Simple Agreements and the Illusion of Inevitability
A Seven Layers Reflection on Consciousness, Constraint, and Human Becoming
Author’s Note
This essay emerged from a period of reflection on how much of what we take to be “reality” is, in fact, agreement—often unspoken, often inherited, and rarely interrogated. Over the years, through scholarship, lived experience, mentorship, and contemplative practice, I have come to see how these simple agreements quietly shape not only social systems, but our sense of identity, possibility, and belonging.
My intention here is not to indict agreement itself—human societies could not function without shared understandings—but to invite discernment. Some agreements serve coordination and collective flourishing; others persist long after their usefulness, quietly constraining thought and reinforcing inequity under the guise of inevitability.
Situated within the Seven Layers of Manifestation, this reflection explores the movement from local, socially conditioned consciousness toward a more expansive, non-local awareness—one capable of recognising agreements as artifacts of the human mind rather than fixed features of existence. In that recognition lies both responsibility and hope.
If this essay encourages even a brief pause—an inward question about which agreements you have inherited, which you have chosen, and which may be ready to be released—then it has served its purpose.
—Baruti KMT-Sisouvong, PhD
Human societies are held together not only by human-derived laws and institutions, but by far quieter forces—unspoken understandings that rarely announce themselves as choices. These are what I have come to think of as simple agreements: tacit arrangements absorbed through socialisation, reinforced through repetition, and sustained by collective assent.
They are “simple” not because they are harmless, but because they are assumed.
We inherit them early—through language, schooling, media, ritual, and reward—and soon they come to feel indistinguishable from reality itself. They define what is normal, what is possible, what is respectable, and what is unthinkable. For a time, they serve an important function: they reduce friction, enable coordination, and provide a sense of order in a complex world.
The difficulty arises when these agreements cease to be examined.
Encountering the System
Earlier in my journey, while serving as a systems administrator at a university in Atlanta, I was also studying sociology at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. During those years, I observed a recurring irony: the very social structures we were analysing critically in theory were often most rigidly defended in practice by those charged with guiding our inquiry.
On more than one occasion, I witnessed how challenges to hierarchy—however measured or intellectually grounded—were interpreted not as engagement, but as impropriety. In one case, it was conveyed that a graduate student had failed to show the “proper amount of deference” to a faculty member. That student was me.
In the aftermath of a series of events that culminated in my departure from both the programme and the university, I debriefed with my mentor, Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard III. After listening carefully, he offered a remark that has stayed with me ever since:
“Baruti, just know—it is not you. It is the system. Your presence and success challenge those who, despite being highly educated, sense that you see it for what it is: a series of flawed agreements in need of repair.”
True to form, Baba then encouraged me to revisit a text he had previously recommended—Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt. Reading it again, in that context, was clarifying. Schmidt’s argument—that institutions often reward compliance over critical intelligence—resonated deeply, and continues to serve me when encountering individuals and organisations invested in maintaining simple agreements long after their usefulness has expired.
With the benefit of time and distance, I see that Baba’s guidance was less about the specific circumstances and more about orientation. He was helping me ensure that my sense of identity, value, and purpose would neither be defined—nor diminished—by systems unsettled by clear sight. His mentorship, like that of others who have since passed on, continues to shape how I move through the world of ideas and the structures that house them.
The Cave of Consensus
In this respect, the metaphor of the cave remains strikingly relevant. Within the cave, shadows are not experienced as representations; they are experienced as the world. The inhabitants do not actively choose illusion. They simply live within the only frame they have ever known.
Simple agreements function in much the same way.
As long as one remains immersed within them, they feel natural—even benevolent. But when consciousness begins to loosen its exclusive identification with inherited norms, those same agreements reveal themselves not as neutral descriptions of reality, but as social strictures: boundaries quietly demarcating acceptable thought, permissible behaviour, and sanctioned aspiration. To review this concept in more detail, consider reading my essay titled The Water We Call the World.
What once stabilised now constrains.
Local Consciousness: Agreements as Structure
Within the Seven Layers of Manifestation, simple agreements primarily operate at the level of Human (Local) Consciousness. Here, awareness is oriented toward immediate social reality—family expectations, cultural narratives, institutional roles, and identity categories. At this level, agreements are internalised as facts rather than recognised as constructs.
Local consciousness does not ask, Who created these rules?
It asks, How do I succeed within them?
This is not a moral failure; it is a developmental stage. Local consciousness seeks belonging, predictability, and safety. It values coherence and continuity. And so long as agreements appear to serve those ends, they are rarely disturbed.
Yet herein lies the danger: agreements that benefit a few can persist indefinitely when they are framed as inevitable.
Non-Local Consciousness: Agreements as Artifacts
The transition toward Pure (Non-Local) Consciousness marks a qualitative shift. Awareness begins to decouple from immediate social conditioning and to perceive patterns across time, culture, and history. What once felt immutable now appears contingent. What once felt sacred now appears authored.
At this level, simple agreements are no longer experienced as reality itself, but as artifacts of the human mind.
This is the moment when individuals begin to recognise that many of the most fiercely defended social arrangements—particularly those involving hierarchy, dominance, and exclusion—are not natural laws but negotiated outcomes. They were created, refined, and enforced in particular historical contexts, often to stabilise unequal distributions of power.
Few constructs illustrate this more clearly than race.
Race as a Sacred Agreement
Race is among the most tenacious of simple agreements because it has been woven so thoroughly into legal systems, economic structures, and personal identity. Though born of human categorisation, it has been elevated to near-sacred status, defended as though it were an ontological truth rather than a social invention.
For those who benefit from its maintenance—materially, psychologically, or symbolically—the prospect of releasing this agreement can feel existentially threatening. To question it is to destabilise narratives of deservedness, superiority, and entitlement.
Hence the white-knuckle grip.
What may appear, from the outside, as irrational resistance is often a deeply rational response to perceived loss: loss of status, certainty, and inherited advantage. The agreement persists not because it is true, but because it is useful—to a few.
A Metaphor: The Painted Lines
Consider a city intersection where lines have been painted on the road to guide traffic. For years, drivers obey them without thought. They prevent chaos; they serve a purpose.
But imagine discovering that some of those lines no longer correspond to the actual flow of the city—that they divert traffic unnecessarily, privilege certain routes, and restrict others without justification. Worse still, imagine that questioning the lines is treated not as problem-solving, but as recklessness.
Simple agreements are like those painted lines.
They are not the road.
They are not the destination.
They are guidance marks—useful until they are not.
The danger arises when lines meant to guide become rules meant to bind, and when repainting them is forbidden in the name of “order.”
Upward Mobility of the Self—and the Species
As individuals and societies move toward non-local awareness, an alternative possibility emerges: upward mobility of being. Not merely economic or social mobility, but cognitive, ethical, and existential expansion.
To see agreements as agreements—rather than inevitabilities—is to realise that humanity is not finished. We are not locked into our present arrangements. We can renegotiate the terms of coexistence in ways that are more inclusive, more truthful, and more aligned with our highest capacities.
This recognition is liberating for many—and deeply unsettling for others.
History suggests, however, that progress has never occurred without discomfort. Each expansion of consciousness has required the courage to loosen the grip on inherited certainties and to imagine forms of life not yet fully realised.
Beyond the Illusion of Inevitability
The work before us, then, is not to abolish all agreements, but to discern which ones continue to serve collective flourishing—and which merely preserve outdated hierarchies under the guise of tradition.
Simple agreements become problematic not when they exist, but when they are rendered unquestionable.
To move beyond them is not to reject society, but to participate more consciously in its ongoing creation. It is to recognise that what has been made by the human mind can be examined, revised, and—when necessary—released by the human mind.
In this sense, the true work of consciousness is not rebellion, but responsibility: the willingness to see clearly, to hold complexity, and to refuse the comfort of inevitability when it comes at the cost of human becoming.
The cave is not escaped all at once.
It is left behind agreement by agreement.
And in that gradual leaving, both the self and the species discover that they are capable of far more than they had been led to believe.
In the end, the releasing of outdated simple agreements is not an act of abandonment, but a return—to our fundamental nature—so that we may begin again. That fundamental nature is Pure Consciousness itself.
May we, then, support one another on this journey of collective becoming.
Suggested Practice: Examining Simple Agreements
(This reflection may be completed in one sitting or revisited over several days. Read slowly. Write briefly. Pause often.)
1. Settling (Pure Consciousness)
Begin by allowing the mind to settle in its own way. No analysis yet. Simply rest for a few minutes in stillness, noticing the ease that arises when nothing needs to be solved or improved.
2. Naming the Agreement (Local Consciousness)
Bring to mind one assumption you rarely question—about success, identity, authority, race, productivity, or worth.
Ask gently:
What am I assuming to be “just the way things are”?
Where did I first learn this?
Do not judge the agreement. Simply name it.
3. Tracing Its Function (Human-Derived World)
Consider how this agreement operates in daily life:
Who does it benefit?
Who does it constrain—if anyone?
What behaviours does it quietly reward or discourage?
Notice without blame. Systems persist because they function, not because they are malicious.
4. Seeing It as an Artifact (Construct)
Now ask:
If this agreement were created, could it also be revised?
What would change if it were held more lightly?
Allow perspective to widen. This is not about immediate action, but expanded seeing.
5. Returning (Integration / Non-Local Awareness)
End by returning attention inward. Notice that awareness itself remains unchanged by the agreements it observes.
Rest briefly in that recognition.
Closing Reflection
Not every agreement must be discarded. Some are necessary. Some are provisional. Some are overdue for revision.
The practice is not rejection, but discernment—learning to tell the difference.
—
About the Author
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—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society.
He is the Founder and Director of Radical Scholar Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness-based research and public scholarship, and President of Serat Group Inc., the parent company of Transcendental Brain, a consulting and educational platform bringing consciousness science into leadership and institutional development. He also serves as Host of the On Transcendence Podcast.
Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program and serves as Host and Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly global gathering dedicated to the unifying power of silence.
He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul.
To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.