In his book Promise Ahead, Duane Elgin cites major paradigm shifts of the magnitude that we are talking about occurring only three times in human history, namely, the birth of reflective consciousness (self-awareness) 35,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, and the industrial revolution 300 years ago. The shift we are entering now in the context of Simple Reality will be the most “revolutionary” of all such changes in its effect on human destiny.
What will this coming paradigm shift look like? Revolutions are usually accompanied by a certain amount of dislocation. It is imperative that all peoples in the world are included in the process so all can partake of the benefits. The authors of The Cultural Creatives give an example of what can happen when some people are excluded. “On a global scale, we can expect major losses of wealth, property, population, efficiency, and organizational effectiveness, along with a breakup of old forms: perhaps nation-states, or multinational corporations, or giant cities, or our exploitative relationships to the ecology, or our exploitation of third-world poverty. At the same time, capabilities for a new way of life are being envisioned, designed, and developed…At the end of the Middle Ages, the northern and western European countries cleared away the power of the Church and feudal nobles and moved into the urban-industrial era. Eastern Europe didn’t do so and was left behind.”
We cannot solve the fundamental problems we are facing in today’s world without a change in consciousness. In other words, we need to shift to a higher level of awareness before we can successfully begin to address changing the nature of the human experience whether as individuals or collectively. For example, the U.S. Congress grapples earnestly with the problem of substance abuse with “solution” after “solution” but they are in fact addressing the symptoms of the problem not the cause. Failure is, therefore, preordained. Our well-intentioned lawmakers for various reasons are unable to “see” the causes of addiction in America. They are victims of the same causes of dysfunctional human behavior and without the shift in awareness outlined in these essays Americans and humanity around the globe will continue indefinitely to re-circulate the same ineffective answers to the wrong questions.
One salient characteristic of the shift in consciousness is from a focus on the “world out there” to a focus on our interior experience. Or as James Roberts says, “In general, the paradigm shifts associated with the transition to the SHE [Sane, Humane, Ecological] future will reflect a shift in emphasis away from the overdeveloped, structured, exterior aspects of life towards the underdeveloped, unstructured, interior aspects.” Amit Goswami says something similar but from an eastern perspective. “Positing consciousness as the ground of being calls forth a paradigm shift from a materialistic science to a science based explicitly on the primacy of consciousness.”
To be more specific let’s look at the mental health field and the dominant paradigm called the medical model. The professionals who deal with the human mind when it becomes “ill” operate with assumptions that might be in need of a shift also. “Their [psychotherapists] goal in therapy is often to use the theories they develop to change the way clients think, feel, behave, and make life decisions.” In contrast, the psychiatrist C. G. Jung believed that the therapist’s task was to facilitate the relationship between the client and her inner self. It is that inner self or “essence” that has the wisdom to guide the process of healing and or spiritual growth. These two paradigms, the medical model and Jung’s paradigm called “depth” or “transpersonal psychology” are worlds apart in how they view the challenge that the client is facing and how to treat the client.
These essays address many of the contrasts between dominant or mainstream paradigms and alternative paradigms. The shift will often consist of taking that part of the current paradigm (P-B) that works and combining it with the emerging P-A in a process that Ken Wilber calls transcend and include, i.e. transcend P-B and include those aspects that make sense in the new P-A.
Sometimes it is good to get a different perspective on a problem by visiting other world cultures and see how they look at the human condition. For example, Eleanor Rosch observed that the “meditation traditions (such as Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism) agree that in our habitual state of mind, we are mistaken about everything important about who and what we are, what is real, and how to act.”
If the current paradigm results in such a dysfunctional society and spiritual teachers have spoken of the dangers of living this way for at least 3,000 years, why haven’t we changed our feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values (one definition of a paradigm)? In P-B we are largely unconscious, not unlike mindless robots. We need to wake up and at the same time we need to understand that we have a built in resistance to doing so. As Jung observed, “The difference between conscious realization and the lack of it has been roundly formulated in the saying of Christ… ‘Man, if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blessed; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law.’ Before the bar of nature and fate, unconsciousness is never accepted as an excuse; on the contrary there are very severe penalties for it. Hence all unconscious nature longs for the light of consciousness while frantically struggling against it at the same time.”
The resistance that Jung describes and our patterns of conditioned reactions certainly present a challenge but we were all born with the innate wisdom, the courage and the compassion to enter the present moment and to live there. That is why we find ourselves at this point in time in this place. That is why you are reading these words.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
References and notes are available for this article.
For a much more in-depth discussion on Simple Reality, read Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival, by Roy Charles Henry, published in 2011.
