Will the year 2012, mark the end of the Earth? The pathless path of Integral Gaia Yoga doesn’t believe in the end of the Earth. There are varying views about what is going to happen in 2012, presented by experts and scholars, depending on the traditions or spiritual practices they follow.

Here my aim is to express the understanding of 2012 from an integral perspective in the context of what Integral Gaia Yoga envisions for Earth and her beings. I will also discuss other views and how they differ or agree with the vision of Integral Gaia Yoga.

The Evolutionary Shift

There are some doomsday prophets who take the end of the Mayan calendar literally as the end of the world itself, which is a rather narrow view that has little validity. Some others see the shift in 2012 as a time when a few chosen ones will leave the Earth behind to enter into what they believe to be a higher dimension. This view stems from the concept that Earth is a lower vibration and not Divine. It also seems to be a New Age version of the Christian evangelist dream of Rapture when Earth is left behind. Then there are those who feel that a planetary transformation will take place, but still look at the material or physical aspect of the Universe as illusion or inferior than what they view as non-physical Spirit. Most ascensionist perspectives subscribe to the concept that humanity is the crown of creation – the most advanced species on Earth.

Our Earth is not an inanimate rock that spins around the Sun as the materialists would have us believe. This planet is not a low form of existence that should be left behind to escape into some ethereal dimensions or a far away Heaven either as some spiritualists assert. Earth is a living Being, a Divine superconsciousness with physical, psychic and spiritual dimensions - Gaia.

Though it was the scientist James Lovelock who created the scientific hypothesis, which sees Earth as a self-organising super organism, and named it after the Greek Earth Goddess Gaia, it is not a new idea at all. And Lovelock’s hypothesis, which remains within the scientific rationalist paradigm’s limitations, doesn’t see Earth as a sentient consciousness, because that is far beyond the comfort zone of conventional scientific dogma.

The awareness of Earth as a Divine superconsciousness, existed on this planet in ancient times in many cultures before the patriarchal social and religious structures emerged. In ancient India, Earth was revered as a Goddess - Bhoomi Devi. The ancient Indian integral Tantric understanding acknowledges the Earth, the Sun, the physical Universes, the non-physical dimensions and the Transcendental Emptiness as equally real aspects of an infinite, integral and multidimensional Ultimate Reality. All the infinite dimensions of reality can be accessed through Gaia consciousness and Heaven can manifest right here on Earth. The Divine is omnipresent and even the rocks, rivers, oceans and the sand are the material expressions of the Divine consciousness.

Integral Gaia Yoga does not subscribe to the theory that humanity is the most advanced species on Earth. All species on Earth are considered as equally important to the whole, with the unique abilities of each species adding value to the interconnected collective consciousness of the planet. At least some scientists are discovering, despite their anthropocentric hubris about the imagined superiority of humanity, that even animals and birds are sentient. Ancient legends of many cultures have taken the view that the other species of Earth are beings with self-awareness. Many people consider dolphins as psychically and spiritually superconscious. Stories of dolphins rescuing and healing human beings abound.

In fact, most non-human creatures of Earth are more intimately connected to the planetary consciousness than human beings, who have lost their intimate connection to Gaia due to the rationalist denial of Gaia consciousness and the spiritualist focus on ‘higher’ dimensions. The hardened scientific rationalism that sees Earth as inanimate, and the conventional religious/spiritual systems that dismiss Earth as low existence or as illusion, arose as the byproducts of the patriarchal suppression and subjugation of the Divine Feminine, women and integral spiritual traditions that revered Earth as a Divine manifestation.

Most popular perspectives on 2012 are based on the material/spiritual duality and the belief that liberation from the supposedly ‘low’ vibration of matter is necessary for an evolutionary transformation. This is a reaction to the materialist fundamentalism that rejects the existence of all non-physical dimensions. The integral vision sees both Spirit and Matter as unique and very real expressions of the same integral and multidimensional Ultimate Reality. The physical Universes are not illusions, but real manifestations of the unbounded Being – Being in Form. The only illusion is the divisive tendency of the human mind that considers humanity to be superior and also divides the all-pervading Divinity into supposedly low and high dimensions or vibrations.

Integral Gaia Yoga follows the view that the Divine consciousness has equally real aspects like the formless Transcendental Emptiness and the infinite physical and non-physical dimensions of the manifested Cosmos. This integral perspective bridges the artificial duality of the exclusively materialist and spiritualist perspectives. Instead of taking an ‘either/or’ approach (either Matter or Spirit), Integral Gaia Yoga aims for a ‘both/and’ integral multidimensional approach (both Spirit and Matter as unique expressions of the same Divine). Merely going ‘up’ into higher dimensions is not an integral evolution, but a lopsided evolution. An integral transformation requires a simultaneous heightening, widening and deepening of consciousness, which the purely ascensionist approaches ignore.

David Abram, a cultural ecologist and philosopher, in his article The Perceptual Implications of Gaia, points out how the obsession with other dimensions without accepting the reality of Gaia consciousness in which we are immersed, makes human evolution incomplete:

“If our senses, our perceptions, and our whole manner of thinking have taken shape in reciprocal co-evolution and communion with a coherent living biosphere, then in all probability it is our own Earth whose traces we actually discover in our most abstract investigations of quantum and astronomical spaces, the living Earth peering back at us through all our equations. For until we have recognized perceptually our organic embeddedness in the collective life of the biosphere - until we have realigned our thoughts with our senses and our embodied situation - any perception of other worlds must remain hopelessly distorted.

The theoretical discourse of our time has largely alienated us from the world of our everyday senses, while accustoming us to speak casually of the most far-flung realities. Thus other galaxies, ‘black holes,’ the birth of the universe, the origins of space and of time, all seem quite matter-of-fact phenomena easily encompassed by the marvelous human mind. But Gaia, as a reality that encompasses us, a phenomenon we are immediately in and of, suggests the inconsistency of such blackboard abstractions. Gaia is no mere formula - it is our own body, our flesh and our blood, the wind blowing past our ears and the hawks wheeling overhead. Understood thus with the senses, recognized from within, Gaia is far vaster, far more mysterious and eternal than anything we may ever hope to fathom.”

According to the ecopsychologist Dr. Michael J. Cohen, we, and all of nature, are built of attraction bonds that hold atoms and the world together. In us, at least 53 of these bonds register emotionally and spiritually as ‘biophilia’, a binding, 53-sense love of nature. Our nature-disconnected ways de-energize biophilia out of our awareness. We instead believe we have only five senses. Writes Cohen, “During the eons before humanity walked on Planet Earth, the natural world and its spirit, - an attraction to support life in balance that some call green spirit - thrived and grew in the non-polluting ways of nature’s self-correcting perfection and restorative powers.” The 53 natural attraction senses are nothing but the manifestations of this green spirit.

Unfortunately, both the rationalist materialism that views Earth as inanimate, and the spiritual/religious traditions that focus on otherworldly dimensions alone, have contributed to humanity’s disconnection from the Spirit of the Earth. Any ascension that aims to disconnect from the Earth consciousness and move into a supposedly ‘higher dimension’ separate from Earth, will only be an incomplete transformation, because in a truly integral transformation, the consciousness must encompass all the dimensions including material and non-material. If we take the integral view that everything is Divine, there is nothing to escape from or escape into. If everything is Divine, matter is also Divine and not an illusion, because the Divine cannot be an illusion. When we confine ourselves to either the material dimension or the non-physical dimension, our experience actually becomes impoverished and compartmentalised. When spiritualists long for escaping from the spell of matter condemning matter as mere illusion, they are making the same mistake of the materialists who reject non-material levels of reality as illusion. Instead, the aim should be to experience all dimensions, physical and non-physical, equally at the same time. In fact, the Gaia consciousness could be the portal that connects us to the Galactic consciousness, the consciousness of all the Universes in the Multiverse and the Transcendental formless Emptiness.

The idea of a leap happening specifically on an exact date and year cannot be seen as entirely accurate. A quantum leap is possible, which could look like a sudden leap, but might have been under preparation silently beneath the surface for a long duration. Rather than a complete shift happening overnight in 2012 itself, it could mark just the beginning of a more intensive cycle of evolutionary transformation, which has been brewing for quite a long time. An overemphasis on linear time like the exact date or year does not take into account the fact that evolutionary shifts can happen in non-linear ways also.

It is possible that some people who focus on ascension will manifest a lightbody and enter into ethereal dimensions in 2012 leaving behind others. But that doesn’t mean a complete and integral transformation of the whole planet. It doesn’t result in an integral transformation even for those who develop a lightbody either. Many traditions, both Western and Eastern, which talk about the lightbody, see it as a non-physical body that is free from matter. Such views are influenced by the questionable idea that matter is illusion. Authentic ancient integral Tantric traditions have considered the body as having many dimensions including material and subtle. Integral Gaia Yoga seeks an integral transformation of the body that will not confine the body to either material or non-physical dimensions. Instead, the aim is to manifest a multidimensional and integral body that exists simultaneously at the material and non-material levels, enabling the transformed being to experience all the dimensions of reality in an integral and multidimensional way, which the conventional lightbody is incapable of.

Ultimately, an Integral Enlightenment requires a comprehensive, integral and multidimensional evolutionary transformation of not just humanity, but all the beings of Earth and the planetary consciousness as a whole. Such a vast transformation may not happen instantly in 2012 because some people manifesting lightbody and forming higher dimensional enclaves inaccessible to others, cannot be an integral shift. 2012 could be one of the many turning points in the ever-expanding journey of evolution. However, it may not be a great idea to hype up 2012 as the greatest milestone. The evolutionary transformation will continue and the real Great Shift could come only later when an integral planetary transformation, which leaves no one behind and integrates all the material and non-physical dimensions, happens to manifest Heaven on Earth.