The Living Universe

by Duane Elgin

  We can use these four archetypes to tell ourselves a new and compelling story about the human journey. We are a maturing species that is entering a rite of passage that can take us from adolescence to adulthood. We are a heroic species that has been progressively separating ourselves from nature and becoming ever more differentiated and empowered, and now we are beginning a journey of return to the living universe. We are a witnessing species that has been moving through history half awake, not fully utilizing our unique capacity for being conscious, and now—aided by the global communications revolution—we are becoming more fully awake and choosing our path more deliberately. We are a cosmic species on a journey to reclaim our participation in the living universe. In seeing ourselves as a species of both biological and cosmic dimensions, we are taken beyond the bounds of the Earth and into the spaciousness of a vastly larger journey.

  Combining these four archetypes, we can summarize the promise of the future in this way: Humanity is on a heroic journey of awakening into the stunning reality that we are beings of cosmic connection and participation who are learning to live within a living universe. Our potentials as a species are as magnificent and mysterious as the living universe that permeates and sustains us.

  It is important for each person to feel they are contributing to the great story of our species. Conversation is the lifeblood of a robust and healthy society. One of the most powerful things we can do to strengthen and advance our evolution is to step back from the rush of day-to-day busyness and strike up inquiring conversations with our friends, families, work associates, and others. If we bring a spirit of authentic inquiry to conversations about humanity’s future into living rooms, classrooms, and boardrooms, it will gradually awaken a new consciousness and level of self-reflection. These four archetypes invite us to ask: Are we adolescents or adults? Heroes or villains? Sleeping or awakening? Biological or bio-cosmic? As we get clearer about who we are and where we are going, actions can then come quickly and easily, where before they were paralyzed by confusion and conflict. There may be no more important task for humanity than to cultivate archetypes in our collective imagination that, together, can serve as a beacon for drawing us into a promising future.

  Cultivating Reflection and Reconciliation

  The paradigm of a living universe will foster a new level of ethics as people recognize that our every action and thought is woven into the infinite ecology of the universe. In his Book of Mirdad, Mikhail Nimay describes this insight beautifully:

  So think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.

  So speak as if the world entire were but a single ear intent on hearing what you say. And so, in truth, it is.

  So do as if your every deed were to recoil upon your head. And so, in truth, it is.

  So wish as if you were the wish. And so, in truth, you are.1

  We each have the capacity to tune into ourselves and to know we are an expression of the living universe that manifests in a flow of immense subtlety and power. In our direct experience, we can consciously discern the subtle flow of the universe arising at each moment. We can see this dance of subtle creation outwardly, and we can experience our participation inwardly. As we awaken to the aliveness of the universe, the universe responds to us—the know-ingness of the living cosmos meets the knowingness of a unique human. In the exchange, there is a mutuality of knowing that brings with it an experience of belonging to the universe and being at home within its immense community of life. We know the universe and, simultaneously, the universe knows us.

  Discovering that we are an inseparable part of the fabric of existence awakens our experience of compassion for the rest of life. We expand our empathy as we come to see ourselves as beings of cosmic dimension and participation. The compassion we feel becomes the basis for a higher unity that transcends our great diversity—racial, ethnic, sexual, generational, religious, political, economic, and more.

  A world unconsciously divided against itself while facing enormous challenges—and armed with weapons of mass destruction—is a recipe for global ruin. Without unprecedented initiatives for global reflection, reconciliation, and healing, our efforts to achieve a sustainable and meaningful future will be frustrated by the wounds of the past. Irrespective of differences in gender, race, wealth, religion, and political orientation, we all participate in the deep ecology of consciousness, and this provides a common ground for meeting, understanding, and reconciliation.

  Reconciliation does not mean past injustices and grievances are erased; instead, by being publicly acknowledged and remedied, they need no longer stand in the way of collective progress. When injustices are mutually acknowledged, it releases both parties from the need to continue the process of blaming and feeling resentful; instead they can focus on cooperative actions for building a better future. Reflective consciousness provides a “place to stand” for bridging the polarities that now divide the world and keep it from working as an integrated system.

  With a felt appreciation that we share a common foundation of existence, the human family can bring a spirit of reconciliation to these key areas:

  • Religious reconciliation. Throughout human history, many of our bloodiest and most intense conflicts have come from religious intolerance. Reconciliation means each of the world’s wisdom traditions is recognized and respected for its unique insights and contributions.

  • Racial, ethnic and gender reconciliation. Healing the wounds of racism, slavery, genocide, ethnic cleansing, the oppression of women, and homophobia are essential if we are to shift the human story from conflict to community.

  • Economic reconciliation. Disparities in wealth and economic opportunity between the rich and the poor are enormous and growing. Reconciliation requires narrowing these differences and establishing minimum standards of economic well-being that support everyone in realizing their potentials.

  • Ecological reconciliation. Living in sustainable harmony with the Earth’s biosphere is essential if we are to build a promising future. Because we are over-consuming the Earth, depleting resources, and destabilizing the climate, our future depends on establishing a new relationship of full integrity with the Earth’s ecology.

  • Generational reconciliation. Current generations are over-consuming the Earth’s resources and giving little thought to the needs of future generations. Because our actions reverberate far into the future, it is essential that we reconcile ourselves with generations yet unborn who will feel the impact of our choices.

  • Species reconciliation. Balancing human needs with those of other species is vital for our future. To maintain the integrity of the Earth’s biosphere, we are challenged to restrain our impact upon the larger community of plant and animal life. Doing so will enable us to secure greater abundance for the human enterprise over the long run. Beyond restraint is the need to nurture our ailing planet back to health.

  Deep wounds of the human psyche and soul will need to be healed if the human community is to live sustainably on the Earth. Without authentic communication across barriers of suffering and misunderstanding, humanity will remain divided and mistrustful, and our collective future will be gravely imperiled. Great personal and social maturity will be required for people to give up their resentment for past abuses and to make good-faith efforts to resolve injustices and heal injuries so that the human family can work together for its common good.

  The first step in being healed is being heard. With the communications revolution still accelerating exponentially, the human community is just beginning to experience an explosion of conversation. Voices that have been shut out in the past can now be heard on the world stage. Martin Luther King, Jr., said that “injustice must be exposed, with all of the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”2 Injustice flourishes in the darkness of inattention. When division and injustice are exposed to the healing light of public
awareness, that exposure creates a new mindset among all involved. It may seem unwise to bring the dark side of humanity’s past into the light of day but, until we do, unresolved suffering will forever pull at the underside of our consciousness and diminish our future potentials. When those who have suffered can tell their stories in the public sphere and be witnessed authentically, the healing of humanity’s soul will be real. In bearing witness to the reservoir of unacknowledged suffering that has accumulated through history, we can release an enormous store of pent-up energy and creativity and achieve an evolutionary leap forward.

  In the previous chapter we explored humanity’s first axial age and saw that love and compassion have ancient roots. More than 2,000 years of history attests to the impact and enduring power of love. Compassionate sages such as Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Lao-tzu all lacked wealth, armies, and political position. Yet, as the late Harvard professor Pitirim Sorokin explained in his classic book The Ways and Power of Love, they were warriors of the heart. They have reoriented the thinking and behavior of billions of people, transformed cultures, and changed the course of history. “None of the greatest conquerors and revolutionary leaders can even remotely compete with these apostles of love in the magnitude and durability of the change brought about by their activities.”3 In contrast, most empires built rapidly through war and violence—such as those of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, and Hitler—have crumbled within years or decades of their founding.

  The historical example of the ruler Ashoka, who lived in India 300 years before Jesus was born, is an example of the power of love in human affairs.4 Prince Ashoka was born into a great dynasty of warriors and inherited an empire that extended from central India to central Asia. Nine years into his reign, he launched a massive campaign to win the rest of the Indian subcontinent. After a fierce battle in which more than 100,000 soldiers were slain, the land he sought was conquered. Ashoka walked the battlefield that day, looking at the dead and maimed bodies, and felt profound sorrow and regret for the slaughter. He immediately ceased his military campaign and devoted the rest of his life to serving the happiness and welfare of all.

  Ashoka’s thirty-seven years of benevolent rule left a legacy of compassion, not only for human beings but also for animals and plants. His decision to create sanctuaries for wild animals and to protect certain species of trees may be the earliest example of environmental action by a government.5 Ashoka’s works of charity also included planting shade trees and orchards along roads, building rest houses for travelers and watering sheds for animals, and giving money to the poor, aged, and helpless. An absence of war and an emphasis on peace marked his administration. All his political officers were encouraged to extend goodwill, sympathy, and love to their own people as well as to others. One of their main duties was to be peacemakers, building mutual goodwill among races, sects, and parties. Ashoka’s compassionate rule established the largest kingdom in India until the arrival of the British, more than 2,000 years later. Based on the experience of people such as Ashoka, Sorokin concluded that love-inspired reconstructions of society carried out in peace are far more successful and yield much more lasting results than reconstructions inspired by hate and carried out with violence.

  Again and again, Sorokin found that “hate produces hate, physical force and war beget counterforce and counter war, and that rarely, if ever, do these factors lead to peace and social well-being.”6 As the teachings of the world’s great sages and the example of leaders from Ashoka to Gandhi and King attest, it is vitally important for us to bring reconciliation and forgiveness into our world at this pivotal time.

  Living Simply and Sustainably

  “Simplicity reveals the master,” says an old adage. More than 2000 years ago, in the same historical period that Christians were saying “Give me neither poverty nor wealth” (Proverbs 30:8), the Taoists were asserting “He who knows he has enough is rich” (Lao Tzu), Plato and Aristotle had proclaimed the importance of the “golden mean” (a path through life with neither excess nor deficit) and the Buddhists were encouraging a “middle way” between poverty and mindless accumulation. The wisdom of simplicity is not a recent revelation.

  As we master the art of living on Earth, our mastery will be evident in the simplicity of our way of living. Simplicity does not mean turning away from progress; to the contrary, it is an expression of a maturing civilization. We can gain insight into the relationship between simplicity and progress from the eminent historian Arnold Toynbee, who invested a lifetime in studying the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history. Based on his voluminous studies, Toynbee summarized the essence of a civilization’s growth in what he called the Law of Progressive Simplification. He wrote that a civilization’s progress and growth was not to be measured by its conquest of land and people; rather, the true measure of growth lies in a civilization’s ability to transfer increasing amounts of energy and attention from the material side of life to the non-material side—areas such as education, cultural and artistic expression, and the strength of democracy and society.7 Toynbee also coined the word etherialization to describe the historical process whereby humans learn to accomplish the same, or even greater, results using less time and energy. Buckminster Fuller called this process ephemeralization (although his emphasis was primarily on getting greater material performance for less time, weight, and energy invested).

  We can see material ephemeralization at work in many areas of our lives. For example, computers have evolved from room-sized giants to slim laptops with vastly more computing power. Libraries are evolving from massive buildings that warehouse millions of books to small computer chips that can store an even greater volume of knowledge. The telephone has evolved from a cumbersome network of telephone poles, wires, and transformers to cheaper, lighter, and more powerful cell phone technologies that employ transmitting towers and get rid of the bulky, burdensome, and weighty copper wires strung across the landscape. Automobiles have evolved from heavy works of iron and steel to an increasingly lighter architecture of high-strength plastic, aluminum, and other exotic materials.

  Building upon the insights of Toynbee and Fuller, we can redefine progress by expanding the definition of ephemeralization. Progress can then be viewed as a two-fold process involving the simultaneous refinement of both the material and non-material side of life. With ephemeralization, the material side of life grows lighter, less burdensome, more articulate, and effortless. At the same time, the non-material side of life becomes more vital, expressive, knowledgeable, wise, artistic, and nurturing. In short, ephemeralization involves the co-evolution of inner and outer, consciousness and matter. Ephemeral progress does not negate the material side of life but calls forth a new partnership where the material and non-material aspects of life co-evolve with one another.

  The outer aspects of our lives most important to ephemeralize are the basics: housing, transportation, food production, and energy generation. It is important to lighten up our inner aspects as well—learning the skills of touching the world and others ever more lightly and lovingly—in our relationships, work, community life, and more. With the combination of outer and inner refinement we have the potential for genuine progress, or building a sustainable and satisfying world for billions of people without devastating the ecology of the Earth. In place of a paradigm of consumerism we can embrace the more powerful, interesting and creative paradigm of ephemeralism.

  We have seen that consumerism is a rational response if we view the universe as mostly dead matter and empty space. Consumerism offers us material pleasures, a sense of identity, and a measure of significance in an otherwise dead cosmos. In a non-living universe, it makes sense to exploit non-living matter on behalf of ourselves, because we are the most intensely alive creatures we know.

  However, if we view the universe as fundamentally alive, a place perfectly suited for our awakening to that aliveness, then simplicity of living makes sense. Now we want to reduce the busyness and clutter that dist
ract us from diving deep into existence. Seeing alive-ness rather than deadness in the world around us, we feel less need for protection or even entertainment. We gather great satisfaction from the simple pleasures of engaging with others to share a conversation, a meal, or a walk. We see the significance of our lives in the size of our souls, not the size of our house, car, or bank account.

  There are many names that we could give to this new approach to living: among them, voluntary simplicity, sophisticated simplicity, green living, ephemeral living, conserver living, and Earth-friendly living. Whatever we call this shift, it has dramatic implications for the future of our world.

  At a global scale, to live sustainably we need to make much more efficient use of existing resources. To live more efficiently, it is vital to live more peacefully. Global military expenditures divert an enormous amount of human energy and material wealth that could otherwise be used for meeting basic human needs. To live more peacefully, it is essential to achieve a reasonable degree of fairness in material well-being. It is unrealistic to think that, in a communications-rich world, a large portion of the world’s population will quietly accept living in absolute poverty and needless misery while a small minority lives in privileged comfort. Terrorism and civil unrest have their roots in desperate poverty and hopelessness. Without a revolution in fairness, the world seems destined to sink into endless conflict over scarce resources such as land, oil, and fresh water. In a self-fulfilling spiral of ruin, conflict over resources will increase demands for military expenditures and the potential for efficiency, equity, and long-term sustainability will diminish.