Mass consciousness and Individual consciousness - some observations

Mass consciousness is such a vast, generic idea that any observations, thoughts about it manage to sound quite pompous (at least to me, if I sit down to write these ideas – which, somehow, don’t feel quite so pompous in my head). Given my innate humongous wish to live in a world ruled by parameters that today seem to not exist – I hv always been an observer, following changes in consciousness trends, and what seems to hv an influence on them. Firstly, I think it is people like me – or rather people who hv deep deep deep inside seated wishes like me - to be participant in a different world, a world which would allow for experiences of each being feeling: supported, safe, a knowingness all it wishes for will be provided by a loving Universe, uplifted by the presence of love in all hearts. A world which allows for movement between dimensions, so a loved one on the other side is only a wish away, a world where very soon the death process only becomes obsolete, and experiencing existence in different dimensions is an uplifting, reversible process. Yes. There are many others like me. Many many more than you would think. In fact, perhaps these wishes (a little suppressed sometimes, maybe) exist in every heart, I would even venture to say. And so it becomes second nature to me – living breathing these wishes all the time – to see where the world is going. For this my perspective has to constantly shift from zoom out to zoom in – zi to observe/study specific events, situations, people – and zo to study/observe their effect on mass consciousness (yikes now even the term is beginning to sound pompous!!! So it is MC from now on) So, plodding on. Determinedly, till I start to make a little better sense. I feel there are good things and bad things which have been shaping world consciousness into a very accelerated growth pattern over the last couple of decades. Everytime there is a disaster – an earthquake, an aircrash, anything terrible at all – there is less and less of us who do not feel the pain and the grief of those it happened to. 9/11, 26/11 in that sense happened to all of us. Except those who would still choose to inflict pain. Anyhow, the point is , those of us who hv felt the pain of others has increased exponentially, those of us who would wish these experiences away from all human experience has increased exponentially, those of us who would wish for the world I speak of has INCREASED – mass consciousness has become aware, sensitized to its ownself, and what it wants. A very cursory look at MC over the last few centuries will show this is very fast growth in a very short space of time. The internet, in all its myriad forms, permutations and combinations has of course played its role in developing and bringing different streams of consciousness together. A good thing which also influences MC is cinema. Now, I am not overtly influenced by world cinema, although I am sure it has an effect. Its just that I don’t have a sense of it, because for some weird reason I do not hv a connect with cinema produced beyond Indian shores. I feel films in the west seem to not hv a line to my heart, and in any case a lot of their films seem to be a bit depressing (whether films should or should not be so, whether well made true to life stories makes good cinema is really a matter of personal choice – it’s just not my choice, that’s all). The only production I really enjoy is Friends – a bit more on that later. For me, good cinema has to be uplifting, enlightening and entertaining. People whose work I connect with the mostest are Aditya Chopra/Yash Chopra, SRK and Karan Johar. Nagesh Kukunoor’s Dor also made me feel very good, because all the lines seemed to hv been written by me! Aaja Nachle – took me to when I had gone to see Shiamak’s version of Phantom of the Opera (my first live experience of a stage show) and how the experience seemed to open up my whole heart mind body system! I knew then the purpose of Art – to create the shift from everyday mindspace to euphoric heartspace – tis what the core value of Aaja Nachle was all about, wasn’t it? I love Aditya Chopra for attempting to seed/feed MC with this value. Everytime a woman’s sexuality was looked down upon down the millennia, or she was made scapegoat in someway because of her sexuality or otherwise, seems to hv evoked a response in Aditya Chopra’s heart which gave us the core values of Laaga Chunari mein Daag. Mohabbatein showcased love that was at once personal and beyond the personal – universal almost. Adi and Shahrukh gave this so much conviction and class I get goosebumps watching it even today! How many times have we thought/dreamed of love in idealistic thoughts – hv we all not at sometime been at one with the idea of love that transcended all things, a love so perfect where the loved one was worthy of worship, where we just knew no sacrifice would be too great to make – we’ve all been there I think. Yashji took us there in Veer Zaara. Rani’s role was beautifully scripted too. A whole new sensibility in boygirl friendships, fun and crackling with the best chemistry ever, a tingling sex scene (minus any proper sex) – the red saree one – and a general feel good wholesome feeling is what I took home from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai – and the rest of the audience too, I suspect. Karan had a beautiful root thought for his film Kabhi Alvida na Kehna – that love cannot be put under a Contract (eg “marriage”) – that as people grow, evolve and change over the years, become different people really, it is not necessary that what brought them together in a union of love would still hold good x number of years down the road. In which case, sometimes the nature of the relationship changes into an equally satisfying togetherness friendship, or more often than not, creates a restlessness and a need to move on – which given our “moral” concepts, family situations et al is usually not considered a viable option. Films like this make us re-think our value systems, and how real are they juxtaposed against the reality that is life. In the context of the Indian mass consciousness these are important ideas for us to progress as a society. It’s not for nothing these films hv gone down so deep with audiences here and the world over. In their own different ways changing world consciousness forever, albeit subliminally.

myself processing life

For the longest time I can remember, I've wished to live in a different world to that which we find ourselves in. A world where there were no 'majbooris', nothing which created the feeling of helplessness. A place where the idea of fear did not exist. There was no suffering. Where you lived in the belief that the idea of You - as in an individual entity - was respected by all, especially the Universe in particular. Where nothing in the Universe could hurt your heart mind or body and leave you to wonder why and how this could happen in a Universe that was supposed to be in love with you. I wanted to live in a world where I felt safe, where everbody in the world felt safe, well and truly loved. And because I wished this, I felt this was somehow going to be possible. To begin with, the idea seemed too absurd to even voice. Slowly, consciousness around me opened up and allowed expression of these thoughts. A little further downstream I found other people had similar thoughts, wishes, dreams. And I began to hope. Below is an essay I had written about myself and these ideas - who I was innerly at that time some twelve-thirteen years ago. I realise I haven't changed much at all in this time. Okay so here goes: Who am I? The following is an essay on myself: Hi I am Nazreen Raza, seeking to be a part of the process of creating the new civilization. Who I am, and where I am coming from is a longish story, but I will try to encapsulate a bit of myself, as I am keen to make contact with others who are seeking as I am. I was born in an extremely conservative muslim family in a village in Bihar, India. The islamic religion in its most severe form dictated the lifestyle of my family. And yet, my parents, while a part of this, were somehow not rooted in this as severely as the rest of their family was/is. Also, my father worked for a company that took him, and us, all over the country, which also helped dilute the severe religious effect in our lives. Even so, RELIGION was a big deal, made especially so by the idea that by straying from the basic faith even one tiny little bit we would be severely punished. Questions were a big no-no. It took me the first twenty years of my life to shake this off. First, the fear, then the basic religion itself. I needed a new faith, and my search took me to practically all the religions of the world, and then to all the various philosophical texts, from Aristotle to Confucious to Ayn Rand to Linda Goodman – all had something to give me. I felt a sense of reaching somewhere when I first found Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull. From within myself, came the conditions necessary to propel me on this quest. My earliest memory of my inner psychological landscape is fear, the fear of losing somebody I loved. I remember this as one of my first memories of myself. My immediate family consists of my parents, my brother and my sister. This fear, which I think I was born with, provided the inner propulsion towards questions such as: Who am I? Am I just an entity who has to mindlessly submit to a fearsome God, in order to escape annihilation? Or just a victim of random circumstance, who has no choice in whatever happens to me? I was mortally afraid of the pain of losing a person I loved, and this fear, extreme to the point of paranoia, made me a) cherish the people I loved, explore their inner beauty, and to extend this process to all I met. b) seek a way of forever avoiding this pain. You see, I knew all about the afterlife, and people not really dying, but just changing form. I was completely aware that an entity is never destroyed, and that the other dimensions are just as real as this one. So I never feared death per se. But I did not understand why people had to become inaccessible upon dying, or why sometimes they had to experience pain in the process, or why people had to go through pain in any form, emotional or physical. I decided I did not buy into the pain process at all, never mind the information supplied by the newspapers and my environment in general. And then there loomed the spectre of Jesus on the cross. I decided, sometime in 1985, that Christ was not crucified. This thought came to me with complete certainty, I knew this was true even as I knew I was alive. This thought also brought vague memories of the times of Christ, and my involvement in this. I know I was there, doing what, I don’t know. The next confirmation of me, myself and my path came to me in the form of the Seth series of books, in the early nineties. For the first time somebody said I create my reality, nobody else does. And I can create anything I want. A primer to my experience with the Seth books was Richard Bach’s Illusions – which illuminated a state of existence I had not known was possible. Seth’s information therefore fell on well-prepared ground, it sunk in deep. Seth also confirmed my intuition from 1985 that Christ was not crucified. After this my life became a process of actualizing this data for myself. I saw my wishes and desires as beacons pointing the way to myself. In attempting to actualize every single wish that came to me, I discovered more and more who I was, what I wanted, what my path was in this lifetime. The Celestine Prophecy, and the Tenth Insight were the next green signals I received from the Universe. Today, my need is for creative freedom – that is to actively, consciously create all experiences that lift me up up up and uncreate all experiences which do not. To experience the universe in the way of Donald Shimoda, a bank where I can reach out and draw everything I require. My need is also to experience a world where all peoples are able to actively, consciously create their own personal joyous state of existence, where the air is always pure to breathe, where the whole of mankind and all associated life-forms outgrow the pain/fear experience, where knowledge, joy, happiness, creativity, beauty and love create their own new brew of challenges. I seek to create a world where the parameters of existence are re-defined. Where everything that is born does not have to die an unwilling, unchosen death. Rather, the move to the afterlife dimension is a conscious, chosen, elevating experience. I feel in the world we are creating right now the process of dying as we know it today will be obsolete. This is most of who I am right now, not all, but most. My wish is to connect with more people who believe themselves to be creators of this new world.