Temporal solidarity (ICA)

Description

This state is an awareness of being related to all of creation, like having a rock for an uncle. The Australian aborigines embrace this reality in their religious understanding that they are inextricably linked to the land and to the forms of plant and animal life it contains. In their mythology of the Eternal Dreamtime, each person is linked to a particular totemic creature, which sustains him or her, and which in turn must be sustained. As spacemen have reported when they look back to earth, they experience a deep sense of kinship not with the various divisions it contains, but with the totality of life represented by this bright blue ball.

A dimension of this experience is a sense of awe, that is fear and fascination. As a an individual stands alongside the rest of creation, he develops an appreciation of even the most insignificant forms of life and honours the diversity of the planet, seeing it as a gift rather than a threat or a problem. There is an awesome feeling that he is are responsible for and accountable to everything and also an equal appreciation of the fragility of all things. He doubts whether he can live with only what he has been given. This knowledge of being related brings realization that one cannot separate one's self from anything nor dismiss anything as meaningless. Each moment is taken as one's big chance and one looks forward to engaging in the next with anticipation, experiencing a rapport with life that knows no bounds and a solidarity with the entire journey of consciousness.