Dreams, evolution, value fulfillment: Session 911
The genetic
system is an inner, biological, “universal” language.
In your terms
that language speaks the flesh – and it speaks the flesh equally in all races
of mankind. There are no inferior or
superior races. Now dreams also provide
you with another universal kind of language, one that unites all peoples to one
extent or another, regardless of their physical circumstances or nationalities
or alliances.
The cataloging of
separate races simply involves you in organizations of variances played upon a
common theme – variances that you have used for various purposes. Often those purposes led you to
overexaggerate the differences between groups, and to minimize man’s biological
unity.
The most
important aspects of individuality are those subjective characteristics that on
the one hand distinguish each person from the other, and that on the other hand
are each like sparkling psychological mosaics, giving separate, exquisite
individual versions of that larger pattern from which mankind emerges. The security, the integrity, and the
brilliance of each individuality rises in these terms from that universal
genetic language, and also from the inner subjective language of dreams. There are great connections between the two, and
both are spoken together.
Let us become
more practical, and see how these issues merge in your reality. Some of this requires a great honesty on your
own parts, as you try to recall some feelings and daydreams that you have tried
to put away or forget or disown. Why are
some people, then, born with conditions that are certainly experienced as
genetically defective, granting even the overall value of such variances on the
part of the species? For, again, I must
stress the fact that in its way nature makes no such judgments, regardless of the
beliefs of your science or religions.
Science seems to
be of the opinion that the individual is important only insofar as he or she
serves the purposes of the species’ survival – and I am not saying that. I am saying that the existence of each
individual is important to the value fulfillment of the species. And moreover, I am stating that the value
fulfillment of the individual and the species go hand in hand.
I am also stating
that the species is itself aware of those conditions that lead to its own value
fulfillment, and that of its members. No
species basically biologically considers its own existence with other
species except in a cooperative manner – that is, there is no basic competition
between species. When you think that
there is, you are reading nature wrong.
Whatever man’s conscious beliefs, on a biological level his genetic
structure is intimately related to the genetic structure of all other species.
In man, the
probabilities of development are literally numberless. No computer could count the combinations of
characteristics possible. It is highly
important, then, that the species retain flexibility, and not become locked
into any one pattern, however advantageous – and I am referring to physical or
mental patterns. Within the framework of
established specieshood, there must be every kind of leeway – leeways that are
biologically activated, so that variances are constantly active. Those genetic variances may appear as
defective or eccentric. They may appear
as the handicapped. They may appear as
superior characteristics of one kind or another, but they must be biologically
stated as the variations from the genetic norm.
By themselves,
whether they appear as superior or defective conditions, they necessitate a
different kind of adaptability, a change of subjective or physical focus, the
intensification of other abilities that perhaps have been under stressed. Yet granting all this, why, again, would some
individuals choose situations that would be experienced ad defective conditions? For this, we need to examine some human
feelings that are often forgotten.
Now I have often
said that suffering of itself is not “good for the soul”. It is not a virtue, yet certainly many
individuals seem to seek suffering.
Suffering cannot be dismissed from human experience as a freak matter of
distorted emotions or beliefs.
Suffering is a
human condition that is sought for various reasons. There are gradations of suffering, of course,
and each person will have his or her definitions of what suffering is. Many people do indeed equate a certain
kind of suffering with excitement.
Sportsmen, race-car drivers, mountain climbers – all seek suffering to
one extent or another, and find the very intensity of certain kinds of
pain pleasurable. You might say that
they like to live dangerously.
Some sects have
believed that spiritual understanding came as the result of bodily agony, and
their self-inflicted pain became their versions of pleasure. It is usually said that animals, and also
man, avoid pain and seek pleasure – and so any courting of pain, except under
certain conditions, is seen as unnatural behavior.
It is not
unnatural. It is an eccentric behavior pattern. Many children daydream not only of being
kings or queens, or given great honors, they also daydream about being tragic
figures. They daydream of cruel
deaths. They glory in stories of wicked
stepmothers. They imagine, in fact,
every situation that they can involving human experience. To an extent adults do the same thing. They are drawn to cinema or television dramas
that involve tragedies, sorrows, great dramatic struggles. This is because you are alive as the result
of your great curiosity for human experience.
You are alive because you want to participate in human drama.
While I admit
that many people will not agree with me, I know from experience that most
individuals do not choose one “happy” life after another, always ensconced in a
capable body, endowed by nature or heritage with all of the gifts most people
seem to think they desire.
Each person seeks
value fulfillment, and that means that they choose various lives in such a fashion
that all of their abilities and capacities can be best developed, and in such a
way that their world is also enriched. Some
people will choose “defective” bodies purposely in order to focus more
intensely in other areas. They want a
different kind of focus. They want
to sift their characteristics through a certain cast. Such a choice demands an
intensification. It is made on the part
of the individual and on the parts of the parents as well, so that a certain
group of people will relate to the world in a highly characteristic way. In almost all such cases, such people will be
embarked upon subjective issues and questions also that might not be
considered otherwise. They will ask
questions on their own parts that need to be raised, not only for themselves
but for the society at large.
Those questions
help bring out psychological maturities and insights about the nature of the
species in general. Many such conditions
also serve to keep man’s sympathies alive.
I make a distinction between sympathy and pity, for a lively sympathy
leads toward construction, toward the utilization of abilities, even to social
discourse, while pity can be deadening.
Your overreliance
upon physical norms, and your distorted concepts concerning survival of the
fittest, help exaggerate the existence of any genetic defects, of course. Many religious dogmas consider such
conditions, again, the result of a god’s punishment. The survival of the species is far more
dependent upon your subjective activities than your physical ones – for it is
your subjective behavior that is responsible for your physical acts. Science of course looks at it the other way
around, as if your physical acts are the result of a robot’s mechanical,
formalized behavior – a robot miraculously programmed by the blind elements of
an accidental universe formed by chance.
The robot is programmed only to survive at anyone’s or anything’s
expense. It has no real consciousness of
its own. It thoughts are merely mental
mirages, so if one of its parts is defective then obviously, it is in deep
trouble. But man is no robot, and each
so-called genetic defect has an internal part to play in the entire picture of
genetic reality. The principle of
uncertainty must operate genetically, or you would have been locked into
overspecializations as a species.
There are states of
consciousness, one within the other, and yet each connected, of course, so that
genetic systems are really systems of consciousness. They are intertwined with reincarnational
systems of consciousness. These are further
entwined with the consciousness that you recognize. The present is the point of power. Given the genetic makeup that you now have, your
conscious intents and purposes act as the triggers that activate whatever genetic
or reincarnational aspects that you need.
The state of dreaming
provides the connecting links between these systems of consciousness.
(Concerning Jane’s current troubles with stiffness and
walking.) In
Ruburt’s case, there is no particular genetic connection. The same kind of process could occur, of course.
In Ruburt’s case,
patterns of behavior were concerned – picked up for the purposes of intensification.
Ruburt’s mother, and to a large extent your
father, had some similar behavior problems. In Ruburt’s case, we are still dealing with functioning
– impaired functioning – rather than genetic results. Tell Ruburt the end does not justify the means
in his particular situation, any more than in any other. The idea still is to love and protect and cherish,
and express the body that you have.
The statement also
applies to people who have genetic handicaps.
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