ON SOCIAL JUSTICE: SOLVING FOR “X”

by Scott Ford

Let’s start with working definitions for two categories of performance experience and their equally different states of performance consciousness.

The first performance category is constructed with our Normal Order Performance Experiences, our NOPEs, which we create when we’re playing in a “dualistic state” of gross consciousness. Think of Category 1 performances as our Dualistic-NOPEs. Also called “playing in the norm.”

The second performance category is constructed with our Higher-Order Performance Experiences, our HOPEs, which we create when we’re playing in a “nondual state” of integral consciousness. Think of Category 2 performances as our Nondual-HOPEs. Also called “playing in the zone.”

For purposes of this discussion, “dualistic” means divided, not unified. “Nondualistic” means unified, not divided. Dualistic consciousness divides our reality into a bunch of separate parts, while nondual consciousness integrates those separate parts into a single, unified reality.

For now, it’s enough to understand that one form of consciousness divides, while the other form of consciousness unites. As athletes we see these different forms of consciousness played out in our different performance experiences: our NOPEs, where dualistic consciousness divides the game into separate parts, versus our HOPEs, where nondual consciousness unifies all the parts. As Americans, we’re seeing these same forms of consciousness being played out in the different forms of protest taking place on America’s streets.

On one side of the street, we see peaceful, unified collectives, marching for social justice. On the other side of the street, we see violent, chaotic collectives, raging against social injustice. In the middle of the street, we have JUSTICE itself, and here’s an interesting fact: Justice in nondual. Justice is unified, not divided. Justice is equal and simultaneous for all.

Those two sides of the street, and their uniquely different approaches to Justice, represent, in this metaphor, the differences between nondual protesters marching as a unified collective up one side of Justice Street, while dualistic protesters tear the other side of Justice Street apart.

Now for an important quote from a very smart guy named Albert Einstein:   

“Problems cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created them.”

In other words, the problem of social injustice cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created the problem of social injustice in the first place.  Duh…

Right now, we’re seeing both forms of consciousness, dualistic and nondualistic, aimed at solving the problem of social injustice. We’re seeing dualistic consciousness raging against the problem – social injustice – and we’re seeing nondual consciousness marching for the solution – social justice.

Let me say that in a different way:

Dualistic consciousness moving against the problem.                       
Nondual consciousness moving toward the solution.

One of these forms of consciousness transcends and includes the other. The nondual form of consciousness we experience when we’re collectively moving toward Justice, includes the dualistic form of consciousness we can see across the street, collectively moving against injustice. But nondual consciousness then transcends dualistic consciousness by turning a fight with the past into a fight for the future.

Keep in mind that Justice is nondual. Justice is undivided; one without a second. In theory, the solution to the problem of dualistic injustice is simple: Nondual Justice solves the problem of dualistic injustice. In practice, however, the timeline of our country’s history proves without a doubt that the problem of social injustice has yet to be solved. Einstein is waiting.

What we are seeing right now are both forms of consciousness solving for the problem of social injustice. If social injustice = X, then we’re seeing dualistic consciousness solving for X on one side of Justice Street, and nondual consciousness solving for X on the other. Both are trying to solve for X, they’re just solving for X in opposite temporal directions.

Marching for future justice is the opposite of marching against past injustice. One march keeps us looking backward toward repairing past injustices. The other march keeps us looking forward toward future justice, past reparations included. If you look closely. If you can see through the tear gas and flames and collective rage against the machine, you’ll see the soul of Einstein, crying for justice on the solution side of the street.

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How do athletes and coaches fit into the picture? What do our dualistic and nondual performance experiences have to do with social injustice? If I may be permitted, and please forgive the acronym abuse, but what does justice have to do with our Dualistic NOPEs and our Nondual HOPEs?

For starters, athletic competition, in its basic form, is dualistic. Think movement vs. countermovement. The movement of the ball vs your countermovements to hit it with a stick, or catch it with a glove, or kick it with your feet. Pick your sport, choose any competitive game, and its foundational architecture is dualistic.

Movement vs. Countermovement, You vs. Me. Your Team vs. My Team, Your Country vs. My Country. Competition, at its core, is dualistic, and yet athletes have demonstrated throughout the history of sport, that these fields of dualistic competition can be entered into in radically different mind-sets, categorically different states of performance consciousness. One mind-set is dualistic and sees the opponent as the problem. The other mind-set is nondualistic and sees the solution as the opponent.

I’ve never lived in an America that was not divided. Growing up in the ‘60s was growing up in a divided America that feels eerily like the divided America we’re living in today. The social injustices of the ‘60s flamed the fires of the Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Rights, Gay Rights. Equal justice for all was, and still is, a strange attractor whose magnetic center of gravity pulls us toward an America that is truly integrated, with nondual justice for all.

The fires of angry protest we see today are the rekindled fires of past injustices caused by the same dualistic consciousness that divides everything in half – including justice. And justice divided is not justice. It’s dualistic injustice – the problem – and it’s a problem of evolutionary consequence that cannot be solved by the same dualistic consciousness that creates injustice in the first place.

Problem: dualistic justice

Potential solutions:

    A) Solve the dualistic problem using the same consciousness that created the problem in the first place.

    B) Solve the dualistic problem using a different state of consciousness that includes the dualistic problem, then transcends it with a nondual solution.
It has long been said that justice is blind, meaning justice doesn’t see race, creed, or color. But remember, justice is also nondual, and nondual justice integrates race, creed, and color with a transcendent, unified whole.

These aren’t just platitudes. These are experiential performance realities, and we see both dualistic and nondual reality created on our fields of athletic competition.  We see dualistic consciousness creating our NOPEs, but we also see nondual consciousness creating our HOPEs.

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In sports, dualistic and nondualistic consciousness have an oppositional relationship that is easily seen in our own performance experiences. When dualistic consciousness is awake and you’re playing in the norm, nondual consciousness is asleep, and you know its asleep because you’re not playing in the zone.

Conversely, when your nondual consciousness is awake and you’re playing in the zone, your dualistic consciousness is asleep, and you know its asleep because you’re not playing in the norm.

Simply put, when you’re playing in the norm, you’re not playing in the zone. And when you’re playing in the zone, you’re not playing in the norm. But here’s the interesting part about playing in the zone. It includes the best of playing in the norm, but then transcends your best dualistic performance with a nondual performance experience that is even better!

The same cannot be said in the reverse. Playing in the norm does not transcend or include playing in the zone, just as dualistic consciousness neither transcends nor includes nondual consciousness.

Today, we see enraged dualistic consciousness fully awakened and blazing with division. But on the other side of the divisive fires we see an equally enraged nondual consciousness awakened and blazing for unity.

Both states of consciousness are available to us all. We’re human being, we have bodies, we have minds, we have hearts and souls, and right now, all of us are capable of waking up to a state of consciousness that unites rather than divides; a state of consciousness that integrates rather than segregates; a state of nondual consciousness that is capable of solving the problems created over countless generations of dualistic injustice.

There’s a saying going around today that is relevant to the subject of social injustice in all its dualistic forms. The saying goes like this:

“If you want to grow up, you need to wake up.”

If we-the-people are to grow up in this collective we-space we call America, the we-the-people need to wake up to a state of consciousness that can unify a divided America. And once we wake up, if we ever do, then we-the-people of America can rise up together as one, undivided – not two.

“Wake up. Grow Up. Rise Up.”

The time is now. In fact, the time is always now. The urgency is right now. The flames of division are burning right now, and if you look on the nondual side of the street, so are the fires of unity.

“Hey, Albert! One more time, will ya?”

“Problems cannot be solved by the consciousness that created them.”

Five years from now, will we look back on this time as a time when we tried once again to solve for dualistic justice using the same consciousness that caused the injustices in the first place? Or will we, the people, wake up to a state of nondual consciousness that can solve the problem?

As a country, we’ve played the dualistic game for centuries, and we see the same dualistic injustices now that were first embedded in the country as a result of the dualistic consciousness that created our country in the first place.

See where we’re going here? The state of nondual consciousness we use to play our games in the zone is the same state of nondual consciousness that can be used to solve the problems of dualistic injustice. Today’s athletes and coaches are doing more than developing better players. There is a growing collective of developmental coaches and athletes that are including “consciousness training” in their developmental programs.

By consciousness training, I mean training in altered states of consciousness, subtle states, causal states, and even the nondual states of performance consciousness we create to play our games in the zone.

This new generation of coaches and athletes are not only disrupting the dualistic consciousness of old-school coaching expertise, but they are simultaneously creating a whole new school of nondual coaching that transcends dualistic solutions with the novelty and greater wholeness of nondual integration.

This new school of nondual coaching and performance consciousness has headquarters worldwide. One of those headquarters is The Evolutionary Sports Collective located online at the intersection of Sports, Energy, Consciousness & Technology. We are all about unity, not division.

To join up, we only ask that you wake up. And if you don’t know what it means to wake up, then you haven’t, and WOW! Are you ever in for a treat – as a player, as a coach, as trainers and practitioners.

Everyone is invited. Every age, every skill level, across all cultural boundaries – all of us are invited. Nondual consciousness, like justice, is blind to race, creed, and color.