Our present situation is like a cruel joke that we invented for ourselves . We are at once forced to accept complicity in something we know is creating unbeneficial outcomes ; and yet we cannot get out , because we are born into this world and we only have a limited amount of time to exact change upon it . And yet we can see how dangerous exacting change is . The language we use to think , the words we know how to read , the society that gives our lives meaning , all these things keep us trapped in the very worldview that seems to be hampering us from making the changes that so many of us desperately want : towards compassion for each other and all life on the planet and towards an equitable civilization that is not putting our collective life support system , a healthy planet , at risk .
I don ’ t know for sure if studying the nondualistic philosophy of Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu can help us begin behaving in less damaging ways as humans . But I know that the written works of these people who lived thousands of years ago has helped me cope with the conscious weight of my own participation in what I do believe is the harmful collective behavior of a large group of humans , acting in ways we have not been given the appropriate tools to understand or cease . I think the study of these alternative ways of perceiving can serve to at least provide a template to imagine ways of interacting harmoniously with our environment , ourselves , and each other .
Humankind Divided is as good a name as any to describe the present mess we find ourselves in today . We have become anesthetized by a culture that emphasizes separation , attachment , competition , fear , and miserliness — keystones of a divided , dualistic mind . But if we begin to consider reality from a nondualistic point of view , obstacles within ourselves , and the artificial barriers we have constructed with others , can start to fall away . Every moment becomes an opportunity to consciously join ourselves with an infinite cosmos that even our science now tells us we ’ ve never been separate from . In this dance of form and emptiness , emptiness and form , existence and non-existence complete each other and we suddenly find that there is nothing missing . By cultivating a mind that embraces the inevitability of change through an acceptance of things as they are , and an understanding of how little we know , instead of an addiction to thinking we know , we might gain comfort , peace , and a new level of equanimity . If we aren ’ t comfortable with the consciousness we ’ ve inherited from our society why not try something different ?
Focusing more energy on the idea that we are one with everything might make us less afraid of what each of us as individuals has to ultimately look forward to : death . It might alleviate our collective obsession with extending our lifespans and growing our population at the expense of the living world around us , and reduce the ever present tension in our psyches that makes us so willing to act , change , and create without an understanding of the consequences of our actions . With an alternative creation story that places the creative moment back in the present and pulls it out of some fabricated past that we have to build ever bigger telescopes to look for , we might stop telling stories about the coming end of the world , and stop building the tools for creating it .
If everything in the universe is a constant unified fabric , then we have nowhere to go , and no rush to get there . We would want to cultivate the best environment for our collective organism to thrive . We would be liberated from the idea that we die with our bodies , because in unified consciousness , our bodies are just cells in a larger organism , one that never dies because it is the totality of existence and nonexistence , the constant unfolding that is the universe . If we focus our mythmaking on the unity of all that is , pull our gazes away from our telescopes zoomed out into the cosmos , and return them to the world around us , to the miracle of this planetary existence , where we clever , carbon-based beings reside with all our living relatives , we may find the environment improving around us , naturally , not because we are doing something to change it , but because we aren ’ t .
Andrew Scott founded the Open Mind Project ( openmindproject . com /. org ), a database of world religions , philosophical materials , and indigenous mythology , which promotes interreligous dialogue and a rational engagement with the beliefs that influence the reality we experience . He has a Masters of Divinity degree from the Graduate Theological Union Berkeley . For more information or to schedule an appointment to discuss the benefits of non-dualistic philosophy he can be reached at : andrew @ openmindproject . com
22 IMAGINE l FALL 2016