SPIRITUALLY INFORMED POLITICAL ACTIVISM
by Paul Levy
A healer, Paul Levy is a spiritual and political activist. He is in private practice, helping other people who are also spiritually awakening to the dream-like nature of reality.
Many people are asking me what we can do to make a
difference in our current world situation. Like a dream, our situation is fluid,
impermanent and multi-dimensional. On one level, we need to connect with each
other and stand up against Bush’s policies as much as we are able, as his
policies are creating endless unnecessary suffering, deprivation and destruction
for millions of people. Bush and Co. are completely mad. They are giving shape
and form to what it is to be criminally insane. The Bush Administration’s abuse
of power literally demands us to learn new ways to step into our own creative
power. Standing up against Bush, though profoundly important and necessary, is
itself only part of the solution. We need to step into our roles as ‘spiritually
informed political activists,’ where spiritual understanding in-forms our
actions in the world.
On the one hand we need to act. It is as if this is a play
and we need to step into the roles that are being presented to us, go over our
edge and do something, whatever that
something looks like. This is the scene in the play where it is being demanded
of us that we ‘step up to the plate,’ to use an analogy from our national
pasttime, and get involved in whatever way suits our innate talents and aesthetic. If we refuse
to participate, it is as if we are avoiding relationship with a part of
ourselves. We are then not engaging with what is happening in the outside world
as well as choosing not to deal with what it triggers inside of us. Incarnation
is about showing up. We need to play our roles fully. We need to speak our true
voice, which is the very creative act that is being demanded of
us.
If we are not willing to embody and step into our truth,
however, we literally become part of the problem instead of part of the
solution. We then have no one to blame but ourselves for what is befalling our
country. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “We- even we here- hold the power, and bear
the responsibility.” When the universe requires us to step into our power and
stand up for ourselves, if we refuse this calling, in that moment we give away
our power and literally abandon ourselves. It is as if we split-off from and
dis-own a part of ourselves.
Each of us is being asked to incarnate the truth of our
being in a particularly unique way. If we assent to the life that is flowing
through us, if we embody and incarnate the true voice that speaks through us, we
affect the greater field. We can co-inspire each other to deeper levels of
co-operative creative expression. Any one of us speaking our voice makes it
easier for each of us to do the same, as we are all connected.
In addition, however, our action needs to be informed with
a spiritual wisdom that recognizes that there is a deeper, more powerful process
that is revealing something to us as it concurrently acts itself out through us.
Interestingly, the inner meaning of the word ‘apocalypse’ is something hidden being
revealed. A deeper archetypal process, which is to say a powerful
energy that can possess a person or a nation, is incarnating itself through us.
This more powerful mythic, archetypal energy has re-created itself all
throughout history, and is manifesting, in fully visible form, through, in and
as this world of ours. This more powerful energy that is birthing itself through
our species is what Jung would call the ‘dark side of the Self,’ or we could say
the dark or hidden God, what is called the ‘deus absconditus.’ Scholar Rudolph
Otto refers to it as the ‘mysterium horrendum,’ as it is truly awe-full. What is revealing
itself to us is the shadow of
the Lord, which interestingly, is one of the inner meanings of the
word ‘Satan.’
An emerging archetype such as the Self, as long as it’s not
related to consciously, manifests its negative aspect, ‘drafting’ people into
its service. Its ‘field of force’ literally absorbs and possesses people (or
nations), acting itself out through them in a destructive way. It is profoundly
significant that the negative archetype of the Self, the dark side of God is
manifesting in fully apparent form in our universe. When a deeper archetypal
energy reveals itself in this way, attracting the universe into itself, this is
an expression that this more powerful archetypal energy is ready and available
for assimilation. For it
is only when these deeper energies become incarnated into the physical realm can
the energy that is bound up in the compulsion to re-create the deeper pattern be
accessed, unlocked and liberated. When this more powerful energy is ready to be
integrated, it in-forms and gives shape to events in the outer world so as to
express itself. This deeper energy acts itself out through us as it gets
unconsciously ‘dreamed up’ by us into actual materialization in, through and as
the universe. It is as if Satan has gone from hiding in underground shadows to
above ground where he is incarnating, illumined by the light of
day.
The fact that the shadow of God is incarnating itself in
fully visible form is an expression that the ‘dark side’ is in the process of
being SEEN and made CONSCIOUS. The darkness can’t stand to be seen, however,
even reacting violently, for to see it takes away its autonomy and omnipotence,
as it can no longer act itself out through us. Once seen, the darkness becomes
integrated, as it is recognized to belong to all of us. Seeing the true nature
of the darkness is to recognize that it is a reflection of the darkness inside
all of us. We have all collaboratively dreamed up this darkness together, we are
all complicit, we are all responsible.
Recognizing that the dark side of the Self is enacting
itself through us is the key to whether this activated archetype gets integrated
and healed, or continues to get unconsciously acted out in a destructive way. In
this dimension, it is the expansion of our consciousness itself which is the
agency that activates a process of transformation in the archetypal realm, and
hence, in the universe itself. On this level we don’t have to actively ‘do’
anything at all, for all that is asked of us is to simply recognize and
consciously bear witness to the deeper process that is playing itself out
through us.
If we want to stop the war and save the biosphere, the best
thing any one of us can do right now is to integrate and engage these
two levels: resisting the Bush administration at all costs while simultaneously
recognizing the deeper, hidden, and self-destructive process that is being
revealed as it unfolds through all of us. These two levels co-join and
interpenetrate each other so fully that they synergistically complement and
complete each other as if they are two parts of a greater whole. And the whole
is truly greater than the sum of its parts, as something becomes activated and
empowered when these two levels of experience mutually embrace, support and
cross-pollinate each other. When these two levels co-operatively work together,
something gets birthed, as these two dimensions ‘flesh each other out,’ which is
what genuine incarnation is all about. The key is to keep our hearts open so we
don’t fall under the illusion of blaming or demonizing an ‘other,’ whom we
imagine to be separate from ourselves.
We need to recognize what is being revealed to us AND
act out of this realization, which we are asked to embody. These two levels are
insufficient by their lonesome selves without the collaboration of the other.
The (arche)typical political activists, in fighting against Bush as if he is
separate from themselves, unwittingly act as a conduit to create and sustain the
very thing they are fighting against. By fighting Bush, they are
unconsciously reacting against something in themselves, which just perpetuates
the diabolical polarization in the field. Political activists who are resisting
Bush without realizing that he is an embodied reflection of a part of themselves
lack genuine compassion. Not recognizing that what they are fighting against is
something within themselves causes them to not be ultimately helping. On the
contrary, they are secretly complicit in perpetuating the very problem they are
reacting to.
And spiritual practitioners who think all they have to do
is to work on their own inner process and the world will reflect this change are
missing the mark. For this is the time in history when our inner process is
manifesting in, as and through the outside world in a way where something is
simultaneously asked of us and made uniquely available to us. It is as if we can
heal something deep inside of ourselves by fully stepping into the role, however
big or small, we’re supposed to play in the world’s drama. Just like a dream,
the outer world is the externalization and materialization of our inner process.
The outer world is mirroring our inner process. And our inner process is being
expressed as the outer world. The outer world is recognized to be the medium
through which we can work on our inner process.
The dark side of God that is incarnating in this world of
ours is a reflection of the dark or unconscious side of ourselves. The outside
world is nothing other than our inner process projected onto the screen of time
and space. We are not separate from the universe, and we cannot separate
ourselves out from the universe. To not recognize that the outer universe is a
continually unfolding revelation of our inner process is to become entranced by
our own narcissism and fall under the spell of the separate self, which is a
state of self-hypnosis also genuinely lacking in compassion.
I am not in any way degrading the profound importance of
being either a political activist or a spiritual practitioner. All I am pointing
at is that these two disciplines need to creatively impregnate each other so as
to be truly effective. We need to become spiritually informed political
activists, or to say it differently, politically active spiritual
practitioners.
As spiritually informed political activists we can
cultivate this same self-reflective awareness moment by moment towards what is
happening in our personal mundane, day to day lives. Our particular life
situation, with all of its unique problems, is the doorway which connects us to
the deeper, archetypal collective process of humankind. This is to say that the
process happening deep inside of us is re-presenting itself both literally as
well as symbolically in both our personal lives as well as the world stage. We
find ourselves in a synchronic universe where the inner and the outer, the
microcosm and the macrocosm are recognized to be mirrored reflections of each
other. The actions of our local personal self are inseparable from and
instantaneously, non-locally affect the greater universal field. Fully entering
the present moment of our individual, day to day lives literally has an
invisible but very real effect on the universe.
It helps to remember this, as sometimes it is easy to feel
helpless, as if there is nothing any of us can do to make a difference in the
current world situation. One individual self-reflecting and metabolizing what is
getting triggered in them by their current life situation, with, for example,
all of their emotional upsets, relationship conflicts, body symptoms, etc, makes
it easier and more accessible for others to have this same realization, as we
are all connected. Any one of us cultivating self-reflective awareness in this
very moment spontaneously affects the greater field, and could be the very act
that tips the scales, initiating a phase shift in the collective consciousness
of all of humankind.
As spiritually informed political activists, we can connect
with each other and help each other to see through the illusion that we are
dis-empowered. The truth is that as we hook up and collectively get in phase
with each other we have incredible power to affect reality. Our connecting with
each other and helping each other to activate our true God-given creative power
is the worst nightmare of the powers-that-be. We can
reciprocally and exponentially empower each other in a way that helps all of us.
We can collaboratively put our energy together so as to dis-spell the dark,
negative energy that is destructively acting itself out in this world of ours.
Paradoxically, we transform our inner process by engaging with the outer world,
while we simultaneously transform the outer world by working on our inner
process.
This is a ‘dreamed up’ universe. All six billion of us are
having a mass shared dream. We have all collaboratively dreamed up into
incarnation a process going on deep inside the collective psyche of all of
humanity, and we are playing it out on the world stage as history. Our doing
this is both the problem as well as the potential solution. In other words,
encoded in symbolic form in our very crisis is hidden the key for its own
re-solution and transcendence.
From a more expansive point of view, the negative,
destructive energy that is getting dreamed up in our world is itself the
inspiration for the collective realization and collaborative action that
dis-spells it. This is to say that the darkness that pervades our planet is a
potential blessing in a very convincing disguise that it’s not. The key to
activating this potential blessing is our attitude towards that which we see as
evil.
We are clearly destroying ourselves. And yet, in this act
of self-destruction, something
is being revealed to us. From this point of view, the endless
self-destruction that we are perpetrating on each other is the atemporal footprint of this
revelation, expressed in symbolic form, projected in time, as it is
the medium through which we can recognize what is being revealed.
From the point of view of the ‘plenum,’ the atemporal
fullness of the collective unconscious, we have already had this realization and
the events in our world are the conduit through which this revelation is
actualized. This process is accomplished by an expansion of consciousness
co-joined with the creative giving shape and form to this realization in the
outer world. The outer world is the canvas, so to speak, in which this
realization is made manifest.
Recognizing the deeper archetypal process that is playing out through us, we realize that we can connect with each other in ‘lucid’ awareness, creating a ‘container’ with our shared realization to incarnate the deeper, archetypal process consciously. This is to get in phase with each other in a way where we can, in real time- the present moment, literally transform our situation and dream a more grace-filled universe into actualization. This collective realization is fully imaginable into being in this very moment. Consciously accessing our God-given ability to get ‘in sync’ with each other and collaboratively transform the way reality manifests is nothing short of a radical, revolutionary, epochal and evolutionary quantum leap in human consciousness. Coming together and hooking up with each other in conscious awareness enables us to simultaneously access and transform both our inner and outer processes. Recognizing the deeper process that is being revealed to us and connecting with each other as compassionate activists is the ‘intersection’ through which we simultaneously expand our consciousness and become empowered actors who can literally change the world.