Do We Feel Organic Shame?
Do We Feel Organic Shame?
Seemingly “negative” emotions like organic shame are important for any eventual transformation by our species to a different level of consciousness.
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In the afternoon when I have little to do or especially if I feel a little jangly, I put on the headphones and listen to Awake Nation on YouTube while watching full screen on my laptop.
For those unfamiliar with these videos, they have what they claim to be frequency-raising music combined with amazing footage of nature – lots of waterfalls, flowers, snow-capped mountains, clean beaches and clear crystal ocean waves – or placid lakes.
I think what I am doing is feeding my sometimes inflamed brain soft gentle natural “impressions.” Philosopher Mystic Gurdjieff, I believe, used the term impressions for what arises in Awareness.
I get enough negative impressions from watching the news (guilty) and social media so sometimes I need to give my eyes and heart a different “food.”
The effect of the background music, especially with the amazing scenery, is to soften the edges of what seems to be Life – especially after I have been on the Internet for too long.
I Was Alive During Much of the Damage
Another Gurdjieffian term that comes to mind when I watch Woke Planet footage is “Organic Shame” – a sense in my body that as a denizen of this amazing planet, I have contributed to its current condition.
I can rationalize my actions but as I look at these landscapes floating over the screen, and especially the scenes from the sea, my mind activates.
That is generally where thoughts of guilt and shame can emanate from but first, the mind tries to capture “my” attention. Gurdjieff says that attention is really the only thing one can control – the question then arises - controlled by whom or what?
The Mind Intrudes on the Music and the Scenery
There generally arises a question to identify the scenes I’m seeing, especially if it’s spectacular. “It” must know where this is. Maybe I can go one day?
“It” needs a label for it to be real. Or is it “real?” – sometimes scenes seem like computer graphics, but I think it’s drone footage.
When I can quiet the voice of “it,” I can begin to sense, perhaps through memories or just as one spectacular scene fades into the next – that I am actually part of what I am seeing.
Ultimately the one label that is most basically accurate and links me with Life itself is – I am an organism. And if that is sensed deeply enough there is no more sense of separation.
Immediately I have that sadness that it is quite possible that whatever I am seeing is no longer in existence; it has given way to the ubiquitous waste and pollution that humans have spread almost everywhere on the globe.
I am seeing the azure clean beaches from my twenties. Are they still there? Could I still see the turtles and fish swimming from that reef – or are they gone?
Grieving the World We Lost
Recently when William Shatner took an expensive trip into space; when he returned he voiced some similar sentiments. On his return he said,
“My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.”
He also articulated a sense that in the immense wasteland of what seems to be outer space, our planet is an apparent jewel that we have tarnished through our technology and financial capitalism. (I’m not inviting a climate change debate here, I’m asking us to consider the degree of pollution and destruction we truly have caused.)
He articulated a sense of organic shame. And we haven’t just lost forests and wildlife here on earth. We have also lost our ability to connect visually with the Cosmos.
As humanity is slowly losing access to the night sky, astronomers have invented a new term to describe the pain associated with this loss: "noctalgia," meaning "sky grief."
I can recall sitting in my backyard at night and savoring what view I could of the night sky and trying to imagine the boundary of “space” – which is of course impossible.
It can take one to the edge of one’s rational mind, which is a good place from which to leap. With a view of actual celestial bodies and their immense mystery of that scale and distance the mind shuts up. It can have no real answer. Something else may open…
And that is precisely what the video often does – flying over valleys and mountains and providing a palpable feeling of spaciousness. From the altitude of the camera you can sometimes see the curvature of the planet on the horizon – in ways that I used to see on long flights.
This is another unique perspective that provides a sense of the vast space of which we’re apart.
For those of us who may have tasted a bit of the shift from the head to the heart, we can sense that it cannot be merely a thought or idea. It has to cascade all through the body from the top of the head, to the vagus nerve to the gut until the whole system is harmonized.
With an open heart, it does not take long to understand the notion of organic shame as one watches our splendid planet exhibit itself on the YouTube channel and thinks about our species’ effect on so many other sentient beings and nature itself.
Maybe you’ve seen the 3 part image of – the world without bees – devastated – the world without trees – devastated – and then the world without us – Paradise.
One wonders, if we disappeared how long would Earth need to recover?
Of course for the apparent physical forms at the scale of the earth, the moon and sun, centuries or eons of time are as meaningless to the mind as a boundary in outer space. It is only for our brief time here especially those who remember the earth as it was in the 20th century that sadness will arise.
Heart as Technology
We tend to think or even sense the heart as an organ in our body -- but it can be felt in other ways.
It seems to be our intimate physical and energetic connector – once the umbilical cord has been long severed – with our essence or basic nature.
There are now organizations like HeartMath Institute that have technology and practices that purport to also raise your vibrational frequency in the heart – in ways similar I think to the experience of watching Awake Planet on YouTube.
I’m of two minds here. I certainly don’t enjoy being caught up in anxiety and negativity, so such practices are helpful especially if one has been triggered, and trauma has resurfaced as an uncomfortable sensation.
But deeper than that, I believe that even seemingly “negative” emotions like organic shame are important for any eventual transformation by our species to a different level of consciousness.
So, I am certainly not suggesting anyone wallow in guild and sadness for something over which they had no actual control, but rather I think that such feelings signal a sense of connection with all of life – out of a profound recognition of the current immense amount of suffering coming to pass.
By experiencing all of our feelings as part of our essential human-ness we actually reconnect to the source of what we are – ultimately we are natural organic beings intimately connected with the rest of our natural world.
How we are feeling in the moment is probably the best barometer of how close we may be to such a connection; however, it is not about feeling “good” or always “blissful” but rather about finding a place of peace amid the chaos that is currently influencing our world.
As I finish this piece with my headphones still on, I am away from the turmoil of the other tabs of my browser.
I can take some deep breaths, perhaps directing my attention to the magical organ that connects me to consciousness, and as deeply as possible sense my “self” here and now.
(Tom Bunzel was a contributor to Collective Evolution and now writes for The Pulse. His new book "Conversations with Nobody: Getting to Know ChatGPT" – a book written with AI, about AI and giving a taste of AI, is available on Amazon.)
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Gurdjieff, whose term, "Organic Shame," you use, was a very interesting fellow. i put his perspectives and teachings in the same category where i place Carlos Castaneda/ don Juan, Rudolf Steiner and the Pathwork material disseminated through Eva Broch Pierrakos, as well as Russian Grigori Grabovoi.
Gurdjieff's term "Organic Shame" means "the condition of lower vibrations aspiring to share the experience of higher vibrations [as described by in the article by Dr. Anna Challenger https://www.gurdjieff.org/challenger1.htm ] She continues, "Orage [a follower of Gurdjieff] understands the state of Organic Shame as the beginning of normalcy. Normal human beings try to understand the reason for existence so that they might fulfill their obligations in life. It is our objective inheritance, says Orage, that we should know why we are here and know it early enough in life to be able to act on the knowledge and carry out our cosmic function. Plants and animals, in their natural states, fulfill the purposes for which they exist. Only human beings behave unnaturally by living indifferently to their cosmic significance. Referring to Gurdjieff’s Theory of Reciprocal Maintenance, Orage writes, Man exists for a purpose not his own. This includes all beings—animals, birds, insects and bacteria. Each species is designed for a certain cosmic use. The norm of man is the discharge of the design for which he was created—like a machine designed to do a bit of work.
But we have become abnormal and fail to fulfil our design, and our unnatural living has become such a menace that Nature has to constantly struggle to adapt so that existence on Earth can continue.
Our present abnormal manner of living has its roots in a system of education which lacks essential understanding of the purpose of human existence. Because of the emphasis given by formal education, says Orage, cognizance of the cosmos has disappeared from the psyche of human beings. Just as we are aware of the flora and fauna of nature and of the civilization in which we exist, 'so three-centered beings should be aware of the function of the cosmos—the sun in relation to the planets, the Earth to the moon… A normal three-centered being would understand cosmic phenomena and how he is affected by radiations, emanations and tensions.' Such an understanding of cosmic laws Gurdjieff calls 'being-knowledge,' which he believes should be the possession of every normal human being. If systems of education were to emphasize a knowledge of cosmic phenomena, believes Gurdjieff, we would find ourselves developing naturally in the direction of Objective Reason."
"'Our planet, the earth,' writes Orage, “is the shame of the solar system. It is the ugly duckling, the misshapen dwarf, the beast of the fairy tales… The idea is that, if men could become normal, this planet might redeem the solar system.” [quoted in https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0993187072/ ]
i would say, that Gurdjieff's understanding that humans have a purpose on and for, this planet is quite valid and jibes with other esteemed teacher's perspectives on this issue. Thus life on this planet needs us, but not in our present "abnormal way of living." It's not true in any sense that Nature would be fine w/o humans and it's not because of us that the planet and solar system needs redeeming. However, only we, who have the ability as conscious creators, can re-modulate these cosmic "radiations, emanations and tensions" of which Gurdjieff's student, Orage' speaks -- through our "being knowledge." How to do this, is another matter, but doing this is not about us, as individuals, and the problem is that our ego is currently ruled by the "I". In our earlier state of consciousness our identity was not so organized around the "I" and conventional scientific researcher, Julian Jaynes showed how we did have an earlier consciousness with a much more free-floating identity, at the time of the ancient Greeks after 3000 BCE. It is wrong though, as Jaynes believes, that this earlier form was not consciousness, and there is much more that can be said in this regard, but i believe that our earlier form of consciousness was specifically attuned to caring for the Earth. A prime example of how effective this old consciousness in line with being knowledge can be, can be seen in Bill Gammage's account of the real Australia before the arrival of the British in 1778. https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/174331132X/ The land was like a country estate, Gammage says, and it declined after that, as the Aborigines were forced into servitude to the British or eliminated entirely. Of course the colonizers have systematically obfuscated this truth. The Aborigines still have the old consciousness that enabled this caretaking in line with their being knowledge. Other indigenous people's all over the planet still have vestiges of this old consciousness too, but interbreeding with peoples outside their traditional tribe, acts in diminishing it all the time. This knowledge is not thinking knowledge, nor is it feeling as we understand sentimentality. It is very specific for each task at hand and enables direct interconnection between each person and their tribe members, as well as other natural creatures inhabiting their natural environment.
However, according to Steiner humans need to go through different epochs of spiritual learning, so we couldn't have remained at the level of the old consciousness where the Aborigines are (they call us mutants i.e. https://www.amazon.ca/Mutant-Message-Under-Marlo-Morgan/dp/0060723513/ ) if we are to fulfill our individual and collective cosmic destiny.
Anyway for more practical considerations, i too have Microsoft send me, and automatically install screensavers to my PC, of beautiful natural scenes from all over the planet. It must be that Google knows exactly what i like. Always there is an accompanying enticement to 'click on' a link and see more about this remote location, but i'm careful to not take the click-bait. Yes, many, earlier recorded, beautiful scenes from all over our planet have now been desecrated in real life, but i believe there is a difference in recreating them through technology as opposed to connecting with the Earth directly the way it presently is -- the way the Earth presents itself to each of us, every day. You are right, Arjun, that it is about Organic Shame, but the term is relevant here in regards to assuming a lower state of vibration (i. e. viewing a past scene on-line) and thereby aspiring to share the experience of higher vibrations (perhaps of each of us doing our individually relevant part, to connect with the Earth and Nature in present time and place). Yes, there's terrible devastation, but letting Google and Microsoft or ultimately the WEF and their 15 minute cities, dictate how we're to blame and set out their means of redeeming the Earth -- would be falling into the alien scheme of taking it over and ultimately disconnecting Gaia from the web of life that the cosmos is sustained by. These are alien beings who seek to rewrite the natural codes of our reality with digital ones and we should seriously avoid their scheme. Of course there is more to be done to reconnect with our true purpose on this planet after this threat is resolved.
So glad to hear you speak about Gurdjieff. I became familiar with his work in the late 1970s. Yes "food " is also what we listen to and what we see. It is good to be aware of what the impressions are doing to our nervous system. Are we "eating" toxins or nourishment. This of course requires awareness. I have been blessed last several mornings to be awakened early by a bright star shining into my bedroom window. The star is in the east, extraordinarilly brilliant before sunrise. I think this is venus. I was a teenager , so in the mid 1960s, the first time I saw the night sky in all it's amazing glory. I was camping at lake Nacimiento sleeping under the clear sky, no tent. I didn't want to shut my eyes. I wanted to watch the sky move all night.