Global or World citizenship is the idea that one’s identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: “humanity”.

Stupid borders! Stupid countries!

The air you and I are breathing – is it Spanish air? Is it American air? Ridiculous isn’t it. You have eaten food grown in dozens of other countries. It has become your body. Our very bodies are world bodies.

What lags behind the reality of being world citizens, is our thought patterns. Habits of identifying as “Minnesotans” “Mississippians” “Missourians” “Americans” etc. These old, narrow and false identities are useless when it comes to solving problems that affect us all – like the heating up of the planet.

In the last two months, we first had neighbors from Western Canada, then a young Polish couple, then a Russian couple and now a couple from Quebec. It’s always like meeting family we hadn’t known about.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proposes a World Passport. Where everyone has the right to travel anywhere and return. Americans don’t notice this issue much because they can go so many places. There are a lot more restrictions for people from many other places.

One of the realizations that comes with Global Citizenship is how we are all interconnected and taking responsibility for how our decisions and lifestyle impact everyone else.

About 30% of the world strongly identifies themselves as “world citizens”. In the USA it is less than that, about 20%.

There are deep roots of this global identity. Let me leave you with some quotes:

‘I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolitês)’ Diogenes 412 B.C. Greece

“To us all towns are one, all men our kin.” The Tamil poet Kaniyan Poongundran

“my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” Thomas Payne

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” Albert Einstein

“The Earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” Bahai’s founder

I am so uncomfortable with the standard image: Old man, flowing robes, up in the clouds, white, sitting on a throne.

The whole image is worse than useless. A much more expanded image is needed. One that really transcends images. Stephen Gaskin, a spiritual teacher from San Francisco, used the definition, “The container that contains all containers”. Try that on for size. That points to the scope of the image, but there are more dimensions.

Somehow, we have to find a way to break down this barrier that places God ‘out there’ – or even ‘out there and in here’. And here is where it is going to hurt a little because we hold onto some fundamental misconceptions about self and world.

Now imagining the vastness of the world is not the big hurt. You do know, don’t you, that there are more suns in the world than there are grains of sand on the earth. Now I’ve taken long excursions on the sand dunes of the Gobi Desert, the Sahara Desert, the Great Victoria Desert in Australia, The Mojave Desert in California, The Sechura Desert in Peru, and many others – there were even large sand dunes in the county where I grew up in Sherburne County, Minnesota. Don’t get me started on beaches. I know I cannot wrap my head around that number of grains of sand, or that many suns, or the much larger number of planets and even larger number of moons. If you really try to grasp it, it should surely blow your mind – and it should point to the naivety and arrogance inherent in the idea that we humans are the only intelligent life in the world.

Now the really painful misconception regards ‘self’. Right off, it flat out doesn’t exist. Our names? Made up fiction. Our possessions? More fiction. Our memories? Our thoughts? Temporary electrical storms in the grey matter. So what does exist? What creates these illusions?

Did you know that there are somewhere between fifty to a hundred trillion cells in each of these human bodies? (Notice I didn’t say ‘our’ bodies.) Nearly all these cells have a molecule that has been named deoxyribonucleic acid. Of course, each of these cells is too small to see and the molecule of acid (DNA) is just a couple nanometers in size. To put it mildly these DNA molecules are a bit complex, like three billion base pairs in each one. They are all bundled together rather tightly, but if one of them were to be stretched out it would be about two meters long – about as tall as a person. And if all the DNA in one of these human bodies were to be strung together like that, it would be about twice the diameter of the solar system. Did you know that most of these cells in these bodies are not even human cells? There are about 10,000 different organisms that make up each of these bodies. These bodies that we call ‘ours’.

Now, the particular body that is reading this, ‘your body’, started out as a sperm cell and an egg cell. And that one set of DNA molecules contained all the instructs to build ‘you’. The important point here is that no ‘self’ got added later at some point. Every cell in all the sense doors (eyes, ears, tongue, etc.) and every cell in the nervous system – including the brain – has this inherent intelligence that contains all the instructions for how each and every one of these cells is to function.

Science has figured out how some of these DNA base pairs work. About 1% of them. We should feel humbled and in awe of what we know vs. what we don’t know. So what I am trying to say is that these instructions in DNA have everything to do with how you are receiving this information and how you are reacting to this information. In fact, every thought, idea, attitude, belief, desire, emotion – all of it – behind all of it is the DNA of cells expressing their intelligence.

These human nervous systems are processing 400 billion bits of data every second. We are only conscious of about 2,000 bits per second.

There is so much more going on than what we are conscious of. I truly feel in awe and humbled.

I believe that eventually we are going to learn a lot more about the intelligence in DNA. I also believe that some of what we are going to come to understand is that:

• DNA exists throughout the universe
• DNA is now and always has been in constant communication with all other DNA
• That even our experience of space and time are mere constructs created by DNA

So to bring this full circle, this new understanding and respect for the ungraspable intelligence that is expressed by DNA puts me in a much more correct relationship to God. It annihilates ‘me’ and everything is God-saturated, or rather I see the unfathomable depth of intelligence operating on every level of all things. No there is not some old man in gowns in the clouds directing DNA. The direct experience of being conscious in this sea of infinite intelligence is a totality. No fictions need to be added to it.  I have surrendered myself totally to this intelligence as a fact – as the ‘me’ was an illusion to start with. And one other thing I think we are going to come to understand in a new way:

All things are possible.

The shaman had brewed a batch and had it in an old Dr. Pepper plastic bottle someone had found floating down the Pastaza River. Floating down from a civilization this community knew almost nothing about. We were on the border between Peru and Ecuador over 100 miles from the nearest road living with people who knew nothing about countries, or plastic, or sugary commercial drinks. No contact with electricity, TV, radio, newspapers or written language.
I drank my shot of what the Achuar tribe called Natem. A few minutes later I was watching a show of neon colors. Eight sided patterns. The colors changing faster toward the center of the pattern. I could sense that near the center the changes were happening faster than my perception could keep up with.
About this time the poison kicks in. I was ushered out of the lodge and held as intestinal retching kicked in. Vomiting removes the toxins. I couldn’t do it. I had trained myself from the age of 8 to not ever, ever throw up. At that time I was in a Catholic grade school with horrible lunches. Kids threw up every day. The nuns made them clean up their messes. The bathroom and any where near it was a toxic zone that actually caused many more heave-ho’s. I had prided myself on this ability to not throw up. Now it was about to kill me. Eventually they laid me on a large banana leaf. I laid there for hours, under the bright starlight of the Milky Way, making unearthly guttural sounds that scared everyone around me.
Charlotte and two other travelers had taken the ayahuasca. Charlotte was blowing everything in her out both ends. She had two helpers and embarrassment was the least of her concerns. She could hear what I was going through. Must have thought I was dying. Her helpers told her not to worry about me to just worry about herself, but she insisted, “Don’t tell me not to be concerned about him. He is the love of my life, I will be concerned about him!”
By the middle of the night I was exhausted from the convulsions and still freaking everyone out with sounds that should never come from a human or be heard by other humans. The shaman had me brought back into his lodge.
I sat before him on a small stool. He reached in my mouth and pulled my tongue out as far as it would go. With a small straw he began sucking with all his might on different parts of my tongue. I was barely conscious, but I had no choice but to fully trust that this was the right treatment.
Back to the banana leaf and slowly the retching subsided. By morning, I was weak, could barely walk with help, but recovering.
All that drama was on one level. But there was another level that happened that night. I would summarize it as gaining direct confidence in the total oneness of everything. Whoever I thought I was when the night began, that somebody got left behind. I was out of my mind. The nearest I can describe it is as though I was in my DNA. I was DNA. And actually there was no clear edge of ‘my’ DNA and ‘not my’ DNA. All the DNA in other people there, in the plants, animals and bugs – no edges of separation. And quite amazing to me was that all DNA is in constant communication. I was staring up at the Milky Way and realizing the entire universe is filled with DNA – and in constant, instantaneous communication. And I realized that this DNA consciousness was greater than time or space. Time and space were mere constructs inside this DNA consciousness.
All this was 11 years ago, in 2008. Maybe Natem doesn’t ever entirely leave you once you’ve ingested it. That certainly feels true in my case. It’s a leap to go to oneness from daily western civilization consciousness with all our assumed separations, but there is something persistent inside of me that keeps me trying to restructure my reality into the oneness model. I know oneness is the truth. Realizing it is what the inner life is all about for me.

Energy or Matter: It’s a choice

I was walking around the Harvard University campus wearing my favorite dark blue t-shirt. In yellow letters on the front it said E = M. ‘That’s not quite right’, most minds might habitually react. On the back of the t-shirt, it said “Energy or Matter. It’s a choice.”

OK. First of all, almost all of us are stuck deep into matter. What choice?

I used to teach meditation. One of the exercises I had all the students do was to spend five minutes laying on a Chi Machine. You lay on your back and place your ankles on this device that wiggles your legs back and fourth. When the movement finally stops, a rush of energy encompasses your consciousness. And in those moments, you are energy.

The worlds of energy and matter are so very different. I don’t need to tell anyone about the world of matter – we all know it all too well. But the world of energy, that’s the one that is so elusive to us. First off, there is no space or time here. There is only a “here” and a “now”.

Second, we are all one. That’s a hard one, isn’t it. To experience it, we have to dissolve our personal self and all the boundaries and borders that go with it. And then we have to see everyone else in the same light. In the world of energy it is all connectivity. There are patterns and change, but there are no walls or borders.

Third, you will have no control in the energy world. There is some kind of order, but it will be beyond understanding. It’s a magical, dreamlike experience where images, thoughts, feelings arise and disappear and nothing gets held on to.

At this point, you might think, “What’s it good for?” Ah. The magic. If you get comfortable moving into the energy world, you will increasingly be able to broadcast a feeling. And there is one feeling in particular that will widen the passage for those you love to experience this state. It is the feeling of universal loving-kindness.

I realize everyone who reads this is in their own unique relationship to the world of energy. There are those more experienced that I, there are those about at my same experience level and there are many who are more distant from the state in a number of ways.

One thought that helped me draw nearer to this state is something you can find on a bumper sticker.

Wayne Dyer and Stephen Covey attribute this quote to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin but it actually comes from an earlier source, G. I. Gurdjieff. The quote can inspire in you a shift in your center of gravity.

The material world of matter and how humans experience it is in a dire situation. And this is partly because so many beings are making the shift to the world of energy. We are nearing a tipping point in this regard. It will seem like a miracle that the world can be transformed so quickly. The quickening happens when you look into the eyes of ‘strangers’ and either you or they or both of you are in the energy state. It is these moments of overcoming all fears, that we can be united and we can further realize the peace and comfort – the love – that we all seek.

Mostly people experience new places by their generic airports.

The next deeper level of experiences are the tourist hotels and the tourist sights.

Rarely does it go further.

Now even in the place where you have lived a long time, if you have a car, you might not be as intimate with your place as you could be.

The last 16 months, we’ve been living for months at a time on every continent, away from the tourist traps and without a car or motorized anything. Every day we jog and walk and this is how we get to know the place where we are living.

Where cars can isolate you from the weather, we get to know the temperature from directly experiencing the winds, the clouds, the sun, the moon. We get to know the terrain of the streets and sidewalks. We become part of the environment for the local birds, the stray dogs and cats and other critters. We develop relationships with the street musicians and artists, the women with children begging, the disabled beggars. The scammers and drug dealers – “hashish?, marijuana?” The street vendors and parking attendants and shop keepers, the security guys, the dumpster recyclers, the street cops, the park maintenance staff and the other folks who walk or jog every day.

We get to know a place by how it smells – the good and the bad.

Every place has its depth. But there is no shortcut to seeing it or experiencing it. It’s layer after layer of revealed patterns – one experience taking you to the next experience. There is a ‘why’ and a ‘reason’ that keeps moving one deeper and deeper into the essence of a place. The long-time residents don’t usually reveal these secrets, until they trust that you can understand and appreciate what they reveal.

It is about love. “Love is the bridge between you and everything” – Rumi. Love is what takes it all in. Love is what connects the people with the things and the places. To explore a place, again from Rumi, “Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.”

A meaningful existence. Evolving. Loving. Contributing.

There is not much meaning in daily maintenance. Get up. Get cleaned up. Eat something. Work. Eat something. Work. Eat something, relax, go to bed. Repeat. Eventually life is over.

The three lines of work – which show up in religions, philosophies and spiritual paths – provide meaning, when maintenance fails in that regard.

Another way of expressing these three areas of placing our attention is:

1. Inner work. Staying present. Letting go. Mindfulness. The opposite of being bored in each moment.
2. Relationships. Can we deepen our love and compassion each time we interact with another being? This is the second line of work.
3. Service. When the situation arises, can we step up and make a contribution toward relieving general suffering.

Ram Dass expressed these three lines this way: Love, Serve, Remember.

Daily life maintenance can occupy a huge amount of our attention. However, it can be overlaid in every moment by work on at least one of the three lines of work.

A huge obstacle to meaningful existence is what several have called the ten thousand distractions. These are mind moments where our attention is grabbed by something that has nothing to do with the three lines of work. It could be watching TV, or getting high, or consuming, playing games, or Facebook, or gossiping, or… (the rest of the list of 10,000). Can you catch yourself in a moment and ask, “Is this a distraction from a meaningful life?” Becoming aware of a distraction can be the beginning of turning a life toward more meaning.

So science has proven, in several ways, that what we consider our free will, is really our illusion of free will. More than we realize and more than we are willing to admit, we are just very complex machines. If the possibility of free will exists in us, it is asleep. We would have to find a way to break free of our mechanicalness to experience such a potential.

In this state of mechanicalness, it also follows that our ideas of purpose in life, goals in life, our value system, what we like and dislike – all of it is not due to our choices. It is all just happening on its own.

I realize most of humanity is content with the illusion of free choice – they choose to believe in free choice regardless of the evidence against it.

For those of us that realize the free choice illusion, we have an existential dilemma. That is, is there anything about us that has the potential to go beyond mechanicalness? Is there any evidence to suggest such a possibility? Because if there is not any possibility, there is no freedom and there is no high reason for any pursuit at all.

An answer to this quandary requires a radical shift of identity. It requires giving up the equally illusory idea of a separate self. It never did exist and it never can. Absolutely everything about us is part of the connected whole. And with this new understanding, we have access to all the mysteries and laws of how the universe is unfolding in us and around us. Our greatest limitation in participating in this “only game in town”, is our ability to let go of all the old patterns and ideas and behaviors of that illusory separate self and replace them with a mind and emotions in attunement with actual reality.

The shift takes effort. A daily, hourly struggle of forgetting and remembering. But it is the doorway to a life we previously could not even imagine.

Gurdjieff, the Russian mystic who died in 1949, said all mankind’s first purpose was to make good compost of themselves. Man’s second purpose, which was optional, was to awaken.

This is supposed to be a travel blog. And there is plenty about exploring the world here. But there is an outer world and an inner world. Which is more wondrous? Surprising? Full of secrets? Rewarding? Life changing? Awe inspiring? Unexplored?

Suppose for a moment that each exploration – inner and outer – can enhance and deepen the other. How would that work?

Let’s say it starts with the realization that we are living in a very small and extremely limited part of ourselves and our world. Television and the internet have forced the realization of the vastness of the world upon us. Many respond by recoiling to varying degrees because of the fear of what is different and unknown. But if you are reading this (and you are) then you must be among those whose curiosity and interest in learning and growing has overcome those fears.

As for the vastness of the inner world, that realization is a bit easier to avoid. Television and the internet do not exactly support self-observation. Interest in the inner world might come about through a near death experience or meeting an extraordinary being. Maybe an experience with a psychotropic substance or a spontaneous visionary experience. Any and all of these experiences create doubt about the validity of the consensus reality.

Even before the first step, there are a couple realizations:

#1 – Nobody else can do these explorations for you. You must do them yourself or they don’t happen.

#2 – There is some preparation that is useful. Knowledge and a plan.

Look for the practices that support both inner and outer journeying. One of these is shifting our center of gravity into the present and let the past, the future and our imaginary day dreaming fall away. If we can increase those moments when we are fully present we will see more – both inside and outside.

Outwardly do some practice sessions of just quietly being and soaking in the environment. Really look at everything around. Listen to all, ALL, the sounds. Smell the air. Taste the local stuff. Feel the local textures.

Similarly, get quiet and scan your body from head to toe – feeling everything there is to feel. Observe breathing. Notice thoughts that drift you away from the present experience. Let those thoughts go and come back to the present experience. It is only when we are fully present that life is rich. Loving and being loved only happen now. Joy only gets experienced now.

The practice of being present takes some persistence, but the rewards for the inner/outer traveler are great.

This very moment, in every way, sums up your whole life. Not only your whole life. Your genetics, your DNA, it goes so far back, beyond what the mind can imagine – and all of that is also summed up in this very moment. Observe it. Be here for it. Experience it in its totality. Do it until it is simply what you do.

Now, create the future. Again. Again. The future is bigger than the mind can imagine. In every moment, plant the seed that creates the future that you wish for.

The neural net of that wish will energize. It grows stronger. It’s energy pattern sinks deeper in the mind. It forms relations with other energy patterns and the energy of your wish travels through those patterns as well. The chemistry of the brain begins to adapt to your wish. Peptides. Endorphins. Into the blood stream. The entire body is now singing your wish. The wish is in your heart space now – a signal that transmits at least 6-8 feet beyond the skin. Other bodies within that space sense the wish and are changed. An attunement is created. The wish is refined and polished by the wish of Gaia, the Earth. Her constant waves transforming the wish so it can join the cosmic wish. A wish so deep, the mind can not go there, can only open to, can only receive.

This is the revolution.

Whether you are part of the Trump resistance or a Trumpeteer, hating or getting angry at the opposition is neither a cultural nor a personal solution.

Here we are, mostly asleep, and in the middle of the fastest and largest of the 6 big extinction events in the long history of our planet. If we don’t wake up en masse and quickly, we as a species will be included in the annihilation.

I have come across a new way of looking at both cultural and personal development, that I want to share as a model that can lead to a transcendence of this dire situation.

This new view is based both in biology and quantum physics, and it doesn’t require a Ph.D to apply the insights.

Let’s start with the biological root. We all know about the amazing transformation of caterpillars becoming butterflies and other flying creatures. Fewer of us know the details. Here are the details in a nutshell:

The caterpillar gets into a groove of eating leaves voraciously. It grows rapidly until it reaches a point where it taps out its capacity to keep it up. It finds a place to attach itself and hangs upside down. Inside the caterpillar is where the magic is brewing. Of the billions of cells inside, there are some cells – that have the same DNA as all the rest, but they vibrate at a different frequency. When the caterpillar identifies these cells, it’s immune system attacks them and kills them off. But these cells (which biologists call ‘imaginal cells’) keep appearing. As the caterpillar gets bloated, these imaginal cells start getting the upper hand. They start connecting and communicating with each other and form ‘imaginal disks’. They transform from single cell organisms to more complex multi-cell tissue. They begin to use the cells of the overstuffed caterpillar as nutritive soup to continue their growth and development. As they develop, they become the body parts of the flying creature that eventually all comes together as a butterfly or moth or whatever.

Now the cultural analogy of this process is pretty obvious. There is an identifiable group of well over 50 million humans who identify as cultural creatives and are busy creating a new world in every way. And just like in the caterpillar, the old society finds all kinds of ways to fire up its ‘immune system’ and thwart these cultural creatives. But they persist.

What, until now, has not been brought to light is this same process taking place inside each of our mind-bodies.

And this brings us to quantum physics. Studying quantum physics is a great way to destroy mercilessly every idea you have about the world you live in. To take just two aspects of this area of study, lets bring up the uncertainty principle and the observer effect. For our simplified needs, the uncertainty principle tells us that at the quantum level, we can not precisely either nail down the location or the momentum of an object. And the observer effect says that the act of observing an object, changes that object.

Ok. Now the question. Do we human beings have imaginal cells? I think the answer lies in these laws of quantum physics. If you have never looked for them and believe they don’t exist, then for practical purposes they do not exist. But, on the other hand, if you look for them and believe they can possibly exist, I believe that you will find them.

When I found them in myself, I found that they were responsible for the moments of awareness and unconditional love and the part of my life that is based on those experiences.

And even though for nearly twenty years I have said every day these words, “I promise to rededicate my life to being loving, kind and present” there are still many, many moments each day where that promise goes unfulfilled. And why is that?

For the answer, we need an expanded understanding of the human immune system. Do you know what would happen if all your or my moments were filled with awareness and unconditional loving kindness? Our ego, that part of us that thinks it knows who we are, that part would end. So our immune system, with our ego as the director in charge of conscious and subconscious patterns, fights these imaginal cells with all of its tools. These tools include: addictions, distractions, disease, confusion, worry, doubt, negative emotions, beliefs and more. A powerful arsenal. Yet imaginal cells persist.

The imaginal cells have some tools of their own. The direct experience of a moment of awareness with loving-kindness brings with it, peace, equanimity, a sense of connectedness and oneness, relaxation, a healthy healing energy, lowered stress and blood pressure levels. When you are in this state and in the presence of someone else in this state of loving awareness, there is a high vibration communication that energizes each of you. The imaginal cells express themselves through ideas in the mind as well. There is a deepening belief in the idea that there is such a thing as a ‘critical mass’ where the imaginal cells within oneself and within humanity can reach a strength such that a rapid and powerful transformation takes place that goes beyond ones’ wildest imagination. Another idea from imaginal cells is a rewrite of the E = MC² equation. The equation simply becomes E=M. Energy or Mass. It’s a choice. Imaginal cells urge us to see the world through the lens of Energy. Another influence from imaginal cells is expressed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

As moments of awareness or presence increase and deepen, the altered states of jhana begin to appear. These states further weaken the ego, which begins to lose the battle of defining reality. I think of some lyrics from Jefferson Starship’s Paul Kanter referring to the Nixon White House. The song is called Mau Mau. The entire song points to this transformation we are describing, so I think it is fitting to leave you with poetry. Here is the last half of the poem/song.

Hey dick
Whatever you think of us is totally irrelevant
Both to us now and to you
We are the present
We are the future
You are the past
Pay your dues and get outta the way
‘Cause we’re not the way you used to be
When you were very young
We’re something new
We don’t quite know what it is
Or particularly care
We just do it – you gotta do it
Let the music do it, take you there
Do it, do it, do it gotta do it
Something new, something new, something new
New, new

Open your eyes there’s a new world a-comin’
Open your eyes there’s a new world today
Open your hearts people are lovin’
Open it all we’ve come to stay
I said, open it all we’ve come to stay
I said, open it all we’ve come to stay
People, hey you people, everybody
Us young people come to stay
I said, people, on relief
We’ve all come to stay
Open your eyes there’s a new world a-comin’
Open it all we’ve come to stay
Yeah, yeah, yeah, open it all
Open it, open it, baby,
Now open that door