Hi all.
Another transition has occured; my final semester is under way and a solid 7 months of travelling radical experiential education is come to a close.

Now is the time of production, of cultivation, of crafting and polishing to a smooth shine this DharmaFarmer.

But what is the path of the DharmaFarmer?

The influential progenitors of the waning generation have played their part in the Great Movement, and now the waxing generation will do its own part. What will fill the space left by Aurobindo, Masanobu Fukuoka, Arne Naess, Robert Hart, etc?

For my part, I would like to focus my iteration of this Great Movement on the raising or refining of consciousness, and further articulating the use of spiritual practice or 'self-realization' as an agent or facilitator of the Great Movement.

The Movement is called 'Great' because it is 'wide and deep', to borrow a Naess phrase. It is wide in that it has myriad descriptions and myriad functions; it is deep in that it addresses and satisfies superficial as well as subaqueous levels of the experiential being.

Saying 'the Great Movement' is a bit troublesome. Saying this over and over, such a thing can quickly become an misguided maxim or empty decree. As consciousness for me is an essential aspect of my experience of the Great Movement, a desire to lessen consciousness or a lack of desire to further establish and refine consciousness would be counter-productive.

Part of the human experience, or at least my human experience, comes from discovering meaning and value in the world around us. For me, a deepening or refining of meaning comes easily or immediately when i am in an undisturbed, natural environment, such as a mature bamboo grove, or a silent pine stand in the snow, or a black-sand lagoon. Equally in certain human cultivated environments do I feel easily inspired, such as in temples and dojos, around community fires, and especially in permaculture gardens or forest gardens.

For me these settings hold the value of humility or 'proper perspective', and the experience of interconnection. Interconnection as a working hypothesis is taken up quite readily in the east (Buddha: Dependent Co-arising, Veda (Sanatana Dharma): Indra's Net, Bhagavad Gita: Krsna, Ramana Maharshi: Brahma/Self/World, Yogananda: Divine Mother, etc); and more and more the west is understanding these teachers and teachings to be of a highly refined scientific tradition. Yet what are the western equivalents, what does western science have to say?

Some disciplines at the evolving edge of science include agro-ecology, astronomy, quantum physics, molecular biology, neuroscience, and conservation biology. It is incredibly difficult to make any sweeping statements about the hard sciences, but still i will venture a few. First, these disciplines always further illuminate, more than anything else, the scope of our ignorance about ourselves and the world around us. Second, these disciplines exemplify a basic connection of 'things' or a basic non-existence of 'things'. Not that a cup of tea has no existence, it just has no autonomous or intrinsic existence. It's existence is based on the causal existance of the cup, the tea leaves, and the hot water. In this way each phenomenon occuring in space-time is causally related to all other phenomena that have occured, are occuring, and will occur.

This type of connection is immediate and intimate. In analysis of these two terms, I find that one thing immediate and intimate to me is this body, and another this mind, and another these emotions. These three things are so immediate and intimate, in fact, that I call them my own or my self. Thus connection of phenomena becomes interconnection or, further, unification. With the term unification, it is not any more multiple things being or coming together, it is one thing, unified in itself, without a second.

One last statement is that these disciplines are beginning to find active relavence through ethical valuation. This is exemplified in agro-ecology, molecular biology, neurology, and conservation biology. What is meaningful, what is good, what is desired? The pure sciences cannot answer these questions, only science applied through an ethical or philosophical matrix can inspire action.

The OED has this definition for conservation biology: "the branch of biological science concerned with the conservation, management, and protection of vulnerable species, populations, and ecosystems." I wish to draw attention to the phrase 'concerned with'. This implies that this science is not a pure science, but one that draws also from a system of value or meaning. Hard science or categorizations of facts informs action in the case of conservation biology.

The path of the DharmaFarmer is the process of becoming wise individuals and wise communities, acting from a place of solid scientific information married with meaningful philosophical and ethical systems that we each hold on some level of our total being. The sciences of ecology, biology, physics, psychology, etc. are now merging with the timeless teachings of countless saints, charting out the cosmic truths of intimate and immediate connection between all beings and indeed all objects that exist in space-time.

This is my deepest theme for the DharmaFarmer: Unity. Going by many names and explained through many images and analogies, unity can be understood as a basic oneness, singleness, or wholeness of truth or experience.

Here is a small thought experiment. Objects A and B observed. Are A and B the same, different, both, or neither? It is not that A and B are all 'the same' or 'equal', or anything othewise. It could be said that A and B are both qualities or expressions of '!', where '!' is incapturable with words or concepts. As the first line of Tao Te Ching reads, 'Tao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Tao.' In fact (relative in space-time), A and B are not 'the same' or 'equal'. The diversity on the relative level cannot be overlooked, nor should it be. Abundant, ever-evolving diversity, i feel, is a virtue of this Unity or Oneness.

This is equatable to the 'chit' in sat-chit-ananda. It is sometimes translated as 'active consciousness' or 'creative consciousness'. Sat-chit-ananda is said to be the trifold expression of Godhead, advanced by the ancient Vedas as well as contemporary yogis and yoginis. 'Truth-consciousness-bliss' it reads. Truth is that which truly exists; consciousness is the active or creative expression of truth; and bliss is the experience of truth. 'Tat tvam asi' read the Upanishads. 'That thou art'. Brahman is Atman. The trifold quality of Godhead is also the trifold quality of each diversified piece of Godhead. Each of us and the totality of us is the pure expression of Sat-chit-ananda, or so say certain saints.

Now is a time where we begin to see scientists turning toward saints, and saints turning toward scientists. In truth, Siddhartha Guatama, Patanjali, and others were very strict scientists, taking nothing for granted in their experiments of yoga. It is also true that many of the renowned scientists of our time held a special space for the super-mundane in their own personal lives.

Unity, if it is to be purely understood, must be illuminated as objectively as possible, as a theory, AND it must also be experienced consciously as a quality of existence. If unity is not brought to the level of personal experience, how can we expect this movement to be anything but intellectual masturbation? The Great Movement comes from inside each of us, originating in our own personal experience of truth. It must catalyse individual as well as communal growth. The experience of unity must occur on the level of conscious experience.

Now, given the working hypothesis of Unity, what are some scientific/human systems that acknowledge this and set out principles in line with this hypothesis?

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