The New Paradigm

I just today got around to reading in detail an article in The (Glasgow) Herald from last Tuesday, that I found very impressive. It was by their weekly columnist Harry Reid; and though he characterizes himself as "on the soft right' of the political spectrum, he was willing to entertain the idea that something needs to change, in our socio-econo-political system; that we can't continue to go on the way we are - to the point that he ventured to say that "being a little less obsessed with consuming might not be so bad".

If a soft righter can utter such a thought, there's hope yet...anyway, I responded thusly:


Harry Reid
c/o The Herald
200 Renfield Street
Glasgow G2 3QB

9 December 2011


Dear Harry,

I write in appreciative response to two of your columns in particular. The first was way back towards the first of the year when you wrote a paen to ‘the old Scots pub’, done in by the anti-smoking brigade. Well expressed. My sympathies for its demise.*

The second was your column of this week (6 December). I’d like to respond in some detail, besides appreciating you for your open mind to this situation.

Indeed, there is ‘something new under the sun’ - or at least, such blue-sky thinking is being called for; and in spades. (“Maybe it is time, at last, to find another way.” Quite.) But the old right-left prescriptions aren’t going to do the trick, now. Nor should they. Blue skies should be blue skies, not the old familiar skies with dark clouds aplenty in each. I would like to propose such a new, blue version; as the system as it is shows signs of being close to collapse. As it should, now. For something new, and far better, to come into being. At last.

A New Era for and by humanity is just waiting in the wings to manifest. And that new era - a ‘new paradigm’ - is - can be - characterized by a release of the structure in which humanity has been living - the matrix we have been swimming in - long enough: the milieu of interest-bearing money, and people being motivated to do things by the human construct called the profit motive. There is a higher motive, just waiting to make its entrance into the affairs of humanity. And it has to do with the quality of Service. Living a life of Service to a vision. That is the key to the future of social life on planet Earth.

And I am not talking about the ‘vision’ of communism.

What am I talking about.

I am talking about a system of being that is basically (ultimately) a moneyless society, wherein people share their goods and services with one another, and give of their best in doing so, out of a higher motive than the profit motive. Out of the highest motive there is, and could ever be. And that is to do so out of gratitude to their Creator for life with meaning.

A system that runs by, in a word, Love; and which is characterized by the principle, and quality, and value, of Service. (Or ‘contribution’, if the word Service carries too many negative connotations for a person. I am not talking about ‘servitude’.)

We need to get above the level of the problem, in order truly to solve the problem. The problem that is keeping us from creating community on planet Earth (Like the service to the community of the old Scots pub...)

This is not far-fetched thinking (except in the sense of thinking outside of the box). Anybody who has been following various spiritual teachers and cutting-edge websites and such (like the Occupy movement) will know that considerable thinking is being given to this very idea, of a moneyless society, as the answer for the future. That it is an idea whose time has come. With the globalising of the world that has taken place in the last decade or so, and with the increase in various forms of technology that is throwing more and more people out of work, and with the advent of new sources of energy - even beyond the obvious, ‘green’ renewables - called free energy devices, and with ‘consumerism’ and ‘growth’ needing logically to be replaced by a steady-state system, conserving of resources, it is obvious that there is, indeed, something new under the sun. That something new is cooking (besides the planet; some say...): A new way of looking at social life. A way that frees us from most of the drudgery of the past, and opens the windows to the opportunity for a new way of being with one another on this lovely old, beleaguered old planet, wherein - as I said - we provide each other with the goods and services we need to live a wholistic life, which includes one with a dedication to living in harmony with Gaia - our home away from home.

Now, obviously, this requires a belief in a larger reality than simply the material level of being. - Or does it?? I submit that it is no longer a matter merely of a ‘belief’. There is so much evidence of such a larger reality in now, in our time - through such avenues as new findings in physics,** and evidences from Near Death Experiences/Out of Body Experiences (where the perceiver has perceived things - visuals, conversations - that he/she couldn’t have perceived within our current ’take’ on things); and via a tremendous body of literature that supports the concept of reincarnation (thus a Plan) - that it is really not that big of a stretch to consider such an answer to the dilemma that we find ourselves in, at this time.

A dilemma just waiting for a blue-sky-thinking response. And thank you, Harry, for helping to seed that fertile space.


Yours sincerely,


‘Stan’ Stanfield

Cluny Hill College
Findhorn Foundation
Forres IV36 2RD


Footnotes:

* Too bad the anti-smoking zealots weren’t told, in successful terms, to butt out, so to speak. Democracy, and the free market, would better have ruled. If indeed there was a market for no-smoking such establishments, it would be a very short-sighted publican who would not cater to that crowd, in tandem with those who prefer the no-smoking version. But that wouldn’t have fit the purpose of the exercise, would it. Which was to let the health - & social - authoritarians rule. And what next, one wonders...
[Do I smoke? No. Do I like to be around smoking? No. 'Then why...' Because it's a free will thing. If the 'top down' runs things, then we are but slaves to the system. I won't have it. Service, yes. Servitude, no. Read on.]


** See, eg, the new book out by David Wilcock titled ‘the Source Field Investigations’, which summarizes such facts from physics and other disciplines


---


A comment. In my letter I referred to the replacement of the current order of things by "a system of being...' I meant by it as in comparison to a system merely of 'doing'. The New will require us to embody the consciousness that will inform it, and keep it going. As to that factor, I offer the following additional thoughts to this blog. It is a 'piece' directed to my fellow members of the 'spiritual community' of which I am a part:

"Moving into

CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS

As a centre of Light and demonstration, the Findhorn Foundation and Community have an important role to play, and message to send and give to the world, especially at this time of great need in the world. And that is the role of loving service to a vision, coupled with an inner connection with the Presence. The Presence of The Christ. Or as David Spangler has described it: the cosmic Christ; whereby and with which we can transform civilization here, into a close approximation of the kingdom of heaven. On Earth, as it is in Heaven; just once removed. While we complete our time in incarnation. Before returning completely to Oneness with the Divine. With our Source.

Just a little work to do first. To establish an outpost of that kingdom on Earth. Where we will do things - share goods and services with one another, and give of our best in the process - not out of the motive of ‘making money’, out of the human construct called the profit motive. But ‘driven’ by the highest motive there is, and could ever be: the motive of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning. Out of, in a word: Love.

And when we do - not ‘if’, but when -‘all else will be added unto us’. Out of the abundance generated by such a system, of self-governance, in perfect alignment with Spirit.

That’s our work here. Our better ‘business’. Let’s be about it; with joy, and good humour. Knowing, that what we do here - what we model here - has this great importance to and for the world at large.

In our time."


So, confession time: I still have to bring my own community around, to this idea, of a moneyless society. So no, I do not expect it to be an easy task, to convince the world as a whole of its merits, and achievability. But I have a secret weapon in the matter.

It's called the power of Spirit to break through even the hardest of crusts. Yes, some will be reluctant to take all this on. But it will happen.

Not only because it needs to.

But because it already has.


P.S. The reference to David Spangler is to a man, young at the time, who came to this community (in the north of Scotland) from America, and helped immeasurably in moving it out of just a focus on 'inner listening' and 'co-creation with Nature' to encompass the concept of a 'systems change' for the whole of society. His first book, conceived and birthed at the community, was called 'Revelation: the Birth of a New Age' - probably his signature tome - and it was followed by many others (and he continues to turn them out to this day, on various 'spiritual' subjects). One of his finest, in my opinion, is titled 'Reflections on The Christ' (based on talks he gave to the community in the early '70s); and I would like to close this blog with a pertinent quote from its opening chapter, entitled 'The Christ Pattern':

"The Christ pattern intrinsically is not a suffering pattern. It is a pattern leading from strength to strength and from joy to joy. It is that pattern which we are now asked to manifest.

"All of this is only background. What is being represented at Findhorn and by other centres like it and by individuals throughout the world who are so attuned to this pattern, is a liberation of this cosmic Christ who has been, in a way, imprisoned within the planet. Being carried on this tremendous uprush of power and joy to becoming at one with the true Christ pattern that flows through each of us and within each of us. An attunement which really requires no struggle, no stress, only that we relax to it and allow the normal, natural, growing forces within us to take us to it ('it' is a clumsy way of expressing it, because the Christ is not an it and it is not a place) to move us to that level of consciousness, or that perception of consciousness where we realize the tremendous joy and a tremendous oneness that we share with all that is and all that will ever be.

"That background may place what people at Findhorn are doing in some perspective. They are evolving a group Christ. They are, by demonstrating a new civilization, a new way of doing things, performing the Christ function of drawing that same awareness out of the world..."

These words were written before, and published in, 1977. And they are as true today as they ever were.


We all have work to do, to bring The New about.

But it is happening.