political

1.     Characterized by shrewdness in managing, contriving, or dealing

2.     Sagacious in promoting a policy

3.     Shrewdly tactful

I am almost at the point of saying that group consciousness does not involve politics. The sense of politic is very much in the “managing, contriving or dealing” frequency. Even the concept of sagacious carries the sense of shrewd, wily and artful ways or dealing. One is reminded of “Slick Willy”, a recent U.S. President. There is this undertow of crafty self centered motivation which like an invisible virus infects politics and all things political.

Let us also not confuse politic with tact. Tact carries a completely different frequency. Tact is, “a keen sense of what to do or say in order to maintain good relations with others or avoid offense.” The point of politics is to maintain one’s grasp on power. When one is politic, one is saying what one thinks will ultimately get one what one wants. The truth of the matter or good relationships are not determining factors.

None of this is new of course. It is the same old game that was played in Athens. It was politic to murder Socrates, portray Anaxagoras as an ass braying in the public square and drive him into exile on a charge of contravening the established religion, and to drive Pythagoras into exile in Metapontum to avoid being murdered.

Still today “politicians” employ individuals to do such things as “swift boating” or smearing or backstabbing. The difference is that today we call these people spin doctors. They share a skill and a moral code of great similarity with the ancient sophists. 

Spin Doctors

The list of the sophists’ victims is great. It includes not just the ancient Greeks but Confucius and Seneca, Joan of Arc and Aspasia and many modern individuals who would dare go against the conventional wisdom. We think of Abraham Lincoln, Jack and Robert Kennedy and of Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. We worry about who will be next, for the long knives of the “Spin Doctors” it seems, are always ready to move from words to steel, if words do not accomplish their ends.

So, it is hard for me to see how politics really has anything to do with the new consciousness, group consciousness. Still we are in the throws of a very hotly contested election cycle in the United States, and what seems to me to be the issue that will be decided upon by the electorate in November is much more than who will be the next President. What will be demonstrated is the success or at least the growing success of the evolution of Humanity.

As we have been saying, evolution concerns the progressive development of consciousness.  As far as human beings are concerned, the evolution of consciousness has been from a state of mass consciousness into what we now know as self consciousness. In the really pre-human mass conscious state, the unit, living in a herd or tribe, really did not sense that it was in anyway separate as an individual with unique drives and feelings from any of the other inhabitants. As we have learned from the Ancient Lore, as a result of the implanting of the “Spark of Mind”, this condition evolved over who knows how many kalpas from a condition of mass consciousness into what we today call self consciousness. (For more information on “the spark of mind”, one is directed to Alice A. Bailey’s A Treatise On Cosmic Fire.)

Today, as we all know only too well, self consciousness has reached a kind of apotheosis. In the gradual development of self consciousness, humanity has drifted far from the harbors of its original Truth. We have become deeply separated from one another and from the whole of which, in reality, we are an intrinsic part.

We have arrived at a dead end. We are facing a condition that can only be described as a state of psychosis, a loss of contact with reality including delusions about what is happening, what is going on, and who we actually are. We live within the grip of a Great Lie, a deep illusion of separateness.

This condition which has rendered us more unconscious than self conscious, characterized by delusional assumptions of lack and the need to fight for survival for self worth, identity and meaning has resulted in a state of constant war in virtually all areas of our lives. It has brought down upon us a constant state of suffering and doubt. It is such an absurd state that we call the few and far between periods, when there is not actually a declared war going on in the world, peace. The condition has actually brought us to the brink of destroying not only one another or life as we know it, but perhaps the planet.

However, we also know, that evolution is and has been unfolding according to the Plan of the Logos. Somewhere back there several kalpas ago, through contact with that “spark of mind”, which was deeply buried in each human unit, various individuals within the human family began to touch the Soul. This touching between the “spark of mind” and the Soul results in a connection which allows the nature of the Soul to flow into one’s mind and heart. Thus the next phase of the evolution of consciousness, group consciousness, began its appearance in the midst of the evolution of self consciousness.

We can still experience, somewhat, what it must have been like when, long ago, an individual, perhaps one of us, would suddenly, or perhaps gradually, “wake up” and realize that he or she was actually not separated, but an intrinsic, interdependent member of humanity, a relative to the creatures of nature and even nature itself, and found him or her self surrounded by people, who, although undoubtedly our brothers and sisters, were basically not conscious. They were engaged in a kind of insane life in which they were identified with the dense physical plane and saw war and death as the way to ensure that they existed and would stay alive.

Today when this connection between spark and soul occurs or when an individual who has gradually established this connection over a series of previous incarnations, incarnates, we are not so lonely. Still, surrounded by our relatively unconscious/self-conscious brothers and sisters, we do find one another, and we work together to aid the Great Unfolding and to bring humanity into its next cycle.

We know from experience that communication with these brothers and sisters—with whom it was and is unmistakably clear we were and are unavoidably bound—has been, over the millenniums, very, very difficult. It is like trying to talk to some one who is deaf and blind. As I pointed out above, efforts to do so would frequently, and still do, result in some form or other of silencing.

The Appearance of Soul

Over time, more and more human beings have been and are appearing who have established, at least to a relative degree, that connection between the “spark of mind” and the Soul. These individuals are continuing, actually are compelled by that contact to speak out and to try to bring the light of reason and love into this dreary vale. The presence on the planet today of many, many millions, perhaps even as many as a billion or two of us, is proof that the forerunners and the power of the Great Unfolding Plan were successful, at least so far. The big and basic difference between self and group consciousness is that group consciousness carries with it an innate, unquestionable, incontrovertible sense of one’s brotherhood with all living things, and the understanding that all things are, including even the mineral kingdom, living. All beings of whatever form embody a spark of divinity and are essentially our brothers.

It is in the light of this understanding of the evolution of consciousness that the real meaning and the significance of the political events which are occurring not only in the United States but the world over can be seen. This condition of Soul contact and the resulting expansion of consciousness from self to group has been developing or evolving in the human family for kalpas. And it is today manifesting in a manner that is finally significant enough for many of us to actually register.

Soul contact or group consciousness results not only in the realization of one’s undeniable solidarity with all of humanity and all of life but with the unavoidable compelling urge to serve, to aid the unfolding of that realization throughout humanity. Group consciousness results in the celebration of one’s identification with the One Humanity and, in a word, the unavoidable urge to SERVE that Life. 

The Clash of Consciousnesses

Today, particularly in the United States, we are, as I said above, in the throws of a very hotly contested election cycle. What we are seeing in the present political dramas is very much more than a clash of Republicans and Democrats or, more presently significant, a clash between Democrats for a nomination to run for President.

What is actually going on here is a clash of consciousnesses. Self consciousness and all it is and stands for is engaged in a gigantic struggle with a new kind of consciousness, group consciousness.

On the one hand we have self consciousness. As I have said, self consciousness is an ancient, ancient inborn unconscious urge to fight for survival to fight for identity, for self worth, for self meaning and value. It will and is fighting to the death. It knows no other way. It will use any weapon or advantage to secure its goal whatever that may be.

On the other hand we have group consciousness. This is a new kind of urge. A group conscious person does not see him or her self as separated from the whole. One, therefore does not have the sense of having to gain value, identity, or self worth by contesting with and dominating others. One sees that his worth is the common good and the general welfare. Thus one approaches an adversarial situation with an entirely different set of attitudes and tools with which to work.

First, one employs kindness. Kindness is not just being nice.  It is a deep and abiding recognition and love that one is actually dealing with one’s own kind, a brother or sister who, caught in the illusion of separation, only thinks we are the enemy. One has a considerate perception of appropriateness. Because of what one understands about life from a group conscious perspective, one is at ease and in control of one’s emotional and mental equipment. One is, in a word, self possessed rather than possessed by some passion or fervor or fear of being a loser, of suffering a loss of face and identity. One remains unruffled and in control and likewise consciously responsible for one’s actions and behaviors.

Service

The dominant characteristic of a group conscious individual is something we call service. Perhaps, it would help to try to give some clarity around this concept of service as it manifests in a group conscious person

There is little or no sense of separation in such an individual so there is no urge or need to protect or serve the separate self in anyway. In the group conscious paradigm, service is a “spontaneous effect of soul contact.” Initially, as we all know, this connection will be intermittent, and one will oscillate between a separate self conscious and group conscious state of identity. However, eventually, even if it takes several incarnations, the connection will become, “so definite and fixed that the life of the soul can pour through into the instrument which the Soul must perforce use upon the physical plane.”

Then service becomes a “soul demonstration in the world of affairs.” Service to humanity—selfless service, the service that seeks nothing for the separated self and is willing to give all to the general welfare, to the Common Good of which it knows it is an interdependent part—is a “momentous demonstration of the success of the evolutionary process in humanity.” (Above quotes are from Esoteric Psychology II P. 124-5)

Thus, this consciousness carries the frequency of the Soul. The “spark of mind” which lies within every human being resonates with this frequency. Even when the embedded aspect of soul is deeply enmeshed in the illusions of self consciousness, there will be momentary and faint glimmers of a better way, a more fulfilling way. The hundreds of thousands of individuals who are suddenly donating money flocking to the polls and voting are simply responding to the group conscious frequency of the Soul.  

I think that if we would look from a group conscious point of view at the drama that is unfolding today in real time on the stage of the United States, we would understand with a great deal more clarity what is going on, and we would be able to assist our brothers and sisters on both sides of the apparent struggle with Will, and with Love and Intelligence…otherwise known as Wisdom all of which are the evolutionary gifts of the Soul.