Dancing On the Razor's Edge of Change At The Dawn of A New Age

by Robert Wilkinson

There is never a moment in life when things are not changing. Though we long for and clutch at comfort and predictability, still events move forward within the medium we call time. Time is how we measure our experience, our movement between our evolving points of view and the understandings that follow, and ultimately the medium in which we learn to live in the Eternal NOW.

Some times seem more predictable. Other times we seem to be riding the wave of dynamic change, with little or no clue as to what is coming. Actually, whether we think we know what's coming, or are living on the edge of changes that throw us into unknown futures, we're still changing. The trick is to see how we are evolving while in the midst of the process.

Whether our minds are confident or confused as we move with the trajectory of events, we still have to live with our changes and move through the experience with as little confusion and error as possible. This is about learning to experience the changes directly as we move through them with a degree of detachment, discrimination, and dispassion regarding our own ups and downs, hopes and despair, confusion and enlightenment.

As an astrologer (and critical thinker!), frequently I know what’s coming, but I still have to live through it, move with it, do the best I can despite my feelings, my uncertainties, my humanness. We’re all learning to do what we do, living our awareness of higher things the best we're able. Ideally over time we get better and better at doing our Being with more and more skills and understanding being learned daily, weekly, monthly. And still many unknowns persist.

We’re all in this boat together. Part of being human is that regardless of our knowledge, we still have to live our lives within the collective reality we share. And sometimes this reality can get very weird. That's why it's helpful to develop an ability to depersonalize from the field and examine what is truly our experience versus what is going on in the collective field.

Here I must emphasize that we do NOT "create our reality." We do create our experience of the reality we’re in, but remember that the circumstances of our material world were created and perpetuated by people we do not know who set the patterns long before we came upon the movie and chose to enter the theater. We usually don't have much influence over large scale global events, but we do have the power to position our consciousness and view the movie with the eyes of compassionate understanding and relate it to the wisdom we're forever learning.

In fact, this reality is a dream, a movie, as is everything we believe to have substance. When we are born we awaken inside the movie, and through our lives we view every element of the movie as nightmares, boring wastes of time, or dreams come true, depending on our point of view. And sometimes believing in magic is enough to make magic come forth. That seems to be the challenge for many of us riding the waves of change through 2012 into the beyond of existence.

Throughout our lives, as we live inside the movie, we continually choose our responses to perceptions and seemingly real events in that movie. However, we should not assume we “caused” that which presents itself to our senses and our minds. Just because something passes across our perceptual radar screen doesn't mean we directly or indirectly "caused" it. That puts too much personal responsibility on transpersonal events set into motion long before we showed up at this particular movie.

For example, no one I've ever met that has any higher awareness or conscience would have created or perpetuated such things as war, famine, slavery, fear, violence, and other plagues that are the diseases of humanity. But a while back I chose to look at these elements of the movie we share, and committed my life to doing all I can to learn how to mitigate these the best I am able, given my skills and my limitations. This is an adventure for all of us who share these values, and all who care about making sure the world is a better place 30 years from now than it is today.

One reality we all share in the movie of apparent human existence is that through it all we feel. We feel intensely, deeply, and yet even those apparently "real" feelings are also in constant change. Since these are hard wired into our humanness, it leads us to greater experience and often enjoyment of the stimulation we get from the intensity of the changes.

The reason we find any enjoyment of intense feelings that are in constant change is that these intense changes actually remind us of our ultimate freedom, and the endless explorations our eternal Self experiences throughout all our existences. We are more free than we imagine, once we cast off the chains of society, family assumptions, and associates who do not have to walk our walk.

That's why we must walk OUR walk, and not try to live anyone else's reality. Discovering the unique qualities of our life walk is a grand adventure, and I've found it's a happier experience to take a dispassionate look at the evolving wisdom of my path rather than compare the relative advantages of someone else's walk with mine. Our unique purpose may or may not have common elements with anyone else's. Each of us has the ticket to ride our own unique Dharma into Eternity.

In this impermanent "reality" we all share as humans, the what, how, and when of our experiences are always in flux. People and creatures, ideas and experiences, are always moving onward through time, fading into our rearview mirror with more experiences in our faces, here and now. That’s why it’s good not to get too attached to what seems to be happening, whether pleasurable or painful. It’s all grist for the mill of Soul.

So in this Cosmic moment of discontent, uncertainty, strident bloviating, paradoxical thinking and irrational behaviors, take a breath, take a moment, take a bow, for the Eternal Being that you are, were, and will be, who persists in your quest for Truth despite the passing noise of the eternal soft parade inside the gold mine. You are beyond what you imagine.

Copyright © 2006, 2011 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Jo]

I really needed to hear that, so thanks for the perspective.

[nan]

wonderfully said, Robert......blessings on you.

[chickie]

Molti Grazie, Your Highness!!!

[Cheryl]

Robert, we are connected, are we not? So we actually do have an effect on "large scale global events", and, in light of our common future, it is important to understand this. You are teaching incorrect information.

Also, you say that we are born into material circumstances which patterns were set by others (paraphrase). In light of the future, Robert, it is important to understand that we each contribute to keeping the "set patterns", or the paradigm in place.

Your understanding of "perception" is undeveloped, and you are teaching incorrect information into the common good. I object.

[caliban]

Hi Cheryl, I'm confused. How can doing one's dharma not be in the best interests of the common good? I thought it was what I am here to do.

[Robert]

Hi all - I figured this one might be a good one to remember we can change our perception and responses to our "reality," but must also remember to detach, depersonalize, and view it all as a dream....

Hi Caliban - An individual's Dharma may or may not be in the best interests of the common good. Think Stalin, or even Mengele or Eichmann. Their Dharma (and the consequent karma) was pretty funky (IMHO, of course.) That said, once we consciously embrace our Path of Hastened Attainment, to become as lovingly wise and wisely loving as we can for the rest of our days, it leads us to forms of service that fulfill Dharma, and that's always a good thing.....

Hi Cheryl - Well, I'm willing to engage you in a friendly debate. First, since you twice challenged me on "incorrect information," show me what is incorrect in the following facts:

Though we are indeed connected, you and I and those we know, including the tens of thousands who come to this site each month, do NOT create or control the price of oil and natural gas, the bank interest rates, the policies of the Fed, whether or not a Pentagon miscreant will use HAARP to blow holes in the sides of Chinese mountains, or create earthquakes where they will. We have relatively little ability to control whether or not a government decides to use drones or bombs or whatever to kill and maim thousands of innocents, whether the slavers and mass murderers will continue to practice their horrors, whether the auto companies decide to give us the efficiency we should have had decades ago, whether we can stop being groped and/or irradiated at airports, how nuclear waste is handled, and so many other elements of "modern" existence.

Once upon a time back during 'Nam when much younger and more naive, I meditated with tens of thousands across the country hoping to levitate the Pentagon. It's a well known historical event. I'll ask you if the desired results happened. (That said, I've seen and participated in miracles of long distance diagnosis and healing of tumors, but that's another subject entirely.) I also joined with hundreds of thousands meditating for peace before Bush bombed Baghdad, but he chose to do it anyway. I cannot see how hundreds of thousands of us meditating for peace and non-violence in our world contributed to the war paradigm. If you believe that meditating for peace contributes to war, then it is up to you to explain how.

While I agree that mass consciousness did hinder the nuke industry for 25 years as a result of millions of us mobilizing in the late 70s and early 80s, we only put the djinn in the bottle for awhile since human greed is a tough thing to eliminate, and truly we can only eliminate it in ourselves. We have no power to force another to be as we wish. This time it took the Earth Herself using an earthquake and tsunami to stop the public discussion of building lots of new nukes (which some want to do anyway, even in the face of the disasters visited upon humanity at present!)

In another instance of how perception has little influence or effect on what the collective is actually doing outside of our individual affairs, regardless of how many of us have protested, meditated, and done every spiritual practice we know for years, there are still tons of degraded nuclear emissions coming from shells on battlefields that I and millions of others never wanted built or shot to begin with. I will assure you I had nothing to do with the policy of shooting radioactive shells at humans. No one I've ever known had anything to do with creating or perpetuating that odious human behavior and "reality."

You stated that somehow "we each contribute to keeping the 'set patterns,' or the paradigm in place." While that may be true under some local conditions or specific circumstances, I take offense that you actually believe that any civilized being who is functionally and spiritually aware would "contribute" to the pattern of killing innocents. You cannot be a worker for peace and war simultaneously, despite sophistical arguments.

We can only change those things that are within our ability (and Dharma) to change. While we often could go beyond certain limitations, if we are not clear about what we should and should not attempt we can blunder and make things worse for ourselves and others. Believing we can change whatever whenever is egoic hubris. That's the technological ego mind believing we can make certain differences that are not ours to make.

Given the Prime Directive, we cannot "make" another do anything. A corrupt judge is going to do as they do; we cannot influence them to any degree other than their receptivity. While we can affirm in our daily/hourly/constant meditations that the price of oil will come down so the poor and elderly don't freeze to death, or meditate to stop government troops from slaughtering innocents, or affirm that all rapists and child abusers will cease and desist immediately, we cannot be attached to whether these things happen as we would like as quickly as we would like. If the collective consciousness of several million of us who have been awakened to the problem could stop child or sexual abuse or people who batter spouses, then we wouldn't have a 99% recidivism rate.

That's the problem with human free will. Just because many of us agree on something does not mean it will necessarily influence those who don't want to be influenced in that direction. To quote Upton Sinclair, ""It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it..." This is a form of willful ignorance I've written about in the past.

Gasoline is the price it is whether I or anyone else believes our prayers will stop the speculators and oil companies from gouging us. Gasoline powered internal combustion engines are with us whether we agree to them or not. I've been part of an alternative fuels movement for a couple of decades, but we made less of a difference than the fact that millions can no longer afford to fill their tanks. You would think that would mobilize millions, but so far I haven't seen it.

Again, we cannot influence those who choose not to be influenced. We can affirm, pray, meditate, even debate and argue, though I've never seen anyone change their political or economic view merely because I made a valid point. We can meditate that they will awaken, but it is out of our control whether they will, and when.

Our perceptions matter, but only to the extent we are effective in the local field. We may become peace makers and peace keepers, but we cannot prevent killers from killing if they are of their own free will intent on killing. We can affirm they will stop, but we cannot stop machine gunners from pulling the trigger unless we're there to put our own life on the line through trying to restrain them.

As for perception, we can put lipstick on a pig and call it beautiful, but it's still a pig, regardless of how we choose to perceive it. We can only stop war within ourselves. We only can build for the good with others who share that vision. We only can choose love over fear. We cannot make all war mongers stop, any more than we can stop all sexual abusers from traumatizing lives through their insane behavior. We may make a difference here and there, but again, the other must have it in them to awaken. We do not awaken them. They, and only, they, awaken from darkness to light and from the unreal to the real.

Objection taken under consideration and at this time overruled (without prejudice) for lack of factual evidence.

(ps - to anyone who stumbles across this - apparently "cheryl" is a troll who posts stink bombs and then disappears. While I don't like to "feed the troll," perhaps there is something in my answer that can help to clarify the difference between the reality we create and the realities we do NOT create. Sorry for the temporary hijacking of this thread.)

[Kathy]

Robert, I have been reading your papers for awhile now and have learned a lot. Most of your posts have been inspiring, not to mention optimistic and hopeful. This is my first time commenting. My spiritual teacher taught that we should not worry so much about changing the world. Most of us have discord in our own families. If everyone worked on establishing peace in our own homes, the world would be much improved.
Not an easy task, by the way. We all have our parts to play in the movie as you say, so instead of stressing about that which we have no control, keeping the focus on our individual path to betterment in this time of change seems to be the best option.

Shanti, Kathy

[Robert]

Hi Kathy - Thanks for checking in, even if this thread got a bit hijacked by a dishonest troll. I completely agree with what your teacher said. That's why I tried to include (in a coherent way) that the only thing we can do is eradicate the sources of error, suffering, and separateness within ourselves. That's the only way we make any significant impact in the outer world. When we ARE love, then despite the outer turmoil, we will BE love, despite perceptions to the contrary. Not-love never recognizes love, but love always recognizes both love and not-love. And I usually don't stress about what I cannot influence, despite being somewhat hindered as an Eternal affirming that all of us can live the best lives we can together. I do accept the wisdom of the I Ching when it says "the best way to fight evil is to make progress in the good." Love overcomes many things, if only to assist us into realms where darkness flees from the Light.

[Debra]

Hi Robert, This could not have come at a better time for me personally - thank you so much. I have been reading you for several months now and my life has been unfolding and transforming in such a parallel to what has been happening astrologically it is almost uncanny. And now this. Perfect timing. Just what I needed.

[QueenJ]

One of the most beautiful words that I ever read or heard in my life, especially at this moment Wow. Thank you.

Im a Taurus May 12 1970

[Conifer]

Thank you!!!

[demetra]

Thank you Robert! Your site reminds me every day to be awake and distance myself from the movie I am currently in. In central Europe people are under the control of the European Institutions, I feel that I am surrounded by hypnotized, well programmed robots who just choose to forget or deny any connection with the SPIRIT for the sake of very high salaries. I see the matrix very clearly now, for a while I had a crisis that I am here because I do not deserve any better, but your article eradicated this thought. We are free to choose...

[Shehzaad Maroof Khan]

beautiful article Robert :)
GOD BLESS my brother

[Nicolas]

Robert you are a wise man and your shearing of wisdom is of great help and guidance. The "troll" is of no importance, not to worry. That said, I am happy you stept in and gave a full answer to the nonsense, for it gave us all a chance to ponder and learn too. So, a double wammy!
My life trolls are better kept at a distance and I don't fuel their sabotage intentions, specially if their arguments are so vain and feeble.
Thanks for the sharing! Your efforts yield more fruit that you may be aware of.
Blessing be.

[Cheryl]

Robert, we are connected, are we not? If we are then it's a whole new level of responsibility in the field of the all, and, it's a whole new relationship.

If you think through your understandings in light of "we are connected", you may find a different view, if your perception will allow it.

Caliban - everything is in dharma, even the slave-makers of our world.

Signed, the troll

[Robert]

Hi Cheryl - Glad to see you're not just another troll throwing stink bombs. Thanks for the more civil tone, even if you obviously didn't read the guidelines for commenting.

I still question why your second comment (which I depublished after writing a response) was so presumptuous, accusatory, and dismissive. Even if you don't mean it to sound that way, I do have some expertise in the field of human psychology and perception, and how these condition what we say and how we say it. And since this is my cantina, I get to ask visitors with bad attitudes why they think it's appropriate to bring that to the community table. Many sites would have already banned you.

Your first comment directly challenged my knowledge and practice of perception, consciousness, and awareness, and then you refused to dialog. If you believe my knowledge of perception is "undeveloped," then it's clear you know nothing about me or what I know. You brought nothing but attitude, judgment, and accusations to the community table, threw out opinions of what I am teaching that you allege is incorrect based on your supposed knowledge of "right and wrong perception," and then refused to offer even one thing allowing us to know why you believe what you do, or where you're coming from.

You cannot call the question and refuse to discuss the question. That's dishonest communication. But the fact that I didn't ban you entirely should show you something about perception, consciousness, connectedness, and community dynamics. That said, I have no responsibility or inclination to indulge trollish behavior. That's less my perceptual problem than my need to enforce healthy boundaries for the benefit of this community. I still question your authority to make the judgments you do, since some of what you said sounds like new age happy think. You keep stating that "we are connected." That's a no brainer. And your point is?

You obviously believe you have the right to say something any time you believe someone is teaching false information. Whether me or another, I'm not sure it's your place to judge until you have thoroughly investigated who and what it is you're judging lest you allow your subjective opinions, attachments, and prejudices to distort your perception. Take that to the mirror, please.

Who is the interpreter of what you perceive that you believe you think? How reliable is your own perceptual mechanism? You obviously have not read any of the many articles in the archives about the nature of perception, consciousness, or how the mind generates tendencies that lead to forms of suffering or you would not have the opinion of my work that you brought to our table.

In any case, glad you're not a hit and run troll. As with all who come here, you may certainly contribute to the community dialog any time you like. But please be thoughtful in what you say and how you say it. I take a dim view of insolence directed toward anyone in this cantina, me included. There are many things that could be said that contribute to the common good. Those who can't deal with that usually are in the wrong place. Peace out and later easy..... The Proprietor

[Robert]

Hi Caliban - Actually, she's not quite right. Dharma is one's "higher Destiny," not the mere acting out of bad behavior. Slavers, abusers, those who choose violence are all choosing that behavior of their free will and generate "little k" karma, not to be confused with big K Karma, the one or more "Sacred Wounds" that show us our authenticity, our common human-ness we share with others across time and space who share that wound, and our way of selfless service. Big K Karma is directly related to Dharma. Little k karma is totally lower self generated, and thus has no permanence or substantial reality. The lesser karmas exist only until we antidote them, after which they disappear forever. And of course, Dharma is fluid, in the sense that our Eternal Self's evolution is fluid. How do we know our "true function" until we show up at the intersection of Fate Street and Free Will Street on Eternity Boulevard? And that's always NOW.

[caliban]

Hi Robert, that is grokable. Getting a sense of higher destiny, it feels so basic to my existence. It's my common denominator. Always has been. Just didn't get it. Certainly did enough screaming about it, until I heard myself.

[ull]

In Sweden we useed to have a lot of trolls..Sometimes I like to be a troll myself.

[ull]

Sorry lost my spelling running in the woods - we used to have a lot of trolls. But now we can´t see them anymore. In Island they can still see their little people.

[Lucinda]

Hello Robert

I felt compelled to comment, not something I usually do, but after a month or so of visiting your site, I have to say to you that The Aquarius Papers are astoundingly insightful and articulate, quite unlike anything I've come across before.

I'm in a transformational period of my life at the moment, and your writings are reminding me of what I Know, and calling me to be present, which is perfect.

So thanks, is all. :)
Lucinda

[Deborah Murray]

Dear Robert:

I agree with Cheryl, we DO create our own reality!I was shocked to hear you giving advice to the contrary! Why has your EGO created this one?

[Robert]

Hi ull - Once upon a time the trollish little people had a place for those on the quest in the heart of Nature. Now, however, it's a term for those who come and place dishonest stink bombs in comment streams. Two different creatures...

Hi Lucinda - Glad you checked in. Thanks for the praise of the work. There are many things to explore in this ever-changing reality, and I figured it would be good to create a space for people from all over to do that. We all need a safe space to think and discuss such things.

Hi Deborah - Sorry, but neither you nor anyone else can demonstrate the truth of that statement beyond individual parameters and conditions. We only create our own experience of reality, not the reality itself beyond individual karmic limits. It could also be said that we create part of the reality we're experiencing while we live in and navigate a larger reality that others created before us. While a group of dedicated workers can indeed sometimes "bend substance" and "create a new reality," it's life span depends on karmic conditions.

I guarantee no individual can affect the price of gas, the cost of war, the rate the Fed determines, and whether China will buy more Treasuries. You have absolutely no ability to have the slightest effect to create any difference in those realities. These realities are created by those who invest their existence in greed, power, and profiting off of death and destruction. "No no no that ain't me babe..."

To repeat myself, we do not have the slightest power to make another be or do the right thing if their free will is dedicated to doing the wrong thing. Are you saying a victim of rape or domestic violence "created that reality?" That's an unsupportable argument I've heard only from abusers who want to blame the victim. It's the height of new age ego delusion to believe that dedicated peaceniks create war, or that those dedicated to environmental health are somehow creating the reality of pollution. That view is unsupportable by any spiritual angle of analysis. You can cite no spiritual source that allows us consciously to violate another's free will. We may create "our reality" to whatever degree, but only up to the point that it intersects with our own boundaries or limitations, or the boundaries or limitations of another. That alone limits what we can and cannot "create." Also please remember that while the problem and the solution often do co-exist, that doesn't mean the solution created the problem.

The way most new age thinkers believe "we create our own reality" involves a misunderstanding of the natural and individual limitations of karma, Karma, and Dharma. These belong to Saturn, and should be seen as related to Saturn's duality of Dominion/Slavery. Saturn, aka time, experience, boundaries, limitations, duties, and responsibilities, teaches us that we control nothing outside of our own responses, and that what seems to be happening is of less importance than our reaction to, and handling of, that experience. That is the only reality we create, as that is our only "dominion."

Again, that does not hinder us from many unknown and/or untried possibilities, even if we are limited to whatever degree by karma/Karma/Dharma in what reality we can create, since all things are not possible. We have certain limits we choose as free spirits that define us across space and time and give our existence meaning. Though these change, we are also NOT allowed certain "realities," again for both Karmic and Dharmic reasons. And of course we are not hindered except through a lack of imagination or willingness in what we can create with others who share our aim, mission, dedication, and willingness to cooperate in projects dedicated to a greater good, regardless of the apparent "success" or "failure" of these projects.

While our possibilities are endless, that doesn't mean all things are possible. If you still have questions, please go back and re-read what I've already written. "From the top, anda one anda two anda three anda....Em-A, Em-G, Em-A-G, notes: E,D#,D...." (if you don't get it, look it up!)

[Sara]

What a beautiful article. That puts everything in perspective, and that's the perspective I want to maintain during my journey. Thank you, Robert!!!