In my last blog I wrote on the topic of sin. I said, “But I also came to see that there’s a place and a time to worry about sin. The time when sin becomes meaningful is after you’ve declared the “I Am” at Stage 3.”
I thought I’d spend a little more time explaining what I mean by that.
Yesterday I read a statistic in one of my favorite publications, The Week magazine. The Week was quoting from The Wall Street Journal when it recently reported :
More than two thirds of American 17- to 24-year-olds would fail to qualify for military service because they are too unhealthy, lack a high school diploma, have a felony conviction, or are taking prescription drugs for conditions like attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Are you shocked? I was shocked. Two thirds. Doesn’t sound like we could put together much of a defense if we were ever tested militarily, huh?
This statistic suggests that the next generation in America is mostly flabby — of body, mind, spirit and emotion. This is offspring from what has historically been one of the most powerful countries – if not the most powerful country – in the world.
But let’s break this down within what we know about the stages of spiritual evolution, looking at how the stages play out within a developing nation.
Remember we looked at America’s evolution when we were discussing Collective Experience (see chart).
This statistic about today’s American young adults fits poignantly but logically right in with the trajectory of development after such a meteoric national rise to the top. Think about it.
It takes a certain arrogance and maniacal focus to rise up. It took guts for the colonial fathers of our country to thumb their noses at the British. It took balls to fight and win the Revolutionary war, to dare landing on the beaches of Normandy. It took ingenuity, brilliance and perhaps even some vengeful blood lust to build the atomic bomb that put an end to World War II. Sheer audacity fueled and won the race with the Russians to the moon. All these events were key in the unfolding, expanding consciousness that is the United States of America. To be American is to have a very specific human experience.
The consciousness of America is a consciousness that states, “Anything is possible.” America is built on the notion that if can you dream it, you can do it, for opportunity abounds. In our nation’s history, we have dreamed and then accomplished extraordinary things again and again and again.
But inevitably, that arrogance has a price… as the pursuit of any specific vision has a price.
Lao Tzu said: “When people see things as beautiful, ugliness is created. When people see things as good, evil is created.”
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is a law of nature, governing how the world stays in balance when there is any departure in any direction from the core statis of Being.
So… every assertion will have its inevitable recompense.
The reckoning of that recompense is the recognition of one’s sin. Sin is the error that you made to be so daringly arrogant in the first place.
After Stage 3 (that is, during Stages 4 & 5) is always the time when that arrogance of self-appointed initiation becomes evident. In Stage 4 (“Repercussions”), you start seeing the consequences. By Stage 5, the consequences have set in to the point that you start to becoming pummeled by them, setting the stage for Purification.
In that context, the current generation of young Americans makes sense. They are flabby not because they’re any less substantial or worthy as human beings than their forbears. Rather they were simply and somewhat inevitably raised with the assumption of the American Dream. They grew up feeling yawningly entitled to it. Why shouldn’t they? That’s the world they grew up in – the ripe Stage 1 into which they entered. How very unlike the Stage 1 of their forbears who lacked privilege, grew up ravenous for opportunity and driven to make the most of it.
Easy, big consumption grew greedy. Diets grew careless. Monetary greed cut education budgets. Concern for the benefit of all took a back seat to self-interest, which left the poor sometimes to discover ruefully that morals are a luxury of the haves. Regarding medication, Ed Hallowell says it best: we live amidst “culturally generated ADD.” We never stop! Of course we don’t, we’re Americans.
Here’s my point: this is all normal. It’s all just part of the process.
Yes, as Americans we may come upon heavy regrets if our 67% Gen-F (for flab) is ever put to the test and comes up lacking. That would set the stage for a Purification for us, for sure. Should we not have pursued, then, the audacity of the American Dream? Of course we should have! Would you ever tell a two-year-old not to try to walk, or a sunflower not to try to sprout, or kids not to imagine what they want to be when they grow up?
This is simply what we do, here. We go through these stages, and it’s how we grow. There is tremendous audacity in it, as there is recompense and purification. It’s why on a certain level we’re all sinners (as it says in the Bible), and we’re also all forgiven – because as we grow in consciousness we come out of the thrall of our hubris. We let go to God’s will.
This is the way of life on Earth, a transient experiment in the conscious discovery and expression of God. In the end, we come to realize it’s ALL God, and we all come home.
Level Praying Field 