The Great Remembering: Who Are You, If You Are Not Your Story?

In the beginning … well, no one can say with any certainty what existed in the beginning, or, indeed, if there even was a beginning.

But there is a process, a Cosmic process of evolving, of unfurling, and while we are ignorant as to when, or even if, that process will end, we can still assert that this creative process was not always in existence, in motion. As such, it seems deducible that there was a pre-process state, and while we do not know the nature of that state, or what caused it to burst forth, out, into life as we know it now, it can be reasonably asserted that in the pre-creation, pre-manifest, state no division, no separation, was known, because there was no 'other' to be apart from. Everything, thus, existed as a singularity, and by implication in total unity. This has two profound implications for us, today; it is a reminder not only that we are, in our origins, the Universe, but that we are each other, born and crafted of the same essence. With this in mind, it might be useful to ask why, despite our essential singularity, we now find ourselves living in a world of either/or, of You or Me, of separation from the Cosmos, from each other, from the Earth, and, indeed, even from ourselves.

That this is the current state of affairs is indicated by the three great global challenges that we face in this age, both collectively and individually – environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfilment. At the heart of all these issues is the need to overcome our sense of separation – in the first instance, from the Earth, in the second, from each other, and in the third, from ourselves and from the Cosmos itself. So the question might be posed, why do we continue to live separate, even when this way of life does not honour or nurture any of the constituents of Creation?

The factors that feed and inform our sense of separation run deep and wide, but, nevertheless, converge in the story we live by. Each person carries within them a narrative intended to assist in the navigation of, and negotiation with, what in the past may have seemed like a bewildering, complex and hostile reality; these stories are, in this way, constructed out of the consequences of, and responses to, ancestral and personal traumas, both as a way to mitigate those wounds and to attempt to prevent them from re-occurring. Our stories, then, are a double-edged sword; they seemingly keep us safe, but at the same time contribute to our separation from the rest of Creation, which can lead to behaviour that is destructive, harmful and personally unfulfilling. These stories can become even more detrimental if, over generations or years, we lose consciousness of them, thus becoming unaware that our behaviour is even informed by them, or if we take them so much to heart that we eventually become them, so that we identify our story as being our essential nature.

So the question arises of how do we adopt, embody, become, new stories, become the Cosmic process itself? Given that universality is our essential nature, it might be the case that one needs not attain or reach that level of cosmic consciousness, as such; rather, it is necessary only to remember and retrieve from within ourselves the memory of who we always were and are. To this end, perhaps the greatest work that an individual can undertake at this point in the creative process, so as to feed and nurture its continuance in all forms, is to shed, to transcend, whatever it is, ancestral and personal, within their own consciousness that informs their sense of separation from the whole, that causes them to identify them self as being anything other than an individuated aspect of the whole. A multitude of means exist for this purification, this great remembering – whether it is through conversation with another, or on the cushion, or the couch, or the massage table, or in the therapist's chair, or …

Whatever your chosen methodology might be for the identification and transformation of your personal myth, may it be fun, fulfilling and bring you ever greater connectivity!