Dear Friends,
Don’t be upset! This article isn’t as negative sounding as the title suggests!
Let’s be honest with one another. If you drop dead tomorrow, will the World spin off its axis?
If 100 people are killed in a Plane crash?
If 3500 people are killed in a terrorist attack?
If 1.5m people die from a Worldwide Pandemic?
If 20m soldiers killed in battles?
If 75m people die in a World War (2)
WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY MATTER?
As I mentioned, your life isn’t really as valuable as you thought it was.
Colonies
Let’s now think about colonies.
A Family of Fleas making their homes on the back of a dog.
Europe with Germanic tribes, Latin tribes and Eurasian tribes
The USA, with its Scots, Irish, German, Italian and Scandinavian tribes.
Let’s think a little smaller, about colonies of Bacteria. Colonies of Bacteria on the floor behind your loo, colonies of bacteria living down the drain of your sink, and most importantly colonies of Bacteria in your stomach.
When I think about colonies of bacteria in our bodies, and the exceptionally fine balance that they strike with each other, you start to see the same sort of detente that holds Europe together, or the many differing states of the USA. Bacteria find a common way to co-exist.
They’re phenomenally successful.
Our history is actually the history of the rise of Bacteria.
One scientist has suggested that because most bacteria tend to not be able to survive temperatures that are hotter than our blood temperature, they don’t swamp us and wipe us out, they co-exist on and inside us.
After the Extinction event that took out the dinosaurs, only small mammals and reptiles were able to survive. But Mammals thrived, whilst cold blooded reptiles found the environment much more challenging – bacteria wise. The Bacteria bet on us to thrive, and thrive we did.
Star Trek
Now we jump to 1970’s Star Trek. A large tin tube filled with a colony of sailors both human and beings from other planets, travelling round the Solar System and beyond, and taking with them massive colonies of Bacteria in their guts and under their foreskins – sorry, but we all know what a bad reputation sailors have!
We battle against petrol cars, and cows that are noisily farting our planet out of existence. In the meantime, you have become the vehicle for massive colonies of Bacteria, who are currently planning to jump planet tucked under the foreskins of Elon Musk and in the gut of Richard Branson!
They drive you to eat, they keep you healthy, they clean up your system… without these little fellers, we wouldn’t survive a minute, but they’ve got a plan. It’s several millions of years old, but it’s going well! It’s a long game to be sure, but win they will, in the end.
So back to the original thought.
Do you still think that you are the centre of the world? Do you really think your survival is THAT important? I hope your beginning to get the idea that you are just a drop in the ocean?
Important?
Where did you get the idea that you were important? Well clearly, Mum and Dad. This is reinforced for us by school, religion and society. It’s exceptionally strongly reinforced for us by advertising. “You deserve the best,” “You are worth it” “You are beautiful, clever … etc!” You get the idea?
By the age of puberty, you are already being trained to become a master of the universe.
Most of us were unfortunate enough to have a school friend die young, or know of the same.
We don’t really remember or process the weaker or unluckier ones being picked off the back of the herd, we mourn and move on.
You see it on the Nature shows, the lion crawls along on its belly, its already identified the weakest Buffalo, it rushes out of the cover, the whole herd panics and runs.
Shortly the target is losing ground on the rest of the herd.
The lion leaps… another statistic.. but the herd goes on as if nothing happened.
So, if you are just a bucket of Bacteria, being ridden up and down the planet like a tired old donkey on the beach, it that it?
It doesn’t matter if you are splattered all over the window of a 68 bus, or if you live to be 99 years old. Your Life isn’t really worth a shit as previously stated.
Consciousness
Well, that was the way it could be viewed until late in the closing stages of the last century.
The predominant thought systems had had us as bags of bacteria, or machines.
Slowly, emerging from the fog however was the idea of Consciousness. (And not Consciousness as a white-beard bloke whose whims tossed your life about, and mysteriously ended people for no good reason!) The Consciousness that’s growing slowly in the public mind is the force that creates this funny game we are all locked in.
Consciousness seems to play a part in the formation of matter, and the dissolution of said matter at a later date. Everything in our universe moves steadily from creation towards breaking down, and returning back to its composite parts.
It seems that our Universe is made of energy in various states of being or non-being, and that this is driven by the action of Consciousness through us.
We are “blessed” as being the only beings with consciousness (or perhaps who can guide and utilise this consciousness to our own ends) I say “blessed,” this consciousness that Time, Bacteria and “The Universe” have sculpted in us, can be a blessing or a weight on us. We can plan our futures and we can fret about our pasts. Some day’s it’s a gift, some days a massive chore that we would be happy to be without.
Religion
Religion was based on the ideas of the cultivation of consciousness, but it ended up getting diverted, greedy men took control of the processes, and the main thread was lost. All major religions have mystic roots, that they have tried to ban! These roots are where the purest information lies, but it’s all still a bit old hat. (Sufism from Muslim roots, The Kabbalah from mystic Hebrew roots, and Agnosticism from ancient Christian roots…)
These days Science and Spirituality are blending, and we start to see that science is confirming the part that we have always suspected our spiritual selves play in our experience of “reality”
There seem to be layers in everything. Like an Onion, peel away one layer, and there’s another inside. Keep peeling and intriguingly, as the final layer is removed, we find NOTHING! Such a great spiritual metaphor, and simultaneously such a great start to most recipes! Thank you, Mr Onion, – you are truly my Master!
OM!
Like the ancient “Om” symbol, which features the three states of human kind, asleep, dreaming and awake. We have the choice to move through these three places if we choose. (The line and dot in the symbol represent the veil drawn between mankind and consciousness)
Will you just spend your life asleep, walking through your sleep to the inevitable end?
Will you grow to “Adulthood” and wake up inside this dream world we live in? (Adulthood being spiritually mature, and not just “Over 21 and still asleep like 98% of the world..!”)
Or will you make it to “Properly Awake?” (This is often referred to as Enlightenment)
Interestingly enough several of my teachers have spoken about the levels of enlightenment, so when you finally get there, it’s actually just a way point on the journey and not a final destination!
Ask yourself, “what’s the purpose of my life?” – no, Really do it! Ask yourself deeply..
Are you actually following your life’s purpose? It’s fine if you have just decided to drink yourself into oblivion and work yourself into an early grave. As stated before, it Really doesn’t matter! In a few generations nobody will remember what choice you made! This really is a world of free will, choose what you like, no pressure.
I do have a hint for you, if the answer to the question, “what’s the purpose of my life” turns out to be “Bank Manger” then you may have missed the point. There are ways to make the “dream” we live in better for all of us, and there’s the other path, which is generally “making life better for ME!” (It’s selfish teenage mind, vs adult open mind.)
Who am I
I started digging, with Sri Ramana Maharshi’s work, asking yourself “Who am I?” – believe you me, I have a long way to go.
I have made it to adulthood. (Wow, there are still huge pockets of “teenage rubbish” I have to clear away,) but generally I see the World much more clearly these days.
I see that I’m a spec in time and space, I see that everything is beautiful consciousness, I see that there’s no good and bad just stuff. I watch my Judgement jump in all too frequently, I see my petty patterns flash up like lights on a crashing jumbo jet’s dashboard! I hear myself say astonishing things, and wonder “Who said that!?” I have many lessons to learn, but I do see the illusion for what it really is!
I’m just a bag of bacteria, a mobile gene pool, but also a vehicle through which Consciousness can play too. I see the illusion. I understand that None of this really matters.
That being said, I have discovered my life’s work. I always wanted to follow the Qigong path. I want to help other “children” find their way out of the maze, help them to heal their wounds and start their own path. If I help one other person, then it’s all been worth the struggle.
The joke goes, “what’s the difference between a Religion and a Cult?” the punchline…”just the number of people!” Anything that guides your thoughts could be considered a Religion or a Cult.
Zhineng Qigong
For me Zhineng Qigong has been my guide, along with authors such as Jed Mckenna, Siri Ramana Maharshi and the Michael T Ness.
It’s founder Dr Pang Ming has publish many books to help clarify this ancient way of thinking, and combine it with modern science and spirituality.
The interesting twist offered by Dr Pang is that in his opinion all humans have amazing hidden depths, and that, as we move from stroppy teen, to Adult awareness, these abilities reveal themselves. At a most basic level of this understanding, this might be, “how to heal your ailments” no matter how dire they may be.
Beyond that we hear stories of people who can diagnose you just by looking at you, who can move things with their minds and many other stories that Science just can’t explain. (These stories get consigned to the waste bin of life, because they are just too crazy! – If you don’t believe me, try researching “Levitating Saints” through history, or Gurus who can stop their hearts beating for a week…)
These tricks are not the purpose, they are just side-effects of cultivating one’s consciousness. As another side-effect of taking this path beyond “Adulthood” would be the saving of our world.
He’s taking about a new race of humans, who flow with nature, not against it. Who respect one another, and themselves.
Who knows what new problems a race of conscious “Adults” will encounter?
I for one have put my hand up to try and find the next step. I want to be the fore-front of that evolution.
Watch this space and maybe try to be the best “Adult You,” that you can be in the meantime..
I’ll write you when I get there.
Much love..
Jeremy