The Nature and Purpose of Existence
The universal mind, which we may term the collective totality of mind or consciousness, reason, intelligence, or GEIST, having desired to experience everything that can be experienced (or imagined), formed or pushed itself into materiality as such (to borrow Cayce's phrase), into the MAYA, or holographic ILLUSION of reality, physicality, and materiality (which even modern quantum physics tells us is the case). This would have been at the moment of the so-called 'Big Bang', and would have been a form of condensation or ordering--at the same time that it was a vast expansion, similar (and this is the only way I can think to describe it, though it is not very accurate) to the manner in which a crystal forms itself out of a matrix or field.
This includes all forms of life and matter--the forms being merely vehicles for experience. This is why life and matter exist in such numberless and diverse forms--to exponentially increase the possibilities for experience, the opportunities to gain knowledge, etc.
Thus we may say that it is eminently reasonable for the conscious universe (as far as it is conscious) to desire to experience EVERYTHING--including seemingly UNREASONABLE emotion and seeming chaos.
The universal mind, being rational, or having an ordered basis or pattern, can also be described as existing both as a whole AND simultaneously as parts or subsets WITHIN the whole. You and I, as seeming separate human beings, are actually merely ordered or organized subsets of the whole: part and parcel of the greater universe or mind (to which we also contribute experience), and yet discretely organized or set apart unto ourselves, so as to increase the chances for gaining experience, which (once again) merely adds to the total experience and knowledge of the whole universe; for by existing as a seeming separate entity, we accrue valuable, unique and individual perspectives or experiences which others may from time to time partly share, but can never wholly duplicate. This is the glory and purpose of individuality as such. And ALL life, ALL matter, contributes to this totality of experience--each entity or form in its own special chosen way, until it has experienced all it can in that particular form, and is thus ready and able to move on to a more advanced form, so as to (again) increase the opportunities for experience. (This is a form of reincarnation.) ALL forms are thus infinitely (or almost infinitely) valuable for purposes of accruing experience.
All are necessary--all are important--even the seemingly insensate bare rock has its story and experience to contribute--as important a part of the jigsaw-puzzle of the whole as anything else, because IT, TOO can BECOME, and because it is--like everything else--a SINE QUA NON: without which nothing would exist or have value.
How else can I attempt to explain this--how else attempt to clarify it? Existence (mind, Geist) is eminently varied and constantly seeks to evolve into new and more advanced forms precisely BECAUSE it is conscious (however subtly or diffusely) AND SEEKS EXPERIENCE--the experience which only this illusion of materiality (space/time) and diversity can afford.
I realize, of course, that this idea seems to presuppose LINEARITY.
But the answer to this is "Eternal Recurrence"; thus, existence may SEEM to be linear, but only because of our present limited perspective: step back from it in your mind, and existence becomes a CIRCLE--it repeats itself. One way to state this which might be more accessible to some is to imagine the universe after the 'Big Bang' expanding to a point of equilibrium, then gradually contracting back in on itself to an infinitesimally small point filled with all the material of the universe; then, when the point has taken more than it can sustain, rebounding back into materiality and space with the glory of a new creation. An endless cycle of this, on so grand a scale that we can scarcely conceive it.
T.J.White, 21 March,1996--21 January, 1999.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Spiritual Journey: Part Two
Thinking Spurred by Reading Freud's CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
(though the germs of some of the thoughts were present previously)
In the beginning ... was God ... [and] ALL things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
I John 1: 1-3
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me. ... I form the light, AND CREATE DARKNESS: I make peace, AND CREATE EVIL: I the LORD do all these things.
Isaiah 45:5-7
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation 1:8
[emphasis added]
In other words, God is EVERYTHING--IN all and THROUGHOUT all: God is everything, AND EVERYTHING IS GOD. God is good, God is evil; God is light, God is darkness; God is man, woman, AND child, no less than that God is all sentient intelligence and insensate matter, and the glowing stars of the very heavens. God is ALL. God creates every-thing, and since everything is God, everything thus CREATES ITSELF--is its own self-directing agent or force.
We, as semi-sentient agents are not always conscious--in fact, rarely are--of the 'God' within us constantly directing and prodding us. Like the ancient Gnostics said of us, we seem to be asleep to our divine reality. The 'God' within us, if it is not simply the sum total of our entire beings, could just be a matter of our genetic programming, and thus our 'will to live', and our desires for furtherance, growth, happiness, achievement and fulfillment.
Is it not therefore possible, then, that 'evil' and 'good' do not exist at all except as CONCEPTS in the minds of men? Surely the rest of the universe (though still part and parcel of the omnipresence of 'God') is wholly and supremely indifferent to such infantile and purely human classifications.
Humans seem to be inclined to name as 'evil' only that which produces either pain or unhappiness, whether for one person or for many. But is not the larger universe (for all we can tell) indifferent to the occurrences of pain and unhappiness here on this planet? Does not 'evil', then, seem to have as much a place and legitimacy in the realms of real existence and experience as that which human beings call 'good'?
Every thing, then, simply IS--it exists. It is also eternally BECOMING--changing its forms from this one to that one over endless time. Chaos, inconstancy, and flux--ever-repeated within certain patterns sometimes, to be sure--seem to be the supreme laws of the universe (and thus of 'God').
But can it also perhaps be that, in contrast to the apparent chaos and randomness of the universe at large, life as we know it (on this planet) may simply be an example of the universe (and thus 'God') attempting to attain order and law out of chaos, to grow beyond its present confines or state, to become MORE or BETTER than before, to accrete ever-increasing knowledge and experience unto itself, and thus become ever greater than it was before?
This seems (in passing) to be especially true of humankind, but also of all other animal life, and indeed, even of the simplest single-cell organism, which seems somehow compelled to increase, to divide and grow, to REPRODUCE, and, by reproduction, make itself, through taking in nourishment from elsewhere in its universe, greater than it was before.
This, to my mind at least, seems to be what defines 'life' on this planet: a conscious--though conscious at varying levels in different forms of life--attempt at growth and experience, to become more or greater than what one was originally endowed with by the larger universe or 'God'. This would also seem to me to be the best explanation of classic 'evolution': the conscious attempt of all matter and life to expand itself, to grow, to attain power, intelligence, order and knowledge, out of what was previously random chaos.
And it occurs to me that this is what Nietzsche refers to as the "Will to Power" or the "Will to Grow" or the "Will to Be", which he says is THE major motivating force of all life: that paramount desire to grow or accrete, which means that we--and by extension all life--must consume other life forms--other "wills to grow" in order to grow or expand ourselves.
T.J.White, 25 December, 1993--8 February, 1994
(though the germs of some of the thoughts were present previously)
In the beginning ... was God ... [and] ALL things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
I John 1: 1-3
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me. ... I form the light, AND CREATE DARKNESS: I make peace, AND CREATE EVIL: I the LORD do all these things.
Isaiah 45:5-7
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation 1:8
[emphasis added]
In other words, God is EVERYTHING--IN all and THROUGHOUT all: God is everything, AND EVERYTHING IS GOD. God is good, God is evil; God is light, God is darkness; God is man, woman, AND child, no less than that God is all sentient intelligence and insensate matter, and the glowing stars of the very heavens. God is ALL. God creates every-thing, and since everything is God, everything thus CREATES ITSELF--is its own self-directing agent or force.
We, as semi-sentient agents are not always conscious--in fact, rarely are--of the 'God' within us constantly directing and prodding us. Like the ancient Gnostics said of us, we seem to be asleep to our divine reality. The 'God' within us, if it is not simply the sum total of our entire beings, could just be a matter of our genetic programming, and thus our 'will to live', and our desires for furtherance, growth, happiness, achievement and fulfillment.
Is it not therefore possible, then, that 'evil' and 'good' do not exist at all except as CONCEPTS in the minds of men? Surely the rest of the universe (though still part and parcel of the omnipresence of 'God') is wholly and supremely indifferent to such infantile and purely human classifications.
Humans seem to be inclined to name as 'evil' only that which produces either pain or unhappiness, whether for one person or for many. But is not the larger universe (for all we can tell) indifferent to the occurrences of pain and unhappiness here on this planet? Does not 'evil', then, seem to have as much a place and legitimacy in the realms of real existence and experience as that which human beings call 'good'?
Every thing, then, simply IS--it exists. It is also eternally BECOMING--changing its forms from this one to that one over endless time. Chaos, inconstancy, and flux--ever-repeated within certain patterns sometimes, to be sure--seem to be the supreme laws of the universe (and thus of 'God').
But can it also perhaps be that, in contrast to the apparent chaos and randomness of the universe at large, life as we know it (on this planet) may simply be an example of the universe (and thus 'God') attempting to attain order and law out of chaos, to grow beyond its present confines or state, to become MORE or BETTER than before, to accrete ever-increasing knowledge and experience unto itself, and thus become ever greater than it was before?
This seems (in passing) to be especially true of humankind, but also of all other animal life, and indeed, even of the simplest single-cell organism, which seems somehow compelled to increase, to divide and grow, to REPRODUCE, and, by reproduction, make itself, through taking in nourishment from elsewhere in its universe, greater than it was before.
This, to my mind at least, seems to be what defines 'life' on this planet: a conscious--though conscious at varying levels in different forms of life--attempt at growth and experience, to become more or greater than what one was originally endowed with by the larger universe or 'God'. This would also seem to me to be the best explanation of classic 'evolution': the conscious attempt of all matter and life to expand itself, to grow, to attain power, intelligence, order and knowledge, out of what was previously random chaos.
And it occurs to me that this is what Nietzsche refers to as the "Will to Power" or the "Will to Grow" or the "Will to Be", which he says is THE major motivating force of all life: that paramount desire to grow or accrete, which means that we--and by extension all life--must consume other life forms--other "wills to grow" in order to grow or expand ourselves.
T.J.White, 25 December, 1993--8 February, 1994
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