Can We Change The Basic Course Of Man?

Tuesday, 31 March 2026, 1:11 pm
Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations

The day is mild, and the park is nearly empty. For the entire hour I sit beside the stream, a single swallowtail butterfly feeds on the nectar of the spiky white balls overhanging the water.

The senses become fully attuned to sights, sounds and smells around one. There is a quality of aloneness without isolation, solitude without loneliness.

One has only to watch the total movement of thought until it effortlessly and spontaneously falls silent. Then the beauty of the earth is fully seen, and is within one.

Meditation is not about “stress reduction,” though it certainly affords that, especially in nature. Nor is it about finding a few minutes of peace by watching the breath and quieting the surface levels of the mind.

Meditation is a doorway into a deeper and immeasurably truer level of being, a portal beyond the stifling, cumulative human past into the infinite, regenerative present.

Something I read today conveys an intimation of meditation as I understand and practice it (without implying a “practice’’ in the usual sense):

“What is necessary is a very sensitive, alert brain which has stopped entirely, willingly and easily, it’s chatter of reason and non-reason.”

Even the reasoning of a philosopher, perhaps especially of a philosopher. As well as quieting the non-rational mind, chaotically skipping and skimming over recent experiences and encounters, or regurgitating memories from the past.

Question gently but persistently. Ask intently but then let go of the question. Any effort to quiet thought remains the action of the self, which sustains duality and the chattering mind. One simply has to fully attend to thought’s movement without choice or judgment for the spaces between thoughts to grow, and thought to fall silent.

Walking after the meditation, I pass a young, rather forlorn woman sitting at a picnic table. A sign in the back window of her small car reads, “Baby, I’m bored”—a funny takeoff on parents who have signs that announce, “Baby on board.”

One can watch anything within oneself, even boredom. Doing so, it’s no longer boredom, but a deeper issue -- emptiness. That's a big reason so few people observe themselves in this way.

Boredom is a huge motivator for escape in the materialistic cultures of the west. It’s a vicious circle. Boredom is a symptom of emptiness needing to be filled, and that need motivates escapes from drugs to gambling to extreme sports to online addiction. The escapes in turn increase emptiness, which require more stimulating escapes…

It’s become fashionable to talk about “collective intelligence.” But there is no such thing. It’s synonymous with “what’s trending.” There is no intelligence in the immediate, though it can become all-consuming, as this war threatens to be.

An overemphasis on the individual in the personal sense is the bane of contemplative life. But the undivided individual is and will always be the starting point for awaking and igniting insight in human consciousness and change in society. Organizing movements have become exercises in futility.

A serious person who is aware of how insane the world has become and looks within to the source of the darkness and violence, doesn't get sucked into the vortex of collective darkness on one hand or the sinkhole of solipsism on the other.

There's no escape through the falsely humble idea, “Humans don’t matter; if we extinguish ourselves, the earth will be fine without us.”

The human brain matters. Not because it is capable of high science and technology, but because of its untapped spiritual potential. The evolution of ‘higher thought’ gave the human brain the capacity for the highest awareness, but thought has become the greatest impediment to realization of our potential as human beings. Thus the imperative of methodless meditation.

With the ending of thought and all separation, there is direct contact with the actuality of death, which is inseparable from life. That is, death, which is present every moment within and without, draws near without fear. Complete awareness is indivisible from death.

Then one realizes that the universe is in a state of meditation. Therefore when there is total attention, and psychological and even functional thought falls silent, the brain shares in the state of universal meditation.

So brains like ours matter in the universe, though not without limits. A potentially intelligent species can destroy itself, and man seems hellbent on doing so.

There is no collective intelligence in man’s consciousness that will enable us to change course. However, self-knowing individuals can awaken the intelligence that imbues nature and the universe.

Then, small groups of people, holding opinions and perspectives in abeyance, will light shared insight through questioning and listening together. In doing so they'll ignite the dark matter in consciousness, and change the disastrous course of man.

Martin LeFevre

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Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Scoop Contributor

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.

His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.

lefevremartin77@gmail