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Reality
is universal continual transformation or change.
Human
beings live a dance between acceptance and denial of both our mortality
and our roles as stewards amidst the transformation.
Paradox
is woven into the very structure of human consciousness – we sense our
integration with the universal flux even as we are aware of our unique,
transient form. In this paradox resides the potential to experience
sensations of alienation, pain, death, life, interconnection and vigour.
(Clint Brown drawings:
Reminders that even as we arise to take the form
of a human being able to reflect existence we also embrace our passing.
)
The
crux of our situation is that our consciousness contains enormous potential
for both truth and self-deceit. We thus have a great potential to
experience both unimaginable joy in harmony and incredible misery in
dissonance..
Deciding
how to use this potential is compounded by the fact that our
consciousness is but a trace element of our being. Neurophysics suggests
that while in any moment we are each conscious of maybe a couple of
thousand interactions with the universe(s) our primal being is sentient
of perhaps 50 billion interactions. And while our cells contain wisdom
that has sustained their structure a billion years through all manner of
change our egos have a great capacity to deny this wisdom.
Our
capacity to experience sensations of joy and awe in harmony is unimaginable because possibilities and
options exist beyond the bounds of thought. Our capacity for denial of
these states and thus generating misery is
incredible because our ego is more ingenious and limited than we can
consciously know.
We
have the capacity to develop very sophisticated psychological mechanisms
to live in acceptance and in denial of change/stewardship. In order to
survive and thrive in our dance between these two states of being then
we need ways to transcend the limitations and demands of our ego and
thought. One such way is the experience of the state of compassion with
its qualities of inclusiveness; inquiry; sharing; honesty and trust; and
generosity of time and reflection. These qualities enable us to better
live in acceptance of stewardship/change and thus know greater harmony
with reality. They provide us with the capacities to transcend the
limitations of our ego, be in the state of science and better embrace
the paradoxical nature of our existence.
"It
is possible to travel the whole world in search of one who is more
worthy of compassion than oneself. No such person can be found."
(Attributed to The Buddha)
All
human beings are born into the state of science to some degree and it
is the experience of this state of being, born of compassion, that
enables us to develop language, the arts, civics and all we know as
civilisation. It is the state of science that has enabled our most
sustaining symbols, which we know as the great principles of physics. We
have in the Conservation Principle of Energy a great guide, for though
millennia of human beings have subjected it to most ingenious and
intense scrutiny in our attempts to avoid mortality and stewardship, no
one has ever faulted it.
"There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in."
(Leonard Cohen -Anthem)
Page last updated:
Aug 2010
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