It's nearly three years since Pale Green Vortex first showed up on the radar. During this period, I have been privileged to explore a breadth and depth of topics that I would hitherto never have dreamed of. It has been an immensely rewarding time for me. I have listened to lectures and interviews with rapt attention, eagerly devouring significant information and enthusiastically taking notes, something I haven't done since my early days in Buddhism. At times I have almost felt 'born again', a neophyte among the mysteries of life - something which, as I approach my sixtieth birthday, I hadn't exactly expected. Along the way, I am more than delighted if a few other human beings may have benefited from some of what I have written.
What have I learnt through the multitude of posts that have appeared on Pale Green Vortex? And what have I experienced to give rise to some of the writing? Well, many things. But focal, I think, has been the following insight. This marvellous living universe we inhabit is essentially a creation, an emanation, and a reflection of consciousness. That consciousness is not a uniform thing; at least, any homogeneity reveals itself heterogeneously. It manifests in a whole variety of different dimensions, or densities, depending on the degree of alienation of the specific form of consciousness from the source, from its own true nature, call it what you will. Of distinct concern for human beings, blessed as they are with the potential to move closer to 'divinity', is that particular slice of consciousness sometimes referred to as the Control System. This is a distinctively heavy form of consciousness, dedicated to separate selfhood, which has constructed a good deal of what passes as human culture. The affairs of politics, economics, finance, mainstream 'culture', media reportage, social systems, and the rest, are not there primarily for the greater good. Nor do they exist as an expression of some universal, inalienable laws of nature. All too often they show up as an expression of Control System consciousness. As such, their purpose is stupefaction and containment; to keep the divine spark down.
The fulfilment of human life lies in 'self-realisation', unfoldment, return to the Divine, etc etc - to be 'telestai', as the Gnostics put it, those who are aimed. Two vital spin-offs from all this have also emerged. Firstly, that a human spirituality, to be properly effective, requires some experience of the multidimensional nature of consciousness. Without this, it is likely to remain superficial, half-baked, or largely intellectual. And secondly, that spirituality without some real insight into Control System dynamics will remain incomplete and hopelessly naive. This ignorance may well act as an obstacle to effective and appropriate compassionate activity. A fully-embodied spiritual life will seamlessly combine understanding and experience of consciousness (shamanic traditions and the more mystical aspects of traditions emanating from Asia remain foundational) with cutting-edge analysis such as that found in the more intelligent parts of the modern alternative community.
The plethora of ideas that has blasted like a whirlwind through Pale Green Vortex has been necessary. And more ideas, we can be sure, will continue to come. Yet there arrives a point where ideas - by their very busy-ness, their concentration in the head, even if they are felt ideas - become an obstacle. They can begin to take on the function of an escape from that most difficult thing of all: a deepening, non-conceptual, direct awareness of reality in its totality. The ideas are absolutely vital to sharpen perception, to help bulk out the body of consciousness. But this very body of consciousness needs stillness, non-mediated awareness, to enter the further reaches of oneness, non-duality, and whatever else remains for awareness to bring its quality to. This I sense to be the next step.
Interesting times ahead, perchance......
