TE,
Your sig line has finally fired the neuron in my brain that compels me to mention my great fondness for Douglas Adams, so - although I was considering posting a comment weeks ago, this is finally the time to do it. And once you see what a real kook I am (for actually believing all this stuff), maybe my perspective will make more sense. DrFree, if you can follow it (and are familiar with HHGTTG), then likewise, you'll have more context for my zanyness.
Remember Slartibartfast? The mice, Deep Thought, and 42? Ahhh, well I decided a long time ago (can't peg it, but it's close to 10 years), that Douglas Adams was an esotericist, whether he knows it or not. I almost wonder, in the great beyond ...
has he possibly gone on to inspire others, in ways that I think he, himself, was inspired - even while he lived? I do hope so, but at any rate, here's why I like the quote:
The Buddha speaks about life as being
full of suffering, and he's not offering up an opinion by stating that - he's just stating the obvious. Adams concurs, and I think he offers tremendous insight into reality (
sic) by providing us with an entertaining,
seemingly-science fiction sort of tale. You know, kinda like
Men in Black. What,
you don't believe that's how things really work???
(Yeah, but I do! No really ...
)
So, the
pan-dimensional, hyperintelligent beings who commisioned Earth's creation (
sic) - albeit through the natural,
building process, just as everything else in Cosmos - aren't really mice.
But, aren't they a good enough stand-in, being a cute, furry little piece of irony (they study us, not
vice versa) to represent what must remain a total abstraction?
"Our Divine Progenitors" just bugs a lot of people, and if we start talking about spiritual treatises on Cosmogenesis & Anthropogenesis, then indeed, it just gets complicated real quick.
Mice. It's perfect!
I've never tried to fully map Douglas Adams' cosmology onto mine, but I'd have to say, even
Deep Thought fits the bill, according to esoteric teachings. Earth had her predecessor, and so - in keeping with the topic of the thread - I'd have to say that ...
Gaia has undergone just as many
repeated incarnations as the rest of us -
quite a few more, actually, to get where she is today. And the
very most recent of those ... did not go so well. This is like Deep Thought indicating that
another computer - even greater than itself (
"A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate ... ") - would need to be built. And it
was built; it's Earth!
We all know what -
uhhhh, happended - to Earth, which is Adams' window into the future, and his
warning to us. Even Earth (which
followed Deep Thought, remember!), was destined for a
Mark II.
This, I hope, we will not require - for the Vogon fleet is nothing more than the
symbol of our ignorance, presumptuousness, and folly. I am absolutely freakin'
blown away that many
otherwise-intelligent people (even on these forums) still argue, "Nothing can happen to us," "God will intervene & deliver us," and "
Stuff like that always happens to someone else!"
Tell that to the people of Sri Lanka or New Orleans!
Anyway, we are just moments away from a visit from a Vogon fleet,
symbollically speaking (ET is actually quite friendly, in real life - they've been trying to help us
avoid our own self-destruction for ages, especially since 1945) ... yet Arthur is more concerned about the integrity of his own, individual dwelling (aren't we all!). I mean, at least my front lawn will be
green when life on Earth is destroyed ...
and I'll have a nice straight nose, thanks to the miracles of plastic surgery!
Okay, so back to basics. Who is Slartibartfast? Think! Again, it's difficult to
represent beings of such potency (
omni-presence,
omni-benevolence,
omniscience, etc.). But religious teachings often speak of Deity as simply "
firstborn among many brethren," so it seems perfectly logical to depict the Almighty in this way ("Maker of Heaven and Earth," hmmm - this is exactly whom & what Adams' character represents, though certainly he was part of a
vast corporation - an entire, planet-making
enterprise! Far out!).
Yes, I know Adams was a self-professed atheist;
that's precisely why his version of things makes so much sense to me! He wasn't caught up in all the
trappings (gee what a
double entendre) of religion! Yet, I feel he taught us more about
Gaia, more about
G-d, and more about ourselves (
indeed, Life, the Universe, and Everything!) ... than some religions (or
religious folks) manage nowadays.
Gaia has a place for me, in a hybrid version of my own cosmology and
my interpretation of Douglas Adams' HHGTTG-multiverse, as but
one of the planets designed by the likes of Slartibartfast and the planet-builders. Perhaps the older planets - are simply those of a more ancient heritage,
Elder, even to our relatively-ancient Father-Mother-Gaia. But regardless, the planets
do talk to each other, they do communicate ... and no matter what the
outward state of organization, it is by their interior,
spiritual relation(ship)s that I think
Life Itself - in all its diversity & complexity - moves forward, on this planet or any other.
I am much more interested in the
practical discussion of our relationship to and with
Gaia which you (TE, DrFree,
et al) are engaged in, but I see that as completely compatible with the view that
in fact, Gaia
does have "friends" out there in space ...
namely, the other planetary schemes of our Solar System. Each is an evolution unto itself, as Earth, but each is also an
organ in the body Systemic. The ancients were not
superstitious, uneducated fools, needy of enlightenment from the western world in the ways of
science and
materialism ... rather, they universally (!) recognized, acknowledged - and therefore
honored & worshipped the
SUN as the representation
and outward face ... of Deity Itself.
And again, according to such a system,
Gaia (and the other planets) would fall somewhere in between ... being
considerably in advance of even the most evolved human being (
the First among brethren), yet also well below the Solar Lord in evolutionary scale. Planets such as Jupiter, Venus, and Uranus would stand ahead of
Gaia/Terra in the spiritual hierarchy, while bodies such as the moon, Pluto, and others would not actually even rank - being under a different category altogether (
once-ensouled, but not any more).
Yes, I know, this is all speculation relative to the discussion you's guys have been having ... so you could disregard it. I just want to suggest,
keeping in line with the notion that Adams was onto something, that truth is -
stranger than fiction.
Again,
what if ...
I do feel compelled, after all that, to agree with the general sentiment (it almost seems obvious) - that
Gaia is not
outwardly self-conscious of herself/itself ... in quite the
hyper-sensitive way that some (or most) people are. That kind of development,
imho, only occurs on the
most spiritual of planets - perhaps not in this System at all ...
but if it did, then as I've pointed out many times -
I still say we're dealing with a (potential) being of such
vast scale ... that I think the ordinary rules of time & space are all-but suspended. This seems to be the page you guys are on, so I will say again - I don't think thought flows in one direction only (from the physical, emerging
beyond), nor even just in some abstract-but-inaccessible sphere ... but surely it also wells up from a higher dimension, and concretizes,
or manifests. If not surely, then at least -
possibly. What then, of
Gaia's "subconscious"?
andrew
