Written by: Yehuda Tagar, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Self-awareness, personal development and the human evolution of consciousness are now one inseparable process. It is the only clearly observable evolutionary process that has been taking place on mass over the past 60 years: the freely chosen Conscious Evolution of individuals, one person at a time, one chosen step at a time, consciously, freely, originally, following nothing and nobody. And, of course, the inevitable backlash against it.
Ever since the publication of Charles Darwin's 'The Origin of Species' in 1859 the universally dominant theory of evolution asserted that the blind, meaningless, mechanical process of coincidental mutations, combined with the coincidental natural selection process of the 'survival of the fittest' resulted in the creation of the coincidental variety of the planet's flora and fauna species, including human beings.
This theory cannot be verified by observation as it takes millions of years of coincidental mutation and selection processes to result in visible physical changes. But in the absence of another successful theory it has dominated, unchallenged our science and culture for the past 170 years. There is no possibility of visible evidence of that kind of evolution which is perceptible to human direct scientific observation. New species of animals, plants and animals are not being created in a lifetime unless by direct human manipulation. The existing variety of earth's living species is progressively disappearing, apart from us, humans. All other children of creation struggle to survive. We are the only ones who keep adapting, evolving and thriving, presumably following some given genetic code. But the fact remains that our dominant evolutionary theory is unproven. New species are not being created here, but on the other hand – human cultural evolution is an undeniable unstoppable reality which is observable by everyone during one's lifetime.
Physically we have not changed much during the recorded historical and pre-historical times of Homo Sapiens. The bone collections of presumably pre-homo sapiens humanoids are assumed to be the proof of our evolution from these predecessors, but that in itself is also just a theory. Physiologically we are still the same man and woman that the legendary Adam and Eve were by the time they conceived their third child, Seth, not long after Paradise was lost to them. Scientifically speaking 'Homo Sapiens', or Modern Human, the only surviving species of the biological genus of 'Homo' – emerged out of Africa some 300,000 years ago, gradually completely replacing the presumed previous species of the Neanderthal 'human' race – and proceeded to dominate the Earth.
Physically, anatomically – nothing has changed in us ever since. Our physiological evolution has mysteriously stopped at that point in time. During the time of recorded history (since about 3,400 years ago) we have been physically the same, but everything else in human life has been continuously changing, despite the old clichéd claim that "there is nothing new under the sun". A lot is new and keeps renewing itself in human life, collectively known as 'human civilisations'. Their physical remnants are there for all to see, but the invisible cause of all the changes throughout human history is human consciousness. We humans and our consciousness have created the dynamics which resulted in the outer visible remnants of human civilisations. We humans have never stopped evolving.
Evolution itself has evolved
But the way we are changing – has changed: during the recorded historical era until recently – civilisational change used to be primarily a group affair: tribes wondering, conquering and being conquered, nations forming and dissolving, cities built and destroyed and being built again, empires rising, dominating and falling, social systems coming and going, religions in endless mutual struggle for domination, politicians winning and losing control of the masses and new technologies competing for markets. All these kinds of historical processes seem like old news to most of us. But with a deeper observation, they are all the external footprints of an ongoing evolutionary process, The Evolution of Human Consciousness.
Visible evolution of consciousness has taken place in front of my eyes during my lifetime, and it seems to me to originate in very individual affairs, resulting from the powerful determination of individuals to manifest their unique higher human potential in their earthly life, in their own individual style, following no one but their own intuition, creativity, desire and conscience. Cataclysmic original, consequential social, cultural, artistic, community, family, social, political, philosophical, scientific and technological changes kept taking place at accelerating speed throughout the 20th century, changing the face of humanity and the earth – practically all of them coming out of the original thinking of unique individuals, and it never stopped. Of course, all this started before the 20th century, but not very long before: the start of individual originated changes of consciousness could be traced back to the 15th – 16th Renaissance and reformation in Southern and Western Europe, the time of the rise of the independent thinking of individuals as a formative force in history. To various degrees, similar developments took place in many other parts of the world, known to a much lesser degree.
Individuals-based evolution of human consciousness is the only phenomenologically directly observable kind of verifiable, evidenced-based evolution theory that we have. All other theories of evolution, with all due respect, are fundamentally brave speculations, un-proven and un-provable temporary theories.
I do not doubt that like the old once-dominant 'Flat Earth Theory' they will go through evolution themselves when new emerging theories will be able to better explain actual human reality.
The driving force in conscious evolution: ‘To be fully myself’
I have been a counsellor, psychotherapist and trainer of therapists in six countries over the past 32 years, most of them diverse multicultural countries like Australia, South Africa the UK and also in the Middle East, Central Europe and recently China. I believe I have worked now with individuals and groups representing the rich diversity of humanity: I lived, studied, practiced and taught counselling and Psychotherapy in Australia, where in Melbourne alone there live 27 ethnic groups and South Africa has 11 different official languages and many more ethnic groups. Central and Eastern Europe where I am now based is also richly diverse, and now I teach in China as well. Throughout all this diversity of cultures and human conditions – I hear consistently one underlying voice. I can hear each one of them saying to me, each in his/her unique individual way:
"Please help me to be myself. Please help me to manifest my truer, deeper, higher, wiser, healthier, more powerful, more effective, more loving, more creative, more authentic, more evolved me".
It seems to me that no one feels fully oneself. We are all still evolving. Yet everyone seems to be inwardly connected to some unique inner potential of a more perfect self, an ideal human being that they can become, not by imitation of an external role model but from within, often present only in its absence in their life. It has become completely normal for everyone to claim to be at least potentially a unique individual. The old Monty Python joke 'We are all individuals' became a reality, at least as a normative aspiration. it has become completely predictable that individuals seek to grow beyond their past habitual and traditional record, social conventions and ancestral way of life – into a fuller manifestation of their own individual potential. The claim for the right to an opportunity for the personal development required for the discovery and the expression of one's potential future unique self – seems to have become universal over the past 50 years – everywhere.
It evolved very quickly since the middle of the past century. Until only 80 years ago the tribes of Europe (as well as everywhere else) were tearing each other apart in a whole-sale tribal, ethnic and racial world wars claiming tens of millions of lives in that most violent of centuries. We had a period of relative peace but now, in the mid 20's of the 21st century – the shadows of those nightmares are upon us yet again.
Most of these same warring tribes now combine their collective efforts, grounded in a constitutional commitment to individual human rights, addressing the demands of their individual constituents for an opportunity to pursue their personal development economically, socially and culturally. These are at the same time the leading economies, and that is not coincidental. But, at the same time, the powers that want to drag us back to central control and tribal existence are threatening to take us back a century – are regaining popularity in the mind-control of those of us who gave up thinking for themselves. The frontlines are being drawn anew everywhere between the portion of humanity that is progressively committed to the pursuit of individual freedom of expression – and the portion of humanity that is harking back to the old social orders that dictate hierarchically and collectively the allotted reality of individuals as human herds.
Humanity is splitting into two
Humanity seems to be divided into two evolutionary types in front of our eyes. This is no longer a division between East and West, North and South, between the upper and lower classes, between different religions, ethnic groups and ideologies. It is a division within families, tribes, nations and cultures, between individuals who are committed to consciously evolving their striving toward their own individual ideal of their own future self – and those who give up on this and retreat from this threshold back into the tribal safety of collective 'group-soul' centrally controlled human herds. This is the evolutionary reality underneath the symptomatic crisis in every country in the world today.
For those who are committed to personal evolution the incentives for the motivation for change come in many forms: physical, mental and emotional pain; relationship crisis; creative blocks; crisis management; trauma; parental issues; work-related stress; sexual issues, grief, addiction, recovery from abuse, leadership challenges, vocational thresholds, spiritual thresholds, and many more. But I learned to regard them all as symptoms of the underlying great universal agenda of our time: these are all the labour pains of birthing a new level of one's own personal evolution. I grew to regard every human being who is committed to any aspect of conscious change on any level as a pregnant woman whose crisis is that she needs to give birth to a child. She does not feel well in the middle of labour. No one feels well in the middle of a crisis. Yet a child is on the way: the next stage of one's own personal development.
Psychophonetics & methodical empathy – ‘Soul midwifery’
So I became a 'Soul Midwife' for myself and others and a trainer for 'soul midwives' and for 'Skilled Friends on the Threshold'. That is the clearest description of the profession of all those who are committed to supporting personal change: therapists, healers, counsellors, doctors, coaches, parents and all good friends. For this purpose, together with my colleagues in a few countries, over the past 35 years, I developed a methodology of change: Psychophonetics, and a cutting-edge front-line of its application: Methodical Empathy.
I never believed that the major purpose of modern psychology is the restoration of soul pathology back to some kind of conventional normalcy. No one that I met on my journeys wants to be normal. No one says it in a job interview, CV or their Facebook profile: "I am very normal". We all wish to be unique and special, and we are all determined to find out what is our next step in realising and manifesting it. I truly believe the real purpose of 21st-century psychology in all its manifestations is the transformation of all life challenges into opportunities for personal development. I expect to see it happening in my lifetime: psychotherapy is going to be replaced with psycho-development for the leading practitioners and trainers of our time and for the public requesting these services.
A close colleague in Central Europe told me one morning after a long contemplation that he found the essential characteristics of the kind of people he wishes to attract to our Psychophonetics/Methodical Empathy professional courses in his country. He described it in the first person like this:
"I am an individual in search of my own path of personal and spiritual development, based on my own personal experience and intuition, following no one. Can you help me?".
Yes, I can help you. It is my dedication and profession to do so. All my efforts, skills and ever-growing methodology are dedicated to such a person. Such a person is fast becoming the new normal, functioning, contributing, and evolving member of each sustainable community. Striving to become more and more one's own unique fuller being, one's own leader, teacher, healer, striving towards one's own next stage of personal evolution through conscious, self-lead independent personal development – is becoming the norm for the leading components of 1st-century humanity.
Twasa – Individual initiation
Amongst the many tribes of South Africa, there are many different kinds of initiation into the state of being a traditional healer, Sangoma. But there is one term in common with most of them: 'Twasa', the calling of the ancestors to become a healer of the people. It is also a name of an incurable sickness: the one who is chosen by the spiritual world to become a healer will usually become sick, physically and mentally, and stays sick until he/she accepts his/her task in life, embrace the path of becoming a healer, find the right teacher, and enter the process of initiation. There is no other possible healing from the sickness of the Twasa: the completion of one's initiation as a sangoma. I met a woman who refused to go through this severe process for seven years, becoming progressively sick with no cure, until on the verge of death she accepted that she was in Twasa. Then she found her first initiation teacher, started and completed her sangoma training, and all the sickness symptoms permanently disappeared. Such traditions exist also amongst the Aborigines of Australia. A prominent late Aboriginal elder from Port Philip Bay, Victoria, Burnam Burnam, once laughed at me loudly when I asked him how I became an Aboriginal healer. This is impossible, he said. You cannot choose it. The spirit chooses you, and then you have no choice in the matter. You have to do it.
This process was always there, everywhere, East and West and North and South, but it was there for very special select people: those who are to become our leaders. You could not become a leader in any walk of life in Ancient Athens for instance without going through the personal initiation of Goddess Persephone at Eleusis or the God Asclepius in Epidaurus, and you could not become a leader in Ancient Egypt without going through initiation in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris. People needed an external leader. But it seems that during the past 60 years, something gradually but drastic has changed: everyone now wants to be one's own self-appointed leader. This is the inevitable evolutionary process of our time.
For me, the notion of the South African Twasa has become the most powerful metaphor for the major underlying challenge of every individual who is seeking conscious personal change, regardless of the symptom that triggered their motivation. And no one needs an external leader for one's own initiation any more. The time for that is over. Isis, Osiris, Moses' Burning Bush, Persephone, Percival's Holy Grail, and the priest at the altar representing an external God – are all inside now. Our great beloved Nelson Mandela's 27 years in prison prepared him to lead South Africa out of 50 years of Apartheid – but he was our last great leader in South Africa, maybe the last one in the world. A decisive step in human evolution is taking place: leadership training has moved to the inside of the soul. We don't need an external soul leader any more, but a temporary 'midwife' could help: 'A skilled Friend on the Threshold'. Initiation was always a leadership training process for the evolution of consciousness. It is moving to the inside of everyone's life now, as a potential.
The initiation tradition of the Australian Aboriginal people is considered to be 40,000 years old. They are still speaking about the mysterious collective 'Dreamtime' state of consciousness as the origin of their spiritual life now. The rest of us are painfully waking up to our individualised remnant of our reduced spirituality in the form of our individual thinking, our analytical sharp mind, our isolation from the spirit of nature, our isolation from the spiritual world, from each other, from the given meaning of our individual lives, our relentlessly growing individuality. This is the 'Wilderness and Desolation' of our cut-off soul life. But from there we, or at least some of us everywhere – are slowly waking up to the re-appearance of a new spiritual dimension of our reality – from within. It seems there is no way back to the dreamy spiritual dimension of our life, only forward and in full consciousness. 'The only way out – is through".
Crossing the individual threshold
A higher potential hovers above and is stirring inside everyone, very close and getting closer. We are all on a threshold. Most people are 'pregnant' with the next step of their personal development. If they don't take the initiative to grow and deliver that 'inner baby' – they become sick, one way or another. It may kill them. We are all in our 'Twasa'. We will only recover until we take consciously that inner step. This is not about feeling better, being happier, being pain-free, being successful in the outer world and the eyes of others.
Personal development is not a luxury social item. It is a serious 'core business', an essential human need. It has the same force as the birthing of a child, the growing of teeth, of standing upright, or learning to speak; the transformation into the sexual maturity of adolescence. These processes are physically visible and predictable. Soul and spiritual development are not physically visible, but they are as real and powerful, inevitable, and unstoppable. Everyone will become unwell, one way or another, unless and until they consciously pick up the threads of individual, conscious personal development, and move into one's own unique path of development. Everyone has his/her own Twasa. And they can only be guided in it from the inside.
This is where evolution is vested now, not in outer nature. Mother Earth is growing old. She is past menopause: no more babies. She does not seem to be creating more species of animals and plants any more. She is only losing many of them every day. The only constant change that is taking place in nature these days is the human beings' progressive destruction of it. Even the pace of that destruction has become a consequence of the evolution of human consciousness. The baton of evolution has passed to the human being's inner development now. Evolution now is what we do with ourselves.
There is an essential difference between natural evolution and human evolution: natural evolution, from a human perspective, is a natural force that takes place without human intervention. It happened 'naturally', whatever that means. Whether or not there was consciousness involved in natural evolution is a matter of opinion, speculation or Spiritual Science which normal mortals cannot verify. It was not human consciousness that produced nature and ourselves.
But human evolution can only happen now consciously and by personal initiative. In fact, all human evolution has always been primarily evolution of consciousness, but unconscious to most of us. Nothing else changes externally until consciousness changes, sometimes forward, sometimes backwards, as we all see in front of our eyes now on the screen of world news. Organisations and countries don't change any more unless people change individually, for good or bad. Changes are indeed taking place without a stop, expressed in what we view as world news. But all news these days is world news - the external symptoms of evolutionary reality which underlays every aspect of our lives.
There is applied social science research that I conduct in every second public lecture that I give in all the countries in which I teach. I ask the audience: "How many of you would choose consciously to raise your children the way you were raised yourself?". On average one in 30 will raise their hands. All the others will choose to raise their children differently. Next question: "How many of you would choose consciously to conduct your relationship with your intimate partners the way your parents conducted theirs?". On average one in 50 will raise their hand. All the others would choose to relate to intimate partners differently. Why?
Because they reflected on their past experiences and did not like most of what they saw, and made a free choice to create another way of parenting, another standard of intimate relationship, not following their parents. There is nothing at all any more to follow. That is conscious evolution.
This is why self-awareness and personal development are the two sides of the same process. You cannot change anything that you do not observe. The most skilled computer nerd in the world must display the data on a visible screen to change it.
Every step in personal evolution starts from a step in the further awakening of the individual human 'I', the source of all consciousness – further and deeper into one's own soul (psyche, experience). Habits cannot see themselves. Only the activated 'I' at the center of the individual soul can take the initiative to observe oneself. That initiative is the pre-condition for any personal development. It is also the inevitable pre- requisite for any step in the development of interpersonal empathy. These two are happening together, or not at all.
The individual ‘I’ initiatives in the soul
In Psychophonetics we have identified 7 'Initiatives' of the human 'I' inside the individual soul (psyche, experience):
'I' acknowledge that there is something I need to observe in myself and to change in the dynamics of my own reality.
'I' explore and observe my own experience.
'I' own and take responsibility for my own experience.
'I' choose what meaning I give to my own experience.
'I' apply my ethics, morality and values to my re-evaluation of my own experience.
'I' make a free choice regarding the right action which is guided by my values at the time.
'I' act on my own new choice.
Number 2 in this list, exploring and observing one's own experience, is the threshold between sustainable, progressive evolutionary personal development – and regression and repetition of past patterns with diminishing returns. Without a deeper, clearer new observation of our automatic operation as it is – no real change is possible. Such self-observation requires what seems impossible at first: having a perspective between one's awareness and one's experience. How can a part of me see the whole of me? How can the intellect, a product of the soul - observe the soul? A new 'internal mirror' is required for that.
Activating deep intelligence
The intellect is the centre of reflective intelligence. It can observe the outer world but it cannot observe one's own soul. A new consciousness within the 'I' regarding one's own experience is required for that. In Psychophonetics, a method of self-awareness which evolved out of initiatory transformational theatre, we have identified 4 modes of what we call 'Deep Intelligence" with which to activate the potential for self- observation which is dormant in every human 'I': 1) Sense Intelligence - Sensing inner experience in the body through the 'Sense of Life' by which every sentient creature can feel physical pain and pleasure. It can be extended to the sensing of the impact of emotions on our body, 'sensing the soul' as if with an extension of existing neurons. That intelligence opens the first perspective between the 'I' and one's own experience which intellectual verbal communication alone cannot provide; 2) Gesture Intelligence – expressing the sensed experience spontaneously but consciously in a bodily gesture. That opens the doors for Intuitive Perception of the soul, uniting the central and the autonomic nerve systems for a moment; 3) Visualisation Intelligence – consciously creating pictorial images of one's own sensed and gestured experience, using what we call in Methodical Empathy 'Imaginative Perception' – towards oneself; 4) Sound Intelligence (or Vibrational Intelligence) – finding the right sound from the variety of the universal human alphabet, consonants, vowels and their combinations, which in their vibrational reality can match precisely the explored experience. That opens the doors to what we call 'Inspirational Perception' and 'Intuitive Perception' of the soul.
Empathy – Present evolutionary phase
Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition
This is the foundation of Methodical Empathy: with Imaginative Perception one can 'See' one's own subjective experience – which leads one to the ability to 'See' the experience of others; with Inspirational Perception one can start to 'Hear' one's own experience, which in time leads to the capacity to 'Hear' others from their inside; with Intuitive Perception – one can start to 'know' one's own experience consciously from the inside of that experience, developing 'Objective perception of one's own Subjectivity – which leads in time to the capacity to know others from their own inside. See me, Hear me, Know me – these are the three core competencies of Psychophonetics based Methodical Empathy which together make the new cutting edge of human conscious evolution: Methodical Empathy.
Indeed, conscious methodical empathy is a cutting edge of human conscious evolution today. The long-term future of humanity is empathy, if humanity and the earth are to have a future at all. In Methodical Empathy – self-knowledge, personal development and social-environmental sustainability – are becoming one.
This is an introduction to 'Conscious Evolution Now – an Individual Act of Freedom'.
More on Psychophonetics-based Methodical Empathy in the next article – Yehuda Tagar
Yehuda Tagar, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Yehuda Tagar is the founder of Psychophonetics Institute International and co-director of Skola Empatie - School of Empathy, in Slovakia, where he teaches Methodical Empathy - a method of deepening one's ability to See, Hear and Know oneself - generating the empathic capacity of Seeing, Hearing and Knowing another's reality. Methodical Empathy is the core practice within Psychophonetics Counselling and Psychotherapy. "The future of humanity is empathy, if humanity has a future at all." YT.
