Soul Musing – Emergence: From Ego to Essence

By Douglas Bonar

Keep this poem in mind as you journey into this written offering.  I’ll come back to it later. 

When I heard the learn'd Astronomer

Walt Whitman 1810 - 1892

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

I offer this poem by Walt Whitman as an appetizer for the themes of emergence and transformation. Spring is in the air and with it the promise, or hope, of the new. The promise, or hope, of better, fixed, and transformed. Many are aware that the present era is filled with strife, chaos and potential doom. The feeling in the air is palpable. How easy it is to remain fixated on all that is wrong, all that is veering from “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible” (the title of a book by Charles Eisenstein). How easy to stay nested in the fear-based ego and retreat into a life of isolation or despair.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, in the book Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence, documents the evolutionary goal of our species to become Universal Humans. She writes, “A ‘Universal Human’ is one who is connected through the heart to the whole of life, attuned to the deeper intelligence of nature, and called forth irresistibly by spirit to creatively express his or her gifts in the evolution of self and the world.” She continues that “Above all, a Universal Human has shifted identity from the separated egoic self to the deeper self that is a direct expression of Source.” This, she notes, is our essence.

This writing is not meant to villainize the ego. It is a necessary personality structure. There is a positive side of the ego. From a Taoist perspective, ego is a central element of the yang aspect while essence is a central element of the yin aspect. We are all a balance of yin and yang energies and personality traits. We live in a yang-dominant culture and within a yang-dominant world. We are now called to witness this imbalance, within and collectively, and to reclaim our connection with “the Divine.” This is the promise and hope for renewal, witnessing and transcending the wounding from the past, the ego-fixation, and the anxieties from the yet-to-be future. This transformative experience is to effectively respond to an increasingly toxic future. The solution is presence. Presence to our essence; a proposed mantra for the age.

The question remains; how do we maintain presence to maximize the chances for a fruitful and safe spring.

May I offer the Institute of Noetic Sciences transformational model prior to visiting the poem? It appears below:

The model offers a roadmap to collective transformation. It starts with “the noetic experience” at the start of the spiral. There are other articles on the website (GrokingWholeness.info) that further explain the word noetic. I won’t go into detail here except to note that it is the experience of oneness. Again, this suggests presence. No circulating or redundant stories in the head from past encounters or imagined futures. Pure presence to the one, the eternal. Pure presence to our oneness with Gaia – the living Earth.

There’s a difference between instructive, transcendent and transformative experiences. I’m telling you now, as I write, about the IONS model. This is instructive. It is an important part of the discovery and growth process. But it is not sufficient for widespread transformation to address the polycrisis.

An example of a transcendent experience is the noetic, or gut-level experience of oneness with a living earth and a conscious universe. Another example is the visceral and emotional experience of listening to a symphony by Johannes Brahms with tears of joy running down your cheeks. Or the intense and heart-opening gratitude of holding your newborn baby.

A transformative experience may or may not be transcendent. It could be as mundane as being caught, incarcerated and forced into sobriety resulting in a profound realization that what you were doing previously would no longer work to your benefit. You spend the rest of your days sober, free and socially productive.

There is also a transcendent and transformative experience. I’m suggesting here that this is a noetic experience leading to progression on the spiral. Having a glimpse of the prize is not the same as venturing for the prize. Too often we have the taste of a truly transcendental experience and then deny it, veering from the spiral of transformation and therefore not contributing to the greatest good.

The intended goal during this era of human history is to understand, embody and activate the emerging story of oneness, wholeness and interbeing. This has been the foundation of my writings for this website and the content of my upcoming Zoom course, to commence in May. Understanding is a good thing and may go a long way toward the intended goal of a bountiful spring. Transcending may or may not lead to significant changes of life trajectory. But it may function as an initial embodiment, or spark, of a grander vision of what may be, or what truly is. Transcending and transforming is progressing on the spiral with intention and purpose. It is the activation of our inherent sacredness to be one with others, earth and source.

In a nutshell, we can have a transcendent experience without being transformed, and we can have a transformative experience without transcendence. The best of all possibilities is to be informed (understanding), transcendent (embodied) and transformed (activated).

I now return to the poem and the theme of emergence, from ego to essence. Responding to the polycrisis is not solely about acquiring information. It’s not about imparting statistics to highlight the crises and frightening another to change their ways. I can listen to the learned astronomer all day in a classroom or Zoom setting and not feel one with the stars and act from an embodied feeling oneness, not feel the depth and allurement of earth and universe, and not feel the calling to commit my life into action to uplift humanity, Mother Earth and her inhabitants.

And so I walk outside and gaze at the stars. I feel the oneness with the cosmos. In Hindu the phrase is Tat Tvam Asi. That art Thou. Tears of gratitude again flow. I put my hands in the precious earth to feel her warmth and abundance as my own. I offer my gifts and compassion for the upliftment of humanity during this age of transformation, centered in essence. And I bring this understanding, embodiment and activation home. In the words of Ram Das, we are here to walk each other home. It’s going to be a luscious spring. I am at peace.