Sermon Library
“Levels of Awareness”
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
July 01, 2007
Service Theme: Pentecost V - 2007
Pentecost V 2007 July 1, 2007
Levels of Awareness
Gregg Anderson
“These days, I find that I get out of bed a little earlier and a little slower than I used to. I don’t know why this is. So I shuffle into the bathroom to begin the day. While I am in there, before the shower, inevitably there is one thing I just cannot avoid, and that is seeing my face in the mirror! Every day! No one else has ever talked to me about your experience of this, but I’d sure like to know if I’m alone in finding this to be such an ordeal. Talk to me later – you would lighten my load.”
These are the opening words of Ron James in his sermon at the Chapel on January 27, 2002 entitled Levels of Consciousness. I remember it well. I could tell by the look on everyone’s faces that they were completely identifying with Ron about looking at your self in the mirror just getting out of bed. I know I certainly did and do. My bathroom at home has big mirrors on three walls. I guess the idea was to make a small bathroom in a small condo look more spacious. But the real down side is looking at your self first thing in the morning from three different angles and more than just your face. I have learned to not turn the light on right away.
Ron James continued, “But this critical gaze at self is not the only way we look into the mirror. Have you not stood there at other times, pondering your reflection? Did you not wonder, ‘Who is that anyway? Who is that image returning my gaze, that serious face? Is that me in the mirror the same me with this address, this phone number, this human identity? Or is there a deeper mystery, a consciousness within and yet separate, like an inner twin or second self – a self who prods us with deep questions, pushes us to know more than we know and be more than we are? I think of self-portraits by artists like Van Gogh, sober images, as if the artist were asking, as I do, ‘who am I? What is the mystery of my being?’” Poet W. B. Yeats put it this way: “From mirror after mirror – no vanity’s displayed – I’m looking for the face I had – before the world was made” “So I ask you to reflect with me, beckoned Ron, on the mystery of our human consciousness, indeed, of your own sense of self.”
“Have you pondered the fact that every element in your body, every cell and fiber, every chemical and mineral, was present in the original fireball that billowed out into expanding space at the beginning of time? You were there in the fiery cataclysm. It took a million turbulent years for those frenzied particles to calm themselves, soaring away from each other into dark cosmic skies at the beginning of everything. A billion years of uninterrupted night followed as the universe prepared itself for transfiguration. So the cosmologists tell us.”
“In time, galactic dust clouds began to coagulate into suns and planets, condensing into fiery globes of molten substance, among them our solar system and our planet Earth. The seeds and substance of being were there in that seething flame and rock. In time, the planet cooled, seas formed, and life emerged. Have you pondered the strange property of material substance to bring forth life? Did you consider it this morning when you were brushing your teeth after first looking in the mirror.”
“Strange as that may be, the emergence of life, there is a mystery just as unfathomable, the emergence of human consciousness. What is consciousness anyway? It is our ability to reflect, to look at ourselves as if from a point outside ourselves, to wonder about self and life and God and others. Consciousness is self-reflection. We know, and we know that we know. We remember yesterday and plan for tomorrow. This sets us apart from the instinctual life of the animal world, which knows, but does not that it knows.”
I accidentally came across an article recently entitled Researchers Seeks to Measure Spirituality Scientifically. The opening question was most interesting and I believe extremely profound. “Does participation in a church, synagogue or mosque create a sense of spirituality, or does a sense of spirituality motivate people to join a church, synagogue or mosque?” I would like to repeat that very important question? (repeat) Ralph Piedmont, director of research in the pastoral counseling program of Loyola College in Maryland, believes he knows the answer to the question – one that explains why so many people who have left organized religion continue to look for spiritual fulfillment.”
“Spirituality leads to involvement in community, not the other way around,” said Piedmont. Spirituality is not learned or given, but is clearly inherent and a given. Piedmont trained in personality psychology and motivation, considers spirituality a fundamental component of one’s makeup, as much as other characteristics psychologists usually measure when developing personality profiles: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.” In other words, our thoughts and projections about God initially do not come from the church or the bible, but originally within our selves, within our very psyche, with or without the bible and the church. It comes within our innate level of consciousness.
God may very well have created consciousness, but it is important to know that our consciousness did not create God, but most typically keeps trying to define God in our particularized version. How conscious we are of God on our own is an on-going debate. Just to recognize that we are innately conscious of God is important. To assert that our consciousness of God is greater or better than another’s consciousness of God is, I believe, a great sin. That being said, I still encourage for you and particularly for myself, a higher consciousness of God. Just considering Ron’s sermon “Levels of Consciousness” is a higher level of consciousness.
“The Church across the centuries, with few exceptions, has centered its life, its mission, and its teaching on correct theology, the versions of which, however, are countless. We are saying that this emphasis cannot work in our kind of world, for we are a global village, we no longer have the Bible’s three-story universe, and we no longer share the conviction that we alone have the only truth. This is not to discount the Bible, but to see it for what it is; a product of the times and places and people who wrote it, and a testimony to great experiences of God. This means that the vengeful deity of our theological history was a creation of times gone by, and so, we are convinced, bears very little resemblance to the Great Originator whose breath and being, and fathomless purpose, fill the whole creation as we know it today.”
Ron James clarified, “I want you to know what a radical departure this is from traditional Christianity and the Church. And so the question: ‘If our reason for being is no longer centered in a biblical theology, where is it centered?” I believe that a new world center is forming around a dynamic spirituality focused on the great questions of life Jesus raises, and all of us raise. I think about the 12 most universal and ultimate questions of life Ed Bastian includes in his spiritual paths Mandela. This spirituality is universal by nature, and to these questions all the religions bring their insight and passion.”
“And it would seem to me, nothing is more significant for such spirituality than the enormous phenomenon of our human consciousness. Our spirituality, our sense of God, of beauty, of love and compassion, of meaning, all our great questions about life and death are centered in our consciousness of self and the world.” Becoming more conscious of our levels of consciousness, like levels of awareness, is a bearer of the next plateau of spiritual understanding. People may not have been aware of it in primitive and ancient times, but it was their consciousness which created their various perspectives of God or gods. As we become more conscious of our levels of consciousness today we may have the potential to understand a greater commonality and compassion amongst our innate spirituality.
Don Beck and Christopher Cowan define 8 spirals of consciousness or memes. A meme is like a norm or inner social DNA. It is nicknamed after a Greek word which literally means to mimic. What biochemical genes are to the DNA, memes are to our psycho-cultural ‘DNA.’ Genes are the information units of our physical nature. Memes are the information units of our social and psychological nature. A meme contains behavioral instructions that are passed from one generation to the next, social artifacts, and value-laden symbols that glue together social systems. Beck and Cowan define 8 memes or levels of consciousness which have basic titles, but are utilized in many ways to understand human nature and experiences. The names are associated with colors. Take a second to look at the chart and this gives you a very good idea of the eight norms or memes.
To illustrate Beck and Cowan have asked a person in each spiral what is life all about. In the primitive beige and purple meme, the native of the KwaZulu in southern Africa states, “To please the spirits and to honor our ancestors for they are still with us and we live for our tribe.” This is a tribal and magical system.
In the red or ego-powered system a sixteen year old from Bronx is asked what is life about. He replies, “None of your damn business. Lifes a bitch. Gotta watch your backside all the time. And everybody’s got their price. It’s who’s got the power.” This is a raw power system.
Representing the blue spiral of truth and force a West Point cadet standing before a statue of Douglas MacArthur states, “There is a higher calling that transcends everything in importance. It’s on that statue, it’s our nation’s heritage, and it’s my religion: freedom, justice, and self-determination.” Reflecting the orange oracle, the strategic meme, a young business executive woman in downtown Chicago responds, “Life is what you make it. I intend to do well, to be somebody, and to get my share of the American pie. This is an affluent, technological system.
The green, relativistic system is portrayed by being in Trafalgar Square where you speak to a young woman carrying a protest sign. “What is the meaning of life?” you ask. She replies, “Life is about people and belonging. We need harmony and community – maybe it boils down to love. If we don’t move away from competitiveness and materialism, we’ll lose our humanity.” This is a communitarian system.
In the yellow, flexible, systemic meme we find a park ranger in Kenya, sitting by a campfire. “I don’t make much money,” he answers the question, “but I don’t need much money. I am happy just living with the land, working to preserve and reclaim this natural beauty. I simply celebrate and respect life around me, and how everything is related to everything else.” It’s an ecological system with a global reach and a deep spirituality.
One does not meet turquoise people on the street every day. They are multidimensional, global in perspective, humbly secure, see the world as a single organism with a collective mind. They are intuitive, compassionate, and far-thinking. Jesus was turquoise.
This is just a simple and colloquial illustration of spiral dynamics. Have you located yourself yet? There may be a predominant meme or spiral you identify with, but Beck and Cowan remind us that it is most typical to operate and function within many levels during different times and circumstances of our life’s journey. We can also be in different systems at the same time, though one still typically dominates. I hope this introduction along with the handout will give us some preparation to meeting Ron Beck in person next Sunday.
Ron James stated in January of 2002, “Dear friends and neighbors, I have found a methodology, actually an analytical model, for grappling with human differences. It has seized my mind, and I regard it as the most significant insight I have found in a decade as a minister. It teaches us why people do the things they do. It’s called Spiral Dynamics. Ron James would be thrilled to meet Ron Beck in person and I hope Ron comes back next week to do just that. And, I hope you all will as well.
The best definition of religion I have ever heard was from Harvard and Iliff Professor, Charles Milligan here at this Chapel. He said, “Religion is the vital fusion of myth and ritual in community.” Being spiritual is being conscious and becoming more conscious. Jesus changed the consciousness of his followers. To learn more about spirals of consciousness we can learn more about religion, spirituality and Jesus. I know I want to ask him what message he has for us as a church and a chapel today. Please come and meet together. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
Aspen Chapel
0077 Meadowood Dr.
Aspen, Colorado 81611
970 925 7184
http://www.aspenchapel.org
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