Let’s solve a little dilemma.

Eastern philosophy, spanning most eastern cultures base their core beliefs on a revolving process of life, some invoke reincarnation others quote karma to identify the continuity and organic view of our predicament. They’re spot on.

On the other side there is the Abrahamic tradition. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Their core-beliefs are that there is an infallible God, creator of the universe, omnipotent. And our reason d’être is to submit to His demands, to worship Him. I’d rather say to adapt to Him. They too are spot on.

And then we’ve got science. With amazing success science improved and destroyed many lives. They claim that their core-belief isn’t a believe, but actual fact; that life started billions of years ago and evolved to what we see today in living nature. Again, they too are right on the mark.

All three are right. All three tell a true story, but none of them tells the whole story. Together they do.

Let’s start with the ‘it’s a fact’ crowd. Yes, you’re right we did evolve! But that’s not really the point, is it? 

You claim that this evolutionary process is in a sense blind, that it has no purpose, no meaning. You say that it’s random, happening within the so-called genetic reproduction process wthin our genes. You claim that errors within our reproductive process deliver 'good' and 'bad' results for the chances of survival. And the ones with the best results, survive. But you do not call these results results. You call them adaptations.

It's adaptation that created an ever more complex web of life on our planet. But to adapt in essence means to react to your environment, which describes a conscious effort.

That we’ve evolved over many aeons is a fact. The how and why of our evolution isn't answered by science. 

But even Darwin wasn't a Darwinist. (I'll quote him later on this). Evolution is not blind it does what it does. And we humans are here to make sure it'll be able continuing what is does and wants. The most pertinent answer to the question of why we're here is;

Survival.

You have to copy paste this and translate from Wingdings to whatever readable font you prefer. (it spells survival, to save you the hassel)

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Hi! You’re still here? Great!

Let me go on.

So there you have it. Science isn’t that wrong. You can find part of the answer in the accepted, but sociological based description “survival of the fittest’. It should be; ‘survival of Life’.

When we accept this answer, other questions arise. Some very pertinent ones. One of the most obvious is; why us? We don’t seem to be able to save life, we destroy it most of all. Correct, I say. But are we really in control?

Life’s been here for billions of years, from life we sprung just maybe a couple of millions of years ago. Life survived natural disasters unknown to men, I stand corrected, that were unknown to men. We know now, since the seventies, that life experienced some horrific events. We’ve all been taught about the meteor impact 65 millions years ago that ended the reign of the dinosaur, some claim. Then there was a more terrestrial calamity 250 million years ago. 95% of all of Life’s species died out. Life almost perished. Look at us now.

So, why us? Well, we hover in space, we are exceptionally well equipped to ensure our survival. We learn, fail and try again till we succeed. If there is any animal on this planet throughout the history of Life, only we might have a shot at averting a calamity as Life experienced 65 million years ago when a comet almost destroyed our planet, our habitat. It turned out to be to small for destroying our planet, but what about the next one?

The amazing and complex evolution of highly skilled life-forms with specialized traits to survive sometimes baffles us. From the ‘lowest’ life-forms to the ‘highest’ ones, you see brilliant survival techniques. Take some time out from your busy lives and watch some recent nature doc’s, you’ll be amazed how a blind process can come up with these things. Weird Nature is one of my favourites. Anyhow, back to our answer.

The first of many ‘irony’s’ is that the core principles of science share more with the eastern religions than with the Abrahamic religions they originated from. The idea of a revolving wheel of life, reincarnation and growth through experience, does touch the theory of evolution on some major levels. Science says: Life evolved into ever more complex life-forms, Eastern philosophy says: because it’s learning, failing and succeeding. That’s the process: it’s not dumb, it’s definitely not blind, it’s surviving anyway it can. We humans are Life’s creation that must be a part of Life’s adaptation to something so powerful, it can finish us all. It comes from nowhere, unannounced and turns our planet into an inferno. Whatever it is, we have  to adapt to it if we want to survive.

So our third mission is to find out what or who it might be that Lords over us from the skies. Lets call Him God.

So started the Abrahamic tradition. The omnipotent, all powerful and undivided God.

Now I’d like to ask you to come with me into the world I found we live in, and are imported parts of. Suspend your own convictions for a while and follow me.

Life created us with a purpose. This purpose is part and parcel of Life. Life’s actions define this purpose. These actions will reach right into both the eastern and western religious traditions. It’s one of the most divisive disputes in Christian history and it’s, on a whole different level, part and parcel of eastern religious writings: the Trinity.

In Christian history the Idea that God = 3 in one lead to the schism that created eastern Orthodox Christianity and western Catholicism. Also the idea of the Madonna being the Mother of God created strife. In eastern traditions the trinity can be found in for example the Tao, verse 42, that tells of three forces emanating from the Tao. Further in the verse they sometimes are depicted as the life-force. The four noble truths in Buddhist writings talk about suffering being the first force, though it’s caused by desire.

This trinity comes back to us, to Life. I already said that the actions define our purpose. So what is it that all life does, and more important, why?

The answer to all is simple, the answer to why looks harder but is simply resolved by imagining not doing it. It’s the why that will show us the trinity of our consciousness. How and why it came into existence, I don’t know, nobody knows, even Life doesn’t know. And that’s too why we’re here.

Pain & Pleasure. Most of us are familiar with this age old paradox. They seem to go together, they say that they can’t exist without each other. And we know it makes sense. How can you enjoy something if everything is as enjoyable. It has been discussed by most philosophers, is intricate to all religions in one way or the other.

You should know, and most of us already do, that at the base of this integral behaviour of Life lies exactly that! The experience of pain & pleasure is part and parcel of feeding. Like I said, stop feeding end experience for yourself.

Most people I know answer the question why we eat with; ‘otherwise we die’. But that’s not the answer when we look at Life. We eat because, one; we get an appetite. This appetite is overall an pleasurable experience because you get to think and fantasize about what you’re going to eat. But here is the catch. If you do not feed your appetite, this pleasure will eventuality turn into pain. Hunger.  

May I introduce you to the Life-force; it is Hunger. Or maybe it’s Lust, pleasure, because it comes first. But did pleasure make Life move? No, it was hunger that compelled Life to react. Somehow matter was endowed with the life-force and compelled it to feed. And, as our scientists so well explained, we got the hang of it and even started to copy ourselves. We feed and excreted an identical twin. How amazing.

If you know a little about the discussion of how life began, you’ll notice that reproduction comes second in my thesis. I go even further by claiming that if feeding is the first action of Life points to one of the main aspects we attribute to our definition of consciousness; how we relate to our surroundings. Feeding is interacting with our environment. So I submit that consciousness lies at the base of life, it compelled us to act. When we did, the pain subsided, just as it would today with us. But only temporary. The rhythm of Life lies within the Yin/Yang of feeding. To feed before pleasure becomes pain. Those are the core forces at the base of our consciousness. The first two that came from the Tao. The first noble truth, suffering completely agrees with hunger, even the cause of suffering, desire (i.e. pleasure) completely agrees with Life’s forces. But what about the third, to complete the trinity? It’s so obvious, it’s painful. Fear. When you’ve experienced pleasure and pain and you know how to avert the pain, pain becomes a distant memory. But when you’re confronted again with pain, and survive, you’ll start to fear it. Hunger, Lust & Fear.

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Pain, Pleasure and Fear the of pain, later of death (or of ‘not to be’) are the forces that make Life feed, reproduce and adapt to her environment. And that She did. With amazing skill that would eventually lead to something like us, humans. Because surviving goes beyond our narrow Darwinist view of life. Life’s been learning all her life, life has always been intelligent. But what Life needs now is a life form that can survive without a planet. A life form that is endowed with a feeling of self and a feeling of us. Who can act autonomous but knows it depends on the other. Just like us.

The pain the suffering, the wars, torture, are all part of one big experiment where we all are confronted with ourselves as lonely individuals, at the centre of our universe. We do not know where we came from, but we do know without the other we wouldn’t live today. This ‘other’ I talk about is was created by life 210 million years ago. The other is our mother.

As you al know we are mammals. One of my teachers told me something I knew but never realized, is that of all life-forms, humans are the most successful and at the same time the most dependent species on earth. I didn’t realize then, I was 13, that this clashes with the notion of Survival of the fittest. In contrast to far more ancient life forms, we need someone else to teach us how to survive, while lizards, fish, insects already seem to know everything they need to live their lives. To know when, where and how to eat and be physically capable of doing it sounds like a great strategy to survive. To be dependent on someone else while physically unable to fend for yourself seems treacherous. Still, Life changed her strategy 210 million years ago and created mammals. Wh-wh-why?

Here is my first quote of many I will use to strenghten my argument. Over 1500 years ago someone wrote a what we call a mystical text. As you'll read on you will read many ancient texts that support this thesis. The following text is from the Nag Hammadi Library, an exerpt from 'The Origin Of The World".

"An androgynous human being was produced, whom the Greeks call Hermaphrodites; and whose mother the Hebrews call Eve of Life (Zoe), namely, the female instructor of life. Her offspring is the creature that is lord. Afterwards, the authorities called it "Beast", so that it might lead astray their modelled creatures. The interpretation of "the beast" is "the instructor". For it was found to be the wisest of all beings."

Before mammals Life was simple; you crawl out of your egg, ore whatever and you’re on your own. We still see that all around us in nature today. So why make an animal that has to learn from another to survive? It’s our environment, stupid.

It changes all the time, but sometimes it changes rapidly and is disastrous for Life. Mammals evolved out of such a disaster, the end Permian extinction, 250 million years ago. It was a terrestrial disaster, the planet was torn from Siberia to south Africa. This global catastrophe continued for millions of years. Most of the planet was in disarray. Life had to adapt to an environment that could change overnight. To survive in such a world every life-form that successfully survives to mating age has experienced and knowledge of her environment that is to valuable to waste. Teaching her offspring by example accelerated the accumulation of knowledge.

When the meteor struck, 65 million years ago, Life was definitely introduced to the idea of God. The planet nor the universe around us can be ignored when it comes to surviving. The planet can only be a temporary home for Life, the universe contains both dangers and opportunities for survival. We’ll have to adapt to it.