Our worldview orients us in the universe. It tells us where we came from, where we are, who we are and where we are going. It defines what is possible for us as human beings, and thus it channels or limits our highest ambitions. Our personal power to engage in the process of awakening is contained in our worldview. The human being who was the archetype of what it meant to be awake (Buddha), also saw that making a paradigm shift was absolutely essential to the waking up-process. In his teaching on how to attain profound awareness, the eight-fold path, “right view” is translated as “seeing things as they really are.” Right view was seen by Buddha as a pre-requisite to beginning the process of achieving the awareness that we seek. Roger Rosenblatt in an essay which placed America in the context of its history concluded that an American characteristic that had been lost was that of “searching for a noble expression of existence.” What is needed before a noble expression of existence can be hoped for is a “conscious” expression of existence.
We can continue to “evolve” and seek to solve problems in the technological, political, economic, scientific, environmental, educational and health care arenas but we will not fulfill our deepest longings for a meaningful and purposeful existence without a shift in consciousness. We all have the opportunity to decide whether our life is going to be lived as a shallow, murky dream or a profound and vivid adventure.
Our everyday problems “…are never solved by legislation or tricks. They are only solved by a general change of attitude. And the change does not begin with propaganda and mass meetings or with violence. It begins with a change in individuals. It will continue as a transformation of their personal likes and dislikes, of their outlook on life and of their values, and only the accumulation of such individual changes will produce a collective solution.” I added the emphasis to C. G. Jung’s insight to point out two of the three key words defining worldview, the third being belief.
This book can be likened to a map of a new country we are preparing to visit. As travelers using this map we will, however, experience the territory in a way unique to each of us. But the territory has characteristics that this map can illuminate in a way that can facilitate our journey. Is your vehicle packed? Trust me it’s PACKED! It is in fact overloaded and it might be necessary to dump excess baggage along the way to lighten the load. In fact, the journey itself is a process of unloading, unlearning, simplifying and letting go. The theme of this paradigm shift could well be….lighten up!
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References and notes are available for this article.
For a much more in-depth discussion on Simple Reality, read Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival, by Roy Charles Henry, published in 2011.
