A Scenario of Consequence

Imagine that tomorrow an announcement is made by the U.S. Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), in conjunction with Harvard’s Department of Astronomy, that on the edges of our solar system an object has been found meeting all the criteria for an unknown technology of extraterrestrial origin. Upon further evidence-gathering and peer-consultation, this identification is confirmed, on a solid empirical basis. Within days, contact is established and a long process of public disclosure and adaptation ensues. It soon becomes undeniably clear to the world’s population that humanity lives – and has always lived – in the presence of highly evolved intelligent beings who move through space and time by means far surpassing human capabilities.

Indeed, humanity very quickly finds itself faced with the realization that these beings are skilled in genetic engineering and have intervened repeatedly in the evolution of life on Earth. While the body of evidence is complex, it definitely suggests that homo sapiens sapiens is itself a product of these interventions – that these beings are, in effect, the progenitors of the human species, that our history and development have been shaped in large measure according to their design.

Faced with this situation, what would become of your spiritual practice? How would your view, motivation, and overall direction of energy be influenced by these revelations? Would the teachings of Buddhism (or any spiritual tradition) seem more or less relevant? Would the rituals and regimens of your daily discipline, your sadhana, feel more or less potent, more or less applicable to the real world, to the circumstances of your life? Would the basic Buddhist understanding of the nature of mind and reality be called into question? Would your investment in, and identification with, the narrative of a “2,600 year-old tradition” be diminished? Would the importance of sangha, community, be enhanced or depleted? Would cultivating relationships with fellow practitioners be more or less of a priority? Would you feel more or less empowered as a practitioner, more or less responsible for your own well-being and the well-being of others?

This not a far-fetched or wildly fantastical scenario. Such questions are already strongly implied by the enormous body of evidence regarding UFO visitations, close encounters, contact experiences, and other manifestations of advanced nonhuman intelligence. These phenomena are not rare or marginal or even anomalous occurrences. Rather, they are experienced by many hundreds of thousands of “ordinary” people, and these experiences have been occurring throughout human history. To recognize these facts violates a longstanding taboo, and to acknowledge them publicly can be damaging to one’s reputation and career, and even threatening to one’s health and safety.

As our earlier line of inquiry intimates, the consequences of such recognition may be not only socioeconomic and political but, more radically, existential and spiritual. A direct experience of such phenomena is, for most, a profound ontological and spiritual shock, irreversibly transformative on many levels. However, even to open one’s mind and worldview enough to allow for the reality of these phenomena requires a fundamental shift. Basic assumptions about life, history, and the world may be called into question. Habituated attitudes and beliefs may be disrupted. Cherished hopes and aspirations, commitments and modes of action, may be shaken. Human norms and institutions, apparently stable, may be exposed as tenuous.

Deeply-held investment in religious traditions and practices may be especially vulnerable to such disturbances. Religion concerns itself with ultimate questions about the nature of self and reality. It is a realm where essential matters of origin and purpose are decided, and the human relationship to greater powers and intelligences is explored and mediated. So it is not surprising that these seemingly extraordinary and even “supernatural” phenomena have been intertwined with religion for millennia. This intertwining includes the role played by religious forces – in particular, conservative religious forces within high levels of government – in informing and sustaining the cover-up of these phenomena throughout the last century.

Yet the way religious influencers relate to these profound subjects need not be defensive or competitive. Indeed, the interface between religion and the contact/disclosure/visitor phenomenon tends to be highly charged precisely because travelers within these realms share so much in common: a deep curiosity about hidden and uncharted realities, a sense of wonder and mystery, an openness to revelation and transcendental experience, a longing for true communion, and a determination to realize the full potential of the human heart. These qualities reflect a universal human inheritance, one that traverses the apparent boundaries between religious and non-religious cultures of the deep and mysterious.

What would happen if a spirit of cooperative endeavor and exploration were allowed to thrive in these areas? What new evolutionary horizons might spring into view? What enhancements and empowerments might grace our spheres of spiritual practice? How might the future of humanity, the future of the Earth, be re-envisioned, and perhaps restored?

In my view, the braided streams of religious practice and modern “ET” contact point towards a transplanetary way of being, in which humanity has rediscovered its natural place within an expansive, mandalic community of cosmos and consciousness. This transplanetary condition is not best conceived as a modernist, science-driven techno-attainment; rather, it has always been our birthright, for those with eyes to see.      

And the seers of this world do tend to see alike, whether their visions are swaddled in religious or extrareligious adornment. The act of seeing is where the energy lies, the truth-power. Total, spontaneous engagement with this act – in the here-and-now – defies claims to knowledge and authority, descriptive and prescriptive. Finding the courage to stay faithful to this engagement, wholly open, is our challenge. Here is a call for all practitioners – yogis, psychonauts, ET experiencers alike, amongst countless others: to dance freely in wonder, to shed identities and prefabricated worldviews, to tune boldly to Mystery, to surrender, to immerse in intimacy, curiosity, and humility, to Love.