On The Brink

We stand today in the midst of a million insoluble problems converging upon each other. Superstorms, melting ice caps and subsequent sea level rise, global terrorism, the prison industrial complex, decimation of the rainforests, toxins in the water and air, not to mention a pandemic. We live in the shadow of collective annihilation.

And simultaneously our opposition to each other grows, we take sides and sling mud and hate and sarcasm and bitterness. There is no apparent escape, no way through. The status quo has taken us to the edge of the cliff. The old ways must fall away and something entirely new must emerge.

But what is that something new? Where will come from? Will it be a technological innovation like the cotton gin or the internet? Or a new understanding of the universe like advances quantum physics? Or could it be a realization? Something organic and aligned with the flow of human evolution?

The path of yoga is progressive. First, we have an idea. Our mind changes. We understand that matter is just energy: nothing is really solid, the math tells us so. But do we experience life that way? Can we sense the energy moving within things, or do we still experience things and plants and people as separate entities, enclosed in their own packages?

The initial idea is like looking up at the top of a mountain and thinking, “If I climbed up there, I could see things from a different perspective. I could see the connections between things, how things fit together, and the whole that comprises all the parts. My vision would widen.”

So we climb up, and the idea transforms into a realization. With every step, our vision widens. We see, and marvel. Our thoughts about this experience can never match the experience, as we fully take in the broader reality, the connections, the relationships, the implications. We drink in the view through our eyes, our body, our whole being. The first photograph of the Earth from space literally transformed the consciousness of humanity.

And then we climb back down. We are changed, but when we look around, somehow that widened perspective doesn’t stick. Maybe we think “Was that even real? Did that happen?” And so we climb back up again, and again, and each time the broader perspective integrates more fully, changes us from within.

Yoga is an individual journey and a collective journey. As Sri Aurobindo says “All of life is yoga.” All of life is evolving, unfurling, the outer husk thins and cracks and gives way to the taproot and verdant stem, snaking out to seek nourishment via relationship. Perhaps the new that is coming is something already within us, something involved that waits to evolve.

The evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium asserts that evolution happens in bursts. The speed of change is generally very slow, almost stable for millions of years, and then there is a surge forward and things change very quickly. Positive feedback loops between inner and outer ecosystems accelerate the process of change in gusts. The volcano sleeps for thousands of years and then erupts.

Ecological pressures assail us from all sides. Every collective problem that we face requires a collaborative solution. Our personalities have developed to cope with a world of competition, but competition is failing us now. Our minds have evolved to understand parts but not wholes. We rely on senses that detect otherness.

Today we inhabit the birth canal. We can’t see what’s coming, and an enormous, unbearable pressure is churning everything, outside and inside. We blame the pressure on our enemies, on our collective ignorance, on ourselves. We despair and cringe and seek solace in fiction. And with every contraction the future creeps closer.

Or we are the eggshell, and within is our deeper being, ready to emerge ready to face whatever comes. Our deeper being was born for this moment, and has no fear or trepidation. But we have come to identify with this shell, and it’s cracking. The new life kicks from within, ready to emerge, and we scream and reach for the drugs. Everything is falling apart, our very being is cracking.

Something organic and aligned with the flow of human evolution is growing within us and between us. Our capacity to see wholes and understand each other is expanding. Our experience of the interconnectivity of all life is mounting. This experience is not an idea, not a concept. The experience defies ideas, it is irrefutable.

If my daughter is in danger, I don’t wait and think about what I should do. I leap into the fray. As our collective realization of interconnection increases day by day, nurtured by the pressure of outer collapse and inner emergence, we will not wait and think about which NGO to donate to, or whether we can spare a dime. We will leap into the fray and transform he systems of oppression that captivate our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. We will dive into the pool where our children are drowning.

In the meantime, we must bear the transformation. We must be churned by the pressure around us, feel the breaking of our hearts’ protective armor, weather the cracking of our sense of self. We will curse and flail and hide and dodge.

As much as possible, our refuge during this time is hope and surrender. If we can hold onto the hope that a new dawn is approaching, and surrender our will to the greater will that holds the good of all, then we will pass this time with greater ease. Hope will nourish our hearts and keep us at the ready, and surrender will protect us from self-destructive inclinations born of fear.

We know how to do this. Hope and surrender are encoded into our deepest hearts. We just need to look there, beneath the ideas and assumptions and predictions and strategies, into the silent vast within that holds immeasurable wisdom. A map for this traverse into the new terrain of the future will flow from this place within us. Guidance and direction will be spoken in the soul’s language of love and truth beyond distortion.

This new day that dawns, this emergent future that require us to transform in order to enter, it cannot be seen by our mind’s eye, which is shaped by the past. It requires a new vision, an intuitive vision of the deepest heart that we will gain as we go.

We stand today in the midst of a million insoluble problems converging upon each other. And we stand in the midst of a million miraculous solutions emerging enarmed with each other. Blessed be this holy moment, this space between breaths. We live on the brink of collective awakening.