5) The Consensus State

Astrologically speaking, this state correlates to Saturn, because of the underlying desire to conform to the consensus of any society, culture, tribe or country. Thus such Souls entire orientation to reality, including their values, the sense of meaning for life, moralities, customs, norms, taboos, what is right and wrong, and so on, are simply an extension of the prevailing consensus of whatever society they are born into.

In essence ‘reality’ for such Souls is merely an extension of the external conditioning that any consensus group of people provides. They can not step out of the box, so to speak. For example if a scientist claims that ‘astrology is bogus’, then all those within the consensus state will have the same opinion.

Within the consensus state, like all the other states, there are three subdivisions that we must account for, where each subdivision reflects the ongoing evolution of a Soul through the entire evolutionary state, which then leads to the next evolutionary state with its three subdivisions, until the final ‘liberation’ of a Soul occurs, relative to exhaustion of all separating desires, ultimately reflected in the third subdivision of the Spiritual State of evolution.

The way that evolution occurs through each state is by exhausting all the desires that are intrinsic to the nature of that evolutionary state or condition.

Within the consensus state, the root desire that propels the evolution of the Soul forward, from the first subdivision through the third, is characterized by the desire to ‘get ahead’; to get ahead of the ‘system’, which of course means the consensus society that they belong to.

a) Souls within the first subdivision of the consensus state are characterized by a limited sense of self-awareness, essentially limited to the time and space that they occupy; a limited awareness of the dynamics of the community that they inhabit; an even more limited awareness of the dynamics of the country that they live within. And yet they are incredibly self-righteous relative to the values, moralities, consensus religion of the existing society of birth, how life is ‘interpreted’ according to those beliefs, the judgments issued because of those beliefs, and so on.

There simply is no ability to separate themselves from any of this. It is as if they are like social automatons. An apt analogy for these Souls is the worker bees in a bee hive. Typically, they are in the lowest social strata of the society of birth.

b) As evolution proceeds for these Souls, relative to the desire to ‘get ahead’, it will lead them into the second subdivision of the consensus state, because that root desire means that they will want more from society than simply remaining in its lower strata. These Souls of course perceive from the point of view of the lower strata that there are others who have more than they have.

This perception is more or less limited to others having more possessions of a grander nature than they have, social positions within society that they do not have, thus more social ‘freedom’ than they have, and so on. Yet that limited perception fuels the root desire to get ahead and have more. In order for this desire to be realized they must learn ever more how society and its dynamics work. It requires an expansion of their personal awareness for this learning to take place. It is the very fact of the evolutionary necessity to expand their awareness that propels the evolution of the Soul into the second consensus state subdivision.

There it becomes necessary for the Soul to learn ever more about the nature of society, to use the social system to its own evolutionary advantage – to get ahead. The ‘reality’ for such Souls is still totally defined by the consensus of society: its values, moralities, religions, judgments, right and wrongs, and so on. Yet by desiring to get ahead, the Soul must expand its personal awareness of the nature of the dynamics of how the society it is a part of is put together: its rules, regulations, what is required for this or that ambition to be actualized, and so on.

The Soul thus becomes ever more aware of ‘others’, of the community that it is part of, and the country that it lives within. This expanding awareness also includes the beginning of becoming aware of other countries and the differences in values, moralities, religions, and so on, as reflected in other countries and societies. Thus personal awareness – self-awareness – expands, because of the heightened awareness of ‘others’ relative to the Soul’s desire to get ahead. This evolutionary stage correlates to the ‘middle strata’ within the social order of any given society.

c) As the Soul evolves through this state it increasingly becomes aware of the upper strata of society, of those that are in positions of power and leadership, of those that have great material abundance, and, as result, the desire to get ahead fuels the ongoing evolution of the Soul into the third subdivision within the consensus state.

For the Soul to evolve into the third subdivision within the consensus state, an ever increasing awareness of how society ‘works’ in total is demanded. Because of this, personal awareness expands through evolutionary necessity, in order for the Soul’s desires (defined by ambitions to get ahead) to be realized.

The Soul’s personal awareness has now expanded to the point that it is now very aware of the totality of the community and society that it belongs to, and of the country that it lives within. This also includes a progressive awareness of other countries, other cultures, and of the relativity of moralities, values, religions, and so on, as reflected in other countries and cultures.

Even though this awareness progressively expands, it does not mean the Soul in this third subdivision considers other countries, values, beliefs, and religions equal to its own society and country of birth. In fact, within this third subdivision, the self-righteousness born out of conformity (the underlying hallmark of the consensus state in total) is sustained: we are right, and they are wrong. In total the consensus state correlates to what is called ‘nationalism’.

In this final subdivision within the consensus state the Soul desires to be ‘on top’ of society; to have positions of social importance and relative power, prestige, and material abundance – the politicians, CEO’s of corporations, important positions in the business world, mainstream religious leaders, and so on. As a result, these Souls constitute the ‘upper strata’ of society.

As the Soul evolves through this last subdivision it will finally exhaust all the desires that are inherent within the consensus state. As a result, the meaning to life itself will be progressively be lost as those desires no longer hold any meaning. At the very end of the journey through this state the Soul will finally ask the question ‘there must be more to life than this’.

This very question implies an awakening alienation from the consensus, from ‘normal’ life as defined by the consensus. It is this awakening alienation from normalcy as defined by the consensus of any society that now triggers the beginning of a new desire that will propel the Soul into the Individuated Evolutionary State: the desire to liberate from all external conditioning that has previously defined the Soul’s sense of reality in general, and its sense of personal identity, or individuality, specifically.

( continue to The Individuated State )