“The whole universe lies within a single human being – you. … Everything in the universe is within you.” - Rumi, Sufi mystic & poet
“We are not in the universe, we are the universe. We are the universe becoming conscious of itself.” - Ron Garan, astronaut
“I am the light inside of you, you are the light inside of me; We are the filament inside the heart of infinality; We come to spread our light and shine so brightly, you will see; We're connected at the root and we are one eternally. … We are infinite, a star-dusted human satellite.” - Indubious, Infinite
At this present time when the divisive rhetoric of political polarization is deepening the Great American Divide by further fueling the fear and hatred responsible for tearing humanity apart, the empowering message of unity captured in the above quotes offers a desperately needed breath of fresh air.
There is nothing new about the divide & conquer strategy currently at play which is responsible for fueling the heightened polarization playing out upon the world stage right now, seen in so many different forms, perhaps most blatantly in the ongoing US-fueled wars causing incomprehensible levels of human suffering. Nor is the revolutionary message of unity, which has the power to depolarize and heal humanity from her current fractured state, anything new under the sun.
What is new upon the planet right now is the centuries-long perpetual division among the ranks of humanity culminating in the polarizing chaos transpiring upon the planet right now. Meanwhile, the underlying truth of this message of unity that would undo the bitter division of humanity upon collective integration is simultaneously being realized, embodied and shared with humanity by unprecedented numbers of the human race. This message of unity rooted in love is offering us an alternative choice to the old-paradigm of perpetual division rooted in fear that has defined the human experience on this planet for so long, which we are so accustomed to here on earth.
This empowering message of unity in whatever form it is relayed points to a single underlying truth of the nature of the universe, a universal reality of the inherent unity of all Life which humanity is now in the process of collectively awakening to. Knowledge of this truth has been with humanity down through the ages, taught to us through the generations by the few among us who have realized it for themselves. Mystics, saints, yogis, medicine men & women, sages, and spiritual teachers & masters alike from a vast array of traditions have long sought to communicate this transcendent truth to humanity to the best of their ability, according to their own understanding of it.
Jesus is one prime example, who pointed to this very same fundamental truth of reality when he taught that: “Whatsoever you have done unto the least of these, you have done unto me,” and, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” And while the organized religion of Christianity has gone to great lengths to obfuscate this message of oneness taught by Jesus, the empowering and liberating universal message he gifted humanity with is still to be found within the Christian scriptures for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. The same one who declared, “I and my Father are one,” offered up a beautiful and heartfelt prayer cited in John 17, in which he made known his deep desire for humanity, “That they may be one even as we are one...so that they may be perfected in unity.”
The great Master did not seek to be worshiped by Mankind as the institutionalized church would have us believe, but rather desired for us to realize and experience the oneness that he himself had realized and experienced, so that we might be freed from the darkness of fear and separation to live in the love and light of unity.
Realization of our inherent oneness and the oneness of the universe is the key to manifesting the unity that shall bring humanity the peace she so desperately yearns for, as these words of truth long written down attest to. Even the etymology of the word universe itself bears witness to this fundamental reality, composed of the words 'uni' and 'verse', meaning one verse or a single verse; with the original meaning of the word 'verse' in Latin meaning 'to turn' or 'to combine'. The word universe thus literally means 'to turn into one' or 'the turning into one'. When one sees the great vastness of the universe and all that is within it as it truly is, one sees the inherent unity of all creation, and the perceived separation of individuals and objects disappears, along with the perceived separation between Creator and creation, as that one's perception of All That Is literally 'turns into one'.
Until recent years, however, those willing and able to accept and acknowledge this truth and its message of unity have long been few and far between, an extremely small minority of humans on Planet Earth.
The only significant difference in this regard between today and the past centuries of human ignorance is that unprecedented numbers of humanity are collectively awakening to this ultimate reality that, in times past, only a comparatively small number of souls ever experienced in any given generation.
It is no longer just a few isolated mystics of the world realizing and spreading this message of unity that teaches we are all one, but musicians and astronauts as well, as the opening quotes reveal. And not only is this revolutionary message once espoused by a renowned 13th Century Sufi mystic also shared in our modern age by a single small time 'rootstronica' pair of musicians calling themselves Indubious and a lone astronaut named Ron Garan, but also by a good number of other astronauts and musicians as well.
In fact, outside of the establishment controlled entertainment industry, there are countless bands and musicians spreading this very same message of love and the inherent unity of all life, not to mention a new generation of teachers and preachers hailing from every major spiritual and religious tradition doing the same. Medical doctors and nurses, scientists in their respective fields, and countless others are also among this consciousness (r)evolution. For example, Carl Sagan, a prominent astronomer of the 20th Century declared that:
“The cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
Within the field of astronomy, such views are not isolated to Sagan. Meanwhile, the entire field of quantum mechanics is the unfolding story of the modern scientific (re)discovery of the truth of the inherent oneness of the universe, with quantum physicists on the cutting edge of a field of scientific discovery that is increasingly bridging the 'gap' between science and spirituality. In the words of modern quantum physicist Amit Goswami:
“When we understand us, our consciousness, we also understand the universe and the separation disappears.”
These are but a few examples reflective of an ongoing collective realization that humanity is currently undergoing, a realization of the truth of who and what we as human beings are, which is inseparable from the realization of the inherent oneness of the entire universe and All That Is. This collective realization of the inherent unity of all life is a natural effect of the Great Awakening currently sweeping our planet. Meanwhile, the role of space travel and awakening astronauts in this collective realization and the timely message of unity for humanity shared by astronaut Ron Garan, which this post will highlight, is but one of the many reflections of the greater story of an awakening humanity currently unfolding before our eyes.
Awakening & a collective shift out of fear, into unity consciousness
This story of humanity's collective mass awakening, the Great Awakening that is currently unfolding upon the planet is, as I see it, surely the biggest and most important story playing out on Planet Earth right now, and has been for four years now. It is certainly also one of the most suppressed and under-reported stories of our times, and understandably so, once one understands the nature and implications of this awakening in the context of the true nature of the corporate cabal of media conglomerates largely controlling the flow of information and the 'news' being widely consumed by populations across the planet.
It is a big story because it is the ongoing story of a massive, unprecedented global phenomenon observed since 2020 when the COVID P(l)andemic and the ensuing chaos swept across the planet. It is important because it is the story of humanity for the first time actually beginning to collectively awaken to the root cause of, and therefore also to the real and lasting solutions to, all of the many great problems facing humanity and our planet at this time.
The story of humanity's great awakening is highly suppressed, ignored, and evidence of its reality discounted because it threatens the fear-based old paradigm 'us vs. them' way of thinking and living that we have long been operating under. It is for this reason that an awakening humanity is seen as a massive and imminent threat to a majority of the world systems of planetary control which are built and thrive upon this old paradigm. These include all of the governmental, societal, corporate, military, religious, financial, medical, and educational systems which subsist upon and profit off of both the orchestrated inequality of humanity inherent to life on Planet Earth, as well as the destructive assault of the planet that's been taking place since the Industrial Revolution.
At its heart, this great awakening of which I speak is an awakening of human consciousness, an awakening out of separation consciousness and into unity consciousness, which is also an awakening out of falsehood and into truth. Put simply, it is an awakening out of fear and into love – divine, unconditional love, that is - as fear is the energetic vibration of separation and love the energetic vibration of unity. Just as the belief in separation, characterized by a mind overrun by fear, is the root falsehood underlying all other falsehoods permeating human consciousness and also the root of all human-caused suffering; so is the realization that All is One, characterized by a stream of love and compassion flowing from one's heart, the ultimate recognition of the truth that will set humanity free from her prison of perpetual suffering which that false belief in the illusion of separation has created.
Awakening is a most fitting term for this process of realization, as this illusion of separation is like a dream in which the ego program identifying as a separate self is born out of fear in the mind of Man. For a more detailed description of the ego program and how it works to enslave the human mind, see my post detailing how darkness seen in the world is but a reflection of our own inner darkness – Awakening, False Light, and the Four Strategies of the Dark Side Employed in the Enslavement of Humanity:
The one who awakens from the dream of separation is awakening to the Reality of one's true Self as a divine spark of unconditional love and pure light that can never be separated from its Source except in the illusory dream-world of one's mind. The awakening one is beginning to see themself as they truly are, as a child of God whose very essence is the infinite and eternal essence of its Creator, consciousness itself, which is also the fabric of the entire Universe, breathing life and form and substance into the interwoven living tapestry of All That Is.
Drawing upon the words of Albert Einstein, awakening is inherently characterized by the realization that, “A human being is a part of the whole we call the universe.” This realization only begins to occur as one awakens from the dream of separation, an “optical illusion of his consciousness” created when “he experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest.” This separate sense of self is the false self, the self which Jesus taught must be denied by those aspiring to be his disciples. And this illusory false self is but a phantom in the dream of separation, the fear-born optical illusion of consciousness.
This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our own personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to include all living beings and all of nature.
Just as depicted in the Matrix film, humanity is imprisoned within a matrix program, an illusory dream world that mimics Reality while simultaneously blinding us to the true nature of Reality and the truth of who we are, where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. This truth, transcending the limits of the intellectual mind, can only be known directly through personal experience in the heart and soul, by one whose intellectual mind and intuitive senses are operating in a healthy state of balance and harmony. Awakening is not a concept that can be intellectualized, but rather an experience that must be felt, seen, perceived and experienced for oneself, by the whole human organism and not the mind alone. As Morpheous told Neo in the Matrix film, “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself,” and, “I can only show you the door, you're the one who has to walk through it.”
All of the great teachings long passed down by the various way-showers of humanity but point to the way by which we can prepare the soil of our minds and thus quicken the eventual sprouting of the seed of awakening planted within us, at which point we begin to experience the truth for ourselves. An initial awakening occurs when the soil of one's consciousness is prepared for the experience, whether consciously through spiritual practice, or unconsciously in the natural course of the human organism's inner evolution, when once “they have finally stopped agreeing to things that insult their soul.”
This initial awakening experience can be likened to seeing the matrix for oneself for the very first time, and to being shown the door. The inner journey into unity consciousness which such an awakening naturally leads one to embark upon is the way by which humanity walks through the door, the pathway leading us out of the prison of separation and into a whole new, previously unimaginable, world of inner peace and freedom rooted in unity consciousness. The apostle Paul referred to this process of embodying unity consciousness as 'putting on the Mind of Christ', and what many refer to as Christ Consciousness is one and the same as unity consciousness.
An experience that would bring about the core realization inherent of a true awakening would be any oneness experience or experience of unconditional love or transcendental inner peace, wherein one experiences the inherent unity and inter-connectedness of life. Such experiences commonly occur in the quiet solitude of nature, in the stillness of meditation, when one's mind is wholly absorbed in music or a mantra, or when one sees a reflection of their own essence in another and recognizes themself in or as a part of that 'other'.
There is, however, a great difference between initially experiencing the truth of this enlightening reality and living it out by anchoring oneself in unity consciousness through the embodiment of unconditional love and inner peace, which is the ultimate purpose of awakening.
To again quote from the wisdom of Morpheous in the Matrix:
Sooner or later you're going to realize, as I did, that there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Awakenings always tend to be deeply profound and highly transformative experiences in nature, and though there is a thread of commonality between them all, the specific details and circumstances defining one's personal awakening experience vary greatly from individual to individual. There seem to be two major categories that every awakening tends to fall into; those that are quite sudden and intense, and those that are more gradual and subtle. A fairly detailed account of my own initial spiritual awakening can be read in a post detailing my spiritual journey, though I have yet to publish an account of my own transcendental spiritually transformative experience that occurred in the months following my initial spiritual awakening.
In the following interview on the Love Covered Life podcast, Mary Reed, who has worked with over 1,000 awakening individuals, discusses the nature of spiritual awakening with its many challenges and difficulties.
Near-Death Experiences, the defining out of body experience of our generation
The variety of experiences that frequently trigger an awakening are far too numerous to list here, even among the most widely shared profound experiences associated with the more abrupt variety of awakening – spiritually transformative experiences as they've come to be known – and so I will highlight just one such prevalent example in this post before diving into the unique role of space travel in humanity's collective awakening. Chief among such experiences commonly associated with and responsible for triggering sudden awakenings are out-of body-experiences (OBEs), most prominent among these being the famed near-death experience (NDE) – a term coined in the 70s and popularized by Dr. Raymond Moody with the publishing of his book, Life After Life in 1975.
Some take issue with the accuracy of the term, however, and “lead author Sam Parnia, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and a longtime researcher of what happens to people as they die,” prefers to call them by what he considers to be a more accurate term – recalled experiences of death. This sentiment is also shared by a number of souls who have gone through such an experience. Though definitions vary among researchers, events generally qualified as NDEs occur both in individuals who are clinically dead, as well as those on the verge of death who are unconscious or comatose (such as under general anesthesia). They most commonly occur under:
“conditions in which you would die, and stay dead, unless somebody instituted emergency medical procedures to help you,” says Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who has studied NDEs for nearly 50 years.
During an NDE, an individual's consciousness/conscious awareness typically exits or “pops out of” the body – as it is often described – at or near the time of clinical death, allowing one to directly experience the reality that 'I am not the body'. This experience is frequently associated with the sudden, powerful realization that death as it is commonly perceived is not real, but rather a natural and painless transition of one's consciousness/awareness/spirit/soul to the next phase of one's life, often likened to stepping out of a worn out pair of clothes. For these NDErs, this realization often immediately eradicates or greatly diminishes the fear of death, the root human fear which underlies all other fears and holds the mind of Man in his prison of fear and separation.
NDErs frequently report experiencing an extremely expanded and heightened sense of awareness and oneness with All That Is while simultaneously retaining a sense of individuality. Also commonly reported is the experience of a state of timelessness or what is described as non-linear time, and the presence of an indescribable divine love-light, peace and beauty. Once separated from the physical body, these souls experience the spirit world or 'other side' in what is often described as a light body or spiritual body, through which communication is telepathic and intuitive. A number of NDErs remain on the earth plane for a time, often floating above their bodies while observing the medical procedures the body is undergoing, typically before leaving the earth realm. Many see and are often welcomed and sometimes guided through the experience by other entities, which can include 'dead' pets, friends and family members, as well as various beings of light typically described as spirit guides, angels and ascended masters. Jesus is perhaps the single most commonly identified light being among these, a prominent figure in a great many NDEs.
Rapid or instantaneous assimilation of vast amounts of higher knowledge that far surpasses the limitations of the intellectual mind is often reported and described as a 'download' or 'instant knowing'. Precognition is also not uncommonly reported. Some recount past lives flashing before their eyes, others report time traveling into the distant past, while some describe witnessing/experiencing past, present and future events as occurring simultaneously when viewed outside the time/space paradigm to which the earth is currently bound by. A 'life review' is another widely experienced commonality among many NDEs, during which one's entire life flashes before their eyes as it were, in a process of re-experiencing their life choices through both their own perception as well as feeling the consequences of those choices through the perception of all those affected – both positively and negatively – by their life choices.
Some come back healed of long-held bodily ills, others with the tools or knowledge to heal such chronic disorders, and all seem to return to life on earth deeply transformed, most in a positive way. Of all the commonalities between NDEs, the experience of an infinite, unconditional, ineffable love often described as emanating from the incredibly bright divine light seen in so many of these experiences is perhaps the most common of all. It is almost universally stated by those recounting such experiences that the most important lesson learned or truth discovered through the experience is that the only thing that truly matters in life is expressing love by loving oneself and others. The two nearly universal effects of these out-of-body experiences is a loss of the fear of death and a shift into a more loving and compassionate awareness, accompanied by the realization that ultimately only love is real. For a majority of these individuals, the NDE is reported as being the key point of spiritual awakening in their life, and for many the very beginning of a conscious spiritual journey of any kind at all.
Amazingly, NDEs occurring in brain dead patients, detailed and accurate observations of the patient's physical surroundings during the OBE and later confirmed by those physically present, and similarly accurate visionary experiences among the blind – even those born blind – all defy conventional clinical and scientific explanation. Even more surprisingly, NDEs have in a number of cases been shared, with a conscious and fully awake individual who is present with the NDEr sharing the experience with them; further dispelling the notion that these profound experiences could possibly be the product of mere hallucinations, dreams, imagination, or the release of chemicals in the brain such as DMT at the time of death. These and other lines of evidence all defy the explanations offered by the conventional materialist 'wisdom' of western science and medicine.
So it is that this widely reported and well-studied phenomenon serves to upend the establishment scientific view that consciousness is created and controlled by the brain, when the reality is the complete inverse of that outdated, old-paradigm theory. Those clinging to the materialist scientific worldview dominating western society have come up with numerous theories attempting to explain away the phenomenon, but each one of these theories falls in the face of the large and growing body of available evidence.
Dr. Jeffrey Long, founder of the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF), has discovered nine major lines of evidence contradicting the establishment theories and explanations of this phenomenon, “suggesting the reality of NDE,” which are detailed in a 2014 paper published in Missouri Medicine – The Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association – entitled Near-Death Experiences Evidence for Their Reality. In a 2013 paper Published in the same journal – Getting Comfortable With Near Death Experiences: An Overview of Near-Death Experiences – Dr. Bruce Greyson examines seven of the most common and plausible of the establishment theories of possible physiological and biological causes and mechanisms of NDEs, demonstrating how in every case the old-paradigm hypothesis flies in the face of the available clinical evidence.
As Dr. long concluded in the above-referenced paper:
After over 35 years of scholarly investigation of near-death experience, the totality of what is observed in NDEs has not been adequately explained based on physical brain function. … The combination of the preceding nine lines of evidence converges on the conclusion that near-death experiences are medically inexplicable. Any one or several of the nine lines of evidence would likely be reasonably convincing to many, but the combination of all of the presented nine lines of evidence provides powerful evidence that NDEs are, in a word, real.
For any serious student of the NDE phenomenon, the only logical conclusion appears to be that consciousness does not cease to exist when the brain dies, nor when the body dies at the point one's heart stops beating, and that who and what we are at the deepest level transcends time, space, and death itself. Those who have experienced this truth for themselves, whether through NDEs or any number of similarly profound mystical or spiritually transformative experiences, know this to be true and cannot be convinced otherwise. And how could they, considering that most describe such transcendent experiences as being far more real than life on earth as experienced through the five physical senses?
NDEs are now confirming the ancient religious and spiritual belief held by so many for so long, that life after death, or life after life as Dr. Moody refers to it, is very real. This is a reality that modern science and medicine is now being forced to acknowledge, albeit slowly and in the face of much resistance among the scientific-medical establishment. But the truth is nevertheless coming to light, as countless millions among humanity are being touched both directly and indirectly by these profound and highly transformative awakening experiences known as NDEs.
Readers may appreciate the documentary on the fascinating subject embedded below – Afterlife – featuring two of the leading researchers in this field, Jeffrey Long and Raymond Moody.
Awakening Astronauts & a timely message of unity for humanity
Being an avid researcher of the subject of awakening and the various experiences commonly associated with spiritual awakenings for years now, since my own initial spiritual awakening experience, I was a little surprised and exited by my recent discovery of a spiritually transformative experience I had previously been entirely unaware of. Little was I aware until just last month that space travel is also associated with a widely reported phenomenon that is also contributing to the Great Awakening in much the same way that the phenomenon of near-death experiences are. Neither is this phenomenon, experienced by numerous astronauts and dubbed 'the overview effect' all the way back in the 80s, anything particularly new. So when I stumbled upon this information in an unlikely manner, thanks to a video featuring astronaut Ron Garan, I felt as if I had just discovered an important missing link in the story of humanity's Great Awakening. This recent discovery of mine, as one might imagine, served as the inspiration for this post, as I immediately felt compelled to share the powerful story of awakening and message of unity I had just discovered.
Last year, astronaut Ron Garan was interviewed by Big Think, where he shared the story of how spending 178 days in space radically transformed his worldview, and how seeing earth from space caused him to realize the big lie that humanity is living, a deception which lies at the root of all of our human problems here on Planet Earth. It is a powerful story of awakening condensed surprisingly well into the short video embedded below, full of important insights and a powerful message of hope, love and unity. And it is a timely message which the world desperately needs to hear, especially in such a divisive time as this – the peak of a highly polarizing presidential election cycle here in the USA, with the wars raging abroad, particularly in the Middle East, only intensifying and expanding throughout the region.
Awakening in outer space: The 'overview effect' & the big lie humanity is living
The Overview Effect, a term coined in the 80s by space philosopher Frank White in his book by the same name, “describes the shift that astronauts have when they see the planet hanging in the blackness of space,” as Ron Garan puts it, explaining that: “There's this light bulb that pops up, where they realize how interdependent and interconnected we all are.”
Inherent to this realization is the experience of seeing the earth as it truly is, as a giant single living organism and organic system of which all life on earth is a part of, without all of the man-made borders and boundaries used to divide the planet and humanity, thus reinforcing the perception of our separation from both the earth and one another. As Michael Sandler of the Inspire Nation podcast is so fond of saying, “there are no sides on a round planet,” and yet the human mind has invented so many 'sides' to choose from, pitting humanity against herself. All of the borders and boundaries seen on our maps divide the planet and humanity into countless factions, perpetuating the 'us vs. them' mentality behind every war, and yet they are in truth nothing but invisible lines. Perspective is everything, and only our lack of perspective prevents us from recognizing and perceiving this truth. Viewing the earth as it truly is from the perspective of space is one way of awakening to this reality of the inherent oneness of the planet and inter-connectedness of all life upon it.
Frank White, in a NASA podcast dedicated to this phenomenon, explains.
And what the astronauts were telling me was, I, I knew before I went into orbit, or went to the moon, that there weren’t any little dotted lines. But it’s knowing intellectually versus experiencing it. And so, there’s also the, the striking thinness of the atmosphere, something that they see. And again, for most astronauts, the feeling that the Earth itself is a whole system, and we’re just a part of it. We need to think of ourselves as part of this organic system, if you will.
Seeing the planet with the thinness of its atmosphere was also a big part of Ron Garan's awakening experience in space.
When I looked out of the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi like flashes of lightening storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them and I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet's atmosphere. In that moment I was hit by the sobering realization.
That realization was that the earth itself along with all life upon it is kept alive by a “paper thin layer,” that the planetary “life support systems” bind all life on earth together as one, and humanity through its own systems of domination and division is living a lie.
I saw an iridescent biosphere teaming with life, I didn't see an economy, but since our human-made systems treat everything including the very life-support systems of our planet as the [...] subsidiary of the global economy, it's obvious from the vantage point of space that we're living a lie.
The big lie humanity is living, which Garan realized in that moment, is the illusion of separation; which has led humanity down a dark path of divisive destruction – destruction of the natural and organic, intricate and interwoven fabric of all life on earth. Upon this path, we collectively wage violent wars against ourself as we inch closer and closer to the annhialation of nuclear world war. Upon this path, money is viewed as more important than life itself, as we engage in destructive, earth-harming practices ravaging the very planetary life-support systems which keep us all alive. All this insanity we carry out in the name of our own survival, even as we continue marching towards our own self-destruction.
But there is a practical solution to all of these problems facing humanity; we simply need to reverse course before it's 'too late'. To do so, Garan says, “We need to move from thinking, 'economy, society, planet', to 'planet, society, economy'. That's when we're going to continue our evolutionary process.”
Awakening, as Eckhart Tolle has noted, specifically the awakening of human consciousness, is “the next evolutionary step for mankind.” And this awakening of consciousness, as we can see, is but a collective shift out of fear and the illusion of separation, into love and unity consciousness. As Ron Garan's awakening in outer space showed him, the root problem facing humanity is the separation consciousness inhibiting our ability to see ourselves as one.
“We keep trying to deal with issues such as global warming, deforestation, biodiversity loss as stand-alone issues when in reality they're just symptoms of the underlying root problem and the problem is, that we don't see ourselves as planetary,” Garan said. We don't see ourselves as a part of the planet from which our very life as human beings cannot be separated, without which we would not be existing as a species, as the human race which we are.
Just like with NDEs, a realization of our inherent oneness is widely shared among astronauts who have experienced the overview effect. “One of the things that I realized during my time in space is that we're not from earth, we're of earth,” Garan said. “And to take that one step further, is that we're not in the Universe, we are the Universe. We are the Universe becoming conscious of itself.”
Frank White describes this realization that “comes out of” the awakening experience, as follows.
Our fate is bound up with people that we may think are really different from them. We may have different religions, we may have different politics. But ultimately, we are connected. Totally connected. And not only with people, but with life. We’re totally connected with life. And everything relates to everything else. And out of that, also, is the realization again.
Also much like NDEs, he describes an astronaut's experience of the overview effect as being “beyond words,” noting that “they talk about the fact that it’s really hard to convey it, because all you have is words.” He also emphasizes that the power of the overview effect is in the experience itself, and that one can intellectually 'know' that we're all connected, but until that reality is directly experienced for oneself, “it’s knowing it with the brain and not the heart.”
White goes on to explain that, along with seeing earth as a unified whole from afar, a big part of the radical shift in perception associated with the overview effect is experiencing oneself outside the constraints of gravity and linear time as we understand it, another very interesting similarity shared with NDEs.
You also, you’re actually seeing the universe for the first time in a way that no human has seen it. … Time changes. You realize time is very Earth-bound, the way we think about it. And also, they are weightless. Zero gravity definitely has some effect on how these perceptions occur.
With so many striking similarities between the experiences of the overview effect by astronauts in outer space and the countless individuals who've been transformed by NDEs, it is no wonder Ron Garan describes humanity's first successful space flight to leave Earth's gravitational field as a collective out of body experience.
A 'collective out of body experience'
On Christmas Eve, 1968, during the first documented human space flight to successfully leave Earth's gravitational field and reach the moon, the flight crew of Apollo 8 captured the first color photograph of earth, dubbed 'Earth Rise'. Garan describes this as humanity experiencing a “collective out of body experience,” a highly transformational experience that “revolutionized” our collective worldview in the direction towards unity consciousness.
This image revolutionized the way we see the world, the way we see ourselves. There is no such thing as them, only us.
Garan believes that the following words spoken by Martin Luther King Jr. “precisely one year earlier in a Christmas Sermon on peace, “really gives words to what Earth Rise evoked” collectively in humanity at that time:
"As nations and individuals, we are interdependent." - MLK Jr., Christmas Day Sermon on peace, 1967
“We're not going to have peace on earth until we recognize the basic fact of the inter-related structure of all Reality,” Garan remarks. “That's not cliché, that's not philosophy, that's the reality of the world we live in, that's fact – that what happens to one directly affects all of us indirectly,” as MLK Jr. also understood and taught.
That this event occurred on Christmas Eve, in the midst of a globally celebrated holiday imbued with the message of unity well captured in the words universally associated with its celebration – “Peace on Earth and goodwill to all” – does not to my mind seem to be a mere coincidence.
Did these two events – the advent of space travel and the associated 'collective out of body experience' of 1968 along with the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement they underpinned – create a powerful ripple effect that led directly to the current mass awakening which humanity is now in the process of collectively navigating?
After all, the phenomenon of near-death experiences, which is playing a crucial role in this awakening, was publicized and the term for this unique out of body experience popularized the following decade. The same occurred with the overview effect in the decade after that. Just two more decades later, and the rise of the internet was connecting humanity all across the planet in an unprecedented way. And not only did the internet connect humans from all 'corners' of the earth with one another, but also with easy access to a vast array of knowledge and free flow of information which had previously been relatively suppressed and restricted. The turn of the decade following that ushered in the present decade with the earth-shattering global COVID event, sparking the Great Awakening which has been sweeping the planet in full force for four years years now.
Ripples become waves over time, and it seems to me that the wave of awakening sweeping the earth today may well in large part be a result of the ripples formed in our collective consciousness through the transformational events of seven decades ago... One thing I am certain of is that humanity is ripe for the empowering message of unity springing forth from this great awakening.
Out of the darkness and into the light: The universal message of unity for humanity, in the words of an astronaut
That humanity is currently walking in darkness while ever reaching for the light should be self-evident. In the words of Ron Garan, describing the current human condition in terms akin to our planet hanging in the darkness of space, “We are all as a species to some extent floating in darkness.”
Likening humanity's current situation to Plato's allegory of the cave, which illustrates that we often “think we know the whole picture” when in fact we are only seeing “a very, very small representation” of reality, as opposed to “an actual picture that will allow us to solve” the many problems we face, he highlights the importance of perspective. Emphasizing the undeniable reality that “these are dark times,” he adds that: “Part of the reason we're not solving the problems is, we don't have the right perspective, we're not addressing things in the reality of the situation that they exist.” Because of this narrow perspective, this false perception that underlies the old paradigm way of doing things which has defined the human condition for so long, “we are paying a really high price right now, as a civilization.” That is why, he argues, “we need to leave the cave” of shadows, “we need to get out of the darkness.”
The solution is found by shifting our perspective, by zooming out to see the bigger picture of a single living planet of which we are all a part of.
“We don't zoom out to the point where people become numbers on a spreadsheet or a workforce or a voting block or a consumer block,” as corporations and governments tend to do, however, but rather “they maintain their value as valued members of society,” as integral parts of the one single human family that we are.
In order to have lasting and effective solutions to the many problems we are facing, we also must “see things from different perspectives,” he adds, “so we understand the depth of our problem.”
Until we are willing to look past our petty differences and relate to everyone else on a human level, humanity won't be collectively making any forward progress. The willingness to 'put ourselves in the shoes' of those we disagree with or perceive as our enemies, and to 'walk a mile in his shoes', as the old adage goes, is key to the shift into a harmonious state of unity. Also key is recognizing our own inner power and then actively becoming the change we wish to see in the world, rather than relying on the 'powers' and 'authorities' of this world to create it for us.
“You have an incredibly powerful position to affect real change in the world,” Garan reminds us, before concluding his message with an incredibly uplifting and positive outlook for our future and the future of Planet Earth.
In the long term, I'm very optimistic, because I do see quite clearly a blossoming unity spreading across our planet, a blossoming awareness of our interdependent nature. That awareness will eventually reach critical mass, and when it reaches critical mass, then we'll be able to solve the problems facing our planet.
And, it should give us courage during these dark times to do what we know to be right, and to not give up hope, because we are going to see the Dawn. And when we can evolve beyond a two-dimensional us vs. them mindset, and embrace our true multi-dimensional reality of the Universe we live in, that's when we're no longer going to be floating in darkness, we're gonna leave the cave, and it's a future we should all want to be a part of. That's our true calling.
Indeed, the time has come for humanity to step out of the cave of shadows which has imprisoned us in the illusion of separation for so long, and into the light of a new Day that is dawning. To leave the dark world of fear which we have become so accustomed to and step into the light of love; to see ourselves, our neighbors, our 'enemies', the animals with whom we share this beautiful earth, all of nature and the planet itself through the eyes of love, with compassion rather than judgment – that is our true calling. The Dark Night we are collectively walking through is far gone, as the light of a new Day is dawning and the Morning Star arises in the heart of humanity.
"Cultivate compassion, love your life, and leave your fear;
and maybe in this time of confusion we will see;
We are all reflections of the Almighty."
-Indubious, Infinite
