The New Problem That Has No Name
In 1963 Betty Friedan changed the trajectory of the lives of millions of women with her ground breaking book The Feminine Mystique. She identified a discomfort that women felt that was never talked about – the dissatisfaction that they felt in the roles that they were living as housewives in the 1950’s. The sense that there was more to life and more to who they were than housewives. She called this “the problem that had no name.”
Humanity is at the brink of tremendous change. This change is happening on all levels – individual, social, national and global. Old structures are falling away and new ones are coming forth as solutions to outdated ways of being. Inside each of us we are on the brink of tremendous change.
There is a fundamental discomfort at the very center of our being. This fundamental discomfort is the “new problem that has no name.” And it is the key to the next level of our evolutionary development.
It is a pain born of separation. 35,000 years ago when our ancestors went through a dramatic shift in consciousness and became aware that they were aware. Humans evolved into homo sapien sapiens – they “knew that they knew.” From that “fall from grace” humans recognized they were separate from each other, naked, separate from the earth, and began to live into a 35,000 year evolutionary journey into separation.
Prior to that humanity lived a primal connection with ALL; in the unity consciousness, much like a baby but greater mental capacity to function in the world. With the introduction of this new type of “separation consciusness.” Humans became aware of a world of duality. The primary duality is “self” and “not self.” All strategies for survival since then have included this fundamental world view.
We are now at a place in our evolutionary unfoldment where we are becoming conscious of – aware of – that fundamental feeling of separation at the very center of our being. It is the new “problem that has no name.” It feels like “something is not right” “I am not enough” “life is not enough.” The dominant paradigm of materialism and capitalism feeds off the existence of this underlying feeling. We are called by the dream of aquiring more in the outer world to fill the inner feeling of “something is missing.”
What is missing? What is this new problem with no name? How can it be solved?
Let’s start with the last question. Einstein reminds us that “a problem can not be solved by the level of consciousness that created it.” Our problem is fundamentally a problem that was created by the evolutionary advancement from a stage of human development that was hyperfeminine (unity with everything) into a stage of human development that is now hypermasculine (separation from and control over everything). We as humanity and as individuals are being invited by this “new problem with no name” into the next stage of our evolutionary unfoldment.
What do we do to solve the problem? We begin to feel the pain. This is not a problem we can think our way through. Thinking has led us to the pinnacle the zenith point of our experiment with the consciousness of separation. Thinking can not lead us into the next stage of internal evolution. However discernment and discrimination can be helpful tools and the practice of inquiry can be used to go beyond the mind.
We are being invited into a new way of being with the fundamental pain at the very center of our being. The epidemic of depression in our country is sign of this new awakening. We are being called to slow down, to turn inward and feel the pain we have been running from.
Historically pain has been a signal that something is wrong. So when we feel this discomfort at the center of our being our mind interprets it as “something is wrong.” Something is wrong with me. There is something wrong with us and the mind perceives it as a problem.
We are the primordial energy of the big bang that has evolved over 13.7 billion years to become humans. We are a primordial, intelligent, unlimited, all powerful, all knowing energy living as limited beings in a material immanent world. Some part of us knows our emmencity and great capacity yet we feel the very real limitations of this life we are living. This fundamental existential anxiety of knowing we are more and feeling the limitations of our current role in life and way of being is the “new problem with no name.”
When we choose to pause and slow down, when we choose to pause and feel, when we choose to dive deep, we can become aware of–conscious of — the feeling of discomfort at the very center of our being. This same feeling when unconscious – when we are not aware of it – drives all forms of addiction. It has driven the current consumption economy, it drives the spiritual seeker to keep going. This is the primal suffering of which the Buddha spoke.
Now at this moment in time, we are being called into the journey of awakening. Awakening to all that we are – this includes our pain, this includes the opposites of all that we see ourselves to be. If I am non-violent, violence also exists in me. If I am truthful, non truth also exists in me. We are on a journey to reclaiming our wholeness. We are stepping into a new level of existence beyond the world of opposites – into the paradoxical awakening to our whole being. We are BOTH divine and human. We are of the same primordial energy that existed before creation AND we are the evolved material form of “human” – wild with untamable parts of our being and very refined parts of our being. There is a fundamental “messiness” to our being human and a “purity” to our connection with our divinity. The intersection of these two strands of our being create the tapestry of the awakened life – we are both – the evolving messiness of the perfection of all creation.
This fundamental “new problem that has no name” is the problem created by living as only half our our true identity; it is the pain of separation consciousness.
Finally we are at a point in our journey where we can see clearly that this paradigm of separation is limited. We are in an “us vs. them” relationship with the world and ourselves. We are longing, yearning, calling out for wholeness. To live in the paradox of separation of form and unity of underlying primal felt connection. The problem is that we have been confining and walling ourselves off to ALL of who we are.
This primal pain of separation we feel at the center of our being is our greater self beckoning us to expand into greater wholeness and connection. We feel the tighness of our limited world view of separation like a belt that is too tight — confining us. Yes, it feels like something is wrong, something is missing, I am not enough and it’s true.
You are more than you now can feel yourself to be. You are a divinely human being. The yoga of awakening is the journey to reclaim your wholeness and live in deep intimacy with all of life.
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