Some Thoughts on Community
THE GROUP AS AN EVOLUTIONARY POSSIBILITY by Marina Bernardi
Nowadays, from any perspective we look at the path of inner growth, we always meet the group as a space for development and as an instrument for expanding consciousness. Whatever theme we deal with, on whatever project we share, we always talk about the group. This is the real great theme that characterizes our times and that differentiates today's inner research from that of the past. Today everything happens in a group; this fact can be explained through several factors:
- The group is the fundamental note of the Aquarian era
- The group can multiply forces and resources and therefore produce much more substantial effects and accelerate any development
- The group allows Those who guide us to save energy by creating an amplified transmission which in turn---through the group allows everyone, even those who would have difficulty walking a path of self-development on their own, to proceed and accelerate their evolution
Since group consciousness is the direction in which humanity is going, it is necessary to put the Group at the center and learn to know it as a macro-bio-psycho spiritual being, which has its own psychic structure and laws by which it is governed. During the last century psychology had a very important function to play in stimulating the development of individuals - and here I speak not only of the component of psychology aimed at helping the person in difficulty, but also its use in promoting a more complete development of "normal" people, those who feel the need to grow internally and are looking for tools to do it. In this century we still need psychology but also psychoenergetic tools to enhance the group experience with a degree of knowledge: this facilitates the experience itself and gives us the opportunity to make the best use of every moment of group life.
Groups are characterized by the type of action they carry out in the world, which can be very diverse: from subtle action through meditation, such as the Triangles group, to the diffusion of knowledge through teaching and study, up to experimenting and sharing concrete aspects of common life. In general, the latter are given the name of community and today many of these communities are being born in the world because ‘life in common’ is a valid response to the needs of our times. In reality, all groups, on whatever level they appear, are communities in the sense that they promote union.
Each group originates on the subtle plane, that is, it is born from a nourished and loved idea. And then it develops from top to bottom, from spirit to form. The worldwide network of triangles has a profound relationship with all the Will to Good oriented groups that have appeared on the Planet in recent decades. This network continues to represent the subtle matrix that infuses Life into the groups which then manifest themselves in form. Triangles is therefore a generative space for all groups and it performs this function even if most people are not aware of it. I believe that this added element of awareness could add further impulse to the work of the Triangles.
By the way, the triangle is always the nucleus from which a group is born, even if the group members involved are not fully aware of it. A group always begins from a triangle. If A Treatise of the Seven Rays was written today, it would probably include a specific volume on groups, just as the two volumes of Esoteric Psychology deal primarily with the individual.
Developing a ‘science of groups’ would provide a road-map, illustrating the developmental steps that groups have to take, the crises and the ways to overcome them, the differences and similarities between groups and how to use them.
Today there are many people who feel called to work in a group, even to start a group, and while they have a lot of goodwill they often become discouraged by the obstacles they encounter and don't know how to resolve.
We can say that the Group is one of the great Mysteries of our time, a Mystery waiting to be revealed but also to reveal its full potential.
A Group is a macro-being with a biological / physical component, a physical body, an emotional attitude, an astral body and a mental body. In groups that manifest themselves in form, such as communities, these three levels constitute the personality of the group, which requires a long process of integration: it is not just a matter of bringing together integrated personalities--which is already sufficiently challenging-- it is also a matter of giving life to a group personality that as a whole reflects the same characteristics of an integrated individual personality: the group becomes self-aware and knows how to use its will, its unified group will, to carry out its projects, which in the case of spiritual groups, are service projects. A group also has a soul and spirit, which contains its purpose.
Just as in the case of an individual, there are specific steps that each group must face in order to activate its soul energy, and thus begin the process that leads the group's personality to be infused with soul energy. It is only when this process is underway that the group antahkarana is formed and intuitions, inspirations and insights can flow into the mind of the group, allowing it to more fully orient itself toward its field of service, becoming thereby better able to grasp more clearly its task in support of the Plan.
It is precisely by welcoming both the richness of the group life as well as facing its challenges that the group can become an opportunity for rapid development -- both from an individual perspective as well as from a collective.
Along the way, the group encounters many dualities that are part of its growth process, but which can also become a source of conflict and problems. I list a few:
Duality between energy and form: finding the right balance between the time dedicated to the spirit and the time dedicated to matter.
Duality between the focus on the individual and the focus on the group: how to find a balance between individual development and group development?
Duality between different generations: how to integrate the new generations who have a very different mentality from previous ones, without weakening the established pillars of the group—the values, note, and qualities on which the firmness of the group is based?
Duality between esoteric vision and exoteric vision, which involves finding a language that can be understandable to many
Duality between love and will, two poles that must be sufficiently harmonised in each group for it to be creative
Duality between mind and heart, which requires the development of both and their harmonisation
Then there are points of challenge that, sooner or later, touch the life of each group:
Internal conflicts between different visions
Removal of people who were an integral part of the group
The death of the founder or founders, a situation that affects the lives of many groups and always leads to a point of crisis
The transition from a leadership based on the centrality of a leading figure (typical of the Pisces era) to a group leadership (typical of the Era of Aquarius)
Economic challenges, i.e. how to find the funds that enable the activity.
The inevitable ageing process of members and the need to attract young people.
These are just some of the great themes that emerge within the group life but which are sufficient to illustrate the complexity of the group process.
We are working towards moving from considering the group as merely an instrument towards seeing it as an end in and of itself, as one of the objectives of the Plan. This shift leads us to placing the group in a central position and, in fact, one of the goals of the evolutionary Plan is the development of group consciousness. Group consciousness is a the realisation of a state in which the separate and separative self is transcended and absorbed in a much wider perception of the group and its relationship to the world, which gradually includes more and more beings, human and those belonging to other kingdoms of nature.
If the development of a group consciousness is something much broader and deeper than just the experience of a group life, it is also true that living group experiences provides a great stimulus. Therefore each group is a protected laboratory in which people can experiment in a concentrated and conscious way with the various steps that lead to the group state of consciousness. This also coincides with the soul's consciousness and therefore with contact with the soul. Two main functions of the group therefore emerge: one is to represent a physical and psychic space in which consciousness can grow more rapidly and the other is the natural outcome of this whch is the group becoming so integrated that it can be a service unit: responsible for service activities in the world. When this happens in a stable way, the group disciple is born, that is, a new disciple / server of the world. A Group Disciple’ is something altogether different from a group of disciples.
I believe that this goal, certainly high and demanding, can be an important goal for all groups and for the good of the world, If we imagine a network of groups, in which each of them represents a solid, stable and consecrated unity acting for the common good, we can easily see what enormous advantage would result for the Planet.
I like to imagine that the network of triangles, which in itself is a large group, is also the subtle matrix from which many other groups operating in the form, in all fields of human life, can be born. I believe this may represent its natural deeper function in the third millennium.
Marina Bernardi
Community of Living Ethics, Italy
13th of July 2020