The following is a chapter from my book ‘Parables For The New Conversation.’ One chapter will be published every Sunday for 36 weeks here on Collective Evolution. (I would recommend you start with Chapter 1 if you haven’t already read it.) I hope my words are a source of enjoyment and inspiration for you, the reader. If perchance you would like to purchase a signed paperback copy of the book, you can do so on my production company website Pandora’s Box Office.
From the back cover: “Imagine a conversation that centers around possibility—the possibility that we can be more accepting of our own judgments, that we can find unity through our diversity, that we can shed the light of our love on the things we fear most. Imagine a conversation where our greatest polarities are coming together, a meeting place of East and West, of spirituality and materialism, of religion and science, where the stage is being set for a collective leap in consciousness more magnificent than any we have known in our history.
Now imagine that this conversation honors your uniqueness and frees you to speak from your heart, helping you to navigate your way more deliberately along your distinct path. Imagine that this conversation puts you squarely into the seat of creator—of your fortunes, your relationships, your life—thereby putting the fulfillment of your deepest personal desires well within your grasp.
‘Parables for the New Conversation’ is a spellbinding odyssey through metaphor and prose, personal sagas and historic events, where together author and reader explore the proposal that at its most profound level, life is about learning to consciously manifest the experiences we desire–and thus having fun. The conversation touches on many diverse themes but always circles back to who we are and how our purposes are intertwined, for it is only when we see that our personal desires are perfectly aligned with the destiny of humanity as a whole that we will give ourselves full permission to enjoy the most exquisite experiences life has to offer.”
33. The Ocean
On this morning like most every morning since the beginning, the ocean rolled its waves rhythmically onto the beach on the island of Allandon. Over time the waves had milled the sand into tiny granules, making the beach a pleasant conversation-space for the ocean and the island.
“Today I am at peace with the rush of your waves upon my shore,” the island said, his tone on this day alive with curiosity and bereft of bitterness. “But other days it brings me unease. Why is that so?”
“I commend you for your growing awareness,” the ocean replied. “You are starting to see that ours is necessarily a relationship of love and of fear, of joy and sorrow, of acceptance and denial.”
“I don’t fully understand,” said the island.
“Of course not,” she laughed. “What would be left to do if you fully understood?”
And as had happened many times before, the island fell into silent frustration.
“My dear island, if only you could see that understanding is no greater than confusion, then you could just revel in your search for understanding.”
Still, the island was silent. And the ocean tried to soothe him with the gentle sound of her waves.
“Behold the life that has been created upon you, the trees, the flowers, the creatures that walk and buzz about.”
“Do you wish me to thank you for it?” the island asked.
“That would hardly be necessary—if you could see that you have created it.”
“And how can I see that? When I fully accept that I am a part of you?”
“It is no longer a question of accepting that you are a part of me,” the ocean said tenderly, “but rather of fathoming that I am a part of you.”
Nobody ever said the game that is the evolution of consciousness was an easy one to play. However, in a very real sense, it’s the only game in town. And we have all chosen to participate in it, just by being here. We are at a fascinating stage of the process, on the cusp of our definitive awakening, which will bring us to a collective awareness of ourselves as the fountainhead of consciousness itself, playing out as separate beings in a material world.
The great difficulty of this part of the process has been facing the intense loneliness and isolation, more profound than at any time in our history. It’s like moving out of childhood, when we get weaned off those things that give us a sense of security and belonging, and have to stand on our own two feet and become responsible for our lives. As conscious beings we have been driven ever further from the womb of creation, plunged into the darkness in order to forge a complex ‘I’ capable of self-awareness.
To make way for this move to a heightened self-awareness many of the traditional structures we have relied on at other times in our history have broken down. Blood-line ties are no longer the bond they once were. Religious structures have lost much of their power and have become splintered and fragmented. All manner of social conventions have been challenged. And those things that we once relied on to bring us together, our nationhood, our culture, our values and beliefs, are also being brought into question. So many of us feel the discomfort, either from clinging to beliefs that we have outgrown or from sensing there is no belief that we can count on at all. It is no wonder that ours is a society driven to distraction, rushing and competing, fighting and acquiring, using each other simply as a means of validation, all the time getting less satisfaction from it all.
Perfect.
For it is amid the disappointment, the despair, the dissatisfaction and the desperate seeking for something real to believe in that the definitive awakening occurs. When we grow tired of the tried and untrue avenues and feel like we have nowhere else to turn, we may finally choose to look into the teeth of our loneliness with a sincere mind and an open heart, and truly be humbled by something beyond ourselves. It is at this moment that, in spite of our disdain for religious dogmatism, we awaken to the fact that we are never really alone, that there is a loving presence that has been waiting patiently for us to open our heart in order to guide us. Once this is grasped, or more properly when it is deeply felt, a new doorway into possibility opens for us. We suddenly understand what it means to pray to be an instrument of a greater purpose.
This guiding presence answers our most sincere and probing questions, in the quietest and softest of our internal thoughts. The tone is much more subtle than our interaction with the physical world—and that is as it was meant to be. It is only when we perceive our interaction with this guiding force in freedom and choice can the experience truly impact the evolution of our consciousness. To follow the dictates of a higher force out of obligation or duty is often a helpful experience, but to do so fully out of choice is pure and utter bliss.
We have personified this guiding force in many ways: as a god such as Krishna of Hinduism or Zeus of Greek mythology; as a transcendent master such as Jesus, Buddha, or Mohammed, or the founder of a spiritual tradition that has spawned a long line of gurus; as spirit guides or angels, or even a departed loved one; as animals that cross our path or indeed nature itself, the wind and the sun, the moon and the stars; as signs that emanate from our physical bodies, or our dreams; even as the synchronicities that occur in our everyday lives.
All can be valuable in putting a face to the faceless One, the Brahman, Allah, God, Dao. Which is the right one? Simple. The one that personally resonates with us the most. For they all provide clues that guide us in the direction we really want to go. All we need to do is decide whether to pay attention to them or not. This is our ultimate choice, the foundation of our free will. Do I go with the flow, or against it? Do I choose Love, or Fear? Do I live consciously, or unconsciously?
I have called this guiding force our Dao Self, and I do so to particularly emphasize that our guiding force is actually who we really are. But because we have forgotten who we are, we don’t fully recognize the Dao Self as Our Self, we see it as an Other Self. This allows our Dao Self to guide who we think we are—our Ego Self—into the experience of being alive. In fact it is the only way experience itself is possible. Our Ego Self is really our ticket into the material world, but in order to have the experiences that we most deeply desire, it becomes essential to let the Dao Self lead and the Ego Self follow. As the Ego Self gets more complex, it becomes more capable of choosing whether or not to follow—which then makes following the Dao Self an increasingly profound and exhilarating experience.
Our Dao Self bathes us in guidance with the regularity of waves on the beach. But this is done ever so quietly, patiently and without judgment, providing a space for us to step into when we are ready. In this way, our conversation with the Dao Self is like the new conversation. In fact it is the original new conversation, a model that has been with us since the birth of consciousness, since the first day the island awoke and noticed that it was separate from the ocean.
From that moment we have had a deep longing to return to oneness, but life itself has a longing of its own—for ever greater diversity. In the evolution of all species there is a pull towards greater variety, greater complexity. Our lives are animated by the dance between the longing for unity and the longing for diversity. Today, this dance is moving us towards a more integrated and functional relationship between our rationality and our intuition, our darkness and our light, our Ego Self and our Dao Self. These polarities are getting closer together as our evolution proceeds, but like an exponential curve on a graph, the curve approaches the axis but is never able to touch it.
While the guidance of our Dao Self can come through gods and prophets, spirit guides and angels, more and more today it is coming through each other, for we too can serve as personifications of this guiding force. Despite all our flaws and foibles, faults and failings, we are becoming better placed to be a face and voice of each other’s Dao Self—after all, we share the same Dao Self. There is only One.
For this to work, we are called to establish a sacred trust in our conversations, one that grows the more we create a space of non-judgment, and live from a paradigm that is inclusive of all others—just like our Dao Self does. The better we get at doing this, the more we are able to provide one another with the leverage and traction to evolve, to move into a self that is much bigger, more powerful, more loving than we know ourselves to be.
Certainly we are free to try to go it alone, to insist that our path is uniquely ours and we cannot be following someone else. This may get us a little ways down the path, but eventually it will leave us stranded. If we are to fulfill our deepest desire to unite, part of our mission will always involve accepting help from others. And when we become lost or stranded, the best way to find our way again is by helping another to find their way. Our purposes become ever more entwined as we get closer to the top of the mountain and sense our profound connectedness.
Brave climber, fret not
When the slope is steep and,
Anxious to ascend,
You reach up for that helping hand
And find none.
For this moment too is precious.
It invites you not
To reach up but down,
To another who may be searching
For your helping hand.
For we chase the heights together,
Tethered by purpose,
And moderated by a rhythm
That delivers the most and least likely among us
As one to the view from on high.
Herein lies the perfection of our universe. If we look at the miracle that is the human body, we see billions upon billions of individual cells working together, each with a very specific function and purpose. And these cells are in constant communication with each other, governed by a single mind, checking and testing that their own functioning is perfectly aligned with the purpose of the organism as a whole. Every one of these cells are organisms themselves, which are graced in the same way by the synchrony of each atom and molecule that constitutes them.
From on high we can see that the entire universe is a living organism, where the individual destinies of its component parts are bound by a unified purpose. From the microscopic to the macroscopic, there are organisms nested within organisms, atoms and molecules, our individual bodies, our communities and nations, our planet and our solar system and in the universe beyond. Uni-verse literally means ‘one song’, and represents a stage where we are all part of one great and harmonious choir. Chief Seattle was right when he said ‘Everything is connected’.
What is special about human beings is that we can be fully conscious of our role, and actually have been given a choice as to how we will participate in this grand process. Here we can finally understand why the all-powerful, omniscient Creator doesn’t step in to set things right when the planet goes out of balance and we are not working together. It is because we are meant to have the opportunity to realize that we are the all-powerful creators of this world.
Like the cells of our body, we are all connected by a single mind. We are forging new pathways of communication with each other in order to unite around our common purpose. The mandate of the new conversation is to bring a critical mass of people to a certain threshold, one that will rouse the whole of humanity to its definitive awakening. While we certainly don’t need to talk to every person on the planet to reach this critical mass, every human being is invited to step in whenever they choose. One conversation at a time, we are waking each other up from the slumber of unconsciousness, so that we can be present together to the wonder of our creation.
