Consciousness Mix Tape, Volume 1

Everything is shifting. I know we like permanence and things in our world to be stable and remain the same, but it’s not really like that around here. We get some fleeting moments of permanence and stability, but they don’t last too long. If stability and permanence are what you’re looking for, you’re likely on the wrong planet. Thanks Pema Chodron! Maybe the wrong universe. But don’t get too down about it because those feelings will also shift. Just wait.

As it turns out, I’m not a lot different than you are. I’m also on this planet living at the same time, struggling with the rapid rate of flux we find ourselves in, wondering what is best to do with myself today, this week, this year. Trying to be happy, trying to discover fulfillment. It seems like an ongoing journey without any destination.

Life in the 21^st century is shaping up to be no small adventure. Eight billion humans and counting are creating an intense hurricane of energy, and no one knows how it will all shake out. All that unknowing can create a lot of fear and anxiety, which is a normal response considering no other time-period in recent human memory has had a future so unknown. And it feels like this huge change is just up ahead around the next curve in the road.

We’re making up a lot of stories about the future these days, but the truth is, the universe itself doesn’t know what it’s going to do five minutes from now. There are patterns of inertia in certain directions, and some structure and archetypal forms govern creation as it moves forward, but how, when, and where it’s going is still to be determined.

Whatever happens will be an individual experience entirely different for each of us, which is how it has always gone down. Even though history is written in the form of a story, telling of this or that event happening to many people concurrently, all experience is personal, and all meaning derived from that experience is also an individual creation.

So, what kind of experience do you want to have in this lifetime? Why did you come here to be a part of this great shift? What do you have to offer in the process? Do you want your experience to be about fear and anxiety of the world around you? Or do you want to use this time to soak up all the positive experiences and growth you can attain?

It’s not so easy to determine at times. I feel you. I’m in a similar boat riding the same stormy waves of the 21^st century. But as I’m steering my own craft through these crazy waters, I’m also altering the design of my boat to be lighter, more maneuverable, and more responsive. A big, heavy boat loaded with lots of stuff isn’t what will get me through these stormy seas.

I’m thinking a surfboard is the way to go.

Sampling the 21^st Century

From Wikipedia:

“In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or slowed down, re-pitched, looped, or otherwise manipulated.”

We’re all sampling right now, every aspect of our lives.

Everyone on this planet today is re-using portions of previous forms – ideas, concepts, patterns, rhythms – that previously existed in some known template of one kind or another and mixing them with fragments from other sources to create not just new music but also recipes, art, design, clothing, buildings, ideas, sports, social systems, technology, languages and more.

We’re all sifting through centuries worth of human creations and uncovering the gems that appeal to our hearts and minds so that we can re-use that fragment in a whole new creation, one that takes us to a new place both personally and collectively.

Spiritual practice in the 21^st century is also sampling, where the true jewels of wisdom from previous lineages, modalities, and religions are being extracted, combined, and transformed into new practices with fresh perspectives, expansion, and insight.

This is my own sampling, my own Consciousness Mix Tape created from the multitude of fragments I’ve extracted from a lifetime exploring spiritual concepts of all kinds and working it through my own self-inquiry process to alchemize something fresh that works best for me as a 21^st century human.

If some of this sounds familiar, it’s because it likely is. Most spiritual lineages all meet in the center at their core concepts, as somehow there is really nothing new being said. Some say our most powerful spiritual concepts originated far back in time, from worlds that no longer exist and have made their way across the galaxy because they still apply and ring true to who we are here and now.

Expanding the You

You may encounter concepts in this book that are challenging for you to grasp initially, which may create a response within you like “Wow, is that ever a complete bunch of bullshit.” Instead of dismissing the new idea, just try setting it aside. You never know what new morsel of information you will find useful sometime in the future. When we encounter new concepts, especially ones that stretch our perspective and challenge our current mode of thinking, they take some time to settle into our operating system and become useful. Give new ideas a bit of time to germinate and take root.

This is just an offering of different stories and perspectives; none of it is truth. Everything, and I mean everything, is just a story, and every concept and idea is based on a perspective. There is no right or wrong way to look at things; everything is just a different viewpoint. You can stand downtown on a busy street corner, or you can climb the mountain outside of town and look down at the city. Both perspectives offer a different view of the same location.

Holding multiple perspectives at once can be a very useful exercise in understanding. Pick up one piece of a jigsaw puzzle and you see something complete in itself, but a whole new picture emerges when you put all those pieces together.

The puzzle of humanity and this planet is way bigger than a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. It’s the perspective of every being who has ever lived here combined with endless timelines, histories, story-threads, and dimensions through which it is all playing out past, present, and future.

Though we claim rich knowledge of our origins and recent past, the history of humans on this planet is mostly hidden, forgotten, lost, or unknown. Our most common stories tell the tale of an isolated group of beings on a lonely planet, unaware of any other similar beings anywhere else in the vast Universe. We’re not entirely sure how we got here, but maybe we evolved from more primitive primates or something like that. Or maybe God made us.

An alternative story is that we are not isolated, cut-off, or alone. We have always been connected to other beings and the rest of the Universe, extending to infinity in all directions. There are many different advanced lifeforms, worlds, and dimensions, all of which are as accessible as you want them to be. Being a human is one of those possibilities, along with living on Earth, and both are excellent choices.

And that’s another part of the story: it is a choice to be who you are. You are not the result of arbitrary circumstances and events, though randomness and chaos still play their part in creation everywhere. You are the result of careful consideration and planning on many dimensional levels of being, and the experience you have in your current form is perfect in its imperfection. You are fulfilling a crucial role in the Universe – just being you, exactly as you are.

But how does this whole thing work? And how did you end up here in the first place?

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