PART I: SELF CONNECTION

THE GUIDE

When we feel a sense of lack and inner emptiness, we may desperately try to distract ourselves from the feeling or to alter or fix external conditions to get some relief from our discomfort without addressing the core root of our pain – our Self-Source disconnection (whether we define ‘Source’ as God, higher power, universal order, mystical life purpose, an impersonal Tao, a self-determined existential humanism, or a personal sense of essential wholeness….)

We may cope with this disconnection in various ways - we could engage in addictive behavior, dissociate through denial and projection, seek external validation and social approval... we could turn inward to meditative reflection, creative self-expression, immerse ourselves in nature, adopt a worthy cause to devote ourselves to… or we could become more consciously aware of our stories – the ones that shape our reality by defining our experiences and our self-concept.

What is the story we live by? Is it even ours? Did we choose it? Or was it given or forced on us by others, subconsciously inherited, influenced by past trauma, or unquestionably acquired through habit or mindless repetition? Is the meaning and purpose behind our story motivated and propelled by love? Fear? Revenge? Does our story connect and nourish us, or does it dis-empower us or others? Perhaps there was a time when our story served a purpose, but when circumstances shifted, or we outgrew the need for it, that once life-expanding story only kept us stuck and depleted.

7. INTERCONNECTION

& SPIRITUAL HUNGER

Essay by Katarzyna Vedah. Sept. 1, 2018

The current framework in modern society seems to reinforce our sense of depletion and emptiness while simultaneously holding out its promising carrot of fulfillment. The story seems to go, that if only we had a bit more stuff, a bit more status, a bit more attention… then all would be well.

If only we could acquire these things, then we would feel better…wouldn’t we? But when we’re born into the purpose & identity of the Consumer, why would we ever feel satiated? - when any fleeting fulfillment only reinforces a greater sense of lack and we find ourselves caught in a loop, repeating the cycle....

Having let go of the stories that once gave our lives meaning and purpose, uprooted from the old myths, rituals, spiritual guidance and mystical awe that once shaped our universe and our place in it (for better or worse), we now seem to flail in a world where the sacred is for sale and all we see is the mud at our feet. Our technology has connected us and isolated us in equal measure, and the more we seem to fill our homes and bellies, the more our spiritual hunger seems to increase.

Adrift in a modern context without the moorings of new stories, rituals, and a psycho-spiritual framework to make sense of our experiences and our lives, many of us wander like lost and disillusioned orphans – confused, fearful, and raging, having found the omnipotent god-parents of our infancy as delusions, false, corrupt, or just as fragile and helpless as we feel.

But perhaps this is simply how we, as a species, mature. Finding ourselves in-between worlds, we must release one way of being in order to move into another.

These adolescent years of our human evolution are fraught with an admixture of fearful uncertainty and liberating freedom that can be as destructive as they are creative.

It's a time that asks of us, individually and collectively, to acknowledge the crumbling ruins of an old world, to answer the call to a greater perspective, and to choose our paths consciously – a time to give ourselves new stories to live by, and from them, build a new reality.

VIDEO (YouTube): School of Life

Modern World Makes Us Mentally Ill

VIDEO (YouTube): TED Talk

"Warm" Technology – Karen Dolva

Beauty Will Save the World - S. Brown

The Science Delusion - R.Sheldrake

VIDEO (YouTube): Science & Nonduality

Meeting of Science and Spirituality

Science & Spirituality - Matthew Fox

VIDEO (YouTube): Mindvalley Talks

Everything Is Connected - Tom Chi