It is time to start listening to our inner wisdom
Some of my earliest memories and experiences are of a sense of not belonging. I had this strange feeling that I did not belong in my family of origin; maybe I had been adopted? I had a similar experience at school. I simply did not relate to the curriculum or what was being called “education”. And this experience of being in a foreign world persisted into my early adulthood and beyond. I simply felt that I did not fit in. My response was to rebel and become the black sheep of the family. I rebelled against authority and so-called experts. I became an alcoholic and was lost. In fact, I was far more lost than I realised at the time.
It took me several decades to fully appreciate that this sense of being born in to the “wrong” family, of being put through the “wrong” education to prepare me to live in a world gone “wrong” – as it relentlessly pursues a path of self-destruction – was a healthy response to an unhealthy environment. In Western culture (as with many other cultures) we have been conditioned to rely upon the external world for a sense of identity. In the process, we have given away an enormous amount of personal power and responsibility.
My family of origin, as with most other families around us, was more interested in what other people thought and external values. We were not taught to rely upon our intuition, instinct or inner voice. Education derives from the Latin word “educare” which means “to draw out”, i.e. to draw out the inner wisdom, creativity and magic of a child. In most countries around the world, education consists of literally ramming facts into each child and then testing them to see how many of these facts have been remembered. I have since learned that this has little to do with education. And it continues in the work place: learn externally approved ways of doing things and do not listen to your inner wisdom.
Our triumphs in technology, science and medicine, which have been immense, have not been accompanied by an equivalent advance in emotional intelligence and an understanding of our psyche/soul/essence as human beings. We have become spiritually disenfranchised. This situation has been achieved by two separate and in many ways opposing forces which have dominated life over the past 100 years: Science & Religion. Although regularly set in contradiction to each other, the one thing they have in common is the systematic conditioning requiring us to give up reliance on the “inner” world and put our faith in the “outer” world. This is all done in the name of “objectivity” which simply means the dominant narrative at the time.
OUR OVER RELIANCE ON “EXTERNAL” WISDOM AND SUPPRESSION OF OUR INNATE “INNER” WISDOM IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT CRITERION IN UNDERSTANDING WHY WE ARE ON THE WRONG PATH
In contrast, there are communities, especially indigenous peoples, e.g. Native Americans, Aboriginals, Hopi Elders, Yogis, who have always trusted their inner world and understood a completely different relationship between the inner and outer. For example, Religion has created a split between the Creator and the creation, firmly putting the creator “outside” creation. Science has achieved something similar. Until recently, the scientist was “outside” creation, dissecting and creating theories about how it all (objectively) worked. Indigenous peoples have always known that we belong to the earth and are a part of it, not the other way round.
In both science and religion, we have been consistently encouraged (conditioned) to rely upon the external experts (the “ex” meaning excluding, i.e. not including). What is not being included is intuition, our instinct and our inner world experience. This is dismissed as being “subjective”. Our over reliance on the “external” wisdom and suppression of our innate “inner” wisdom is, for me, the single most important criterion in understanding why we as a species are on the wrong path. Our current way of living is leading to the self-destruction of our species, alongside thousands of other species, and the planet itself. We all intuitively understand this on some level.
If we consider the species as an individual, the diagnosis would be that this is a rampant, out of control, schizophrenic, psychopathic addict searching for the next fix. This is not an exaggeration. The simple explanation is that in creating an identity that is formed by and reliant upon the transient, trending external values and whims, we are compulsively looking outside ourselves for gratification. As Mick Jagger told us this cannot ever lead to satisfaction. Our addictions to alcohol, prescribed drugs, recreational drugs, pornography, work, exercise, compulsive thinking, and on and on, are all symptoms of this one underlying schism (schizoid state).
We desperately need to find an alternative way of being in the world
The essential shift that we need to make as individuals and as a collective is to move away from reliance on the external world. On the world of metrics, experts and gurus (whether in the fields of science, religion, art, politics, relationships etc) and to start living from and listening to our inner voice, our inner wisdom, our inner teacher, our intuition and instinct.
WE ARE SUFFERING FROM AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF SOUL LOSS. BY DENYING OUR HURT, ABUSE AND GRIEVANCE, WE PROJECT IT ON TO OTHERS AND TO THE WORLD.
Every human being is psychic to some degree, or we would not be able to function in the world. All of us are familiar with hunches, intuition, instinct, a “sixth” sense at various times in our life. We have been taught and conditioned to supress this to rely upon external advice. We need to reclaim our natural birth right and practice trusting our inner guidance. It is a re-learning and it takes time, patience and discipline. It is not a quick fix.
Undertaking this journey back to ourselves means taking responsibility for who we really are; it means encountering past hurts, heartbreaks and grievances. Avoiding the past, where it is uncomfortable, has become a compulsion individually and collectively. However, there can be no re-connection to ourselves without this process. We can see this in the collective with old pain and abuse in the areas of race, slavery and gender (which are immense) bubbling up all over the place. We need to confront these areas individually and collectively if we are to move forward and create an alternative way of living. We cannot brush them under the carpet. It will not and cannot work.
We are suffering from an enormous amount of soul loss. By denying our hurt, abuse and grievance, we project it out on to others and to the world. It has been estimated that around 20 billion dollars per annum would end starvation in the world, yet we spend more than 100 times this amount, 2 trillion dollars every year protecting ourselves from imaginary and real threats from outside. We are supporting our schizophrenic paranoia rather than soothing our bruised soul. The real conflict and war lies within us, not externally. We are similar to any paranoid individual, terrified of parts of ourselves but choosing to see the danger and threat coming from outside.
WE CAN CHANGE JOBS, CHANGE SPOUSES, CHANGE COUNTRIES AND IT MAY LOOK LIKE EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED BUT IT HAS NOT.
I am very familiar with my own self-hatred, paranoia, inner psychopath and out of control addict. It has taken time to become acquainted with him and is an ongoing project. Self-hatred often arises at inconvenient moments. My understanding is that the scenario referred to as the “Covid pandemic” falls into this same template. We have spent huge amounts of time and energy creating a dominant narrative that insists that there is a dangerous threat outside us which is going to get us if we are not diligent – an indiscriminate killer. We created an unprecedented amount of collective fear that allowed 85% of the world’s population to be placed under house arrest within 3 weeks. We know that there is a direct correlation between fear and control/manipulation. Create intense fear and it is much easier to control and manipulate people.
We have spent trillions of dollars which we did not have, supporting the dominant narrative. Relatively little debate or emphasis has been focused on immunity. If an individual’s immunity is strong and robust, then he or she cannot be harmed by external threats such as a virus. But we have handed over responsibility for our health to so-called experts. We no longer listen to our bodies, we seek external advice and take a pill. It is not surprising that the external experts, the pharmaceutical companies are making hay and having a field day. The next 10 years will be punctuated with vaccines for a huge range of ills. All of this will support the old paradigm that is leading us headlong into self-destruction.
In the area of ecology, health, education, science, technology we can re-arrange all the pieces in the outer world. We can make it look like we are repairing the ozone layer, rebuilding the rain forests, re-establishing the ice shelves but if we do not shift from outer reliance to inner reliance then we will repeat the whole cycle again in one form or another. We can change jobs, change spouses, change houses, change countries and it may look like “everything has changed” but it has not. Nothing has changed because we have taken ourselves with us and are still living a life based upon external guidelines, rules, opinions and wisdom.
It is time to shift internally. Time for everything to change.