, listening to music, or talking with friends become deeply satisfying. So does spending time in nature — our true home — from which modern people are deeply alienated.

As we grow spiritually, we externalize the revolution by expressing love in the world through service. Like the Dali Lama, kindness becomes our religion. We work to reduce the suffering of humans and other creatures in whatever ways fit our temperament and circumstances. We do so in a balanced way, with no expectations for reward or even success. This often involves social or political activism. Although not everyone can be a Buddha, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr., everyone can play a part in advancing peace, justice, sustainability, and love in the world.

Arguably, the only hope for humanity is a spiritual revolution. Materialism and ego-driven efforts at happiness have brought widespread misery and ecological mayhem. Hypnotic obedience to the worldview of the dominant culture is killing us all. Meditation, psychedelics, and other spiritual practices can break that trance and help us awaken to the inner source of joy, love, and Divine Presence.

A critical voice in my head speaks up. George, you are out of your fucking mind! Don Quixote would blush at the absurdity of what you are suggesting. Spiritual revolution would require that a massive number of people undergo the grueling spiritual practices and transformation you just described. But the vast majority of folks are too caught up in the chaos of modern existence — many struggle just to keep from starving — to care about achieving wholeness or awakening spiritually. Furthermore, oppression, injustice, and violence are too deeply entrenched to be impacted by love.

Your vision of a spiritual revolution is a hallucination. Joy will not replace misery, sanity will not replace madness, and love will never conquer hate. A spiritual revolution is impossible. There will be no Age of Aquarius. End of story. Get over it!

My beaten-down visionary voice sheepishly offers a few crumbs of hope. Rapid social change is possible. Older people alive today never thought they would see a Black president, the Supreme Court affirm gay marriage, or cigarette smoking outlawed in bars and other public places — but they did.

In our cyber-dominated world, most people, even in poor countries, have access to the internet. If superficial lifestyle trends can go viral, so can the desire for spiritual awakening, the solution to the world’s biggest problem — enormous unnecessary suffering. In fact, teachings on meditation and spiritual awakening are widely available and spreading rapidly. So is the responsible use of psychedelics for therapy and spiritual exploration.

Major progress toward a better world does not require full spiritual awakening by the multitudes. As large numbers of people in the early stages of awakening begin to experience inner peace and express lovingkindness, a major positive impact on the quality of life on planet earth will be felt. Every painful insight into our shadow nature, every peaceful moment of mental silence, and every expression of love in the world is a tiny but necessary step toward individual and collective liberation

Beginners who do not yet feel persistent joy and wellbeing from the inner journey will naturally wonder whether their efforts at meditation, lovingkindness, and service are actually making a difference for themselves and others. Gandhi said that what we do may seem insignificant, but it is important to do it anyway. Persistence is necessary.

Meditation can seem like drilling for water in a desert — endless churning without noticeable progress. Then one day there is dampness, then moisture, then crystal clear water flowing in abundance. Sitting meditation can at first feel like fingernails on a chalkboard — as ego resists letting go — but with regular practice, spiritual energy begins to flow.

The importance of small actions in changing ourselves and the world is portrayed in the story of the little girl tossing dying starfish back into the ocean after a bad storm. A stranger confronted her. “There’s thousands of stranded starfish, surely you don’t think that what you are doing makes a difference?” Flipping another starfish into the sea, she smiled and replied, “It made a difference to that one.”

There are now eight billion human starfish stranded on the beach of industrial civilization with no little girl to save us. So we must save ourselves by awakening spiritually. Part of that awakening involves recognizing the fundamental reason for the global crisis: our civilization has gone insane because we are disconnected from nature and from the spiritual core of our being.

Perhaps, over the next couple of generations, as we continue down the path of planetary destruction and worldwide misery, increasing numbers of people will jump ship — will abandon commitment to a value system and way of life that is simply not working — and join the millions who are already undergoing a spiritual awakening.

Why not? We’ve nothing to lose but emotional pain caused by mental and cultural shackles. And everything to gain — inner peace, spontaneous love and joy, camaraderie with fellow seekers, and harmony with the Spiritual Consciousness permeating the universe.

Will the spiritual revolution create a new civilization based on love, simple living, and spirituality? Or save our current civilization? Or greatly reduce suffering as things continue to unravel on our journey to annihilation? Or will it do almost nothing at all?

No one knows. But as Bob Dylan once said, the answer is blowing in the wind.