On Remembering Our Place
[In response to certain events in the world of late (just for example, President Bush's election speech, the tsunami in SE Asia, and my own growing awareness regarding the number of individuals who erroneously adhere to a tragic misunderstanding regarding a “Rapture” event (and the resulting ascent to the “Kingdom of Heaven”, which is itself a sorrowful mistranslation of the original Aramaic...), I felt I should make the effort to set forth something which may address certain aspects of the degeneration of our human understanding and “world-view” down to the present time.]
The Earth doesn't need people who believe in God. God is very far away from us, and Human Beings as a species are not able nor prepared to turn their attention directly toward God.
The Earth needs practical people, people who can work to fulfill the role and purpose for which human beings have been created. This role is indicated in traditional culture, and it is outlined in the very design of our organism. If we could study these properly, we could know very much. But for this we would first need to know how to study. The Earth needs people who instinctively sense the need and the wish to study and develop themselves because, by it's design and arrangement, this will further aid the Earth to develop. Thus it might be said that when seen from this aspect, “environmentalism” in its varied forms—while a respectable social impulse—is not really an answer to the many problems resulting from our wrong relationship with the Earth...and in truth, embracing “causes” of any kind only compounds Human problems. What is called for, initially and above all else, is that we stop trying to impose our will on everything. Then perhaps we might become open to important, essential questions such as, for instance, “Who Am I?” and “Why Am I Here?”...questions which could turn us toward a different mode of being.
We live in two worlds: the world of Nature—which is also the world of the Earth—and the world of Humanity. These worlds are within us as well as outside of us. It is through understanding our responsibility in assisting the proper relationship between these two worlds that we initiate a transformation of our Being. If we can discover and maintain a proper harmony between these worlds, then we might also uncover a new potential for ourselves—perhaps a third “world” might open up for us. Perhaps then God may come a little closer. But there is a lifetime of study in this respect. However even a novice approach to such study can help us see that when we work for the Earth, and when we work for other people, we are really working for ourselves. And when we do not, we lose an opportunity for ourselves, and we hinder or harm these two worlds.
To begin to understand our duty to the Earth, we must recognize that the Earth is a living entity, albeit one whose Life and Being are of a scale quite above our own. Just as we could no more expect a mosquito on our arm to recognize the scope of our Human existence, we must acknowledge our own limitations in comprehending that of the Earth. Indeed, if we can easily recognize a vast scale of “intelligence”, or conscious awareness, in beings of all forms which exist “below” us, then we can only reasonably assume the scale is as vast or even vaster “above” us—ascending to Omniscience (in fact, it would be ludicrous to assume that the propensity for understanding and awareness leaps from “Manlike” directly to “Godlike”). However, even with our limited view, it can still be observed by a more or less impartial mind that the Earth maintains its most direct, important and primary relationship—a subordinate, receptive relationship—with the Sun of our solar system. Since every living Being exists in relationship to Beings of “higher” and “lower” orders, we can begin to realize that our Sun is the most superior living Being which we can recognize directly. Indeed, the Sun is literally the “center of gravity” for all life existing solely within the “world” of our Solar System.
Thus it can be said that the Sun is the highest intelligence that Human Beings can consciously comprehend. And in fact, we find that in the works of almost all traditional cultures there is frequent reference to an understanding of this Solar principle, which presents our Sun as being the primary, regal, and most direct creative Source for our world. This view also frequently appears in the great religious works of Humanity, specifically when comparing or speaking of spiritual manifestations as they pertain to the world of Humankind (i.e. Biblical references frequently equate Jesus with the Sun, and in fact the “halo” represented in varying cultures' religious depictions is meant to graphically portray the achievement of an intelligence “on the level of the Sun”). Taken in its proper context, it could be said that within the level of the worlds we inhabit, the act of Creation has been entrusted to this Solar entity; thus it is frequently said that "the Sun is the representative of the Creator". If we can grasp this understanding, which is in truth quite easily observed even despite the inefficiency of modern, profane scientific reasoning (which we must recognize to be nothing more than the inferior functioning of our human thinking faculties), then we can open ourselves up to questioning a further concept of essential and critical importance: that from a more objective view, this primary relationship between the Sun and the Earth (more specifically, “the Planets”, taken as a whole) is a living, evolving, dynamic relationship, and that it is of a higher order and purpose in the universal process than is our “Human” situation. Therefore the direct, causal responsibility for over-arching actions and developments in the spheres of Nature and Humanity actually rests within the domain of these entities.
Humanity has no direct role to play in Universal events. For all that we indeed manifest a special faculty of consciousness, our existence here is primarily to support the Earth and the role it must play within it's realm or “world”. Whether we serve intentionally or unconsciously is of no importance, but we must nevertheless act, in general, always in accordance with our function. When we do not act in this respect we can be of no use, and eventually things will have to be “put right” again. The fact that the great majority of human beings do not even wish to accept anymore this basic understanding reveals the true horror of our situation. We wish instead to believe that the Earth—that Nature—is inferior to ourselves, and that God exists in immediate relationship, concern, and service to us. And yet it is solely through recognizing the fallacy of this understanding that we can begin to understand why events in the human sphere often seem so unjust to us...which is because we are continually trying to comprehend them through our subjective illusion of self-importance. The chief characteristic of modern Human Beings is quite simply that we “think too much of ourselves”. Ancient peoples understood instinctively that they occupied an inferior place in the larger scheme, and therefore they strove always and in everything to live devoutly in accordance with these greater worlds.
Finally, it should nonetheless be acknowledged that it has evidently been deemed necessary that there be realized in each human being a unique quality of energy, the energy of conscious awareness. While its action in modern human beings is almost insignificant, it has been indicated that this special quality of energy does not come from the “world” of the Earth or even from the “world” of the Sun...that it comes from “somewhere beyond the Sun”. Somewhere “closer” to God. Because of this arrangement, human beings do possess the possibility for, if not a direct relationship, at least a more “personal” relationship with a higher Divinity. But this striving in us is not our primary function, and at any rate it is dependent on special preparations of our Being. Thus, if we feel a spiritual call, it is really only a practical call to transform ourselves by understanding and engaging in service to Humankind.
God is very far away from us. We cannot approach the Source directly, but we can open ourselves to the possibility of receiving it. But even here “belief”, no matter how devout, is of no use whatsoever (and is really quite unhelpful and misleading). If God acts upon Man, it is through definite universal Laws and arrangements, and our subjective wishes and desires, no matter how earnest they may be, play no part whatsoever. Comprehending and harmonizing ourselves with those Laws is our chief duty, and constitutes a formal and exact Science. But to learn this, we must know how to study...and then we must have the discipline and sobriety to take up this long and sincere study, which begins with the subject at hand—our Selves.
The Earth doesn't need people who believe in God. The Earth needs people who understand what it means to be Responsible.
