Who are we? Where do we come from? What are we doing here anyway? And what about the differences? The real differences (this is the bit that some people don't like)? Differences in...… consciousness?...… quality? I find myself currently, and atypically, assailed by such questions. Questions which can never have a definitive answer, aside from on a purely personal level, maybe.
I may have written before about a dear old friend who, when in a certain mood, would talk about 'we humans', as if we were a homogeneous bunch. And while in that same frame of mind, he would assert that 'we are all trying to achieve the same thing; all headed in the same direction.' And how irritating I ended up finding it. I would dearly have loved to agree with my friend and his fantasy of homogeneity but, despite myself, I have ended up with a far more fractured view of human life.
What I cannot help myself seeing is this. It's expressed in ridiculous generalisation and imprecision. The borders are far from clear, and many people will straddle more than one of my categories. Nevertheless....
Here on planet Earth there is a minority of people who seem properly 'wise', possessed of a sense of knowingness; or if not quite dripping wisdom, they are still firmly walking a path of 'awakening'. Then there is the vast majority of people. Most folk, in my experience, are fairly good-hearted, overall well-intentioned. Many are, in fact, capable of extraordinary feats of selflessness. At the same time, they are prone to what in Buddhism is termed 'avidya': ignorance or, less politely, stupidity. As a result, they are all too easily duped, deceived, manipulated. They lack discernment, courageous facing of the bare bones of existence. Their good-heartedness can be easily used against them, diverted into erroneous and damaging ways, as described in the previous post. They are easy meat for our final category.
This is the other minority. The nasty, the malevolent; the bad seeds. Many people find it hard to accept the existence of the bad seeds. While it seems fine to assent to a minority of wise ones, the prospect of a minority of people with real dark intent and cunning fills many people with a sense of unease, discomfort. They would rather not know. This in itself - the denial of the truly negative pole - affords great protection to our ne'er-do-wells.
Part Two
Modern discussion - and at this point I am in danger of falling asleep straight into my cup of coffee - revolves around 'nature versus nurture'. It's your genes or your upbringing; or most likely some combination of the two. As a description sometimes pretending to be an explanation, I find this totally crap. It's a dichotomy placed before us, to stare at open-jawed, blinded by the narrowest of sciences. And it's a false dichotomy, tailor-made to confine the unimaginative, uncreative minds of many people in a tiny box.
It is my contention that 'nature or nurture' bears little resemblance to reality. Real reality, full-on reality. Instead, it is primarily a reflection of the scientific-materialist worldview which prevails in the modern west. It is what a materialistic, philosophically nihilistic, culture might be expected to come up with. In fact, it represents all that that culture has got. Any other possibilities are automatically off-limits, given the assumptions inherent in this worldview: superstitious assumptions such as 'the brain produces consciousness'; 'nothing survives after the physical body dies'; 'there is nothing beyond what we can currently measure'.
In 'The Soul's Code', archetypal psychologist James Hillman takes a leap in the direction of greater reality. While not denying the existence of nature and nurture, he maintains that this is inadequate in describing the way humans behave. He posits a third vital ingredient in the 'Who am I?' soup. At times he refers to it as our 'calling'. We turn up on planet Earth, not as a blank slate, but with our aim, direction, fulfilment, already in place. We arrive as little acorns, he says, and our fulfilment in life is to allow those acorns to grow into mighty, beautiful oaks. Note that the oak is already 'contained' within the acorn. Fate is with us from the beginning. Do we possess the courage to do whatever is needed for that little acorn to properly grow? This is one of our big challenges in life.
Hillman is not one to dwell on metaphysical unknowables, such as how it all came to pass in the first place. But his 'acorn theory' resonates personally. In my earliest memories, I am already 'me': I sense at age five that I shall not be doing as the majority of people are doing; and I feel a sense of purpose, of things to be done.
Part Three
We are unique. We are different. We come with something already fully formed. We are not 'equal', in the sense of being the same.
The differences. Ah, the differences. And the contradictions: as Don Juan says, between man the engineer - brilliant-, and the stupidity of much of his thinking and ideation. Orthodox modern thought shies away from these topics, or sets out to deny their existence altogether. Not all are, or have been, so fearful, however, in the face of the high-level strangeness that is human beings and their inexplicable ways. Particularly the inexplicable ways of the bad seeds.
I have gathered together here a few notions that have been put forward in some effort to face this topic of topics. There may or may not be any truth in all or some of them, and one or two may well be met with incredulity. Nevertheless, in the absence of anything else, I suggest it would be foolish to dismiss any of them out of hand, as a result of preconceived prejudice. Give them a chance.
Least fantastic and phantasmagorical is the theory of the psychopath. According to some sources, 1% of humankind can be clinically classified as psychopathic, this rising to 3% among top business people and the political classes. I have my own shortlist of prime suspects, but I'll keep it to myself.
The main characteristic of psychopaths is that they have no innate moral sense; no feeling of right and wrong in affairs, no natural emotional response to others' joy, grief etc. They may cry at a funeral, not because they feel grief-stricken, but because they have learned that it's the thing to do. It is as if there is something missing, something not there, in the life of a psychopath. No heart, no soul.
The psychopathic factor is fine as far as it goes, but is descriptive rather than explanatory. Description seems to be sufficient for some. Buddhism, when confronted with the messy sides of the human condition, may simply state that samsara has been in existence since beginningless time. Or it may take the line of the Parable of the Rain Cloud, in the SaddharmaPundarika Sutra, which states that humans come in all different shapes and sizes, but that the Buddha's truth will rain down on them all alike. For some of us, this is not enough; too many questions left unanswered. Let's move on further:
The Gnostics turn up occasionally on Pale Green Vortex. In the Gnostic Tripartate Tractate, we are told (in the section 'the Tripartition of Mankind') in no uncertain terms that humanity is not homogeneous. It is divided into three types of being (corresponding roughly to my threefold division, I submit). There are the pneuma, or spiritual souls. They are naturally attracted to the saviour, as the text puts it. Then there are the psychic; spirits in matter. They may respond to the saviour if shown by others. Then there are the hylic, who are pure matter, devoid of soul, and who are repelled by the saviour. This is the analysis in the Tripartate Tractate: three quite distinct types of human being.
The Gnostics are also prime exponents of archon theory. Of how human minds become infected by these inorganic beings, minions of the demiurge, the false god who has deceived people into believing he is the true one. The archons confuse and deceive the unwary (=most of us) through imitation, simulation, sowing false ideas into the human mind. They are the architects of unmitigating error in the affairs of humanity - in the world of politics, for example.
I have faith that the notions of the Gnostics are based in direct experience; they were not a bunch of idlers sitting around and scratching their heads during long winter nights. I have never seen an archon, but know of people who have.
Then there is the extraterrestrial connection. A number of North American indigenous peoples will tell you that humanity comes from some star or stars. I imagine that there are plenty of other indigenous groups who will opine similarly. Then there are the western equivalents, positing alien origins or alien interference in the creation or history of humanity. Annunaki, Sitchin, the rest. I have spent little time with this material personally, but it is there for all to discover should they so wish.
Finally, we have star people; starseeds. Star people are walking the face of the earth right now, but do not really belong here at all. The true home of their soul is elsewhere: other planets, stars, galaxies. But they have turned up here for a while, for a lifetime, maybe to learn, maybe to try and help humanity on its perilous way. Like typical humans, they have undergone the process of rebirth/incarnation, during which an amnesia sets in. Some will be properly aware of their extraterrestrial origins, some slightly so, while others simply live with an uneasy sense of being different and not really belonging. Crazy? Some may think so. But if you meet an otherwise rational, sensible human who claims to have come from a star, what do you say?
Images: me
