The Three Realms and Their Importance

Posted on September 18, 2011 by John Wolaver

The vast majority of individuals live in the Physical Realm.  A few live in the Metaphysical Realm, while almost none at all lives in the Spiritual Realm.  Yet, these three realms are critical to humanity and its evolution.  Indeed, the three realms are an integrated system to evolve all aspects of the Universe.  Therefore, it is important to know about each and the relationship between the three of them.

The Relationship of the Three Realms

Ensconced as we are here in the Physical Realm, it is not immediately apparent there are two other realms.  Yet, they exist.  The diagram below shows the relationship between the three of them.

The Direction of Action

The most critical element to understand about this diagram is the direction of action.  The content of an action is information embedded in an energy matrix.  The energy is the driving force that enables the information to do work.

The action flows from the Spiritual Realm, to the Metaphysical Realm, and, finally, to the Physical Realm.  This means that we, humanity, are not in control.  The action starts in the Spiritual Realm far removed from our day-to-day concerns.  Humanity is not above and separate from it all, always in control, as we want to believe.

In fact, we are far from in control, as we will see when we discuss the three realms and then the attributes of each realm.  Our true relationship with the three realms, particularly the Spiritual Realm, will be a hard won understanding.  We will have to abandon the illusion of control and accept our true place in the life of the Earth and Universe.  This understanding will be one of the results of the transition humanity is now undergoing from history’s now dead civilization that was characterized by separation, adversarial competition, and hierarchical control to a cooperative, Earth-based society.

Spiritual Realm

The Spiritual Realm is furthest back and the least available to us.  We may experience this realm in moments of receptivity, sensing reverence, awe, and possibility power.  Then, the feeling fades.

Why is the Spiritual Realm so hard to sense, so hard to contact?  It is separate from us in a very fundamental way; it is not here at all.  It is totally beyond both space and time; it is totally separate from each of them.

It is truly far from our normal reality and everything that is here.  Although so far away, it is the realm of Consciousness that forms the foundation for the entire Universe.  It holds all possibilities, all the ideas and plans to implement them that ever were or will ever be in the future.  At the very core of the Spiritual Realm is the Core of Consciousness, the organizing principle of the Universe and its driving force.  It is responsible for all these ideas and plans and decides when to implement them.  (Note:  Until very recently, humanity’s awareness of the Core of Consciousness was blocked.  In the next two posts in this series, The Design of the Spiritual Realm and Producing the Universe, the Core of Consciousness and its importance will be discussed in more detail.)

Plans in this context can range from the plan for the evolution of the entire Universe to how individuals will fulfill the life purpose given to them.  Although we like to think otherwise, we are not the source of ideas and the indispensable plans to achieve them.  We are implementers of ideas and plans.  Ideas and their implementation plans provided to us at the correct time and place to evolve us individually as well as humanity as a whole.

Metaphysical Realm

All of us, at one time or another, have experienced the Metaphysical Realm.  It sneaks in when least expected.  It arrives as that unannounced “aha,” an intuition that resolves an issue that has long concerned us, or offers much needed insight into a difficult situation we are currently experiencing.  One of the most famous examples of an intuitive input is the daydream of a snake eating its own tail that lead August Kekulé to the discovery of the benzene ring structure.

Intuitions from the Metaphysical Realm show us how to accomplish something in the Physical Realm.  They are like blueprints.  They are the templates behind everything actualized in the Physical Realm.

Why is the Metaphysical Realm with its templates required if the underlying ideas and the plans to manifest them are in the Spiritual Realm?  The Spiritual Realm is simply too far away and, more importantly, it is not here at all.  An intermediate step is required to bring these ideas and their plans here so they can be accessed.  The Metaphysical Realm with its templates provides this step.

How do the templates for these ideas and their plans get into the Metaphysical Realm?  The Core of Consciousness of the Spiritual Realm injects a particular template into the Metaphysical Realm when it is needed to evolve a specific aspect of the Universe.  A look at history shows this process for all to see.  Rome rises and falls with the Core of Consciousness replacing it with feudal society in Europe.  When feudal society had run its course, the Core of Consciousness injected the template for the Enlightenment into the Metaphysical Realm.  John Locke, Isaac Newton, and many others felt the tug of this template, bringing it into the Physical Realm through their works.

One may argue that the Lockes of the world were just creative.  Yes, they were – creative in a very special way.  Their life purpose was to access the ideas embedded in the Enlightenment template of the Metaphysical Realm and make them a reality here in our physical world.

Another more current example is an interview of physicist Steven Weinberg I heard on the radio (do not remember the station but believe it was the local NPR station) on the one hundredth anniversary of Einstein’s famous outpouring of scientific papers in 1905.  Weinberg made the point the ideas were ripe for the taking and Einstein took them.  If Einstein had not, Weinberg said somebody else would have.  In one sense, Weinberg was right.  Yes, the ideas where “in the air.”  However, he was profoundly wrong in another sense.  It was Einstein’s job to write those papers in 1905.  Only if he had not done his job would the responsibility have been given to someone else.  This is how the Core of Consciousness works.  If the desired plan does not work for whatever reason, illness, lack of resolve, fear, etc., the Core of Consciousness rectifies the situation to ensure the plan gets back on track.  It simply gives the job to someone else.

Physical Realm

We are finally here in the world we all know, the world of bodies and matter.  This is the realm in which the templates waiting in the Metaphysical Realm for actualization see the light of day.  The 2 million year history of hominid evolution on the Earth is a testament to the success of the basic ideas and plans of the Spiritual Realm and the resulting templates in the Metaphysical Realm.

The Architect Metaphor:  Tying the Three Realms Together

Let’s pretend you are an architect.  You wake up one morning with a really fantastic idea for a house.  You can’t get the idea out of your head.  It keeps swirling around up there and you start to create a mental plan for this dream house.  It will have three uniquely configured bedrooms, a most unusual Prairie design (you are channeling Wright?), a very specific interior design, and more.  Idea and plan have come together.

You can’t wait to get into the office to prepare the architectural drawings.  Once in the office, you work straight through, finishing the drawings in record time.  The template is ready to go.  With the ink hardly dry on the drawings (yours is an old fashioned architectural firm), you call your favorite contractor and tell her all about the house.  Your contractor friend is equally excited and can’t wait to actualize the design.  Construction will start in a week.  Six months later the house is a physical reality.

Distinctive Attributes of Each Realm

Now that an overview of the three realms is complete, let’s look in more detail at the major attributes of each realm.  This discussion of attributes will make the realms more real, particularly the Metaphysical and Spiritual Realms.  The diagram below summarizes these attributes following by a discussion of each attribute in turn.

Hereness

The Spiritual Realm is profoundly “not here.”  It is outside of, and beyond, space and time.  It is not part of the Universe at all, yet it is the origin of everything in the Universe; it contains all possibilities, everything that has ever manifested in the past and all that will manifest in the future.  It creates the Universe.  So, if the Spiritual Realm is outside the Universe, where is the Universe?  The Universe is everything that can be labeled as “here.”  Let’s look at “here” and what it means.

“Here” has two aspects.  There is the “inner here” of the Metaphysical Realm and the “outer here” of the Physical Realm.  All of us, or almost all of us, have an understanding of what the “outer here” means.  For most of us, this is the only “here.”  It is the world of people and buildings, stars and planets.

Yet, critical to the creation of our “outer here” is the “inner here” of the Metaphysical Realm.  It contains all the templates that make our “outer here” possible.  These templates cannot be touched, only felt or sensed, but the Metaphysical Realm is just as much “here” as the “outer here” of the Physical Realm, although for most of us, tightly locked into physical reality, the “inner here” has little meaning.  However, we do access this “inner here” more often than we think.  It is the home for all those great ideas that pop into our collective heads, the driver of those often unique, and even bizarre, dreams at night, and the occasional intuition that might warn us of danger or provide the right answer to a critical life issue.

Property

Void, time, and space comprise the attribute called property.  Void is the property of the Spiritual Realm, while time is the property of the Metaphysical Realm.  In turn, space is the property of the Physical Realm.

Of the three properties, Void is unique.  It has two aspects, while design and form have only a single aspect.  One aspect of the Void is the Full Void, the container for all possibilities that have ever manifested or will ever manifest in the future.  It is the container for everything.  It is totally full.  This makes practical sense for there has to be an origin for all possibilities.  Otherwise, there could be no Universe, no human existence, nor a world where we might live.

The other aspect of the Void is the Empty Void.  If the Full Void is profoundly full, the Empty Void is profoundly empty.  Why is there an Empty Void in the “not here” of the Spiritual Realm?  Its emptiness is there to create the empty containers that form the Metaphysical and Physical Realms of “here.”  There would be no Metaphysical Realm or Physical Realm without these empty containers created out of the Empty Void by the Core of Consciousness; there would be no Universe.

The empty container that is the Physical Realm is empty space.  We are all familiar with the concept of empty space, particularly after humanity ventured into space.  It is the container for all physical objects.  If the empty container of the Physical Realm is empty space, what constitutes the empty container of the Metaphysical Realm?

As the Metaphysical Realm is not physically here, its emptiness cannot be empty space.  The templates stored there do not have a physical existence either.  They are not physical objects at all, but, most importantly, their implementations play out over time.  The template driving civilization had a time specific trajectory.  Things had to be experienced and accomplished in a specific time sequence to ensure civilization would evolve properly.  Modernity of necessity came after the Middle Ages.  Returning to the architectural analogy discussed above, the architectural drawings specify the time sequence in which the house should be built.  If the contractor properly follows this time sequence, the house will stand and function correctly.  Time, then, is the key property of the Metaphysical Realm.

So, if the emptiness of the Physical Realm is empty space, the emptiness of the Metaphysical Realm is empty time.  The concept of empty time is counter to the normal way we humans look at things.  However, if you think about the intuitions you have received, they just are, arriving when they arrive without any sense of space about them. (There will be a further discussion of the empty time concept in The Boolean Conjecture that follows in the next section of this post).

Without empty containers forming the Metaphysical and Physical Realms, there could be no creation and no Universe.  Where would the Core of Consciousness put the possibilities it wants to manifest if there were no containers to hold them?  More importantly, one cannot exist without the other.  Together, the empty time container of the Metaphysical Realm and the empty space container of the Physical Realm are required to create the “here” of the Universe in its totality.

If the Empty Void is so critical to the creation of the empty containers that form the Metaphysical and Physical Realms, what is the origin of the Empty Void and how does it create these two containers?  First, the Full Void contains everything so it also contains the Empty Void as well.  Second, the Core of Consciousness separates out the Empty Void from the Full Void.  Finally, the Core of Consciousness uses the emptiness of the Empty Void to create the empty time container that is the Metaphysical Realm and the empty space container that is the Physical Realm.  Now creation is ready to start its evolutionary journey.

A rough analogy is to see the Full Void as a library that contains all knowledge.  You want to use a portion of that knowledge to create something.  You need a place to implement this knowledge.  We call this place the Universe.  However, you just have knowledge at this point.  You convert this knowledge into a blueprint for action, a template, and place it on a readily accessible shelf in the Metaphysical Realm.  As you do the implementation, you periodically refer to the blueprint on the shelf to confirm the implementation is proceeding correctly here in the Physical Realm.

In summary, the Full Void property of the Spiritual Realm is totally full; it is the origin of all possibilities, both those already manifested and those yet to be manifested.  Conversely, the Empty Void property of the Spiritual Realm is totally empty but critical to the formation of the Universe; its emptiness creates the containers that are the Metaphysical and Physical Realms.  The property of the Metaphysical Realm is time for templates play out over time, while the property of the Physical Realm is space.  The Physical Realm provides the space necessary to express all that is in the templates of the Metaphysical Realm.  Together, time of the Metaphysical Realm and space of the Physical Realm form the Universe, all that is “here.”

A Boolean Conjecture

The Boolean Conjecture is a short detour to another way of looking at the three realms using a Boolean table.  If you have been wondering, this is the reason I added the Boolean notation to the Void (1,1 & 0,0), Time (0,1), and Space (1,0) in the Distinctive Attributes diagram above.  A Boolean view of the three realms brings to the fore features of the three realms not easily understood otherwise.  This Boolean description goes back some 30 years, and I have found it of use ever since.  Among others, information physicists may find it of use as well.

In this table, space is either present (1) or absent (0) and similarly for time where (1) means time is present and (0) means an absence of time.  Using this notation, the Empty Void (0,0) is without space or time.  Conversely, the Full Void (1,1) is both space and time.  Therefore, and conveniently, the Full Void contains everything necessary first to create and then populate the Metaphysical Realm of time and the Physical Realm of space.

Things get more interesting in the Physical and Metaphysical Realms.  The property of the Physical Realm is space and in Boolean notation (1,0).  There is no time.  Looking at life in this way, we live from one present moment of right now to another and then another.  One can say the progression of our life through time is an illusion.  You cannot see time; all you see are a succession of present moments like ticks on a clock.  It is a sequence of present moments very much like the sequence of still photos that makes the illusion of time when shown as a film in a movie projector.  Another way of looking at this is to say space has a discrete character.

Turning to the Metaphysical Ream of time, the Boolean notation is (0,1).  The Metaphysical Realm is a storehouse.  It is a storehouse for actions that will play out over time in the Physical Realm.  The Core of Consciousness injects these actions into the Metaphysical Realm when it decides it is appropriate to do so.

These actions are stored as templates in the Metaphysical Realm.  For each action, there is a specific time for it to occur in the Physical Realm.  The template encodes these specific times as timestamps.  Therefore, a template includes both actions and the timestamps for when they will occur.

Timestamps associated with templates are the Metaphysical Realm’s counterpoint to the present moment of the Physical Realm.  Another way of looking at time is to say time is continuous in nature.  More directly, one can say space is an illusion in the Metaphysical Realm created by a sea of timestamps associated with templates.

Some templates have only a single action to insert into the Physical Realm and, hence, only one timestamp.  Other templates may contain multiple actions with a timestamp for each action.  For example, time for the Universe’s template extends for an inordinate amount of time containing untold actions and their associated timestamps.  The arc of human civilization is an example of a template containing multiple actions measured out over a timeframe of some 5,500 years.  Conversely, the template defining the actions in the life of individual is rather short indeed.

One might ask whether a template lasts forever.  No, normally a template exists only until all the time-based actions stored in the template have been completed.  Then, the template dissolves.  However, if the Core of Consciousness decides a particular template is no longer applicable, it simply destroys the template.

What happens if an action should be taken but is not taken, is only partially taken, is wrongly taken because of misinterpretation, or is totally wrong and counter to the desired action?  These erroneous outcomes are a particularly acute issue for sentient beings.  This is especially true for human beings given our lack of inner integration as discussed in the Being section of this post.  To correct these faulty outcomes, the Core of Consciousness injects a new template into the Metaphysical Realm to rectify the situation. (We will see in a future post in this series that the Core of Consciousness created the Source to manage sentient being evolution so for sentient beings the Source injects the rectification template).

So, when people take an action in the Physical Realm that does not meet the requirements of a template, this erroneous action must be rectified.  This adds truth to the saying “you can never outlive your actions.”  Until rectified, they remain either to come back to haunt you if not particularly positive or as fond memories if more positive.  John Bennett, the British philosopher, made the comment the only way to eradicate these memories is to change fundamentally who you are (the quotation is well remembered but I have forgotten in which of his books I read it).  If you are interesting in learning more about Bennett and his writings, please go to Bennett Books.

Bennett’s comment is profound.  Yes, you can transcend the results of a past action gone awry.  However, to rectify an erroneous action, you have to pay a price commensurate with the erroneous action.  A classical example of paying for past erroneous actions is that of the Tibetan Yogi Milarepa.  He killed some 35 people in his youth through devious means.  To rectify this action, his teacher, Marpa Lotsawa, demanded that Milarepa build multiple houses by hand.  The minute he finished a house, Marpa demanded that Milarepa tear it down.  This process continued through many houses until Marpa was satisfied Milarepa had paid his debt.  During the entire time Milarepa was building and destroying the houses, Marpa was spiritually working on Milarepa; the house projects were the outer vehicles used by Marpa to force the inner changes in Milarepa required to transcend the debt.

Whether a template runs its normal course and dissolves, the Core or Consciousness destroys the template, or an erroneous action must be rectified, humanity does not control the process.  Humanity is at the behest of the process.  Here is another example where humanity’s hubris in thinking we are in control is sadly mistaken.

Characteristic

Consciousness, design, and form are the characteristics of the Spiritual, Metaphysical, and Physical Realms respectively.  As might be expected, each is as different as the realms to which they belong.  Of the three characteristics, consciousness is the most removed from our everyday existence but embedded in all that we do and are.

Consciousness is the defining characteristic of the Spiritual Realm.  It forms the foundation for the entire Universe, permeating all its aspects.  At the very base of the Spiritual Realm is the Core of Consciousness, the organizing principle of the Universe and its driving force. (More will be said about the Core of Consciousness in the next post in this series entitled: The Design of the Spiritual Realm.)  Consciousness is “not here” so don’t expect to find it waiting outside when you walk out the door in the morning.  Yet, everything you see when you walk out that door is the result of Consciousness.

Turning to the design characteristic of the Metaphysical Realm, this characteristic is behind everything that exists in the Physical Realm.  To create anything, you must have a design behind it first – be it a building, book on philosophy, musical score, a governmental system, or the Earth itself just to name a few examples.  In a broad sense, the design characteristic applies to any concept, creative idea, ecological truism, scientific principle, value, belief, or myth, cultural or otherwise.  In short, there is a design behind anything and everything that we experience here physically.  Yet, none has a physical reality.  They all reside in the “inner here” of the Metaphysical Realm.

The design characteristic can be looked at in another way.  You do not see concepts, creative ideas, values, beliefs, or our cultural stories walking down the street.  Instead, all are representative aspects of the design characteristic.  Each is very near yet cannot be touched for they do not reside here in the Physical Realm; never the less, their impact is felt with great force here.

In a very practical way, the design characteristic is behind all that we see here in the world of physical things.  It provided the minimalist concept behind Apple’s products so popular today.  It is the origin of all architectural styles such as Gothic or modernism.  It is the reservoir fueling the advance of science.

Turning to the form characteristic of the Physical Realm, form makes sense as the Physical Realm characteristic.  We see forms all around us.  There are different shapes and sizes streaming out in all directions.  A form is different from the design characteristic of the Metaphysical Realm.  A design does not actually exist physically.  It is a concept, an idea.  Out of the design comes the actual form in the Physical Realm.  This distinction becomes apparent by going back to the Architect Metaphor discussed earlier.  The architectural drawings embody the design and what will eventually be built, the form.

Purpose

Idea, plan, template, and actualization are the purposes of the three realms.  Idea and plan are associated with the Spiritual Realm.  The Full Void holds all ideas, all the possibilities, as well as all the plans necessary to implement these ideas.  Ideas come before plans for without an idea it is impossible to create a plan.

When the Core of Consciousness decides to manifest a particular idea and its associated plan, it injects the idea and its plan into the Metaphysical Realm.  This process takes something that is “not here,” the idea and its plan, and brings it into “here,” the “inner here” of the Metaphysical Realm.  Once in the Metaphysical Realm, idea and plan become a template for action in the Physical Realm.

The template holds all the information and the driving force, or forces, required to make the plan a reality in the physical world.  This template apportions out the plan elements stored in the template in just the right time sequence to make the plan a physical reality.  Returning to the architect metaphor, the architect created architectural drawings that contained all the information necessary to build the house.  Hopefully, no contractor will ignore the drawings and attempt to erect the framing before the foundation is firmly in place although this does not always seem to be the case (See the rather famous Shanghai apartment collapse photo below).

Actualizations are templates made real here in the Physical Realm of forms.  Once a template is actualized, the resulting form is here for all to see.  This is why Steven Weinberg, referred to earlier, was right that if Einstein had not written his five landmark papers in 1905 someone else would have done so.  The templates for each of the five papers were just waiting in the Metaphysical Realm for someone to actualize them.  Einstein was the person selected to do so.

Action

Without taking actions, nothing happens.  This is true for all three of the realms.  Interestingly, the actions become more “mellow” moving from the Spiritual Realm, through the Metaphysical Realm, to the Physical Realm.  The actions are:  inject, insert, and implement for these three realms respectively.

The Core of Consciousness, the defining characteristic of the Spiritual Realm, is quite determined and forceful in its actions.  When it decides to do something, it will happen.  Make no mistake about it.  Therefore, it injects the plan it has decided upon forcibly into the Metaphysical Realm to create an implementable template of that plan.  There is nothing really equivalent to the intensity of this in our normal human experience.  The nearest human equivalent is the force a spiritual teacher uses to inject an action into a student, confirming the well understand axiom that it is unwise to trifle with a spiritual teacher.

When in the Metaphysical Realm, the actions are milder than those of the Spiritual Realm.  The actions contained in the template are inserted into the Physical Realm to be implemented, not injected as in the case of the Spiritual Realm.  The action might be to insert a new idea at the right time to change the course of history.  Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses of 1517 that ushered in the Protestant Reformation come to mind.  They were quite a set of ideas that changed the world.

What if Martin Luther had only thought about the Ninety-Five Theses instead of writing them down?  If Martin Luther had stopped at thought, nothing would have happened.  They had been inserted, and Martin Luther heard them, yet he did nothing.  Luckily for Protestants, Martin Luther not only heard the Ninety-Five Theses, but he wrote them down.  By taking the action to write them out, Martin Luther implemented them.  How many times have you received an idea and did nothing, looking back ruing the day you sat unmoving?  Thought without action is next to nothing.

Being

Now we turn to a strictly anthropomorphic look at the three realms.  There is a different being in each of the three realms.  As one might expect, there is a spiritual being in the Spiritual Realm.  Although generally not recognized, the human being is in the Metaphysical Realm instead of the Physical Realm, while a physical being resides in the Physical Realm.

Of the three beings, the spiritual being of the Spiritual Realm is very far removed from the experience of most people.  Rarely does an individual come in contact with a spiritual being unless this individual enters one of the spiritual paths and studies under a spiritual teacher who has attained his or her spiritual being.  Historically, an individual who has attained this level of being is said to be “self-realized.”  Swami Muktananda, in his autobiography, Play of Consciousness, describes the process he went through to become self-realized.

There are two ways for an individual to attain the spiritual being.  The first, and historical way, is for the spiritual being to merge into a specially prepared human being.  Essentially, the spiritual being brings the Spiritual Realm into the human being in the Metaphysical Realm.  This special preparation calls for the completion of everything the human being had to do as well as the resolution of all outstanding issues.  The result is a human being that is an empty vessel.  Once empty, the spiritual being can enter the human being.  If the human being were not empty, there would be a conflict between the “here” desires of the human being and the “not here” mission of the spiritual being.

The second way to attain the spiritual being goes in the opposite direction.  Again, the human being is totally cleaned out.  Now, with everything done and over, the human being leaves.  What is left is an “I” and selected remnants of the individual’s past useful to the mission of the spiritual being.  These enter the Spiritual Realm and merge into the spiritual being there.  This way of attaining the spiritual being has only become available in the last few years.

Turning to the human being, it is the Metaphysical Realm entity that truly makes each of us human.  It is the template for how each of us fulfills our life in a physical body in the Physical Realm.  Every one of us has a human being consisting of a core and an operational arm.  The core contains the life purpose of the human being and the driving force to implement it, while the operational arm contains the information necessary to implement the life purpose.

The important thing to recognize in this discussion of the human being is that who we truly are is not here in the Physical Realm.  It is in the Metaphysical Realm.  This is counter to what most people think.  We experience only the result of its interface with the physical body.  For those technically inclined, there are nine centers that effect this interface – three mental centers, three emotional centers, and three physical centers.

The diagram below is a graphical depiction of the Dissociated Human Being of Stage 1, the first stage in the five stages of human evolution.  (The evolutionary progress of the human being organization will be discussed in a future post.)  The nine dots in the green circle represent the nine centers with the arrows pointing in opposite directions to illustrate the lack of integration of this human being; the Stage 1 human being name, the Dissociated Human Being, is symbolic of this lack of integration.

If you wonder whether you have experienced this human being in your dealings with others, it is the human being organization of your friends and neighbors with whom you are so thoroughly acquainted as well as almost everyone else on the planet.  Given the lack of integration of this human being, is it any wonder people have so many difficulties within themselves as well as with others.  (To learn more about the Schematic Diagram for the Dissociated Human Being shown in the figure and its use in understanding personality types please see Don Riso’s books such as Personality Types and Understanding the Enneagram.)

The physical being story is a more complex story than that for either the spiritual being or human being.  The physical being is not just the physical body.  Instead, it has three components: 1) the physical body with the individual’s specific DNA, 2) the human being that interfaces with this physical body, and 3) the personality shell resulting from early childhood conditioning.

The first component of the physical being, our physical body and its DNA underpinning, provides us with certain capabilities as well as certain limitations.  A young male five feet, six inches tall and weighing all of 160 pounds is not a professional football prospect no matter how much he feels otherwise.  Similarly, a very tall young lady may want to be a professional ballet dancer but this is unlikely unless she is a Judith Jamison.  At a more fundamental level, the DNA of our physical body defines each of us as a member of the human family instead of some other family of animals.  Most importantly, the human body we inhabit is not who we are.  It is our vehicle to operate here in the physical world.

As mentioned earlier, who we are, is in the Metaphysical Realm.  However, it is not left there beyond the reach of each of us living in a physical body.  The nine centers discussed above provide the interface between the human being of the Metaphysical Realm and the physical body.  The Schematic Diagram of the Stage 1 Dissociated Human Being illustrated above specifies these nine centers.  The three centers at the top are the physical/acting centers interfacing in the gut; the three centers on the right are the emotional/feeling centers interfacing at the heart level; and the three centers on the left are the mental/thinking centers interfacing at the brain level.  The green circle shows these nine centers in a vertical format that more clearly shows how they interface with the physical body.

More important than most realize is the overwhelming impact on individuals of early childhood conditioning during the first five years of life.  For most people, this conditioning controls their life, generally without them even realizing it.  This early childhood conditioning includes the family of origin with its strengths and weaknesses; ethnic and racial background; cultural stories and myths; community, regional and national origin; early educational experiences; and religion indoctrination.

Depending on the characteristics of your human being and physical body, you reacted to this early childhood conditioning in different ways, some positive and some not so positive.  One of the most poignant examples of the power of upbringing was the suicide of Neil Perry in the movie Dead Poets Society.  Neil chose suicide rather than submitting to the demands of his father.  Look at your own life.  Are there aspects of your life that seem to run on autopilot?  Could it be that early childhood conditioning might be the cause?

This brings us to the end of a rather long sojourn in the three realms.  This is the first in a series of posts for Part III, The Three Realms:  Foundation of the Universe of The Future of Humanity book.  The next post in this series will discuss the Spiritual Realm in more detail followed by a post describing how the Core of Consciousness produces the Universe.

Copyright © 2011 by John A. Wolaver

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Changing the Guard: There is Only One Economy in the Future – An Earth Economy

Posted on August 8, 2011 by John Wolaver

Historically, we developed three separate economies with varying degrees of linkage among the three.  This threesome has reached the end of it efficacy.  From now on, there will be only one economy, an Earth economy.

Several authors have talked about these three historical economies, the natural economy of the Earth, the human economy that produces goods and services utilizing labor and natural resources, and, finally, the money economy.  John Michael Greer in his recent book, The Wealth of Nature:  Economics as if Survival Mattered, on page 67 describes the three economies in this way:

If the primary economy consists of the natural processes that provide goods and services to human beings without human labor, and the secondary economy consists of the conjunction of human labor and natural goods that produces the goods and services Nature itself doesn’t provide, the tertiary economy consists of the circulation of monetary goods and financial services that, in theory, fosters the distribution of the products of the primary and secondary economies, and in practice – at least at present – obscures crucial trends in the primary and secondary economies behind a fog of paper wealth.

Nate Hagens, in a similar vein, referring to E. F. Schumacher’s book, Small is Beautiful, and Schumacher’s discussion of real wealth, said this in a Chris Martenson podcast entitled We’re Not Facing A Shortage of Energy, But A Longage of Expectations:

Wealth is our primary capital; our trees and our rivers. And secondary capital is what we do with that; turn things into lumber and tractors, etc. And then tertiary capital is stocks and bonds and derivatives of that. So I think we have focused too much on the tertiary measures of our wealth, when they’re really just markers. And these financial markers have far outpaced our real capital. And that is kind of the elephant in the room, in our conversations about the economy in the future, that people are ignoring. They just assume that the dollars are the real markers.

So, history tells us there are three economies with a rather intractable relationship among the three.  In the main, humanity has ignored the first economy of nature seeing nature as a source of resources and sink for pollution for what we produced in the second economy.  The result of this practiced ignorance of nature’s import is the destruction of the natural economy upon which we ultimately depend.  It is obvious the third economy of money all too often sees both the primary and secondary economies as fruitful resources to be exploited for financial gain.

In a cooperative, Earth-based society to which we are now transitioning, there is only one economy, an Earth economy.  This economy is the economy of nature into which we fit.  This is a rather abrupt change for humanity.  For all too long, we saw ourselves as separate from nature and superior to it.  In our state of separation, we were confident we could subdue nature and bring it under our control.  Our separation from, and control of, nature is now over.

It is time now for us to learn what it means for us to fit into nature.  First, we take our hands off the controls, release nature, and let it manage itself.  It is totally capable of doing this.  After all, it has been around a few more million years than we have.  Turning to our human systems, all our biological systems, such as food systems and human waste systems, become non-polluting systems tightly coupled with the Earth’s Biosphere.  Similarly, all goods and service producing systems will also non-polluting.  It would be ideal if these systems were tightly linked with the Earth’s Biosphere.  However, as a practical matter, this requires too great a stretch from where we are today.  So, the goal for our goods and service producing systems will be bio-mimicry, eschewing destructive high-temperature and high-pressure technologies.  Finally, money becomes an Earth resource.  It is no longer a human artifact separate from the Earth.

Copyright © 2011 by John A. Wolaver

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Three Major Forces are Driving Societal Change

Posted on August 3, 2011 by John Wolaver

It is becoming increasingly evident to more and more people that humanity is in the midst of a profound transition from what we have known since our very beginnings some two million years ago to a totally new world.  One epoch is ending, and another is starting.

We have left the world of hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, and mutually exclusionary localized societies with which we are so well acquainted.  A new world is being born; this new world will be the first cooperative, Earth-based global society.

To ensure the completion of this transition, all the support structures for the old world of hierarchical control, adversarial competition, and mutual exclusivity have been obliterated all the way down to the very idea of such a world in the Spiritual Realm.  All that is left are the physical systems of our civilization bereft of any supporting structures to ensure their continuance.

To remove the last vestiges of these physical systems, three major driving forces are now in place to ensure their demise.  They are:

1. Collapse due to Planetary Overshoot:  Human systems have overshot the carrying capacity of the Earth.  This reality will be used to complete the destruction of civilization as we know it.  We will return to a level where we can once again take our rightful place among all the inhabitants of this Earth.  We will blend in with the rest of life and the Earth instead of being separate from both.

2. Core of Consciousness will Destroy the Wealthy Elites:  The wealthy elites of history had a very important role to play.  Some group had to manage society once we left the hunter-gather stage and entered sedentary agricultural life with its increasingly complex societal structures.  The wealthy elites performed this role admirably, although rarely pleasantly.

It could not have been otherwise.  The defining characteristics of the evolutionary stage we just left were adversarialness, competition, and mutual exclusivity, a very difficult mix to manage.  Compounding this was the reality that individually we had not evolved to a point where we could dispense with hierarchical control.  We were simply too immature and lacked the necessary inner integration.  To support a cooperative society, people will slowly but surely rectify these issues.

Now that humanity is in the transition to a cooperative, Earth-based society that is global in extent, the wealthy elites are in the way.  They have outlived their purpose.  They are adversarial, competitive, and set themselves apart from the rest of humanity.  From their position on high, they embody the antithesis of cooperation and disdain for the Earth.  The Core of Consciousness will destroy them if they are not wise enough to step gracefully out of the way of an unstoppable evolutionary advance for humanity.

3. Core of Consciousness Charged the Earth with the Responsibility to Reduce Population:  Sadly there are too many people, in too small a space (our finite Earth), using too many resources.  This cannot continue; the Core of Consciousness has charged the Earth with the responsibility to reduce population back to a level that is in keeping with the Earth and the rest of life.  It cannot be otherwise in a cooperative, Earth-based society.

Copyright © 2011 by John A. Wolaver

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Regarding the Wealthy Elites

Posted on July 13, 2011 by John Wolaver

Since the beginnings of civilization some 5,500 years ago, the few have dominated the many.  The wealthy elites have sought power, position, profit, and property to the detriment of the many whether it was the slave owning classes of the ancient world, the feudal lords and their serfs of the Middle Ages or the monetary wealthy of today and their workers.  It could not have been otherwise given the evolutionary stage of humanity.  It was the only way society could evolve.  Now it is over.

Today, humanity is making the great transition to a cooperative, Earth-based society.  It is leaving the hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, and exclusionary societies of civilization behind.  The wealthy elites can no longer hold power for they embody the antithesis of cooperation and a deep disdain for the Earth.  Their job is over and done.  They will not be allowed to stand in the way of the transition to a cooperative, Earth-based society.

The Core of Consciousness will keep pounding on them until they break; keep pounding until all possibilities to keep going are destroyed.  This is the way of complete destruction.  There will be absolutely nothing left for them to try.  The complete destruction of the power of the wealthy few over the many is mandatory for humanity to evolve to a cooperative, Earth-based society.

To address the power of the wealthy elites, the Core of Consciousness is using the very effective, traditional spiritual technique of “not this, not this.”  Using this technique, the Core of Consciousness will send the wealthy elites down one dead-end path after another as they try to maintain their power over society and the many.  Each attempt will end in failure until all possibilities to maintain power have been exhausted.  With the failure of the last possibility, the destruction of their power is complete.

It makes complete sense for the Core of Consciousness to employ the “not this, not this” technique at this time.  All the structures supporting history’s hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, and exclusionary civilization have been destroyed all the way down to the enabling idea that formed the foundation for civilization in the Spiritual Realm.  With no supports remaining to undergird the power of the wealthy elites, it is more efficient to employ this technique now instead of earlier when the supports were still in place.

Copyright © 2011 by John A. Wolaver

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Money, Well-Being, and the Earth

Posted on June 23, 2011 by John Wolaver

Debt, interest, financial return, and profit have nothing to do with the Earth.  They are extractive technologies, based on money, that are totally antithetical to the Earth.  These extractive technologies are the heart and soul of money; all a creation of the human mind the elites appropriated for their own benefit at the dawn of civilization.  Through their control of money and these extractive technologies based on money, the elites have dominated civilization’s hierarchically structured, adversarially competitive, and exclusionary societies ever since.

Monetary Extraction

The few extract money from the many and the Earth using three primary extractive technologies.  They are:

Direct Extraction: Debt and interest are Direct Extraction.  Money is created to make money.  Money is created “out of thin air” and loaned to people at interest.  Because only the principle is created “out of thin air,” the economy must grow to generate the money necessary to make the interest payments.

There is something totally wrong about charging interest for something created “out of thin air.”  It is even worse that the lender, risking nothing at all, has the legal right to take the assets pledged to back a loan whenever the borrower defaults.  This is truly getting something for nothing.  Beyond all this, interest grows exponentially to infinity while the Earth is as finite as ever, an impossible contradiction to maintain. Those who control money creation control Direct Extraction.  Not surprisingly, global bankers and central banks are the masters of this universe.

Indirect Extraction: Financial return is Indirect Extraction. Money used to make money.  There are two forms of Indirect Extraction.  The first, and more extreme version, is Virtual Indirect Extraction.  Here, money making is totally removed from the real world.  It lives in a virtual reality, a virtual soap of synthetic vehicles.  Banks and other similarly situated organizations own the Indirect Extraction business.

The second version is Physical Indirect Extraction where investors purchase physical assets, or the rights to physical assets, with the goal of monetary return.  Those who have the money take over physical assets to make more money at the expense of people and the Earth.  Then, to improve their rate of return, those with money borrow even more money to increase their leverage.  This brings us full circle back to the money created “out of thin air” model.  This second version of Indirect Extraction is the business of the wealthy elites and is often no more than a form of gambling.

Resource Extraction: Profit is the hallmark of Resource Extraction.  Here, money is extracted from people and the planet through monetary profit.  In short, people and the planet are used to create profit.  The resources of the Earth are converted into money through the work of people and the machines they tend.  This is the realm of corporations and their wealthy owners.

Corporations have taken profit extraction to the extreme.  Corporate Boards of Directors in the United States have a legally mandated fiduciary obligation to the shareholders to ensure financial return above all else.  There is no room for people, no room for the Earth.

An attempt to rectify this myopic failure is the triple bottom line.  It is well intentioned but does not address the real issue.  We humans are totally dependent upon the Earth.  We have nowhere else to go.  It is here or nowhere at all.  There is only room for one bottom line, one profit:  meeting human needs in keeping with the Earth.  Such a profit, as it should, defies measurement in monetary terms.

In all three cases of monetary extraction, the few use the many and the Earth to increase their monetary stock.  The goal is aggrandizement of the few instead of the well-being of the many in keeping with the Earth.  It is a strategy as old as civilization.  It is one of the hallmarks of civilization.

Money and Markets versus Well-Being in Keeping with the Earth

Markets are the vehicle to extract money through debt, interest, financial return, and profit.  Markets, by their design, extract money from people and the planet by using both for the benefit of the few.  There would not be such a great interest in monetizing and privatizing the world into markets if this were not the case.  The concept of markets and their money producing potential has put humanity into an ideological straitjacket.

We have come to the end of the line.  The long ascent of humanity is over.  It started eons ago with humanity organized into small bands followed by tribes.  Then, some 10,000 years ago, humanity made the great transition to the early agricultural villages.  After that, in rapid succession, we moved on to city-states, nation states with their history of colonizing the world, and finally to today’s globalization.

We have pushed the envelope as far as it can, and will, go.  Today, we are totally removed from the Earth and have attained the goal this separation made possible.  The goal, hierarchical global integration, has been achieved, a globe girding financial and corporate hegemony totally untethered from the Earth.

Humanity is moving on now.  The world of hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, and exclusionary societies that are antithetical to the Earth is over.  When one world is over another begins.  Humanity is moving now to a world of cooperative, Earth-based societies embedded within a global perspective.  Such a world meets the needs of people and the planet, most of all the planet.

Humanity must grow up.  Our childhood and adolescence are over.  We must learn what it means to cooperative with each other and the Earth.  We must learn what it means to live in an Earth-based society.  The time is now.  There is no going back.  The Age of Extraction is over.  It was a long run, but it is over and done.

In this new world of cooperative, Earth-based societies, there is no room for the few against the many, for money and markets versus the well-being of people and the planet.  We must learn what well-being for all means in such a society.

Both Maslow and Manfred Max Neef have suggested structures of well-being based on human needs:  the first hierarchical, the second a matrix.  There is a third approach; an integrative approach based on The Ten Principles of a Cooperative, Earth-based Society, the foundation for the now emerging cooperative, Earth-based future of humanity.  These principles are at the heart of an integral well-being for all humanity not just for the few – a humanity that is cooperative, a humanity that is Earth-based.

The Ten Principles of a Cooperative, Earth-based Society

Because these ten principles are the foundation for a cooperative, Earth-based society, they are at the heart of a well-being for all and will guide the next stage of humanity’s evolution.

The Ten Principles of a Cooperative, Earth-based Society

  1. Take care of the young, the old, the sick, the needy, and the infirm.
  2. Be truly who you are and none other.
  3. Take responsibility to live your life according to its purpose and pattern; ensure there is beauty and harmony in all that you do.
  4. Cooperate with others to implement your purpose and pattern.
  5. Ensure at all times you are honest with yourself and in your dealings with everyone and everything.
  6. Treat every person and thing with dignity and respect; everyone and everything is important and worthy of respect.
  7. Covet all life, both animate and inanimate (i.e., respect all conscious forms).
  8. Treat the Earth with the respect it is due; accept we are part of the Earth and that we are totally dependent upon it for our very existence.
  9. Realize everything is related and must be taken into account.
  10. Realize everything is sacred.

Integral Well-Being and the Future of Humanity

Integral Well-Being replaces the Four P’s – power, position, profit, and property – of a dying hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, and exclusionary civilization.  Integral Well-Being is cooperative and Earth-based.  The Ten Principles of a Cooperative, Earth-based Society are at its heart.

The integral nature of well-being with The Ten Principles at its core can best be expressed as a wheel of twelve spokes.  Its hub represents The Ten Principles, the axis from which the twelve aspects of well-being radiate and relate to each other as a systemic whole.

The Twelve aspects are an integral system.  Therefore, they are not a hierarchy as in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs where you sequentially gain the hierarchical levels in stepwise fashion.  Nor are they the matrix of Manfred Max Neef, although his matrix is more to the point where in any environment or economic strata the various elements of the matrix are always present.  The wheel structure of Integral Well-Being takes the analysis one step further by emphasizing the importance of The Ten Principles of a Cooperative, Earth-Based society as the hub around which the twelve aspects of well-being evolve.

Although the twelve aspects of Integral Well-Being are a system instead of separate components, it is useful to look at each aspect separately to get a sense of its importance to the whole.  Once this is understood, a systemic view of the whole is more easily grasped.  Therefore, turning to each aspect in turn:

• Basic Needs: Basic needs, as the phrase implies, are the rudimentary requirements for life.  In order of need, they are air, water, food, clothing, shelter, energy, and security.  One might ask why this order?  You only live a few minutes without air, while in the larger sense clean air is the birthright of every living creature including humans.  A humanity that questions this, thinking it can negotiate probabilities of death resulting from levels of various pollutants, has truly lost its way.

After air, one lives only a few days without water.  The question of having pure water to drink should not even be a question if humanity truly lived in keeping with the Earth.  Next comes food.  An individual can live only a few weeks, at most, without food.  Again, why has humanity thought they could produce food without concern for the Earth?  Without the Earth, we have nothing.  We are totally dependent upon the Earth for all that we eat.

Air, water, and food are the most basic of needs.  Next come clothing, shelter, energy, and security.  Clothing obviously protects people from the elements, allowing us to live in less hospitable climates.  However, clothing produced from non-renewable resources is not a very intelligent long-term choice.  After clothing comes shelter, the need for a more permanent protection from the elements and a place of meeting and repose.  Enough has been said about the need for shelter design and construction in keeping with the Earth that little more needs to be said.  It is way past time to become serious about truly Earth-based shelter.

Energy is fundamentally the ability to do work.  Nothing gets done without it.  The only questions are what kinds of energy are available and in what concentrations, how much energy is required to acquire the desired energy, what are these energies used for, and are these energy sources and their uses in keeping with the Earth.  Here, more than any other place, humanity has been living in a dream world.  We wanted “something for nothing” and we thought we gained it with fossil fuels.

If the founding of the Bank of England in 1694 set the foundation for modern capitalism, then the discovery of fossil fuels provided the energy to do the work from which modern capitalism reaped the benefits.  They were two sides of the same coin that supported the exploding aggrandizement of power, position, profit, and property in the following centuries.  Now we have reached the end of the line and, as with shelter, it is way past time to get serious about energy and what it means in a cooperative, Earth-based society.

Finally, we come to the last of the basic needs:  security.  Security, since the beginning of civilization, has been based on power through the hierarchical control of people.  When security became a question, the answer was the application of increased power and control based on hierarchy.  What else could security be given a world defined by hierarchical control, adversarial competitiveness, and exclusionary societies?  Now, we have to learn the meaning of security in a cooperative, Earth-based society.  Control, hierarchy, adversarial competition, and exclusion are antithetical to cooperation.  They are antithetical to the Earth.  They must go.

We will have to learn that true security comes from cooperating with others in a community environment centered upon the Earth.  This becomes much easier when the “many replace the few,” where extraction by the few no longer exists, and where every person has a voice.  It will be quite a learning experience.

• Life Purpose and Meaningful Work: We must learn that every person born on the Earth has a life purpose, a reason to be here.  We will also have to learn that no one life purpose is better, or more important, than any other life purpose.  They are all important, and the people bringing each life purpose are worthy of respect and honor.  In a cooperative, Earth-based society all life purposes are required to make a whole.

Every individual fulfills their life purpose to the best of their ability by cooperating with others in an Earth-based society.  The way each individual implements his or her life purpose is unique to that particular individual.  It is their own unique pattern and is based on three fundamental components:  their beingness, who they truly are “beneath it all,” their heredity expressed through DNA, and their early childhood conditioning.  The community, in a cooperative society, will expend significant time and effort to help individuals determine who they truly are, where their skills, aptitudes, and interests lie, what their life purpose is, and how best to manifest it.

At the other end of the spectrum, communities will expend an equal effort to address early childhood conditioning to ensure it has a beneficial rather than a deleterious influence upon each individual.  Sources of early childhood conditioning include:  the immediate family with its beliefs, desires, capabilities and deficiencies, community demands, educational pressures, religious indoctrination as well as national, ethic, and racial backgrounds.

Why is this emphasis on early childhood conditioning so important?  What happens to a child in the first five years of life leaves an indelible imprint on that individual for the rest of his or her life.  In today’s world of hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, and exclusionary relationships, the result of early childhood conditioning is an extremely tight control that few recognize in themselves or others.  It manifests as a hard, practically impenetrable personality shell that is profoundly resistant to change.  It has been likened to a hard coconut shell requiring multiple hard hammer blows to break apart.

Today, the personality shell is mandatory.  First, too many people have serious left-right imbalances in thinking, feeling, and acting.  For example, people are too analytical or too holistic, too emotive or too emotionally withdrawn, or too physically assertive or not assertive enough.  There is truly a lack of left-right balance.  Second, there is a lack of integration between thinking, feeling, and acting.  Some people live almost exclusively in their heads; others prefer to live in their emotions; another group of people find physicality to be their preferred solution.  Third, the harmful effects of early childhood conditioning mean many, if not most, individuals are immature.  They have little children running around inside.  The ages of these children are typically that of a baby, a five-year old, or a ten-year old.  Some individuals also get stuck at age two or in their teenage years.  The personality shell performs an important function, holding all this together.  Simultaneously, the ego, the self-centered “I,” tries to control this essentially fragmented being.

This brings us to the heart of the matter.  To cooperate effectively, people must become more integrated.  Specifically, left-right integration of thinking, feeling, and acting must become more integrated.  We must move beyond the right-left brain dichotomy.  In addition, the integration between thinking, feeling, and acting must be greatly improved.

There are two ways for this improved integration to occur.  On the one hand, people will come in whose beingness is more integrated and, hence, more amenable to cooperation.  On the other hand, families, parents, and individuals working together as a community will learn how to raise young people in their first five years of life so the early childhood experience is a positive and reinforcing one.  When this happens, a physical persona that more nearly reflects the beingness within and the life purpose it wants to express replaces the very hard personality shell of today.  Also, the self-centered ego is no longer required, giving way to an “I” that is more amenable to cooperation.

More integrated individuals with a life purpose to fulfill will demand meaningful work.  Meaningful work is not a nine to five job that pays the rent and puts food on the table.  It is exactly what it means:  work that is meaningful.  This is work that is meaningful in the eyes of the individual.  This is work that can realize a life purpose.  This is work where individuals cooperate with others to implement their life purpose according the pattern of how they do things.  This is work that is in keeping with the Earth.  Nothing less will do.

• Communicating and Relating: “No man is an island” to borrow a well-worn phrase.  Humans are social animals.  We like to communicate and relate.  There are very few individuals who prefer to live in isolation.  The question is how we communicate and relate in a cooperative, Earth-based society.

Up until the Industrial Revolution, people communicated and related person-to-person, almost exclusively in their own communities.  The Industrial Revolution brought railroads, steam ships, automobiles, airplanes, and more.  Relating in person was no longer limited to local communities.  All this was dependent on fossil fuels.  In the 20th Century, we experienced the revolution in electromagnetic communications, bringing with it virtual relating.  Again, the dependence on a fossil fuel driven industrial system made virtual relating possible.

Also, in the 20th Century, we took mobility, how we move from one place to another, to the extreme.  The automobile came to the fore.  One automobile was great, a few were just fine, but millions of cars being driven too many miles in too small a physical space spelled disaster.  Not only did gridlock and pollution result, but, more importantly, community and the communications and relatedness that community brings were slowly, but surely, snuffed out.

Cars became the new people.  They were totally individualized and totally dependent on non-renewable fossil fuels.  None of this works in a cooperative, Earth-based society.

Mobility, in the main, will have to be replaced by access.  People want, and need, easy access to others for work, play, shopping, and the other basic needs and pleasures of life without needless expense of time, energy, and the depletion of the Earth.  This suggests a resurgence of the role of community in person-to-person relating and communicating for most of our daily needs.  In a community, things are close enough for people to access them by walking, biking, or riding community provided conveyances.  A community thrives on cooperation so it is the ideal solution for access in an Earth-based society.

For longer distance interactions, virtual relating via electromagnetic communication systems fills a need.  However, in the end, virtual relating lacks a major component of human relating, empathy.  People need to physically see and touch one another to have an empathetic relationship.  Video communications help but are none the less still limited. Video is better than nothing when very large distances spanning continents are involved.

So, we are back to mobility for longer distance physical interactions.  Electrified trains are the most logical solution available today.  They can run on electricity produced from ecologically sound energy sources.  What is required is really effective and efficient energy storage.  However, this is the critical issue for ecologically sound sources of energy generally so its solution is paramount.

One might suggest that electricity from ecologically sound sources of energy is to a cooperative, Earth-based society what fossil fuels were to the dying Industrial Age.  In no way will this be reconstituting industrial society on a new basis.  It will be a profoundly different society, a cooperative, Earth-based society where everything is in keeping with the Earth, including human needs.

• Health and Happiness: Without health there is no happiness and without happiness there is no health.  Sadly, people in the modern world think they can buy happiness.  Just one more trinket, one more purchase, and happiness will be within their grasp.  Yet, research shows little correlation between income and happiness beyond an income to meet the most basic needs.  So, why do people work more now than ever chasing an impossible dream?  Worse, the production and acquisition of more and more things cannot be supported by a finite world.

We have to return to the basics of life, to the little things, to find happiness:  the gift of love, a walk in the woods, sharing a story, helping another person.  This requires letting go and simply living.  It is taking the time to breathe deeply and live in the present.  All this is the antithesis of the drive for more things, more power, more position, more profit, and more property.  All these things are gone the minute we die.  Yet, the little things live on in the remembrances of others.

So, one can say that happiness comes before health.  We really have to slow down to live healthy lives.  Yet, at some point, we realize our health may become impaired.  Where do we turn?  In today’s world, we turn to doctors if we have the money and hope for the best.  Again, we are under the illusion money can buy not only happiness but also health.

In tomorrow’s world, for health, we will turn to the community and the support only it can provide.  We will understand there is more to healing than surgery and drugs.  We will understand the total support of a community working cooperatively in keeping with the Earth provides the framework for healing.  In such a world, doctors become healers and the community becomes the handmaiden of healing.

In the end, once basic needs are met, health and happiness result from an integration of the remaining ten aspects of Integral Well-Being within a loving and supportive community.

• Creative Expression and Learning: I am a machine.  I work for a living.  I slave at a job.  I do what I am told.  This has been the message for the last 5,500 years of civilization and preeminently the message of the Industrial Age.  It is over.  It was a world based on power – power over people; power over the Earth.

The emerging cooperative, Earth-based world is based on information, information that is freely shared, rather than power.  How can people cooperate when information is hoarded and hidden behind walls of intellectual property?  It is a contradiction in terms.

In a world of freely flowing information, creative expression and learning in all their forms come to the fore.  Why does this even matter?  We, both individually and humanity as a whole, have a very steep learning curve ahead of us.  On the one hand, how do we learn to cooperate with each other and the Earth?  On the other hand, how do we learn to live in an Earth-based society that treats the Earth with the respect it is due?  This will take all the creativity and true learning we can bring to bear.

In particular, the importance of cultural advancement and scientific understanding will be the hallmark of this age of information.  Culturally and scientifically we will have to learn how humanity, individually and as a group, is to live as part of the Earth community.  With the emerging recognition we are not alone in the Universe, we will have to find out where we fit as part of the Universe.  It is not surprising we are finding out how ubiquitous planets are just when we are being called to grow and transform to a more holistic view of our place on the Earth and in the Universe.  Beyond all this, what does it mean for each of us to be human, a member of the Earth family, and part of the Universe as a whole?

• Leisure and Play: Without leisure and play, there can be no creativity or creative expression.  Creativity cannot be instructed, controlled, or mandated.  It comes of its own free will.  This should not surprise anyone.  Creativity does not come from the here of our physical existence anymore than the ideas and concepts that underlie it.  Has anyone ever seen a creative idea walking down the street?  Ideas sneak in unexpectedly from elsewhere, an elsewhere defying ownership.  Leisure and play provide the environment for their arrival.

Yet, today, work, and more work, is the hallmark of society.  We have become slaves to clock and dollar sign.  Ironically, the call goes out for innovation and more creativity.  Then, if this is what we truly want, let’s provide for leisure and play.  Let’s enshrine them at the center of life.

The world of ever increasing growth is over.  Leisure and play provide the antidote.  Ever increasing growth was a mania like the unending work that fueled it.  It is, and always was, an impossibility in a finite world.  Let’s turn from unending wants to well-defined needs.  Let’s fulfill these needs in keeping with a life purpose, a life purpose that includes within itself leisure and play.  There is nothing glorious in pushing ourselves to do ever more.  It is time to relax and enjoy the world, to see beauty and harmony in the world and in all that we do.

• Individuality and Belonging: Without belonging there is no meaningful individuality.  Individuality drifts on a sea of meaninglessness when divorced from others.  Today, individuality has run amuck.  It is the cry of the disembodied ego calling out to an uncaring world:  “Look at me.”

We have to regain what it means to be human.  This means regaining what it means to be part of a community, to be at one with the Earth.  Once we regain this, our individuality can be expressed within an integrated wholeness from which we offer our gifts to the world around us.

• Family and Community: Where have family and community gone?  What caused their departure?  Was it the hour commutes in stop and go traffic?  Was it the sixty-hour workweeks and a 24/7 always on call lifestyle?  Or, more than anything else, was it the clamoring of a money-based market economy demanding more and more?  Are we healthier and happier for all of this?  Do we miss the leisure and play that were our human birthright before they were destroyed by the ever-accelerating demands forced upon us by agriculture and civilization?

It is time to put this behind us.  It is time to reclaim family and community.  Not the family and community of a narrow village life in an exclusionary world, but a cooperative family and community with a global perspective rooted in the Earth.  It will be an exciting time to be alive.  It will be a time when we learn every person is important and worthy of respect.  When we learn, yet again, it is the role of family and community to care for the young, the old, the sick, the needy, and the infirm.

• Love and Affection: Love and affection provide the antidote to our extreme self-centered individuality.  Yet in history’s world of hierarchical power and control, love and affection have no place.  In history’s world, it is “reasons of state,” “Realpolitik,” “survival of the fittest,” and “might makes right.”  It is a world of the misshapen and deformed grasping for power and control.

It could not have been otherwise, once agriculture brought a surplus to be expropriated.  Those who had been held in check in hunter-gatherer societies now came to the fore.  The inherent imbalances, lack of integration, and failures of upbringing now found center stage.

Thankfully, the world of civilization is now over.  Humanity is moving on.  Our imbalances are being healed, our lack of integration is being corrected, and love and affection in the context of family and community will finally address the failures of upbringing.  With these changes, humans, for the first time, will have the ability to engage one another in a world of cooperative, Earth-based societies.

• Freedom and Equality: Without freedom there is no equality.  Freedom and equality are necessary for a cooperative society to function.  However, it is freedom with responsibility for how you act and how you interact with others.

Nothing is ever free.  There is always a price to pay and the price of freedom is responsibility to self and others.  Regarding equality, there can be no second-class citizens in a cooperative society.  Second class defines hierarchy, and hierarchy is the antithesis of cooperation.  Hierarchy is power over others not cooperation with others.  Each and every person is important in a cooperative, Earth-based world.  Every life purpose with its associated pattern of implementation is important.  None is better, nor worse, than any other.  They all just are as they are.

• Dignity and Respect: Dignity and respect are at the heart of what it means to be human in a cooperative, Earth-based society.  Dignity and respect demand honesty with yourself and in your dealings with everyone and everything.  Everyone and everything is important, is to be treated with dignity, and is worthy of respect, not just those you deem worthy of dignified treatment and respect but everyone and everything on planet Earth.  Dignity and respect mean most of all respect for the Earth in all its aspects, animate and inanimate.

• Growth and Transformation: Humanity’s evolution from hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, and exclusionary societies to globally oriented, cooperative, Earth-based societies will require growth and transformation at all levels.  It will be going through a discontinuity the likes of which we have never seen before.  It will require all that we have and more.

 

It will require growth and transformation to understand how we are to live on this Earth.  It will require growth and transformation in our spiritual understanding of the Earth and Universe.  It will require growth and transformation to understand our place here on the Earth and as citizens of the Universe.  We will have to learn that everything is related and must be taken into account; that everything is sacred.  It will be a revolutionary time in which humanity emerges from the cocoon of our upbringing and, for the first time, becomes a responsible citizen of the Earth and Universe.

Conclusion

History’s hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, and exclusionary civilization is over.  It is done.  Its foundations have been shattered.  All that is left is a flywheel slowly running down.  Society as we have known it is over.

A new world is being born:  a world of cooperative, Earth-based societies embedded within a global perspective.  There is much to do.  The past is over.  It is time to get started.

Copyright © 2011 by John A. Wolaver

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A Thought on Economic Foundations

Posted on June 21, 2011 by John Wolaver

Has the economic foundation of society really changed over the millennia?  We see the Roman Empire as an agricultural empire with comparatively little industry.  We look back at this dependence in often disparaging terms.  Are we not so much more advanced today?  We have a globe spanning, high-tech, industrial empire.  Just look at how far we have advanced.

Yet, is not food the economic foundation of any society?  People have to eat to live.  Without enough food to eat, we can all forget about our globe spanning, high-tech society.  Food, and the agricultural system, to produce the required food is truly the economic foundation of any society.

Ironically, our society is far more fragile than the ancient world’s societies such as Rome.  We depend on non-renewable fossil fuels to provide our food.  This demand is insatiable.  For every calorie of food we eat, we eat 9 to 10 calories of fossil fuels.  Contrast this with Rome.  Roman agriculture used renewable solar energy to produce their food.  Yes, their agricultural system collapsed with the collapse of the Roman Empire.  However, what will happen to us now that fossil fuel extraction has peaked?

The bottom line:  The economic foundation of any society is agriculture.  Very simply, people have to eat the live.  It is time to get serious about agriculture in a world of depleting fossil fuels.

Copyright © 2011 by John A. Wolaver

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Introduction to The Future of Humanity

Posted on May 31, 2011 by John Wolaver

The world is in the early stages of one of history’s most fundamental transitions.  This is a period of seminal change, both in its depth and in its breadth.  We are seeing change reaching to the core of what spirituality means, what it means to be human, how institutions operate, how societies are organized, how humanity relates to the Earth and Universe, as well as, a shift in the humanity’s understanding of how the Earth and Universe function.

The world is in the middle of making a historic transition from the localized, adversarially competitive societies that characterized civilization from its earliest beginnings to cooperative, Earth-based societies that are global in orientation.  Ushering in this transition to the next evolutionary stage of humanity are The Ten Principles of a Cooperative, Earth-based Society.  These ten principles form the foundation for a cooperative, Earth-based society, a society aligned to the Earth.

The Ten Principles
of a Cooperative, Earth-Based Society

 

  1. Take care of the young, the old, the sick, the needy, and the infirm.
  2. Be truly who you are and none other.
  3. Take responsibility to live your life according to its purpose and pattern; ensure there is beauty and harmony in all that you do.
  4. Cooperate with others to implement your purpose and pattern.
  5. Ensure at all times you are honest with yourself and in your dealings with everyone and everything.
  6. Treat every person and thing with dignity and respect; everyone and everything is important and worthy of respect.
  7. Covet all life, both animate and inanimate (i.e., respect all conscious forms).
  8. Treat the Earth with the respect it is due; accept we are part of the Earth and that we are totally dependent upon it for our very existence.
  9. Realize everything is related and must be taken into account.
  10. Realize everything is sacred.

The Implications:  The Impact on Humanity

With the advent of globally oriented, cooperative, Earth-based societies, a new cooperative template for society replaces the old adversarial template.  We do not have the capability to put this template in place.  Instead, Consciousness puts this template in place.

Why is this happening at this time in history?  Consciousness has determined the job of history’s hierarchically controlled, adversarially competitive, exclusionary societies is done.  Humanity has attained hierarchical globalization, the endpoint for our current stage of societal evolution.  Humanity now has a global perspective.  Furthermore, the work of developing the neocortex is complete.  We now have the analytical capabilities to be able to understand at a deeper level how the Earth and Universe function.

Underpinning the development of our global perspective and analytical capabilities was a remarkable spiritual journey that formed the foundation for these achievements.  Some 20,000 years ago, humanity started on a trajectory that left the Earth-based Great Spirit traditions to venture “up and out.”  This transition is now complete.  Spiritually, humanity has gone as far as possible “up and out.”  Now, humanity is to return to its spiritual roots in the Earth.

There is no need for humanity to keep trying to push the envelope.  It cannot be done nor will it be allowed.  Instead, the slow, but steady, dismantling of our current civilization and mode of thinking, and of doing things, will continue to disintegrate.  Very simply, the underlying structures supporting our civilization have been destroyed.

With the recognition humanity will, and must, transition to a cooperative, Earth-based, what are the implications for individuals, their organizations, and for society as a whole?  Individuals will move to a cooperative internal structure.  The current structure of human beings is dissociated and lacks coherence.  One can see this in oneself when in school, and “you know” you have to study but another “I” inside you keeps demanding it is time to go out and play.  All too often, you go out and play.  Just watching one’s inner dialogue will bring to the fore many such adversarially competitive, win-lose dialogues.  Of course, a “strong” Ego and the results of early childhood conditioning in the first five years of live are attempts to overcome the “conflict of the I’s.”

In a cooperative human being, the structure substantially changes.  Instead of competing “I’s,” the human being structure is one of groups working together.  A good analogy is a group sitting around a circular table (definitely not a rectangular table) resolving issues.  In the human context, the thinking centers now works together as a group, the same for the feeling centers, and for the acting centers.  Furthermore, at this first stage of cooperation, there is a weak linkage of thinking, feeling, and acting.  The result is an individual who has greater inner capabilities to cooperative, both internally and with others.

At the organizational level, cooperative, information intensive systems replace the fractured, adversarially competitive orientation of today’s organizations.  Rectangular tables will be banished and replaced by round tables.  Hierarchy will be necessary to the extent it is required by the still limited degree of integration exhibited by the weak linkage of thinking, feeling, and acting within individuals.  However, this hierarchical will be “bottoms up” where each level in a hierarchy will address issues cooperatively that are more appropriately, and easily, resolved at that level.  In a very real sense, there is cooperation at a specific level and between levels where the lower levels cooperatively delegate issues to the next level of a hierarchy at their discretion.

Turning to the societal level, the structure of society is comparable to that of an organization.  Local neighborhood groups (or virtual groups as applicable) work cooperatively to resolve issues.  When appropriate, issues are delegated to the next higher level of the hierarchy.  Typical higher levels include the town, local region, and larger, typically ecologically based, regions.

However, there will still be disagreements and conflicts between individuals, within organizations, and between various societies around the globe.  Civilization’s solution was graduated conflict up to, and including, all out war lead by leaders.  In a cooperative society, mediators replace leaders.  To be a great mediator will be the hallmark of distinction in a cooperative, Earth-based world.

The Implications:  Humanity’s Changed Relationship with the Earth

The basis for humanity’s new relationship with the Earth will be our recognition the Earth is conscious, and evolution is under the direction of a conscious information and control system.  Humanity’s hubris that we are separate and in control will no longer be tenable.  We will no longer be able to sustain an adversarial using relationship with the Earth, where we treat the Earth as an inert object, taking from it as we will.  It will be totally obvious that infinite growth in a finite Earth is a contradiction in terms and the height of unmitigated folly.

Humanity will have to move to a cooperative, synergistic relationship where we understand we are an integral part of an Earth-based system.  We will come to recognize we are totally dependent upon the Earth for our very existence.  As a result, we will become servants of the Earth instead of perceiving ourselves as its master.

The Implications:  Humanity’s Changed Relationship with the Universe

Humanity has completed childhood and early adolescence.  Now it is time to grow up and join the Universal Community of Sentient Beings.  We are no longer isolated for our own good.  Therefore, at this time in history, it is not surprising we are discovering planets not only exist but also quite ubiquitous.

By becoming true adults, we can now become part of the Universal Community for the first time.  We are opening now to the Universe.  It is teeming with other beings in a universal dialogue.  Now we are in a position to join that dialogue.  We will do far more listening and learning than talking for evolutionarily we still have an extraordinarily long way to go.

This means there is a whole new perspective for humanity.  It is a “universal perspective.”  We are one part of the whole and no longer separate from the Universe and other beings.  The last vestiges of humanity’s uniqueness in the Universe will be erased.  In return, we become part of a much greater whole.

This is all about Universal Consciousness, humanity’s first entry into Universal Consciousness.  The Great Spirit, God, Guru, and the great spiritual traditions were there to keep us stable until we could become part of the greater whole.  These traditions were there to prepare us for this eventuality.

How did this come about?  For first time, humans can leave the “outer here” of the Physical Realm and the “inner here” of the Metaphysical Realm and finally live in the “not here” of the Spiritual Realm.  This is an actual “open eyes” living in the Spiritual Realm instead of entering it in mediation or the Spiritual Realm coming into a specially prepared human being in the Metaphysical Realm.  Consequently, for the first time, humanity is connected to the Universe at large.

Copyright © 2011 by John A. Wolaver

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