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Scientific
Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the
White House!
Chapter 4: The Culture of Eternal
Life
The Two and the One
There are two prevailing philosophical, cultural, and
political points of view at play in the world of Man. They
are the point of view of the West and the point of view of
the East.
These two unique, comprehensive, and apparently
autonomous points of view are not only ancient in the world
of Man, but they are native to the body of Man.
The play of systems that are Occidental and Oriental has
come to be considered not so much as a dynamic process of
continual synthesis, but as a kind of warfare between two
opponents who are trying to dominate and destroy one
another. But the world cannot be reduced to “one,” since
what is absolutely single and without possibility of an
other is also motionless and bereft of the possibility of
play, or growth and change. Therefore, the world is always a
dynamic play of opposites, a process that should produce
living harmonies, and absolute singularity or “Oneness” is
simply the Transcendental Principle we intuit to be the
ultimate Ground or Milieu of the play of these
processes.
If we conceive of the play of opposites as a form of
negative antagonism, then we are reduced to a negative
understanding and experience of the world and ourselves.
Then the world becomes like a married couple that can no
longer confess and express mutual love, so that divorce
becomes the only motive and the only vision.
Indeed, the human structural or bodily origin of the play
of opposites in the world may be considered to be the play
of the sexual differentiation – or the mutual play between
the male character and the female character. Thus, the
“feminine character” has traditionally been associated with
the East (or the oriental disposition of sensuous and
intuitive inwardness), and the “masculine character” has
traditionally been associated with the West (or the
occidental disposition toward physical action and
manipulation of physical conditions via rational
intelligence).
However, the ultimate human structural origin of the
perception of the dynamic play of opposites is native to
every human individual, regardless of sex. Our perception
and conception of the dynamic play of every aspect of the
World-Process is rooted in the relationship between the
central nervous system and the autonomic nervous system in
our own bodies.
The central nervous system is directly and intimately
associated with the All-Pervading Life-Current in which all
things and beings are arising, or existing and changing. The
central nervous system may be thought of as single or
ultimately monolithic – a kind of monad in the body. It
encompasses the brain and the spinal cord, and it is via the
brain and the spinal cord that the universal Life-Current is
distributed or Radiated to the total body of the human
individual.
The autonomic nervous system is, in contrast to the
central nervous system, bipolar, dual, or dynamic in its
functions. It is made of two great parts: the sympathetic
and parasympathetic divisions. These two divisions are in a
kind of perpetual embrace, like a pair of lovers-unless the
body-mind becomes unbalanced, so that the two halves of the
autonomic nervous system become more like aggressive or
sulky opponents. The sympathetic division is associated with
efferent or outgoing motor impulses of an expansive or
“masculine” kind. And the parasympathetic division is
associated with afferent or ingoing sensory impulses of a
more passive or inward-directed or “feminine” kind.
The autonomic nervous system is dependent on the central
nervous system for its ability to be animated or brought to
Life, whereas the central nervous system is always in direct
Communion with the Life-Current (until the moment of death).
But the autonomic nervous system is also the basic domain of
conventional human awareness. That is, we feel “naturally”
associated with processes of physical sensation, bodily
emotional reactions or responses, and patterns of thinking
that depend on physical or bodily associations. Therefore,
human beings who are consciously adapted only to the
functions of the autonomic nervous system tend to be
unconscious of the higher psycho-physical Condition of the
body-mind at the level of the central nervous system.
This in fact is the common state of “Everyman.” He is
adapted only to the peripheral, dynamic, and lower
functional dimension of his own body-mind, and, therefore,
he is not founded in awakened awareness of his higher bodily
and psychic functions and the Transcendental Condition that
he may intuit by ascending to the Consciousness of Unity and
Life that is native to the central nervous system.
It is the work of esoteric religion and the Adepts of the
spiritual process in the higher and intuitive dimensions of
the body-mind of Man to create the cultural circumstances in
which human beings may adapt and grow beyond the lower
conditions of the autonomic nervous system (the “flesh,” the
“senses,” or the realm of childhood and adolescence) and
ascend to the higher conditions of the central nervous
system (the realm of true maturity and the “Spirit”). The
central nervous system contains subtle structural organs and
mechanisms that belong to the higher evolutionary range of
human development. But these mechanisms are not stimulated
into activity in the “Everyman,” who is schooled only in the
play of the lower being, and who is divorced from the
cultural mechanisms of truly human and esoteric
community.
If the higher mechanisms in Man can become the common or
universal subject of literal personal adaptation and social
expression, then the yet subhuman trend of human societies
can be reversed-but not until then. Therefore, it is
essential that we make a thorough examination of our
individual habituation, and it is necessary that higher
cultural obligations begin to be communicated and rightly
enforced through the work of humanizing communities that are
founded in the Wisdom and Help of true Adepts.
The Occidental versus Oriental warfare in the
conventional realm of politics, popular culture, and
ordinary philosophy is an expression of the absence of right
and thorough self-knowledge on the part of human individuals
and human societies. The “warfare to death” mentality that
characterizes the political realm today is a sign and an
expression of a fundamentally unbalanced and also
undeveloped or unevolved state of existence on the part of
most people and on the part of all of the great States now
in power.
And just how is the lower-adapted individual constructed
in his view of the world? He is consciously adapted only to
the dynamic or dual functions of the autonomic nervous
system-or the lower range of the body-mind. He is
automatically, perpetually, and reactively involved in food,
sex, manipulation of things and others, the Life-negative
play of emotions (such as anger, sorrow, and fear), and the
mental stream of verbal and lower psychological patterns and
images.
Such is the common and “natural” personal condition of
most people. And there is also a broad cultural component in
the personal character of individuals. That component
imposes a characteristic style of behavior and attitude on
the individual. At one level, that “style” is expressed
through the conventional behaviors and attitudes of the
“male” and the “female” social roles. However, at the larger
cultural level, that style characterizes entire nations and
regions of the world. Thus, we have the characteristic
points of view of the East and the West, or the oriental
mind and the occidental mind.
The qualities of the “oriental” cultural mentality, as a
mood of action, are most like those that are dominant in the
parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system.
The “oriental” cultural mentality is more inverted, passive,
traditionally “feminine,” and oriented toward the monistic
or singular disposition characteristic of the central
nervous system. This tendency toward singularity or monism
provides a basis for tendencies toward the creation of
centralized or monolithic forms of State. The general
tendency away from differentiation and expansive activity
(or away from the characteristics of the sympathetic
division of the autonomic nervous system) creates the
“oriental” tendency toward self-effacement (or
“egolessness”). And this also provides the basis for a
general orientation toward collectivism. (Thus, the politics
of the monolithic State in control of a collectivist society
is congenial to the “oriental” tendency in human
acculturation.)
The qualities of the “occidental” cultural mentality, as
a mood of action, are most like those that are dominant in
the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system.
The “occidental” cultural mentality is more extroverted,
expansive, traditionally “masculine,” and oriented toward
the dualistic or dynamic disposition characteristic of the
autonomic nervous system itself (and as a whole). This
tendency toward dynamism provides a basis for tendencies
toward decentralized and libertarian or democratic political
institutions. And the general tendency in the direction of
an expansively differentiated personal character (or toward
the characteristics of the sympathetic division and the
autonomic nervous system as a whole, distinct from the
central nervous system) creates the “occidental” tendency
toward individualism (or the “strong-willed ego”). And this
also provides the basis for a general revulsion toward
collectivism, and even a reluctance toward positive
cooperation with others. (Thus, the politics of the
monolithic State and the collectivist society is threatening
to the conventionally “occidental” tendency in human
acculturation.)
The classical oriental orientation is toward the
undifferentiated monad in consciousness and in the social
order. Thus, from the East we inherit not only the politics
of collectivism and the Parental State, but the philosophy
of the absorption of the ego in the Absolute, beyond
differentiation. Thus, it is from the East that mankind has
received the basic cultural methods of esoteric religion and
mysticism. And because of the native oriental disposition
toward the mechanisms of the parasympathetic division of the
autonomic nervous system and toward the status of the
central nervous system itself, the East has produced many
great individuals who investigated and demonstrated the
higher and intuitional dimensions of the human body-mind.
The practical philosophers of the East generally were and
are esoteric practitioners, who explore the far reaches of
experiential possibility that are hidden in the human brain
(above the brain center of the verbal mind and the sensory
domain of the autonomic nervous system).
The West, on the other hand, has produced the greatest
cultural movements toward human political freedom and
individualism, and human intellectual genius, including the
genius for science as a tool for knowing and technologically
manipulating the world of elemental processes known to the
human senses.
But both East and West have demonstrated and continue to
demonstrate a reluctance and even an incapacity for cultural
and political and philosophical synthesis. East and West
continue to strive against one another in a kind of
irrational competition. Indeed, the East and the West have
begun to act like two great Cults, each bound exclusively to
its own partial point of view, and each determined to
displace or destroy the other. This is a sign of a psychotic
split in the cultural mentality of Man, and mankind must
awaken to Man as a whole if this split is not to destroy the
human world.
Therefore, let us consider Man as a whole. He is not two,
but one body. And yet, he is expressed as a play of parts.
He is a dynamic system in his active and sensory being. He
is male and female, active and passive-that is, in his
positive and responsible mode, he is self-regulating, always
moving toward an integrated harmony of Opposites. But he is
also more than he appears to be. In the core of the
body-mind of Man is the central being, the central nervous
system, which knows only Life, and which, by submission to
Life, constantly awakens to higher structural awareness and
function.
Therefore, Man is a dynamic animal, and he contains a
secret bodily path or part that can make him change and grow
and transcend all that he is at any moment. The central
nervous system is not only or merely the seat of mystical
and intuitive illumination, but it is the mechanism whereby
Man himself can grow and develop new functional
characteristics, so that these new characteristics may
gradually transform even his physical appearance and state,
as well as the total culture of his human existence.
If mankind can begin to learn about and adapt to Man as a
whole, and thus also begin to break down cultural,
philosophical, and political barriers to the synthesis of
human activities, then the present and chronic state of
conflict between nations and between individuals can come to
an end. Then there can truly be peace or harmony in the
world-but not before. There will be no peace until there is
the harmonious and total acculturation of all individuals
within a dynamic world-culture that accommodates all aspects
of the human capacity. And there will be no peace until the
evolutionary and benign play of humanity begins again, free
of negative oppositions. Therefore, first of all, the
body-mind of “Everyman,” or every individual, must become a
harmony, oriented always toward higher evolutionary
adaptation and self-transcendence. Then male and female will
also play in harmony again, and West and East will embrace
like lovers, full of hope.
Scientific Proof – Table of
Contents
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