How Far Away are We From a Collective Conscience?

Either we put away childish things as a global society, which doesn't look likely, or we run a possibly very probability of global extinction by our own hands.

This is the point of bringing up extraterrestrials. The idea being that civilizations don't survive this transition and continue to engage in activities that we can detect as coming from intelligent beings. It is not necessarily about space travel, but includes picking up telltale signals.

Personally, I don't think a collective consciousness can develop until we have a crisis of carrying capacity with the right level of technology and knowledge to drive home the point of cooperation. I do not share the authors pessimism that this leads to the loss of individuality, but that it redefines the limits to those activities that impact others the least.

its that the difficulties of travel for any reasonable distance in space (which is a very, very long way) are so numerous and so profoundly enormous such as to be impossible by our current understanding of the natural laws that rule the universe.

Which would be rather like people in the middle ages declaring flight impossible for humans.

The term conscience denotes morality.

Every cell of your body is part of a collective conscience; or will be excommunicated. Addressing a disparity allows the miracle of healing. Though pimples and cancers may be suffered, survival of an organism requires faith in the collective conscience. Though heart and lung cells may not know of each other, their faith in their common conscience is the miracle of life.

It takes a collective consciousness to ascertain the right or wrong direction to take. The term denotes awareness. The rested bird trailing the flock, conscious of the leader's faltering, will follow its conscience, to take the lead.

The TOOL has brought power and abundance; society had to adapt.

The PILL now negates the culling of war, famine and disease; relationships will be adapting.

The INTERNET will bring us global consciousness. Our psyche must adapt.

The dawning of a collective consciousness will lead to a collective conscience; religions notwithstanding. This collective conscience will be the basis of a new consciousness; a consensus of Universal Human Rights.

Then it is time to take control away from the plutocrats and end this rush toward a feudal system we have been on especially since Reagan and put the people as a whole in charge of our government again. So glad you agree with OWS Castor.

Well let's dissect this.

Hunger? No thank you.

Sex? Yes please.

Fear? It's useless

Truth? I can't get enough of it.

Peace? It's in our nature to fight, to strive, to overcome obstacles. So we'll always be at war with someone or something. The problem is when we identify the enemy in error as ourselves. In reality the true enemy of the human race is ignorance which contrary to what most think is actually the source of all evil.

Love? It's not a feeling. It's a choice.

What does it all mean? That's for the individual to find out for his or herself.

Is it a contest? If it is a contest then it is rigged. I hope that it's in our favor! If it's not in our favor then God is not who most of us think he is and Al Pacino was right...

"Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, @!$%#in' ass off! He's a tight-ass! He's a SADIST! He's an absentee landlord!..." ( John Milton from the film "The Devil's Advocate")

I have faith that Pacino aka John Milton was wrong and that our lives are not just some meaningless joke. There is purpose to our struggles, there is a goal, a reward for those who learn, who persevere and who finish the race. And if I'm wrong then we can all take solace in knowing that you, the human race and all of life were doomed for failure from the beginning. If I'm right then everything that we are witnessing now in the age of information and globalization will all eventually work out for the betterment of all.

There is purpose to our struggles, there is a goal, a reward for those who learn, who persevere and who finish the race.

Maybe but what if it is not a contest or a race? Or, what if it is about how much can you let go of?

Maybe but what if it is not a contest or a race? Or, what if it is about how much can you let go of?

...or maybe it's both?

"A man who sees action in inaction and inaction in action has understanding among men and discipline in all action he performs."
- Bhagavad Gita (The Song Celestial)

Matt 6

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[e]?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The Sayings of Lao-Tzu: Paradoxes

"AMONG mankind, the recognition of beauty as such implies the idea of ugliness, and the recognition of good implies the idea of evil. There is the same mutual relation between existence and non-existence in the matter of creation; between difficulty and ease in the matter of accomplishing; between long and short in the matter of form; between high and low in the matter of elevation; between treble and bass in the matter of musical pitch; between before and after in the matter of priority...

...When the Great Tao falls into disuse, benevolence and righteousness come into vogue. When shrewdness and sagacity appear, great hypocrisy prevails. It is when the bonds of kinship are out of joint that filial piety and paternal affection begin. It is when the State is in a ferment of revolution that loyal patriots arise.

Cast off your holiness, rid yourself of sagacity, and the people will benefit an hundredfold. Discard benevolence and abolish righteousness, and the people will return to filial piety and paternal love. Renounce your scheming and abandon gain, and thieves and robbers will disappear. These three precepts mean that outward show is insufficient, and therefore they bid us be true to our proper nature;--to show simplicity, to embrace plain dealing, to reduce selfishness, to moderate desire...

...The Sage does not care to hoard. The more he uses for the benefit of others, the more he possesses himself. The more he gives to his fellow-men, the more he has of his own.

The truest sayings are paradoxical.

The Upanishads

1. Like two golden birds perched on the selfsame tree,
Intimate friends, the ego and the Self
Dwell in the same body. The former eats
The sweet and sour fruits of the tree of life
While the latter looks on in detachment.

2. As long as we think we are the ego,
We feel attached and fall into sorrow.
But realize that you are the Self, the Lord
Of life, and you will be freed from sorrow.
3. When you realize that you are the Self,
Supreme source of light, supreme source of love,
You transcend the duality of life
And enter into the unitive state.

The Gospel of Thomas

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.

We are all so used to seeing ourselves, each other and our experiences as an "either/or" reality. What if the reality is that conflicting opposites are two perspectives of one and the same thing?