We’re doing a week of talking about babies and working on completely rewriting our worldview, We are rewriting the way we see the thoughts that go through our head. Understanding that that’s just language. Our thoughts are nothing more than language that we’ve been given. We are reforming the stories that we’ve heard from history. The stories that tell us who human beings are and inform us who we are as well.
So, I’d like to point you at another book, another author and a new concept coming from Darcia Narváez, who is a co-author of ‘Restoring the Kinship Worldview.’ You can also dive into her work online. She has a website and has generated some interesting conversations around her idea. She calls it “The evolved nest.” She’s talking about the same worldview I was mentioning in my last video. (Remember, you need to watch this particular series in order in order to get the full story.)
We were talking about how in Aboriginal wisdom the baby is the center of the universe. The magnetic pull of a baby creates the very center of the universe. Now imagine people being raised in this nest of tremendous, joyous care. We are talking about a circle of care so much larger than one single mother has the ability to give to a baby. This is way more care than a mother and father, or a nuclear family can give. We’re talking a field of care where each person starts out as the center of all attention, every baby. And then as that baby grows, they then become the support of this evolved nest that takes care of everyone else.
When human beings are born and nurtured within this nest they grow integrated. I want to call it the ‘human bubble’ because everyone is in this bubble, part of this bubble with each other at all times. It’s a bubble you can never be out of. This cooperative, loving community is with each other through every stage of life. You’re part of this bubble right now… even if it is currently fragmented.
Imagine how different that paints the human experience. Even as I talk about it, I can feel my hormones relaxing in my body. Soak that up.
There’s a few things we need to understand about this evolved nest. None of us were raised in it, right? None of us alive today ever get to be raised in that. Didn’t happen for me. Didn’t happen for you. Doesn’t exist.
But… this is so important to understand. You are not a baby now. You are an adult. You are the person who is now capable of nurturing this evolved nest, of creating this bubble. The caring and giving part of the bubble is just as fulfilling as being the baby inside of it. The bubble still holds you. Yes… you are in it because you are now an adult and can point your attention towards care revolving within this circle of life.
Nothing is separate from anything else. Your giving to the bubble is just as fulfilling as being born in it. This is what we learn in Nonduality.
Imagine for just a moment that this awakened point of nothingness that’s described in Nonduality is awake in you right now. That you see everything as intertwined. Yes. That means you’re just as vital to this bubble right now as you would have been when you were a baby. So your job now is to create this bubble with every breath, to work on bringing human beings back together into this state of oneness with each other… and with the entire natural world—the air, and the water, and the earth. All the things we are part of, is also part of this evolved nest: of this human bubble.
This is a broader view of the goal of Nonduality than the one we are usually taught from the historical sources of this tradition. This is why I’m talking about Nonduality and Native wisdom—how we can start working these two ideas together.
Again, I want to emphasize that native wisdom does not need Nonduality. It’s the rest of us who need the this enlightenment so that we can step out of our conditionings. We can step into a place where we can start embracing this human bubble, this evolved nest. We can start participating in this worldview from wherever we are right now.
Feel it right now. Wherever you are right now, feel that place you are in. A solid place, being held onto the earth by gravity, surrounded by air. You’ve been nourished up to this point, maybe not perfectly what? Like, so what? So what if we weren’t nourished perfectly? We are now the nourishers. Being the nourisher is just as vital. It is just as exciting of a place to be.
If we can start bringing this worldview in, just think how powerful it is. We can stop our angst over the population explosion. Change your worldview… there are now eight billion nourishers available.
It brings forth a loving embrace of humanity, rather than our habitual disgust for everyone else.
You and me need to be right here, solid and strong. Bringing this in as much as possible.
Start broadening this idea of ‘Who am I?’ You are part of this evolved neural network that spreads across the entire globe. Human beings. We are an integral part of nature. We can start living our lives this way. Even with our plastic, even with our confusion, even as we awaken to the next steps towards sustainability. The more people who start walking this road, the more we’re going to learn how to talk about it in ways that make sense to other people.
Don’t think that I’m anything; I’m just a video on YouTube. I’m literally nothing. You’re sitting there, and you’re picking this up now. It’s up to you. The way you express this with other people turns it into a vital whole.
This is the human bubble that we’re all creating together. Nonduality is simply a tool to tell you that you are not your conditionings; you are something more vast than that. The native worldview is a fabulous story that helps us rebuild our connection with everything that’s around us, with everyone around us. We are all part of this evolved nest right now.
When we talk about things we bring new pictures into being. Things like the ‘seven generations.’ That’s become a meme, but are we going deep enough? People love to talk about seven generations when they’re talking about Native wisdom. It usually comes in the form of blaming others. Blaming all those others who aren’t thinking seven generations. Instead, let’s think about this in a broad and dynamic way that includes our every action.
What are we doing for this evolved nest this very moment? All of our actions feed into it, create it. Any time we are acting selfishly, we’re taking from it. And maybe that’s a good way to think of it: think of Nonduality as a way to step beyond your habitual selfishness. Everything in your mind habitually focuses towards selfishness because you’ve been trained that way. We are taught to be selfish.We’ve been told we are individuals and we have get everything for ourselves or perish. Survival of the fittest. Since the day we were born we were taught all this stuff I’ve been talking about in these last couple of weeks. You’ve been taught and taught and taught that you are this individual and you have to fight for your own.
Nonduality is a tool to say no. This simple tool of saying “Not two” leads us from division. We simply say “No” to our concepts. To every single one until we break free of them. It’s the end of selfishness.
Your actual being is so intertwined with the entire universe that selfishness literally cannot exist within that awake field. With enlightenment we’re looking to cut selfishness away, cut it away, cut it away. Anytime you staet thinking about ‘me, mine,’ you can just stop it. It’s just language in your head. Language, language. See it for what it is. See what it’s doing to you. Slice it away, and slice it away, and slice it away.
When language is gone then what is true? What is really true? You’ll find out that what is true is the human heart, the human expression of connectedness. Honor, truth, community, family, these things are true. You all by yourself is a lie. You can’t be all by yourself; you literally can’t. I mean, even if you die, you’re still not all by yourself; your molecules are somewhere, people you have met are still there with your memory. The trees and the rocks know and remember you. There is literally no way that you can separate yourself from everything. Nonduality enlightenment teachings are a tool to say, “Find the truth under the thinking. Find it by unhooking yourself from these habitual thoughts. Find out who is there within you.” That’s you.
I love this saying that is attributed to St. Francis: “What you’re looking for is where you’re looking from.” Access this as often as possible, step into it. This is you, a blooming, awake connected being creating this human bubble of awareness. This is how Nonduality and Native wisdom intersect.
We are not going to get to the place where native wisdom can speak to us by thinking of it. Strip ourselves of our habitual thinking and then we can abide there.