Audio 18: You Are Not an Extra on the Set

The Greatest Story Ever Told: Audio series with Barbara Marx Hubbard & Marc Gafni

Dr. Marc Gafni:

Welcome, everyone, to podcast 18 in the Greatest Story Ever Told. We’re talking about the Unique Self Symphony. Unique Self Symphony is the next great evolutionary emergent. It’s something that never was before. It is the new instrument of redemption. It’s the new instrument of liberation. There’s not one redeemer, there’s not one liberator. There’s a Unique Self Symphony, which is an expression of the self-organizing universe, and that’s what we’ve been talking about for the last several podcasts.

What’s the basic principle that we talked about? It’s the principle of the self-organizing universe. The universe, whether it be an anthill, or whether it be slime molds that separate and then come back together, and know precisely how and when to do it, or whether it be the cells of a body that know which organ to form early on in the process of cell differentiation and the formation of the embryo, or whether it be cities that self-organize, or whether it be financial systems that self-organize, reality self-organizes. It’s a core principle of reality. There’s an inherent, ceaseless intelligence in reality which is bottom-up. Signals are exchanged. Ants know what to do. Bees know what to do. Cells, separate cells are part of a larger organism in a slime mold …

This principle of a self-organizing universe is the principle of a universe which always gets more complex, more loving, more interconnected, and ultimately, more caring, more intimate. We live in a world in which evolution is the core piece, the core structure of reality, which means that reality is getting better. Now, there’s also disasters. Many, many more people in the world, many more, much more potential for suffering. Technology exponentially increases by [inaudible 00:02:01] the amount of people, so exponentially, if people are left outside of the circle of the good, the true, and the beautiful, below the poverty line, there’s objectively more suffering, but there’s also potential for human dignity, for democratization of resources, for democratization of greatness like they never existed before.

There’s an evolution not only of technology, of the structures of technology, there’s an evolution of ideas. All of a sudden, human rights is at the center. All of a sudden, democracy is the only true, viable possibility for those who are awake to the possibilities for human dignity. At least, democracy holds out a higher vision of what’s possible. Even in countries that are not democratic, there needs to be an explanation for why human rights are violated. Genghis Kahn can’t do his dark deeds, nor can King Henry. Human dignity is now at the center, the idea that every human being deserves an elementally good life is now at the center.

We’re in this new world. In this new world, we have exponentialized human dignity. We’ve exponentialized technology, we’ve exponentialized human possibility, and, as we just said, we’ve exponentialized suffering. An enormous amount of suffering in the world, how do we address it? What’s going to transform our world? What we’re now understanding in these last several podcasts is that there’s a new evolutionary emergent. It’s a new evolution of intimacy, because evolution is the evolution of intimacy. There’s a new evolutionary intimacy possible, which is the emergence of the Unique Self Symphony.

What is Unique Self Symphony? Unique Self Symphony is every unique self giving their unique gift and their unique circle of intimacy and influence, but they’re joined to each other. Unique selves can find each other through the nervous system of the planet, joined through technology, joined through the internet, joined through new possibilities in the virtual world that create a Unique Self Symphony of virtue in which people can find each other and launch a Kickstarter campaign, people can find each other and launch a campaign for justice in a particular country, and support a revolution in the Arab Spring using social media, and using Twitter, and using Facebook.

The possibility of an interconnected world in which people can come together and act collectively as a collective intelligence is shocking. It hasn’t yet been unleashed. It hasn’t yet been organized, in a sense where its driven or attracted to its highest value and its highest potential. It has been used to create Bitcoin, a new movement of currency, which is actually redefining economic markets in the world. It’s used for many things, but it’s not yet quite a Unique Self, becoming a Unique Self Symphony. It’s moving towards that. There’s not yet a set of values to draw Unique Self Symphony forward, but the technologies are there, and the new structures of consciousness are there.

The new structures of consciousness are a new answer to the question of, “Who are you?” You’re an irreducibly unique self. Evolution is awakening as you in person. You have a unique gift to give in your unique circle of intimacy and influence. Now, those unique selves are linked by technology. You have a new collective intelligence, which is a new form of intimacy called Unique Self Symphony, that’s a bottom-up explosion of energy, explosion of capacity, explosion of consciousness. We’re able to solve challenges to the genome, to the entire genome structure, through putting that problem on the internet and having people collectively get involved in solving problems that the best groups of scientists and supercomputers couldn’t quite solve, because we’re unleashing collective intelligence, drawing from all over the world in a way that’s unprecedented.

We’ve just begun to tap this possibility of Unique Self Symphony. What we’re suggesting is that Unique Self Symphony is the new evolutionary emergent and new expression of intimacy, a new bottom-up reality in which everyone realizes, “I’m not separate. I’m not a skin-encapsulated ego.” We’ve studied systems theory, and general dynamics theory, and chaos theory, and complexity theory, and we realize we’re not separate from all that is. We’ve studied the interior sciences of enlightenment, and we know that we’re part of the seamless code of the universe. We know that the separate self is an illusion. We know that all of our unique selves are connected, and that our very uniqueness is that which connects us. We know that we’re part of the whole system.

We know that we’re an integrated part of the larger seamless code of the universe. Iowa is connected to Idaho, and Idaho is connected to Florida, and Florida is connected to Somalia. Somalia is connected to Peking. The Butterfly Effect, science tells us that whatever happens in Iowa affects the world. It trickles down, and trickles up, and trickles all around. If I step in and give my unique gift, that actually affects the entire system. We realize that we’re intended by reality, we’re desired by reality, we’re needed by reality, we’re adored by reality, and reality is turning to us and saying, “I need you. I need your service. I need your gift. You’ve got an irreducibly unique gift to give, that no one else other than you can give, and the context to give it in is not you alone by yourself in Iowa, or Idaho, or Ohio, or New York, or California. You’re giving your gift into the Unique Self Symphony.”

We’re beginning to create the technologies for unique selves to find each other and act together in unison. Wow. It’s kind of shocking. This is the next great evolution. Imagine a politics of Unique Self Symphonies in which every human being in the world awakens as their unique self, addresses the unique need in their unique circle of intimacy and influence and gives their unique gifts. How do human beings know what to do, which gifts to give? Because they’re attracted by their own uniqueness. We are attracted and allured by our uniqueness. The principle of the self-organizing universe is uniqueness.

Just like ants are attracted by pheromones who guide them in knowing, the pheromones which are secreted to the ants from other ants contain in them, according to the best science today, some coded information which tells every ant what to do. That’s not how human beings operate exactly. Pheromones share, with other human beings, something of the nature of those who are next to them, but it’s actually our own uniqueness, our own unique cellular, atomic DNA and interior structure which allures and draws us. Each of us is drawn by the music of our own uniqueness, and we begin to play our instrument. Then we begin to listen to each other.

Linked through the noosphere, linked through technology, linked through the nervous system of the planet, the Unique Self Symphony begins to emerge as we all express our love-intelligence, where we begin to see a planetary awakening in love through the self-organizing principle that’s driven the universe up until now. See, what’s driven everything up until now is the self-organization. That is the ceaseless creativity that drives the whole story, and it’s only the next level of self-organization as a Unique Self Symphony that’s going to take us to the next level that will allow us to address the challenges that face us today.

At every level of evolution, there’s a new emergent of love, of evolutionary love, of intimacy, a new configuration of intimacy, whether it be villages, or whether it be cities, or whether it be kingdoms, whether it be new modes of printing, new modes of communication, new modes of technology, whether it be new structures of law and ethics, whether it be new values which allowed the scientific method to emerge. There’s always new configurations of intimacy. The new configuration of intimacy in our generation is the merger of the realization of the unique self as the unique nature of our identity and as a technology that allows unique selves to come together in the Unique Self Symphony, which is the universe self-organizing to its next possibility.

Oh my god, oh my goddess. Now, if this sounds a little evangelical to you … “These are these science people, Marc and Barbara, and they’re getting all excited about this Unique Self Symphony …” Well, that’s because evangelicism means to bring the good news, and symphonies, Unique Self Symphonies, Unique Self Jazz Symphonies, in which people come together in their particular jazz quartets, or jazz duets, or jazz triplets, let’s make that one up, and they create something new that never existed before. That’s what unique selves can do. Every unique self has their newness to give, their novelty to birth into reality, and then unique selves come together and they create new music that never could have been created before, new innovation, new possibility, [inaudible 00:10:49] new human dignity, new ethics, and new delight.

Oh my goddess, Barbara. How exciting is that? That is the realization, let’s finish with this and go to Barbara, this is the realization that what’s evolution? Evolution is love in action. We are? What’s our identity? We’re unique selves, meaning we’re irreducible unique expressions of that love-intelligence, and we come together. When we come together in this new configuration of intimacy called Unique Self Symphony, we actually awaken, and we realize, “Oh my god, this is the new great chapter in the story of reality, which is the universe, a love story.”

That’s the excitement that we’re bringing. That’s what we’re stepping into. Let’s deepen in to understand Unique Self Symphony, and how it speaks to us, in the best way we can, because this is the new, great scientific fact: A self-organizing universe producing the new possibility, Unique Self Symphonies, which are the key to a genuine planetary awakening in love, through Unique Self Symphony. Beloved Barbara, take us to the next step.

Barbara Marx Hubbard:

Well, thank you Marc. I’m contemplating here the amazing goodness of the evolutionary story of creation, in terms of its purpose, being ever-more complexity, ever-higher consciousness, ever-higher freedom. Let’s just take a moment to realize that, from the Big Bang through the original flaring forth, that this continuous process has occurred, from quarks, to cells, to multicells, to animals, to humans, has been the, as we have said before, the process of allurement, of attraction of separate parts to make a whole. It’s also true that there have been five mass extinctions before we got here.

Nature does not hold onto species. It holds onto purpose. It holds onto progress. It is irresistibly drawn to higher consciousness, more complexity. Here we are, as a species, in the midst of what has been called a possible sixth mass extinction of our life support system. From an ordinary point of view, it looks bad. It looks like things are getting hopeless. It looks like we’re not going to be able to make it. It looks like our current political systems don’t have the capacity to coordinate a universe at the next level. All of this is true.

What do we realize if we are expressions of the ceaseless creativity of the universe with consciousness of the evolutionary potential here? We see that this exact breakdown that could lead to extinction is nature’s impulse to awaken in each one of us that inner impulse to express more love, more creativity, more intimacy. I’m sure everyone who’s listening is aware of something internal that’s turned on for more-ness of who you are, for expression more fully of who you are. Yet, when we look at current jobs and economic systems, it doesn’t look so easy to give that gift.

What Marc and I are saying here is that nature is creating the opportunity for a Unique Self Symphony, which releases the inner voice, the tone, the note, the originality of each one of us, to express that gift freely into the planetary nervous system, which could be called the internet now, freely, in such a way that the symphony is designed for us to find those with whom we can most clearly cooperate, symphonize, join genius, feel at one and at home with.

What I’m seeing that the Unique Self Symphony is offering to our generation, literally now, in the next 5, 10, 15 years … This is not in the future. It’s right now. We’re being offered to do what our heart’s most deeply desire to do. What is that? What does your heart most deeply yearn and long for? I’ll just express what mine does. See if it’s similar to yours. My heart yearns for greater expression of my own unique ability to love and give my gift. My heart yearns for joining genius with others who feel the same. I could say I’m longing for participation in the Unique Self Symphony. I’m longing to experience the great chorus of evolution, the millions of people, if not hundreds of millions, if not billions of people on this planet right now who yearn to give more love, or creativity, and more wholeness.

What we’re doing is, in actualizing our understanding of this, we’re actually instigating it on this podcast. This is not just about Unique Self Symphony, this is a voice of the Unique Self Symphony. Marc and I are simply sending out a note into the noosphere, into the internet, right now, for all our listeners. Take a deep breath and say yes to that unique note of your contribution to the symphony. You might take a moment to speak out loud, or to a neighbor, or to yourself, “My gift, my longing, my heart is …” When you say it, have the faith that the universe pays attention, the universe listens. This yes is a form of prayer. It’s what Marc calls a confession of greatness, by giving your gift into the Unique Self Symphony to evolve yourself and the entire world. Thank you.

Dr. Marc Gafni:

Thank you, Barbara. How beautiful. Just to complete that beautiful, beautiful vision, what does it feel like, Beloved Barbara, for all of us to know that what our uniqueness tells us is that we’re ultimately needed. “My instrument is needed in the symphony. I’m not an extra on the set.” That’s the source of human dignity. Uniqueness is the source of human dignity. We’re all the same, and we’re all unique, and we’re all needed in the symphony. It’s only by symphonizing that we can actually create that collective intelligence, that new configuration of intimacy that produces not just new forms of currency, Bitcoin, it actually produces new innovations of kindness, new imaginations, new political imaginations, new possibilities.

The God you don’t believe in doesn’t exist. God is … We say in this new universe story, God is the possibility of possibility that knows your name. The crisis, we say in the universe story, it’s a crisis of imagination. The innovation is the innovation birthed from your unique self participating in the Unique Self Symphony, which is the self-organizing universe, which will take us home, like it always has. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, beloved Barbara. We will be with you next week, week 19 of the Greatest Story Ever Told. Have a gorgeous week.

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