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From an evolutionary perspective, there is only one real divide between members of the human race. It is subtle and invisible, occurring in a realm totally apart from race and gender, religion and nationality, wealth and social status, and all the external differences that have split us into warring factions throughout the ages. This divide exists in the realm of consciousness. The line of demarcation begins at the pivotal point in evolution when the heart opens and the soul awakens.
On one side of this metaphorical line lies the consciousness of the isolated self—the self defined by the form world and its illusion of separateness. There is a wide spectrum of awareness among human beings on this side of the line. But as long as the personality is primarily identified with its separate material form, self-interest rules. Taking a satirical jab at self-interest in the extreme, Stephen Colbert opined: “When millions are losing jobs and homes there is nothing more important than putting yourself first.” (The Colbert Report, 3.11.09)
On the other side of this divide in consciousness is the awakening soul, becoming aware of its spiritual nature and its connectedness with all of life. As the new era dawns more of us than ever before are crossing this invisible line in consciousness. There is a collective shift in identity taking place from that of the isolated individual, defined by the world of form, to that of the soul recognizing itself as part of the seamless web of life. Invariably, this recognition sparks a sense of responsibility for that greater life.
In Barack Obama’s declaration of “A New Era of Responsibility,” he implicitly cast light on this shift in identity. In his inaugural address he quoted “words of Scripture” saying, “the time has come to set aside childish things.” In the Ageless Wisdom, the new era is the time when humanity is due to “come of age.” The transition we are now experiencing between ages (i.e., between stages of consciousness) can also be seen as a passage from humanity’s adolescence into our adulthood.
In adolescence, self-interest runs rampant unless adults have instilled a sense of responsibility in children by setting limits. Without such internal limits, the drive for freedom escalates into license, resulting in harm inflicted on others. For human beings at the adolescent stage, President Obama has been cast as “the new sheriff in town.” He has often cited the cause of the global financial meltdown as “a lack of adult supervision” and quickly instituted new regulations to rein in the license that nearly sank the world economy. Financial speculators, those who enjoy the game of amassing wealth by wagering against the interests of other human beings, are acting from the same level of consciousness as teenagers who enjoy the recklessness of drinking and driving.
At the same time, however, Obama’s call for a new era of responsibility is finding resonance at a higher turn of the evolutionary spiral, among millions of awakening souls. In the wisdom teachings, service is the primary “urge of the soul.” With the emergence of soul consciousness at this dawn of a new era, the law of attraction has drawn a leader onto the world stage who embodies the spirit of service. The President and First Lady are acting as a kind of spiritual bellows, fanning the inner spark of divinity into a burst of outer activity. They and many whom they’ve attracted to Washington have begun to replace an adolescent culture of self-seeking and self-aggrandizement with a culture of genuine public service.
Obama’s influence has fueled a swelling wave of altruism, now an almost daily feature in the news. A recent illustration involved the story of a Midwestern physician whose patients were losing their jobs and could no longer pay him for his services. Because he had known many of these people for most of their lives and had come to see them as family, the doctor faced a painful dilemma. He resolved it by deciding to treat those patients for free. When asked by a reporter what triggered that decision, the doctor cited President's call to sacrifice and serve those in need.
In the past, living a life of service to others was relatively rare. In our own time, unlike any previous time in history, we are witnessing a dramatic upsurge in the instances of human beings who have been moved to reach out and serve others. And though we may still be far from reaching critical mass, the number of individuals infused with an awareness of the oneness of humanity is steadily and visibly rising. Unfortunately, one of the factors serving to advance our spiritual evolution is the intensification of human suffering.
Until now, according to the wisdom teachings, suffering has been the most powerful catalyst for spiritual growth. To quote from “The Fruits of Suffering,” a chapter in When the Soul Awakens: “Pain has a way of tearing down walls of separation that feed the illusion of self-sufficiency, thus ‘softening’ and ‘opening’ the heart.” In times of crisis, otherwise impenetrable walls of race, religion, and ethnicity tend to give way, at least temporarily, to a shared struggle for survival. In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, whose country was ravaged by a long civil war, said about the softening effect of pain: “We are all brothers in misery.”
Sadly, in the past, once the crises subsided those walls of separation were quickly resurrected. In our time, this pattern appears to be changing as we adjust to living through multiple and prolonged crises. The poisonings of our global environment and our global economy have caused suffering on a scale that affects everyone on our planet, though to vastly differing degrees. Given that suffering quickens the dissolution of ego barriers, however, it appears that the persistent disasters facing us are also serving an evolutionary purpose: they are fostering the conditions for our collective awakening.
This bodes well for humanity’s future, especially with regard to suffering. It is said that in the coming era, joy will replace suffering as the most powerful catalyst for spiritual growth. The wisdom teachings indicate that joy is to the soul what happiness is to the personality (the body, mind, and emotions). Happiness is intrinsically fleeting, as it depends upon a particular arrangement of external factors and forces that are constantly in flux. Joy, on the other hand, is an attribute of the soul attuned to the subtle stream of divine love that permeates the life of the universe.
And joy brings us back to Barack and Michelle Obama and the radiance they have injected into this difficult passage for humanity. Not since the close of World War II has any single event ignited an explosion of joy around the globe as did the inauguration of Barack Obama. People swept up in the jubilation of Washington, D.C. gave voice to the joy of the soul, speaking time and again of a “sense of fellow feeling,” “an experience of community,” “a feeling that you’re not alone in hard times.” One beaming journalist observed, “We’re seeing a softening of America, a bringing of everyone into the fold.”
From a higher perspective, the world’s reaction to Obama’s leadership could well be viewed as the awakening of our collective soul—the first glimpse of our essential oneness; the first taste of inclusive love. Awakening, however, is only the first step in a long process of spiritual evolution. The soul unfolds slowly and in stages. After awakening comes the challenge of learning to remain in a state of spiritual awareness—to “practice the presence”—while functioning in an increasingly chaotic material world.
This challenge of duality faces all who walk the path of spiritual evolution. Often called “the difficult path,” at its core lies the struggle to transform a self-centered personality into a soul fully conscious of its relatedness with all of life. Mystics refer to this struggle as “the dark night of the soul.” In the wisdom teachings, “the dark night” involves the internal battle between the personality and the soul. By journey’s end, the triumphant soul dissolves the walls of the selfish personality that have kept the soul imprisoned—those inner walls that divide us from our higher selves, and also from one another.
If we can perceive the eruption of joy over Obama’s election as a collective experience of awakening, then we can see the turmoil that has followed the election as an aspect of a communal “dark night.” The raging debates over how to deal with unbridled greed and ruthless competition now absorbing much of the world may simply be the start of a process of purification—a process that begins with a recognition of “the shadow”—of all that must be brought into the light of day and dissolved for the soul’s light to shine through its outer form.
Whether or not one agrees with all of Barack Obama’s policy decisions, in many ways he is pointing toward the next stage of human evolution. By calling for responsible behavior in an interdependent world, he is attempting to contain the dangers of material consciousness. For those with ears to hear, his words evoke the new era of universal spirituality foreseen in the wisdom teachings. “If we could learn to see ourselves in each other,” he has often said, “then together we could perfect our union.” When we are able to see one another as souls with a common destiny, we will be willing to accept responsibility for one another and for the planet whose life we share.
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