Being – Part 2

Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher is credited with saying:

If you don’t realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow.  When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king.

When you look around the world, you can see that there are many who appear to be living in an utter state of confusion and sorrow. Tolerance seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur because of this. Far too many haven’t a clue about where they originated from and so they grasp at the wind trying to hold onto any wisp which confirms their identity.

When you know your origin, people and their situations don’t have the resources to influence you. As nasty as this might appear, you don’t really have an interest in their junk and often it becomes amusing just watching them try to work through it. It’s kinda like watching videos of people trying to walk across icy pavement which is inclined. You know they are going to fail and fall hard, but it’s the joy set before you that keeps you watching.

After a time of maturing in understanding the nuances of your source, there will arise within you a kindness to those who are still searching for their well-spring of identity. The guide posts from your journey, and those which you have encountered with others, will be able to be communicated with the grace of a royal wisdom. This will endear the hearts of many towards you and elevate you to an elder statesman position within your community.

Lao Tzu spoke this in an era when mankind held a high regard for the divine mystery of purpose and one’s belief in guidance from a source outside of themselves. Today, those who don’t have a belief system rely on science to give them the answers of how the universe, and their place in it, works. Nikola Tesla, famed scientist of the early 1900’s has stated:

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.”

This was spoken at a time when the quantum concepts and string theory hadn’t even been considered. Yet today, science has determined that everything in the universe is energy, operating at a particular frequency and vibrational pattern. Albert Einstein stated years after Tesla:

“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help be get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

But how does this even apply to the nature of being? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is known for asking the timeless question of all people: Are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or, are you a spiritual being having a human experience? The duality of this either/or question has perplexed many over the ages. When trying to solve this question, the fly in the ointment becomes Jesus, who Christians have declared being equally both divine (spiritual) and human.

For those who have difficulty accepting the religious perspective in defining the human condition, let me start with the scientific explanation offered also by Albert Einstein:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Notice that he begins by establishing our relationship to a greater collective, the universe. Then he declares our egoic tendencies which blind us to the universe around us. Finally, he offers us a picture of our purpose, to love all things and people in the universe. As noble as this is, the question which it produces is: Is this humanly possible? In the next posting I will consider this question by stepping into the spiritual realm where this is already a way of existence.