Many of us are lulling in lethargy right now. We’re trapped by invisible norms we don’t understand and paralysed by uncertainty. These are symptoms of a much larger and complex systemic issue we’re experiencing on a civilisation scale.
I’ll share a few interesting tidbits to serve as a gentle wake-up call for us to look around and gain self-knowledge, take responsibility, and to activate ourselves as human beings. There are clues everywhere if you look closely!
Present: Virus
If we find a new computer virus attacking the system we generally don’t respond by trying to “fight” the virus with the current system. Our response is to upgrade the software or operating system in order to make the virus irrelevant. Thus the system carries on until a new virus comes along and we then issue another update. Makes sense, right? The updates continue and the technology evolves and eventually new paradigms emerge.
So what would happen if we were to transfer this thinking onto humans? The pandemic has revealed both lifestyle and systemic issues that we have somehow regarded as norms or simply ignored. We can actually change the way our bodies function and increase our health, we can change our mentality and how we choose to think, we can change our sense of collective purpose and community, and we can most certainly change larger systems of governance and our relationship with authority.
Real history is more typically marked by intense moments of social imagination. — David Graeber
Past: Collective Choice
History can give us a hopeful glimpse into what our ideal futures could be. Almost 4000 years ago Zarathustra (Zoroaster) believed in the power of human reason and he spread the idea that each person was capable of knowing the difference between good and evil as well as being capable of choosing to do good (a groundbreaking notion for his time). He prescribed seven steps for progress that he derived from nature, and these were adopted as pillars for the Persian civilisation.
The steps:
- [Vohu-Mana/Bahman — Good Mind ] Use your good mind to inquire and learn the
- [Asha-Vahista/Ardibesht — Ultimate Truth] the laws of nature, and use them to make
- [Kash-Atra-Vairya /Shahrivar— Good Rules] good laws and good products, which will lead to
- [Sepanta-Armaity/Esfand— Lawful Desire] righteousness, which will pave the way towards
- [Hurvatata/Khordad — Perfection] mental, physical, and spiritual growth, which will lead to
- [Ameretata/Amordad — Immortality] a) in death being remembered for your good work, b) in life by losing the fear of death; resulting in oneness with
- [Ahura-Mazda/Khodah— The Creator of Wisdom] Khodah (God) through self-realisation. (Khod = self, ah = to come)
Past: Death
Note how step 6 mentions losing the fear of death. This idea is historically common across different cultures. The Samurai warriors famously had the concept of “dying before getting into battle,” which gave them the freedom to fight with focus and commit to success without worrying about survival. The Samurai’s also had the Bushidō code, which shares some of the sentiments in the seven steps above.
In Hindu scripture the Katha Upanishad explores death in a legendary story where a boy talks to the deity of death. Their discussion revolves around the nature of humans and knowledge, and concludes that the ultimate reconciliation of death is to accept it. The state of perfection is achieved by the one who is already in the here and now and who is self-realised. More recently we have Memento mori, Latin for “remember that you have to die,” which was adopted by the Stoics as a reminder of one’s mortality.
Elevated cultures throughout history recognised the value in dealing with our mortality, otherwise fear would be the acting force on our actions and impede our path to self-actualisation. It follows a Yin Yang philosophy, if you are born then you know you will die — life hence death, these are different sides of the same coin.
Past: Connection
Holistic medicine is evidently not a new concept. One thousand years ago Ibn Sina (Avicenna) discovered how our body’s well-being depended on the state of our mind. He analysed the interactions between the heart and our emotional life, and no doubt the interrelated and systems-based approach to health is still relevant to us. In the last few months doctors have noted increased heart damage due to psycho-emotional pressures of the pandemic.
Our modern treatment of health remains siloed, and perhaps some would argue that it’s more effective this way in order to provide more access. Logistics and profit seem to have hindered our sense of clarity and this ultimately comes at the cost of our health.
Present: Reboot
With a wealth of ancient and contemporary knowledge at our fingertips we need to take hold of time tested principles and apply them to our transformation. Now is not the time to let yourself sink into lethargy, distraction, superstition, greed or blind faith. Ancient thought leaders echo what we intuitively understand: that it is possible for humans to work for the wellbeing and perfection of all humankind, and to do that in harmony with nature.
Remember: you’re not a disconnected atom in a sea of atoms, you are a descendant of millions of years of human existence and survival and you are connected to everyone here. We have evolved and we have passed on valuable knowledge that helps the next generation thrive and we do this intuitively.
“Our economic setup encourages one upmanship, competition, and comparison. Whereas the progress humans have made over millennia have been largely based on cooperation.”
— Four Horsemen [feature documentary]
Take inspiration from trees, they communicate and share wisdom through mycorrhizae networks (a symbiotic relationship between fungus and tree roots).They send each other chemical signals that provide all kinds of information, even warnings about imminent danger such as droughts. You can imagine just how much disruption occurs when one old tree is taken out of the system, it takes out a wealth of knowledge that younger trees rely on. (If you’re familiar with the recent destruction of the Djab Wurrung tree then you’ll understand just how painful this event is).
Thousands of years ago Zarathushtra believed that people didn’t need to conquer each other for resources, instead they could share their innovations to make the best of a world that’s in harmony with nature. I’m not sure how thrilled he’d be if we were to teleport him to present day ~Earth~.
But in our quest to update our own human software let us do it for a collective global purpose.
