Changing the World. . . One Mind at a Time

(6-minute read) – We are changing the world… one mind at a time. Our minds are more, so much more, than we realise.

Mind is more than brain. It is more than rational thought and assimilation of information through logic.

Mind includes a much deeper ability to know and understand through connection to and intuitive entanglement with reality… and to effect that reality.

Whatever intuitive powers we have, come from loving. The Persian poet, Rumi, says he has forgotten all his learning, but from knowing love he has become a scholar.

A fourteenth century mystic taught that when the mind is empty a movement of love arises. The key word is ‘arises’… it is an effortless emergence of new clarity. Thomas Aquinas linked on to this mystical understanding of love to explain the two kinds of knowledge.

There is knowledge that comes from scientific enquiry, or the use of reason. And then there is another kind of knowledge that expands and connects beyond thoughts. In this expansion humans are capable of co-existing with the subject, whatever it may be.

Love enables deeper knowledge because it puts one in connection with the other. It connects one’s mind to the very heart of “the other” whether that other is another person, an inanimate object, an opinion or a problem. We can intuitively arrive at understanding by becoming entangled with the cosmos around us.

Einstein knew it

Einstein said that the world of ideas and the world of experience cannot connect without penetrating the object. The two unite by an “extra-logical, intuitive” procedure.

Einstein’s genius lay in his ability to intuitively penetrate or connect with reality such that he could describe it in the language of mathematics and science… the mathematical formulas and scientific rules he had studied. He was entangled with reality and experienced the truth or falsity of his rational formulations. He was able to unite with the cosmos and experience that it was indeed described by the ideas he had formulated rationally. This honed his formulas and made sense of his ideas, which would have remained incomprehensible and incomplete, had he not been able to see their value.

It is astounding that Einstein’s grade school teacher said he was mentally slow, unsociable and always adrift in his foolish dreams. We can forgive the teacher for thinking such things of young Einstein since he did not speak until he was four years old, and didn’t read until he was seven.

Einstein’s genius was something different

He was in awe of the cosmos and revered the universe. He had a kind of humble love for the mystery of existence. Einstein believed that wonderment in the face of “the mystery of the sublime” motivates science, religion, art and ethics. This is because in this state of wonderment he united to his work through love, through a certain reverence for the world and his place in it.

He lived in the present moment and became absorbed in it… focussed on it. For those who know a little something of this state of living, time flies by faster than it does for their colleagues in the adjacent cubicles who are, instead, facing the energy-sapping, second-by-second drudgery of another day of waiting to clock out.

Connected, concentrated focus will reveal value and insight into whatever it is that we are doing. In this frame of mind, even sweeping the floor becomes relevant and satisfying. This is so because the energy received by the mind through its connection to reality, expands our consciousness beyond ourselves, and frees us to simply be.

Einstein couldn’t have said it better when he described this connection with the present moment as:

“a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires . . .”

This “emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires” is in fact transcendence of false self. It is an experience of letting go of isolated, self-conscious ego and connecting with true self, which is fully open, fully connected through love.

We can overcome false self

It is the pouring of enlightenment into human souls that lifts us above our false, limited and isolated sense of self. Sometimes it takes us, in moments of ecstasy, into a different world, an eternal world in a moment. Sometimes it takes us without us even knowing any ecstasy.

In this ‘emancipated’ state the mind is capable of great intellectual breakthroughs, insights and artistic creations. And the mind effects the world through deep connections to it via relationships.

Some have discovered this opening of the mind through hallucinogens. Some have discovered it through meditation and some experience it in moments in nature, or when listening to a piece of music or gazing upon beauty.

Many experience it in the intense heights of human love.

But, so often we just breeze over these experiences and get straight back into our ‘normal’ state. This normal state is the insensitive state – the state where we operate best in a physical world, disconnected from the deep, and content in our delusion.

That is why we have to stop ‘the program in our brains’ on a regular daily basis. We have to make time for silence where we switch off from the delusion. Time for emptiness of mind and resetting to zero. Time for opening to the minds full knowing through love.

How does this change us?

Becoming familiar with the full expanse of mind through a daily practice of silence, transforms us. Our brains’ chemicals and structures change. Our emotional wounds heal, our relationships soften and we meet our expectations of life in the here and now.

Bigotry, anger, blame and guilt melt slowly away from our reality, as we open our minds. The masses of information that stress us and that we can’t understand are narrowed down and we focus in and become entangled with only the important stuff.

How does this change the world?

Ultimately, transformed individual minds, through transforming their relationships to others, effect communities and societies… and the world.

But that occurs organically as the energy spreads in the matrix of life. It is beyond individual control. We should not focus on such lofty ambitions because that draws us away from the simple present moment and its enlightened peace.

Until recently, vast tracts of modern cultures have largely neglected this dimension of mind. Modern society has favoured the power of the logical, rational mind. Modern individuals have favoured the self-conscious ego’s logical obsession with self-interest.

But a reawakening of ancient wisdom is occurring. The false gods of rationalism and positivism are being found out. People are looking to mind and soul again to help solve the persistent problems of our age.

People are looking beyond the persistent problems of science, technology, economics, politics and religion. We are apprehending the delusions of the false self and its institutions.

We see this in a rise in dissatisfaction in society at multiple levels.

But there’s a threat. This rise in dissatisfaction is, most often, not informed by love. It is instead fuelled by a sense of entitlement and the perception of ‘us versus them’ – the dispossessed versus the elite.

If the change is fuelled by disconnection, by the ego’s delusion of self-interest, there is going to be a new kind of war, a war between the haves and the have-nots. And that’s bad for everyone.

The question is: how will we be changing the world… one mind at a time?

Change is coming – of that there is no doubt. Individual minds are being emancipated like never before. Communities are rising up against the status quo all over the globe. Societies are demanding economic and political change.

The global economy depends on continuous expansion but our earth’s resources can’t last forever. Contraction is overdue and we are on the brink of major change in this world.

Will it be a process of hatred, violence and tribalism? In other words, will it be through the logic of the false self, through the qualifiers of the ego.

Or will it be through transcendence of self, through a spirit of generosity. In other worlds will it be through the open mind’s ability to spread new options for society that put the other on the same level as the self. These are options of far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires.

What can we do?

What can people like you and I do? Absolutely nothing… except open our minds… which is absolutely everything! Let us make the transcended mind the norm for us by taking moments of silence and moments of full consciousness. Let us free ourselves from the delusion of the centrality of our personal hopes and desires.

Take up a daily practice of meditation to formalise this commitment to mind. You don’t need to change the practicalities of your life at once. All it takes is half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. If you miss sometimes, don’t stop altogether. Come back next time.

There’s no rush. You have no heavy burdensome responsibility to change the world. You just have a calling to change yourself. And in answering that call you are fulfilling your destiny. You are the butterfly effect in the matrix of life.

Open your mind, free yourself from your ego’s delusion of your small world. Sit quietly often and marvel at the beauty, the music, the miracle of life. Then trust that your energy will go out organically, through relationships, into the matrix of life.

And perhaps, we can truly be changing the world… one mind at a time in the right way.

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