Unlike some ancient or biblical prophecies of doom, my theory does not purport the inevitability of our demise. We can exercise our free will, use our common sense (which is quite uncommon!), realize that we’re headed down the wrong path, and choose a new direction. This new direction is all about doing what we can to nurture the connection to our individual humanity, to each other, to the beautiful creatures that inhabit our planet, and to the planet itself.
To embrace this new path of connection, we must, as a first step, understand how we become disconnected, regardless of whether it's intended or unintended. We must be willing to entertain the supposition that some portion, or a majority of our thoughts and behaviors, may not be ours per se, but the property of forces and legacies that have conditioned us to think and act in certain ways. Once this is acknowledged as a fact, which it is, and the denials of how we are influenced by these forces begin to recede, we have the unique opportunity to engage the aspects of our culture that are willing - schools, government, media, science, sports, and even commercial industry - to change the programming, heal the wounds, and bring us closer together. Armed with a new awareness of how we become disconnected, we can arrest the negative conditioning to our psyche and witness the "meteorites" of extinction dissolve before our very eyes!
I do not profess to know all there is to know about what disconnects us. I am not a social scientist, neither am I a psychologist. But I trust my observations, my insights, and instincts. And most of all, I trust my common sense. And it tells me that when souls leave the shores of heavenly mystery and arrive on this plane of existence through our mothers, we are born with the nameless substance that connects us to each other. Our humanity is intact when we come ashore. In the earlier days of our brief stay on the planet – our youth – very few people question the veracity of our humanity, and we embark upon our journey through life with little to no baggage, whatsoever. However, as some psychologists suggest, when we reach the ages of four, five and six, our connection to certain aspects of our being is weakened; and we begin to carry the heavy luggage that our respective environments force upon us. We become stained and burdened by the age-old rules, patterns of thinking, and belief systems that are not necessarily our own.
Some experts, like Kevin L. Michel, the author of Moving through Parallel Worlds, believe that as we reach the ages of 5 or 6, we reduce the rapport with our subconscious, as the young mind is being prepared for academic success. This change, he asserts, comes at the expense of childhood creativity, which starts to wane at the same time it begins to rely more upon the structured, formal processes of the conscious mind. As a result, Michel believes the child’s imagination is lost, as she is programmed to adapt to rules of the school and, eventually, the work environment. I wholeheartedly agree with him. We are conditioned, perhaps unintentionally, by environmental forces that support early education, or as some may say, indoctrination.
Michel shows us how our environment can program its rules on the slates of our souls when we are young, but this programming continues throughout our adulthood. Depending upon what side of the aisle you’re sitting on, early education may be helpful or detrimental to a youngster. The point I am making is not about the positive impact or injurious effect of early education; it is about how our environment can condition our ways of thinking and behaving in ways that we are not conscious of. This conditioning, if it’s not serving the highest good, can have a harmful impact on our psyche. And once our psyche is negatively programmed, it is very easy to disconnect ourselves from our individual humanity and from each other.
The psyche is perhaps the most complex part of our being. Our belief systems, behaviors, and habits are deeply rooted there. It executes instructions autonomously and flawlessly, without any hesitation whatsoever. We are not consciously aware of what is going on behind the scenes in our minds when we act out of habit. Most of us don’t know why we do or say certain things, or have certain inclinations, because the invisible reasons – the programming from our environments - are embedded in our psyche. Once embedded, it is nearly impossible to see how our conditioning has affected us. We end up adopting the identity of our conditioning and then it becomes extremely difficult to separate our true selves (or souls) from our programmed selves. We are unable to discern the signature of our conditioning in our options and choices, which have an uncanny resemblance to the choices and options of the past or the conventional ways of the present.
According to the Kybalion, a study of the Hermetic philosophy of ancient Egypt and Greece, the majority of people are more or less the slaves of heredity, environment, etc., and manifest very little freedom. In this study (see Kybalion Project Gutenberg ebook – produced by Tamblyne@digital.daybook.com in November 2004), the description of the insidious nature of human conditioning is profound and simplified in the excerpt below:
[People] are swayed by the opinions, customs and thoughts of the outside world, and also by their emotions, feelings and moods, etc. They manifest no mastery, worthy of the name. They indignantly repudiate this assertion, saying, “Why, I certainly am free to act and do as I please—I do just what I want to do,” but they fail to explain whence arise the “want to” and “as I please.” What makes them “want to” do one thing in preference to another; what makes them “please” to do this, and not do that? Is there no “because” to their “pleasing” and “wanting”? The Master can change these “pleases” and “wants” into others at the opposite end of the mental pole. He is able to “Will to will”, instead of “to will” because some feeling, mood, emotion, or environmental suggestion arouses a tendency or desire within him so to do.
The Kybalion is right on point! Our conditioning is the influential power of the environments that we are born and raised in, and the experiences we have within these environments. It is the unrecognizable force that determines our preferences. There’s no escaping our conditioning, it is a fact of life. It has always been the behind-the-scenes dictator of how we think, talk, and act, and a silent ruler of our behaviors.
Our conditioning can be lethal or enormously beautiful! It can determine a lifetime of belief systems, behaviors, and idiosyncrasies, some of which benefit us, while others are harmful to ourselves and the larger world. As children, for example, we are harmlessly conditioned to watch for cars before we cross the street because it will save us from harm or even death. We are conditioned to brush our teeth because of the obvious benefits of doing so. And most of us are conditioned to say thank you when we’re young because it expresses gratitude for an action or word that benefited us in some way or another. Very few people will argue against these types of programming because they are essential for our survival and civility. On the other hand, there are conditioned ways of thinking, speaking, and acting that are harmful, indeed! And this type of conditioning is the cause of so much of the disconnection that existed in our past and continues to this present day.
Becoming aware of our conditioning is the first step to strengthening our capacity to connect. Rising above our conditioning is a lifetime journey that brings temporary turmoil, open-mindedness, eventual joy and freedom, and the power to obstruct the path to our extinction!
So, what is it about our conditioning that can negatively impact our ability to connect?
- We are born human and then told by our environment that we are black or white or yellow or red. We are labeled by societal expectations, and our character traits—and to some extent, our success in life—are somewhat predefined, leaving little room for the unique expression of each soul.
- A religion is imposed upon us as we exit the bodies of our mothers, then commanded by our environments to accept our Catholic or Jewish or Christian “heritage” (and the tenets within each), when we were neither before our souls departed the heavenly shores of mystery.
- The roles and behaviors for women and men are already defined in the culture and these roles and behaviors can be very inflexible, making it difficult to express a way of being that may be at odds with the rules of convention. The culture also tells us in insidious ways which gender adds more value to the society.
- Upon our arrival on the planet, we are assigned by our environment to various “boxes” that reflect the patterns of thinking and behaving that have been adopted by people for generations and generations. Some of these patterns, like the “us vs them” way of thinking, are unnatural and have the effect of adding layers of separation over the membranes of our innate humanity.
When the distinction between people is poisoned by prejudice (a pattern created by countless centuries of programming), the conditioning is obviously destructive, and can lead to (under extreme cases) man’s inhumanity to man. Why is this the case? Because the programmed perpetrator does not see the humanity in the eyes of his victim. His psyche is stained by harmful programming that he has proudly identified with. Somewhere, within his environment (or his experiences), there was little or no teaching that reinforced the oneness of humanity, and without it, the power of the “box” was strengthened!
What is this box? How does it nurture disconnection? And how does it influence our ways of thinking and behaving? In part 2, I attempt to answer all of these questions and also provide some insight into some of the most controversial issues of our times.
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