A Shift in Consciousness

There was a time, not so long ago historically, human beings believed the sun revolved around Earth, that we were literally the center of the Universe. Then a man named Nicolaus Copernicus from Poland shocked the world with his theory that Earth actually orbits the sun, a theory so widely accepted now, it strains the imagination to try and picture it differently.

Around the world in varying ways, people seem to be searching for a similar shift. From the spiritual or philosophical “shift in consciousness,” to the economic “post-capitalism,” there is a growing awareness that human beings are not at the center of everything. Indeed, our continued existence upon this planet in livable conditions seems to hang on whether we, as a species, can look beyond consumption and economic growth to healthy interdependence.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness,” said Albert Einstein in a 1950 letter to a grieving father. “The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”
What would it look like if we incorporated this understanding in our way of life? Would we have an entire industry based on perpetual war, on the destruction of our fellow human beings and environment?
Umair Haque, in his piece “The Great Divide,” suggests that modernity and the break from feudalism allowed for individual freedoms and fulfillment of human potential. For many people of a certain race, this does seem to have been the case (I doubt many of the indigenous tribes of the Americas were as positively impacted by the downfall of feudalism in Europe, for example). Certainly the industrialization that followed allowed for innovation, a manifestation of ideas and technological advances not seen before in human history.
From Charles Darwin to Henry Ford, ideas, technology, science and the bottom line all flourished during industrialization. Workers’ rights, indigenous rights, women’s rights did not fare as well during this time. From the late 1800s arguably until now, cold rationale, an age of reason ruled supreme. An era of the mind, one could call it.
But what of the common good, compassion, the emotive and empathetic, how did these grow under imperialism and profit? One only need read a few of each day’s headlines and arrive at their own conclusions.
Economist Charles Eisenstein points out in his Huffington Post piece continuous growth is not always desirable.
“Two years ago when he was 14, my son Matthew grew six inches. Last year he only grew two inches, and this year he has only grown half an inch. Should I be worried?
Of course not. At a certain stage of maturity, quantifiable physical growth slows and stops, and a new mode of development takes over,” said Eisenstein. “Imagine that I did not understand that, and fed Matthew growth hormones in a desperate attempt to keep him growing taller. And imagine that this effort was harming his health and depleting my resources. ‘I have to find a way to make his growth sustainable,’ I would say. ‘Maybe I can use herbal hormones.’
Our civilization is at a similar transition point in the nature of its development. For thousands of years we have grown — in population, in energy consumption, in land under cultivation, in bits of data, in economic output. Today we are beginning to realize that this kind of growth is no longer possible, nor even desirable; that it can be maintained only at greater and greater cost to human beings and the planet.”
Arguably proportion plays a huge role here, too. If one’s waistline grows continuously, but not one’s height, inevitably health problems will ensue. Likewise if one’s height keeps growing, but not one’s weight, similar problems will arise.
Perhaps, then, our hearts need to catch up to our minds. Perhaps there is a different kind of growth and intelligence required of us in our evolution now.
“We can align or we can suffer. It is up to us,” summarizes the Zeitgeist Movement.

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