I have been paying more and more attention to this over the years, and despite the fact that some personalities like Deepak Chopra may have occasional appearances on a television program like Larry King (for my international readers, a popular television interview program in the USA), I am still perplexed that the discussion remains so firmly established as one of god or no god. The reason this is important is that the domination of this closed paradigm is what restricts a rise in the mass consciousness. In maintaining its tight grasp on tradition and conventional wisdom, it keeps the mass consciousness stubbornly static. The movement of planetary consciousness remains stuck in a horizontal swirl, with very minor vertical dips and rises.

Those who are oriented toward expanding their own state of consciousness and who thereby resonate with some form of metaphysical spirituality (msers, for short) often find themselves in an odd place. Atheists lump msers with the religious and scoff at them for believing in a transcendent Intelligence that cannot be revealed by scientific method. The religious dismiss and scoff at msers as new age loonies and lump them with atheists as being anti-religious apostates. Think about the mass these two groups of the dichotomy represent and you can see why it so overshadows any ms perspective. A very high percentage (80-90% range depending upon the poll) of the population in the USA claim a belief in the Biblical god of the mainstream religions. Eighty percent claim to be Christian.

Considering that mass by the way, is it not rather ironic then that Christians complain so vehemently that they are the most attacked group of any? It would seem that msers could far more legitimately make that claim if they were inclined toward that sort of victim hood complaint. (But they aren't inclined that way because they see all phenomena in their lives as manifestations of who they are within. We may speak more about that in future installments.)

The subject at hand is the overshadowing power of the dominating closed paradigms, which of course includes more than religion. It persists in all ideological aspects of humanity - political, social and cultural. It shows up as deep devotion to convention combined with a reflexive tendency to reject ideas outside of the convention.

We can see this in comparing opportunities for presentation of conventional views and ms views. Consider the phenomenon of the growth of the mega-churches, and the reach and power of the various Christian broadcasting networks. They reach many millions of people, and to that audience they preach that the perspectives of god that msers hold are evil, the sure sign of satanic possession. Consider too the popularity of Christian book titles like the Left Behind series or The Purpose Driven Life. And with churches on nearly every other block of our communities, there are endless opportunities for anyone who wants to preach or teach Biblical doctrine.

By comparison, there are very few opportunities where people can gather to share and speak about the ideas of open consciousness. Sadly, this is the case even in the New Thought churches such as Science of Mind or Unity. I say this from repeated personal experience. They talk about new thought ideas that on the face of it are open, but then continually refer to god as though he were a separate entity wanting to provide and care for us. In their favor, at least they do not teach the eternal punishment stuff of mainstream religions. But they refuse to allow anyone but their own ministers or trained congregants to present ideas about the nature of that Infinite Intelligence referred to as God. By doing that, they are not much different than mainstream churches that limit all discussion to their own doctrine.

For those concerned about raising the consciousness of the planet, what I have described may sound dispiriting. But there is also another side to this which we will discuss in the coming Part. Meanwhile, it is important for us to be bluntly honest about the current state of affairs. We make a big mistake to in any way think that raising consciousness includes meekness and passive acceptance of closed consciousness. To the contrary, it is the very reticence to speak bluntly about the current state of overall consciousness and the paradigms that feed it, that inhibits any rise in the mass consciousness.

For far too long aware people have been living in this dream state relying upon such entrancing phrases as, "The consciousness of the planet will rise when a critical mass (or tipping point) is reached". We should not delude ourselves into thinking that the rise is going to occur all by itself without any higher consciousness activity. We have been doing it that way for all these centuries; and the result is a mass consciousness that barely budges.

Remember, we are individualized expressions of Universal Subconscious Mind. So, aware individuals should take up their role and express!! From their elevated point within the spectrum, we can be assured that the energy of that expression is going to be everything that open consciousness entails. Rather than the energy of ego, it will be the higher energy of light and love. It means action; it does not mean meek.

Aware individuals must consider showing up in active outward expression of higher consciousness. If they are attending the services of Unity and Science of Mind churches, they should be conscious of what they are hearing there, and not sit in passive acceptance of separatist teaching. We could just as well go down the street to the Baptist church and hear that kind of stuff. We should be standing up and demanding more openness from those church leaders. We should be demanding that if they are sincere in their claims to advance consciousness, that they go beyond mere words and demonstrate it by actively providing forums for presentation of open consciiosness concepts, and, thereby opening the way for the tipping point to occur. If such churches are no more than just contributing to the same old horizontal swirl of limited consciousness, then aware people should consciously ask themselves why they are continuing to provide financial support to that.

End of Part 5; go to Part 6