Roadmap to conscious living (draft 2)

This second draft provides a comprehensive exploration of human consciousness, individuality, and collective behavior. It delves deep into the intricacies of human nature, our automatic behaviors, and the potential for alignment and self-awareness. Here’s a brief summary of the main points:

0. Introduction: The draft begins by highlighting the challenges humanity faces due to rapid technological advancements. It emphasizes the need for introspection and a reevaluation of our values and behaviors.

1. Mapping the Individual: This section introduces the concept of “the five levels of the self” and “the skeleton of the self.” It presents a framework for understanding the human experience and the various facets of our identity.

2. Building the Collective: The draft scales up from the individual to discuss larger societal structures. It introduces the concepts of “nano,” “micro,” “macro,” and “mundo” to describe different levels of collective consciousness.

3. Recognizing Consciousness: This section delves into the overarching concept of consciousness, discussing its hierarchy and how it encompasses all other levels of individual and collective experience.

4. Facing Automatic Pilot: The draft touches on the idea that humans often operate on “automatic pilot” to conserve energy. This automatic behavior can lead to misalignment and conflict.

5. Creating Alignment: The primary challenge for humanity is to align our individual and collective behaviors to maximize positive impacts and minimize negative ones. This section discusses the importance of self-awareness and conscious choice in achieving alignment.

6. Understanding Well-being and Disease, Flourishment and Conflict: This section contrasts the outcomes of alignment (well-being and flourishment) with those of misalignment (disease and conflict).

7. Exploring Meditation: Meditation is presented as a tool for achieving self-awareness, self-management, and alignment. It emphasizes the importance of presence and love in meditation practices.

8. Mapping the Journey: The draft outlines a three-step process for personal growth and consciousness expansion: self-knowledge, self-improvement, and spreading.

Overall, the draft offers a holistic view of human nature, consciousness, and the potential for growth and alignment. It combines philosophical insights with practical tools and frameworks, providing readers with a comprehensive guide to understanding themselves and their place in the world.

“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”
― Edward O. Wilson

0. INTRODUCTION

· As humanity keeps exploring the outcomes of the industrial and digital (r)evolution, the more negative its downsides are and the more obvious our limitations become.

· At the individual level, we are seeing a decline in mental and physical health fueled by increasing levels of stress. At a collective level, we have strong manifestations of unprecedent inequalities and increases in systemic violence among us and over natural resources.

· Because of the way we treat our planet and each other, we are already facing some big problems and eventually we could fall victim to an extinction-level catastrophe. Be it the whole climate change issue, artificial intelligence taking over, global pandemics, or nuclear war — any of these challenges could really mess everything up.

· In this special times, we need to rethink what being human is all about and figure out how to be happier, live more mindfully, treat each other right, and take care of our Earth.

1. MAPPING THE INDIVIDUAL

· No matter what our gender is, if any, we human beings can easily recognize our life experience at five levels: situational-self (or social-self), mental-self, emotional-self, physical-self and energetic-self (or spiritual-self). In this framework, we call them “the fives levels of the self”. We illustrate these levels in five concentric circles, from situational-self inwards to the energetic-self. These levels are organized around two axes. The horizontal axis refers to the time (the past is on the left, being memory the key concept; the future is on the right, being vision the key concept). The present is where the past and the future meet and influence each other (being present the key concept). Both memory and future represent the narrative-self; the present represent the experiencing-self. The vertical axis refers to the energy in life (the masculine yang is up, being closing the key concept; the feminine yin is down, being opening the key concept). The center is where the masculine and the feminine meet and complement each other (being balance the key concept).

· Additionally, there is this thing we called “the skeleton of the self” that we humans are unaware of and that fully conditions our experience in life. This skeleton of the self is made up of five elements: attention, intention, attitude, action, and impact. We illustrate these elements organized in two triangles. The upper triangle is attention, intention, and attitude; the lower triangle is attitude, action and impact; attitude connects both triangles into a sand-clock form. The upper triangle corresponds to the being, the mind, the subjective; the lower triangle corresponds to the doing, the body, the objective. Attitude represents embodiment.

· The “skeleton of the self” is the unfolding of our energetic-self and moves the “five levels of the self”. When together and overlapped, “the fives levels of the self” plus “the skeleton of the self” create “the map of the self”, or simply “the self”, which illustrates the foundational experience of any individual human being. Self-awareness, self-knowledge and self-management gets an easier understanding by using “the map of the self” as a conceptual framework. The reason-why we name it “the skeleton of the self” is because it is a skeleton (something hidden but omnipresent in all beings which is key to explain any experience or movement) and also because it moves “the self”.

2. BUILDING THE COLLECTIVE

· The same way that there is “the skeleton of the self” at the individual level, there are different skeletons at the collective level. In this context, we recognize the individual as “nano” and aggregate the nano into different levels of the collective: the institution as “micro”, the society as “macro” and the globe as “mundo”. The skeletons of the collective are also composed of attention, intention, attitude, action and impact, but shared-attention, shared-intention, shared-attitude, shared-action and shared-impact. The upper triangle corresponds to the shared-mind (or collective mind); the lower triangle corresponds to shared-body (or collective body). Aggregation happens through communication in all its forms, and specially, through the stories that we tell, and we are told. These shared elements are present in all the skeletons, but with different names, mismatched meanings and bigger implications.

· “The skeleton of the institution” is a concept that describes how “the self” scales up in the collective as a set of individuals that form a micro level group for various reasons, such as biological, cultural, economic, or political. The skeleton of the institution is also a shared-skeleton composed of shared-attention, shared-intention, shared-attitude, shared-action and shared-impact, but commonly recognized with different names and with broader implications than the skeleton of the self. The skeleton of the institution is a way to understand how we can create and participate in communities. A special case of the institution are business corporations.

· “The skeleton of society” is a concept that describes how “the self” scales up in the collective as systems which are a set of institutions interacting with each other at a macro level. The skeleton of society is also a shared-skeleton composed of shared-attention, shared-intention, shared-attitude, shared-action and shared-impact, but commonly recognized with different names and broader implications than the skeleton of the self or the skeleton of the institution. The skeleton of society is a way to understand how we can participate in the collective, indirectly through institutions, or directly through specific actions or interactions such as voting, working, buying or watching. A special case of society level are industries, economy and capitalism.

· “The skeleton of mundo” is a concept that describe the playing field of all systems and societies. We call it also “humanity”. The “mundo collective” is so big that we individuals don’t have any access at all to whatever the situations are as there is always the intermediation of layers and layers of institutions and systems. Eventually, we individuals can participate through very specific actions (or maybe inter-actions) of engagement, like large demonstrations or wars. The skeleton of mundo is also a shared-skeleton composed of shared-attention, shared-intention, shared-attitude, shared-action and shared-impact, but commonly recognized with different names and broader implications than the skeleton of the self or the skeleton of the institution or the skeleton of society.

· It is important to notice that a small minority of human beings or individuals perform on behalf of (the skeleton of) institutions, societies and humanity through very specific roles. These individuals are commonly referred to as “leadership elites”, or simply “elites”. The same way, a small minority of institutions perform on behalf of (the skeleton of) societies and humanity through their very specific roles. These institutions are commonly referred to as “corporations” and “governments”.

· In this framework, machines and technology (in its widest conceptual meaning) that restore and/or enhance and/or amplify (the skeleton of) individuals, institutions and societies from the outside are to be understood as “the exoskeletons”; when they do it from the inside, they are to be understood as “the endoskeletons”.

· Additionally, within this framework, we could easily identify “the skeleton of non-human sentient beings” as “the skeleton of animals” and “the skeleton of plants”. Some people would even be open to consider that there is such a thing as “the skeleton of non-sentient beings”.

3. RECOGNIZING CONSCIOUSNESS

· “The skeleton of consciousness” is the ultimate level of scalation that includes all sentient beings at a global scale. When including all sentient beings and non-sentient being we call it “planet earth”. The skeleton of consciousness embeds the skeleton of mundo, which embeds all the skeletons of societies, which embeds all the skeletons of the institutions, which embeds all the skeletons of the self. It is understood as the field that contains them all, which manifests as the addition of them, and which tends toward their partial of full synchronization though communication and stories. When synchronized, harmony happens. When desynchronized, conflict happens. The skeleton of consciousness also is composed of attention, intention, attitude, action and impact, but all-attention, all-intention, all-attitude, all-action and all-impact. These elements are present in all the skeletons, but with narrower or broader meanings and implications. Special cases of the skeleton of consciousness, when anthropomorphized, are called “God” or “Mother Nature”.

· We call “the hierarchy of consciousness” to this Matryoshka hierarchical embedment of all different levels: self, institution, society, mundo, and consciousness. This embedding illustrates that each level influences the other levels, upwards and downwards, creating a hierarchy of complexity and interdependence. The embedding implies that we individuals can access and participate in different levels of the collective. The embedding also implies that we individuals are part of a larger whole that influences us (with teachings, ideologies, and affiliation) and that we can influence back through our actions and interactions.

· We use the skeleton of consciousness as the key concept of this framework as it fully summarizes everything inside while keeping full visibility of the five elements (attention, intention, attitude, action, and impact) which we need to recognize and manage at all different levels of the hierarchy (self, institution, society and mundo).

· A special case is to be done regarding “impact” as it is which fully aggregates the activity of all individuals and collectives and accumulates it over time. Conceptually, individual impact can be wellbeing (positive) or suffering (negative); institutional impact can be results (positive) or externalities (negative); society impact can be creation (positive) or destruction (negative); and mundo impact can be survival (positive) or extinction (negative).

· Overall, this also explains why we all commonly like to think about “consciousness” as filled with the good (positive) and empty of the bad (negative). On the lowest individual level, we consider benevolence when the individual manifest herself as positive impacts and malevolence when she manifests herself as negative impacts.

4. FACING AUTOMATIC PILOT

· Living in consciousness requires a lot of energy. We humans have adapted to live mostly on automatic pilot to save energy and keep it available just in case.

· Automatic pilot happens when attention is very low (or do not exist at all) and we react. By reaction we mean that intention, attitude, action, and impact are unmanaged in the present moment and occur as a by-product of something experienced and learned in the past, or as a result of the influence of any other level or levels of the hierarchy of consciousness.

· Conceptually, automatic pilot at the individual level manifests as routines, habits, and beliefs; at the institutional level, as customs, processes, and principles; at the society level, as traditions, laws, and public opinion.

· A special case regarding automatic pilot are the structures created by humans to guide us when in automatic pilot. These structures consolidate and force behaviors, becoming “structures of automatic pilot”. The skeleton of institutions and the skeleton of societies could be considered structures themselves that guide individuals when in automatic pilot. Signals, infrastructures, and institutional software are also good examples.

5. CREATING ALIGNMENT

· Our main challenge as human beings are the alignment of the skeleton of consciousness at its different hierarchical levels so as maximizing positive impacts (wellbeing, results, creation, and survival) while minimizing or restoring negative impacts (suffering, externalities, destruction, or extinction). This is why we can refer to the alignment of the self, the alignment of the institution, the alignment of society and the alignment of mundo as different levels of the same challenge.

· In this framework, alignment demands doublechecking and/or stepping out of automatic pilot by opening to alternatives and enter into full free-choice of the self (which we refer as free-will, agency or conscious behavior).

· Alignment has two movements: alignment inside happens when intention, attitude and actions align into a coherent purpose; alignment outside happens when attention, purpose and impact align into a positive outcome.

· Alignment has two levels: individual alignment happens when with alignment inside and alignment outside in the skeleton of the self; collective alignment happens with alignment inside and alignment outside in the skeleton of the collective.

6. UNDERSTANDING WELL-BEING AND DISEASE, FLOURISHMENT AND CONFLICT

· Well-being and flourishment are the manifestations of alignment, while disease and conflict are the manifestations of misalignment (or unchecked automatic pilot).

· When individual alignment happens, concepts like purpose, meaning, flow, trust, hope and faith come into play in our individual experience; when individual misalignment happens, concepts like emptiness, burnout, mental illness, distrust, depression and conspiracy take force inside us. Thus, transparency about the skeletons gets full importance.

· When individual misalignment happens, automatic pilot behavior mismatches the present moment and creates all types of negative impacts. Disease and suffering are our inner reaction in the self to a mismatched automatic pilot:

o In the energetic-self, it feels unbalanced or stagnant and manifests as blockages and closure.

o In the physical-self, it manifests anywhere from headaches, back pains, to arthritis or cancer.

o In the emotional-self, it manifests as anger, phobias, depression or rage.

o In the mental-self, it manifests as narrow-minded, fundamentalism and distrust.

o In the situational-self, it manifests as disrespected behavior towards the collective.

· A special case occurs within the emotional-self as emotions finetune with alignment. Positive emotions trigger when outside alignment causes positive outcomes, while negative emotions trigger when outside alignment causes negative outcomes.

· When collective misalignment happens, collective automatic pilot behavior mismatches the present moment and creates all types of negative impacts. These negative impacts manifest as nonsense, injustice and conflict at the collective level. Conflict is our collective reaction to a mismatched automatic pilot in the collective.

7. EXPLORING MEDITATION

· Meditation practice is all about training our skeleton of the self so we doublecheck and/or go out of automatic pilot by opening to alternatives and enter into full free-choice management and alignment of the self (which we refer as free-will, agency or conscious behavior).

· This only will happen when individuals reach an observer’s perspective about the self (usually referred as meta-attention) so being able to enter into self-knowledge and self-management. This is about creating objectivity of our subjective experiences, and moving from existential, subjective towards experiential, objective. These are the foundations of meditation.

· Although meditation is offered mainly at the individual level, there are also some meditation and training practices at the collective level that extend individual meditation to the skeleton of the institution.

· The key skills to embody during meditation are presence and love (beautifully referred as “breath and smile”):

o With “presence” we mean “presence on demand” so we can align the self on demand to the here and the now with calmness. This presence will grow as “conscious presence” when we are able to embrace the hierarchy of consciousness. Conscious presence builds with the virtuous cycle of practicing “presence outside” and “presence inside”.

o With “love” we mean “love on demand” so we can fill on demand the present self with a loving attitude which is open, curious, and non-judgmental. This love will grow as “conscious love” when we are able to embrace the hierarchy of consciousness. Conscious love builds with the virtuous cycle of practicing “love outside” and “love inside”.

· The short-term fruits of sustained meditation come as better self-knowledge and self-management, as it is the self what we will get to know better so we will be able to manage better, which is the same as cultivating calmness in the self-knowledge and self-management process. Otherwise, we can lose direction and motivation in our practice (and in our life) and end up with the wrong fruits.

· The long-term fruits of a sustained meditation come as an embodied “loving action” towards the self and towards others, which is the same as cultivating positive impact at all the levels of the hierarchy of consciousness, especially as we recognize that we will never know it all and we are always surrounded by uncertainty in the midst of the unknown. Otherwise, we can lose direction and feed the hierarchy with negative impacts.

· The maximum “follow your heart” integrates the qualities of alignment through conscious presence and conscious love after a sustained and fruitful meditation practice.

8. MAPPING THE JOURNEY

· As we keep on with our meditation practice, we will enter into “the dance to consciousness”, a three-movement process with several steps inside that we organize as “M1. Self-knowledge”, “M2. Self-improvement”, and “M3. Spreading”.

o M1: self-knowledge, which includes self-perception, self-discovery, self-feeling and de-identification;

o M2: self-improvement, which includes self-order & self-balance (the categories of the self), self-motivation (envisioning, alignment), self-transcendence, self-sacrificing & self-unblocking (the boxes of the self), and embodiment;

o M3: spreading, which includes reversion, expansion & spreading (the powers toolbox, the dancing skeleton)

· All these movements and steps are not lineal either sequential at all, but a permanent moving back and forward. This is why we call it a dance. In fact, life itself pushes us forward in “the dance to consciousness” through all type of personal, professional and natural events, but meditation offers us a different, voluntary and more controlled dance.

· Our commitment to the practice of meditation through repeatedly dancing “the dance to consciousness” will eventually bring us into awareness of “the skeleton of consciousness” (and “the hierarchy of consciousness” within), the playing field for relieving suffering and creating wellbeing 360º inside us and around us, which is the foundation for a more meaningful life and a more beautiful world.

· This framework concludes by proposing “the roadmap to consciousness” as a visual roadmap which gives clarity to the possible path ahead of any sustained and well-oriented meditation practice.

· This visual roadmap builds comfort and bridges of understanding and integration around disciplines that arrive disconnected but have the individual at the center. Some of this disciplines come with full meaning, like meditation, spirituality, religion, personal growth, wellbeing, psychology, leadership, or activism, while others arrive usually labeled with words like conscious, mindful, healthy, sustainable, or social.

· Eventually, this roadmap will help individuals move forward with their practice while preventing them from interrupting at an illusionary end or falling into some of the many pitfalls along the way.

9. EMBEDDING AI

· A very special case just happened with the newborn relationship between human beings and Artificial Intelligence. Somehow, “the skeleton of AI” needs to be defined, aligned and integrated into the “hierarchy of consciousness” in such a way that it fully synchronizes and creates full harmony. Any partial synchronization will eventually end as a conflict between human beings (at all levels) and AI, with an impact as negative as catastrophic as the extinction of humanity.

[ANNEX. A MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR CONSCIOUSNESS]