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The Gaffer's Philosophy;
Part 28: On Ethics and Spirituality:
On Raising Our Consciousness:
November 18, 2002:
In this essay, I want to begin looking at the how of raising our
consciousness and developing an ethic. I believe the first step
in that effort must be to give up our myths and admit we do not
know. It is time for us to give up these comforting inventions
of mankind's childhood and move on. As we were growing up we found
we had to give up our Santa Claus and our Easter Bunny. Ultimately
we also made the frightening discovery that daddy cannot fix everything.
These were awful truths to accept, but accepting them was essential
to our growth.
Now it is time to take that next step and give up the biggest myth of all. We must become honest in that very basic way and start working with only what we know or can surmise. We need to generate a better understanding of our own spirituality. I believe we will only come to a better understanding through honest efforts in personal consciousness raising.
How do we become better more conscious people? I respectfully submit that falling on our knees and shouting, "God, take over my life," really doesn't get it. I do not want to be a marionette and I despise other people who do. We cannot tell some kind of a God to do it. We cannot wait for someone else to do it. We cannot put the responsibility outside of ourselves. We must do it! It is up to each one of us to become a better person, so let's consider the who and the how of it.
First the who. In considering consciousness, we should notice there is a large spectrum of consciousness in humans. There are a very small handful of people like Ghandi at the highest extreme. At the lowest extreme are a huge number of ignorant and proud of it redneck stump-jumpers, ne'er-do-wells, bums, thugs, and criminals of various sorts. For sure, there are a whole bunch of us in between those extremes. The consciousness spectrum in humans is not a bell curve, it is a pyramid.
Between the Ghandis and the stump-jumpers, the large majority of us are what I call the middle-class-rabble. These are people who think of themselves as good, God-fearing, citizens who twiddle their lives away going through the motions and being like everyone else. We pretend to be religious, spiritual and thoughtful, but we don't feel much of anything. As Thoreau put it, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
So, considering the who, there are really only a handful of people who can show the way. The rest will come along reluctantly if they come at all. This change in individual character will take a very long time to affect most people. Still, we must show the way and remember that the world is controlled by a handful of people. A brief study of history will bear this out. The course of human history has never been influenced by more than a few people at a time. It will not take many really good cooperating dominant leaders to bring the rabble along.
All we can expect from Mr. Average Citizen in the beginning is good behavior. Even that will not happen unless we present a compelling example embodied in a charismatic leader. This means the how of consciousness raising is really direct to just a handful of people. Later, it may, hopeful will, begin to influence the rest of us. Most people will need to see some very good examples of superior humans before they will want to change. The old saw is true. You cannot change unless you want to change.
This is how it began for me many years ago. First, I noticed people who's lives seemed to work better than mine at the time. Then, to overcome a crushing feeling of inferiority, I tried to fake it by emulating a behavior pattern I did not feel. By doing that and having it work, I realized change was possible. Then I began to change so as to make my life work better. There is no magic. It is very hard work and God will not do it for us. Forget that. The born again folks are frauds. All of them. They are not better. They are just a big pain in the butt with their constant evangelizing. Without their evangelizing they would regress. It is that which sustains their fraud.
If we are to survive, all human beings must eventually evolve into higher consciousness. Those of us who lead the way must understand that. We must set the examples of good citizenship for our community, our country, and our world. We support and embrace community because it supports us in our growth. We embrace challenge and change because it is through coping with these that we grow.
There are also specific tools to support our evolution. Depending on our particular level of consciousness, there are a number of methods for raising consciousness. Evie gives us some detailed discussions of methods in her essays on spirituality. I will discuss some of these in future essays. So far as I know, all of them work to some extent. In my observation, most of the people who attempt to use these tools do so very dishonestly and they do not work. The reality is most people do not want to change.
If you do not want to change, you cannot become more conscious. That should be obvious to even a fool, but we humans do treasure our illusions. This is the single biggest problem which a therapist must deal with. We can and often do ignore reality and pretend our whole life away. It is only when life becomes intolerable that some of us will consider changing. Even then, many will prefer to die rather than change.
Many people who try to use the tools of consciousness raising get stuck on feeling good in the growth environment. Then, instead of growing they try to maintain the environment. This is how some people can remain in therapy for decades. In that, we must also find the therapist culpable.
Most of us will attempt to maintain a comfortable, that's just the way I am, approach to change. We are used to rather petty instant gratification. The rewards for change and growth tend to be long term and somewhat subtle. There is no great show and motion with happy looks and vigorous activity. There are none of the trappings of a pubescent ‘gimme-now' culture involved in consciousness raising.
Perhaps the single most distinguishing characteristic of elevated consciousness is impeccable personal integrity. By contrast, widespread lack of personal integrity is clearly the most distinguishing characteristic of our current culture. I believe this is the most obvious difference between the citizens of our founder's time and the large mass of current American citizens. This shows up most particularly in our leadership and our industrial managers. They lack personal integrity and they behave badly because of that.
Next time I want to get into a discussion of our behavior and
how it affects our consciousness.
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