Finding our Way Into the Sun of Consciousness with Dwayne Edward Rourke
The Organic Revolutionary's Handbook
Theory of Organic Revolution
The true instructor reveals to us that of which we are the end-results. The true educator mobilizes our energy, stimulates our power of vision and imagination, dynamizes us into taking the next step ahead in this vast process of human evolution---the truly creative step. This step will lead us to the next threshold, of emergence, on which we shall meeting the waiting initiator who will infuse us with the quality of livingness and of understanding which constitutes our passport to a new, more inclusive realm of interpersonal and eventually planetary and cosmic relationship.—Dane Rudhyar
It was a Jose Arguelles article titled some notes from The Organic Revolutionary's Handbook that gave me my first introduction to the Mesoamerican culture hero known as Quetzalcoatl. That was in 1972 and in the years that followed, I became increasingly aligned with Arguelles and his ideas. Ten years my senior, he became my initiator in the way described by Rudhyar in the above quote. Not only did Arguelles' works stimulate my power of vision and imagination, they dynamized me into taking creative action. This included facilitation in my home town of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, of a 1986 workshop on planetary empowerment given by Jose and his wife Lloydine. That workshop furthered our joint efforts to manifest values inherent in his revolutionary outlook. It also alerted people to an upcoming and very unique, global ceremony initiated by Arguelles called Harmonic Convergence, of which I became the Calgary area coordinator.
In 1985, upon reading Jose's book Earth Ascending, I had experienced an overwhelming urge to heed his call to "sacred warriors of the heart" to unite with him to fulfill ancient prophecy by bringing forth the Harmonic Convergence worldwide ceremony, the date for which was determined from the Mayan Sacred Calendar. Arguelles promoted the ceremony as being integral to final closure of a five thousand year cycle of time set to occur 25 years in the future, on the winter solstice, December 21, 2012.
HARMONIC CONVERGENCE
At sunrise on the morning of August 16, 1987, Harmonic Convergence unfolded dramatically as a continuous wave of “Earth renewal rites” washing across the face of the planet. With representation from every race and from a vast array of spiritual and religious traditions, people performed peaceful ceremonies at sacred sites as diverse as Ayer’s Rock, Mt.Shasta, Jericho Beach, Stonehenge, Teotihuacan, Giza, and Macchu Pichu. United in a single act of spiritual intent and without government support of any kind, this relatively small group of self-empowered individuals created a compelling experience that seeded the mind of humanity with a new collective dream of peace and harmony.
I understand Harmonic Convergence to have been the worldwide annunciation of the immanent emergence of a planetary culture based on values congruent with those brought forth in some notes from The Organic Revolutionary's Handbook. In my experience, nowhere else is to be found a more succinct and poetic overview of the notion of organic revolution envisioned by Arguelles. I continue to resonate deeply with those values and because I understand that only 10,000 copies of the article were ever published by the now-defunct Portola Institute, I hereby freely deliver a digital copy of that document, true to the original formatting as possible.
One reason I find some notes from The Organic Revolutionary's Handbook so valuable is that it presents a vision of peaceful revolution grounded in the steady, self-chosen refinement of individual character commonly referred to as alchemy. For, as the handbook says: "The most thorough revolutionary is by nature an alchemist."
NOT THE COMMON GOLD
For centuries, alchemy was maligned by ecclesiastical authorities who believed its independent practices were antithetical to their religious and commercial interests. By pretending to be involved in a quest to turn lead into gold, alchemists of old bypassed barriers put in their way by these authorities. This was a successful disguise and the real work of consciousness expansion continued unabated. For, as alchemists said in private: "The gold we seek is not the common gold."
In the modern world, organic revolutionaries aspire, as did alchemists of old, to work on their own character in order to manifest expanded awareness in the world. In support of this quest, let us now turn our attention to the basic tenets of organic revolution as elucidated in some notes from The Organic Revolutionary's Handbook. (Downloadable PDF version of the Handbook article available here.)
some notes from
The Organic Revolutionary's Handbook
by Jose Arguelles
Part I
There are three kinds/levels of revolution:
1) Pure destruction: carried out by blind catabolic energies. Unavoidable and inevitable.
2) "Maya mud-pies": the shifting of power from one base to another. Illusory change.
3) Mystic or Organic Revolution: total mind/body transformation of seed-base extending outward. Understand that this change is part of the process of another cosmic Initiation.
The principle of Organic Revolution is the revelation of social re-organization in the
Divine Image of the Body of Man.
But what is Revolution? It is to RE-Volute, to make another volute, to turn again, to return.
What is a volute? It is one complete manifestation of the will, a turn of natural force.
a volute
Where does a volute come from? The center of another volute
volute …………… ……. re-volute
Thus Re-volution is the process of going from one (exhausted) manifestation of the will to a new manifestation of the will.
Revolt is a corruption of Revolute
To revolute is first of all to return to the center
of the will, to the center of the life-force
which is essential being---simply being.
It is to become simple again
unburdened by the weight of the previous
manifestation of the will.
Thus Revolution is Life Renewed:
To reach the New
leave the Old.
The most crux-ial process in Revolution
is cruxifiction.
The true Revolutionary is one who is able to
cruxify himself by stripping his being
of all the old processes, imprints and antagonisms
in order to reach the center of being
and thus be able to be reborn
and begin anew.
The most thorough revolutionary is by nature
an alchemist.
The true Revolutionary is a Seed of the New: in being a Seed,
he fulfills the purpose of Organic Revolution.
ORGANIC REVOLUTION IS THE WAY OF METAMORPHOSIS
As revolutions in Nature take place in accordance with fixed laws and thus give rise to the cycle of the year, so political revolutions----these can become necessary at times for doing away with a state of decay---must follow definite laws. First, one must be able to await the right moment. Second, one must proceed in the right way, so that one will have the sympathy of the people and so that excesses will be avoided. Third, one must be correct and entirely free of all selfish motives. Fourth, the change must answer a real need.
The real need is the need to know our needs.
What do I need to survive?
How many others do I need to survive with?
The real work is the formation of new social units:
Who is my family?
What do we need?
What do we have in common?
Can we share each other without possessing one another?
Possess as little as possible, share as much as you can.
The more you possess the less you share.
The less you possess the more you can share.
There is but one source that shares us in common:
this source is the seed of all
and everyman is its fountain.
To know ourselves as brothers and sisters
is to know ourselves as ONE.
Technocracy is the state of cocoon consciousness.
It is also the cocoon.
The churning and turning of cells
the metamorphosis of energy
the destruction of the cocoon
the emergence of the butterfly
is revolution
becoming evolution
it is organic
it is inevitable
it is inexorable
it is irrevocable
it is.
Caterpillars do not resist and as butterflies they fly
but man remains
in his cocoon
clinging to
his self-made lie.
The world of Yang
now shifts to Yin.
All Hail
the Mother!
Part II
I understand you now
O Father Marx.
Your prophecies take form in the Gift of my self to Others
And so we celebrate the New Communionism:
As our bodies are a result
of the Communionism of the Elements Earth/Air/Fire/Water
So at the very root and core
growing outward
Our Perceptions and Actions must express this essential Communionism.
To do this we must throw off everything that is unnecessary to the expression of our true selves.
We must become as Gods once again.
We must re-manifest:
Truthfulness
Loving Kindness
Devotion
Charity & Service
The gods are not selfish.
All of these must manifest spontaneously or not at all.
Persons capable of manifesting these qualities are the True Men
who must gather the others around them.
The people must be taught that nothing new will happen
until they are new once more.
This is the rediscovery of innocence.
Truthfulness * Loving Kindness * Devotion * Charity * Service
These are the things which the present state---in all its states---keeps from happening, keeps from taking place. For this is the Kali Yuga and even charity has difficulty maintaining a hold on the consciousness; our perceptions are thoroughly enslaved and our delusions are constantly perpetuated through psychological warfare of the most sophisticated and all-pervading means. The Chains that must be thrown off are the Mind-Forged Manacles the most powerful tool of which is Education-by-the state. With the child, State-Education begins usually at five. This means that the child is taken from this family--almost always with their consent, because they too have been conditioned into believing and even living a life whereby education of the child by the nuclear family is unthinkable and/or impossible. This means that at the age of five the institutionalization of perceptions begins to take place. Whatever was organic and spontaneous in the family situation becomes that much more difficult in the new, artificial group situation imposed by the needs of the State.
From the age of five to the age of at least 16, the child's life is increasingly controlled and dominated by the expectations of the State. Generally the child becomes the willing slave of the State, for that is the only way the child thinks he will be able to survive. Rewards, competitions and so forth are offered by the State to draw the beguiled child-slave even more deeply into the control and purposes of the State:
Truth is truth to the state.
Citizenship is kindness through the State---tax-deductible charities.
Devotion is devotion to the State---Patriotism, allegiance to the Flag.
Charity & Service is through State Welfare programs.
The most important actions are Selfish, even in terms of identification of the individual with the State. However profitable this situation may be for the State, it Is most damaging to the individual as an Organic Entity. The automation and regulation of perception has always been the growth/death of a species.
Organic Revolution is the necessary de-automation of the perceptions in order to insure the further mutation and survival of a particular species. De-automation is Mutation. At least it is so in a social situation such as ours in which increasing automation of the perceptual structure is the norm. Small wonder that many of the so-called hippies are termed---and term themselves---Freaks. Small wonder also that any process which de-automates is looked upon with alarm in our present society. For such efforts strike blows at the very base of the present civilization.
Ruthless selfishness---this is the hallmark of the Kali Yuga. This is why, to the West at least, any word or concept smacking of communalism, of cooperation, is always met with such fear and hostility---because they undermine the virtues necessary for the maintenance of the State of Ruthless Greed, which is the State. The slavery of Greed, jealousy, anger, fear, ignorance and hatred---this is the glue of the State, these are the components without which the State would indeed Wither Away.
The Corporate State is the final abomination of Man. Therefore we must be careful in confronting it. Should we face it with Greed, jealousy, anger, fear ignorance or hatred, we are only furthering its purpose. This is why our actions with regard to the State must flow from the Source; our acts must be characterized by Truth, Love, Devotion and Charity. True Revolutionary Commun(ion)ism must be lived now. Revolutionary consciousness is NOW. True to the flow of being, filled with love, devoted to the communion of all things and beings, and sharing totally what we are:
The State Withered away is the Sattya Yuga, is man redeemed by this work
because his work is himself. No longer is he alienated by his labor.
Part III
Man is a slow forming organism. Not until he is about 18 is he sexually mature and physiologically ready for worldly life on his own. The process between the ages of zero and 18 is the process of acculturation----the making ready, preparing for life as an individual part of a larger organism---the tribe, the cosmos. The significance of the coming of age should indicate the beginning of a more intensive psychic maturation and period of growth. The right of passage at this time in the child's development should make clear to him his freedom from the past---the ancestorization of his "parents"---as well as his freedom for the future, usually marked by a "vision." The process of acculturation should be solely as an aid for the development of the individual. Culture is never an end in itself; when it becomes an end in itself, it becomes a burden, a blinder, that which enslaves and exploits its creators. Thus, the rite of passage of the adolescent means that he must put away the things of the child, that culture that helped his development: toys, songs, dances, rhythms, tales and fables, which, however much they might mirror the world that precedes or follows childhood, are fundamentally of the child. But in putting away the child-culture, there must be a vision of what is to come; the vision cannot come by force or coercion, but from the child's own experience; it is a result of his own experiment with the truth.
From the age of puberty the individual begins to embark upon a different phase of the path. This is the phase of learning or being apprenticed to some craft or discipline. Generally this is accompanied by the phase of the "householder." With sex comes child and family, and the maintenance thereof: the household. Then the parents become the transmitters of culture. Again this should be done in full realization that at one level the culture is a crutch; ideal culture is such that it knows how to phase itself out when it is no longer useful. Ideal culture Is organic culture, because it follows the natural rhythms of the cosmos. It's purpose is not to burden the child with restrictive and unnecessary forms, but to aid the child in his harmonization with the larger rhythms of the cosmos. This for instance is the use of music: not to sentimentalize or to create attachments or dependencies, but to inform enlighten and enrhythm. Ideally, organic culture prepares the child so that the next stage Is always a natural progression or result of the previous stage. In the development of the organism, culture per se is not important, and has value only in proportion to the spontaneity and necessity which provoke it.
The culture of the parent and that of the child must be in attunement for maximum results. Thus, just as the child should be prepared to understand the responsibility that is his inheritance when he comes of age sexually, so should the parents at the same time understand that their responsibility as parents has come to an end and that they are ready to embark upon yet another phase of the path. This, two is a ritual which should be marked by the renewal of the vision of the first coming of Age.
I call organic culture
a culture based on the mind
in relationship to the organs
and the mind bathing in all the organs
and responding to each of them at the same time.
--Artaud
To many of us today this "way" it Is almost inconceivable. Obviously I am writing from something of a utopian point of view. I have described a situation very different from the one we know. As I have been writing these lines I have been dimly aware of Margaret Mead and anthropology, the rituals of the Hopi or even of the Tibetans. But I have not wished to resort to them because I wished to remain with the experience and expression coming from my "naked" consideration of the problem of human culture and change as it confronts us today. Today we cannot understand what I would call the point of view of organic culture precisely because we have become so enmeshed in a cultural pattern that is organically alienating.
The race that man is running today is one between increasing acculturation and increasing awareness. At the point we are at, unfortunately, acculturation and awareness are almost mutually exclusive. Awareness of our organic nature tends to invalidate culture as it has developed. The extremely complicated acculturation process carried to its logical extremes invalidates organic awareness. In our ideal model, the child is given complete sense of his own responsibility by the time he is sexually mature, usually around the age of 18. The situation as we know it is that there is a little celebratory acknowledgment of this organic event in the life of the individual. Rather the demands of the culture are such that the child it is generally forced to remain a child until he is at least 18, often well beyond that, if PhDs can be taken as a kind of ultimate coming of Age ritual. Furthermore this acculturation takes little account of the actualities of the organism, and even places incentives on the remaining dependent as long as it is humanly possible. In our society this is generally terminated with economic rewards, granting of a bachelors degree at age 21 or so. A tremendous confusion and feeling of resentment usually accompanies the period between actual organic achievement and the social conference of responsibility. By this time the individual is usually so enmeshed in the cultural patterns that he does not question them, one of the obvious penalties being economic suicide. Much of this is due to the high degree of training necessary to maintain the technology that has been developed. But the technology itself is totally bound up with the culture. Here I am assuming that culture is a more of a psychic condition---technology essentially being an outgrowth of the tools necessary for survival, though also having very intricate and pervasive results and characteristics.
We are at a position in which we must try to think of culture and our basic needs outside of or beyond the context of the present techno-economic state. This is so not because one must adopt an anti-technological stance, but simply out of the necessity of experiencing and seeing what is truly our nature---something that becomes ever more difficult with the passage of everyday---before we are in so deeply that this is no longer possible. Because we know of certain tools does not mean we must use them. "Man can only use what he has learned how to use." Assuming that it is still possible to "step out" and take a fresh look, and even to begin to build any fresh way.
The following Mandala may suggest the pattern and path of the rhythm and development of an Organic Culture.
The Light is Born in the Midst of Night
The task is to build in the child Foundation of Light
Just as in the Winter, Earth prepares her rebirth Bright
So that upon the Foundation of Light the Child may build the Work of Man.
And the years from eighteen to thirty-six may be spent with a Master learning
The rhythms, crafts and trades of Man and Stars;
At the peak of life the dark returns into the light
The Apprentice takes his Learning to Lands that call Him
And he practices and lends his Light to all who need it;
And when the dark has filled his foundation and his body ages and withers
He turns to Contemplation
Then finishes his life growing ever more open and gentle
To the Coming of Eternal Light.
Part IV
The Organic Brotherhood of Mother Earth
A deeper brotherhood, a yet unfound
law of love is the only sure foundation
possible for a perfect social evolution;
no other can replace it. --Sri Aurobindo
On Organic Culture
What is Organic Culture?
Direct Meta-sensory experience resulting from sensory harmonization: all the senses bathing in each other, giving to each other, receiving from each other simultaneously.
The West has lacked a collective tradition of Organic culture since the invention of the clock, i.e., since the onset of mechanistic culture and consciousness.
The clock and the printing press have removed us from ourselves: who still remembers the dance of the Sun?
Organic revolution is the process of going from mechanistic culture to a higher more integrated level of organic culture. Mechanistic culture reinforces a vicarious living and unnatural dependencies/ creating organic instabilities and atrophication of natural---inmate---capacities.
Three phases of Human Culture
THESIS 1. Pre-mechanistic---Organic. Local variations, tribal, ritual participatory forms. Aboriginal to High Tibetan. High degree of psychic development, sensory balance.
ANTITHESIS 2. Mechanistic. Complete decay of natural functions, im-balance; specialization of the individual senses at expense of the rest of the organism. Rise of virtuosos, vicarious audience, High technical refinement separated from organic life-base; most impassioned form cultural response is rebellion.
Thus, Organic Revolution is transition from Mechanistic to Planetary Organic
SYNTHESIS 3. Planetary Organic. Realization of interdependence, new devotion for all are our ancestors and teachers: we are ONE. New ritual developments regathering into planetary families, for creation of total planetary consciousness. Ascendance of intuition, renascence of psychic capacities. The true reorganization of MAN.
The new revolutionaries must be Seed Men
Men of Organic Culture, practicing the wholeness of their Being
Man of Organic Culture are by definition: spontaneous, creative, loving, giving, serving, devoted, joyous, mindful of the end.
He knows the truth of Religion as the basis of Gathering Together in a community.
Heaven is the bond of union in nature, as the ancestors are the bond of union among men. If one knows these forces, all relationships become clear.
The Seed Man looks up and sings:
The grasses of the fields are my ancestors
The fishes of the waters are my ancestors
The waters of the seas are my ancestors
The races of men past are my ancestors
The planets are my ancestors
My true Grandfather is the Sun
He begat me and he begat all others
All of these I praise and celebrate
Especially in eating do I praise and celebrate them
For it is truly all of these ancestors who are my nourishment
Because of them we are inseparable
Because of them we are One.
The Organic Brotherhood:
To grow Seed Men
to give Birth to
a Planetary Organic Culture.
Base: Community/Family to provide Living/Education environment in which maximum potential of human Being can be realized and shared; the formation of new inter-relational values upon which a new culture can be founded; and understanding of the transpersonal dimension which is the foundation of all higher human aims based on the concept of human service, selflessness.
A Living Community as the exploratory base.
A School based on the values growing out of the living community and open to those interested but not actually involved in the Living Community, teaching the fundaments of a New World Culture.
Communications with other groups having similar programs, goals will be actively established in order to promote cooperation and strength, the Network of the New with invisible bonds threaded through the remnants of the Old.
Community must aim at as great self-sufficiency as possible, have as few dependencies upon Corporate State structure as is possible; must remain small---when one community reaches beyond human size a new community must be formed, e.g. original community size eight members, peak no more than thirty.
What is the basis of Organic Culture?
It is Personal Responsibility
To be responsible for one's every Action
To owe equal responsibility
to the Act of Love
as to the Act of Excretion
to not value certain actions as "better" than others
to be "High" in all actions
Whether doing Devotional Yoga
or Cleaning the Toilet Bowl Yoga
it is ONE
Total Personal Responsibility
The Responsibility for Be-ing
Totally Human
through the acceptance of
the transpersonal Responsibility
of Living rather than working for a Living; of Serving;
Community is the Synergy of Minds totally attuned
to this Truth
The Truth that the only Way I serve mySelf
is through Serving My Brother
Who is Myself
One Self
IS
One-In-All
Compenetration
The
Law of Cause
& Effect
Is the Law
Of Karma
We are
As Gods
And Might
As well
Get on with IT
Now of the
Unchanging Joy
Thereof he Telleth
Trans-personal:
Through
the Person Flows
The Law of Service
The Law of Love
Environmental Education is learning without fear---is learning in Love that the environment is not against you, and you need not be against IT. This is not to say that the bad environments don't exist, but that "bad" environments exist because they are the products of fear. The present civilization is an example of an environment based on fear---one must be careful in such an environment !!! Environment need not be feared, but it must be harmonized with the human energy---and this can only happen if the Human energy is totally responsible and totally Responsive to the environmental Flow.... This does not mean just being responsible in terms of the Community that is exclusively Human, such as the present Industrial community. It does mean forming a Human Community that understands that it is part of a much larger Community, and therefore must live in Harmony with IT.
In order for the Community to be a
Whole functioning as an integral totality
Within a much larger Whole, the individual
members of the Community must
be Whole. They cannot be Splinters of
What they presume to be a Whole.
They must each be imbued with Love and Service which is the expression of Love. The Action of Love is Integrative and Heals rather than Fragments. To Live, to Be Harmonious, there can be no other Motive in Acting, than that of Service spring from Love. Love is not and cannot be selfish; it is Transpersonal in Nature, and all pervasive and healing in its effects.
Cooperation comes naturally and easily when we love what we are doing; and then cooperation is a delight. But to love, there must first be the putting aside of ambition, greed and envy. Isn't that so?
What I mean by Personal is the spontaneous loving response to a situation. Thus, personal is really Transpersonal , for the petty personal is put aside for the flow of true response.
LOVE IS TOTAL ACTION
TOTAL LOVE IS ACTION
TOTAL ACTION IS LOVE
THE ONLY REVOLUTION
IS THE REVOLUTION
IN HUMAN RELATIONS
There is no single cause of revolution;
Revolutions occur
Only because of the conditions of the
TIME
"In the Time of Fu"