I saw a man squash a small bug that passed by him.
I asked him, “Why?”
“Why not?”, he replied…
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“Why not?” is a answer born in unconsciousness. It reflects a decision to act without awareness. To be unaware, is to be unconscious, in a world created by consciousness.
I believe that we have free will. I believe that understanding free will is important in understanding our reality. I also believe that our concept of free will is based on some fundamental misconceptions. The first is that our free will rests in our ability to act. That our freedom of choice comes from the freedom to “do” as we choose. This places free will as a derivative physical act; one completely dependent on the body.
We are not however, just a body. The body is temporal in nature. It is created, grows, dies, and returns to whence it came. If we ceased to be when the body died, then our free will could very well be limited to, and dependent on, what the body alone can do. I do not believe however, that we are temporal in nature. That our existence starts with the growth of cells, and ends with the failure of the physical system those cells grow into.
If we truly have free will, it must extend past the temporary experience of this life, into eternity. Free will doesn’t end when the body dies, so free will cannot be limited to what the body can do. If free will were limited to your actions, then those with limited ability to act, would have their free will infringed. The disabled, the handicapped, the elderly, the imprisoned, and even children would all have less free will than I. Free will cannot be quantified. We have either been given free will, or we have not. No one has less. No one has more. It is not a commodity that can be traded, brokered, weighed, or measured.
What then is free will? Free will is choice. Free will is perspective. Free will comes from within. Your free will can never be stripped from you. It can never be stolen, infringed, or unavailable. In this, the paradox, is that you have no choice. You cannot set it aside. You cannot give it away. You cannot turn it off. Free will is always active; you are always choosing. You alone choose your perspective, and you alone are responsible for the results of the perspective you pick.
If you decide that any circumstance, event, or person is out of your control, or beyond your influence, then the Universe will not deny you that choice. You will experience that outcome. If you decide to see the worst in a coworker, friend, lover, spouse, or stranger, then you will experience the worst that person has to offer you. If you complain constantly about your life, you will find ample reasons to continue to do so, as more and more things warrant complaint. The Universe will provide from its infinite source, all that you are choosing; be it blessings, or curses. Whatever you choose will keep coming back to you — forever.
Do not under estimate the power of your perspective. It is the only place that free will can exist. Everything physical you value can be taken, and eventually will be. In 10,000 years nothing you see will still exist. Within 100 years, you will most likely be dead. What worth, what power, could free will have if it came and went with such little permanence.
Exercise your greatest wisdom in the expression of your perspective. Free will has great power. If it had no effect, it would have no point. What would the point of your perspective be, if it was limited to idle thoughts without impact?
If your free will transcends this life, then it must exist within. If free will exists within, than what lies within must have great power to effect what is without; lest free will be made a cruel, impotent jest. Everything you do has effect. Your thoughts, your words, your actions, are all responsible for your experience. If you think without awareness, and speak without awareness, you will act without awareness. Then you will live a life that seems to happen to you.
Bring consciousness to your thoughts. Bring awareness to your words. Bring thoughtfulness to your deeds. Exercise your free will consciously, rather than unconsciously.
Choose to see the best in people, and you will find it. Choose to see benefit in an event and you will experience it. Choose to see blessings in your life, and you will have them. For if you choose consciously how you exercise free will, you will experience freedom, where others would see only limitation. That is the only choice you will ever really have, and it is the only choice you ever really need.
Prior to the adoption of the automobile in the US, gasoline was considered a by-product of Kerosene production. They used to dump it out. At that time whale blubber was still a major lighting source, and Kerosene was one of the few alternatives.
Now petroleum products power 90% of the vehicles on our planet. Petroleum derived fuel has done more to shrink the globe and shape the map, than anything that preceded it.
When automobiles were first introduced, they were powered by three different types of engines: internal combustion, steam, and electric. The high availability of cheap petroleum helped the internal combustion engine become the universal choice. Now petroleum powers everything from supersonic jets, to scooters.
Everywhere you go, petroleum takes you there. Everything you eat, petroleum transported to you. Everything you wear was shipped from somewhere. Everything you buy traveled by truck. You can’t escape it. Its influence is woven invisibly into the fabric of our society.
But petroleum is a finite resource. They don’t make it, they drill for it; they pull it out of the earth. There is only so much of it in there to begin with, and demand has never been higher. Developing nations like China and India, have a ravenous appetite for petroleum power. Global demand is escalating.
When demand for a finite resource increases, the cost for that resource increases. Petroleum was cheap when we were the only buyer. Now that there is global demand, the days of cheap fossil fuels are over.
The 20th century saw the world shrink, as petroleum fueled cars, jets, and ships made transportation cheaper and more plentiful than it had ever been. In the petroleum fueled transportation boom of the 20th century it became possible to produce something in one place, and then transport it anywhere in the world. For the first time in history, you could grow food, and house livestock, in large factory farms. You could build cheap goods on one side of the planet, and ship them to buyers on the other. We became increasingly disconnected from the conditions in which the things we buy are produced.
The late 20th century saw the beginning of another boom. The communication boom. Powered by petroleum transportation, we were able to build a communications network that spans the globe. Information was decoupled from its medium, and transmitted within this network. Communication that would have previously taken months to travel physically around the world, could be transmitted instantly. The world shrank again.
We began to see that there were horrible things hiding behind thousand mile long supply chains: child labor, factory farm conditions, environmental catastrophes. We began to see that the cost of petroleum is higher than economics alone can explain. The ugliness that underpins our consumerism, the ugliness that petroleum allowed us to outsource, can no longer be ignored as it screams back at us on our global communication networks.
The cost of gas is higher than it has ever been, and is only rising. It is afterall, a finite resource. As the cost of transportation increases, the supply chains will fall apart. They are only economically viable when transportation is cheap.
This does not mean economic or social collapse. It simply calls for adaptation. Goods from across the globe will become luxury items again. Food will need to be produced locally. Production will become more distributed. We will need to readdress the methodologies we use to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves. We will become more conscious of those methodologies, when we can no longer hide their impact thousands of miles away.
Petroleum was a booster rocket that helped fuel a technological, industrial, and economic boom that transformed the world. Without it, we would still be living in an agrarian society, depending largely on animal and human labor. We would not enjoy most of the advances, conveniences, and luxuries, that have transformed the human experience in the last century. Petroleum fueled the modern age.
Petroleum however, has outlived its use-fullness, and is rapidly becoming a liability to be jettisoned like a first stage booster rocket. It has helped elevate us to heights that would have been beyond the grandest imaginings of man a few hundred years ago. We look back down the chain of history from a dizzying height, but petroleum cannot keep us here. In order to advance our society, technology, and industry, we must turn our attention to sustainable solutions. We need to ween ourselves from our mothers milk, and build a future that isn’t dependent on a well, rapidly running dry.
Singularity
If you can accept that God was all there was prior to the “big bang”, then it stands to reason that God is still all there is; as the “big bang” is just the expansion into space-time of a singularity.
The singularity, became multiplicity. Yet it still remained as it was; a unified whole. When you look upon the singularity, and see it only in terms of it’s multiplicity, you see only divisions. When you look upon the singularity as a whole, you see only connections. Looking past the distinctions, you see unity. It is the unity of all things that provides the canvas for the paint. Our similarities that provide the stage and props for the players. It is our common hopes, fears, and desires that provide the basis of all human interaction and experience.
When confronted with the majesty, wonder, and grandeur of the multiplicity, it is easy to overlook the simple truths of the singularity. Without these simple truths as the bedrock for our understandings and behavior, it is easy to become lost in the labyrinth of multiplicity. The promise of happiness, peace and understanding are always tantalizingly just around the next corner.; always leading you to the next, and the next, and the next, in the never ending pursuit of more. The irony of the pursuit of more, is that it comes from a belief in less. It comes from the belief in your isolation from the singularity. For if you are still within all that is, how could you possibly be without? So we chase the next, and forget that in chasing something else, you lose sight of what you have.
We search for God, we search for meaning, we chase them around corners in this labyrinth of life; all the while forgetting that if God is omnipresent, then God is this entire expanded, unified whole. God is within us, as surely as we are within God. God is in the last place you expect to look; the last place you ever need to look.
God is inside.
Labels as limitations
When I was nine months old, I used to point at objects and ask my mom, “See that…?” she would then fill in the appropriate label: banana, car, table, etc. And I would finish my sentence, using the new word ie, “See that banana?”
As a small boy, I found this immensely helpful in building a vocabulary I could use to communicate. There was great power in knowing the name of an object. Regardless of the objects function, I could now define it, request it, or reject it. I had been given a handle my mind could grab onto. That thing is a banana, but that other thing, is a table.
There are many tales and legends about the power of someone or something’s true name. This concept stretches through magic and mysticism, back to antiquity. The idea being that a true name will represent the true nature of the person or object. By knowing this true name, you have great power over the subject.
But can a name, or a label, define anything? Does the word banana represent the sun soaked, rain drenched environment of it’s birth? Does it reflect the yellow of it’s ripe skin? Does the word prepare you for the experience of a banana? For the taste and texture of it’s fruit? Of course not. The complexity of the banana transcends our convenient label for it.
Yet we are often like little children labeling everything we see. That is a car. That is a table. That is bad. This is good. He is stupid. I am handsome. She is fat. This is boring. That is worthless. We are obsessed with defining everything. We label and categorize every experience, every object, every person, and every sensation we encounter. These easy answers may allow us to communicate easily with each other, but they rob us of understanding.
When you label something, you define it. When you define something you have decided upon your experience of it. You will see it as you have labeled it, good, bad, or ugly. You will lose your ability to see truly, to understand deeply, and to experience fully.
Labeling over experiencing, is just a way to distance yourself from your own life. It is a way of putting something in a box, so that it can be neatly filed away. But nothing can be truly labeled, understood, and filed away. The deepest truths of the universe exist as paradoxes, only understood when easy answers and labels are eschewed. The universe is not just all that exists in physical space, it is the very space between, around, and in. It is the object and the context. It is the seen, and the unseen that makes the seen possible. The Alpha, and the Omega.
The birth of Zen began with a single flower. There were no words. There were no labels. The Buddha held up the flower, and said nothing. Most of his disciples saw a flower, and so they saw nothing. One man looked deeply, and truly understood. By rejecting an easy and convenient label, he could see its true nature. He learned its true name; the name that cannot be spoken. Zen Buddhism was born in that moment of understanding.
I still find myself labeling things. See that beautiful woman? Feel this pain? Hate this traffic? The little boy is still there, still trying to label everything. But now I can give up childish things. I can drop the label, look deeply, and truly see.
We are so much more than our labels, our names, or the roles we play. We are like that flower, infinite in depth, unique in expression, and connected with everything. Our true name cannot be spoken, only understood.
Going through an old notebook, I came across my wedding vows. We both wrote our own, and these were mine:
I will always see you.
When you forget who you are, I will remind you.
When you are lost, I will find you. I will lead you home.
If you are alone, I will reach to you.
If you are scared, I will comfort you.
When you need truth, I will speak it.
When you need trust, I will give it.
If you fall, I will catch you.
If you do not know, I will teach you.
When you need love, I will give it.
When you feel joy, I will share it.
If you smile, I will be warmed by it.
If you cry, I will be moved by it.
When you need to share, I will hear you.
When you cannot shout, I will listen for a whisper.
If you are cold, I will warm you.
If you are lost, I will guide you.
When you succeed, I will feel pride.
When you fail, I will feel pride.
If you feel pain, I will heal it.
If you cannot win, I will help you.
If you have faith, I will see heaven.
When you dream, I will believe in you.
When you fear, I will hold you.
When you try, I will aid you.
If you have needs, I will not know rest.
If you have enemies, I will not know peace.
When you laugh, I will hear music.
When you breathe, I will love you.
Even after time has stolen my sight, and my fingers cramp and can no longer hold yours. As long as blood flows with each beat, I will always see you.
I believe that prior to the “big bang”, all that was, was what physicists call a “singularity”, an infinite point from which the Universe emerged. I believe that this singularity was God. God existed prior to the big bang, and was all there was. I believe that after the “big bang”, the singularity has just expanded. God is still all there is.
Religion has played a lot of roles in the course of human history. It has been a refuge for the faithful, and a been a beacon for the desperate. It has shaped moral structures, and our ideas of propriety. It has played thrones for puppets, and made nations kneel. It has tortured the innocent, and slaughtered the infidel. It has suppressed science, art, literature, and innovation. It has encouraged charity and compassion. It has both embraced, and condemned, murder and suicide. It has influenced music, art, and shaped cultures. It has been everything to some, and yet nothing to others.
The roles religion has played on this stage spinning through the cosmos, are so varied, that it is impossible to define it through it’s effects.
No institution, no bureaucracy, no government, no structure of any kind has had the impact on the human condition that religion has had. In the shadow of it’s effects, it is difficult to understand it’s real role in our lives.
It is easy to forget, who made who. Religion is mortal. Each has a beginning, each exists, and then each one dies. Religion is a created thing. It is not the creator of things. Religion is not the source of God, so it cannot be the source of all wisdom about God. In our relationship to religion, man has primacy. We created our churches. We created our holy books, we created our dogmas, and we created God in our image.
You have existed before any structure that would claim you. Religions would usurp your role by claiming that your experience of God, your perspective on God is less valid than their dogma. Yet, religions are simply structures that have grown up around specific ideas about God. How can they claim that your experience is less valid than the experiences that birthed the religion? Only by claiming that you serve the structure. Only by making you inferior to the old ideas. Yet, their founders broke with even older ideas, to create the religion in the first place.
You are alive. You are growing, changing, evolving. Each day you have a chance to change. Each day you learn new things. Each day you have new experiences. Each day you have a choice about who you will be.
The structures of religion are not alive. They are not gardens growing with new life, and blooming with new ideas. They are tombs. They are mausoleums, where old ideas are enshrined. They exist only as long as we continue to support them. A church without a congregation, is not a church at all.
Religions depend on you for their existence. Something that depends on you, can only control you, when you allow it. Religion seeks to control you, because it needs to in order to survive. When the structure of religion claims dominion over man, then the structure has become too rigid. It no longer servers the dynamic and evolving nature of life. It seeks instead to limit, restrict, and control life.
When a religion claims to have a monopoly on the truth, it closes itself off to new understandings. It closes itself off to the ever evolving nature of life, the universe, and God. Such a limited, and rigid perspective will not evolve, and so will no longer serve. Instead it will try to force you into it’s service. It might give you endless lists of appropriate behavior, and then burden you with guilt for infractions. It would substitute slavery for salvation.
The role of religion is to serve man. It was created by us, for us, to improve our lives. When the role of religion is forgotten, it is easy for man to become a servant of his creation.
The purpose of religion is to share ideas that will bring you closer to God, and in doing so, improve your life. If a rule does not improve your life, then it is not bringing you closer to God. Does anyone truly believe that the ways of God would be less efficient, less workable, or less effective than what we are currently doing?
When an idea is new, it can help elevate our consciousness. It can help improve our morality. It can better our lives. But when that idea has been fully adopted, and becomes the standard, it then takes a new idea to elevate our understanding and experience to another level.
If a religion is not offering new ideas, then it is not offering you better. It is not offering you growth. It is not expanding your understanding, and bringing you closer to God. It is not challenging the status quo. It is the status quo.
It seems that somewhere along the line, we stopped demanding very much of the structures that are supposed to support us. We forgot the role religion is supposed to play, and made ourselves the servants in the script.
If we truly want to understand life, and our place in it, then we must further our understanding of God. We cannot do that, until we remember the role of religion is to serve, and allow new ideas to further our understanding of divinity.
In the evolution of a species, the greater the initial pool of genetic material, the more successful the end result. The process of evolution will cull the characteristics that don’t support life, while supporting those that do. The more options that process has, the greater the end outcome will be for the species.
The evolution of an idea is no different. Greater pools of ideas, and the freedom to express them, will result in more successful ideas that support life. Ideas that provide results, will thrive. Eventually the most workable ideas will become the dominant understanding. This is the entire basis for our current scientific understanding. As new ideas are submitted, their ability to provide predictable results, is the basis for their acceptance as a working theory. As more ideas are introduced, the evolution of our understanding, continues.
The melting pot of early America provided the perfect environment for the evolution of new ideas. The freedom of this frontier nation, blended with new ideas about governance. These ideas birthed a nation founded on new principles.
The success of democracy is a testament to the success of the idea of self-governance. The idea spread like a virus across the globe. A new idea of the structure and purpose of government, proved itself to be more be more supportive of life, and became the dominant thought paradigm of society.
That has often been touted as America’s finest contribution to the world. But there is another idea growing in the melting pot of our society. Another evolution is under way. When the founding fathers established the basis for American Democracy, they did something that no one had done before: they decoupled religion and government.
This separation of church and state, didn’t just provide the world with a new idea of “state”, it provided us with the perfect environment in which a new idea of “church” could evolve.
In the time line of religions, this really is still the New World. The Catholic church has been in place since Rome. The Old World is still dominated in theology by the old institutions. The available pool of ideas in those societies dried up long ago. There hasn’t been a new religious paradigm in Europe since Martin Luther nailed his letter to a church door in 1517 and sparked the Reformation.
Ideas in other parts of the globe are even older. Islam is still split over ideas of authority that go back to the death of Muhammad. Dominant thought paradigms in Asia, like Buddhism, were established at least a millennium before Christ walked the earth.
In this, America is still very much the New World. The religious freedom of America has already created a variety of new religions spreading across the globe. Baptists, Pentecostals, Mormons, Snake Handlers, etc. Americans have contemporized reinvigorated, and subverted religions the world over. From bastardizing Native American spiritual traditions, to re-examining Zen Buddhism, or adapting Yoga, America has changed the way we look at religion, spirituality, and God.
In this melting pot of thought, we have the basis, the freedom, and hopefully the courage to rethink what we think. In the end, it will be the ideas that most benefit life which will survive. It cannot happen any other way. This is the evolution of and idea in action.
The first great revolution in religious understanding, was the small step from polytheism, to monotheism. From the many, to the one. The next small step is that from splintered, bickering, religious factions, to a unified faith. This step has been envisioned since men first disagreed about God. Men have attempted to force this step through manipulation, violence, bribery, and extortion. None of these attempts have been even remotely successful. Because they failed to understand something about the nature of religion.
What escaped them? They failed to see that diversity is the will of God: in Heaven, Earth, and all things. Life exists in an amazing variety of forms. So too does the opinion of man, regarding their creator. Each path to God is unique to the seeker.
We will unite with common faith, when we understand that faith transcends religion. We all believe in the same God, we just relate to that God in different ways, with different traditions, and different understandings. What unites us is greater than what divides us. All religions are siblings in the same family.
The Universe expands into variety and diversity. It never shrinks away from it. Look at how magnificently varied the human family has become. You cannot create unity, through the elimination of diversity. You create unity through the understanding that it already exists. It is our minds that must change. It is our understanding and definition of religion that will change to recognize a transcendent truth.
That there are many variations on the one path to God.
