UNSUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION
As I see it, all revolutionaries aim to overthrow what they see as oppression and abuse, and install a regime they believe is more humane, more caring - a regime that promises respect, and fairness.
Ultimately - whatever the surface ´ism´ of a particular revolution - whether Russian (1917), Chinese (1911), French (1789 - 1799), American (1775 - 1783), Cuban (1953 - 1959), or Iranian (1979) - in their hearts, all revolutionaries believe they are on the side of goodness. What does that mean? In the last analysis, I´d say that what it comes down to is that they believe they are on the side of Universal Love.
On this basis we can say that no revolution in human history has ever been successful - in as much as no revolution has ever successfully established the Reign of Universal Love on Earth. Why not – in my opinion? Because until now, no set of revolutionaries has ever been adequately trained in sustaining their capacity for Universal Love. As yet, no set of revolutionaries has adequately prepared their consciousness for such an epic endeavour.
Until now, no set of revolutionaries has even contemplated the possibility that the long-term success of the new regime they seek to install will depend entirely on the degree to which they themselves, and people in general - having educated themselves not only psycho-emotionally, but spiritually or existentially - have become able to consistently choose Universal Love.
IDEALISTIC TWADDLE
To those among us who have little or no experience of the transformation of their own psyche and awareness, these words might sound (at best) like idealistic, utopian ramblings, or (at worst) like absurd spiritual-lunacy. Even those of us who have experienced personal transformation, or healing, or awakening of some sort might wonder whether political revolutions and the evolution of consciousness are in any way compatible.
My friends - my brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings and everyone else, however you might like to think of yourself – in my opinion, even though it might take generations: it is only a question of education. However: I doubt very much that it´s an education the fundamentalistically-materialistic, machine-hearted, violently-efficient mainstream world culture will offer us. Why would it nurture its own overthrow?!
I believe that nurturing the consciousness that enables us to choose Universal Love is our primary revolutionary act. Cultivating the capacity to recognise the moment-to-moment existential choice between defending and promoting our own little ego show, or acting on behalf of the whole - and cultivating the capacity to act on that choice - needs to become our daily, self-educational, self-transformational, revolutionary commitment.
And for me, this is not a private matter. Sociologists talk about "the privatisation of spirituality" - the removal of overtly spiritual/existential concerns from the market place and from the political arena. "Meditate in private, if you like" is the message, "but keep it to yourself. And please don´t bring it to the office!"
No! How can we cultivate consciousness and Universal Love alone? We need each other. We need communities. And I say ´communities´ and not ´support groups´, because support groups can be easily, neatly bolted onto the A.I-infatuated, techno-intoxicated, production-and-progress-obsessed, centralisation and CCTV and control-obsessed, global mainstream. "Sure, do a little healing on the side! Why not?! What harm can it do?! Just don´t be late for work tomorrow morning!" Personally, I refuse to be segregated like that! I believe there are circumstances that favour the evolution of consciousness, and circumstances that thwart it....
Local community. Deep relationships. Responsibility for our locality. Contact with nature - with the trees, the animals, the insects and birds... with the weather, with the waxing and waning moons, with the equinoxes and solstices. Time out, down time, holy-days. Celebration, appreciation, gratitude. Local, poison-free food. Poison-free water. Creativity and contribution (as against wage slavery). I believe all of these things favour the evolution and transformation of consciousness - and that asphalt, street lights, traffic noise, plastic food, work-work-work, and junk, escapist entertainment don´t.
So here I see a second revolutionary commitment: to adjust our lifestyles in ways that support and enhance our primary revolutionary commitment (the development of our capacity to choose Universal Love).
UNIVERSAL LOVE
So what is Universal Love? I believe we all already know. We know what Bob Marley meant when he sung "one love, one heart - let's get together and feel alright". We all know what it means when, in a huge auditorium, thousands upon thousands of people wave a light (their unique light) - and sway together, in one great oneness. We know Universal Love. I also believe that we don´t know how to access it at will (without the support of an auditorium, or magic mushrooms!), nor how to sustain it - how to live in it. And I also believe it is the unharnessed, most radical revolutionary energy on Earth.
As I understand it, Universal Love is not romantic love. It is not focused or fixated on one particular person. You don´t even have to like someone to love them – universally! Universal Love is not personal. It goes beyond the person and the personality. It is the Love that arises when we stay present to our unique experience of the moment... on and on and on... and our sense of ouselves as consciousness becomes solid and unquestionable – and we recognise ourselves to be a consistent, spacious energy that exists beyond our ever-changing personality. Then, when we look into another´s eyes, we see ourselves.
Phrases like “we are one” are then no longer theoretical. Somebody else´s economic class, their educational background, their race, their sex, their age - everything about them might be different from us... But we look into their eyes and feel their pain, their struggles, their need to be understood, their need to be loved, their longings - and we feel that they are us, in a different personality-situation. The feeling is (and forget for a moment whether you believe in reincarnation or not) the feeling is: “I am incarnated as me - but equally, I could be incarnated as them!” And then looking around at everyone we feel “I could be anyone. Anyone could be me!” And we see each person reflects that-which-we-all-are uniquely, irrepeatably.
The felt-knowing of self as consciousness, as above and beyond our familiar, everyday, culturally-conditioned identities (which arises naturally via Radical Honesty) is, I believe, one prerequisite for the experience of Universal Love. Not for glimpsing it, but for the ability to sustain it - and choose it again and again. And the other is the felt-knowing of our unique personality´s conditionings and woundings – which can create obstructions and interferences and resistances to our Universal Loving until they are acknowledged and given tender care.
So as I see it, our profoundly personal yet collective, mass-educational curriculum needs to be:
- to become expert at feeling the difference between the-consciousness-we-are and our wonderful
and often-wounded, conditioned personalities
- to strengthen our ability to live as consciousness, in Universal Love
- to learn to express the-consciousness-we-are through our unique personalities - and align our
lifestyles with Universal Love.
This might sound mystical, far off, unattainable – but I don´t believe it is. I believe it is just a question of will, and education. And I appreciate that we are not acccustomed to hearing about Radical Honesty and consciousness and Universal Love and decentralisation and community reconstruction and revolution – all at the same time. And although I imagine that absolutely everything I am saying here has been said elsewhere - my intention is to unite these diverse existential, psychological, social and political elements in one coherent narrative – so that (however long it takes) we can share absoulte clarity as to our direction. And personally, in terms of our human presence on Earth – I don´t see why we should set ourselves a lesser goal!
In the next chapters I will be presenting the Practice of Conscious Relating which I feel is a beautiful, expansive, intimate, erotic, potent, transformative, educational practice – and an excellent practice for strengthening the initial unity and focus of the Conscious Tribe.
I will be introducing it as a practice between two people, and then as a practice for the whole Tribe. You can, of course, do the Practice of Conscious Relating right away - with a friend or partner, perhaps – you don´t have to wait until you are a Tribe!
IN CONCLUSION
In conclusion – I beleve most, if not all, of history´s revolutions have been well-intended - lovingly-intended, even - but that revolutionaries have been ill-equipped to establish regimes that perpetuated their most profound and heartfelt intentions.
Today, in my opinion, we are faced with a global situation that calls for a global revolution. Our leaders are utterly hypocritical - preaching greenness while genetically modifying our food and spraying our skies; and preaching freedom and equality while continuously tightening the grip of centralised, absolute, impersonal, digital control. We are being conveyed without consultation into a technocratic, transhuman, smart-city dystopia...
But are we the revolutionaries we need? Even if, tomorrow, the armed forces of the world all suddenly put down their guns and bombs, and turned around and said "enough!" - would we be able to set up and maintain cultures imbued with our most profound, heartfelt intentions? Would we be able to co-create cultures imbued with Universal Love? My answer is - no! Because we ourselves don´t live in Universal Love.
As I have said, I believe the roots of our revolution need to be in self-education. This doesn´t mean we sit around in support groups, living the lifestyles with which we are familiar. Absolutely not! The need to self-educate is not an excuse for inaction. I have already shared my opinion that as well as self-educating, simultaneously, we need to mobilise ourselves in the direction of decentralisation, of local community, of letting go of our dependency on the dominant culture, of self-sufficiency, of re-skilling and, perhaps above all, of re-embedding ourselves in the natural world - because all of this creates the optimum environment for learning to live in Universal Love.
Finally, I want to repeat a distinction I often make between community and Tribe. A local community might consist of several thousand people. Perhaps more. But since presentness and Universal Love are cultivated in intimacy - and since, obviously, it´s impossible to be intimate with that many people - within our communities we need Tribes. We need Tribes - groups of ten, twenty or thirty people who know each other well, who are close, who meet regularly, who help each other and rely on each other, and who support each other in learning to live together in Universal Love - in becoming the revolutionaries capable of the First Successful Revolution!
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Mark Josephs,
"Mark the Mystic Activist"
Aragon, Spain
Summer, 2024
This article is Chapter 6 of the (very expanded) third edition of "Love & Revolution"
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