Practices that Ensoul the Cosmos*
Expressions of Connectedness
What would it be like to flow the universe? To be so attuned to the warp and weft of the dynamics of change that your every thought, action and inaction contributed to the emergence of life affirming, future creating, opportunity increasing relationships — consciously, purposefully, intentionally, and yet effortlessly, genuinely, naturally? Maybe you’ve had moments when you experienced this complete consonance with the flow of life — what Teilhard de Chardin would have referred to as an experience of syntony[1] — and if you have, you know that it can’t be forced or made to happen.
But like the mythical Jedi Knight who learns how to master the Force, so can we learn the everyday magic of right alignment as the true expression of the voice of the universe emerging from moment to moment in that sacred dance of being and becoming.
Like all forms of truly creative and life-affirming dance, this can only be done in relationship — with oneself, with others, with nature, with the potential inherent in the bridge we represent between what has been and what is yet to be, and ultimately with the quintessential anima mundi that undergirds all of everything. And it involves training — and practice. Lots of practice, even though learning to develop your syntony sense is more like learning how to love than it is like following a manual of instructions for how to do something in particular.
Making yourself available to the flow of life in this self-evolving universe is truly the simplest and most natural thing in the world. And yet, as soon as you stop to reflect on what is going on, or think about it in any way, you snap out of syntony and are no longer in tune, no longer living in the moment. You are thinking about what just happened, distilling it into words and freezing the moment so that you can reflect on it. This lands you just behind the present, always catching up to it, thinking about everything that just happened, as it is just happening.
If you could simply turn off what psychologists call the “monkey mind” — that part of your consciousness that keeps up the incessant chatter in your head, constantly commenting on everything — then you might be able to make yourself more available to the life-informing flows of energy and information streaming through Gaia from the Cosmos. Quieting the monkey mind, and releasing into the moment (without the need to “do anything” with it, just being present — fully present), and then allowing your perceptions to flow with whatever arises in your field of awareness, this is the practice. Three simple steps that take a lifetime to cultivate. The end result is greater flow with what’s going on in your life, a greater sense of connectedness with yourself, with others, with nature, with your ancestors and those who will come after you, and even with other times and places of the cosmos.
The challenge is to not only be open and available to the energy/information flows from the deep dimension of the cosmos, but also to incorporate those flows in an embodied practice through which you enact each moment as an expression of the ensouled cosmos. David Price writes of engaging in a daologue with Earth (Price 2015). He asks, “how might we listen and act differently given this perception of the conversation of the Earth, this enveloping planetary layer, this connecting and collecting intelligence, this sum of all dialogues: this Daologue?” By engaging in such a deep dimension daologue we participate in the world narrative that forms the bigger story of our individual and collective being and becoming. The quality and character of this story depend on the way in which we author our life throughout five domains or spheres of syntony.
There are practices you can do at each level to sharpen your syntony sense:
1. First Syntony Sphere — the domain of conviviality with oneself; internal or intra-personal availability — the practices involve centering, quieting the monkey-mind, listening with every cell of our being. These practices cultivate intuition, empathy, compassion, insight that matches outsight, and a willingness to explore and follow our deepest calling.
2. Second Syntony Sphere — the domain of conviviality with others; community or inter-personal availability — the practices involve deep dialogue and collaboration. Coming together to learn with and from each other and to engage in coordinated action with considerateness, openness, and joy in order to enable collective wisdom.
3. Third Syntony Sphere — the domain of conviviality with nature; ecosystemic or trans-species availability — the practices involve communing; listening to the messages of all beings (whether they be waterfalls, animals, mountains or galaxies) and acknowledging our interdependence and ultimate unity.
4. Fourth Syntony Sphere — the domain of conviviality with ancestors and future generations; evolutionary or trans-generational availability — the practices involve listening to the voices of those who have come long before us and prepared the ground for our own being in the here and now. Simultaneously, it involves sensing into future generations and what kind of history would best serve them for us to create in the here and now. These practices cultivate our ability to flow with the process of being and becoming that gives direction, dimension and meaning to our life.
5. Fifth Syntony Sphere — the domain of conviviality with the deep dimension of the cosmos; holotropic or pan-cosmic availability — the practices involve learning to read the patterns of change of which we are a part; learning to hear the rhythms of life that emanate from the deepest dimension of the cosmos and becoming familiar with the improvisational jam session that nature has been playing since time immemorial. These practices cultivate our ability to play our own piece; to sing and dance our own path into existence in harmony with the grand patterns of cosmic creation and to participate in the ongoing flourishing of life.
Here are some questions to help guide your practice of availability within each of the Syntony Spheres:
In the first sphere (intra-personal availability):
- Who am I and what is my life’s purpose? What are my talents? To what do I feel called to contribute? What brings meaning to my life? What supports my personal development?
In the second sphere (inter-personal availability):
- What common cares bring us together? What is our shared vision? How do we want to contribute to the flourishing of life forever? Who are our partners and collaborators? What do we need to learn? What do we want to create? What is our value proposition or unique contribution to all our stakeholders? What affirms our values, identity and culture?
In the third sphere (trans-species availability):
- What gifts do we receive from nature that we have not acknowledged? What relationships and connections need to be restored? How can we contribute to the regeneration of our ecosystems? What would a thriving relationship with nature look like?
In the fourth sphere (trans-generational availability):
- What would our ancestors think of our work and life? What would our children’s children think of our choices? How do we honor our past and create our future intentionally? How do we become active and conscious participants in the unfolding of life?
In the fifth sphere (pan-cosmic availability):
- What messages come to us in moments of synchronicity, in dreams, when we feel we are having a déjà vu experience, or in “eureka moments” or flashes of insight and sudden inspiration when we feel truly aligned and connected with something greater than ourselves?
Integral syntony occurs when all five Syntony Spheres become coherently aligned in daily practice, resulting in full-spectrum engagement with life. This is when you participate in the ensoulment of the cosmos and, in the process, become richly ensouled by it. At a time characterized by VUCA[2] dynamics (Laszlo 2019) exacerbated by our rush to “solve the problem” of a global pandemic (Laszlo 2020) and the concomitant rise of “deepfake” news (Toews 2020), the need for practices that connect and orient has become a heartfelt necessity. Cultivating your syntony sense through the kind of practices described here is a powerful way to strengthen your inner compass. Once you begin doing this, you can develop your own practices of availability and connectedness.
Here are some open-ended questions to help you personalize your practice of syntony:
What practices do you have that help you come into coherence along the five domains of your own lifeworld; practices that bring you into the non-reflective moment in which you are truly present to yourself, to others, to nature, to past and future generations of all beings throughout spacetime, and to the transcendent dimensions of the world? And when you align all five spheres so that they live coherently in you, how does your experience of life change?
* Modified excerpt from Part 2 — “Connecting to the Holotropic Quantum Universe” published in -
RECONNECTING TO THE SOURCE:
The New Science of Spiritual Experience
— How It Can Change You, How It Can Transform the World
by Ervin Laszlo
with an Introduction by Deepak Chopra
and with contributions by
Kingsley Dennis, Shamik Desai, Alexander Laszlo
[St. Martin’s Press, New York — 2020]
[1] Syntony is a creative aligning and tuning with the evolutionary processes of which we are a part.
[2] VUCA stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.
References
Laszlo, Alexander (2020). “No Time to Rush” on Medium.com, 28 April. [https://medium.com/@Alex8er/no-time-to-rush-bbcaf2404e35]
Laszlo, Alexander (2019). “Learning how to Human better through Syntony” in EARTHwise Centre, Mauritius: EARTHwise Publications, 3 September. [https://www.earthwisecentre.org/blog/learning-how-to-human-better-through-syntony/]
Price, David (2014). “Daologue” in Open to Persuasion… open reasoning in a complex world, 22 May. [http://opentopersuasion.com/2014/05/22/daologue/]
Toews, Rob (2020). “Deepfakes Are Going To Wreak Havoc On Society. We Are Not Prepared” on Forbes.com, 25 May.[https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2020/05/25/deepfakes-are-going-to-wreak-havoc-on-society-we-are-not-prepared]
