(This is Part 8 of a series. Go back to Part 7.)
Shakespeare's greatest play, King Lear, is about a man who's external world descends further and further into chaos, uncertainty and darkness. Viewed from an external perspective, Lear's descent is catastrophic and tragic.
And yet a curious thing is happening: As the external world crumbles about him, Lear's compassion, maturity and consciousness climb steadily. He realizes that love and kindness are his most important possessions.
Meanwhile, the reader or viewer of the play is realizing something too: That Lear's spiritual journey wouldn't have happened without his external descent. He was simply too blind, too arrogant, too dismissive for the transforming power of humility to ever enter his world.
I believe that something similar is about to happen to
the world itself, or more specifically, the human world.
I believe that on an external level, as discussed above, we're about to enter upon an implosion the like of which we humans have never seen. Even the devastation of World War II may come to seem as merely a prologue.
Of course humankind has encountered disasters and setbacks before, plenty of them. But the coming set of disasters will be different: Not only will they be the most significant in human history, but they'll be taking place across not just one or two but the entire spectrum of human dimensions—ecological, economic, agricultural, psychological, energy-related and on and on.
Taken as a whole, what's coming will be the greatest catastrophe in human history, and will be named as such. It will get to the point where our very sense of who we are as a species will come into question. Indeed, at some point our very existence may come into question.
By the middle of the play Lear has gone from being an arrogant, self-satisfied king to a homeless man sitting in a field. And even worse waits in store for him. But this is the very thing that wakes him up to what is truly vital. As his external world crumbled, his internal world soared.
The catastrophes awaiting humanity will, I believe, have
a similar effect. We have a destiny awaiting us. I believe that we have a destiny to become the caring mother and father of planet earth, its conscience, its heart.
As our external world crumbles on so many levels, it will be a shock to us. We'll go through all the stages of grief, from anger to acceptance, and come out the other side a transformed humanity.
The day will come when we'll look upon every other human being, indeed all forms of life, as precious and necessary. Yes, there will be riots, wars, all kinds of privations. If we focus only on the external, it will be a terrible time indeed.
But that terrible time contains a seed, and that seed is our heart. As humanity goes through the eye of the needle, as it finally struggles to preserve even the existence of life on earth, it will come together as never before.
At first, as the various crises deepen, there will be anger, polarization, battles of one kind and another. But as the collapses of the life we knew become more grave, and more grave yet, a kind of calm will settle upon humanity as we contemplate the precariousness of our fate.
And then will come the true turning—somewhere in the depths of our heart we'll realize that our true destiny is to preserve one another, to honor one another, to love one another. And to love not just our own kind, but all kinds. All humans. All life. All reality with nothing left out.
Our greatest tragedy will also be our greatest birth. We'll be reborn as the true heart and soul of planet earth, our destiny that was always meant to be. Amidst our external chaos and strife we'll slowly realize that we do indeed live in paradise, because we have the divine and mysterious capacity to love each other and all of existence.
—jim sloman, 9.14.05
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