Being Our Environment
Written by Trent Rhode
This may seem obvious, but less obvious is what these problems are specifically.
As quantum physicist Dr. David Bohm put it, we suffer from “…a kind of thought that treats things as inherently divided, disconnected, and ‘broken up’ into yet smaller constituent parts. Each part is considered to be essentially independent and self-existent.”
What Bohm and other scientists of our day are telling us is what many ancient ways and knowledge have been teaching humanity for centuries, that we are connected to nature and the world around us through more than just physical constructs. It is our very thought patterns have tricked us into functioning as if we are not.
“Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally,” says Bohm.
Our thought patterns have become disconnected from our awareness, from the moment- to-moment consciousness that we are. This causes a shattered, disjointed view of the world to form in our awareness, which in turn causes us to act against our own interests.
The consequences of fragmented thought patterns are profound. As quantum mechanics has shown, our very awareness is what shapes the world. Without awareness, the universe itself would be a void of infinite probability waves.
But, can our collective awareness really change the world for the better? What happens when individuals collectively quiet their minds and join awareness in focused effort? A 1993 study done in Washington, D.C. found that over an eight-week period, the rate of violent crime decreased by 23 per cent during a group meditation involving nearly 4,000 people. An additional 51, carefully monitored and peer-reviewed, studies around the world confirm this result.
Known as the Maharishi Effect, this is but one example of how our outer environment is a reflection of our inner environment (in fact, they are one and the same). It is evident that we must focus on transforming our inner lives, bringing the shattered pieces of ourselves together in our awareness, to see change in our outer lives.
The Wisdom of the Unconscious
Carl Jung, one of the foremost psychoanalysts of our time, once said, “It may even be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.”
Jung came to believe that whatever we neglected consciously would always break through the surface in our outer world to enter our consciousness. He discovered through his own journey, and through helping thousands of patients, that the key to a desirable outer environment was in one’s own inner environment.
He wrote that, “The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.”
The Shadow
Jung found that once we consciously access our own guilt, we withdraw and disinvest our projection of our repressedselves (the shadow) from others and the world. We recognize that the “evil” we see “out there” is simultaneously our own, thereby realizing we can no longer project evil outside of ourselves. We are a part of all that we see.
Once acknowledged, it is not necessary to hide from this darkness any longer. With increased consciousness, we thenbecome aware of our true effects on the environment, on ourselves, and on the world-at-large. Most importantly, we can begin to curb our destructive behaviour.
Only then will we see, just as native peoples in many parts of the world have seen before us, that we are the environment.
This is perhaps what the German poet Novalis meant over 200 years ago when he wrote:
“The seat of the soul is there, where the inner world and the outer world touch. Where they permeate each other, the seat is in every point of the permeation.”
