Individuals and the Whole

     Perhaps the most profound & most important question we ponder is: 'How do I personally, as an individual, relate to the big picture, the whole of life, the transpersonal realm?

     “In ancient times, various holistic sciences were developed by highly evolved beings to enable their own evolution and that of others. These subtle arts were created through the linking of individual minds with the universal mind. They are still taught by traditional teachers to those who display virtue and desire to assist others. The student who seeks out and studies these teachings furthers the evolution of mankind as well as her own spiritual unfolding. The student who ignores them hinders the development of all beings.” Lao Tzu 

     Indra’s Net (see below) is a metaphor for the Buddhist understanding of the profound (holograph-like?) interconnection and interdependence between each individual and all else. Thich Nhat Hanh calls it “interbeing.” Zen refers to the relationship between an individual and the whole as "not one, not two."
 
     “Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.” Ralph Waldo Emerson 

     “I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe.
     My own working assumption is that we are here as local Universe information gatherers. We are given access to the divine design principles so that from them we can invent the tools that qualify us as problem solvers in support of the integrity of an eternally regenerative Universe." R. Buckminster Fuller 

     Humanity is experiencing on a collective level, a shift in consciousness similar to what happened ~2,500 years ago with individuals such as the Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, Confucius, or the philosophers of ancient Greece. The individual's task is to shift their consciousness from identification with the ego self, to a liberated and awakened consciousness. Eckhart Tolle

     “You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe,
an intrinsic part of it. 
Ultimately you are not a person,
but a focal point 
where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. 
What an amazing miracle.” Eckhart Tolle
 
       “If you don’t become the ocean you’ll be seasick every day.” Leonard Cohen

Indra's Net - Stress Engineering Services, Cincinnati, OH

Locked in vs Free Outside "the Box"

     Most of us are aware of having certain self-concepts & worldviews, but by and large, nearly all of our attention is focused externally. What we see & think is, we (mistakenly) assume to be the objective truth. Most of us simply don't know that we don't know what's going on. And since we're certain that our take on things is accurate, we're equally sure that different perspectives are not only wrong, but that we should take action to fix the problem. Homer Simpson sums it up nicely "I don't like them - they're different." Welcome to fear-based egocentricity & all that it entails: rigidity, dogmatism, adversarial relationships, extremism, fundamentalism, totalitarianism, war, genocide, ... See: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=being+right and: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2014/02/492-mindfulness-practice-real-world.html      
     Self-reflection - "a life examined" - is critically important to start evolving out of this primitive, tight, blind, egocentric box. As we evolve our consciousness, there is a natural shift from egocentric through hypo-egoic towards self-transcendence and allocentricity. See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/12/capacity-to-deal-realistically-with.html and http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/10/self-concepts-sense-of-momentum-or.html

     "In Indian mythology, Indra was a God who attached all phenomena with visible and invisible strands weaving together a universal net. Earth, trees, clouds, mountains, sky, passion, aggression, creativity, women, men, and children, all were connected in Indra's expansive net. At the intersections of these strands, Indra tied dulcimer bells. In that way, as one part of the net was pulled or moved, the bells would ring; when the sound of a bell was heard, awareness of interconnectedness arose becoming another strand of consideration in one's weave. When the bells were ignored, an illusion of separation and independence reigned; the outcome could be destructive, reverberating throughout the net.”
       W. Anne Bruce: "Abiding in Liminal Space(s): Inscribing Mindful Living/Dying With(In) End-of-Life Caring." PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2002, p12