2012: the Shift in Consciousness

2012: the Shift in Consciousness

(article published in the April 2008 issue of Natural Nutmeg, CT)

2012 is the end of the Mayan Calendar's Great Cycle. Many think this time marks a period of rapid shifts in planetary alignment and consciousness change.  According to the 5,000-year-old Mayan calendar, this alignment will be with our solar system, our sun, and our planet with the center of the galaxy-a rare event that will not take place for another 26,000 years.  

Scientists and Mayan scholars both agree that this alignment will definitely take place but the next question is what does it mean?  What many leading thinkers in this area suggest is that the period marking 2012 offers an unprecedented opportunity to raise our level of consciousness and move humanity forward on its evolutionary path.  How this might come about is the purpose of this article.

The best-selling author Gregg Braden writes in the Divine Matrix that “the minimum number of people required to ‘jump-start’ a change in consciousness is the square root of 1% of a population.  For example assuming the current population of Connecticut is 3.5 million, the square root of 1% of this number is approximately 187. This implies that it would take a minimum of 187 individuals in the state of Connecticut to start bringing about a change in consciousness that would affect the whole state.  

Every person counts.  However, the focus is less on doing more things but on being and connecting to the deeper essence of ourselves.  When this connection takes place, the resonance and vibration from each person begins to affect others and their environment.  But what exactly is this deeper essence of ourselves or our consciousness? What are people shifting their consciousness towards?

One possible explanation for this shift in consciousness is from a me-centered outlook where one’s story is all-important to a realization of the relative nature of one’s personal story.  Arjuna Ardagh in his article “the Clock is Ticking,” points out that the rare individuals who have created massive change in society have broken out of the current collective trance disempowering people.  

He states: “In every culture and in every age, a few isolated individuals have broken free of this hallucination and have realized that the sense of a “separate me” is actually a fantasy.  This is not a question of self-improvement, or working on yourself to make yourself into a more loving, conscious, better person.  It is a sudden and radical shift from a preoccupation with ‘me’ and ‘my story’ to a realization of the space, the vastness, the eternity in which that story is occurring.” The major difference between the past and the advent of 2012 is that not just a few individuals will undergo this radical change in thinking but entire groups of people.  This is what 2012 offers humanity.

How might this radical change take place?  Another important thinker in the 2012 movement, Peter Russell, suggests that the rapid integration and availability of information from all over the world due to the World Wide Web, telephone, and television technology will create something akin to an “emerging global mind.”  

The World Wide Web and other similar technologies is an outer manifestation of what countless sages from different spiritual traditions have taught their students: the concept of the interconnectedness of all things.  This emerging global mind will allow people on a large-scale to be connected to vast storehouses of information never available in one place and with literally instant accessibility.  However, does access to information necessarily lead to the wisdom to use this information constructively?

Another trend in the 2012 period is the access and opportunity to various wisdom and growth technologies not available to the general public in such an open manner.  This can already be seen by the growing popularity in meditation, yoga, tai-chi, and other inner disciplines being embraced by the American people. Also, the availability of teachers from various spiritual traditions around the globe both East and West, North and South has never been seen before.  One relatively new discipline gaining public popularity and study by the medical establishment is energy medicine. This includes modalities such as Reiki, Pranic Healing, Reconnective Healing, Therapeutic Touch, and Quantum Touch to name just a few.

The lasting implications of these healing modalites lies not only in their alleviation of physical, emotional, and mental suffering but also in the shift in awareness in people regarding their self-identity.  As Master Choa Kok Sui, founder of Modern Pranic Healing (an energy medicine modality based on the energy centers or chakras in the body), mentions in the foreward to the book Your Hands Can Heal You, “. . . learning how to heal your aches, pains, and illnesses is really just the beginning of your healing journey, for as you enter this path, your consciousness will be stirred to recognize greater truths.  

The most important of these is that we are parts of a larger whole, a bioenergetic system that represents the sum total of the energy of each of us.  As a result, we are interdependent upon one another for energy-and for life. This interdependence means that the choices we make in our lives have an effect-physically and energetically-on everyone around us.”  The larger implications of energy medicine shifts one’s awareness out of the personal story of me at the center of the universe to the interconnectedness of who we are in relationship to the greater whole.

2012 is most likely not an ending for the shift in consciousness but just a beginning.  As this date approaches, people, places, and conditions will allow everyone to move forward at a more rapid pace.  Each one of us vibrates based on our thoughts and emotions and this translates into real effects on others and on the environment.  As we take advantage of this time leading up to 2012, people will be able to sense this interconnectedness whether it be through some spiritual discipline, physical discipline, intimate relationship, group or community work, or radical awakening.  Regardless how it occurs, the ancient Mayan elders and people suggested by their calendar that this would be a time to take advantage of the cosmic opportunity for change and for alignment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

http://www.geneang.com/www.geneang.com/2012_article.html