Beyond the Ruling: Why Consciousness Must Inform the Future of Law (REDUX)
Why legality without consciousness fractures society—and how centering Pure Consciousness can guide us toward a more perfect union
Law in a Time of Fracture
In a Medium article now archived on my Substack, I discussed the United States Supreme Court and their issuance of a series of rulings dated Friday, 27 June 2025 that sent ripples across the legal, political, and social fabric of the nation. From the narrowing of nationwide injunction powers to the greenlighting of state-led funding restrictions on healthcare providers like Planned Parenthood, these decisions reflect a deeper and more troubling current: the increasing fragmentation of our shared moral compass.
What concerns me most is not merely the long-term outcomes of these decisions, but the foundational assumptions behind them.
These fractures are not theoretical. In Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (2025), the Court held that Medicaid recipients have no enforceable right to challenge a state’s exclusion of providers such as Planned Parenthood. Legality was preserved, but human dignity was narrowed. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court sided with parents objecting to LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks, requiring schools to provide notice and opt-outs—thereby recasting education itself as a contested moral battlefield. And in United States v. Skrmetti, the Court upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors, reducing deeply personal questions of identity and health to the blunt instrument of legislative will.
In each of these rulings, the law functioned as structure, precedent, and procedure. Yet the deeper dimensions of justice—empathy, coherence with human flourishing, recognition of consciousness—were left unexamined. What is lawful was asserted; what is right was left unresolved.
In this moment, division masquerades as governance, and expedience is prioritized over wisdom. The current system—while legal—is not always aligned with what is right. And this is not only an American problem. Around the globe, courts and legislatures are straining under the same weight: authoritarian overreach in Hungary and Turkey cloaked in legality, legalistic repression in Hong Kong under “national security,” even democratic backsliding in countries once thought secure.
The deeper problem is not a matter of left or right, liberal or conservative. It is a matter of center.
Benjamin Elijah Mays, the great past-president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, once wrote: “The circumference of life cannot be rightly drawn, until the center is set.” He did not say it could not be drawn—only that it could not be rightly drawn. That single word, rightly, when applied in the context of the Court’s decisions, is the fulcrum on which the future of law now rests.
The Problem Behind the Problem
What do the latest decisions really signal? Not just a conservative or liberal victory. Not just judicial philosophy in action. They are symptoms of a larger condition: a nation, and indeed a species, that has not yet learned to act in concert with the fundamental intelligence that animates all life—Pure Consciousness.
Consider the pattern: the narrowing of healthcare access, the redefinition of education around exclusion, and the restriction of medical care for vulnerable youth. These are not isolated events but symptoms of a legal system operating almost entirely at the level of constructs and outcomes. They reveal how a nation without a conscious center attempts to legislate its circumference—and in so doing, risk drawing lines that wound rather than heal.
When the Court allows states to withhold Medicaid funding from institutions that provide reproductive healthcare, it is doing more than adjudicating policy—it is narrowing the scope of care under the illusion of jurisdictional neutrality. When it affirms the right to opt out of LGBTQ+ curricula in public schools, it is not just affirming religious liberty—it is subtly redefining public education as a battlefield of exclusion. When it limits judicial checks on executive overreach, it does not merely adjust legal mechanics—it emboldens unchecked power at a time when integration, not fragmentation, is most needed.
These decisions may be consistent with precedent or procedure, but they fail a more fundamental test: Are they in alignment with the evolutionary arc of human consciousness?
Local Awareness Without Non-Local Wisdom
The Seven Layers of Manifestation begin at the most fundamental level—Pure Consciousness—and unfold through Universal and Natural Law, the Phenomenal World, Human Consciousness, the Human-Derived World, Constructs, and finally, Outcomes (Non-Local Influence). These layers are not speculative; they are real perceptual fields available to any individual or collective willing to still itself and listen inwardly to the wisdom of unfolding.
But our institutions operate almost entirely at the local level of Outcomes—bound by fear, by habit, by tribal allegiance. Laws are written and interpreted in terms of power, protection, and precedent, not wisdom. There appears to be almost no space within the judiciary for Pure Consciousness—non-local awareness, contemplative insight, or the possibility that consciousness itself is a lawful field through which decisions ought to be filtered.
When decisions are made without this awareness, they tend to multiply division. They fracture instead of unify. They emphasize enforcement over understanding. They harden systems that are already brittle from the strain of spiritual neglect.
This is the distinction Mays warned of: a circumference drawn without a center.
The Law of Laws
In my doctoral research and continuing work, I propose a vision of societal progress that integrates the inner development of the individual with the outward development of just systems. The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress (MPGP) asserts that all true growth must begin within Consciousness—where perception, emotion, and intention originate. Without this anchoring, external achievements risk becoming instruments of decay.
Imagine, instead, a judiciary that paused to ask: “Is this ruling an expression of cosmic intelligence, or is it merely an assertion of institutional power?” Imagine education policy that was filtered not only through legality but through the wisdom of interdependence. Imagine immigration law grounded in the recognition that borders are social constructs, while the soul has none.
This is not fanciful. It is necessary. If Pure Consciousness is the field from which law, compassion, and creativity emerge, then law divorced from it becomes hollow.
We must reintroduce the idea that Pure Consciousness is not an accessory to democracy—it is its engine.
Seven Layers in Practice: How Law Misses the Deeper Levels
We can see this clearly in the 2025 rulings. Medina bypassed the Phenomenal World of women’s lived experiences with healthcare. Mahmoud touched Human Consciousness only to constrain it, privileging exclusion over belonging. Skrmetti reshaped the Derived World of medicine without listening to the inner lives of those most affected. Each decision functioned within the outer rings of the Seven Layers, while neglecting the center. They drew circumferences, but not rightly.
Pure Consciousness sets the center.
Universal and Natural Law grounds justice in coherence with Nature.
Phenomenal World insists we look at the lived reality of bodies, communities, ecosystems.
Human Consciousness requires empathy, the recognition of shared interiority.
To legislate or adjudicate without these deeper levels is to construct systems upon sand.
The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress: From Courtroom to Consciousness
The MPGP offers six tiers consisting of three aspects at each tier of unfoldment. Elements such as—Knower, Seeker, Desire, Consistent Study, Compassion for Everyone, Contemplation, Self-Realization, Acceptance of Change, Necessary Action, Redefined Life Purpose, Evolving Sense of Self, Execution, Commitment to a Higher Purpose. Though designed with Freemasonry in mind, it maps beautifully onto civic life.
What would it mean for a judge to act as a Seeker, not only of precedent but of wisdom? For a legislator to act with Compassion for All, not just constituents? For a society to measure success not by GDP or power but by Commitment to Higher Purpose?
In this sense, judging is inner work. The gavel should not only strike with authority but resonate with clarity born of stillness.
Case Studies: Glimpses of Conscious Law
We have seen glimmers of law aligned with consciousness before:
Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha—truth-force—was not merely political strategy but spiritual insistence that law must harmonize with conscience.
Thurgood Marshall’s arguments in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) were not simply legal briefs but moral appeals that pierced the heart of segregation.
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission embodied a rare fusion of law and compassion, recognizing that justice without healing is incomplete.
Each of these examples illustrates what happens when legal systems allow consciousness to inform procedure. They are imperfect, yes, but they remind us that it is possible.
The Way Forward: Conscious Participation
As mentioned in my previous essay of which this is the REDUX version, this is not an argument for theocracy or mysticism cloaked in robes. It is a call for integration. A call for conscious participation in the shaping of our shared reality.
To those who hold power, I offer this: consider training your attention inward as diligently as you study the Constitution. Study the arc of silence, the wisdom of stillness, the implications of coherence.
To those who feel powerless, I offer this: you are not small. You are a node in a network of infinite intelligence. Your meditations matter. Your integrity matters. Your refusal to become numb is a revolutionary act.
And to those of us who teach, lead, and heal, I offer this: let us begin to prepare our students and communities not only to vote, protest, or petition—but to perceive. To attune. To live from a higher layer of manifestation.
Imagine if civics education included not only how a bill becomes law, but how silence becomes clarity. Imagine if our courthouses contained not only libraries of precedent, but rooms of meditation. Imagine if “Equal Justice Under Law” was not just engraved in stone but embodied in consciousness.
A Closing Benediction: Law and the Living Constitution of Consciousness
These recent cases remind us that even at the highest court, the question is never simply one of legality. It is always—whether admitted or not—a question of consciousness. The Constitution may be the written law, but Pure Consciousness is the living law and existed before the former and will outlive it. Until the latter is acknowledged, the former will always be provisional.
The Supreme Court does not sit above the people. It sits within the people—within their expectations, their projections, and their level of consciousness. To evolve our laws, we must evolve ourselves.
The Seven Layers of Manifestation is not just a framework for self-help. It is a path for social regeneration. It begins with presence, unfolds into wisdom, and culminates in responsible co-creation.
The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress reminds us that unfoldment is perpetual, not final. Even our highest laws are provisional drafts of a deeper constitution—one written not in ink but in the living field of consciousness.
The future of justice is not written yet. But it can be envisioned. And if we are wise, it will be one where human-derived laws and Pure Consciousness are no longer strangers, but partners in shaping a more harmonious world.
One person. One day. One hour. Sometimes that is all it takes to begin.
Shall we begin?
Suggested Practices: Consciousness and the Future of Law
Journal Prompts
The Center and the Circumference: Where in your personal or professional life are you drawing circles without first setting a clear center? How might stillness help you realign?
Law and Life: Think of a recent policy, ruling, or law that affected you or your community. Was it simply legal, or did it also feel just? What deeper level of consciousness was missing?
Personal Benchmarks: If you were to serve as a “judge” of your own daily actions, what guiding principle—beyond rules—would you use to ensure they are rightly drawn?
Reflection Exercises
One Hour of Legal Silence: Set aside one uninterrupted hour this week to sit in silence, holding in awareness a single question: What would justice look like if rooted in consciousness? Record any insights that arise, no matter how small.
Conscious Civics: When you next read the news about a legal or political decision, pause before reacting. Ask yourself: which layer of the Seven Layers (Pure Consciousness, Universal and Natural Law, Phenomenal World, Human Consciousness, Human-Derived World, Constructs, Outcomes (Non-Local Influence) is being engaged—or ignored?
Drafting a Living Constitution: Write one “article” of a personal constitution informed by Pure Consciousness (e.g., Article I: Compassion must guide all decisions). Keep it visible as a reminder that law begins within.
—
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and the Seven Layers of Manifestation framework—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society. Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program, where they have taught thousands the art and science of meditation.
Extending this mission globally, he is the founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), an annual worldwide gathering dedicated to experiencing the unifying power of silence in a time of division, precarity, and technological upheaval. An author of several forthcoming works on the future of consciousness in an age shaped by technology, he writes and teaches from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul. They are the proud parents of four children. To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.