Cosmic Consciousness

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been having difficulties moving forward with any type of purpose. Our lives, my life, has been marred with continual re-action to events mostly out of our control.

If anyone in the future were to read this and have context as to what I mean when I write, “This is the year 2020,” what is happening now is difficult to describe, as an American. 

The end of last year and the beginning of this year was full of anticipation as the 45th President of the United States was being impeached; the first quarter of the year marked the advent of what currently is the main story in American life - COVID 19 - a virus for which we have no cure, no vaccine at the moment, and of which we don’t know much. Not only is our culture dealing with this as a medical issue, it has become political. Whether or not it is real is political, whether or not it is dangerous is political, whether or not one wears a mask is political, and it is helping to tear at our nation’s weakened fabric. 

We are learning that it may not be a good idea to have access to better healthcare attached to whether to not one has a job. Due to COVID 19, many businesses have been closed and our country’s unemployment benefits can’t cover COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) costs for continuing insurance.  In essence, it has become clear that in times of crisis, we’ve created a system that’ll sustain the lives of those higher in socioeconomic status...the rest continue to dance the beggar’s waltz.

In May, George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, was killed by a police officer. The police kneeled on his neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. To better understand what this has done to our country, please watch Dave Chappelle’s 8:46. 

For most of the country, George Floyd’s murder has been a wake-up call, a moment of reckoning, placing our nation into a cognitive dissonance. It was a perfect storm. Due to COVID 19, the country has not been distracted by sports, shows, or any other method of entertainment. The country has taken to the streets, and mostly peacefully. Roughly 93% of all protests (and there have been at least hundreds around the country and world at this point) have been peaceful, including the four I have attended so far. Many of the ones that have become violent, upon review, were instigated by outside forces : agitators, anarchists, and white supremacist groups wanting a civil war. However, in America it has become political and although it’s been pretty clear as to the identities of perpetrators, people are not paying attention to the truth. For about 40% of Americans, it doesn’t matter. Regardless...

I am optimistic for a few reasons. For one, I am an optimistic person at heart. I am a veteran of this country’s military. Any black man who wears the uniform for conceptual reasons (read: duty) must, by definition, be optimistic and hopeful. Otherwise, service to this country is an absurdity. For white people not to understand THIS...is also an absurdity. For them not to be curious about it...is sinful.  I am also optimistic because of the number of white people involved in this movement. In the past, white people were few in number and the support given was mainly monetary. It was charity, but charity can only go so far. For a system to move, solidarity is needed. Human chains of empathy, locked arm-in-arm. 

I have been in the minority at all of the protests I’ve attended. What’s happening is unprecedented, refreshing, and beautiful. I am so thankful for those white people who care and I don’t take for granted those making a plan, getting in cars, driving a distance, making signs, walking, chanting, recording, and enduring...ENDURING. Many white people are now experiencing the side of policing that people of color have had to endure since before this nation’s inception. There have been too many white people receiving the end of a police baton or boot for it to be forgotten any time soon. Those who’ve experienced it in any way will not forget for the rest of their lives. We’ve seen too many instances of abuse of authority by police to give blanket benefit of the doubt. For people of color, however, this is nothing new. 

If this country is to continue, it must change. The soul of the country is being tested...and the judgement will be based, in my opinion, of its treatment of minorities and immigrants. Crispus Attucks was here at its birth, a martyr for a grand idea. John Adams, future 2nd President of the United States, was the defense attorney for one of the accused soldiers. He stated that Attucks was “a stout mulatto fellow, whose very looks was enough to terrify any person.” They were acquitted of the murder. And here we stand today, hundreds of years later, with no full measure of justice, but the same words describing human as beast, and beastly prejudice emboldening inhumanity. If we cannot find full justice for “Crispus Attucks, first sacrifice of the American Revolution, Born of Black and Indigenous Blood,” he will also be the country’s damnation. 

These are the things floating in my mind throughout the day, every day. I perform my daily routines and these are on my mind. What is my place in this puzzle? I am a highly educated man doing things that operate a small percentage of brain power...yet, I don’t feel there’s a problem with what I’m doing as much as how I’m doing it.

I’ve been having difficulties focusing. Instead of using this time to purge and focus, I’ve been aimlessly collecting: books of various subjects, news links, and stories that may never get read. My physical training has been sporadic as well as my diet. One of the first things I do in the morning is check the news for what may have happened the night before. I’m waiting to react. Well, it’s time for a change. 

I’ve picked up one of the books, Cosmic Consciousness, and started to read. It’s been a few years since I’ve read anything which requires some real intense mindfulness. It is refreshing, however frustrating. It is really hard to garner the normal intellectual vigor.

It took me much longer to get through the first chapter but I’m pretty sure I’ve picked the right volume. It has, thus far, offered a certain perspective as to what’s happening in the country now. Personally, it has given me some satisfaction with how to deal with certain individuals with whom I correspond. The book puts forth that there are four levels of consciousness: 

1. Perceptual or Instinctive consciousness - reaction to a thing as a percept or precept

2. Receptual or Simple consciousness - perception plus differentiation of a thing or things

3. Conceptual or Self consciousness - perception plus differentiation plus conceptualization of a thing. One knowing that one knows and knowing how one knows it

4. Intuitional or Cosmos consciousness - Application of the first three, marrying concepts with each other, understanding there is a flow to time and space

How this has helped me is that I know the various intelligences of people with whom I interact. I know this from their history, issues they choose to share, their argument or lack of an argument, and the things they avoid. I also know it by their curiosity. Not all humans are able to achieve high levels of conceptual consciousness, much less intuitional. Primarily, it’s that “knowing how one knows it” part. They have no idea how to differentiate concepts because they simply don’t have much conceptual knowledge. This allows biases of all sorts to intervene. This exercise will be helpful for me moving forward. Hopefully.

I’m trying to get my stuff in order. I’m grateful for those interested enough for the ride thus far.

Stay tuned...we have much to discuss. 

 Kimani