Personal Responsibility

Each of us carries within a call to awaken. Some may have imagined a “voice” or some angelic presence or extant spiritual guidance that inspired them originally. Whatever the perceived “source” of this call to awaken, the call is simple and clear. To move energetically with the collective awakening, each individual is called to let go of attachments to and identifications with the old forms.

What are these old forms? To use Carolyn Myss’s language, these old forms are the “tribal mind” and the “egoic or personal mind.”

The tribal mind refers to levels of consciousness where the locus of power in your life is seen as being held by some tribe, clan, group, organization, etc. The most common tribal mind form is that of the family. To one degree or another, your sense of identification comes from your biological clan. Other forms of this tribal mind might be a sense of loyalty to church, community, state, or nation. Most all warfare and human suffering has resulted from one form of this tribal mind or another. This mindset is essential a “we vs. them” way of seeing the world, a mindset that obviously blocks entry into a “new earth” sense of global Oneness.

The “egoic mind” is a much newer developmental stage in our collective evolution of consciousness. Whereas the tribal mind dominated of human history for many thousands of years, the egoic mind has perhaps dominated for a few hundred years, with the peak coming in the latter half of the 20th century. This newer form, still quite dominant in the world, is a mindset that says essentially “what’s in this for me?”

Each individual developmental path moves from the conventions and conditioning of the tribal mind into a deeper investment in personal truth and personal power. Some reach lofty heights in this pursuit of personal worldly power. Others appear to “fail” in this quest for personal glory. But each “ego” has a simple goal, to stand apart, to be noticed, appreciated, and perhaps even loved. Like the tribal mind before it, the egoic mind still sees the locus of this power as being somewhere “in the world.”

Because of this necessary evolution of consciousness, what the world is witnessing today is a significant level of chaos and conflict brought forward by the “sins” of our egoic mind, chiefly pride and greed. Materialism, developed by the tribal mind conditioning, aided by a burgeoning media, and intensified by the egoic mind obsession with status and wealth, has brought the world to its collective knees.

As is true in any transformation, involving a process sometimes named the “dark night of the soul,” it appears the darkest just before the dawn. So it makes perfect sense that in the days leading up to the collective birthing of this “new earth” consciousness, the collapsing old forms will appear very dark indeed.

The new consciousness, or spiritual mind, calls for a letting go, or forgiveness, of these old forms. This forgiveness includes a blessing, for only by blessing our past can we truly let it go and move into new ways of thinking and living.

What is this new consciousness? The awakening which opens one to this “new heaven,” upon which the “new earth” is founded, is the realization that the locus of power that once appeared to be in the clan, or in the self and its relationship with the world, is now felt in the core of one’s spiritual relationship with the universe.

This “spiritual mind” knows experientially how it feels to be connected, not by belonging to some clan or country club, but simply as a result of awakening to the energetic reality of the universe. Awakening from the dream of isolation or separation, one comes to know, essentially, that his or her reason for living rests in this spiritual connection.

The way I like to describe this relationship with what we commonly call “the divine” is using an “energy language.” If we can accept, beyond name or form, that the energetic source of the universe (Eckhart Tolle describes “god” as the un-manifested) is seeking a portal of creative expression or expansion, the whole picture becomes clear. I am that portal, in the world I am co-creating with this source, just as you are that portal in the co-creation of this same world. It is One World, with One Source, and many portals sharing One Function. Here is the essence of Oneness.

The shift is from the still egoic “I’m human having a spiritual experience” to the more accurate “I am the portal, conduit, bridge, channel through which the energetic principle of the universe extends itself into the world.” Or this could be translated into “I am Spirit having a human experience.” This is a simple, but profound, shift.