“Nothing is foreign parts relate to the whole: One all extending, all preserving soul –connects each being, greatest with the least – made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; all served, all serving – nothing stands alone. Has God, thou fool, worked solely for thy good, thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?” – Pope’s Essay on Man.
Elva Thompson – It seems that in today’s world humanity is lurching from one disaster to another. Everywhere we look we see division, hate, environmental degradation; the extinction of species, and a wholesale disregard for life: animal, vegetable and mineral. Madness is exploding exponentially across our tired world and the great machine we call life drags us along in a frantic race for survival – a repetitive, humdrum reality that leaves most of us in a constant state of mental and nervous exhaustion.
Our actions isolate us from the earth. We wear shoes, travel in cars and planes, live in boxes made of brick and glass, and modulate reality with delusion, drugs and stimulants. Our personal energy becomes eclipsed by our mechanical lifestyle with its conflicts and exclusivity.
Life in this fast ‘whirled’ is only valued for what it can produce in terms of profit or gratification of the senses. Little thought is given to the mystery of life or the divine potentialities latent within consciousness. It is only man’s arrogance that leads him to imagine that Source Creator made all things for his sole use. In essence, we have lost our way, lost contact with the awesome power of Source – the unifying divine force that invigorates and informs all creation from the tiniest atom to the highest mountain.
Spiritual expansion, acceleration of consciousness and communication with the higher realms is our birthright. But, we as a species have been led away from our connection with nature and earth based consciousness. We have been engineered into a digital reality – a world of smart cities, smart appliances, and artificial intelligence that is the opposite polarity to spiritual connection with the One Life. And, it maybe that as we as a species become estranged from our ‘outside world’ aspects, the kingdoms of Nature will die and we will be left in a fake digital matrix…no longer human in the heart sense of the word. A sobering thought indeed.
Conscious creators
Most of us do not realise that we are conscious creators and that our thinking shapes and creates the world we live in. All of us are capable of leading exceptional and fulfilling lives on this plane if we only give ourselves the chance. If we can free our awareness from the dross of duality and the endless conflict of the conscious mind, nothing can supersede our creativity and potential to develop our latent faculties of perception and imaginative thinking. Thoughts are things and once we can fully grasp the understanding of the ‘boomerang effect’ and no longer allow our amazing creative potential to be molded into ugliness by ‘in box’ and blinkered hive mind thinking, we can with appreciation and gratitude, love and compassion for all life, transform our human experience into joy.
The human body as a living whole – the One Life
Sir George Trevelyan, the founder of the Wrekin Trust, an educational charity concerned with ‘The Spiritual Nature of Man and the Universe’ was one of my mentors. He taught that the animal kingdom in all its diversity is in fact specialized facets and attributes of man that were present in form before our bodies appeared in this reality. The microcosm and the macrocosm. He saw our salt tears as great oceans; our bones and flesh as rocks and grasslands; the warmth of our bodies reflecting the greater sun; and the air in our lungs as the mighty winds that blow from each direction.
it is worth noting that in the Bible, there are two creation stories. Gen 1 v 20-25 describes the creation of the animals, fish and birds. Man the totality of the All is the last to appear: Gen 1 v 26.
The following excerpt dealing with man and his animal aspects can be found in George Trevelyan’s book Operation Redemption:
“The ruminants may be seen as the digestive system externalized. Across the face of the earth is extended this mechanism of digestion, the cow consuming grass and manuring the living earth. The lion seems to be the chest in specialized development, the rhythmic system of heart and lungs. How slight are its digestive organs, how powerful its maned shoulders and thorax, how royal its glance and roar. The eagle representing the bird kingdom is seen as a metamorphosis of head and larynx. It has no great intestines, its body is a system of warm air sacks to keep it floating, the glory of its plumage flashing in the sun compares with the flashing of thoughts in men.”
“The key to the new zoology is to find the human organ which has its counterpart in an animal species: snakes are the guts, fishes are the feet, and crustacea floating in the sea are like the floating organs in the blood such as kidneys, and it is well known that blood and sea water are chemically practically identical. Thus man, the microcosm, reflects the macrocosm and the bodily organs appear spread out through the animal kingdom.”
The wisdom of Rudolph Steiner
The understanding of man as symphony of the created word was first put forth by Rudolph Steiner in his books: Man as Symphony of the Creative Word and Occult Science. Below is an excerpt from one of his lectures:
“When today we contemplate these things and realize that man is actually born out of the whole of nature, that he bears the whole of nature within himself as I have shown, that he bears the bird-kingdom, the lion-kingdom, the essential being of the cow within him, then we get the separate component parts of what is expressed in the abstract sentence: Man is a “Little World”. He is indeed a Little World, and the Great World is within him; and all the creatures which live above in the air, and the animals on the face of the earth whose special element is the air which circulates around them, and the animals which have their special element below the surface of the earth, as it were, in the forces of weight — all these work together in man as a harmonious whole. So that man is in truth the synthesis of eagle, lion, and ox or cow.”
Amazing concept
The idea of man being the symphony of the created world is an amazing and wonderful concept. It allows us to understand the profound meaning of That Art Thou; the Sanskrit phrase:Tat Tvam Asi and the Lakota understanding of Mitakuye oyasin – all my relations, animal, vegetable and mineral.
This total connection with all life reveals another truth: when we attack the ‘outside world’, the kingdoms of nature, we are in fact attacking the very fabric of our own spiritual nature. When we realise that all life is One, whether it be manifested in a human being or in an animal, fish or bird, we will come to see that any suffering we cause to the creatures must inevitably rebound to our own hurt. Thus the battlefield with its gore and limbless screaming life is just a mirror of man’s treatment of animals and the natural world: As a man soweth so he shall reap.
Living in the present
Ancient wisdom tells us that our destiny as human beings is to expand our awareness and unite with the One Life, and Trans-personal Consciousness of the non-local mind. We must learn to live in the present, not because there is no future, but that the creation of our future lies in the Now.
The non-local mind
The non-local mind is a state of Oneness, a connection to the All where the separate ego I no longer exists. Krishnamurti called it the ‘quiet mind’ where the voice that dictates our thoughts and actions falls silent. This state of nothingness and everything is called Nirvana or transcendental bliss. Don Juan calls it the seat of the shaman – the neutral space between the positive and negative charge of polarity. A space where only will exists and conscious creativity is born.
To re-find the wisdom of Ages in a chaotic world requires a considerable and sustained effort. Above all, this investigation requires observation of self and the willingness to face the dark side of our being. It is hard for us in this contemporary life of constant pressure to achieve… to find serenity, turn our mental vision inwards and examine self without prejudice. But, if we wish to regain our multi dimensional awareness and transcend this world, we have to cultivate and nurture the garden of our minds with silence, humility, gratitude and compassion.
Everything is connected…..
SF Source Emerald Octahedron Jul 2018