–

Audio eLesson_2013-0408

–

In the last lesson we looked at smaller cycles to gain awareness. We found that at the smallest levels, energy pulsates between the extremes of a cycle, between the inhalation and the exhalation, between day and night, between creation and destruction. We learned that at the smallest levels, duality falls away and we’re left with cycles that self perpetuate in the direction of increase or decrease as they transform. Let’s now look in the other direction. What happens when we look at larger cycles?
–
The first step we need to take when looking at larger cycles is identifying and valuing both parts of a cycle. So, for the breathing cycle, we include the inhalation and exhalation. Next we can expand to a larger breath cycle, a whole day, having an energized breath during the day when we’re active and a relaxing breath at night when we’re sleeping. We continue to expand to larger cycles, such as that of our lifetime. Our first breath, at birth, is an inhalation; our last breath, at death, is an exhalation. We also create children that begin breathing cycles, so the next larger cycle includes our families. But where does our family end? When we go back many generations, many thousands of years, we find that humanity is really one big pulsating breath cycle.
–
Let’s look at the cycles of rest/activity and creation/destruction together. We need to make sure we include the full cycle. For rest/activity we include the comfort of rest with the stress of being active. For creation/destruction we include creating what is new with destroying what is old. If we begin with a single day, we see that we’re active during the day and rest at night. If we begin with a single human lifetime, we see that we’re created at birth and destroyed at death.
–
The next larger cycle, of course, is our families. We create new life, our children, yet they too will die someday. Moving beyond our families, we see humanity cycling through ages of increase and decrease, ages of peace and ages of war. We can see this process in the evolution of human thought. Around 300BC we have an increase of creative thinking, occurring in Greece, India, and China, with the likes of Socrates, Buddha, and Lao Tzu. Then we have a decrease of creative thinking during the Middle Ages, then an increase during the Renaissance, etc. In the 19th and 20th centuries we see increase and decrease as one age matures and sets the stage for the next, beginning with the industrial age, which led to the information age, which is now leading to the conceptual age. As a new age is born, an old age dies.
–
One rotation of the Earth is one day. Larger cycles would include one revolution of the Earth around the Sun, then one revolution of our solar system around the center of the Milky Way galaxy, then one revolution of the Milky Way around the center of the Universe itself. But we don’t really stop there. After the Big Bang, the universe began expanding, increasing, but at some point it will decrease manifesting in the Big Collapse.
–
Expanding awareness needs to move us beyond our individual, ego selves. Ego is a contracted understanding of reality. It’s thinking of how we’re different than others. It’s looking at one part of a cycle. To become more aware we need to diminish this limited perspective. We do this by seeing how we are similar to others. By expanding to larger cycles we understand our interconnectedness. Doing this helps us be more effective in blending our energy with challenging situations in our lives.

–