Universal Mind – A Shared Global Collective Consciousness
Reflections on Unity, Consciousness and the Human Experience
Author – Paul Robear ©2025
It is hard to ignore those experiences when we sense something larger than ourselves moving beneath the surface of our ordinary awareness—insights that feel “given” rather than thought, or dreams that carry symbols older than our own story. Then there are those moments of deep recognition when meeting another feels strangely familiar. I experience these moments as invitations to remember an ancient idea: that we are not as separate as we appear.
Across time and cultures, wisdom traditions have spoken of a Universal Mind – a shared field of consciousness that connects all beings beyond physical boundaries. This understanding goes beyond poetic metaphor; it is a lived recognition that humanity participates in a vast pool of intelligence, memory, and meaning. We are individual expressions, yes, but we arise from something shared, something unified – a Global Collective Consciousness.
Long before modern psychology gave language to this idea, ancient philosophies described a single, all-pervading intelligence underlying reality itself. In Greek thought, Eastern traditions, and pre-historic wisdom lineages, there is a recurring recognition of a divine consciousness that animates all life. Whether named Logos, Tao, Brahman, or Great Spirit, the message is remarkably consistent: separation is an illusion. Beneath our apparent differences, all beings emerge from the same source – and return to it again.
Mystical and spiritual traditions have long aimed not merely to understand this unified field intellectually, but to experience it directly. Through trance, meditation, prayer, ritual, and embodied practices, seekers across time have sought communion with this underlying oneness. In such moments, the boundaries of the individual self soften. The sense of “I” expands into “we,” or dissolves altogether into a direct knowing of unity.
Those who touch this experience often describe the same realization: that love, intelligence, and creativity do not originate solely within the personal self. They arise from a deeper source, flowing through us rather than belonging to us. When we align with this field, wisdom seems to arrive unbidden. Healing unfolds without force. Guidance emerges without effort.
In a world that emphasizes individuality, productivity, and separation, remembering the Universal Mind can feel quietly revolutionary. It invites us to listen more deeply—to our dreams, our bodies, our ancestors, and one another. It reminds us that wisdom is not something we must always generate on our own; much of it is already present, waiting to be remembered.
Perhaps the work of our time is not to create something entirely new, but to rediscover what has always been true: that we belong to one another, that consciousness is shared, and that beneath the surface of our differences flows a single, living awareness—patient, intelligent, and profoundly human.
And when we embrace this, we embrace ourselves – not as separate minds looking out at the world, but as one living consciousness quietly awakening through many eyes.
“Wisdom does not always originate within us—it flows through us from a deeper, shared source.” Paul Robear
The name “CUYA” carries with it both history and vision. Rooted in our origins as the Cuyamungue Institute, it now also serves as an acronym — C.U.Y.A. — a guiding symbol that unites our mission:
C — Consciousness: The field of shared awareness that arises in Collective Presence, where the “We” awakens beyond the “I” – moving from the “Me to the We.”
U — Unity: Our alignment with the Cycles of Nature and the rhythms of the cosmos, reminding us that we are woven into a greater fabric of reality. This sense of unity reminds us that our awareness is the shared consciousness that connects all living beings.
Y — Your Awakening: The inner journey of Embodiment and Wisdom, where through direct experience the body remembers. At the CUYA Institute, this awakening is nurtured through Ritual Body Postures and ecstatic trance, where the body itself becomes the doorway to wisdom, presence, and transformation.
A — Ancestral Wisdom: Roots. Our connection to Sacred Lineage, honoring those who walked before us and rooting us in belonging and continuity. Our founder, anthropologist Felicitas D. Goodman looked to some of the oldest, most authentic ancestral records we have — the world’s collection of early and indigenous art — and decoded selected artifacts as embodied “ritual instructions.”
Together, the Four Pathways of C.U.Y.A. — Consciousness, Unity, Your Awakening, and Ancestral Wisdom — form a single tapestry of practice. They remind us that awakening is not an abstract idea but something we live: through the body in Your Awakening, through nature’s cycles in Unity, through community in shared Consciousness, and through the guidance of Ancestral Wisdom.
- …. CONTINUE