Episodios

  • 078 - Evolving Together #3 - Choosing Our Families
    Jul 5 2024
    How often do we feel the people closest to us emotionally or energetically — though not related by blood or marriage — are actually our real family? We all know the saying “You can’t choose your family,” usually meant humorously when a relative does something we find embarrassing. What if we can choose our family, in all the ways that have consequence, meaning and value for our lives?We’re not referring to bloodline or DNA. It’s the special relationships — family formed from the bonds, exchange, and shared space of new possibility created when people come together in mutual purpose and vision. How does it happen? It begins with the very real connections among all humans.We are singular and individual, but also born with minds, systems, and highly sensitive faculties that can naturally tune into and connect with the frequencies of our fellow humans. Not only link with one another, but exchange and transfer. Which means my learning and inspiration can become your learning and inspiration; a real shared consciousness.It gets bigger. The same inner technology that connects us with each other also integrates with much larger universal systems and intelligence, allowing the flow of evolutionary energy to feel its way into humanity. Evolving together, us and the universe. Quite a family.This conversation continues our discovery of family and growing together begun in earlier dialogues among Aviv Shahar and Portals friends Nigel Geeves and Well. Among their ponderings and insights:In the economics of the universe, rather than competing with and destroying each other, we can actually benefit each other; we access in each other the power of the work we’ve done in our unique configurations.People think we get into the universe by going out there. But the codes of the universe are in us, or we wouldn't be able to see it. It’s like a tuning fork — we access the universe by going deep within ourselves.Could it be that we are each products of a universal transcendence? In getting together, we're like new chemicals combining into new reactions to create a new, surrogate universe beyond the one that formed us.The gift of human life and consciousness is that we’re the portal through which the universe is able to birth a new possibility; we humans become the midwifery agency of universal evolution.My inner systems are way more intelligent than me. They are designed to tune into others; in that connection, I find a different part of my own life. It's like new lives get born in each meeting with another person.While we're here, we have permission to create relationships. The way our body works can give guidance on how to proceed; atoms, molecules, and cells integrate and work together to support our lives.Two people can meet and something else becomes possible that wasn't pre-planned. Life itself takes a huge leap forward because different lives meet, integrate, and build things together; at higher levels, it's even more extraordinary.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 “You could say that each of us has three levels, three fundamental levels. And the first one is, you could describe it as your physical life, your planetary life that you're born into, that grows upon you. And in that, in the beginning, you're very helpless. And in the hands of others clearly, because you need support.” (Nigel)“And one of the problems with a materialistic perspective is that we can only consider the paradigm that begins with dust from atoms and goes up, rather than contemplate what has been the contemplation of people who quest and inquire into the universe, before science, and had their way of knowing and appreciating the universe before we stumbled upon the beautiful, logical roadmap of science.” (Aviv)“Whenever I meet another person, it allows me to be conscious of a different part of myself. I'm discovering that my systems are way more intelligent than me because they're trying to tune themselves all the time to whatever I'm facing. If I meet somebody from a foreign country, I notice my voice box is struggling to match their tone, their accent and, in that, find a different part in my own life. So it's a bit like new lives get born in each by the meeting with others. In meeting others, there's a development opportunity.” (Well)“The uniqueness, the specialness, of each of us as a life, as an individual is something to do with what we came into this world with - however you define that. But when we meet each other, we're actually coming into contact with something else that is different to us. And in the best case of two things that are different meeting, something else becomes possible that wasn't preconceived, wasn't pre-planned, wasn't ...
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    42 m
  • 077 - Current Openings #12 - Why Develop Yourself?
    Jun 21 2024
    We might want to stop and consider if a slightly different approach could help us unlock the core question this conversation is posing: Why develop yourself? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to wonder that since we will develop, one way or another, why not choose with intention and awareness what will fill our lives and help shape our future?The human is designed to develop. We know from earlier Current Openings, such as The Addiction Trap, that the open-ended potential of the brain and mind can be programmed by high-intensity, repetitive impressions and activity. Toxic or healthy; healing or harming: the choice is ours. There is no inner void.We can consciously direct our natural creative potential to the process of converting physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual energy into real impacts and results in our inner and outer worlds. Actually shaping our personal and planetary ecology, and the new universal possibility now emerging.The more finely we develop, the greater our inner conductivity and effectiveness in the life we choose. Maybe a beginning answer to our core question.Of course, there are many paths and possibilities to discover. In the latest edition of the Portals series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn’t Quite Get Yet”, Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis explore why human development shouldn’t be left to chance. Among their observations:It comes down to what we process: how we think, use our emotion, use our life, and apply ourselves. Why develop? At one level we help humanity, at the same time helping the planet and the cosmos.Could we partner with the planet to facilitate the mutual development and evolution of this sacred ecology we call Earth? What about an even broader perspective, where we think about the human as a universal being?Development is the incantation of tomorrow, and how that future reveals itself, through our living process. To develop is to emancipate the universal possibility that can transform our lives.What’s coming into focus is that development expands our perspective from the personal to the human, to the planetary, to the cosmic, to the future. We are evolving who we see ourselves to be.A curious part of development is surrender. We can't just say to the universe “take me as I am.” What's our surrender value? What have we assembled in ourselves that has helped the universe move on to a viable future?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 “I think, to help support something that you said, which is about the love of the universe, and how to look at that in a way that to me is infallible, and that is that we can see the love of the universe in what the universe supports. And if we bring that to planetary level - it’s easier to see in our own planet because this is the where we are, this is our home planet - that the planet supports actively the forms of organic life that exist on the planet right now. And a really interesting feature, the science tells us that about 93 to 97% of what has been on the planet, the different species of organic life, are already extinct.” (David)“I would, again, make another approach in respect of what is the planetary perspective? What does the planet want from the human? What planetary purpose does a human fulfill? It’s easy to see with a daffodil, with a cat, with a squirrel, with a dog - they’re processing a particular energy. The planet draws that energy from that part of organic life. And the way I view it is, that’s how the planet feeds from universal energy, even by the direct process of sunlight, being beamed through the organic life processing the sunlight, and then producing material which goes into the planet. And she even materially grows her soil. This will be the planetary program functioning at, you could say, an unconscious level.” (David)“We are designed to develop, so why not take a hand and develop what you would choose to develop, from a personal perspective, rather than what everything else would turn you out to be if you don't take a hand in the matter? In other words, everybody is developing, but are they choosing the way of that development, or are they going to turn out to be the way that life turns them out to be?” (David)“Someone says, well, what's your purpose? The answer might be, well, I'm here to help raise the level of vibration of the human race by connecting to higher cosmic energy as much as I can. And I'm developing myself as far as I can to be able to do that. Oh, by the way, I'm doing this, this, and this job to cover the economics because I'm not paid for being a Cosmic Agency right now.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv’s LinkedIn Aviv’s TwitterAviv’s ...
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    1 h y 9 m
  • 076 - Portals Into the Soul, Chapter 1: The Soul - A Threefold Orchestration
    Jun 7 2024
    Building on the context offered in thePreamble, this is the first in a series of Portals Into the Soul chapters we are publishing in a draft form. This work was seeded by the conversation The Ghost and The Inner Conclaveand, as the preamble narrates, by four decades of intense inquiry.Portals into the Soul will reflect on the core story of life from the perspective of the soul. It will:Describe the threefold configuration of the soulCodify the psychology the soul develops as a byproduct of one’s experience expressed in the compensatory act we call the ghostExplore soul pathways into the brain and the mindSketch The Inner Conclave process and its three levels of application in healing, development and connecting communionReflect on the ensoulment process and the birthing of a higher soulDescribe this epochal transition moment as a context for our voyage to rediscover the soulLet us begin this trace by appreciating what the soul is, what it does, and its threefold nature.The Threefold Configuration of the SoulWe each appear in a standard human model, if we are all healthy: two arms, two legs, two eyes, two lungs, one liver, one heart, and a soul. That is the standard human model, the same for all. Within that shared design we each have a unique threefold soul configuration.We describe the soul with a specific understanding, quite different to the general and often confusing use of the word. Okay, so what does the soul do?The soul functions as an intelligence loom that mediates, negotiates, regulates, and navigates the planetary experience in the human model. Imagine the human is given a soul as a liaison, a companion for life, because humans are spirit beings, showing up here inside a carnal form in the Earthly ecology.If a spirit showed up in a body without a companioning soul, the spirit and body wouldn’t know how to communicate with each other. The soul reads the cues of the spirit and is wired and programmed to offer translation to the body and back to the spirit; to orchestrate the human Earthly model and guide it through the planetary obstacle course.The soul as an intelligence loom runs a three-layered orchestration system. The foundational orchestration layer keeps you alive. The second orchestration process guides your continual learning. The third orchestrating impulse intelligently prods you to discover and actualize your universal purpose.Let’s reflect on these a little more. TWEETABLE QUOTES “The soul functions as an intelligence loom that mediates, negotiates, regulates, and navigates the planetary experience in the human model. Imagine the human is given a soul as a liaison, a companion for life, because humans are spirit beings, showing up here inside a carnal form in the Earthly ecology.” (Aviv)“Learning is inherent and automatic in the cellular feedback loop, where every cell communicates and updates all the other cells around it about changes it experiences. The immune system itself is an adaptive learning and memory program, a novel evolutionary product that is soul powered.” (Aviv)“The other major benefit on this path is that it squeezed me time and again into the unknown, where no maps were available. I have had to work by discovering the map on the move. Stepping into a functional role and facilitating, leading, and coaching others into an unknown terrain helped to syphon and catalyze connective flow, revelation, and fortitude, inspired by inquiries I have been pursuing my entire adult life.” (Aviv)“When we draw closer to our soul’s nature, discover how we are meant to serve the situations we encounter, and connect to our calling, the spirit glistens and glows through the unique soul cosmology of qualities and natures. It may appear with a whimsical sense of humor; with others the soul glows with immense courage and the capacity to respond at the point of need and do what must be done. With another it is an inventive and innovative genius, or the intelligence of deep listening, care and healing support.” (Aviv)“The first soul directive is a standard issuance working to keep you alive. The seconddirective compels you to learn, adapt, and improve by using your unique capabilities and can-do talent. The third directive seeks to unlock your unique configuration as it guides and even haunts you to discover your greater potential in life.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv’s LinkedIn Aviv’s TwitterAviv’s WebsitePortals Into the Soul, Chapter 1: The Soul - A Threefold Orchestration
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    39 m
  • 075 - Portals Into the Soul - Preamble
    May 24 2024
    Greetings, friend,Aviv is writing with exciting updates about Portals Into the Soul.On Christmas Eve, Sunday, December 24, I finally found space to sit down with notes Kyriaki Nikandrou of the Portals team created out of The Ghost and the Inner Conclave conversation with Jeff Vander Clute. We recorded that conversation after a four-day Epoch Journey event in September and it was published in December 2023.Once a space was created, what transpired on Christmas Eve took my breath away. I will get to what began to open below and describe the Portals Into the Soul work that started to emerge.I said above “finally” because the last four months of 2023 brought immense intensity and struggle. With committed work and then with the war erupting on October 7, and new commitments that emerged, I experienced the ferocity of a roller-coaster moving at warp speed, which felt like a couple of years squeezed into just a few weeks.These developments were tracking what we describe in the Epoch Journey as the violet upsurge. I believe the violet increase will accompany us for the coming decade or more. It will continue to be characterized by seemingly out-of-this-world events that will leave little of the late 20th century world order standing. It will also bring profound breakthroughs and opportunities. Both processes are integral to the violet phase-shift.In the seven-fold Epoch progression, each of the color fractals, including violet, are not “good” nor “bad”. They each represent certain natures of potential and are therefore accompanied by historic and cultural phenomena. Violet represents a catalyst function for transformations that arise at the end of an epoch.The shift can be experienced both “below” and “above” the line. “Below the line” violet is expressed through, for example, breakdowns that seem to trace regressive patterns to earlier evolutionary stages, such as with the rise of despotic leaders and the escalation of barbarous wars we thought were left in the past.“Above the line” violet appears with, for example, scientific and social innovation and development breakthroughs. As we wrote more than three years ago, emergence and emergency, breakthroughs and breakdowns, may show up at the same time, in the same place. In the coming year, we will offer more about the Epoch transition story as it unfolds.What took my breath away on Christmas Eve was a new open vista that started to emerge. For many years I have trained myself to pay attention when something new is coming through in my contemplative process. When the nudge of a new connective and creative current arrives, my practice is to make space to allow me to become fully immersed in the significance and flow of what is arising.Letting inspired discovery be my guide has made all the difference. My journey has not been academically fashioned. Instead, it arose in the trenches of life, in the merging integration of helping senior executives and leadership teams in one part; in another part, journeying through an esoteric initiation by immersing in the big questions of life, meaning, purpose, spirituality, and our latent and prospective evolution. All in the face of civilizational crises and imminent disintegration of the world as we have known it.Helping senior leaders in some of the most admired companies in the world kept me grounded and sharply alert to what is happening in culture, technology, geopolitics, and more. There also has been a humbling aspect in this. I would often be in the room with extremely bright people who are the best in the world in what they do; who know about their domain more than I will ever grasp. I’ve had to find novel ways of creating differentiating, even game-changing, value to them. Where could I find and source this kind of knowhow?It was found in the other part of my journey, which centered on an inquiry endeavor to align with perennial truths — the natural laws that shape the universe.It is a journey that forever connects me to the deepest sense of the sacred and fills me with awe about the mysteries of life, and the incredible valiance and vulnerability in being human. This path brought me to experience immeasurable kindness and the generosity found in friendship and the mutuality of purpose.The other promise of this adventure was that by orienting and aligning with first principles as an embodied endeavor, rather than a concept, over time it will enable me to parachute into almost any situation, connect with its core dynamics and the people involved, make meaning, and generate pathfinding possibilities. If there is a secret in this, it is that all the domains of life share a set of universal principles at core. The price of admission was to go through the experience, to be vulnerably exposed without having guarantees as to what it was going to catalyze in my formation.The core impulse of this path has therefore not been theoretical. Instead, it focused on helping teams in the ...
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    28 m
  • 074 - What is Healing? #2 - A New Togethering
    May 10 2024
    Sometimes it takes courage to heal. It’s usually easy to see, feel, and know the pain and trauma from our own lives, our communities, and the cultural upheavals upending many parts of our world. Being able to perceive and register hurt or isolation and loneliness doesn’t necessarily make the path to healing and wholeness any more visible, or smooth.How do we find and feel the inner strength to take the first step? One of the paths to healing and transformation begins in the special ecology or space that is created between people who share respect and value for what each life represents. It can be a simple conversation that brings a feeling of safety and trust — a special warmth that begins to melt whatever may be blocking us from connecting with who we really are and can be.A real mutuality not only dissolves the barriers between us, but also enables a shared support and elevation that can reveal the path to deeper emotional and mental healing. In the process, reconnecting us to a natural inner courage and resiliency that carries us forward.In this conversation, we explore further into the healing possibility enabled by a real human mutuality. Aviv Shahar is joined again by Alexander Love, acupuncturist, life coach, and cranial-sacral therapist, who took part in this conversation on approaches to healing. They are joined this time by Veronica Olalla Love, ontological coaching professional and CEO of the Newfield Network.Among their insights:We are not alone, even though we sense despair and loneliness at times. We can reactivate our connection with all dimensions of life, which modern technology can cause to recede and seem far away.We come together and learn both as an individual and a collective. In these curated spaces we invite a depth, safety, and love that don’t just reveal personal pain, but show what is possible to do together.The unshakable commitment we’re describing is not a mental or emotional muscle; it's a cellular reorientation of the living being that we are. It's a radical anchoring of the heart.The new human discovery emerging is the profound value in what is described as listening priests, the people that create the ecology and enable others to unfold the revelation they couldn’t access in themselves before.What's required for a collective to be strong enough to hold shadows and darkness in a way that won’t wobble or shake the space, so the darkness can arise and be safely explored?Seeing the different worlds we create in a group journey can help us deeply anchor, in our body, in our cells, what is actually possible; the level of trust people can have with each other is exquisite and profound.When you no longer shun, suppress, or pull outside of yourself the parts you dislike in favor of the parts you like, it becomes a fuller integration of the inner family; you are more relaxed and more yourself.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 “One of the things that I see is so beautiful is that unfolding of somebody’s greatness, the big fullness of who someone can be, and also being able to articulate the areas in which we challenge our repeated cycles that we fall into, or to be able to give voice and articulation of that wholeness of life and to be able to speak to it in the space that can be present, with compassion and with care.” (Veronica)“It takes a lot of courage and something else to be able to allow these things to rush in and inform us in the waking, in the light of the waking day. And that something else is some kind of presence, some kind of unbroken radiance or dimension of being that allows us to know, beyond conceptual knowing, that it’s okay to feel, that it’s okay to explore little by little is probably what I might suggest little by little, opening our hearts to allow in just a little bit more of the whole and that includes the access to ecstasy, and it also includes the horrors. And all that it requires is a nervous system that’s able to have some degree of regulation as these things stream in, because if we’re honest, they are quite intense in all their faces.” (Alexander)“The essential element I’m experiencing in both of you and what you’re describing, is a particular kind of courage. Because there is an invitation you’re making to become more spacious, to unravel or bring to life what has been frozen and potentially grow the filaments of possibility beyond that. (Aviv)“The new, or the novel, or breaking patterns can seem dangerous. So there's a sense of, is this actually dangerous? And if so, how? Or is it simply a signal that this is actually new and I'm in the unknown? My sense is that these times require us to be quite a bit in the unknown. And so as we cultivate...
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    1 h y 20 m
  • 073 - Evolving Together #2 - What Holds Us Back?
    Apr 26 2024
    Be honest: When we see a friend or colleague achieve a personal breakthrough — barrier overcome; milestone reached; the best of themselves coming forward — do we fully feel the value and joy of their success? Not even a tinge of jealousy, or wish that it had been us instead?What if we embrace a very different view of each other’s accomplishments and potential? When we acknowledge and appreciate the struggles and progress in someone else, we actually create space in ourselves for the same success. We grow in ourselves by watching others grow; we liberate a greater possibility that is only accessible when we come together as “we,” beyond the ego of “me.”What’s holding us back? Many of the outcomes of modern life: separation, fear, and trauma, which create an emotional and mental scar tissue that prevents us from trusting and accepting each other. Our natural human sensitivity is numbed, inhibiting the fountain of warmth, kindness, and generosity that is our birthright.Fortunately, we also have higher faculties and systems, still connected to our natural intelligence and creativity, that enable growth, development, and integration with an emerging new evolutionary potential.We explore the barriers preventing a greater human mutuality, and the seeds of our healing and integration, in part two of the conversation Evolving Together, with Aviv Shahar and two Portals' friends and life-long spiritual seekers, Nigel Geeves and Well. In part one, the three opened the question, Why evolve together?Among their insights:To evolve together we want to be fearless, which doesn’t mean having no fear. It means we're able to move forward and discover that the feeling of bravery on the inside is more powerful.In our human development journey, what seemed intractable and frozen by time and trauma can melt away in the presence of a mutuality that is prepared to support life rather than arrest it.The grip of what is holding us back is made stronger by fear. When we develop above fear in ourselves it no longer has credence or power and control over us.Everything humans do is powered by energy, which creates a form of collective memory. It’s like a loose operating system influencing human behavior, unless we develop above our history and co-create our future.The key is in our acceptance of another life and giving a space for the sharing of both of us. It’s acceptance of life to life, rather than the historic pattern of how I can win.When you no longer shun, suppress, or pull outside of yourself the parts you dislike in favor of the parts you like, it becomes a fuller integration of the inner family; you are more relaxed and more yourself.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 “But the larger evolutionary strategy is that there is a better chance for survival, in most species in the flora life, in the fauna life, and for us humans, this was going to be more secure and guaranteed if we worked together.” (Aviv)“There's an imagery that comes to mind, and it's one of my fascinations. If you take a mirror, you can look in that mirror and get a reflection of yourself, but it's a singular reflection. We can look at another mirror and do the same, but if you put those mirrors next to each other and put your head in between them, you get a million reflections, and a human is a much better reflector of another human than any physical mirror.” (Nigel)“What it actually means is that we've been very successful in doubling down on sensitivity so that we don't feel or pick up on the vast majority of what is going on because it's too difficult to handle. So this is the beginning of a diagnostic process that really begins to open up those sensitivities again deliberately. So we begin to grow our awareness rather than retreating into a non-feeling state.” (Well)“Emotionally, as one grows and grows with others, and learns that it's possible to be safe with others, it is possible for the scar tissue in a life to begin to heal and melt. And the great benefit of that is that people become able to connect again, because trauma stops you connecting and causes isolation. And when people discover the great joy of being able to connect again, it's such a liberation that they tend to want to take that up and hold it as a valued thing.” (Well)“It just reminds me that shadows are always bigger than the thing itself. And, like you say, fear seems to be a shadow that when you actually face it, it's nowhere near as big as you thought it was. And the curious thing in that is that, how we think about something conditions how we feel about it. So it's vital that we review our views and psychologies, otherwise our feeling life just won't have a chance.” (Nigel)...
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    54 m
  • 072 - Current Openings #11 - The Application Conundrum
    Apr 12 2024

    Where can the human Big Bang be found? It is: You become what you apply yourself to. It’s not just a different angle on the familiar phrase of becoming what we think about; it goes much deeper.

    Application happens when we bring intention and purpose to focus our energy, knowledge and passion to achieve what we most value in life; to turn learning into action; to transform our physical, earthly reality and shape our universal future as it shapes us.

    Great. But how? Applying ourselves with intention to transform our lives means unifying the action of our head, heart and hands in a self-chosen direction. In other words, we need to know what we want. It’s the first step in creating an ecology where higher intelligence and connections can find us and help our development.

    In deciding how and where to begin, help is already available. This conversation marks the start of a new series in the Portals feature “Current Openings: What the World Doesn’t Quite Get Yet.Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis are leading into “The Human Development Challenge,” which builds upon the many insights, knowledge and practices in the first ten Current Openings.

    The Challenge will take us deeper into the esoteric knowledge at the heart of our universal nature and possibility, such as with the conundrum of applying our learning in a way that supports our evolutionary journey.

    Among the insights:

    • The harvesting principle says anything the universe learns or new capacity it develops can be downloaded to everyone: the universe runs an open-source operating system.
    • The development challenge is inviting us to opt-in, to self-elect, to recognize that for us learning is exquisitely awesome. We define ourselves by what we learn.
    • Einstein focused 95% of his attention on a problem to discover the solution. Here we’re not aiming for a single solution, but to create an ecology where multiple answers can find us.
    • If we focus on learning alone without applying the knowledge, we never quite live the full potential and truth, which is what brings higher intelligence and connection.
    • We can actually choose to learn, which is an amazing human specialty. Nothing else on Earth can decide to study something beyond its basic programming.
    • The cycle of life is from potential to actualization; from intention to realization; from learning to application. What is learning? Without application, it's an incomplete journey.

    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 the harvesting principle is this idea that anything that the universe learns, anything the universe develops as a know-how, becomes downloadable anywhere in the universe - because the universe runs an open-source operating system. In fact, it demonstrates that any capacity that got switched on is shared throughout the universe. It's a generous and compassionate universe. It means that for the universe, what's economic and effective is one and the same with what's generous and compassionate.” (Aviv)

    “The cycle of life is from potential to actualization, from intent to realization, from learning to application. What is learning without application? It's an incomplete journey. Learning is how life inseminates possibilities. It's the invitation for us humans to engage with this idea that we are alive here; we've been given the gift of life to enter the application theater.” (Aviv)

    “Well, I think that all human structures are based in their origination on the laws of the universe. So, as you said about the universe, it has definite laws, definite preset codes, and ways of being that we didn't make ourselves.” (David)

    RESOURCES MENTIONED

    Portals of Perception Website

    Aviv’s LinkedIn

    Aviv’s Twitter

    Aviv’s Website

    Current Openings #11 - The Application Conundrum

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    1 h y 9 m
  • 071 - A Conversation with Layman Pascal, Part 2 - Pursuing Integral Wisdom
    Mar 29 2024
    We’re living in a time where increasingly we see what’s happening in the world around us and have to wonder how, or even if, we can find deep truth in the age of the “deep fake”. Artificial intelligence can distort or manipulate many forms of data and information we take in through our physical senses. Sights, sounds and “facts” on a page can all be faked. How then do we with confidence make sense and meaning in a life when even what we see with our own eyes may not be true?There are clues in the name itself: “artificial” intelligence. What about natural intelligence? We know from Portals conversations that the human is designed with the capability to connect with larger, universal sources of intelligence, creativity and inspiration, beyond the reach of even the most powerful AI.It’s a deep truth explored throughout history by spiritual teachers, shamans and wise men and women attuned to the finer, energetic, subtle realms as a living reality. Sources of profound revelation and learning that can transform lives and communities, and reconnect the human to its natural birthright.In this conversation we are once again fortunate to have as our guide Layman Pascal, a leader in integral thinking and teaching, and a prominent voice on the Integral Stage YouTube channel and podcast. He joins Aviv Shahar for part two of their conversation, begun with Protecting the Sacred.Among their ponders:AI is going to touch everyone and every type of reality, with inevitable distressing effects, including a reduction of cognitive capacities, and an increasing distrust in all information sources.How do we bring the spiritual and sociological closer together? Integrate a life of deep spiritual practice, freed from dogmatic interpretations, with an emerging cultural and community experience?How do we balance the notion of God with our current notion of reality? Or of creating healthier existing religious structures versus cultivating new emergent religion-like experiences?A big-picture model of deep history shouldn’t accept mainstream neo-liberal media or academic consensus as reality, but be open to surprises and anomalies that could reverse consensus going forward.We don't want to be naive utopians, but also not nihilistic, pessimistic, or to give up. Let's invest our imagination, heart, and actions in trying to figure out what a better world actually looks like.Just because someone can enter or produce a state — an unusual chemical, energetic, or psychological condition — doesn't mean they have an established stage of development.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 “I think up to that point, what I'm mostly thinking about is something vaguely like enlightenment. Right? So that I'm undertaking experiences very deliberately, because I want to transform my consciousness.” (Layman) “One of the most prominent ways that people have sort of subtle experiences in the modern world is with entities that they feel are extraterrestrial, right? And the work of Jacques Vallee in the 1970s did a lot of under laboring to support the idea that in a previous time period, you might have interpreted these as elves or angels or something like that.” (Layman)“A lot of these communities are centered around meta models, by which we mean attempts to do transdisciplinary philosophical integrations that take many different models and many different disciplines and many different types of perspective taking into account coherently.” (Layman)“There's a phrase I used in that series which was 'to naturalize the sacred and to sacralize the natural'. And I think this goes along with trying to bring the rational and the intuitive together. So you want to say, we embrace a natural science universe, not a reductive natural science universe, but an expanded natural science universe, and at the same time, it's only relevant to us if it can produce the cultural meaning and the individual transformation that's necessary for a human life.” (Layman)“Is it better for you to treat something like a person or not? You can't objectively have perfect knowledge of whether you're dealing with something that's sentient or not. But is it actually better for you to respect everything you're dealing with as if it was another sentient being? And that makes a lot of spiritual and emotional sense. Or is that the gateway to a path of delusion where we lose important distinctions, and we end up over attributing capacity and depth to things that don't have them and lead our society further down a pathway of simulation and meaninglessness?” (Layman) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv’s LinkedIn Aviv’s TwitterAviv’s WebsiteA Conversation with ...
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