Michael Meade - Awakening the Soul

The great moments in life, whether in the life of an individual or an entire culture, are existential crisesmoments that challenge all aspects of society and all levels of human awareness. We have entered such an extended moment of radical change and alteration, one that is life-defining as well as life-changing. When the troubles become worldwide, affecting both nature and culture, it is time to face up to what has been building up for a long time. Because all things are ultimately interconnected, the challenges we face and the changes underway signal a genuine transformation of the world.

There is no way to simply think our way through the troubles that threaten the world, although clarifying issues can help. There is no magic bullet, singular solution, or technological fix. There can be no work around when the issues have become too large in scope to ignore or simply slip past. Issues like global warming and climate change have become too big for current institutions to handle, while the complex web of cultural troubles we face are too great for most politicians to fully grasp, much less fix. Despite the political rhetoric, there can be no simple fixes as self-interest and short-term thinking cannot solve worldwide problems or long-term issues.

In some sense, the world has fallen asleep and is suffering a loss of the dream of life, leaving us with nightmares that produce pollution in nature as well as poisons in culture. There is a growing collective trauma as the hollowing of institutions and flood of rapid changes can cause everyone to become dis-oriented and feel disillusioned by the daily conditions of life. Traumatizing agents include the rise of mass culture and the subsequent diminishing of the individual soul, the spread of rampant materialism, and the rise of connective technologies that contribute to deep disconnections while linking people at surface levels of life.

In a world gone wrong, any issue can polarize society, divide nations and religions, and push people to the edge of despair. Painful divisions in the realms of culture have been there all along, serious injuries have gone unhealed for decades, and great injustices have been routinely ignored. Now, all the underlying angers, resentments, and fears have been stirred up and have risen to the surface. Just as deep toxins are released when an old wound is opened up or ruptures, we are experiencing a return of all the repressed fears and feelings.

We have wandered far from the origins of life and from the essential originality of the souls knowing center. We have become cosmologically dislocated and caught in the backspin of time and the turmoil of a world turning upside down.

We live in a time of overwhelming challenges and seemingly impossible tasks. Yet, this is not the end of time, but a break in the rhythm of history that also creates openings to the realm of great imagination and the possibility of reconnecting to the Soul of the World. When time cracks, the moment opens to eternity, making knowledge and wisdom available. Such moments of awakening become lived time; time fully lived in which we awaken to a greater sense of the world and our place in it.

Change is the essence of life; but as people face great changes and an unknown future, they tend to become fearful. As fear spreads, most try to cling to something familiar and try to control things in order to reduce the terror of being overwhelmed. Yet, the overwhelming lesson of history, on both collective and individual levels, is that closing down and holding tight to familiar things does not work. Amid such massive disorientation one of the few ways to find sense and meaning is to find the inner order, the shape and style of ones own soul. No matter what threats and disasters occur at the surface of life, the underlying soul remains an endless resource and vital source of change and renewal.

When life becomes severely polarized, when people become more opposed than they need to be, it is the connective energy and unifying presence of soul that has gone missing. Meaningful solutions to deeply penetrating and broad-reaching problems require the kind of imaginative vision and innovative invention that can only be found in the depths of the human soul. If there is no change at the level of soul, there can be no meaningful change at the level of the world. After all, the human soul has an innate connection to nature and an intrinsic concern for the entire planet as well as the cosmos.

The modern world, plagued by false rhetoric and tormented by intensifying polarities and ancient animosities, suffers from a collective loss of soul. Given the size and dimensions of contemporary problems and the fact that all aspects of both culture and nature are threatened, this is the exact time to awaken the underlying soul that secretly sustains both individual life and the life of the earth. What we are facing is not simply a collapse of culture or a clash of civilizations; rather we are in a struggle for the dignity and meaning of the individual soul and a battle for the Soul of the World.