New Consciousness Review Spring 2015 | Page 18

INSPIRATION We are not only mental beings; we are whole human beings with physical, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual aspects. The sad fact is that we moderns spend so much time thinking that we ignore life’s beauty and vibrancy. And, even sadder, our thinking processes have wrapped us so much in knots that we have come to believe that our thoughts are all there is, and that the rest of the world is dead. Let me put it starkly. The sum total of the modern paradigm is a belief that human beings are separate, superior, rational, and alone in our consciousness on a dead planet, without purpose. We have all inherited a worldview that is bereft of soul and stripped of life, cut off from our spiritual roots. This would be exceedingly depressing if it were true. But, thankfully, it is not. The truth, as I have come to see it, is that we humans are not superior; we only think we are. We are just different. The planet is not “dead” or a mere machine; it is all alive. And we are never separate or alone in our consciousness, no matter what we might imagine. Some part of us has always known this. The very word “consciousness” originally meant knowing with, from the Latin conscientia, or shared knowledge. The fact of consciousness is a radical expression of interconnectedness; everything that exists contributes in some way to the consciousness of the whole. It is not that rationality—as we have come to define it in the modern word—is unimportant. It is important. But it is only one expression of our humanness, one part of our full potential. It does not, should not, define humanity. We are not only mental beings; we are whole human beings with physical, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual aspects. We know this, and yet most of us still favor rational thought, even if unconsciously. We do this when we compartmentalize our lives, itself an act of rational thinking. Our spirituality, for instance, may b R&V