The social world is skewered by presumptive notions of truth, typically arising from the realms of politics and religion. When politics has abandoned its own neutralizing center, preferring extremist ideas instead, and when religion abandons the living Spirit in favor of dead or obsolete dogma, there will be social unrest. This is because the collective soul in people knows that something is unwell, and in varying degrees of desperation societies will try and correct this. Inevitably, and thankfully, truth prevails, and not because we are in control of the truth, but rather because the truth is ultimately in control of us. Try as we might, we are not really in control of collective destiny.
The humanist idea that our collective destiny is determined simply by our free will decisions, independent of divine influence, effectively deifies the human genome, for these free will decisions will arise inevitably from the sway of our genes. In the absence of divinity, where else could they come from? On the other hand, any religious assertion that some treasured scripture, such as the Bible or Koran, is untainted by human influence forgets that all of these were written by people. It is a magician’s trick to culturally maintain that these writings are the infallible expressions of God, and asserting this in itself deifies the incipient self-will contained in these works, left there and sprinkled throughout by the authors themselves. The will to win is a powerful influence in us, and we will often defer to the whispers of our genes even when we do not intend to.
So, unless we are willing to concede that human nature is transcendently divine in origin, we will need something else, something more vital, to steer us onward toward that collective destiny which is actually meant for us. Surrendering our heart to the divine effectively centers us spiritually, and if we were to do this in a collective way then societies would be much healthier than they presently are. Of course, even the purest of us will be subject to the lure of genetic expression, as were the authors of our favorite scriptures, but we will not be deifying Paul the Apostle, for example, anymore. This is collectively liberating, for now we each need only to reconcile our individual nature to spiritual truth, and not to the fallible nature of someone from long ago. The truth is awake and available to each of us, but it requires a surrendered heart to be accessed. The beauty of this is that it will deal with us individually, spiritually reconciling the nature arising from the uniqueness of our genes, and placing us into harmony with our destiny, individual and collective.
Contained in the collective destiny of Earth is our individual destiny: an address in the metropolis of eternity. We might choose to be there now, in effect, but this requires the surrendering of our heart. It is where our soul resides, in fact, but we exist apart from our soul when we are living selfishly, when our genome has command of us. Our genes are terrific advisors, and they maintain us very well, but without surrendering the advice to the sway of the Spirit we are effectively living in the wilderness, and we have spent millennia there already. This is not frontier life, but is rather the stale and insipid tintinnabulations of our past. Much more eloquent are the tintinnabulations of present day success, but we must be in step with the Spirit for this.
The spiritual life is the pathway to effective living, but it requires the continuous exercise of discipline. It is much easier to rely on our unsurrendered impulses, where life is reduced to an endless game of us versus them. It is considerably more difficult to build than to destroy, and there is an entire subculture devoted to the cause that nothing of substance gets done. This reduces life to a bland equality, where one dares not even speak, or attempt anything real. The eugenics of the Third Reich is evidence enough of how humanity can deify the human genome, and assertions of cultural superiority are often rooted in delusions of genetic superiority. One of the unconscious motivations of Hitler might have been to kill off all of the men, leaving plenty of women for himself. He would bask in the glory of military victory, or at least be surrounded by lonely women. There is a vast dichotomy, however, between having millions of women craving you, versus millions of women despising your existence. Is it possible that Hitler miscalculated? Of course he did, as will each of us if we follow the unfiltered assertions of our heart.
Sauntering in the woods on a cool October morning, one is immersed in the distinct dialect of the natural world, apart from the social mechanisms of humanity. Spend enough time around birds, and you will discover the divinity in them, often more than seems awake in some of the people you might know. Make no mistake: we can be the lowest creatures on Earth, and it is the reckless exercise of our will which can make us this way. When a caterpillar is more impressive than I am, surely I have lost something fundamental, and I will be sensing imminent doom. When we are collectively less than caterpillars, then it is time for us to surrender. Once surrendered, then the heart can be skyrocketed, and we will be capable of being the most impressive creatures on Earth. It is the productive exercise of our will which can make us this way, in harmony with the Spirit which flows ceaselessly from the divine.
The arrogance of humanity asserts that we are always the highest creatures on Earth, no matter what we do, but this is really quite ignorant of the truth. Should societies collectively realize this, then nature will breathe a tremendous sigh of relief. We would inevitably seek whatever may be required for us actually to be the paragon of productivity on this Earth, even if that means stepping aside and doing nothing for a while. We might want to be in harmony with caterpillars and birds, but typically we are unable because of the baked-in arrogance of our hearts. Societies are founded on the presumptions of humanity, and not many individuals are willing to come into conflict with this. But this is not permanent, and the time will come when we reach the end of our arrogance, for we will see that it has led us into the desert, not from bondage but rather into it. The chirping of a sparrow might trigger the collapse of empires one day, and angels may delight in the aftermath.
We need not take it this far, however, and the economic empires of humanity might still be salvaged to benefit the divine. Perhaps it is arrogance on my part to assume that they are not doing so already. One path alone awaits us, and we need to embrace this path. Putting ourselves ahead of everything else, however, is collective narcissism, which generally results in lonely isolation. I would rather not be mocked by caterpillars myself, but I cannot speak for others. Nevertheless, I trust that wisdom will prevail.
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