"Heaven and Earth are impartial;
They see the ten thousand things as straw dogs.
The wise are impartial;
They see the people as straw dogs." Laotse, "Tao te King" Verse 5
***
"There is a grandeur in this view of life, with it's several powers, having been originally breathed in by the creator into a few forms, or into one... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved" --Charles Darwin
The Question:
How can we integrate all we know today with the wisdoms and traditions of the past and come up with a sustainable all inclusive narrative that will guide us out of our insanity?
The Answer:
Can you accept that our creator is fallible, just like us?
Only when you accept that we are a product of millions of years of evolution you can see how it all fits together, how we were inevitable.
How it's all about surviving...
There is a new, or to put it in a better way; not yet seen narrative in our own histories and the history of Life on this planet. Our lives represent the story of Life Herself. So we can learn and survive.
Can randomness be proven?
Why should we stop with the notion that evolution of Life is based on random changes within our genes when we reproduce? The idea, or ideology (of the survival of the fittest), and of random changes is not scientific fact. It's an assumption, trying to adhere to scientific objectivity. I do believe that we are a product of millions, even billions of years of evolution. I do not however believe that it's all meaningless and by accident.
Until about 40 years ago we didn't know enough about Life's history to connect the dots.
This logical, simple yet pretty complicated explanation will be able to absorb the fundamentalist atheist as well as the religious fundamentalist.
With today's scientific knowledge and recorded human history, the Story is actually pretty obvious when you see it...
Surviving has always been and still is the problem.
The reason we humans are here is very mundane. In short: Life, you know, that evolutionary process that's been going on for over 3 billion years now (at least, according to present day scientific findings) created humans out of necessity. Without us humans She will not realize her goal: To survive. Her reasons and motivations lie in what happened to Her long before we arrived at the scene, many millions of years ago.
Yes, you heard me correctly, I'm talking about Life as a 'single' entity. An all-encompassing consciousness creating all Life forms. We're part of that huge conscious organism. The reason we feel ourselves to be individuals and at the centre of our universe is pretty easy to explain. We, each and everyone of us, represent Her story. The Story of Life on this planet: Being born, being dependant, experiencing pain and sorrow, pleasure and delight, fear of death... and eventually learning how to deal with all that.
Even though Life can be said to be androgynous, I refer to Life as Her, mostly because the actual assembling of our offspring happens within what we humans call the female and because God and The Son, in western Abrahamic religious traditions, have been designated to be male, being the opposite or outside of us. But the answers of course lie within.
"Wise men of old gave the soul a feminine name. Indeed she is female in her nature as well. She even has her womb" -The Exegesis on the Soul, Nag Hammadi Library
Evolution is not based on the abstract notion of survival of the species (no species survive indefinitely) but, more sensible: the survival of Life Herself. This evolutionary process is by no means blind or dumb. Just like us She is learning, failing and eventually, succeeding.
Life is an evolving consciousness, in which spirit precedes form. This contradicts the now prevalent scientific view on Life; as a mechanistic process wherein form (matter) creates a by-product like our consciousness. But when you apply common sense you know as well as I do that it cannot be the form of the animal that makes it survive but it's actions or behaviour. We'll find that form and consciousness define each other.
When we approach Life from a scientific point of view we can define the Life Force(s) and thereby the origin of our consciousness and, within the analogies, the (Holy) (T)trinity. Moreover, it will explain our overall purpose for being here, probably not very satisfying, even painful, but for those who value Life first, pretty comforting.. And, believe it or not, Life is eternal and so are we. Even though..., death still is a reality. Of course, reality totally depends on our consciousness.
We are, as so many animals before us, part of a strategy to survive.
Don't get me wrong though, surviving is a great pleasure and privilige, mostly...
The history of Life.
Myths and Reality do sometimes mix. It depends what you're aiming for...
There are many references in the Bible, Qur'an and other religious texts that tell of disasters like falling stars (hitting the earth) and other major global calamities. Most often they are attributed to (a) God. Most of these texts were written in days of old, before we scientifically discovered mass extinctions caused by major natural disasters.
-- This happened more than once in Life's history, although not all as large as this one pictured here. But there are up to 180 impact structures found on earth ranging in diameter from 0.0015km to 300km. And because of plate tectonics this number probably is just the tip of the iceberg. Take a look at our moon, you'll see the amount of impacts it endured. The earth is four times the size of the moon. Bible, Revelations 8:10 "The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water"
Knowing we are relative newcomers in evolutionary terms, humans are also the only animal that has the capability to detect, avert and survive a catastrophe like the meteor-impact that, according to conventional thought, eradicated the dinosaurs. So, if it comes to survival… for now, we are the best and only option.
Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
.
***Roughly 252 million years ago, life on the earth nearly ceased to exist--as much as 90 percent of marine life and 70 percent of terrestrial life died out. At around the same time, a vast up swelling of magma covered between one million and four million cubic kilometres of what is now Siberia. The eruption continued off and on for about a million years, with basalt lava and poisonous gases seeping up through cracks in Siberia's mantle. Now rocks from Italy may have linked the two events.*** -- "The Scientific American - "The Great Dying".
Mass Extinctions and the Interrupted Equilibrium.
When you take a look at Life’s reaction to mass extinctions, you will notice that some ‘rapid’ evolutionary changes take place. In scientific language this is called an Interrupted or punctuated equilibrium. This points to relative short periods of major genetic evolution, followed by very long periods of keeping the status quo. This means that we didn't really evolve over billions of years, slow and steady, but in 'short' bursts after which evolution becomes relatively in-active. Most of these evolutionary bursts happened after a major global catastrophe.
There are two major changes in Life’s behaviour that need more explanation than random events within our genetic reproduction process. The first and most obvious is sexual reproduction. This process started around 1.4 billion years ago, before that Life just copied itself. The second major deviation of ‘traditional practice’ happened more recently, 'just' 210 million years ago; the creation of Class Mammalia.
These changes point to more than blind luck, they point to the desire and need to survive.
This Will to survive is composed of the Life Force(s) (Charles Darwin referred to it in his quote I posted above). When we define these forces we will see what it is that is actually happening to us.
.
***Roughly 252 million years ago, life on the earth nearly ceased to exist--as much as 90 percent of marine life and 70 percent of terrestrial life died out. At around the same time, a vast up swelling of magma covered between one million and four million cubic kilometres of what is now Siberia. The eruption continued off and on for about a million years, with basalt lava and poisonous gases seeping up through cracks in Siberia's mantle. Now rocks from Italy may have linked the two events.*** -- "The Scientific American - "The Great Dying". Mass Extinctions and the Interrupted Equilibrium.
When you take a look at Life’s reaction to mass extinctions, you will notice that some ‘rapid’ evolutionary changes take place. In scientific language this is called an Interrupted or punctuated equilibrium. This points to relative short periods of major genetic evolution, followed by very long periods of keeping the status quo. This means that we didn't really evolve over billions of years, slow and steady, but in 'short' bursts after which evolution becomes relatively in-active. Most of these evolutionary bursts happened after a major global catastrophe.
There are two major changes in Life’s behaviour that need more explanation than random events within our genetic reproduction process. The first and most obvious is sexual reproduction. This process started around 1.4 billion years ago, before that Life just copied itself. The second major deviation of ‘traditional practice’ happened more recently, 'just' 210 million years ago; the creation of Class Mammalia.
These changes point to more than blind luck, they point to the desire and need to survive.
This Will to survive is composed of the Life Force(s) (Charles Darwin referred to it in his quote I posted above). When we define these forces we will see what it is that is actually happening to us.
According to the Darwinian theory (Darwin himself couldn't believe it!) we somehow were randomly equipped with opposable thumbs, an upright position so we could use our arms and hands for other things than moving around, a voice box so we could evolve language and communicate. And to top it all off a brain bigger than any other that has the capability to learn and create amazing things.
But how random are these changes really?
Especially our ‘ability’ to believe in an ‘all powerful God’ somewhere ‘up there’ in the skies, is a major contribution to the creation of science and scientific thought. The fact that we now know about these mass extinctions and are already hovering in space, trying to define our universe has everything to do with our ‘irrational beliefs’ that time and time again clashes with reality.
Before we go on to define these forces Darwin speaks of, I'd like to share with you verse 42 from the Book of Tao. In this verse the Life Force(s) are summed up and explained at their core.
But how random are these changes really?
Especially our ‘ability’ to believe in an ‘all powerful God’ somewhere ‘up there’ in the skies, is a major contribution to the creation of science and scientific thought. The fact that we now know about these mass extinctions and are already hovering in space, trying to define our universe has everything to do with our ‘irrational beliefs’ that time and time again clashes with reality.
Before we go on to define these forces Darwin speaks of, I'd like to share with you verse 42 from the Book of Tao. In this verse the Life Force(s) are summed up and explained at their core.
It goes something like this:
From the Tao came the One
From the One came the Two
The One and Two created the Three
All Three created the 10,000 things
To balance the life forces you create harmony
In this fragment of the verse we can find the answers to questions like: Why we are here, the origin of our consciousness, the essence of good and evil, and the answer to the age old enigma of the Trinity and/or the Life Force(s). All you've got to believe (as in leap of faith, that what I abhor, but have to accept here) is that we're part of a single consciousness, creating individuals in Her image...
From the Tao came the One
From the One came the Two
The One and Two created the Three
All Three created the 10,000 things
To balance the life forces you create harmony
In this fragment of the verse we can find the answers to questions like: Why we are here, the origin of our consciousness, the essence of good and evil, and the answer to the age old enigma of the Trinity and/or the Life Force(s). All you've got to believe (as in leap of faith, that what I abhor, but have to accept here) is that we're part of a single consciousness, creating individuals in Her image...
In many major and minor religions and many philosophical and mystical writings, but also in all kinds of artistic expression, there are thoughts and theories that suggest we are part of an evolving consciousness, that Life Herself is our Creator -- not all powerful, but vulnerable, like us. And like us Life learns through experience.
"What is needed is a profound collaboration with the creative impulse or Life Force whose purposes are being realized in the evolutionary process. Shaw regarded his doctrine of the Life Force as an evolutionary theology. In his plays, prefaces, and speeches he identified the Life Force with God who is striving to make himself. God is affirmed to be not an infinite, omnipotent, and perfect being, but a finite power, limited to working through the process of evolution" - George Bernard Shaw. From: The Dictionary of the History of Ideas -
You probably have heard of this mysterious thing called the Life Force. Nobody has identified it, it’s shrouded in mystery and when you ask a scientist, at least one that adheres to the Darwinian theory, he or she will tell you there is no such thing as a Life Force. I beg to differ.
Animal behaviourists define four main activities they call (tongue-in-cheek) the four F’s, they are: Feeding, Fornicating, Fleeing and Fighting.
*** The Four F's***
So, here is my proposition: Hunger, Lust & Fear are the three forces mentioned in the Tao tse Tung. Or: Pleasure, Pain & Fear (Pleasure in front!)
They contain the Life Force: Hunger, Lust and are accompanied by a moderator; Fear. They reveal the basis of our consciousness, the real reasons we experience pleasure and pain. Furthermore verse 42 tells us that by balancing the Life forces, hunger & lust, we'll create harmony.
From these three Life Forces came all other feelings and emotions we experience. Imagine from fear emanating aggression, envy, jealousy, hate and if all that fails, love.
"19) The first form is darkness, the second desire, the third ignorance, the fourth is the excitement of death, the fifth is the kingdom of the flesh, the sixth is the foolish wisdom of flesh, the seventh is the wrathful wisdom. These are the seven powers of wrath."
- THE GNOSTIC SOCIETY LIBRARY
Lets translate: The first form is darkness. What does darkness represent? It's not fear, it's what we fear. The second desire. Desire = lust. And the third ignorance. Ignorance does represent fear.
*******************************************************
C.G. Jung (1959)
"In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature ands which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix) there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists on pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents."
Charles Eisenstein, `The Ascent of Humanity` (page 176)
“Furthermore, the growth and spontaneous movement of living beings does not in any obvious way reflect simple, mechanical laws like the conservation of momentum. We do not behave as mere masses subject to forces, but initiate action on our own. Intuition tells us that this animation, this spontaneous movement and growth, is a key feature of life. Thales recognized as much in the 7th century BC when he said, `The lodestone has life, or soul, as it is able to move iron`, as did Aristotle in associating life with movement (`The soul creates movement`).
Now try to follow this logic...
The Life Force(s):
C.G. Jung (1959)
"In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature ands which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix) there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists on pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents."
Charles Eisenstein, `The Ascent of Humanity` (page 176)
“Furthermore, the growth and spontaneous movement of living beings does not in any obvious way reflect simple, mechanical laws like the conservation of momentum. We do not behave as mere masses subject to forces, but initiate action on our own. Intuition tells us that this animation, this spontaneous movement and growth, is a key feature of life. Thales recognized as much in the 7th century BC when he said, `The lodestone has life, or soul, as it is able to move iron`, as did Aristotle in associating life with movement (`The soul creates movement`).
Now try to follow this logic...
The Life Force(s):
You probably have heard of this mysterious thing called the Life Force. Nobody has identified it, it’s shrouded in mystery and when you ask a scientist, at least one that adheres to the Darwinian theory, he or she will tell you there is no such thing as a Life Force. I beg to differ.
When we define the Life Force(s), we'll define the origin of our consciousness. The origin, of course, lies within.
Let’s take this Life force at face value. It’s a force and it’s responsible for the existence of Life. Now take the scientific definition of a force and take the accepted, but not so scientific, definition of Life.
Force:
“In physics, a force is a push or pull that can cause an object with mass to accelerate".
Or; A force is something that moves something else.
The commonly used and accepted definition of Life;
- Life has a metabolism;
- Life reproduces itself;
- Life interacts with its environment.
Or:
- Life feeds itself;
- Life reproduces
- And Life interacts with its environment (like feeding!).
To implement these two definitions we can redefine the Life Force as something that started to make Life ‘move’. Staying within the boundaries of scientific findings, Life started to move almost 4 billion years ago.
The question is: What did we do?
Here I have to start challenging the accepted version of our scientific community about how Life began. Even though all scientists know that the origin of Life is still a mystery, they do have an accepted and frequently used explanation for lay people like me and (probably) you: 'Life started out as spontaneous copying molecules'.
It seems logical, but it misses the point completely. There is a more logical and realistic answer. Simply this: Before the copying or reproduction started the feeding started. It’s an (wide) open door, really. To reproduce and increase in mass you’ll have to feed, first. Just copying without feeding would lead to lots of tiny molecules with a combined mass equal to that at the start of the process. To create a more complete picture of Life we will have to separate these two activities.
** The essential activity in Life is feeding.
So Life started out spontaneously feeding and then reproducing itself, hence the growth in mass. But even more importantly, it changes the idea that Life started out wholly independent of its environment. To feed means to interact with your environment, which points to a form of consciousness.
"Richard Dawkins’ 1990 book, 'The Selfish Gene', lucidly presents the prevailing view of biogenesis, conceived a hundred years ago buy Oparin and Haldane. Like the Neodarwinian theory of evolution, it hinges on two key features: random mutation and natural selection. The story starts with a prebiotic soup of the organic molecules that are the building blocks of life. The crucial event is the appearance, by chance, of a complex molecule with the very special property of catalyzing the formation of a new copy of itself. (…)
A sponsoring assumption in the “selfish gene” biogenesis story is that there is a clear demarcation between organism and environment. There are the replicators, which are distinct from one another, and there is the substrate. The key event in the origin of life is the appearance of a molecule, presumably a strand of RNA or something like it, that can ‘replicate itself’. The separate individual is seen as primary. How naturally this fits in with the beliefs of our own culture: that human beings are separate from nature, and that each of us has a distinct, separate existence independent of other human beings. How naturally it accords with the attitude that nature is a collection of recourses for us to use to our best advantage." "The Ascent of Humanity" by Charles Eisenstein. P. 179.
**
So Life feeds itself, reproduces and 'interacts with its enviroment' (like feeding, arguably the first interaction with 'the enviroment'.) This is what science gave us to work with up to now.
Let’s try to define these Life Force(s) based on logic and scientific definitions.
Just answer this question: Is there anything you know of that we might call a force and causes Life to eat?
The only thing we know and experience is that if we don’t eat we go hungry. And hunger means pain. But Hunger is only part of the experience. As we all know hunger doesn’t just pop up whenever you should eat, it takes time to grow. The revealing thing about hunger is that it actually starts out with a more pleasurable experience we call an appetite, which is a form of lust, in fact it is the original lust, lust for food.
***
Alan Watts, Baffled by hunger...
"That (when) an animal eats because it is hungry. What we’re really saying is, that it eats when it’s ready to eat. And, hunger is the initial stage of eating. It is a way of perceiving readiness to eat. And then again when we say it dies, because there is no food, if you look into this carefully, what you’re actually saying is, that when food is not in the environment, and therefore is no longer being transformed into the pattern of the organism, then that pattern isn’t there anymore. It dies. But, you see what is happening here, all we’re doing when we say because, is that we are describing what is actually happening more carefully. In other words; the organism dies because there is no more food. If we simply say; instead of this word ‘because’ we simply say; the organisms’ death is the cessation of food being transformed into it’s pattern. You see, we’ve eliminated the word ‘because’, and this is actually what we’re doing all the time when we explain things. We’re not really describing their causes, that seems to be what we’re doing, when we don’t know the full nature of the event. What we’re really doing is we’re describing the event that puzzles us more completely."
***
As you can see, and hopefully understand, our primary activity (and the primary activity of Life), eating, is empowered by a dualistic force composed of pain and pleasure. They come together, one cannot be without the other. If you don’t eat you’ll first get peckish, then you built up a big appetite, when you still do not feed yourself you will feel pain. And this pain represents the original pain: Hunger.
It’s not our world that is dualistic in nature, but we are. We experience high-low, big-small, good-bad, tight-loose… These things do not represent 'reality', they represent value. And what’s more valuable than Life?
The Life Force(s), hunger & lust, is (are) the original motive(s)* for acting, out of necessity or out of lust. The pain represents necessity and lust… well, represents lust.
* [It’s hard to decide if it’s Two or One]
When you first become aware of this dualistic force within you, you’ll inevitably will experience the third force, completing the trinity of our consciousness.
**
"Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die."
- W.H. Auden (1939)
**
Age Old Knowledge
Let’s return to the verse from the book of Tao which I quoted above. From the Tao came the One, from the one came the Two. We could say that we first experienced lust, or appetite and because that doesn't force us to do anything, after a while this Lust became hunger. The hunger (pain) is what first made us move (feed).
As soon as we feed ourselves the pain (hunger) disappears. When we feed before we are hungry we won't even feel any pain. From these two inseparable forces: hunger and lust the third force arose.
Well, as of course you've already guessed, the third force is Fear.
When you know pleasure and you know pain, and moreover you know they come as a pair, you'll have to be constantly aware of how you balance these two forces... You do not want to feel too much pain, right? Well, that, in a nutshell is Life's Herstory (do you mind...?)
Back in time...
So what happened after Life was born 3.5 or so, billion years ago?
Hardly anything happened during the first two billion years. Life was feeding and copying Herself, blissfully unaware of... well almost everything. But then, 'all of a sudden', 1.4 billion years ago Life started the process of sexual reproduction. This is when evolution, the creation of 'different' life forms really started on earth. But why this change after two billion years? It has to do with Life's experiences.
Even though we could count the individual organisms expanding along the seashores of Pangea, there was only one consciousness. What could have triggered Life to start the process of sexual reproduction?
During the first two billion years of Life on earth our solar system was quite busy with flying objects that would occasionally hit our planet. Luckily for us we have a big brother in the heavens above who more than once protected us against major impacts, this is brother Jupiter. Because of it’s size most of the planet destroyers heading towards earth would be pulled into the gravitational pull of Jupiter. But not all…
That’s what happened 1.8 billion years ago; a major hit of an asteroid threw Life’s cushy existence in disarray. After two billion years of relative pleasurable living, Life went hungry for the first time since a long time. The sun was probably blacked out, which was Life’s primal source of nourishment.
Let’s take this Life force at face value. It’s a force and it’s responsible for the existence of Life. Now take the scientific definition of a force and take the accepted, but not so scientific, definition of Life.
Force:
“In physics, a force is a push or pull that can cause an object with mass to accelerate".
Or; A force is something that moves something else.
The commonly used and accepted definition of Life;
- Life has a metabolism;
- Life reproduces itself;
- Life interacts with its environment.
Or:
- Life feeds itself;
- Life reproduces
- And Life interacts with its environment (like feeding!).
To implement these two definitions we can redefine the Life Force as something that started to make Life ‘move’. Staying within the boundaries of scientific findings, Life started to move almost 4 billion years ago.
The question is: What did we do?
Here I have to start challenging the accepted version of our scientific community about how Life began. Even though all scientists know that the origin of Life is still a mystery, they do have an accepted and frequently used explanation for lay people like me and (probably) you: 'Life started out as spontaneous copying molecules'.
It seems logical, but it misses the point completely. There is a more logical and realistic answer. Simply this: Before the copying or reproduction started the feeding started. It’s an (wide) open door, really. To reproduce and increase in mass you’ll have to feed, first. Just copying without feeding would lead to lots of tiny molecules with a combined mass equal to that at the start of the process. To create a more complete picture of Life we will have to separate these two activities.
** The essential activity in Life is feeding.So Life started out spontaneously feeding and then reproducing itself, hence the growth in mass. But even more importantly, it changes the idea that Life started out wholly independent of its environment. To feed means to interact with your environment, which points to a form of consciousness.
"Richard Dawkins’ 1990 book, 'The Selfish Gene', lucidly presents the prevailing view of biogenesis, conceived a hundred years ago buy Oparin and Haldane. Like the Neodarwinian theory of evolution, it hinges on two key features: random mutation and natural selection. The story starts with a prebiotic soup of the organic molecules that are the building blocks of life. The crucial event is the appearance, by chance, of a complex molecule with the very special property of catalyzing the formation of a new copy of itself. (…)
A sponsoring assumption in the “selfish gene” biogenesis story is that there is a clear demarcation between organism and environment. There are the replicators, which are distinct from one another, and there is the substrate. The key event in the origin of life is the appearance of a molecule, presumably a strand of RNA or something like it, that can ‘replicate itself’. The separate individual is seen as primary. How naturally this fits in with the beliefs of our own culture: that human beings are separate from nature, and that each of us has a distinct, separate existence independent of other human beings. How naturally it accords with the attitude that nature is a collection of recourses for us to use to our best advantage." "The Ascent of Humanity" by Charles Eisenstein. P. 179.
**
So Life feeds itself, reproduces and 'interacts with its enviroment' (like feeding, arguably the first interaction with 'the enviroment'.) This is what science gave us to work with up to now.
Let’s try to define these Life Force(s) based on logic and scientific definitions.
Just answer this question: Is there anything you know of that we might call a force and causes Life to eat?
The only thing we know and experience is that if we don’t eat we go hungry. And hunger means pain. But Hunger is only part of the experience. As we all know hunger doesn’t just pop up whenever you should eat, it takes time to grow. The revealing thing about hunger is that it actually starts out with a more pleasurable experience we call an appetite, which is a form of lust, in fact it is the original lust, lust for food.
***
Alan Watts, Baffled by hunger...
"That (when) an animal eats because it is hungry. What we’re really saying is, that it eats when it’s ready to eat. And, hunger is the initial stage of eating. It is a way of perceiving readiness to eat. And then again when we say it dies, because there is no food, if you look into this carefully, what you’re actually saying is, that when food is not in the environment, and therefore is no longer being transformed into the pattern of the organism, then that pattern isn’t there anymore. It dies. But, you see what is happening here, all we’re doing when we say because, is that we are describing what is actually happening more carefully. In other words; the organism dies because there is no more food. If we simply say; instead of this word ‘because’ we simply say; the organisms’ death is the cessation of food being transformed into it’s pattern. You see, we’ve eliminated the word ‘because’, and this is actually what we’re doing all the time when we explain things. We’re not really describing their causes, that seems to be what we’re doing, when we don’t know the full nature of the event. What we’re really doing is we’re describing the event that puzzles us more completely."
***
As you can see, and hopefully understand, our primary activity (and the primary activity of Life), eating, is empowered by a dualistic force composed of pain and pleasure. They come together, one cannot be without the other. If you don’t eat you’ll first get peckish, then you built up a big appetite, when you still do not feed yourself you will feel pain. And this pain represents the original pain: Hunger.
It’s not our world that is dualistic in nature, but we are. We experience high-low, big-small, good-bad, tight-loose… These things do not represent 'reality', they represent value. And what’s more valuable than Life?
The Life Force(s), hunger & lust, is (are) the original motive(s)* for acting, out of necessity or out of lust. The pain represents necessity and lust… well, represents lust.
* [It’s hard to decide if it’s Two or One]
When you first become aware of this dualistic force within you, you’ll inevitably will experience the third force, completing the trinity of our consciousness.
**
"Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die."
- W.H. Auden (1939)
**
Age Old Knowledge
Let’s return to the verse from the book of Tao which I quoted above. From the Tao came the One, from the one came the Two. We could say that we first experienced lust, or appetite and because that doesn't force us to do anything, after a while this Lust became hunger. The hunger (pain) is what first made us move (feed).
As soon as we feed ourselves the pain (hunger) disappears. When we feed before we are hungry we won't even feel any pain. From these two inseparable forces: hunger and lust the third force arose.
Well, as of course you've already guessed, the third force is Fear.
When you know pleasure and you know pain, and moreover you know they come as a pair, you'll have to be constantly aware of how you balance these two forces... You do not want to feel too much pain, right? Well, that, in a nutshell is Life's Herstory (do you mind...?)
Back in time...
So what happened after Life was born 3.5 or so, billion years ago?
Hardly anything happened during the first two billion years. Life was feeding and copying Herself, blissfully unaware of... well almost everything. But then, 'all of a sudden', 1.4 billion years ago Life started the process of sexual reproduction. This is when evolution, the creation of 'different' life forms really started on earth. But why this change after two billion years? It has to do with Life's experiences.
Even though we could count the individual organisms expanding along the seashores of Pangea, there was only one consciousness. What could have triggered Life to start the process of sexual reproduction?
During the first two billion years of Life on earth our solar system was quite busy with flying objects that would occasionally hit our planet. Luckily for us we have a big brother in the heavens above who more than once protected us against major impacts, this is brother Jupiter. Because of it’s size most of the planet destroyers heading towards earth would be pulled into the gravitational pull of Jupiter. But not all…
That’s what happened 1.8 billion years ago; a major hit of an asteroid threw Life’s cushy existence in disarray. After two billion years of relative pleasurable living, Life went hungry for the first time since a long time. The sun was probably blacked out, which was Life’s primal source of nourishment.
This is when the process of ‘survival of the fittest’ really started, based on the now ancient principle of eat your neighbour. To rid the hunger Life was forced into a cannibalistic habit. With this process diversification became necessary. Eventually this resulted in the process of sexual reproduction. To create ever more food supplies for an ever more expanding and diverse existence.
Life had experienced both sides of Her existence; the pleasure comes with the pain. Besides the pleasure and the pain She now was endowed with the third force mentioned in verse 42 of the Tao; the force that completed our three-dimensional consciousness. When you know that pain can come unexpectedly, you'll experience the third force.
***
Gnostic Scriptures
When I first found out about the Gnostic traditions and started to read some of their ancient texts I was amazed at how Gnostic mythologies can easily be ‘transplanted’ into Life as a evolving consciousness, learning, failing, changing, experiencing and surviving. I will use parts of these Gnostic texts, written 1500 years ago, to show you that when people write with ‘inspiration’ about Life, they’ll tell us the story of Life’s evolving consciousness. Like this one from the Nag Hammadi Library, ‘Authoritative Teaching’:
But the soul - she who has tasted these things - realized that sweet passions are transitory. She had learned about evil; she went away from them and she entered into a new conduct. Afterwards she despises this Life, because it is transitory. And she looks for those foods that will take her into Life, and leaves behind her those deceitful foods. And she learns about her light, as she goes about stripping off this world, while her true garment clothes her within, (and) her bridal clothing is placed upon her in beauty of mind, not in pride of flesh. And she learns about her depth and runs into her fold, while her shepherd stands at the door. In return for all the shame and scorn, then, that she received in this world, she receives ten thousand times the grace and glory.
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Life.
History of Life. I added the mass extinctions. Click to enhance.
***
Life had experienced both sides of Her existence; the pleasure comes with the pain. Besides the pleasure and the pain She now was endowed with the third force mentioned in verse 42 of the Tao; the force that completed our three-dimensional consciousness. When you know that pain can come unexpectedly, you'll experience the third force.
***
Gnostic Scriptures
When I first found out about the Gnostic traditions and started to read some of their ancient texts I was amazed at how Gnostic mythologies can easily be ‘transplanted’ into Life as a evolving consciousness, learning, failing, changing, experiencing and surviving. I will use parts of these Gnostic texts, written 1500 years ago, to show you that when people write with ‘inspiration’ about Life, they’ll tell us the story of Life’s evolving consciousness. Like this one from the Nag Hammadi Library, ‘Authoritative Teaching’:
But the soul - she who has tasted these things - realized that sweet passions are transitory. She had learned about evil; she went away from them and she entered into a new conduct. Afterwards she despises this Life, because it is transitory. And she looks for those foods that will take her into Life, and leaves behind her those deceitful foods. And she learns about her light, as she goes about stripping off this world, while her true garment clothes her within, (and) her bridal clothing is placed upon her in beauty of mind, not in pride of flesh. And she learns about her depth and runs into her fold, while her shepherd stands at the door. In return for all the shame and scorn, then, that she received in this world, she receives ten thousand times the grace and glory.
************************
Life.
History of Life. I added the mass extinctions. Click to enhance. ***
Animal behaviourists define four main activities they call (tongue-in-cheek) the four F’s, they are: Feeding, Fornicating, Fleeing and Fighting.
*** The Four F's***
So, here is my proposition: Hunger, Lust & Fear are the three forces mentioned in the Tao tse Tung. Or: Pleasure, Pain & Fear (Pleasure in front!)
They contain the Life Force: Hunger, Lust and are accompanied by a moderator; Fear. They reveal the basis of our consciousness, the real reasons we experience pleasure and pain. Furthermore verse 42 tells us that by balancing the Life forces, hunger & lust, we'll create harmony.
From these three Life Forces came all other feelings and emotions we experience. Imagine from fear emanating aggression, envy, jealousy, hate and if all that fails, love.
"19) The first form is darkness, the second desire, the third ignorance, the fourth is the excitement of death, the fifth is the kingdom of the flesh, the sixth is the foolish wisdom of flesh, the seventh is the wrathful wisdom. These are the seven powers of wrath."
- THE GNOSTIC SOCIETY LIBRARY
Lets translate: The first form is darkness. What does darkness represent? It's not fear, it's what we fear. The second desire. Desire = lust. And the third ignorance. Ignorance does represent fear.
“From it, there appeared a force, presiding over the darkness. And the forces that came into being subsequent to them called the shadow 'the limitless chaos'…” “Then shadow perceived there was something mightier than it, and felt envy; and when it had become pregnant of its own accord, suddenly it engendered jealousy. Since that day, the principle of jealousy amongst all the eternal realms and their worlds has been apparent. Now as for that jealousy, it was found to be an abortion without any spirit in it. Like a shadow, it came into existence in a vast watery substance.”
-- From "On the Origin of the World" -The Nag Hammadi Library--
This text, in my opinion, tells of the first contact of Life with God (Something mightier than it). Of course God is an unknown and, as He has shown, pretty powerful, maybe even all-powerful. If so, we have to know, we have to find out.
How about this ancient text:
This text, in my opinion, tells of the first contact of Life with God (Something mightier than it). Of course God is an unknown and, as He has shown, pretty powerful, maybe even all-powerful. If so, we have to know, we have to find out.
How about this ancient text:
"Seven appeared in chaos, androgynous. They have their masculine names and their feminine names. The feminine name is Pronoia (Forethought) Sambathas, which is 'week'. And his son is called Yao: his feminine name is Lordship. Sabaoth: his feminine name is Deity. Adonaios: his feminine name is Kingship. Elaios: his feminine name is Jealousy. Oraios: his feminine name is Wealth. And Astaphaios: his feminine name is Sophia (Wisdom). These are the seven forces of the seven heavens of chaos. And they were born androgynous, consistent with the immortal pattern that existed before them, according to the wish of Pistis: so that the likeness of what had existed since the beginning might reign to the end. You will find the effect of these names and the force of the male entities in the Archangelic (Book) of the Prophet Moses, and the names of the female entities in the first Book of Noraia." 'On the origin of the world' The Nag Hammadi Library. http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/origin.html
It’s Gaia that we’re looking for. Not Gaia portrayed as the so-called spirit of our planet, but as in the ancient Greek mythological figure of; Mother Nature, Life. It’s Zoë we’re looking for; Greek for Life.
Before I knew about these names, written over the ages, including Sophia (Wisdom), Pistis (Faith), I thought of Chloe. On the one hand it is an acronym for “Creates Her Life On Earth” and on the other hand Chloe is a pretty cousin of mine from Down Under. A very nice happenstance...
I'm pretty much convinced that we're part of a story that will eventually save us from extinction. For now it's the end of a saga...
Plato on the 'Demiurge':Plato has the speaker Timaeus refer to the demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus circa 360 BCE. The title character refers to the demiurge as the entity who “fashioned and shaped” the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent and hence desirous of a world as good as possible. The world remains allegedly imperfect, however, because the demiurge had to work on pre-existing chaotic, indeterminate matter.** Plato's Demiurge, from Wikipedia.
When Plato talks about a deity that ‘fashions and shapes’ the material world, he means literary creating the material world by our conscious becoming aware and adapting to the material world.
Let’s recap.
Even though the term Life Force is a mysterious one, always seen as something magical, an enigma, when we take the term at face value and apply the scientific definitions to the terms Life and force, we can make a pretty good case for Hunger being the Life force. Not only does it make sense within scientific boundaries, it actually fits quite well into quite a few religious and philosophical thoughts, that the Life force and thereby the way we perceive the world is dualistic in nature; positive/negative, pain/pleasure; like Yin/Yang.
When we talk about our consciousness and where it comes from, Hunger makes a great candidate. The common and workable definition of consciousness is quite simple: how you perceive yourself within your environment. The feeling of hunger created the first distinction between me and not me, i.e. food.
**
"Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of Life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim". "Studies in Pessimism" Arthur Schopenhauer
Well, we can make a pretty good case that suffering is the direct and immediate object of Life.
Now let’s take a look at how we are built around these Life forces.
It’s Gaia that we’re looking for. Not Gaia portrayed as the so-called spirit of our planet, but as in the ancient Greek mythological figure of; Mother Nature, Life. It’s Zoë we’re looking for; Greek for Life.
Before I knew about these names, written over the ages, including Sophia (Wisdom), Pistis (Faith), I thought of Chloe. On the one hand it is an acronym for “Creates Her Life On Earth” and on the other hand Chloe is a pretty cousin of mine from Down Under. A very nice happenstance...
I'm pretty much convinced that we're part of a story that will eventually save us from extinction. For now it's the end of a saga...
Plato on the 'Demiurge':Plato has the speaker Timaeus refer to the demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus circa 360 BCE. The title character refers to the demiurge as the entity who “fashioned and shaped” the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent and hence desirous of a world as good as possible. The world remains allegedly imperfect, however, because the demiurge had to work on pre-existing chaotic, indeterminate matter.** Plato's Demiurge, from Wikipedia.
When Plato talks about a deity that ‘fashions and shapes’ the material world, he means literary creating the material world by our conscious becoming aware and adapting to the material world.
Let’s recap.
Even though the term Life Force is a mysterious one, always seen as something magical, an enigma, when we take the term at face value and apply the scientific definitions to the terms Life and force, we can make a pretty good case for Hunger being the Life force. Not only does it make sense within scientific boundaries, it actually fits quite well into quite a few religious and philosophical thoughts, that the Life force and thereby the way we perceive the world is dualistic in nature; positive/negative, pain/pleasure; like Yin/Yang.
When we talk about our consciousness and where it comes from, Hunger makes a great candidate. The common and workable definition of consciousness is quite simple: how you perceive yourself within your environment. The feeling of hunger created the first distinction between me and not me, i.e. food.
**
"Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of Life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim". "Studies in Pessimism" Arthur Schopenhauer
Well, we can make a pretty good case that suffering is the direct and immediate object of Life.
Now let’s take a look at how we are built around these Life forces.
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