Ch.8 - Erasing the Collective Consciousness
The Field that we Live in is Alive, it is a Living Field of Consciousness
We are Fighting now for our Consciousness
The Single Biggest Challenge we Face is to Remain Conscious and not Fall into Numbness
[This profound chapter investigates the devastating effect of technology on the delicate and subtle fields of consciousness that make up the individual and collective unconscious.]
The Field that we Live in is Alive, it is a Living Field of Consciousness
Of course it is hard to convey what is happening to us energetically because it is so hard to quantify. But I have no doubt that it will get quantified sooner or later. As I have just explained we are alive because of electromagnetism. Consciousness is life, and consciousness is electromagnetism. The life faculty in this body is electromagnetism.
Simply put, the field that we live in is alive, it is a living field of consciousness. Within this living field we also are all alive and conscious. We are alive and conscious within a unified field of consciousness that is also alive. Now when I worry about something or feel love or joy or ponder my memories, my own discreet consciousness produces a charge, and that charge is alive within me. But it is also alive within that unified living field.
Each of us over time generates our own psychic field wherever we are and the space around us accumulates over time the charge of what has gone on. We often refer to this as the astral field. It is the subtle electromagnetic dimension of consciousness that rests in the background behind the obvious physical appearance of things.
So over time, throughout history, that living field holds the record of what it was like to be humanity, living through what it has lived through. And we add to it all the time. And that is actually at a very deep archetypal level where we get a sense of being part of something, even though individually we may not necessarily have experienced these things or been there at the time. So if you were born and raised in England there is a feeling of what the land holds, the story of it, the history of it. And you can feel it in you, because it is alive. It is there. And all the experiences that we have shared, and the stories that we have built up, and the ideas, all of that is a huge field of intelligence. And our thoughts are living charges in that field.
When we send a text message we put another kind of information into that field. It has not got intelligence to it and we do not recognise it. When you put wifi on, it puts a charge into exactly the same field, that living field.
It is this unified field that gives us the real sense of being connected, that we are human, what it means to be human, what other people might be feeling in response to how we are behaving with them. Empathy and all of the subtlety of our lived conscious experience is alive in that field.
Twenty years ago there was nothing but occasional television signals and radios interfering with this unified field. So there was a little bit of interference in that field but you could feel that field very strongly. If I was to, say, go back to the time when something significant was happening in your life, somewhere in you, you can feel that, because it is held in the space that you are in, and your sense of identity comes from your connection to it.
What has happened in the last 15 or 20 years is that that field has been microwaved by all this technology, at levels that greatly exceed the natural background radiation in nature. In the same way that when you put your food in a microwave oven and you switch that microwave oven on, it effectively radiates the life out of it. It just becomes dead food. It is just fuel. In the same way our experiences are becoming dead experiences and the depth of feeling and meaning is lacking.
That space that we live in now does not contain that depth of living intelligence it used to, because millions and millions of times every single day everywhere people are sending text messages, downloading videos and much more. And the more concentrated it becomes, the more intense it becomes.
When we go away on retreat in these relatively remote places in the countryside we can still feel that living field and we can re-attune to it. But in our towns and cities there comes a point where the interference in it is so strong and accumulative that we stop being able to feel it. And at that point we become just body consciousness and mind existing in an incoherent ambient field of electromagnetism that completely lacks the intelligence that is contained in the natural field.
These days there is so much noise in the background going on constantly and it is so much stronger than the subtle resonance of our shared experiences, like how people all felt fighting for what they believed in during the Second World War or on 9/11 for example, or how we all feel on Christmas day when we wake up.
The things that add the flavour, depth and texture to life sit in that field, they are alive in that field. And now the problem is that that field is so completely violated by the radio waves used by technology. It is like something delicate playing in the background and then somebody comes and switches on heavy metal music at full volume. There’s no chance that you can pick it up. There is not only no chance that you can pick it up, it is wiped clear.
And yet the ambient energy field around us is our heritage as humanity, the shared experience that we have had from the time that we have been organising ourselves as groups and communities and socially sharing our experiences. That is what we share and from it we get our sense of belonging to something greater. But when that is gone the sense of what it is that we are doing or are part of will be gone with it.
So even if you cannot feel the effects of all this technology, in terms of getting a headache, feeling restless or not sleeping at night, at another level we are feeling it. Maybe we cannot yet feel the shaking in the base of our body that makes us feel so uncomfortable that we have to simply start to shut down. But what will start to happen is that when you are talking to someone all you can do is listen to what they are saying because you cannot feel what they are feeling. Our ability to empathise and really connect with each other will be breaking down because we are losing our connection to that field where all of our shared experience is held, that astral field if you like, which is so rich in experience.
Maybe we do not value this aspect of our experience, and it does not feel like much of a loss. But in just twenty years of living in the absence of that unifying intelligence, humanity will seem like a different species, with a different type of consciousness driving us, a different sense of who and what we are.
Although we may not have done the best job of being guardians of this planet over the last two or three thousand years, we have been through what we have been through. The shared experience of suffering during the first and second world wars, for example, played a huge part in re-instilling in us a sense of the sacredness of life and its sanctity. As a result we lived in a period of relative peace, balance and prosperity for some years after. The memory of such suffering remained in group consciousness because it remained alive in the living field of consciousness. The implications of losing this ambient field and all the experiences and intelligence it contains is enormous for all of us.
These days there are zones and areas where that living conscious field is still there and there is something to plug in to that is more than just what is going on within us at any given moment. If we do not feel that connection to our heart we would not notice it happening. But when you do feel it you will really notice it. When your heart starts to come back on line again and you start to resonate rather than just communicate, you will feel what is going on.
So the reason that I urge you to try and create space where that degree of microwaving is not going on and spend enough of your life in that field that is still living, still alive with consciousness rather than live with noise, with technology, is because in there, in that conscious field, is everything that is beyond the veil of your ordinary perception. And contained within that is the very essence of what life really is. The most sacred aspect of it.
These things are subtle and hard to convey, but I am saying them because I know that many of you will not be aware of them and will not have started to reflect on the implications of our modern technology at this level. At some level most of us will simply be trying to pretend that everything is all right. But we all need to start asking ourselves whether we do really feel all right. And if we do not, are we prepared to do something about it?
We are Fighting now for our Consciousness
We are going to have to make choices because the consciousness that exists in that field is life. We simply cannot have all these conveniences and it not cost something. We are fighting now for our consciousness. In 20 years the damage will be done. Something will either have happened to put a stop to it, or something drastic will have happened to us. But it is much easier to guard our wellbeing when we are relatively well than it is to recover it when it is lost.
This is very important. We may well find ways to survive as living organisms in isolation, having cut ourselves off from what our source of life actually is. But what will be the quality of that survival? What kind of suffering will we then experience? This really is so important. It is probably the most significant thing we face as a species. In some ways it is more important than the question of our survival itself. In all that field lies the memory of humanity's shared experience, the horror that we have been through, that we have learned from, the exalted feelings of grace and compassion and love, and the knowledge and memory that life is precious and is sacred. All of that is living in that field.
There is no way that a fully conscious being would ever do what we do daily if we could really feel and see for ourselves at the deepest level what life really is. There is no way that any conscious being would ever do to itself or others what we do every day. So where do you think we are going to get the inspiration, the guidance, the impulse to raise ourselves up and be more than that if we cut ourselves off from that higher level of intelligence?
This is the ultimate example of what the Buddha was talking about when the said that ignorance and not knowing is the cause of suffering. How much suffering do we have to forbear before we are willing to change? It will happen, and it will happen soon. It will get to to a point where either everybody has readjusted and we are existing without that consciousness, or we break down at a physiological or psychological level. We depend upon this unified field to remain fully conscious. There comes a point where our man-made emissions blanket and smother or even wipe out that intelligent living vital field. And that will be the point of real numbness.
The Buddha taught us that greed, anger and hatred are not the root cause of suffering. They are not innate within us but evolve as conditioned responses in the face of ignorance. Ignorance is to not know, to not pay attention and to not feel what is happening to us. In short, ignorance is numbness. If we see an increase in greed, anger, selfishness and hatred, it will always be a reflection of the degree to which we have allowed ourselves to fall into ignorance and become numb.
The Single Biggest Challenge we Face is to Remain Conscious and not Fall into Numbness
The single biggest challenge we face now is the challenge to remain conscious and not fall into numbness. Because that is the only real door by which we will see for ourselves the way that leads us out of suffering. So it is a big issue. It is challenging and we have got to live with it. But always the doorway out of suffering involves seeing things for what they are, accepting them and acting appropriately. Ignorance, numbness and denial of the truth only ever leads to greater suffering in the end.
Remember over and above all else: life is consciousness and consciousness is life. When consciousness degenerates life degenerates with it. To guard the quality of our consciousness is to guard the quality of our life.
