KEN KEYES
UNITY
Handbook to Higher Consciousness, Love Line Books, 1975, Pages xii-xiv.
“Millions of years ago when our animal ancestors had to survive in the jungle, it was necessary to have an instantly effective fight or flight mechanism. When a tiger was about to spring, an automatic emotional response was a life saver. A nervous shock was needed to squirt adrenalin into the blood so that muscles became jet powered. Emotional alarms were needed to command full attention. When a tiger was ready to jump, there was no time to admire the beautiful sunset. As a jungle survival mechanism, our animal ancestors were programmed for automatic duality – automatic feelings of otherness, threat and paranoia. Survival required instant domination of consciousness to meet the perils of the jungle.
We are pioneers in the evolution of the human consciousness. It was only about 10,000 years ago that our ancestors built the first cities. As civilization grew, survival no longer depended on the instant flight or fight of the jungle. Survival and happiness now depend on tuning in to the overall situation involving ourselves, the people around us and the total environment of the here and now. Perceptiveness, wisdom and oneness are now the ingredients of effective and happy living. But our bio-computers are still programmed for jungle fight or flight – for a fast release of adrenalin into the blood stream and for rapid heartbeat – for automatic anger and fear. In our social interactions, our consciousness magnifies molehills and makes them into mountains – and this constant distortion destroys our energy, our insight and our ability to love.
Thus survival in the jungle meant that we had to be programmed for instant paranoia - instant fear- instant anger- instant perceptions of duality. Survival in our world today means that we must have instant perceptions of oneness – of love – of compassion with everyone and understanding of everything around us. When we learn to cut through our paranoid jungle programming we are on our way to higher consciousness and happiness.
Evolution is now working to remedy this primitive jungle alarm wiring in our brain that tends to hold us on lower consciousness levels. Paranoid, dualistic individuals who cannot love themselves and others tend to get heart troubles, ulcers, other psychosomatic diseases and are accident-prone, etc. Perhaps in 100,000 years, through the ruthless survival of the fittest, humans may have nervous systems that are automatically structured to produce instant insights that facilitate love and oneness. But that does not help you and me. We need the Living Love Way to show us how to live in higher consciousness as soon as possible – to override our jungle programming so that we can enjoy living here and now.
We have escaped from the domination of instincts (inflexible unlearned behavior) that guides animals through their daily life situations. Since the young human is not provided with a full repertoire of automatic fixed responses, we are unable to independently cope with life for a number of years after birth. This long period of plasticity and openness to learning complex life guidance patterns helps us avoid fixed pre-programmed behavior. For example, this long nurturing period lets us learn complex language systems – and our flexibility is such that we can learn to communicate in Swahili as easily as in English or any other language.
Instead of a complete pattern of animal-type instincts to provide survival responses to life situations, the young child uses ego mechanisms backed by hair-trigger emotions to develop security, sensation and power magnification of the moment-to-moment sensory inputs. Our personal development into fulfilling, happy lives (as well as the progression of civilization beyond the dangerous power consciousness) depends on our getting free of our ego-backed, subject-object, me-them, security-sensation-power hang-ups.”
EDUCATION
Handbook to Higher Consciousness, Love Line Books, 1975, Pages 140-143.
“A child can be a great teacher in your journey toward higher consciousness. A young child can give you a continuous demonstration of what it is like to live in the here and now before the rational mind affects the stream of consciousness. A child can turn its consciousness fully and spontaneously to each new life situation. When denied something it wants, it may respond with an ego trip by crying. But one minute later, it can turn its attention to the here-and-now situation that life offers and be joyous and laughing again. Thus the consciousness of an infant does not grasp situations and churn them with the rational mind.
Children are very sensitive mirrors of your consciousness level. When they are surrounded by peaceful, loving people, they reflect a warm flowing state most of the time. When they are surrounded by driven, other-directed, manipulating people, they rapidly reflect this tension and uptightness in their behavior.
Your level of consciousness determines your world. If you live in a world of fears and anxiety, you will pull the lower-consciousness people around you into your psychic space. If your consciousness largely operates on the Power Centre, any child with whom you continually interact will be pulled into your subject-object type of non-caring manipulations. If your responses to your child continually show loving thoughtfulness and acceptance of your child as an individual, this will be reflected in the child’s consciousness.
Your head creates your child. If you view your child as awkward, you will create an awkward child. If you view your child as an interference to your important daily activities, you will create exactly this type of child. The images and classifications through which you perceive a child will be sensitively picked up by the child and will play a large part in how he reacts to you.
The people who interact continually with a young child determine the nature and strength of the future addictions that he or she must up-level to preferences to grow into higher consciousness. When a child is around highly dominating people, a large portion of his energy will remain pre-occupied with the Power Center of Consciousness. Upon reaching maturity, the adult will regard power as the key to happiness in this world. The child will have been bruised by uncaring, “Shut up, be quiet and do exactly as I say” subject-object manipulation. The child will feel that happiness correlates with the amount of personal power and prestige one can use to dominate and control the people and situations in one’s life. A child who is around flowing, higher consciousness people (who regard the child's needs as they would their own) will easily grow into the Love Center of Consciousness. With coming adulthood, he or she will have a life style that is characterized by harmoniously flowing with the here and now situations of life. The child will know deep in his or her being that love and expanded consciousness will always bring whatever is needed for happiness.
If you observe the interaction between most adults and children from the point of view of the Security Center, Sensation Center and Power Center of Consciousness, you will feel compassion for the robot-like behavior that has ensnared both the child and the adult. The consciousness of the adult will tend to magnify most of the actions of the child as threats to the adult’s security, sensation and power. Since children mirror our consciousness, this leads the child to develop strong addictive programming on the first three levels. The developing being will have heavy psychological obstacles that must be reprogrammed to permit growth into the Love and Cornucopia Center. No one can progress to these higher centers as long as she or he feels that happiness is just a matter of having enough security, sex, money, prestige and power!
We create security, sensation and power addictions in children when we try to dominate them with such emotional demands as, “I’ve told you a thousand times to….What is the matter with you?....Don’t you ever listen? I’ve never seen a dumber….For the last time I want you to get this straight….Just do that once more and….” As Dr. Haim Ginott says, “Our ‘normal’ talk drives children crazy: the blaming and shaming, preaching and moralizing, accusing and guilt-giving, ridiculing and belittling, threatening and bribing, evaluating and labeling.” Watch how you feel when people talk to you in such heavily dualistic ways.
We should replace our alienating, criticizing words with “I” language. Instead of, “You are a liar and no one can trust you,” say, “I don’t like it when I can’t rely on your words – it is difficult for us to do things together.” You talk only about your exact feelings here and now. You don’t chew over the past or threaten future punishments. You skip the disparaging, pseudo-analysis of the child’s character based on your addictive ego demands.
How do you use the experience of being with a child to aid you in your growth toward higher consciousness? The child can help you develop an awareness of what an “unfurnished” mind is like. When a child is first born, he does not chew over situations with his rational mind. He is just totally right here - right now. You can observe in a very young infant some (but definitely not all) of the characteristics of higher consciousness. A child is usually very perceptive in picking up the true feelings and vibrations of those around him. The nervous system of a young child is heavily programmed for crying and other emotional behaviors that can dominate the consciousness of adults within earshot so that they will be aware of his or her needs. As fellow travelers on the road to higher consciousness, we should see our adult roles as loving and serving every child. This helps children to make a rapid transition from crying and other emotional behavior to a programming that permits meeting needs through love and expanded consciousness.
The creation of heaven on earth in which everyone lives in a world free of wars, misunderstanding and duality on every level requires that we no longer train our children to develop intense security, sensation and power addictions.”
(Now, what was I saying about our present education system?)
