In this week’s lectures, Alan suggest that we came out of the world rather than into it.
Try this thought experiment: How would it change your worldview, your actions, and maybe even our culture, to recognize this to be true? What might you do differently?
I feel I wouldnt have the deep, gnawing sensation of never being enough, not belonging, feeling isolated and misunderstood. If I were taught that I was as integral a part of the perfection of creation from the beginning I feel very strongly that I would have skipped through the years of atheism and agnosticism and been lightyears ahead of where I am now, not just spiritually, but as a complete human being. The western culture and society has us intentionally cut off from who we truly are, our connection, to support the weird (and dying) structure of capitalism. I’m not trying to get political or anything, it’s just a shame how individualized our culture is without the knowledge that we’re ALL the worms coming on in this package. The package is just a package and can be celebrated for its individuality but never without bearing in mind that behind and beyond what makes us different is what makes us One.
To have a sense that something as regal as a human, which many do regard as being fundamentally larger/more ideal than the classification assigned to them…as being divine…came out of this world entirely, and perhaps even eternally, as opposed to simply gracing this plane with their hopelessly perfect existence…would be the ultimate affirmation of social-normative behaviors…of the power of human culture and civilization in the abstract, and would seem to suggest that the conventions of society are brimming with the same transcendental magics that esoteric paths/austere acts are!
Generally when people experience such a notion, they truly “buy in” to the frameworks of life, arguably for the first time ever. Ironically, the worst tensions we tend to experience in life occur as all of society is BARKING at us, with positive intent, to buy into said frameworks…one of the darkest nights the human creature faces is the lack of understanding as to how any of this is meaningful…not an actual lack of meaning to be found in the world.