Friday, May 09, 2008
The Evolution of Consciousness:Sheldrake, Abraham, and McKenna
Many theories have appeared in recent years about the evolution of consciousness, a process that many of us feel in indeed occurring at this time in history. Consciousness theory is fascinating, particularly to those who have themselves undergone deep inner transformation through kundalini or other forms of spiritual awakening. Gopi Krishna asserted that kundalini was in fact the vehicle by which the entire race would enter a new level of evolutionary awareness. Indeed, once such deep transformation occurs, the world never looks the same again.
Some years ago, some friends and I used to meet and discuss various books we had read, including one in particular called "Trialogues at the Edge of the West." (A trialogue is a discussion among three participants, just as a dialogue takes place between two.) A second book, called "The Evolutionary Mind," has been published by the same authors.
In this case, the three were among the most advanced and far out thinkers of our time. They included Rupert Sheldrake, an English biologist, who pioneered the theory of "morphic fields." According to this theory, once something happens, a field is created which makes it easier for the phenomenon to occur a second time, and then a third, and so forth. Thus rats who learn to run a maze in London will make it easier over time for rats to learn the same maze in Boston.
A second speaker was Ralph Abraham, who was an early proponent of chaos theory, which is too complex for me to attempt to explain here, but which is a major feature in contemporary mathematical thought. And the third was Terence McKenna (now deceased), who held that early societies were able to extend the bounds of consciousness through eating certain mushrooms which expanded their awareness into other realms. He also felt that people today could benefit from experiencing similar mind expansion.
At that time, there was little information available on these areas outside print material, since the internet as such either did not yet exist, or else was in its infancy and unknown to most of us.
However, a friend has informed me that Rupert Sheldrake now has a website which not only includes writings on evolution of consciousness, but also several recordings of some of the early discussions on this topic. I listened to one of these last night, and was, frankly, quite stimulated by the conversation. They are not easy listening, but they are packed with evocative thought.
Instead of summarizing my response, I am going to reprint essentially what I wrote back to my friend as my initial reaction.
(Helen's e-mail subject line read :"I've died and gone to heaven!")
My response:
Well, thanks for taking me with you. I just listened to #2--The Evolutionary Mind--(I think it was) and love the interplay of the three participants. It's been quite long since I contemplated really complex thinking by open minds of such caliber.
Now--as always--I come back to kundalini--which is, I think, a way of opening the receptive organism through restructuring the nervous system to the reception of information not previously available--for example, allowing it to tune in to the ecstatic dance of the cells, the electrons, the stars, and so forth--the music of the spheres playing within the human receiver.
And, further, k. reestablishes the balance between the "right" and "left" sides of the brain as the system is retuned.
And--it also explains why some people can "receive" the internal messages and others are oblivious--their receivers are simply not finely tuned enough to pick up on what others are getting as signals, and hence these "tone deaf" folks are simply bewildered and frustrated by accounts of experiences outside their own range of comprehension.
There have always been those among us who were tuned to these finer frequencies, but now the phenomenon is growing at an accelerated rate as the morphic field is being strengthened. I am hearing from more folks having spontaneous k. awakening and expanding their range of consciousness and experiencing ecstasy and other blessings on a daily basis and I love it. ( And mine keeps on keepin' on--thank goodness, though much toned down and more refined and higher vibrations.)
Some still warn against such openings as something which "takes you off the path" or "leads to sensuousness" but I believe they are approaching the phenomenon from an earlier perspective and need to rethink it all. (Though at the same time there is much perennial wisdom in the traditions.) For me, such openings are the most spiritual states I can imagine.
Fascinating stuff and wish you were here so we could continue our own trialogues on the edge of sanity. (Which is where I prefer to dwell.)
Love to you and thanks again,
Dorothy from Kansas
Love to you and thanks again,
Dorothy from Kansas
Here is the website containing the recordings of the conversations. Unfortunately, I am not sufficiently evolved to know how to set up a hyperlink with the site. Sorry. I'll keep trying to transform into a techno savvy user.
(Image of book cover from Amazon.com)
