A lot is being said about people who claim to be highly “something”, in relation to some degree of intelligence, special talent of gift. I too introduced terms like “being highly aware” or state of “high consciousness”. I now come across people who like to refer to themselves as “highly aware” as the next level above highly intelligent, highly talented or highly sensitive. They go into endless discussions on forums on very intellectual points of view, get bored and start looking for something else. They promote themselves to “highly aware” as if it were a career of stepping up intelligence to see if they get satisfaction in further open ended discussions, or maybe more acceptance of the propositions they suggest to their discussion partners.

I have to disappoint all these intellectuals. Awareness and consciousness is not a contest nor degree of intellect. Their is no university that can make you more or less aware and you cannot be certified in higher awareness or high consciousness by some government authority. Awareness and consciousness is a consequence of living life and reaching the highest level of “understanding” when you have to die and resurrect again. Let me try to explain.

This is not a blog about near death experiences of people who claim to have been at the gate of heaven and returned to find out that they were a different person. In a sense there are many similarities yet in the practical execution of the life after the “resurrection” there may be some significant differences. The similarity is that people adopt a servant attitude to their fellow human beings. The difference is in the way they position themselves in this new way of addressing life.

Higher, or if you please “deeper” aware people have lost their entire trusted lives at least once. What does that mean? It means that at a certain moment in time you were faced with a situation in which you had to make very intense existential choices and decisions. You volunteer to “die” in one life in order to be able “to live” another one. The choices have to do with morality of life, responsibilities or ethics, whatever this means. It is that meaning captured in the intense decision making that produces the growth in conscious awareness, a kind of awakening to some higher truths.

This implies the need to let go of a comfortable way of life to regain a piece of true life that otherwise would have disappeared or not lived. Allow me to try to explain with my own experience as example.

From international executive to “nothingness”
At one time my life consisted of traveling the world as top career executive in large global institutional firms. I had top salaries, benefits and a high status of social recognition. My work consisted in managing large groups of people in pursuit of certain institutional (financial) objectives. I had a status of multilingual, multicultural problem solver that could be expatriate to any part of the world and reorganize large groups of people.

My first wife had experienced some of such adventures with great personal difficulties. The life of an expat is exciting but that of an expat’s partner certainly a challenge of its own. She could not cope with it and asked me to move back to her home country. With my languages I could steer my career to some extend and we were indeed expatriated into her natural, cultural environment. One would expect that our lives would converge but they did not. A lot has been said about the years of trying to save our marriage but nothing seemed to work. We talked about separating but even that did not seem to be materialize.

At a certain point she got pregnant and gave birth to my first daughter (my first wife never had another child, I did). I had long cherished fatherhood and a dream came true, just not in the happy family circumstances that I had envisaged. Our daughter was however a powerful instrument for awareness building. She is a new life that needs security, warmth and care and we could only give bits and pieces of that while we struggled with our own growing up processes. In my executive position I had a lot of intellectual recognition but as a husband and father I was confused and searching for truth and awareness.

Two worlds to choose from

My expat contract got to an ending and I was asked to take the next step in my world wide career. At the time the Asian market was booming and my next position would be Singapore or Hong Kong. My wife had already said that she would not come with me which meant that I would have to leave my daughter behind too. Two worlds had opened up to me. My traditional world of intellectual recognition as a global executive that gave me status, financial security and wealth. And my new world of fatherhood with all the related responsibilities. Both worlds would drift apart by thousands of miles if I accepted the new professional position. My world of fatherhood was also conditioned by a divorce and a all kinds of legal obligations surrounding my relationship with my child. One world was intellectual, independent and gold plated , the other muddy, dirty, dependent and highly emotional. For some it would be crazy to let go of the gold, for me it was impossible to let go of my next of kin.

I choose for the emotional part and to do that I had to die in my previous life. When that happens you enter a phase of deep self pity and sorrow. In my case I had to leave behind my top wage executive position, my wife, my child, my house, my income….everything, in a foreign country, just to be left alone without anything else but myself. I had everything that a person could want to possess and had to let go of it all. My old world collapsed, my executive personality died in a process of pain and tears.

Resurrection

But at that deepest point of sorrow, when no energy is left in your body to continue crying, a light ignites as a burning fire from deep inside. A resurrection takes place, a deep trust inside of warmth and belief in oneself as the only security that is needed to proceed. An illumination captures one’s soul and the enlightening makes the world look different. The choice that has been made is the right one. Why all the having if the true purpose in life is caring? My life views changed dramatically. I had thrown off everything I had, I became nothing, yet I suddenly had everything I needed. “Everything” revealed itself to me. I got to “understand”what “meaning” meant.

It happened to me twice, with seven years in between. The first time I suffered a lot, my dying was extreme, I broke through into my new state of awareness but I got lured back into my old executive life again. I set up a business myself that grew out of proportions rapidly. I had remained close to my daughter and that had been significant, but life goes on.  The second time my eyes were opened for ever. I then understood, after the message had repeated itself a second time. My higher or deeper awareness confirmed itself afterwards as I could not go back anymore into the world view of the majority of the world. I looked at things differently. I had died twice and resurrected.

My views of the human world had broadened its perspective. I started to look at the human being from an evolutionary point of view, interacting with its surroundings for sustainable progression. I could now clearly see the problems humankind faced, which was primarily humankind itself. I could see a struggling self aware species wound up in ancient greed and selfishness. I saw a species with great difficulties to let go of old securities that were going to collapse anyway in deep crises. I saw myself as if I were humankind, only 10 years earlier. My dying was predestined for humankind too. Was I aware of that now just to be able to something about it? Of course I was, not by a magical hand from God but by inner illumination and motivation to make best use of my awareness. I could not neglect my understanding and let humankind enter into collapse and death without trying something.

Sustainocracy was the result of all my experimenting ever since my resurrection. I was introducing it as something that humankind was looking for if it could stop ignoring its own frustrated, vulnerable reality and accept the need for change. The consequences if we did not would be too big. I would have to take responsibility for myself and hence for humankind. When I changed, humankind changed too.

I had to “die” twice to become aware and live my life in a different way. I created Sustainocracy to help avoid that humankind would need to “die” too to resurrect into a new chance. I am convinced that this step can be avoided when leadership is applied using people with a higher sense of  awareness and a sense of responsibility. Sustainocracy is my medicine for that.