Source: Charles Eisenstein
“Humanity, collectively, we are awakening from the drama that we had been totally immersed in that had taken a pretty bad turn, that had carried us to a place where we lost touch with fundamental truths about the world, about reality, about being human. And now, we're kind of waking up to the fact that, actually, this was just a story. This was a play. This was a drama. And we were all playing roles in it.” ~ Charles Eisenstein
NOTE: This video is an excerpt from this brilliant interview with Dr. James Cooke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk0WuwYouHw
TRANSCRIPT
The game itself can be beautiful. It's just like if you're an actor and you're in a play. And then maybe the performance is finished and you were really lost in your role, in that performance. The character took you over completely. And in that moment, maybe in the deep recesses of your mind, you know that you're not actually Othello, but in that moment you are fully in character. And then the play is over, you step out of it, and you're like, oh yeah, actually I'm Charles, I'm not Othello. But you don't say, oh, therefore, I'm never going to act in a play again. You then take on the next role.
So, humanity, collectively, we are awakening from the drama that we had been totally immersed in that had taken a pretty bad turn, that had carried us to a place where we lost touch with fundamental truths about the world, about reality, about being human. And now, we're kind of waking up to the fact that, actually, this was just a story. This was a play. This was a drama. And we were all playing roles in it. And now we realize that, and we're coming now, more and more of us, into contact with the non-dual world, with the pre-conceptual world – through all kinds of experiences and realizations.
And that doesn't mean that we're never going to go back into the story again, and symbol, and representation, and science and technology, etc. etc – we're going to exit the world. No!
We're going to say okay, what's the next story that we will participate in? What's the next role that we are going to play? And everyone can ask themselves that question too: Given the knowledge that is awakening in me, how do I play a good role? And maybe we remember, yeah, sometimes it's good to touch back into a prior reality to make sure that we're playing our role well.
And we can only know if we're playing our role well, and if the game itself is beautiful, if we look at it from outside the role and outside the game. So that's the utility of what we call spiritual practices. And I think we can rehabilitate the word spirituality in this way because when it takes on connotations of otherworldliness, it can end up desacralizing the world.
Because if the sacred is to be found in the spiritual, then the world becomes profane, and we end up treating the world as a profanity. And we engage in what is essentially sacrilegious behavior toward nature. So that version of spirituality is quite bankrupt, but we understand this otherworldliness as a reconnection to a prior, then it can exercise a really powerful, positive effect on our worldly affairs.
