100th monkey...

There is a theory known as the "100th monkey effect", supposedly put forth due to the observation of Japanese scientists observation that when a certain percentage of a monkey population on one island learned to wash its food, the knowledge became inherent in the species, even though no physical contact existed. Monkeys on other islands spontaneously started washing their food.

This theory is often linked with Rupert Sheldrakes theories of Morphic Resonance. This is the idea that our thoughts effect the form of other living things, even with out material means. Commonly held ideas form a morphic field that life around it patterns after.

http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html

It also has support in the arena of quantum physics and the demonstrable Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Which ties the state of quanta, sub atomic particles, to their being observed. And it has been demonstrated the different observers influence differently under the same conditions.

These two ideas suggest that the world we live in is an effect of consciousness, rather than an independently existing reality that we are merely experiencing. We are creating it actively.

The implications of this are that our direction should be towards increasing out capacity for consciousness, for being aware of our awareness, and directing it accordingly. It is a brief for assuming responsibility, and a lessened belief in fate or disconnection from life, its forms, and its environment.

If it is our thoughts that give form to life and its environment, and our very act of observation that solidifies energy into the patterns we then see, we need to move towards a greater involvement in creation, rather than letting it go automatic.

How.

I still believe that scientology, the philosophy and technology, (as contrasted with the Church of Scientology, a large dysfunctional organization that thinks it owns said philosophy and technology), is a valuable path. In scientology you find well laid out explanations of the various life functions as relate to the consciousness and the mind. Scientology also has methods to remove the erroneous patterns of thinking and filters to observation that hinder.

Only when old patterns of thought are removed, can we accurately observe and thus create in a sane and rational manner.

And it is a state of full presence in the current moment that creating is done. Scientology removes things that hold our consciousness to moments in the past, keeping us from full presence. But also full presence is something that can be mentored. For this I like Gangaji, born Merle Antoinette (Tony) Roberson in Texas in 1942, grew up in Mississippi. She trod a long path from Mississippi through new age california, to India, finding her presence and the ability to transmit the notion of it to others.

Her modeling of silent loving awareness, and message recommending dropping all "story" of who you are and engaging in an enquiry from that state, is certainly aligned with expanding consciousness.

Of course I love the high tech approach also, like any apple computer user and iphone addict...and along these lines I augment my hold on sanity and expand my biological capacity for supporting consciousness with the use of biaural meditation. http://www.monroeinstitute.org/

If consciousness is the stuff of life I believe it to be, the master of explaining it in terms outside the material construct is Ingo Swann. In fact this blog entry was inspired by my reading of his book "Your Nostradamus Factor". He seems to have dedicated his life to understanding how consciousness functions outside the more well known realms, and how is it suppressed to fit a certain paradigm that excludes its non physical communication.

We have pattered ourselves, given in to automatic functioning, to the exclusion of various avenues of consciousness, so called telepathy, clairvoyance, foreseeing the future and other innate functions of consciousness that are excluded in how we currently live, but are demonstrably possible.

Are we moving towards a human "100th monkey" effect, where the critical mass of "enlightened" consciousness elevates us? I think we are. The various tools are there. Science and materialism have created the conditions where we have the time and energy to expend in making a species wide leap forward, we no longer need to work just to stay clothed and fed. We have the time to examine our spiritual beliefs which in the past were more of a shorthand or placeholder built of not fully examined metaphor.

This monkey is ready to wash its food.