The Water We Call the World
On Mind, Immersion, and the Architecture of the Human-Derived World
As I survey the contemporary socio-political landscape, like many, I find myself increasingly dismayed by what I see in the news and even more concerned by the vitriol now commonplace both across social media and within the comment sections of otherwise reputable publications. While I remain unsure whether this reflects a genuinely new social phenomenon or a long-standing reality now made unmistakably visible by the democratisation of the internet, I am certain of one thing: if human beings do not temper their rhetoric—and if history is any guide—things will eventually turn ugly should saner minds fail to prevail.
In observing the reckless behaviour of far too many, I find myself returning again and again to a fundamental question:
What would it take for a sizable portion of humanity to recognise the power of mind—not only in shaping individual lives, but in envisioning, constructing, and sustaining the Human-Derived World we inhabit each day?
This question did not arise for me as theory. It first surfaced quietly during meditation many years ago and then gradually widened. Roads, laws, economies, institutions, languages—none of these emerged from nature fully formed. Each was first imagined within a human mind, then shared, agreed upon, enacted, reinforced, and eventually treated as though it had always existed.
And yet most people move through this world as if it were given by nature rather than made—and continuously sustained—by human beings.
I have come to see that this is not because people are incapable of seeing otherwise, nor because they lack intelligence or care. It is because they are immersed.
A Sufi teaching, often shared by Coleman Barks in his reflections on Rumi, asks: What do the fish know of the water that surrounds them? The fish is not ignorant. It is uninterrupted. Water is not encountered as an object; it is the condition of existence itself.
So too with the Human-Derived World. We are born into it mid-sentence. Its assumptions precede us. Its rules feel natural. Its limits feel final. Scarcity is mistaken for law. Competition is framed as inevitability. Systems that exhaust both human and planetary life are defended as “just the way things are.”
To see otherwise requires a pause—an interruption in immersion.
Such seeing does not arrive through argument or belief, but through experience. When the mind transcends habitual thought, even briefly, something decisive occurs: one realises that awareness is prior to the structures it perceives. From this vantage point, it becomes unmistakable that what humans have made, humans can remake—or release. At that point, it becomes a matter of will. And as I learned from my parents many moons ago, where there is a will, there is a way.
This recognition can carry an ache. If the world is imagined, why is it imagined so narrowly? If abundance exists in nature, why do human systems deny it? If cooperation is biologically wired, why do we persist in domination?
At this stage, frustration can masquerade as clarity. One may wonder why others do not see what now appears obvious. But immersion cannot be argued away. Fish do not discover water because another fish explains it to them. They discover it when stillness, depth, or contrast makes the invisible perceptible.
The task, then, is not to awaken the world by force, but to remain coherent within it—to live in alignment with Universal and Natural Laws even when surrounding systems violate them. To become a stable reference point rather than a missionary of insight. Stated succinctly: one must learn to meditate.
When this happens—quietly, unevenly, collectively—humanity does not leap into utopia. Instead, effort decreases. Systems require less enforcement. Creativity replaces extraction. Life begins to feel less like resistance and more like participation.
I am increasingly inclined to suspect that awakening was never meant to be simultaneous for everyone, but rhythmic—like tides or breath. This rhythm of awakening may well be how the work sustains itself over time. Here, I am reminded of the oft-used metaphor of playing the long game.
And perhaps the work, then, is both simpler and more demanding than we assume:
to recognise the water, without insisting that every fish must do so at once.
Here lies the rub. In observing the world—with its many manifestations of both political and “God clubs”—nature seems, yet again, to know best. A gradual awakening, not unlike the slow rising of the sun toward midday, is far more preferable to a sudden appearance at the zenith, bearing down with unrelenting heat.
So here, nature wins again. The gradual path it is.
And to the work—like Sisyphus, perhaps more hopeful than resigned—I return, committed to playing my part to the best of my ability.
Will you join me?
Suggested Practice: Recognising the Water
A contemplative inquiry aligned with the Seven Layers
This practice may be undertaken in a single sitting or revisited across several days. Read each layer slowly. Pause wherever resonance appears.
Layer I – Pure Consciousness
Practice:
Sit quietly for a few minutes and allow attention to settle beneath thought. Notice that awareness itself is present before any idea, story, or judgement arises.
Reflection:
What remains when I am not trying to understand, explain, or fix anything?
Layer II – Universal & Natural Laws
Practice:
Bring to mind a natural process—breathing, gravity, growth, rest. Notice how it functions without effort or enforcement.
Reflection:
Where in my life does alignment reduce effort? Where does resistance increase it?
Layer III – Phenomenal World
Practice:
Observe something natural near you—a tree, the sky, your body. Notice its order, balance, and responsiveness.
Reflection:
What does nature model about sufficiency, cooperation, and timing?
Layer IV – Human Consciousness
Practice:
Notice a recurring belief about limitation, success, or worth. Hold it gently in awareness without trying to change it.
Reflection:
Is this belief discovered, or inherited?
Layer V – Human-Derived World
Practice:
Choose one human system you interact with daily—money, work, education, housing, timekeeping. Trace it back, in imagination, to its original human intention.
Reflection:
If this system was imagined once, how else might it be imagined now?
Layer VI – Constructs
Practice:
Identify a “simple agreement” you rarely question (e.g., “There isn’t enough,” “That’s just how it works”). Notice how often it guides behaviour.
Reflection:
What changes if I hold this agreement as provisional rather than absolute?
Layer VII – Outcomes (Non-Local Influence)
Practice:
Without attempting to persuade anyone, commit to one small act of coherence—clarity, generosity, restraint, or truth—within the existing system.
Reflection:
How does coherence itself influence my environment without force?
Closing Thought
You are not required to wake the ocean.
You are only asked to recognise the water
and move through it with awareness.
—
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/.