Ask Dr. Julianne

Aloha from Maui, Hawaii!

Aloha Dear Friends,

Hope you enjoyed the introduction to evolutionary spirituality.

The two years I’ve been studying with Craig Hamilton, IntegralEnlightenment.com, have been rich and rewarding. Evolutionary spirituality/enlightenment is the single most thrilling human consciousness movement I have discovered in all my years as a seeker.  I’m developing a passion for applying the evolutionary perspective to relationships, both in my own life, and as a transpersonal psychologist working with people who believe more is possible in their connection with others.

Much of the writing on evolutionary enlightenment is in philosophical, and/or integral, language.  I’m thinking of Ken Wilber’s brilliant book, “Integral Spirituality,” and the writings of other integral thinkers.  Ken Wilber is probably our foremost post-modern philosopher, the father of all things, “integral.” Integral theory views human experience as a synthesis of knowledge that evolves in stages of consciousness, each stage including and transcending the next.

You can see how this perspective lends itself to an exploration of the evolution of our spiritual awareness.  If one does not, “speak integral,” and most of us do not (I am far from fluent), it can be challenging to understand the evolutionary conversation.

I’m getting more clear that part of my passion for creating an evolutionary frame for relationship involves discovering the language that communicates concepts steeped in philosophy and theology in a practical way.  Hmm.  Pray for me.:)

Let’s look for this together.  Whenever any of you find something in this ballpark that really speaks to you with powerful, simple clarity, please share it as a comment, or send it to me at my email drj@mauispiritualcounseling.com.  We need all the help we can give each other.

As I read over my last couple posts, I realized that most of us have only heard the term, “evolutionary,” refer to biology, and the cultural debate between the scientific and religious communities about the origin of life. There is bitter controversy around this debate, people finding themselves in camps with ideological lines fiercely drawn.  So–please let me explain the way I’m holding the evolutionary point of view, and what it has come to mean to me.

I’ve always been in the third, “camp,” those who believe a sacred mystery, God, set the evolutionary process in motion.  I experience the unfolding of life as a divine process, occurring within a matrix of deep care–that life has, as its blueprint, the innately loving nature of that mystery.  Our human consciousness is a part of that unfolding–just as all species learn, adapt and progress, so does our awareness.   What might our evolving consciousness enable us to understand?  How does a greater awareness challenge us?

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty (spaceandmotion.com).”

A spiritual interpretation of the evolutionary process invites us to free ourselves from that, “optical illusion,” of separateness, to have an actual, living experience of being, “all God’s children,” of being one life, one heartbeat, evolving from the very DNA of the creator, “made in God’s image.”

The essentially hopeful message is that no matter how dark things appear at any moment in time, humanity is on the right track.  Choices made by individuals that harm others create chaos and despair.  Yet, these acts are not supported by our divine blueprint, and cannot be sustained across time. Our consciousness, our capacity for lovingkindness, is evolving.

What is passionately and relentlessly honed and expanded is our innate goodness, our evolving capacity to dissolve perceived differences between us and the hatred and violence that come from those beliefs.  The evolutionary impulse urges us to dissolve boundaries not only between ourselves and others, but between ourselves and our creator, to become aware of our sense of being separate from God as a false construct of an earlier stage of consciousness.

Mercy.  I experience a deep and abiding resonance with truth as I take this in–and an almost overwhelming challenge.  Here’s the encouraging news–our personality selves, burdened by defensive patterns, our human minds at their current capacity, are not expected to meet the evolutionary call of the future.  There is a power beyond us, within us, that is moving us forward, regardless of our individual choices.  As we become awake to the call of the good, the true, the beautiful, the holy, we are responsible for acting in alignment with it, to do the right thing.

As a humanity now evolved enough to be aware of being conscious, we can choose to actively support the sacred process of becoming more like the creative, loving power, the mystery of God, that caused everything that exists to come into form.  Let us ponder what choice we can make today that will bring us into greater alignment with that divine love.

Love and blessings,

Dr. Julianne