The Shift

Society is shifting back to favoring religion over science. This is why Turkey will no longer teach evolution in its schools. This is why the US is turning to private schools where religion of choice can be taught without having to include any science to back it up. Where the science of climate change is openly challenged and people turn their back on anything that makes their religious perspective something to think about.

Just as in the days of Galileo’s persecution where it was considered heresy to say anything against the church; people are once again creating a mindset of stubborn imbalance. They look upon our world and can’t handle the idea that perhaps science can truly explain the mysteries of life. In their minds that creates a conflict because ..how can there be a mystery if we have solved it …how can God still exist if we understand how the multiverse works? They fear the two cannot co-exist. This fear causes a rise in religious extremism. People turn violent trying to prove to others that their spiritual experiences are real. They try to convince themselves that if only everyone else would see God through their eyes the world would be a better place.

On the flip side, if we were to embrace just the scientific and forget the spiritual aspect of existence we would discover what we have already lived during the Industrial Revolution…mankind begins to turn its back on the planet altogether and simply looks for and takes anything we can find to make our lives easier and fatter. We suck up every resource until there is none left, until we have drained the mother dry. We watch as wars manifest over who has and who has not, we see cities crumble, we see species fall and become extinct, we watch the sea rise and the sky burn just so we can have more. Our thirst is never quenched because we have left our purpose, our meaning of life, behind. We have forgotten our duty to the earth and our spirit suffers because of the disconnect. We are left untethered to the tree of life, floating adrift in our armchairs.

The brief moment of the enlightenment era and a few other times…perhaps the industrial age…the dawn of the bronze age, the iron age…ect…these are moments when mankind embraced their intellectual gifts but they failed to fully incorporate spirit. We took our science and creative knowledge and waged war, made better weapons, created a life of leisure for ourselves, when we should have used this knowledge to tend to our responsibility of caring for the earth. With each failure to recognize our responsibility the human race is set back again, like being trapped in Newton’s Cradle, we bounce back and forth between religion and science; history repeats itself. After a period of intellectual boom we realize that we have cut ourselves off from spirit and then swing back to regain the connection. We long to get it right but as a collective society we tend to be led by extremists.

Picture Newton’s Cradle as a demonstration of society… the two outer balls represent the extremes of religion and science with most people somewhere in middle. The outer balls feed off the energy of the balls in the middle but what many forget, or don’t understand, is that the middle balls are also feeding and delivering energy to each other. This is why people in shamanistic cultures understand that they can give or receive energy, wanted or not, to other people they encounter. The effect of this energy can then be carried through society as with Newton’s Cradle and cause the pendulums to swing one way or the other. Western culture has forgotten this, or cares not to consider it, which may well be the reason for so much illness – spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. As the energy ripples through society the pendulums swing and the middle balls both give and receive the energetic flow.

What does this mean for us? Because we are stuck in this back and forth pattern between religion and technology, we suffer as a population and we take the earth and its inhabitants with us. We should be using our spiritual sense to guide us into what needs to be done to keep the planet safe and then use our science to accomplish this. We were given our intelligence so that as stewards of the earth we can create and manage what needs to be done. We have lost that sense of responsibility and that has resulted in a dis-spiriting of the collective, which in turn allows technology and intelligent thought to run a muck…this is why we have greed, war, and power struggles. Then, when it gets to be too much for the collective to handle anymore we are thrown back to the spiritual but most people look at the spiritual through the eyes of a specific religion…this creates the religious conflicts and persecution of those who are of different faiths or those who favor science. We must, as a collective find the balance between the spiritual and the scientific before we will be able to guide, and act as stewards, to the planet. If this cannot be achieved we will not be given the opportunity to proceed, grow, or develop as a race….we will remain trapped in the cradle until we have depleted our energy, destroying ourselves and our charge.

As we swing back and forth the results we see are science and technology being used to damage our charge; such as in the case of fracking, burning coal, and using pesticides, or becomes one of genocide, persecution, and religious war because each religious group believes it has the proper answer. However, the answer lies in the middle ground, in the compromise; we need to leave religion to the individual, allowing them to truly find their own spirit path. We need to use our intellect collectively to find a way to save our planet by managing our resources and distributing them in a manner that allows each living entity its proper place and respect. We’re a bunch of smart cookies but our fear of responsibility and our belief in manifest destiny is dooming us all.

If people would come to understand that the spirit world will always have its mysteries because the human mind will never just stop wondering if there’s more to life, while seeing that the natural world is full of the tangible promise of discovery and has been given to us to guard and care for; we would come to a proper balance and escape the cradle. I must believe that such a task would not be given to someone who is incapable of fulfilling it. We can do this by using science and logical thought which is guided by spirit. These are the gifts granted us by spirit. They have given us a way to tend to our responsibility but mankind has been afraid of taking that step, so they revert. Such is the case throughout history.

If we want to regain our life purpose, our feeling of accomplishment, and our meaning for life then we need to first recognize and embrace the knowledge that is within us…we are here as stewards of this planet. It is our life’s work, our purpose to care for her and all her inhabitants; to make her healthy and fruitful. When we see this, and embrace it we can be free to use all that is within our grasp to fulfill our task. We can combine our scientific knowledge and our spiritual experience to finally achieve true wisdom. And, after all what is wisdom but the ability to use our knowledge properly. Spirit and Science together… Spirituality for the individual – Science for the whole. In the end, we can save the planet and while we’re at it, we’ll save ourselves.