by Bill Walz

“Everything is as it can be.”
~ Alan Watts, philosopher/theologian

Eckhart Tolle advises us “our suffering is in our resistance to what is.” The “what is” of life contains the entire spectrum of possibility from the sublimely beautiful to the unfathomably hideous, from the birth of a child, to the Holocaust, from the bloom of flowers in spring, to the wasteland of a nuclear explosion or catastrophic global climate change. Many rightfully ask whether it is not necessary to resist “what is” if it is patently destructive, anti-life and human dignity?

The answer is in the manner of resistance we bring. Tolle is not advising us to passivity. He is advising us to wise seeing of things for what they are, and not resisting the understanding that “everything is as it can be.” To oppose a wrong, we must first see the wrong as the natural outcome of the way things are. To change what is wrong and destructive, we must work with the “what is” of the conditions that created it.

First, we must be willing to see it for what it is, to not be apathetic, not turn a blind eye. Having seen it, we must not shrink from it as if it cannot be, or that it is too frightening to us. Nor can we fight a wrong from the place of hatred. Hatred created it. In the end, from the place of hatred, we will replicate much of what we fought to displace. Action emanating from love, compassion and courage are the non-resistance that is the only true counterweight to evil, hatred and apathy.

“Everything is as it can be” is an amazing insight into the unfolding evolutionary dynamic of society. Human society is a collective consciousness that, exactly like an individual consciousness, is in a process of evolution, of moving from a narrow, self-absorbed, frightened and limited sense of self into more expansive, inclusive and resourceful awareness.

In example: along the path of human history, absolutist monarchies, slavery, religious wars, sexism and racism have been accepted political consciousnesses. Humanity, individually and collectively has, or is in process of, evolving beyond such consciousnesses. The “what is” of humanity has evolved into a new “can be”.

Today, economic, political and national competition and conflicts are accepted political consciousnesses along with unfettered exploitation of the Earth’s resources. Such thinking, however, is beginning to be questioned and challenged by an increasing number of individuals who are evolving in their consciousness. These visionaries see the necessity for a social awareness that enfolds all peoples, all species, even the ecosystem of the planet itself as the necessary identity for humanity if we are to survive and prosper into the future.

A growing mass of such evolving individuals is necessary to achieve an evolving, healthy human society that moves what “can be” to entirely new dimensions of “what is.”

It is a very difficult lesson to absorb that without the recognition of the “what is” of the limited consciousness that leads to destructive social patterns, there can be no evolving to what can be. The starkest example of this is that it took the insanity of the Holocaust for the majority of humanity to say, “never again” to genocidal racism.

It took the shocking devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a growing realization to take root that unlimited war can never be waged again. It will, sadly, probably take the shock of dramatic consequences to human-created climate change to force a new evolution of human consciousness in relationship to the planet and our place upon it.

The horror of “what is” is sometimes necessary to wake us up to what can be, to what must be, if we are to evolve successfully as a species. No, to realize that “suffering is caused by resistance to what is” is not a call to passivity. It is a call to come out of denial into consciousness. It seeks to awaken us to the need for action that moves us beyond the “is-ness” of a destructive unconsciousness. Paradoxically, this evolved consciousness can bring us personal peace while we engage the forces of history and social conflict.

Sometimes, force is needed to constrain violence, but only peace will bring peace. Ultimately, violence only perpetuates violence. Only identification with the totality of life on this planet will save humanity from the consequences of our identification with separateness, consumption and competition moving us toward Armageddon.

Do not resist facing this “what is.” It got this way because it is how everything has been. We must evolve our vision as individuals and then as a species into a new “can be” if the next stage of human history is a consciousness capable of a peaceful, beautiful, sustaining future. To resist this will surely bring suffering.

Reprinted from February 2008