Passage - Understanding The Paradigm Shift

Passage
By Martin Brofman
(from Anything Can Be Healed – Findhorn Press)

Each of the chakras is like a lens through which you choose to interpret events in the outer world. You always have the choice as to whether you will interpret these events through the filter of Security, Sensation, Freedom or Power, Love, Expression or Abundance, Spirit, or Unity.

When you look through a particular filter, or chakra, it’s as though you’re in the center of a bubble colored by that filter, and all information coming in to your consciousness must pass through that bubble. It can then seem as though your perceptions are reflections of what is universally true, and that everyone you see has their motivations in that same chakra.

When your primary consideration in a particular moment is Security, for example, we can say that you are looking at the world through the Red Chakra. It then seems as though everyone is motivated by Security, or feeling threatened by its lack. You are not necessarily seeing the world the way it is, but rather as you are.

As your motivations change, so does your filter. When your motivation is Sensation, for example, events in the outer world make sense in another way than they did through the filter of Security. You may have noticed that sometimes, when your desire for Sensation has been satisfied, you have been surprised at how differently you saw things the next morning.

All day long, you are moving through your chakras, seeing through different filters, depending on what you choose as your motivation in any moment. You always have seven programs playing on your television set, seven different apparent scenarios, and you are always choosing which program to watch at any time. The idea is to not have static or interference on any of the channels. When you are seeing through a chakra in which you have tensions, the picture is distorted by those tensions. When the tensions are removed, so is the distortion. As with any television set, if you do not like the program you are watching, you can just switch channels, by deciding to look through a different chakra to see a different scenario.

We can say that one of the chakras is your home. You decide what your home is when you choose your primary motivating force during that period of your life. You can see, for that period, the thing that is most important to you, your main reason for doing things, and you will know which chakra is your home.

From your home, you travel through the other chakras, depending on your motivations in any particular moment, and then you return to your “background” state of consciousness, your home. It is the place where your consciousness stays when there is nothing happening for you in a particular moment that takes your attention to another place.

When you change your primary motivating force in your life, you move your home state of consciousness. This always involves a corresponding shift in your perceptions. The move from the solar plexus chakra (Yellow Chakra) to the heart chakra (Green Chakra), however, involves a particularly large shift. For many people, it is as though there is a membrane between those two chakras, and on the physical level, it corresponds to the diaphragm.

Below the membrane are the three lower chakras, and the perceptions at these levels are considered “ordinary” by society’s standards. Our society has defined “normal” perceptions as those motivated by Security, Sensation, and Power. Perceptions through the higher chakras are considered non-ordinary perceptions, and often seen as unusual or mystical states of consciousness.

We have mentioned before that the chakras represent a logical and orderly sequence of seven vibrations, and that, therefore, other orderly sequences of seven vibrations in the world around us can be seen as representing the evolution of our soul, and telling us something about our consciousness. The seven notes of the musical scale (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti) are a sequence of seven vibrations in a logical order, and each note can be associated with a particular chakra. Music played in a particular key vibrates a particular chakra, and evokes a particular emotion.

There is a precise mathematical relationship that exists between the frequencies that each note represents. It is a mathematical progression. Within that mathematical progression, however, there are two places where it does something different. The smooth progression is interrupted. In Nada Yoga, for example, each note is divided into several parts, as follows: Do = 4 beats, Re = 3 beats, Mi = 2 beats, Fa = 4 beats, Sol = 4 beats, La = 3 beats, Ti = 2 beats, Do = 4 beats, etc. Thus, 4 - 3 - 2 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 2 – 4, etc. There is a shift in register between Mi and Fa, and between Ti and the first Do of the next octave. (See Figure 15.1 - Shock Points)

We can say, then, that the shift occurs between the Yellow Chakra and the Green Chakra, and also above the Violet Chakra. When the chakras are seen as representing human evolution, these two shift regions are considered shock points, membranes that we must pass through in our process of evolution. The process may be rough or gentle, depending on the perceptions we choose.

For the passage through the membrane between the Yellow Chakra and the Green Chakra, the person goes through the perceptual changes that are necessary to open clearer perceptions of love. For the passage through the Violet Chakra membrane, the perceptions must be aligned to resolve the apparent paradox or conflict between concepts of autonomy and accord with authority.

When someone decides to move through either of these membranes, it takes some time for all of their perceptions to be aligned with their decision to evolve. During that time, they recognize more and more the new priorities that are the bases for their decisions. They are also still responding to the conditions in their life that have been stimulated by their deep inner decision.

For someone moving from the Yellow Chakra to the Green Chakra, if they have been living the aspect of control, and are still holding on to control after they have made the decision to evolve to acceptance, they may experience some difficulty. Events in their life will seem to go more and more out of control. It may seem as though the world is coming to an end, and destruction may appear imminent, until they let go of control, and open to acceptance.

Sometimes, to stimulate the opening to acceptance, there is a shock that obliges them to let go. The shock may be physical, or emotional. When it is emotional and very strong, it may be experienced as what is known as a “mental breakdown,” where the mental cognitive processes break down and the person feels out of control. While the traditional treatment may be to return the individual to their “normal” perceptions, this may not be the optimal approach, nor that which is best for the individual in their process of evolution.

What would be much better, and quicker as well as easier, would be to encourage putting the person’s attention on new perceptions that feel better, and then this spiritual process will be experienced as a break-through, rather than a “breakdown.”

Afterwards, seeing life from the new point of view, the person can realize that their difficulties were the result of the degree to which they had held on to control. They see that in that way, they had created their own discomfort, and their own pain. They will be able to see themselves (as they have been) with compassion, and they will no longer feel the need to defend a way of being that did not work for them, and that in fact no longer exists.

During extreme examples of a difficult passage, the individual may feel as though they are dying. Although the feeling is real, there is no danger here of mortality. It is simply a process going on in the consciousness. The person had identified himself or herself with a particular way of being, while at the same time desiring to see things in a different way. For things to make sense in a new way, of course, they must no longer make sense in the old way. It is an old way of being which is dying.

If the person persists in holding to the old view, and the old personification, they may experience the process that happens as an “ego death.” This will be true as long as they maintain the perspective toward the past and what is being let go of. If the focus is shifted to the present, with an orientation toward the future, the person becomes aware of the new way of being that is emerging, and the same process is experienced as a rebirth.

We can look at the process as one of moving from one reality to another, or from one bubble to another. If we imagine these as soap bubbles that are touching, we can see the membrane that exists where the two bubbles meet, as representing the membrane we have been talking about. (See Figure 15.2 - Through the Membrane.)

From the old bubble, there were certain perceptions with which the person had identified himself or herself. They could say, “This is me. I define myself with these perceptions, but I want things to make sense in another way.”

With this desire to change, the person begins the movement out of one bubble, toward the other. They reach the membrane between the two, where things no longer make sense in the old way, and do not yet make sense in the new way. During that narrow slice of time, during the passage through the energy field we see as the membrane between the two bubbles, the person's perceptions may be those of chaos and confusion, until the entry into the new bubble has begun.

If the individual orients their perceptions toward the past, to the way things used to make sense, it doesn’t work. The person doing this becomes aware of the things they must let go of. The idea, then, is to recognize the process as one of passage, and orient the perceptions toward the future, the new bubble.

As that happens, new perceptions present themselves, and emerge from the new reality. Things begin to make sense, but in a way different than before. As movement into the new bubble continues, the process continues, and the individual is able to define themselves in terms of their new perceptions, experiencing the process as a rebirth. Someone going through this process with difficulty may feel a sense of physical pressure between the solar plexus and the heart, at the level of the membrane, and it can be extreme, but at the same time, easy to release during a healing.

The process is much gentler when the person has been living the aspect of freedom, rather than control, in the solar plexus chakra. The transition from freedom to acceptance is a lot easier than the transition from control to acceptance. In moving from freedom to acceptance, there is not so extreme a conflict in the consciousness between these two sets of perceptions, the old and the new. The perceptions during the movement through the membrane are not so chaotic, but rather experienced as a gentle logical evolution.

These processes of passage can also be seen in the planetary group consciousness, which is composed of the population of human consciousness upon the planet. This group consciousness can be said to have chakras, as can any other consciousness, and can also be said to be going through its evolution, as does every other consciousness.

This group consciousness spends about 2000 years in each chakra, and events in the world are able to reflect the chakra in which the group consciousness finds itself. For the past two thousand years, we have been living the Piscean Age, the age of the solar plexus or Yellow Chakra. Events in the world have been oriented toward power and control, with individual countries concerned only with their own problems, and their own interests. This has led to wars beyond the scale of what had previously existed. We have developed enough power to destroy ourselves, many times over.

When the Being known as Jesus walked the earth two thousand years ago, he represented the aspect of the heart or Green Chakra, which at the time was not at all common. What he saw as he looked around himself was evidence of Yellow Chakra disorders. Leprosy was prevalent, a skin condition in which the face deteriorates. The symptoms, people hiding their faces, imply guilt as the underlying way of being creating the physical condition, and it is then easy to understand the desire on the part of the Being, Jesus, to free humanity from this self-imposed and unnecessary burden.

Now, we have entered what some call the Age of Aquarius, the age of the heart chakra, the Green Chakra, and conditions around us are obliging us to put our attention on Green Chakra perceptions. For example, we have created the disease of AIDS as a condition of our times. While the medical community continues to seek solutions on the physical level for this affliction, the alternative community has been having some success with healing this disease through changing the individual’s perceptions of love.

Nations are now more concerned with global awareness, and our role as a global community. We have become obliged to look beyond national boundaries, and the shocks of past outrages have motivated us to do something different from we had done before.

Recent events in international politics have been demonstrating the effects of this evolution on the global consciousness. Peace negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the destruction of the Berlin Wall are just two examples of this growing trend. Another is the dissolving of the “Iron Curtain” that had surrounded the former USSR. There are still some who have not yet made the passage, and whose perceptions have been presenting them with images of global catastrophes, but these can be seen as events designed to stimulate an increasing sense of global community, if it does not happen in a gentler manner.

These perceptions can also be seen as the natural effects of seeing through the filter of the Yellow Chakra, and of course, will give way to new perceptions of global awareness and the necessity of serving each others’ needs in order for our own needs to be served, when seen from the more evolved view of the Green Chakra.

Because this is all happening on a global level, it is happening to more and more individuals within the group consciousness. More and more individuals are making the passage from the Yellow Chakra to the Green Chakra. The more Beings that make this passage, the more effect it has, at an accelerating rate, on the rest of the group consciousness, until the movement is complete, and we are able to function effectively as a global community, its members of whom have found a way to live together harmoniously. Then, the healing will have been complete.

At that time, perhaps, if there is indeed a larger community of Beings within which humanity and life on planet Earth is only a small part, we can be approached by them without our feeling threatened, and perhaps we can then be considered ready for active membership with them in that community.

Anything can be healed
(from Anything Can Be Healed – Findhorn Press)
© 1988 Martin Brofman