049 - Could Armageddon Be an Inner - geddon?

Portals of Perception

We no longer need Hollywood to create ever-bigger fictional disasters to scare us into believing our world just may be on the threshold of Armageddon or other apocalyptic scenarios that threaten the future of humanity and the planet. Real-time, real-world environmental collapse, war, and cultural chaos are brought into our awareness on any media platform we may use.

Do the true origins and causing forces of the dramatic and powerful struggles we see around the globe really lie in the physical world, where they manifest and shape our communities and cultures? Or is the outer world, even the chaos and destruction, a physical reflection of the perceptions and sense of self that form our deeper collective inner life?

In other words, is it more accurate to think of Armageddon as an inner-geddon, the real location of the prophesized final battle between darkness and light, the past and the future? In many narratives this “end of days” also brings the realization that as one world culminates, another emerges, with the long-awaited evolutionary next step for humanity.

To help us explore such a deep and profound mystery, we brought together a group of Portals friends, some of whom have been with us in previous conversations — all accomplished teachers, writers, thinkers and doers. Among their ponders and perceptions:

• One challenge facing humanity is acceleration: everything is speeding up, accelerating and breaking down at the same time
• You may think you need 30 years to heal or develop through a trauma. No. What used to take 30 years can now happen in three months, three weeks, three hours, or three seconds
• We weren’t brought up in ways that showed us how to process difficult emotions. But it's actually a natural thing for humans to process emotions, including trauma
• - People talk about the US as an experiment in democracy; in some ways, this whole planet is a big experiment in evolution. What will happen to us as a species?
• We've lived in a laissez-faire culture that says anything goes if you find your tribe. I don't think that's the way of the uni verse: it has criteria and supports the things that support it
• What brings differences together is a spiritual connection; it's the purpose of life. What is the purpose of us being here as a species? What is the purpose of the unfolding universe?

This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“So this inner journey is very important because, for some people, it's prescriptive. It's assigned base is tradition, belief, it's codified, maybe as another way to say it, and for others, it's kind of a blank verse that is navigated almost in a mystical sense, and there isn't a right or wrong, we all find our own way. But I firmly believe that if we can have more of this inner, more of this communion come into the agency of the world, we can affect important change.” (Tim)

“Everything is speeding up, accelerating and breaking down at the same time. I'm sure each one can see what's going on in many systems; education, government, family structures, and the question is where is the human looking to see the guidance? For where do we grow the moral order? It's like forcing you to look inside, and the question is where to look inside, and here I want to take this notion of unity and union via a story that happened here.” (Rivka)

“I think the inner work is for us to pull back all the projections we make on other people and own our full participation in the human ego. Every single one of us is human, and so all of humanity lives in all of us. So, that it isn't a different class of people who are wrong and bad, it's something that we're trying to reconcile and purify in our humanity altogether, and when we do that, then we automatically clear the interjection, the ways that we've taken on the guilt for participating in all that’s human.” (Grace)

“There used to be a mantra in the world of conflict resolution and the world of mediation, that they're not really ready yet. They haven't experienced enough pain, and the real question is, how much pain as a species do we have to experience before people on a mass level finally go, "geez, this is not working. I can't handle this anymore,” and so, that's the edge of explora tion.” (Stewart)

“The real apocalypse of the human race will not come from a tsunami or from, I don't know, a plague or a meteorite, but the real apocalypse is actually the inner, that’s the inner-geddon. Because if something is very strong from the inside, if the infrastructure that is made of values and standards and principles and beliefs, then if this is solid and stable, it can withstand anything.” (Dana)

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Could Armagedon be an Inner-Geddon