Awakening of the Heart

Knowing what's needed is never enough

I am often asked to speak about the state of development we have reached as a species. A juncture offering a choice between adapting to new realities, struggling to preserve the status quo or even worse, allowing the past to determine our way forward.

My views are coloured by the belief that humanity needs to escape from its various “prisons of invention” – or what I refer to as our manufactured norms - in order to seriously consider long-term survival of any kind as being remotely feasible.

One of these norms is the sense that our species is exceptional, superior to all others, and must therefore be at the centre of literally everything, even including the laughable idea of conquering other planets and solar systems; our impulse to colonize gone mad! Another is imperial indoctrination: a belief that the dominant narrative and associated myths conveyed by an incumbent power-elite offer a more accurate and wiser view of reality than our own personal experiences of life and death.

We’re also faced with a much more debilitating and dehumanizing pattern. It is something of a relief that large numbers of people are starting to open their eyes to the reality of mass-scale psychological manipulation by the rich and powerful. But it doesn’t necessarily change anything. We need not only to be able to see the truth, but also to care about it and cherish it.

Enduring peace is now a pre-requisite for survival. Not just continuing human existence you understand, but all life on Earth, given the insanely violent weapons of mass destruction we now have at our disposal. Realizing this menace, alongside the depravity and immense human suffering we casually inflict upon each other, generates an opportunity to respond and to resist our more aggressive and violent nature, as we reimagine what it might mean to be human in an era of multiple existential challenges. But it’s only an opportunity – and a small one at that.

At this point it’s still possible for us to realize that we’re not being told the whole truth about what’s going on in the world, but decide to go along with the lies anyway, either because the existing world order and conditions have brought us wealth or influence and other comforts, or because we have become too indoctrinated by the prevailing power structures, or because we ideologically support the governing faction, or because we’re afraid of the changes and upheaval that might ensue from overturning the status quo, or possibly because we are just intellectually and morally lazy.

Realizing that you’ve been brainwashed into accepting destructive or toxic conditions unlocks a significant portal within one’s consciousness. But just because that portal has opened a fraction doesn’t mean you will happily squeeze through it. Consciously stepping into a new epistemology of any kind demands a different and possibly more profound epiphany - an awakening of the heart.

If we have a mind we can redesign our world-system to reflect new or changing priorities. But no amount of knowledge or intellectual insight will ever truly liberate us from the harshness of the human condition. You could upload the sum total of human knowledge into the brain of every person on earth -  including government secrets that aren’t in the public domain.  But unless this is accompanied by a collective opening of the heart in a giant leap of love, acceptance and healing, it will not make any difference. Unless people can find it within themselves to care deeply about the terrible things our rulers have been doing to our fellow human beings, no amount of knowledge about those things will catalyze real change. In other words, new attitudes do not automatically translate into new behaviours.

Sadly, there are plenty of people who know this, but don’t care. The most powerful government agencies in the world are run by people who know the most terrible secrets about our ruling power structures that we ordinary members of the public are not allowed to know. This is why Julian Assange is being persecuted by those in the US and British legal systems who are bent on vengeance. His slow motion execution drags on. But because their loyalty is to the empire, not to humanity, and certainly not to a journalist who had the effrontery to reveal the truth, these individuals don’t care about the moral implications of what they know, or the human suffering for which they and their empire is responsible.

So the request of this moment in history is not just to know, but to care. Not just to understand what’s wrong with the world, but to feel it deeply in our guts. Not just to awaken the mind to their crimes, but to awaken the heart as well. Not just to value our own personal thoughts and wellbeing, but to value humanity in all its richness and diversity and wholeness.

Knowledge of the truth can lead to a profound empathy and even compassion for the victims of the globe-spanning power structures that rule over us, and a determination to oppose their unflinching brutality and willingness to ignore basic morals. But it doesn’t necessarily need to lead to informed action.

Ultimately humanity just needs to wake up, on every level. We need to free ourselves from the shackles of unrelenting and mindless propaganda. We need to free ourselves from the chains around our hearts. We need to free ourselves from the gags muzzling what we say. We need to free ourselves from the restraints of ego. We need to unbolt so many rusted padlocks that keep us tethered to old habits and mindsets and attitudes and perspectives that obscure any sense of solidarity, unity and cohesion. 

That’s what’s being asked of us at this juncture. To wake up to being a truly sentient species. It’s the only way we’ll ever be able to move about on this planet in a healthy and harmonious way. And we’ll either rise to the occasion or we won’t. We’ll either wake up, or we’ll destroy ourselves. We have the freedom as a species to go either way and the future of our species is not yet prescribed.