SPIRITUALLY INFORMED POLITICAL ACTIVISM<br><br>by Paul Levy<br><br>Many people are asking me what we can do to make a difference in our current world situation. Like a dream, our situation is fluid, impermanent and multi-dimensional. On one level, we need to connect with each other and stand up against Bush’s policies as much as we are able, as his policies are creating endless unnecessary suffering, deprivation and destruction for millions of people. Bush and Co. are completely mad. They are giving shape and form to what it is to be criminally insane. The Bush Administration’s abuse of power literally demands us to learn new ways to step into our own creative power. Standing up against Bush, though profoundly important and necessary, is itself only part of the solution. We need to step into our roles as ‘spiritually informed political activists,’ where spiritual understanding in-forms our actions in the world. <br><br>On the one hand we need to act. It is as if this is a play and we need to step into the roles that are being presented to us, go over our edge and do something, whatever that something looks like. This is the scene in the play where it is being demanded of us that we ‘step up to the plate,’ to use an analogy from our national pasttime, and get involved in whatever way suits our innate talents and aesthetic. If we refuse to participate, it is as if we are avoiding relationship with a part of ourselves. We are then not engaging with what is happening in the outside world as well as choosing not to deal with what it triggers inside of us. Incarnation is about showing up. We need to play our roles fully. We need to speak our true voice, which is the very creative act that is being demanded of us.<br><br>If we are not willing to embody and step into our truth, however, we literally become part of the problem instead of part of the solution. We then have no one to blame but ourselves for what is befalling our country. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “We- even we here- hold the power, and bear the responsibility.” When the universe requires us to step into our power and stand up for ourselves, if we refuse this calling, in that moment we give away our power and literally abandon ourselves. It is as if we split-off from and dis-own a part of ourselves.<br><br>Each of us is being asked to incarnate the truth of our being in a particularly unique way. If we assent to the life that is flowing through us, if we embody and incarnate the true voice that speaks through us, we affect the greater field. We can co-inspire each other to deeper levels of co-operative creative expression. Any one of us speaking our voice makes it easier for each of us to do the same, as we are all connected.<br><br>In addition, however, our action needs to be informed with a spiritual wisdom that recognizes that there is a deeper, more powerful process that is revealing something to us as it concurrently acts itself out through us. Interestingly, the inner meaning of the word ‘apocalypse’ is something hidden being revealed. A deeper archetypal process, which is to say a powerful energy that can possess a person or a nation, is incarnating itself through us. This more powerful mythic, archetypal energy has re-created itself all throughout history, and is manifesting, in fully visible form, through, in and as this world of ours. This more powerful energy that is birthing itself through our species is what Jung would call the ‘dark side of the Self,’ or we could say the dark or hidden God, what is called the ‘deus absconditus.’ Scholar Rudolph Otto refers to it as the ‘mysterium horrendum,’ as it is truly awe-full. What is revealing itself to us is the shadow of the Lord, which interestingly, is one of the inner meanings of the word ‘Satan.’<br><br>An emerging archetype such as the Self, as long as it’s not related to consciously, manifests its negative aspect, ‘drafting’ people into its service. Its ‘field of force’ literally absorbs and possesses people (or nations), acting itself out through them in a destructive way. It is profoundly significant that the negative archetype of the Self, the dark side of God is manifesting in fully apparent form in our universe. When a deeper archetypal energy reveals itself in this way, attracting the universe into itself, this is an expression that this more powerful archetypal energy is ready and available for assimilation. For it is only when these deeper energies become incarnated into the physical realm can the energy that is bound up in the compulsion to re-create the deeper pattern be accessed, unlocked and liberated. When this more powerful energy is ready to be integrated, it in-forms and gives shape to events in the outer world so as to express itself. This deeper energy acts itself out through us as it gets unconsciously ‘dreamed up’ by us into actual materialization in, through and as the universe. It is as if Satan has gone from hiding in underground shadows to above ground where he is incarnating, illumined by the light of day.<br><br>The fact that the shadow of God is incarnating itself in fully visible form is an expression that the ‘dark side’ is in the process of being SEEN and made CONSCIOUS. The darkness can’t stand to be seen, however, even reacting violently, for to see it takes away its autonomy and omnipotence, as it can no longer act itself out through us. Once seen, the darkness becomes integrated, as it is recognized to belong to all of us. Seeing the true nature of the darkness is to recognize that it is a reflection of the darkness inside all of us. We have all collaboratively dreamed up this darkness together, we are all complicit, we are all responsible. <br><br>Recognizing that the dark side of the Self is enacting itself through us is the key to whether this activated archetype gets integrated and healed, or continues to get unconsciously acted out in a destructive way. In this dimension, it is the expansion of our consciousness itself which is the agency that activates a process of transformation in the archetypal realm, and hence, in the universe itself. On this level we don’t have to actively ‘do’ anything at all, for all that is asked of us is to simply recognize and consciously bear witness to the deeper process that is playing itself out through us. <br><br>If we want to stop the war and save the biosphere, the best thing any one of us can do right now is to integrate and engage these two levels: resisting the Bush administration at all costs while simultaneously recognizing the deeper, hidden, and self-destructive process that is being revealed as it unfolds through all of us. These two levels co-join and interpenetrate each other so fully that they synergistically complement and complete each other as if they are two parts of a greater whole. And the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts, as something becomes activated and empowered when these two levels of experience mutually embrace, support and cross-pollinate each other. When these two levels co-operatively work together, something gets birthed, as these two dimensions ‘flesh each other out,’ which is what genuine incarnation is all about. The key is to keep our hearts open so we don’t fall under the illusion of blaming or demonizing an ‘other,’ whom we imagine to be separate from ourselves.<br><br> We need to recognize what is being revealed to us AND act out of this realization, which we are asked to embody. These two levels are insufficient by their lonesome selves without the collaboration of the other. The (arche)typical political activists, in fighting against Bush as if he is separate from themselves, unwittingly act as a conduit to create and sustain the very thing they are fighting against. By fighting Bush, they are unconsciously reacting against something in themselves, which just perpetuates the diabolical polarization in the field. Political activists who are resisting Bush without realizing that he is an embodied reflection of a part of themselves lack genuine compassion. Not recognizing that what they are fighting against is something within themselves causes them to not be ultimately helping. On the contrary, they are secretly complicit in perpetuating the very problem they are reacting to. <br><br>And spiritual practitioners who think all they have to do is to work on their own inner process and the world will reflect this change are missing the mark. For this is the time in history when our inner process is manifesting in, as and through the outside world in a way where something is simultaneously asked of us and made uniquely available to us. It is as if we can heal something deep inside of ourselves by fully stepping into the role, however big or small, we’re supposed to play in the world’s drama. Just like a dream, the outer world is the externalization and materialization of our inner process. The outer world is mirroring our inner process. And our inner process is being expressed as the outer world. The outer world is recognized to be the medium through which we can work on our inner process.<br><br>The dark side of God that is incarnating in this world of ours is a reflection of the dark or unconscious side of ourselves. The outside world is nothing other than our inner process projected onto the screen of time and space. We are not separate from the universe, and we cannot separate ourselves out from the universe. To not recognize that the outer universe is a continually unfolding revelation of our inner process is to become entranced by our own narcissism and fall under the spell of the separate self, which is a state of self-hypnosis also genuinely lacking in compassion.<br><br>I am not in any way degrading the profound importance of being either a political activist or a spiritual practitioner. All I am pointing at is that these two disciplines need to creatively impregnate each other so as to be truly effective. We need to become spiritually informed political activists, or to say it differently, politically active spiritual practitioners.<br><br>As spiritually informed political activists we can cultivate this same self-reflective awareness moment by moment towards what is happening in our personal mundane, day to day lives. Our particular life situation, with all of its unique problems, is the doorway which connects us to the deeper, archetypal collective process of humankind. This is to say that the process happening deep inside of us is re-presenting itself both literally as well as symbolically in both our personal lives as well as the world stage. We find ourselves in a synchronic universe where the inner and the outer, the microcosm and the macrocosm are recognized to be mirrored reflections of each other. The actions of our local personal self are inseparable from and instantaneously, non-locally affect the greater universal field. Fully entering the present moment of our individual, day to day lives literally has an invisible but very real effect on the universe. <br><br>It helps to remember this, as sometimes it is easy to feel helpless, as if there is nothing any of us can do to make a difference in the current world situation. One individual self-reflecting and metabolizing what is getting triggered in them by their current life situation, with, for example, all of their emotional upsets, relationship conflicts, body symptoms, etc, makes it easier and more accessible for others to have this same realization, as we are all connected. Any one of us cultivating self-reflective awareness in this very moment spontaneously affects the greater field, and could be the very act that tips the scales, initiating a phase shift in the collective consciousness of all of humankind.<br><br>As spiritually informed political activists, we can connect with each other and help each other to see through the illusion that we are dis-empowered. The truth is that as we hook up and collectively get in phase with each other we have incredible power to affect reality. Our connecting with each other and helping each other to activate our true God-given creative power is the worst nightmare of the powers-that-be. We can reciprocally and exponentially empower each other in a way that helps all of us. We can collaboratively put our energy together so as to dis-spell the dark, negative energy that is destructively acting itself out in this world of ours. Paradoxically, we transform our inner process by engaging with the outer world, while we simultaneously transform the outer world by working on our inner process.<br><br>This is a ‘dreamed up’ universe. All six billion of us are having a mass shared dream. We have all collaboratively dreamed up into incarnation a process going on deep inside the collective psyche of all of humanity, and we are playing it out on the world stage as history. Our doing this is both the problem as well as the potential solution. In other words, encoded in symbolic form in our very crisis is hidden the key for its own re-solution and transcendence.<br><br>From a more expansive point of view, the negative, destructive energy that is getting dreamed up in our world is itself the inspiration for the collective realization and collaborative action that dis-spells it. This is to say that the darkness that pervades our planet is a potential blessing in a very convincing disguise that it’s not. The key to activating this potential blessing is our attitude towards that which we see as evil.<br><br>We are clearly destroying ourselves. And yet, in this act of self-destruction, something is being revealed to us. From this point of view, the endless self-destruction that we are perpetrating on each other is the atemporal footprint of this revelation, expressed in symbolic form, projected in time, as it is the medium through which we can recognize what is being revealed. <br><br>From the point of view of the ‘plenum,’ the atemporal fullness of the collective unconscious, we have already had this realization and the events in our world are the conduit through which this revelation is actualized. This process is accomplished by an expansion of consciousness co-joined with the creative giving shape and form to this realization in the outer world. The outer world is the canvas, so to speak, in which this realization is made manifest.<br><br>Recognizing the deeper archetypal process that is playing out through us, we realize that we can connect with each other in ‘lucid’ awareness, creating a ‘container’ with our shared realization to incarnate the deeper, archetypal process consciously. This is to get in phase with each other in a way where we can, in real time- the present moment, literally transform our situation and dream a more grace-filled universe into actualization. This collective realization is fully imaginable into being in this very moment. Consciously accessing our God-given ability to get ‘in sync’ with each other and collaboratively transform the way reality manifests is nothing short of a radical, revolutionary, epochal and evolutionary quantum leap in human consciousness. Coming together and hooking up with each other in conscious awareness enables us to simultaneously access and transform both our inner and outer processes. Recognizing the deeper process that is being revealed to us and connecting with each other as compassionate activists is the ‘intersection’ through which we simultaneously expand our consciousness and become empowered actors who can literally change the world. <br><br> A healer, Paul Levy is a spiritual and political activist. He is in private practice, helping other people who are also spiritually awakening to the dream-like nature of reality. He can be reached at
paul@awakeninthedream.com. Please feel free to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. <br><br>© 2005 Paul Levy
www.awakeninthedream.com<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
by darkbeforedawn » Thu Apr 06, 2006 10:55 am