Monthly Archives: November 2015

NATURAL: MAY I BE MORE

 

You tell yourselves that natural is good:   free of additives, free of artifice, free of tampering, as nature intended.

 

Kiwifruit slices and blueberries in mid air against a gold ground

Image by Tangerine Newt on Unsplash

 

It is only natural

 

You use this comforting, exonerating statement when you have done something foolish, in haste, or less than forgiving. It is only natural to favor one’s biological children over others, to strike back, to exact revenge, to punish those who deserve it, to mistreat people who are acting like doormats, to look after your own needs first, and to want more than you have.

 

Everybody does it

 

A humanoid robot in a despairing pose, head bowed, on its knees.

 

If it is acceptable to be only natural, and no one expects more from us than fulfilling our needs,  then what are we? Are we self-determining creatures? Is there any choice at all in a situation devoid of moral dilemmas, where nothing more is expected of us? 

 

If we are to be no more than natural, why bother even to exist? If anybody at all could play my part, why should I? If there are no choices to be made, why am I here? Without choice, all beings are interchangeable machines, perfectly adapted to the environment, and perfectly without power to change any of it.

 

A humanoid robot, skin covering its neck and thoughtful face, but with the top of its head and below its shoulders without skin, so as to expose the machinery beneath.

Image by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

 

The last thing we should wish to be is natural. Let us rather transcend our natures. Let us stop thinking we have to look out for ourselves. Let us stop favoring our own group or kind. It is only natural, but it is small. It admits that there are differences between people, that we are not all one.

 

Gandhi in later life, bespectacled, looking directly into the camera, smiling

 

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

 

Let us stop returning evil for evil. It keeps us in place forever. There is no way out, if we are satisfied to be no more than natural.

 

natural 10

 

Let us stop being relentlessly focused on ourselves. Let us begin  by seeing how focused we are on ourselves, and in that seeing, help us to drop it.

 

misc 34

 

Let us stop tending our egos, let us stop focusing on what we may think of as our personalities and our problems. Let us realize they have no more power over us than we are giving to them.

 

May I be more than natural

 

Let me be more

Let me be more

 

PERSPECTIVE: AN ENTERTAINING GAME

 

Perspective is an entertaining game to while away many minutes in thought experiments.

 

Consider the same event from different perspectives. For example, something very challenging has happened to you.  It could be a death, a divorce, a diagnosis, or anything else.  But it has shaken you to the core, so that you doubt whether you’ll ever be able to find peace again.

 

Close up of a woman's face, deep in thought, sober, superimposed over a night sky full of stars, so that some of the stars are visible on her face.

 

The perspective you are currently using is human and ego-centered. This event is strongly threatening your sense of self,  of who you think you are, or want to be. You may even be thinking of ending your life.  You do not see how you can continue as the self you were, or want to be, under this onslaught.  You are constantly full of fear and anxiety, your thoughts race, you take drugs, you are afraid.

This is the perspective of a being who believes her life is finite and can be ended by anything.

 

 

A drop of water rising up from a still blue pool

 

Now take another perspective.  You are a divine being, sent to this plane to face challenges, meet them, and end them for all the fellow beings to come.  No less than that is your brief. You are great.  Nothing can end or touch your life, which is eternal. As a human you may feel like a drop of water somehow separated from the ocean, but as a divine being you know you never left it.

Your return to its endless, enclosing calm is certain, assured, and indeed has already taken place.

How would you act?

 

Two large pohutukawa trees, planted close together, with their spreading crimson crowns. New Zealand

 

You would remember at every moment who you are, and know that it was impossible to be disturbed. You would look upon the events, the vicissitudes of life, as upon a miniature train meandering like an ant through a far valley, which you gazed upon “silent, upon a peak in Darien.”  You would wear a crown of imperturbability. And your actions?  You would act as inwardly directed, with calm, quiet decisiveness, and – always – with love.

 

 

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

the flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

DIMENSION: STEP IT UP

 

A drawing of a two-dimensional creature, a blob with eyes and a mouth

 

Imagine a two-dimensional creature. Every other creature in its world is of the same measure.  Circles, blobs or splotches, they move sideways, or back and forth, but never up and down.

There are no words for “up” or “down”, since these concepts don’t exist.  The creature encounters all the same problems as its neighbors. They are constantly getting in each other’s way. Because of their limited vision, they think there is never enough space. They can’t see what’s coming. They can perceive only what is around them, what they can touch and smell, what is obvious.

 

A chessboard with three pieces, the white queen down, a black bishop and pawn still standing

 

They compete for space on their checkerboard, unaware of the space that extends infinitely all around them. Life has handed them existential difficulties, problems they lack the power to solve. Their mindset becomes chronically depressed. They obsess over trifles.

They despair.

 

Sad, despairing wooden puppets, arms hanging uselessly

 

Now imagine a three dimensional creature observing them.  At first he is amused to see these creatures fussing and fretting about problems whose solution is so laughably obvious. The addition of a third dimension would solve everything they see as a problem. These creatures are comical. It is like watching moths throwing themselves fitfully, desperately at a flame.

 

 

After a while, the three dimensional creature grows bored watching such needless futility and turns away.

 

A very young baby looking up with an expression of wonder

 

Now imagine one of the two-dimensional creatures becoming aware that there is space all around him.  He looks up and sees the vault of heaven. How this dwarfs all the foolish machinations he had been involved in before! There is no end of space; why was he concentrating on his neighbors?

 

He feels inspired, lifted up, made new.  He is a new creature. Awareness of his new dimension begets the ability to live and move in it.  He pushes off, slowly at first, as a jellyfish impelling, then gathering speed and joy.

 

Increase my dimension

 

 

A jellyfish in deep dark ocean, its center well lit, circular and symmetrical with dark stripes, and flowing out behind, filaments of legs.