The Wholly Intent
We hu'mans are an over-rated species given our ability for self-praise and adoration. It is we, the hu'man, that has decided that we're far greater and more intelligent than our fellow animals that inhabit the planet. This is based upon our ability to conquer the beasts that get in our way. We dominate the Earth until nature intervenes with catastrophes that reduce us to exhaustion, confusion and even death. Those are the times when we pray for answers to gods that we have assured ourselves exist for our benefit and even afterlife. We follow the rules and the gods will reward us for doing the right thing. But what we consider to be 'the right thing' is not always the case. We 'right' things to fit our way of thinking, to fit our desired way of living, to fit our concepts of what is 'right' and what is 'wrong.' Our concepts of good and evil are driven apart to protect what we wish to be our good. Evil is intended to be outside our limitations inside the 'good fence.' Don't go beyond our own determined barriers or else... we may have to pay for our forewarned injunction to 'not bite from the apple.' Our God(s) will revenge us!
Although we certainly have learned much throughout our existence, these things that we have created, elaborated upon, taught and learned, i.e., sciences, religions, philosophies, arts and more, have only been our tools to more fully adapt to this strange place in which we find ourselves somewhat of a stranger. We don't fully grasp how to live peacefully, not only amongst ourselves, but amongst the other life forms here on planet Earth.
We are an evolving species, the youngest life form on this planet and in our infancy we treat this planet as a new and wondrous place, eager to discover what it contains and in so doing we treat the environment with questionable acts - polluting the waters and skies, deforestation, making more and more powerful weaponry to protect ourselves from ourselves, using our new found discoveries of chemicals with the promise of making life easier that ultimately poisons our environs and many times our own bodies We are the evolving species, childlike in our innocence, treating this planet like our personal sandbox because we can. Like children left to their own devices with no parental discipline, we are reckless in our impatience to get as much out of this one world as we can.
Our reasoning (should we so use that term) is because there is nothing we cannot do (arrogance and stupidity)! Who will stop us? Witness what we have accomplished! Where our god(s) are intended to be the parental figure, we have made our god(s) pliable to fit our will. God will forgive.
True there is a balance - we have to pay for our gains thru losses, the unfortunate cost of our runaway minds. But just as we believe that there is no other power that is more capable than our own humanity, we have taken this idea and run amok with it in our childish, selfish way bringing knowledge and destruction hand-in-hand in an attempt to live in harmony on our planet.
We look with wonder and awe at the monuments of our past. i.e. Taj Mahal, the Great Wall, the pyramids, our journey to the moon and beyond, etc., and see these things as 'proof of our superiority.' However we do not question the back breaking, forced labor that went into all these 'wonders'; we gloat over our ability to walk on the moon when there are billions and billions of other galaxies beyond our comprehension... "one small step for man..." is indeed a fact - we are very, very small in the totality of existence, but yet our ability to see the wonders of life is often times veiled by the greed and fear of our conceptions of the dangers that this life brings with it.
We are still children on the human evolutionary scale with so much further to go before we realize we are part and parcel of all that life is - no better and no worse, no greater and no less, no more intelligent and no less stupid that anything else that makes up this amazing creation that we are capable of witnessing daily in our lives, beyond the mundane that has corrupted our potential to become one with it all.
Nature has been a commodity for we hu'mans. We have well-reached a point where our use of Nature has become an abuse. Our technologies that we have learned have given us a path for a more peaceful existence upon this planet, but it is our mind, that ever-churning, hungry for answers Mind that always seems to get us in trouble.
Yes, we certainly need our mind... it's what allows us to communicate with each other, but we have become overly reckless in allowing our mind to run us. Mind is an instrument for Man not the other way around. We have allowed Mind to control us. So few know the implications that surround this fact - Mind can be controlled by the human that possesses Mind. Mind is not all that we are. We have the ability to put Mind in its place - a useful tool for humanity, but we insist that Mind be fed more and more information. This ceaseless hunger that Mind has is without limits, but we, the human, the physical form that Mind inhabits, requires much less than our Minds demand. Therein is the cause and effect of our "Seven Deadly Sins" - pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. Each and every one of these is because of Mind gone wild, and yet we blame our "humanity" on our failings to deal with these "sins". The "sins" are not to blame but only our Minds driving us.
We have many, many years to go before we can live in harmony, not only with each other, but all other life forms as a mature, reasonable and compassionate species. But in the "here and now" our humanity is Mind driven. There will come a time, not in our lifetime, but some day (if we don't destroy ourselves first), when we will harness Mind and see our wholeness and become wholly what we were intended to become - fully enlightened individuals as promised by the wisdom of many that have become before us.
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cecil
22 june 2008
Wall of Masks
photo: c.b. lee in palomas mexico
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